[MD] Quality/Tao

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 9:32 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>> Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:33:40 -0500
>> From: daneglover at gmail.com
>> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>> Subject: [MD] Quality/Tao
>>
>> Thirty spokes meet at a nave;
>> Because of the hole we may use the wheel.
>> Clay is moulded into a vessel;
>> Because of the hollow we may use the cup.
>> Walls are built around a hearth;
>> Because of the doors we may use the house.
>> Thus tools come from what exists,
>> But use from what does not.
>>
>> [http://www.vl-site.org/taoism/ttcmerel.html]
>>
>> Krimel:
>>
>> Quality = Tao = Undefined
>> DQ = Active
>> SQ = Static
>>
>> Dan:
>>
>> The tao is called the way but it isn't a place or a destination. The
>> tao is experience. It is constantly defined yet inexhaustible. All
>> that is, was, and will be springs forth from it and trickles back to
>> it. Dynamic Quality is synonymous with the tao. It is not active yet
>> it never rests. It is not static yet it may be defined by that very
>> nature. Dynamic Quality is not this, not that.
>>
>> Dynamic Quality equals Tao equals Undefined/Infinitely Defined equals
>> not this, not that.
>>
>> Static quality equals reality.
>>
>> We know Quality when we see it.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>
>
> dmb says:
> Yea, I like yours better, Dan. I don't think DQ ought to be defined as active even within the thought system we call the MOQ. Within the metaphysical system "DQ" is defined as undefinable and it is explained that it can't be defined because the term refers to experience prior to any conceptualizations. Besides that, Yin and Yang are active and passive, not active and static. As one half of a dualistic conceptualization, they're both static.

Dan:
Yin and yang are pairs of opposites like dark and light, male and
female, negative and positive. Yes they're static patterns of value.

>dmb:
> I think it works quite well to think of DQ itself as "the way". If putting these concepts to work in actual experience means following DQ, as I think is what it means, then "the way" is not something that we can know in advance or measure in anyway. It's just this vague sense of what's right and what's not. It doesn't even matter if you're fighting in a war or writing poetry. It just means NOT painting by numbers but by an active engagement and an openness and sensitivity to what's happening as it happens.

Dan:
In LILA, Robert Pirsig talks about how hard it is to know the Dynamic
from the degenerate except upon reflection. Dynamic Quality is new and
unexpected; it comes as a surprise, so it's understandable how
difficult it would be to predict.

Mindfulness. Yes. And I use that as a verb, not as a noun.

>dmb:
> There is good example from the first few pages of a book called "How We Decide". A pro quarterback has learned all the plays and signals and practiced them over and over plus he has a lot of experience with the game in general, right? Been playing all his life and he's getting the big bucks cause very few are better at it than she is. So the play is called, the ball is snapped and giant dudes are running around everywhere, with all the biggest ones on the other team doing their best to murder him. He's just got a few seconds to find an open receiver. There's no way in hell she has time to calculate or rationally decide which option is best. He's not playing chess and neither are the 300 pound linebackers who are coming down on him any second now. All he can do is scan the field and when he gets a good feeling - I shit you not - a GOOD FEELING, he let's her fly. That decision process works. If it didn't, he'd wouldn't be making millions of dollars for his ability to "decide" o
>  n the basis of a feeling. It feels right, he acts on it and it very quickly proves to have been right and yet there was no time to think about it. In a very real sense, she was just following the way. This isn't magic. It's not a miracle. It's just being groovy, in the flow, and that can't happen without the static patterns she spent so many years mastering. Same with motorcycle repair or metaphysics. DQ does not magically turn hacks and amateurs into skilled professionals. It has to be applied to whatever you're already pretty good at, you know?

Dan:
Exactly. Mark Maxwell used to talk about it as the "sweet spot". But I
do tend to think of Dynamic Quality as magic. It just happens. There's
rules to it happen though. Like you say, a person doesn't just turn
into a skilled professional even though it may seem like it to an
outsider.

Napoleon Hill wrote extensively about this in the early part of the
twentieth century. One particular story that stuck in my mind was how
Dr. Hill organized a take-over of one of Andrew Carnegie's steel
mills. He simply asked how much money Carnegie wanted for his mill.
Carnegie wrote what he thought was an outrageous sum of money on the
back of a napkin and handed it to Hill during lunch.

Three days later Dr. Hill presented him with a check for the exact
amount Carnegie had wrote on the napkin. It totaled three hundred
million dollars. Some time later, Carnegie mused to Hill that he'd
considered writing down five hundred million dollars but considered
that sum too far out of the realm of possibility. Hill informed
Carnegie that he would have gotten it.

He'd have gotten it! Just for the asking!

So. It is not just wishful thinking to believe we order the world with
our thoughts. Ask and receive. It really is that simple. I guess the
hard part is knowing just what to ask.

>dmb:
> You're a really great writer, Dan. Even the short stuff is elegant and powerful. You rock.

Thank you, Dave. I sincerely appreciate you saying so. And thanks for
the great dialogue.

Dan