[Hans Blom, 960423d]
(Bruce Gregory (9604221445 EDT))
Somebody once said (how's that for precision?) "You are powerful to
the extent that you can let things be." I think what he or she
meant was that one component of autonomy flows from our ability
_not_ to attempt to control, particularly not to attempt to control
other autonomous control systems.
Let me present another perspective on this riddle. Control can be
compared with hill-climbing, where, as long as the controller
controls well, it uses all its energy to remain near the top of the
hill, each time having to counter the "disturbances" that move it
away from the top. Now assume that one makes the top of the hill less
interesting or less important, and the other parts of the terrain
more important. This changes the "goal landscape"; the hill's top
becomes less pronounced, the landscape flattens out. Finally, every-
thing is equally important and we have a completely flat landscape.
No more struggle to remain at the top of the hill; you feel at home
everywhere, with equal satisfaction. No disturbance is a disturbance
anymore. No more control is required, because everything is equally
goal -- or nothing.
Those seem indeed the two extremes of the meditative path. One path
asks to relinquish all goals and to make everything equally unimport-
ant (in the Christian tradition: earthly life is nothing compared to
heavenly life). The other path stimulates inquisitiveness or enjoy-
ment in order to make everything equally interesting and important
(in the Christian tradition: all the earth is a reflection of God's
glory).
Although identical in outcome, at least in terms of actions, to me
the latter path seems the more attractive. By saying that, I give
away that I haven't reached equanimity yet...
Greetings,
Hans
ยทยทยท
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Eindhoven University of Technology Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Dept. of Electrical Engineering Medical Engineering Group
email: j.a.blom@ele.tue.nl
Great man achieves harmony by maintaining differences; small man
achieves harmony by maintaining the commonality. Confucius