[MD] Truth and Relativity 2.0

[MarshaV]

Greetings David,


On Feb 12, 2012, at 2:20 AM, David Harding <davidjharding at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Marsha,
>> Not stranded outside (objectively) and not locked inside (subjectively). Places me in the middle would be the MiddleWay or Quality perspective.
>> 
>> 
> 
> I see, so you're saying that a quality perspective is better. I can agree with that.
>> 
>>> Yes I do suffer. Does thinking of static patterns of value as everything help me to deal with this suffering? In some ways. But I think more to the point the MOQ helps to deal with this suffering. Thinking of static patterns of value as everything - points to the suffering. It is because static patterns exist that we suffer. Static patterns are suffering. 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I might quibble with this phraseology. It seems to me it is not the static patterns, but grasping or rejecting the static patterns as if they were permanent, unchanging and real.
> 
> I agree with this. But I still think in the end this is what static patterns are.  They are a static grasping of that which cannot be grasped.  

I'm not sure that I agree.  Static patterns evolved for pragmatic processes.  It's "patterned" misunderstanding static patterns as independently existing self and independently existing objects that can be grasped that is the mistake, that is the suffering. Imho.  


> That said, how do we 'ungrasp'? Is it a simple change in mindset? Or is it more than that? This is why I say that the MOQ offers us a way to free ourselves from this suffering.  Not by just simply saying 'change your mindset'. But it's only through practice along the lines of Zen training that we can truly learn to not grasp.  And this is what the MOQ points to.  It actually describes within the language of a Metaphysics how Zen training works.  Take meditation for example. How does that help us to 'ungrasp'? I sit. And what happens when I sit.. When I sit, if I haven't done it for a while, the mind races at 10000 miles an hour.  But if I do it regularly enough, the mind slows down. It doesn't race so quickly.  And the more one sits. The less the mind races.  This can continues until the mind 'stops'.  It's at this point that one is said to be enlightened. 
> 
> So, using the language of the MOQ, the way we free ourselves from static patterns is to get them perfect. Zen meditation is a very carefully selected task which is made very simple on purpose. It's really easy to perfect.  All you do is just sit there.  This is why it's called 'just sitting'. You don't 'do' anything.  You just sit there. And so this is how we free ourselves from the static patterns and the suffering in life.

Buddhism offers great wisdom and insight to be considered and tested through experience, but it seems that you are leaning towards Zen Buddhism.  I would not discourage you.  I learned meditation techniques from studying Raja Yoga.  

I am grateful to both the MoQ and Buddhism for a simple change in perspective.  It seems it is now up to me to stay mindful so that to the extent possible my behavior will be free; and, hopefully, that will minimize the hate and greed and ignorance I add into my relationships.  It is only the hate, greed and ignorance that I need surrender.  That's not a huge sacrifice.  

You addressed no judgements and no values within Zen.  I see a difference between the social judgements that one pronounces and the MoQ's Value.  I think it is important to distinguish between the two. (This is where the four evolutionary levels are useful.)  It seems to me one is a social/cultural point-of-view and the other is a MoQ point-of-view.  I would think that one should be cautious with the first and realize the second.  

I hope I didn't miss any major points.


Marsha 




>>> This is because we can't ever truly 'capture' reality. In the end, living is a degenerate activity. Metaphysics is a degenerate activity. Try as we might, we never get it 'right'. We try and capture a changing reality into a fixed, defined, thing. I'm using words now, and you speak words as well. These words represent things. But these things aren't Dynamic Quality. Because Dynamic Quality isn't anything. So we always, even unintentionally, end up defining that which cannot be defined. And because we do this, we get 'stuck', and we suffer. 
>> 
>> You get it, but you do not need to stay stuck if you watch your flow of patterns. Suddenly you see them for what the are at their very core. Suddenly they become like works-of-art hanging on a wall and you are consciously evaluating them. They are bits and pieces of you, and you may consider their usefulness.
> Well I think that if we evaluate things then that's more attachment. In Zen they say to pass no judgement. No values.  To not bring in the judging mind. Just let thoughts come and let them pass away.  If you keep bringing judgements in like this the mind will keep ticking away.
>> 
>>> With this in mind, I think that not only does the MOQ point to our suffering - it also offers us a way to free ourselves from this suffering. It points out a way to actually free ourselves from these static patterns. The MOQ says that rather than our typical everyday, Western, notion of freedom. The one which you and I grew up with. You know, the one where 'freedom' means doing something else. If we're suffering.. we should be 'free' to do something else. That is go and do some other thing, some other pattern - there is actually another type of freedom seldom talked about in the West. People are often surprised at how hard Asians people work without complaint. And I agree with Pirsig where he says that he thinks it is because they cracked this issue of freedom a long time ago..
>> 
>> 
>> I wish RMP had recommended insight meditation and mindfulness more, but maybe it was not a tool he needed. To watch how your mind works is something to behold. But the explanations the MoQ offer are very wise.
> I think that Lila points directly to Zen as a way to truly achieve freedom from suffering. 
>> 
>>> "From the literature on Zen and its insistence on discovering the unwritten Dharma, that it will be intensely anti-ritualistic, since ritual is the written Dharma. But isn't the case. Zen monks' daily life is nothing but on ritual after another. Hour after hour, day after day, all his life. They don't tell him to shatter those static patterns to discover the unwritten Dharma, they want him to get those patterns perfect. The explanation for this contradiction is the belief that you don't free yourself from static patterns by fighting them with other contrary static patterns, that is called bad Karma chasing its tail. You free yourself from static patterns by putting them to sleep. That is you master them with such proficiency, that they become an unconscious part of your nature. You get so used to them you completely forget them and they are gone. There at the center of the most monotonous boredom of static ritualistic patterns, the dynamic freedom is found."
>> 
>> 
>> Zen is but one Buddhist path. I found Nagarjuna's intellectual deconstruction very powerful. My nature is to deconstruct, so I could work and rework it, but then again RMP deconstructed a subject-object world with as much vigor. Bo helped me too (and I am grateful.) The initial hook offered by ZAMM was a big one. It was honesty and trust. I believed RMP. I believed he had fallen into the abyss and survived. It was instant trust, and strong, and essential.
> If deconstruction is your thing, then Zen has a Rinzai school with Koans for just this very thing.  Ideas, like sitting, can be perfected.  That's how we understand things.  By going over and over them until 'pouf', they're gone and we understand. 
> 
>> 
>>> In other words. We don't free ourselves from our pain and suffering by running away from it and pretending that it doesn't exist. We free ourselves from our suffering by living through those patters. By fully accepting their existence. By getting those patterns perfect!
>> 
>> 
>> My way is not to get those patterns perfect, but to understand their nature: conditionally co-dependent, impermanent, ever-changing and conceptualized.
> As I said, I think there's more to it than a simple change in perspective.  True understanding takes sacrifice.
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> -David.
>