[MD] MOQ Recursion

[Andre Broersen]

dmb said to Arlo:

Yep. If you introduce some new category to the MOQ, regardless of the reason for doing so, I think you quite literally have to explain what in the world you're talking about. The four levels are suppose to cover all there is so that nothing except DQ is left out. It's pretty hard to imagine that Pirsig forgot to include "labels" or "levels" or "heart" or "meditation" in the world as we know it. Since the four levels are supposed include all things in an exhaustive way, it's hard to imagine what kind of "thing" would require the addition of a fifth level. Some new category of "thing" that does not exist yet? Is there some part of the world that Bo and Marsha have access to even though it doesn't appear in any encyclopedia?

I think this whole mess has something to do with defining the 4th level as SOM.

Andre:
I think this is correct dmb. Consider the Buddha himself suggesting that even the highest attainable spiritual state is a mental,(therefore intellectual)creation. Dr. W. Rahula in 'What the Buddha Taught':
'Notice that all the spiritual and mystic states, however pure and high they may be, are mental creations, mind-made, conditioned and compound (samkhata). They are not reality, not Truth'. (p.38).

This, in response to the Buddha's observation that:
'If I focus this purified and cleansed equanimity on the Sphere of Infinite Space and develop a mind conforming thereto, that is a mental creation. If I focus this purified and cleansed equanimity on the Sphere of Infinite Consciousness...on the Sphere of Nothingness...or on the Sphere of Neither-perception nor Non-perception and develop a mind conforming thereto, that is a mental creation' (pp38-9).

I also think that this reflects beautifully Pirsig's 'definition' of the intellectual level or rather the 'nature' of it's experiencing (ability).

We all know of Bodvar's responses to this with his SOM level definition...thereby being forced into the ridiculous position of having to create other 'levels' or 'labels'.
Imho it unnecessarily restricts its 'function'...which is a great shame really and unnecessarily confuses lots of things.