{"id":1936,"date":"2010-12-31T17:00:18","date_gmt":"2010-12-31T22:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=1936"},"modified":"2010-12-31T16:58:14","modified_gmt":"2010-12-31T21:58:14","slug":"and-year-beginnings-a-toast-to-this-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/12\/31\/and-year-beginnings-a-toast-to-this-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"…& beginnings (a toast to this moment)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A process-relational buddhontology<\/a> sees every moment as a moment of grasping, or prehension<\/a>, that begins with an open, spacious cognizance<\/a>, gathers\/feels\/responds to what has arisen before it, and ends in the satisfaction of its own concrescence<\/a>. When the object of that satisfaction is unrecognized as what it is — as the immanent flow of desiring-production<\/a>, a flow that cannot be frozen or held in place because there is nothing tangible there to hold and no one tangible to hold it — it conditions the next moment with its own sense of incomplete satisfaction.<\/p>\n

Liberation from delusion comes with recognizing things in their true nature as the open flow of immanence<\/a> shared. The full recognition of that leads spontaneously to the realization of the compassionate solidarity of all things (i.e. that we, all minded, empsyched <\/a>things, all subjectivating entities, are in this together). Living in light of that recognition is wisdom.<\/p>\n

(Meditation, at least of the zen and dzogchen varieties, is the practice of learning the microphysics of how to do that: of allowing what arises to arise, of dwelling in the open, spacious, non-<\/em>grasping cognizance of the moment, of letting things be in their fullness. As for the macrophysics, that requires collective work, guided by an understanding of social and institutional dynamics, of capitalism, and other things.)<\/p>\n

What this means is that this moment is all that there is <\/em>(for any subjectivating entity). But moments like this — the ending of a year and beginning of another (for entities like us who dwell also amid the shared abstractions of concepts like ‘years’ and ‘then’ and ‘hope’ and ‘time’ and ‘us’) — provide an opportunity for setting our goals, arranging our motivations, projecting our desires forward on trajectories that may take on a life of their own beneath our conscious graspings, running alongside us in the machinery of our body-mental-matter.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, here’s a toast to this year-inaugurating moment:<\/p>\n

May this be the year that all sentient beings are liberated from delusion. (If only for a moment; moments are, after all, what the world is made of.)<\/p>\n

May we all experience the liberating insight into the true nature of things: as feelingful expressions of becoming, openings onto the beauty <\/a>that ever arises, steps toward the elusive mystery that draws us onward.<\/p>\n

May we turn all desires into desire itself. The only wheel to escape is the wheel of delusion which, when seen clearly, is nothing but the open embrace of all things. (The trick is in the seeing, which is the doing.)<\/p>\n

Peace be to all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/em>Top image courtesy of Alvin Lau<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A process-relational buddhontology sees every moment as a moment of grasping, or prehension, that begins with an open, spacious cognizance, gathers\/feels\/responds to what has arisen before it, and ends in the satisfaction of its own concrescence. When the object of that satisfaction is unrecognized as what it is — as the immanent flow of desiring-production, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[688977,691847],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geo_philosophy","category-religion-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-ve","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1234,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/04\/08\/philosophy-of-the-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":1936,"position":0},"title":"philosophy of the moment","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Jeff Carrera's Philosophy is Not a Luxury has been posting some pithy articulations of the process-relational philosophies of James, Dewey, Peirce, and others in the American pragmatist tradition. It's too bad that the word \"pragmatism\" in its everyday sense doesn't do justice to these thinkers -- rather like the terms\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1013,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2008\/12\/14\/this-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":1936,"position":1},"title":"this moment","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"...the moment Wall Street crashed into the woods, its train having pushed as far as it could go off the rails it thought it had built. The photo is from my series of Haida Gwaii nature-culture collaborations, where the detritus of industrial civilization, having reached as far as it could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"QCI%20060.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2008\/12\/QCI-060-thumb.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5895,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/05\/14\/for-the-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":1936,"position":2},"title":"For the moment","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that a very busy semester has ended, I can return to the constructive speculative-metaphysical strand of this blog, in which I work out the process-relational philosophy I've tentatively labelled Ecosophy-G. A suitable acronym for this project might be \"pre-G\" (process-relational ecosophy-G), pronounced \"pree-jee,\" with the \"pre\" also indicating that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2012\/05\/bubble-231x275.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8258,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/05\/12\/a-moment-in-may\/","url_meta":{"origin":1936,"position":3},"title":"A moment in May","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The semester is over, the grades are submitted, the sun is shining after a beautiful heavy rain, and the trees on the streets of Burlington are in full bloom\u00a0-- cherry blossoms and flowering dogwoods, magnolias and crabapples (at least those are my guesses). And this song lilts the afternoon as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music & soundscape"","block_context":{"text":"Music & soundscape","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/music-soundscape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/qbO2gvkTix4\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1079,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/05\/30\/between-continental-environmental-philosophy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1936,"position":4},"title":"between continental & environmental philosophy","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Responding to a post on this blog, Kvond, a little while ago, raised the question of the relationship between Arne Naess, originator of \u201cdeep ecology,\u201d and Spinoza \u2013 which made me think of the interesting if sporadic\/uneven\/episodic relationships between the main traditions of continental philosophy and environmental thought. A glance\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13850,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2025\/01\/11\/burning-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":1936,"position":5},"title":"Burning moment","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Watching Onscene.tv\u2019s continuous, commentary-free footage of the fires in and around Los Angeles is like watching a Buddhist cremation ceremony. Recently vacated homes and buildings burn, slowly collapsing, walls crashing, smoke plumes exiting from windows, and embers blowing from building to building, as a hand-held or vehicle-mounted camera moves silently\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirit matter"","block_context":{"text":"Spirit matter","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/religion-spirituality\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image-1.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image-1.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image-1.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image-1.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1936"}],"version-history":[{"count":91,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2083,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions\/2083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}