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Language is Tongue-Tied
Language
is tongue tied
and can never be free
bogged down in meaning
it quickens thought
is tongue tied
and can never be free
bogged down in meaning
it quickens thought
A teacher of English wrote the following sentence on a blackboard for his Japanese students: "A dog has four legs." The entire class was horrified. In order to make sense of that sentence they had to imagine a dog holding four dismembered legs in its mouth. To their minds a dog is a four legged creature by definition not possession. The English language gives the subtle illusion that a body possesses its parts.
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Some researchers created an "intelligence" test using pictures/icons to overcome the language difference of inner city children with the "norm." The majority of inner city children identified the icon of a teddy bear as a rat.
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A military cargo plane was on its take off roll down the runway when the wheels collapsed. The plane hit the pavement, slid off the runway, exploded, killing the entire crew.
An investigation revealed that:
The copilot had just received a letter from his girlfriend breaking off their relationship and was despondent.
The last thing the pilot said over the intercom was "Cheer up."
The investigation concluded that the copilot thought he heard "Gear up" and raised the landing gear.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. - Robert McCloskey
U.S. State Department spokesman at one of his regular noon briefings during the worst days of the Vietnam War.
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A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. - Bertrand Russell
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And as I posted before—there is the almost universal misuse of the concept of sentient beings in Mahayana Buddhism. Misinterpreting releasing/delivering sentient beings as saving/benefiting sentient beings deludes the mind into the idea of saving souls and/or other living beings. Sentient beings are the mental components (beliefs, attitudes, opinions, preferences, moods, etc.) that make up the ego or artificial sense of self that generate suffering in the mind.
The marks on this page are sounds and not meanings
Meanings are made up in the mind
Egos are made up of past meanings
that interfere with
Original Mind
0
Comments
Just as there are no things; things also being concepts within the thinking mind. Everyone of course misunderstands this until they actually awaken to the fact.
Take the fact that there are no things. If one does not see the reality beyond the concept, they come up with all sorts of misunderstanding. The world is not a dream. What we have overlaid in concepts and beliefs is real, but we cannot see that reality because we are the dream.
When it is realized that there is no separate self, then who is going to be responsible? To the unawakened mind, this makes sense. However, in practice it is not that easy to get out of being responsible.
Just as there is thinking but no thinker, there is responsibility without someone who is responsible. When we awaken, it is all perfectly clear that we had been dreaming. The sense of ego is seen through, yet there is still a fully functioning something that walks, talks and has needs to maintain the body. Individual traits make up a personality. Character can take many forms and express itself in many ways. Yet, there is no one there. There is still intelligence, or the lack of it, and the capacity to use it. We don't become zombies walking around with smiles on our faces
Sentient beings are non-Buddha's living in samsara do to defiled or karmically conditioned physical and mental aggregates.
your idea of a widespread misinterpretation is your misinterpretation of Buddhist teachings.
"The first precept is to refrain specifically from harming beliefs, opinions, moods, etc. that are only real in that the emotionally fortified self-image of the ego validates them to be real?"
Frankly his understandings don't necessitate the use of the term "sentient being" to begin with and to suggest that, without using this specific term and attributing the same definition to it, we are all simply looking at Buddhism as a set of ethical guidelines... well it's a bit much. =P