[MD] MoQ as religion [Belief Defininition]

[David Harding]

Hi SA, and others.

Heather Perella wrote:
>>>I am confident about something at times, and at
>>other
>>>times I am just not very sure.  What wrong with
>>that?
>>>     
> 
>    David said: 
> 
>>What is 'wrong'? There's different forms of knowing,
>>I don't think there really is any anything
>>completely 'wrong'.  To use your example, if I call
>>you wrong, what's to say that your not just another 
>>pair of legs walking up the same hill against the
>>same wind?
> 
> 
>      Thank you, I appreciate your comment here about
> the same hill, because I really think we are talking
> about something similar, just from different angles.
> 
> 
>>What is better, to be confident or not very sure?
> 
> 
>      Confident, yet, not very sure could go side by
> side.  

Actually, I was using confidence in the sense which you
used it earlier.

'I am confident about something at times, and at other
times I am just not very sure.'

That is in the sense opposed to sureness.

 > Some people may have all kinds of confidence
> even to the point of revving up their minds to think
> they can do it, even though the odds are stacked
> against them. Yet, to admit that one is not very sure
> about something is an honest declaration, and to not
> be honest about this, yet, to still have all kinds of
> confidence could be putting that person in a position
> for a great, big let down.



   Yet, at times, I am not
> sure if the root will hold me, but I am confident that
> it will.  Thus, I am not sure, yet, sure enough that
> the root will hold.  The lines of confidence and
> surety intertwine at times, and at other times they
> are opposite of each other.  I am sure it will work, 
> but have no confidence in myself and the knowing that
> I have, so therefore, I don't do anything about it or
> do it with caution to the point that I must really be
> focused or else my lack of confidence could give me
> shaky hands as I try to pull myself up on that root. 
> My lack of confidence, not the sureness of the
> situation, could hurt me here, or the lack of
> confidence could be seen as a lack of sureness.
> Notice how using the same words in a certain emphasis,
> something behind the words, puts a different meaning
> into their use.  
>  

Yes, in the one instance, you use confidence in the sense
of it being the ego, in opposition to reality and sureness,
  in other times you use confidence in the sense that you
did originally and that is being in tune with reality and
sureness.

> 
>>I think the MOQ allows us to be sure and to know,
>>all of the time.
> 
> 
>      I don't know everything.
> 
> 

I know everything and I know nothing :)

>>>     As to being stuck on 'something', DQ is
>>>something, but wsurehat is 'something'.  It does
>>
>>not have
>>
>>>to be anything, and DQ is nothing.  To use a word
>>
>>like
>>
>>>'something' is vague and an undefined entity.
>>
>>I don't think so. I think something is rather
>>definite considering 'some' is associated with a
>>quantity rather than 'no' which is associated with
>>the negation of a quantity or quality.
> 
> 
>      How much is the quantity of some?  

Nothing specified, but it is still a quantity and that's my
point.

Your 'some' of
> this might be different than my 'some' of that.  I
> know that there is no standard number that allows us
> to say that amount of a 'thing' is 'some' and that
> amount of 'thing' is 'not some'.

To me not some is an amount, just as zero is a quantity
used in mathematics.

   I don't understand
> how you are negating quality with DQ (you are saying
> that DQ is nothing) as noted in the last part of this
> sentence of yours.

I'm not saying DQ is nothing, as in some kind of nihilistic
void.  What I am saying is that DQ is no thing.  Actually
in his interview to The Philosophers Magazine Pirsig
references an article he was reading about Buddhism as a
big no, or criticism. Here's the appropriate part of the
transcript along with the correct link.

PIRSIG: I'm not original on this point, except to identify
Quality with the Tao and with Buddha-nature (hence the
title of ZMM). The amount of material on these two would
overflow most library rooms, but it is essential to both
that the basic constituent of the universe is nothingness,
and by this is meant not empty space but 'no-thingness.' It
is somewhat incorrect to call 'no-thingness' a basic
constituent since it is not really even that, (it is not
even an it) but in an everyday philosophic
'finger-pointing-toward-the-moon' discourse that's about as
good as you can get. It is very incorrect to call it a
substance in the way that substance is usually meant today.

For more on this subject I'm attaching an article on the
website of Nanzan University in Nagoya , Japan . It attacks
this majority view of what Buddhism is about or should be
about in a way that seems more informative than if it
supported it. I was just starting to read it when your
email came in. its URL is:

http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/nlarc/pdf/Pruning%20the%20bodhi%20tree/Pruning%204.pdf


> 
>      We really are climbing the same hill with our
> strong legs.  :-)
> 

Aren't we just :-)

-David.