10/23/2017
Prof. Antonio Licciulli
Web utility for students
Home page Lessons Monographs
Saturday, 3 February 2007 Hours: 9.30 pm Y4 Faculty of Engineering
Seminar on the course "The Renaissance Engineer" open to the interested
The engineer, or "the one who is inclined to generate [ideas]"
Epistemology of the cognitive process in the light of Indian culture
Mauricio Yūshin Marassi , teaches Small introduction to the seminar
Buddhism and Religions of the Far East in
the Specialization Degree Course in
Anthropology and Epistemology of
Religions at "Carlo Bo" University in
Urbino
Ordained in the Antaiji Japanese
monastery, he is active within the Star
Morning community, of which he is among
the founders, and . It is "missionary
witness" of Zen Buddhism from the Sōto
School. Married with offspring, lives in
Fano.
Published, edited by Marietti:
- " The Religious Way" (1990), curator,
- "Little Guide to Zen Buddhism" ( 2000),
- "Intelligence turned to the north" (preface
by Enzo Bianchi, 2002)
- "And if a god did not come to save us? "
(Preface by Professor Luigi Alfieri, 2003),
- " The Highway " (2005),
- " Mahāyana Buddhism through times,
places, and cultures. India and Tale of
Tibet "(2006).
Edited by Macroedizioni:
- " Milarepa " (preface by L. Cavani and
E.Masetti, 2003), combined with the video
cassette of Liliana Cavani's homonymous
film.
Edited by EDB:
- " The Gospel according to Matthew and
the Zen. Second Volume , "p. Luciano
Mazzocchi. (2006).
http://www.antonio.licciulli.unisalento.it/ingegnere_rinascimentale.htm
A tribute to Leonardo
Inglese
Research photos Download exams links FAQ
ABSTRACT
The roots of thought: diversity out of content. India, timeless planet where
history and history count less than the myth. Security of historical truth,
weakness of the soul. Medium way: when the medium is at the extremes. The
invention of zero and the value of vacuum: 2000 years of advantage over the
West. From science as a religion to science as a method: a possible encounter.
Understand grasping. Understand Share. Strength of power and use of force.
The ability to "not grasp" and the power of reality.
The Seminar, organized under the Renaissance Engineering Course, is open to
all interested parties. Please Teachers to Report This Seminar to Students.
The course within which we are dedicated to the formation of the Renaissance Engineer intends to
incorporate into the monolithic scientific and technical formation of engineers, elements of enrichment
from disciplines and cultures of different inspiration.
The current system of academic engineering education tends to separate scientific disciplines from
humanistic disciplines ignoring the latter and the close relationships and contamination. To this problem is
added, in our western sphere. the lack of knowledge of other thought quality, ie, alien in the way of
thinking or of using that thought otherwise conceived. I interact with the engineers daily having married
one.
I also had the pleasure of attending a number of engineers and it is from one of these frequentations that
I draw an illuminating example. We were in Romagna, in a restored farmhouse, the heating engineer was
one of the luminaries of the matter in that geographical area: a famous and expensive plant engineer.
It was summer and we were gathered in the great kitchen of that house, we talked and the engineer
smoked the pipe, with a foot leaning against the brick floor surrounding a huge fireplace. Suddenly, in the
talk of the power of the boiler, I dared to intervene, recalling that obviously the calculation of the firepower
had to be understood that the radiator water with a special device was partly heated by the fire of the
chimney. The engineer looked at me with anxious air and said, "Fireplace? Which fireplace? Nobody has
talked to me about a chimney ... "Now the thing in itself seemed to me exhilarating since the sentence
was pronounced just as we touched, literally with hand, the object of which the ignorance of existence
was asserted. So, back home, I told the fact that an absurdity of its obviousness was beyond doubt.
My wonder, however, reached the maximum when my wife withered in air reproached me for my
treacherous tone assuming the defense of the engineer who, said, being there for work and not for
tourism just did not lose sight of the forms of the house but it was based on what was represented by the
drawings that had been delivered to him. The "drawings" on which the engineer was based are the
brilliant example of a reality symbolized by a cultural context. Not only can the fireplace be radically
different, but the reality can be modeled on different paradigms in the presence of an "other" thought.
Thus, homogeneous disciplinary frameworks can generate representations of reality that can replace
reality or offer points of view or alternative interpretations that can be aligned with us as different options
but belonging to a more general scope, as may be the Western sphere. They can be beside these
different representations, diversity resides so upstream of the cognitive process that the same things we
see with our eyes and therefore, like that famous chimney, have apparently univocal characteristics (a
fireplace is a chimney, regardless of shape and from 'use if done) are, on the other hand, considered,
viewed, lived in a substantially different way. The first lesson has the goal of introducing Indian culture as
it has developed from the earliest times (see Upanishad, Jainism, Buddhism) as an example of other
thought. This lesson will follow another two lessons with the task of introducing together with another
thought two distinct levels of "conscience" that can be represented and simplified as cognitive processes
of the Chinese and Japanese type.
1/8
10/23/2017 A tribute to Leonardo
He writes in magazines:
- The Star of the Morning (Piacenza),
- Interdependence (Turin),
- Dharma (Roma),
- Convergence (Gallarate).
- Dharma Eye (San Francisco CA)

University of Lecce Part II:

College of Engineering The generation of meaning in an empty environment
Course in I) Understanding, Understanding, or Knowing? The life of the
Renaissance Engineering geese
Let's see now how it is possible to access an understanding that
Seminar Seminar: you do not use, do not use discursive thought. That is, we move to a more
sophisticated level, in the second part of the seminar, the one that deals
The engineer, or "the one who is inclined to generate with the identity function to assume which you are here: it is assumed you
are here so that one day you can play the role of an engineer. In other
[ideas]" words, you are providing the tools that, in the near future, you hope to be
able to take on that identity role for which part of the day you will be called
Part I: an "engineer".
And engineer etymologically means "the one who is inclined to
Epistemology of the cognitive process in the light of Indian and Far East
generate [ideas, knowledge, meaning]".
So, so that you can cover that role with full legitimacy, we will now
I) Presentation deal with how it is possible to generate meaning from that "me" that does
In the theme to incorporate enrichment elements from disciplines not work in relation to discursive thought, to the thought that always relies
and cultures of different inspiration into engineers' training, a very on content.
important part must be left to the set of knowledge that we have for Remaining in the matter of geese, there is a famous question in
centuries called the generic name of "humanism." the environments of the Zen Rinzai, one of the Japanese schools
However, not only is this not the only possibility of hybridization descended from the Chinese Chan.
and rebirth of scientific technical thinking, but there are even cultural "There is a goose in a bottle; we are sorry for the poor. Aaah here
territories perhaps even better suited to generating the mental opening that is now out.
is the goal of the course.
How is it possible?"
I refer to cultures that rely on other thinking qualities, ie alien in
Of course, the answers that come naturally to us come from the
thinking and thinking, and then to use that otherwise conceived thought.
kind of thought that we are accustomed to using: "A goose in a bottle? But
Alien than any conceptual facility, be it of a scientific or human nature.
we do not say nonsense - where nonsense is, of course, all those things
Before you begin, however, I think it might be useful to know some that we can not "settle" with normal, related, logical, rational thought.
of my person's concerns to evaluate the degree of reliability more
Or: "These are lazy issues, devoid of any importance, pastimes for
effectively. In my field, what I would call "training camp", reliability is the
fading. Go to work, rather! "
only coin that has legal tender.
If you are content with this kind of thought, if there is no "chimney"
My name is Mauricio Yūshin Marassi and in my name is a lot of
for you (remember the "chimney" that did not exist because it was not in
my story. Mauricio (with C) because I was born in Argentina, Marassi
the designs?) Unless it can be represented with the symbolic designs of
because my paternal family is of Ligurian origin, and Yūshin, a Japanese
thought, it means that you see that the world is bigger than what you can
name, because after being educated in a Catholic family, in a Catholic
think of.
country like Italy, At some point in my life I chose to educate and train from
a Buddhist environment. Initially I traveled to the East, then I went to Japan The didactic answer, or packaged in such a way as to give an
where I studied the language and customs of that people and settled in a example as clear as possible, to the question "how is it possible?" About
monastery, a hermitage of the zen school, where I was ordained and the drop from the bottle is: "It is gone".
formed until I returned to Italy in charge of making it known to all ' Savor a moment this "is out".
I gain from living by teaching at the university and with the books I The part of dissatisfaction that arises in us to hear this answer
write, which I then use in part as textbooks in my classes. I'm married, I comes from that part of us accustomed to representing everything in our
have a daughter. head, that part satisfied only in building an imaginary world where
So I am a Japanese Argentinean Italian, a Buddhist-Zen Christian, accounts always return.
a priest-or how to say "monk zen" - missionary, university professor, father The contented part of us, instead, has to do with what we now call
and husband. "spirit." Our quiet assortment of a goose that was first imagined in a bottle
But I'm really nothing of that. and then we are represented outside is only possible from an area of
ourselves without particular labels: absolute freedom in his life.
Let's do a try again.
I very much accepted this assignment for two reasons. The first
one, of a personal nature, stems from the fact that having married an This time there are no geese, but a bull, a big black bull, with
engineer knows the problem in a minute. Not only in scanning a shared pointed horns, flapping muscles. This bull suddenly has a scrap, turns,
daily life, but also from a wider, circular point of view. I have also had the runs at full speed and jumps out of the window. The head comes out, the
pleasure of attending a number of engineers and it is from one of these shoulders, the torso, the rump, the back quarters, but the tail no. The
frequentations that I take a bright example, which I immediately propose. queue does not exit. Because?
We were in Romagna, in a restored farmhouse, and the heating Again in this case there is a didactic response, which illustrates
engineer was one of the luminaries of matter in that geographic area: a how to answer the question. But beware, the didactic response is not the
famous and expensive plant engineer. It was summer and we were "answer", it is an indication of how it could be answered. If we think that
gathered in the great kitchen of that house; We talked and the engineer the answer is the answer, and we do not try, on the other hand, with the
smoked the pipe, with a foot resting on the brick floor surrounding a huge indication that we are going to give our answer, then we are content with
fireplace. Suddenly, in the talk of the power of the boiler, I dared to the content of thought. That is, a thought full of the "didactic response".
intervene, recalling that obviously the calculation of the firepower had to be Then let's see it, and be careful to consider it just an example. We
understood that the water of the radiators, with a special device, was partly said: All the bull can get out of the scene but the tail does not. That does
heated by the fire of the chimney. not make it out. Because?
The engineer looked at me with anxious air and said, "Fireplace? Because we're holding her, just let her go and ... there's no bull.
Which fireplace? Nobody told me about a fireplace ... " Now, in itself, it Simple, right? Well, if you think it's simple, this is mostly due to the
seemed to me to be hilarious as the phrase was pronounced just as we liberating effect of my answer. However, if you really perceive the real
literally touched on the object of supposing the ignorance of existence. So, simplicity of the thing, try to give another answer, new, original, born of a
back home, I told the fact that an absurdity of its obviousness was beyond

http://www.antonio.licciulli.unisalento.it/ingegnere_rinascimentale.htm 2/8
10/23/2017 A tribute to Leonardo
doubt. My wonder, however, reached the maximum when my wife, in turn,
was amazed at my derision, taking on the engineer's defense, who said,
being there for work and not for tourism,
The other reason that I have accepted to engage in experimental
teaching activity -that I consider to be a real challenge-to integrate
elasticizing elements into the structure of new engineers is the result of
having become familiar with more than thirty- years of practice and study,
with a generally unhelpful reality.
This experience leads me to see clearly that those "drawings" on
which the above-mentioned engineer was based and which are the brilliant
example of a symbolized reality in a cultural context are not only not the
only tool to understand the reality, but can also be read, evaluated in
radically different ways in the presence of an "other" thought.
E quando dico “radicalmente” diversi non mi riferisco a differenti
punti di vista, ovvero interpretazioni che comunque si sono formate
all’interno di una cultura che le accomuna e che sono perciò allineabili
davanti a noi, come opzioni diverse ma note in quanto appartenenti allo
stesso ambito. Questo potrebbe essere il caso in cui, per esempio, un
certo disegno, grafico, verbale o concettuale che sia, è inteso
alternativamente come la rappresentazione simbolica di un pallone da
calcio, di una boccia da bigliardo, di una goccia d’acqua, del sole oscurato
dall’ombra della terra, ovvero possibilità già in nostro possesso, nel nostro
archivio mentale, e maneggiabili con il pensiero che noi siamo abituati ad
utilizzare.
Another example might be that we are used to thinking that a
fireplace is a fireplace, no matter what form and use it is. But a family of
mice that would make the nest in the summer would have that thing we
call "fireplace" a very different reading from ours, which implies the use of
that place for the ignition of a fire. If the mice thought this was the place for
fire, they would not build the house. And all this, including the mice's point
of view, we can speculate, think of it while continuing to use our usual
thought.
Instead, I refer to two types of diversity. First and foremost to what
concerns the quality of thought. Secondly, diversity resides so upstream of
the cognitive process that the same things we see with the eyes and which
have apparently unique characteristics are, on the other hand, considered,
seen, lived in a substantially different way.
It is not the same to perceive the ephemeral reality of any
phenomenon we ourselves understood, or to consider ourselves as solid
entities endowed with substance and life.
The first case, what I have defined regarding a different quality of
thought is found in the depth study of Indian culture from the sixth century
BC. C. The second case, the one in which together with thought is
involved what we will now temporarily define "conscience", has two levels
of variability. The first, say, Chinese "matrix", is the type of cognitive
approach or "conscience" that needs to be developed to adequately
address, for example, the question: "Where will the duck be in a minute?"
The second level of variability or cognitive process deviation compared to
common western standards, - and here we will be a little roughly defined
as a Japanese matrix - is the one on which we have to rely on to hear and
appreciate statements such as: "An ancient Buddha said," Mountains are
mountains, water is water. " These words do not mean the mountains are
mountains; want to say mountains are mountains »[1] .
I'm not kidding you. We are talking about real human faculties, not
illusionistic tricks or improbable fantasies of adepts of mysterious
esotericism. However, in order to be able to develop these faculties or at
least understand the actual reality, that is, the real existence of our vital
possibilities, we must make a path.
II) The background is not the design but without background there
is no design
The first stage of this journey is an incursion into religious culture
developed in India. And so that this incursion can be fully visible or can be
represented in symbolic terms read by a human brain, we provide a
support, the paper on which our words, by tracing, are legible along with
the meanings they convey. An outline drawn in the air is a gesture that
leaves no legible traces.
This will be, you will see, the most strange operation. In a few
moments you may feel a bit uncomfortable. And if this happens, it is
because having to form a substrate, a support on which to project my
words to make sense to you, for the sake of things this support will be
projected into the void and until, so to speak, you will not fix it the corners
at the sides of your head will be a little fluctuating, unstable within you.
This instability sometimes creates little discomfort. Then you get used to it.
So do not worry if you do not understand where I'm going to go for a few
minutes, I'm just stretching the playing field.
http://www.antonio.licciulli.unisalento.it/ingegnere_rinascimentale.htm
spiritual attitude similar to that in which the so-called "educational solution"
invites you to bring.
Here I want to mention a theme that is apparently divergent from
the subject we are dealing with. By character I'm not at all incline to
dramatic or seriousness, I can not stand for example the sentimentality so
dear to so many colleagues in other religions.
Naturally, they are brought to humor and irony, so by hearing the
kind of answers that were sometimes put forward in the face of certain
illogical questions of the so-called "zen area" I ended up understanding a
peculiar mechanism. Which is perhaps the basis of the attraction I
perceived right away, humorously, when I met the zen for the first time.
I told you earlier about the need for an ethical life that is based on
a profound and continuous discernment so that the enjoyment of the
Buddhist path can be realized. Thanks to Heaven, however, there is
another aspect that makes everything more interesting, cheerful. In
addition to the necessary strict attention to the lack of egoism and misery
in our actions, in Buddhism, but also in this case I might say in religion tout
court, it is necessary a kind of lightness identical to the sense of humor.
If you consider the way we stand our mind when we say
something "joking" and so when we understand that you are talking
"jokingly", you see that it's a way of listening to what does not believe what
is being said but it refers to a way beyond words. A sense that when it is
understood it generates cheerfulness, contentment precisely because it
suddenly springs from behind the literal sense. It is surprising and this is
because it comes from the notion that is already in our head but from an
area of the soul that communicates through the intuition, the flash of
genius, which uses the absurd to joke on the truth.
However, this mode, albeit generally appreciated desirable
because of its ability to communicate the most complex and serious things
in a shiny flash light, is not easy at all, and the main reason is that we have
the rooted habit of using a language related to discursive thought, the
already beautiful one full of various merchandise.
That is why a particular type of language was invented, called
"intentional language", "oblique language" or "allusive language".
II) Above all do not believe what you hear
The reason for this invention is quite simple: once it is verified that
there is an important, even fundamental, reality that lies outside the reach
of words and discursive thought or related thought, the need for a
language that can still communicate reality, its characteristics and its
peculiarities without turning it into content of thought or, worse, in empty
words.
Again: I assure you I'm not talking about fable about maniacs of
exhortation pushed. I'm talking about serious stuff. To make you
understand how serious I am currently doing two examples. You know the
phrase: "From the fig tree, then learn the parable: when its branch
becomes tender and the leaves come out, you know that summer is near"
[6] ? This phrase, I did not find it in an agronomic treatise, or in a manual
of divination. You know all that is a verse of the gospel of Matthew.
Or, carefully consider what you mean by the phrase "I love you". I
suppose, or I hope, that each of you prefer not to go to investigate, or
prefer not to give a logical, rational content to these two words. Imagine
how embarrassing (and in a way disastrous) after saying "I love you", in
front of your girlfriend's raging (or triumphant, in some cases) eyes, add:
"That is, I mean that the my emotional and hormonal reactions when I see
you and I think you are so messy and tumultuous so ... etc. etc.". Many of
the things we say are already "intentional language".
But this is another level of speech [7] and we leave it to an in-
depth look at when and if one day we will seriously discuss Indian school
Buddhism, its rooting in Chinese culture, and the Confucian discovery of
language performance performances.
For now, we only consider that when we say, "I'm hungry to eat an
ox," at least we're using a hyperbole. We do not speak the same way
when we say, "Do not cross the road because a truck is coming at a high
speed." Certain statements should be taken seriously in the literal sense.
Other no.
Sometimes it is our behavior that becomes language. And here
too, for convenience, we leave aside the case when we consider that all
our actions are a language.
A classic case is when we give someone a scared appetite. It is a
classic case, because in that moment if we exaggerate a little with energy
it is easy to be misunderstood, that our actions are interpreted in the letter
and the object of our attitudes is offensive or even responsive. It's a case
like the one in which, having said, "I'm hungry to eat an ox," a loud waiter
rushes to serve a five-quintal calf on the table.
3/8
10/23/2017 A tribute to Leonardo
Usually when we say "religion," we almost automatically think of a
system whose vertex is a god, with a structure that works in relation to the
will of this god. A will interpreted and diffused by a self-referring clerical
caste [2] , which is - usually exclusive - authorized to elaborate a doctrine
based on the wills and teachings that the god in various ways pass, or
have passed, to the structure itself .
Buddhism, and with it the great Eastern religions, has nothing to
do with anything. Therefore, the common definition of religion is unsuitable
to contain a religion such as those and in particular a religion like the
Buddhist one.
To try to define in the widest sense what we mean by religion in a
context that can understand, contain also Buddhism, we read two songs.
The first we draw from a story by Čechov: "Life is a trap. When an
intelligent man reaches maturity and self-consciousness, he senses
involuntarily trapped, without a way out: he understands that he has been
called against his will, by fortuitous circumstances, by not being at being ...
Why? He wants to know the meaning and the end of his life, no one gives
him a reply or they say stupid things; knocks and nobody opens; then
death comes, also against his will " [3] .
The second quotation comes from a Kant script and expresses the
philosopher's personal meaning to life: "Any healthy man of intellect, who
has lived long enough and has meditated on the value of human
existence, would perhaps consider joining again the miserable game of
life, do not I say in the same conditions, but in any condition? "
Now, referring to these bases, we try to redefine "religion." We call
religion the process that begins with the perception of the indispensable
limit of the human being, a limit that if perceived causes us to overcome
and invites (or pushes) to connect with the "beyond." The collocation of
this "beyond" - which we call "exit" - how it is and how it is called (God,
Absolute, Universal Life, Empty, Nothing) or that you do not call it at all is
one of the elements that distinguish religions.
The other distinctive aspect, what we will call "the input element",
is the kind of reading that every religious culture gives to "push" to the
beyond. It may be the quest for Justice that is not of this world, truth,
freedom from sin, salvation tout court or liberation from suffering.
The Buddhist religion reads this push as discomfort (dukkha in
Sanskrit) and universalizes it, or argues that this discomfort is perceivable
patrimony of every man, so every man has within himself the spring that is
capable of leading him to overcoming the limit. The focus of discomfort,
often called "suffering," is the characteristic figure of Buddhism. Hence a
sufficiently accurate definition of "Buddhism" is the way to overcome the
discomfort inherent in human existence.
Now, if you have carefully followed up to this point, you are ready
for the next step. Starting from these elements we see what the vehicle is
proposed by the Buddha to walk the way of liberation from discomfort and
suffering.
The central element of Buddhism, since its founding [4] - is then
maintained in the "universalist" turnaround of the mahāyāna and in its
Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan developments - is what is commonly
referred to as "middle of the way."
I recall that we are in an Indian context, and the oldest statement
of the middle path dates back to the historical Buddha, in the sixth century
BC. In this age "the middle path" is expressed by a "neither nor": the
indication given by the Buddha is that if we are to go the way of liberation
from suffering, we must not follow the path of desire and pleasure or that
of the mortification, penance and renunciation.
Attention: there is no talking about moderation, no wise balancing
between debauchery and ascension, between carefree and self-reliant
bare. It is said, neither one nor the other. Do you begin to notice the
paralysis in which such an indication closes us?
If we, by our motives, are of a common type and of a religious
nature, we remove those that are sustained by the pursuit of pleasure, by
the desire of one thing or another, and then we also remove those arising
from a renunciation or from a act of contrition, what is left? What kind of
will remain usable?
To make the next step, that is, to represent an inner life that is
neither based on desire nor aversion, what I have defined a different
quality of thought is necessary. We need to start using thought without
thinking, or looking at things from the "middle position".
III) Is a thought-free content still a thought?
Let's take a leap forward over time and look at the same "thing"
according to the directions of a sutra about six to seven hundred years
after the Buddha's era: the diamond sutra. In which we find the phrase: "...
to produce an unsupported thought, that is, a thought that is nowhere to be
sustained, a thought not supported by sight, by sounds, odors, taste,
objects of touch, or objects of mind ».
http://www.antonio.licciulli.unisalento.it/ingegnere_rinascimentale.htm
Intentional language is such as it is allusive. In practice, you do
not have to believe what you heard but look for the way elsewhere,
somewhere else, where you only have access to that kind of content-free
thought. If it is a religious, spiritual discourse, that other is within us.
This is where we need to get in touch with our spirit. And to get in
touch with our spirit we need to learn to keep silent within us. Without
realizing inner silence, you can not hear the voice of the spirit, because it
is not made of words or concepts.
III) What only silence can be said
Here we go into the final part of our speech. In a sense we have
already finished because what can be said about spiritual language is not
a conceptual content that I can deliver through words, or those sounds that
timpani reproduce near your brain that, magically, converts them into
thoughts , the same thoughts, it is supposed, that - from my head - have
produced the words I'm saying. This is the common case where it is said "I
understand" or "I do not understand" because the brain has formed
meaningful thoughts or not.
Now we are in the opposite case. Speaking of "spiritual things,"
you do not have to think that you have understood, that you are capable of
having an image or concept in your head, and that this is the meaning of
"speech".
In practice, understanding is possible only in the absence of
content and content is constituted, as in the case of a common
experience, by sharing.
But let's go for order. Let's imagine that here is a glaring fact here,
I do not know, for example, that the physics professor of the ceramic
materials taken by raptus suddenly interrupts me, and all focused on the
desire to materially explain that walking in the human being it's actually a
steady fall ahead controlled, taken from the glide of the slides and does
not control a nice thing going ruinously to greet the floor with its own nose.
With the utmost respect, of course: we are just imagining and we do not
hope for anything like that.
Then, the fact has already happened, the professor has been
solicitously helped to get up and went out of the stage. Here we are, after
experiencing this experience together.
Now, if any of us, or those who were here shortly when the
inconsistent fact of the physicist with the nose on the ground happened, in
a month or a half of you will want to warn someone from the
overwhelmingly busy scene in a it is a little unsuitable time and will say
that those who come forward with too much teeth may end up with their
nose on the floor, if any of us will know what it is about because we have a
common experience. Here is the way I used the term "sharing" of an
experience.
In things of the spirit, the matter is simpler and more complicated
than that. The simplest thing is why to have something in common does
not need to be together and share a world event. More complicated
because what we all have in common for most people is unknown and
even where there is gloom, learning to know in depth and breadth that
boundless sea without end requires an application that is the purpose of a
life.
So when intentional language is used in the things of the spirit
there are two levels of approach: the first corresponds to what has been
termed "there is no illusion" in the history of wormwood. That is to avoid
creating conceptual constructions in our head because they would be all
wrong.
The second level, accessible only if the first is respected,
concerns the very meaning of the discourse, ie understanding what is
being spoken requires an experience of the reality of one's spirit that
allows to share with whom the experience is spoken to he is alluding.
Let us then consider the phrase of the 13th-century Japanese
monk that I mentioned at the beginning: "An ancient Buddha said,"
Mountains are mountains, water is water. " These words do not mean the
mountains are mountains; they want to say the mountains are mountains.
"
The first thing to do is not to do: you do not have to try to
understand, that is to grasp the meaning with concepts and ideas. Anyway
we would find ourselves in error, so: there is no illusion.
A first approach, according to the method of the didactic response
that we have been working on problems with geese and bulls, might be:
"Do you agree with the mountains, but water is water or is not it?" This
could be a great example of how to take it without mental constructs: in
this way it would satisfy what we have defined the first level. This kind of
attitude prevents us from falling into the mistake but still does not tell us
what that phrase means.
The Japanese are a little complicated. In some ways, I'm more of
a Chinese.
4/8
10/23/2017 A tribute to Leonardo
Here we are talking about a thought that has nothing to do with it.
At first I told you that I do not intend to think of anything impossible
or unclear in the cloud. I mean something in the reach of everyone. Try to
move a finger. As you can easily test, you do not need any kind of thinking
content to do this simple operation. You see, we already know how to live
in a condition substantially identical to the middle position, but we do not
usually realize that. It is not a mysterious faculty, but it is something that
we already know well. For example, when we listen to music, if we come
into play with discursive thought, the thought of having content, even if
those thoughts are about the music that is playing at that moment, they will
stop us from listening to music. To listen to music, it is necessary to make
a silence, that is, to place itself in a qualitatively different area of thought
that is full of content.
This is not the only possible example; among the many just think about
how to be together that is called love: if on that occasion we calculate or
conjecture, or even think that we have left the car in a park forbidden, it is
no longer love, becomes a gymnastics, sporting activity.
The same can be said of dancing, or of enjoying it, or attending a
ballet. As well as many other human activities, such as enjoying a meal or
sleeping: if I continue to think that the loan installment is over and I do not
know how to do it, sleep is impossible; instead I fall asleep as I leave my
mind on my thoughts.
From this comes a particular reflection: am I my thinking or the
one who thinks it?
In the first case I'm burned with anger and I die of sadness. In the
second they are also when I do not think. And when I think I can see the
thought of rising up and dying inside me.
Seeing thought from non-thought transforms that thought to the
point of making it "another thing." In other words: the thinking that looks
from the vacuum changes the quality of thought.
For the simple reason that turns what we usually consider "I",
"identity", "my personal way of thinking" in a mere emergency, a passing
cloud within our minds. O conscience.
If I do not identify myself with my thinking, that is, if I change my
home location where I usually put my identity, there are several interesting
things going on.
The most macroscopic is exactly what concerns my personal
identity. If I see that all that goes through my head, including emotions,
belongs to a temporary and causal process, that is, determined by the
circumstances, the temporary identities in which I am accommodated at
times and which I use to define myself in a self-reassuring way without any
uncertainty, appear for what they are: temporary masks without any real
substance.
In more explicit terms, you are currently a student, and I am a
professor, at a later time you will be children, parents, friends, or
boyfriends depending on the relationships you have established and
settled.
In a few hours, perhaps, you will have another metamorphosis: I
will become a student and you teachers ... These are temporary identities,
which also change within them: I am not always the same when I do the
part of the professor ...
But within ourselves we feel that this is not enough to define us,
even if we can not say clearly, our perception of ourselves leads us to
suppose, or to hope, to be really, that is to say that it is not just random,
accidental, of changeable assemblies, or of ephemeral realities that
disappear with the disappearance of relationships.
Here, the drawing of the background is more or less finished.
Perhaps we'll have to give a few more upgrades, but for now we can start
playing because we have outlined a game ground.
IV) The bottomless bottom and the ethical way
Is there a way to assert ourselves regardless of relationships?
In Buddhism we speak of "fundamental identity" or "Buddhist
matrix" or "authentic nature", that is, an identity independent of any kind of
relationship: independent of time by space and men. That is why "halfway"
or "middle position" that you want is no longer an empty expression but it
starts to make itself interesting.
First I made a statement that maybe you did not have time to fully
evaluate, I said: the thinking that looks from the vacuum changes the
quality of thought. If we are not one of the temporary identities we assume
from time to time on the basis of relationships, who are we?
Usually the answer to this question is that we are all of these
things. As if we were a kind of Giano with a thousand faces. If you think of
a moment using the "quality of thought" that we are used to, that is logical
thinking, you will see that this is impossible.
http://www.antonio.licciulli.unisalento.it/ingegnere_rinascimentale.htm
In this case you are really talking about mountains but in a
metonymical sense, the mountains are for "all reality", and especially for
that "me" that I find to be when I'm no longer this or that, when I'm out of
all roles.
If I ask, "Who am I?" And begin to arrogate on my origins, or what
is now used to define "my roots", the sense of humankind, the value of life,
and so on. etc. I will always turn around and never come to my head. Then
it will take someone who puts me on the floor and tells me: "A man is but a
man, any man knows." This is the sense of the first part of the phrase:
"mountains are mountains, water is water".
But if I take that as an excuse or reason to close my search
because "any man knows it" and so I know it too, and then there's no need
to look beyond because: "What are the mountains? Are you crazy? You
see them, there they are. What is going to happen to you? "Then there is a
need for someone to remember me:" Looks like "a man is but a man" is
not a sufficient consideration, it looks at what it means to be a man in
depth. " That is: "Yes they are mountains, but what does it mean to be a
mountain, what is life, the essence of a mountain? Where did the
mountains and all the rest come from? "
Then, finally, the way of the spirit began, after I began to realize
the infinite size of the problem, I can agree that "man is but a man". Even
though I do not know who I am or what the mountains are, at least I realize
the mystery in which we are immersed.
IV) Epilogue
In order not to risk excessive theorization from reality, we see what
kind of connection we have with our lives what we have said so far.
What is more connected to life, to the point that there would be no
life if there was not, is death. Even though, in the case of death, its
indissoluble bond with life is carried out solely in alternation, such as night
and day, light and darkness: when there is one there is not the other
Death is the only thing certain of our world but, nevertheless, it is
completely sheltered from any incursion of "normal" thought. For this very
reason, because it is a certain reality and therefore important to each of us
and at the same time because we can not examine it with the discursive
thought in front of which it is invisible, let's see if we can look at it from the
view we outlined up to now. Let's try to look at what we commonly call
"death" using the new faculty we have adorned in these conversations.
We gave, at the beginning, a general definition of religion, which
we have said to be the process that begins with the perception of the
indispensable limit of the human being, a limit that if perceived calls us to
overtake and invites to connect with the "beyond." Then we have said that
the placement of Buddhism within this process is the one that has the
cause of discomfort as the cause of entry and the way out or direction of
liberation from discomfort or suffering.
Now, the iconographic, standard-type suffering so to speak, that
Buddhism says universal and overcome when accessing its instruments, is
six: birth, illness, old age, death, pain of losing inevitably what we love by
breaking the separation, the pain or the uneasiness of having to share our
life with our inescapable love with what we do not love, or with what
disgusts us. These are the sufferings that we all have to suffer during our
earthly life.
As you can see, death is listed among them. Therefore, in the
religious process we improperly call "Buddhism," there must be a way to
overcome the so-called "death". Otherwise, the Buddha and all those who
offered their testimony in his support would be swindlers.
By the way, I said before "Buddhism" is an improper term. Indeed,
"Buddhism" is the Italian translation of the term "Buddhism" coined by the
English when they conquered India. In China, Japan, India etc. that term
exists only as a modern translation of the Western term, which in turn has
less than two centuries of life. In those places, no buddhist has ever been
called Buddhist; it is only among the Westerners that a kind of people
appeared who did not know that to be really Buddhists you can not even
define such are obstinate to self-definition Buddhists ...
We said that the problem of death is primary among the
Buddhists. So let's see what the proposals are about. First in Buddhism
(apart from Tibetan and for ethnic reasons that have nothing to do with
Buddhism) there is no culture of fear of death. Buddhist infernal is little
more than a popular fairy tale, it has no theological doctrinal foundation,
and no longer postulates the existence of a judgment by a god to which
the morality is subjected, so that death is not represented in terrorist
terms. Buddhism also teaches not to be illusions and the fear of anything-
even death-is a consequence of illusion,
In the present state, or now that we only know life, we can not
imagine that there are no misunderstood situations because such
fantasies may only exist by imagining ourselves living, living and not dead,
so any thought about death can only be illusory. That's why sometimes we
5/8
10/23/2017 A tribute to Leonardo
In fact as the circumstances or relationships that determine our
identities - I am a father with my daughter and so on. etc. This means that
we are really all these things when we realize those specific
circumstances. Never realize all of them together; and fortunately
otherwise we would really risk a crisis of identity. Or we would risk a
behavioral block because we act according to our role: we kiss our wife,
not the first one who passes ...
If some of you have been married for some time, think for example
of the swinging roles that occur when you are invited to lunch by your in-
laws: it may happen that your wife for a long time stops being your wife
and returns to be a daughter, ally of your mother-in-law, perhaps just as
you thought you needed an ally ...
So the fact that we are all a bit together is a pity that we agree not
to really face the question: who am I? A question that can be answered
only by using that other type of thought, the one that has the basis of the
vacuum.
We can only answer from "no role", ie where there is no one, so
the answer we give will not be made of words and concepts or "drawings"
because there is no "fireplace", a object to be represented. Or rather: the
"fireplace" is there, because we are right here right now, but what we really
are is not the type that can be represented by the concepts, or the designs
of the mind.
In fact, although we have no words and concepts to say it, when
we are nobody, we know who we are. We know just how we know how to
move a finger, we have no words to say but we know how to do it: do any
of you know how to know what knowledge, knowledge or "drawing" applies
when moving a finger? It is knowledge that is not a knowledge of thought.
But why is this important?
It is important for many reasons, including two gigantic ones: first
of all because if we do not know how to deal with the question "who am I?"
The difference between us and a large primate is tapering a lot, lies only at
the skill level , and not always that difference distinguishes us in a way that
rewards our species.
Marco Vannini, one of the few contemporary Italian authors to
write seriously of Christian mysticism, comes to say that this "is the only
true operation that compete with man" [5] or, he says, is precisely here that
man executes its true function.
Secondly, however, because the process of integrating identity
with the absolute is still to be understood, which is another way to say that
the limit of the human being has been exceeded to connect to the
"beyond", we still have to pass through the needle , for the narrow door:
being able to be, while being none.
In any parish we will turn to the fundamental prerequisite will
always be the complete demolition. I said "parish" but I refer to every
initiatic, religious or lay, Christian, neoplatonic, Socratic, Buddhist, Islamic,
Confucian, or "Hinduist" way (which is the overall name of a whole bunch
of religions).
In other words, it is a good idea to understand the difference
between relative identity and absolute sense, religious meaning, or
fundamental sense of identity and make a precise choice: whether to
identify with the characteristics of a certain drop of water among the many,
or with drop water.
This identification process that we have also called "integrating
identity with the absolute" is not free, indeed it is extremely expensive. We
have already mentioned the underlying reason, that is, without analytical
evaluations: it is a process of dissipation, then loss, and therefore
renunciation.
However, you attract your attention to one of the aspects of
renunciation: the ethical one. If we consider mechanically a process of
integration or identification it is clear that this result will only be achieved
when and if between the two elements we want to coincide do not shrink
diaphragms, obstacles.
Here, with all its strength, the sense of "evil and good" appears in
Buddhism. I think I can say "according to religion," but not to have to
discuss attributions and definitions, I will only mention Buddhism.
In Dhammapada, one of the oldest sutras, it is said: "You must be
quick in good, evil has to portray your mind! In fact, if a man does good
late, his mind delights in evil "(Dhammapada, 116).
However it is well known that in Buddhism the sense of evil and
good is relative, linked to the circumstances: what is good today can be
bad tomorrow and vice versa.
What is then evil? How can we recognize it? Evil, in Buddhism, is
all that separates us, which is between us and the infinite. Therefore,
selfishness, greed, attachment, all those instincts that tend to reduce the
area of my "me", which prevent us from making sure that "me" has no
boundaries. It is then understood that the process of complete liberation or
liberation of human nature from its limit so that it has a real chance to
http://www.antonio.licciulli.unisalento.it/ingegnere_rinascimentale.htm
are afraid. We are not afraid of death, of which we know nothing but of our
fantasies about it.
Moreover, and this is controversial, in Buddhist cultures, the
emphasis is on the fact that death and life are so intimately tied to the
point that without one there is the other, but are also incompatible. So
when there is death I will not be there, so in my absence there is no
importance for me, what can happen. At the moment when I am there is
no death, when there is death there will not be me anymore for which the
problem does not arise.
So far according to common logic and thought.
Let us now take that step to which we have prepared ourselves.
Considering our death, let us ask what may die. First of all the body, this is
obvious to everyone. Then all my thoughts can die, the things I love to
bump into my head from morning till night. And then they can die all our
temporary identities. Already some have died, that of a baby boy, for
example, of a child and an adolescent, as far as I am concerned, I died as
a child since my parents are gone, one day the professor dies ...
But before we discovered an identity that has nothing to do with
these things. We define a thopos, in which there is no life-giving life-style
among those listed and we could still list.
Now let us return for a moment to the use of common logic: if it is
true that death exists only in relationship, in the presence of life, when
there are no manifestations that we call "life", then disappears also death.
If we no longer identify ourselves in temporal lives or identities and place
ourselves steadily in that part of us that has no name and age, then the
sting of death has nothing to strike.
More precisely, though seemingly more silly, we can say that the
disappearance of the world in the world overlaps the world with nirvana.
V) The last step becomes the first
Up to here the words. But somebody, rightly, could object to me:
"Dear sir, apparently the accounts come back, but these are the talk,
coming out of here I will have to deal with my usual" me ", the one who
lives in my thoughts in my head. How can I learn to live the spirit instead of
my thoughts? In everyday life there is no way to learn to live the spirit. "
If someone made a mistake in this way I would tell him that he
understood everything. And that is, therefore, ready for the next step, the
only really versatile in the Buddhist field, because true Buddhism begins
right where the talk and the facts begin.
Buddhism without practice does not exist, so every Buddhist
school has a mainstream practice. The main practice of zen school is
called zazen.
It consists of realizing in fact, day by day, the discovery of the
spirit, its release from habits depots, stereotypes and automatic
mechanisms; it is the practice of holding possession of that area where
there is nothing, so that no possession is necessary to speak. It is, in fact,
rooting momentarily for that moment in that area, getting used to living
where we are, however, not being anybody, and that is why we are fully,
not just a small role.
Obviously, zazen, like all the things you do, learn how to do it:
think how foolish it would be to teach someone to ride a bicycle without
actually giving a velocipede ... But since I think it would be a little cruel to
leave you without even having a 'verbal indication, I will tell you words that
is so far away from words that you have no words to say, that is, I will
explain how you practice zazen.
It is to repeat exactly what he did, for the first time in this era, the
Buddha Śākyamuni under the tree of awakening. Let us recall briefly that
Śākyamuni Gautama Siddharta, later referred to as the Buddha, that is,
the awakened, two thousand five hundred years or so have brought to light
the way, the road leading to liberation from suffering. The crucial moment
of his life is told when it happened after six years of unnecessary and
severely ascetic efforts, he decided to feed himself to resume his strength
and sat cross-legged under a large tree with the intention of not moving
until he had revealing the secret of life and death.
It is said that at dawn, at the first impaling of the morning star,
Śākyamuni finally entered the path of salvation from suffering and devoted
the following 45 years of his life to offering all beings the same chance.
The basis, the starting point of all this, is that the Buddha at the
time of awakening was sitting, motionless, in silence. He did not meditate
in a garden, he was not studying which book of mysterious formulas, nor
even listened to the story of a guru who would convey to him what
knowledge. He was still in silence immobile. And for 45 years he taught
that this silent sitting silent house is the gateway to the great peace of
peace, to freedom from suffering.
Apparently this is an extremely silly and meaningless activity: spending
hours and hours sitting still and silent is an activity that can give you
doubts about the mental health of those who are devoting you.
6/8
10/23/2017 A tribute to Leonardo
occur is at the same time the cessation of all those behaviors and motives
that go in the opposite direction.
In practice, generosity, welcome, and benevolence are the normal
management of a life that runs through the Buddhist path. Not because
this is the rule, or because to be Buddhist, it is necessary to do so, or
worse, because in doing so we will look really Buddhists.
Simply because there is no other way, or why other ways, rather
than approaching, move away from the sea where we would like to dip in
order to be water in the water.
V) Wormhole killers
Earlier we were in India at the time
Vajracchedikaprajñāparāmitā sūtra or Diamond Sutra, that is, more or less
in the second century AD, now we make another small leap in time and
space and move to China in the ninth century. The environment is the
Chan School, the same one that the Japanese will call Zen: "Minister Jiku
during a meeting with Master Chosha Keishin asks:" By cutting a two-piece
worm, both extremities move together. Still not discerning in which of the
two ends the Buddha's nature dwells.
The master replies: "There is no illusion!"
The minister replies: "They both move, what to do?"
The master recalls: "It is simply the wind and the fire that has not
yet disappeared."
In order to understand what is happening, in fact, in this dialogue
we try to reconstruct its meaning in other words.
Let's imagine a worm that is called, for example, Hector. If we cut
it in two it will happen to what happens to any other worm that has had the
misfortune to encounter a cruel mulch cutter: the two parts in which we will
split it will continue to move. Not only that: as the earthworms have the
front and the rear that look the same, the two halves will be the same or
appear to be the same. Then, in what of the two halves will he find Hector?
Which one of them is Hector?
The answer was: there is no illusion!
In other words: do not think, do not imagine the presence, the
existence of an entity called Hector, do not create with your head a ghost
looking where the Ghost Hector is. The identity called Hector is fictitious, it
is just a name we attribute to a particular form, it does not contain any
substance. If that was not so, it would be enough to change name to
change identity, or identity.
Let's go back to our poor wormwood.
Minister Jiko said: The fact that they move both are indubitable.
Hence, if the identity "Hector" is an illusion, if that portion of life that we call
Hector is an illusion, how can this be explained? What is it that moves, or:
what is it that does the two pieces of worm move?
The answer was, "It's just: the wind and the fire are not yet
missing." That is, the elements that make up this being are not yet fully
prey to death, the great disintegrator.
Of a fact it is necessary to make clear conscience: the difference
between "alive" and "dead" is clear and clear to observation, how obscure,
incomprehensible if evaluated, examined with thought. The solution
proposed by Chan of the ninth century is: there is no illusion. We do not
use common thinking, that of arbitrary content to try to solve a matter that
transcends ordinary thought.
If we do not create imaginations, illusions within us, unless we
operate the muscular part of the brain, as we can see at any time, we exist
equally. But differently than usual. Because, instead of the continuous
murmuring of our head that in one way or another we are accustomed to
considering "I", we emerge what we usually call in the Western
epistemological tradition called "spirit" and in the Indian we define vijñāna
or "conscience." That is, a wider reality of discursive thought which, being
that kind of thought that already contains a content within itself, can not
understand anything ie, etymologically,
That is why, when introducing this lesson, I used an example that,
for the sake of it, it might even have seemed a little eccentric. Remember
the question: "Where will the duck be in a minute?" If you try to answer
with the kind of ordinary quality thought, or the thought that uses the
content, you will always be defective in the face of such a simple question.
You can put in the game the probability law, the angular motion, the
acceleration, the length of the mid-leg paws, the average number of steps
a goose X accomplishes in a T time, but you will never know where will be
the goose in a minute. How can not you tell how to move a finger.
The reason is relatively simple: reality transcends thought.
This does not mean that thought is bad or useless. If I have to
implant a bean cultivation, or build an armored concrete bridge over
thousands of vehicles, I have to use my thoughts as much as I can,
http://www.antonio.licciulli.unisalento.it/ingegnere_rinascimentale.htm
If we analyze what it does, even what does not, a person sitting in
the immobile silence of the practice taught by the Buddha, we will see that
the fundamental thing is not to follow the thoughts that form in our heads,
indeed, as they leave them , do not hold them so they disappear on their
own.
So what happens if we continue this game day after day for years
and years?
Well, apparently nothing, from the outside you will see nothing but
that process called "aging," but if we follow the instructions of an expert,
everything changes within us, just because our home, our place or thopos
inside - so we put ourselves in silence when we do not have to be
professors, students, fathers, husbands etc. - instead of being the chatter
of of the mind becomes the immense depth of the spirit.
This is to raise the awakening within us, the part of us absolutely
free, quietly walking the way that leads and keeps away from suffering.
There is an expression brought by Dōgen, the already quoted 13th-century
Japanese monk from China who expresses this dynamic: liberating body
and mind, body and mind released. "Getting rid of body and mind" means
assuming a position where one does not identify itself with either his own
body or with his mind or disinterested in what mysticism defines "powers
of the soul", disinterested in one's own body. Body and mind released
means that in this way, freeing them from us, the body and mind are free
and at peace.
We end up with two quotations. The German mystic of the
seventeenth century, Anghelus Silesius, in The Cherubic pilgrim says:
"Being really empty is like a noble jar that has nectar inside: it has, and
does not know what."
In Suttanipāta, one of the most beautiful and ancient sutras of the
Pani Canon, we find: "I cooked rice, I cow," said shepherd Dhaniyo, living
with my people on the bank of the river Mahi. fire burns.
So, heaven, drink it, if you want it. "
"In me there is no wrath or mental aridity," said the Blessed One,
"I live for one night on the bank of the river Mahi, the hut is uncovered, the
fire is gone. you want it! "".
Lecce, 3 February 2007
Mauricio Yūshin Marassi
Course specific text:
MYMarassi, And if a god did not come to save us ?, Ed. Marietti
In depth:
MYMarassi, Little Guide to Zen Buddhism, Ed. Marietti
M.Vannini, Thesis for a Religious Reform, House Ed. Letters
MYMarassi, Mahayan Buddhism through places, times and cultures, Ed.
Marietti
[1] Noey Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō Sansuikyō.
[2] Case: "Closed social group, where legal and religious norms prohibit
the mobility of members from and to other groups", De Agostini, ed. 2004.
[3] See Anton P. Čechov, Tales. Department no. 6.
[4] From a literary point of view, this foundation coincides with the
editing of Dhammacakkapavuketuket, the Speech of the Dhamma Wheel,
of the Pani Qur'an.
[5] See Marco Vannini, Thesis for Religious Reform, Casa Editrice Le
Lettere, Florence, 2006, 99.
[6] Mt 24, 32.
[7] See MYMarassi, And If a God Will not Save It ?, Marietti
Genova-Milano 2003, 67 ss.
7/8
10/23/2017 A tribute to Leonardo
imagine and dream a lot of things before going to weeding, fertilizing and
sowing on one hand thrown into the formwork on the other.
If I want to solve a problem whose location is out of the reach of
thought, I have to use another tool. Therefore, although our fundamental
identity coincides with what I first called "spirit", do not deceive us: if you
hear the word "spirit" you will be spontaneous to think: "Aah, I understand,
it is" that "! "Or:" Here's just how I was thinking, "you're on the wrong track.
Whatever the word we use to say, what we are talking about
belongs to an area that has nothing to do with spoken thinking, or what
medieval mystics called "the powers of the soul." If we try to grasp it with
thought, here we will have the content of a thought, a complex work,
nothing to do with the simplicity and depth of the silence of the spirit.

http://www.antonio.licciulli.unisalento.it/ingegnere_rinascimentale.htm 8/8