On Quality: An Inquiry into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings

The best way of investigating Quality that I know of is the brilliant Oriental technique of zazen, which defines Dynamic Quality very precisely by forcing a subtraction of static intellectual patterns for it rather than adding new ones.

As far as I know, “Quality” is still the best term, but “meaning” is a term I have thought about often. It’s an excellent synonym

By not knowing Quality in its “everything-state,” you will only see a part of reality, you will be trapped in a small life. You are likely to be technically and intellectually competent without an overall understanding. The idea is to go beyond intellect and to expand reason, fully to understand the total quality of everything. When you find it, it

I think that our traditional Western way is to try to capture life in a net of words. But I think one can realize that the net of words is a part of life. The danger is not in using the words; the danger is in clinging to them, clinging to their meaning, and saying, “Oh, now I have spoken a great truth.”

This problem of trying to describe value in terms of substance has been the problem of a smaller container trying to contain a larger one. Value is not a subspecies of substance. Substance is a subspecies of value. When you reverse the containment process and define substance in terms of value the mystery disappears: Substance is a “stable pattern

Dynamic Quality is outside all patterns including philosophical rules. It is perceived directly, without intellectual mediation.

The ultimate goal in the pursuit of excellence is enlightenment. After that there are no goals, for one realizes emotionally as well as intellectually that all experience is of equal quality.

The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality.

He saw Quality as a potential unifier of two major philosophical systems around the globe. He hoped to use it in the classroom to guide students in their writing. But he came to see that philosophical reasoning is not our only connection to Quality. Values direct our every move, every thought, every impulse, and those of all living things, all the