On Freedom and Other Things II
Dr Plim and Roballs walked through the dark hallway at the end of which an open and well lit gate awaited them.
-Plim, a few days ago I went to the cinema with Nicole...
-Nice! Way to go! You finally asked her out.
-Yeah... it was great, she is a really (!) great person...
-Go on, what is wrong?
-Well, it was the first date... and we just talked a lot... hugged... and I managed to caress her hair...
-So?
-Well, I was really turned on the whole time (Plim snikkers) and the movie we watched didn`t really help...
-What movie?
-It was "Sex and Lucia".
-Oh...
-So, man, when I got home, after she dropped me off, I couldn`t like go to bed... so I made some smaller limb marmelade*.
-(silence)
There walk had made them come to the gate, they opened it slightly further and continued on.
Descending some steps led them from the blue carpeted floor to the cold cement.
Roballs was going to continue talking but a beautiful full-breasted blond sorority girl asked him for something... he removed the something from his jeans and showed it to her... knowing Plim she did not ask to see his... they walked on.
-Man, I am catholic and the church says that it is wrong it is wrong it is wrong... wrong to stimulate, provoke, pleasures of the body. So now I feel really bad with myself.
What does the church have against the body anyway??
And it is not only the christians but seems like most religions say the body is bad!!
-Man... the whole problem stems back to the time of Adam and Eve you see. Supposedly, Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden not because they ate from the tree of knowledge but because they preferred themselves over God! Their sin was not that they did not love God but that they loved themselves more and wanted to become gods... thus they ate the fruit. What christianity really condemns is the excessive love for the body since that way one will forget both God and other men.
Unfortunately the reason I just mentioned has been, in most instances, lost... this has led to practices such as denial of sense pleasures and of sexuality, fasting, and mortification of the flesh (inflicting pain on the body in an attempt to weaken or punish it because it is regarded as sinful).
You see what I mean Roballs?
-I see... not even animals treat themselves as bad...
-Actually, Roballs, especially animals don`t treat themselves this way.
-I don`t understand.
-Well, both animals and humans, let`s, momentarily, for the sake of simplicity, make the distinction, share the basic bodily functions. Here I am talking about pleasure, pain, eating, sleeping, sexual drive, birth and death. But, it seems that once humans attained a higher level of consciousness they became afraid that those bodily functions would cause them to fall into an animalistic behaviour.
You understand don`t you?!
-They did not want to think they were animals.
-Exactly Roballs, and so they created the distinction between themselves and their body when, in fact, no distinction need exist.
They saw themselves as having a body, rather than just being it.
Religions then enhanced this disassociation, spreading the "you are not your body" belief.
Enlightenment, even as Buddha achieved it, is through the body and not away from it.
-Wow... that is crazy how something can be so misunderstood!
-Right, but Roballs, one last thing which should also be clear is how our perception of our body has, unfortunately, become very weakened... Martial arts, yogic practices, and even simply meditation, all have in their roots the intention of providing the practitioner a method for him to better know their body. Most people never come in contact with such teachings and for them the body is a crude physical entity which suffers illnesses, aging, and finally death. Most people never really know themselves... their bodies.
-Great! So I can make the straws** without feeling bad about it!! Thanks Dr Plim, now I know what is enlightenment!
Bruskly forcing the swimming cap over his head and placing the goggles on, Roballs, ignoring the lifeguard, dived headfirst into the pool and began the first of 50 laps.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* from the spanish "mermelada de miembrillo" meaning to masturbate.
** from the spanish "hacer las pajas" meaning... to masturbate.
Postscript:
"He who seeks liberation does not see his body as an obstacle, but rather as an instrument. Ascetic practices, even the most severe, are a progressive mastering of the body. The yogi tries to convert the body into the weapon of liberation." -Octavio Paz in "In light of India".
-Plim, a few days ago I went to the cinema with Nicole...
-Nice! Way to go! You finally asked her out.
-Yeah... it was great, she is a really (!) great person...
-Go on, what is wrong?
-Well, it was the first date... and we just talked a lot... hugged... and I managed to caress her hair...
-So?
-Well, I was really turned on the whole time (Plim snikkers) and the movie we watched didn`t really help...
-What movie?
-It was "Sex and Lucia".
-Oh...
-So, man, when I got home, after she dropped me off, I couldn`t like go to bed... so I made some smaller limb marmelade*.
-(silence)
There walk had made them come to the gate, they opened it slightly further and continued on.
Descending some steps led them from the blue carpeted floor to the cold cement.
Roballs was going to continue talking but a beautiful full-breasted blond sorority girl asked him for something... he removed the something from his jeans and showed it to her... knowing Plim she did not ask to see his... they walked on.
-Man, I am catholic and the church says that it is wrong it is wrong it is wrong... wrong to stimulate, provoke, pleasures of the body. So now I feel really bad with myself.
What does the church have against the body anyway??
And it is not only the christians but seems like most religions say the body is bad!!
-Man... the whole problem stems back to the time of Adam and Eve you see. Supposedly, Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden not because they ate from the tree of knowledge but because they preferred themselves over God! Their sin was not that they did not love God but that they loved themselves more and wanted to become gods... thus they ate the fruit. What christianity really condemns is the excessive love for the body since that way one will forget both God and other men.
Unfortunately the reason I just mentioned has been, in most instances, lost... this has led to practices such as denial of sense pleasures and of sexuality, fasting, and mortification of the flesh (inflicting pain on the body in an attempt to weaken or punish it because it is regarded as sinful).
You see what I mean Roballs?
-I see... not even animals treat themselves as bad...
-Actually, Roballs, especially animals don`t treat themselves this way.
-I don`t understand.
-Well, both animals and humans, let`s, momentarily, for the sake of simplicity, make the distinction, share the basic bodily functions. Here I am talking about pleasure, pain, eating, sleeping, sexual drive, birth and death. But, it seems that once humans attained a higher level of consciousness they became afraid that those bodily functions would cause them to fall into an animalistic behaviour.
You understand don`t you?!
-They did not want to think they were animals.
-Exactly Roballs, and so they created the distinction between themselves and their body when, in fact, no distinction need exist.
They saw themselves as having a body, rather than just being it.
Religions then enhanced this disassociation, spreading the "you are not your body" belief.
Enlightenment, even as Buddha achieved it, is through the body and not away from it.
-Wow... that is crazy how something can be so misunderstood!
-Right, but Roballs, one last thing which should also be clear is how our perception of our body has, unfortunately, become very weakened... Martial arts, yogic practices, and even simply meditation, all have in their roots the intention of providing the practitioner a method for him to better know their body. Most people never come in contact with such teachings and for them the body is a crude physical entity which suffers illnesses, aging, and finally death. Most people never really know themselves... their bodies.
-Great! So I can make the straws** without feeling bad about it!! Thanks Dr Plim, now I know what is enlightenment!
Bruskly forcing the swimming cap over his head and placing the goggles on, Roballs, ignoring the lifeguard, dived headfirst into the pool and began the first of 50 laps.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* from the spanish "mermelada de miembrillo" meaning to masturbate.
** from the spanish "hacer las pajas" meaning... to masturbate.
Postscript:
"He who seeks liberation does not see his body as an obstacle, but rather as an instrument. Ascetic practices, even the most severe, are a progressive mastering of the body. The yogi tries to convert the body into the weapon of liberation." -Octavio Paz in "In light of India".
posted by dr. plim @ 5:30 AM
1 Comments:
At 12:18 PM,
Anonymous said…
Dear Dr.Plim,
I am afraid I still do not understand.
If the body is like a car, the soul is the driver, and life is the trip, then:
- we cannot change cars, can we? For better or for worse, driver and car are bound from the beginning till the end of the trip.
- every driver is different: different driving style, skills, ideas for the trip... but they all have in common being a "driver".
- every car is different too: different color, size, model, engine... but it is still a car, right? These differences cannot surely prevent any car from being a "car", don't you think?
- what is then more essential for the trip, the car or the driver? Without car or without driver there is no trip, right?
- for a trip to occur, both driver and car must move, don't they? Without motion there is no experience of what a trip is, right? As a side point, imagine a driver who does not know to drive; the car may be perfectly alright, but it will not move. Now imagine an able driver who is assigned a faulty car that can't move. Can we really talk about a "trip" in any of these cases?.
- as the car starts moving, the driver faces decisions: where to go, how fast, which road to take... Is a driver free to make a choice? The intrinsic differences both among drivers and among cars, surely
must condition what choices are possible. A very cautious, slow driver will likely not choose to drive in the autobahn, while an oversized car with a small engine may not be able to go up very steep roads, don't you think?.
- and then... there is the luggage, right?. Decisions may also depend not only on how much/little luggage a driver has in the car, but also on the type of luggage. If the only luggage a driver has is swimming gear, it is likely that driver may decide to go to the beach instead of going to the snowcapped mountains.
- so, we have drivers that go to the mountains where they feel close to the stars and take in deep breaths the cool breeze, drivers that go to the beach where it is hot and they can make love under the stars, drivers that go in circles, drivers that wreck their cars,
drivers that spend most of the time stopped looking at the map without being able to decide where to go or how to get there, and -yes- drivers that simply take whatever road may be ahead without
worrying about where it may take them, just for the sake of it. But... what is the "best" trip? What makes a trip "good" or "bad"?
or put in a different way:
- what is the point of the trip in any case? Enjoy the ride, right?
Right.
I still have doubts.
Respectfully yours,
notquitethatenlightenedyetbutvery
muchlookingforwardtobeenlightened
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