[MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

[Alexander Jarnroth]

It seems quite a rough attitude.
If you see someone who don't seem to understand in the same way as you do,
shouldn't you then just try explaining your view to each other? Just as
people like pressing their faces together to see the same view with their
eyes.

I wonder, just what is your own approach? Just prior to reading Pirsig I had
a discussion of just this topic with a couple of Buddhist "monists". They
accused me for "duality". I told them, that I didn't want to acknowledge to
duality, as I didn't accept the Cartesian dichotomy (and remember, this was
before I read Pirsig). But they kept on, telling me I was some kind of
dualist - but they couldn't explain what the meant (but obviously, they were
ignorant of the Cartesian Dichotomy, because they didn't react when I
mentioned it). Finally I just got tired and turned their own argument back
at them. I accused them of creating a kind of exclusive dual to common
sense, which was indefinable mysticism of a, it seemed to me, very selfish
kind - because it only seemed to be perceptible to them - and to no one
else.
Then one of the accused me of "egotism" to which I replied that "of course,
my ego is everything - I am everything there is". That was a very bad
discussion in did.
But the other one just left the conversation, so I wrote to him in private.
Then we had a very long and thorough discussion by e-mail  and in the end, I
think we actually understood each other - and we both concluded that we had
more to learn.
I asked him about the "Zen and the art...", but he said he didn't like "Zen
Buddhism".

Anyway, to really understand each other is also a process which requires
work. You can't just say to somebody "you are wrong and that's it! You
should keep quiet until you have reached  true understanding".

SOME ON PERCEPTION

There are many ways to the same goal, I guess. When you understand an idea,
you say you "grasped it". In Swedish and German, the term for a concept is
"begrepp"/"Begriff"  from the same root as "grab". The frontal lobes, in
monkeys, is working with the action of the hands. The hands and the mouth
are our most dense areas of sensory neurons except the retina. I guess Zen,
which is working with the body - should lie just there. But this is just one
way to find out what the world is or could be. For me presently, the most
related is harmonica playing. I've never been good at playing musical
insturments, and this is the first one on which I've actually been able to
perform something which sounds like music. I've been practicing for a year
now, and still I can just play a few improvisations and dances. But slowly
it improves - I find out new ways of playing and so on.
It is the same with intellectual understanding.
There are other fun things you could do, if you think it's funny. When its
dark you can easily detect the noise in your visual perception. You can
detect it in day light too, just thinking of it. When I was a child (if we
are talking to six years old - I was three - four, I think), I liked looking
up the sky, and get the feeling I was just about to fall up there. I also
liked changing focus with my eyes to see of some things got scarp and others
blurred. Not something which I found out in my teens: if you breath heavily,
but fast, after a while you get a kind of feeling like electric current
flowing through your hands and feet at first, the through the trunk and last
in your face, especially around your mouth. If you go on, you start to see
hallucinations.
And this method is really cheap, you don't need to practice. The first time
I did it was by accident.
So you can play around a lot with perception in many ways if you like. It's
not just that "I am all and all is me and I am nothing"-feeling many mystics
like talking about. I've had a lot of mystic experience but never that one
(though I've tried to get it sometimes). But I have had the feeling that all
is nothing - and one I had an absolute claustrophobic one of being the
center of a circle unable to get out - because anywhere I moved, the radius
just followed.
You can learn a lot both about yourself and the world in this way, but you
should be cautious trying to call it "absolute" or "ultimate". 

To finish, I quote this translation of one of my own texts written a few
years ago. It gives just the right sense.

"I am the voice from a nameless intellect that talks to You from nowhere and
everywhere. Can you hear me? Do you hear that I’m here talking to You? You
don’t know from where I come. Thus you can’t replay.
Ha!
Cogito ergo sum, Cartesius said. Do you doubt? Dubito! I doubt! Be
reasonable now! Ratio!
Am I God? You don’t know that, but neither do I. I’m the voice inside my own
head that echoes. I’m mighty when I strike, and I strike with power.
Why would you listen to me? Don’t You have Your own voice, similar to Mine?
I think that I’m similar to myself, but not even that is certain. 
Can’t you hear that I’m calling you?
A nameless intellect talking to itself, but hoping that You should hear,
that is Me.
I’m calling You, but You won’t replay. Why are You quiet? Well, You couldn’t
replay. That’s why I’m making this monologue.
But can’t you hear me calling? I’m shouting. I’m screaming. I’m commanding
you to be quite and listen!
But how can I know that you listen, when you won’t respond? I’m the only one
talking. Am I the only one there is? Do You really exist? Or are You and I
the same?"

-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] För Andre Broersen
Skickat: den 3 november 2010 20:46
Till: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Ämne: Re: [MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

dmb asks:

What in the world is going on around here? Am I just having a nightmare or
is this really happening?

Andre:
This is really happening dmb! What absolute drivel this Tim character
produces. And he is not the only one. I have not followed his posts but was
only drawn to it via your reaction. Problem is, at present, that these
'drivelers' now want nice summaries, clear definitions, and an exposition of
the basic tenets of the MOQ in response to observations that they lack a
basic understanding of it when you confront them with their drivel.

To what extent do you take these posts seriously? Should you, to use
Bodvar's metaphor, run around trying to plug every leak in the dike? (and
don't say you miss him Marsha!)

I am by no means an expert on the MOQ. We all try our best. I have worked
pretty hard to at least get the basics right. It has been suggested before
and it won't hurt to have it repeated: if you want to get into the MOQ you
have to work for it and at it. Contrary to what Platt says in his latest
post, you have to want Quality to come in. It will not 'just' happen to most
of us. Must of us still hear the truth knocking at the door and we tell it
to piss off because we are looking for the truth.
Getting out of this SOM straight jacket is not easy. As a matter of fact it
is very hard. All one can do is try and use ZMM and LILA as a guide.

Quality every 6-year old knows. The MOQ is different and much more difficult
but alas reading some posts you'd think they are written by 6-year olds.

Where to start?

It is with regret that I must confess that I have started to simply ignore
some people's posts.