From: David Harding (davidharding@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Mon Oct 06 2003 - 01:44:45 BST
On Mon, 6 Oct 2003 07:51 am, David Buchanan wrote:
> 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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I'd say that a person is the collection of Static Patterns of Value, capable
of apprehending Dynamic Quality.
-David H
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