RE: MD Re: MOQ:What is a person.

From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Oct 05 2003 - 22:51:46 BST

  • Next message: David Buchanan: "RE: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig"

    David MOREY asked:
    In the context of MOQ what do we think is a good description of what it is
    to be a person?

    Paul Turner replied:
    > Another answer is provided in a piece of Buddhist literature I recently
    > quoted:
    >
    > When questioned by Mara "what is a person?", Vajira answered "Mara, why
    > do you insist on the word "person"? There is nothing here but a group of
    > processes. Just as the word "cart" is used when the parts are combined,
    > so the word "person" is commonly used when the five skhandas* are
    > present."
    >
    > * Skhandas means something like "impermanent heaps" - body, feeling,
    > perception, karma and consciousness

    dmb says:
    Yea, I see it. These "impermanent heaps" are like the various levels of
    static patterns, and we ARE a forest of static patterns. A pile of heaps.

    And may I add...

    Its true that in the MOQ, there is no self. That little person behind the
    eyeballs is a kind of fiction, but Pirsig doesn't allow this ego-deflating
    fact to lead us to any nihilistic conclusions. Neither does it allow a
    solipsistic idealism, where each of us exists in our own world. This static
    reality is not the primary reality, but I suspect there's a good reason he
    calls it static QUALITY and its certainly real in some sense of the word,
    its the only thing we CAN know. (Ain't that a bitch!) And in spite of the
    "impermanent", secondary and misleading nature of it all, the book includes
    biographical and historical examples to explain a moral code. It all seems
    to assume that we have to act as morally responsible agents.

    Maybe Paul will take a crack at that one. I'm hoping you'll back me here,
    but I'd be interested in any case.

    Thanks,
    dmb

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