Memo 2

 

Time for another memo ..... maybe not. After the brief interlude of being corrected in whatever I took from Murti's book ("Just take what you need and leave the rest") I'm back again.

Having been corrected, I have given suttas and suchlike a rest and indulged myself in a book by John Higgs. He is a fine writer with various insights into our strange world. His book on William Blake - poet, mystic, artist and madman - "William Blake versus The World" is very good, especially as he sees William Blake as winning the contest.

The book I am now reading is "Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the 20th Century". I have read it once and posted a review on Amazon under another "screen name" (Tariki). Here it is:-

John Higgs makes sense of the Twentieth Century by seeing it as being the loss of any absolute way of seeing our world, of living in it, of relating to it. What was lost for western man as he/she stumbled into the modern age was never the pivot of Tao which gives direct intuition, but nevertheless was some sort of shared, inherited, viewpoint that gave sense and enabled most to live with a degree of stability. Then came relativity, the Great War, the undermining of any absolute perspective.

Mr Higgs sees the main attempt to replace all that went before as being virtually a cult of the individual; and more, individuality without responsibility. He does so in an entertaining way and also often with a degree of humour. There is also a welcome moral tone to the text though this is carried lightly and is never didactic. The sheer multitude of individual perspectives with all the consequent limitations and damage, the rise of the giant Corporations that act in the very same manner i.e. individuality without responsibility - all this is charted with lively examples and, as I have said, in an entertaining way.

Eventually individualism is yielding, in the twenty-first century, to community. Or so it is hoped. Or so we can hope.

Protecting oneself, one protects others. Protecting others, one protects oneself

Recommended.

As you can see, I sought to spread the Dharma with my quote from the Theravada Scriptures. As is said, giving us our mission:-

Go forth, O monks, to bless the many, to bring happiness to the many, out of compassion for the world; go forth for the welfare, the blessing, the happiness of all beings.........Go forth and spread the teaching that is beautiful in the beginning, beautiful in the middle and beautiful in the end. (No, I am not a monk but.......)

Reading Mr Higg's book again now, and it begins with Einstein and relativity. Mr Higg's speaks much of the loss of a fixed point, an "omphalos", a word unknown to me until reading his book. A fixed point, from which we seek to make sense of it all. Apparently you can pick and choose your own "omphalos", which we all tend to do unconsciously. Trouble starts, of course, when we insist that our very own "omphalos" is suitable for all. The beginning of Inquisitions and suchlike.

One sentence caught my eye...... Nothing is at rest, unless it is defined as being so , which holds deep Dharma. We choose to define our self as being at the centre. This has its plus points as well as its minor points. Untangling the two is the trick........as the "Path of Purification" (Visuddhimagga) begins: "Who shall untangle this tangle". Well, the Buddha of course. Just so long as you remain orthodox and don't start treading on anyone else omphalos (or is it "omphalii?) which could be painful.

"Four Quartets" is one of my favorites. T.S.Eliot.....

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving.....

Well, whatever, enough for now. It has been a tough morning mental health wise. Actually had a face to face with my GP. A nice lady, helpful.

All the best to you all.

May true Dharma continue
No blame. Be kind. Love everything.