[MD] Where's the Target I'm Shooting at?

[Heather Perella]

Hello Platt, Marsha, and others,

     The target to shoot some arrows at.  This comes
to mind thinking of the book 'Zen in the Art of
Archery' written by Eugen Herrigel in 1953.  So
where's that target?  Where am I to shoot the arrow? 
What posture should I have to best perform this
practice?  What should I think about?  The questions
occur as the performance occurs.  Sometimes or all the
time would be best probably, we need something to
shoot for.  Something to target as a goal, an
expectation of purpose, a deciding factor that answers
our questions.  When I hit the target consistently
then I would say to myself something like, "I must be
doing something right." or "This is working."  What am
I doing that has the practice work that consistently,
not necessarily always, but with some consistency I or
we reach a goal that I or we set out to perform?  
      So I reflect on the performer, myself or us, and
notice our efforts and how (posture) we are reaching
our consistency.  If I can become conscious of what
made this work, then I can remember how to best repeat
this performance later on.  It is not just about how I
(using I, but this can be replaced with we, but I'm
not going to keep saying "I or we", but that's what I
mean) am performing.  Each day or night brings new or
old, depending on how you want to look at it, events
that come into play.  The wind could be blowing or
not, so I need to account for that.  The kind of bow
and arrows I am using.  The distance of the target,
etc... you get the idea.  
     Now to why I am writing about all of this.  After
I read some of recent postings between Marsha and
Platt, I saw a target glimmering somewhere here, I
realized our 'how' is somewhere here, and all of the
conditions that come into play with our performance to
'hit the target' as follows:

     Marsha said to Platt:  "My own puzzlement lays in
the realm of DQ where there is no division.  The word
'beauty' has the connotation of being that which is
aesthetically pleasing.  Maybe there lies my
confusion.  Experiencing DQ, when brought back to the
human realm, 
can appear to be quite the opposite of good, beauty or
successful, but inspire awe.  Is your definition of
beauty more like awe?"

     With all the levels, static, and dynamic quality
I notice these as I reflection on our performance of
this quality.  As I stated above, this performance of
quality is not strictly of 'I' or 'we' shooting an
arrow at a target.  Rain, the bow and arrows, posture,
the total conditions of the universe itself, with
gravity and geography, etc... come into play. 
Sometimes our reflecting back on our performance, to
notice what we did to hit the target consistently
yesterday or last week, might miss out on the
conditions of today, but not just that.  We could also
notice that we hit the target and to think just by
always 'reflecting' on how we are hitting the target
is not the same as hitting the target.  If we presume
that as Pirsig says this is quality, then we simply
are hitting the target.  Now to see how this happens
leads us into defining levels and splitting quality
into SQ and DQ.  This is all fine and dandy due to the
value in being conscious of our performance, but let
us not ignore what I think Marsha is reaching at here,
which is quality.  The target is in our mind, but it
is the hay bail, too.  It is the how this performance
occurs, as well.  Without all of this no target or
shooting and hitting of the target can occur, but also
we need to concentrate on what this target is and to
know we are hitting the target when we know what the
target is, we hit it with our clarification of where
the arrow goes in our defining of what the target will
be, and once we hit what we defined as the target,
well then - Bulls Eye!

     So, where's the target I'm (or we) are shooting
at? when it comes to quality.  Is it the awe in beauty
that defines our performance of what this quality is? 

Thanks, 
SA    

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