Hello everyone On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 8:35 AM, Ant McWatt <[email protected]> wrote: > > Marsha V asked February 22nd: > Hi Ant, > > What exactly do you mean by "world of the Buddha" [sic]? > > Good question, Marsha. It's a phrase of Robert Pirsig's that he often used > in my correspondence with him which he has, in turn, borrowed from East Asian > literature. It relates to the Zen "mountains and rivers" poem:
Dan: I would say there is no such 'thing' as "the world of the Buddha" in any intellectual sense. That comes before all such distinctions. One may allude to such a state but only if it is understood that it is an allusion and not that which 'really' exists in any intellectual way. > > > Before you study Zen, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; > [the static viewpoint of the MOQ as found in ZMM and LILA] > > While you are studying Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are > no longer rivers; > [the Dynamic viewpoint of the MOQ as found in "LILA's Child" and the > McWatt-Pirsig PhD correspondence. This is the "World of the Buddhas" > viewpoint you were asking about] Dan: I would say this is pure conjecture. The world of the Buddha is something one must see for oneself, not something a person can read about in a book or teach to others. As far as [the Dynamic viewpoint of the MOQ as found in "LILA'S CHILD" and the McWatt-Pirsig PhD correspondence...] I would say that such a view point is alluded to, sure. But it isn't as you go on to say "...the "World of the Buddhas" viewpoint." It is the finger pointing at the moon, so to speak, nothing more. These quotes from Lila might help: "Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical: it logically precedes this distinction." [Lila] "From the static point of view the whole escape into Dynamic Quality seems like a death experience. It's a movement from something to nothing. How can "nothing" be any different from death? Since a Dynamic understanding doesn't make the static distinctions necessary to answer that question, the question goes unanswered. All the Buddha could say was, "See for yourself." [Lila] Dan comments: Note how a Dynamic perspective doesn't make any intellectual distinction and so leaves any such questions unanswered as they are basically meaningless. > > But once you have had enlightenment mountains are once again mountains and > rivers again rivers. > [the static-Dynamic viewpoint of the MOQ found in McWatt-Pirsig PhD > correspondence; further explanation of this "dual" perspective is given by > Paul Turner in his Tetralemma article at: > http://robertpirsig.org/Tetralemma.htm ]. Dan: I've always had a bit of an issue with this. One cannot "have" enlightenment in the sense you seem to indicate. "It" is always right here! We lose sight of it but "it" always there before the distinctions arise: "The second of James' two main systems of philosophy, which he said was independent of pragmatism, was his radical empiricism. By this he meant that subjects and objects are not the starting points of experience. Subjects and objects are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more fundamental which he described as "the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories." In this basic flux of experience, the distinctions of reflective thought, such as those between consciousness and content, subject and object, mind and matter, have not yet emerged in the forms which we make them. Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical: it logically precedes this distinction." [Lila] "Once the baby has made a complex pattern of values called an object and found this pattern to work well he quickly develops a skill and speed at jumping through the chain of deductions that produced it, as though it were a single jump. This is similar to the way one drives a car. The first time there is a very slow trial-and-error process of seeing what causes what. But in a very short time it becomes so swift one doesn't even think about it. The same is true of objects. One uses these complex patterns the same way one shifts a car, without thinking about them. Only when the shift doesn't work or an "object" turns out to be an illusion is one forced to become aware of the deductive process. That is why we think of subjects and objects as primary. We can't remember that period of our lives when they were anything else." [Lila] Dan comments: In this sense, enlightenment isn't a journey where mountains and rivers appear, disappear, and reappear. Enlightenment is that which precedes all such distinctions. "It" cannot be pointed to for there is nothing there in the intellectual sense that pointing entails. Nor is enlightenment some mysterious notion that only adepts and monks living on mountain tops can experience. Waking up to this isn't a matter of years of thought and reflection; in fact, that will only take one farther from "it." Just wake up. > > > > Marsha continued: > > "Is that suppose to be some mysterious, ambiguous, unreachable, strawman > perspective to conveniently dismiss what which is non-western, or might it > too be legitimate human insight available from direct experience at different > stages of meditation or Buddhist practice? Experiences that might not be > available to those who do not have the 'patience' to meditate? RMP was > suppose to have had a sudden realization, not a miraculous transformation > into a Buddha." > > Ant comments: > > My feeling is that this dual "static-Dynamic" perspective is only understood > after years of thought and reflection. As far as Pirsig is concerned, I > think this relates to the time between his 1948 journey to Korea and his > shorter 1961 journey to the nuthouse in Chicago. Though I doubt meditation > is an essential requirement to achieve this realisation, I think it certainly > helps; as do psychedelics (such as peyote) when used in a responsible manner. Dan: My own feeling is that one can either follow the path of much rigorous study and meditation or one can simply wake up to the moment. Either way one will come to see that the Dynamic perspective isn't any "thing" that can be intellectualized. All "that" comes before the distinctions. Static perspectives emerge from "pure" experience; in this way we can say in the MOQ Dynamic Quality and experience become synonymous. > > > > Marsha continued: > > "It seems too easy to dismiss the Buddhist philosophical perspective with a > simple 'it represents the "world of the Buddha"' [sic]. RMP said that the > ideal is to hold the DQ perspective and the sq perspective simultaneously." > > Ant comments: > > Yes, as I said above, this "ideal" that Pirsig mentions, relates to the third > part of the "Mountains and Rivers" Zen poem. Dan: Again, I don't think we will ever find "the world of the Buddha" in a book or a poem; we find "it" on the edge of the breaking moment and that is some "thing" unique to us all. Go ahead, see for yourself. Thank you, Dan http://www.danglover.com 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
