[MD] mystical awareness and intellectual explantions

[skutvik at online.no]

Marsha & All

On 6 March you wrote:

> Maybe like the Buddha is both Buddha mind and ordinary mind, the
> Metaphysics of Quality is both Dynamic Quality and static quality. 

Yes, the said Buddhist dichotomy correspond to the DQ/SQ one,  
I strongly agree with that, but to a Westerner with no MOQ 
"training" this brings no enlightenment. Mind is subjective 
whether Buddha's or anyone else. I remember thinking like that 
when reading Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen", long before Pirsig.     

> And the SOM is much less, as it is embedded in static quality.  I get
> this.  My point is that our Western languages are reflective of SOM,
> and therefore using these languages diminish the direct MOQ experience. 

Well, the mere knowledge of a S/O M is part of the construction 
of an East/West bridge, like me before Pirsig the Westerner does 
not know the S/O as a metaphysics but believe that is how reality 
is "factory made". Language the culprit? Hardly, Buddhists may  
speak Western languages without being hemmed by that. 

Now, it was Phaedrus' discovery that Quality refused to fit either 
subject or object category that led him to see that there IS a 
SOM. Then his revolution of making Quality the creator of the 
SOM, his subsequent DQ/SQ divide and the static levels - all this 
in addition to the SOL interpretation (intellect=S/O) completes the 
said East/West bridge 

It makes us see the big picture, Buddha=Quality, Buddha 
mind=DQ and ordinary mind=SQ. What Buddhism lacks is the 
"ordinary mind" levels where the the 4th. "ordinary mind" is the 
S/O divide. You see how the initial SOM discovery is crucial, the 
lack of what makes Buddhism impotent in making Westerners 
understand, because the latter BEGIN with the SOM premises.

On the other hand the refusal to accept the SOL makes the MOQ  
equally impotent. SOM as a bad idea of an idea-intellect leads to 
the same mysticism that Buddhism looks like to us. Pirsig is of 
course the source, to avoid the SOL he invents an "Oriental 
intellect" and strives to make SOM something insignificant 
("Beware of crocodiles" and "Jahve will reward you" is SOM) that 
the MOQ is completely indifferent to. No, SOM is the highest 
STATIC level.  

> But if I am totally misunderstanding the MOQ, at closer than 
> arm's-length, I give you permission to shake some sense into me.
 
This turned three-quart arm long ;-). 

> Your paintings are very beautiful.  I wish they were not so small, so
> that I might see more detail.  But, regardless of size, they seem to
> emanate an ethereal quality.  Wonderful!!!

Thanks a lot, you paint too? So does Platt. I'm just a copy-cat. 
You are American? My once great ideal was Edward Hopper, him 
with the erie streets and empty gas stations scenes.      

Bo