[Real love] is a state where we allow ourselves to be seen clearly by ourselves and by others, and in turn, we offer clear seeing to the world around us. It is a love that heals. —Sharon Salzberg, “Real Love” tricycle
Time is an artifact of a particular perspective. That’s what is said in conversation between Spira, Hoffman, et al, episode 58. Going beyond space/time. Folding consciousness. One becoming itself right where it is.
Hence, what now seems to be a miracle of extended presence.
Consciousness, as in perennial philosophy, remains as is throughout. But the contents of consciousness have changed through 25 hundred years of explanation and expression.
"Love is the natural condition of all experience before thought has divided it into a multiplicity and diversity of objects, selves and others." ~ Rupert Spira
"The mind, the body and the world are made out of Consciousness but Consciousness is not made out of them. It is made out of itself. Therefore everything is made only out of Consciousness." ~ Rupert Spira
"The discovery that peace, happiness and love are ever-present within our own Being, and completely available at every moment of experience, under all conditions, is the most important discovery that anyone can make." ~ Rupert Spira
Needing nothing and wanting nothing, Spira is saying, is peace.
George Reeves did or didn’t shoot himself post-kryptonite and commit suicide. Marilyn Monroe did or didn’t intentionally commit suicide after rat-pack shake-off by taking far too many pills. Jeshua bar-Joseph did or didn’t become a suicidal sacrifice for fellow so-called human sinfulness.
Truth and accuracy is a sometimes thing.
Better to rely on cinnamon-raisin toast the day after the nation’s birthday.
My great teacher, Galway Kinnell, taught me: “Speak the unspeakable.”
One who receives an intuition of this truth has become a Buddha and attained to the Dharma. Let me repeat that Enlightenment cannot be bodily grasped, for the body is formless; nor mentally grasped, for the mind is formless; nor grasped through its essential nature since that nature is the Original Source of all things, the real Nature of all things, permanent Reality, of Buddha!
How can you use the Buddha to grasp the Buddha, formlessness to grasp formlessness, mind to grasp mind, void to grasp void, the Way to grasp the Way? In reality there is nothing to be grasped—even not-grasping cannot be grasped. So it is said: “There is Nothing to be grasped.” We simply teach you how to understand your original Mind. (Mind is Formless, Huang-Po (d. 850) DailyZen)
Cornelius and Bosgrave have a particular perspective.
You might call it a respective view fraught and brimming with intrigue for universal/catholic identification.
Plymouth
John Cornelius was born of Irish parents in Bodmin, and his talent was soon noticed by Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, who sent him to Oxford. From there he went to the English College in Rheims, and to Rome, where he was ordained priest. He came back to England, and worked here for ten years, before being arrested at Chideock Castle, where he was acting as chaplain to Lady Arundell. Whilst being escorted to the sheriff’s house he was met on the way by Thomas Bosgrave, a relative of the Arundell family, who offered him his own hat, as he had been dragged out bare-headed. Thereupon Bosgrave was promptly arrested. Two servants of the castle, John (or Terence) Carey and Patrick Salmon, both natives of Dublin, shared the same fate. They were executed at Dorchester on July 4th 1594.
Plymouth Ordo
It was a long time ago. A time of prejudices, myopathies, and bigoted power. Such nefarious antipathy, some feel, lurks today in halls of political legislative and judicial unsightly distorted vision.
Their trial took place in the main hall of what is now Chideock House Hotel and they were condemned to death on 2 July 1594 and executed in Dorchester two days later. The first to ascend the scaffold was John Carey; he kissed the rope, exclaiming "O precious collar", made a solemn profession of faith and died a valiant death. Before his execution Patrick Salmon exhorted the spectators to embrace the Catholic faith, for which he and his companions were giving their lives. Then followed Thomas Bosgrave, who delivered a stirring address on the truth of his belief. The last to suffer was John Cornelius, who kissed the gallows and then quoted St. Andrew, "O good Cross, long desired", etc. On the ladder, he tried to speak to the multitude, but was prevented. After praying for his executioners and for the welfare of the queen, John Cornelius also was executed. His body was taken down and quartered, his head was nailed to the gibbet, but soon removed. All the bodies were retrieved and given a proper burial by Lady Arundell.[6]Dorothy Arundell did become a nun and she wrote "Life of Father Cornelius the Martyr" which was kept in the Vatican, but is now lost.[5] wikipedia
In the United States of America we frown on religious and political bigotry and rabid exclusion. It’s a thing with us, frowning.
We accept that differing beliefs arise and set a table for discussion and conversation. So too with differing ideological and political stances held and profferred.
We wear different hats.
We have many hats.
We don’t execute another for matters of hats.
Or beliefs.
Nor any inclination of prejudicial intolerance issued from vaunted position of exclusive legal, ecclesial, or populist posturing.
Here’s your hat, sir or madam — be on your way. I will not waylay, detain, or murder you.
Why not?
If you think about it, because we are not that kind of people.
It feels like a new idea. Mind is all. Physically, materially, mentally and spiritually — all. The length and breadth of the cosmos — mind. The yellow monarch butterfly flying around my feet on walk around snow bowl parking lot as I listened to final chapter of book on William Blake — mind. The final sip of water at dinner with friends from southern maine — all mind.
If there are interstellar travelers who traverse millions of light years in a blink of an eye, they might have mastered the folding of space to where origin and destination are side by side, stepping off point one onto point two, linearly a trillion miles away, as if stepping from bedroom to hallway on way to make coffee.
Quantum and astrophysics jot down their notes for us. Buddhists deliver their teishos. Christians run transubstantiation through our befuddled minds. Vedantists nod saying tat tvam asi, that thou art when pointing out everything from morning bird to overturned row boat. Taoists say, yes, Way, as everything sidles by and is sidled by our awareness.
Then Fa Yuan asked, “What are the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; what are the Three Jewels in One Substance? We beg you, Master, to explain.”
Hui Hai: “Mind is the Buddha, and it is needless to use this Buddha to seek the Buddha. Mind is the Dharma, and it is needless to use this Dharma to seek the Dharma. Buddha and Dharma are not separate entities, and their togetherness forms the Sangha. Such is the meaning of Three Jewels in One Substance. A sutra says:
“‘Mind, Buddha, and sentient beings—there is no difference between any of them. When your body, speech, and mind are purified, we say a Buddha has appeared in the world. When these three become impure, we say a Buddha has been extinguished.’
“Instead of recognizing the Buddha right in front of you, you spend eon after eon searching for him.
“His whole substance pervades all phenomena, but you are deluded and look for him elsewhere! Consequently, anyone who understands the Way is never off it, whether walking, standing, sitting or lying. Anyone who awakens to the Dharma is sovereign and at ease in all situations, since none of them are outside Dharma.”
Our individual minds are small, our awareness constricted. (Look at the political playground these days.)
We seem to be a civilization of sharp knived dissection and mutilation. We don’t yet, it seems, see things whole, act with integrity, love all that is. Tall order. Slim pickings. Egoistic narcissism. A proverbial infantalized view of reality as something to be exploited, mafia’d, and pocketed.
And here we are.
Mind you.
With everything right in front of us, the invitation is continually issued — by the sublime reality — see me, feel me, touch me, heal me!
There are many ways to call the Buddha’s name, and throughout the Buddhist world devotees do so in one way or another. It may be “Namo Buddhaya,” “Namo Tassa,” or “Buddham saranam gacchami.” In China it may be “Omito Fo” and in Japan “Namo Amida Butsu.” In the West this last tends to be Anglicized as “Namo Amida Bu” in order to preserve the six-syllable form of many Japanese chants. This method of calling the Buddha’s name is known as nembutsu.
The term nembutsu means “mindfulness of Buddha.” Namo Amida Bu means “I call upon measureless Buddha.” However, in reality this practice is not an intellectual or cognitive assertion; it is an expression of sentiment and a way of opening one’s heart to receive. When one recites the nembutsu it is an expression of gratitude and wonderment but also an expression of whatever spiritual feeling is arising at that time. In this sense it is an offering of oneself and a reception of grace. Reciting nembutsu is a two-way street connecting you with Buddha. It is not a straitjacket, not an attempt to squeeze oneself into a prescribed form or arrive at a prespecified state of mind. Each time one says the nembutsu, something different may arise. Whatever one is, one offers, and one receives what one needs. The hallmark of Pure Land is great acceptance, and one of the most difficult things may be to accept that one is already accepted.
