Hello everyone
This is to Jason, Bill, and anyone else interested in dynamic right dharma.
Jason wrote:
If anyone has any ideas on this letter or to the meaning of
it please feel free to respond because it seems that in this letter he may
possibly be referring
to levels or a level of mystic experience.
The following comments were made by Pirsig in the letter, in response to my
question of ,"If certain religious questions could be proven true would
those religious elements be
at a higher level than quality itself.
Pirsig wrote.
Dear Jason Nelson,
Thank you for your good letter. To answer your question, those aspects
of religion which could be considered "dynamic right dharma" are at a higher
level than intellectual truths, including the truths of the Metaphysics of
Quality itself. The trouble is that religion always also means a set of
static intellectual truths and a static social organization conataining a
lot of static biological people who own a lot of static inorganic property.
These static patterns are so strong that the dynamic right dharma is all but
lost.
Please post any ideas you may have about this, and the term "dynamic right
dharma" that he uses here.
I would be interested to hear from others, and think it may make for a good
discussion.
Hi Jason
Thank you for sharing Pirsig's reply to you with the discussion group. I
agree with you that it fits in very well with the current discussion
involving mysticism as a 5th level. We become "members" in society when we
grasp fundamental basics of that society. As we all belong (I assume) to
Western culture that fundamental basic requirement for membership can be
represented by becoming aware of the four static quality levels and static
patterns of value that
arise by our interaction with our environment...not necessarily as the MOQ,
of course, but in agreements we learn to form with everyday reality.
Once we are born into the world, static quality patterns of value quickly
become all pervasive and we lose
sight of the dynamic right dharma we "started" with. Youth is spent becoming
aware of these static patterns of value until they consume our entire
beings.
Dynamic right dharma is lost as society imposes certain restrictions on
every individual for the good of the many.
What is lost is always magnified in seemingly contradictory ways. Repression
in childhood results in anxiety and neurosis in adulthood, or we could
perhaps more properly say that anxiety values preconditioned repression.
This may lead the individual to search for some "thing" that is
half-remembered
in dreams but is ever elusive and fleeting in real life.
Static quality religions all point to some "thing" greater than humankind
because unless we
can conceptualize it, there is no value to static quality. Perhaps that is
the motivating factor in attempting to expand on the Metaphysics of Quality
by adding levels. Our continual drive to conceptualize our entire reality.
Becoming aware once again of dynamic right dharma could be said to be a goal
of all religions. But dynamic right dharma is not a thing as we statically
understand things to be. Rather "it" is a "thing" that is always just beyond
grasp.
Bill writes:
If there is a higher level between the intellectual level and pure DQ, it
might look something like this:
>From Paul to the Hebrews in chapter 11; "Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by this, the
ancients obtained a good report. By faith we understand that the world was
framed by the word of God: that from invisible things visible thing might be
made." This quote sounds pretty misty to me, but as it can bring one to
peace, love and understanding, then its valuable.
Glove:
This sounds a whole lot like becoming aware of dynamic right dharma...faith
as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.
Beautiful quote, Bill! Dynamic right dharma is always misty, beyond
conception, try as we might to conceive of it.
Thanks for the great posts everyone!
Best wishes,
glove
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