From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jan 02 2005 - 19:10:44 GMT
Chin, Sam, msh and all:
Chin said:
"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."
dmb replies:
I'm all in favor of paying attention to things without distractions and I
have a wife and child too. But I also have to say that what you have
described here seems alot more like "concentrating" or "focusing" the mind
rather than making it quiet. Or more simply put, what you've said here is
real nice and all that, but its not what I'm talking about. In fact, you're
talking about conventional behaviour in the static world and this is pretty
much exactly what I'm NOT talking about. See?
Also, I have to take issue with your suggestion that being a husband or a
dad is a mystical experience. This seems to trivialize the matter and it
tends to undermine what ever clarity might have been produced by my efforts.
I very much doubt that this is your intention, but I believe this is the
effect of your Rockwellian Zen.
Let me explain in a more specific and substantial way. It seems that the
heart of your point is pretty well summarized by saying we ought to be fully
engaged, to get to the point "where your total focus is on the moment". So
let's think about that for a couple of minutes and break it down in terms of
that blindspot I keep refering to, eh? There is most certainly an emphasis
on the "Now" in philosophical mysticism in general and particularly in Zen
Buddhism. And it is more than just related to what I was actually trying to
say about clearing and quieting the mind. Its at the very heart of it.
Keep in mind that we are talking about the mystical experience here. In
Pirsig's terms we are then talking about an experience that comes before
intellectual divisions, before such things as subjects and objects are
percieved, before rationality or cultural values are used to shape and
define that experience. And one of the things that's easy to forget is that
time and space are among those divisions. Time and space are concepts just
as much as subjects and objects. These elements are all tied together in the
web of static concepts that constitute our world view, our common sense
perceptions, our idea of sanity in the everyday world. Forgetting this, or
more likely, never examining the assumption in the first place, the Western
mind hears about the "Now" of Zen and thinks of it in terms of his
worldview. And this is where the blindspot comes in to do its damage. The
Westerner can't quite shake the idea of the self in space and time and so
imagines that being in the "Now" is a matter of maintaining one's focus on
each successive moment as it passes by, as a matter of paying attention
through each tick of the clock.
That is the misconception. If that's what's in your cup, pour it out.
The actual idea of the "Now" is more like eternity, timelessness, the
infinite. See, if we are talking about the apprehension of the
pre-intellectual and undivided reality, there is no such thing as time or
space. There is no such thing as things. That's why we call it Nothingness,
not because it is black emtpy space. No, "black", "empty" and "space" are
concepts that come later and are part of the divided, static world.
And I should add at this point that this is why I think its such a huge
mistake on the part of theistic religions to think about God and salvation
in terms of a historical drama. That confuses eternity with what goes on in
the field of space and time. Its really quite a catastrophic
misunderstanding. We metaphors refering to spiritual realities are taken for
descriptions of historical facts, there is no way they can be properly
understood.
In the same way, the word "eternity" does not refer to linear time going on
and on without end, it refers to an undivided reality where there is no time
because time divides. There is no space because space divides. In the
undivided experience, there is no thing. Its not that there are things "out
there" and we are forever prohibited from knowing their true nature. No.
There is no in or out, observer or observed, just experience without any
such divisions. Its hard to imagine because imagination is nothing BUT
divisons. And that's exactly what we're trying to overcome in the mystical
experience.
As Alan Watt's puts it, we have to lose our minds and come to our senses.
Its like taking off the cultural glasses we normally use to interpret the
world and looking at it directly for a change.
But, by all mean, kiss your wife and nuture your daughter's young mind.
That's a good thing. It just so happens to be off the topic and beside the
point, that's all.
dmb
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