If I provoke stillness in mind, do I automatically qualify as a monk?
No, you have to take vows. Which may be just one of the steps necessary to become a member of an order. At least, if you want to turn pro. Otherwise you are just a layperson.
Aha,
More complicated than I had imagined. These steps - taking vows - must demand a certain amount of, shall we say, dedication. I am curious now as to whether a vow can be ascribed to an existing understanding, or whether these vows require that understanding in order to convey their real meaning to the practicing affiliate.
Frequent trick of religions and politicians: produce the effect in order to induce the cause, it never works…
Those that have been frequently tricked must have surely understood the causes.[/i]
For one moment I was going to disagree with you. Then I thought about it. I think you are correct.
The people who take the vows seriously are those who need take no vows. Their values are already such that the vows merely match them.
And for those unready to the make the choices necessary to keep the vows, will gain no benefit by making them.
Tetchen,
Where did you get the stillness of mind = monk concept?
JT
It is intended to formulate an extention of my own naiivety. Merely the opinion of a younger self, which can sometimes bring a refreshing perspective.
You can become an official monk if you start your own order and invent your own vows and such. You may have a monestary of one, but I think it still counts.
Xanderman thanks, I think that’s almost exactly the point I was heading for.
What’s to stop someone saying that I am just practicing an unproven doctrine based on my own ideology? Or is this just as acceptable as using someone elses?
Isn’t there an intrinsic value in being in community with like-minded people?
With respect to this question, the dividend found as a result of membership is unclear.
To shed a starkly uninventive light in the same direction, I could easily add that:
My own input should be facilitated by group cooperation, unless their appearance as being receptive to gentle persuasion becomes the only demise of our shared future goals.
Tetchen,
Unless this is an exercise in obscurantism, would you please explain what you are saying here?
JT
OK, I do not see how there can be an intrinsic value to a community. Perhaps picking holes doesn’t help either. A community brings worth to a member, it is nothing without these members, so has no intrinsic value.
Tetchen,
If we take community just as a word, you’re correct. There is no intrinsic value. But as a concept, community has at the very least, potential. It is true that community bring’s worth to the individual, but the concept of community is that it become’s the collective worth of it’s members. The water flow’s both directions. Community provides support, stability, and continuity to it’s members and the members provide support, stability, and continuity to the community.
Just for fun, drag out a copy of Seuss’ “How the Grinch stole Christmas” and overlay the concept of community while you watch it.
To be sure, all the positive attributes of community have their negative counterparts. Support is easily replaced with a caste system of haves and have nots, benign stability can turn to coercion and slavery. Continuity can be forced rather than volunteered. Whether community is heaven or hell depend’s on the will of the members.
At it’s best community is 1+1=3, but it isn’t a guaranteed good deal.
JT
Just as they say, all in a day’s work. Never seen that film though, think I’ll pass if it’s all the same.
I understand. Did you mean to ensue that a weaker member can cause difficulties, or is it false of me to draw this conclusion from your first sentence in this paragraph alone? Could we focus on this point regardless of your intention to clarify or justify this point?
Isn’t an unwanted by-product of any successful community that it becomes superior in esteem, gaining the qualification to accept the best in individuals and reject the worst? You seem to have identified various mechanisms of depreciation in the overall positivity of community. I now confer of our usual hesitation to replace symbolic counterparts with actual human traits. If a very small community demands leadership, the members collectively volunteer the most appropriate candidate. Immediately, we introduce various instabilities. The community now becomes a hierarchy. The ‘give and take’ attitude becomes more formal, since we are encouraged to identify not just our own contributions, but those of others. These features are inherent in human nature. The greater challenge of overcoming division supposes itself as a quiet disposition to each and every member.
How would you reason with this digression.
Tetchen,
The quality of ‘membership’ in any form of social grouping is based on the intent of its members, and the structure of organization. A vertical hierarchy present’s much different opportunities and challenges than does horizontal equalitarianism. I’d rather not spend time laying out all the possible social utopian ideas, although it is a rich field of study.
For the individual, much of his/her life is spent in social structures not chosen, but ‘inherited’. Typically, by the time an individual is prepared to make join/not join decisions, their worldview has been proscribed by the various social groups in which they have grown up. Whether to be a monk or another profession is less a question of why? and more of a question of which?. No small part of the “choices” have been limited by the culture into which one is born.
Any social structure contains all the strengths and weaknesses of it’s membership. How those play out inside a structure depend’s largely on the original vision that prompted the beginning of that social grouping.
For instance, a social grouping whose original goal was to form a soccer team will hold in high esteem and reward those with a talent for playing soccer. The mediocre team member who is also a brilliant architect will suffer less esteem and smaller reward. It should be obvious that I assume that social groups are formed because of a perceived need requiring the efforts of more than one person. Without a need, there is no advantage to become a member of any group.
Yes, although there are exceptions, most social groupings will, over time, sift its’ membership into valued/not valued categories and treat individuals accordingly. If there are going to be difficulties inside a group, it will come from both the ‘top’ and the ‘bottom’ members, with those in the middle providing the stability (inertia?) to sustain the group.
JT
I will mention here my desire to regulate several thoughts which may or may not have common placement, yet affect me broadly enough to make respective sensation in those regards. Upon reading a short note or pieces of text upon which I have reflected and turned, filtering more of my own ideas through its translation than should sometimes be allowed yet still with no distinct accompanying change in perogative to the forseable, my contentment is latent. It is usual that I, in the aforementioned state will trace a phenominal habit no less bestowed than endowed by the current contemplation. Ever ready for a fresh outlook on some new subject, the page will turn itself to me. There is a single word I must now choose as nucleation for a branch of perspective. I am coerced into examination, as if my own character whilst playing a juvenile trick on a teacher has stopped midway to see if everyone is watching. When I turn to look, I do not see everyone, only the grin of my best friend, begging me to continue. He wants to do this himself
tentative, I no less intend to thwart or harry the duration of your concentration, since your responses are vital in content. If I must now ask you to pause in your own contemplation, the resumption will lodge itself in simplicity.
Not so long ago, we published the meaning of ‘intrinsic’, flaunting its placement alongside the noun ‘community’.
Tetchen wrote:
tentative wrote:
It was at this point that one of us should have corrected the use of a single word to one which refers to a grouping of individuals - ‘a community of interests’. It is in such a group that one can use identity, sharing and a likeness for similarity with other individuals. The sake of this mistake has cost us gross errors in the manufacture of meaningful interpretations. I use this next quote to highlight the mistake:
Since there do exist communities of interest in which the members do not dispute values. A utopian version of such a community of interest actually defies its own existence. It is the very imposition of such a dire defintion that destroys the enhancing effect it was meant to achieve. I take it that you would be glad to conceive the very same interpretation of a utopian heirarchy?
Tetchen,
I have to disagree with this statement. This could only be true in a ‘community’ of one. We may have shared values kinda sorta, but even two people will never agree precisely as to what that means. If we choose to be a member of a group, it is always with the understanding that we will have at the very least slight differences in valuation. We can share a similar world view and even work together to promote each other’s agenda, but when push come’s to shove, my values are uniquely mine, as are yours. There is no perfect social grouping with perfect consonance. This is proven by all the failed utopian experiments over the last two centuries.
JT
Perhaps then, we must consider the full expectations of the ‘community of interests’, as derived from the members’ independent recommendations. The individuals must be themselves convinced of their own valued input. The input has value only through an individual’s concern for its content. The individuals can relate these values through the communication of entire concepts, and discriminate ideas. It is the opinion of the individual, a focus which defines his entire membership. The respect attained through membership for those other members’ values, whether withheld or relevant, cannot conspire to destroy itself. It is under this premise that our values unite.