It seems quite a rough attitude. If you see someone who don't seem to understand in the same way as you do, shouldn't you then just try explaining your view to each other? Just as people like pressing their faces together to see the same view with their eyes.
I wonder, just what is your own approach? Just prior to reading Pirsig I had a discussion of just this topic with a couple of Buddhist "monists". They accused me for "duality". I told them, that I didn't want to acknowledge to duality, as I didn't accept the Cartesian dichotomy (and remember, this was before I read Pirsig). But they kept on, telling me I was some kind of dualist - but they couldn't explain what the meant (but obviously, they were ignorant of the Cartesian Dichotomy, because they didn't react when I mentioned it). Finally I just got tired and turned their own argument back at them. I accused them of creating a kind of exclusive dual to common sense, which was indefinable mysticism of a, it seemed to me, very selfish kind - because it only seemed to be perceptible to them - and to no one else. Then one of the accused me of "egotism" to which I replied that "of course, my ego is everything - I am everything there is". That was a very bad discussion in did. But the other one just left the conversation, so I wrote to him in private. Then we had a very long and thorough discussion by e-mail and in the end, I think we actually understood each other - and we both concluded that we had more to learn. I asked him about the "Zen and the art...", but he said he didn't like "Zen Buddhism". Anyway, to really understand each other is also a process which requires work. You can't just say to somebody "you are wrong and that's it! You should keep quiet until you have reached true understanding". SOME ON PERCEPTION There are many ways to the same goal, I guess. When you understand an idea, you say you "grasped it". In Swedish and German, the term for a concept is "begrepp"/"Begriff" from the same root as "grab". The frontal lobes, in monkeys, is working with the action of the hands. The hands and the mouth are our most dense areas of sensory neurons except the retina. I guess Zen, which is working with the body - should lie just there. But this is just one way to find out what the world is or could be. For me presently, the most related is harmonica playing. I've never been good at playing musical insturments, and this is the first one on which I've actually been able to perform something which sounds like music. I've been practicing for a year now, and still I can just play a few improvisations and dances. But slowly it improves - I find out new ways of playing and so on. It is the same with intellectual understanding. There are other fun things you could do, if you think it's funny. When its dark you can easily detect the noise in your visual perception. You can detect it in day light too, just thinking of it. When I was a child (if we are talking to six years old - I was three - four, I think), I liked looking up the sky, and get the feeling I was just about to fall up there. I also liked changing focus with my eyes to see of some things got scarp and others blurred. Not something which I found out in my teens: if you breath heavily, but fast, after a while you get a kind of feeling like electric current flowing through your hands and feet at first, the through the trunk and last in your face, especially around your mouth. If you go on, you start to see hallucinations. And this method is really cheap, you don't need to practice. The first time I did it was by accident. So you can play around a lot with perception in many ways if you like. It's not just that "I am all and all is me and I am nothing"-feeling many mystics like talking about. I've had a lot of mystic experience but never that one (though I've tried to get it sometimes). But I have had the feeling that all is nothing - and one I had an absolute claustrophobic one of being the center of a circle unable to get out - because anywhere I moved, the radius just followed. You can learn a lot both about yourself and the world in this way, but you should be cautious trying to call it "absolute" or "ultimate". To finish, I quote this translation of one of my own texts written a few years ago. It gives just the right sense. "I am the voice from a nameless intellect that talks to You from nowhere and everywhere. Can you hear me? Do you hear that Im here talking to You? You dont know from where I come. Thus you cant replay. Ha! Cogito ergo sum, Cartesius said. Do you doubt? Dubito! I doubt! Be reasonable now! Ratio! Am I God? You dont know that, but neither do I. Im the voice inside my own head that echoes. Im mighty when I strike, and I strike with power. Why would you listen to me? Dont You have Your own voice, similar to Mine? I think that Im similar to myself, but not even that is certain. Cant you hear that Im calling you? A nameless intellect talking to itself, but hoping that You should hear, that is Me. Im calling You, but You wont replay. Why are You quiet? Well, You couldnt replay. Thats why Im making this monologue. But cant you hear me calling? Im shouting. Im screaming. Im commanding you to be quite and listen! But how can I know that you listen, when you wont respond? Im the only one talking. Am I the only one there is? Do You really exist? Or are You and I the same?" -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Från: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] För Andre Broersen Skickat: den 3 november 2010 20:46 Till: [email protected] Ämne: Re: [MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ? dmb asks: What in the world is going on around here? Am I just having a nightmare or is this really happening? Andre: This is really happening dmb! What absolute drivel this Tim character produces. And he is not the only one. I have not followed his posts but was only drawn to it via your reaction. Problem is, at present, that these 'drivelers' now want nice summaries, clear definitions, and an exposition of the basic tenets of the MOQ in response to observations that they lack a basic understanding of it when you confront them with their drivel. To what extent do you take these posts seriously? Should you, to use Bodvar's metaphor, run around trying to plug every leak in the dike? (and don't say you miss him Marsha!) I am by no means an expert on the MOQ. We all try our best. I have worked pretty hard to at least get the basics right. It has been suggested before and it won't hurt to have it repeated: if you want to get into the MOQ you have to work for it and at it. Contrary to what Platt says in his latest post, you have to want Quality to come in. It will not 'just' happen to most of us. Must of us still hear the truth knocking at the door and we tell it to piss off because we are looking for the truth. Getting out of this SOM straight jacket is not easy. As a matter of fact it is very hard. All one can do is try and use ZMM and LILA as a guide. Quality every 6-year old knows. The MOQ is different and much more difficult but alas reading some posts you'd think they are written by 6-year olds. Where to start? It is with regret that I must confess that I have started to simply ignore some people's posts. 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/md/archives.html
