Dear Paul Hedderman

Dear Paul Hedderman – you may well have a respectful, loving and compassionate attitude toward women but the term bitch-slap is still primarily a term for violence against women. Paul has named his site zenbitchslap.com

Can we use another term for the metaphor – just ‘zenslap’ – the ‘bitch’ element adds nothing positive.

Perhaps another name can be inspired by the following;

“In Zen Buddhism, the keisaku (Japanese: 警策, Chinese: 香板, xiāng bǎn; kyōsaku in the Soto school) is a flat wooden stick or slat used during periods of meditation to remedy sleepiness or lapses of concentration. This is accomplished through a strike or series of strikes, usually administered on the meditator’s back and shoulders in the muscular area between the shoulder blades and the spine. The keisaku itself is thin and somewhat flexible; strikes with it, though they may cause momentary sting if performed vigorously, are not injurious.

Purpose
The word “keisaku” may be translated as “warning stick”, or “awakening stick”, and is wielded by the jikijitsu. “Encouragement stick” is a common translation for “kyōsaku”. In Soto Zen, the kyōsaku is always administered at the request of the meditator, by way of bowing one’s head and putting the palms together in gassho, and then exposing each shoulder to be struck in turn. In Rinzai Zen, the stick is requested in the same manner, but may also be used at the discretion of the Ino, the one in charge of the meditation hall. Even in such cases, it is not considered a punishment, but a compassionate means to reinvigorate and awaken the meditator who may be tired from many sessions of zazen, or under stress, the “monkey mind” (overwhelmed with thoughts).” SOURCE – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keisaku

Juxtaposition of metaphorical usage 1 A lightning flash…

Juxtaposition – of metaphorical usage.

1.
A lightning flash:

between the forest trees

I have seen water.

Shiki Masaoka – (1867-1902)

2 In the Qayyumu’l-Asma’ — the Bab’s commentary on the Surih of Joseph — characterized by the Author of the Iqan as “the first, the greatest and mightiest” of the books revealed by the Bab, we read the following references to Baha’u’llah: “Out of utter nothingness, O great and omnipotent Master, Thou hast, through the celestial potency of Thy might, brought me forth and raised me up to proclaim this Revelation. I have made none other but Thee my trust; I have clung to no will but Thy will… O Thou Remnant of God! I have sacrificed myself wholly for Thee: I have accepted curses for Thy sake, and have yearned for naught but martyrdom in the path of Thy love. Sufficient witness unto me is God, the Exalted, the Protector, the Ancient of Days.” “And when the appointed hour hath struck,” He again addresses Baha’u’llah in that same commentary, “do Thou, by the leave of God, the All-Wise, reveal from the heights of the Most Lofty and Mystic Mount a faint, an infinitesimal glimmer of Thy impenetrable Mystery, that they who have recognized the radiance of the Sinaic Splendor may faint away and die as they catch a lightening glimpse of the fierce and crimson Light that envelops Thy Revelation.”

SOURCE = http://www.bahai-library.net/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76:the-world-order-of-bahaullah&catid=3:shoghi-effendi&Itemid=4

we were born naked onto the page of…

we were born naked onto the page of existence; with nothing but the pen of our soul to write ourselves into eternal ecstasy ~ Baraka Kanaan.

see http://tenderheartmusings.wordpress.com/

“Why structures and patterns?” asked the…

“Why structures and patterns?” asked the Young Apprentice.

“Your brain is a meaning-making organisation,” replied the Magician. “It actively seeks out patterns in order to impose meaning and understanding on events and information. It seeks out relationships between things and organises the results into hierarchies of information that will be easy to store and remember. It chunks up to generalisation and abstraction and chunks down to detail and precision.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“Sure, here’s a simple one. How do you remember the colours of the rainbow in the correct sequence?”

“That’s easy: VIBGYOR!”

“Exactly, your mnemonic VIBGYOR is a generalisation, a higher level of information than the details it triggers: violet, indigo, blue, green yellow, orange, red.”

The Magic of Metaphor by Nick Owen p69

LESSONS OF THE WAR – NAMING OF PARTS by…

LESSONS OF THE WAR – NAMING OF PARTS by Henry Reed

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.

The WikiPedia article on Metaphor in Phi…

The WikiPedia article on Metaphor in Philosophy is much better then the general article on metaphor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor_in_philosophy

Interesting article here – https://peopl…

Interesting article here – https://people.sunyit.edu/~harrell/Pepper/pep_metaphor.htm

Metaphor in Philosophy

by Stephen Pepper

Reprinted from The Journal of Mind and Behavior, vol. 3, nos. 3 and 4, summer/autumn, 1982, a special issue of that journal devoted to Pepper and edited by Art Efron. The JMB reprinted the essay , in turn, from Stephen C. Pepper, “Metaphor in Philosophy,” Dictionary of History of Ideas, Volume 3. Philip P. Wiener, Editor-in-Chief Copyright, 1973 Charles Scribners Sons.

INTRODUCTION

1. Special use of Metaphor in Philosophy. Metaphor in philosophy may be distinguished from metaphor in poetry by being primarily an explanatory rather than an aesthetic device. Its explanatory function is to aid in conceptual clarification, comprehension, or insight regarding a mode of philosophical thought, a problem or an area of philosophical subject matter, or even a total philosophical system. However, the boundary between the aesthetic and the explanatory use of metaphor is admittedly vague. A philosopher may even deliberately select a metaphor for its aesthetic vividness and impact (as with Bergson’s elan vital or William James’s stream of consciousness; and notoriously the Mystics), but the question of the Metaphor’s having philosophical relevance depends on its explanatory function. Does it contribute to an understanding of the philosophy?

There are relatively superficial uses of metaphor in philosophy, and there are permeating uses. The superficial uses occur when figures of speech are scattered along the written pages to vivify some other unusual conception, and drop out when the conception is grasped. But when the metaphor’s use is permeating, it may never completely disappear even after it gets ritualized and deadened under an accepted technical vocabulary within a philosophical school.

It has been frequently noticed that a new mode of thinking or a new school of philosophy as it is emerging and finding itself tends to be expressed in figurative language. This is inevitable before a technical vocabulary is developed with clear definitions and specific designations. Generally, this preliminary tendency is to be regarded as a superficial use of metaphor in philosophy. It is the more permeating use that deserves most attention.

In this connection the term “metaphor” should not be taken in too literal accordance with a definition often found in elementary books on prosody. It is not just a simile with the preposition “like” left out. It is rather the use of one part of experience to illuminate another-to help us understand, comprehend, even to intuit, or enter into the other. The metaphorical element may ultimately be absorbed completely into what it is a metaphor of. The one element, as frequently explained, is “reduced” to the other. The paradox of a metaphor is that it seems to affirm an identity while also half denying it. “All things are water,” Thales seems to say. In so saying he would be affirming an identity and yet acknowledging that it is not obvious, and that what is more obvious is the difference. He claims an insight beyond the conventional view of things. It becomes incumbent on him to show how the identity can be justified. The same is true of Lucretius’ identifying all things with atoms and a void, and of many other philosophers’ modes of identification of the whole of reality with some general aspect of it.

Autumn 1978 (Volume 5, Number 1) Table…

go here for live links on articles – http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/issues/v5/v5n1.html

Jo of Critical Inquiry – Autumn 1978
(Volume 5, Number 1)

Table of Contents

SPECIAL ISSUE: ON METAPHOR

Ted Cohen: “Metaphor and the Cuiltivation of Intimacy”
Paul de Man: “The Epistemology of Metaphor”
Donald Davidson: “What Metaphors Mean”
Wayne C. Booth: “Metaphor as Rhetoric: The Problem of Evaluation”
Karsten Harries: “Metaphor and Transcendence”
David Tracy: “Metaphor and Religion: The Test Case of Christian Texts”
Richard Shiff: “Art and Life: A Metaphoric Relationship”
Howard Gardner and Ellen Winner: “The Development of Metaphoric Competence: Implications for Humanistic Disciplines”
Paul Ricoeur: “The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling”
AFTERTHOUGHTS ON METAPHOR

I. W.V. Quine: “A Postscript on Metaphor”
II. Don R. Swanson: “Toward a Psychology of Metaphor”
III. Karsten Harries: “The Many Uses of Metaphor”
IV. Wayne C. Booth: “Ten Literal ‘Theses'”

Idea Framing, Metaphors, and Your Brain …

Idea Framing, Metaphors, and Your Brain – George Lakoff