Hi dmb, Thanks for that. This is my concept of Quality as well. I would add, however, that experience of Quality is also in thought. It is hard to differentiate where thought begins and ends. In this sense, we are constantly experiencing Quality. As I have posted previously, most of our experience is outside of thought. Many mystics have spoken about this and I don't want to belabor it.
We get so caught up in the language aspect of our existence that often the sentiment is that we are our wordy thoughts. If one ignores the logical thinking aspect as some kind of tape, a deeper sense of Quality arrises. It is this deeper sense that I am finding structure with. Of course the structure becomes intellectual, and it is kind of like diving for pearls. Cheers, Mark On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 12:26 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote: > > Mark said to Marsha: > > By saying that Quality and Emptiness are synonymous, what else is there to > say? There is plenty of literature, ritual, and lifestyle based on > Emptiness. So, I don't think you can get away with an RMP statement that > easily. If we are talking Buddhism, then you have finished your quest. Me, > I will continue building some strange structure. > > dmb says: > > As you might have noticed, I think Marsha is confused about the fundamental > ideas and key terms in the MOQ. So, if I may butt in with an explanation.... > > As I understand it, Quality is what you experience before you have a chance > to think about it. It's the cutting edge of experience, the moment of > awareness before it is conceptualized. That's the idea behind the > alternative labels for Quality, names like "pre-intellectual experience" or > "primary empirical reality" or "pre-verbal awareness". William James calls > it "pure experience" and Northrop (Pirsig's main inspiration) called it the > "undifferentiated aesthetic continuum". All these terms express the same > basic idea, the idea shared by all philosophical mystics: "the fundamental > nature of reality is outside language; that language splits things up into > parts while the true nature of reality is undivided". (Lila, p.63) > > You see, thought and language splits things up but Quality is direct > experience prior to these conceptual differentiations. That why Northrop > calls it "UNdifferentiated" experience and that's why Pirsig calls it > "PRE-intellectual" experience. This is also the sense in which James's > immediate experience is "pure". Now, if conceptual and verbal understandings > involve distinguishing one thing from another, then the direct experience of > reality can be described by contrast as no-thing-ness. It's not that > pre-intellectual experience is like the cold, black void of space. It's a > rich and wild and overflowing stream of sensations and feelings. That's why > Northrop calls it an "aesthetic continuum". It's a continuum because it's > undivided. But there are no "things" as such because things are a product of > thought and language. Things ARE the differentiations of thought and > language. In that sense Quality is synonymous with nothingness, with > no-things. > > So really, this is just a bunch of different ways to say the same thing. > The One is the One because it's undivided. The many are the many because > they have been divided. That's the MOQ's central distinction in a nutshell. > > > > > > > > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
