Hello everyone
Rich Pretti wrote:
>
>Rog put forth this vision into the Void:
>
>>Rich:
>> >What is consciousness? We must explain it within the MOQ.
>>
>>Roger:
>>Consciousness per William James is one half of the duality that we create
>>out
>>of Direct Experience. Objective reality is the other half. James explains
>>that the most accurate depiction of this duality is not one of division
>>though, it is one of addition. We count experience twice, and from one
>>angle
>>it is subjective consciousness and from the other angle it is objective
>>reality.
>
> These quotes are taken from "Advaita Vedanta" by Eliot Deutsch.
>
>"Metaphysically, maya is that mysterious power of Brahman that deludes us
>into taking the empirical world as reality. Epistemologically, maya is
>ignorance (avidya). It has the power of concealing reality (avarana-sakti)
>and also of misrepresenting or distorting reality (viksepa-sakti). Not only
>do we fail to perceive Brahman, but we also substitute something else in
its
>place, viz., the phenomenal world. Maya is thus not merely a negative
>designation, a privation of vision; it is positive so far as it produces an
>illusion (bhava rupam ajnanam)." -30
>
>"For Advaita Vedanta, then, the phenomenal world is maya, and it is
produced
>by maya. But it is not on that account merely a figment of one's
>imagination..." -31
>
>"For Advaita, the world, from the standpoint of reason or subject/object
>consciousness, is neither real nor unreal; the world is an illusion only on
>the basis of an experience of the Absolute. The world cannot be an illusion
>to one who lacks that experience. Empirical reality, in other words, is
>transcended only absolutely. Only from the viewpoint of the infinite does
>everything but itself appear as without substance, without independent
>reality and value. In short: 'there is no reason to call the world unreal
>before the knowledge of the oneness of the Atman has been attained.'"-32
>s duality.
Glove:
The "experience of the Absolute" would seem to point to religious mysticism,
which Pirsig equates with DQ. We all lack direct experience of Dynamic
Quality... in fact, if we were to become immersed in Dynamic Quality, the
real world would no longer exist for us. I am reading a marvelous book
called "The Crossing" by Cormac McCarthy. Allow me to quote a passage which
seems somewhat revelant, in payment for your wonderful quotes:
"Who can dream of God? This man did. In his dreams God was much occuppied.
Spoken to He did not answer. Called to did not hear. The man could see Him
bent over his work. As if through a glass. Seated solely in the light of His
own presence. Weaving the world. In His hands it flowed out of nothing and
in His hands it vanished into nothing once again. Endlessly, Endlessly. So.
Here was a God to study. A God who seemed a slave to His own selfordinated
duties. A God with a fathomless capacity to bend all to an inscrutable
purpose. Not chaos itself lay outside of that matrix. And somewhere in that
tapestry that was the world in its making and in its unmaking was he and he
woke weeping." (pg. 149, paperback)
>Rich:
> There is SO much work to do. If Quality is the same thing as the Tao,
and
>the state aimed for in Zazen, if Quality is the Dharma, the Buddha, then
>don't you see how much needs to be clarified? I have yet to see a
>satisfactory exposition of the place of consciousness in the MoQ.
Glove:
It seems to me that consciousness IS the MOQ. There is no one "place" that
consciousness resides. There is the same problem in aiming for any "thing"
when zazen is practiced. Quality is not a "thing" in the context of what we
normally call a "thing". It is rather everything/nothing at the same time.
>Rich:
>The idea of "transcendence" is a dominating one in the East. Does it apply
>in the MoQ?
Glove:
I would say that it does, yes.
>Rich:
>Just what exactly do you mean by "Experience", which is before your body or
>mind each moment? How do you know it's there?
Glove:
This thing we call experience is the act of remembering the Quality Event of
our life as it unfolds. There is no direct reality, but only a remembrance
of reality. We can neither say that reality is really there or it isn't. We
know reality is there by forming unambiguous agreements that it is really
there. And on the surface it is really there. In very subtle ways it is not.
Which is right? Neither and both.
>Rich:
>Are social patterns and thoughts the same as consciousness? If not, and
>"you" are conscious of the four levels "you" inhabit, are you then
different
>from that consciousness, that body, that mind? Don't tell me the
>intellectual level perceives that I'm falling off a cliff, getting laid,
>etc... Yet I certainly "experienced" these things. They were more or less
>"conscious", yes?
Glove:
We do not inhabit the four levels... we are the four levels. We are not
different from consciousness, we are consciousness. I am sure we've all had
dreams that seemed absolutely real until some tell-tale point when we
realized we were dreaming. What does it mean? Dreams are not-real and yet
they are experienced, there is no denying that. So is experience real?
>Rich:
>If "I" am nothing but a "coherence" of patterns of value, how exactly do
>they "cohere"? How is communication between levels possible, if they are
>"discrete...almost independent"?
Glove:
The four static quality patterns of value cohere because we have learned to
make them cohere. Communication occurs Dynamically between the levels. The
mechanism between the biological/social level is a gun or a soldier or a
policeman. The mechanism between the social/intellect is language. We have
learned to manipulate with our environment
>Rich:
>Where do emotions fit in?
Glove: Emotions would seem to be Dynamic in nature and not really fit into
any one of the four static levels other than in how we identify the
different feelings that we feel.
>Rich:
>What is memory? (you have before you rationalize/philosophize), a dog has
>it, prior to the "age of the IPOV".
Glove: Memory is also Dynamic in nature. It is ever changing, adding and
substracting. Memory resides both inside and outside the body.
>Rich:
>What colour is the dark side of the moon?
>(oh wait - it doesn't exist, because I haven't seen it)
Glove: We sometimes make the mistake of assuming if we see something it is
real and exists. Not always true. Nor can we say because we do not see
something that it is not real. In a value-centered universe experience is
all. Because you know there is a dark side of the moon makes it very real to
you even though you've never seen it. I myself have never seen a Great White
shark but I would know one if I happened to be swimming in the ocean and one
swam near me, I can guarantee that! I've seen pictures and been told of the
"dark" side of the moon just as I've seen pictures and been told of sharks.
The agreement of the dark side of the
moon and the agreement of sharks is all that I really have though. That
agreement is very real to me!
Best wishes
glove
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