From: Phaedrus Wolff (PhaedrusWolff@carolina.rr.com)
Date: Sun Jan 02 2005 - 02:51:07 GMT
"But when the mind is quiet and still . . . " you can engage in your child's
homework without distraction of what happened at work today, or wifey's
being pissed off at you because you forgot the milk, or whether or not you
will be able to make that hole in one tomorrow.
Inversely when you engage in your child and her homework, on wifey and her
needs, on that hole at the other end of the green, or work, through the
attitude of a child, where your total focus is on the moment, that thing
right in front of you, you have quieted your mind; you are open to a
mystical experience; you may be in it.
Sorry for the interruption. I am enjoying reading what you are writing.
Please continue,
Chin
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" < >
To: < >
Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2005 8:42 PM
Subject: RE: MD Is the MoQ still in the Kantosphere?
> MSH, Sam, Ham, Paul and all:
>
> "Philosophical mysticism, the idea that truth is indefinable and can be
> apprehended only by non-rational means, has been with us since the
> beginning of history." (Pirsig in ZAMM, p25)
>
> Paul said to msh:
> ....... The MOQ is Pirsig's attempt to bring something which cannot be
> arrived at rationally, but is readily experienced nonetheless, into a
> rational framework. Just remember that rational does not mean SOM, so
> don't criticise the MOQ for not starting with SOM assumptions such as a
> fundamental internal/external category into which value must fit.
>
> dmb chimes in:
> Exactly. The same SOM assumptions that raise questions of internalisty and
> externality are contained in the opinion that the mystical experience is a
> private, subjective experience. The same infection is apparent when one
asks
> who is having the mystical experience. Or when the ineffable nature of the
> mystical reality is asserted, when the mystic says that the primary
reality
> is prior to and beyond all definitions, the same mistaken assumptions will
> lead one to see this as an evasion of the issue rather than the accurate
and
> central description that it is. On and on it goes. This is the blindspot.
I
> had planned to use Alan Watts' work to help break it down, and I still
hope
> to have time for that, but our own Paul Turner has been working on the
same
> problem in other threads and it would seem wasteful not to use it here.
>
> Paul said to Ham:
> What I am saying is that Dynamic Quality is sensed, therefore, prior to
any
> intellectual differentiations being made, pure sense data is Dynamic
Quality
> i.e., pure sense data is pure undifferentiated value. (And later said:)
The
> proposition is that there is something there, Northrop calls it a
continuum,
> and it is ultimately without stable differentiation but sensed
nonetheless.
> This is reality, it is where it all begins for everyone. It is what is
> returned to on enlightenment.
>
> dmb adds:
> Yep, the Alpha and the Omega, that which is prior to and beyond all static
> forms. And I'm not putting it in religious terms to be funny or to mock
> anyone. As I understand it, despite the epistemological approach taken by
> Paul here, we are most certainly talking about "religious" things when we
> are talking about enlightenment. "Satori" was the answer Paul gave when
> asked for an example of undifferentiated experience.
>
> Paul said to Ham:
> It is not so much that it (DQ) is the *source of* experience, rather that
it
> *is* pure experience. I see that you find it necessary to postulate
> something that exists apart from experience. This is what is causing our
> disagreement. You replace the reality that is known through mystical
> experience with a hypothetical source of which there is no experience.
> You are placing logical necessity over empirical experience because you
> seem to reject the credibility of undifferentiated (i.e. mystic)
> experience and its place in metaphysics. This is precisely the problem
> with western metaphysics that the MOQ is trying to overcome and that
> many eastern philosophies have resolved.
>
> dmb says:
> The blindspot that's caused the disagreement between between Sam and I has
> also caused a disagreement between Paul and Ham. I think Westerners have
to
> work to overcome it. I have to say that even msh, who I seem to agree with
> on all practical matters, still suffers from it too. In the West, those
who
> assert that the world is an illusion are considered crazy or worse. To the
> Western mind, one has to be out of their mind to believe such a thing - at
> least for a moment. Cause that's the trap. And in terms of experiencing
the
> pre-intellectual reality, losing one's mind is a terrible thing to waste.
>
> Paul said:
> The self/other dualism is contained within static quality where it is no
> longer considered fundamental to the structure of reality/experience.
>
> dmb adds:
> Right, the self/other dualism is woven into a giant web of deductions, of
> static patterns that are quite real and good from a static point of view.
> The distinction between my face and your fist, for example, may be of
> crucial importance when I want to point out that your momma is fat.
>
> (Just in case they don't do momma jokes in England or elsewhere, I should
> say that I'm kidding.)
>
> But seriously, I think its that same Western tendency toward
misconceptions
> on this matter that lead people to think that the ego self is what gets
> enlightened, the subjective self gets an instant PhD in everything, as if
> the mystical experience were like a magical trip to the library of
congress
> where you could read everybook in the world and know all things in the
world
> in an instant. Or they get the idea that the self has to be extinguished
> about halfway right and think it means retreating into a monastary, being
a
> milquetoast, pasty faced, humorless, personalityless boob. Not so. Denying
> dualism is supposed to get us to stop looking at reality through concepts
> for a moment. The little self, the subjects and objects we take for
reality
> itself are all such concepts. They are real AS concepts. Its hard to see,
> but all of those concepts are the products of long chains of deductions we
> make about the more primary reality. We first went through that chain as a
> part of the maturation process and as adults we do it constantly without
> effort all the time. Well, most of the time. But when the mind is quiet
and
> still...
>
>
> dmb
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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