[MD] Intellectual Level

[MarshaV]

Greetings, 


On Sep 18, 2010, at 10:38 AM, David Thomas wrote:

> On 9/18/10 9:00 AM, "MarshaV" <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
> 
>> The fourth level is a formalized subject/object level (SOM), where the
>> paramount demand is for rational, objective knowledge, which is free from the
>> taint of any  subjectivity.
> 
> This, of course, is your reification of your concept.

Of course, that is how the intellect functions.   


> On the other hand both of the articles you posted in the "Reifying Carrots"
> thread argue that while there is tendency of the intellect to reify, it is not
> absolute, the habit can be broken, and it is good to do so.


I've posted a lot on reification, but ah yes, the old "Kill all intellectual patterns."  
Meditation.   And won't the babies start crying that I'm an anti-intellectual...


> The MoQ makes the same argument.  Your reified position above argues
> against this possibility. Thus your love for, and misunderstanding of the
> "kill the intellect" translation.

It is reified because it is an intellectual position. 


> You forget that the verse is not a literal truth but a tool, a pointer. One that
> points to danger of the very idea you are trying to reify.

To say reification is bad would be to say that Western science is bad, and I
have never said that.  


> The idea that the intellect functions in one and only one way, always
> dividing perceptions into subject and objects.

This reification is the same function that Buddhism tries to transcend.  To 
get beyond it is to awaken.  



> That you fail to understand this is, well, proof that in your case the reality
> of a reified, unchangeable, intellect is true.

Intellect reifies, yet ultimately I understand the MoQ to be Quality = unpatterned 
experience / patterned experience.  It is experienced as ever-changing, 
interdependent, relative, impermanent value.


> But that's just me reifying your reifications.

:-)   

And during meditation or at the end of the day, all that intellectualization folds 
back into not this, not that...


  
Marsha
 
___