A shout in the street
I have often spoken of the Pure Land way of "no-calculation" where "thing are made to become so of themselves". This has affinities with my own favorite Bible verse:-
"For the earth brings forth fruits of herself."
At one time I had some sort of concern that my attempts to gain a degree of clarity of mind was a form of calculation, but I now think such is not so. As I see it, seeking clarification of mind is not that which Shinran, the "father" of Pure Land Buddhism, would have said was calculation. Amida would seem to agree, so I can proceed.....😀
It does seem to me that once we accept Reality itself as beyond comprehension we then naturally accept the consequences of this i.e. that we can only find rest in trust/faith/pure acceptance/grace (or Shinjin, in Japanese) In such rest we can move on and live safely in our world.
Whether heading for hell
or heading for the Pure Land
all is in Amida's hands
(Which corresponds in some ways with the theistic "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him)
That is about it. I ask and look for no more. Then I can move on, into the world of diversification, even of this and that, yet without undue clinging to "me" and "mine".
It seems many seek to pin down reality. It must be either this or that, thus dictating the past, predicting the future and even determining the present. Things tend to congeal. And as for those pesky people who have a different opinion, another concept of reality, well there is always the Inquisition or a weapon of some description. The pen might well be mightier than the sword yet the sword, looking back through history, has always tended to have the biggest say, if not the last word.
Thinking about it (now I have been cleared to do so!) it does seem that many seek to declare that this, this, this and this are the facts of reality. Various beliefs and creeds, all "indisputable" and often found within a favoured text. Yet I have found, when the going gets tough in defending their favoured landscape of mind, they then fall back upon the "mysteries" of faith, with cries of "who are we to question the Lord?" Really, all I am saying is that the mysteries of faith need to come first; the ground (in which we live and move and have our being) the "ground" itself, is that which is incomprehensible - or as is said in the "east", empty. Of suchness, such as it is; and what follows is that "emptiness is form and form is emptiness".
Up then often goes the cry of "pantheism", the fear of relativity, that there is therefore no "right" or "wrong", what is proclaimed must be fixed in stone to guide us on our way. "Eastern" talk of maya is thrown into the ring and rejected, claiming instead:-
"This world is real, suffering is real, it is not all an illusion"!
But as I understand it, maya is simply the default way of seeing the world by a mind determined to fix it down permanently according to its culturally induced preferences. Maya is avidya (ignorance)
Anyway, time for a quote from Alan Watts on the subject of pantheism:-
The moment I name it, it is no longer God; it is man, tree, green, black, red, soft, hard, long, short, atom, universe. One would readily agree with any theologian who deplores pantheism that these denizens of the world of verbiage and convention, these sundry "things" conceived as fixed and distinct entities, are not God. If you ask me to show you God, I will point to the sun, or a tree, or a worm. But if you say, "You mean, then, that God is the sun, the tree, the worm, and all other things?" - I shall have to say that you have missed the point entirely.
The author James Joyce has his own words, found in Ulysses:-
"The ways of the creator are not our ways" Mr Deasy said."All human history moves toward one great goal, the manifestation of God......"
Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window saying: "That is God"
Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!
"What?" Mr Deasy asked.
"A shout in the street" Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.
In effect, as Joseph Campbell claims in his own analysis of this passage, "Mr Deasy speaks of the process of God in history. There is no process, Stephen says, God is present."
And Campbell then refers to a verse found in the Gnostic "Gospel According to Thomas" that the kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth and men do not see it.
As Stephen says further along in the book, "history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake".
Anyway, a short passage from Thomas Merton to finish, this from his "A Study of Chuang Tzu" found as a Preface to his "The Way of Chuang Tzu", a collection of Merton's rather loose translations of that Chinese sage.
The way of the Tao is to begin with the simple good with which one is endowed by the very fact of existence. Instead of self-conscious cultivation of this good (which vanishes when we look at it and becomes intangible whens we try to grasp it), we grow quietly in the humility of a simple, ordinary life, and this is analogous (at least psychologically) to the Christian "life of faith." It is more a matter of believing the good than of seeing it as the fruit of one's effort.
(Adapted from an old blog)
"For the earth brings forth fruits of herself."
At one time I had some sort of concern that my attempts to gain a degree of clarity of mind was a form of calculation, but I now think such is not so. As I see it, seeking clarification of mind is not that which Shinran, the "father" of Pure Land Buddhism, would have said was calculation. Amida would seem to agree, so I can proceed.....😀
It does seem to me that once we accept Reality itself as beyond comprehension we then naturally accept the consequences of this i.e. that we can only find rest in trust/faith/pure acceptance/grace (or Shinjin, in Japanese) In such rest we can move on and live safely in our world.
Whether heading for hell
or heading for the Pure Land
all is in Amida's hands
(Which corresponds in some ways with the theistic "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him)
That is about it. I ask and look for no more. Then I can move on, into the world of diversification, even of this and that, yet without undue clinging to "me" and "mine".
It seems many seek to pin down reality. It must be either this or that, thus dictating the past, predicting the future and even determining the present. Things tend to congeal. And as for those pesky people who have a different opinion, another concept of reality, well there is always the Inquisition or a weapon of some description. The pen might well be mightier than the sword yet the sword, looking back through history, has always tended to have the biggest say, if not the last word.
Thinking about it (now I have been cleared to do so!) it does seem that many seek to declare that this, this, this and this are the facts of reality. Various beliefs and creeds, all "indisputable" and often found within a favoured text. Yet I have found, when the going gets tough in defending their favoured landscape of mind, they then fall back upon the "mysteries" of faith, with cries of "who are we to question the Lord?" Really, all I am saying is that the mysteries of faith need to come first; the ground (in which we live and move and have our being) the "ground" itself, is that which is incomprehensible - or as is said in the "east", empty. Of suchness, such as it is; and what follows is that "emptiness is form and form is emptiness".
Up then often goes the cry of "pantheism", the fear of relativity, that there is therefore no "right" or "wrong", what is proclaimed must be fixed in stone to guide us on our way. "Eastern" talk of maya is thrown into the ring and rejected, claiming instead:-
"This world is real, suffering is real, it is not all an illusion"!
But as I understand it, maya is simply the default way of seeing the world by a mind determined to fix it down permanently according to its culturally induced preferences. Maya is avidya (ignorance)
Anyway, time for a quote from Alan Watts on the subject of pantheism:-
The moment I name it, it is no longer God; it is man, tree, green, black, red, soft, hard, long, short, atom, universe. One would readily agree with any theologian who deplores pantheism that these denizens of the world of verbiage and convention, these sundry "things" conceived as fixed and distinct entities, are not God. If you ask me to show you God, I will point to the sun, or a tree, or a worm. But if you say, "You mean, then, that God is the sun, the tree, the worm, and all other things?" - I shall have to say that you have missed the point entirely.
The author James Joyce has his own words, found in Ulysses:-
"The ways of the creator are not our ways" Mr Deasy said."All human history moves toward one great goal, the manifestation of God......"
Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window saying: "That is God"
Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!
"What?" Mr Deasy asked.
"A shout in the street" Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.
In effect, as Joseph Campbell claims in his own analysis of this passage, "Mr Deasy speaks of the process of God in history. There is no process, Stephen says, God is present."
And Campbell then refers to a verse found in the Gnostic "Gospel According to Thomas" that the kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth and men do not see it.
As Stephen says further along in the book, "history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake".
Anyway, a short passage from Thomas Merton to finish, this from his "A Study of Chuang Tzu" found as a Preface to his "The Way of Chuang Tzu", a collection of Merton's rather loose translations of that Chinese sage.
The way of the Tao is to begin with the simple good with which one is endowed by the very fact of existence. Instead of self-conscious cultivation of this good (which vanishes when we look at it and becomes intangible whens we try to grasp it), we grow quietly in the humility of a simple, ordinary life, and this is analogous (at least psychologically) to the Christian "life of faith." It is more a matter of believing the good than of seeing it as the fruit of one's effort.
(Adapted from an old blog)
SW-User