Hi Paul. Thanks for sharing that thought, and sorry to have taken so long replying.
Of course, practice is ultimately more important that theory. The value of theory, ideally, is to foresee and prevent possible errors, to avoid the uncertainties and confusion that sometimes assail us, and so forth - i.e. generally, to set direction to practice somewhat. As a student of Zen, I remain of course aware of the dangers of excessive theory, i.e. the obstacle this can become for practice. Wisdom is knowing how to balance the two.
Something about you (optional) writer in logic, philosophy, spirituality
Dear Avi: Of course, you are right about theory and practice here. The theoretical work of my youth, to which I referred, argued that any phenomenological analysis of mind is of necessity inadequate for fully unpacking the notion of the self. The line of thought leading to Freud, thought seminally synthesized by Spinoza, tried to relate breaks in the phenomenological coherence of speech and thought, for example, “symptoms” such as slips of the tongue or dreams, back to some deeper self. On the level of practice, this attempt leads to a deeper sense of responsibility for one’s acts, but one coupled with a greater compassion for our struggling with what Freud called “resistances” to insight into the deeper self. But we limited creatures can only struggle for better insight which, from Spinoza’s standpoint, would help us understand how our selves are but tiny facets of it all. If I were an orthodox rather than a Hellenized Jew, maybe I’d not say “it all” but use a blank for the ineffable name of the divine. I do not know Buddhist thought well enough in these regards but find its notion of potentially infinite Buddhas intriguing. Cordially, Paul
Something about you (optional) lawyer, who academically studied philosophy in my youth
