[MD] The first cut.

[MarshaV]

"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 buddhas look at the world, they don't _see_ solidity.  They don't _see_ selves_.  They see only flux.

  "This is not to say that the awakened no longer see forms like the rest of us.  They do.  But they _see_ forms --- or, rather, "formness" --- as illusory.  They _see_ that all things arise together.  They _see_ that the apparent existence of anything is dependent on all that it is not.  And they _see_ this dependence as nothing other than change and motion themselves.

  "The Buddha called this phenomena dependent arising.  Dependent arising is the formula, "When this arises, that becomes."  When the days lengthen, spring flowers bloom.  When days shorten, autumn colors appear and leaves fall from the trees.  Spring flowers are inseparable from lengthening days; autumn colors are inseparable from days of less and less light.  Indeed, spring flowers _are_ the longer days; fall colors _are_ the shorter days.  In Reality, all phenomena work together as a seamless whole. 

  "Dependent arising is not vague, mystical, remote, intellectual stuff.  The buddha-dharma is very practical and down-to-earth.  Just pay very close attention to your actual experience, and you'll _see_ it for yourself."  


  (Hagen, Steve, ‘Buddhism: Plain and Simple’, p.146)




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