Report 54

 Homework: View

• Investigate the way your "view' or the view affects your moment to moment practice/life?
• Usha Aeon: how we perceive things based on where we are presently
• Gaya Ethaniel: OK so find what kind of views one has and how they affect.
• Pema Pera: as in "what makes you different from Woody" :-)
• Calvino Rabeni: Is it possible to add - are you responsible for your view ?
• Mitsu Ishii: Your "view" is basically your deepest held paradigm, the way you take reality, your existence, the world, how you see it at a high level or meta level

What Is A View?

In other words, what is my view of what a view is?

I was noticing how big a role View itself plays in my basic paradigms and beliefs.  My basic beliefs resonate with many traditions, but modern science and Taoist / Confucianist ideas might top the list.

I'm going to "cheat" a little - since the following quotes do a pretty good job on my behalf. In the Wilhelm interpretation of the I Ching we find a chapter on the phenomenon of  Contemplation (View):

In nature a holy seriousness is to be seen in the fact that natural occurrences are uniformly subject to law. Contemplation of the divine meaning underlying the workings of the universe gives to the man who is called upon to influence others the means of producing like effects.

Then a series of stages is presented showing the evolution of View in a person who practices and advances in the development afforded by his/her practice.  I chose to quote a stage in the middle, although I think any of the levels have some resonance at some place / time in one's life:

Six in the third place means:

Contemplation of my life
Decides the choice
Between advance and retreat.

This is the place of transition. We no longer look outward to receive pictures that are more or less limited and confused, but direct out contemplation upon ourselves in order to find a guideline for our decisions. This self- contemplation means the overcoming of naive egotism in the person who sees everything solely from his own standpoint. He begins to reflect and in this way acquires objectivity. However, self-knowledge does not mean preoccupation with one's own thoughts; rather, it means concern about the effects one creates. It is only the effects our lives produce that give us the right to judge whether what we have done means progress or regression.

To take a phrase from a western philosopher: I'm an ontological monist but an epistemological pluralist.  In other words, Reality is one, but there are innumerable Ways of Knowing it.

What's My View?