Beyond conventional patterns

The humble marigold - a conventional pattern?

As I dipped into a few more books of one subject or another, my mind was taken by the words:- "There is meaning beyond the conventional patterns". These words have jiggled about in my head for a day or two - maybe merely drawing forth meanings within the conventional patterns.

I think we can see ourselves as "seekers", as not falling for the "conventional", whether that be atheism, the predominant Faith of our culture or any other off the shelf creedo of our post truth age. Therefore as "seekers" we see and imagine ourselves as having escaped the conventional patterns and thus, alas, for all intents and purposes, remaining within them - but within the pattern of a "seeker". 

The sunflower as mandala

How is any "meaning" beyond all our conventional patterns found, known, lived, shared?

It could be that there is none to be found, all is "a tale told by an idiot" and when told we leave this earthly stage, none the wiser for our all too brief sojourn upon it. Determinism, fate or the unexamined life, has won the day, the only day that was ever possible. Yet what of the Hidden Ground of Love in which we "live and move and have our being", or Emptiness; emptiness as the source of all things or, perhaps better put, as all things themselves.

How can anything "beyond" the conventional patterns ever come to be unless it be the only reality? The conventional is then the "illusion". 

The poppy, now symbol of much more

How does anyone accomplish the somersault of mind that will ground them in the love that knows no why? 

Dogen, the 12th century Soto Zen master, would seem to suggest that the conventional patterns should not so much be displaced, replaced or rejected, but more come to realisation. The realisation/living of duality within non-duality.

Shinran of the Pure Land Tradition spoke of a "sideways leap". 

The blue globe thistle - itself or more?

"The right way and wrong ways are not two" (Pao- chih) 

"The real Buddha sits within: enlightenment, nirvana, suchness, and Buddha-nature are all clothes sticking to the body. They are also called afflictions; don't ask and there is no vexation" (Chao-chou) 

"Like space, it cannot be cultivated" (Pai-chang)

 "The graduations of the language of the teachings - haughty, relaxed, rising, descending - are not the same. What are called desire and aversion when not yet enlightened or liberated are called  enlightened wisdom after enlightenment. That is why it is said, 'One is not different from who one used to be; only one's course of action is different from before.' " (Pai-chang)

One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, four

Make of that lot what you will. Words are so simple yet can be so confusing. Much like life itself. 

Time is just something that stops everything happening at once. Infinite compassion, infinite wisdom, infinite potential. Each and every moment, infinite, singular, precious.

When you come to think of it (!) "instant" realisation lasts eternally. Or as Thomas Merton once said, "how far I have to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived", (and the journey itself is home)

Be still and know that I am God. 

Once we are grounded in faith/trust, diversification takes on a different hue. It can be healing.

Well, a slightly confusing blog, which did not seem to go where I thought it would go, but after making six banana muffins one just has to write something.

The peony

Related Quotes:- 

Question put to Neddy Seagoon upon being found deep in a coal cellar:- "What are you doing down here?" Neddy answers, "Well, everybody gotta be somewhere" 

(The Goon Show)

"......Dogen's emphasis was not on how to transcend language, but on how to radically use it." 

(Hee-Jin Kim, from "Eihei Dogen:Mystical Realist".

"....Dogen's......approach to awakening as a function of the nature of reality, intimately connected with the dynamic support of the earth, space itself, and a multidimensional view of the movements of time." 

(From "Visions of Awakening, Time and Space" by Taigen Dan Leighton)

"Contrary to present conventions, Zen Buddhism developed and cannot be fully understood outside of a worldview that sees reality itself as a vital, ephemeral agent of awareness and healing." 

(As above)

"Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things"

 (Isaac Newton)

Postscript:- 

The thought in my mind when beginning this particular blog was centred upon the scriptural story of the Buddha descending into hell holding a lamp aloft. Those there, until then believing themselves to be alone, were heard to exclaim:-

 "Ah! There are others here besides myself!", a realisation that can be as profound as we wish. 

The story now makes me think of a line from  Bob Dylan's "Thunder On The Mountain":- "Gonna forget about myself for a while, gonna go out and see what others need."