From: khoo hock aun (hockaun@pc.jaring.my)
Date: Thu Dec 25 2003 - 14:52:39 GMT
Dear David and All,
David :
> Interesting to refer to the self as 'it' Seems to me that subject-object
split says 'it' to objects.
> To say 'it' to the self is to draw the line elsewhere. This would be the
same place as for DQ/SQ I would suggest.
> To me everything that is past is unchangeable/static and is therefore
'it'. The future for consciousness is always open/DQ.
> When consciousness turns its attention to the past this is also open,
because the past is always open to interpretation (as
> Sartre says). Would this relate to why you would say 'it' to the self? The
'self' seems to imply identity. But identity is a
> flawed concept. It can apply only to that which is static, and therefore,
I would say, past. The importance of time is why I
> think Heidegger has more to say about. how DQ/SQ relate tha Pirsig. But I
continue to champion Pirsig for his
> more comprehenisble analysis. Heidegger has proved very popular in China
and Japan apparently.
Khoo:
Thank you for your comments. My repeated reference to the "self" in
inverted commas seems to present the subject as an "object" with yet another
subject observing the "self" at another level, doesn't it ? And what about
this new subject, itself a new "self" being observed by yet another subject
at another level. we could go on in infinite regression - and the
metaphysical fault line is pushed further back and back, but it is always
there, as long as the worldview is that of the subject-object divide.
The buddhist point of view of the "self" is that it is a transcient pattern;
a flow of mental processes, casually conditioned, and the 'character' is
nothing more than a particular set of tendencies, which give it direction.
At any given moment the "self" is continually manifesting, constantly
arising from the universe. Intellectually, the mind conceptualies a "self"
and thinks there is a subject-object divide. From the buddhist perspective,
there is no such divide: there is only the illusion of one.
Would the DQ/SQ differentiation be the basis of a new metaphysial fault line
? From my point of view, the DQ/SQ divide is an unpatterned/patterned
dichotomy. Pirsig's description of Static Quality as pattens of value which
we see in the various levels serves as a useful metaphor for how people in
general and individuals in particular habitually latch on to these patterns.
Tensions occur when new patterns evolve from unpatterned reality (DQ) to
challenge the rigidity of established patterns (SQ). This differentiation
serves as an excellent metaphor to describe the present conflicts between
individual and society and point the way for the individual to draw
inspiration and creativity from unpatterned Dynamic Quality.
Is time taken linearly the metaphysical fault line ? You suggest this as the
past/unchangeable as Static and the future/open as Dynamic Quality with us
as "selves" positioned in between. Interestingly, in karmic terms, your
past actions have made you what you are today and determined the
circumstances you will find yourself in. The "self" is only the end-product
of prior casual relations extending back into the infinite past. Each "self"
is open to the potential the future offers and each action taken now
determines the future "self". This is certainly one way of putting it.
However, my point of view is not that of "linear" time. There is only
reality which is the eternal now, (or present) on one side of the fault
line; this represents unpatterned Dyanmic Quality and on the other side,
there are patterns of the past and future both conceived as concepts in the
mind. We continually update or change our past patterns by our present
actions as quickly as the future patterns are conceived and acted upon.
Patterns therefore arise and dissolve all the time in the eternal now;
giving rise to the concept that there is "linear" time. There is no past and
future in reality, only patterns of the past and future - but everything
happens to everything else all at once in the eternal now.
Its a breath-taking view. When one meditates and arrests the
pattern-building activities of the mind, the arbitary concepts of self, past
time and future time disappear - only to reveal the eternal now bathed in
Dharmakaya Light. That's another tale.
Then there is Synchronicity - as described by David Peat in his book
Synchronicity : The Bridge Between Matter and Mind:
"Synchronicities take the form of patterns that emerge by chance out of a
general background of chance and contingency and hold a deep meaning for the
person who experiences them.... Synchronicities represent a bridge between
matter and mind and the concept of causality is clearly not appropriate to
the world of mental events. By probing causality to its limit, it has been
discovered that "everything causes everything else" and that each event
emerges out of an infinite web or network of causal relationships....
"Synchronicity has gradually been enfolded into an entirely new dimension;
in place of a causal deterministic world, in which mind and matter are two
separate substances, appears a universe of infinite subtlety that is much
closer to a creative living organism than to a machine. Reality, in this
way, is pictured as a limitless series of levels which extend to deeper and
deeper subtleties and out of which the particular, explicate order of nature
and the order of consciousness and life emerge. Synchronicities can
therefore be thought of as an expression of this underlying movement, for
they unfold as patterns of thoughts and arrangements of material processes
which have a meaningful conjunction when taken together" .
My only reference to Heidegger is a paper by Qingjie (James) Wang, Chinese
University of Hong Kong entitled Heng and the Temporality of Dao: Laozi and
Heidegger where he observes first, that both Laozi and Heidegger refused to
give priority to the traditional "objective" and "linear" concept of time.
Second, both saw that primordial temporality must present itself through the
ecstatically finite-ness (Endlichkeit) (Heidegger) or the "gushing
(heng-ing)" (Laozi) of concrete existing things in the world. That is to
say, things always temporalize (zeitigen) themselves or get temporalized in
between their "beginnings" and "ends." Third, both of them took, or are
inclined to take, the original form of temporalization of being or dao as
cyclical rather than chronological.
At the end of his paper though, he mentions that if we knew the historical
facts that Heidegger was attracted by "the origin of eastern thoughts,"
especially by the thoughts of Laozi and Zhuangzi, which were his favorites
from the middle of the 1920s, we may not be surprised to hear some scholars
talking about the "hidden sources of Heidegger" today.
Best Regards
Khoo Hock Aun
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