dmb, On Aug 8, 2013, at 3:55 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Contrary to Marsha's anti-intellectualist readings, Pirsig explains what it > means to "kill" static intellectual patterns just a few pages later... > > "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 do not free yourself from static patterns by fighting them with other > contrary static patterns. That is sometimes 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 in the center of the most monotonous boredom of static > ritualistic patterns the Dynamic freedom is found." Marsha: There is no link established between the above quote, which is from many chapters before, and with the "Kill all intellectual patterns." statement, but here is a quote from a few sentences after the "Kill all intellectual patterns." statement: RMP: "When Phaedrus first went to India he'd wondered why, if this passage of enlightenment into pure Dynamic Quality was such a universal reality, did it only occur in certain parts of the world and not others? At the time he'd thought this was proof that the whole thing was just Oriental religious baloney, the equivalent of a magic land called 'heaven' that Westerners go to if they are good and get a ticket from the priests. Now he saw that enlightenment is distributed in all parts of the world just as the color yellow is distributed in all parts of the world, but some cultures accept it and others screen out recognition of it." Marsha: And, dmb, here is what RMP has to say about meditation: RMP: "The purpose of mystic meditation is not to remove oneself from experience but to bring one's self closer to it by eliminating stale, confusing, static, intellectual attachments of the past. " Marsha: There is nothing anti-intellectual suggested in practicing meditation, and it is a practice for working on the 'self' just as RMP explains the _motorcycle maintenance metaphor_ to represent: RMP: "The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself." Marsha: It is difficult when you start a meditation practice to get your mind to settle down, but it eventually happens, and it might be good to remember that impatience is a gumption trap that obstructs peace-of-mind. Peace-of-mind is good. RMP: "Zen Buddhists talk about ``just sitting,'' a meditative practice in which the idea of a duality of self and object does not dominate one's consciousness. What I'm talking about here in motorcycle maintenance is ``just fixing,'' in which the idea of a duality of self and object doesn't dominate one's consciousness. When one isn't dominated by feelings of separateness from what he's working on, then 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. So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, 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 pr oduce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all." Marsha 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
