A year or two ago, when I was living in El Sauce, Nicaragua, I was reading the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Throughout the book, you get a sense for the essence and nature of Quality and at the time, I was reading that book I was trying to understand the separation of Quality and whatever its opposite would be…non-quality, I guess, that the author spoke of. I see present in many aspects of life, only because I have been able to observe it first hand in my own, but also, in how people live their own lives, and how humanity lives its life.
The thing that I didn’t understand was this separation that exists between Quality and Non-quality, how does it pertains to us, as living, decision-making beings, and the way we live our lives? (When I capitalize Quality I mean to give it significance of an absolute sort, sort of like those familiar with philosophy will see the “t” capitalized in Truth to speak of the absolute truth).
I came to a realization recently which was what I was looking for at the time but couldn’t quite put my finger on when I was thinking about the separation of Quality and Non-quality. I will explain it with the example of love and lust.
The potential, and the actualization, of lust and love is present within every person, every human heart and mind. But there is a fundamental difference between the two which is often confused. By that I mean, for example, that lust, an intense sexual desire is construed as a positive thing to have in a relationship with a significant other. In that sense, I don’t think the understanding of lust is sufficiently deep because it is a term in which healthy sexual attraction should not be mixed with or adulterated by the true meaning of lust.
Lust is something so much more shallow, hallow and devoid of such important characteristics. Characteristics which are intrinsically good and are easily recognizable. Things like genuineness, compassion, intuition, purity, good-heartedness, etc. Lust is an action which is means to an end, an end which connotes a temporal satisfaction and gratification.
It is something we do because of how it makes us feel which we, or our mind’s ego, most often confuses for happiness but they are actions whose foundation are based upon inadequacies. Inadequacies are the shallowness here. There is nothing of substance in lustful actions. So, the feelings, the rush comes and goes. And often in the end we are left worse off than before because the actions often run against or are outside of the boundaries of what we consider good. They may not be bad, but they were arrived at by means in which our moral compass did not direct us.
And as the mind aimlessly wonders in the labyrinth of lustrous experiences, be it sex, drugs or rock n’ roll – as the saying may have it – there becomes this feedback which solidifies the ego’s desire for such experiences. And the effect snowballs. At first, the action may be trivial and the consequences unsubstantial. And for that very reason is why this process can become so destructive. It is because the seeds of that severity are hidden within the innocence of such little action and consequence, and that is when the habit - that which the same severity depends on for its survival - can form.
But its opposite would be Love in all its purity and integrity. The genuineness which stems from a foundation of being that lies so deep we are often unconscious of it as our minds motors along in their reactive state. But it is something we must learn to pay attention to. And we can be directed to it by two mechanisms of meditation 1. Silencing the mind so our awareness can take notice of it and 2. While our minds are motoring along, trace the thoughts we have back to their origin within us which is exactly that deep foundation.
That really is where all human action is born from, that deep foundation within us, that we are often unconscious of. And in living unconsciously we default to non-quality living, to shallowness, to hollowness.
But this foundation of our being is constantly in flux, although, I believe its inherent nature is of Quality and goodness, we have our egos to blame for the constant fluctuations. Our egos are responsible for the ever-meandering mind motoring which constantly distracts us so that we are never fully conscious of the roots of our actions.
I once heard a Native American tale about two wolves, one black and one white, which fight for dominance over the actions we take, the black wolf represents the bad, evil, non-quality, etc. in us and the white wolf the good, divinity, quality, etc. The tale goes essentially, which ever one you feed more wins the battle. It boils down to lust or love really, one-night stands or depth, contentment, purpose, and ultimately, happiness.
And it is by that understanding, by those mechanisms of awareness we slowly loosen the chains of samsara, as the Buddhist would say, to start living a more present and fulfilling life.