[Buddha-l] Prapanca

[Richard Hayes]

On Fri Feb 15 02:08:35 MST 2008 Wong Weng Fai confessed:

> Wow... all these discussions on prapanca is going way beyond me...

Yes, they became quite silly. (Lusthaus's amusing excursion into Nagarjuna 
seems a prime example of prapanca on steroids.)

The bottom line for me is that when I use the term "prapanca" (perhaps 
idiosyncratically) is connotes intellectual and emotional rigidity, a 
tendency to be able to see things from only one point of view. It seems an 
example of a sort of "locked-in syndrome"---one gets locked into a particular 
narrative view of oneself that prevents one from seeing oneself as others see 
one and prevents one from seeing others as they see themselves. I think there 
may be some of that in the original term, but I have no textual basis. Mostly 
I'm just making stuff up here. (That's my preferred methodology in all 
important matters.)

> All I know is that I have a prapanca expert in my house - my mum. She is
> diagnosed with dementia (doc isn't sure if it is Alzheimers but for sure,
> something snapped). She can take bits and pieces of random facts and
> happenings totally out of their contexts and spin the most convoluted,
> ridiculous and often disjoint stories that inevitably centers on
> herself, her insecurities and her negativities.

I'm really sorry to hear about that, Weng Fai. Dementia of all kinds are very 
difficult to deal with, at least from the outside. (I'm guessing it's no 
picnic to have dementia, but who can know for sure?) Your mother is lucky to 
have a son like you to take care of her.

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes