Two more posts from the Forum Site. The first was initiated by another saying that we must realise that we are the product. I was not really sure exactly what he meant, but he had the screen name "Crusty Fart" which encouraged me to respond!
The post:-
Once more settling down in Costa's, feeling quite fit for a 71year old (if I could just throw off this persistent cough and temperature I would be A1.........joke)
I was reading above about needing to know that we are the product. I thought and wondered about WHEN we become the product. Which as I see it involves considerations of causes as opposed to symtoms. We seem more often than not to spend all our time messing around with the symptoms. Which brings me back to WHEN and HOW we become merely a PRODUCT.
I will take a rest now and resort to the words of Layman Hsiang, who also seemed to ponder such things.....
Shadows arise from forms, echoes come from sounds. If we fiddle with shadows and ignore the forms, we do not recognize that the forms are the roots of the shadows. If we raise our voices to stop echoes, we are not cognizant of the fact that sounds are the roots of the echoes. To try to head for nirvana by getting rid of afflictions is like removing forms to look for shadows. To seek Buddhahood apart from living beings is like seeking echoes by silencing sounds. So we know that illusion and enlightenment are one road. Ignorance and knowledge are not separate. We make names for what has no name. Because we go by the names, judgments of right and wrong arise. We make rationalizations for what has no reason. Because we rely on the rationalizations, argument and discussion arise. Illusion is not real: who is right, who is wrong? The unreal is not actual: what is empty, what exists? Thus I realize that attainment gains nothing, and loss loses nothing.
Shinran of the Pure Land path agreed that we cannot get rid of afflictions, in fact do not, need not, to reach the Pure Land, speaking though of a "sideways leap". Maybe such leap is much the same as reaching for the blanket, but I doubt it. Maybe it is seeing with new eyes.
Well, so much for post one. A second quickly followed, this inspired by a thread I started myself regarding ways of interpreting Scripture. Once again, I found it difficult to truly understand some of the posts - but lack of understanding never deters an ardent Dookie! But one poster had sought to insist that any sacred text must be read pillar to post. Again, that many texts had been "amended" over time as the orthodox authorities sought "power."
The post:-
I must have read the NT right through about 6 or 7 times, various versions. Loving literature and "style" I still love the cadences of the King James version. The OT, not so sure. Certainly never beginning at the start and reading right through. But also various commentaries on the texts, O & N Testaments. The commentaries on the OT by Jewish worthies are sometimes very illuminating and makes me think that they have more often recognised the Messiah than many Christians.
Having dipped into various books about the formation and writing of the two testaments, yes, "power" and the desire to control seem to have "amended" the text. But as I see it, it is more the "interpretation" of the text by "orthodox" bodies (self appointed) and the condemnation of alternative readings that invites the exercise of power, the contempt towards the true spirit that seeks only our good.
Myself, I am not really an advocate of what "must" be read, part or all, whatever. If enlightenment/salvation is the bottom line then one word can be enough, or even no word at all. Obviously its reassuring to know that whoever is pontificating upon the "true" meaning has in fact read most, if not all, of any "sacred/holy" book, but the arguments back and forth are, for me, chaff in the wind.
It's much like Finnegans Wake. One word contains all others. Grace.
Thus ends the second post.
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