[MD] The hard question.

[MarshaV]

dmb,

Sorry the last post is incomplete and should be ignored.


On May 27, 2012, at 11:18 AM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Marsha said:
> ... As Hagen 202 (1997, p.30) notes, one of the most fundamental truths noted by the Buddha is that all aspects of our experience are in constant flux and change.  ...Please note in the above quote "all aspects of our experience are in constant flux and change". 
> 
> 
> dmb says:
> This is exactly where you go wrong.

Marsha:
I have?  These are not my words.  This is a quote from the MoQ Textbook.  No, I don't have it wrong; you have not realized that the fundamental nature of static quality is Dynamic Quality.


> You've misconstrued Dynamic Quality so that it includes absolutely everything, including static quality.  That's exactly the point where DQ and sq are conflated. That's where you undo the MOQ's first and most important distinction; the distinction between static and dynamic.

Marsha:
The distinction is rhetorical, not absolute.


> Like I said, Pirsig and James also say that (direct or immediate or pre-intellectual) experience is constantly in flux. But you are saying this about static patterns, which are contrasted with the immediate flux of life. 

Marsha: 
Ever-changing does not imply Dynamic Quality, which I understand to be unpatterned, and also indivisible, undefinable and unknowable.


> dmb:
> Pirsig says, "Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions". DQ is immediate, pre-intellectual experience. Static patterns (abstractions, concepts, definitions, etc.) are secondary. Direct experience is a continuous flux but static pattens are neither. They are discontinuous, chopped it up into stable words and concepts. 
> 
> This is what Pirsig means when he quotes William James at the end of chapter 29:
> " 'There must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing.' Here James had chosen exactly the same words Phaedrus had used for the basic subdivision of the Metaphysics of Quality."

Marsha:
I responded to this in yesterday's post; check it out.  

---

Marsha:
Here's some textual evidence:

"Like Pirsig, Nishida follows the thought of Nagarjuna and rejects the SOM ‘object logic’ conceptualisation of reality. Instead, Nishida uses the more Eastern orientated ‘concrete logic’ (or ‘logic of nothingness’) which perceives reality as holistic and constantly changing; where identities are momentary (and, therefore, always ‘negating’ themselves)."
(McWatts, MoQ Textbook) 

Marsha:
Get the "constantly changing"?  Here's something else.  It seems odd that the front part of this quote has gone missing.  It is:

"It’s fairly obvious from reading Pirsig’s texts that SOM is perceived by him as an example of ignorant thinking. Briefly, this is due to such systems ignoring the reality of Dynamic Quality. Why this is particularly ignorant is explained by the ‘Three Aspects’ of the Cittamatra school of Mahayana Buddhism.  Williams (1988, p.83) states that the First Aspect refers to the falsifying activity of language which implies independent and permanent existence to things.
>> As Hagen 202 (1997, p.30) notes, one of the most fundamental truths noted by the Buddha is that all aspects of our experience are in constant flux and change. According to the Buddha, when a person ignores this truth they subject themselves to dukkha."

(McWatts, MoQ Textbook)

Marsha:
It is because of the quote's beginning "the falsifying activity of language which implies independent and permanent existence to things" that the importance of the fundamental nature of experience being "constant flux and change" should be stressed.



Marsha