XPost: talk.religion.buddhism, alt.zen, alt.philosophy.zen   
   XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy   
   From: oxtail@nowhere.org   
      
   Tang Huyen wrote:   
      
   > Lee Rudolph wrote:   
   >   
   >> brian mitchell:   
   >>   
   >> > I reject your extreme yoking of suffering to awakening. People can   
   >> > have very different casts of mind and different skillful attributes.   
   >> > Yes, a catastrophic psychic shock can arrest the mad mind, but so can   
   >> > other things. And I reject your characterisation of self/ego as a   
   >> > disease, seeing it more as a natural and necessary pre-metamorphic   
   >> > (chrysalis) stage in the development of the mind   
   >>   
   >> Not to disagree with you (for I don't), but simply to provide a   
   >> counter-image to the--possibly--over- sweet "butterfly" some readers   
   >> may imagine reading "chrysalis", I offer "maggot"; as in "Maggot   
   >> Debridement Therapy", q.v.   
   >>   
   >> Lee Rudolph (or perhaps "Debride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even")   
   >   
   > Buddhism is supposed to be the method of removing adventitious   
   > defilements (or afflictions) from a pure mind. Plotinus (who   
   > participates in a Greek expedition to western Asia and who met with   
   > gymnosophists, presumably Buddhist and Brahmanist masters) speaks of a   
   > sculptor removing pieces from a block of marble to make a sculpture as   
   > metaphor for the purification process. Thus mental culture can be   
   > likened to debridement. In olden times, before modern medicine, maggots   
   > were used for debridement, and in recent years they are coming back in   
   > fashion for the same task, in modern medicine, as last resort, when   
   > nothing else works, and they do a good job of it, so there is nothing to   
   > sneer at.   
   >   
   > Now, coming to a topic of interest: what parts of you are taken to be   
   > yours, and what parts of you are taken to be alien and presumably to be   
   > gotten rid of? Buddhism tends to be sweeping and to counsel the dropping   
   > of self and what-belongs-to-self. However the awakened person still   
   > lives and functions, and to all appearance has a self around which he   
   > weaves his package of what-belongs-to-self, so it is not so much the   
   > matter (of self and what-belongs-to-self) as the manner of dealing with   
   > it that matters. If one deals with it without attachment, it is fine.   
   >   
   > Now, take people like Fu and DharmaTroll. They went through inculcation   
   > by the Church and retain deep influence from it, even if they rebel   
   > against it in content. However, they are stuck with it, and are defined   
   > by it, whether they are for or against it. They can only be for or   
   > against it, in content, but the structure of their mind has been   
   > imprinted by it, and they think according to such structure, namely, the   
   > realist, literalist and absolutist mindset. They cannot live in   
   > independence from the Church, whatever way they turn.   
   >   
   > So here is the question: what is it for them to drop? If maggots were to   
   > be used for their spiritual debridement, could their allegiance to the   
   > Church be a target? If their attachment to the Church was let go of,   
   > what would remain of them, since their identity is firmly moored to the   
   > Church, even if in rebellion? If the debridement went far enough, would   
   > they feel stripped naked and deprived of their safe haven, namely the   
   > Church, which they so much love to hate?   
   >   
   > In a certain religion, it is asked: what good is it to win the world and   
   > lose your soul? In the case of the above people, it is possible that all   
   > their soul is wrapped up with the Church, even in ostentatious   
   > rebellion. Can they get away from it and live in independence from it?   
   >   
   > Tang Huyen   
      
      
   Not even close.   
   I bet they are much more attached   
   to Money than to the Church.   
   How about you?   
      
   --   
   Oxtail is not doing what he thinks he is doing here.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)