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Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 17:42:27 -0400
From: "Andrew Sugermeyer" <Andrew.Sugermeyer@trw.com>
To: <moq_focus@moq.org>, "Andrew Sugermeyer" <Andrew.Sugermeyer@trw.com>
Subject: Re: MF PROGRAM TOPIC - August 2001
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OK, first things first. It seems like the Quality that "is not of mind" is Dynamic Quality. Pirsig later goes on to say that static intellectual patterns are a form of Quality. IMO, the fact that they're a "form" of Quality, in other words substantial, they're not directly connected to the big Q that we're trying to keep undefined. That seems to make sense. Mind is like any other static pattern - it's detritus left behind by the Quality event. The brain (my brain, right now), gets a bit haughty at that thought, that intellectual statements and actions (thought) are Quality leftovers, but there it is.
With ZMM and LILA to work with, it seems more that Quality and its forms are well defined, but "mind" is not. Mind is one of those objects we can't point to, can't strap a beginning or end to, and can't control very well even in direct action. (Ever tried the Zen breathing meditation, where you count to 10 breaths very slowly? I often can't get past four or five without losing count. Other thoughts intrude). I did mean to say that mind is an object; if it's a construct of SOM metaphysics, it can't really be anything else. What we fill our mind with over the course of our lives is analogues, experiences, related and connected and DEFINED within this construct. My mind may not be defined for anyone else, but for the bearer, each mind is defined. Since Quality is not, and is in fact the source of the definitions, it must reside outside of mind.
Awareness is a good word to throw in here. Awareness is pointed to by plenty of Zen masters, and I take it to mean "openness to Quality." An aware person is always picking up on the Dynamic. The mind's construct is the definition of how aware a person is. But awareness isn't Quality itself, any more than a racetrack is the race. Conditions have merely been made favorable for one event or the other to occur there. The modern-day human mind isn't Quality, but it's possibly the finest receptor for it yet.
This brings up another point which I hope we can make a more thorough study of in a future month. If static intellectual patters, the "of mind" stuff, aren't in Quality, are *any* of the static patterns of Quality actually "of Quality"?
That's my take. Shoot me down...
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