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skyringThe topic for tonight's philosophy class was Beauty. The facilitator pointed to a vase of flowers, asking us to consider the lilies, the beauty of the petals, the fragrance, the arrangement. Easy to see them as beautiful, he said.
I made a comment that I loved flowers, and that at the annual Floriade flower festival, I could admire an individual bloom out of the hundreds of thousands, but that after a couple of hours... I was overwhelmed by beauty.
Kerri stuck an elbow in my ribs. "Two hours? You've NEVER lasted that long!"
We moved on to a whiteboard marker pen. Was it beautiful? How so? In what way? Was the beauty of design, of utility a similar beauty to that of the flower? Perhaps there was some quality of beauty we could isolate as common to both.
"You could draw a picture of a flower with it," I suggested, indicating the whiteboard.
And what of other objects? An old item of clothing. Old slippers, perhaps. Old, tattered and smelly, but redolent of years of service and comfort. A childhood toy, a fading picture of grandparents. "Or the grandparents themselves," I offered. Perhaps not widely seen as beautiful, but beautiful to some.
Someone else noted that we didn't have to study over beauty. There was an immediate response. A sunset didn't have to be evaluated and measured against inner criteria to be seen as beautiful. We looked, we saw, we knew beauty.
"It's an unconscious thing," I said, taking advantage of the freedom to blurt out my immediate thoughts, "Those tatty but beautiful slippers, they might be Freudian slippers."
Other things. A painting, a mathematical proof, an eloquent speech, a concept. Things with no material existence, but beautiful nonetheless.
Or a child's delight at seeing something new. A smile. A younger student offered the sporting ability of Shane Warne, a cricketer whose talent was beautiful to observe. I don't swing that way myself, but I love the elegance of a nicely turned double play. There is a beauty in it.
I thought of something beautiful.
"I'm a night cabbie," I said, "and one of my problems is how to deal with drunks. Sometimes they have too much to drink and they misbehave, or throw up over my beautiful taxi. I once remember a pair of friends, and when one of them asked me to pull over quick, I was anxious. But we stopped, he opened the door, and his companion held onto his belt as he leaned out, leaned way out. It was a practiced, practical performance. It was beautiful. Not one drop on the car."
The facilitator smiled, and we hurried on. He read out a quote from Plato:
He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty - a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another... but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change... - Plato "The Symposium"
This was difficult and dense. He read it out again, and we spent a useful, thoughtful half hour discussing it. I was immediately struck by the Taoist overtones, though I couldn't see how one might completely perceive the complete nature of wondrous beauty.
A student wondered about how a flower or a pen could hold an everlasting beauty.
"The pen might be a permanent marker," I noted. I was getting the hang of this philosophy lark now.
"What is the purpose of beauty?" another student wondered. "Is there some evolutionary advantage?"
Someone described a Leunig cartoon, where herdes of wildebeeste followed their ancestral migration trails across the land, crossing rivers and braving dangers. A small wildebeeste asked an older, wiserbeeste, "Why do we do this?" and the older beeste replied, "Why do you ask?"
Perhaps, I verntured, beauty allows us to see the true way. A spider, for example, might spin a perfect, beautiful web. Maybe we could go to wikipedia, or some other website to find an answer. The class groaned. I was enjoying this.
"Perhaps beauty is in the observer," suggested the facilitator. "If you see a beautiful sunset, for example, perhaps there is something beautiful in the person seeing it, to recognise the immediate beauty."
"Think of the most beautiful thing you've ever encountered," he continued. I reached out to take the hand of my wife. "And, and..." The whole room was smiling. I don't think he ever finished his sentence.
Instead, we went onto another quote:
Saint Eknath ventured to take holy water from the Ganges. On the way, near a town, a dead dog was lying on the road. He was asked to avoid it because of the bad smell. But then he was close to it and he walked on, saying “The teeth of the dog are very white and bright”. He ignored the smell. After some time he saw a donkey lying on the road nearly dying of thirst. He gave donkey the holy water. Very soon the donkey was full of energy. Having used all the water, Saint Ekhath just prayed to the Lord to whom he was taking the water saying, “ I was asked by thee to fetch holy water from Gangotri to pour over you, but fortunately, you have just met me on the way, so I have happily performed the duty”. The voice of the Lord came to honour the deed.
"What does this tell us?" asked the facilitator.
I knew the answer.
"Sometimes, God is an ass."
The class derailed itself again. I pondered some more.
"Sometimes, I'm an ass."
"why didn't he just give the donkey some tap water?" a student wanted to know.
"Because it was the act of giving the special holy water that was important to him," I said, remembering my recent trip to San Francisco, where I'd pass the city-sponsored homeless folk and give them whatever change was in my pocket. They weren't beautiful people, they smelt, they probably weren't going to use a few quarters and dimes for any good purpose, but it was the act of giving that put a glow on my heart.
Joking aside, I got an amazing amount out of that class. Often I was engrossed in my own thoughts. The discussion stimulated my mind to an astonishing degree. I love the sense of expansion, of betterment, of insight, that these sessions are bringing to me.
I can't possibly set down all my insights in a blog post, but perhaps to summarise the session, beauty is everywhere, and the everyday sights and sounds that we regard as beautiful are reflections of a deeper, inner, everlasting beauty, which may be found within us if we look deeply enough.
Beauty isn't necessarily the perfect shape of a beautiful woman. It is in her heart.
I made a comment that I loved flowers, and that at the annual Floriade flower festival, I could admire an individual bloom out of the hundreds of thousands, but that after a couple of hours... I was overwhelmed by beauty.
Kerri stuck an elbow in my ribs. "Two hours? You've NEVER lasted that long!"
We moved on to a whiteboard marker pen. Was it beautiful? How so? In what way? Was the beauty of design, of utility a similar beauty to that of the flower? Perhaps there was some quality of beauty we could isolate as common to both.
"You could draw a picture of a flower with it," I suggested, indicating the whiteboard.
And what of other objects? An old item of clothing. Old slippers, perhaps. Old, tattered and smelly, but redolent of years of service and comfort. A childhood toy, a fading picture of grandparents. "Or the grandparents themselves," I offered. Perhaps not widely seen as beautiful, but beautiful to some.
Someone else noted that we didn't have to study over beauty. There was an immediate response. A sunset didn't have to be evaluated and measured against inner criteria to be seen as beautiful. We looked, we saw, we knew beauty.
"It's an unconscious thing," I said, taking advantage of the freedom to blurt out my immediate thoughts, "Those tatty but beautiful slippers, they might be Freudian slippers."
Other things. A painting, a mathematical proof, an eloquent speech, a concept. Things with no material existence, but beautiful nonetheless.
Or a child's delight at seeing something new. A smile. A younger student offered the sporting ability of Shane Warne, a cricketer whose talent was beautiful to observe. I don't swing that way myself, but I love the elegance of a nicely turned double play. There is a beauty in it.
I thought of something beautiful.
"I'm a night cabbie," I said, "and one of my problems is how to deal with drunks. Sometimes they have too much to drink and they misbehave, or throw up over my beautiful taxi. I once remember a pair of friends, and when one of them asked me to pull over quick, I was anxious. But we stopped, he opened the door, and his companion held onto his belt as he leaned out, leaned way out. It was a practiced, practical performance. It was beautiful. Not one drop on the car."
The facilitator smiled, and we hurried on. He read out a quote from Plato:
He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty - a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another... but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change... - Plato "The Symposium"
This was difficult and dense. He read it out again, and we spent a useful, thoughtful half hour discussing it. I was immediately struck by the Taoist overtones, though I couldn't see how one might completely perceive the complete nature of wondrous beauty.
A student wondered about how a flower or a pen could hold an everlasting beauty.
"The pen might be a permanent marker," I noted. I was getting the hang of this philosophy lark now.
"What is the purpose of beauty?" another student wondered. "Is there some evolutionary advantage?"
Someone described a Leunig cartoon, where herdes of wildebeeste followed their ancestral migration trails across the land, crossing rivers and braving dangers. A small wildebeeste asked an older, wiserbeeste, "Why do we do this?" and the older beeste replied, "Why do you ask?"
Perhaps, I verntured, beauty allows us to see the true way. A spider, for example, might spin a perfect, beautiful web. Maybe we could go to wikipedia, or some other website to find an answer. The class groaned. I was enjoying this.
"Perhaps beauty is in the observer," suggested the facilitator. "If you see a beautiful sunset, for example, perhaps there is something beautiful in the person seeing it, to recognise the immediate beauty."
"Think of the most beautiful thing you've ever encountered," he continued. I reached out to take the hand of my wife. "And, and..." The whole room was smiling. I don't think he ever finished his sentence.
Instead, we went onto another quote:
Saint Eknath ventured to take holy water from the Ganges. On the way, near a town, a dead dog was lying on the road. He was asked to avoid it because of the bad smell. But then he was close to it and he walked on, saying “The teeth of the dog are very white and bright”. He ignored the smell. After some time he saw a donkey lying on the road nearly dying of thirst. He gave donkey the holy water. Very soon the donkey was full of energy. Having used all the water, Saint Ekhath just prayed to the Lord to whom he was taking the water saying, “ I was asked by thee to fetch holy water from Gangotri to pour over you, but fortunately, you have just met me on the way, so I have happily performed the duty”. The voice of the Lord came to honour the deed.
"What does this tell us?" asked the facilitator.
I knew the answer.
"Sometimes, God is an ass."
The class derailed itself again. I pondered some more.
"Sometimes, I'm an ass."
"why didn't he just give the donkey some tap water?" a student wanted to know.
"Because it was the act of giving the special holy water that was important to him," I said, remembering my recent trip to San Francisco, where I'd pass the city-sponsored homeless folk and give them whatever change was in my pocket. They weren't beautiful people, they smelt, they probably weren't going to use a few quarters and dimes for any good purpose, but it was the act of giving that put a glow on my heart.
Joking aside, I got an amazing amount out of that class. Often I was engrossed in my own thoughts. The discussion stimulated my mind to an astonishing degree. I love the sense of expansion, of betterment, of insight, that these sessions are bringing to me.
I can't possibly set down all my insights in a blog post, but perhaps to summarise the session, beauty is everywhere, and the everyday sights and sounds that we regard as beautiful are reflections of a deeper, inner, everlasting beauty, which may be found within us if we look deeply enough.
Beauty isn't necessarily the perfect shape of a beautiful woman. It is in her heart.
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 07:57 pm (UTC)