Hi, Horse --
Sorry to take so long to write back. Work is pressing hard, and there was
much to say. Here goes -- see what you think.
>> >While living,
>> >Be a dead man.
>> >Be completely dead,
>> >And then do as you please.
>> >And all will be well.
>>
>> Or how about this quote, which would normally be considered highly
>> Mystical -- what can you say about it from a Rational point of view?
>> Horse? Anyone else?
>
>Gee, thanks Jeff :) Why don't I keep my fingers shut.
>This is a tricky one, to be sure.
But this is a very worthy attempt. I'll try to do honor to your effort by
adding a few thoughts of my own.
>While sustaining biological and social patterns
>Kill all intellectual patterns
>Kill them completely
>And then follow Dynamic Quality
>And Morality will be served
>
>The essence of which seems to point to the subjugation of the intellect in
order to reach
>the state associated with Nirvana.
>One of the things that strikes me immediately is that Pirsig appears to
equate the self with
>intellectual patterns. This is interesting as I would have thought that
there is a case to be
>made that the self is created as by much social and biological value as
intellectual. Is Pirsig
>(or the Buddha) suggesting that it is the intellect that needs to be
destroyed in order to
>reach or experience Nirvana?
I could quibble with RMP's use of the word "kill", as well as with yours of
the
words "subjugated" and "destroyed". I don't think any of them capture the
flavor
of the orignal, although the connection between "Be a dead man" and "kill"
is too
obvious to ignore.
Recall earlier in LILA, where RMP talks about Zen tea ceremonies? He talks
about
how the idea is to master the ritual so completely that you can perform it
perfectly
with no thought whatsoever. This has the effect of to not so much "kill"
static
intellectual PoV's as to "put them to sleep" (although not in the
euphemistic sense
of euthanasia). When the intellectual PoV's are put to sleep then the Dynamic
Quality can shine through.
WRT your uncertainty about RMP's equation of the self with IPoV's, I would say
that you're right -- the self is _also_ social and biological PoV's. But I'd
say that these are less the cause of the kind of suffering we're talking about
than IPov's (such as SOM). So that, to me, is a shortcut that I'm willing to
grant RMP license for.
>Nirvana, according to Gampopa, has three characteristics:
>1) It's Nature is emptiness
>2) It's appearance is freedom from illusion
>therefore:
>3) It's characteristic is liberation from all suffering
>
>So from the above:
>The self/intellect is not empty
>The self/intellect is a shackling to illusion
>The self/intellect is the cause of suffering
>
>I'm not too sure about the first statement, but the second and third seem
to make sense in
>an odd sort of way.
No disagreement here, although I would say there's certainly nothing odd
about
the third one at all! A great deal of our unhappiness is self-inflicted, for
sure.
>'Reality' as a product of the intellect is illusory. This is not to say
that reality is a figment of
>the imagination but that what we experience or assume to experience is not
what is 'real',
>just how it appears to us. We form reality via the filter of the senses
and by what we expect
>reality to be.
Key words here are 'filter' and 'expect'. I would also add the words
'structure' and
'form'.
>What is 'real' is not something that we can directly know - at least not
through
>any intellectual means. We do not directly experience reality.
Yes. Ultimate reality is formless and therefore not directly perceptible,
but at
least from the human perspective, formlessness and structure "need" each
other in
a yin/yang sense. We could not know one without the other.
>Suffering is caused by rigid adherence to our belief in what is, in fact,
illusory.
Belief systems are models that attempt to give form to the formless. All
belief
systems are "illusory", simply by virtue of the fact that they _are_
models. So in
that sense, we are doomed to suffering as long as we need to give form to the
formless.
Which, BTW, is not necessarily bad. Somebody's gotta do the dirty work of
giving
form to the formless. Otherwise we'd all just be sitting on the floor
staring at
the wall, and nothing would get done! 8^O
But seriously, the pejorative usage of "illusory" bothers me here. I don't
know
if it's coming more from you or from the Eastern traditions we're talking
about,
but it does bother me. We have to structure reality in order to do all the
things that living creatures do.
Way I look at it, the worst suffering comes when we stubbornly, Statically
cling
to patterns that have outlived their usefulness, instead of Dynamically
moving
along to higher-Quality models. [So why am I still driving a 17-year-old
car?
Sorry. Couldn't resist.]
>As reality
>would appear to be a product of what each person experiences there can be
no true
>concurrence of knowledge.
Careful -- you're bordering on solipsism here.
>If this is true then we are forever condemned to argue over the
>true nature of reality. Only by agreeing to compromise on what is real can
we cease our
>arguments and disgreement, but we do so in the knowledge that what we are
agreeing to is
>still not what is real only an agreed upon compromise.
That's true in some sense. But in another sense a new reality is created
by our agreement. You use the word "compromise" as if to imply grudging
acceptance between otherwise isolated individuals who just are just going
along to get along. But that's not how the human mythos has evolved over
the eons. It is a universally held belief system (reality model), not a
grudging compromise.
It's true we differ on some of the details. I'm a vegetarian; you may love
your steaks. But make no mistake: you and I and everyone on this list are
deeply embedded in SOM. It's not like we can just wake up one morning and
say, "Gee, SOM just doesn't sound good today. I believe I'll just think MoQ
instead." It's not like deciding what color shirt to wear. Recall the
sacrifice RMP himself made when he left SOM behind and "crossed that
lonesome valley."
That's the real meaning of "Be a dead man." To go outside the mythos is to
become insane -- or to reach enlightenment. That comes from ZMM, but there's
a long discussion of it in LILA as well.
>That's my opening thoughts on the above passage. Does anyone have anything
to add to
>this or any thoughts as to where I may be going wrong.
I guess my main difficulty with what you've set forth is the first part --
that
we need to "destroy" or "subjugate" the intellect; and the last part -- that
we don't agree on reality. Fundamentally we do, or else we wouldn't be able
to communicate at all.
Also, we haven't even yet said anything about the last 2 lines . . .
>> >And then do as you please.
>> >And all will be well.
Have you seen the series of Zen oxherding pictures? It's in the
_Guidebook to ZMM_, for one. If you haven't I can dig it up. But
anyway, I'm thinking these 2 lines are metaphorically equivalent
to the tenth and final picture, where the seeker, having taken all
the steps to enlightenment and no-mind, returns to the marketplace
and re-radiates the good feeling to others. This is a quick, glib
description, but I hope you get my drift. I could almost think
of RMP himself in this way.
What do you think of all this? I realize it's a load; sorry.
Jeff Travis
MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
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