On Dec 23, 2008, at 1:29 PM, Stefano Mori wrote: > > On 2008-Dec-22, at 10:03, Chris Gehlker wrote: > >> I don't pretend to understand Rowan Williams. Here his argument, or >> rather his assertion, seems to be that any attempt to understand the >> world rationally is evil. He's like an Alisa Rosenbaum parody of a >> liberal intellectual. > > > It echoes a sentiment I've seen in any little Zen group. > > People will say, "you do Zen but then you need to act! We need right > action!" > > And they'll talk about the importance of feeling compassion. > Compassion for your neighbor, for your colleagues, for Iraq, for the > world... > > Feel compassion and act! > > And because I like ideas, I stick my nose in and say, great, and we > also need to be thinking about things so that we understand what > actions to take. > > And then something odd happens; they look at me like I just don't get > it. > > Zen people aren't particularly different to New Age yoga types who've > been off to India to do salutes to the sun on the beach. You will hear > them ask, "what does the world need?" (The correct answer is "love").
I think you may be going too far the other way here. Point 1) I know quite a few zen people and quite a few new age/ pyramid/crystal/labyrinth/pure land folks. Literally only one of the zen people exhibits the kind of anti-rationalism that AI think we are talking about here. All of the new agers do. Point 2) I simply can't reject out of hand the notion that 'Meditate then Act' isn't the right prescription for *some* aspects of life. There are occasions, such as knowing the right thing to say when some bad thing happens to a friend, when intuition trumps having a rational plan. And a great many of the most intuitive and graceful people I know practice some form or zen. At least one was very graceful before she started with zen though so I can't be sure. Intuition can't lead you to the right fiscal policy though. For that you need the best econometric model you can find. But maybe the kind of intuition that may or may not be enhanced through zen is useful in formulating that better econometric model once you have honed your analytic skills to the fullest. -- Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. -Frank William Leahy, football coach (1908-1973) _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
