Marsha said:
It might be difficult for those who have not practiced mindful-awareness to
imagine functioning without any accompanying linguistic narration
dmb said to Arlo and Ron:
Seems to me that Marsha is really saying is that philosophical discussion is
beneath her. She wants to construe her inability to discuss ideas as some kind
of virtue, a virtue so awesome that mere mortals like us can't even imagine it.
I imagine she also joined the swim club and spends all her time there telling
all the swimmers about the evils of water and the virtue of her own dryness.
Don't even ask about the moves she makes over the chess club. King me!
Marsha replied (sort of):
Hyperbole? Is this all you can find to present for intellectual discussion?
I'm not surprised.
dmb says:
Hyperbole? I think it's more like pointed humor. And I foolishly hoped you'd
see the point if I said it three different ways. No such luck. Shall I spell it
out for you? Any reasonably intelligent person should be able to see my point,
which is simply that your behavior is inappropriate to the situation. Like the
water-hating swim club member or the chess club joiner who insists on playing
by the rules of checkers, your behavior here is inappropriate.
Compare your statement above with the Pirsig quote you just posted. "It
shouldn't be forgotten," you said. "That is what caring really is, a feeling of
identification with what one's doing. When one has this feeling then he also
sees the inverse side of caring, Quality itself."
So what do you suppose is the right thing to do when working on this discussion
group? Isn't it the same as motorcycle maintenance or any other task? Isn't it
true that Pirsig's maintenance lessons "are a miniature study in the art of
rationality itself"? That's what he tells us in ZAMM. How is this discussion
group exempt from that central lesson?
In the passage you quoted, Pirsig says the trick "is to cultivate the peace of
mind which does not separate one's self from one's surroundings. When that is
done successfully then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind
produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts
produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material
reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all. That was
what it was about that wall in Korea. It was a material reflection of a
spiritual reality." This is very easy to translate into this situation. And
look at what you're doing!
The very name of this thread and your statement, the one criticizing as
inappropriate, does exactly opposite from this. You're separating yourself from
the central point and purpose of this forum, putting yourself above or outside
of the very thing you're supposed to be doing.
To constantly harp on the killing of intellectual static patterns and/or
denigrate "linguistic narration" in a philosophical discussion group is
foolish, hypocritical, hostile and just plain stupid. Nobody objects to
meditation but that cannot be done in an e-mail or in a philosophical
discussion group. Mindful awareness is totally NOT at odds with the cultivation
the right views, right values, right thinking, and right speech. That's what
we're working on here and yet you want to warn everyone off of "linguistic
narration".
I think it's safe to say that caring in this Pirsigian sense does NOT include
contempt for the very thing you're working on! (Or contempt for those who are
doing the same work.)
But feel free to explain yourself. If your statement is not just a
self-aggrandizing insult to everyone for being too "linguistic", then what's
the point? I really don't see any other point to your statement. How is it NOT
self-righteous posturing or a condescending pat on your own back? Do you really
not see the implications and tone of your own words? Instead of dismissing this
reading as mere projection, you ought to consider the possibility that you are
oblivious to your own transparency, that others can see what you're doing
better than you can.
And for the millionth time, "killing" is not to be taken literally. As Pirsig
explains in the paragraphs and pages that follow your pet quote, this kind of
"killing" means to master the patterns with such proficiency that you can use
them without effort. Learning to think or ride bike is awkward at first but
after a while you can just do it without stress or striving. You become one
with the bike - or the thoughts.
"A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a
study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the
art of rationality itself." (ZAMM 98)
“That’s all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel.
There’s no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone’s mind. …I’ve
noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this –
that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with
given shapes – pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts – all of them fixed and
inviolable, and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does
machining or foundry work or forge work or welding sees ‘steel’ as having no
shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and
any shape but the one you want if you are not [skilled enough].” (102-3)
"I talked about caring the first day and then realized I couldn't say anything
meaningful about caring until its inverse side, Quality, is understood. I think
it's important now to tie care to Quality by pointing out that care and Quality
are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality
and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what
he sees and does is a person who's bound to have some characteristics of
Quality." (ZAMM 275)
"If you want to build a factory, or fix a motorcycle, or set a nation right
without getting stuck, then classical, structured, dualistic subject-object
knowledge, although necessary, isn’t enough. You have to have some feeling for
the quality of the work. You have to have a sense of what’s good. That is what
carries you forward. This sense isn’t just something you’re born with, although
you are born with it. It’s also something you can develop. It’s not just
‘intuition,’ not just unexplainable ‘skill’ or ‘talent.’ It’s the direct result
of contact with basic reality, Quality, which dualistic reason has in the past
tended to conceal.” (ZAMM 284)
"To say that they [motorcycle mechanics or philosophers or whatever] are not
artists is to misunderstand the nature of art. They have patience, care and
attentiveness to what they're doing, but more than this - there's a kind of
inner peace of mind that isn't contrived but results from a kind of harmony
with the work in which there is no leader and no follower... The kind of
mechanic I'm talking about doesn't make this separation. One says of him that
he is 'interested' in what he's doing, that he's 'involved' in his work. What
produces this involvement is, at the cutting edge of consciousness, an absence
of any sense of separateness of subject and object. ...When one isn't dominated
by feelings of separateness from what he's working on, the one can be said to
'care' about what he's doing. That is what caring really is, a feeling of
identification with what one's doing. When one has this feeling then he also
sees the inverse side of caring, Quality itself." (ZAMM 296-7)
"Zen monks' daily life is nothing but on ritual after another. Hour after hour,
day after day, all his life. They don't tell him to shatter those static
patterns to discover the unwritten Dharma, they want him to get those patterns
perfect. The explanation for this contradiction is the belief that you don't
free yourself from static patterns by fighting them with other contrary static
patterns, that is called bad Karma chasing its tail. You free yourself from
static patterns by putting them to sleep. That is you master them with such
proficiency, that they become an unconscious part of your nature. You get so
used to them you completely forget them and they are gone. There at the center
of the most monotonous boredom of static ritualistic patterns, the dynamic
freedom is found." (LILA 385)
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