Horse,Thanks for your deliberations. You have shown love is in the MOQ. Can't believe I missed it. What can I say?
I still think love must be brought out more explicitly. Let me reformulate. I think that this is very important, but I blew it by introducing a fifth level.
Let's define love. Love is sensitivity to reality. Is it not? This occurs when one's mind is not cluttered with insecurities, desires, ideals, and so forth. One perceives value clearly, and is motivated by it. True beauty and true ugliness is revealed through experience. There is creativity, spontanaeity, gumption.
If love is sensitivity to reality, and immediate reality is where dynamic quality resides, then *love is to be open to dynamic quality*.
Fear is the opposite of love. Fear occurs when the mind is not freely "giving in" to the moment. One places judgement upon what is. Fear is insensitivity. ***Fear is mentally clinging to static value patterns*.
Since there is only dynamic and static quality, only two factors motivate us: love and fear. Period.
It is moral to love.
I will give some examples (hopefully less convoluted this time).
Suppose I was really hurt when an ex-girlfriend said she only wanted to be "friends". I could go on *clinging* to the past thinking, "I'll never trust anyone again". I meet a very nice girl. All I see however, is the potential for more pain. I sleep with her and then dump her. When she is hurt, I think to myself what choice did I have? Not going to be hurt like that again.
My mental mistake was attributing my pain to the women. In actuality, my pain was caused by my psychological attachment to the ex-girlfriend. The moral solution would be for me to observe my attachment and get over it. Drop the static for the dynamic.
Alternatively, suppose I have never been in any serious relationship. All my friends have girlfriends and wives. My mind clings to a static ideal as I think, "I wish I were in a relationship". I meet a real insensitive wench, who is single. She says "hi" but otherwise ignores me. She walks by. I blow my friends off while thinking of some way to go over and impress her. Not moral, drop the static for the dynamic.
But ... suppose I don't cling to static patterns. This does not mean I don't have memories. I just don't dwell on them or place them prior to reality. If I meet the "insensitive wench" without any preconceived needs or ideals, I would naturally see some connections to any similar people and behave accordingly. There would be no contempt, but less value would be experienced. If I meet the nice girl (of high value), I go with it. I'm not afraid of losing her because I don't "need" a relationship. If she does not like me -- who cares. I crack some great jokes and we get along swell...
In my opinion, Pirisig is very close to understanding the nature of reality but he put much too little emphasis on the effect of "the self" .(( To get at this, there is a second useful split of reality -- a) value and b) that which is sensitive to value -- thinking dangerously outloud again)) Pirisig assumes that we can make an easy logical choice between dynamic and static quality. He ignores how difficult it can be to let go of the past (forgive) and not fear the future (let go of needs and ideals). Everyone clings. We have to observe external value, but we also have to observe the value of our self-created thoughts. Where is *attitude* in MOQ? That is why I questioned "where is the love?".
That is the reason I cite Krishnamurti in my posts. I don't know if anyone here has heard of him, but his teachings fit in perfectly. K inspires the romantic side of the MOQ. There are webpages and a discussion group similar to this one. I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Krishnamurti's teachings were "dynamic". He says nothing of what we should should think of reality. Nothing of God and so forth. His teachings were about setting the mind "completely and unconditionally free". That is how we get at Pirsig's dynamic quality.
Thanks for listening RJS.
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