This is a piece that most of us should read slowly. I surely did. It contains two really potent sentences out of a plethora of lines of deep analyses. The one that stays with me is, ". . . doctrine never sires anything," which might be a paraphrase. I'm uncertain of my accuracy. The other I would have to backtrack and relocate to repeat. My intellect is still spinning from the inversions, historic and contemporary. The language utilized is speaking to someone already well versed in the material despite the quotes you provide. Would a different author approach the material you supply to translate into different words in effort to reach a less invested audience, the outcome would be a bit more accessible, but far less subtle. Consequently, some may emerge from the material less affected, and more prone to refusal. This is a complex piece over material many take for granted, renewing the subject by viewing it from a more intimate range. In that intimacy, our modern reflection is made evidence that the ancient reflection (and our reflexive reaction) has yet to be understood. You've crossed *centuries* of time to bring the central question back into focus -- no mean feat.
My nutshell? Presence supersedes object, the potency of true maturation most are inept and/or unwilling to face directly. To profit off of Presence an object must be used to subvert the intimacy into a containment field of restricted access available to the few with the power, the connections, and the money a deceiver desires; maturation delayed. This brings us right back to the modern-day velvet rope line, and all the societal ills associated with it.
This is the read I was hoping the piece might find! Slowly is the only way it works, so thank you for giving it that.
“Doctrine circulates and never sires” is close to what’s on the page and what matters, the ox is gelded, so it can be taught and passed around forever precisely because it can’t generate anything new. Sterility as the condition of circulation.
That landed where it was aimed.
Your critique of the register is fair, and it’s helpful, thank you. You’re right that the language assumes a reader already standing close to the material. That was a bet, and it has a cost you named exactly: a more translated version reaches further and holds less, and some readers come out the far end less moved and quicker to refuse. I chose subtlety and intimacy over reach here, knowing it narrows the door.
This one was built to reward the slow reader over recruiting the fast one. Your reply is evidence the bet paid at least once, which is the number that matters to me more than a large one.
Then you did the thing the essay only points at! you ran the mechanism forward on your own. The velvet rope is the calf. Presence gets walled into a containment field, access sold to whoever holds the power and the connections and the money, and the maturation that meeting Presence would have forced gets deferred, indefinitely, on purpose.
You named the profit motive I left implicit: the deceiver doesn’t just occupy the meeting-place, they monetizes the restriction.
Scarcity engineered out of something that was never scarce. That’s the modern furnace.
“Maturation delayed” is the phrase I’ll carry out of your reply. It names the human cost under the whole apparatus — the substitute asks less of us, and what it spares us is the growing up that the encounter would have demanded. You’ve read the piece from the inside and then walked it somewhere I didn’t take it. That’s the most a writer can hope a reader will do.
There's another writer here on Substack that does the walk into Presence. His substance starts at a different point from the same source material. Like you, he's working with the dubious translations of former generations, deconstructing the colonialism and the misinterpretation meant to build the containment field. You may not like his style. I am not one so well versed in the ancient languages that I can determine a level of accuracy; my scholarship is non-existent in that direction. There have been another who had vociferously found this author to be either misinformed or at the very least misleading, the motives of this other writer is determined by me through the comments interactions which followed. For me, the other translator was intent on reestablishing the containment field. I admit that, yet where the author under contention is headed is what you are trying to point your readers toward. I mention this not because I think *you* need it, but because your readers might benefit from seeing beyond the containment field. It's not enough to tell an abuser of any degree to stop. One has to indicate what to do instead of the patterns within which (s)he has learned to function. The lack of imagination must be addressed just as directly as the harm involved. What intrigued me is that I found both of your articles on the same day, almost one right after the other. Where my expertise lies is in the lived experience of approaching Presence, surviving the deconstruction of the ego's operating system, and the reengagement with our modern moment such as it is. However, I find it necessary for you to make the determination whether or not you wish to share it here or not. I will send the link to you privately.
This is a piece that most of us should read slowly. I surely did. It contains two really potent sentences out of a plethora of lines of deep analyses. The one that stays with me is, ". . . doctrine never sires anything," which might be a paraphrase. I'm uncertain of my accuracy. The other I would have to backtrack and relocate to repeat. My intellect is still spinning from the inversions, historic and contemporary. The language utilized is speaking to someone already well versed in the material despite the quotes you provide. Would a different author approach the material you supply to translate into different words in effort to reach a less invested audience, the outcome would be a bit more accessible, but far less subtle. Consequently, some may emerge from the material less affected, and more prone to refusal. This is a complex piece over material many take for granted, renewing the subject by viewing it from a more intimate range. In that intimacy, our modern reflection is made evidence that the ancient reflection (and our reflexive reaction) has yet to be understood. You've crossed *centuries* of time to bring the central question back into focus -- no mean feat.
My nutshell? Presence supersedes object, the potency of true maturation most are inept and/or unwilling to face directly. To profit off of Presence an object must be used to subvert the intimacy into a containment field of restricted access available to the few with the power, the connections, and the money a deceiver desires; maturation delayed. This brings us right back to the modern-day velvet rope line, and all the societal ills associated with it.
Well done!
This is the read I was hoping the piece might find! Slowly is the only way it works, so thank you for giving it that.
“Doctrine circulates and never sires” is close to what’s on the page and what matters, the ox is gelded, so it can be taught and passed around forever precisely because it can’t generate anything new. Sterility as the condition of circulation.
That landed where it was aimed.
Your critique of the register is fair, and it’s helpful, thank you. You’re right that the language assumes a reader already standing close to the material. That was a bet, and it has a cost you named exactly: a more translated version reaches further and holds less, and some readers come out the far end less moved and quicker to refuse. I chose subtlety and intimacy over reach here, knowing it narrows the door.
This one was built to reward the slow reader over recruiting the fast one. Your reply is evidence the bet paid at least once, which is the number that matters to me more than a large one.
Then you did the thing the essay only points at! you ran the mechanism forward on your own. The velvet rope is the calf. Presence gets walled into a containment field, access sold to whoever holds the power and the connections and the money, and the maturation that meeting Presence would have forced gets deferred, indefinitely, on purpose.
You named the profit motive I left implicit: the deceiver doesn’t just occupy the meeting-place, they monetizes the restriction.
Scarcity engineered out of something that was never scarce. That’s the modern furnace.
“Maturation delayed” is the phrase I’ll carry out of your reply. It names the human cost under the whole apparatus — the substitute asks less of us, and what it spares us is the growing up that the encounter would have demanded. You’ve read the piece from the inside and then walked it somewhere I didn’t take it. That’s the most a writer can hope a reader will do.
Thank you 🙏
There's another writer here on Substack that does the walk into Presence. His substance starts at a different point from the same source material. Like you, he's working with the dubious translations of former generations, deconstructing the colonialism and the misinterpretation meant to build the containment field. You may not like his style. I am not one so well versed in the ancient languages that I can determine a level of accuracy; my scholarship is non-existent in that direction. There have been another who had vociferously found this author to be either misinformed or at the very least misleading, the motives of this other writer is determined by me through the comments interactions which followed. For me, the other translator was intent on reestablishing the containment field. I admit that, yet where the author under contention is headed is what you are trying to point your readers toward. I mention this not because I think *you* need it, but because your readers might benefit from seeing beyond the containment field. It's not enough to tell an abuser of any degree to stop. One has to indicate what to do instead of the patterns within which (s)he has learned to function. The lack of imagination must be addressed just as directly as the harm involved. What intrigued me is that I found both of your articles on the same day, almost one right after the other. Where my expertise lies is in the lived experience of approaching Presence, surviving the deconstruction of the ego's operating system, and the reengagement with our modern moment such as it is. However, I find it necessary for you to make the determination whether or not you wish to share it here or not. I will send the link to you privately.
Thank you for sharing: I agree with your read. We are converging on very similar points. I thoroughly enjoyed their piece.