Butterflies and differentiation

Maybe I have mentioned it elsewhere, maybe not, but I have for a long time loved butterflies.

Way back when I was a lad we saw so many kinds, all colours, and took them for granted. Now we are lucky to see some tiny white kind fluttering by, almost carried by the wind, so fragile.

Anyway, once again I am back in McDonalds, bolstered by my white coffee and also by just having busted level 4725 of Soda Candy Crush Saga. Yes folks! and not a penny spent on boosters! Something to be proud of!

What popped into my head just as I was entering McDonalds were the words of some wag, about - I would suppose - "equality":-

There are only two kinds of people in the world - those that divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't.

A good quip, and really quite profound. Paradoxical in a certain way, in that it implies a division by saying that there is none.

But profound, at least for me, in that it suggests as to how we must "touch base" first, before we begin to differentiate. Grasp first that we are all fundamentally "one", that such unity is the "hidden ground of love" (a Thomas Merton phrase used in one of his letters), and from this "ground" we can then begin to differentiate.

We do this all the time - judging, picking and choosing, but if we have truly surrendered to the Grace (pure gift) that is, has been, will be, given to ALL, and truly know that we are all in it together, then our "differentiation" as we live onwards will be of another order.

"Another order"? To what exactly? Differentiation again, more paradox. But when was life, reality, ever logical? As John Keats once said (in a letter to Benjamin Bailey):- 

 I have never yet been able to perceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning.

In such a way we can approach the thought of the 13th century zen master Dogen, who wrote that we must "realise duality within non-duality". Or, thinking about it, should that be "realising non-duality within duality"? Or would that be the same thing anyway? Send your answers on a postcard and I'll give a prize to the winner (that is, if I work out who it is)

Well, I'm basically waffling and rambling. Feeling just a little bit better these days, but I think of the words of Winston Churchill, spoken during the Second World War, about "this is not the end, not the beginning of the end, more perhaps the end of the beginning".  Something like that, Winnie had a way with words.

So just perhaps "The end of the beginning", which again reminds me of the words of T. S. Eliot near the end of Little Gidding, the fourth quartet of his Four Quartets:-

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Those few words have been a constant with me for many years. To be honest, most of the entire poem is beyond me, but I love the rhythm and cadence of all the words. Maybe sometimes it is simply best not to understand; "understanding" can be a conclusion, whereas Reality itself - healing, restoring, reconciling - is a constant advance into novelty. Why stop at any point and think "Ah! I understand. At last!"

Our time for grace and mercy and healing would be put on hold.

Well, I waffle. I ramble. The thoughts pour out. My coffee is finished, I have shopping to get, a bit of "retail therapy" even if it is just a couple of bananas!

Sincerely, all the very best to you all, whatever your struggles. Stay strong. There is no miracle cure, no miracle pill - it is Reality-as-is that is the cure and the miracle.

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

Thank you

Just to finish, a poem by R. S. Thomas, which I love:-

The Kingdom

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life.
It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.

Judge not!

 

What do others think of making judgements?

I've always loved a quote from the playwright Samuel Beckett, who said that:-

"We can never have enough knowledge, but not in order to judge."

I think we can gather knowledge like busy little bees, adding daily to our stock, perhaps thinking ourselves constantly wiser. Then, according to our very own unique conditioning, born of culture and circumstance, we form our judgement - of others, of virtually everything. Until our "self" becomes a hard nugget of "conclusions".

How can we truly see any other human being if such be the case. As the Good Book says:- "Judge not, lest you be judged"

As I see it, such a verse is not the threat of some "sky God" in charge of it all, but is the very nature of Reality. When we "judge" another (in fact, judge anything at all) we inevitable judge ourselves. Only we, our unique self, could possible have formed such a judgement, simply because of all of our own knowledge and preconceived conclusions.

Caught in a trap. And some just might be satisfied, satisfied with just how they see the world. But sadly, as I see it, Reality is missed. Its constant advance into novelty is forestalled, its healing power bypassed in favour of our own chosen judgements and conclusions.

Dogen, 13th century zen master:-

Conveying oneself toward all things to carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization.

(Lines from his "Genjokoan", the actualisation of Reality)

My apologies, I'm seeking to share with friends, not seeking to convince or preach! I'm going through a torrid time, seeking to hold myself together (or perhaps, seeking to allow the Grace of Reality to hold me together) I'm here drinking a coffee in McDonalds and I find tapping away on my Kindle therapeutic, barely knowing exactly what I will say until it is said.

Any comments welcome. I am constantly stimulated by the thoughts of other - and hopefully there will be no judgement!

The Paralympics

 

Going through it at the moment. I have been watching quite a bit of the Paralympics and have found some of the contests and races a great tribute to the human race, of adversity being overcome.

One swimming race, I said to my partner just how much spray one guy was kicking up, his legs thrashing away! He certainly never came first, but when he stood up at the finish he had no arms. So, a "winner". (I say "he" but sometimes the short clip they show, and what with wearing a cap, not always sure)

And the comradeship and support they give to each other. After so many races, often close finishes, winner and loser so often hug each other with genuine depth and emotion - obviously, through their very own struggles against adversity they feel a deep empathy for other contestants, no matter what country they are from.

Last night I watched the ladies 100 metres final, eight finalists. Netherlands, 1st, 2nd and third. A clean sweep. Various disabilities on display and I'd estimate that I would have come in 9th! But hey, I'm 75 - that's my excuse! The gold medalist, a lovely looking girl in her twenties, obviously overjoyed at her success, but never forgetting all the other runners. She had suffered some problem, I think in her teens, where poor circulation had effected her extremities, hands and feet. First one leg amputated, then later a second - at different levels. Then, sadly, many of her fingers.

Tulips from Amsterdam!

What can you say? No words can truly express the emotions that girl has been through, and to try to understand the sheer grit and determination that led her to an Olympic Gold is beyond me. All I could do was look on in admiration and wonder. What a triumph over adversity, and I would hazard a guess that family support, and the support of friends, played a huge part.

So there. What can I say? Pointless, futile, to ask myself just why I spend so much time in dread and anxiety - with all my limbs, a loving wife, a nice home, lovely daughter and two beautiful grandchildren (just wish that they could stop treading Blu Tack into our carpet...) and virtually no financial worries. That said, who can understand the mind? Though we share so much in our common humanity , we are each particular individuals, each given our own struggles. Who can truly understand?

Well, that is it. Once more I have tapped this out while sipping a coffee in McDonalds, never sure exactly what I am going to say until I have said it.

All the best to you all

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

Anyone for Psychiatry?

 

Just to add my own thoughts, as I'm once again in McDonalds where I tend to ramble and waffle, which I find therapeutic for myself (if not for others......)

As far as looking towards the "ancient wisdom", rather than psychiatry, a good guide is Karen Armstrong. Sadly today, many associate religion purely with what I would see as Fundamentalism, i.e. belief systems rather that Faith systems.

Here is Karen Armstrong on revelation:-

"There is much to be learned from older ways of thinking about religion. We have seen that far from regarding revelation as static, fixed and unchanging, Jews, Christians and Muslims all knew that revealed truth was symbolic, that scripture could not be interpreted literally, and that sacred texts had multiple meaning and could lead to entirely fresh insights. Revelation was not an event that had happened once in the distant past, but was an ongoing, creative process that required human ingenuity. They understood that revelation did not provide us with infallible information about the divine, because this would always remain beyond our ken."

Ms Armstrong is not making this up! She provides deep analysis and relates this to the long history of all our world's religions. The key is "creative process", this for anyone seeking some degree of insight into the human condition, their own condition, rather than simply learning some creedal formula by rote.

Psychiatry itself is a very mixed field. My actual knowledge is limited, but I have followed more the leanings of Carl Jung, who split from Freud very early on. He saw Freud's ideas as basically reductionist. Jung was more into psyche and soul, the universal unconscious - which itself was a way of bringing in the ancient wisdom, the universal, yet applied to himself/ourselves as unique individuals. Jung spoke of the "spirit of the age" (the conditioning we soak up and breathe in purely by being born in a particular time and place and virtually assume before we actually begin to think for ourselves) and contrasted it with the "spirit of the depths" which we have to seek* and explore for ourselves.

(*I tend to think that "it" seeks us, but that is me)

I lean more towards the "east" and Buddhism (the Dharma) and have found that a lot of western seekers decry "faith" (as virtually "belief"), this possibly because many are on the run from a lot of Western religion, which has been rejected - possibly as factually unbelievable.

Yet going to the heart of the Dharma, no one there is afraid of the word "faith", and informed commentators insist that zazen meditation, for instance "cannot be fully understood apart from consideration of faith.” Dogen, the great zen master, spoke constantly of Faith. Trust. In reality.

Again, this 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 as a vital, ephemeral agent of awareness and healing."

I have heard many say "I believe there is a reason for everything" and I see faith, trust, that "all things" work towards the restoration and reconciliation of "all things", is the heart of all genuine spirituality; more a letting go of our preconceptions rather than any clinging to belief.

Yet it is ALL things - both what we see as good and what we see as bad, and our experiences also, good AND bad.

"Flowers fade even though we love them, weeds grow even though we dislike them" 

(Dogen, from his "Genjokoan", the actualisation of Reality)

But what are flowers and what are weeds? Can we ever know? Perhaps with hindsight!

Sadly, still I grasp the flowers! Faith is thus lacking, but I stumble on.

Anyway, I have rambled on a bit. I am having a bit of a rough time mental health wise, good times come and go. I wish you all well.

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

Just to finish:-

"In the old city
at the head of Grafton Street
a busker plays his fiddle.
First Brahms, then Bach
and a little Paganini for fun.
Fingers run up and down strings.
Is it the vibrating air,
his skill, or the old melodies
that bring tears to my eyes?
Tell me, I need to know."

(A modern response - Terrance Keenan - to an ancient Koan found in "The Blue Cliff Record" - Case 2, "The Real Way is Not Difficult")

When Summer Comes

 Hope is a constant - hopefully. There are so many in our world who hold opinions and beliefs at variance with our own. Is there any point in arguing? As has been said, you cannot argue someone out of a position that they were not argued into. Something other than strict logic is at work. At work in all of us. 

My own way of seeing things is that fundamentally we are all in the same boat, driven by winds beyond logic and conscious decision making. No one is of another "type" fundamentally, though we are all unique. 

As I see it, we must see this deeply before we seek for differentiation between ourselves and others. Which I also see as the nature of Reality-as-is, which is unity and "one" before differentiation. 

Anyway, I ramble. But the main objection I have to many - in Religion or anything else - is the insistence upon division, not just now, but eternally. "Them" and "us" forever. The saved and the lost, the sheep and the goats. Sadly, this outlook is projected upon "God" or whatever - whereas I would see Reality-as-is as always "working" towards "restoration" and "reconciliation". The "working" of wu wei, effortlessness - when logic subsides and the love that "has no why" can arise. 

Elvis Costello - holding his breath?

 Maybe a chance to quote here my latest love, the lyrics of Elvis Costello. I like these, from "When Summer Comes":-

But as every day still succeeds the darkest moments we have known
When seasons turn
Springtime colours will return
And as the first pale flowers of the lengthening hours
Seem to brighten the twilight and that melancholy cloak
Then a fresh perfume just seems to burst from each bloom
Until the green shoots through each day
As it arrives in every shade of hope
When summer comes
There will be a dream of peace
And a breath that I've held so long that I can barely release
Then perhaps I may even find a room somewhere
Just a place I can still speak to you

 

Good stuff....."a breath that I have held so long that I can barely release"

Accepting our mortality

I have heard it said that "existence just is" and that we should "accept our mortality".

Existence certainly just "is" but what it "is" is the question. Myself, I tend to think that once we settle upon a final answer, reach a conclusion, then we are as good as dead. 

 "Our Mortality" can be such an answer, a conclusion, certainly today when such is the "spirit of the age", breathed in the air around us - with all its implications. "When you are dead you are dead" and all that's left is "tales told by idiots, signifying nothing." Making the most of nihilism. Sorry, saying this is by no means a " judgement" or an "accusation" against anyone,  just  the thoughts of my own mind. 

But to me "embracing our mortality" are only words, but the words are weighted with assumptions. The assumptions then create our very own axioms....

 

That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
   Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

(W H Auden)

 

.......or others.....but whatever our axioms are, we begin to solidify as "selves", set in our ways, our anticipations, and finally the world simply comes back to us as echoes. 

 

Conveying oneself toward all things to carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization. (Dogen)

 

How do we allow the world to come to us, without our imprint upon it? Is it possible?

 

Why is their Something rather than Nothing? What is our very own Cosmology......which introduces a passage from "Zen Cosmology" by Dan Berringer:-

 

Affirmation of God does not require projection of a macro-substance, an impregnable identity, a secure foundation, to which one must cling, and which constricts the freedom of the spirit. The Buddhist deconstruction of such a God could be a service to biblical faith, overcoming a God who is substance for a God who is Spirit, and who is thus more, not less real.

Our cosmology functions as the very foundation of our conduct. We think, speak, and act in the world in accordance with what our understanding of the world is. The more our view of reality diverges from the way reality actually is, the more unreliable our thoughts, words, and deeds in reality will be. One does not need to be a scientist to recognize we would do well to establish a more reliable cosmology – and sooner rather than later.

Later on, Berringer writes:-

......as Zen contends, knowledge (epistemology) and existence (ontology) are not two different things – our ‘cosmology’ is not simply how we see the universe it is how the universe is actualized. The significance of this point is succinctly illustrated in the following observation by Hee-Jin Kim concerning Dogen’s (hence Zen’s) view of the unity of knowledge and reality: "To Dogen, mind was at once knowledge and reality, at once the knowing subject and the known object, yet it transcended them both at the same time. In this nondual conception of mind, what one knew was what one was—and ontology, epistemology, and soteriology were inseparably united."

 

The point is, such is not fixed. It is always "Now" but Now is always on the move and can never be finally captured. At least, not by words. 

What is the difference between saying that "meaning" is inherent in Reality but such meaning is unique to each, ongoing, not fixed - and saying that there is no meaning except what each unique being chooses to believe and live? Is there any difference? I tend to think that there is, but my thoughts lack clarity on the issue. 

But I am a good little Buddhist, and seek the "heartwood of the Dharma":-

So this holy life.....does not have gain, honour, and renown for its benefit, or the attainment of virtue for its benefit, or the attainment of concentration for its benefit, or knowledge and vision for its benefit. But it is this unshakeable deliverance of mind that is the goal of this holy life, its heartwood, and its end.

 

Anyway, having questioned the word "mortality" and its possible implications, I am not sneaking immortality in by the back door - in fact I'm not sneaking anything in. No conclusions. Which I can trace to the so called "Silence of the Buddha" on all metaphysical questions - any conclusion, belief, answer, is inimicable to the Holy Life , the road to the end of suffering.

There is a Biblical Proverb:- "Those who answer a thing before they hear it, it is a shame and a folly unto them."

What is it to truly "hear" a thing? Is there a "thing" to be heard once and for all and the job is done, and we wait for our eternal reward when we have said "Yes"? Or is what is to be heard constantly on the move, yet with a direction toward Buddha (as Dogen claimed). The Circle of the Way. 

Well, my rambling has taken up a half hour or so while I drink my coffee.