on reflection

[Amianthus]

I have long ago concluded that old age does not make you need to pee more often: it just makes you feel you need to pee more often.

It would be logical for the organ that makes you feel a desire to pee would become less insistent over the years, but this is not the case. This is another seeming paradox.

The muscle that holds your bladder closed becomes weaker with age if it's not exercised. Also, many medications that are taken by older folks have a diuretic effect.

[Universe Prince]

This entire post supports my last.  You expect a pat answer that matches your expectation of the meaning of "emptiness."  BSB must reconcile his meaning of the term with your expectation.  He must do it in a manner acceptable to you.  BSB apparently doesn't view this as his responsibility.  I think he is right.

[...]

I think you want an answer that reconciles your meaning of emptiness with the concept of shunyata.  You want it given in exactly the format you prescribe.

[...]

To bring this rambling road back to its intended course, I believe you have fixated on the idea that "emptiness" could not possibly equate to "interdependence of existence" and you simply will not be moved until someone can put together the right kinds of words to reconcile your understanding of those terms.  In short, you will not be moved until someone moves you - and that is impossible because you have put up impenetrable intellectual barriers.  Whatever BSB's shortcomings may or may not be as a teacher or a person, I believe it is not his lack of ability to teach on this issue that is the problem.  It is your lack of ability to learn on this issue.  That is completely a matter of will on your part, because you lack no other quality necessary for learning.

That is adult male bovine excrement. Watching people insist my preconceived notions are preventing me from learning while they expound on their preconceived notions about what I think and mean, it would be amusing if it didn't seem so frustrating.

No, in point of fact, I do not expect a pat answer that matches my expectation of the meaning of "emptiness." Neither must BSB, or anyone else, reconcile his meaning of the term with my expectation. What I do expect is a reply that actually answers the question. I asked a direct question. I prescribed no form for the answer beyond that the answer should be elucidative, and that not until much later in the conversation. I have yet to see an explanation as to why that is unreasonable. I ask a question because I don't understand. If the answer someone else gives me doesn't explain anything, that is in no way my fault. It's not as if BSB explained it and I did not understand the answer. I would have recognized at the very least that an explanation had been attempted, and that I had not understood. But I did not get an explanation. What I got was basically a bit of circular reasoning. "Emptiness" means "everything exists because of other things that exist" because to Buddhists "everything exists because of other things that exist" means "emptiness." But some how it's my fault for not understanding? No, actually it is not.

BSB has provided a link to an explanation of the concept and challenged you to read it.  I haven't taken the time to look yet though I'll probably read it at some point because this conversation has whetted my interest.  But I am not demanding answers - you are.  So if you have read the link, has it answered your question?  If you haven't, why not?  If it hasn't answered your question have you asked follow up questions?  If you haven't looked at that link (and that before your last post) you have failed to fulfill your responsibility in the learning process.  Learn is a verb.  If you have not already looked at the link, it would indicate to me that you are more interested in "winning" the debate than actually learning about the concept.  If that analysis is valid, BSB is right not to engage you in your chosen manner.

[sarcasm begins] If you don't do things and think about things in the way I think you should, you're just putting up intellectual barriers that mean you don't want to learn. [sarcasm ends]

I have read what is at the link. I have read it five times, and may read it a few times more. I am mulling over what it means and what I think about what it means. I am prepared to ask follow up questions, certainly. But I am also wondering if I should bother to ask any questions at all. People who are convinced I cannot or will not learn before I ask a question apparently think they have no reason to answer my questions. Which would make bothering to ask the questions nothing more than waste of time and storage space on the server.

I think what your rambling post means is that I am supposed to be a bad student because I am not behaving as you and/or BSB think I should behave. Well, I am not the guy in English class who didn't understand there can be more than one interpretation of things. And I'm not your brother who didn't understand your spiritual revelation. I am not your daughter, needing an absolute and singularly defined way to express a thing. I am me. I do grasp that there are often many ways to look at things. I make an effort to try to understand the way other people look at and understand the world. I do not reject other perspectives or insist they just don't make sense because they are not mine or because they are not absolute and self-contained. I go out of my way to try to understand what other people mean. That is why I bother to ask questions and why I expect answers that actually explain and/or help me understand.

I am not demanding a pat and simple answer that makes sense to me so I have no need for further questions. I am fully accept that an answer I may be given may be something I do not understand. I have no problem with that. In point of fact I welcome that. I want to be given answers that leave me with further questions. Please, by all means, expand my understanding. But don't give me some facile circular reasoning and then insist I am unwilling to learn because I dare to be unsatisfied with the answer. That sort of intellectual dishonesty is not my fault and does not stem in any way from a supposed lack of will to learn on my part. And blaming me for it is adult male bovine excrement.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The muscle that holds your bladder closed becomes weaker with age if it's not exercised. Also, many medications that are taken by older folks have a diuretic effect.
=====================================================
I have not been holding my bladder closed any more, or less, than usual. I have not heard of any exercises in which one holds his bladder closed.

I admit that I am taking generic Lasix, but when I did not take it, I still had more frequent signals to pee than I did when I was 40.

[Amianthus]

I have not heard of any exercises in which one holds his bladder closed.

They're called Kegel Exercises, and typically only women are taught them (they suffer more bladder muscle problems because of childbirth).

http://incontinence.emedtv.com/kegel-exercises/kegel-exercises-for-men.html

[sirs]

Give that man a cigar     

[Amianthus]

Give that man a cigar     

Spending so much time in the hospital and doctor's offices the last few months, I've been doing quite a bit of reading up...

[sirs]

Spending so much time in the hospital and doctor's offices the last few months, I've been doing quite a bit of reading up...

Oh?  I hope all is ok

[Amianthus]

Oh?  I hope all is ok

Pulmonary emboli. Multiple clots in all five lobes.

[sirs]

D'OH         NOT GOOD.  You must be on some major blood thinners right now.  Don't let anyone even punch you in the shoulder, just for fun.  I'll keep thinking good thoughts, Ami

[Stray Pooch]

That is adult male bovine excrement.

Dude, you can use AMBE on me - I'll get the reference!


Allow me to clear a few things up.  I am no more intelligent, no better educated, no more qualified to offer an unsupported opinion and no better looking than you.  (I've never actually seen you, but trust me on that last.)

What I am is a teacher by nature.  Had I followed my initial life plans I would be doing that for a living.  It is providential that I did not because I wouldn't last long in the world of academia.  I think too much.  But, as usual, I digress.  I spent twenty years as an NCO (whose primary function is to train people), thirty years as a parent (whose primary function is to serve as the butt of teenage jokes, but secondarily to teach kids), and numerous years as a gospel teacher of adults, young men and women, and new members/investigators of our church.  It really is a simple part of my being to go around teaching stuff.  It turns out I'm pretty good at it too.   It's a good thing.  Yay me.

Except that there is this thing about "right time and place."  The tendency to teach is generally positive, until it is foisted upon people who: 1) didn't ask for it; 2) don't need it; and, 3) don't wanna hear it!   I do that.  A lot.  I keep bandages handy.

You see, you inferred a reasonable but nevertheless erroneous intention to my preceding diatribes, and you best described the gist of it as my pointing out that you were a "poor" student.  In fact I only explicitly suggested in my first post (IIRC) that the disconnect between you and BSB COULD be a result of your being a poor student (as a contrast to your implication that he was a bad teacher) or that it could also be just a difference of personality between the two of you.  It is perfectly logical that you might take that (coupled with the several analytical points I made in the ensuing discussion about my perception of your statements) as sort of saying "you COULD (wink, wink) be a poor student."  In other words, I was convinced you WERE a poor student but I didn't want to just come out and SAY it, fer goshsakes.  In fact, there was an underlying notion in that statement, but it was "it COULD (wink, wink) be just a difference of personalities."  I was really only pointing out that there were several possible reasons for the disconnect, and I included the one I thought it was - but it was the last, not the second.  Further, I explicitly said that I think you were not able to learn (or words to that effect) ON THIS ISSUE.  I was very careful to include those words, so as to avoid the appearance that I was saying you couldn't be taught, period.   Unfortunately, I didn't put them in caps or otherwise emphasize them - but OH you shoulda heard them in my head!  The inflection was just perfect.  You couldn't have missed it.  Honest.

Now even just making such a claim ON THIS ISSUE can still be pretty damn insulting.  I want to be honest here, so I'll piss you off a little more and say I do still believe that part of the disconnect comes from your approach.  I'm not saying that to add fuel to the fire, but because I don't want you to think I'm backpedaling or trying to change my meaning.  We've had this kind of argument before and rather than try to hash through the trash again I'd just as soon give you a stimulating lesson on why the universe is, in fact, entirely composed of fishsticks.  (What is the sound of one fin slapping?)  But it is easy to infer that I intended to insult you or accuse you when I said "You're approaching this from the wrong direction."  Now I know that technically that statement is in fact insulting and accusatory (though I hope you will agree it is less of the first).  But what I am trying to say is that I was NOT trying to insult you, challenge you or accuse you but rather (as is my nature) to teach you.

Now you might well ask "Who the hell are you to teach me?"  You might, but I hope you don't, because I haven't got the slightest idea - and it gets all awkward when I don't have longwinded stuff to drown out the crickets.  It is not my place to instruct anyone here.  I am not a professional teacher.  I am not a subject-matter expert (as BSB is in this case) except for LDS or military matters to some degree.  More importantly, I haven't got the slightest degree of training in counseling, psychology, psychiatry or making our interpersonal relationships a world of flowers and rainbows.  Having dabbled in it with this thread I appear to have rather brought forth crabgrass and acid rain.  It is not my PLACE to teach.  It is, however, my nature.  I do it without thinking (now THERE's an opening for ya) and without malice.  I produce teachy-like posts with the same easy and natural effort that adult male bovine critters produce excrement - and often with the same result.   Now this can sometimes be thought of as arrogant, egotistical and just plain rude.  Let me respond to that. 

(. . . sounds of crickets chirping . . .)

Wow, that was awkward.  Anyway where was I?  Oh yes, arrogant, egotistical . . . I mean NO.  No, that's not the case at ALL.  While it may SEEM to be those things it is really just my way of being benevolent, kind and - wait, I just stepped in something.  Stupid bulls.  Why don't they go back to Chicago? 

Here's the thing.  I really just saw a situation in front of me where I kinda felt I could help cut past what I saw as a simple case of two clashing perspectives and I thought you might welcome my magnanimous gesture of teaching.  I just saw you lighting up with enlightenment (is that redundant?) and saying "Wow, Poochie ol' pal I totally get it now.  Shucks, I wanna become a Buddhist AND a Mormon.  I wanna write a book called 'Zen and the Art of Multiple Marriages!'  Yessir, I don't know HOW I ever got along without you!  You sure are full of wisdom!"  Instead it turns out you think I'm full of something else, but that's really not the ca . . . FER CRYIN' OUT LOUD I CAN NOT GET THIS STUFF OFF OF MY SHOE!!!!

Gist is this.  I'm sorry. I was presumptuous to get involved and pretentious to think I could teach you.  My bad.

You got a napkin on ya?

[Universe Prince]

My objection was not to you trying to teach me. My objection was to what you seemed to be saying, that I was a poor student because you thought I had all these supposedly preconceived notions that prevented me from learning. Which I still say is AMBE. I am sure there is plenty you could teach me, Pooch, but I have gotten a little bit fed up with people telling me why all of their preconceived notions about me mean I cannot get past my preconceived notions. I get told over and over (it seems that way anyhow) that I want this or I want that and how I just don't understand because I ask questions or because I don't just accept whatever I'm told. Everyone seems to want to define me for me. Well, you can't.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Spending so much time in the hospital and doctor's offices the last few months,
I've been doing quite a bit of reading up...

Isn't it amazing how easy it is for one to become a much better informed patient
these days compared to just a few years ago. Of course there is a lot of junk to
sort through but patients dont have to be "in the dark" anymore. Whatever the ailment
the doc says I have I soon try to become educated about. The internet allows for so
many more doctor choices and treatment options. After-all no one usually cares as
much as you do about your own health....so the patient being better informed can
really help guide a doctor to the bullzeye.

[Amianthus]

Of course, not everyone appreciated it when I joked about them treating me with pig snot and rat poison (heparin and warfarin respectively).

 

[Plane]

Allow me to clear a few things up. 

I think you have done a good job of parcing out the problem , even supposeing you have come to a wrong conclusion , you would still have framed the problem neatly and made it easyer to evaluate.

BsB seems also to have become exasperated with me , dang it.

Did you also notice what I was doing wrong?

[Stray Pooch]

Allow me to clear a few things up. 

I think you have done a good job of parcing out the problem , even supposeing you have come to a wrong conclusion , you would still have framed the problem neatly and made it easyer to evaluate.

BsB seems also to have become exasperated with me , dang it.

Did you also notice what I was doing wrong?

Yes. You were speaking to BSB. 

Plane, I have no idea what you did to set him off, but he gets offended with very little provocation, so I wouldn't take it personally.  He complained about me "spending a lot of time here tonight" because I posted a memory about Bird and Magic on a thread about basketball.  What his motivation in throwing an insult at me was is beyond my ability to determine, but I won't lose any sleep over it.

I think BSB thinks he is extremely wise and enlightened.  That in itself is fine.  I think I'm one brilliant sumbeetch and I point that out or simply demonstrate that to the grand annoyance of many people far too frequently. (This thread is one example.) But I think the problem may have been (and trust me this is pure speculation) that you attempted to engage him on a subject very serious to him by addressing it as a "word problem" or puzzle of some sort and this may have made him feel you were trivializing the issue.  BSB takes a lot of hits here and is probably very sensitized to conflict.  A lot of those hits are only his perception and not intentional.  Many of them are brought on by his own aggressive debate style.  But whatever the reason, a person gets his hackles up when in constant conflict.  That coupled with his life experiences and PTSD makes him prone to sudden bursts of defensiveness, and being a warrior he is not passive about defense.  So that wisdom and enlightenment tend to be overridden by his anger and he lashes out.

Though I argued with UP about BSB's teaching style, the fact is that he does seem to take little stock in passing on his ideas coherently.  In fairness, though, this may be because the teachings of Buddhism are transmitted in a way that seems unfulfilling to those of us taught in the western style.  We do have a tendency to want to be spoon fed our knowledge, with little effort on our part beyond opening our mouths when the spoon comes towards us.  We are also very impatient and want the info RIGHT NOW!  This is why we read Reader's Digest, USA Today and make vital voting decisions based on 30 second sound bites.  What we consider coherent teaching may well be completely different from what a Buddhist considers an appropriate way of learning.  From what very little I do know about eastern views, they tend to lean more towards active learning on the part of an individual rather than passive learning on the part of a group, and frankly I think that is a far superior method of education. 

The other thing is that Buddhism, as far as I know, is not a missionary system.  Christians are tasked with spreading the word.  We go out seeking to bring people to Christ.  I think (and again I speak as a very uninformed outsider) that  Buddhists are more interested in allowing people to come to enlightenment.  It's kind of like the difference between a door-to-door salesman and a shopkeeper.  The former annoys you at dinner time trying to get you to buy something you are necessarily looking for.  The latter waits for you to come to his shop and then is happy to sell you what you are looking for when you are looking for it.  If you really are looking for life answers and a missionary happens to knock on your door, it may be a perfect match.  But missionaries get a whole lot of doors slammed in their faces.  OTOH, a shopkeeper has a few customers who wander in and then leave without buying anything, but a far larger percentage leave having done business, since that was their intent in the first place. 

In this thread, BSB did actually attempt to engage UP but not to UP's satisfaction.  He also said things consistent with that "shopkeeper" analogy.  He was saying things like "it's there if you want it, there's no need to argue about it" and the like.  Why he dismissed and insulted you is beyond me, but perhaps it is because he felt you were not seriously inquiring.

If my analysis is correct  (and I am no more able to read BSB's mind than UP's) then BSB tends to look down on those who he feels don't "get" it.  He has mentioned on this thread in years past that some people are just not going to grasp the concepts of Buddhism and some are.  Perhaps he perceives some as being in that former group and doesn't "waste his time" with them.  If his treatment of you in this thread is an indication of that, then IMO either Buddhism is arrogant elitism or BSB is not as enlightened as he thinks he is.  I would be more inclined to believe the latter than the former.  But there is no guarantee that my analysis is correct, and BSB obvious does not deign to enlighten you on the subject.  C'est la vie.

Remember, grasshopper, if you seek the path of wisdom from the Pooch, you must be patient, for he will ramble incessantly through the fields of AMBE.