Mike Zang - Myth Became Fact

Conduits Between Concrete and Abstract

I felt very relieved after reading Myth Became Fact because what had been a gestating abstraction for several years (with some clumsy attempts at articulation) finally presented itself to me in a well-put, eloquent form. I love finding ideas of mine imbedded in the texts of renown authors! I'm sure I'm no exception.

In this essay Lewis discusses the near impossibility of partaking in experience and understanding it simultemporally. He claims that "In the enjoyment of great myth we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction," (2) and earlier he states, "This is our dilemma -- either to taste and not to know or know and not to taste. . . The more lucidly we think, the more we are cut off: the more deeply we enter reality, the less we can think" (2). Ah yes! How bittersweet!

So, plainly, we remain forever stuck between the poles of concreteness and abstraction. Myth is the partial solution according to Lewis. But what other conduits exist that escort us to the subliminal threshold? What existential practices merge the physical and abstract worlds smooth enough for us to experience up-close and understand at-a-distance concurrently?

This conundrum always brings the Buddhist concept of kensho to mind. Kensho, like myth, allows the human mind to perceive the physical world in a state so lucid it penetrates into the abstract truth simultaneously, culminating in temporary enlightenment. Here, the concrete and abstract conflate. An interface develops with Gestaltic subtleties that promote "the whole being greater than the sum of it's parts." What we experience here is beyond a collapse of tangible and intangible. Kensho, unlike satori, entails momentary Buddhahood, somewhat similar to the description that Lewis provides about reading myth.

Of course there are fundamental disparaties between C.S. Lewis and Zen Buddhism, but I think the conceptual connection is quite apparent. Both approaches offer an abstract and concrete understanding of experience in unison.

Some other notably similar concepts throughout American culture are self-actualization/oceanic feelings (humanistic psychology), flow (pragmatism), and innumerable accounts of hallucinogen-induced individuals. What other avenues expose the "true nature" of reality? Have you had any particularly appealing experiences with the ones I've mentioned? What was it like?