Bryan Kam

@bryankam.com

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Thinking about origins of truth, selfhood, suffering, philosophy of science, literature, film. Interintellect fellow. @bryankam@writing.exchange

“What this age values and takes as its guide, its course, is written text. But written texts are no more than words. Words do have something valuable about them: their meanings and ideas. But those meanings and ideas come from some­ thing else, and what they come from cannot be transmitted in words. And yet the people of this age, due to the high value they put on words, transmit only the writings. Though this age so esteems them, I do not regard them as worthy of esteem. What these people value about them is not what is really valuable about them. For whatever we can see by looking is only shapes and forms. Whatever we can hear by listening is only names and sounds. Alas! This age takes shapes, forms, names, and sounds as sufficient to attain the reality of that something else. But shapes, forms, names and sounds are ultimately not sufficient to get at what is real there. Thus "those who know do not speak, and those who speak do not know/7 But how could the present age understand this!”
38 (8) Volition (1) At S›vatthı. “Bhikkhus, what one intends, and what one plans, and whatever one has a tendency towards: this becomes a basis for the maintenance of consciousness. When there is a basis there is a support for the establishing of consciousness. When con- sciousness is established and has come to growth, there is the production of future renewed existence. When there is the pro- duction of future renewed existence, future birth, aging-and- death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair come to be. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering.112 “If, bhikkhus, one does not intend, and one does not plan, but one still has a tendency towards something, this becomes a basis for the maintenance of consciousness. When there is a basis, there is a support for the establishing of consciousness…. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering.113 “But, bhikkhus, when one does not intend, and one does not plan, and one does not have a tendency towards anything, no basis exists for the maintenance of consciousness. [66] When there is no basis, there is no support for the establishing of con- sciousness. When consciousness is unestablished and does not come to growth, there is no production of future renewed exis- tence. When there is no production of future renewed existence, future birth, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, dis- pleasure, and despair cease. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.”114
Graham Greene, The End of the Affair: So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one’s days. One may be preoccupied with shopping and income tax returns and chance conversations, but the stream of the unconscious continues to flow undisturbed, solving problems, planning ahead: one sits down sterile and dispirited at the desk, and suddenly the words come as though from the air: the situations that seemed blocked in a hopeless impasse move forward: the work has been done while one slept or shopped or talked with friends.
Highlight from Christopher Beckwith's Greek Buddha (2015): Even the epithet “Buddha” does not appear in the Greek sources until Clement of Alexandria (mid-second to early third century AD), though it does appear on a Kushan coin of Kanishka I (r. first half of the second century AD), where it is written in Bactrian spelling ΒοΔΔο ‘Buddha’, and bodhi ‘awakening’ is attested in the early third-century AD Major Inscriptions of king Devānāṃpriya Priyadarśi, q.v. Chapter Two and Appendix C. Megasthenes, Pyrrho’s contemporary, refers to Buddhists as Sarmanes, the Sramanas of the Mauryan inscription fragments in Greek. The word Śramaṇa was the unambiguous term for ‘Buddhists’, and was still used exclusively in that sense in the Middle Ages, as shown in Chapter Two.
Readwise highlight from Marc Cohen's Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy (2011) The name “Presocratics” comes from nineteenth-century classical scholars, who saw a fundamental break between the interests and methods of our group of thinkers and Socrates (470–399 BCE), and who regarded Socrates’ interests in ethics as a radical advance in Western thought. Few would now agree with that evaluation, and it is worth pointing out that several of our Presocratics were actually contemporaries of or younger than Socrates. So, as a descriptive label, the name “Presocratics” is misleading, but as a designator for a recognized group of thinkers, it is quite useful, and I shall use it here in that sense. For more on this issue, see articles in Long.