[MD] Wranglin' with Rigel

[gav]

hiya john,
 i am enjoying your posts,
that guy sounds okay to me...he is obviously into quality - his work - and that is the central point and the central reality. if you concentrate there then your efforts may bear juicy fruit.
there is no point enjoining a polemical discussion with him(action - reaction), let him have his emotional bursts, he will start to correct himself if you do not react.
i think your koan could grow from the sheetrocking, from the quality he directly experiences here.
thanks 
gav

--- On Sun, 28/6/09, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com>
> Subject: [MD] Wranglin' with Rigel
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Received: Sunday, 28 June, 2009, 2:51 AM
> So lately I've been helping a
> neighbor/friend with a little sheetrocking in
> the morning.  He needs a hand hanging the lid.
> 
> 
> He's an interesting guy.  A retired attorney of around
> my age (50ish) who
> has been living here on the Ridge for about 10 years. 
> A relative newcomer
> to most of the folks around here, but a hard charging kind
> of guy who is
> real involved as a community leader - on the county
> planning commission,
> hosted politcal klatsches for a supervisor candidate (who
> won) and his wife
> is the head of the school board where his and my son
> attend.  We carpool a
> lot, through the yuba canyon.
> 
> 
> So we had them for dinner a month or so back, I'd told him
> about ZAMM, he
> likes to discuss ideas and so he took it, read it,
> and  I asked him about it
> first day at work.
> 
> 
> He didn't like it.  Said it was full of crap he'd
> heard before.  So I asked,
> "You actually read the whole thing?"  He didn't really
> answer me then but
> instead launched into a tirade about the reality of
> gravity.   So I figure
> he must have gotten stuck at that point, but the fact that
> he couldn't just
> admit that he rejected a book that he hadn't had the
> gumption to finish was
> kinda weird and as later clues came together I understood
> that there is this
> attorney-training thing happening in argumentation that is
> all about the
> win, baby.  They never concede a point and if any
> niggling misconstruation
> is possible, they vehemently deny and oppress any point
> you're making as
> well.
> 
> 
> It can be a disconcerting style to deal with, to say the
> least.
> 
> 
> Other similarities between my friend and Rigel, besides the
> community leader
> and being attorneys, was the stiff morality.  For
> those who observe a strict
> victorian morality there seems to be an intensely emotional
> attachment to
> "what they believe".  In the middle of a rational
> discussion, he'd have to
> stop and beg me to stop what we are doing (working on his
> project) so that
> he could vehemently make his points. Usually points about
> free markets,
> immorality of socialism, immorality of modernism and so
> forth.     He's a
> religious man, but has doubts about the bible.  He
> didn't want to discuss
> religion, but used the philosophy gained from a lifetime
> exposure (his folks
> were missionaries)  to religion and the bible to
> justify "his" world view.
> When I pointed out that the self was an intellectual
> construct, he went
> ballistic on me, but then later contradicted himself and
> conceded that
> point, sort of.
> 
> 
> Afterwards, I thought about the captain's encounter with
> Rigel and compared
> our two experiences.  I too felt helpless in the face
> of SOMish certainty.
> One difference is that that the Captain headed on down the
> river and out of
> Rigel's orbit forever.  I went back to work the next
> morning and morn after
> that and all next week and I'll be carpooling and neighbors
> forever.  I have
> some potential in the continuity of the relationship to get
> through to this
> guy.   But how?
> 
> 
> How does a budding bodhisattva construct a koan for a
> Rigelian sheetrocker?
> I must admit, he's the best sheetrock cutter I've ever
> worked with.  The
> house we're working on has many complicated angles and
> light fixtures.  He
> takes great pride in getting every single joint and cuttout
> exact.  Unlike
> the normal sheetrocker who cuts around outlets a little
> large, he cuts them
> out a little small so that he can fine tune with his
> keyhole saw on
> installation.  He admits he is working to impress the
> tapers.  But of course
> who he's really working for is to impress himself. 
> I've known a lot of
> tapers and they're not usually the kind of guys who's
> approval would raise
> anyone's status.  Still, there is a craft involved in
> getting all the lines
> perfect.  I don't call it art, but its something.
> 
> 
> Transferring the MoQ.  That is the issue, eh? 
> How?  And maybe, why?  Is it
> my own egoistic desire to "convert" that is at the heart of
> my concern?  Am
> I trying to impress the kind of guy who's approval would
> raise my status?
> Or am I striving to liberate a sentient being from samsara
> and lead them to
> enlightenment?
> 
> 
> If I choose, I choose the latter.  But now we are back
> to the how.  How to
> construct a koan.  How to lead out in a
> dialogue.  How to deal with
> self-satisfied SOM.  An ongoing challenge.
> 
> -- 
> ------------
> Doing Good IS Being
> ------------
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