[MD] dharma, the way, zazen, path, the morning fog, etc...

[david buchanan]

Kevin, SA and y'all:

Kevin said to dmb:
I see you disagree with my handling of the relationship between mysticism 
and DQ and in how I distinquish mind and heart.  That's fair. Let me 
elaborate.  I'll start with the two quotes you cited from Lila.  I agree 
with both of these.  That is, I'd say both support my contention that 
mysticism is not DQ, that "Mysticism and mystical experiences, because they 
have meaning, are within some SQ framework."  And that "DQ apart from some 
SQ framework is meaningless."...

"The MOQ associates religious mysticism with Dynamic Quality but it would 
certainly be a mistake to think that the MOQ endorses the static beliefs of 
any particular religious sect. Phaedrus thought sectarian religion was a 
static social fallout of DQ and that while some sects had fallen less than 
others, none of them told the whole truth."

"He thought about how once this integration occurs and DQ is identified with 
religious mysticism it produces an avalanche of information as to what 
Dynamic Quality is. A lot of this relgious mysticism is just low-grade 
"yelping about God" of course, but if you search for the sources of it and 
don't take the yelps too literally a lot of interesting things turn up."

dmb says:
You think both of these quotes support your contention that mysticism is not 
DQ? But in the first one the author says DQ and religious mysticism are 
"associated" and in the second he says DQ is "identified" with it. He even 
adds the assertion that this identification "produces an avalanche of 
information as to what DQ is". I think a person you'd have to engage in some 
pretty spectacular mental gymnastics to read this as SUPPORTING your 
contention. I think its pretty darn obvious that they say the opposite of 
what your contention says.

Anyway, I think its important to point out that the "meaning" of a mystical 
experience is the static fallout. The meaning is assigned later, after the 
fact. I don't think we disagree about the basic point that meaning itself is 
necessarily going to entail static patterns, but that doesn't mean the 
experience itself is static. But more importantly, I think, these quotes 
both warn about the danger in assigning that meaning. Please notice that 
despite this association and identification of DQ with religious mysticism, 
Pirsig is also being careful NOT to associate DQ with "the static beliefs of 
any particular religious sect" and he's being careful NOT identify it with 
anyone's "low-grade 'yelping about God'." Here is a third quote making this 
same point...

"Phaedrus saw nothing wrong with this ritualistic religion as long as the 
rituals are seen as merely a static portrayal Dynamic Quality, a sign-post 
which allows socially pattern-dominated people to see Dynamic Quality. The 
danger has always been that the ritutals, the static patterns, are mistaken 
for what they merely represent and are allowed to destroy the Dynamic 
Quality they were originally intended to preserve." LILA, chapter 30

See, I think the idea here is to point out that there really is something 
going on in religion, that DQ is buried down in the static patterns, but its 
there if you don't take things to literally, don't be too sectarian about 
it. On top of the religious mysticism of the West, there are the Eastern 
ideas, which also give meaning to the mystical experience. I think the idea 
of a philosophical mysticism such as the MOQ is that it doesn't pick any one 
particular take. It doesn't favor one over the others, but rather adds them 
all up. I think philosophical mysticism lets us have Buddha and Christ 
without contradiction.

Kevin quoted the following from page 63 of his edition of Lila.:
"The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 
"Quality" in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality 
doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of 
definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to 
intellectual abstractions.

Kevin commented on the quote:
Within this context, "the central reality of mysticism," I'd say "You 
understand [Quality] without definition, ahead of definition" is 
inconsistent with the Metaphysics of Quality in the sense that to understand 
something is to assign meaning to it. If Pirsig were to change this one 
word, 'understand' to 'experience' then I'd have no problem with the 
statement.

dmb says:
Right. I see your point. But I think he is making a distinction between 
intellectual understanding and a more basic kind of understanding - one that 
comes before abstractions and definitions. As I was saying above, meaning is 
static and is assigned later. I think this is what Pirsig is saying here 
too, that DQ is something we know BEFORE it has any intellectual meaning.

Kevin continued:
I guess what I'm saying is that Budhists experience the "central reality of 
mysticism" and call it the Buddha or the nothing.  Christian mystics 
experience the same thing and call it resting in the arms of God or some 
such thing.  Each has his or her own context.  To say that one can have a 
peak experience of this kind and yet assign no meaning to invalidate the 
experience, in my opinion.

dmb says:
Ah, this is where we disagree. I think that static interpretations tend to 
obscure the truth rather than "validate" it. I think the standard Western 
interpretations of mysticism are seriously hurting. There is a cultural 
blind spot in the West that goes back to the ancients and that this is where 
we really need to take a broader, global perspective to give it proper 
meaning. Again, this approach disallows our picking one sectarian view over 
the others and instead includes them all in a larger framework. Pirsig is 
not the only one using this approach...

"...I sought a world philosophy. I sought an INTEGRAL philosophy, one that 
would believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, 
morals, aesthetic, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world's 
great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details - that is finitely 
impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations; a way to suggest 
that the world really is one, undivided whole, and related to itself in 
every way..." From the intro to Wilber's SES

Thanks.
dmb

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