The secular way

 Whatever impression might have been gained from my often rambling posts full of quotes from the various religions, I am totally secular in my life and in how I relate to others "in the flesh" (so to speak....)

It is basically an accident of circumstance that I relate so much to religious writings and imagery - when quite young I was involved with those who could be called "ardent believers" () and it has followed that my route out of the morass has been via "religion" , and all our world's faith traditions have played a part. It is how I think, for better or worse. But in essence I am totally secular.

I do find Buddhism the richest tradition, in all its variations, particularly the Pure Land Tradition - which from all my reading remains the most profound expression of "grace" found. Many would perhaps associate Grace with an "offer" of mercy from a transcendent God. Being secular, I associate the word, ultimately, with freedom of mind - and this in the non-dual way of the eastern faiths. Pure trust in Reality-as-is, which in fact and experience, leads to freedom.

The Pure Land way is fundamentally secular and has no priests or masters - ideally very egalitarian. Its dojo (training ground) is in family life, around the kitchen sink, not in Church or temple.

Which is why I am automatically drawn to such stories as that of Dogen, as he searched for his own path, time and place (and freedom of mind) in his travels in China. When he asked an old cook who spent his whole day cooking for the novices in a monastery, "would'nt you rather be studying and practicing the Dharma?" And the old cook just laughed his head off! It took Dogen quite a few more years before he understood why.

And here is the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart:-

Indeed, if a man thinks he will get more of God by meditation, by devotion, by ecstacies or by special infusion of grace than by the fireside or in the stable that is nothing but taking God, wrapping a cloak around His head and shoving Him under a bench. For whoever seeks God in a special way gets the way and misses God, who lies hidden it it. But whoever seeks God without any special way gets Him as He is in himself, and that man lives with the Son, and he is life itself."

But whatever, sorry, if anyone thinks that I am pushing "religion" of any sort, then I am being misunderstood (though I admit that I can understand exactly why) Words are very fluid to me.

Finally, I actually think that virtually all religion is a betrayal of this world, the only one we have ever known; betrayed for some imagined other. I genuinely seek never to betray our as such.

That's it. Now I will post this as a blog and add pictures! It is what I do. It is therapeutic. I still have mental health issues. I'm nothing special