[djh] I agree with that. The code of art is much more than rejecting patterns.
[Arlo] Okay, but this isn't what you had stated originally. [djh] Things can be created in opposition to static patterns, as they are in the brujo example, or they can be created in harmony with static patterns, as they are in the unwritten Dharma example. [Arlo] I'm not sure you really understand what 'opposition' and 'conflict' means. Every time something 'new' replaces something 'old', there has been opposition and conflict. I think you're stuck in seeing conflict as violent, and it can be, but its the ubiquitous tension between static and Dynamic. Without this tension, nothing would change, indeed without this tension there would be nothing to change. When you say 'in harmony', all this means is that the old patterns are artfully excised and replaced with the new, it does not mean there was no tension or no opposition. [djh] So to be clear - in order to create anything better there must be either a rejection (in the brujo Western sense) or killing (in the Zen Eastern sense) of existing static patterns - however what is created in each instance is still statically very much important - which seems to be your point. [Arlo] Well, the difference here is the evolution or creation brought about the Brujo. In the case of meditation, while it while may certain eliminate attachment to static patterns, it alone does nothing creational until whatever insights that produces are brought into conflict with existing static patterns. Had the Brujo simply mediated and habituated the laws, rather than bring them into conflict, there would have been no change. Your two examples are different not in the rejection of static patterns, but in creation of better static patterns. [djh] As I said to DMB, I think it's important to recognise when RMP is talking about DQ/sq being in conflict from what would be a traditionally Western perspective and when they are in harmony from a traditionally Eastern perspective. [Arlo] I don't think you really understand the 'Eastern' perspective, David, you keep evoking it to excuse your words, but 'harmony' in this sense is not the absence of conflict or opposition, it is the equilibrium, the balance, of the two conflicting qualities. It is not the elimination of 'conflict', it is the balancing the conflict so as not be 'stuck' or not to be 'destructive'. [djh] I'll try and make this easier. There is only one type of mental illness. This can be described as folks who cannot or do not value the patterns of the culture with which they're in. But as is described in Lila and ZMM there are different things which 'cause' the devaluing of cultural patterns. ... Phaedrus devalued the cultural patterns because he devalued all patterns. ... Lila created a completely new set of cultural patterns to value instead. [Arlo] I think this misses a fundamental point. At a bare minimum we have a three stage 'process'. Point A begins with adherence to static patterns. Point B is the rejection of those static patterns. Point C is the creation of 'something better'. Both Phaedrus and Lila (and the Hippies) begin at a Point A. Both proceed into a Point B (to the point of social incarceration). Only Phaedrus moves on to a Point C. (To be fair, we never are given the conclusion to Lila's narrative, maybe she emerges as a world class philosopher or artist, or maybe she is sitting inside a padded room cradling a doll.) This is why I think its misleading to hold Lila up as an exemplar of someone 'pursuing Dynamic Quality', as you've done many times in recent months. Of these three (the Hippies, Lila and Phaedrus), all equally serve of exemplars of the 'rejection' of static quality, but only Phaedrus serves as an exemplar for the 'creational' regrounding of Dynamic Quality. [djh] Right on about the brujo. The brujo being from the West is a prime example of how change and conflict traditionally occur. [Arlo] I think you may need to read Eastern history. The East is as ripe with Brujos, and change and conflict, as the West. [djh] However I don't think you quite have it right about Eastern mastery and its killing of static patterns. An example of why Zen mastery is not just an acquiescence or an acceptance but a complete and utter rejection would be the following quote from Zen teacher Steve Hagen.. [Arlo] The actors in a tea ceremony are not rejecting the tea ceremony. This is a critical point. They are 'rejecting' attending to the static patterns that make up the activity, but there is no attempt to 'reject' the tea ceremony itself (or else they would simply replacing it with another habitual activity). If a particular Zen monk decided the tea ceremony is, in some way, detrimental, the tea ceremony would be abandoned and replaced. Think of it this way, why don't Zen monks perform ritual rape ceremonies rather than tea ceremonies? Its because they reject rape, and they do not reject tea. Ritual is a way of making accepted patterns so automatic that they are no longer necessary to attend to, the dissolve into the background and allow the mind to open to Dynamic Quality. It is a way to reject attending to static patterns through complete acquiescence to those patterns. They are not rejecting 'tea ceremonies', they are rejecting 'attending to the tea ceremony'. This is why the Brujo would not have simply ritualized obedience to the laws, it was because he rejected those laws. But, I imagine, the Brujo had other patterns in his life he could have ritualized, the way a mechanic ritualizes his interactions with the motorcycle, or the way a cellist may ritualize performing music. [djh] No, suicide isn't low quality because it is in an encyclopaedia.... [Arlo] Well, this was what you said... [djh] it is low quality because in the process it destroys someone who is capable of responding to DQ and dealing with the burdens of 'the social and intellectual patterns that cause the suicide'.. [Arlo] So the moral goal would be for ALL people to kill themselves. That way, the social and intellectual levels are completely eliminated, and no one is left to 'burden' themselves with them. Of course I'm playing the antagonist here (because I think its very narrow to say that 'morality' is simply 'rejecting patterns'), I think morality lies in the path of sustained evolution. Or, to go back to what I said earlier, morality is in rejection/creation within an evolutionary system. Maybe what I'll say next is at odds with how Pirsig conceives this, but I think the reason why suicide is immoral is that it is nothing but 'rejection' of static patterns, like Lila's breakdown it has the rejection without the creation. 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
