From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Thu Nov 25 2004 - 05:09:51 GMT
Sam and all MOQers:
Sam said to dmb:
It's a little depressing that we have got absolutely nowhere since then -
except further entrenched.
Which is why in this thread I have been trying to get a clear understanding
of your position, ie to
try and restate your position in a way that you agreed with; and ONLY THEN
to actually explore where
our differences lie. To that end, I'd really appreciate it if you would say
whether the following is
a fair summary of your position or not:
dmb says:
Yes, its very depressing. I'm amazed that after all this time, after reading
Lila and discussing it for years, and despite that fact that you are a
priest, you still don't seem to know what a mystical experience is. This
just kills me. Why is it MY position? Why is it unaccpetable to quote Pirsig
and others on the topic in discussing it? I just don't get that. And why
complain that I'm not putting it in my own words and then turn right around
and squeeze me into your verbal cage....
a) The central truths of philosophical mysticism are revealed in an
experience;
b) the central truths of philosophical mysticism are common to all the great
religious and mythical
traditions;
c) as such it represents a 'common core' underlying religious traditions;
d) the religious traditions often prevent adherents discerning these central
truths;
e) the tradition known as the perennial philosophy (ie philosophical
mysticism) is free of these
problems;
f) Pirsig is a philosophical mystic in this sense.
dmb continues:
But I hear you. All that business about third rate critics and new age gurus
is really about your feelings. I've been picking on you terribly and you're
quite sick of it, am i right? I'll try to place nice, but I have to tell you
once more, I'm am frustrated by your apparent incomprehension. Its clear
that you are NOT a stupid man, so I take your slow learning curve on this
matter as nothing but sheer stubbornness. I mean, you won't even agree as to
WHAT we're talking about it. (A mystical experience as its described in LILA
vs Sainthood in the Church) Its hard to be nice when one is pulling one's
hair out with frustration, you know. I'm going to play along with your
request, even though I smell a trap. But I'm going to ask you to try being
more direct and forthcoming. (Just learning that your "MOQ includes a soul!
I know, its there on the web for anyone to see and its never been a secret,
but you couldn't mention it in our discussions? Would you not feel decieved
if we'd chatted for years and I failed to mention something so central to my
views? See, from my point of view, I have provided you with an avalanche of
explanations, with tons of supporting material and often layed it all out in
elaborate detail, holding nothing back. You have been utterly unmoved by any
of it. Not one inch. And your responses have been curt, clipped, incomplete
and even deceptive. I'm not saying that the lack of progress isn't partly my
fault, but you seem to have really worked hard at standing still. I mention
this not to break my promise to be nice, but to ask you to do your part by
STOPPING that sort of thing. Please, be more direct, more forthcoming and
more detailed in your explanations and such. Anyway, if I really MUST
describe Pirsig's philsophical mysticism in six lines,...
a) Among other things, philosophical mysticism says that certain ineffable
truths are revealed in a mystical experience.
b) These same ineffable truths are expressed in all of the world's great
religions and their mythologies.
c) The perennial philosophy extracts this common wisdom from the world's
religions and myths and includes it in an intellectual form of mysticism.
d) Ritualistic, theistic and faith-based religions often prevent their
adherents from discovering these ineffable truths for themselves.
e) The perennial philosophy is not a tradition, it is a philosophy. It has
no rituals, is non-theistic, if not anti-theistic and is based on
experience, not faith.
f) Pirsig explicitly subscribes to the perennial philosophy and so he is a
philosophical mystic.
dmb says:
You that bit about how subjects and objects emerge out of a pre-intellectual
awareness? This cutting edge of reality is always there, but we learn to not
see it. Instead we see the shapes WE have formed and think it is reality,
but its us. What's "out there" so to speak, is nothingness, Emptiness, The
undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, as Pirsig puts it. The trick is to
find a way to shatter, or momentarily shake loose the static patterns with
which we normally identify reality, and see the pre-intellectual dynamic
reality straight on. This are all just metaphorical descriptions of an
experience and a revelation that can't rightly be described. Its not to be
taken literally. The body does not disappear and, as I understand it, only
the most adept mystics completely lose touch with "normal" reality. The
ideas, the truths revealed can't be passed on like intellectual knowledge.
Its just not that kind of beast. There is nothing to memorize of figure out,
it is just WHAM! and when its over, boy you've learned somthing. Your world
is shaken, big time. And maybe you know who you really are for the first
time. As I understand it, the most tragic thing in the world is when someone
dies without ever having had such an experience.
And this is what the churches are NOT doing. To the extent that they prevent
or forestall genuinely religious experience in their believers, I think they
are evil.
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