3WD, Platt, Squonk, Gavin, David, all
Much to respond to.
3WD "Not so much as a problem with what is, but what might be, good."
JB - Ummm. My suspicion is that mystic good, Pirsig's dynamic quality,
cannot conceive of a 'might be' good. It lives only in the moment?
3WD "Pirsig's use of Quality and Dynamic Quality as opposes to using the
Buddhist/Tao term "Spirit" moves it away from a particular religious
tradition which surely reduces Wilbur's palatability in many quarters"
JB - I totally agree. Pirsig's genius was to find 'quality' as the bridging
term - it incorporates value without bringing in religious or other baggage.
Platt "a work of art is beautiful (and good and true) to the extent that it
is translucent to nondual Spirit, that it [lies] (allows that?) which is
beyond
itself to shine through"
JB - Yes, though I cannot claim to have any clarity about this. I see it as
a sort of mystery, though I agree that the good artist "can detach from the
ego or transcend the separate self-sense and allow superconscious to flow
through him
or her into the work of art." (Though I am not sure what is meant by the
term 'superconscious', it just indicates to me an aspect of the mystery.)
Squonk "the One is prior to beauty"
JB - Very deep water here. Beauty, like quality, is 'defined' in terms of
its opposite. To avoid this fatal error, Pirsig has to insist that Quality
cannot be defined, only experienced. If beauty too cannot be defined, only
experienced, then I wonder if we aren't just playing language games by even
trying to make a statement about which is prior. Can we compare the One with
anything?
Platt "beauty is transparent to the One"
JB - this sounds a nice resolution, insofar as we can say anything
meaningful.
Gavin "You realize that Bodhisattvas are going to have to become
politicians, as weird as that might initially sound."
JB - Many thanks for the reference and the quote. I am by now totally
confused about mysticism and morality. I suppose that is a good place to
start. I will read the full reference later and perhaps come back to you on
this.
David "I'd be interested to know your thoughts on it, especially that
"unrelentling moral demand" that "eats into your soul", or more fully
"it is absolutely mandatory to try to make society a place in which the
greatest number of people are free to pursue the good and the true and the
beautiful. That becomes a burning categorical imperative, and it eats into
your soul with its unrelenting moral demand."
JB - I suspect this is talking about injustice. Injustice derives from any
social impediment to freedom for the gretest number to pursue the good and
the true and the beautiful. I consider injustice the dominant social level
value. "It's not fair" is the primal social statement of value. This is the
aspect of the moral dilemma that I have with mysticism that I am most
familiar with - it is where I have come from. That I find it less than
satisfactory does not make it wrong, and so far as I understand the mystic
position, they portray it to be dream, a fantasy, in which I, an agent,
strive for the social agenda that will help liberate all other agents. I
find the whole 'social justice' dimension of life very problematical at
present, and given that it has driven a great part of my life thus far, this
is a profoundly unsettling experience. If I could just embrace the mystic
alternative as correct, it would be nuch easier, but from where I am, the
mystic alternative looks like the only valid alternative, yet it leaves a
huge gap in my soul, that I feel ought to be filled. I wonder too, who
'mandates' this 'efforting' (the word 'try' is a very loaded word to a
therapist), and ultimately if this trying to change society is healthy. As I
say, I am very confused.
John B
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