[MD] Taking off the glasses?

[X Acto]

Steve, Andre,
 
Steve to Andre:

The question I have about this quote is what would it mean for someone to take his glasses off? I take it you see it as referring to Buddhist Enlightenment, but how do we square Buddhism and pragmatism?

Ron:
 I had wanted to answer this inquirey when posted but it now helps the context of my answer to include
Andre's post. To first concern Steve's inquiry, from what I understand, which is embelished by the myths
of "Prince five-weapons", an early incarnation of the bhudda, is the awareness of wearing glasses which is enlightenment. How this squares with Pragmatic concerns is the polishing and focus of the lense, the care
and craft. 
First off, this is a loaded metaphor, because we start from the assumption that there is an external attachment
of the tool of glasses, which may be taken off or on, when more accurately it's the way we see and interpret
experience. It's a state of mind. I think if we re-establish this, the question changes.
It becomes a question of attachment to certain ways of thinking.
 
If intelligibility is the act of making distinctions in experience the Pragmatic conclusion is the concern of
how those distinctions or "forms" are made. This naturally expands intelligibility therefore the primary
enlightenment always concerns a "knowing". Prince five-weapons could not be consumed because
within him was the thunderbolt of the bhudda knowledge.
 
Andre:
Hi Steve, I have thought of many different ways of answering this but Phaedrus' observation in ZMM kept on pressing itself forward, repeating itself and I must conclude that this is indeed an observation which should answer your question. It also squares Buddhism with pragmatism very nicely. The çonclusion' Phaedrus arrives at is: " The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself". (p319) and in LILA of course further developed as the 'creative activity of the divine' (LC, p 354): DQ/sq.

Steve:
...but to continue the lens metaphor, I don?t think we should think of the MOQ as helping us to see more_clearly_.

Andre:
Without wanting to be pedantic I agree. The MOQ helps us to 'see' more 'appropriately' in the sense of, for example striking the term 'cause' out 'completely from the scientific description of the universe...Particles 'prefer' to do what they do...". This is 'using a term that is more appropriate to actual observation (experience)". (LILA, p 107).  ;-)

Steve:
...I don't know what to make of seeing without the glasses when we have denied the SOM picture of a single truth Way-Things-Really-Are to which we need to get ourselves in proper relation in favor of the formula reality=experience.

Andre:
Not knowing what to make of 'seeing without the glasses' by denying the SOM picture of the Way-Things-Really-Are is already a very appropriate and therefore high quality insight, imho.


Ron:
If we take the same tac as we were with the flow of the conversation of cleaning and crafting the lense
of intelligibility, Andre takes the course of refinement of knowledge and expansion of reason in response
to Steve. Steve casts it as the appearence - reality reformulation which I'm not quite sure Pirsig was traveling
in with the distinction. To take off the glasses in this context is to render an experience unintelligible, to convey
chaos and meaningless-ness and a catatonic state which connect with what Matt was saying about theraputic
functions of philosophy in a Pragmatic useage of such "gnosis". Which again casts a light of a kind of "knowing"
associated with DQ. If "reality" is unintelligibility, and drawing from this source, renews and refreshes intelligibility,
then "taking off the glasses" refers to such an action.
 
...