From: schan@birch.srg.af.mil (Stephen Chan x4485)
Subject: Nothing to do with MA (was Re: guts and spirits)
Organization: SRG, Arinc Research Corp., Annapolis, MD
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 19:50:15 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.153528.22971@sei.cmu.edu> psc@sei.cmu.edu (Peter Capell) writes:
>06-Jan-93 13:50	jchristian@desire.wright.edu	Re: Martial arts and the gut
>>>One of Nietzsche's criticisms of Plato was in the whole body/spirit
>>>emphasis. Plato writes that the body is subordinate to the spirit, like a
>>>house that is useless unless occupied.  Nietzsche called Plato a "despiser
>>>of the body" in an apparent condemnation of the spirit being elevated at the
>>>cost of neglecting the body.
>
>What does either of them know?  Who cares what either thinks?

	Jeez Peter, don't those Hindu spiritual leader types ever warn about
going to extremes?
	Plato and Nietzsche both lived, and thought a lot about what it was all
about. Discounting them out of hand is just as numb-skulled as slavishly
believing them.

> Each of us in
>individual and must face our own death.  No one can provide insight into it
>for anyone else.  One must examine these issues personally, not with
>intellectual pursuit (book knowledge).

	There is a strong tradition in Zen and Taoism to denigrate "book
learning" and purely intellectual pursuits. But if you examine it in it's
full (or at least, broader) context, it was meant to be used as a corrective
measure against excessive scholasticism - by applying their one extreme against
the other extreme, the students would come closer to the center.
	My understanding of those traditions is that book learning is VERY
important - but that everything you learn must be examined, and made real with
practice. Ultimately, book learning must be discarded, but you have to learn it
before you can discard it.
	Lots of people seem to adopt an extreme anti-intellectual position
which (as I understand it) is just as erroneous as extreme "book learning".
The spontaneous but IGNORANT person is no better than an animal and can never
rise above their environmentally conditioned reactions.

>I'd never trust an egghead German to tell me anything about a soul anyway.  I
>say this with some authority ( .50 percent German here).  What was Nietzche's
>(any relation to "toastchees?") practice which gave him such insight into
>being?

	Its all predicated on the belief that your yogi isn't just plain
deluded. Your yogi sits around opening his chakras, and Nietszche sat around,
arguing with people, studying history and analyzing things.
	On what basis can you claim that the yogi's methods are more effective
than the western philosopher? Just because you can "feel" it? Lots of people
feel things.

>  At least a yogi can tell you "try this for several years and you will
>come to know your soul..."

	How about "pray to God and you will feel his love". And no doubt, many
of do feel it.

>  All a philosopher can do is talk and drink cappuccino.

	Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. One could easily say that all a yogi does is mumble
lofty platitudes to impressionable, spiritually starved westerners, who are
jaded by their local spiritual heritage.
	I saw a book called "Karma Cola" - it's about all the spiritually
desperate westerners who went to India, looking for truth. I keep meaning to
buy it and read it, but haven't had a chance. The blurb seemed to indicate
that average Indian considered many of these seekers to be chumps.
	Sorta like if some Chinese guy came over to the US to seek out the
wisdom of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, because he discovered that all the Chinese
Taoists and Buddhists were fakes and bozos.

>  Who're you going to trust?  Personally, I think Nietzche is a
>pompous know-it-all.  No one ever seems to have asked him 1) who the hell are
>you?

	He's the anti-Christ. Or is that the Pope?

>, and 2) how the hell do you know?  Anyway I suspect this wouldn't have
>shut him up.

	Well, who does he have to be in order to have an opinion? Many people
seem to think that his analysis of reason, morality and power are insightful.

>Why is everyone so hung up on "agreement."  Who cares about anyone's
>"agreement."  What I love about the east is ***PRACTICE***.  There is no
>equivalent to the eastern practices of yoga or qigong*.

	Perhaps - maybe they still exist in strange niches like witchcraft,
or in fringe movements like theosophy - which pops up and then gets disproved.
	It seems yoga and qi-gong don't necessarily exist in the West, but
there is a long and constant tradition of contemplation and mysticism in
Christianity.

>  All the west has ever been able to do is blab.

	You're going off the rhetorical deep-end on this one, Peter. I refer
you to folks like Theresa of Avila, Kant, Spinoza, and Aquinas. They
all lived deeply spiritual lives - it wasn't all just talk for them - they
claimed to experience their philosophies.

>*pinyin was created by morons-- it's pronounced "CHEE GONG."  All other
>representations were created to confuse the masses.

	Maybe you should give the Chinese some credit for deciding how their
language will be represented to westerners, instead of passively accepting
Wade-Giles, or other foriegnly produced system?

--
	Stephen Chan
	uunet!srg!schan or uunet!srg!schan@uunet.uu.net