Post by David on Jul 31, 2010 14:19:39 GMT -5
The expression of that experience needs to be clear; take contemporary art for example........The Tipitaka in this case would be just gibberish, or a set of 'ethical' rules, open to anyone's own interpretation, without the experience of Jhana that informs everything in it.
Interesting point Jonathon. How cultural 'artifacts' are preserved, archived, distributed and displayed through institutions and the industry of culture, how do we arrive at and assign 'value' to that work? Whole economies, markets, the entire world really - including the evolution of wo/mankind - depends to a large extent on the way in which that question is answered.
Is it industries and markets, or people's neurosis and desires that 'fuel' the whole machine of culture?
What if we could make each of the Jhana's a particular 'benchmark' from which the question of value is assigned to specific works? Would our criteria for examining that work change because of that?
As a kind of cultural consensus, like how everyone agrees that Beethoven's 9th is great, for all the reasons that they do; but instead, we then take all those 'reasons', and from a culture or 'community' that had attained and remain in 4th Jhana, every day of their lives, how does that change how we 'interpret' what is of value? Does it change anything?
It strikes me that a population of of 4th level Jhana 'arahants', would produce an entirely different culture, with entirely different values, and expectations from the society as a whole.
What do you think?
Interesting point Jonathon. How cultural 'artifacts' are preserved, archived, distributed and displayed through institutions and the industry of culture, how do we arrive at and assign 'value' to that work? Whole economies, markets, the entire world really - including the evolution of wo/mankind - depends to a large extent on the way in which that question is answered.
Is it industries and markets, or people's neurosis and desires that 'fuel' the whole machine of culture?
What if we could make each of the Jhana's a particular 'benchmark' from which the question of value is assigned to specific works? Would our criteria for examining that work change because of that?
As a kind of cultural consensus, like how everyone agrees that Beethoven's 9th is great, for all the reasons that they do; but instead, we then take all those 'reasons', and from a culture or 'community' that had attained and remain in 4th Jhana, every day of their lives, how does that change how we 'interpret' what is of value? Does it change anything?
It strikes me that a population of of 4th level Jhana 'arahants', would produce an entirely different culture, with entirely different values, and expectations from the society as a whole.
What do you think?