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Welcome
to the very first MOQ conference!
Thursday
July 7th 2005
The
Westerner’s overemphasis on rationality, at the expense
of other parts of experience,
can seem both amusing and amazing to Zen masters…
“A Zen abbot once set
before an American aspirant two sets of small legless
Japanese dolls, one pair weighted
in the bottom part, the other in the head part. When
the pair weighted in
the head were pushed over, they remained on their sides;
the
ones weighted in the bottom bounced back at once. The
abbot roared
with laughter over this illustration of the plight of
Western man,
forever
stressing the thinking function at the expense of his
totality.”
(Nancy
Wilson Ross, The World of Zen)
MOQ
Conference Welcome Speech
By
Dr Anthony McWatt
Many
thanks to all of you (and especially those of you
who have travelled many miles!) for attending the
very first conference on Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics
of Quality! I would just like to acknowledge the following
people who have made the various events during this
week possible.
Firstly,
I would like to thank Robert & Wendy Pirsig (for
supporting this and the various events held this week
in so many ways and Robert Pirsig for providing the
introduction which you will hear in a minute), John
Middleton for introducing me to ZMM and his good advice
with the PhD over the years, Dr Barry Dainton, the
Head of Department of the Philosophy Department for
kindly allowing us to use the facilities here, Fran
Ali, the Philosophy Department’s secretary for her
administrative assistance in organising a number of
items for the above and the people providing papers
such as Ian Glendinning, Gavin Gee-Clough, Mati Palm-Leis,
Professor Henry Gurr, Khoo Hock Aun and David Buchanan.
I would also like to thank Horse and David Boyce for
reading out various material, Paul Turner for assisting
Ian (with Henry Gurr’s presentation) and Stephen Mills
for suggesting having this event. This is all very
much appreciated.
Earlier
this year, David Buchanan commented on MOQ Discuss
(the Pirsig Internet group) that the MOQ was like
a new black BMW convertible sitting on the drive waiting
for it’s first drive. I therefore propose we take
this baby out today for it’s first cruise!
The
MOQ DVD Boxset
.bmp) .JPG)
The MOQ DVD Boxset contains the "On The Road with Robert
Pirsig", "The MOQ at Oxford" and
the "On The Road with John Sutherland" DVDs.
The set now comes with the McWatt-Pirsig Letters DVD
as a bonus disc which also includes the Pirsig PhD and
MOQ Textbook PDFs.
The Boxset is for sale at $69/£40
for all regions.
($69
or sterling equivalent)
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