From: khoo hock aun (hockaun@pc.jaring.my)
Date: Mon Jul 14 2003 - 15:54:40 BST
Hello Bo,
Thank you for your comments.
> Where exactly is "your box" Burmese it sounds to me.
I live in Malaysia, fourth generation Chinese immigrant of the Hokkien
variety, Straits of Malacca-born - therefore infused with bits and parts of
the local Malay and Indian cultures as well and as a result of the great
English colonial tradition, had a western oriented education that has me
thinking, speaking and living primarily in the English language. I do not
speak nor write chinese nor think in chinese. I am not a western type
intellectual either. Which leaves me somewhere or nowhere in between. My
grandfather went to Burma (Myanmar) a lot, so I could easily be mistaken for
any of my many cousins there.
> Nice to be defended, but I wish it was for other reasons :-) because I
> consider Squonk's accusation to be fabricated ..and impossible to
> counter because neither do I understand his reasoning ..if there is such.
I actually appreciate Squonk for the "heat and light" that Pirsig refers to
in his introduction to Lila's Child (attributed to Struan)
but I sense there is a deliberate method to his madness. One of my favourite
parts in Lila is Pirsig's suggestion to place the insane in the societies
and cultures that share their values and morals. The MOQ should be a lot
more insane-tolerant if it is to explore the meta-culture that can
accommodate both western, eastern and all other points of view.
> YES!! My interpretation of the RT part of LILA is that the said cultures
> were presented as having gone past (not short-cut) intellect's S/O
> divide and seen the greater context - having so to say reached the
> Quality solution long ago. But Squonk, hell-bent on the thinking
> variety of intellect, interpreted this as racism ..maybe relevant in his
> reasoning, but not in accordance with the said book.
I have been curious why both Indian and Chinese cultures made the conscious
choice at many points in their history not to emphasise the subject-object
aspects of their philosophy. I believe that individually, and as a society,
we are the sum total of all the choices each of us and collectively, make.
Along a yardstick of values. At one point, both Indian and Chinese culture
chose not to proceed down the path of the individual intellect; and the
basis of this is rooted in the originating cosmology or mythology. Mind you,
still each of the Asian societies or cultures do not see themselves being
any less worthy or valued compared to the intellectually dominated Western
society and culture.
> By the way, do you know Alan Watts' efforts to bridge the East/West gap?
Unfortunately I am not acquainted with Alan Watts. I made a cursory scan of
his works and he seems to have written volumes on Zen and Buddhism some
dating back to the time when I was born. The funny thing is in spite of all
the work done on bridging Eastern and Western philosophies all these years,
and all the intellectual effort that has gone into it; there is still this
great unbridged "chasm". ZAMM and Lila tried to demonstrate the shortcomings
of Western SOM by going back to its roots and origins in Greece; but said
little about other societies and cultures and their philosophies. I remember
in the early days of the MOQ, you asked Diana :
" For Diana:
Pirsig's quality idea has an Eastern "slant", and he obviously sees the MOQ
as a Western crossover of the famous chasm (Kipling). I am unsure how to
express myself here, but living in Hong Kong, do you have a feeling of an
East/West difference? Well, Pirsig himself gives a "helping" of it in the RT
trail (Page 386 Bantam Press) which ends in the sentence (now that the
nature of a chair is discussed!): ..."A chair for example is not composed of
atoms of substance, it is composed of dharmas", but I think this is too deep
even for the eastern lay person. Also the Kantonese Chinese are rather
pragmatic and more attached to the Confucian part of the Buddhist/Taoist
tradition, than the philosophical Indians. All observations from your side
would be appreciated."
> "Intellect a primary objective in Buddhism"? Do you mean as something to
be transcended or achieved or..? Anyway I
> agree with undefined quality being the 5th level in the potential sense.
DQ is at work on intellect from where it will produce a > new level, but
when established IT will be as static as all other levels .
Here I equated the mind with the intellectual level. A primary objective of
Buddhism is to transcend both the mind and the intellectual level. The
buddhist monk who tried to get me to meditate right made it very clear I was
not to achieve insight with intellect. Intellectual activity generates work
and distraction for the mind and does not calm it for the purposes of
meditation. While intellectual activity is required for society to function,
it is not valued as an individual activity for those who wish to seek
enlightenment. Hence we have societies and cultures such as found in Tibet
and Myanmar where the unstated Gross National Product in the broadest MOQ
sense is measured, by among others, the annual output of buddhasitvas,
buddhist monks and temples, and all the activities that support them. Ditto
for Sri Lanka and Thailand.
> "Take down the intellectual scaffolding"! ..Exactly, but so many are so
> immersed in intellect's S/O as SOM that they bring it into the MOQ
> and speaks about a thinking-intellect or a mind-intellect, not a
> "thinking/reality"- or a "mind/matter" intellect which it is.
> > Having arrived at the height of intellect how do we deconstruct
> > it ?
>Trough understanding the MOQ properly in my opinion.
> > More intellect doesn't seem to be the answer.
Of course there are nations like Japan, Korea and Taiwan which have soaked
up western science and technology like a sponge, affixed the products of
western intellect to their larger cosmology and made subject-object
metaphysics a workhorse for their society and culture. Have they, as Squonk
would like to ask, within their collective society properly placed intellect
at its proper level and are actually consciously working at the fifth level;
the level of harmony and unity ? From the western point of view, one may
only see the empirical data and all too easily miss out on the intangibles.
> So mired in its mind/matter bog that it is even brought over in the MOQ.
Back in Sept 1997 Diana posted this:
I got an email about the Lila Squad from Robert M Pirsig. Sadly he declined
to join the list but here are his comments:
"I stumbled across your stunning Athens Forum site last night and called
Wendy to the computer. When we had finished reading it all we took out a
bottle of cognac and celebrated. The MOQ is at last out of my hands. Other
people are at last sustaining it on a continuing social basis. I can
disappear tomorrow and it will keep on going. This is a major event
in its history.
All day I've wondered how much I should participate, and the Zen answer
keeps repeating itself: "Don't! You will just shut everyone else up. They'll
all sit back and wait for the great author to speak and that is the worst
thing that could happen." The material for the MOQ is not something I
invented out of thin air. It has been lying dormant within the culture for
centuries. I have mined probably less than one per cent of what is there.
The best readers will pay minimal attention to what I
have found and maximal attention to what I have missed. That's where the
excitement is."
It is a shame that we are still bogged down in the 1 per cent and made so
little headway with the 99 percent that Pirsig speaks of. There is a lot
more ground to cover and Lila's Child notwithstanding I am sure Lila will
have lots of grandchildren and great grand children too !!
Best Regards
Khoo {this is my family name, please drop my given names Hock (Luck) & Aun
(Peace) in posts unless another Khoo comes along}
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jul 14 2003 - 15:59:45 BST