The function of Minims

A minim is an abbreviated maxim, i.e. pruned of unnecessary detail.

A minim is a problem seeking a solution. It is a focus for contemplation. It is not intended to provide amusement.

A minim’s helps one escape from one’s box (and which is the problem) and land in another one that offers greater freedom (….. to … self-expression).

Once arrived in another box there’s no going back. I’s a dangerous, albeit exciting but life giving business, suitable only for the fearless or desperate.

Many collections of minims (and of maxims, such as Wittgenstein’s statements) have been created down the centuries, the most famous (or infamous) being the Buddhist Koan collections of medieval China.

Some minims are easy to resolve, some fiendishly difficult. Taking as a cue the ancient Indian maxim: “The Guru appears when the devotee is ready,” the minim is most often resolved when one is ready and able to survive the solution. It is not uncommon for a solution to turn one’s world upside down.

How to process the minims.

To read them for amusement is a no-no.

One minim should be selected and contemplated until it has been penetrated and grasped fully. The after-affect of achievement is often described with the euphemism enlightenment, resulting from release, and to which one responds with pleasure, happiness, joy and so on, the latter depending on the intensity of impact of the solution, hence of the degree of freedom achieved and ending in rest (i.e. nirvana). Obviously one can achieve release > enlightenement > happiness > rest by generating a solution that turns out to be false, as the Buddha did.