[MD] Zen and theArt of Religion

[Andre Broersen]

John McConnel to Andre:
Andre, you fight like an adolescent girl, snapping and spitting and biting and scratching.  Go to your room!

Andre:
Hi John, nice of you to chime in with your evaluation of my interaction with JC’s posts. I cannot find anything substantive to respond to since it seems most at a psychological level you are operating from. Do my posts come across as pompous? Well, that may be, but anyone who thinks they find fault with Pirsig and then attempt to improve his MOQ by showing an absolute lack of understanding and a great mass of confusion needs to be responded to in one way or the other.
Yeah, Phaedrus struggled with this aspect of Lila as well and, despite the havoc she produced…boy she’s dynamic. I’m glad that, in view of the aftermath of the accident I experienced some time ago and my age I am still able to upset certain people on intellectual grounds.

JM:
(Where was MD during JC's absence???  It was pretty quiet there for a while.)

Andre:
This is a good one but what point are you making? I have experienced that many, many people feel uncomfortable when a quiet moment opens. What is the problem with stillness…with quiet…with silence? Does it make you feel uncomfortable? 

JM:
Philosophy in general, and Pirsig's philosophy in particular, are vitally important to John and me. 

Andre:
I appreciate that John. Pirsig’s MOQ is a high quality intellectual pattern of value. But I do get iffy and alert when I sense that posters are taking Pirsig’s  MOQ for some sort of living, dynamic entity. It’s not. Many, including Bodvar for example, suggest that the MOQ IS reality. It is the be all and end all of ontology and epistemology. Problem is it ain’t. As Pirsig says himself:

¨The Metaphysics of Quality itself is static and should be separated from the Dynamic Quality it talks about. Like the rest of the printed philosophic tradition it doesn't change from day to day, although the world it talks about does.” 

And this includes us…we change in the process as living and experiencing human beings. But the MoQ must be seen, as they say in Zen Buddhism, as a finger pointing to the moon. And I can make a long story very short: we are here to see the moon. And if some poster fucks with the seeing or with the moon…i.e misrepresents or misconstrues Pirsig’s MOQ (as a guide) it needs to be made clear. And if this comes across as pompous  well so be it. English is my second language. I am doing my best and as everyone else, there is sometimes just a feeling of being totally pissed off.