[MD] Static Patterns Rock!

[david buchanan]

Andre said to Marsha:
...To be more precise, I do not see why you fail to answer this question by appealing to the 'conditioned' status of phenomena in this world which, in my book simply means co-dependent arising.    You may bring up the 'illusory' aspect when phenomena are considered permanent, independent and unchanging. But the MoQ has already resolved this diversion appeal as well.   ...This is cowardice of the worst kind. Sharing a discussion site with people of this ilk makes me seriously re-consider my participation and subscription.


dmb says:
Yes, I think you hit the nail on its head. It makes sense to "bring up the 'illusory' aspect when phenomena are considered permanent, independent and unchanging" but it does NOT make sense to describe static patterns as 'illusory' because "the MoQ has already resolved this" 'illusion' problem. As Paul Williams (a Buddhist scholar quoted by McWatt) explains it, this illusion occurs when construct the EVER-CHANGING FLOW of perceptions "into enduring subjects and objects confronting each other. This is irrational, things are not really like that, and it leads to suffering and frustration. The constructed objects are the conceptualised aspect."

The MOQ rejects these "enduring subjects and objects confronting each other" and instead says that subjects and objects are secondary concepts derived from "the immediate flux of life", which is just another term for "the ever-changing flow of perceptions". By rejecting this enduring dualism (SOM) and replacing it with DQ and sq (MOQ), the illusion that "leads to suffering and frustration" has been eliminated. The MOQ is already in agreement with the Buddhist quote from Williams and all the other quotes that denounce this kind of illusion, this kind of reification. But Marsha uses such quotes AGAINST the MOQ, as when she applies the term "illusion" to static patterns of quality. She's treating the cure as if it were the disease. She's using the MOQ's critique of SOM against the MOQ itself. 

It's like some kind of intellectual cannibalism. 


"In order to understand what is being said here, one should try and imagine all things, objects of experience and oneself, the one who is experiencing, as just a flow of perceptions. We do not know that there is something "out there". We have only experiences of colours, shapes, tactile data, and so on. We also don't know that we ourselves are anything than a further series of experiences. Taken together, there is only an EVER-CHANGING FLOW of perceptions (vijnaptimatra)... Due to our beginningless ignorance we construct these perceptions into enduring subjects and objects confronting each other. This is irrational, things are not really like that, and it leads to suffering and frustration. The constructed objects are the conceptualised aspect. The flow of perceptions which forms the basis for our mistaken constructions is the dependent aspect." (Paul Williams, "Mahayana Buddhism", Routledge, 1989, p.83/84).