From: Karen McCall Pengra (mcpeng@bitstream.net)
Date: 05/15/01-04:21:26 PM Z
I smiled when I read this. I am brand new to the list today and I was
surprised and happy to read quotes from Alan Watts (one of my favorite
writers) and discussion on the work and words of Minor White, zen, "obscure
metaphors" (yeah, Birdie, they rock my world, too!) "the light"...
So, to balance GT, I say "hello friends!" and thank you.
KM
>YOur list really sucks the big !!!
>I have never seen so many stupid comments in only one list!!
>
>Good Bye
>
>GT
>
>jefulton1@home.com wrote:
>
>> Much of what has been said about Minor is true : a conundrum. Allan
>> Coleman's diatribe was in a sense appreciated (by me) when he wrote it but
>> missed what Minor was ultimately about. Since there is a large Zen community
>> around me . . best friends, restaurants, experiences, a ranch owned by the
>> co founder of Polaroid has been the garden/ranch/center for years . . . it
>> is of great interest. To tap into one's spiritual self is not easy. I go to
>> the desert regions of the West.
>>
>> Minor, who partly founded my department, and taught here for a few years,
>> did find thoughtful company in ideas perpetrated by Zen.
>> Alan Watts, who I delivered the newspaper to, said:
>> "Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual
>> handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment
>> is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped
>> with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and
>> nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spirit---to the
>> "conquest" of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature."
>>
>> A young man in Canada (Toronto) for the Marshal Mcluhan conference is
>> wearing a hat w/a video camera on it and he has "become a camera."
>>
>> "Just as the wheel is an extension of the leg, and radio is an extension of
>> the voice, so too, is the camera an extension of the eye, the computer an
>> extension of the brain, and wiring, circuits, and the internet an extension
>> of the nervous system."
>>
>> Also, a movie came out in the mid 50's called, "I Am A Camera" written by
>> Christopher Isherwood. It had nothing to do with cameras but more to do
>> w/promiscuity.
>>
>> Birdie (& then Darryl) hit is closest to the mark (in my mind) when she
>> wrote:
>> "Let the subject become its own photograph" =Capture a subject (rather than
>> create an image). This would appear to be a rejection of more abstract
>> approaches. "Become a camera" = Work in a controlled methodical way, as if
>> you are an extension of the camera, treating yourself as being subordinate
>> to the process. This could also reflect a certain . approach to life in
>> general.
>> That's (an) interpretation and not an expression of my own values, by the
>> way. Obscure metaphors rock my world."
>>
>> Most of the answers and queries to Minor's interesting statement are
>> confounded by the ego and trap one behind the idea of perfection of
>> rendition vs the rendition of perfection. Now that is a koan eh?
>>
>> Again, from Alan Watts:
>> "Lao-Tzu said 'the five colors make a man blind, the five tones make a man
>> deaf,' because if you can only see five colors, you're blind, and if you can
>> only hear five tones in music, you're deaf. You see, if you force sound into
>> five tones, you force color into five colors, you're blind and deaf. The
>> world of color is infinite, as is the world of sound. And it is only by
>> stopping fixing conceptions on the world of color and the world of sound
>> that you really begin to hear it and see it.
>>
>> A sudden crash of thunder. The mind doors burst open,
>> and there sits the ordinary old man.
>>
>> See? There's a sudden vision. Satori! Breaking! Wowee! And the doors of the
>> mind are blown apart, and there sits the ordinary old man. It's just little
>> you, you know? Lightning flashes, sparks shower. In one blink of your eyes,
>> you've missed seeing. Why? Because here is the light. The light, the light,
>> the light, every mystic in the world has 'seen the light.'"
>>
>> There is, also, a wonderful short story that is an appendage to Herman
>> Hesse's 'Magister Ludi', or 'The Glass Bead Game' that is a fascinating read
>> and pretty much sums up what started this conversation.
>>
>> Jack Fulton
>>
>>
>>
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