I don't have to look for you.For Karin.
I know where you are.
You're right here, within me.
Heaven Now
The Eternal Now
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Jesus’ primary metaphors for the Eternal Now are “the kingdom of God” and “the kingdom of heaven.” He is not talking about a far-off celestial heaven. “Look around you, look at the fields; already they are ready for harvest! Already the reaper is being paid his wages, already he is bringing in the grain for eternal life, and thus sower and reaper rejoice together” (John 4:35-36, Jerusalem Bible). Notice that Jesus says already three times. He is trying to tell us that there is a way that we can live connected to the Real and to the Eternal in this world. That path is surrendering to the here-and-now, whatever it offers us. We might just call this “the will of God,” yet it feels like nothing, like nowhere (now-here), and still it is where everything always happens to us. So be sure to be here now—and not somewhere else! If our minds or hearts are elsewhere, nothing really happens to us that matters or lasts.
Nondual knowing is learning how to live satisfied in the naked now, which some called “the sacrament of the present moment.” This consciousness will teach us how to actually experience our experiences, whether good, bad, or ugly, and how to let them transform us. Words by themselves divide and judge the moment; pure presence lets it be what it is, as it is.
(--Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation)As thinks are reinterpreted and evolve!
The fundamental teaching of Buddhism is nothing but the doctrine of One Mind. This Mind is originally perfect and vastly illuminating. It is clear and pure, containing nothing, not even fine dust. There is neither delusion nor enlightenment, neither birth nor death, neither saints nor sinners.Only you and me.
- Han-Shan Te-Ch’ing (Dailyzen)
Ad decimum dicendum, quod Deus dicitur omnem intellectus nostri formam subterfugere, non quin aliqua forma nostri intellectus ipsum aliquo modo repraesentet; sed quia nulla eum repraesentat perfecte.
10. God is said to elude every form of our intellect, not because there is no form of our intellect that can represent Him at all, but because there is no form that can represent Him perfectly.
Ad undecimum dicendum, quod ratio quam significat nomen, est definitio, ut dicitur IV Metaph.; et ideo illud est nomen proprie alicuius rei cuius significatum est definitio; et quia, ut dictum est, nulla ratio significata per nomen definit ipsum Deum, nullum nomen a nobis impositum est proprie nomen eius, sed est proprie nomen creaturae, quae definitur ratione significata per nomen; et tamen ista nomina quae sunt creaturarum nomina, Deo attribuuntur, secundum quod in creaturis aliqualiter similitudo eius repraesentatur.
11. As is said in the Metaphysics: “An intelligible character signified by a noun is a definition. Hence, the name of a thing is proper if its meaning is its definition. Now, since no intelligible character signified by a name defines God Himself, no name we apply to God is proper to Him. It is proper rather to the creature defined by the character signified by the name. These names, though the names of creatures, are attributed to God, however, in so far as a likeness of Him is found in some way in creatures.
Ad duodecimum dicendum, quod scientia quae Deo attribuitur, non est qualitas; et praeterea qualitas quantitati adveniens, est qualitas corporalis, non qualitas spiritualis, sicut est scientia.
17. The knowledge attributed to God is not a quality. Furthermore, a quality that follows upon quantity is a bodily quality—not a spiritual quality, as knowledge is.
(from, ARTICLE I This question treats of knowledge, and in the first article we ask: Is there knowledge in God? [ARTICLE S.T., I, 14, 1; I Sent., 35, 1; C.G. I, 44; XII Metaph., lect. 8, n. 2542 seq.; lect. 11, n. 2600 seq.; Comp. Theol., I, cc. 28-3 2.], Thomas Aquinas, Question Two, God's Knowledge)
Monks chant Compline.
Day is done.
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It is our human nature that beckons to discover within ourselves the wholeWhere do you end?
human world and also the entire reality. We are constitutively open — not
only because the whole universe can penetrate us, but also because we can
permeate all of reality. Anima quodammodo omnia (the human soul is, in a
certain way, all things) said the scholastics, repeating Aristotle.
(--from Preface, Intrareligious Dialogue, by Raimon Panikkar)
"Christ is the ideal of humanity become existent." (In, The Essence of Christianity, by Ludwig Feuerbach)To embody, transform, transcend, and make real the new revelation that God is becoming what we are becoming.
The pure wondrous dharmakaya of Amitabha Buddha is everywhere in the mind ground of all sentient beings. Thus it is said: “Mind, buddha, sentient beings: these three are no different.” It is also said: “Mind is buddha, buddha is mind. Outside of the mind there is no buddha. Outside of buddha there is no mind.”- (--T’aego)Today is Easter Thursday.
Who says poets are so enthralled with mountains?
Mountains, mountains, mountains
I've raved on and on,
And they're still clamoring for attention.
If I climb an hour, I need to rest for three.
When your desk is piled full,
You just can't add anything more,
And when your withered stomach is full,
Who can keep eating?
So what good's even a faint scrap of mist or
Kingfisher-green?
I'll wrap it all up, send the whole bundle off
To my city friends. -- Yang Wan-li (1127-1206) (DailyZen)
How do you treat cancer?Viele Gut!
By smiling
At it
As you do to everyone
no knock
floor waited Thursday
morning after vigil
zazen in dark
getting up, leaving --
Friday morning, as four
slid into five, breathing
sudden familiar
bam, bam on wood platform --
Saturday, having arrived
forty five minutes too early,
after hearing lamentations, after
ancient homily -- not
staying around to listen...
getting up, beyond and gone --
I believe God loves things by becoming them. God loves things by uniting with them, not by excluding them. Through the act of creation, God manifested the eternally out-flowing Divine Presence into the physical and material world. Ordinary matter is the hiding place for Spirit and thus the very Body of God. Honestly, what else could it be, if we believe—as orthodox Jews, Christians, and Muslims do—that “one God created all things”? Since the very beginning of time, God’s Spirit has been revealing its glory and goodness through the physical creation. So many of the Psalms assert this, speaking of “rivers clapping their hands” and “mountains singing for joy.” When Paul wrote, “There is only Christ. He is everything and he is in everything” (Colossians 3:11), was he a naïve pantheist or did he really understand the full implication of the Gospel of Incarnation?
God seems to have chosen to manifest the invisible in what we call the “visible,” so that all things visible are the revelation of God’s endlessly diffusive spiritual energy. Once a person recognizes that, it is hard to ever be lonely in this world again.Disappearing into what is here.
The Lord's descent into the underworld
Something strange is happening - there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: "My Lord be with you all." Christ answered him: "And with your spirit." He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: "Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."
I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell.
Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.
See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.
I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.
Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.
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(From an ancient second century homily given on Holy Saturday by Bishop Melito of Sardis, read at vigils this morning at Trappist monastery)