Contact Boundary/Consciousness

• Buddhism and Gestalt by Philip Brownell, 12/6/96
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    • Defining Self at the Contact Boundary by Philip Brownell, 12/20/96
      
      

Phil, Thanks for the help. You give good examples . Iam trying to better understand Gestalt and Buddha but I have been struggking to date. Most of my development along these lines has been steeped heavily in Sartre, Husserel, and Ayer. I do see many parallels. First, you discuss the contact boundary. Iam assuming that by this term you mean the point at which the consciousness meets reality. Let me try to make some connections here between what you stated and my understanding of this "point of contact. ................My analysis tends to get more "micro" than my readings under this forum to date. Let me start with what I understand to be Sarte's concept of the reflective consciousness. Iam drawing heavily here from Being and Nothingness and Transcendence of the Ego (Sartre). He proposes that at the point of contact the consciuosness enfolds around the reality in anattempt to grasp its meaning . The in itself is explained as the reality, the for itself is explained as Subjective understanding (Ego) and the synthesis of this contact is the meaning (as derived from this contact). The meaning is limited by the for itself as it struggles to better encompass the in itself. Please understand that these concepts are awkward interpretations of the French language. Do you as a Gestalt therapist and a Buddist have similar concepts for these terms? .......Also I continue to be very impressed with the concepts proposed by the father of modern day Phenomenology...Edvard Husserel. Are there parallel concepts within the Gestalt or Buddist perspectives for the processes of Ideation, Reduction, Mediation and Fusion regarding understanding reality? Finally, I see the conflict between existentialism and phenomenology as similar to the dichotomy you present in your posting. In a nut shell, the phenomenologist's quest for truth and the existentialist's contention that all truth is subjective.........Thanks........Ed

• Self-Becoming/Self-Being by Philip Brownell, 2/12/97