[MD] Catching up to Pirsig

Joseph Maurer jhmau at sbcglobal.net
Tue Apr 21 14:17:32 PDT 2009 

Hi Marsha,

Kaiser Permanente, an HMO that runs its own hospitals and
Clinics, is running an ad on television that has a haunting
Melody: "When I grow up I want to be an Old Woman" playing to a
view of dancing ancestor-grandmothers.  Impressive!

Joe

On 4/21/09 12:39 PM, "MarshaV" <marshalz at charter.net> wrote:

> 
> 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..........
> .
> . 
> 
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