[MD] The relativity of the MoQ

[MarshaV]

Greetings Arlo,

Sure sounds like you're on the right track.  I figure you're about the age
of my kids, and what you've written makes good sense.  I'm grateful that
you've taken the time to write.  I'm from such a different perspective than
you, both from circumstances and choice, that I don't know how to comment. I
can see you are much more balanced than me.  That seems appropriate to your
responsibility. -  I still have no idea where Andre's "slightly worried" is
directed, especially as it was in response to a post I sent.  Do you have
any idea?  180-degree Zen and 360-degree Zen seems to be some kind of
abstract, symbolic Zen language.  Do you think one needs to join a Zen
community, to 'get it'?  I might have thought so at one time, but I do not
anymore.   

Thanks so much for writing.  I really want to hear what you think.  


Marsha
 




-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Arlo Bensinger
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 11:28 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

[Marsha]
But I would like to know what you think too. What is the message here?

[Arlo]
I would say the message is "you can't have one without the other". 
Pirsig has described his books as "the path to enlightenment" (ZMM) 
and "the path back" (LILA), and I think that any attempt to isolate 
or even dismiss one as being "unnecessary" or "unimportant" is very 
problematic. Trying to apply LILA without the understanding (or 
"enlightenment", as Pirsig calls it) of ZMM is like trying to heal a 
gunshot wound by covering it with a band-aid; it does not address the 
root problem.

Do I think that simply reading ZMM induces "enlightenment"? While I 
suppose it *can*, my guess is that its not so machinistically causal. 
In ZMM, he describes *his* path to enlightenment, and walking that 
path alongside him may certainly guide others to the same. But like 
Pirsig later describes about his peyote experience in LILA, one has 
to be *open* to enlightenment, if one merely walks along blinded by 
preconceived prejudices, expectations and whatnot, one will likely 
walk away feeling "enlightened" without really becoming so.

There is an evident historical danger to seeing the inscribed tablets 
of prophets, the words handed down to us by those who have achieved 
enlightenment, in the misunderstanding and reification of these 
"words" as containing the "meaning". On a much larger scale, it 
harkens towards the "spirituality/religion" split, one being the 
pursuit of enlightenment, the other being the reified words of others 
who have achieved enlightenment. When we let the latter forgo the 
former, we are in for a world of trouble, not only in having a 
"cult-like" deification of another's words, but (as I've suggested) 
in not understanding the meaning or importance of the words in front of us.

Or, if you don't "get" ZMM, you are going to understand LILA from a 
S/O perspective that renders the framework of LILA not only 
erroneous, but dangerous, because "applying the MOQ" from that 
vantage point is, as I suggested, applying a band-aid to a gunshot 
wound. You have to dig deep to find that bullet. Then extract it. 
Then, and only then, can you apply dressing to the wound.

That's my take, anyway.


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