From: Joe (jhmau@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Thu Dec 18 2003 - 17:29:10 GMT
On 17 Dec 2003 5:36 AM Khoo writes to Wim:
> " While sustaining biological and social patterns
> Kill all intellectual patterns
> Kill them completely
> And then follow Dynamic Quality
> And morality will be served. "
>
> - Lila Chap 32, the Metaphysics of Quality
> translation of a buddhist poem
>
Hi Khoo, Wim, and all,
joe: i love the Christian faith. I love the Work principles based on
Gurdjieff. I love the MoQ described by Robert Pirsig. What you wrote,
Khoo, aabout Buddhist practice seems so sensible. I would like to accept
that also! At the end your questions are lures: "What does a metaphysician
see, beyond mind and matter, when they cease? Does he or she see the
Metaphysics of Quality?"
Never say 'I' to my actions, feelings, or thoughts! Never identify with
self! Call the self 'it'! Are conscious labors and intentional sufffering
'radical renounces'? I was never taught that in school. Must I immure
myself "in one of the strongly built cells, there to receive every
twenty-four hours a piece of bread and a small jug of water?" No! I choose
to participate somewhat on a maliling list with Platt, Bo, Mark, Joe, etc.,
and accept what I get.
I won't leave off! Conscious cannot come from the non-conscious, organic
cannot come from the inorganic, evolution is incomplete! I am broken and
need repair. This is a hell of a place to become a Buddha! (The damn word
processor I use to make a rough draft insists with a red underline that
'Buddha' be written with a capital 'B')
Joe
Khoo continues to Wim:
> Thank you for your comments and questions.
>
> You wrote:
> > You quote Siddharta Gautama as having said:
> > "The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will
> > become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are
> you freed"
> >
> > I don't understand the second part of your quote ("depend on no one
...").
> > Depending on others doesn't seem a problem to me if it is part of (more
or
> > less equal) mutual dependence. It is unequal dependence that limits
> freedom.
>
> > Freedom is meaningless and worthless without (equal) mutual dependencies
> > (static patterns of value) to work with and build upon. If you would
> reject
> > all dependence and participate in no static patterns of value any more
> > (which is impossible), you would be 'free from' everything, but not
'free
> > to' attain anything worthwhile either. Is hope that's not the
> 'enlightenment' Buddhists strive for?!
>
> Khoo:
>
> At the centre of all buddhist practice is the implicit understanding that
> everyone has the potential to become a buddha; each step, if taken,
towards
> this goal, is focussed on completely dismantling "patterns" that
constitute
> the
> self as we come to know it. However, as long as we convince ourselves that
> this "self" exists and has its biological, social and intellectual needs;
we
> feed off the earth, establish a position in society and engage with the
> minds
> of others to sustain the image of self - both in the material form and in
> the mind.
> We form mutually dependent networks and think we "function" freely
> as units within a larger society.
>
> The freedom that you refer to is the social and intellectual freedom of an
> individual to serve this "self" and ensure its continued existence. This
> freedom that you refer to is the freedom of the subjective "self" existing
> in a separate "objective" world.
>
> This subject-object world view dominates the mind to such an extent that
> it is the becomes basis of all individuality; with it, the free assertion
> of
> the person of all his/her inherent rights. But this person, free as an
> individual, is
> enslaved to the idea that there is a "self", a derivative of the
> subject-object world view
> that has been constructed to explain the very existence of the "self"
> itself.
>
> The objective of buddhism is to completely transcend this subject-object
> worldview; and to achieve a perspective that there is absolutely no self -
> and no
> individuality to preserve, thereby no insecurity to cause fear and hence
no
> dependence on anyone
> - the ultimate release from interdependent origination.
>
> The sangha, or the order of the monks, was established to enable the
> buddhist monks to practice
> and propagate the dhamma. It also served to take care of the their
> biological and social needs
> as long as they live, while they strive to, in Pirsig's words, "kill all
> intellectual patterns".
>
> Karma explains for me why the world and the universe, is so unequal - why
> some are rich and
> some are poor, why some are smart and some dumb, why some die as innocent
> infants while
> others die in their sleep at 100. Some who have taken the path through
> several lifetimes,
> their karmic burdens diminishing, find themselvesin circumstances that
> favour their efforts.
> However, no matter how weighed down the karmic chain one happens to be; on
a
> hellish plane
> of existence where matter predominates, for instance - the opportunity is
> always there
> for one to take the first step towards liberation from the chain.
>
> "It is always better to give than to recieve" - this epitomises the virtue
> of being less dependent
> and more independent as one progresses. Mutual dependencies between two
> "selves" and multilateral
> dependencies between many 'selves" - are exactly that - dependencies of
> insecure needful entities each
> desperately hooked on maintaining the idea of their existence. The freedom
> advocated for the "self"
> to maintain these dependencies have been exploited and abused to preserve
> the "self" and in its name,
> allowed those whose "selves" are strong to bully those whose "selves" are
> weak.
>
> > At the end you write:
> > 'If anything, the buddhism is merely a "Manual for One's Personal
> > Salvation - Use What Works For You"'.
> >
> > Can Buddhism also provide a manual for collective salvation, "how to
help
> > the static patterns of value that connect us migrate towards Dynamic
> > Quality" instead of "how to dissolve them"?
>
> Yet, ironnically, migration towards Dynamic Quality involve "dissolving
the
> static patterns of value".
> I am reminded of the literature from Frank Buchman's now virtually
> forgotten Moral Re-Armament
> movement and a quotation that got stuck in my head: "You can't change the
> world without changing
> yourself first."
>
> While the emphasis of buddhism is on individual practice and personal
> improvement,
> utilising from the dhamma that which suits one's level of preparedness to
> undertake the necessary steps
> - another implicit understanding is that as you save yourself, you begin
to
> save a bit of the world.
> One less clouded mind and the world seems better, becomes better. On the
> other end of the scale, there
> are bodhisattvas, in the mahayana tradition and who hold off ultimate
> buddhahood out of compassion
> until the rest of humanity is saved. In this regard, the responsibility of
> each and everyone
> of us is nothing less than awesome.
>
> Take the subject-object metaphysics worldview for instance. For several
> years now, this discussion group
> has been in existence, progressing to the publication of Lila's Child,
after
> several commentaries, even from Pirsig
> himself. In spite of all that has been stated in the closing chapters of
> Lila, most discussants are still mired
> in the subject-object worldview, unable to dismantle the "static patterns
of
> value" that help maintain the
> illusion of a subjective self in a subject-object metaphysical universe.
>
> While recognising that biological and social patterns are necessary for
the
> sustenance of life,
> the maintenance and projection of intellectual patterns are not; they are
> however crucial to the sustenance
> of our "selves" - the subject in the SOM worldview. The advocacy that the
> intellectual level has been responsible
> for the material and technological paradise the modern world represents
> belie the reality that it has really,
> more crucially, been responsible for the subject-object schism throughout
> our history and the fundamental cause of
> the "moral and social nightmare" that Pirsig refers to. We are now at 6.3
> billion "selves" and counting.
>
> The process in the West started with the Greeks of course. By the time the
> Cartesian fixation of "I think, therefore I am"
> set in, the intellectual ownership of the individual was complete. There
> idea that there was a "self" to think, to develop and generate concepts,
to
> hypothesise and to establish theories to explain objective phenomena. The
> concept of the ownership of the patent was born and with it the scientific
> revolution. By the 15th century, China was the most technologically
advanced
> country in the world - but there was no concept of patents and the
> individual ownership and exploitation of its intellectual ideas.
Everything,
> every idea, every innovation collectively belonged to the Emperor of the
> Middle Kingdom, the Son of Heaven.
>
> Practically, and admittedly, it is not easy to achieve a non-SOM point of
> view. Killing the intellectual patterns, as Pirsig says, seem like
indulging
> in some kind of mental suicide to those whom have lived as a subjective
self
> all their life.
> Yet, to discuss the Metaphysics of Quality meaningfully, and to help us
> migrate toward Dynamic Quality, would it not be necessary to understand
what
> a metaphysical view of reality would be ?
>
> What might help would be to focus on our own direct experience of the
world
> taken from a non-self perspective. Writers who understand this direct
> experience implicitly look beneath the facetious veneer of things and
> describe what they see for what they are; the are true insights - David
> Bohm's implicate order, Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic field, Richard
> Dawkins's
> memes, and David Peat's synchronicity among others collectively weave
> together a metaphysical point of view that increasingly depicts a
thoroughly
> interconnected and interdependent universe where the sense of self is
> nothing but a deperate complex persistent pattern.
>
> As much as philosophology parades as philosophy, intellect is nothing but
> vicarious knowledge, and no substitute for direct experience. The mind
> operates the machinery of the intellect generating thoughts and conceiving
> each concept as its reality. The thought of an apple is as real as an
apple,
> but the buddhist abhidhamma breaks the thought process to 17 distinct
parts.
> As far as the self is concerned, mind is the sixth sense, a pattern
builder
> and sustainer of the most prolific order. The practice of meditation, of
> being mindful, is to arrest the capacity of the mind to develop and
impose
> its many varied patterns. The objective of meditation is to take thought
out
> of the way of our direct experience of the universe.
>
> What does a metaphysician see ? One whose being is not bounded by the
> natural laws of mortality, space and time ? One who is not trapped in a
> physical body of flesh and blood, whose direct experience of the world
> around him is not limited to the five senses of the body ? One who
> understands that mind has a tremendous capacity to generate any number of
> intellectual concepts and present them as reality ? What does a
> metaphysician see, beyond mind and matter, when they cease ? Does he or
she
> see the Metaphysics of Quality ?
>
>
> Best Regards
> Khoo Hock Aun
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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
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 : Thu Dec 18 2003 - 17:40:30 GMT