All interested MOQers:
Dave T said:
...The MoQ is Zen in a Pendleton blanket. Most, not all, but most of the
confusion in the MoQ is the confusion with and within Buddhism. The MoQ it is
an attempt by a Westerner with a tiny amount of Eastern experience and smidgen
of Zen experience to rewrite Zen in a way that is palatable to the Western mind.
dmb says:
Zen in a Pendleton. That's pretty good. Wish I'd thought of that.
Northrop's fusion of East and West is the main inspiration for ZAMM. In fact,
Pirsig said ZAMM is a kind of popularization of Northrop's thick and difficult
book. And then the title is a reference to "Zen in the Art of Archery", which
Pirsig and his pal John Sutherland had both read back in the road tripping
days. And then of course there was some graduate school. He studied Eastern
Philosophy at Benares University in India. All this was before he wrote his
first book, which, he openly admits, doesn't really have much to say about Zen
or motorcycles.
Not only is it compatible with the MOQ, at least one scholar thinks that Buddha
was a pragmatist and a radical empiricist. James was getting it from Emerson
and he used to bring Buddhists in from abroad to lecture at Harvard. After one
such lecturer give his talk, James not only thanked and praised the man, he
said something like, "You sir, are a much better psychologist than I will ever
be." At the time, James had just written a 1200 page text book on psychology
and with it he had practically invented the discipline. Yea, I exaggerate
things sometimes, but it really is 1200 pages.
And then there is the perennial philosophy and philosophical mysticism. Both of
these stances make the MOQ compatible with mystic philosophies, as well as
mystic religions like Taoism and Buddhism. Jan-Anders posted a quote from one
of Pirsig's letters to McWatt and it not only gets at one of the differences
between the MOQ and Buddhism, it also seems to shed light on this free will
debate.
Pirsig wrote:
"The MOQ says, as does Buddhism, that the best place on the wheel of karma is
the hub and not the rim where one is thrown about by the gyration of everyday
life. But the MOQ sees the wheel of karma as attached to a cart that is going
somewhere - from quantum forces through inorganic forces and biological
patterns and social patterns to the intellectual patterns that percieve the
quantum forces. In the sixth century B.C. in India there was no evidence of
this kind of evolutionary progress, and Buddhism, accordingly, does not pay
attention to it. Today it's not possible to be so uninformed. The suffering
which the Buddhists regard as only that which is to be escaped, is seen by the
MOQ as merely the negative side of the progression toward Quality (or, just as
accurately, the expansion of quality.) Without the suffering to propel it, the
cart would not move forward at all."
Did you catch that. Evolutionary progress is the key difference. Instead of
seeking escape from karma and suffering, it is accepted as a necessary feature
of the progress toward Quality. I think this is a pretty big difference and the
consequences of it are a pretty bid deal.
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