[MD] Step One

Tue Oct 19 07:29:31 PDT 2010

Hello everyone

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 12:10 AM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hey Mark
> Somebody asked Pirsig that same question. He said he was just going for a name that suited the character and he thought of a lilac bush because of it's aggressive beauty and unsubtle perfume. But he probably was exposed to the concept of Lila as a cosmic dance or play when he studied in India and words are just kind of magic sometimes. So even though the author did not have a conscious intention to invoke that deeper meaning, I think it's there anyway. People certainly WANT to read it that way and it makes a certain amount of sense. On the other hand, that chick was total mess so maybe she's mostly just Lila the bar lady, the one who wears too much bad perfum

Hi Mark and Dave

>From LILA'S CHILD:

Bodvar:
I asked Pirsig about it shortly after publication and he said it was
like “lilac,” and that, “it was the unsubtlety of the lilac odour and the
hardiness of the bush that helped suggest her name to me.” Does this
sound like your phonetic “lie-luh?” Somewhere I have read that he
did not know about the lila of Hindu mythology, but it’s quite a
coincidence when one reads the passage you cite.

Robert Pirsig responded:

I did know about the lila of Hindu mythology and have
attended Ram Lila celebrations in India, but I never
consciously connected it with the Lila of the book. (Annotation 113)

Dan

>
> dmb
>
>
>
>> Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 22:24:49 -0700
>> From: ununoctiums at gmail.com
>> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>> Subject: Re: [MD] Step One
>>
>> Hi dmb,
>>
>> Perhaps you can answer this question I have been wondering about.  Does the
>> use of the name Lila have anything to do with the sanskrit Lila?  This would
>> be like the playground, or even Reality.  Sometimes I have likened Lila to
>> Maya in a general way.  I tried reading the book once with that in mind, but
>> perhaps I am on the wrong track and over reading.
>>
>> I will not dispute or follow up on any answer you give, I am just really
>> interested in your input on this.  You may have answered this in the past.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mark
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 2:55 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > Dan said:
>> > ... I recall Mary getting upset that he would have an affair with a bar
>> > lady while he was still married. And yet he told me himself that he was
>> > Lila, and the boat, and the rest of the story as well. That's what I am
>> > driving at. You are the story. How does your life pertain the MOQ. You. Not
>> > the people or places in your life. Do you see what I mean? I know I am
>> > explaining myself poorly but it is a difficult subject.
>> >
>> >
>> > dmb says:
>> >
>> > The same principle applies in dreams and fiction. Everyone in your dreams
>> > is you and everyone in the movie is an aspect of the hero.
>> >
>> >
>> > Lila's breakdown is very much like Pirsig's. In those final scenes, after
>> > Lila slashes Jamie across the face with a knife and they have to make a
>> > quick escape before the police arrive, he was telling us what what
>> > "insanity" is like from the inside. It's not just autobiographical, of
>> > course, because "Lila's battle is everybody's battle" and her status serves
>> > as the book's central koan.
>> >
>> >
>> > These final chapters are also where we find the discussion of William
>> > James, beginning with the question about that squirrel. His discussion of
>> > plural truths and pragmatic truths is intertwined with his discussions about
>> > the relation between insanity and truth and the similarities between
>> > insanity and mysticism. And he brings all of this together to answer the
>> > riddle of Lila.
>> >
>> >
>> > "What he thought was, that in addition to the usual solutions to insanity -
>> > stay locked up or learn to conform - there is a third one, to reject ALL
>> > movies, private and cultural, and head for Dynamic Quality itself, which is
>> > no movie at all.   ...evolution doesn't take place only within societies, it
>> > takes place within individuals too." (Lila, p. 360)
>> >
>> >
>> > "Just as mystics traditionally seek monasteries and ashrams and hermitages
>> > as retreats into isolation and silence, so are the insane treated by
>> > isolation in places of relative calm and austerity and silence. Sometimes,
>> > as a result of this monastic retreat into silence and isolation the patient
>> > arrives at a stat Karl Menninger has described as 'better than cured.' He is
>> > actually in better condition than he was before the insanity started.
>> > Phaedrus guessed that in many of the 'accidental' cases, the patient had
>> > learned by himself not to cling to any static patterns of ideas - cultural,
>> > private or other." (Lila, p 375)
>> >
>> >
>> > "That's what Lila's involved in now, a huge VACATION, an emptying out of
>> > the junk of her life. She's clinging to some new pattern because she thinks
>> > it holds back the old pattern. But what she has to do is take a vacation
>> > from ALL patterns, old and new, and just settle into a kind of emptiness for
>> > a while. And if she does, the culture has a moral obligation not to bother
>> > her. The most moral activity of all is the creation of space for life to
>> > move onward." (Lila, p 376)
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Her also talks about the Dharmakaya light all through these last chapters
>> > and he remarks that he'd seen that light around Lila, way back in the
>> > beginning. The "quality" he saw was her dynamic nature, she was already
>> > beginning to break up, the static patterns of her life were already
>> > beginning to unravel. At the end of such a process one can come out the
>> > other side better than before. Or you can remain a culture of one and be
>> > locked up forever, like common criminal without the respect. Regenerate or
>> > degenerate. It goes both ways.
>> >
>> >
>> > Or you can go with Rigel and become a church lady.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
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