Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is loveable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING.
I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going down and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth of the Superman may hereafter arrive.
I love him who liveth in order to know, and seeketh to know in order that the Superman may hereafter live. Thus seeketh he his own down-going.
I love him who laboureth and inventeth, that he may build the house for the Superman, and prepare for him earth, animal, and plant: for thus seeketh he his own down-going.
I love him who loveth his virtue: for virtue is the will to down-going, and an arrow of longing.
I love him who reserveth no share of spirit for himself, but wanteth to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus walketh he as spirit over the bridge.
I love him who maketh his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.
I love him who desireth not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one’s destiny to cling to.
I love him whose soul is lavish, who wanteth no thanks and doth not give back: for he always bestoweth, and desireth not to keep for himself.
I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour, and who then asketh: “Am I a dishonest player?”—for he is willing to succumb.
I love him who scattereth golden words in advance of his deeds, and always doeth more than he promiseth: for he seeketh his own down-going.
I love him who justifieth the future ones, and redeemeth the past ones: for he is willing to succumb through the present ones.
I love him who chasteneth his God, because he loveth his God: for he must succumb through the wrath of his God.
I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding, and may succumb through a small matter: thus goeth he willingly over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgetteth himself, and all things are in him: thus all things become his down-going.
I love him who is of a free spirit and a free heart: thus is his head only the bowels of his heart; his heart, however, causeth his down-going.
I love all who are like heavy drops falling one by one out of the dark cloud that lowereth over man: they herald the coming of the lightning, and succumb as heralds.
Lo, I am a herald of the lightning, and a heavy drop out of the cloud: the lightning, however, is the SUPERMAN.—
― Friedrich Nietzsche, TSZ
Hello Friends,
I have just returned from retreat. The above passage was at the forefront of my mind during this period, particularly at the end. This is undoubtedly one of the most profound things Nietzsche ever penned. This sesshin possessed, at times, an almost unbearable energetic vibrancy.
The intensity was such that it was difficult for me to tolerate or adhere to the method and remain equanimous, as good zazen requires. With this theme circling the drain of my attention and the strength of the tumultuous, energetic and environmental experience, the following was borne out.
Nietzsche's use of the word untergang, sometimes translated as down-going, has greatly interested me in recent times. Aside from this term, you may have noted that much of this passage suggests a kind of state of surrender. This has always stuck out to me since he is popularly conceived as a militaristic, unrelenting thinker.
He puts forth down-going as the herald of the coming of the lightning. When taken together, these terms have their own interesting implications. Let's discuss that another time.
To be clear, I don't doubt that there are several valid interpretations, or perhaps even innuendos, in his use of down-going. For example, I've read it may be an oblique reference to Plato. That goes well beyond my level of education and interest.
One thing is certain to me—his use of these terms indicates his genius in understanding the essential process required for self-overcoming. This is an obvious statement, of course, since he is mainly responsible for that entire notion. On a deeper level, however, it shows he understood the necessity of down-going as a process.
To most, this seems counterintuitive. How does one ascend, self-overcome, go over, or cross the bridge by down-doing in this manner? So, his use of this term shows he knew. It points to a concrete process. Attainable. Non-abstract. Not just about words or thinking. Real.
I am presenting a perspective on this, which I have not come across before. Most interpretations I've encountered share the all-too-common excesses of the most wretched of all god's abominations - the logico-scientific wordcel. The stench of their melding of theories merely based on concepts, terms, or words is unmistakable. Ideas about ideas, abstractions about abstractions.
"I love those who do not know how to live, except by going under, for they are those who cross over the bridge to the overman."
I see this term, down-going, as the statement outlining the essential matter of the transition man.
To ascend, we must descend. The further we descend, the higher we ascend. Most truly, descendence is ascendence. It can be no other way.
In fairness, it wasn't just Nietzsche that understood this. Philosophers and mystics through the ages have known this. The Buddha understood this par excellence. This is evidenced by his psychological and physiological analysis and prescriptions, which are unmatched in their clarity and scope to this day.
What is striking about Nietzsche's understanding is that these are clearly not just nice-sounding words to him, although they do sound nice. It's clearly experientially true to him. Nowadays, we also know it is neuro-physiologically true. There is no way in which anyone can self-overcome without descending into true, not simulated, self-destruction.
It literally requires descent, a switching off of higher circuits through special techniques. This is actually how it is done, and it is actually what happens when these processes are implemented and mastered.
Nietaszche knew (like the Buddha) that something stood in the way of the process of down-going—idiotic notions of free will and false notions of what the self is.
Down-going always (to work) requires us to shed our interpreting self on its own terms, to break its tyrannical automated hold on potential. Without this, one cannot access formative layers of belief and acculturated reactivity and reshape them in one's own image—which, incidentally, do indeed physically lie further down physically in the brain. They are not accessible to us in a state of so-called ordinary consciousness.
No amount of wording, thoughting, arguing, pretending or fantasising will do anything other than supercharge the all-to-human, sneaky cover-up of the ordinariness already there. There is nothing wrong with imagination or fantasy, but we in this time are abusers of both these things.
We are nothing more than a statement, or a ledger, of the pre or sub-conscious neurophysiological status quo. Nietzsche said that the body is the vault of knowledge. I like to say that the body keeps the score of the game of life. Only in the process of down-going can this be understood and changed to any degree.
Our brains, from an evolutionary perspective, can be understood as an adapting, temporally complexifying kind of centralised governmental apparatus. A kind of senate in which each part of the body is given a say in the governance of the overall system in order of its importance.
What most people call a "self" is nothing more than a rather pathetic and common interpretation of these happenings after the fact. Not only that, most humans ascribe some kind of ill-gotten virtue to what is, in all truth, common as trash. Nietzsche is clear in this understanding, too.
Most people I meet, particularly online—which, for all its potential, is usually merely a forum conducive to seducing people into bragging and expressing the worst elements of their natures, spouting false attainment and expressing the most infantile elements of their character. Attention-seeking—think they have already crossed the bridge without down-going, because they are already perfect and unique.
In my reading, Nietzsche makes no space for people like this. They claim a kind of stolen valour and build an edifice of imagined glory over the top of the paltry, banal commonness that is the all-too-human truth.
But to despise oneself? How many are truly capable of this. This is a crucial processual feature of down-going.
The great mystical practices, esoteric elements of religions, and truths of the great philosophers all point to down-going. If they share anything at all, all devised techniques that at least in part appear to facilitate down-going.
They recognised that this was the only means of transcendence and overcoming the banalities of human-animal life.
Down-going is a process. Not an end as some often treat it. In our work, we prepare the ground for what's to come. In our own small way, according to our own capacities, which in my case is small and insignificant, we should herald the coming of the new man. I spit on the pieties of the herd. I love the potential of life, I despise fibrotic restriction.
It was an intense retreat, with intense streams of jolting energy. These challenging physiological states were commensurate with extreme weather.
In Zen, of course, you ignore such things. The tradition acknowledges that such things may occur but is not interested in them. To a Zen practitioner, these are simply more phenomena. They, therefore, consider these streamings of self. This is an interesting demarcation since some forms of Tibetan Buddhism and Hindu yogas use them. Nevertheless, I respect the tradition I work in while on retreat.
My master once stated retreats are a kind of "word-fast". Zen is very much a process of down-going. Whatever ideological of mystical accoutrements people stick to it.
Adherents like myself, with the exception of rarer types, take some time to fast from to words. And the all-too-many aberrant, ill-controlled thoughts and streams that utilise them. It can be considered a kind of shutting down of the higher circuits of the brain in this way to facilitate an intense process of down-going. A loosening up.
Some fault this, saying it's excess. I totally disagree with this, of course.
Like food fasting, word fasting imbues one with better control over words as a tool. You can begin to walk through words. At a certain level with a certain maturity and proficiency at practice, a retreat is also a rationality-fast—a reason-fast. I find it to be a great privilege to be able to have this.
Of course, each retreat, which is an act of mastering an errant physiology in an extreme way, comes with its own challenges. The human apparatus is a kludge and resists breakdown. Zen is a yogic practice. It is not about indulging in feelings, words or concepts for the period you practice it.
In this way, the brain is pruned. Physiology is disciplined.
Beyond the ideology of Buddhism or Nietzsche, there is just this. That, of course, is the ultimate truth.
- until next week.
Might Untergang involve no longer sublimating about or eliding ancestral relations and inheritances, and their physical consequences?
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1778661673878118424
One path anyway.