Hi Marsha, What do you find perfect about MoQ? I feel I am missing an awful lot.
Thanks, Willblake2 On May 20, 2009, at 12:06:25 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote: From: MarshaV <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [MD] Is it serious? Date: May 20, 2009 12:06:25 AM PDT To: [email protected] Greetings Ham, I do not know where your knowledge of Buddhism comes from, but Buddhism, at its core, is all about 'know thyself', and all about insight, and all about morality. A smart man knows what he does not know. Marsha At 01:17 AM 5/20/2009, you wrote: >Hi WillBlake -- > > >>Yes, letting go of self, of the ego, of self consciousness. >>The attainment of truth, liberation, as the Upanishads, Buddha, >>Taoism, Zen, would all claim. I believe in that and am working >>towards that too. >> >>It would seem from recent interpretations of MoQ (which is >>obviously still in the making) that such release is not consistent >>with this philosophy. In fact the claim is we are subject to >>group behavior not individual expression. > >Sad but true. One has to acknowledge the self of consciousness >before he can let go of it. >Relegating ego and consciousness to a collective intellect is a step >in the opposite direction. It denies the very self that seeks >liberation and truth -- even the freedom to choose that path. For >if there is no knowing 'I' to realize truth, if we have surrendered >the subjective self to the objective universe, what is there left to liberate? > >>But, as Pirsig has said in interviews, MoQ is waiting for the next >>independent thinker, to carry it along. It would seem Pirsig is >>waiting as well. Plato had his academy, current philosophies have >>the Internet. Much more powerful and capable of generating >>a synthesis of ideas, and even new ones, if there is actually >>something new under the sun. What an opportunity! > >There's nothing new under the sun, but there is much to be revealed >about existence if we don't approach it with a closed >mind. Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living." But >introspection is meaningless to those who deny the insight it can >afford us. How often has Science been accused in this forum of >failing to answer ultimate questions? Yet, the same voices are >quick to demean spirituality and metaphysical insight as mythical >remnants of an unenlightened age. > >Psychiatrist Richard Schain has written: >"The tendency to neglect the metaphysical aspect of human life has >always existed in the history of mankind but no era has so >depreciated and disparaged metaphysics as the current >one. Metaphysics is relegated to the realm of scholarly study or >traditional religions where it exists in a tethered, tradition-bound >form of little use to those seeking to develop their position in the >universe. ... > >"'...[T]he essential feature in the life of an individual is his >valuation of his interior self, i.e. his subjective self. There is >no greater tragedy than the failure of an individual to realize this >value. What hinders this development, however, is the modern view >that there is no such thing as the self, that there is only a >complex arrangement of synapses and neurons in the brain, giving >rise to the illusion of self. Without a belief in the metaphysical >self, humans are at the mercy of their environment, which in the >present age fares little for the development of an interior >self. Only a radical metaphysics will save the individual from >drowning in the swamps of the materialist dogmas of contemporary society." > -- [R. Schain: "Toward a Radical Metaphysics"] > >>Me, I want to live from the inside out, not the outside in; I want to >>radiate, not absorb. . . I want to be a sun, not a black hole, I want >>to be responsible, not a victim. All this can result from freedom >>of the confining, needing, ego, "grasping and clinging" as a >>translation of the early writers of Buddha's teachings would stress. > >As agents of value, we are all potential "suns". But if we cease >desiring, as the Buddhists prescribe for "avoiding pain", we shut >off the value sensibility that connects us with our essential >source. That's retreating to a "black hole" existence in which >being-aware has no more meaning than the insentient rock and human >beings are pawns of biological evolution. > >We'll never understand man's place in the universe by pretending >that subjects and objects don't exist. > >I share your sentiments, Will. Thanks for giving me this >opportunity to reflect on them. > >Essentially yours, >Ham >Moq_Discuss mailing list >Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. >http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org >Archives: >http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ >http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ . _____________ The self is a thought-flow of ever-changing, interrelated and interconnected, inorganic, biological, social and intellectual, static patterns of value responding to Dynamic Quality. . . 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