Hi Mark, The MOQ is fundamentally mystic but, unlike Zen for instance, it says that you cannot avoid static patterns and so they are still important.
Pirsig sums this up in the last paragraph at the end of Lila: "Good is a noun... Of course the ultimate quality isn't a noun or an adjective or anything else definable, but if you had to reduce the whole Metaphysics of Quality to a single sentence, that would be it." You may be pointing in a certain direction and I can see where you are pointing however my 'point' is that your pointing is still static quality just as with any other pointing including this pointing I am writing right now. > [Mark] > You may be right, only time will tell. It will take some effort and > appropriate rhetoric. Yes. The best rhetoric that I know is where every thing is defined as static quality and Dynamic Quality is no thing. If Dynamic Quality is claimed to be some such and such a thing then that destroys the first division of the MOQ. > [Mark] > Yes, indeed. I prefer not to take such a reductionist stance on what > we term static quality, since is can be easily argued through words > that words are static. There are many such reductionist views, such > as claiming that everything we do is ultimately selfish. Perhaps all > these things are logically true, but I do not like to make Quality > subordinate to logic. In the same way, such logical reductionism > diminishes MoQ. I believe this is why Pirsig speaks of spiritual > rationalism. Such a thing tries to overcome these nihilistic > reductions. > Logic is subordinate to quality in that it follows what harmonises with reality. The statement that 'Everything we do is ultimately selfish' does not cohere with reality. The MOQ would say that human beings have evolved to be social people. In order to be social you cannot be selfish. On the other hand saying that every thing is static quality does cohere with reality. There is not a thing you can say which is not static quality, you can only point to Dynamic Quality but that pointing is more static quality. Zen is often mistaken as nihilism. The whole 'nothing sacred' doctrine of Zen is mistaken, especially by people coming at it from a Western perspective, to mean that you can just do as you please, but this is not Zen at all. Zen isn't nihilism or anything else definable. > Dynamic Quality could be considered nothing if that has meaning to > you. The saying "If you see Buddha on the road, kill him", is similar > to your Zen uselessness. This would be imparting the concept of > Buddha to some historical figure, which is of course static. Buddhism > does not present Buddha nature in that way. It works by way of > stories or dialogues (Sutras) which are an alternative to Western > Logic. > I have found that Te-Shan (780-865 AD) to provide very dynamic > rhetoric along the lines of what you say about Zen. Zen grew out of > Taoism and Mahayana Buddism, and reached its peak in china before 1000 > AD. There were some very influential teachers during that time, all > of which may be interesting to you. Yes, and I'm sure the words they use will be static quality as well. Just as all of the words you and I have written above are static quality. Why do I keep pointing you towards static quality? Because only when you see what Dynamic Quality is not can you see what it is because static quality is everything and Dynamic Quality isn't anything! I sit daily and I do this because I know that this is the most direct way of experiencing Dynamic Quality. The MOQ says that you can free yourself from all these static patterns all around by getting them perfect. That is what Zen is all about. It takes the most simple monotonous thing, sitting, and has you do it over and over and over again until it becomes second nature and you don't even have to think about it and it's gone. When you first sit, your mind is like a clock ticking at 100 miles an hour on 100 different things. But over time your mind slows down and eventually it stops. It's at this point that one is said to be enlightened. But then even if I sit for that reason then that is not 'just sitting' and not Dynamic Quality. See? 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
