Hi dmb,

On Jan 23, 2012, at 7:07 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan@hotm...> wrote:

>
> dmb said:
> ...Pirsig's MOQ is aimed at improving our modes of analysis, our ways of thinking, our philosophies.  ...metaphysics itself is conceptual and intellectual and it is given to us in words. ...It's a set of ideas that one can understand rightly. Or not.
>
>
> "To understand what he was trying to do it's necessary to see that PART of the landscape, INSEPARABLE from it, which MUST be understood, is a figure in the middle of it, sorting sand into piles. To see the landscape without seeing this figure is not to see the landscape at all. To reject that part of the Buddha that attends to the analysis of motorcycles is to miss the Buddha entirely.  ... About the Buddha that exists independently of any analytic thought much has been said - some would say TOO much, and would question any attempt to add to it. But about the Buddha that exists WITHIN analytic thought, and GIVES THAT ANALYTIC THOUGHT ITS DIRECTION, virtually nothing has been said, and there are historic reasons for this. But history keeps happening, and it seems no harm and maybe some positive good to add to our historical heritage with some talk in this area of discourse." (ZAMM, 83. Emphasis is Pirsig's)                        
>


And here is RMP's full quote from ZAMM:

"To understand what he was trying to do it's necessary to see that part of the landscape, inseparable from it, which must be understood, is a figure in the middle of it, sorting sand into piles. To see the landscape without seeing this figure is not to see the landscape at all. To reject that part of the Buddha that attends to the analysis of motorcycles is to miss the Buddha entirely.
There is a perennial classical question that asks which part of the motorcycle, which grain of sand in which pile, is the Buddha. Obviously to ask that question is to look in the wrong direction, for the Buddha is everywhere. But just as obviously to ask that question is to look in the right direction, for the Buddha is everywhere.  About the Buddha that exists independently of any analytic thought much has been said --- some would say too much, and would question any attempt to add to it.  But about the Buddha that exists within analytic thought, and gives that analytic thought its direction, virtually nothing has been said, and there are historic reasons for this. But history keeps happening, and it seems no harm and maybe some positive good to add to our historical heritage with some talk in this area of discourse."


So what did you, dmb, omit?  This:  

"There is a perennial classical question that asks which part of the motorcycle, which grain of sand in which pile, is the Buddha. Obviously to ask that question is to look in the wrong direction, for the Buddha is everywhere. But just as obviously to ask that question is to look in the right direction, for the Buddha is everywhere."

Marsha:
And my trying to devise a useful definition for 'static patterns of value' is trying to analyze what gives direction to static quality.  And there is no contradiction in any of my statements: 'Static patterns of value are processes, conditionally co-dependent, impermanent, ever-changing and conceptualized, that pragmatically tend to persist and change within a stable, predictable pattern.' None.  Your extracting and rearranging a few words does not expose a contradiction, only your own confusion.


Thanks,

Marsha



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