[MD] Catching up to Pirsig

Tue Apr 21 12:39:29 PDT 2009

Hi Joe,

The experience of my husband's death was 
different for me.  During the last 6 weeks while 
I was primary caretaker, I felt a spiritual and 
physical connection to all my 
ancestor-grandmothers.  It was as if I was doing 
what women had always done, care for the 
dying.  My husbands passing was peace-filled too.

Emptiness is experience without me, and there can 
be a certain kind of seeing, or other sensing, freshly.

Marsha

At 02:48 PM 4/21/2009, you wrote:
>On Monday 20 April 2009 2:34 PM Marsha writes:
>
>Hello Joe,
> >
> > Oh yes, Case's 'The Tao in Four Parts' is
> > absolutely wonderful.  I am so happy to see it,
> > even in part, posted again.  But for some reason
> > The Way doesn't work for me, while Emptiness
> > does.   I previously mentioned that I had been
> > bitten by the Buddhist logic, and while 'I'
> > didn't suffer total destruction, Emptiness now
> > seems to run in my blood.  I bet there are many paths.
> >
> >
> > Marsha
>
>Hi Marsha,
>
>My experience with ³emptiness² came as Louise lay dying.  She was at home
>hooked up to a lot of stuff.  A couple of days before she died we had a
>swishing party at her bedside. Some of my family were present and I had a
>bottle of champagne given to me by a friend, who suggested that I would know
>when it was the right time to pour it.   The party was a success.   Louise
>participated and was laughingly chided for swallowing some champagne.   My
>sense of Louise was that she was staring at emptiness.   A couple of days
>later the feeling intensified, that she wanted emptiness, and here she was
>hooked up to all this stuff.    I asked the nurse to unhook her.   Her face
>was very peaceful as she passed.
>
>I have embraced emptiness for the past 2 years.  A couple of weeks ago I was
>getting ready to go sing in choir and a friend called to ask if I could pick
>her up at the car dealership where she had dropped her car off for repairs.
>I had time.  On the way home a car ahead of me spun out and went head on
>into a retaining wall, bounced off and drifted back across the road.  The
>driver got out and stood beside the car with smoke pouring out of the
>interior.  I guess the airbag had deployed.  The lady I picked up got out of
>the car to offer her help to the driver.  I went on to my singing
>appointment.  As I drove away emptiness was present.  I did not know where I
>was or how to get home. I made a few wrong turns until I finally decided
>that the direction I was going though unfamiliar was the right direction.
>I passed buildings whose color and shapes were so beautiful, that I had
>never noticed before.  Strange!
>
>
>
>Joe
>
>
>
>On 4/20/09 2:34 PM, "MarshaV" <marshalz at charter.net> wrote:
>
> > At 04:00 PM 4/20/2009, you wrote:
> >> On Monday 20 April 2009 11:56 AM Ham writes to Platt:
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>> Rather, it's the principle that value sensibility is
> >>> proprietary to the individual, not an attribute of the universe.
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> On 5 March 2009 Case¹s Answer to Marsha:
> >>
> >> Still given the teleological bent of so many 
> MoQers and the mystical bent of
> >> others I think The Way is a much better way 
> of naming the unnamable Quality..
> >> It implies a path or a journey, movement through space and time. A path
> >> wanders over and around obstacles. We see it ahead of us and it guides our
> >> steps but we still do not know where it is 
> leading or if we will get there.
> >> The Way is a mystery but we are tuned by nature to recognize it in the
> >> patterns of meaningful coincidence that arise with every step we take.
> >>
> >> When the Shit hits the Fan
> >> Hold your breath, close your eyes and walk on.
> >>
> >> End of Part Four
> >>
> >> Hi All,
> >>
> >> I like the TAO.
> >>
> >> Joe
> >> On 4/20/09 11:56 AM, "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Hi Platt --
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> I have probably missed the point of your questions since it
> >>>> seems obvious to me and probably to you that we as
> >>>> human beings currently living in the West are much better off
> >>>> than we were, say, in the Middle Ages or, going back even
> >>>> further, when we were painting symbols of antelope in the caves
> >>>> of Lascaux.  As for the obvious "better offness" of morality,
> >>>> we no longer live in a world where might makes right but in a
> >>>> world of laws protecting individual rights to be free of social
> >>>> (government) oppression -- rights that as you know are now
> >>>> being threatened. Unfortunately the path to
> >>>> betterness (individual liberty/personal responsibility) is never
> >>>> without reversals and setbacks such as we are witnessing today.
> >>>
> >>> I guess I've narrowed down my "mission" here
> >> to a single purpose: persuading
> >>> the MoQers that value and morality start 
> with the individual subject.  The
> >>> problem with you folks -- and that includes
> >> you, Platt -- is that Pirsig has
> >>> rejected subjectivity and you are all 
> trying to get around it by impugning
> >>> value to the insentient universe.  This won't work epistemologically,
> >>> metaphysically, or as a morality system.
> >>>
> >>> This isn't a political mission -- heaven knows we've been beating that to
> >>> death for years.  Rather, it's the principle that value sensibility is
> >>> proprietary to the individual, not an 
> attribute of the universe.  Value is
> >>> perceived differentially by the human being (organism) which
> >>> intellectualizes (rationalizes) it as an "esthetic/moral spectrum" from
> >>> goodness or excellence to evil or banality.  What we experience are
> >>> objectivized manifestations of these values, and morality represents an
> >>> effort to ensure that human society 
> survives and flourishes in the same way
> >>> that biological instincts assure the 
> survival of non-valuistic life forms..
> >>>
> >>> I believe that Mr. Pirsig was aiming for 
> the same objective when decided to
> >>> make LILA "An Inquiry into Morals".  What
> >> muddied the waters was his refusal
> >>> to acknowledge subjective awareness as the
> >> locus of value, replacing it with
> >>> an evolutionary system of levels and patterns which, in effect, turns
> >>> process and relations into "static" phenomena.
> >>>
> >>> Back in the '50s, I was intrigued by a 
> small paperback in which a biologist
> >>> outlined a moralistic philosophy based on attraction and desire.  As a
> >>> social moralist, you may find his line of reasoning of interest:
> >>>
> >>> "How much more certain a man is to do right 
> if he not only knows what it is
> >>> but WANTS to do it!  This want guards him far more strongly against wrong
> >>> than does the enforcement of his loyalty by law or obligation.  A stong
> >>> desire, a goal he seeks, is more powerful in
> >> the end than these.  The lesson
> >>> we must learn is that the only sure way to make man moral is through his
> >>> motives, to make him WANT to do the things he OUGHT to do.  The means to
> >>> save society may be as simple--and as 
> difficult--as that.  What makes us do
> >>> evil is that evil, for one reason or another, attracts us more rthan good
> >>> does.  Not until virtue is attractive FOR ITS OWN SAKE will men cleave
> >>> always to it.  Our motive, our emotions, our MOVINGS must be elevated if
> >>> life is to reach a higher moral 
> plane.  Many reformers think that emotions
> >>> are a hindrance to man's attainment of the 
> ideal society, and look forward
> >>> to the day when reason only, unclouded by 
> feeling, will guide his conduct..
> >>> That day will never come, for emotion gives 
> the motive power for behavior..
> >>> ...Science can help develop techniques by 
> which the good life can be found,
> >>> but we shall never attain to it unless we earnestly DESIRE to do so."
> >>>         -- Edmund W. Sinnott: "The Biology of the Spirit" (1957)
> >>>
> >>> For all I know, Dr. Sinnott's little book may have sparked my interest in
> >>> human value.  (I no longer 
> remember.)  However, if you compare this simple
> >>> concept with Pirsig's non-subjective,
> >> non-emotional, levels-driven universe,
> >>> you may understand the reason for my discontent.
> >>>
> >>> Essentially yours,
> >>> Ham
> >>>
>
> > .
> > _____________
> >
> > Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
> > .
> > .
> >
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.
_____________

Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
.
. 