Hi Rob, Peter, David, and Squad!
I'm delighted by the rash of new members that have shown up in the past few
days! Y'all (that's US Southern-speak for "you guys" without specifying
gender <grin>) have jumped in with both feet. Thanks for that. Right now
I'm having to wade through my inbox because of all the "Oh my God they're
impeaching the president!!!!" email so I hope I haven't missed anything.
Rob, I wish I knew of a couple of books to suggest myself. There are so
many ideas at work here. Mainly in an attempt to figure out where to start
reading, I went through the posts for 1998 and came up with a list of books
that have been mentioned on the Squad. As a frame of reference I've
included some of the comments that went with them. I don't know if it would
help, but the list is at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/8087/index.html that was about a month
ago(?) and more books have been mentioned since then. I want to keep it
updated, but the latest ones are missing.
Peter, you've posed a lot of good questions. There are those who can answer
them better than I, so I think I'll wait a couple of days to see what else
shows up before I jump in.
David, Oh my! The mysticism debate. This is a hot one isn't it! You said,
"Seems the rationalists intentionally persist in maintaining the
misconception that mysticism is unscientific, anti-scientific and
irrational." Yes you're right, and I think that because science and
rationality are firmly planted in the domain of the static intellectual
level. Mysticism (as I think I understand the philosophical definition) is
not accessible to this level. Pirsig was pretty clear about that in "Lila",
and I don't think the mystics here would disagree. You are right again when
you state that "mysticism is post-rational" if by mysticism you mean Dynamic
Quality.
Where we seem to be falling apart is over something else entirely. I'll
state again that I'm opposed to equating Dynamic Quality with God or Zen
mind. I think it's a dangerous and misleading thing to do. I covered a lot
of this in my post about analogies so I won't restate it here, except to
kind of summarize by saying that we are studying the MOQ, the Metaphysics of
Quality. We are not studying the MOZ, the Metaphysics of Zen. I hope I've
managed to clarify my position a little more.
Wishing you happiness,
Mary
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