Hello everyone
Marty Jorgensen wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
> [mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On Behalf Of Dan Glover
> Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2000 11:22 AM
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: Re: MD Pirsig's letter - A response
>
> >Dan:
>
> >I don't think that I perceive. I perceive and then I think about what it
> >was. Often times I find the thinking that I do is actually an impediment
> >to my perception of Universe. That is Phaedrus' point with his hot stove
> >example and Robert Pirsig's point with his money analogy. We perceive
> >value and therefore perception of value is not part of reality; it is
> >reality.
>
> This is my first post - let me know if I'm not doing this right.
>
> I believe that perception is so closely connected to thinking that the two
> may be impossible to separate. Our brain / thinking processes filter,
> categorize and associate our perceptions so entirely that it may be
> impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. If this is true,
> how does one know if a perception is "direct" or not? Sitting on a burning
> stove is an extreme example that I am not sure tells us anything except that
> we are highly conditioned to avoid pain. I don't feel that you "think about
> your perceptions", I believe that your perceptions ARE your thinking / brain
> processes.
Hi Marty
Welcome to the discussion group. We started out by discussing Robert
Pirsig's money analogy in his letter to Bodvar but the hot stove analogy
is suitable too. Is perception so connected to thinking as to be
impossible to separate? I would say no. That is zen. It may be difficult
to do but with daily practice one can learn to slip into a "thoughtless"
state in a matter of seconds; the problem being such a state is
impossible to quantify directly.
Oh sure, we can hook an individual up to machines and see what their
brain is doing in such a state, so we know "something" is happening. I
can say from experience being in such a state is kind of like sitting on
a hot stove; we don't stop and quantify what it is we are feeling, we
only act. That is why Phaedrus says a mystic will jump off a hot stove
more quickly than the intellectual! The mystic cultivates "just do"
while the intellectual stops to wonder why. Yet that action is directed
by "something." It's never helter skelter. If you haven't yet, you might
like to read Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel.
If we don't think about our perceptions, then what is it we think about?
Perception is Dynamic but when we begin thinking we create static
quality patterns of value as conceptual agreements. So the MOQ says:
stop thinking so much! Learn to cultivate a quietness of mind then
clarity will arise.
Perception is not thinking though it does seem intrinsically linked to
brain processes, at least in so far as we cannot communicate with the
dead the same way we communicate with the living. Near death experiences
seem to suggest perception does not end at death, however, though that
is of course highly debatable.
Dan
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