Hi Platt, In reference to Shido Bunan's Zen quote:
"Die, while alive, And be completely dead; Then do whatever you will All is good" which the MOQ translates this as: "While sustaining biological and social patterns Kill all intellectual patterns Kill them completely And then follow Dynamic Quality And morality will be served" Platt freely admits: I don't understand what this means and look to you for enlightenment. I believe if you don't use intellectual patterns you won't last long on this earth. Let's face it: Hens don't lay soft-boiled eggs and bulldogs don't have rubber teeth. Platt had previously asked : I dare say the Buddha continued to make choices after enlightenment as does the Dalai Lama today even if you consider their choices irrelevant such as what to eat and when to sleep, both essential to life. But I grant that they could live without the conveniences of modern life. Personally I prefer modern plumbing and aspirin. Khoo: I know this is a tough one. Enlightenment is something you give yourself though. Everyone has to work it out for himself or herself and I can only share my experiences and what little I know. As for this quote its as if Pirsig laid this down towards the end of his book to send out a test pattern signal that would only be recieved by a reader who "gets it" Like anyone who gets this, gets the whole MOQ thingy. If you dont get this quote or think you got it, but didnt actually get it, then you haven't figured out the MOQ. Lets look at it from the Zen viewpoint, to which of course I think Pirsig tries to orient the reader. I have a quote from Thomas Merton, who wrote Zen and the Birds of Appetite 1968, in the thick of the hippie era, ah, they keep popping up: " The language used by Zen is therefore in some sense an antilanguage, and the "logic" of Zen is a radical reversal of philosophic logic. The human dilemma of communication is that we cannot communicate ordinarily without words and signs but even ordinary experience tends to be falsified by our habits of verbalisation and rationalisation. The convenient tools of language enable us to decide beforehand what we think things mean, and tempt us all too easily to see things only in a way that fits our logical preconceptions and our verbal formulas. "Instead of seeing things an facts as they are, we see them as reflections and verifications of the sentences we have previously made up in our minds. We quickly forget how to simply see things and substitute our words and formulas for the things themselves, manipulating facts so that we see only what conveniently fits our prejudices. "Zen uses language against itself to blast out these preconceptions and to destroy the specious "reality" in our minds so we can see directly. Zen is saying, as Wittgenstein said, "Don't think: Look !" A Zen-like stance stands out as how the Buddha and other Buddhas as they arise would view the world. He has achieved the state where there is no more karmic vector to be born again. The karmic vector though of his present life in his present body and social status persists though until it is exhausted in his death. The Buddha mind is one of permanent non-attachment; he eats and drinks whatever is presented only for sustenance. For him the body is only a vehicle that has already taken him to his destination. Having arrived, all choices are therefore rather irrelevant. Platt: I'm all ears. Maybe to begin we can resolve this contradiction: We're at once separate but never apart. Khoo: I am sorry, but where does this appear in either ZAMM or LILA ? Best regards Khoo Hock Aun 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/
