If the dictionary showed the picture of a plate with the definition: anything and everything. Well then it would be the Object of objects, wouldn't it?

And isn't an object which is anything and everything also nothing and nowhere?

I may have sat Zazen at your Zendo in a former incarnation. The yellow leaf outside my window shivers in the breeze.

I look at a forest and I have no words. I run and stumble into a tree. The tree is the forest and the tree is not the forest. What did I strike?

The whole of the Universe consists of a relationship between what is manifest and what is unmanifest. But to say that the manifest is unreal or has no actuality because it reflects the unmanifest is to divide the Universe, which is indivisible in reality and point of fact. Not only that, but it offers no practical or pragmatic value. If I pound a nail with a plate. I call it a plate because that was it's raison d' etre. Just because it became a hammer doesn't mean it isn't also a plate a wall decoration or a pedestal for a steaming pile of shit. If it become a hat it still belongs to the class of plates. It has all the attributes that qualify the meaning and definition of plate. It has the uses of a plate, and the boundaries of a plate, and the essence of a plate. Even when I shatter it, is it still a plate. A shattered plate, but, a plate. A mummy in a sarcophagus is still a pharoah.

One day while distributing food to little children from his bag, two scholars stopped the Hotei and one of them asked him: 'What is the significance of Zen?' The Hotei dropped his bag and frowned. The other scholar then asked, 'What is the actualization of Zen?' The Hotei smiled and hoisted his, proceeding on his way.

I 'seem' to be a verb.

Martin Heidegger was right. The problem with modern people is that they no longer know how to answer the question: what is the Being of beings?

False.

My thought and ideas are maps that point to the territory they symbolize. Wheel, hammer, plate are ideas that relate to specific use cases with specific verifiable criteria. They pass or fail.

But what is the territory that the idea of a 'Creator' maps to, in the sense of the 'presentation' of the Universe as a system in which we find our being in a situation?

Creator as a concept maps clearly to entities that create forms out of some medium, a sand painting out of colored sand, for instance, and a Destructor of some sort.

But to attempt to map the concept to the Universe is to do so only by anthropomorphic analogy. And what does the map posit? What does the mapper derive from the process? The ability to connect nothing with nothing? Believe it if you need it. It has no interest for me. And I certainly reject it as a justification for imposing upon my liberty with somebody elses notion of how I should behave.

She reminds me of the new souped up Zombies from 28 Days. She's fast as hell and vicious as a wolverine, but still a mindless zombie with only one thought, to eat your brain.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”--Marcus Aurelius

"The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back."--Abigail Van Buren

You are saying that just because McCain broke his marriage vow, doesn't mean he would necessarily break any other vow. I am claiming that it DOES constitute an indicator of the small regard he has for the vows he takes. The situation is self evident. you claim that a vow may be broken if it is no longer convenient to keep it. You may find it inconvenient to accomodate within your own hierarchy of values, but, there it is. And your arguing the point says everything to me about YOUR character.

The evolution of rights in European thought began with the "Renaissance of Law" in the late-eleventh and early twelfth century. The first step of this Renaissance was the rediscovery of Justinian's Digest, the most important part of the Emperor Justinian's great codification of the sixth century. Jurist named Pepo and Irnerius gave lectures on the Digest, and students flocked to them. By the middle of the twelfth century, a vigorous and thriving Bolognese law school attracted students from all over Europe. At the same time, a jurist named Gratian compiled a systematically arranged textbook book of canon law, later called the Decretum, and began teaching in Bologna. These two branches of law, Roman and canon, quickly merged into a curriculum in which students studied both and received the degree of "Doctor utriusque iuris," Doctor of both laws. Most continental European law schools still confer this title on their graduates. The system of jurisprudence created by this revival of legal studies was called the Ius commune.

Historically speaking, a 'right' is a concept that exists only within the context of a legal system--where there is no law--the guy with the most might pretty much dictates your 'rights'.