Belonging

 Reading some quite good stuff by David Hinton, who is very genned up on ancient Chinese thought. Thought that eventually gave us the Toa te Ching, which when meeting with the Buddhist Dharma from India morphed unto Ch'an. Later, from Ch'an into its Japanese expressions, zen, now rife in the West and sometimes hitting a brick wall, the wall being the typical western idea of the "self" as that which is to be developed, shaped and formed - in ways that the Ch'an and the zen masters would have seen as narcissistic distraction. Enlightenment as something to gain, to have. Not as given, gift, to be realised. Given by a Cosmos that is a single living tissue that is inexplicably generative, constantly giving birth to the "ten thousand things" AKA the "myriad dharmas".

All is change and transformation, each of the ten thousand things in perpetual flight, always on its way somewhere else.

David Hinton:-

The abiding aspiration of spiritual and artistic practice in ancient China was to cultivate consciousness as that existence-tissue Cosmos open to itself, awakened to itself: looking at itself, hearing and touching itself, tasting and smelling itself, and also thinking itself, feeling itself—all in the singular ways made possible by the individuality of each particular person. This is consciousness in the open, wild and woven into the generative Cosmos: wholesale belonging.

Apparently, and this was new to me, there was a phase in ancient Chinese thought where the possibility of going down the road of monotheism reared its head. Something being known as the "Celestial King". Fortunately such was only a phase, so China had no specially chosen people, no "jealous" God who would eventually demand a blood sacrifice to reconcile us to Himself. Phew! A narrow escape!

And so we can all be seen as chosen. We are not divided by our choices into sheep and goats, saved and lost, and "eternity" is left to be a constant unfolding into novelty, and not a two tier realm of heaven and hell (where never the twain shall mix - the ultimate dualism which will perhaps always be the end result of a created) world totally distinct from its Creator.

Who wants to feel at home?

Poetry and other things

 

Feeling better this morning, a nice moody Chuck Berry instrumental posted by another here must have helped. But who knows where my moods come from, depressive or positive? Now in McDonald's just after having a chat with a casual acquaintance often met on the bus into town, an oldish guy who wears combat gear, loves fishing. Today he told me that he and his girlfriend were off on hols soon, informing me that she was a "randy old girl" despite being 75! I said that I hoped he had his Viagra ready and he said that he'd already spoken with his doctor.

I have been reading a few bits and pieces of Chinese poetry. This seems to complement the writing and insights of David Hinton in his book "China Roots" which traces the influence of ancient Taoist thought upon Buddhism when it drifted into China from India in the early centuries and morphed into Ch'an.

A couple of nice ones here:-

Spring Dawn

Sleeping in spring, I don't feel the dawn
though everywhere birds are singing.
Last night I heard sounds, blowing, raining.
How many flowers have fallen down?

MENG HAORAN (689–740)

And another from the same poet:-

Spending the Night on Jiande River

I moor my boat by the misty shore.
Sunset renews the wanderer's sorrow.
A plain so vast the sky dwarfs trees.
Clear river water brings the moon close.

Another poem mentioned the white bones of ancient warriors and such thoughts are strangely consoling, the white bones my own when so many trifling concerns are truly seen for what they are. I wonder where depression comes from. Where does the sense of well-being come from. Constant transformation.

I wonder sometimes just what some of our past prophets and "masters" would make of our world now, if transported here. If they too heard the bombardment of our newscasts, saw the awful misery of our world as often as it is pressed upon us, day after day - bombings, shootings, wars, discord, the awful cacophony of our so called "leaders" spouting their words of what amounts to no more that empty, meaningless sounds.

Looking up a few biographical notes on certain ancient poets, in China, I see some came to sticky ends, were engulfed themselves in events and a world beyond true understanding. So it goes on.

Faith and Belief

 Often I go back over thoughts and see how they might have shifted and morphed over time. "Krapp's Last Tape" again, with the emphasis - maybe - on Krapp. Faith and belief. My thoughts on these two always expressed simply, as I see them as opposites. Faith lets go and has the potential to heal and unite. Beliefs cling, and undoubtedly divide and bring conflict.

Many seem to equate the two, use the words interchangeably, but I never have, this from long ago reading a book on the subject by a Christian theologian John Hicks. I've never found the need to amend my thinking in any particular way.

I knew this guy once who was a biblical literalist. He believed that donkeys and snakes spoke "because the Bible said so". He had a deep faith that - at least for him - all would be well. Which sustained him. In many ways he was a kind hearted man who often had a twinkle in his eye - until the subject of religion came up. Then the shutters came down. Another guy in the office would make jokes, saying things like "when you come marching into heaven your'll find me playing in the band." The literalist guy would say "I don't think so" and dip back - during lunch break - into his Bible. That sort of repartee I love, staying in the memory long after any serious dispute has flown away into the wind. I've often said that we are "saved" more in spite of our beliefs than because of them.

Another old guy who would gee up the brethren by saying how we should not smile when shown in to meet God. It would be a serious moment, not one for humour. Such a crass belief, so concrete an image. Easy to jeer at. Yet when hit by illness others spoke of his positive attitude when visited in hospital after a pretty serious operation.

So what is the relationship between faith and belief?

A mother, her son crossing the atlantic in a rowing boat, unheard of for six months, would if she truly believed he was still alive, would find comfort. Yet what price the "comfort"?

I'm not suggesting answers here, or arguing for anything. I need my own faith that all shall be well. In the Pure Land way faith (shinjin) IS salvation. It is not, as in Christianity, the means to salvation. A distinction often lost in inter-faith dialogue. Pure faith. Yet just how "pure" can faith be? I constantly seek for clarity. Sometimes I really am surprised by joy at changes of perception that are acknowledged at some level of my "self", changes that convince me that love, grace, mercy and healing are to be found in this sometimes hostile world. Such cannot possibly be "mine" and therefore must be written into the fabric of Reality.

Well, I'm waffling. Not really a good morning for me. Where my moods come from I have no idea.

All the best to you all.

Showers of Blessings

 Well, obviously it doesn't seem that way a lot of the time. And looking across our world, hearing the news most days, having trust and faith that a "shower of blessings" is always around us is something to be laughed at and ridiculed. Yet I have trust that it is so, the culmination of my life and thoughts up until this point.

I'm non-theist, no belief in transcendent Beings, either He or She, and prefer the words "Reality-as-is". Reality as infinite compassion, infinite wisdom, infinite potential. Always unfolding.

Often - I seem to observe - belief in a Him up there simply leads to subtle (and not so subtle..... ) forms of manipulation, leads also to bargains being struck. This does not have to be so - theists should perhaps pay heed to one of the great Christian mystics, Meister Eckhart, who said this of true obedience and prayer:-

In true obedience there should be no ‘I want this or that to happen’ or ‘I want this or that thing’ but only a pure going out of what is our own. And therefore in the very best kind of prayer that we can pray there should be no ‘give me this particular virtue or way of devotion’ or ‘yes, Lord, give me yourself or eternal life’, but rather ‘Lord, give me only what you will and do, Lord, only what you will and in the way that you will’. This kind of prayer is as far above the former as heaven is above earth. And when we have prayed in this way, then we have prayed well, having gone out of ourselves and entered God in true obedience. But just as true obedience should have no ‘I want this’, neither should it ever hear ‘I don’t want’, for ‘I don’t want’ is pure poison for all true obedience.

Eckhart is speaking of "selflessness", and in the non-theistic Faith of Buddhism, the word pointing to this is anatta, or not-self (which has nothing whatsoever to do with any denial of a "soul" or any of the rest of the nonsense that can be read in certain quarters)

But getting back to showers of blessings, any effort to manipulate the myriad dharmas of Reality-as-is is simply superstition or magic – it has no truth. Compassion is poured down (or up, or across) irrespective of the machinations of the practitioner, and also whether we know it is so or not. Yet if we play our part, in receiving, in turning to the light, we reflect and magnify the effect for the benefit of others, and this is only likely to happen when we have "escaped from our addiction to self – self-worth, self-esteem, self-assertion, self-entitlement and all other forms of trying to rearrange the universe so that we ourselves are the centre around which it revolves" (a quote from a Dharma book)

From the Lotus Sutra "The Parable of the Dharma Rain":-

I bring fullness and satisfaction to the world,
like rain that spreads its moisture everywhere.
Eminent and lowly, superior and inferior,
observers of precepts, violators of precepts,
those fully endowed with proper demeanor,
those not fully endowed,
those of correct views, of erroneous views,
of keen capacity, of dull capacity -
I cause the Dharma rain to rain on all equally,
never lax or neglectful.
When all the various living beings
hear my Law,
they receive it according to their power,
dwelling in their different environments.....
......The Law of the Buddhas
is constantly of a single flavour,
causing the many worlds
to attain full satisfaction everywhere;
by practicing gradually and stage by stage,
all beings can gain the fruits of the way.

The autumn wind.

 Long ago I read a little poem, I think by Buson, and one line was:-

When I speak well of myself and ill of another
The autumn wind chills my lips

Through all of the suffering, the autumn wind often blows. The two seem to go together, which is a theodicy of sorts.

Still reading and absorbing David Hinton's fine book "China Roots". Heavy stuff in a way and yet bringing clarity. Now speaking of the "metaphysical separation" in much Western thought - soul/self and world, a transcendental spirit centre that looks out at the world. Separation.

David Hinton:- In classical Chinese, the separation exists, but there is no metaphysical dimension. Language is not a transcendental realm, and neither is the identity-center. There is a separation, the overcoming of which is the focus of Ch’an practice, but that practice is quite different because there is no metaphysical dimension involved.

And so there is no seeking to be "good", to obey commands, just the autumn wind, which can be welcomed as a friend

Love is the meaning (Take Two)

 

Way back when I broke away from an extreme form of Christianity (the usual "born again" onewayers) I said to one of the brethren that I subscribed to Universalism. ALL were to be saved (whatever "saved" might mean.......) His response was then "what is the point"? If such is so, why evangelize? Why a Bible?

Whatever I now think of this man, he had a good question. Why? In fact, why anything at all?

The same question, yet in another context, another culture, another Faith, was that of the 13th century zen master Dogen. If the teaching of Original Enlightenment is true, if all is Buddha Nature, then why practice? Why did the Buddha's of old still meditate, still teach, still reach down into samsara with gift bestowing hands, minds and hearts?

I always love finding correspondances between our World's Faith Tradition (in fact across all traditions, philosophy, whatever, even atheist) As I see it it brings forth one meaning of the (itself) widespread idea that in "every particular is the universal". Every question involves all questions. Find one answer and all are found. Which may sound mystical mumbo jumbo - perhaps it is - but I see it as pointing towards truth. We all have our life koan (both problem and answer, yet beyond concept)

Jumping forward, I think the answer is simply Love. The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart once said:-

Love has no why.

Which kills all questions stone dead. There is no "why" to love. If we love then the questions are over. Only the actions that come forth from our mind/hearts remain.

Now, I put love with Universalism. The base is that we are all one. What comes to one will come to all. If our minds divide, if they judge, if in any way at all it is "us" and "them", then there can be no love. The Great Way is beyond differentiation

Letting go of my own questions is the difficult part, yet I see now, more and more, the significance of the Pure Land myokonin Saichi, who wrote:-

Not knowing why, not knowing why! That is my support, not knowing why! That is the Namu-amida-butsu!

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

Love is the meaning

 As a non-theist myself, God as some sort of transcendent Being, and trying to determine exactly what such an incredible Being thinks about anything at all, is a non-starter. Nevertheless, I think existence has significance. It is not a "tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

Making the most of one of our worlds many "holy" books, God supposedly looked at "his" creation and saw that it was good. Most seem to interpret that as this rather strange Being looking and thinking how perfect it was, and then along comes us (or Adam, or Eve, or a serpent, or cro-magnon man, or neanderthal man) who then throw a spanner in the works by "sinning", thus messing it all up! It's all our fault!

But how about looking and seeing that it was fit for purpose. Good in that sense?

This points to the "O Felix Culpa" of the Catholic Church, even more so of the Christian Eastern Orthodox Tradition.

From Wiki:- Felix culpa is a Latin phrase that comes from the words felix, meaning "happy," "lucky," or "blessed" and culpa, meaning "fault" or "fall". In the Catholic tradition, the phrase is most often translated "happy fault", as in the Catholic Exsultet. Other translations include "blessed fall" or "fortunate fall".


Even a necessary fall, intended. Lets face it, if reward for doing good inevitable resulted in instant reward, the "good" would cease to be. It would become self-interest. We need the opposites, in which we "live and move and have our being".

Anyway, enough of that. I find more mileage in the Dharma. Forget about "beginnings" and trying to double think some Being who started it all. Such speculations are decried by the Buddha as not being conducive to actually finding the path to the end of suffering, to realising the unshakable deliverance of mind that the core texts say is the heartwood of the Dharma.

Anyway, I waffle as usual. I think there are signs everywhere of the meaning of Reality. To surrender our "selves" we find our meaning. Our own path, time and place. As in the zen master Dogen's Genjokoan:-

Therefore, if there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place. When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality (genjōkōan). When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality (genjōkōan).

Or, in theistic language, from the writings of the great Christian mystic Julian of Norwich, from her "Revelations of Divine Love":-

I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said: What, do you wish to know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For Love…. So I was taught that love is our Lord’s meaning.

Yes, it is. Such is my faith.