If, after yesterdays post on the movie Being in the World, you think you'd like to read some Heidegger, here are some good places to start.
But again, firstly, why Heidegger on yoga blog? Because, for me at least, Heidegger was himself a Yogi, a Western householder Raja yogi.
I tend to like to stick with the Primary sources however, two nice short overviews are...
HEIDEGGER: A very Short Introduction
Michael Inward (from the generally excellent Oxford Very short Intro series).
How to read HEIDEGGER Mark Wrathall
The first has more of a focus on his early work around Being and Time, the second book by Wrathell (Dreyfus' former student and in the movie) gives a fair treatment of Heidegger's later writing.
Jumping in to Heidegger's own writing, I'd say go with...
Basic Writings Martin Heidegger
This is a collection of Heidegger's essays but also includes the intro to his most famous book Being and Time, come back to the full text at a later date perhaps.
The essays are useful because with a lot of Heidegger's books you need to have a background in philosophy, watch people's eyes glaze over when we start talking about ashtanga and mentioning all the poses by their sanskrit names and the bandhas and gunas, presupposing half of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras tattooed on their back and intimacy with HYP and the Gita. Heidegger may have overthrown the tradition but he was very much of it.
It may be comforting to know though that most philosophers eyes also glaze over when they first read Heidegger, nothing really prepares you, so let the Greek and Philosophy references pass over you, in fact let the whole thing wash over you, just keep reading and don't worry about understanding or making sense of him. I've been reading him for over twenty years and sometimes wonder if I have a clue what he's going on about, most of the time.
And yet, whenever I read any Zen, Tao, or pretty much anything concerning yoga I end up, sooner or later, thinking "Heidegger". Interestingly Heidegger began a translation of the Tao with a Chinese student of his but decided that his writing needed to be organic, could only come out of the soil of his own tradition.
I keep coming back to that thought over the years.
Whether I'm delving, at different periods, into Tao, Buddhism, Zen, Vipassana, Yoga... To really understand those philosophies, those approaches, I think, to some extent, you have 'go native', learn the language, study the texts and then the literature around the 'essential' texts and even then... I was struck on my course with Ramaswami by the depth and breath of his learning, he would talk about the yoga sutras, say, and bring in some seemingly random sloka/verse that he would chant and then translate and that would illuminate somehow the text. I know there are Western yoga teachers who have gone deep into the scriptures and yet without having grown up in India and having a life seeped in vedic culture, without that same horizon to some extent aren't they always scratching the surface. That said coming from outside adds a different dynamic and like a metaphor, 'shattering ...and rediscovering anew' new understands can perhaps be found, it's not all bad news.
And so like Heidegger I keep coming back to my own tradition, my own horizon, western philosophy, the myths, legends, stories, the poets I grew up with, the Christian Mystics that at one point made even me seriously consider becoming a monk, if M. hadn't have said yes....
Heidegger takes western philosophy in a direction in which Eastern and Western philosophy seem to ...reflect each other. Heidegger, for example, lifts Meister Eckhart's concept of Gelassenheit, releasment, and develops it into a concept of meditative thinking, its 'll organic, of the soil.
'Then we notice that a work of art has flowered in the ground of our homeland. As we hold this simple fact in mind, we cannot help remembering at once that during the last two centuries great poets and thinkers have been brought forth from the Swabian land. Thinking about it further makes clear at once that Central Germany is likewise such a land, and so are East Prussia, Silesia, and Bohemia.
We grow thoughtful and ask: does not the flourishing of any genuine work depend upon its roots in a native soil? Johann Peter Hebel once wrote: “We are plants which — whether we like to admit it to ourselves or not — must with our roots rise out of the earth in order to bloom in the ether”…
The poet means to say: For a truly joyous and salutary human work to flourish, man must be able to mount from the depth of his home ground up into ether. Ether here means the free air of the high heavens, the open realm of the spirit.
We grow more thoughtful and ask: does this claim of Johann Peter Hebel hold today? Does man still dwell calmly between heaven and earth? Does a meditative spirit still reign over the land? Is there still a life-giving homeland in whose ground man may stand rooted…?' (Heidegger 1966b, Memorial address from Discourse on Thinking p. 47-48)
One approach is to read the first few pages of each of the essays/lectures in Basic Writings, then get stuck into The origin of a work of art, (read it twice) The question concerning technology then whichever essay takes your fancy.
Here's a taste from Origin of a work of Art, the famous section on “Vincent van Gogh: Shoes,”
'From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth. In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls. In the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry field. This equipment is pervaded by uncomplaining anxiety as to the certainty of bread, the wordless joy of having once more withstood want, the trembling before the impending childbed and shivering at the surrounding menace of death. This equipment belongs to the earth, and it is protected in the world of the peasant woman. From out of this protected belonging the equipment itself rises to its resting-within-itself'. The Origin of the Work of Art (1935)
This essay is in the Basic Writings but it comes from one of the collection of Heidegger's essays Poetry, Language, Thought. Highly recommended.
I'm currently rereading (yet again) another very very short but important and wonderful text Discourse on Thinking which explores the concept of meditative thinking
'...if we explicitly and continuously heed the fact that such hidden meaning touches us everywhere in the world of technology, we stand at once within the realm of that which hides itself from us, and hides itself just in approaching us. That which shows itself and at the same time withdraws is the essential trait of what we call the mystery. I call the comportment which enables us to keep open to the meaning hidden in technology, openness to the mystery'. (1966b, p. 55)
The second part of the book is in the form of a dialogue between a scientist, scholar and teacher.
'Scholar: But thinking, understood in the traditional way, as re-presenting is a kind of willing; Kant, too, understands thinking this way when he characterizes it as spontaneity. To think is to will, and to will is to think
Scientist: Then the statement that the nature of thinking is something other than thinking means that thinking is something other than willing.
Teacher: And that is why, in answer to your question as to what I really wanted from our meditation on the nature of thinking, I replied: I want non-willing'. (Heidegger 1966a, p. 58-59)
Heidegger is seeking a way out of the Subject/Object trap, even in Being and Time which sought a new beginning in philosophy he realised he was still thinking as a subject even as he sought to overthrow the subject/object distinction. In his later work he constantly seeks to think outside the distinction, to find a new way of thinking.
'Scholar: Perhaps a higher acting is concealed in releasement than is found in all the actions within the world and in the machinations of all mankind…
Teacher… which higher acting is yet no activity.
Scientist: Then releasement lies — if we may use the word lie — beyond the distinction between activity and passivity…
Scholar:... because releasement does not belong to the domain of the will'. (Heidegger 1966a, p. 61).
And if you really want to understand what Heidegger was trying to do, listen to this by Coltrane as he almost seems to seek to transcend music through music, to escape as Heidegerer attempts, from the prison house of language, of what can be said.
Actually the 14 minute version on the My Favourite Things album makes my point better but this has it's moments as well as the glorious Eric Dolphy flute solo
Wittgenstein, of course concluded his tractatus with the line...
'What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence'
Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus p74
But that was before he himself read Heidegger.
I prefer this from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
McMurphy: 'But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that '.
http://youtu.be/YKQcx1jzn4k
and of course this on kaivalya http://youtu.be/I3c2cXiEUHo
But again, firstly, why Heidegger on yoga blog? Because, for me at least, Heidegger was himself a Yogi, a Western householder Raja yogi.
Michael Inward (from the generally excellent Oxford Very short Intro series).
How to read HEIDEGGER Mark Wrathall
The first has more of a focus on his early work around Being and Time, the second book by Wrathell (Dreyfus' former student and in the movie) gives a fair treatment of Heidegger's later writing.
Jumping in to Heidegger's own writing, I'd say go with...
Basic Writings Martin Heidegger
This is a collection of Heidegger's essays but also includes the intro to his most famous book Being and Time, come back to the full text at a later date perhaps.
The essays are useful because with a lot of Heidegger's books you need to have a background in philosophy, watch people's eyes glaze over when we start talking about ashtanga and mentioning all the poses by their sanskrit names and the bandhas and gunas, presupposing half of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras tattooed on their back and intimacy with HYP and the Gita. Heidegger may have overthrown the tradition but he was very much of it.
It may be comforting to know though that most philosophers eyes also glaze over when they first read Heidegger, nothing really prepares you, so let the Greek and Philosophy references pass over you, in fact let the whole thing wash over you, just keep reading and don't worry about understanding or making sense of him. I've been reading him for over twenty years and sometimes wonder if I have a clue what he's going on about, most of the time.
I keep coming back to that thought over the years.
Whether I'm delving, at different periods, into Tao, Buddhism, Zen, Vipassana, Yoga... To really understand those philosophies, those approaches, I think, to some extent, you have 'go native', learn the language, study the texts and then the literature around the 'essential' texts and even then... I was struck on my course with Ramaswami by the depth and breath of his learning, he would talk about the yoga sutras, say, and bring in some seemingly random sloka/verse that he would chant and then translate and that would illuminate somehow the text. I know there are Western yoga teachers who have gone deep into the scriptures and yet without having grown up in India and having a life seeped in vedic culture, without that same horizon to some extent aren't they always scratching the surface. That said coming from outside adds a different dynamic and like a metaphor, 'shattering ...and rediscovering anew' new understands can perhaps be found, it's not all bad news.
And so like Heidegger I keep coming back to my own tradition, my own horizon, western philosophy, the myths, legends, stories, the poets I grew up with, the Christian Mystics that at one point made even me seriously consider becoming a monk, if M. hadn't have said yes....
Heidegger takes western philosophy in a direction in which Eastern and Western philosophy seem to ...reflect each other. Heidegger, for example, lifts Meister Eckhart's concept of Gelassenheit, releasment, and develops it into a concept of meditative thinking, its 'll organic, of the soil.
'Then we notice that a work of art has flowered in the ground of our homeland. As we hold this simple fact in mind, we cannot help remembering at once that during the last two centuries great poets and thinkers have been brought forth from the Swabian land. Thinking about it further makes clear at once that Central Germany is likewise such a land, and so are East Prussia, Silesia, and Bohemia.
We grow thoughtful and ask: does not the flourishing of any genuine work depend upon its roots in a native soil? Johann Peter Hebel once wrote: “We are plants which — whether we like to admit it to ourselves or not — must with our roots rise out of the earth in order to bloom in the ether”…
The poet means to say: For a truly joyous and salutary human work to flourish, man must be able to mount from the depth of his home ground up into ether. Ether here means the free air of the high heavens, the open realm of the spirit.
We grow more thoughtful and ask: does this claim of Johann Peter Hebel hold today? Does man still dwell calmly between heaven and earth? Does a meditative spirit still reign over the land? Is there still a life-giving homeland in whose ground man may stand rooted…?' (Heidegger 1966b, Memorial address from Discourse on Thinking p. 47-48)
 |
| My own copy of Basic Writings, notice the Arggg in the margin from my first reading, still feel that way sometimes. |
Here's a taste from Origin of a work of Art, the famous section on “Vincent van Gogh: Shoes,”
This essay is in the Basic Writings but it comes from one of the collection of Heidegger's essays Poetry, Language, Thought. Highly recommended.
'...if we explicitly and continuously heed the fact that such hidden meaning touches us everywhere in the world of technology, we stand at once within the realm of that which hides itself from us, and hides itself just in approaching us. That which shows itself and at the same time withdraws is the essential trait of what we call the mystery. I call the comportment which enables us to keep open to the meaning hidden in technology, openness to the mystery'. (1966b, p. 55)
The second part of the book is in the form of a dialogue between a scientist, scholar and teacher.
'Scholar: But thinking, understood in the traditional way, as re-presenting is a kind of willing; Kant, too, understands thinking this way when he characterizes it as spontaneity. To think is to will, and to will is to think
Scientist: Then the statement that the nature of thinking is something other than thinking means that thinking is something other than willing.
Teacher: And that is why, in answer to your question as to what I really wanted from our meditation on the nature of thinking, I replied: I want non-willing'. (Heidegger 1966a, p. 58-59)
Heidegger is seeking a way out of the Subject/Object trap, even in Being and Time which sought a new beginning in philosophy he realised he was still thinking as a subject even as he sought to overthrow the subject/object distinction. In his later work he constantly seeks to think outside the distinction, to find a new way of thinking.
'Scholar: Perhaps a higher acting is concealed in releasement than is found in all the actions within the world and in the machinations of all mankind…
Teacher… which higher acting is yet no activity.
Scientist: Then releasement lies — if we may use the word lie — beyond the distinction between activity and passivity…
Scholar:... because releasement does not belong to the domain of the will'. (Heidegger 1966a, p. 61).
And if you really want to understand what Heidegger was trying to do, listen to this by Coltrane as he almost seems to seek to transcend music through music, to escape as Heidegerer attempts, from the prison house of language, of what can be said.
Actually the 14 minute version on the My Favourite Things album makes my point better but this has it's moments as well as the glorious Eric Dolphy flute solo
Wittgenstein, of course concluded his tractatus with the line...
'What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence'
Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus p74
But that was before he himself read Heidegger.
I prefer this from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
McMurphy: 'But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that '.
http://youtu.be/YKQcx1jzn4k
and of course this on kaivalya http://youtu.be/I3c2cXiEUHo
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Here are the links to Dreyfuss' courses from yesterday
Here are the links to Dreyfuss' courses from yesterday
If jumping into a Heidegger course seems a bit much try
or
3 comments:
And there, in the text you quote from "The origin of the work of art" lies the very reason why I don't trust Heidegger on philosophy. What he describes is mostly not the content of the painting but his interpretation of it, the emotions that the painting evokes in him. For him the ruggedness of the shoes implies some rural setting with unending furrows and windswept hills. There is nothing in the painting to confirm this, and the boots could just have easily belonged to someone with a more urban life of tramping cobbles.
I also think this is a brilliant painting. I see a pair of shoes which have been well worn, and whilst they seem to have the remnants of a shine they are past the point where polish can hide their tiredness. It makes me think that the owner is too poor, or too much in love with them to replace them. I notice that I cannot tell which of these is the case. This leads me to examine both possibilities but to remain open minded on the issue.
The artist shows me the shoes in isolation. No context to guide me or distract. The painting shows the shoes in sharp focus in places but is much looser or vague in others. It illustrates exactly what impressionism is about - because it is not painting of the shoes so much as something that gives you the feeling of them. It conveys the essentials of the message and leaves the viewer's mind to fill in the rest. Something that my mind will do in a different way to Heidegger's or yours.
Of course, this is just your point on the Sutras: the mind of someone steeped in Hinduism from birth will pick up on things in a different way from a 21st century European. As when doing a yoga practice that's not necessarily good, or bad; better simply to examine the possibilities and remain open minded.
I guess this brings us back to the 99% practice 1% theory rule. Unfortunately as you can tell, I'm not practicing because I have a cold and have nothing better do to than post rambling comments on people's blogs.
Schapiro and Derrida give H. a hard time about the shoes too, Derrida's treatment in Truth and Painting being some of the most fun one can have with ones intellectual clothes on I seem to remember. I don't suppose the correctness of the interpretation matters that much for Heidegger's argument.
I should mention that, Schapiro argued that the pair of shoes were actually the artists own and not a peasants at all...Derrida questioned whether they were even a pair : )
Re the sutras, it ties in a little with Heidegger's treatment of the temple in the same essay, with the passing of the classical age and the temples context it can no longer speak to us as it did to the ancient Greeks, or the sutras to us from the west and by extension perhaps even a modern day brahmin. Perhaps what makes the early commentaries so interesting.
Hope your cold clears up quickly.
Hahahaha, Grimmly, sometimes I get scared that we are a little too similar.
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