[MD] Indeterminism

[Ian Glendinning]

Tell me something I don't know Marsha .... ;-)

On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 9:59 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:

>
>  Ian,
>
>
> “There isn't any 'man' independent of the patterns. Man is the patterns.
>  This fictitious 'man' has many synonyms; 'mankind,' 'people,' 'the public,'
> and even such pronouns as 'I,' 'he,' and 'they.' Our language is so
> organized around them and they are so convenient to use it is impossible to
> get rid of them. There is really no need to. Like 'substance' they can be
> used as long as it is remembered that they're terms for collections of
> patterns and not some independent primary reality of their own.
>
>     (LILA, Chapter 12)
>
>
> Marsha:
> The assumption in your comment seems to go beyond just using conventional
> (pronouns) language.  Really, which pattern gets it right or wrong?
>
> So again:
>
>
> "While I am thinking about it there is a very good book on Buddhism
> recently out called 'Buddhism, Plain and Simple', by Steve Hagen and
> published by Tuttle Publishing. I recommend you get it because it shows the
> similarities, between the MOQ and Zen Buddhism more clearly than any other I
> have seen."
>
> Pirsig to McWatt, May 6th 1998.
>
> ---
>
>
> "When the Buddha spoke of individuals, he often used a different term
> “stream.”  Imagine a stream flowing --- constantly moving and changing,
> always different from one moment to the next.  Most of us see ourselves as
> corks floating in a stream, persisting things moving along in the stream of
> time.  But this is yet another frozen view.  According to this view.
> everything in the stream changes except the cork.  While we generally admit
> to changes in our body, our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our
> understandings, and our beliefs, we still believe, “I myself don’t change.
>  I’m still me.  I’m an unchanging cork in an ever-changing stream.”  This is
> precisely what we believe the self to be --- something that doesn’t change.
>
>  "The fact is, however, that there are no corks in the stream.  There is
> only stream.  What we conceptualize as “cork” is also stream.  We are like
> music.  Music, after all, is a type of stream.  Music exists only in
> constant flow and flux and change.  Once the movement stops, the music is no
> more.  It exists not as a particular thing, but as pure coming and going
> with no thing that comes or goes.
>
>  "Look at this carefully.  If this is true --- how a stream exists, how
> music exists, and how we exist --- see how it is that when we insert the
> notion of “I” we’re posited some little, solid entity that floats along, not
> as stream, but like a cork in a stream.  We see ourselves as solid corks,
> not as the actual stream we are.
>
>  "If we are the stream, what is it that experiences the flux, the flow, the
> change?  The Buddha saw that there is no particular thing that is having an
> experience.  There is experience, but no experiencer.  There is perception,
> but no perceiver.  This is consciousness, but no self that can be located or
> identified."
>
>
>  (Hagen, Steve, ‘Buddhism: Plain and Simple’, p.128)
>
>
>
> Marsha
>
>
> On Sep 23, 2011, at 4:42 AM, MarshaV wrote:
>
> >
> > Ian,
> >
> > What is this WE?  How do WE get anything right or wrong?
> >
> >
> > Marsha
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sep 23, 2011, at 4:31 AM, Ian Glendinning wrote:
> >
> >> Steve,
> >>
> >> Saying our free-will is "part random" is not the same as saying it's "by
> its
> >> very nature unpredictable" is it ! By its very nature it's free will,
> ...
> >> but ...
> >>
> >> It's just honest to recognise that our will is subject to chance too -
> and
> >> it's beneficial two ways - we can take account of the unpredictability
> in
> >> our willed choices and actions, through guesses, percentages, margins
> for
> >> error, plan-B fallbacks, etc  - AND - when we get it wrong we learn
> >> something from what we didn't expect, and evolve our will.
> >>
> >> Not complicated.
> >> Ian
> >>
>
>
>
> ___
>
>
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