This poem a shorn sheep,
with nothing to do but grow hair,
and the shepherd tending her clouds,
enough to make you yawn.
Such a tired, old metaphor.
Maybe the sound of pan-pipes will soothe the seeker of news.

(But here’s the skinny: the Shepherd in the sky has a glass ceiling, see?
Name’s Pan and he’s the god of shepherds
I expect the Shepherd don’t like him much
Makes fun of his goat head and calls him names like “devil”
Trying to overthrow him maybe, become the God of All, see?
Small wonder we sheep are deciding to overthrow the Shepherd now
But Pan ain’t the top man, and there's no bottom to this spiral neither.)

This poem a shorn sheep,
with nothing to do but grow hair,
and the shepherd tending her clouds,
enough to make you yawn.

Such a tired, old metaphor.
Maybe the sound of pan-pipes will soothe the seeker of news.

(But here’s the skinny: the Shepherd in the sky has a glass ceiling, see?
Name’s Pan and he’s the god of shepherds
I expect the Shepherd don’t like him much
Makes fun of his goat head and calls him names like “devil”
Trying to overthrow him maybe, become the God of All, see?
Small wonder we sheep are deciding to overthrow the Shepherd now
But Pan ain’t the top man, and there's no bottom to this spiral neither.)

It is a common argument strategy to say that inclusivity and synthetic thinking isn’t very helpful. Often thinkers favor analysis, even if it is less correct, because it is more useful. To counter, it is good to consider how scientists postulate space. Space includes a notion of distance similar (although slightly different) to Euclidean Geometry (and very dissimilar from many other mathematical definitions of distance). If space really were nothing at all, you wouldn’t be able to traverse space. If space didn’t include this idea of distance, the universe wouldn’t hang together. Trying to traverse space without a law of distance, and many other laws sometimes called “global constants” by scientists, such as the speed of light (which supersedes the law of distance) then traversing it would involve traversing nonsense, insanity, oblivion, Nirvana or some other of the hard to define or undefinables.

The notion of space for the physicist is more similar to the notion of emptiness than to nothing at all, because emptiness recognizes or includes a container. The container is the global constants, and is not nothing. This is how Zen Buddhism avoids Nihilism.

You may try to say that noticing this basic inclusivity of the universe is not helpful, but it is of utmost importance for there to be an emptiness to inhabit and for the universe to tie itself together. Understanding how the stars and we and plants and rocks and love and thoughts are tied together is a very good thing, and rivals the analysis that separates us from food, or fuel for a fire. I would even argue that understanding the fabric of the universe, our container, is better than separating yourself from a fire. Try at your own risk though.

I will end with a summary of a story from the Dhamma I tell my daughters often.

The story of the Monk who looked for Space, adapted from the Dhamma for children

Once upon a time there was a monk who wanted to know where Space was

So he meditated and meditated and meditated, until his mind reached the angels.

He asked the angles, “Oh Angels, where is Space?”

The angels replied “We don’t know, but if you meditate longer, you will reach even higher angels, they might know.”

So the monk meditated and meditated and meditated, and his beard grew longer and longer and grey as he sat still, until he saw the higher angels.

The monk asked the higher angels “Oh high Angels, where is space?”

And the High Angels replied, “We don’t know, but if you meditate longer you will reach the Highest Angels, maybe they will know”

So the monk meditated and meditated, and his beard grew down to his feet and grew white as he mediated, until he saw the Highest Angels.

The monk asked the Highest Angels, “Oh Highest Angels, where is Space?”

And the Highest Angels replied, “We don’t know, but if you meditate even longer you will reach Brahma, the Highest of the Highest, creator of all the worlds. He will know.”

So, again, the monk meditated and meditated, and his hair began to fall out and his skin sagged from his bones and grew spots as he sat meditating, until he reached Brahma.

The monk asked Brahma, “Oh Brahma, Highest of the Highest, Creator of all the worlds, where is space?”

And Brahma replied “I am Brahma! Highest of the Highest, Creator of all the worlds!”

And for some this would be enough, but this monk persisted.

The monk said “Yes, and… where is space?”

Brahma realized the monk would not go away, so he took him to the side away from his Choir of Angels and said,

“Look, don’t tell anyone, but I don’t know where Space is. You are asking a dangerous question. If you must know, go ask the Buddha, but go at your own risk, for you go beyond my domain.” Said the Brahma, Highest of the High, Creator of all the Worlds.

And so, the monk, stood up from his meditation and walked, careful not to fall as he was very old now. He walked very slowly and it was very hard, but luckily for him, The Buddha was living then, and was residing in a town nearby.

He reached the Living Buddha, sat to one side respectfully, and asked his question.

“Oh Buddha, The Well-Gone, where is Space?”

And the Buddha gave his answer simply

“It is good you came to me, for no-one can answer this question except one who has finished the Noble Eightfold Path. And it is because Space can only be found in the mind of the Saint, one you has followed the Way, gone to the end of the world with his mind. For he has found Space, and it is in his mind.”

Then the Buddha, saying nothing at all, imparted this knowledge to the monk, who attained Enlightenment at that very moment. The monk lived happily from then on, knowing the supreme bliss, until his death and beyond.

Having Jesus or Muhammad or science satirized in TV shows is done with peril, but unaffiliated mysticism seems to be fair game. As much as we might denounce identity politics, would it even be possible to escape? This is interesting because certain parts of unaffiliated mysticism are hard to argue with, such as the existence of love. How would someone with a recognized and politically defended identity fair if they were to reject this mystical idea publicly?

Could the Buddhas Analysis of questions be ordered purposefully?

1. Categorical (likeness, identity)
2. Analytical (difference)
3. The battlefield of questions, where one is countered by another until we either know what we mean, and fall into type 1 or 2 questions, or throw up our hands, unknowing, into type 4
4. The Great Questions that can only serve to fill us with wonder. Is there something in wonder that can heal? Something that we need?

And which questions are we looking for? Categorical answers are still ideas to be released. And the Great Questions, inasmuch as they are framed by words at all, are to be released as well, but inasmuch as they are not framed, they are closer to the Original Ignorance that we are to mystically Know, or at least be aware of. Dispassionately. Not to be taken in. To know how to channel the energy of wonder so that it goes where it should.

And the Demons were Hunger and Cold

And a Lake of yellow Snakes roiled like waves.
The foam of the coils was the foam of the wind
That blew us away from the lumbering gait
Of the elephant shining a wishing-well-soul.
That that spray keeps us high
That brash music keeps fate
That the Kingdom is Thunder and Gold.

“But in the area of the Dhamma, simply sitting still with the right intention is a form of work or action. Lying down with the right intention is a form of work or action. Sitting, standing, walking, lying down: All of our movements and postures, if done with the right intention, are a form of work or action. When our actions are right, we’ll experience peace and ease. And then how will suffering come our way? The reason we suffer is because our actions are wrong. We sit, stand, walk, and lie down in ways contrary to the Dhamma. And then when we take on other work in addition to our basic actions, that work is bound to turn into wrong action as well. This was why the Buddha improved his manners in how he sat, stood, walked, and lay down, so that they were all pure in terms of the intentions of his mind. What this means is that he kept practicing tranquility meditation in all his activities. His mind had to stay with what the body was doing. If the mind told the body to do something, but didn’t do it along with the body, then he didn’t succeed in what he wanted to do. He couldn’t let the body work on its own. The mind had to work along with the body. Otherwise, his old manners would come back and take charge of the mind.”

Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, Right Action, Right Result, November 11, 1958

I am not a postmodernist because I take certain things to be universally true. There are only a small number of these.

1. There exists a general notion or operation called “separation” This involves the decay, falling apart, or impermanence of mental, spiritual, physical, or any other qualification of phenomena.
2. There exists a general notion or operation called “Union” you could equally call it “Equal” or “same” or “synthesis” “thing” or “gathering,” “Being,” “Idea,” or “word.” The reason for the many terms for Union is Union is vague, and words are vague. How and what joins together varies, but in general there most definitely is an operation, be it mental, physical, spiritual or whatever, that I call “Union”. Since “thing” is included in “union” all things are unions.
3. There was no original Union or Separation. The coming together and falling apart has no beginning nor end.
4. All Unions are subject to Separation. Separation is another word, as such it is subject to decay or falling apart. Do not cling to a particular notion of Separation, they are just as vague and impermanent as notions of Union. There is still a universal truth that all Unions are subject to falling apart, dissolution. The words in this description of Universal Truths are like rain water that has pooled long enough to have a clear drink. Soon, these words will drain away from anything serviceable.
5. The process of union and separation is called “Time” or “Space” or “Mind” or “Spirit” or “Ether” or many others. The principle of the arising of Unions and their Separation accounts for the many names of this “process.”
6. There is Awareness of Absolute Truth, this Truth is not really grasped with words or any other Union. The sixth truth could be simply called “Awareness,” It can be experienced through one of many doors such as a mental, physical, spiritual or other door. When it is experienced it is experienced in every way as well–as mental, as physical, as spiritual, and as any other way nameable. In other words, it is a special kind of Union. The 6th truth can not normally be maintained through “Time” or the 5th truth, except by equally grasping all 7 truths. Awareness of the first 6 truths can be achieved without meditation.
7. There is ignorance of the Truth. This manifests as a lack of awareness: mental, physical, spiritual, or any other (un)nameable awareness. Ignorance of the Truth arises from over-attention or over-aversion to one way or some ways (but not all ways) of being aware. In other words, ignorance is excitement, zealousness, greed, aversion, passion, ecstasy, and suffering or any kind of uncontrolled, unrestrained energetic state involving some (but not successfully all) unions or universal truths. Ignorance is a lack of equanimity in your ability to experience the Truth, or application of awareness. It is the Separation of the 6th truth. The separation of the 6th truth is called “Creation of a Union.” Creation of Unions is the result of the 7th truth. It happens when there is no mastery or awareness of the 7th truth.
8. There is full Awareness of the 7th truth. Awareness of the 7th truth does not result in creation of a Union. The 8th truth amounts to saying that none of these words adequately describe anything absolutely true. The 8th truth is Nirvana, and is experienced as the perfect maintenance, permanence, or continuation of awareness of the 7 truths. Mastery and Awareness of the 7th truth must be cultivated with some kind of meditation.

A lot of my work can be reduced to the debate on essentialism, and of course, my book comes down on the side of non-essentialism. This is the idea that there are not universal ideas or categories to to label with a word. That language is not enough for inquiry or truth-seeking.

“When we define something, then, what we are really doing is drawing a circle around a set of objects. But this circle will always have blurry edges, because our language simply cannot be infinitely precise (nor need it be, most of the time).”

Essentialism: The Logical Fallacy Plaguing Us Since Plato

This looks like my consideration of Pierce’s circle as the only mark needed to do Aristotle’s logic.

The circle in this notation is the negation operation, or distinction. And I do argue that the marks used to make circles have blurry edges. I go a little further and say that because these logical marks have blurry edges, we can actually create different kinds of marks, that still count as a kind of distinction. Its like saying you don’t have to only use a scalpel or a pen to mark the circle around logical objects or reality to create identities or logical statements. There are many other tools you could use. Intuitionist logic has a different understanding of logical negation, so the way they mark the circle is different from the way Aristotelian logician marks a circle. And these are different from the ways paraconsistent logics slice up reality, in other words, paraconsistent logicians use different tools from just scalpels or pens to do their mental arrangements.

It is true that you can reduce these different tools to a single tool, for the most part. We would not be able to begin talking about different slicers that slice reality, (extending from the nonessentialist observation that there are different ways to slice reality) if we didn’t turn our scalpel on itself, or use another scalpel on it, to tamper with it and modify it. So you could say that all these tools depend on the scalpel. Doing that is like writing computer code and only using the if, then, elseif, else code for everything, without the many other tools like loops, and so many others. Or trying to talk about computers using only algorithms and no data structures, or vice versa. Pragmatically, it is better to talk about the different logics as different tools for slicing reality, rather than reducing them all to a single kind of scalpel.

In my book (2019 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1688505717) I make the case for why logic is changeable and therefore temporary. The crux of the argument is that the inequality between a lemon and a lime does-not-equal the inequality between a star and a question, which draws the concept of identity into question. This implies that everything changes, including language or how we slice up reality with words. It amounts to the Buddhist maxim ” everything is impermanent” including words and mathematical words/objects.

This is not to endorse nihilism. Language is still very helpful in learning truth, but truth is not something that can be expressed with language. See this blog post: https://questionsarepower.org/2020/03/22/the-fools-song/ Language doesn’t amount to nothing; it is like lunch. You need it to keep your mind going on its path to truth, just like you need lunch to accomplish much of anything in life. You read and think in language so your mind can keep moving. It is very important, even hypnotic. Ultimately, as a delightful art form, it is a means to an end. It is not an end in itself.

I should add that this requires a particular theory of identity: how it is like and different to other things is how it gains its identity. As usual, not a perfect theory. But surely, how we relate an apple to the rest of the world changes. Maybe over a thousand years we decide apples don’t taste good, or are dirty, or whatever else. It is actually easier to see how mathematical objects change, because our taste for them changes them even more than it does an apple.