One thing I will be doing is continuing on with my latest Blook (a cross between a Blog and a book) Details of my various Blooks can be found on previous posts under some of my previous names here.
The Blook is "The Christian Mystics", many of them considered "Dharpma Friends" by Buddhists. The actual difference in [i]experience[/i] between theists and non-theists is of interest to me.
Here is the Work in Progress cover of the Blook:-
WIP? Well, the colour, picture and title are all subject to change....😀
The current picture is the Church of Little Gidding, which is the name of the fourth quartet of T.S.Eliots "Four Quartets". Mr Eliot knew the Christian mystics well and I have always loved the last few lines.....
[i]We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always— A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one. [/i]
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SW-User
The latest pomposity (even bigotry) directed at me convinces me that I have, for the moment, made the correct choice. Far from the madding crowd indeed....😀 and far I hope from pathetic emoji's expressing derision of anything said, this without offering one iota of reasoned thought.
My inter-faith dialogue days are possibly numbered. I am Buddhist through and through and will waste no more time on those incapable of genuine thought, who appear indoctrinated to the point of imbecility. Harsh words no doubt, yet kinder words seem totally wasted upon them. Unless they see the mirror image of themselves, or hear their own words echoing back to them, they refuse to see any "truth". If the experience of another differs from their own, the presence of Christ is denied.
I turn now to a deeper study of all things "Dogen", the 13th century Japanese Zen Master. As far as Universalism is concerned, I am not Christian. I experience Reality more as an "eschatology of the present moment". Any [i]conclusion[/i], even one of the "ultimate reconciliation of all things", just seems to corrupt the fundamental Buddhist way of "no conclusions".
Yet having said that Dogen, while acknowledging that the present moment is the [i]only moment[/i], nevertheless speaks of a "movement toward Buddha'. And though NOW "nothing in the entire universe is concealed" there is an "ever greater intimacy with Reality."
So Dogen study and meditation is for me the way forward.
