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MOQ Conference Concluding
Thoughts
Liverpool
University, July 7th 2005
by Khoo Hock Aun
My name is Khoo and I must thank Anthony for inviting me as
part of the MOQ Discussion group to be here and [looking at
Robert Pirsig] to be here with the great man himself.
[laughter]
One of the thoughts I had coming over here from Malaysia this
morning, or rather last night (!), was the scarcity of Asian
voices in the MOQ Discussion Group and even here. I have
the suspicion that when Mr Pirsig wrote “Zen [and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance”] and “Lila” and described a universal
Metaphysics of Quality, I wondered whether it was specifically
written for the Western structured mindset as opposed to [also
appealing to] the East Asian structured mindset or philosophy.
Now I just want to make a few comments if I can [and] at the
same time address each of the speakers that went on before;
all of whom made very excellent points. We can find no
disagreement with them from the Eastern philosophy point of
view or Asian culture. In fact, all of that which has been
said resonates very much with Buddhism or Zen or Hinduism or
Taoism or whatever you can call East Asian cosmology, so to
speak.
I once posted on MOQ [Discuss] about the synchronicity of Lao
Tzu, the Buddha and the Sophists of the pre-Socratic era
[having] all arose at about the same time: 500 years BC… so
was there a certain cycle in the whole evolution of mental
development that brought all these about independently in
three parts of the world? In a sense, the Sophists, the
Buddhists and the Taoists… looked at the harmony and the unity
of the universe before the subject-object divide came up, and,
of course, in the Western sense we know who won the battle and
that's how the world emerged as we have today. So, sometimes I
wonder if there were a Socrates or an Aristotle or a Plato who
emerged in India or in China… during the time of the Buddha,
would we have a different world scenario compared to what we
have today?
The MOQ (the Metaphysics of Quality), is a very much-ingrained
thing in Asian cosmology. It's something they live with
everyday. [So in East Asia] we don’t find that there’s such a
wondrous philosophical bent to it that you need to develop a
whole philosophy or metaphysics around it. Now, I say
that in the context of the fact that I am actually educated in
the Western sense. I don't speak, I don't write Chinese…
English is my first language. I mean that's the Malaysian
school situation I was from. One studies physics and most
elemental scientific traditions and you draw your conclusions
about Western science and technology. And there you have
Robert Pirsig writing about Eastern philosophy and Asian
civilisation in a Western context which I can understand.
Imagine that I needed him to explain to me what Zen Buddhism
is all about [laughter]. That's phenomenal! I mean if he can
do that for me can he do the same for other Western
[structured] minds?
But mind you there is this thing about East Asian tradition;
people are encouraged to have enlightenment under the Bodhi
tree and seek their own knowledge or wisdom. And there is, of
course, several strata and subsets of achievement. (Academic
achievement is one of these. I think this distinction
between a doctoral graduate and others and whether he should
be called doctor or not; is actually really a social issue
against an intellectual issue. Some like to joke about it;
there’s this derogatory term about PhDs being permanently head
damaged [laughter] and so on and so forth. That might be true
to a certain extent because you have already evolved a group
of certain social structures but I won't go into that.)
Now the point is, what has happened is that we believe there
was a time when [East] Asian civilization and philosophy had
its bright moments [though] as far as it's concerned right
now, it is in their “Dark Ages”. However, cycles are a fact
of life, even in Asian or Eastern philosophy. I don't know
[if] philosophers (or any observer of reality) may observe
that the whole thing is all cyclical [and that] there is an up
and there is a down. Right now I believe Asian philosophy is
in recession, in retreat. Why? I mean Western
technology has brought me here [to Liverpool] in 12 hours and
although I can call home with the cell phones and [similar
technology], this scientific tradition is fast moving into
Asia right now; to the extent that Asian intellectuals are
finding a lot more merit in Western intellectualism. So have
they forgotten what Asian intellectualism is all about?
Now, why am I going through that? I am not trying to
draw a distinction between East Asian philosophy and Western
philosophy. In fact they could be [considered] just like the
left and right side of the brain: the Yin and Yang of things.
So, what's happened is that Asian philosophy (or for lack of a
better phrase, a more generic-universal philosophy) is
diminished… for which the most desirable state is harmony
[and] is what basically Feng Shui or Asian geomancy is all
about. There's a whole complex basis of belief from the Hindu
Vashtu to [the present]... It's amazing that I can
explain this in whatever limited English that I have. But
whatever explanation is achieved will surely not give this
viewpoint justice because it will then, with whatever words
attributed to it, make it less than what it actually is.
That's a perpetual struggle. And the wonder is that Mr
Pirsig has actually managed to convey that viewpoint to the
Western mindset; to able [it] to understand that underlying
reality.
I was very much impressed that the University of Chicago had
these “Greatest Books of the Western World” as a collection
for its liberal arts program. The sales people for
Encyclopedia Britannica used to sell that back in Asia. And I
know it is an impressive… set of volumes… You would think that
all of the World’s knowledge is in these “Greatest Books of
the Western World” [laughter]! So, I was wondering (I don't
know whether I posted this on MOQ Discuss) why we don't have
the “Greatest Books of the East Asian World”? I don't know
which books these are. [Moreover,] I don't know who would
want to do such a project or which benefactor would support
this. But then again, why don't we have the “Greatest Books
of both the Eastern and the Western Worlds”? Because surely I
think this is what you [looking at Robert Pirsig] actually
struggled to get the world to recognize…
So, the question is now, where do we go from here? The
alienation I think that you [still looking at Pirsig]
mentioned in the first few chapters of “Zen” still exists
today. The subject-object divide is still so ingrained and
it's going to permeate around the world and into Asia as well.
But, at the same time, there is this philosophic substratum
in Asia that I know [despite being] in recession, is all
there. Even although I am in a way Western educated, in a
sense that underlying philosophy of harmony and unity is
[still] hard wired into my genes and my outlook.
So, conferences like this are a start and I was just wondering
that you should continue [laughter] and perhaps have the next
one in Asia where you actually [still] have the original
context of this metaphysics... So that's all I'm going to
say. [applause]
Thank you very much.
khoohockaun@gmail.com
(With many thanks to David Harding for transcribing Khoo's
original words from the film footage.)
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Khoo, Bob and
Mayli, MOQ Conference
Thursday July 7th 2005
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