Hi Mark Given your previous posts on the subject your responses are not surprising. Just a few comments. > > [Mark] > It is interesting that I find above the inclusion of Buddhism as a > form of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is used for patients that are > ill, and its intent is to make them healthy. If we take "suffering" > as an illness, then I suppose we could claim that Buddhism is a > medical practice.
[Dave] "I think equating "suffering" to "illness" is a bit of Western spin. "Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, is an individual's basic affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. Suffering may be qualified as physical or mental."-Wiki From a MoQ perspective suffering is the experience by sentient beings of low quality patterns of any level or combination that results in pain, suffering in this broad sense. At the most basic Buddha claimed that this suffering was based on craving (The Four Noble Truths). And that this craving could be mitigating or eliminated by changing ones behavior, habits, and lifestyle via the Noble Eightfold Path. I'm certainly not going to vouch for the veracity of his claims, nor am I going to debauch them. But.........as you read the basic of this path: The Noble Eightfold Path—the fourth of the Buddha's Noble Truths—is the way to the cessation of suffering (dukkha). It has eight sections, each starting with the word "samyak" (Sanskrit, meaning "correctly", "properly", or "well", frequently translated into English as "right"), and presented in three groups known as the three higher trainings. (NB: Pāli transliterations appear in brackets after Sanskrit ones): Prajñā is the wisdom that purifies the mind, allowing it to attain spiritual insight into the true nature of all things. It includes: dṛṣṭi (ditthi): viewing reality as it is, not just as it appears to be. saṃkalpa (sankappa): intention of renunciation, freedom and harmlessness. Śīla is the ethics or morality, or abstention from unwholesome deeds. It includes: vāc (vāca): speaking in a truthful and non-hurtful way karman (kammanta): acting in a non-harmful way ājīvana (ājīva): a non-harmful livelihood Samādhi is the mental discipline required to develop mastery over one's own mind. This is done through the practice of various contemplative and meditative practices, and includes: vyāyāma (vāyāma): making an effort to improve smṛti (sati): awareness to see things for what they are with clear consciousness, being aware of the present reality within oneself, without any craving or aversion samādhi (samādhi): correct meditation or concentration, explained as the first four jhānas The practice of the Eightfold Path is understood in two ways, as requiring either simultaneous development (all eight items practiced in parallel), or as a progressive series of stages through which the practitioner moves, the culmination of one leading to the beginning of another.-Wiki ....the similarity to many forms of Western psychotherapy seems obvious to me. [Ian commented:] > I've had the psychological angle on Pirsig since I first encountered > his work, but more recently I've been commenting on the > "rehabilitation" of Maslow in the "positive psychology" school - the > parallel's between Pirsig's levels and Maslow's hierarchy are patently > obvious (even here on MD many years ago). [Dave] And isn't Buddhism a similar ancient take on "positive psychology"? > Any "science" that cannot be objective will run into problems. In > order to try to be objective, psychologist objectify our awareness of > reality. "You see things this way, because..." We are right back to > the priests telling us why we sin, and how to correct that sinning. > Yes, this is man's nature, it is based on leaders and followers. I > just see no reason to take MoQ down that dark and narrow path. It is > SOM on steroids! [Dave] What is the difference between a sensei and a priest, other than their dogma? > > It has nothing to do with Pirsig's experience, it has to do with MoQ. > There are plenty of philosophies that are based in psychology, why > take MoQ down? [Dave] What silliness. If all of reality is based on experience and thinking about it them, How is it you can divorce Pirsig's writing from his experiences? Particularly when both books, in some part, are autobiographical? > > Bravo, RMP. Don't let them frame the discussion and trap MoQ into a > psychological paradigm. They are tricky, and before you know it, all > of MoQ will fall under some model or another of psychology. MoQ will > be used for behaviour modification, and drilled into our children, > because we must control what the human race will become. Of course, > those not yet born have no choice in the matter of who they are to be, > since we know better. Evolution does not work that way. [Dave] Hey if you set out to do a Moral Metaphysics, moral psychology has to be in their somewhere. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-psych-emp/) Don't get me wrong many of your rants are of real concern vis-a-viz the MoQ but the problems are as much or more internal ones, as opposed to the external forces you are concerned with. 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
