[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[118]

Hi John

On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 12:15 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Mark,
>
> Yes, codependent arising, whatever that means, endless cycling into
>> emptiness without beginning.
>
>
> I don't understand "cycling into emptiness without beginning".  What I mean
> by codependent arising is two or more things which cannot exist without each
> other.  In such a case, neither could be fundamental to the other, because
> they are both fundamental to each other.

[Mark]
Yes, I think I understand the concept of codependent arising.  If two
things arise together, before that was there unity, or nothingness?
Either way, they are both unity.  So one thing rises into two which
support each other.  This is only true of one is looking for
beginning, or underlying nature of underlying nature.  So, the
dynamics of the yin and yang can be seen for what it is, or one can
ask how or why.  Both are questions that imply a creative process.
Sure, one can stop at codependent arising and say that this is enough
depth.
>
> A wiki search reveals this:
>
> The Madhyamaka concept of emptiness is often explained through the related
> concept of interdependence. This is in contrast to independence, that
> phenomena arise of their own accord, independent of causes and conditions.
> Although a common way to think about emptiness, it is a conceptual way of
> talking about it—to lead a student closer to the non-conceptual wisdom of
> the ultimate truth—and it would not withstand analysis as an ultimate view.
> In the first chapter of the *Mulmadhyamakakarika*, Nagarjuna provides
> arguments that even causes and conditions are empty of inherent existence or
> essence. This analogy, however, connects the conclusion of the Middle Way
> tenets with the codependent origination teachings of the first turning.

[Mark]
My understanding of Emptiness is the emptiness of inherent existence.
That is that there is no inherent existence, only existence arising
out of other things.  Therefore, what we think of as the "I" does not
exist except for relationally.  I think this is what you say.  So, I
can ask, "what does that mean beyond the words?"  By creating a
meaning, one is unifying the relational existence, and allowing it to
exist inherently.  In this sense, we can create inherent existence.
The Tao symbol represents the inherent existence of a codependent
balance.  So as far as emptiness, this disappears.  The middle way is
just the middle way, no extremes, no clinging, in my opinion.  No big
deal to conceptualize, harder to realize.
>
> The analogy to interdependence is considered helpful for students, and is
> presented in the famous ninth chapter of
> Shantideva<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantideva>'s
> Bodhicharyavatara <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhicharyavatara>, as well
> as by modern writers like Thich Nhat
> Hanh<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanh>who, in
> *The Heart of Understanding*, discusses the Heart
> Sutra<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_Sutra>in terms of
> interdependence.

[Mark]
Again, interdependence is a unifying inherent idea.  It is nothing
other than interdependent.  Even if it is interdependent
interdependence, that does not matter because a unifying circle is put
around the whole thing.  If there is no unity, it would imply that
concepts cannot exist, and I am pretty sure that I have them.
>
> In this analogy, there is no first or ultimate cause for anything that
> occurs. Instead, all things are dependent on innumerable causes and
> conditions that are themselves dependent on innumerable causes and
> conditions. The interdependence of all phenomena, including the self, is a
> helpful way to undermine mistaken views about inherence, or that one's self
> is inherently existent. It is also a helpful way to discuss Mahayana
> teachings on motivation, compassion, and ethics. The comparison to
> interdependence has produced recent discussion comparing Mahayana ethics to
> environmental ethics.
[Mark]
Logically, the ultimate cause is that one creating the presence of
interdependence.  We rationally think that for there to be
interdependence something must have caused it.  By cycling into
emptiness, I mean that each thing has a cause before it, so we go all
the way back until there is nothing.  If there is nothing then, there
is nothing now, since something does not come from nothing.  So we
have swapped the words "Everything" for "Nothing", and we are left
with rhetoric instead of truth, which is what Pirsig states.  It is
how one creates it, not how one finds it.  Once we realize that our
sense of intellect and communication and investigation and reality is
like the growing hum of a bee-hive, then we are free to create and are
not restricted by things that we feel are true.
> ------
>
> I'd also add the analogy of the biological sciences, which reveal this
> co-dependence in all of evolutionary development and it is this fundamental
> truth which I say lies at the heart of all being:
>
> A 2007 study conducted by the National Science Foundation found that
> biodiversity and genetic diversity are codependent—that diversity among
> species requires diversity within a species, and vice versa. "If any one
> type is removed from the system, the cycle can break down, and the community
> becomes dominated by a single species."

[Mark]
Yes, the concept of codependence is indeed enticing, and we can create
meaning with it.  But just because it is easy to justify, does not
mean that it stands alone.
>
> Nagarjuna's idea that "even causes and conditions are empty of inherent
> existence or essence." sounds very much like a formulation that would
> irritate Ham, and delight Marsha, and thus it seems to me that I'm picking
> sides in an old argument when I embrace this doctrine.  And yet, it does
> make sense to me for I cannot see any other way to explain the fact that
> without consciousness there can be any value, and without value there can be
> no consciousness.   They are either the same thing, or aspects of the same
> thing.

[Mark]
I do not think this would irritate Ham since he would also ascribe to
the interrelated nature of Absolute Essence and Value.  Without Value
we would not know that there was Absolute essence, so I guess it is a
moot point.  The key word is inherent, that is arising independently.
My interpretation of Essentialism is that things cannot arise
independently, they are dependent on Absolute Essence.  So, in some
ways, I think Ham is a Buddhist.  My opinion of course.
>
>
> Mark:
>
>
>>  I find that a good way to dismiss the
>> concept of source and move on.  However, what I am trying to impart is
>> a basic premise of Quality, that is often lost in this Western
>> Dialectic approach that is taken in this forum.  The Taoist
>> perspective is a holistic view which does indeed impart meaning, but
>> does not suite a discussion well, due to its forms of analogy.
>
>
> John:
>
> Really?  How so?  For I believe the analogy I offered of evolution - Nature
> itself, is the root of all our analogies and this nature is rife with
> codependent arisings of all kinds.  If there is no prey, there will be no
> predator.  If there are no predators, the prey will not evolve, improve and
> will eventually eat itself out of existence.  A codependency that is easy to
> understand and demonstrate.

[Mark]
Yes, you are correct, there are many analogies, but perhaps little
true understanding (what ever that is).  I stand corrected.
>
> Mark:
>
>
>> It
>> goes more for the right side of the brain than the left, if you will.
>>
>
>
> John:
>
> Ah, well then.  That's my bag, no doubt about it.
>
> Mark:
>
> My present approach is to convey the upending of Truth with Quality,
>> which is what lead Pirsig to his complete dissociation from reality,
>> and, which he came back to relate in ZMM.
>
>
>
> John:
>
> Do you think dissociation from reality is a good thing Mark?  I would hope
> that any belief system or teaching would get us into closer relationship
> with reality.

[Mark]
Of course dissociation from reality is not a good thing.  I do not
think that Pirsig (as Phaedrus) had any intention of going to the
hospital for shock treatment.  However, I guess that his estrangement
was severe enough.  We all like to have meaning and purpose.  Some of
us have minor mid-life crises, like Camus talks about in the Myth of
Sisyphus.  The question is:  What was it that Pirsig saw that stripped
him of all meaning?  Obviously something grew out of a chance comment
in an English department, but how did it radically change the concept
of meaning?  This is what I thought about for the first ten years
after I read the book.  I have been close, but never have fully had
the floor taken out from under me.  What in your opinion did he see?
I have been trying to explain it, but I am no author.  This is the
crux of MoQ, much more than all the levels and comparisons to other
philosophers, or even the need to invoke the sophists as a way of
explaining it.  Those are all just analogies for a completely
different view.
>
> Mark:
>
>
>
>> So, for the purposes of
>> this post, I am exploring the differences between an objective and
>> subjective perspective of Value.  The objective view is: what we sense
>> as value, is a human perception of a larger Value.  We get the
>> mini-human values, which we say are ours, but are only appearances of
>> Value which exists without us.  The subjective would be, of course,
>> that value is personal, and due to our interaction with that outside.
>> It is the interplay between ourselves and the outside, which is felt,
>> isolated, within, perhaps by the soul, or whatever one can imagine as
>> the final feeler.
>>
>
> John:
>
> I'm not sure I grasp what you're getting at here, but to my quick read, it
> sounds like you're bouncing back and forth between the horns of that angry
> bull.  The insights of the MoQ are supposed to unify and harmonize the
> subjective/objective split

[Mark]
I am not sure if I am bouncing.  There has been much discussion on the
subjective nature of Quality, such as "Quality is experience".  This
is not the only way to see it.  The insights of MoQ can unify the
split by making it completely objective.  This is what Buddhism does,
by claiming that the subjective does not exist.  In our self-centered
Western world, we have no idea how this purely objective view can
exist.  So the unification is possible by removing the subjective
completely, kill all patterns as it were.  Not literally of course,
but metaphorically.  A metaphor to remove metaphors, kind of like a
computer virus that wipes your hard drive.
>
>
>
>> >
>> >>
>> > John:
>> >
>> > I would like to address both of you on the issue of "conscious agent" and
>> > "man" with the question, is it at all possible that intelligent life
>> exists
>> > somewhere outside of humanity's experience?
>>
>
>
>
>>
>> [Mark]
>> I am not sure if you mean intelligent life as we as humans would
>> define it.  We are about 2 percent different from the apes
>> (genetically), yet we feel we are way superior in intelligence.  So,
>> something 10% different from us, would be outside our imagination.
>> For all we know, this could be a river.  So, I think we are speaking
>> of human truths.
>
>
> John:
>
> Well, maybe I read too much science fiction as a lad, but I was referring to
> E.T.  intelligence.  Aliens from another planet, if you will.  Even the Pope
> seems to think we should include their possible being in his religion.  I
> would certainly not want to exclude them from our philosophies.  So I think
> rather we should be speaking, universal truths rather than merely
> humanistic.

[Mark]
OK, I see what you mean, intelligence that is like ours, not some
plasma pulsing or whatever.  Since we are not all that different from
the rest of the planet, we can talk of earthly intelligence, that is
governed by the rules on this earth.
>
>
>> [Mark]
>> Yes, good book.  I read it many years ago, along with its Piglet
>> counterpart (Te of Piglet I think).  I enjoyed it at the time, and
>> should reread it now that I am a little older.  I would like to hear
>> more about the uncarved block as it relates to MoQ (or as it relates
>> to anything for that matter).  We do tend to make things much more
>> complicated than they are, mainly because we are so important.
>>
>
> John:
>
> Some of us less so than others, obviously.  I shall quote for you, and you
> will understand how I feel about the matter.
>
> "The essence of the principle of the Uncarved Block is that things in their
> original simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily
> spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed.... This basic Taoist
> principle applies not only things in their natural beauty and function, but
> to people as well.  Or Bears.  (Or coyotes) ... but no matter how he may
> seem to others, especially to those fooled by appearances, Pooh, the
> Uncarved Block, is able to accomplish what does because he is simpleminded.
> As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simpleminded does
> not necessarily mean stupid.  It's rather significant that the Taoist ideal
> is that of the still, calm reflecting "mirror-mind" of the Uncarved Block."

[Mark]
Thanks for the refresher.  The uncarved block is similar to the
concept of beginner's mind which is written about by D.T Suzuki in
terms of Zen.  That is a mind without history or prejudices.  This is
indeed a goal for Zen students (I have been told).  By having a
beginner's mind, one is in harmony with the Tao, and does not fight
it.  It is thinking without thinking, everything is new, even
memories.  When we have a memory, it happens in the present, and is
therefore new.  So even remembering is living in the present.  Once we
realize this, things get much easier.  Nothing changes of course,
except perhaps our attitude.  If there is any free will at all, it is
within our attitude.  Oh, glorious world, what a wonderful place this
is where I can post and discuss with my good trusted friends!  What a
rush this discussion is!  Thanks John!!

Cheers,
Mark
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