[Bo] I too regard ZMM the best of Pirsig's works in the "making friends and influence people." sense but this is irrelevant regarding the MOQ and its levels.
[Case] If what you are actually saying is that in some ways the confusion sparked by Lila detracts from the significance of ZMM, perhaps we agree. But I doubt if you would support this inversion. [Bo] I have never understood how Taoism works as a metaphysics, except that of Tao being its "groundstuff", but then what? This goes for Zen Buddhism too, why I see the MOQ as an East-West bridge. Have you read Watts on Buddhism? I did but did not understand until I met with Pirsig's ideas. [Case] First Taoism is a metaphysic in way that Zen and Buddhism are not. Zen is Buddhism infused with Taoist metaphysics. It makes up for or compliments the lack of sound metaphysics in the religions of India. It is the Buddhists who profited from Taoist metaphysics. Taoist gained little from Buddhist mysticism. I read Watts even before the class in comparative religions I mentioned in an earlier post. His volume "The Book" was a profound early influence. But at least most of the Watts materials I have read or listened to seems more focused on Taoism than Buddhism. Thomas Merton was a trappist monk also highly influenced by Taoism. If you understand Quality as Pirsig lays it out in ZMM that is the Tao. Even Pirsig says as much in one of his letters to Ant. I see significant differences in Pirsig's formulation of the Tao from my own but his is much more influenced by what I consider to be the mystical corruption of Zen. By using the term Quality and centering on Values Pirsig emphasizes one aspect of the Tao. What he sees as critical is the perception of rightness expressed in Lao Tsu. He wants to incorporate this inner sense of rightness with morality and to identify codes of morality. And yet Lao Tsu says morality is just one of the steps on the path that leads away from the Tao. The Tao is indefinable. It exists in each moment. For me at least it is better understood using the terms traditionally assigned to it; The Way. It is the path of virtue. It is a process, a journey not a set of rules or levels or specific acts. It can only be perceived and responded to in each moment as it arises. It is ever fresh and always different. Lao Tsu speaks of the sage, the wise man attuned to the workings of the Tao. He is big on formlessness as critical to the understanding of the Tao. For example he says the Value of a cup is not the cup itself but the empty space it enfolds. He advises the sage to be like the uncarved block which contains infinite possible forms that can only be revealed as the carver removes the excess surrounding it. Chief among Lao Tsu's images is water. The most yielding of substances, it can wash away a village in flood. Its power is derived not from its strength of substances but from its ability to flow and conform to any shape. Later Taoists made explicit the concepts of Yin/static and Yang/dynamic. This is the fundamental dualism that arises from the undefined Tao. While all things are manifestations of, or reveal aspects of, the nature of the Tao; reality can generally be seen through the workings of pairs of opposites. Taoism acknowledges the inevitability of such dualism but understands such dualisms are opposite sides of the same coin. It claims that light can only be understood with reference to it's opposite. Beauty can have not meaning if not in contrast to what is ugly. Opposites are not seeking to annihilate each other; they exist in a constant tension with one another. Each half of the pair gives context and meaning to its partner. This idea of balance and harmony are central to Taoism. Please note that balance does not mean equal measure is means stasis or proper mixture. Through this tension of opposites the world transforms from light to darkness and back to light again during the solar cycle. >From its recognition of the power of fluid dynamics to the central role of change and chance, Taoism embraces no creed; it sets not rule. It calls for the wise person to be prepared to change and be formed by the events of the world. It warns against rigidity of thought and action. Of all of the metaphysical formulations I have encountered this is the simplest to understand and the most obvious to see at work in the world. The 2500 years that have followed Lao Tsu's writing have produced nothing but confirmation of its claims about how things work. I truly do not understand how Pirsig could have formulated the MoQ in such a way as to confuse the active principle with the Tao itself. Perhaps that was not his intent and it is the Buddhist reading of both Lao Tsu and the MoQ that is the source of this confusion. > [Case[ > It just seems to me that everywhere I look I see things in terms of > what it moving and what is still, background and foreground, sunlight > and shade; what is the same and what is different. [Bo] This is the biological level's "sense value", the second stage of the value hierarchy. [Case] Biological is the sense that they are perceived by an organism but night and day, plus and minus, north and south, motion and stillness do their dance regardless of how they are perceived. The fundamental units of physics are particles and waves, matter and energy. > [Case] > Beyond this any system of you try to impose degenerates quickly into > legalism. [Bo] "Legalism"? Laws? [Case] Yes. Pirsig comments on this when he talks about the mystics' distain for metaphysics. The moment you start to describe it, you are quantifying it. You are making up rules. Your struggle to set up a hierarchical structure and put everything in its proper place is an example of this. [Bo] Well, you are not the type to be told anything, but to me the level lay-out is a fantastic tool that explains - well - everything. For instance what we "bickering" about, namely intellect's impact on the social level through the Jesus figure, but you turned a deaf ear. And when the same thing manifests through the Islam vs West you (all) scoff at that. However, for me, the real gem of explanation is the intellect=SOM, but THIS even the "moqists" scoff at. Well, no wonder when you refuse to see through the MOQ telescope - and (almost) all refuse to see through my refined "Hubble" type. [Case] As I have said I see the levels as metaphors that have a great deal of utility. They are often very useful. But they are only a set of metaphors. They do not explain everything and there are often other metaphors that work equality well or better. [Bo] Still I regard the level system its heart and soul. Without it what have we? Even Taoism has to name some "levels" when its purity were "lost" [Case] The critical meaning of the term Tao that seems to have been lost through the adoption of the term Quality is the idea of The Way or path. A path turns to avoid a log. It twists back and forth through a forest. It runs straight as an arrow across a plain. Everything in nature follows the path of least resistance. This is how the Tao works. It does not climb stairs its weathers them away into a slope. It does not build ladders to winds its way up hills. The Tao is path that branches and forks and merges. It can always be known but it can never be defined. Such is The Way of Virtue and of Life. 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
