(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

"That which is not tradition is plagiarism." -- Salvador Dali

"There is no substitute for discipline." -- me

The quote from Dali above sounded completely absurd and counter-intuitive the first time I heard it. Tradition, so my young mind thought, stifles innovation and forces us into the shoeboxes of the past.

But... does Dali's innovation appear to have been stifled in any way? Does he appear to have been shoeboxed? One word that comes to mind when I consider Dali is "irrepressible." What is it about Dali's art that gives it access to the subconscious, other than his traditional styles of symbolism and imagery?

In an exhibit in Tokyo, I saw a beating heart of rubies that Dali had designed for his wife Gala at her request. In the tarot deck I considered designing a few years ago (and still contemplate from time to time) the "inmost" card was to be a ruby heart lying at the bottom of a moving river.

What I've seen is that those who shirk off tradition completely, especially in their spiritual exploration, usually wind up re-exploring the same territory as the ancient mystics. They rarely produce anything new; and what appears to them to be profound is often the old message, recycled in different terms.

On the other hand, the difficulty is that tradition can be comfortable.

So the key to innovation would appear to be following tradition while at the same time being uncomfortable with it.

That's where my saying about discipline comes in. Generally I have in mind meditation, or martial arts, but it could apply to *any* kind of discipline, from yoga, to BDSM, to learning how to play a musical instrument. There is no substitute for care and dedication of time and effort.

Comments

[hai-kah-uhk.livejournal.com]

Truism - that's how I explain away the phenomenon of starting from scratch, only to rediscover the basis of the tradition which was thrown aside. Truism describes the common themes that pop up in just about everything. It's not as nitpicky as 'truth' because there doesn't need to be any such thing as 'falsism' to counterbalance it.

If you're part of the universe, you're going to reflect the universe somehow or other.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

This is what the Theosophists call "the perennial philosophy" (though I prefer "the perennial teachings") because when you discard tradition and start from scratch, you find that certain archetypal themes keep cropping up. Then you note that these themes have already been extensively explored in all of the world's religious and philosophical traditions.

[hai-kah-uhk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that. Though when you phrase it that way, it almost sounds like it could be considered a waste of time. So then I took a moment to ponder whether or not it was a waste of time, and decided it wasn't. However one goes about finding spiritual direction is productive. Sometimes a roundabout route to enlightenment teaches more than the well-laid-out path.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

For me, innovation comes from drinking deeply of several traditions, rather than just one, and in not being afraid to break the rules once they are understood.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

What I've found is that learning to drink deeply enough from one tradition, while being open to depths in others, enables one to drink deeply from others.

For example, the first musical instrument takes a lot of practice and effort; but once it is mastered, the second instrument is not nearly so hard.

Plus there is a lot to be said for the power of breaking rules -- knowing which rules to break, and when...

[jl-legend.livejournal.com]

So I'm sat here pondering your LiveJournal, as one is prone to doing, and an analogy pops into my head.

It's like two people building two houses. One use the foundation of an old church, the other builds it on a field with no foundation.

Both get good starts to their houses, and have it completed in a few months, allowing them to get to work on the garden, the garage, and all the myriad of other projects that are all connected to the house.

Two years on, these projects are still going on, but the man that built his on the field turns to see his house collapse... and has to start again. The man who built his house on the church foundation carries on working, building something new, something beautiful to him. And it lasts for many years, though he has to go back and do some work on the house itself.

The foundation is not the whole, but without it, faith collapses and needs to be rebuilt... perpetually. The foundation does not stifle innovation unless you just move into a ready made building. The act of building on an old (or even new) foundation allows something to grow.


okay I'm done waffling on.

[imaginaryfish.livejournal.com]

Wow. I've been thinking about this very subject for a while now, and I think you've helped make something much clearer to me. Thank you for sharing that thought.

[ulyart.livejournal.com]

those who shirk off tradition completely, especially in their spiritual exploration, usually wind up re-exploring the same territory as the ancient mystics. They rarely produce nothing new; and what appears to them to be profound is often the old message,

(do you mean rarely produce anything new, or nothing new?)

the "territory" of the ancient mystics is the nature of mind and the universe-- this is good territory to directly explore and re-explore. Nobody can do this in your place.

what appears to them to be profound is often the old message

would this be analogous to Pascal deriving what turned out to be the theorems of Euclid for himself as a boy?

Spiritual experience is not to be judged by its innovativeness. I don't know it would be meaningful to speak of a "new and improved" version of enlightenment.

Maybe I'm misreading you, and you are talking not about spiritual experience but rather about spiritual texts?

Though I think anyone who wants to write a spiritual text will have already read many.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

(do you mean rarely produce anything new, or nothing new?)

"rarely anything new." Corrected the typo or Freudian slip or whatever it was...


the "territory" of the ancient mystics is the nature of mind and the universe-- this is good territory to directly explore and re-explore. Nobody can do this in your place.

I don't think that attempting a naive approach is a waste of time. But what I've seen is that it tends to lead in two directions; either one winds up returning to tradition, or one develops a self-serving delusion. This is one of the greatest pitfalls I've seen seekers fall into.


Spiritual experience is not to be judged by its innovativeness. I don't know it would be meaningful to speak of a "new and improved" version of enlightenment.

Ah, yes, you are right. What I am getting at is that while mystics tend to have very similar sorts of experiences, what tends to change from one generation to the next is the conceptual framework for describing the experiences and explaining how they seem to have happened. That has to be rediscovered every generation.


Maybe I'm misreading you, and you are talking not about spiritual experience but rather about spiritual texts?

Yes... expression of spiritual experience, whether written or oral.

[ulyart.livejournal.com]

what I've seen is that it tends to lead in two directions; either one winds up returning to tradition, or one develops a self-serving delusion.

great point!

while mystics tend to have very similar sorts of experiences, what tends to change from one generation to the next is the conceptual framework for describing the experiences and explaining how they seem to have happened. That has to be rediscovered every generation.

the conceptual framework changes in part because the world changes. I've seen many interpretations of Buddhism from the framework of Modern Psychological Science. Re-casting Buddhism into more familiar terms can be helpful for the uninitiated.

I agree with you that when it comes to spirituality, there is no need to re-invent the wheel, and the enduring traditions are each rich enough to provide for inexhaustible exploration. But really the important thing is not exploring tradition, but directly exploring our immediate experience. Enlightenment is this very moment; it is not available in a book or a tradition.

Where technology might change traditional spirituality is if there were an "enlightenment" machine that would work by stimulating (surpressing is probably more accurate) appropriate parts of the brain. Silence the verbal chatter and our vision instantly becomes more profound.

by the way I've just posted my view on "discipline" in ulyart.

spellcheck!

[ulyart.livejournal.com]

I meant "suppressing"-- though what would surpressing mean if it were a real word? ;-)

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

So completely true. If you want to test it, play Scrabble allowing made-up words. There is no game.

I thought a while back that a spriritual discipline is like a language. You have to speak one, not a mush of many different ones.

A book that has taught me lot recently is Bringing Yoga to Life by Donna Farhi. She has a beautiful chapter on discipline.