Hi DMB
Where the west has over emphasised the outer has the east done the same with
the inner?
So that the eastern mystic may be happy to sit meditating whilst the world
goes to hell.
Here is perhaps where the west can ask if the east needs to think again in
more
comprehensive way.
DM
Marsha said:
...This is why it seems so silly to be battling over the exact definition
of the Social Level versus the Intellectual Level, or the individual
versus the collective. It's the clinging to the static patterns that is
the cause of suffering. When one begins to see what those patterns are,
and what they are not, they begin to die and there is a whole new
perspective available. To dismiss or undervalue the Eastern perpective
and/or Buddhist philosophy is missing something very valuable.
dmb says:
I think that definitions are essential when one is doing metaphysics and
that the differences between social and intellectual values can be
discussed in conventional terms, not least of all because the differences
themselves are conventional. What you say here seems true from a mystic's
perspective, but the conflicts between social and intellectual values are
legal, political, sociological, historical and military conflicts. Or, to
put it another way, the distinctions between the third and fourth levels
of static patterns are very different from the distinctions between static
quality and dynamic quality. If there is a way to discuss the
social/intellectual conflict from a mystical perspective, I sure would
like to hear about it.
This reminds me of the story Pirsig tells about the Indian teacher who
claimed the bombing of Hiroshima was just an illusion. At the time, the
teacher's answer only angered Pirsig at the time. Even later, when he
understood things better, he still complained that the teacher should have
said he was making that statement from a non-conventional perspective.
We've all seen what that particular mushroom cloud accomplished,
understand something about the context in which it appeared and we all
know that thousands and thousand of these bombs are just waiting for the
day. On some level, this is all quite real and worth discussing, no? I
think that's why Pirsig explains the conflict between the top two levels
in political and historical terms.
Drawing a line between the conventional and mystical ways of seeing serves
to put these debates in perspective, but I don't think one precludes the
other. 360 degrees and all that. You know, cause you're a net of jewels.
Thanks.
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