[MD] Contradiction and incoherence

[Ant McWatt]

Marsha,

You stated March 28th:

>For me, static quality is not other than Dynamic Quality, Dynamic 
Quality is not other than static quality.  They are two sides of the 
same coin: Quality (or Value).  I know of three "types" of experience; 
there is the conceptual, the perceptual and the unpatterned.  The first 
is the run-of-the-mill "thinking".  Second is 'direct perception' or 
mindfulness; it is what is directly perceived without conceptual 
narration.  The third is no-thing and without any patterns; it's 
awareness without concepts or percepts.  This third you might say is an 
interesting place to visit, but I wouldn't want an extended stay, 
nonetheless it offers an interesting perspective.  It offers a kind of 
first-hand experience that static quality is not other than Dynamic 
Quality...

==================

Just to add what you said to Mark, I'm probably going to confuse things further but my understanding of the relationship between Dynamic Quality and static quality is that - from the Zen Buddhist viewpoint of everyday affairs - they are completely distinct.  This is largely (though not exclusively) the understanding that is written in LILA.

However, it is only from the Dynamic viewpoint of the "World of the Buddhas" (the understanding that is often quoted by Robert Pirsig in the "McWatt-Pirsig Letters PDF") is that the fundamental nature of the static is indeed Dynamic.  

Pirsig says somewhere (in reference to Zen Enlightenment) that at zero degrees, one sees the world as fundamentally static.  

At 180 degrees Enlightenment, one sees the world as Dynamic. 

While, at 360 degrees Enlightenment, you see the Dynamic "shining through" the static patterns.  You've returned full circle to the static patterns but with a Zen Understanding.  And, of course, that's meant to be non-verbal... !

I try not to get too hung up on all this as Pirsig warns in Part One of the AHP Transcript:


Now, you’re not supposed to really divide Quality. In fact, as I’ve said in this 
book that you shouldn’t. But if you’re going to have a metaphysics you go ahead  
and do it anyway. It’s just a kind of an exercise in life, you only can sin once 
now I’m going to sin against Quality by dividing into two parts. The Dynamic
aspect of Quality is that Quality which I associate most closely with Zen
Buddhism. 

When I was talking about ZMM I was referring primarily to Dynamic
Quality, and in LILA, at one point I said ‘I can beat my gums on this forever’,
in fact many people have and nobody is going to know what I’m talking about so
why don’t I talk about what it isn’t. Sometimes you can define something in
terms of what it isn’t rather than in terms of what it is. So, I said, alright,
and Dynamic Quality isn’t everything inside the encyclopedia …that’s all
static. Everything that we can name, everything that we can think about,
everything that we can conceptualise, all our rituals, all our …whatever we are
as a living person is static.

Dynamic is this up welling…, well it isn’t anything I can tell you. This is what you’ll
hear every minute from the ‘Zennies’. But you can discover it if you work on
it. But you won’t discover it by conceptualisation and this is a huge problem
that Zen teaching has. You see it over and over again and this is why they
sound so screwy, in their koans and everything. What they’re trying to do is
get you to stop conceptualising and start experiencing. But even that’s wrong
because I’m getting into concepts… 

Chip: Can I add to that…one way of looking at the differences to my way of 
understanding is …sort of on the level of the principle…what is the principle of 
static quality and Dynamic Quality. You could think in terms of the principle of 
static quality as that which coheres, which holds together, which maintains form, 
structure. It’s pinned down in that sense. So, it’ll be that…I don’t even know if 
you can call it a ‘force’ but that quality which does that. Dynamic Quality would 
be the Quality which expands, which unfolds, which leaves behind form… it
de-structures…it’s a state of flux…

(http://robertpirsig.org/AHP Transcript 1.htm)



> From: valkyr at att.net
> Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:04:26 -0400
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Contradiction and incoherence
> 
> 
> Hi Mark,
> 
> I believe the RMP statement says that experience and value is the same; and I concede that it would seem correct to state that pure experience is synonymous with Dynamic Quality.  That was my point for presenting the quote.  For me, static quality is not other than Dynamic Quality, Dynamic Quality is not other than static quality.  They are two sides of the same coin: Quality (or Value).  I know of three "types" of experience; there is the conceptual, the perceptual and the unpatterned.  The first is the run-of-the-mill "thinking".  Second is 'direct perception' or mindfulness; it is what is directly perceived without conceptual narration.  The third is no-thing and without any patterns; it's awareness without concepts or percepts.  This third you might say is an interesting place to visit, but I wouldn't want an extended stay, nonetheless it offers an interesting perspective.  It offers a kind of first-hand experience that static quality is not other than Dynamic Quality, Dy
>  namic Quality is not other than static quality.  
> 
> 
> Marsha 
>