Hear?
If Hashem, (what is called 'God'), is Reality, what are we waiting for?
Step back on your own to look into reality long enough to attain an unequivocally true and real experience of enlightenment. Then with every thought you are consulting infinite teachers.
- Yuan wu (1063-1135)
We spoke of martyrs at Friday Evening Conversation. Not those committing suicide, nor those committing murder -- but those who give up their life for their faith in God. Put in other words -- those who are willing to relinquish their current form so as not to deny Reality, which is that within which, for which, and as which we live our lives.
Jesus Christ, although he shared God’s nature [though he was in the form of God], did not try to seize equality with God for himself; but emptied himself, took on the form of a slave, and became like a man – not in appearance only, for he humbled himself by accepting death – even death on a cross.
For this, God has raised him high, and given him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bend, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue will proclaim “Jesus Christ is Lord”, to the glory of God the Father.
(Philippians 2)
As with most things in this existence, we are not well informed.
Martyrs are the ones who witness Infinite Wholeness and surrender their lives to authentic and compassionate relationship with all formed therein. (We must not confuse murderers and destructive suicides with the term 'martyr.')
It is a task to encounter one's being in Being.
...If man "is" anything at all, he is Nietzsche's "undefined animal," whose infinite scope and possibility consist precisely in the knowledge of his own temporal limitation, in the knowledge that he will die, and in his power to endure and transcend such knowledge...
(in Commentary, Vol. 7 • April 1949 • No. 4, Simon, Ernst, What Price Israel's "Normalcy"?translated from the German by Ralph Manheim)
We are not who and what we think we are. We are, rather, who and what we are. To see with the light of Reality is to witness Reality Itself, or Sacred Being, or, What Is -- called Enlightenment.
Enlightenment means rising above thought, not falling back to a level below thought, the level of an animal or a plant. In the enlightened state, you still use your thinking mind when needed, but in a much more focused and effective way than before. You use it mostly for practical purposes, but you are free of the involuntary internal dialogue, and there is inner stillness. When you do use your mind, and particularly when a creative solution is needed, you oscillate every few minutes or so between thought and stillness, between mind and no-mind. No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power. Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive.
(from Chapter 1, "You are not your mind," in The Power of Now, By Eckhart Tolle)
Jesus didn't try to grasp with the mind what he was. Nor should we, what we are.
Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. However, Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally. To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of "feeling-realization" is enlightenment.
(Tolle)
Being what we are is a place to dwell in peace. It is only there we dwell in compassionate relationship with everyone and everything,.
No waiting. No invading other lands and nations. No destroying real or perceived enemies. No reducing one another to laughing-stock or lifeless-corpse.
Say...
No more.
One's own name is no name.
Listen!
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Rosh Hashana, 5765.
Barukh atah Adonai, Elohaynu, melekh ha-olam,
Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe,
asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu
who sanctifies us with his commandments, and commands us
l’had’lik neir shel [shabbat v'shel] yom tov (Amein)
to light the candles of [Shabbat and of] the holiday (Amen)
Blessed be the Name of the Lord!
("Hashem" means "the name." Traditional Jews use the name "Hashem" instead of "God" to show their respect to God by not taking his name lightly and only using the proper name God in prayers.)
HaShem is the Hebrew transliteration of the yod-hey-vav-hey (v - u - v - h) name, and literally means "The Name" This name is normally not written together, i.e. Without the dashes. "HaShem" is used 7484 times in the TaNaK (the old testament). Neither HaShem, nor it's Greek equivalent is ever used in the Apostolic Writings. The first use, of HaShem, is in:
Bereshit (Genesis) 2:4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When HaShem God made the earth and the heavens--
HaShem means "self existent" or "eternal", according to Strong’s (3068).
(http://www.thewatchman.net/hashem.html)
Hashem is Reality.
We must face Reality.
Barukh atah Adonai, Elohaynu, melekh ha-olam,
Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe,
asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu
who sanctifies us with his commandments, and commands us
l’had’lik neir shel [shabbat v'shel] yom tov (Amein)
to light the candles of [Shabbat and of] the holiday (Amen)
Blessed be the Name of the Lord!
("Hashem" means "the name." Traditional Jews use the name "Hashem" instead of "God" to show their respect to God by not taking his name lightly and only using the proper name God in prayers.)
HaShem is the Hebrew transliteration of the yod-hey-vav-hey (v - u - v - h) name, and literally means "The Name" This name is normally not written together, i.e. Without the dashes. "HaShem" is used 7484 times in the TaNaK (the old testament). Neither HaShem, nor it's Greek equivalent is ever used in the Apostolic Writings. The first use, of HaShem, is in:
Bereshit (Genesis) 2:4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When HaShem God made the earth and the heavens--
HaShem means "self existent" or "eternal", according to Strong’s (3068).
(http://www.thewatchman.net/hashem.html)
Hashem is Reality.
We must face Reality.
Monday, September 13, 2004
Learning is difficult. More than that, it is a joy.
We need a new and formal context to understand what education is becoming.
David Blacker in his article EDUCATION AS THE NORMATIVE DIMENSION
OF PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS, writes:
My answer attempts to renew a dialogically-grounded humanism, an old educational ideal that finds the beginnings of a compelling and novel defense in the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Gadamer’s writings present a theoretical framework for articulating a case for education as such against those who would justify it on narrowly utilitarian grounds. But that is not all. Gadamer argues that we miss the phenomenon completely when we think of education [Bildung] as something we use for our own private (or even collective) purposes, whether these be judged good or ill — or that we exactly use it at all. Rather, if the same categories even apply, it would be more correct to say that education uses us. Consequently, although we may be said to allow it to happen in certain ways, education as Bildung eludes us when we obtrude too severely on its proper sphere. In what follows, I will attempt to show how Gadamer makes sense of these bizarre claims.
(http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-Yearbook/93_docs/BLACKER.HTM)
To learn, we speak through what is before us. This “dialogue”, this speaking through, passes through that which is between us.
At Becky's Piano Recital
She screws her face up as she nears the hard parts,
Then beams with relief as she makes it through,
Just as she did listening on the edge of her chair
To the children who played before her,
Wincing and smiling for them
As if she doesn't regard them as competitors
And is free of the need to be first
That vexes many all their lives.
I hope she stays like this,
Her windows open on all sides to a breeze
Pungent with sea spray or meadow pollen.
Maybe her patience this morning at the pond
Was another good sign,
The way she waited for the frog to croak again
So she could find its hiding place and admire it.
There it was, in the reeds, to any casual passerby
Only a fist-sized speckled stone.
All the way home she wondered out loud
What kind of enemies a frog must have
To make it live so hidden, so disguised.
Whatever enemies follow her when she's grown,
Whatever worry or anger drives her at night from her room
To walk in the gutsy rain past the town edge,
Her spirit, after an hour, will do what it can
To be distracted by the light of a farmhouse.
What are they doing up there so late,
She'll wonder, then watch in her mind's eye
As the family huddles in the kitchen
To worry if the bank will be satisfied
This month with only half a payment,
If the letter from the wandering son
Really means he's coming home soon.
Even old age won't cramp her
If she loses herself on her evening walk
In piano music drifting from a house
And imagines the upright in the parlor
And the girl working up the same hard passages.
Poem: "At Becky's Piano Recital" by Carl Dennis, from New and Selected Poems © Penguin.
Each passage we traverse is our education. How do we “hold together” that which passes through us? Is confusion the passageway of education toward learning?
Some students recently noted a “confusion” with what they were hearing. They worried their “understanding” was in jeopardy. Would I please “focus” more clearly.
I am sympathetic with their experience. I have always found philosophy, or thinking about what is real, present, and available to us, to be a stretching confusion -- from where we are to where we suppose truth resides. So much of learning is a journeying between things. This journeying between might be the back and forth of dialogue in disagreement with another or the mind-walk to and from some idea hidden in the dark shadows of absent comprehension. Soon enough we come to suspect that the “between” is the actual residing place of understanding – not a fixed place with stone foundation, but a moveable feast of solitude romancing community for a brief tryst.
Under these conditions, Gadamer argues, this phenomenon of play may provide a “clue to ontological explanation”; in the interpretive dialogue hermeneutic understanding establishes with its object, something comes about which is to a degree independent of both of them. In other words, as the prejudices of the interpreting consciousness are put into play with those of the object — as their horizons are “fused” — a common living language emerges.4 This symbolic meeting ground of tradition, which both depends upon individuals and structures their being-in-the-world, is largely what Hegel had in mind by Spirit, which comes to know itself through a process of Bildung (i.e., culture, development, education — the latter in what Dewey would call its “honorific” sense). As David Ingram describes the process:
"Gadamer compares Bildung to a progressive fusion of horizons in which interpreter and tradition are elevated to participation in a higher universality. This fusion is at once the cancellation of both the parochial prejudices of the interpreter which impede access to the unique message of the tradition and the dead anachronisms implicit in the latter as well as the preservation and extension of what is common to both of them. The moment of cancellation results in a dual negation whereby both the being of the interpreter and the being of the tradition are altered.5"
Unlike Hegel, however, Gadamer does not posit an end-state of absolute knowledge in which Spirit comes to know itself in toto. His concept of experience is much more open-ended than Hegel’s; it does not “progress” through the undergoing of stages but rather renders itself ever more open to new experiences. This is the true meaning of education for Gadamer; Bildung is a never-ending process of openness and a perpetual fusion of horizons, arising through dialogue, in which the ideal is never to stop learning.
As Gadamer famously concludes the “Afterword” to Truth and Method (after some 579 pages!): “the ongoing dialogue permits no final conclusion. It would be a poor hermeneuticist who thought he could have, or had to have, the last word.”6 The truly educated person — the true “hemeneuticist” — then, is “radically undogmatic” and ever open to the “experience that is made possible by experience itself.” (355) Such a person is open for education through intercourse with others as he or she undergoes a “continually recurring temptation to engage oneself in something or to become involved with someone.”7 The educated person is so “dialogically sensitive” that the mere presence of the other (perhaps even to mind only) can help break up her biases and enlarge her vision.
To make the notion of Bildung more concrete, then, Gadamer recasts it as a dialogue between interpreter and tradition in which the latter is experienced as a Thou. This point must be stressed: he is not saying that individuals like teachers and students in every case ought to engage in an intersubjective give-and-take. (In fact, he argues explicitly against erecting dialogue as a model for pedagogy.) Accordingly, sharing in this historically-constituted conversation does not mean that I experience tradition as the opinion of some person or other, but that I am able to enter into it as into a game made up of myself and other persons but not reducible to any of us. In this edifying tradition-forming, revising and conserving dialogue taking place in language — Hegelian Spirit conversing with itself — arises Bildung, which I see as the normative dimension of philosophical hermeneutics
(from EDUCATION AS THE NORMATIVE DIMENSION OF PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS, by David Blacker University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign )
Open, and present, dialogically sensitive, and radically undogmatic – we welcome that which holds us together.
We learn by conversing in the thin place between ourselves and everything else.
Are we willing?
To learn?
Yet...
We need a new and formal context to understand what education is becoming.
David Blacker in his article EDUCATION AS THE NORMATIVE DIMENSION
OF PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS, writes:
My answer attempts to renew a dialogically-grounded humanism, an old educational ideal that finds the beginnings of a compelling and novel defense in the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Gadamer’s writings present a theoretical framework for articulating a case for education as such against those who would justify it on narrowly utilitarian grounds. But that is not all. Gadamer argues that we miss the phenomenon completely when we think of education [Bildung] as something we use for our own private (or even collective) purposes, whether these be judged good or ill — or that we exactly use it at all. Rather, if the same categories even apply, it would be more correct to say that education uses us. Consequently, although we may be said to allow it to happen in certain ways, education as Bildung eludes us when we obtrude too severely on its proper sphere. In what follows, I will attempt to show how Gadamer makes sense of these bizarre claims.
(http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-Yearbook/93_docs/BLACKER.HTM)
To learn, we speak through what is before us. This “dialogue”, this speaking through, passes through that which is between us.
At Becky's Piano Recital
She screws her face up as she nears the hard parts,
Then beams with relief as she makes it through,
Just as she did listening on the edge of her chair
To the children who played before her,
Wincing and smiling for them
As if she doesn't regard them as competitors
And is free of the need to be first
That vexes many all their lives.
I hope she stays like this,
Her windows open on all sides to a breeze
Pungent with sea spray or meadow pollen.
Maybe her patience this morning at the pond
Was another good sign,
The way she waited for the frog to croak again
So she could find its hiding place and admire it.
There it was, in the reeds, to any casual passerby
Only a fist-sized speckled stone.
All the way home she wondered out loud
What kind of enemies a frog must have
To make it live so hidden, so disguised.
Whatever enemies follow her when she's grown,
Whatever worry or anger drives her at night from her room
To walk in the gutsy rain past the town edge,
Her spirit, after an hour, will do what it can
To be distracted by the light of a farmhouse.
What are they doing up there so late,
She'll wonder, then watch in her mind's eye
As the family huddles in the kitchen
To worry if the bank will be satisfied
This month with only half a payment,
If the letter from the wandering son
Really means he's coming home soon.
Even old age won't cramp her
If she loses herself on her evening walk
In piano music drifting from a house
And imagines the upright in the parlor
And the girl working up the same hard passages.
Poem: "At Becky's Piano Recital" by Carl Dennis, from New and Selected Poems © Penguin.
Each passage we traverse is our education. How do we “hold together” that which passes through us? Is confusion the passageway of education toward learning?
Some students recently noted a “confusion” with what they were hearing. They worried their “understanding” was in jeopardy. Would I please “focus” more clearly.
I am sympathetic with their experience. I have always found philosophy, or thinking about what is real, present, and available to us, to be a stretching confusion -- from where we are to where we suppose truth resides. So much of learning is a journeying between things. This journeying between might be the back and forth of dialogue in disagreement with another or the mind-walk to and from some idea hidden in the dark shadows of absent comprehension. Soon enough we come to suspect that the “between” is the actual residing place of understanding – not a fixed place with stone foundation, but a moveable feast of solitude romancing community for a brief tryst.
Under these conditions, Gadamer argues, this phenomenon of play may provide a “clue to ontological explanation”; in the interpretive dialogue hermeneutic understanding establishes with its object, something comes about which is to a degree independent of both of them. In other words, as the prejudices of the interpreting consciousness are put into play with those of the object — as their horizons are “fused” — a common living language emerges.4 This symbolic meeting ground of tradition, which both depends upon individuals and structures their being-in-the-world, is largely what Hegel had in mind by Spirit, which comes to know itself through a process of Bildung (i.e., culture, development, education — the latter in what Dewey would call its “honorific” sense). As David Ingram describes the process:
"Gadamer compares Bildung to a progressive fusion of horizons in which interpreter and tradition are elevated to participation in a higher universality. This fusion is at once the cancellation of both the parochial prejudices of the interpreter which impede access to the unique message of the tradition and the dead anachronisms implicit in the latter as well as the preservation and extension of what is common to both of them. The moment of cancellation results in a dual negation whereby both the being of the interpreter and the being of the tradition are altered.5"
Unlike Hegel, however, Gadamer does not posit an end-state of absolute knowledge in which Spirit comes to know itself in toto. His concept of experience is much more open-ended than Hegel’s; it does not “progress” through the undergoing of stages but rather renders itself ever more open to new experiences. This is the true meaning of education for Gadamer; Bildung is a never-ending process of openness and a perpetual fusion of horizons, arising through dialogue, in which the ideal is never to stop learning.
As Gadamer famously concludes the “Afterword” to Truth and Method (after some 579 pages!): “the ongoing dialogue permits no final conclusion. It would be a poor hermeneuticist who thought he could have, or had to have, the last word.”6 The truly educated person — the true “hemeneuticist” — then, is “radically undogmatic” and ever open to the “experience that is made possible by experience itself.” (355) Such a person is open for education through intercourse with others as he or she undergoes a “continually recurring temptation to engage oneself in something or to become involved with someone.”7 The educated person is so “dialogically sensitive” that the mere presence of the other (perhaps even to mind only) can help break up her biases and enlarge her vision.
To make the notion of Bildung more concrete, then, Gadamer recasts it as a dialogue between interpreter and tradition in which the latter is experienced as a Thou. This point must be stressed: he is not saying that individuals like teachers and students in every case ought to engage in an intersubjective give-and-take. (In fact, he argues explicitly against erecting dialogue as a model for pedagogy.) Accordingly, sharing in this historically-constituted conversation does not mean that I experience tradition as the opinion of some person or other, but that I am able to enter into it as into a game made up of myself and other persons but not reducible to any of us. In this edifying tradition-forming, revising and conserving dialogue taking place in language — Hegelian Spirit conversing with itself — arises Bildung, which I see as the normative dimension of philosophical hermeneutics
(from EDUCATION AS THE NORMATIVE DIMENSION OF PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS, by David Blacker University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign )
Open, and present, dialogically sensitive, and radically undogmatic – we welcome that which holds us together.
We learn by conversing in the thin place between ourselves and everything else.
Are we willing?
To learn?
Yet...
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Silence is the true friend that never betrays. (Confucius)
Interdependence Day! John Duffy's composition at Camden Opera House. Later, Compline at St. Thomas'.
This country says it is at war. It's not.
War demands sacrifice and wholeness of effort on the part of all the country. Not here. Here we send money, guns, and corporate accountants to manage the business transactions while young military personnel get shot at, wounded, and killed.
It is turning out badly.
But, by some magical talking trick of rhetoric the vast majority of Americans believe all is well and we are in good hands with the conjurers in charge.
We'll have to sing with more heart. Make better harmony. Lift melody to loftier lilt.
That's what John Duffy, Glen Jenks, and Anthony Antolini said and performed today.
And the rest of us?
Learn deep, seeing, silence.
Interdependence Day! John Duffy's composition at Camden Opera House. Later, Compline at St. Thomas'.
This country says it is at war. It's not.
War demands sacrifice and wholeness of effort on the part of all the country. Not here. Here we send money, guns, and corporate accountants to manage the business transactions while young military personnel get shot at, wounded, and killed.
It is turning out badly.
But, by some magical talking trick of rhetoric the vast majority of Americans believe all is well and we are in good hands with the conjurers in charge.
We'll have to sing with more heart. Make better harmony. Lift melody to loftier lilt.
That's what John Duffy, Glen Jenks, and Anthony Antolini said and performed today.
And the rest of us?
Learn deep, seeing, silence.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
What if "the Lord" was translated and interpreted as "the true self of each one of us"?
One instant is eternity;
When you see through this one instant,
You see through the one who sees.
- Wu-men (1183-1260)
Would we remember who we are? Would this Self-Remembering become our primary task?
The essential point in learning Zen is to make the roots deep and the stem firm. Twenty-four hours a day, be aware of where you are and what you do. When no thoughts have arisen and nothing at all is on your mind, you merge with the boundless and become wholly empty and still. Then your actions are not interrupted by doubt and hesitation. This is called the fundamental matter right at hand. As soon as you produce any opinion or interpretation, and want to attain Zen and be a master, you have already fallen into psychological and material realms. You have become trapped by ordinary senses and perceptions, by ideas of gain and loss, by ideas of right and wrong. Half drunk and half sober, you cannot manage effectively.
- Yuan wu (1063-1135)
For generations and millennia we have lived with the sorrow of self-forgetfulness and non-recognition of neighbor.
Lamentations 5:1 - 22
O Lord, remember what has happened to us;
look on us and see our degradation.
Our inheritance has passed to aliens,
our homes to barbarians.
We are orphans, we are fatherless;
our mothers are like widows.
We drink our own water -- at a price;
we have to pay for what is our own firewood.
The yoke is on our necks; we are persecuted;
we are worked to death; no relief for us.
We hold out our hands to Egypt,
or to Assyria, just to get enough bread.
Our fathers have sinned; they are no more,
and we ourselves bear the weight of their crimes.
Slaves rule us;
no one rescues us from them.
At peril of our lives we earn our bread,
by risking the sword of the desert.
Our skin is as hot as the oven,
such is the fever of famine.
They have raped the women in Zion,
the virgins in the towns of Judah.
Princes have been hanged at their hands;
the face of the old has not been respected.
Youths have toiled at the mill;
boys have collapsed under loads of wood.
The elders have deserted the gateway;
the young men have given up their music.
Joy has vanished from our hearts;
our dancing has been turned to mourning.
The garland has fallen from our heads.
Woe to us, because we have sinned!
This is why our hearts are sick;
this is why our eyes are dim:
because Mount Zion is desolate;
jackals roam to and fro on it.
But you, O Lord, you remain for ever;
your throne endures from age to age.
You cannot mean to forget us for ever?
You cannot mean to abandon us for good?
Make us come back to you, O Lord, and we will come back.
Renew our days as in times past,
unless you have utterly rejected us,
in an anger that knows no limit.
Today is 9/11.
Is it nearing time to remember and recognize?
The true self of each one of us?
This day. This way.
Right at hand.
For this, we pray!
One instant is eternity;
When you see through this one instant,
You see through the one who sees.
- Wu-men (1183-1260)
Would we remember who we are? Would this Self-Remembering become our primary task?
The essential point in learning Zen is to make the roots deep and the stem firm. Twenty-four hours a day, be aware of where you are and what you do. When no thoughts have arisen and nothing at all is on your mind, you merge with the boundless and become wholly empty and still. Then your actions are not interrupted by doubt and hesitation. This is called the fundamental matter right at hand. As soon as you produce any opinion or interpretation, and want to attain Zen and be a master, you have already fallen into psychological and material realms. You have become trapped by ordinary senses and perceptions, by ideas of gain and loss, by ideas of right and wrong. Half drunk and half sober, you cannot manage effectively.
- Yuan wu (1063-1135)
For generations and millennia we have lived with the sorrow of self-forgetfulness and non-recognition of neighbor.
Lamentations 5:1 - 22
O Lord, remember what has happened to us;
look on us and see our degradation.
Our inheritance has passed to aliens,
our homes to barbarians.
We are orphans, we are fatherless;
our mothers are like widows.
We drink our own water -- at a price;
we have to pay for what is our own firewood.
The yoke is on our necks; we are persecuted;
we are worked to death; no relief for us.
We hold out our hands to Egypt,
or to Assyria, just to get enough bread.
Our fathers have sinned; they are no more,
and we ourselves bear the weight of their crimes.
Slaves rule us;
no one rescues us from them.
At peril of our lives we earn our bread,
by risking the sword of the desert.
Our skin is as hot as the oven,
such is the fever of famine.
They have raped the women in Zion,
the virgins in the towns of Judah.
Princes have been hanged at their hands;
the face of the old has not been respected.
Youths have toiled at the mill;
boys have collapsed under loads of wood.
The elders have deserted the gateway;
the young men have given up their music.
Joy has vanished from our hearts;
our dancing has been turned to mourning.
The garland has fallen from our heads.
Woe to us, because we have sinned!
This is why our hearts are sick;
this is why our eyes are dim:
because Mount Zion is desolate;
jackals roam to and fro on it.
But you, O Lord, you remain for ever;
your throne endures from age to age.
You cannot mean to forget us for ever?
You cannot mean to abandon us for good?
Make us come back to you, O Lord, and we will come back.
Renew our days as in times past,
unless you have utterly rejected us,
in an anger that knows no limit.
Today is 9/11.
Is it nearing time to remember and recognize?
The true self of each one of us?
This day. This way.
Right at hand.
For this, we pray!
Friday, September 10, 2004
The war continues. Men die. Women die. Children die. The Secretary of Defense is determined to prove everyone opposed to the war wrong.
Genevieve asks the question: “What level of awareness makes us alive?”
Is it possible we have not yet come alive, that our awareness is not yet deep enough?
TO A TERRORIST
For the historical ache, the ache passed down
which finds its circumstance and becomes
the present ache, I offer this poem
without hope, knowing there's nothing,
not even revenge, which alleviates
a life like yours. I offer it as one
might offer his father's ashes
to the wind, a gesture
when there's nothing else to do.
Still, I must say to you:
I hate your good reasons.
I hate the hatefulness that makes you fall
in love with death, your own included.
Perhaps you're hating me now,
I who own my own house
and live in a country so muscular,
so smug, it thinks its terror is meant
only to mean well, and to protect.
Christ turned his singular cheek,
one man's holiness another's absurdity.
Like you, the rest of us obey the sting,
the surge. I'm just speaking out loud
to cancel my silence. Consider it an old impulse,
doomed to become mere words.
The first poet probably spoke to thunder
and, for a while, believed
thunder had an ear and a choice.
(Poem by Stephen Dunn)
If we mean well, if we really want to protect, we’ll have to go deeper to see how we are not yet alive, and are deadening others with our good reasons for war.
We resist war by serving the dying. In the faces of those emerging from death – those coming alive with awareness of truth and love – we see ourselves through the delusion of war.
He said to him, 'My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.'" (Luke 15:32)
We are coming through a terrible time. We’ve been lost. We thought war was a way to spawn freedom; when all that was wanted was justice. We thought force and power were ways to impose our culture and way of life; when the real desire of each human being is simply to love and be loved as the only way life is full of grace.
September is a new year.
Let’s awaken and come alive.
Finish war.
Try speaking to thunder.
Honor the choice to listen to and hear one another.
Genevieve asks the question: “What level of awareness makes us alive?”
Is it possible we have not yet come alive, that our awareness is not yet deep enough?
TO A TERRORIST
For the historical ache, the ache passed down
which finds its circumstance and becomes
the present ache, I offer this poem
without hope, knowing there's nothing,
not even revenge, which alleviates
a life like yours. I offer it as one
might offer his father's ashes
to the wind, a gesture
when there's nothing else to do.
Still, I must say to you:
I hate your good reasons.
I hate the hatefulness that makes you fall
in love with death, your own included.
Perhaps you're hating me now,
I who own my own house
and live in a country so muscular,
so smug, it thinks its terror is meant
only to mean well, and to protect.
Christ turned his singular cheek,
one man's holiness another's absurdity.
Like you, the rest of us obey the sting,
the surge. I'm just speaking out loud
to cancel my silence. Consider it an old impulse,
doomed to become mere words.
The first poet probably spoke to thunder
and, for a while, believed
thunder had an ear and a choice.
(Poem by Stephen Dunn)
If we mean well, if we really want to protect, we’ll have to go deeper to see how we are not yet alive, and are deadening others with our good reasons for war.
We resist war by serving the dying. In the faces of those emerging from death – those coming alive with awareness of truth and love – we see ourselves through the delusion of war.
He said to him, 'My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.'" (Luke 15:32)
We are coming through a terrible time. We’ve been lost. We thought war was a way to spawn freedom; when all that was wanted was justice. We thought force and power were ways to impose our culture and way of life; when the real desire of each human being is simply to love and be loved as the only way life is full of grace.
September is a new year.
Let’s awaken and come alive.
Finish war.
Try speaking to thunder.
Honor the choice to listen to and hear one another.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Mary was born. The sea was begun. Whatever it is -- mother's life is also itself mothered.
Or, as Rahda said tonight, "There is an awareness at which aliveness occurs."
He changed whatever was burdensome, servile and oppressive not what is light and liberating, so that we should be enslaved no longer under the elemental spirits of the world, as the Apostle says, nor held fast as bondservants under the letter of the law.
This is the highest, all-embracing benefit that Christ has bestowed on us. This is the revelation of the mystery, this is the emptying out of the divine nature, the union of God and man, and the deification of the manhood that was assumed. This radiant and manifest coming of God to men most certainly needed a joyful prelude to introduce the great gift of salvation to us. The present festival, the birth of the Mother of God, is the prelude, while the final act is the fore-ordained union of the Word with flesh. Today the Virgin is born, tended and formed and prepared for her role as Mother of God, who is the universal King of the ages.
(-- From a discourse by Saint Andrew of Crete)
Is awareness aliveness? Are we dead when absent awareness? Is this what Jesus was saying with, "Let the dead bury the dead"? Is that what Krishna was telling Arjuna? (Rahda asked this in circle tonight.)
Robert thinks beyond-thinking is the creative. Sandra has happily consumed memory. Michael looks forward to January and February's nothingness. The Buddha's final saying --"From now on, [we're] on our own," begins to come alive.
There is much to celebrate in this creative mother.
Awareness mothers what is alive!
Or, as Rahda said tonight, "There is an awareness at which aliveness occurs."
He changed whatever was burdensome, servile and oppressive not what is light and liberating, so that we should be enslaved no longer under the elemental spirits of the world, as the Apostle says, nor held fast as bondservants under the letter of the law.
This is the highest, all-embracing benefit that Christ has bestowed on us. This is the revelation of the mystery, this is the emptying out of the divine nature, the union of God and man, and the deification of the manhood that was assumed. This radiant and manifest coming of God to men most certainly needed a joyful prelude to introduce the great gift of salvation to us. The present festival, the birth of the Mother of God, is the prelude, while the final act is the fore-ordained union of the Word with flesh. Today the Virgin is born, tended and formed and prepared for her role as Mother of God, who is the universal King of the ages.
(-- From a discourse by Saint Andrew of Crete)
Is awareness aliveness? Are we dead when absent awareness? Is this what Jesus was saying with, "Let the dead bury the dead"? Is that what Krishna was telling Arjuna? (Rahda asked this in circle tonight.)
Robert thinks beyond-thinking is the creative. Sandra has happily consumed memory. Michael looks forward to January and February's nothingness. The Buddha's final saying --"From now on, [we're] on our own," begins to come alive.
There is much to celebrate in this creative mother.
Awareness mothers what is alive!
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
After the woman's brain stopped, her body finally stopped. Two phone calls told us today. Sandy died in her home this afternoon.
Mind has no color,
Is neither long nor short,
Doesn’t appear or disappear;
It is free from both purity and impurity;
It was never born and can never die;
It is utterly serene.
This is the form of our
Original mind,
Which is also our original body.
- Hui-hai (8th cent)
So much of what we call life is a leaving of home, wandering, and then returning home. We've come to name these processes birth, life, and death. These names, for many among us, seem to suffice.
In the Noh plays and the old legends performed in the Kabuki theatre, the most striking and most significant passages are those where nothing is spoken at all, and the actor has to express everything wordlessly from within, by the most economical and yet concentrated mime and gestures.
(-- Gustie L. Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Flower Arrangement, p.288 in The World of Zen, ed. Nancy Wilson Ross)
'Wordlessly from within!' Such words make a sacred ground for rest and respect.
Among the great things which are to be found among us, the Being of Nothingness is the greatest.
(-- Leonard Da Vinci, Dairies and Notes; Ross)
We might as well love dust and dirt. The phenomenal -- the play of human existence.
We'll return to earth on our way through familiar ground.
Making of ourselves a light -- (as the poet's final instruction suggests.) From now on -- on our own.
Everything -- yes, everything -- for giving.
Everything become itself.
Mind has no color,
Is neither long nor short,
Doesn’t appear or disappear;
It is free from both purity and impurity;
It was never born and can never die;
It is utterly serene.
This is the form of our
Original mind,
Which is also our original body.
- Hui-hai (8th cent)
So much of what we call life is a leaving of home, wandering, and then returning home. We've come to name these processes birth, life, and death. These names, for many among us, seem to suffice.
In the Noh plays and the old legends performed in the Kabuki theatre, the most striking and most significant passages are those where nothing is spoken at all, and the actor has to express everything wordlessly from within, by the most economical and yet concentrated mime and gestures.
(-- Gustie L. Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Flower Arrangement, p.288 in The World of Zen, ed. Nancy Wilson Ross)
'Wordlessly from within!' Such words make a sacred ground for rest and respect.
Among the great things which are to be found among us, the Being of Nothingness is the greatest.
(-- Leonard Da Vinci, Dairies and Notes; Ross)
We might as well love dust and dirt. The phenomenal -- the play of human existence.
We'll return to earth on our way through familiar ground.
Making of ourselves a light -- (as the poet's final instruction suggests.) From now on -- on our own.
Everything -- yes, everything -- for giving.
Everything become itself.
Monday, September 06, 2004
Don't look back? Don't look ahead?
The Way is arrived at by enlightenment. The first priority is to establish resolve-it is no small matter to step directly from the bondage of the ordinary person into transcendent experience of the realm of sages. It requires that your mind be firm as steel to cut off the flow of birth and death, accept your original real nature, not see anything at all as existing inside or outside yourself, so all actions and endeavors emerge from the fundamental.
- Yuan wu (1063-1135)
Where look?
"The more real things get, the more like myths they become. There have always been myths, but the myths of earlier times were, I’m convinced, bad ones, because they made people sick. So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well."(Rainer Werner Fassbinder, German filmmaker)
Look here?
Encircle.
The Way is arrived at by enlightenment. The first priority is to establish resolve-it is no small matter to step directly from the bondage of the ordinary person into transcendent experience of the realm of sages. It requires that your mind be firm as steel to cut off the flow of birth and death, accept your original real nature, not see anything at all as existing inside or outside yourself, so all actions and endeavors emerge from the fundamental.
- Yuan wu (1063-1135)
Where look?
"The more real things get, the more like myths they become. There have always been myths, but the myths of earlier times were, I’m convinced, bad ones, because they made people sick. So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well."(Rainer Werner Fassbinder, German filmmaker)
Look here?
Encircle.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
Humility grounds.
Is humility of soul and poverty of spirit an interwoven unity?
We need a face to see with kindness and grace.
You cannot describe it or draw it,
You cannot praise it enough or perceive it.
No place can be found in which
To put the Original Face;
It will not disappear even
When the universe is destroyed.
- Mumon (13th cent)
The masks of the world are growing hideous. Hateful speech from all sectors of belief. Holding hostages in fear. Ordinary people blown out of airplanes by bombs. People on streets blown up by walking bombs also killing themselves in the attack. Leaders of the most militarily and economically powerful nation savaging any opponent who dares to run against them for the public office they hold. Celebrity athletes whose fame and riches put them above any alleged crime -- whether murder, rape, assault, or abuse. The masks cover, barely, looks of scorn and sneering victory that are muted by cleverly crafted words that end with, "Lets move on; Put this behind us; Stop living in the past; Going forward."
It's not that the hideous should not exist. It does. It has to be acknowledged as a fact. It's more that it is no longer called "hideous." It has been re-named as: "I'm convinced of my ideology;" "No one will prove my belief wrong;" "You ought to remain afraid;" and, "The unfortunate things I have been accused of." Nothing is wrong any longer; everything is formulaic: "We'll deal with it, and, going forward, we'll be vindicated." A Sept.6 issue New Yorker cartoon this week shows a man entering what we assume is his bedroom, another man climbing out of his bed, as the woman says from her side of the bed: "I know what you're thinking, but let me offer a competing narrative."
Is it possible there are no more facts? Only fictional versions of perception viewed from a varying perspective? Is mask, originally the amplification of sound in open theater, now becoming a hiding place and distorting face of lies -- lies re-named "expedient" or "convenient"?
Does soul weary and shrivel under this new, expedient, and footless use of mask?
It has been suggested that, once in time, we were all told what to do and say -- from ancient times in Vedic India, Homeric Greece, or Mosaic Palestine -- that we were puppets, un-evolved recipients of external 'guidance' -- but that, at a certain point in history, that form of no-consciousness ceased. What has occurred is a mutation, an evolution or implantation of a new inner voice. This voice is oneself, is conscious, is of itself -- an authentic voice capable of knowing truth, one that senses clarity, and resonates wisdom.
That voice must be found. That voice must be practiced. That voice, alone, is our way through to humility and grace. That voice is capable of silencing whatever hideous false sound is playing through the masks we wear loudly proclaiming what is not authentic, kind, or true. That voice will be a combination of silence, music, and sweet harmony -- once it is found, activated, and allowed to speak.
Dearly beloved, when our Lord Jesus Christ was preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing various illnesses throughout the whole of Galilee, the fame of his mighty works spread into all of Syria, and great crowds from all parts of Judea flocked to the heavenly physician. Because human ignorance is slow to believe what it does not see, and equally slow to hope for what it does not know, those who were to be instructed in the divine teaching had first to be aroused by bodily benefits and visible miracles so that, once they had experienced his gracious power, they would no longer doubt the wholesome effect of his doctrine. In order, therefore, to transform outward healings into inward remedies, and to cure men's souls now that he had healed their bodies, our Lord separated himself from the surrounding crowds, climbed to the solitude of a neighboring mountain, and called the apostles to himself. From the height of this mystical site he then instructed them in the most lofty doctrines, suggesting both by the very nature of the place and by what he was doing that it was he who long ago had honoured Moses by speaking to him. At that time, his words showed a terrifying justice, but now they reveal a sacred compassion, in order to fulfill what was promised in the words of the prophet Jeremiah: Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I shall establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. After those days, says the Lord, I shall put my laws within them and write them on their hearts.
And so it was that he who had spoken to Moses spoke also to the apostles. Writing in the hearts of his disciples, the swift hand of the Word composed the ordinances of the new covenant. And this was not done as formerly, in the midst of dense clouds, amid terrifying sounds and lightning, so that the people were frightened away from approaching the mountain. Instead, there was a tranquil discourse which clearly reached the ears of all who stood nearby so that the harshness of the law might be softened by the gentleness of grace, and the spirit of adoption might dispel the terror of slavery.
Concerning the content of Christ's teaching, his own sacred words bear witness; thus whoever longs to attain eternal blessedness can now recognize the steps that lead to that high happiness. Blessed, he says, are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It might have been unclear to which poor he was referring, if after the words Blessed are the poor, he had not added anything about the kind of poor he had in mind. For then the poverty that many suffer because of grave and harsh necessity might seem sufficient to merit the kingdom of heaven.
But when he says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, he shows that the kingdom of heaven is to be given to those who are distinguished by their humility of soul rather than by their lack of worldly goods.
(from A sermon by Pope St Leo the Great, Office of Readings, Thursday, Week 22)
We are often caught between competing narratives about what is taking place.
We'll have to learn to think through what is placed before our eyes, ears, and feet.
Ground ourselves.
Find holy ground.
Stand up, on our own feet.
Stand still.
And speak one's heart.
Where we are.
As we are.
Is humility of soul and poverty of spirit an interwoven unity?
We need a face to see with kindness and grace.
You cannot describe it or draw it,
You cannot praise it enough or perceive it.
No place can be found in which
To put the Original Face;
It will not disappear even
When the universe is destroyed.
- Mumon (13th cent)
The masks of the world are growing hideous. Hateful speech from all sectors of belief. Holding hostages in fear. Ordinary people blown out of airplanes by bombs. People on streets blown up by walking bombs also killing themselves in the attack. Leaders of the most militarily and economically powerful nation savaging any opponent who dares to run against them for the public office they hold. Celebrity athletes whose fame and riches put them above any alleged crime -- whether murder, rape, assault, or abuse. The masks cover, barely, looks of scorn and sneering victory that are muted by cleverly crafted words that end with, "Lets move on; Put this behind us; Stop living in the past; Going forward."
It's not that the hideous should not exist. It does. It has to be acknowledged as a fact. It's more that it is no longer called "hideous." It has been re-named as: "I'm convinced of my ideology;" "No one will prove my belief wrong;" "You ought to remain afraid;" and, "The unfortunate things I have been accused of." Nothing is wrong any longer; everything is formulaic: "We'll deal with it, and, going forward, we'll be vindicated." A Sept.6 issue New Yorker cartoon this week shows a man entering what we assume is his bedroom, another man climbing out of his bed, as the woman says from her side of the bed: "I know what you're thinking, but let me offer a competing narrative."
Is it possible there are no more facts? Only fictional versions of perception viewed from a varying perspective? Is mask, originally the amplification of sound in open theater, now becoming a hiding place and distorting face of lies -- lies re-named "expedient" or "convenient"?
Does soul weary and shrivel under this new, expedient, and footless use of mask?
It has been suggested that, once in time, we were all told what to do and say -- from ancient times in Vedic India, Homeric Greece, or Mosaic Palestine -- that we were puppets, un-evolved recipients of external 'guidance' -- but that, at a certain point in history, that form of no-consciousness ceased. What has occurred is a mutation, an evolution or implantation of a new inner voice. This voice is oneself, is conscious, is of itself -- an authentic voice capable of knowing truth, one that senses clarity, and resonates wisdom.
That voice must be found. That voice must be practiced. That voice, alone, is our way through to humility and grace. That voice is capable of silencing whatever hideous false sound is playing through the masks we wear loudly proclaiming what is not authentic, kind, or true. That voice will be a combination of silence, music, and sweet harmony -- once it is found, activated, and allowed to speak.
Dearly beloved, when our Lord Jesus Christ was preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing various illnesses throughout the whole of Galilee, the fame of his mighty works spread into all of Syria, and great crowds from all parts of Judea flocked to the heavenly physician. Because human ignorance is slow to believe what it does not see, and equally slow to hope for what it does not know, those who were to be instructed in the divine teaching had first to be aroused by bodily benefits and visible miracles so that, once they had experienced his gracious power, they would no longer doubt the wholesome effect of his doctrine. In order, therefore, to transform outward healings into inward remedies, and to cure men's souls now that he had healed their bodies, our Lord separated himself from the surrounding crowds, climbed to the solitude of a neighboring mountain, and called the apostles to himself. From the height of this mystical site he then instructed them in the most lofty doctrines, suggesting both by the very nature of the place and by what he was doing that it was he who long ago had honoured Moses by speaking to him. At that time, his words showed a terrifying justice, but now they reveal a sacred compassion, in order to fulfill what was promised in the words of the prophet Jeremiah: Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I shall establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. After those days, says the Lord, I shall put my laws within them and write them on their hearts.
And so it was that he who had spoken to Moses spoke also to the apostles. Writing in the hearts of his disciples, the swift hand of the Word composed the ordinances of the new covenant. And this was not done as formerly, in the midst of dense clouds, amid terrifying sounds and lightning, so that the people were frightened away from approaching the mountain. Instead, there was a tranquil discourse which clearly reached the ears of all who stood nearby so that the harshness of the law might be softened by the gentleness of grace, and the spirit of adoption might dispel the terror of slavery.
Concerning the content of Christ's teaching, his own sacred words bear witness; thus whoever longs to attain eternal blessedness can now recognize the steps that lead to that high happiness. Blessed, he says, are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It might have been unclear to which poor he was referring, if after the words Blessed are the poor, he had not added anything about the kind of poor he had in mind. For then the poverty that many suffer because of grave and harsh necessity might seem sufficient to merit the kingdom of heaven.
But when he says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, he shows that the kingdom of heaven is to be given to those who are distinguished by their humility of soul rather than by their lack of worldly goods.
(from A sermon by Pope St Leo the Great, Office of Readings, Thursday, Week 22)
We are often caught between competing narratives about what is taking place.
We'll have to learn to think through what is placed before our eyes, ears, and feet.
Ground ourselves.
Find holy ground.
Stand up, on our own feet.
Stand still.
And speak one's heart.
Where we are.
As we are.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Who's doing what? Where does the current direction of the world point? Are we right where we should be? Or, are we lost?
Looking at where we are, we're tempted to ask: How did we get here? Where did we come from? Where are we going?
The ancient masters slept without dreams and woke up without worries. Their food was plain. Their breath came from deep inside them. They didn't cling to life, weren't anxious about death. They emerged without desire and reentered without resistance. They came easily; they went easily. They didn't forget where they were from; they didn't ask where they were going. They took everything as it came, gladly, and walked into death without fear. They accepted life as a gift, and they handed it back gratefully,
- Chuang-tzu
Is this time also a gift? Or is the gift a stance taken contrary to prevailing philosophy of terror by self-destruction and destruction of others? Is gift, equally, the search-em-out, shoot-em-dead philosophy of those whose counter-terrorism seems only slightly different than the behavior of their identified enemies?
Whose is, and what is, the real gift?
5
What is Apollos, after all, and what is Paul? Ministers through whom you became believers, just as the Lord assigned each one.
6
I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.
7
Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who causes the growth.
8
The one who plants and the one who waters are equal, and each will receive wages in proportion to his labor.
9
For we are God's co-workers; you are God's field, God's building.
(1 Corinthians 3)
Watching the Republican Convention, you see portrayed a convincing tableau linking 9/11, invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Iraq, and mistrust of anyone in America not 100% in agreement with this way of thinking and these actions. I tell this to my son, calling him on his birthday. My son says of course I'd be open and listening to the possibility of the veracity of that point of view -- that's what liberals do -- they think about possibilities. The implication is that the conservatives are more convinced and convincing because they bypass thinking and go straight to certainty, usually absolute certainty.
My life is unconvincing.
I am not anything.
I am what God is...
...fielding, planting, watering, building.
What growth is God causing?
Who knows?
Nonetheless, I am happy with my son's voice.
Taking everything as it comes.
Looking at where we are, we're tempted to ask: How did we get here? Where did we come from? Where are we going?
The ancient masters slept without dreams and woke up without worries. Their food was plain. Their breath came from deep inside them. They didn't cling to life, weren't anxious about death. They emerged without desire and reentered without resistance. They came easily; they went easily. They didn't forget where they were from; they didn't ask where they were going. They took everything as it came, gladly, and walked into death without fear. They accepted life as a gift, and they handed it back gratefully,
- Chuang-tzu
Is this time also a gift? Or is the gift a stance taken contrary to prevailing philosophy of terror by self-destruction and destruction of others? Is gift, equally, the search-em-out, shoot-em-dead philosophy of those whose counter-terrorism seems only slightly different than the behavior of their identified enemies?
Whose is, and what is, the real gift?
5
What is Apollos, after all, and what is Paul? Ministers through whom you became believers, just as the Lord assigned each one.
6
I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.
7
Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who causes the growth.
8
The one who plants and the one who waters are equal, and each will receive wages in proportion to his labor.
9
For we are God's co-workers; you are God's field, God's building.
(1 Corinthians 3)
Watching the Republican Convention, you see portrayed a convincing tableau linking 9/11, invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Iraq, and mistrust of anyone in America not 100% in agreement with this way of thinking and these actions. I tell this to my son, calling him on his birthday. My son says of course I'd be open and listening to the possibility of the veracity of that point of view -- that's what liberals do -- they think about possibilities. The implication is that the conservatives are more convinced and convincing because they bypass thinking and go straight to certainty, usually absolute certainty.
My life is unconvincing.
I am not anything.
I am what God is...
...fielding, planting, watering, building.
What growth is God causing?
Who knows?
Nonetheless, I am happy with my son's voice.
Taking everything as it comes.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Are we thinking yet? The words, signs, and symbols are there to read.
"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours."
(John Locke, 1632-1704)
One by one by a hundred thousand, signs pass by streets of New York City filled with feet and words protesting the presidency of George Bush. The Republican Convention begins tomorrow. Slogans justifying war these last two years are matched by slogans calling for its end and the removal from office of those who invaded and waged war in Iraq.
Zen originally is not established on slogans, it just points directly to the human mind. Direct pointing is just pointing to that which is inherent in everyone, though in a shell of unawareness. When the whole being appears responsively, it is no different from that of the sages since antiquity. This is what is called the originally pure subtle luminosity of naturally real essence, which swallows and spits out the whole universe, individually freed from material senses. Only by detaching from thoughts and cutting off feelings, utterly transcending ordinary parameters, with great perceptivity and great insight, using inherent power, can this be directly experienced in your present situation.
- Yuan wu (1063-1135)
The present situation calls for wise thinking. There doesn't seem to be much room left for wisdom to find an opening into the hostilities and bellicose thinking of this American administration. Iraq, it is thought, is only the beginning. Iran next?
The Middle East spawned an idea of a God who cared for people, watched over them, and even became one of them -- first in creation, then, it is said, in full human incarnation.
From your palace you water the mountains,
and thus you give plenty to the earth.
You bring forth grass for the cattle,
and plants for the service of man.
You bring forth bread from the land,
and wine to make man’s heart rejoice.
Oil, to make the face shine;
and bread to make man’s heart strong.
The trees of the Lord have all that they need,
and the cedars of Lebanon, that he planted.
Small birds will nest there,
and storks at the tops of the trees.
For wild goats there are the high mountains;
the crags are a refuge for the coneys.
He made the moon so that time could be measured;
the sun knows the hour of its setting.
You send shadows, and night falls:
then all the beasts of the woods come out,
lion cubs roaring for their prey,
asking God for their food.
When the sun rises they come back together
to lie in their lairs;
man goes out to his labour,
and works until evening.
(Psalm 104)
Jeremiah words our quandary:
‘I have abandoned my house,
left my heritage,
I have delivered what I dearly loved
into the hands of its enemies.
For me my heritage has become
a lion in the forest,
it roars at me ferociously:
so I now hate it.
Or is my heritage a speckled bird
for the birds to flock on her thus from all directions?
Come on, all you wild beasts, gather round,
fall on the quarry!
Many shepherds have laid my vineyard waste,
have trampled down my inheritance,
reducing my pleasant inheritance
to a deserted wilderness.
They have made it a mournful, desolate place,
desolate before me.
The whole land has been devastated
and no one takes it to heart.’(
From Jeremiah 11:18 - 12:13)
There is worry that something odd is happening in America. Reaction to an awful attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon using passenger airplanes, another plane downed in a Pennsylvania field, has escalated into a state of war without much light of resolution. The policing militarization of everyday sites and cities in the United States has become common, and the level of fear of attack is raised and lowered regularly based on a rationale no one understands or feels much faith in anymore.
Is arrogance, swagger, smirk, and sneer the new posture and face of American presence in the world today?
My son, be gentle in carrying out your business,
and you will be better loved than a lavish giver.
The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly,
and then you will find favour with the Lord;
for great though the power of the Lord is,
he accepts the homage of the humble.
There is no cure for the proud man’s malady,
since an evil growth has taken root in him.
The heart of a sensible man will reflect on parables,
an attentive ear is the sage’s dream.
(Ecclesiasticus 3:19 - 31)
There are some in power who plan to exert American might to rid the world of what they refer to as 'evil' and eliminate the 'bad guys.' A new world order is envisioned with American wealth and military might on top and all others below. While this plan might seem plausible to those in power with power, it has a scary resemblance to past examples of total world domination -- from ancient history to recent times when the rest of the world fought back to stay the blood-red tide of mass military hysteria and brutal destruction of human dignity by means of force, lies, and implements of pain.
One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honour, saying to them,
“When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man’, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher’; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”.
He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbours, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just”.
(Luke 14:1 - 14)
The lives we live in this present world weave the bodies we'll travel through death with into the next, less obvious to us, realm of continuing life.
We must begin to think. Slogans and propaganda, like promises and threats, are inadequate stimuli to genuine thinking.
To think is to look carefully. To think carefully is to see clearly. To give oneself to thinking and seeing is to abandon slogans and propaganda, promises and threats.
Are we willing to look at one another, see one another, and abandon ourselves into the sincerity, compassion, understanding, and love that envisions the world as whole, as open, and as full of grace?
What do we think?
Now?
"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours."
(John Locke, 1632-1704)
One by one by a hundred thousand, signs pass by streets of New York City filled with feet and words protesting the presidency of George Bush. The Republican Convention begins tomorrow. Slogans justifying war these last two years are matched by slogans calling for its end and the removal from office of those who invaded and waged war in Iraq.
Zen originally is not established on slogans, it just points directly to the human mind. Direct pointing is just pointing to that which is inherent in everyone, though in a shell of unawareness. When the whole being appears responsively, it is no different from that of the sages since antiquity. This is what is called the originally pure subtle luminosity of naturally real essence, which swallows and spits out the whole universe, individually freed from material senses. Only by detaching from thoughts and cutting off feelings, utterly transcending ordinary parameters, with great perceptivity and great insight, using inherent power, can this be directly experienced in your present situation.
- Yuan wu (1063-1135)
The present situation calls for wise thinking. There doesn't seem to be much room left for wisdom to find an opening into the hostilities and bellicose thinking of this American administration. Iraq, it is thought, is only the beginning. Iran next?
The Middle East spawned an idea of a God who cared for people, watched over them, and even became one of them -- first in creation, then, it is said, in full human incarnation.
From your palace you water the mountains,
and thus you give plenty to the earth.
You bring forth grass for the cattle,
and plants for the service of man.
You bring forth bread from the land,
and wine to make man’s heart rejoice.
Oil, to make the face shine;
and bread to make man’s heart strong.
The trees of the Lord have all that they need,
and the cedars of Lebanon, that he planted.
Small birds will nest there,
and storks at the tops of the trees.
For wild goats there are the high mountains;
the crags are a refuge for the coneys.
He made the moon so that time could be measured;
the sun knows the hour of its setting.
You send shadows, and night falls:
then all the beasts of the woods come out,
lion cubs roaring for their prey,
asking God for their food.
When the sun rises they come back together
to lie in their lairs;
man goes out to his labour,
and works until evening.
(Psalm 104)
Jeremiah words our quandary:
‘I have abandoned my house,
left my heritage,
I have delivered what I dearly loved
into the hands of its enemies.
For me my heritage has become
a lion in the forest,
it roars at me ferociously:
so I now hate it.
Or is my heritage a speckled bird
for the birds to flock on her thus from all directions?
Come on, all you wild beasts, gather round,
fall on the quarry!
Many shepherds have laid my vineyard waste,
have trampled down my inheritance,
reducing my pleasant inheritance
to a deserted wilderness.
They have made it a mournful, desolate place,
desolate before me.
The whole land has been devastated
and no one takes it to heart.’(
From Jeremiah 11:18 - 12:13)
There is worry that something odd is happening in America. Reaction to an awful attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon using passenger airplanes, another plane downed in a Pennsylvania field, has escalated into a state of war without much light of resolution. The policing militarization of everyday sites and cities in the United States has become common, and the level of fear of attack is raised and lowered regularly based on a rationale no one understands or feels much faith in anymore.
Is arrogance, swagger, smirk, and sneer the new posture and face of American presence in the world today?
My son, be gentle in carrying out your business,
and you will be better loved than a lavish giver.
The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly,
and then you will find favour with the Lord;
for great though the power of the Lord is,
he accepts the homage of the humble.
There is no cure for the proud man’s malady,
since an evil growth has taken root in him.
The heart of a sensible man will reflect on parables,
an attentive ear is the sage’s dream.
(Ecclesiasticus 3:19 - 31)
There are some in power who plan to exert American might to rid the world of what they refer to as 'evil' and eliminate the 'bad guys.' A new world order is envisioned with American wealth and military might on top and all others below. While this plan might seem plausible to those in power with power, it has a scary resemblance to past examples of total world domination -- from ancient history to recent times when the rest of the world fought back to stay the blood-red tide of mass military hysteria and brutal destruction of human dignity by means of force, lies, and implements of pain.
One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honour, saying to them,
“When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man’, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher’; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”.
He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbours, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just”.
(Luke 14:1 - 14)
The lives we live in this present world weave the bodies we'll travel through death with into the next, less obvious to us, realm of continuing life.
We must begin to think. Slogans and propaganda, like promises and threats, are inadequate stimuli to genuine thinking.
To think is to look carefully. To think carefully is to see clearly. To give oneself to thinking and seeing is to abandon slogans and propaganda, promises and threats.
Are we willing to look at one another, see one another, and abandon ourselves into the sincerity, compassion, understanding, and love that envisions the world as whole, as open, and as full of grace?
What do we think?
Now?
Saturday, August 28, 2004
We come late to seeing clearly.
When you realize the unborn, uncreated, unconditioned, you are liberated from everything born, created, and conditioned.
- Buddha (c. 563- 483 BCE)
Maybe we each always only speak of and for ourselves. Still, it is good to listen to what is being said.
Who is saying this about me?
Yet here you are, trusting in delusive words, to no purpose! Steal, would you, murder, commit adultery, perjure yourselves, burn incense to Baal, follow alien gods that you do not know? -- and then come presenting yourselves in this Temple that bears my name, saying: Now we are safe -- safe to go on committing all these abominations! Do you take this Temple that bears my name for a robbers’ den? I, at any rate, am not blind -- it is the Lord who speaks.
(from Jeremiah 7)
Maybe there is a distinction to be made. Maybe the house of God is not the marketplace. Maybe it is fool's errand to hold open a house that even God absents.
In returning to oneself, do we find there what we lost there long ago?
I entered, then, and with the vision of my spirit, such as it was, I saw the incommutable light far above my spiritual ken and transcending my mind: not this common light which every carnal eye can see, nor any light of the same order; but greater, as though this common light were shining much more powerfully, far more brightly, and so extensively as to fill the universe. The light I saw was not the common light at all, but something different, utterly different, from all those things. Nor was it higher than my mind in the sense that oil floats on water or the sky is above the earth; it was exalted because this very light made me, and I was below it because by it I was made. Anyone who knows truth knows this light.
O eternal Truth, true Love, and beloved Eternity, you are my God, and for you I sigh day and night. As I first began to know you, you lifted me up and showed me that, while that which I might see exists indeed, I was not yet capable of seeing it. Your rays beamed intensely on me, beating back my feeble gaze, and I trembled with love and dread. I knew myself to be far away from you in a region of unlikeness, and I seemed to hear your voice from on high: “I am the food of the mature: grow, then, and you shall eat me. You will not change me into yourself like bodily food; but you will be changed into me”.
Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
Lo, you were within,
but I outside, seeking there for you,
and upon the shapely things you have made
I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
They held me back far from you,
those things which would have no being,
were they not in you.
You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;
I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;
you touched me, and I burned for your peace.
(from The Confessions of Saint Augustine, bishop)
We're often late.
Actually, mostly late.
Returning, we find it is not about us.
You will be changed into us.
When, by returning, we bow gratefully.
And disappear.
When you realize the unborn, uncreated, unconditioned, you are liberated from everything born, created, and conditioned.
- Buddha (c. 563- 483 BCE)
Maybe we each always only speak of and for ourselves. Still, it is good to listen to what is being said.
Who is saying this about me?
Yet here you are, trusting in delusive words, to no purpose! Steal, would you, murder, commit adultery, perjure yourselves, burn incense to Baal, follow alien gods that you do not know? -- and then come presenting yourselves in this Temple that bears my name, saying: Now we are safe -- safe to go on committing all these abominations! Do you take this Temple that bears my name for a robbers’ den? I, at any rate, am not blind -- it is the Lord who speaks.
(from Jeremiah 7)
Maybe there is a distinction to be made. Maybe the house of God is not the marketplace. Maybe it is fool's errand to hold open a house that even God absents.
In returning to oneself, do we find there what we lost there long ago?
I entered, then, and with the vision of my spirit, such as it was, I saw the incommutable light far above my spiritual ken and transcending my mind: not this common light which every carnal eye can see, nor any light of the same order; but greater, as though this common light were shining much more powerfully, far more brightly, and so extensively as to fill the universe. The light I saw was not the common light at all, but something different, utterly different, from all those things. Nor was it higher than my mind in the sense that oil floats on water or the sky is above the earth; it was exalted because this very light made me, and I was below it because by it I was made. Anyone who knows truth knows this light.
O eternal Truth, true Love, and beloved Eternity, you are my God, and for you I sigh day and night. As I first began to know you, you lifted me up and showed me that, while that which I might see exists indeed, I was not yet capable of seeing it. Your rays beamed intensely on me, beating back my feeble gaze, and I trembled with love and dread. I knew myself to be far away from you in a region of unlikeness, and I seemed to hear your voice from on high: “I am the food of the mature: grow, then, and you shall eat me. You will not change me into yourself like bodily food; but you will be changed into me”.
Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
Lo, you were within,
but I outside, seeking there for you,
and upon the shapely things you have made
I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
They held me back far from you,
those things which would have no being,
were they not in you.
You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;
I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;
you touched me, and I burned for your peace.
(from The Confessions of Saint Augustine, bishop)
We're often late.
Actually, mostly late.
Returning, we find it is not about us.
You will be changed into us.
When, by returning, we bow gratefully.
And disappear.
Friday, August 27, 2004
What is now being revealed? Can we stand within and move through it?
Monica wanted her son to see clearly this revelation.
Because the day when she was to leave this life was drawing near – a day known to you, though we were ignorant of it – she and I happened to be alone, through (as I believe) the mysterious workings of your will. We stood leaning against a window which looked out on a garden within the house where we were staying, at Ostia on the Tiber; for there, far from the crowds, we were recruiting our strength after the long journey, in order to prepare ourselves for our voyage overseas. We were alone, conferring very intimately. Forgetting what lay in the past, and stretching out to what was ahead, we enquired between ourselves, in the light of present truth, into what you are and what the eternal life of the saints would be like, for Eye has not seen nor ear heard nor human heart conceived it. And yet, with the mouth of our hearts wide open we panted thirstily for the celestial streams of your fountain, the fount of life which is with you.
(from Office of Readings, Feast of St Monica, mother of Augustine, in The Confessions of St. Augustine, bishop)
Monica suddenly went ill, and died in short time. Augustine remained to live his time through. He had to stand within and move through the reality he finds before him. So do we.
Just be straightforward and do not cling to
Anything. Deluded people grasp the
Dharma and hold on to the samadhi of
Universality. They claim that the samadhi
Of universality consists of sitting
Motionless all the time without
Any uprise in the mind.
Such an interpretation makes the
Meditators inanimate and hinders
The realization of self-nature.
- Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra
What does it mean to ‘stand within and move through’ the reality before us?
The passage from 'concentration' to 'meditation' does not require the application of any new technique. Similarly, no supplementary yogic exercise is needed to realize samadhi, once the yogin has succeeded in 'concentrating' and 'meditating.' Samadhi, yogic 'enstasis,' is the final result of the crown of all the ascetic's spiritual efforts and exercises. The meanings of the term Samadhi are union, totality; absorption in, complete concentration of mind; conjunction. The usual translation is 'concentration,' but this embarks the risk of confusion with dharana. Hence we have preferred to translate it 'entasis,' 'stasis,' and conjunction.
(from SAMADHI, http://alexm.here.ru/mirrors/www.enteract.com/jwalz/Eliade/242.html)
How difficult is it for us to find ourselves completely involved and engaged in our lives -- an embodied incarnation -- mindfully attentive to being and doing, fully present in, with, and through one another?
The word 'enstasis' is one of the many words that Dooyeweerd uses that rely on the Indo-Greek root 'sta' or 'to stand.' (stasis, enstasis, dis-stasis, systasis, apostasis, standing in the truth; I have added epecstasis). See the Sanskrit stha.
Enstasis means a "standing within." It can be contrasted with dis-stasis (non-standing). It can also be contrasted with ecstasy or ec-stasis (a standing out of).
The word ‘enstasis’ is normally attributed to Mircea Eliade, who used the word in his 1954 book on yoga to describe yogic samadhi. He used this term in place of the word ‘ecstasy,’ which he said means ek-stasis, or a going out of oneself. Now what is really surprising is that Dooyeweerd uses this word in the WdW almost 20 years earlier.
But Eliade seems to be using the word 'enstasis' in a sense of "pure consciousness." Now whether or not Dooyeweerd would agree with this depends on what is meant by consciousness. Dooyeweerd does refer to a central kind of consciousness, and a cosmic consciousness. If Eliade is intending it in the sense of an inner reflection of the selfhood, then I believe that Dooyeweerd could agree. Dooyeweerd also contrasts enstasy to the ec-static absorption into temporal reality of creatures that do not have a supratemporal center (II, 415; NC II, 480).
But it seems to me that Eliade is using 'enstasy' in the sense of a static consciousness that is no longer related to any temporal duration or functions. If that is so, then Dooyeweerd's meaning is quite different. Dooyeweerd is opposed to any viewpoint that seeks a static reality. That is a metaphysical-Greek idea of supra-temporality, and not even the eternity of God should be regarded in that way (NC I, 31 ft.; not in WdW). To seek a state where we do not deal with temporality is to seek a disembodied state. Dooyeweerd rejects that kind of spiritualization.
Baader also opposes a static view of the supratemporal, and he also rejects any spiritualizing view that rejects embodiment. But Baader does speak of a "true stasis,"(Philosophische Schriften II, xxvii), and I believe that this is what Dooyeweerd means by "en-stasis." Baader emphasizes that our true situation is for there to be a relation between the Center and the periphery. Since we are embodied beings, we should experience a movement from our selfhood to the temporal, and also from the temporal to the supratemporal.
And I believe that this is what Dooyeweerd means by 'enstasis.' In naive experience, there is the recognition that we are both temporal and supratemporal beings. We are "fitted into" the temporal world along with other temporal creatures, and we experience the continuity of cosmic time. Naive thought does not set its logical function over-against any "opposite" and does not perform any inter-modal theoretical synthesis. It is operative in the full temporal reality in enstasis (II, 401; NC II, 468).
(Dr. J. Glenn Friesen, Studies relating to Herman Dooyeweerd,
http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Enstasy.html)
The phrase ‘before us’ has several directions to contemplate. ‘Before us’ might mean that which preceded us. ‘Before us’ also means right under our feet. In addition it points to what is unfolding in front of us.
The prophet Jeremiah looked at what was before him. He told us:
I am in anguish! I writhe with pain!
Walls of my heart!
My heart is throbbing!
I cannot keep quiet,
for I have heard the trumpet call
and the cry of war.
Ruin on ruin is the news:
the whole land is laid waste,
my tents are suddenly destroyed,
in one moment all that sheltered me is gone.
How long must I see the standard
and hear the trumpet call?
“This is because my people are stupid,
they do not know me,
they are slow-witted children,
they have no understanding:
they are clever enough at doing wrong,
but do not know how to do right.”
I looked to the earth, to see a formless waste;
to the heavens, and their light had gone.
I looked to the mountains, to see them quaking
and all the heights astir.
I looked, to see no man at all,
the very birds of heaven had fled.
I looked, to see the wooded country a wilderness,
all its towns in ruins,
at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of his burning anger.
Yes, thus speaks the Lord,
“The whole land shall be laid waste,
I will make an end of it once for all;
at which the earth will go into mourning,
and the heavens above grow dark.
For I have spoken and will not change my mind,
I have decided and will not go back on it.”
(from Jeremiah 5)
At Thursday Evening Conversation there were difficult times wrestling with an emotional inquiry into ‘humility.’ Is part of the difficulty with humility that we are losing contact with earth? The Latin word is humus = ground, soil, land, or earth. So many want to control the earth. So many want to flee the earth. And, so many want to live in some disembodied un-earthly state where they will not be bothered by demands and /or pleasures of earthly existence.
We were bewildered with grief, but she looked keenly at us and said, “You are to bury your mother here”. I was silent, holding back my tears, but my brother said something about his hope that she would not die far from home but in her own country, for that would be a happier way. On hearing this she looked anxious and her eyes rebuked him for thinking so; then she turned her gaze from him to me and said, “What silly talk!” Shortly afterwards, addressing us both, she said, “Lay this body anywhere, and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be”. Having made her meaning clear to us with such words as she could muster, she fell silent, and the pain of the disease grew worse.
(Augustine about Monica, Confessions)
It is stark fact none of us seem likely to escape the disease that accompanies this existence. We grow inevitably dissatisfied with what is before us, and we inevitably will suffer through some specific disease and fall silent into death. At that time, whether we want to or not, we will come to earth.
What if we found ground, if we came to earth, before death? Would life and death lose their separateness in our mind? Would we lose our mind? Would a new way of being reveal itself? Just where, in fact, do we think heaven is? What kind of "thing" do we want heaven to be?
It is what takes place now and through this inevitable path practicing alert awareness that forms our consciousness and influences how we journey with others alongside whatever appears before us.
Hence, the invitation into samadhi and enstasis.
To travel well.
All of us.
Monica wanted her son to see clearly this revelation.
Because the day when she was to leave this life was drawing near – a day known to you, though we were ignorant of it – she and I happened to be alone, through (as I believe) the mysterious workings of your will. We stood leaning against a window which looked out on a garden within the house where we were staying, at Ostia on the Tiber; for there, far from the crowds, we were recruiting our strength after the long journey, in order to prepare ourselves for our voyage overseas. We were alone, conferring very intimately. Forgetting what lay in the past, and stretching out to what was ahead, we enquired between ourselves, in the light of present truth, into what you are and what the eternal life of the saints would be like, for Eye has not seen nor ear heard nor human heart conceived it. And yet, with the mouth of our hearts wide open we panted thirstily for the celestial streams of your fountain, the fount of life which is with you.
(from Office of Readings, Feast of St Monica, mother of Augustine, in The Confessions of St. Augustine, bishop)
Monica suddenly went ill, and died in short time. Augustine remained to live his time through. He had to stand within and move through the reality he finds before him. So do we.
Just be straightforward and do not cling to
Anything. Deluded people grasp the
Dharma and hold on to the samadhi of
Universality. They claim that the samadhi
Of universality consists of sitting
Motionless all the time without
Any uprise in the mind.
Such an interpretation makes the
Meditators inanimate and hinders
The realization of self-nature.
- Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra
What does it mean to ‘stand within and move through’ the reality before us?
The passage from 'concentration' to 'meditation' does not require the application of any new technique. Similarly, no supplementary yogic exercise is needed to realize samadhi, once the yogin has succeeded in 'concentrating' and 'meditating.' Samadhi, yogic 'enstasis,' is the final result of the crown of all the ascetic's spiritual efforts and exercises. The meanings of the term Samadhi are union, totality; absorption in, complete concentration of mind; conjunction. The usual translation is 'concentration,' but this embarks the risk of confusion with dharana. Hence we have preferred to translate it 'entasis,' 'stasis,' and conjunction.
(from SAMADHI, http://alexm.here.ru/mirrors/www.enteract.com/jwalz/Eliade/242.html)
How difficult is it for us to find ourselves completely involved and engaged in our lives -- an embodied incarnation -- mindfully attentive to being and doing, fully present in, with, and through one another?
The word 'enstasis' is one of the many words that Dooyeweerd uses that rely on the Indo-Greek root 'sta' or 'to stand.' (stasis, enstasis, dis-stasis, systasis, apostasis, standing in the truth; I have added epecstasis). See the Sanskrit stha.
Enstasis means a "standing within." It can be contrasted with dis-stasis (non-standing). It can also be contrasted with ecstasy or ec-stasis (a standing out of).
The word ‘enstasis’ is normally attributed to Mircea Eliade, who used the word in his 1954 book on yoga to describe yogic samadhi. He used this term in place of the word ‘ecstasy,’ which he said means ek-stasis, or a going out of oneself. Now what is really surprising is that Dooyeweerd uses this word in the WdW almost 20 years earlier.
But Eliade seems to be using the word 'enstasis' in a sense of "pure consciousness." Now whether or not Dooyeweerd would agree with this depends on what is meant by consciousness. Dooyeweerd does refer to a central kind of consciousness, and a cosmic consciousness. If Eliade is intending it in the sense of an inner reflection of the selfhood, then I believe that Dooyeweerd could agree. Dooyeweerd also contrasts enstasy to the ec-static absorption into temporal reality of creatures that do not have a supratemporal center (II, 415; NC II, 480).
But it seems to me that Eliade is using 'enstasy' in the sense of a static consciousness that is no longer related to any temporal duration or functions. If that is so, then Dooyeweerd's meaning is quite different. Dooyeweerd is opposed to any viewpoint that seeks a static reality. That is a metaphysical-Greek idea of supra-temporality, and not even the eternity of God should be regarded in that way (NC I, 31 ft.; not in WdW). To seek a state where we do not deal with temporality is to seek a disembodied state. Dooyeweerd rejects that kind of spiritualization.
Baader also opposes a static view of the supratemporal, and he also rejects any spiritualizing view that rejects embodiment. But Baader does speak of a "true stasis,"(Philosophische Schriften II, xxvii), and I believe that this is what Dooyeweerd means by "en-stasis." Baader emphasizes that our true situation is for there to be a relation between the Center and the periphery. Since we are embodied beings, we should experience a movement from our selfhood to the temporal, and also from the temporal to the supratemporal.
And I believe that this is what Dooyeweerd means by 'enstasis.' In naive experience, there is the recognition that we are both temporal and supratemporal beings. We are "fitted into" the temporal world along with other temporal creatures, and we experience the continuity of cosmic time. Naive thought does not set its logical function over-against any "opposite" and does not perform any inter-modal theoretical synthesis. It is operative in the full temporal reality in enstasis (II, 401; NC II, 468).
(Dr. J. Glenn Friesen, Studies relating to Herman Dooyeweerd,
http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Enstasy.html)
The phrase ‘before us’ has several directions to contemplate. ‘Before us’ might mean that which preceded us. ‘Before us’ also means right under our feet. In addition it points to what is unfolding in front of us.
The prophet Jeremiah looked at what was before him. He told us:
I am in anguish! I writhe with pain!
Walls of my heart!
My heart is throbbing!
I cannot keep quiet,
for I have heard the trumpet call
and the cry of war.
Ruin on ruin is the news:
the whole land is laid waste,
my tents are suddenly destroyed,
in one moment all that sheltered me is gone.
How long must I see the standard
and hear the trumpet call?
“This is because my people are stupid,
they do not know me,
they are slow-witted children,
they have no understanding:
they are clever enough at doing wrong,
but do not know how to do right.”
I looked to the earth, to see a formless waste;
to the heavens, and their light had gone.
I looked to the mountains, to see them quaking
and all the heights astir.
I looked, to see no man at all,
the very birds of heaven had fled.
I looked, to see the wooded country a wilderness,
all its towns in ruins,
at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of his burning anger.
Yes, thus speaks the Lord,
“The whole land shall be laid waste,
I will make an end of it once for all;
at which the earth will go into mourning,
and the heavens above grow dark.
For I have spoken and will not change my mind,
I have decided and will not go back on it.”
(from Jeremiah 5)
At Thursday Evening Conversation there were difficult times wrestling with an emotional inquiry into ‘humility.’ Is part of the difficulty with humility that we are losing contact with earth? The Latin word is humus = ground, soil, land, or earth. So many want to control the earth. So many want to flee the earth. And, so many want to live in some disembodied un-earthly state where they will not be bothered by demands and /or pleasures of earthly existence.
We were bewildered with grief, but she looked keenly at us and said, “You are to bury your mother here”. I was silent, holding back my tears, but my brother said something about his hope that she would not die far from home but in her own country, for that would be a happier way. On hearing this she looked anxious and her eyes rebuked him for thinking so; then she turned her gaze from him to me and said, “What silly talk!” Shortly afterwards, addressing us both, she said, “Lay this body anywhere, and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be”. Having made her meaning clear to us with such words as she could muster, she fell silent, and the pain of the disease grew worse.
(Augustine about Monica, Confessions)
It is stark fact none of us seem likely to escape the disease that accompanies this existence. We grow inevitably dissatisfied with what is before us, and we inevitably will suffer through some specific disease and fall silent into death. At that time, whether we want to or not, we will come to earth.
What if we found ground, if we came to earth, before death? Would life and death lose their separateness in our mind? Would we lose our mind? Would a new way of being reveal itself? Just where, in fact, do we think heaven is? What kind of "thing" do we want heaven to be?
It is what takes place now and through this inevitable path practicing alert awareness that forms our consciousness and influences how we journey with others alongside whatever appears before us.
Hence, the invitation into samadhi and enstasis.
To travel well.
All of us.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
I don't believe in competition.
When you stop your compulsive mind, to reach the point where not a single thing is born, you pass through to freedom, no longer falling into feelings and now dwelling on concepts, transcending all completely. Then Zen is obvious everywhere in the world, with the totality of everything everywhere turning into its great function. Everything comes from your own heart. This is what one ancient called bringing out the family treasure.
- Yuan wu (1063-1135)
What comes, goes.
Humility brings earth to the fore. Is acceptance and surrender to 'what is' the same as humility and forgiveness?
What remains at the end is heart-felt treasure.
Gratitude.
It is all gift.
Nothing else.
When you stop your compulsive mind, to reach the point where not a single thing is born, you pass through to freedom, no longer falling into feelings and now dwelling on concepts, transcending all completely. Then Zen is obvious everywhere in the world, with the totality of everything everywhere turning into its great function. Everything comes from your own heart. This is what one ancient called bringing out the family treasure.
- Yuan wu (1063-1135)
What comes, goes.
Humility brings earth to the fore. Is acceptance and surrender to 'what is' the same as humility and forgiveness?
What remains at the end is heart-felt treasure.
Gratitude.
It is all gift.
Nothing else.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Life is gift.
Life is not recompense, obligation, tit-for-tat, it is not owed us, nor is it something we deserve.
Sylvia asked, and I answered. The longing for community is not out of emotional need, nor neediness. Community is longed for the same way air and breath are longed for -- without it there is no life.
I am never not in communion with others. I am never not alone. These two sentences are not antithetical.
I think in the sixties he [Thomas Merton]went through some of the worst times I ever witnessed among my friends. Yet he kept a deep understanding of the vitality a human being draws from his brothers and sisters. I often think that in my order part of my responsibility is parallel to his own: to keep a strong appreciation of the community, especially when so many are tempted to give up.
There is something mysterious in the timing of people or in projects.
(-- Daniel Berrigan, pp. 148-9, in The Raft Is Not The Shore, co-authored by Thich Nhat Hanh, c.1975)
Is the time right to recognize and realize that what we are is community? And that what we are is alone? That these two views are not opposite?
We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term. But how can one real-ize or make real that which alone is real? All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then reality alone will remain, and we will be that.
- Ramana Marharshi (1879-1950)
We are what we long for because we are what we are.
We are alone with others. We are alone together. We are the intersection of everything that passes. We pass. We die. What happens after that? We're uncertain what to say. We'll have to see. Once we see, what is there to say?
Berrigan ends the Afterword addressing Nhat Hanh:
We are closer. Our eyes discern the shore, the gentle green lineaments of the Promise. Soon we shall be home.(p.153)
We're on our way.
Back home.
Life is not recompense, obligation, tit-for-tat, it is not owed us, nor is it something we deserve.
Sylvia asked, and I answered. The longing for community is not out of emotional need, nor neediness. Community is longed for the same way air and breath are longed for -- without it there is no life.
I am never not in communion with others. I am never not alone. These two sentences are not antithetical.
I think in the sixties he [Thomas Merton]went through some of the worst times I ever witnessed among my friends. Yet he kept a deep understanding of the vitality a human being draws from his brothers and sisters. I often think that in my order part of my responsibility is parallel to his own: to keep a strong appreciation of the community, especially when so many are tempted to give up.
There is something mysterious in the timing of people or in projects.
(-- Daniel Berrigan, pp. 148-9, in The Raft Is Not The Shore, co-authored by Thich Nhat Hanh, c.1975)
Is the time right to recognize and realize that what we are is community? And that what we are is alone? That these two views are not opposite?
We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term. But how can one real-ize or make real that which alone is real? All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then reality alone will remain, and we will be that.
- Ramana Marharshi (1879-1950)
We are what we long for because we are what we are.
We are alone with others. We are alone together. We are the intersection of everything that passes. We pass. We die. What happens after that? We're uncertain what to say. We'll have to see. Once we see, what is there to say?
Berrigan ends the Afterword addressing Nhat Hanh:
We are closer. Our eyes discern the shore, the gentle green lineaments of the Promise. Soon we shall be home.(p.153)
We're on our way.
Back home.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Consider investing in and supporting Meetingbrook
Something taking shape takes time.
Mu-ge walks down path from brook. It sings with flow from torrential rainfall two days gone. Sando and Cesco are stretched out on cabin floor. Sandalwood incense burns before altar. Saskia sails out Rockport Harbor. Sunny late afternoon. Breeze.
We've been talking about Cape Breton and Katy and Joe's property. A woman from Lincolnville wonders if some in the area will eat crow. Nancy comes in after loading and moving a half-cord of wood to her off-the-grid house. She likes what she hears of the property and is happy Buzz has said he’d be of assistance -- his firm consults with corporate businesses and nonprofits, and he has offered to help design Meetingbrook's intent to acquire and utilize the property in Cape Breton. (For years. between snacking on French pastry puffs and telling stories of commanding naval vessels on high seas, he's been watching and most likely waiting for us to ask for help.) Three couples mull how they might be part of the project. Visitors from away (Stamford and Saratoga Springs) animatedly expressed their desire to follow the process and stay in contact.
Locals, even the skeptical and dubious, have come to suspect there's something different about the conversation and the property. They listen with interest to the announcement I proclaim -- That I will not look at another property in Nova Scotia should this prospect fail to happen -- and they believe it to be a true statement. It seems so -- this one or none other. They wonder out loud – In Maine then?
We've not made an offer yet. We plan to soon, once things fall in line. We've communicated intent. There's a strong sense that what happens next is important. The time is ripe. Curiously, even should someone claim the property out from under us, what happens next is important. I trust the owners will understand our interest and follow our process. We move deeper.
Many here tell us they don't want to see us leave Maine. If our intent were simple -- just to move there -- we'd sell the house and the business and transplant. But other options are being considered, a bit more complex at first sight -- to retain hermitage and shop, and negotiate with interested members of the wider community to partner in establishing Meetingbrook Hermitage's Center for Skillful Means and Engaged Service. This creation would span Barnestown Road in Camden to the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton.
Meetingbrook is conceived as a Hermitage for prayer, meditation, and contemplation; a Schola for conversation and study; and a Center for eco-spirituality, community learning & service.
The vision includes serving as a contribution and resource for retreat and respite for individuals requiring a safe and reflective place because of illness, life re-evaluation, or personal time-out.
We also aspire to serve as an adventure based alternative and continuing education center for individuals needing to update professional certification or licensure in their work fields. Our offerings would include a balance of intellectual, spiritual, physical, and practice integration. This would be experienced in a setting intended to foster healthy equilibrium and flexibility of mind and spirit in personal life and work environment.
One further focus is end of life attention and safe navigation of that journey. There are far too few places that nurture and encourage conversation and reflection on the full expanse of personal life, relational life, near-death, nearing-death, and death. The Center at Meetingbrook will present an environment where ongoing attention is given to the open integration of heart and mind, practice and theory, silent contemplation and supportive conversation about our ways of living and dying. The solid principles of hospice, life affirming psychology, and death acknowledging concerns will be honored.
Our original creation of Meetingbrook Hermitage's Schola Gratiae et Contemplationis intends to be a place at the intersection of four distinct templates: monastery, library, university, and retreat house. A fifth addition to the crossing paths would be hospice lodge.
Anyone interested in supporting this intersection?
Anyone interested in investing his or her life, however you wish, to this crossing path?
Anyone interested in contributing donations of money, time, labor, or materials to this idiorhythmic rebuilding of human spirit/divine spirit?
Anyone interested in praying us into and through this vision?
Please.
Do.
Something taking shape takes time.
Mu-ge walks down path from brook. It sings with flow from torrential rainfall two days gone. Sando and Cesco are stretched out on cabin floor. Sandalwood incense burns before altar. Saskia sails out Rockport Harbor. Sunny late afternoon. Breeze.
We've been talking about Cape Breton and Katy and Joe's property. A woman from Lincolnville wonders if some in the area will eat crow. Nancy comes in after loading and moving a half-cord of wood to her off-the-grid house. She likes what she hears of the property and is happy Buzz has said he’d be of assistance -- his firm consults with corporate businesses and nonprofits, and he has offered to help design Meetingbrook's intent to acquire and utilize the property in Cape Breton. (For years. between snacking on French pastry puffs and telling stories of commanding naval vessels on high seas, he's been watching and most likely waiting for us to ask for help.) Three couples mull how they might be part of the project. Visitors from away (Stamford and Saratoga Springs) animatedly expressed their desire to follow the process and stay in contact.
Locals, even the skeptical and dubious, have come to suspect there's something different about the conversation and the property. They listen with interest to the announcement I proclaim -- That I will not look at another property in Nova Scotia should this prospect fail to happen -- and they believe it to be a true statement. It seems so -- this one or none other. They wonder out loud – In Maine then?
We've not made an offer yet. We plan to soon, once things fall in line. We've communicated intent. There's a strong sense that what happens next is important. The time is ripe. Curiously, even should someone claim the property out from under us, what happens next is important. I trust the owners will understand our interest and follow our process. We move deeper.
Many here tell us they don't want to see us leave Maine. If our intent were simple -- just to move there -- we'd sell the house and the business and transplant. But other options are being considered, a bit more complex at first sight -- to retain hermitage and shop, and negotiate with interested members of the wider community to partner in establishing Meetingbrook Hermitage's Center for Skillful Means and Engaged Service. This creation would span Barnestown Road in Camden to the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton.
Meetingbrook is conceived as a Hermitage for prayer, meditation, and contemplation; a Schola for conversation and study; and a Center for eco-spirituality, community learning & service.
The vision includes serving as a contribution and resource for retreat and respite for individuals requiring a safe and reflective place because of illness, life re-evaluation, or personal time-out.
We also aspire to serve as an adventure based alternative and continuing education center for individuals needing to update professional certification or licensure in their work fields. Our offerings would include a balance of intellectual, spiritual, physical, and practice integration. This would be experienced in a setting intended to foster healthy equilibrium and flexibility of mind and spirit in personal life and work environment.
One further focus is end of life attention and safe navigation of that journey. There are far too few places that nurture and encourage conversation and reflection on the full expanse of personal life, relational life, near-death, nearing-death, and death. The Center at Meetingbrook will present an environment where ongoing attention is given to the open integration of heart and mind, practice and theory, silent contemplation and supportive conversation about our ways of living and dying. The solid principles of hospice, life affirming psychology, and death acknowledging concerns will be honored.
Our original creation of Meetingbrook Hermitage's Schola Gratiae et Contemplationis intends to be a place at the intersection of four distinct templates: monastery, library, university, and retreat house. A fifth addition to the crossing paths would be hospice lodge.
Anyone interested in supporting this intersection?
Anyone interested in investing his or her life, however you wish, to this crossing path?
Anyone interested in contributing donations of money, time, labor, or materials to this idiorhythmic rebuilding of human spirit/divine spirit?
Anyone interested in praying us into and through this vision?
Please.
Do.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Do we need a great philosophy?
I've been watching the ugly things said by operators for and supporters of George Bush about the war record and person of John Kerry. I've watched the sorrowful conduct of the unfortunate war in Iraq. I watch the rigid dismantling of any civil discourse or authentic conversation by our political leaders -- especially the two men seeking the top administrative position in the executive branch of American government.
I also watch many in town who wish to say anything critical about the President, Vice-President, or Attorney General, drop their voices, look around, and lean in -- as if being heard by anyone else would bring on them fearful consequences. To experience the nervous upset of these people, their fright and caution, is itself unnerving.
It reminds me of something I learned years ago. When I worked with adolescents in residential treatment centers, I noticed that other residents gave a wide berth to what they considered particularly disturbed individuals. It was easy to find out whom the others considered genuinely 'crazy' -- there was a reluctance and fear about saying anything about them or coming close to them. This dynamic, unfortunately, feels familiar. Instead of 'crazy' perhaps the signals sent out are: unquestioning certainty they are right and all others wrong; changing the meaning of words to fit their view of the world; and single minded repetitive phrases responding to inquiries asking light of thought and explanation be given as to why particular actions, decisions, and policies are put in place.
Charles Peguy said that when a person dies he or she does not die of a disease, but of all of life. Some die years before they are buried.
(p.1260, "Meditation for Spiritual Growth," in The Vatican II Weekday Missal, c.1975)
There is a fear of life that results in disease. There is a fear of death that results in making of life a thing to fear.
Why are so many frightened of this president and his associates? Is it because more and more people believe American leaders want fear, that these leaders do not share a common mind with the majority of people in this country and the world who long for honest peace, that these leaders wish to destroy whatever is not their idea of the way things should be?
A great philosophy is not one that passes final judgments and establishes ultimate truth. It is one that causes uneasiness and starts commotion.
(- Charles Peguy, 1873-1914, French poet and essayist)
We need a great philosophy because of the experience many relate. These people say what they see. They say that we are being bludgeoned by narrow ideology and self-serving arrogance by leaders of the current government of the United States. There is a palpable uneasiness and despondence.
We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see. (Peguy)
It is sad to see so many frightened and angry people. They feel torn apart by mean-spirited and virulent lack of kindness in matters of politics and patriotism. The teaching behavior of partisan aggression is a hard learning. As a model for how to make one's way in the world, it is difficult to imagine any parent or teacher thinking it appropriate as lesson for children and youth. Yet, it is becoming the norm inundating the population as a whole. How could we possibly disclaim that our way is not hostile dissembling of reputation and character, destruction of identified enemy, and winner take all?
Terrorism is terrorism by any other name. No matter what name is pinned on the behavior that blindsides and destroys the other for one's personal ideology and belief -- everyone recognizes the seeding of fear when it occurs. Can the harvesting of this misshapen and mutant crop be far away?
To love anyone, especially to love one's country, once entailed keeping a close eye on things, saying what you see, and offering help to correct what might be going wrong. These days, more and more people have come to feel that any critical comment might get you placed on a watch-list, detained for questioning, or beaten by militarized upholders of the peace.
Critical thinking and informed dissenting opinion become more and more rare. Public discourse these days seems to favor derisive putdown and shut-your-mouth scornful one-line slogans. We become discouraged by disdain and derision. What is needed is authentic, respectful, and responsive conversation.
The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful must take himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable, renascent errors. (Charles Peguy)
We've forgotten an important consideration -- that we might be wrong. We deny we could be missing the mark. We posture and pose as know-it-all's who can cause a world of harm to anyone who thinks otherwise.
Who walks humbly anymore? Rather, swagger, strutting, and smirking are the runway fashion of the day.
Where is Church in all of this?
There are two sayings I like about the Church, from opposite poles. One is: “At the heart of Christianity is the sinner.” The poet Charles Peguy said that; he is thought to have become a Catholic just days before he was called up for the defense of France in 1914, and shot through the head on his first day in battle. Christianity came into being because of the sinner, for the sinner; everything begins there, returns there, works there. The other saying, by a French colleague of Peguy’s, a crotchety “prophet of the Absolute” named Leon Bloy (who once opened a novel with the line: “This place stinks of God!”), runs as follows: “The only tragedy in life is not to have been a saint.”
Between those two poles, pulled this way and that, each Christian struggles.
(Michael Novak, U.S. Ambassador, Theologian, and Author)
Is a 'saint' someone who sees something as it is, engages what is taking place with kindness and genuine assistance, and does it all in the open presence/name of the One God who is as is for all?
The idea that we are a Christian nation is becoming a sniggering back-story for a different strain of heresy, a heresy unlike those of the early days of the church. What does this heresy look like?
Call it the Heresy of Nominal Appropriation. The aim -- to Keep Christ Out of Christianity. The teaching is simple -- Say the name "Jesus" over and over, bait people to believe you are actually praying to and follow Jesus, then switch to adding your own narrow interpretation of how things are going to be instead of the Gospel mandate of love, forgiveness, and redemptive compassion. Steal the word "compassion," redefine it to mean your own brand of control and willfulness, and sell it in place of genuine compassion. Call dirty water clean. Name bad as good. Say that despotic rule is democracy. Call ordinary men and women suspects perpetrating evil. Change the rules and hold that some facts are merely not facts and lobby that lies are now more valuable than truth. Do not encourage the practice that looks into the hearts and minds of people for the purpose of discovering what good and trustworthiness reside there, but rather instill fear and mistrust, encourage suspicion and call for a patriotic duty to inform and betray one another in the name of freedom, in the name of God. Steal the name and believe you possess what the name signifies.
This heresy of Nominal Appropriation is theological and secular. Identity theft is the new crime against God and human beings.
It is, some would say, diabolical. (In Greek, 'dia'= twice, through, and 'bol'= to throw, toss). Hence, here, diabolical could mean being tossed twice through one word or name, second-guessing, double-dealing, turning upside-down, inverting meaning, changing truth, revising history, or, diverting attention.
Instead of propaganda or dogma, we need a great philosophy. Many among us once believed that the teaching words and kind acts of Jesus were fine signposts on the long path toward final understanding and generous behavior. These days there is a severe threat to that once held belief.
Is there a great philosophy to either retrieve or replace the original constructs of love, compassion, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice? Is the teaching of current secular government in this country strong enough to supplant, in name or in act, the philosophy formerly known as Christianity?
What would it be called? Is there even a name we might give it? Or have all names become vulnerable to exploitation and plundering?
MARGARETA. ... Do you believe in God?
FAUST. Sweet, who can dare
To say that he believes?
Ask anywhere -
A sage or priest - and you will see
The answer seems like mockery
Upon the asking.
MARGARETA. Then you don’t believe?
FAUST. Nay, darling girl, no need to misconceive.
For who can say that name
And claim
A very certain faith?
Or where is he with feeling
Of some revealing
Who dares to say it is a wraith?
He that’s upholding
All and enfolding,
Holds he not,
Folds he not
You, me, himself?
Towers not the vault of heaven above us?
Does not earth’s fabric bear us bravely up?
Do not the friendly eyes of timeless stars
Still gleam upon our sight?
Gaze we for nought in one another’s eyes?
Is not life teeming
Around the head and heart of you,
Weaving eternal mysteries
Seen and unseen, even at your side?
Oh, let them fill your heart, your generous heart,
And, when you lose your being in that bliss,
Give it what name you will -
Your joy, love, heart, your God.
For me, I have no name
To give it: feeling’s surely all.
Names are but noise and smoke,
Obscuring heavenly light.
(Dialogue in Faust I, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Without names, where would we look? Without names, how will we recognize one another?
Without beginning or ending, your original wisdom has been shining forever, like the sun. To know whether or not this is true, look inside your own mind.
(- Padmasambhava, 8th cent)
Look there.
Look here.
Carefully, approach a great philosophy.
Watch and pray.
I've been watching the ugly things said by operators for and supporters of George Bush about the war record and person of John Kerry. I've watched the sorrowful conduct of the unfortunate war in Iraq. I watch the rigid dismantling of any civil discourse or authentic conversation by our political leaders -- especially the two men seeking the top administrative position in the executive branch of American government.
I also watch many in town who wish to say anything critical about the President, Vice-President, or Attorney General, drop their voices, look around, and lean in -- as if being heard by anyone else would bring on them fearful consequences. To experience the nervous upset of these people, their fright and caution, is itself unnerving.
It reminds me of something I learned years ago. When I worked with adolescents in residential treatment centers, I noticed that other residents gave a wide berth to what they considered particularly disturbed individuals. It was easy to find out whom the others considered genuinely 'crazy' -- there was a reluctance and fear about saying anything about them or coming close to them. This dynamic, unfortunately, feels familiar. Instead of 'crazy' perhaps the signals sent out are: unquestioning certainty they are right and all others wrong; changing the meaning of words to fit their view of the world; and single minded repetitive phrases responding to inquiries asking light of thought and explanation be given as to why particular actions, decisions, and policies are put in place.
Charles Peguy said that when a person dies he or she does not die of a disease, but of all of life. Some die years before they are buried.
(p.1260, "Meditation for Spiritual Growth," in The Vatican II Weekday Missal, c.1975)
There is a fear of life that results in disease. There is a fear of death that results in making of life a thing to fear.
Why are so many frightened of this president and his associates? Is it because more and more people believe American leaders want fear, that these leaders do not share a common mind with the majority of people in this country and the world who long for honest peace, that these leaders wish to destroy whatever is not their idea of the way things should be?
A great philosophy is not one that passes final judgments and establishes ultimate truth. It is one that causes uneasiness and starts commotion.
(- Charles Peguy, 1873-1914, French poet and essayist)
We need a great philosophy because of the experience many relate. These people say what they see. They say that we are being bludgeoned by narrow ideology and self-serving arrogance by leaders of the current government of the United States. There is a palpable uneasiness and despondence.
We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see. (Peguy)
It is sad to see so many frightened and angry people. They feel torn apart by mean-spirited and virulent lack of kindness in matters of politics and patriotism. The teaching behavior of partisan aggression is a hard learning. As a model for how to make one's way in the world, it is difficult to imagine any parent or teacher thinking it appropriate as lesson for children and youth. Yet, it is becoming the norm inundating the population as a whole. How could we possibly disclaim that our way is not hostile dissembling of reputation and character, destruction of identified enemy, and winner take all?
Terrorism is terrorism by any other name. No matter what name is pinned on the behavior that blindsides and destroys the other for one's personal ideology and belief -- everyone recognizes the seeding of fear when it occurs. Can the harvesting of this misshapen and mutant crop be far away?
To love anyone, especially to love one's country, once entailed keeping a close eye on things, saying what you see, and offering help to correct what might be going wrong. These days, more and more people have come to feel that any critical comment might get you placed on a watch-list, detained for questioning, or beaten by militarized upholders of the peace.
Critical thinking and informed dissenting opinion become more and more rare. Public discourse these days seems to favor derisive putdown and shut-your-mouth scornful one-line slogans. We become discouraged by disdain and derision. What is needed is authentic, respectful, and responsive conversation.
The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful must take himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable, renascent errors. (Charles Peguy)
We've forgotten an important consideration -- that we might be wrong. We deny we could be missing the mark. We posture and pose as know-it-all's who can cause a world of harm to anyone who thinks otherwise.
Who walks humbly anymore? Rather, swagger, strutting, and smirking are the runway fashion of the day.
Where is Church in all of this?
There are two sayings I like about the Church, from opposite poles. One is: “At the heart of Christianity is the sinner.” The poet Charles Peguy said that; he is thought to have become a Catholic just days before he was called up for the defense of France in 1914, and shot through the head on his first day in battle. Christianity came into being because of the sinner, for the sinner; everything begins there, returns there, works there. The other saying, by a French colleague of Peguy’s, a crotchety “prophet of the Absolute” named Leon Bloy (who once opened a novel with the line: “This place stinks of God!”), runs as follows: “The only tragedy in life is not to have been a saint.”
Between those two poles, pulled this way and that, each Christian struggles.
(Michael Novak, U.S. Ambassador, Theologian, and Author)
Is a 'saint' someone who sees something as it is, engages what is taking place with kindness and genuine assistance, and does it all in the open presence/name of the One God who is as is for all?
The idea that we are a Christian nation is becoming a sniggering back-story for a different strain of heresy, a heresy unlike those of the early days of the church. What does this heresy look like?
Call it the Heresy of Nominal Appropriation. The aim -- to Keep Christ Out of Christianity. The teaching is simple -- Say the name "Jesus" over and over, bait people to believe you are actually praying to and follow Jesus, then switch to adding your own narrow interpretation of how things are going to be instead of the Gospel mandate of love, forgiveness, and redemptive compassion. Steal the word "compassion," redefine it to mean your own brand of control and willfulness, and sell it in place of genuine compassion. Call dirty water clean. Name bad as good. Say that despotic rule is democracy. Call ordinary men and women suspects perpetrating evil. Change the rules and hold that some facts are merely not facts and lobby that lies are now more valuable than truth. Do not encourage the practice that looks into the hearts and minds of people for the purpose of discovering what good and trustworthiness reside there, but rather instill fear and mistrust, encourage suspicion and call for a patriotic duty to inform and betray one another in the name of freedom, in the name of God. Steal the name and believe you possess what the name signifies.
This heresy of Nominal Appropriation is theological and secular. Identity theft is the new crime against God and human beings.
It is, some would say, diabolical. (In Greek, 'dia'= twice, through, and 'bol'= to throw, toss). Hence, here, diabolical could mean being tossed twice through one word or name, second-guessing, double-dealing, turning upside-down, inverting meaning, changing truth, revising history, or, diverting attention.
Instead of propaganda or dogma, we need a great philosophy. Many among us once believed that the teaching words and kind acts of Jesus were fine signposts on the long path toward final understanding and generous behavior. These days there is a severe threat to that once held belief.
Is there a great philosophy to either retrieve or replace the original constructs of love, compassion, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice? Is the teaching of current secular government in this country strong enough to supplant, in name or in act, the philosophy formerly known as Christianity?
What would it be called? Is there even a name we might give it? Or have all names become vulnerable to exploitation and plundering?
MARGARETA. ... Do you believe in God?
FAUST. Sweet, who can dare
To say that he believes?
Ask anywhere -
A sage or priest - and you will see
The answer seems like mockery
Upon the asking.
MARGARETA. Then you don’t believe?
FAUST. Nay, darling girl, no need to misconceive.
For who can say that name
And claim
A very certain faith?
Or where is he with feeling
Of some revealing
Who dares to say it is a wraith?
He that’s upholding
All and enfolding,
Holds he not,
Folds he not
You, me, himself?
Towers not the vault of heaven above us?
Does not earth’s fabric bear us bravely up?
Do not the friendly eyes of timeless stars
Still gleam upon our sight?
Gaze we for nought in one another’s eyes?
Is not life teeming
Around the head and heart of you,
Weaving eternal mysteries
Seen and unseen, even at your side?
Oh, let them fill your heart, your generous heart,
And, when you lose your being in that bliss,
Give it what name you will -
Your joy, love, heart, your God.
For me, I have no name
To give it: feeling’s surely all.
Names are but noise and smoke,
Obscuring heavenly light.
(Dialogue in Faust I, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Without names, where would we look? Without names, how will we recognize one another?
Without beginning or ending, your original wisdom has been shining forever, like the sun. To know whether or not this is true, look inside your own mind.
(- Padmasambhava, 8th cent)
Look there.
Look here.
Carefully, approach a great philosophy.
Watch and pray.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
They stand in prayer and vigil outside a woman's house. She is undergoing a change in health. Some things are dropping away. Speech, movement, length of days.
She is facing what all standing outside will face. This is why so many faces turn toward her in her house. Vigil holds her gently with light in the space she now finds herself.
Your true nature is not lost in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of enlightenment. It was never born and can never die. It shines through the whole universe, filling emptiness, one with emptiness. It is without time or space, and has no passions, no people, and no buddhas; it contains not the smallest hairbreadth of anything that exists objectively; it depends on nothing and is attached to nothing. It is all-pervading, radiant beauty: absolute reality, self-existent and uncreated. How then can you doubt that the Buddha has no mouth to speak with and nothing to teach, or that the truth is learned without learning, for who is there to learn? It is a jewel beyond all price.
- Huang-po (d. 849)
For several years I sat vigil in hospice. I learned much of nothing through the night at bedside. Nor can I remember a more powerful gift than the grace to be with someone as they went within.
I told the woman in the house something a few years ago. I said we'd always share a bit of awkwardness. We have done that, a bit from an inconsequential exchange over a passing moment. I also find that awkwardness with what many say of God. It is an unimportant and fleeting moment that is anything other than vigil.
The exchange being made now crosses edges and borders and stands silent and open, maybe empty, at each courageous movement made toward the next breath, next glance, or next stillness.
I stand with you, here, awkwardly, in this your next step.
I greet you. With love.
As you are.
She is facing what all standing outside will face. This is why so many faces turn toward her in her house. Vigil holds her gently with light in the space she now finds herself.
Your true nature is not lost in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of enlightenment. It was never born and can never die. It shines through the whole universe, filling emptiness, one with emptiness. It is without time or space, and has no passions, no people, and no buddhas; it contains not the smallest hairbreadth of anything that exists objectively; it depends on nothing and is attached to nothing. It is all-pervading, radiant beauty: absolute reality, self-existent and uncreated. How then can you doubt that the Buddha has no mouth to speak with and nothing to teach, or that the truth is learned without learning, for who is there to learn? It is a jewel beyond all price.
- Huang-po (d. 849)
For several years I sat vigil in hospice. I learned much of nothing through the night at bedside. Nor can I remember a more powerful gift than the grace to be with someone as they went within.
I told the woman in the house something a few years ago. I said we'd always share a bit of awkwardness. We have done that, a bit from an inconsequential exchange over a passing moment. I also find that awkwardness with what many say of God. It is an unimportant and fleeting moment that is anything other than vigil.
The exchange being made now crosses edges and borders and stands silent and open, maybe empty, at each courageous movement made toward the next breath, next glance, or next stillness.
I stand with you, here, awkwardly, in this your next step.
I greet you. With love.
As you are.
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