VLVL2 "...like a porno star" ? (237)

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 4:19 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL2 "...like a porno star" ? (237)
>
> Weed never got the porno star role, that's why Prairie is not Weed.
> VL.364

This goes back to (and it's good that you bring it in here) the Bardo
Thödol-reference on p. 218 which is about the second Bardo, the
Tschönyi-Bardo. The first Bardo, the Tschikhai-Bardo is about the moment of
death.

What Weed explains here on p. 364 to Prairie is about the third part of the
text, the Sipa-Bardo. Why he is *not* Prairie is important in linking porno
to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. If the soul hasn't learned anything out of
the two preceding states it will most likely be distracted by:

"(...) a space like a bleak smoke-tarnished district of sex shows and porno
theaters, looking for the magical exact film frame through which the
dispossessed soul might reenter the world.
"Made the basic error (...) too much still on my mind."" (364.26-28)

This is highly ironical because it is the original purpose of the Bardo
Thödol to learn how to overcome the karmic stuff from the second section and
these distractions from the third, this afterlife peep-show, the purpose is
to be *not* being born again in one of the six worlds waiting for the soul
according to Tibetan Buddhism. In avoiding the next very likely
reincarnation Weed's soul has a good chance to leave the eternal Tibetan
wheel forever.

Weed could've been born again as Frenesi's child because the fact that she
has betrayed him and is responsible for his death is a very strong karmic
bond between them, but the sex between them has bound them karmatically
already.

This raises questions about the effects of the sixties-revolution
promiscuity and the porno-industry from a Buddhist point of view where every
act is a karmic bond.

W.Y. Evans-Wentz: "The Tibetan Book of the Dead," Oxford University Press,
London 1960
W.Y. Evans-Wentz: "Das Tibetanische Totenbuch," Walter-Verlag AG, Olten,
Switzerland, 1971

The best introduction into the "six worlds"-theory, the Tibetan wheel of
Life (three pairs of binary oppositions) is by Lama Anagarika Govinda:
"Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism," Weiser Books, 1989
"Grundlagen Tibetischer Mystik," Fischer, Frankfurt 1975.

Otto