The Rose

The Rose - Salvadore Dali

Some say love, it is a river, that drowns the tender reed
Some say love, it is a razor, that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need
I say love, it is a flower, and you, its only seed

It's the heart afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give
And the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love in the spring becomes the rose

I was just listening to the song "The Rose", lyrics above. By the Dubliner's, it was a big hit some time ago in Ireland. I have always loved the words, partly some would say because of my over sentimental way of looking at the world, of living in it, or trying to. My "sentimentality" was attacked during my early days on Discussion Forums, particularly by one ardent zen guy intent upon his own road to enlightenment. I wonder just where he is now? Wherever and whatever, time moves on. Maybe he became more sentimental. Is it all a question of balance? 

Views of sentimentality

Moving on, I continue with the "Divine Comedy". The edition I have is certainly a beautifully produced book, with gold leaf and illustrations. The actual text is another matter. 

Reading up on this, Dante invented a new rhyming scheme (Terza rima) for his book - obviously first written in Italian - which cannot be easily replicated in translation, if at all. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow uses blank verse and his is a noble effort. Quite dated now but all the better for it as the awkward, even unknown, words slow my reading and makes for a more contemplative read. 

However, I have to wonder just what it is that can be "contemplated" and the thought raises again the question as to whether genuine appreciation can be given to a world view now so vastly different from our own. 

Reading through, Dante at first expresses pity for the inhabitants of the Inferno. "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" as the inscription above the giant chasm reads. Sadly, further along, meeting a man who he knew in life, Dante then appears to relish the thought of the man's suffering, even going so far as to wish it increased. What to make of this? Dante, his text would have us believe, is on his way to Heaven. Well, maybe as things unfold, as his path opens to new ideas and learning, all will be revealed.

Dante's guide through the Inferno and purgatory is the Roman poet Virgil, he of "classical antiquity", this giving birth to yet another mode of thought, one that Dante understands as having been supplanted by Christian Truth. Later on in the Divine Comedy Virgil is left behind, unable to progress to the final beatific vision (like Dante himself), having lived prior to the advent of Christ and the full revelation of God. Apparently Virgil is good enough for a certain degree of illumination and able to avoid eternal punishment, but can advance so far and no further. Much like unbaptised infants in Dante's scheme of things. To my mind, all rather questionable as "final" Truth. 

Virgil has a word in Dante's ear

Did Dante really believe all this? Where does reality and poetic fancy meet? If ever. 

Another observation is that the number of illustrations become sparser as the "comedy" progresses. The illustrator, Gustave Dore, maybe like most, appears to find hell more easy to depict than the joys of heaven. This would seem to be representative of the nature of our reality. What exactly is "perfection", the "final" vision? Can we only visualise what we have known? 

Well, all in all I find a growing call to return to "The Flower Ornament Scripture" of Mahayana Buddhism, which offers another "world-view". When I consider Dante I think of "consistency" and of "justice". His poetically created world is a system, constructed by thought, a system that encloses all things beyond the true touch of Love, at least as I see it. As Thomas Merton once wrote of consistency and justice, as opposed to mercy:-

The world of consistency is the world of justice, but justice is not the final word. 

There is, above the consistent and logical world of justice, an inconsistent illogical world where nothing "hangs together," where justice no longer damns each to their own darkness. This inconsistent world is the realm of mercy.

The Flower Ornament Scripture has no such consistency and therefore can offer what Merton would call the "unexpected gifts of God." Merton speaks also of freedom, of the "indeterminateness of salvation" when speaking of grace in relation to zen, this in a letter to D T Suzuki. World-views are just that, "views", and according to the Buddha are finally to be abandoned. Yet for now they remain "rafts" for crossing over, not for grasping; and some, I think, are better than others, given time and place. Give me the bodhisattvas, of infinite variety, give me the multiple paths that others have followed, give me the journey that is itself home, give me the circle whose circumference is everywhere and centre nowhere. 

At the centre of Dante's hell is Satan - frozen, congealed, king and lord of his realm. A good image. Suitable to describe a "self" that we often imagine ourselves to be. 

Satan frozen in ice - Dante and Virgil look on

Related Quotes:- 

Man's general way of thinking of the totality, i.e. his general world view, is crucial for overall order of the human mind itself. If he thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken and without border (for every border is a division or break) then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole. 

(David Bohm)


Deconstruction is the theory that all our beliefs and practices are constructions, and that whatever is constructed is de-constructible, and that whatever is de-constructible is also re-constructible, which would mean that all our beliefs and practices are reinterpretable. So, deconstruction backs up the idea of endless reinterpretation and rejects the idea of ready-made truths that drop from the sky........deconstructors are disposed to dissent, to point out alternative explanations, to bring up anomalies, to question received interpretations, to suspect unquestioned assumptions......Deconstructors cultivate a congenital disposition to look at things otherwise, to pick up views that have fallen out of favour or dropped through the cracks of the tradition.......Hermeneutics provides our best  protection against the threat of tyranny, totalitarianism and terror in politics, and of dogmatism and authoritarianism in ethics and religion. Indeed, these threats can be found anywhere – including in the sciences, the art world or that of economics – anywhere that the quiet dictatorship of a rigid orthodoxy takes root. Orthodoxy discourages dissent (alternative interpretations) and tries to impose a privileged interpretation.

(John Caputo, from "Hermeneutics - Meaning in a World Without Facts")



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.

(Final lines from "Four Quartets", "Little Gidding", by T S Eliot)