There are some really interesting parallels between Buddhism and Nietzsche. I know Ive been blogging a lot about Nietzsche lately, but there are a couple of his books I still wanted to read.
I personally think that the Birth of Tragedy is in fact a fairly compassionate book that differs fairly significantly from the Manifesto style Will to Power – which Nietzsche’s NS sister published and edited. The Will to Power reads like a ideologue verison of Nietzsche’s more daylight type of existence style thinking – I believe.
Nonetheless, I think it is an interesting question to ask to what extent Nietzsche’s solution to the suffering Europe has experienced ever since it became aware of the Death of God and the fact that people cannot realize themselves in ‘modern society’ as previsou cultures could – it would be an interesting question to ask whetherother cultures, not just Attic Greece, might pose answers to this problem.
One book I came across compares Nietzsche to Buddhism. Now, there are real parallels here (the Eternal Recurrent of the Same and Samsara, the Will to Power and Tumha (thirst), suffering as a human condition to be dealt with) however, one could argue that different cultures went on similar cultural developments as the Europe did when its sun set.
Example: Brahman in Indian Hinduism negates the world in the same way the Christian idea of God in the West moves ‘beyond the appearances’. This enabled Buddhism to flourish in India, since indian thinkers began questioning their old religion. Thus buddhism in the West and in the East could be read as signs of the advent of passive nihilism. But, to what extent Buddhism really is a passive nihilist religion remains open.
The Antichrist reads at times as a response to Plato’s Republic an Nietzsche does talk about The Laws of Manu, Indian caste systems. At the same time, he is critical of buddhism (as a sidenote: without having every delved into the meditative practices on which many of this religion rests). not only does this reveal the limitations of Western philosophy with respect to other modes of Wisdom, but, what I am trying to get at here is that Nietzsche does try to bring dffernt cultures into dialogue with each other.
The New Christianity
Nietzsche wrote his The Antichrist a a type of invocation: to call daylight to a cultural winter.
Two thousand years the spiritual Judeo-Christian winter reigned over the future and destiny of Europe and transformed the formerly proud Attic Greece into a spectacle of human tragedy, that is, tragedy without Dionysus! The Philosopher acting as physiologist of the human race, Nietzsche argues, cuts out sickness instead of nursing it – the Christian ethos.
Again: the essential Nietzsche: the are no facts only interpretations of facts. There are no moral phenomena only moral interpretations of phenomena. Ethics needs to be naturalized, the whole human project needs to be subject to a (Darwinian) philosophical hammer that will finely test and ear tune where real strength can be found and lies (Amour Fati, the Eternal Return, Saying Yes by Saying No and knowing why one says this~!)
An argument against Nietzsche as political philosopher (the supposition that he is a propohet of post modernism) – Nietzsche’s Undiscovered Country has not been found yet, precisely because the Philosopher of the Future has not been bred.
Where does the Christian ethos lie today? Where are our current cultural sicknesses? What is our present day diseasae? Where do we need to point our knife?
Take a walk around most cities, including the one here in Northern America, here where the Urgeist headquarters lie. This random illness called a city expresses itself as a rotting cancer amongst the former old growth forests that covered this land. People in this cities are, like chickens, factory farmed by corporation. Unlike the chickens, they are too dumb to notice it.
One hundred years of history are the only real history. “Our world” was only born after World War 2. But, it has been constantly evolved and adapting into the now so ossified formulae for success (what was formerly called strength and pride). These formula are the New Christianity, they are they the means and methods of salvation (and not just production!).
Whoever has lived in this place long enough (10 years for me) but has also lived elsewhere long enough (18 years for me) will experience a nausiating almost maddening knwoledge of the future, ie ability to predict that is tantamount to how Nietzsche experiences his the decline of his time (that ended with his prose and his dynamite). They Urgeist too is dynamity, or, rather, at this blog, we are fucking cianide.
A Curse against Industrialization of Culture:
Aristocracies de facto present oppress the people, but they can only do this by positing themselves as better than the people. This necessitates a type of self transcendence and Will to Power, since it is only by being Noble than The peopel that the aristocracy is really above them.
Counterpoint to this could be the fact that everything today becomes manufactured. what I mean is that as soon as someone builds a website a site like WordPress comes a lone and turns that process into a forumale that everyone can use. As soon as Scandinavia created Black Metal and it became “popular” there became a formula on how to create Black Metal. As soon as Philosophy gains popularity there arises a formula on how to philosophze etc etc ad nausium.
These are to observations to keep in mind.
A Philosophy for the Future
Who was FW Nietzsche?
I guess many of us read him because he speaks to our souls at this time.
Lets be clear: The Will to Power was tinkered with by Elizabeth Forster Nietzsche, who was a mouthpiece for the Third Reich. We do cannot use this book to understand Nietzcshe. We do not know which material in it was his. The response to nihilism advocated for in that book is just one of many.
There are some scholars who say that Nietzsche’s own political views (his Rank Order of Ideas, his call for the Good europeans to form an ew aristocracy to Rule and lead Europe, his view that the philosophe is necessarily someone who will must be bred to command and to legislate, that The People are only of value if the can be looked down at, indeed that this is their only function) have no special epistemological statues, given Nietzsche’s project of dynamite.
The Birth of Tragedy is pivotal in that it exposed the at the time accepted discourse of Germany and this history of Europ eand the Greeks as flawed. After Nietzsche there is no real Nation, there is no State, no leading beacon – God Died.
Heraclitus might hvae been an influence because Heraclitus himself though that ‘everything was in flux’, his thinking was not refined and urban, it came from the dionysian part of his soul, and, to the weeping Philosopher, war was indeed ‘the father of all things’. There was nothing behind the appearances, that dusty problem you can waste your time on.
The point: what does this mean for philosophy understand as the discipline for hierarchy and rule? How can the rejection of Philosophy be invoked for us who want philosophy, ie Wisdom (and not markets) to gain the upper hand in the destiny of our world?
Perhaps it makes sense to see Zarathustra’s speeches asmicrocosmis tragedies, Greek or Dionysian tragedies in which certain problems are digested?
Nietzsche often calls for his Philosopher of the Future to discover something he never really gives a name. In Beyond Good and Evil there is a passage in which he talks about German music, its shortcoming s and how the problems he addresses can be alchemically transmuted into a new type of music, something he compares to his consciousness.
No one after Nietzsche could think the same way. He is not a philosphy but a wisdom which is anti philosophy, it is dynamite. But, over the aeons, for us aeonic thinkers and actors who concerned with building on “rock and not on sand” can we build any structures that are untouched by the kiss of dynamite? What will the cities of the future look like?
On Meditation: Something I Want my Readers to Know
Meditation can become (like ceremonial magick) something one does to mo make oneself look unique and in a way special. But, there are real benefits to delving intyo a meditation system.
I think one of the key things Wester Philosophy (the love for Wisdom) lacks is a concrete tangible practice to which all larger and more theroretical ideas boil down to. For political philosophy this might be the enacting a simple economic policy or generally legislating, but there is still something of an existential void many existentialist thinkers dont fill as well as they could.
At Urgeist we are concerned with:
An Advanced form of Capitalism: Only deploying new capital when it is Wise to do so (Sustainability, Culture, Social Advancement) should be considerations over and above more big business revenue.
Social Cohesian and Hierarchy: Hierachy is a good thing, it is a sign of society having confidence in itself and its values. If Society manages to engage in values it will become confident in them. Today we have neither and hence are left with (market) freedom and general degeneration. However, there needs to be a place for everyone and there should be accepted social roles for those who want to “leave the town” and look at its (morality, culture, art, history) from a distance (be they madmen or philosophers) to give examples.
Wisdom: Philosophy should form the bedrock of all political decisions. There is no escaping this, there is no escaping philosophy. Even market economics is just a covert form of utilitarianism.
What does this all have to do with meditation?
I think our neuroscientists should be working hard to develop a type of meditative practice (or perfecting older ones) that will enable people to realize higher states in the act of work. The meditation systems I used to practice (a combination of basic Nei Dan Qi Gong and Hung Gar Nei Kung forms) can have, if practiced hard and rigorously, the dramativ affect of radically altering ones relationship to the world.
The primary form, the 18 Lohan Hands, a type of “Internal Skill” in which yoga like postures are combined with certain breathing technique. The form rigorously strnegthens ones entire body during initial practice. This, combined with the breathing, means ones mind enters ones body in a way that it previously did not. One becomes stronger, capable of breaithing into ones muscled sand bioenergetic (Qi) meridians and channels. Combined with basic sitting meditation (similar to Zazen) – which is more mental – one can reach a meditative state in which on e is constantly calm, relaxed and peace and present.
This state is incredible to experience and I would say universally desirable (by any sane person). Those strong enough to maintain it become “noramal” human beings that “suffer less” (to use loaded language. The point ho0wever is that as one advances in these practices and maintains the by “swimming against the river” one reaches a level of practice where it is easier to maintain the higher consciousness degree and, this is key, ones work, anything one does, begins to feed into this stage.
This means that we can teach our children to meditate properly we will open up the possibility for individuals to live in society but still reach enlightenment experiences. They work to cleanse their miind, to polish it so that it becomes as “blank as a mirror and as sharp as a diamond”. But, they do this for society. They are the prelude to our priestly caste, role models for those around them and perhaps a hint of what the herd animal could be in light of the bright radiant sun that is Nietzsche’s Philosopher of the Future.
You too can learn these practices.
Heaven and Earth
Heaven stands above the horizon that begins with the edge of the world. They both meet where our knowlege and experience begin and end.
Philosophically, there are two ways to infer: Free thinkers and great spirits, those who have internalized world history, and are capable of seeing one thing with many eyes, can paint virtues for us to strive for. Or – which is the less desirable but far more likely outcome among nationalistic circles- heaven can be painted in the colours of earth, spoiled and made brown. in other words: Those who are society’s leaders will inevitable be those who come upo with some ideas that makes this society look “noble” or “good” or “desirable”. Less cryptically, they are after power and not truth, perhaps because they are not strong enough for wiser things.
I’ve been submitting my poetry to poetry competitions in Universities in the country where I live. the stuff I see winning these competitions does not match the power and depth of my ideas, but, my ideas are infernal, because that is the nature of my soul. Society likes to extinguish fire.
Why, because it still haven’t learnt how to burn itself, to become a type of gas. Something one cannot grasp with the average hand. Instead, we are all too tangible and visible and clear in what we think and “see”. The sky look different to those who fly.
What is War?
What is war?
War is the attempt at merging microcosmos with macrocosmos, it is the interaction between you and your world. This might seem trite or obvious, but it is often not acknowledged (like so many obvious things today).
What is peace?
Peace is the successful almost sexual merging of microcosmos and macrocosmso, the union between you and your world. This might seem trite or obvious, but it is often not acknowledged (like many obvious things today).
What are some of the historical manifestation of war and peace?
Naturals Slection, what Sagan refers to as the “pruning and cutting” of the branches of the Tree of Life (my capitalization).
You too are this tree of life, constantly growing – towards the sun, casting a larger shadow until your roots reach through the Earth blackening the sky and the sun that other trees, like you, watch growing closer as they gain strength themselves.
Who are your allies?
Those growing towards the same sun, it is only opposition that unites. Common enemies make friends and -therefore – war is necessary for peace, the Microcosm merges into other smaller cosmic fields when a larger macroverse is at sight and at a grippable hand.
The evolution of love?
Love guides war. It is the sun. Walking at dusk is an act of love by your body and the path you travel. You are simply not aware of it. Why, because you crave other love, love you do not yet know. That is why you are alive and that is the reason why you fight.
The cessation of war? A question you must ask a mystic, or find someone you can love.
