for - quote - The Elbow does not bend backwards - Dasietz Suzuki - contradiction - the finite and infinite in one being - meme - to be or not to be, that is the question - to be AND not to be, that is the answer

quote - The Elbow does not bend backwards - Dasietz Suzuki - Barry Magid - When D. T. Suzuki came to this country later, he said he had a great realization contemplating the Japanese expression, “The elbow does not bend backwards.” - The idea is that the elbow only bends inward, bends one way. Is that a limitation of the elbow? Is it a defect? That a really good elbow would bend both ways? Is it a design flaw that we’re stuck with? Instead, - it’s a matter of seeing the particular irony in - what we would think of as a limitation rather, as a definition, a part of what we intrinsically are, and - freedom is not a question of being able to do something, to do anything whatsoever, - but to fully function within our design and our capacity. - The full freedom of the functioning of the elbow takes place in bending inward, not outward.

comment - the contradiction of our life is that - the infinite and the finite exist in the same mortal coil - this consciousness which is capable of unlimited imagination - is housed in a fragile, time-limited body - Yet all life exists in the concrete form of living / dying individual's housed in bounded, albeit dynamic bodies - Each of us takes on a unique and specific morphological form, determined by the genetic material passed on to us intergenerationally - Each individual belongs to a unique species, a unique replicable template that is unique - And yet, all life derives from the same reality - So each species, and all individuals belonging to each species, have unique bounded bodies - While that universal wisdom articulates itself uniquely in each species and each individual of a species, it is nonetheless a universal wisdom behind it all - So the elbow does not bend backwards in the human - and the wings flutter only one way in birds - and the fins only project one way in fish - etc, etc.... - Can we trace ourselves from the perceived limited - all the way back to the unlimited infinite? - To be or not to be, that is the question - To be AND not to be, that is the answer

for - comparison - Rupert Spira - limited human being striving for return to natural condition - Dasietz Suzuki - The elbow does not bend backwards - insight - freedom is our natural state - because in our contracted human form - we desire to return to our original expansive form - Rupert Spira comment - As Dasietz Suzuki observed, within the limitations of our form, there is a freedom - After listening for a 2nd or 3rd time, I noted something I missed on the 1st listening. A metaphor helps - My nickname reflects this desire to return to the original expansiveness. "Bottled up" and existing in a "contracted" human form, - we possess a natural desire to expand out of the contracted human form back into its original, primordial expansive state - This is indicated by our innate desire for freedom

for - metaphor - John Smith (actor) - King Lear - Rupert Spira

metaphor - John Smith (actor) - King Lear - Rupert Spira - This is an interesting thought experiment - In the metaphor, the infinite consciousness is like John Smith and the finite human consciousness is like King Lear - The universal consciousness is playing the role of the finite consciousness but loses itself in the role - Spira says: - just as the only consciousness in each of our finite minds is universal consciousness nevertheless - King Lear doesn't know that - King Lear believes i am King Lear, a temporary finite separate person - just like our finite minds don't on the whole know that their reality is infinite consciousness<br /> - So although - the only person present in King Lear is John Smith and - John Smith knows himself just by being himself in the form of King Lear<br /> - he overlooks that knowledge and therefore as King Lear - he has to self-reflect on himself in order to arrive at the experience i am John Smith - What is the relationship between the infinite vs the finite consciousness within the same human? - This reminds me of Dasietz Suzuki's koan that surfaced at the time of his Satori experience - that the elbow does not bend backwards. - Within the bounds of the finite is the infinite

• for: Buddhism, bio-Buddhism, Daisetz Suzuki, Suzuki, beginner's mind, foolbodied, wisdom signaling
• comment
  • this was a surprising adjacency to discover Levin connecting Daisetz Suzuki's concept of Beginner's mind to his research. It demonstrates a broad perspective of research
  • adjacency between
    • Suzuki's Beginner's mind
    • foolbodied
    • wisdom signaling
  • adjacency statement
    • I just finished annotating Gyuri's referall to Wisdom commons article in which the author introduced the notion of foolhood and wisdom signaling
    • These are saying the same thing as Suzuki's concept of beginner's mind

We straddle the absolute and relative with each step, each action in the simultaneous relative and absolute world. As Dasietz Suzuki said, "The elbow does not bend backwards". The world limits us, but freedom is all around.