This article by @Meaningness got me thinking: How much the origin of religion is influenced by geography?
Could Daoism or Zen have developed anywhere without vertigo inducing steep mountain slopes?
@MichaelAaronK @johndavidebert @martyrmadehttps://meaningness.com/metablog/meaningness-mountains …
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"When you stand high on a steep mountain slope, looking out over the gulf, you see vast space beneath you; turning, you see vast earth above you. This inversion induces vertigo, which stops the mind."
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"In Zen it is said: “First there is a mountain; then there is no mountain; and then there is a mountain.” The mountain is form; no-mountain is emptiness. The mountain after no-mountain is the same mountain, and not the same."
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Note the mountains above and sky below in Chinese paintings. This could not have developed elsewhere. The phenomenology informs the aesthetics which informs the logic and metaphysics. It dissolves the Father Sky - Mother Earth duality.pic.twitter.com/IU9nSBGlCc
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Thoughts on this? Nonduality originates from disorienting experiences in foggy mountains where sky intertwine with earth.
@linkolawave@VincentHorn@danlistensto@Failed_Buddhist2 replies 0 retweets 3 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @MimeticValue @linkolawave and
I think you're point to conditions that produce foreground/background to take on non-ordinary dimensions in terms of vividness or contrast. I've had similar experiences lying on my back and looking up through the canopy in a forest. Not much a mountaineer myself though.
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fwiw, my understanding of the Zen fondness of mountains is that those were places that were profoundly isolated from society but not so desolate as to be impossible to live an austere life as a hermit. Daruma is the archetypal mountain hermit.
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