Via White Crane Institute // LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1889 -

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Austrian-born philosopher (d. 1951); an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in the foundations of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. His influence has been wide-ranging and he is generally regarded as one of the 20th century's most important philosophers.

Before his death at the age of 62, the only book-length work Wittgenstein had published was the Tractatus Logico-Philisophicus,["Philosophical Investigations"], which Wittgenstein worked on in his later years, was published shortly after he died. Both of these works are regarded as highly influential in analytic philosophy.

Ludwig Wittgenstein seems to have been uncomfortable with his sexuality. Certainly, he was very secretive about his sexual interests and activities. His secretiveness is not altogether surprising, considering the fact that homosexuality was illegal in Austria and Britain during his lifetime. Therefore, details of his emotional and sexual life are sparse.

William W. Bartley first broached the subject of Wittgenstein's homosexuality in his 1973 biography and received considerable censure and disapproval from the philosophy establishment. Apparently, in his student days in Vienna, Wittgenstein occasionally cruised the Prater, a large public park, where he met rough trade youths; he seems to have continued this activity later in England. However, Wittgenstein is also believed to have had long-term affairs with men of his own class, such as the philosopher Frank Ramsey and the architect Francis Skinner.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - April 26, 2020 💌

"If we can imagine a wheel whose rim is the cycle of births and deaths, all of the 'stuff' of life, conditioned reality, and whose center is perfect flow, formless no-mind, the source, we’ve got one foot with most of our weight on the circumference of the wheel, and one foot tentatively on the center. That’s the beginning of awakening. And we come in, and we sit down and meditate, and suddenly there’s a moment when we feel the perfection of our being and our connection. Then our weight goes back on the outside of the wheel. Over and over and over, this happens.
Slowly, slowly the weight shifts. Then the weight shifts just enough so that there is a slight predominance on the center of the wheel, and we find that we naturally just want to sit down and be quiet, that we don’t have to say, 'I’ve got to meditate now,' or 'I’ve got to read a holy book,' or 'I’ve got to turn off the television set,' or 'I’ve got to do… anything.' It doesn’t become that kind of a discipline anymore. The balance has shifted.
And we keep allowing our lives to become more and more simple, more and more harmonious. And less and less are we grabbing at this and pushing that away..."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Softening Your Ego

Gratitude is a way of undercutting your ego.

—Interview with Rev. Dr. Alfred Bloom by Jeff Wilson, “Beyond Religion”

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