Zen and the Art of Vanquishing Voldemort (was: Why should Harry be expected...)

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 122920


> > Neri:
> > Sheldon Kopp is obviously influenced by Zen and Tao ideas. Now, I
> > wouldn't recommend trying to explain to a Zen master that his
> > philosophy is "existential". He might hand you a mighty blow with 
his
> > stick, and then ask you if your feeling of being wronged is not 
realty


> Lupinlore:
> Ah, that explains much!  Chuckle.
> 
> Lupinlore's philosophy of dealing with Zen Masters:  If they strike
> you when you ask questions, have them thrown in the slammer for
> assault and advise them, "Ah, Grasshopper, this is an excellent time
> to meditate on the importance of our communications skills." 
> 

Neri:
Don't you know that if a Zen master strikes you with his stick, you 
immediately have a satori and you become his disciple and finally the 
next Zen master in the lineage? I doubt you'd want to throw him in 
the slammer after that <g>.

Trying desperately to yank this sub-thread back on topic, did you 
ever consider looking at DD as a Zen master? It might be the key to 
the mystery of his character. True, he doesn't use a stick (pretty 
redundant when he has Snape in his toolbox) but he seems to share the 
extremely annoying philosophy that Zen (erm... I mean vanquishing 
Voldy) cannot be taught. Harry must make the voyage himself. 

In order to get the hang of this philosophy, just go to amazon.com 
and take a look inside the first pages of Sheldon Kopp's book: "If 
You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him: The Pilgrimage Of 
Psychotherapy Patients" (sorry, the link is much too long to paste 
here. Just type some of the title's words in Amazon's search box and 
you'll get there. You can look inside the book by clicking on it). 
This book is about the psychotherapist and his patient as a Guru and 
his disciple. Now try the following exercise: substitute "Dumbledore" 
instead of "therapist", "Harry" instead of "patient", 
and "vanquishing Voldemort" instead of "getting well" (or "cure"). 
Immediately you'll get sentences that might give you the shiver:

"DD's task is simply to watch, as Harry wrestles with well-nigh 
paralyzing conflict".

"DD is an observer and a catalyst. He has no power to vanquish 
Voldemort. This is entirely out of his hands. He can add nothing to 
Harry's inherent capacity to vanquish Voldemort, and whenever he 
tries to do so he meets stubborn resistance which slows the progress 
of the struggle"

"You may then ask, `of what sustained value is the presence of DD to 
Harry?' " [yes, this is a direct quote from the book with the above 
substitutes].

"The seeker [the original term!] comes in hope of finding something 
definite, something permanent, something unchanging upon he can 
depend. He is offered instead the reflection that life is just what 
it seems to be: a changing, ambiguous, ephemeral mixed bag".



And now to another crazy thought. Kopp's book is just one of a 
several books that are influenced by Zen and Tao ideas, and are 
especially popular not only among psychiatric patients, but also 
among terminally ill patients (perhaps because they stress living in 
the present). For example, you might have noticed that the link I've 
found for the Eschatological Laundry List (also from Kopp's book) 
comes from the personal webpage of a cancer patient:
http://tombrazaitis.com/

BTW, another book I've found in a list of books for cancer patients, 
and is also strongly influenced by Zen ideas, is Jampolsky's "Love is 
Letting Go of Fear". Take a look inside it in Amazon, you'll find 
sentences like "love is the total absence of fear" and "fear can 
offer us nothing because it is nothing". Hmm. Didn't we have a 
discussion here, two weeks or so ago, if Fear is the opposite of Love?

As you perhaps have read in her website, JKR's mother was diagnosed 
with multiple sclerosis when JKR was fifteen. She died during the 
time JKR was writing the first book, and JKR said that that this 
changed the book a lot. Now, I wonder if during the time of her 
mother's illness JKR was exposed to this kind of literature, and used 
it as the basis of the Potterverse "cosmology" (as Nora terms it). 
According to the print dates, both Kopp's book and Jamplosky's book 
were already in print at the time.

And another thought: isn't Harry's situation when hearing the 
prophecy similar to the situation of a kid who hears that he has a 
potentially terminal illness? And isn't DD's dilemma whether to tell 
him about it similar to the doctor's dilemma if to tell the truth to 
this kid? And is it a coincidence that Harry hears the truth at the 
same age that JKR heard about her mother's diagnosis? 


Neri, out on a metaphysical limb.