are you owning knowledge or renting it?

[goldisheavy]

Renting knowledge is what happens when you feel that what you know has been imparted to you by others. So if you feel that your parents taught you language, and that the society taught you what you know about the world, then you are renting knowledge.

 

A person who rents knowledge likes to hear something being said, then writes it down or memorizes it, and begins to repeat it. There is no need to understand what you are doing. The modality of renting is characterized by mindless perpetuation. People like this become the traditionalists, the ones who fear to lose something, the preservers, etc. It's like someone who lovingly dusts a book and preserves it, without actually knowing what is inside its pages. These are the renters of knowledge.

 

Renters identify with a particular part of the story. Since they do not feel they have written the entire story themselves, they feel it is too audacious and too inconceivable to be free to identify oneself however they want. So what the renters do is they identify with the part of the story that's consistent with what they believe to be an accurate retelling of the story. Since the emphasis is on retelling and not on creativity, there is no wiggle room for change or creativity with regard to identity.

 

So renters see themselves enmeshed in the story as one of the characters and do not see themselves to be altogether beyond the story, which is what an author of the story, an owner of knowledge, would experience.

 

Renters retell the story. They do not feel free to write the story or to modify it.

 

Owning knowledge is what happens when you feel that all knowledge has been and is being birthed by oneself, the owner, ongoingly. Owners see themselves to be beyond any particular expression in the same way that a book author sees oneself to be beyond anything they write about in the book. This means you know yourself to be the mother and the father of all knowledge and you feel you have taught the world what the world is, rather than the other way around. Owners have utmost command of discourse, since they feel they have made the territory they now navigate, so that nothing can surprise them and all kinds of passes and maneuvers unavailable to renters are available to owners. Owners feel free to write stories and not just to retell them. Owners feel free to tweak the stories they hear. While owners may have a habitual pattern, they do not feel owned by this pattern, but rather feel they own it, and because of this, they are free to modify this pattern at any time and do not have any more allegiance to the pattern than a pen owner feel an allegiance to the pen. Owners see knowledge as a tool that is at their disposal. Owners of knowledge are the ones that can use hammers to cut paper because they are not self-constrained in the same way that renters are. Renters feel that creativity with regard to information is unwarranted or even dangerous. Owners feel that creativity with regard to information is live-blood of well being.

 

To own concepts is safe and good. To be owned by them is dangerous and bad. That is my opinion.

Edited July 7, 2009 by goldisheavy

[Creation]

I find your renting vs. owning analogy very apt.

 

There are degrees, of course, and truly owning is not only very difficult to do but makes it very difficult to communicate with all the renters out there (almost everyone).

 

A good first step is to be honest about what you are renting.

 

"What I cannot create, I do not understand."

-Written on Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death.

 

The above quote is very much related to my screen name, btw .

[seadog]

What about the sticky question of language? We think and communicate in language,a language that has been handed down to us by our ancestors.All of our knowledge rented,owned or otherwise is the product of the description of the world around us.

In a sense the forces of nature compelled us to speak, to give life names,to make an inventory.

According to your definition renters are those who hear something said write it down and memorise it.

Isn't that what we call getting an education?

Is it possible to step outside this framework,if so how do we exprience knowledge without the filter of language?

Is this what is meant in the Dao de ching "the tao that can be mentioned is not the true dao"

If true knowledge or gnosis can only be exprienced,by whats means do we express our exprience without resorting to language.

 

You only have to read the endless debates on this web page in regards to Buddhism,verse taoism verse hinduism to realise how strong we value our particular inventory.

And truly the only issue I can see which seperates them is the use of language.

So how do we become owners of knowledge when we have effectively rented the world around us from our ancestors?

[goldisheavy]

What about the sticky question of language? We think and communicate in language,a language that has been handed down to us by our ancestors.

 

So you don't see yourself as the mother and father of language? As the birth place of language? That's too bad then.

[dwai]

What about the sticky question of language? We think and communicate in language,a language that has been handed down to us by our ancestors.All of our knowledge rented,owned or otherwise is the product of the description of the world around us.

In a sense the forces of nature compelled us to speak, to give life names,to make an inventory.

According to your definition renters are those who hear something said write it down and memorise it.

Isn't that what we call getting an education?

Is it possible to step outside this framework,if so how do we exprience knowledge without the filter of language?

Is this what is meant in the Dao de ching "the tao that can be mentioned is not the true dao"

If true knowledge or gnosis can only be exprienced,by whats means do we express our exprience without resorting to language.

 

You only have to read the endless debates on this web page in regards to Buddhism,verse taoism verse hinduism to realise how strong we value our particular inventory.

And truly the only issue I can see which seperates them is the use of language.

So how do we become owners of knowledge when we have effectively rented the world around us from our ancestors?

 

We are more or less all renters of knowledge. But imho, that is not such a bad thing.

What is important is to realize that one could go from renter to owner by following certain practices such as meditation and by transcending their categorical framework (that which names and describes things).

 

When such a thing happens, it is called Intuition or Prajna and one simply rests in knowing experientially without a need to give names or descriptions to that which cannot be described.

[goldisheavy]

According to your definition renters are those who hear something said write it down and memorise it.

Isn't that what we call getting an education?

 

Indeed. Our entire realm is based on renting knowledge. Owners of knowledge are currently the exception and not the rule. Owners are often reviled because renters feel that any modification and creativity with information is unwarranted and even dangerous.

 

When you're a renter, you have your landlord as an authority. So you say, "I am renting from Such and Such, that's why I am entitled to this knowledge." Owners do not rent though, and are self-entitled rather than being entitled conventionally from an external source. Owners of knowledge simply make a claim and defend it. They don't wait to be handed down a deed of ownership from outside.

 

Of course conventional property ownership where you must be recognized as an owner by society is more like renting in my analogy. In that case the property "owner" is really renting that property from society and has to pay taxes, and abide by social agreements (there are some legal limits on what you may or may not do with your property). I am talking about owning in a spiritual sense, which should not be confused with legal or conventional ownership.

 

Pretty much all the people who received handed down knowledge and who act to preserve it and practice it are renters and not owners. There is no creativity in what they do, but only preservation. And these people get extremely offended if one of their students teaches a modified form, for example, because they see it as a perversion.

 

Is it possible to step outside this framework,if so how do we exprience knowledge without the filter of language?

 

It's impossible. You have to understand what is language first. A tree is a word. A rain drop is a word. A taste is a word. All phenomena are symbolic by nature. A mystical experience is also a word.

 

The same is true in reverse. Words are mystical and unfathomable. What does "is" mean? What does "blue" mean? You might think you know, but if you investigate, I am certain you'll discover you have no solid and reliable idea what anything means.

 

Clouds floating in the sky are words floating among words, verbing their way through. This is why in the Bible it is said, "In the beginning there was Word, and the Word was with God." It's a very potent line, but pretty much no one understands its meaning. It's a pointing out instruction with regard to the symbolic nature of all phenomena.

 

Concepts are distinctions. How do you know that a mystical experience is in fact mystical? You make a distinction! So a mystical experience is still a conceptual experience. But concepts are also mystical.

 

I am posting a summary of what I understand. To understand it I had to think it over and let myself feel it, over a period of time. I realized that making distinctions between conceptual and non-conceptual ways of knowing is a purely conceptual modality. At the same time, there is nothing conceptual about concepts. Then I realized how much power and magic exists in words. I realized that words are not just what's on my tongue, but they are in my bones and are everywhere and everything is made from words.

 

Is this what is meant in the Dao de ching "the tao that can be mentioned is not the true dao"

If true knowledge or gnosis can only be exprienced,by whats means do we express our exprience without resorting to language.

 

In the beginning people make a distinction between experience and language and they spurn the language while prizing the experience. But if you contemplate for a long time, that distinction doesn't last. Distinctions tend to lose importance in contemplation. Distinctions become ornamental rather than essential.

 

What's important about language is that it's YOUR language. Just like you cannot become enlightened in someone else's bones, you cannot become enlightened in someone else's language. The language is your bone and muscle. You can change your language, but you still only have your new, changed language and not something else. Language is not an obstruction. Language is a vehicle of enlightenment the same way that a human body is.

 

So how do we become owners of knowledge when we have effectively rented the world around us from our ancestors?

 

You can contemplate. Ask yourself questions, like "When someone looks at me, how do I know they are looking at me?" "Did my parents teach me that?" Nope... They did not. Yet you know, eh? "How did I learn language at all?" Think it over. It might take many years to fully feel out some domains of understanding, but it's worth it. When you contemplate, allow yourself to think freely. Don't limit yourself to only acceptable/traditional answers and ways of thinking.

 

Above all, don't assume you have rented anything. Feel what is in you. Have you rented your inner core being? If yes, then who are you? Take responsibility! Don't run away. Pay attention.

 

We are more or less all renters of knowledge. But imho, that is not such a bad thing.

What is important is to realize that one could go from renter to owner by following certain practices such as meditation and by transcending their categorical framework (that which names and describes things).

 

When such a thing happens, it is called Intuition or Prajna and one simply rests in knowing experientially without a need to give names or descriptions to that which cannot be described.

 

I agree. If I didn't think that was the case, why would I bother presenting this information? I only say this because people have an option to become creative owners of knowledge, and personally, I would like for people to exercise it, at least sometimes, if not at all times.

Edited July 7, 2009 by goldisheavy

[seadog]

Gold you didn't answer the question you simply reiterated what you have been told by someone else,useing a language that was given to you.

No were not the mother and father of our language we are the children of it.Since day one every single person you have come in contact with has maintained your world around you,upholding it with the power of words. Words that were given to you.

By the age of ten you have been effectively been hard wired by these words.The world is constanly being rebuilt everyday for you by the language people speak around you.

 

All knowledge you can speak of has been handed down to you, you are the product of countless eons of life that proceeded you.

To consider that one is renter or one is a owner is just a game you are playing in your mind.

True gnosis or the word is spontaneously ariseing and empty.

Nobody niether can own or rent it because it is beyond such renting and owning,yet it is present both in owning and renting.

Owning and renting are the same because the word or gnosis is present in both.

So are we both then the creator and the created.

The owner and the renter.

[ZenStatic]

Renting knowledge is what happens when you feel that what you know has been imparted to you by others. So if you feel that your parents taught you language, and that the society taught you what you know about the world, then you are renting knowledge.

 

So you don't see yourself as the mother and father of language? As the birth place of language? That's too bad then.

 

Wow. Just, wow. Well, we can at least thank you for showing us that you are delusional. Everything you have ever and will ever learn was imparted on you by others. Whether by them teaching you, or by the experiences they were involved in where you learned it. It has nothing to do with how you learn something, rather, it is what you do with that knowledge.

[Josh Young]

I have many beliefs, but I neither rent nor own them, for what "I" is does not exist independently from my beliefs.

 

Can a belief own itself or rent itself?

 

Can a belief have knowledge?

 

I is just something I believe.

 

Knowledge is an illusion to me.

 

I have no knowledge and am incapable of knowing because I am a human being.

 

I am incapable of owning anything, for how can a belief own?

My body cannot own, for bodies exist in death and ownership does not. Nor can my identity own, for my identity is a belief construct and does not actually exist and so cannot own anything.

 

I am bewildered by the meanings of the words most people use. Concepts such as knowledge, I or identity and ownership all strike me as absurd and delusional.

 

Perhaps I am absurd and delusion, alas I do not, and cannot: know.

[Marblehead]

I think we all are owners and renters to varying degrees.

 

Every time we have an original thought we are the owner of that thought (knowledge). Every time we have a personal experience we are the owner of the knowledge of that personal experience.

 

Yes, I hold to Jonh Locke's theory of the "Blank Slate" but at the same time I also hold to Carl Jung's theory of "Collective unconsciousness". In both these theories we are renters. But, as we age and accumulate knowledge we throw some things out and we refine others. Then, on occasion, we collect various bits of knowledge, synthesize these bits into a unique and novel bit of understanding (knowledge). We own this.

 

Josh, I understand what you are pointing at and I agree with you if we view this from a point of Unity (wu) but as long as we have a body we are in the realm of duality (yo).

 

Do I know anything. Well, sure, at this very moment I know a number of things. But, because all is change, what I know at this moment may become a misunderstanding at some other point in time.

 

Be well!

[Josh Young]

I've never had an original thought in my life.

[Marblehead]

I've never had an original thought in my life.

 

Now that gave me a good belly laugh. Thanks!

 

Be well!