Carl,
Wow! Now that was an awesome post! Of course, you can
see by the name I use here why.
I've done a lot of dabbling in other religions as well. Shamanism
is one that has intrigued me the most too, if that means being
in the woods sitting by a fire and realizing life on ones own without
forgetting this larger world of earth and sky in which my mind, this tiny
skull can never fully wrap around. Look how big this sky is. Look
how tiny this skull is. So much happens in our life that is not fully
me or you or human. The deer say something about life that reminds me
each time I experience a deer. It's not just the sight of deer, but the
tenderness,
the humility in real experience as to not scare the deer if I wish to see
this beauty creature longer. I must assume a posture and a frame of mind
in a way that helps me continue to be aware of this deer so as to not spook her
or him if
that be the intent.
Spirituality. I've often wondered how this fits into the moq too.
Religion is a
social pattern, but spirituality is something more. It is an experience of
spirit.
Here's something in brief that I've been dabbling with on the side recently.
Spirituality means to me 'state of spirit' or 'way of spirit'. Spirit, to me,
can be
pointed out with such questions as:
How do you feel?
Do you feel down or wonderful?
When somebody looks at a wild horse they might say, "Now that horse has
spirit."
Spirit is understood in the combination of the answers to the two questions
and the last comment. It is found in experience. You look inward to sense
spirit, but spirit is also
influenced and apart of what this larger world has to say. So spirituality is
the way of this spirit
and thus the robustness of our life. I would say it has to do with what Pirsig
in ZMM calls
gumption. With gumption our spirit rises to the occasion and we feel
empowered. With a
lack of gumption our spirit is weakened and the world looks ever the more
bleak. Our
experience is ever the more bleak if our spirit is weary. The whole of the
world becomes
decadent. Art is a way. "Moral regeneration" as Pirsig puts this, is a way to
reverse decadence
in our lives. Art is not just painting or writing. Moral art is creative and
generative. It is the pollen
path where beauty is to west, east, north, south. Moral art beautifies this
spirit and this larger world.
Moral art can be found in a smile rising the spirit of people and this world.
Your mention of judgement in use during a bear encounter is ripe with
spirituality. Will
your life have the gumption and rise to the occasion. Will you have the spirit
and robustness
to take on the bear if need be, if the encounter turns in such a direction or
will your spirit weaken
and turn in fear even though your only choice is to face the bear? What will
happen?
Your insight on children, teenagers dropping out of school was especially
intriguing. It is
a disenchantment and at the same time an awakening. I find it is an awakening
that these
youth go through but don't really know, fully, what they are waking up to.
They know school
is boring. They know much of what they are learning is irrelevant. They have
the gumption
to turn away from what they find to be of low value. Yet, what to do? How to
expand this better
world that each youth, when they turn away, what they are turning towards?
What are they turning
towards that is better? This is when they may fall into crime or argue with
their parents more and more
not knowing who the enemy is in their lives. Not knowing what they are
fighting against and not
knowing what they are fighting for. It is dynamic with not much static
patterns easily jumping
out at them providing them with a moral direction. This is because the path is
not well made. It will
take moral art. Something new needs to be created. What? That is what we are
finding out along the
way.
awesome post. I could comment on it more, but I don't want to make this post
too long. It
was definitely inspiring.
woods
----- Original Message ----
From: Carl Thames <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2008 9:36:17 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] opposition to zeitgeist
----- Original Message -----
From: "Woods Woods" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2008 7:30 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] opposition to zeitgeist
> Carl:
> I watched the movie, and was with them until they got to the part about
> technology saving us. It didn't really hit me why, and then I was reading
> Joseph Campbell's "The Power Of Myth" with Bill Moyers, and came across
> the
> following:
> "It's what Goethe said in Faust but which Lucas [Re: George Lucas, in the
> movie Star Wars] has dressed in modern idiom -- the message that
> technology
> is not going to save us. Our computers, our tools, our machines are not
> enough. We have to rely on our intuition, our true being."
> That rings more true with me. Comments?
>
>
> woods:
> I completely agree. It's the ideas or ways that lead us away from
> self-reliance in
> which we need to depend on institutions to fix all our problems. It's
> when we
> get into the mode in which we believe by over-lapping static patterns and
> then more
> static patterns, and more and more that we suffocate dynamic quality.
> The spectrum for me is as explained in Lila in generalities. The
> Europeans are more
> institutionalized then U.S. Americans, and Amerindians even less.
Agree. I have a continuing problem with the concept of living in the
moment, although I intuitively know that the moment is all that we have
available to us. I was raised here, and have had the fear ingrained in me
probably more than most, and it's a continuing struggle to overcome it. Did
the Amerindians live in fear? I don't think so. I think that the
pre-conquest indians lived in a state wherein they were open to whatever
happened. I know they got whacked on ocassion, but then again, so do we.
All of our planning falls apart in a heartbeat when something happens that
falls outside our plan. The main difference, as I see it, is that the
Amerindian was much more open to quality. Oddly enough, science is softly
knocking on the door of this.
In quantum mechanics, there is a theory of superposition, wherein every bit
of energy has a myriad of possible positions, and doesn't assume any
particular position until it's observed. While I know this is a thought
experiment, it hints at much of what Pirsig was talking about, I think. We
have the option of a great variety of quality in most things. When we
'assign' (for whatever reason) a specific quality, then that's what remains.
Most westerners assign quality based on pre-conceptions or expectations they
learn from someone else. The Amerindian came to each new experience with a
clean slate. For example, they might know about dealing with a bear, but
they were able to use judgement during the incident. They didn't have a
knee-jerk response. If the bear wasn't posing a threat, they didn't
automatically try to kill it. If they saw a snake in their path, they were
able to use reason to deal with it, instead of looking for the means to kill
it just because it was there.
[large quotation snipped]
> woods continues:
> This passage comes to mind. I don't fully know why. But I see a heavy
> reliance on
> technology saving us is the same as order saving us. Regulation and
> socialism too heavily
> relied upon to save us suffocates dynamic quality. Suffocates freedom.
> It's not that we would
> need to be all freedom, but a balance can be struck where we come to our
> conclusions and ways of living on our own without needing others who think
> they
> know best how to fix everything for us. Intuition is heard in freedom.
> It is a voice not lost and
> suffocated by too many over-lapping static patterns.
I think we're encouraged to live the delusion that someone will come up with
a magic pill or a magic machine that will solve all of our problems. I
understand why, because it's profit based, and we understand profit.
(Someone will have to pay for those MagLev trains, etc.) Also, if someone
can come up with a magic device to take care of the problem, it relieves us
of the responsibility of taking care of it ourselves. Since the government
indoctrination system, known as public education, isn't designed to teach
young people HOW to think, but rather to teach them WHAT to think, I don't
see any great strides being made to resolve this. Until we do, we are going
to have to rely on regulation, (a type of machine) to regulate our lives. I
do see a lot of quiet revolution going on with young people though. There
are more young people dropping out of school now than ever, and most of them
do it because they see what they're "learning" in school as being totally
irrelevant to their lives. The downside to that is that as they rebel, the
powers that be that are so firmly entrenched in their static patterns will
try to use more and more regulation to contol the rebellion.
> P.S. never have seen you here. Welcome!
Thanks. This is my third post. <G> I kind of tried to sneak in through the
side door. I read ZMM a LONG time ago, and have just finished Lila. I'm
debating whether or not to try to get a copy of Lila's Child. Frankly, I'm
still trying to decide whether or not I agree with Pirsig's thesis on
quality being a dominant force in our lives. My initial reaction was that
it was completely anthrocentric. Now I'm trying to decide if that's
necessarily a bad thing. I'm pretty much a mystical pragmatist in
orientation.
I guess I should add a bit of background as introduction. I was raised
Southern Baptist, and am still in recovery. Toward the end of that period,
there was a heavy dose of Pentacostal thrown in via my grandmother, a
Pentacostal minister,who I lived with for two years. Following that, I
joined the U.S. Air Force. My first duty station after tech school was on
Okinawa, where I briefly studied Zen, Shinto, and a bit of Confucian
philosophy. It was amazing, because as a Southern Baptist, you're taught
what you need to know and ONLY what you need to know. I didn't know the
other philosophies existed. I knew there were other religions, but they
weren't to be trusted because they would slam dunk you into the firey pit
just by looking at them. From there, I went to Korea where I stayed for
just over three years. While there, I got more into Buddism. I achieved
detachment, and realized that I had been detached from life long enough, so
I detached myself from my detachment and kept looking. It wasn't until I
ended up in Missouri and was introduced to Shamanism that I found something
that answered most of my questions. Looking back, (I'm 53) I now realize
that I had studied the religions in the manner of skipping a stone across a
pond. "Knowing" the religion without actually sinking into it. I think it
was an intuitive guidance that kept me from sinking into any of them too
deeply to get out. <G> Now, I find that I know a lot more about the Bible
than I thought I did, I understand Buddist philosophy, and have read the
Bhagavad Gita. (There was even a brief episode of dipping into the Mormon
thing also, but I left that one immediately if not sooner. Fantastic social
program, but it didn't feel right spiritually.) Now, I tell people that I'm
very spiritual, but not religious at all. I still ocassionally read the
Bible, the Buddist texts, etc. because I believe you should get your wisdom
whereever you can, and they all contain it. More significantly, for me, is
the continuing study of shamanic techniques. Because those techniques allow
me to 'sense' whatever answer I'm getting directly, it's more 'real' to me.
i.e. it's not just an intellectual exercise.
Maybe that's part of the problem I'm having with Pirsig. I haven't been
able to decide yet where on the spectrum he falls in reguards to
spirituality. I believe we are first spiritual being, then mental beings,
and then physical beings. He deals in the mental range, I think, and a
little in the physical, but I don't see much in the spiritual there. Like I
said, I'm still trying to decide for myself what's going on.
Now that you mention it, maybe that's why I'm reading this list? <G>
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