A Nameless Dialogue

A Nameless Dialogue

Part One

1

GENIE: You have freed me from my lantern! I will now grant you three wishes!

PETE: I only have one, really.

GENIE: Well, that’s just fine with me. What is it?

PETE: I wish to know the meaning of life.

GENIE: Well, that’s a vague question. I’ll try my best to answer it, but you’re going to have to clarify. Whose life are we talking about here?

PETE: No, that’s not what I meant! I mean what is the meaning of life in general?

GENIE: You’re starting to lose me again. By “life in general” do you mean the biological phenomena of cells that replicate themselves?

PETE: No, that’s not what I mean either! Okay, maybe I did actually mean a particular life. What is the meaning of my life?

GENIE: Alright, now we are getting close to something I can answer. Now, in relation to whom do you want to know the meaning of your life?

PETE: I’m not sure I follow.

GENIE: You can’t mean anything to a rock, a galaxy, or to anything without a perspective. Only things with a perspective are things to which you can mean something in relation. You see, for me, you’re meaning is to ask wishes that I can grant. That is the role you serve in my perspective. Of course, it’s not a very interesting and elaborate meaning that you serve in my perspective. I’m sure you have a different perspective in mind, in relation to which you’ll have a much more exciting meaning.

PETE: No, that’s not what I want to know! I can ask anyone what I mean to them; I don’t need a genie for that. I want to know what I mean in general.

GENIE: Once again you’ve lost me with your term “in general.” That question simply makes no sense.

PETE: Gosh, you’re so picky about language. How about what I mean in relation to myself?

GENIE: I shouldn’t even have to point out to you how absurd that question is.

PETE: It doesn’t seem that absurd to me.

GENIE: How could you mean something in relation to yourself? You are yourself! You would have to be outside of yourself and looking in, or inside of yourself and looking out. Either way, it is as contradictory as a circle being outside of itself or inside of itself.

PETE: This doesn’t make much sense.

GENIE: You’re right. Because we haven’t even gotten to the root of the contradiction yet. Do you admit that you are yourself?

PETE: I don’t see what reason there is to doubt that.

GENIE: You are your self? You still don’t see the problem?

PETE: What’s so wrong about that idea?

GENIE: “Your” is a possessive! Who’s the one that’s doing the owning, and who’s the one that’s being owned? You can’t own yourself because you are your—wait, I can’t even say that! You are just you, not some self, owned by you.

PETE: I’m tired of all these technicalities and semantics! You’re just being silly with me now!

GENIE: Well, I’m trying to answer your questions the best I can, but they aren’t making much sense.

PETE: Alright I have a new question then—

GENIE: So are you scratching that last wish, for a new one?

PETE: Sure, scratch that wish! I wish to know what I should do. Not in relation to anyone, just what I should do.

GENIE: What should you do? Hmmm . . . You should realize how stupid that question is and not ask it anymore.

PETE: Hah! I got you! That’s an answer! You told me what I should do and so you’ve answered my question.

GENIE: You sound like I was trying to trick you or something. I’m just happy to be of service.

PETE: So, you say I should realize how stupid that question is and not ask it anymore . . . how should I go about doing that?

GENIE: Well that’s essentially the same question, so my answer is still the same as the first time.

PETE: That answer is pointless then!

GENIE: Of course it is. The only way to answer a pointless question is with a pointless answer.

PETE: This is just too much for me now! This whole discussion has just been pointless!

GENIE: Would it help if I told you that your problem is the fact that you think that’s a problem.

PETE: No it wouldn’t help! What about God? He’s above all of this, so the meaning of life should be to serve him. And that is precisely what I should do! That must work, right?

GENIE: Well . . .

PETE: You do believe in God, right?

GENIE: Oh, of course I believe in God. I work for him. He created me so I could grant his wishes.

PETE: That’s absurd! What could God possibly have to wish for that he couldn’t do for himself?

GENIE: He wanted to know what the meaning of life was.

2

PETE: Mr. Thinker, I just had the most confusing conversation about the meaning of life and I was hoping you could—wait, why are you pacing?

THINKER: I’m not trying to pace. I’m trying to saunter.

PETE: Why would you do that?

THINKER: Because I realized I can never really write about the problem I’m working on, and so I should just give up and go for a leisurely saunter.

PETE: Then why don’t you just go do that?

THINKER: That’s what I’m trying to do, but every time I start to truly saunter leisurely, I recognize it, and try to analyze it. It’s then no longer leisurely. This is why I turn around every few steps or so—my saunter is interrupted by the activity of thinking about it, which is the very opposite of leisure.

PETE: What philosophical problem is this that you’re working on?

THINKER: I was trying to figure out what it means to be leisurely. Every time I start this task I realize that it is impossible to put into words. I then quit to go for a leisurely saunter (which is usually something I rather enjoy), but the moment I start my leisurely saunter and it becomes leisurely, I realize what “leisurely” really means. I rush back to my desk to write it down, but then my leisure has ended, and the thoughts are worthless. I then give up on my task, and resume on my walk, realizing that this impossibility is why I decided to go for the walk in the first place. Once my leisure resumes, I, once again, come to a quick epiphany about what leisurely means. But then I am struck with the same sad failure, and the whole process repeats. So I’m not pacing with purpose; I’m just very indecisive about what I am to do.

PETE: Have you figured out what it means to be leisurely?

THINKER: I think, in the best way I can phrase it, it means to not have a task at hand.

PETE: Well, it seems to me you’ve captured it right there and you’ve done all the work that you had to.

THINKER: No, I haven’t captured anything because I’ve fallen right back into it and turned leisure into a task. I can’t get out of my task-mindset whenever I try to capture what leisure is. So my definition is a task-based definition. I have no idea how a true definition of leisure could be conceived, and once I get it, I lose it when I try to pin it down.

PETE: Is it even that big of a philosophical problem?

THINKER: It’s the biggest philosophical problem of all time! It has spanned back through the millennia! It is the root of the fundamental tensions that arise between one person and another. But I’m starting to think it’s impossible to solve because to even address the problem, I’ve already done it a disservice.

PETE: I may be lost, but what problem is this?

THINKER: To name it would be to do it an injustice. It’s the problem to which an answer cannot be found in seeking.

PETE: I’ve had it with these paradoxes!

THINKER: I’m sorry for the confusion, but I don’t know how else I can possibly get at it. There is a truly bizarre moment in perhaps every philosopher’s life when he or she realizes that the best philosophers may not be philosophers at all, that in the very act of philosophizing we have already thrown ourselves in the wrong philosophical path. We start going and going, and we say “boy, look at this, we are really making progress!” And then all of a sudden it hits us that we have made no progress, and we are just going in circles and circles.

PETE: You still are making very little sense to me.

THINKER: Have you ever heard of the Greek gods, Apollo and Dionysus?

PETE: Vaguely.

THINKER: The god of light and the god of wine. Complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Each one looks ridiculous in the eyes of the other. How to bridge the seemingly unbridgeable gap between their two viewpoints: that is what I am interested in . . . unfortunately for my task at hand, I also have a tendency to lose interest in it whenever I get close to really understanding what is going on.

3

APOLLO: We need to talk, Dionysus. You’re life isn’t heading anywhere. All you do is drink and party all of the time.

DIONYSUS: Can we talk about this later? Perhaps when I’m sober?

APOLLO: But you’re never sober!

DIONYSUS: Alright, then in that case, we never have to talk about it.

APOLLO: No, that’s exactly the problem!

DIONYSUS: But I’m doing just fine. It’s not a problem at all for me.

APOLLO: Of course, it’s not a problem for you. The very idea of a problem doesn’t even exist in your world.

DIONYSUS: Yup. No problems at all. Isn’t that the dream of everyone?

APOLLO: Maybe the dream, but it can’t be the reality. Or else no one would ever be heading anywhere in life.

DIONYSUS: I don’t usually have any reason to head anywhere. I prefer to dance rather than walk.

APOLLO: But that way of living can never accomplish anything!

DIONYSUS: What does accomplishing things accomplish?

APOLLO: You’re just speaking nonsense now.

DIONYSUS: That’s probably the case. This is my third bottle of wine. Would you like some? I have an infinite supply.

APOLLO: No I would not like some! I prefer to stay sober. I refuse to cloud reality.

DIONYSUS: Reality? Hah! What is this reality of which you speak?

APOLLO: Well, unlike you, where reality is one big blissful blur, I can actually make sense of the world.

DIONYSUS: Fascinating! What sense do you make of it? In am quite interested to hear. Enlighten me.

APOLLO: If I were in your position, I wouldn’t know how go about living in the world. But, because I am not inebriated, I know where things in the world stand, and so I know what to do. For example, I know which armies to bless which to curse because I can tell which ones are just and which are unjust.

DIONYSUS: How could you possible know that what is just deserves to be blessed and what is unjust deserves to be cursed?

APOLLO: That’s just an obvious moral principle that you’d realize if you were ever sober.

DIONYSUS: I think I’d just rather make my own moral principle. And I think I’ve figured out what I want my moral principle to be.

APOLLO: Just one? Is it the golden rule?

DIONYSUS: No, it’s this: It is stupid to care about what moral principles are.

APOLLO: Honestly? What kind of moral principle is that? How could you not care about what Hitler’s moral principles are? Or Stalin’s, or Ted Bundy’s? It’s just obvious that these people’s moral principles are horribly wrong!

DIONYSUS: Oh, stop it with all your moral blathering. It makes me sick. Besides, Hitler, Stalin and Bundy won’t even exist for another few thousand years.

APOLLO: It makes you sick? I thought you never had any problems with anything?

DIONYSUS: Oh my, did I just accuse you of going against my morals? Why, this is simply pathetic. I’ve become just like you. The wine must be wearing off. I best be popping open another bottle immediately.

APOLLO: No, don’t do that! You’ve finally made something of yourself!

DIONYSUS: I don’t want to make anything of myself, though. I want to go back into never having any problems with anything. Where is that corkscrew? Ah, here it is!

APOLLO: But then you want to make yourself one who does not make anything of himself, which is something you have a problem with and want to change, and so you fall right back into it.

DIONYSUS: Wow, this is some really tasty wine. Mortals can only dream of the taste that this wine has. I’m quite aware of the predicament it seems like I’m in. Fortunately, I can just get so drunk that I won’t even think of the reason why I got drunk in the first place.

APOLLO: What will that solve?

DIONYSUS: When I am that drunk, I won’t be a hypocrite anymore, because I won’t be trying to be anything or not be anything. It’s just silly to think about personal goals when you’re drunk as a skunk.

APOLLO: It seems like you’re just deluding yourself then.

DIONYSUS: Not nearly as much of a delusion as thinking there are some bad things and some good ones. Wow, this bottle’s already empty? That was fast—time to grab another. Do you still not want one? It’s quite literally the finest wine on earth.

APOLLO: I’m afraid I’ll still have to pass. That type of utter apathy is something I am entirely opposed to.

DIONYSUS: More for me then. That’s just fine with me!

4

PETE: Well, which one is right, Apollo or Dionysius?

THINKER: If I could answer that, then I wouldn’t be pacing right now.

PETE: I can’t help but feel like it is Dionysus who has it all figured out. He has no problems at all.

THINKER: Dionysus is intoxicated.

PETE: I don’t think that’s all he is, though. It seems almost like he’s enlightened.

THINKER: Who’s to say they are different things?

PETE: I’m pretty sure an enlightened person would smack you for saying that.

THINKER: I’m pretty sure if they took such offense, they wouldn’t be enlightened.

PETE: Oh, I’m sure you would know!

THINKER: In fact, I would. I was enlightened once, you know.

PETE: No, I don’t believe you in the least! An enlightened person is the wisest of the wise—you can’t even answer these simple philosophical questions.

THINKER: But if I were enlightened, I wouldn’t even ask them. They would all be meaningless questions.

PETE: But are they meaningless?

THINKER: If one is enlightened, of course they are! These philosophical questions that I’m wondering about right now are the silliest, most meaningless questions in the world.

PETE: But what if one isn’t enlightened?

THINKER: Well then these questions are the most important questions in all of human existence! They are the fundamental questions at the core of our being. Why do you think I’m so excited talking about them right now?

PETE: Wow, this seems a very difficult philosophical problem because of both its importance and unimportance. This conflict, I presume is the origin of your pacing?

THINKER: Correct you are.

PETE: So where can this problem end?

THINKER: You see, that’s just the problem. Since there is no enlightenment above enlightenment, then a step forward to what is after enlightenment is just as much a step backwards to what is before enlightenment. Enlightenment is both the bottom and the top. And so, though it may seem like my overcoming of each state of mind is progress, there is no progress to be made.

PETE: And this is what is happening every time you start to saunter, and then turn around again? It seems to you like your making progress, but abstracted from it all, you’re just in a loop?

THINKER: That’s exactly what is going on. Every time I saunter away from my desk realizing the most important question of human existence is silly, meaningless and unanswerable, I am enlightened. But every time I turn back to it to try to grasp what is going on, I am unenlightened yet again.

PETE: That can’t be all that enlightenment is!

THINKER: Well, there is the whole notion of loss of self and all dualities in the world, but all of these things come secondary to and follow from the complete loss of an active task at hand.

PETE: Wouldn’t you want to be enlightened indefinitely, though?

THINKER: For most of the time, I am. I don’t have any worries or any tasks at hand. I am completely in the moment of life. But, as I am a thinker, I can’t resist thinking about the biggest philosophical problem of all. And so, at the times when I am thinking about it, I cannot be enlightened.

PETE: So, if you stopped thinking about this problem, you’d be enlightened?

THINKER: Of course. Since I am a thinker, if I stopped thinking about this question, I’d have no more real tasks at hand.

PETE: I think I’m starting to understand it now.

THINKER: Hold on a minute . . . Oh my, how silly I’ve just been. Was I under the illusion that I could try to convey this problem to you or that it could be understood, by anyone, even in the least? I was, wasn’t I? How utterly pretentious of me! Why am I still thinking about any of this anyway? All of these thoughts are just nonsense.

PETE: But you’ve helped so much. You’ve shed so much light on the problem.

THINKER: Don’t you get it? I’ve shed no light! None, nada, zippo, zilch! There’s no light shed because the whole problem is just the silliest thing in the world. I think I’m going for a swim, would you like to come?

PETE: No, I am so close to understanding what is going on with all of this. I need to pursue this information.

THINKER: Suit yourself! I’ll be suiting myself in my bathing suit! Actually, not even! I’m going to suit myself in my birthday suit! Yippee!
5
PETE: Genie, how many wishes do I still have?

GENIE: As far as I can see, you still have two. Since you could not formulate a question that was sensible on the variety of a “meaning of life” I did not count that. However, you said my answer to the question “what should I do” counted as an answer, so I am counting that as an answered wish. So yes, two left.

PETE: Ok, I think I have my second wish.

GENIE: Alright, let’s hear it.

PETE: I wish to know what enlightenment is. I thought had it all figured out, and now I’m confused again. A friend of mine tried to explain it to me, but I’m afraid he may have gotten enlightened in the process. He says that has a tendency to happen.

GENIE: Alright, I can try to answer that. I must warn you though, that this will be a very unenlightening explanation of enlightenment. I have never been enlightened, nor do I intend to ever be enlightened—I have too many things that I have to do. Of course, since this is an explanation of enlightenment only from the most unenlightened, the explanation is completely outside of the first person. But you should ultimately realize this to be a good thing, because since I am unenlightened and able to talk about it, I can avoid all those contradictions which glorify the whole thing in their ambiguous and mysterious nature. Really, it’s really not that mysterious of a notion when looked at objectively.

PETE: Finally, someone who can explain it to me, free of contradictions. I am very excited to hear this explanation.

GENIE: First, you have to grasp the idea that the mind to turn multiplicities into unities and we must recognize the mind’s ability to find the number “one” in nature. You see, if we try hard enough, everything can be broken into multiplicities. You can say “there is a cloud” and I can respond “there’s no cloud, there are only millions of water molecules scattered in the sky. After that, I can divide even more and say, “There are no atoms, only subatomic particles” and after that, “there are no subatomic particles, only quantum waves and such.” But no matter where we draw the line in our divisions we create unities in the world: patterns among multiple things are recognized and then those multiple things turn into singular things with which we then operate.

PETE: But how does any of this relate to enlightenment?

GENIE: I’m getting there. So, when we relate into the world, we operate on a certain level of relation: a level at which certain things are merged and certain things distinct. I could look at you, this lump of matter in front of me, and depending on my level of relation you could be many different things. You could be a swarm of subatomic particles which can be causally explained according to the laws of particle physics, you could be a conglomerate of neurons which can be explained according to the laws of neurobiology, you could be a clump of beliefs desires and intentions which can be explained according to some laws of psychology, or you could all be clumped altogether to the “person level” and an explanation would simply be in terms of you as a causal agent.

PETE: So the highest level on which you can relate to me is on this person level?

GENIE: Oh not all; the levels go higher and higher, but then, they will be larger than you, and so you are included in my explanation of the world, but only as part of a higher level doer.

PETE: A doer?

GENIE: Anything which goes actively though the world; all of these things which I phrase my explanation in terms of are doers. So yes, if I am on a sociological or political level of relation you are accounted for, but not as you in the same way that your neurons are accounted for in an explanation in terms of intentions and desires.

PETE: So what is the highest level of relation?

GENIE: That’s just where I was going. First of all, by calling it “highest” you must remember that it is not “better” than the other levels; it simply means that there is the most unity among this in the world. As the levels get higher, it means that there are fewer divisions which categorize the world into separate thing. As for the highest level, you will find different names for it across cultures, but for our present purposes we can stick with (though I am not a huge fan of the term) enlightenment. This is the level of relation when all things are merged into one. There are no more splits between things in the world; there is just this great oneness of everything.

PETE: Is this oneness a doer?

GENIE: It can’t be. Doers need a medium through which they do things and since there is only one thing, there cannot be a separate doer and medium. Accordingly, there are no active causal explanations in this level of relation. There is just the immediate purely passive presence of it.

PETE: This seems rather simple, why does everyone have such a difficulty explaining what it is?

GENIE: Good question. Suppose I took out my guitar right now, and starting playing some blues scales. You don’t have to know all the notes or the steps between the notes in order to say what I’m playing is “bluesy.” “Bluesy” is the level on which you relate to my notes. You can compare this label to other labels of the same level of relation such as jazzy, dancy, grungy and rocky. But with enlightenment, there can be nothing there is to compare it to because this is the only thing that can exist on that level of relation.

PETE: So that is why no one can explain it easily, because they don’t have anything on the same level they can compare it to?

GENIE: That’s not even the worst problem with trying to explain it. In order to explain something, I must take it as an object for me, an object at which I stand at a distance from and observe. But I can never stand at a distance to it and still be in that level, because then the world is broken up into the categories of me and it, and enlightenment loses its essential unity. In the same way, any words used to describe it cannot do it justice because words, by their very nature split things into categories. Any attempt to explain it while one is in the level of relation is futile.

PETE: And you can get around these problems?

GENIE: Well, these problems are only secondary to a larger and problem of explanation that applies not only to enlightenment but to all levels of explanation. Something cannot be explained or defined on the level or relation that it exists; if it were it would be contradiction or a tautology. Suppose someone asked me to define what you are, and I was already relating to the world on the level at which you are defined. I would say something like “you are the combination of your intentions, qualities, beliefs and desires.” But this would be a horrible contradiction because if your intentions qualities beliefs and desires are owned by you, then you can’t be any of them. My other possible definition would be “you are you.” This would not be a contradiction, but it is a useless tautological statement (although I could see it appearing in some sort of inspirational calendar). These are the problems that arise when trying to explain enlightenment from that level of relation that arise with any level.

PETE: So how do you get around these problems?

GENIE: Because I know how to explain and define things without falling into contradiction. When Louis Armstrong was asked what jazz was, he answered “if you have to ask, you’ll never know.” Now this sounds very nice, and probably inspired many musicians, but Louis is not thinking straight. He’s on the level of relation at which jazz is defined and so to define something which is an indivisible aspect of existence is impossible. But definitions cannot be on the level of relation at which they are defined (at that level they are to be used in a definition instead, to get to a higher level of relation). Of course I could give a definition of jazz: it is the style of music that emerges out of certain notes, certain rhythms, and certain characteristics such as improvisation. In the same way, I could give a definition of enlightenment as the level of relation in which the entirety of one’s existence is merged into a unity.

PETE: Wow, all of that was very helpful.

GENIE: Glad to be of service.

PETE: Wait, is that it?

GENIE: Yup, that’s all I have to say.

PETE: No witty ending to this dialogue segment?

GENIE: Nope, I think I’ve covered everything I need to cover.


6
PETE: Mr. Thinker, do you have a minute?

THINKER: Are you coming to join me in my swim. The water sure is fantastic.

PETE: I feel like you have lied to me.

THINKER: Do you? But I never lie. What falsity could I possibly have said?

PETE: You told me that enlightenment could not be explained, but someone just gave me a perfectly complete explanation of enlightenment.

THINKER: Did this someone happen to be a genie?

PETE: Yes, how did you know?

THINKER: Oh my! That explains you being all caught up with these questions recently. Why didn’t you tell me you were talking to Charles?

PETE: Charles?

THINKER: Yeah, Charles is his name. Genies do have names, you know. And Charles is the only genie in town. I play poker with him on Thursdays. I swipe him clean of cash every week.

PETE: Can’t he just wish for good poker hands?

THINKER: Oh no. A genie can’t grant his own wishes. That’s just silliness.

PETE: Has he explained his understanding of enlightenment to you?

THINKER: Oh yes, several times. That’s quite an elaborate loop he’s thrown himself into.

PETE: A loop?

THINKER: Of course! Everyone falls back into it once you realize what type of person they are.

PETE: What type of person is the genie?

THINKER: Well, Charles was designed specifically by God to grant wishes. This is always his task at hand. Charles is a doer.

PETE: He mentioned that term to me.

THINKER: I’m sure he did. The world for Charles is an object for manipulation and explanation. The world is out there for him to go and get.

PETE: What does the implication of that?

THINKER: Well, in essence Charles has created a little model of reality and is analyzing it, completely outside of it. That’s why his explanations are so comprehensive. But he can never get out of this type of model way of thinking insofar as he is a doer. Do you remember how I said earlier that enlightenment is both the bottom and the top?

PETE: Yes, I remember quite well.

THINKER: Well Charles didn’t tell you, but the statement holds for his system as well. Though you can say that enlightenment is the “highest level of relation,” it is also the lowest. It is before anything is split into categories at all. Before neurons or particles or any of these things, there is just brute existence, brute nature. There are no categories in it—it just is.

PETE: Why doesn’t Charles include it in his system?

THINKER: Because he can’t. It includes him. You can’t put it in a system because it will always consume the maker of the system who has to be outside of the system. If one were to try to make a complete system of reality, it can’t be complete because reality always overflows from that system into the maker.

PETE: What does this have to do with Charles being a doer?

THINKER: Well because of this problem Charles, must be working a model of reality, and not of reality itself. Accordingly, there is always going to be a space between he and it, and he is always going to actively do things with the world. But insofar as he is doing this, his model of reality won’t really be of reality.

PETE: What about a non-doer, a . . . beer?

THINKER: I would love a beer, thank you very much for the offer! It would go perfectly with my swim. What kind do you have?

PETE: No, I didn’t say beer. I said be-er.

THINKER: Oh, my apologies. Well, a be-er is in reality, not working with a model of it. He is at both the bottom and the top of Charles’s silly system, so there is nothing for him to do or manipulate. He doesn’t come up with a picture of reality in which he can place himself. He’s just there with the world, in reality but not on a specific level of relation where it is modeled.

PETE: Which one are you?

THINKER: Well, now that we are talking about this, I have created a model of reality with which I can answer questions like that. I can refer to me in my model, and say that right now, I am a doer. That question would make no sense to a be-er because there’s no distinctions or dichotomies in the world; certainly not one between doers and be-ers. But if we were to splash in the water a bit rather than talk about all this silly stuff, I would most likely go back to just being in the world. Or I might get caught in my frantic pacing again; I hope not, but I can never sure.

PETE: So whether Charles’s system is actually right is not a question we can ever answer?

THINKER: Well yes. And the same goes for this one which includes Charles’s system in it. And for one that somebody makes that includes this one as well. You know how I told you that I used to be enlightened? I used to be actually enlightened long-term, not just in a circle of enlightenment and non-enlightenment. I lived with Zen monks and everything. But then I started to wonder . . . the western world seems so confident in their worldview. How could these two views ever co-exist? What I came up with was the system I just described.

PETE: What happened when you told your fellow monks about this idea?

THINKER: This did:

THINKER: This whole thing fits into a system which relies on active and passive ways of relating to the world. You see, the world can be either looked at actively or passively by people who we can classify as either doers or be-ers. As monks, we are all be-ers, looking at it passively. But we can fit our entire worldview into a system that is divided among active and passive minded people, and so our worldview can fit into that system.

MONK: There are no dichotomies in the world and certainly not one between active and passive.

THINKER: No, you’re falling right into it! You see, that is exactly what a passive minded person would say!

MONK: You’re talking as if I have a nature. How can I have a nature if I do not know the next word that will come out of my mouth?

THINKER: You’re still in it, don’t you see? That’s exactly what a passive minded person would say too!

MONK: Your view makes too much sense.

THINKER: What? How is that possibly a criticism?

MONK: The world does not make sense.

THINKER: But then that is the sense that it makes, and you contradict yourself.

MONK: I do not make sense either, though.

THINKER: But then how are you trying to argue with me?

MONK: I am not trying to argue. You are arguing. I am rambling.

THINKER: But that’s exactly—Nevermind!

THINKER: At that point, I suddenly realized the position I had taken. I had become western minded person who stood outside of the world, fitting it all into a conceptual structure but missing the brute reality of it.

PETE: So, if you realized you had missed the reality of everything, why didn’t you just go back to having your enlightened passive mindset?

THINKER: Because I was still in an active mindset and clinging to it because I felt like I had just bridged the gap between eastern and western mindsets. I soon realized that the gap really was unbridgeable, and all thought on it was futile. Speaking of that, this conversation is useless as well. I think it would do us both well to splash around in this delightful lake and forget all about it.

PETE: Alright, but I have one last question for you Mr. Thinker.

THINKER: Sure, what is it?

PETE: How can doers and be-ers coexist?

THINKER: In my case, we play poker together.

PETE: Are you good?

THINKER: Well, I end up beating Charles almost every time.

PETE: You must be pretty good then. What’s you’re secret?

THINKER: I haven’t the slightest idea. Luck I guess. I don’t even know how to play poker.