On Mar 14, 2011, at 8:55 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > Marsha said: > Desires are just a way to ward off one's only certainty: death. Desires > project existence into the future so one does not have to deal with one's > fear of death. ... For me desire is all about illusion, it is not realizing > that the object of my desire is a projection, a pattern, a conceptual > construct that does not exist out there somewhere separate. Desire creates > separation, builds ego or I-ness; it is dualistic through and through. - I > paint when I prefer to paint above all other activities. > > > > dmb says: > The MOQ can certainly be compared to Buddhism but that doesn't mean it must > be constrained by it or comply with every tenant. The MOQ is a fusion of East > and West, right? I think young Phaedrus left India because he was put off by > the morally vacuous attitude of otherworldly forms of mysticism. > > "But one day in the classroom the professor of philosophy was blithely > expounding on the illusory nature of the world for what seemed the fiftieth > time and Phaedrus raised his hand and asked coldly if it was believed that > the atomic bombs that had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illusory. > The professor smiled and said yes." (ZAMM, 144) > > As I understand it, the masses take the claim "desire is the cause of all > suffering" as a warning against hedonism but not quite an endorsement of > asceticism either. The basic story of the Buddha is about finding a middle > way between either extreme, so that desire is neither indulged nor > extinguished. But a more properly intellectual rendering would be something > like, "grasping is the cause of all anxiety." It's a fairly subtle > psychological insight. There is a bible story, a moment really, right after > Christ has been re-animated and one of his followers, very psyched to see him > alive, rushes over to see him. In some translations he says to her, "don't > touch me", which would be kinda rude and weird. (I mean, he's been dead in a > cave for days. So who's the yucky one in that scenario.) But some scholars > think the proper translation is "don't cling to me". Now it's not about > avoiding intimacy. It's a warning against rigidity of thought and holding > beliefs too tightly. It's a w ar > ning against intellectual co-dependency not unlike the idea that you'e > supposed to kill Buddha if you meet him on the road. As James says, our ideas > must not become final resting places and we can't allow them to let us come > to a full stop intellectually. They are programs for more work, they must be > set to work in the stream of life, to serve life. > What if it were true? What if reality was illusory and all our desires were > just egotistical delusions? Set that idea to work and see what happens. I > dare you.
Marsha: My statements that you quoted did not even contain the word Buddhism, and when Phaedrus was in India he did not study Buddhism. And rest of your statements make even less sense to me. ___ 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
