[MD] social engagement

[MarshaV]

Hi Mark,

You are like a rogue wave that swishes upon beach to wash away all the castles in the sand: not his, not that.  And a minute later the wave, too, is gone.  


Bye,

Marsha
 
 

p.s.  Perhaps if the Buddha had had a modern pen and notebook he would have kept a journal.   




On Sep 24, 2012, at 1:57 AM, 118 <ununoctiums at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Marsha,
> Thanks for the link, I will give it a listen while I am driving to work.  I
> do have a comment at the end of your post which may be of interest to you.
> 
> On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 11:00 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>>>> Greetings Mark and all,
>>>> 
>>>> I would like to say a few more words about this lecture because I want
>> everyone to watch it for some important MoQ reasons.  In this talk, David
>> Loy traces the intellectual concern for social justice, and the
>> understanding that humans can restructure society to make it better, back
>> to the Greeks, and makes it a fundamental of the West intellectual
>> point-of-view.  He suggests that before that society was understood to be
>> "the nature of things".  Loy seems to point to a clear division between the
>> social level and the intellectual level which does not include "the East."
>> I think the talk offers import considerations when defining the
>> intellectual level and differentiating it from the social level, and also
>> offers some strongly worded flaws in its development.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1e7Zysfkj0
>>>> 
>>>> Hi Mark,
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I think the title is self explanatory.  Rather than offer a synopsis,
>> David Loy presented a bit of a quote by Gary Snyder written sixty years ago:
>>>> 
>>>> "The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the
>> East has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both.
>> They are both contained in the traditional three aspects of the Dharma
>> path: wisdom (prajna), meditation (dhyana), and morality (sila). Wisdom is
>> intuitive knowledge of the mind of love and clarity that lies beneath one’s
>> ego-driven anxieties and aggressions. Meditation is going into the mind to
>> see this for yourself — over and over again, until it becomes the mind you
>> live in. Morality is bringing it back out in the way you live, through
>> personal example and responsible action, ultimately toward the true
>> community of “all beings.”"
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Marsha
>> 
>> Since in this forum we are discussing a metaphysics devoted to Quality, I
> thought I would try to draw some relationship between your quote and MOQ.
> 
> If we take a view through the thought pattern which encompasses the Dharma
> path as presented above, I believe there are some connections.  The way I
> have been trying to explain Truth is similar to "wisdom".  This would be
> the intuitive knowledge that presents a place from which we can start our
> patterning.  Meditation is akin to SQ, in that we create patterns through
> thought.  That is, we "see" something.
> 
> "Going into the mind" does not make sense to me from a Quality perspective,
> since this creates a separation between "one who is going in", and "the
> mind".  I am not sure how one separates the two.
> 
> As we know, Morality is not simply a human endeavor, but something that is
> inherent in everything.  As humans, we express the "human variety" of
> Morality.  At its core, this expression is no different to a photon's.  By
> "by bringing it back out" we have the permutations of DQ, as it happens.
> 
> As we know, Pirsig did not try to encapsulate the great body of work
> devoted to Zen.  But he does present parallels between his Quality, and the
> Zen tradition.  More so in ZAMM than in Lila, the latter being one which
> tries to explain Quality using standard Western modes of inquiry.  In the
> East there is little class movement, except that which is Western in
> tradition.  At the begining of the video (all I have watched so far, the
> speaker seems positive about the mixing of both traditions.  He would claim
> that a better mixing would happen if the East came West, rather than the
> West going East.  Presumably due to cultural values.  The implication is
> that the West is ready for change much more than the East.
> 
> In the West, we tend to divorce ourselves from the natural flow of
> existence by creating huge amounts of Static Quality.  As I have presented
> previously, the written word is highly static and bewitching.  The spoken
> word is entirely different.  Our society seems to be going faster into the
> dominance of the written word.  What is being lost are the traditional
> face-to-face engagements which used to dominate a society.  Because of
> this, society is becoming devoid of personality, texting is replacing
> talking.  Many people feel more comfortable texting or discussing things
> via computer than talking face-to-face.
> 
> Here we have two computers talking to each other.  There is no affect to
> the written word except what the reader puts into it.  There is no
> intonation which makes up 75% of a conversation.  This leads to
> misunderstanding as we see so often in this forum.  The written word has
> brought us into an increasingly static state, where we present quotes
> without affect.  Depending on how the author said the quote, makes all the
> difference.  This is why watching a speaker is infinitely more educational
> than reading a writer.  I wonder what Buddhism would bring to this dilemma.
> As  you know Buddha refused to write anything down, and for good reason
> (of course Socrates and Jesus did the same thing).
> 
> I am curious how you see the video relating to MOQ.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark
>