From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Fri Nov 25 2005 - 16:18:54 GMT
Scott,
<post resent in case the original doesn't turn up>
>Scott:
>No, I hadn't forgotten this post (though I am grateful for seeing it
>again).
>But my reaction is pretty much the same. You acknowledge that the MOQ
>as presented in LILA stems from the first level. I would agree with you
>that this may be appropriate for a Western audience still stuck in
>conventional truth, *except* that Pirsig calls it "metaphysics". And
>being based on the first level, that metaphysics is wrong, leading, as
>I mentioned, to such beliefs that everything is "evolving toward DQ",
>privileging DQ over SQ, and the attitude toward intellect. From the
>second level, such formulations are, as I see it, hindrances. Further,
>I disagree with you and Ant that Pirsig's further comments add up to a
>"'second-level' understanding of the MOQ".
>Well, I can't claim to know just what he thinks, but as I see it, if he
>had that second-level understanding, he would not have written LILA the
>way he did. This would be like knowing about QM and relativity, and
>then writing a book on Newtonian physics as if that were the extent of
current physics.
Paul: I don't think this is the same. The key point of Chi-tsang's device
is that, unlike the *progression* from Newtonian physics to quantum
mechanics the levels are not a 'ladder' to be climbed. You privilege the
second level formulation of the two-truths over the first. This is an
error, in my opinion.
>There should have been more hedging, some acknowledgment of the further
>levels. Basically, I am saying that you just can't get from the MOQ to
>a second-level understanding of the MOQ, without reworking at the
>fundamental level, in particular, in how DQ and SQ are treated, and in
>that case it is questionable whether it should still be called the MOQ.
Paul: Perhaps, but it still seems a mistake to say that the first level
formulation of the MOQ is wrong i.e. that it is any more wrong, any less
valuable, than the other two.
>To put it another way, anybody who participates in MD has presumably
>read LILA and therefore should have, to some extent, assimilated the
>first- level.
>Shouldn't they, then, be exposed to the second and third?
Paul: Yes, but knowing first that all formulations are prajnapti.
If I may close with this excerpt from the Chi-tsang essay:
"Chi-tsang explains "that practitioners of sharp faculties require only the
instruction of the first form [level] of two truths, whereas practitioners
of dull faculties have to go through the instruction of all three forms
[levels] of two truths before they can achieve awakening.""
;-)
Regards
Paul
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