[MD] Case's Answer to Marsha: Part 3

[Case]

Part Three

"What does it all mean, Mr. Natural?"
"It don't mean, shit"
-R. Crumb

Most of the primitive and budding civilizations of the planet tended to
follow similar patterns. By collecting patterns of meaning over generations
they eventually discovered agriculture and from there they came up with
writing and counting and then there was History, a written record. Writing
allows people to talk directly to their ancestors and for knowledge of
patterns to accumulate. Pretty soon we are standing on the shoulders of
giants.

But when it comes to the ultimate answer to life the universe and everything
the situation is a bit different. God's answer to Job, make us
uncomfortable. Why would God take Satan's bet in the first place? Many, even
most, of the worlds people have tended to spin fanciful answers to see the
hand of God in the forces of nature and to give it personality. They named
the gods and told stories about them and the stories had meaning.

The Chinese were a bit different. If the ancient Chinese had deities or a
superstitious fixation of the supernatural it didn't have the ongoing
significance it had elsewhere. Rather than look to the great beyond or the
inner realms they tended to say: "Well if Shit is going to happen I wonder
what's next?" There are three great texts that come to us from early China.
They are the I Ching, The Analects of Confucius and the Tao Te Ching.

Far and away the oldest is the I Ching. Ching just means book. I or Yi means
Change. It dates from as early as 2,800 BC. I don't personally put any stock
in the contents of the I Ching. It is kind of a catalog for how to derive
meaning from the patterns you get from rolling dice or in this case tossing
coins or sticks on the ground. There are 64 patterns of three stick long and
short and the book is like a dictionary of what they mean.

It is what the book represents that is important. The Chinese saw the world
as ever changing. It is chaotic and unpredictable. The future is ever
uncertain. The I Ching grew out of the belief that there are patterns in
this flowing stream of chance and that those patterns are manifest all
around us and at every level. So if you could detect a pattern somewhere in
the flow it might tell you about the larger currents streaming around you.

They began by reading patterns in the cracks of turtle shells. The divinator
would heat up a piece of tortoise shell until it began to crack and try to
see meaningful coincidence in the patterns. Over time this may have led to a
shortage of turtle shells or perhaps as a matter of speed and convenience
they eventually switch to tossing coins or pieces of yarrow reed. The I
Ching is the culmination of generations of research into these patterns of
meaning.

Chinese metaphysics did not appeal to the supernatural or the abstract. It
saw right from the start that it was all just shit happening. To figure out
what it was and what it meant they focused on what was manifest and patterns
in the actual.

Confucius the great giver of Chinese ethics talked about one's duty and
relationship to one's family and one's ancestors. His answers to what we
ought to do did not spring from divine authority but from what we know about
the consequences of how we treat each other.

The Tao Te Ching is The Book of the Way of Virtue. It is about how to
understand the world and how to recognize and pursue of Virtue. Tao means
The Way and Te means Virtue. It is marvelously ambiguous in its structure
and in its translations. There are dozens of translations and it has always
amazed me that I have seen at least one copy in nearly every book store I
have ever gone into. It sits there ever present and ever vague. I have at
least four translations on my book shelf and three or four more on my
computer. Pirsig uses one that me copied for himself by hand in ZMM and then
gives his own translated translation in the culmination of his pursuit of
Quality.

But see for yourself. Here are four versions of the first verse of the book.
The last one is ripped off from ZMM.


"The spirit one can talk about is not the eternal spirit, and what you can
name is not the eternal name.  Nameless-Tao is the beginning of the heavens
and the Earth.  If you name it-it is no more than Matter."


"Even the finest teaching is not the Tao itself. Even the finest name is
insufficient to define it. Without words, the Tao can be experienced, 
and without a name, it can be known. To conduct one's life according to the
Tao, is to conduct one's life without regrets; to realize that potential
within oneself which is of benefit to all."

"The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The
name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name. (Conceived
of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth; (conceived
of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all things."

"The quality that can be defined is not the Absolute Quality. The names that
can be given it are not Absolute names. It is the origin of heaven and
earth. When named it is the mother of all things."

The Tao is a spirit, a teaching, a path, a name. It is undefined. Each
translation, each attempt at definition, seems to say as much about the
translator as the text itself. To find its meaning for yourself you have to
stalk it in the thoughts of others. 

Quality is a bunch of Shit

End of Part Three