Monday, July 18, 2023
Well, we’re still at it.
Trying to create a meme so effective that it makes us all wise as individuals and together in groups. In this way we can aid the cause of democracy in the US and beyond.
We were thinking that the best wisdom meme is still probably the one from the Bible.
Somebody asks Jesus what’s the most important commandment. The answer varies slightly from Gospel to Gospel, but basically: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” [Luke 10:27 New Revised Standard Version Bible]
The only version that includes “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” is Mark, but Mark is the oldest Gospel. So here’s Mark 12:28-31 [also NRSVB]:
28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
And then of course in Luke there’s also the story of the Good Samaritan. But get this: In Luke (and not in any of the other Gospels), the one who answers the question is not Jesus, but the same person who asked the question.
Here is Luke 10:25-37 [World English Bible]:
Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.”
He said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
Jesus answered, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he travelled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’ Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?”
He said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
So there you have it.
Best wisdom meme ever!
Except it clearly didn’t work.
Because that genie was let out of the bottle over 2000 years ago, and we humans are still not very wise.
So what’s to be done?
But then we got to thinking that maybe it is too long. But then, well, this part isn’t:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.”
And that’s the gist of it.
The second part of Luke, the story of the Good Samaritan: that seems like someone asking an obviously dumb question, like a kid whose clearly more interested in showing off how clever he is than in learning anything new or satisfying any abiding curiosity; and Jesus being like, “hmmm, let me think, what could the answer be? Let’s think … ”
So why hasn’t “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” enlightened us all?
It’s had 2000 years to hatch.
The wisdom meme is supposed to slip right in and get to work IMMEDIATELY.
As in: You hear the wisdom meme, it captivates your attention, you get enlightened. Plus: The wisdom meme has the same effect on everyone else, so now we’re all enlightened and we all share a common language of enlightenment. But like real fast. In the Information Age, the whole process should take a few days — maybe a week tops to get to remote villages and such.
Where did Jesus go wrong?
Maybe the problem is that his answer is set within a religious context, and that shuts peoples brains and hearts right off. They just think either, “Oh, this is my side, this is what we believe, so I definitely believe this and you better believe it too!” OR, “Oh, this is the other side, this is not what we believe, so I definitely don’t believe this and you better not either!” OR (in a more enlightened age), “well, yeah, sure, that’s how spiritual people think, and you know what: they may be onto something! In any case, I find a lot to admire here!” In short, people know Jesus is a religious figure and (at least for like the last 1800 years) they categorize everything he says as Christianity, which they further categorize as “True!” or “False!” or “Not without its merits!” or etc.
What if we took the Buddha’s best wisdom meme and smooshed it together with Jesus’s, and then let the essence of their commingling drizzle out? Maybe then we could move past religious prejudices to the heart of the matter.
Also, there’s perhaps a nuance to be got at by colliding two different angles on the same story. Christianity spreads salvation through active love for God and other, while Buddhism spreads enlightenment through the cessation of attachment and the realization of non-self. Christianity puts all its stock in God and God’s Love. But Buddhism has not self, so no God either. Christianity says God’s in charge — sometimes Christians suppose God preordains everything; other times they suppose we’re free to choose to follow God or not. Buddhism says dharma we all arise in interdependence of one another and there’s no great Self to help us (also without any self, great or small) choose, but still we can choose.
Well, shoot, let’s come back to this
Friday, July 21, 2023
Threads we are considering weaving together: Jesus’s famous discussion of the most important commandments, a wisdom meme that registered with Jesus’s first century Jewish interlocutors and billions of people since those early heady days of his stroll through human history and the hearts and minds embedded therein; the heart sutra, but improved by Thitch Nhat Hanh in 2014, when he (old now at 88 and not far from his die-down at 95 when 2022 began) clarifying that it isn’t that in emptiness there’s no form (after all, earlier in the sutra it is stated “form is emptiness; emptiness is form”), but that emptiness and form and everything else “are not separate self entities”; our spiritual notions and their antecedents in the Western philosophical tradition; and a cute little hiccup in the history of human thought when the Academics (students at the Academy, founded by Plato in 387 BC and lasting until 83 BC), during the school’s long and ironic (if one believes its founder took his own the dogmas seriously) skeptical period — a cute little hiccup where men devoted to suspending judgement on all things were surprised by a sense of infinite blessedness. Oh, and Camus, our other old friend — Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus.
We think the process of harmonizing these apparently discordant threads into a coherent melody will reveal the common underbelly of wisdom.
The project as above sketched sounds like a daunting scholarly undertaking. However, we are not scholars, and we are not daunted. We’ll just go from memory, with the occasional google search to fill in particularly glaring holes in our admittedly spotty knowledge. The point here is not scholarly perfection, but merely a decent gist of things — from which foundation we hope to create not a matchless philosophical doctrine, but merely a decent gist of the path that takes us to the other shore.
We are seeking a wisdom meme that works as a larking giggle does: with an enchanting infectiousness, overtaking and synthesizing every heart, mind, and soul — bringing each individual into accord with the Light/Love within, and every combination of individuals into agreement on the need to prioritize this Light of Purest Love, and giving us all a shared language for keeping this commitment in all possible settings (remembering that while in groupings of different sizes and shapes, we need different key principles to keep our shared focus on the prize).
God grant us the serenity to accept the limitations of our knowledge, wisdom, and language; the kind joy to speak what can be said of this life and the Love that makes it wonderful; and the wisdom, humility, and patience to know, accept, and, where possible, communicate the difference.
The most important commandment
We outlined this thread above.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And everyone who needs your smile is your neighbor; and that’s everyone.
A dual motion inward and outward. With complete trust, affection, and commitment to the Love that chooses us all; and an active compassionate recognition of that Love animating us and everyone else, binding us together as equal children of the Love that is enough for all with infinite Love left over (the water of life overflowing).
A dual motion inward and outward. With a complete Yes to the Pure Love shining through your conscious moment; and the recognition that this Love shines through everyone else as well — this Love is who we all most fundamentally are, and It binds us all together forever in Its infinite Kind Joy.
Saturday, July 22
Help us God to find the way forward for everyone together.
The only sustainable path.
The reason why liberal democracy is a spiritual good.
Because we can evolve our shared culture along with our shared government and thus together protect, prioritize, and explore the universal values and Love that animates them — this Love that chooses everyone together always and forever.
It was a funny twist.
You wanted to be loved and respected, though you didn’t want to say it.
Everyone already loved and respected you — but for who you really were, not who you pretended to be.
You were proud of your excess, but it was the limits that defined your life and gave it meaning.
You asked for her love, but didn’t tell her why.
Broken where your gut and sex run together.
How to heal that kind of a wound?
Barf it out?
Stand up straight within yourself, and push out from within?
Let the Love in at all sides and beam it out through every crevice twist wrinkle and turn?
I want to talk to you.
To be good for you, good to you, listen to you, know you, serve you, delight in you.
Everywhere the ceremony of innocence is open.
Everywhere the creature scurries, free to be a clueless impulse, desperately darting, propelled hither and thither by waves of fear and hope.
Everywhere the laughter remembers and grows quiet, contemplative, and slowly less sure — not of the mirth, but of its ownership.
The Heart Sutra
Sunday, July 23
The Heart Sutra discusses Prajñāpāramitā, a Sanskrit word that means “the perfection of wisdom” or “transcendental knowledge”. It is seeing reality as it really is.
It does not seem that the Heart Sutra goes back to the Buddha. Its exact origin are a matter of scholarly debate, but many think it was composed in China. The first surviving text is 7th Century Chinese monk Xuanzang’s 649 CE translation of the Heart Sutra.
In his discussion of his translation of the Heart Sutra, Thích Nhất Hạnh explains:
The insight of prajñāpāramitā is the most liberating insight that helps us overcome all pairs of opposites such as birth and death, being and non-being, defilement and immaculacy, increasing and decreasing, subject and object, and so on, and helps us to get in touch with the true nature of no birth/no death, no being/no non-being etc… which is the true nature of all phenomena. This is a state of coolness, peace, and non-fear that can be experienced in this very life, in your own body and in your own five skandhas. It is nirvana. Just as the birds enjoy the sky, and the deer enjoy the meadow, so do the wise enjoy dwelling in nirvana. This is a very beautiful sentence in the Nirvana Chapter of the Chinese Dharmapada.
[https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation]
Here’s a translation without TNH’s interference:
When Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva was practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā, he illuminated the Five Skandhas and saw that they were all empty, and crossed over all suffering and affliction.
“Śāriputra, form is not different from emptiness, and emptiness is not different from form. Form itself is emptiness, and emptiness itself is form. Sensation, conception, synthesis, and discrimination are also such as this. Śāriputra, all dharmas are empty — they are neither created nor destroyed, neither defiled nor pure, and they neither increase nor diminish. This is because in emptiness there is no form, sensation, conception, synthesis, or discrimination. There are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or thoughts. There are no forms, sounds, scents, tastes, sensations, or dharmas. There is no field of vision and there is no realm of thoughts. There is no ignorance nor elimination of ignorance, even up to and including no old age and death, nor elimination of old age and death. There is no suffering, its accumulation, its elimination, or a path. There is no understanding and no attaining.
“Because there is no attainment, bodhisattvas rely on Prajñāpāramitā, and their minds have no obstructions. Since there are no obstructions, they have no fears. Because they are detached from backwards dream-thinking, their final result is Nirvāṇa. Because all buddhas of the past, present, and future rely on Prajñāpāramitā, they attain Anuttarā Samyaksaṃbodhi. Therefore, know that Prajñāpāramitā is a great spiritual mantra, a great brilliant mantra, an unsurpassed mantra, and an unequalled mantra. The Prajñāpāramitā Mantra is spoken because it can truly remove all afflictions. The mantra is spoken thusly:
gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā
[https://lapislazulitexts.com/tripitaka/T0251-LL-prajnaparamita-hrdaya/]
Notice that the Heart Sutra is mostly a big introduction to the perfect mantra, and then concludes with the mantra itself:
gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā
That’s sometimes called “The Heart Calming Mantra”. It also doesn’t seem to go back to the Buddha. I was not able to figure out just now if it is older than the Heart Sutra. In the known literature, that mantra seems to arrive with that sutra.
It is Sanskrit, and is not translated. I guess by a logic akin to how you can’t perfectly translate poetry.
Here are some possible translations:
“Gone, gone, gone to the other shore beyond. O what an awakening, all hail!”. A shorter, more concise translation is: “gone beyond the beyond to enlightenment”. Another perspective on this mantra is, “Gone, gone, gone all the way over, everyone gone to the other shore, enlightenment, hail!”
[https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/10866/gate-gate-para-gate-para-sum-gate-bodhi-swaha]
TNH explains why and where he intervenes:
The problem begins with the line: ‘Listen Shariputra, because in emptiness, there is no form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness’ (in Sanskrit: TasmācŚāriputraśūnyatayāmnarūpamnavedanānasamjñānasamskārānavijñānam). How funny! It was previously stated that emptiness is form, and form is emptiness, but now you say the opposite: there is only emptiness, there is no body. This line of the sutra can lead to many damaging misunderstandings. It removes all phenomena from the category ‘being’ and places them into the category of ‘non-being’ (no form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations or consciousness…). Yet the true nature of all phenomena is the nature of no being nor non-being, no birth and no death. The view of ‘being’ is one extreme view and the view of ‘non-being’ is another extreme view.
[https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation]
So THN duly corrects the error:
…
“Listen Sariputra,
this Body itself is Emptiness
and Emptiness itself is this Body.
This Body is not other than Emptiness
and Emptiness is not other than this Body.
The same is true of Feelings,
Perceptions, Mental Formations,
and Consciousness.
“Listen Sariputra,
all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness;
their true nature is the nature of
no Birth no Death,
no Being no Non-being,
no Defilement no Purity,
no Increasing no Decreasing.
[intervention starting here:]
“That is why in Emptiness,
Body, Feelings, Perceptions,
Mental Formations and Consciousness
are not separate self entities.
The Eighteen Realms of Phenomena
which are the six Sense Organs,
the six Sense Objects,
and the six Consciousnesses
are also not separate self entities.
The Twelve Links of Interdependent Arising
and their Extinction
are also not separate self entities.
Ill-being, the Causes of Ill-being,
the End of Ill-being, the Path,
insight and attainment,
are also not separate self entities
…
[https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation]
Which to his mind brings the text back into accord with the preponderance of Buddhist literature, and with the highest wisdom.
A final clarification from TNH
The Heart Sutra was intended to help the Sarvāstivādins relinquish the view of no self and no dharma. The deepest teaching of Prājñāpāramitā is the emptiness of self (ātmaśūnyatā) and the emptiness of dharma (dharmanairātmya) and not the non-being of self and dharma. The Buddha has taught in the Kātyāyana sutra that most people in the world are caught either in the view of being and non-being [I think “or non-being” is what was meant]. Therefore, the sentence ‘in emptiness there is no form, feelings…’ is obviously still caught in the view of non-being. That is why this sentence does not correspond to the Ultimate Truth. Emptiness of self only means the emptiness of self, not the non-being of self, just as a balloon that is empty inside does not mean that the balloon does not exist. The same is true with the emptiness of dharma: it only means the emptiness of all phenomena and not the non-existence of phenomena. It is like a flower that is made only of non-flower elements. The flower is empty of a separate existence, but that doesn’t mean that the flower is not there.
[https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation]
The “emptiness” here discussed comes from the Sanskrit Śūnyatā, which is often translated as “emptiness”, or sometimes as “voidness” or “vacuity”.
In Theravāda Buddhism, Pali: suññatā often refers to the non-self (Pāli: anattā, Sanskrit: anātman) nature of the five aggregates of experience and the six sense spheres. Pali: Suññatā is also often used to refer to a meditative state or experience.
In Mahāyāna Buddhism, śūnyatā refers to the tenet that “all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature (svabhava)”, but may also refer to the Buddha-nature teachings and primordial or empty awareness, as in Dzogchen, Shentong, or Chan.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Śūnyatā]
TNH’s training was in Thiền Buddhism, which is the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist tradition. Zen is in the Mahāyāna Buddhism tradition.
Wisdom is of one piece within the practitioner. Let us drift a moment, insofar as limited knowledge and insight allow, into TNH’s wisdom. He’s not the Buddha, but he’s a better interpreter of Buddhism than are your poor authors. Here again from above:
“The insight of prajñāpāramitā is the most liberating insight that helps us overcome all pairs of opposites such as birth and death, being and non-being, defilement and immaculacy, increasing and decreasing, subject and object, and so on, and helps us to get in touch with the true nature of no birth/no death, no being/no non-being etc… which is the true nature of all phenomena. This is a state of coolness, peace, and non-fear that can be experienced in this very life, in your own body and in your own five skandhas. It is nirvana. Just as the birds enjoy the sky, and the deer enjoy the meadow, so do the wise enjoy dwelling in nirvana. This is a very beautiful sentence in the Nirvana Chapter of the Chinese Dharmapada.”
…
“The problem begins with the line: ‘Listen Shariputra, because in emptiness, there is no form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness’ (in Sanskrit: TasmācŚāriputraśūnyatayāmnarūpamnavedanānasamjñānasamskārānavijñānam). How funny! It was previously stated that emptiness is form, and form is emptiness, but now you say the opposite: there is only emptiness, there is no body. This line of the sutra can lead to many damaging misunderstandings. It removes all phenomena from the category ‘being’ and places them into the category of ‘non-being’ (no form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations or consciousness…). Yet the true nature of all phenomena is the nature of no being nor non-being, no birth and no death. The view of ‘being’ is one extreme view and the view of ‘non-being’ is another extreme view.”
…
“The Heart Sutra was intended to help the Sarvāstivādins relinquish the view of no self and no dharma. The deepest teaching of Prājñāpāramitā is the emptiness of self (ātmaśūnyatā) and the emptiness of dharma (dharmanairātmya) and not the non-being of self and dharma. The Buddha has taught in the Kātyāyana sutra that most people in the world are caught either in the view of being and non-being. Therefore, the sentence ‘in emptiness there is no form, feelings…’ is obviously still caught in the view of non-being. That is why this sentence does not correspond to the Ultimate Truth. Emptiness of self only means the emptiness of self, not the non-being of self, just as a balloon that is empty inside does not mean that the balloon does not exist. The same is true with the emptiness of dharma: it only means the emptiness of all phenomena and not the non-existence of phenomena. It is like a flower that is made only of non-flower elements. The flower is empty of a separate existence, but that doesn’t mean that the flower is not there.”
And here again from his revamped Heart Sutra:
…
“Listen Sariputra,
this Body itself is Emptiness
and Emptiness itself is this Body.
This Body is not other than Emptiness
and Emptiness is not other than this Body.
The same is true of Feelings,
Perceptions, Mental Formations,
and Consciousness.
“Listen Sariputra,
all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness;
their true nature is the nature of
no Birth no Death,
no Being no Non-being,
no Defilement no Purity,
no Increasing no Decreasing.
[intervention starting here:]
“That is why in Emptiness,
Body, Feelings, Perceptions,
Mental Formations and Consciousness
are not separate self entities.
…
So what can we say?
There is no separate self existence. And ultimately, what Is is beyond being and non-being. Wisdom is this insight, and the wise rest upon this insight. But it is an “insight” that is prior to subject and object, and thus not to be attained/grasped, but rather to be flowed-with/oned-into.
“The insight of prajñāpāramitā is the most liberating insight that helps us overcome all pairs of opposites such as birth and death, being and non-being, defilement and immaculacy, increasing and decreasing, subject and object, and so on, and helps us to get in touch with the true nature of no birth/no death, no being/no non-being etc… which is the true nature of all phenomena. This is a state of coolness, peace, and non-fear that can be experienced in this very life, in your own body and in your own five skandhas. It is nirvana. Just as the birds enjoy the sky, and the deer enjoy the meadow, so do the wise enjoy dwelling in nirvana. …”
Notice he says, “which is the true nature of all phenomena”. What does that mean? Does that mean it is not the true nature of the noumena? Or just that there is no noumena to discuss? Notice that both “being and non-being” he classes with “phenomena”. So for TNH, if the thing-in-itself exists, it is neither being nor non-being.
TNH does believe in an Ultimate Reality. What I don’t understand is if he thinks the Ultimate Reality is nothing more interdependent flowing-together of phenomena without any separate self-entity; or if the Ultimate Reality is something beyond self and no-self and being and non-being that we fully experience only to the degree we stop forcing these categories onto our experience of each conscious moment.
What exactly do the wise rest upon? What provides true rest and nourishment to any human except a Love beyond all bounds of feeling, thought, mind, matter, shape and void?
Do the wise rest upon Pure Love exploding through and ultimately being the interdependent, ultimately-undifferentiated flowing-together of all phenomena?
Or is that interdependent, selfless explosion of all phenomena somehow Pure Love?
We know from other discussions here and there that the Bodhisattva generates infinite compassion for everyone as she attains the perfect wisdom.
But why? Because the Ultimate Reality is that we are all interdependent and ultimately one? Or because we are all interdependent, ultimately one, and are all together bound in and through a Reality that can be summed up as something along the lines of “infinite, eternal, selfless Love”?
Considering the wisdom meme
We’ve been thinking about the different strands.
Let’s suppose there is an Ultimate Reality and It shines through everything, including each conscious moment (as per our standard dogma of Pure Love).
Then it seems reasonable that by suspending all judgement (as per the Academic Skeptics), one could suspend all interference from our explaining/conceptualizing and feeling/reacting and thus perceive things as they really are, and thus perceive the Ultimate Reality (even if that’s not one’s goal, as it does not seem to have been the goal of the Academic Skeptics — they seemed mostly concerned about avoiding error [as if missing the Truth were not the gravest error of all!]).
However, the Ultimate Reality would be prior to our ideas and feelings about It (again, as per our standard dogma), so the perception we are seeking would need to go beyond subject/object duality (as per TNH et al).
We add in concepts, but we have no logical or scientific proof that x starts here and y ends there. So it seems reasonable that a skeptical suspension of judgement could give rise to a nirvana in which the observer and observed know themselves as one and as lacking any self — either in parts or in aggregate. This state of nirvana is beyond assent and dissent, and so by withholding judgement, one could conceivably enter it. That is to say, the skeptical suspension of all judgement could create a state similar to a meditation upon the ultimate emptiness (lack of individual self-identity) of the interdependent tumbling together or all phenomena. In both cases, the meditation is a sort of “what if we stop naming, categorizing, organizing, explaining, reacting to, and otherwise conceptually and emotionally ‘understanding’ our moments of conscious experience” thought experiment.
And there, when we stop cutting phenomena into being (x starts here and continues along … ) and non-being (x ends here, and there’s a pause before y begins), why couldn’t what’s really the case stand out better?
But why all this talk of a Love that chooses everyone? How does that fit in? And what about God? Because lots of wise people experience God, just as lots of wise people experience a nirvana without any self to be found — including God.
Julian of Norwich said
Monday, July 24
Julian of Norwich Book of Shewings
[Note: She’s writing in Middle-English. Words are sometimes used a little differently than nowadays. For example, “a kind soul” means something like a “living” or “creatural” soul.
Chapter Five
In this same time our Lord shewed me a spiritual sight of His homely loving.
I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us: He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all encloseth us for tender love, that He may never leave us; being to us all-thing that is good, as to mine understanding.
Also in this He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: it is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little[ness]. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall [last] for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.
In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover,—I cannot tell; for till I am Substantially oned to Him, I may never have full rest nor very bliss: that is to say, till I be so fastened to Him, that there is right nought that is made betwixt my God and me.
It needeth us to have knowing of the littleness of creatures and to hold as nought all-thing that is made, for to love and have God that is unmade. For this is the cause why we be not all in ease of heart and soul: that we seek here rest in those things that are so little, wherein is no rest, and know not our God that is All-mighty, All-wise, All-good. For He is the Very Rest. God willeth to be known, and it pleaseth Him that we rest in Him; for all that is beneath Him sufficeth not us. And this is the cause why that no soul is rested till it is made nought as to all things that are made. When it is willingly made nought, for love, to have Him that is all, then is it able to receive spiritual rest.
…
Chapter Nine
And after this I saw God in a Point, that is to say, in mine understanding, — by which sight I saw that He is in all things.
I beheld and considered, seeing and knowing in sight, with a soft dread, and thought: What is sin?
For I saw truly that God doeth all-thing, be it never so little. And I saw truly that nothing is done by hap nor by adventure, but all things by the foreseeing wisdom of God: if it be hap or adventure in the sight of man, our blindness and our unforesight is the cause. For the things that are in the foreseeing wisdom of God from without beginning, (which rightfully and worshipfully and continually He leadeth to the best end,) as they come about fall to us suddenly, ourselves unwitting; and thus by our blindness and our unforesight we say: these be haps and adventures. But to our Lord God they be not so.
…
And all this shewed He full blissfully, signifying thus: See! I am God: see! I am in all thing: see! I do all thing: see! I lift never mine hands off my works, nor ever shall, without end: see! I lead all thing to the end I ordained it to from without beginning, by the same Might, Wisdom and Love whereby I made it. How should any thing be amiss?
Thus mightily, wisely, and lovingly was the soul examined in this Vision. Then saw I soothly that me behoved, of need, to assent, with great reverence enjoying in God.
Chapter Thirteen
And after this, ere God shewed any words, He suffered me for a convenient time to give heed unto Him and all that I had seen, and all intellect that was therein, as the simplicity of the soul might take it. Then He, without voice and opening of lips, formed in my soul these words: Herewith is the Fiend overcome. These words said our Lord, meaning His blessed Passion as He shewed it afore.
On this shewed our Lord that the Passion of Him is the overcoming of the Fiend. God shewed that the Fiend hath now the same malice that he had afore the Incarnation. And as sore he travaileth, and as continually he seeth that all souls of salvation escape him, worshipfully, by the virtue of Christ’s precious Passion. And that is his sorrow, and full evil is he ashamed: for all that God suffereth him to do turneth [for] us to joy and [for] him to shame and woe. And he hath as much sorrow when God giveth him leave to work, as when he worketh not: and that is for that he may never do as ill as he would: for his might is all taken into God’s hand.
…
Chapter Thirty-Five
And when God Almighty had shewed so plenteously and joyfully of His Goodness, I desired to learn assuredly as to a certain creature that I loved, if it should continue in good living, which I hoped by the grace of God was begun. And in this desire for a singular Shewing, it seemed that I hindered myself: for I was not taught in this time. And then was I answered in my reason, as it were by a friendly intervenor: Take it generally, and behold the graciousness of the Lord God as He sheweth to thee: for it is more worship to God to behold Him in all than in any special thing. And therewith I learned that it is more worship to God to know all-thing in general, than to take pleasure in any special thing. And if I should do wisely according to this teaching, I should not only be glad for nothing in special, but I should not be greatly distressed for no manner of thing: for All shall be well. For the fulness of joy is to behold God in all: for by the same blessed Might, Wisdom, and Love, that He made all-thing, to the same end our good Lord leadeth it continually, and thereto Himself shall bring it; and when it is time we shall see it. And the ground of this was shewed in the First [Revelation], and more openly in the Third, where it saith: I saw God in a point.
…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
God brought to my mind that I should sin. And for pleasance that I had in beholding of Him, I attended not readily to that shewing; and our Lord full mercifully abode [I think here this is the past tense of abide!], and gave me grace to attend. And this shewing I took singularly to myself; but by all the gracious comfort that followeth, as ye shall see, I was learned to take it for all mine even-Christians: all in general and nothing in special: though our Lord shewed me that I should sin, by me alone is understood all.
And therein I conceived a soft dread. And to this our Lord answered: I keep thee full surely. This word was said with more love and secureness and spiritual keeping than I can or may tell. For as it was shewed that [I] should sin, right so was the comfort shewed: secureness and keeping for all mine even-Christians.
What may make me more to love mine even-Christians than to see in God that He loveth all that shall be saved as it were all one soul?
For in every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall. Right as there is a beastly will in the lower part that may will no good, right so there is a Godly Will in the higher part, which will is so good that it may never will evil, but ever good. And therefore we are that which He loveth and endlessly we do that which Him pleaseth.
This shewed our Lord in [shewing] the wholeness of love that we stand in, in His sight: yea, that He loveth us now as well while we are here, as He shall do while we are there afore His blessed face. But for failing of love on our part, therefore is all our travail.
…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Also God shewed that sin shall be no shame to man, but worship. For right as to every sin is answering a pain by truth, right so for every sin, to the same soul is given a bliss by love: right as diverse sins are punished with diverse pains according as they be grievous, right so shall they be rewarded with diverse joys in Heaven according as they have been painful and sorrowful to the soul in earth. For the soul that shall come to Heaven is precious to God, and the place so worshipful that the goodness of God suffereth never that soul to sin that shall come there without that the which sin shall be rewarded; and it is made known without end, and blissfully restored by overpassing worship.
…
Chapter Thirty-Nine
…
Full preciously our Lord keepeth us when it seemeth to us that we are near forsaken and cast away for our sin and because we have deserved it. And because of meekness that we get hereby, we are raised well-high in God’s sight by His grace, with so great contrition, and also compassion, and true longing to God. Then they be suddenly delivered from sin and from pain, and taken up to bliss, and made even high saints.
By contrition we are made clean, by compassion we are made ready, and by true longing toward God we are made worthy. These are three means, as I understand, whereby that all souls come to heaven: that is to say, that have been sinners in earth and shall be saved: for by these three medicines it behoveth that every soul be healed. Though the soul be healed, his wounds are seen afore God,—not as wounds but as worships. And so on the contrary-wise, as we be punished here with sorrow and penance, we shall be rewarded in heaven by the courteous love of our Lord God Almighty, who willeth that none that come there lose his travail in any degree. For He [be]holdeth sin as sorrow and pain to His lovers, to whom He assigneth no blame, for love. The meed that we shall receive shall not be little, but it shall be high, glorious, and worshipful. And so shall shame be turned to worship and more joy.
…
Chapter Forty
This is a sovereign friendship of our courteous Lord that He keepeth us so tenderly while we be in sin; and furthermore He toucheth us full privily and sheweth us our sin by the sweet light of mercy and grace. But when we see our self so foul, then ween we that God were wroth with us for our sin, and then are we stirred of the Holy Ghost by contrition unto prayer and desire for the amending of our life with all our mights, to slacken the wrath of God, unto the time we find a rest in soul and a softness in conscience. Then hope we that God hath forgiven us our sins: and it is truth. And then sheweth our courteous Lord Himself to the soul—well-merrily and with glad cheer—with friendly welcoming as if it had been in pain and in prison, saying sweetly thus: My darling I am glad thou art come to me: in all thy wo I have ever been with thee; and now seest thou my loving and we be oned in bliss. Thus are sins forgiven by mercy and grace, and our soul is worshipfully received in joy like as it shall be when it cometh to Heaven, as oftentimes as it cometh by the gracious working of the Holy Ghost and the virtue of Christ’s Passion.
Here understand I in truth that all manner of things are made ready for us by the great goodness of God, so far forth that what time we be ourselves in peace and charity, we be verily saved. But because we may not have this in fulness while we are here, therefore it falleth to us evermore to live in sweet prayer and lovely longing with our Lord Jesus. For He longeth ever to bring us to the fulness of joy; as it is aforesaid, where He sheweth the Spiritual Thirst.
But now if any man or woman because of all this spiritual comfort that is aforesaid, be stirred by folly to say or to think: If this be true, then were it good to sin [so as] to have the more meed,—or else to charge the less [guilt] to sin,—beware of this stirring: for verily if it come it is untrue, and of the enemy of the same true love that teacheth us that we should hate sin only for love. I am sure by mine own feeling, the more that any kind soul seeth this in the courteous love of our Lord God, the lother he is to sin and the more he is ashamed. For if afore us were laid [together] all the pains in Hell and in Purgatory and in Earth—death and other—, and [by itself] sin, we should rather choose all that pain than sin. For sin is so vile and so greatly to be hated that it may be likened to no pain which is not sin. And to me was shewed no harder hell than sin. For a kind soul hath no hell but sin.
And [when] we give our intent to love and meekness, by the working of mercy and grace we are made all fair and clean. As mighty and as wise as God is to save men, so willing He is. For Christ Himself is [the] ground of all the laws of Christian men, and He taught us to do good against ill: here may we see that He is Himself this charity, and doeth to us as He teacheth us to do. For He willeth that we be like Him in wholeness of endless love to ourself and to our even-Christians: no more than His love is broken to us for our sin, no more willeth He that our love be broken to ourself and to our even-Christians: but [that we] endlessly hate the sin and endlessly love the soul, as God loveth it. Then shall we hate sin like as God hateth it, and love the soul as God loveth it. And this word that He said is an endless comfort: I keep thee securely.
[https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/52958/pg52958-images.html]
Tuesday, July 24
What’s going on?
How can it be, God, that Julian of Norwich finds you everywhere, and you tell her that you love her and everyone, and you thank her and everyone for our suffering, and you promise to one us to you and save you and hold you in your love forever? And yet wise, compassionate, loving Buddhist practitioners find no great god, but only impermanence, interdependence, dependent-arising, and ultimately emptiness: a lack of separate self-entities that itself lacks a separate self-entity, no being and no nonbeing?
TNH says
Evil exists. God exists also. Evil and God are two sides of ourselves. God is that great understanding, that great love within us. That is what we call Buddha also, the enlightened mind that is able to see through all ignorance.
What is evil? It is when the face of God, the face of the Buddha within us has become hidden. It is up to us to choose whether the evil side becomes more important, or whether the side of God and the Buddha shines out. Although the side of great ignorance, of evil, may be manifesting so strongly at one time that does not mean that God is not there.
It is said clearly in the Bible, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” This means that an act of evil is an act of great ignorance and misunderstanding. Perhaps many wrong perceptions are behind an act of evil; we have to see that ignorance and misunderstanding is the root of the evil. Every human being contains within him or herself all the elements of great understanding, great compassion, and also ignorance, hatred, and violence.
[https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/interviews-with-thich-nhat-hanh/message-to-osama-bin-laden-interview-with-thich-nhat-hanh#filter=.types-article]
And he said:
our practice has to respond to the suffering of modern people. That’s why teachings on communication and reconciliation are important. These teachings are easier for people to understand, even children. But that does not mean these teachings do not have a strong Buddhist base. Their foundation is in no-self, impermanence, interbeing.
We have to be intelligent followers of the Buddha. We have to make good use of the teachings. We have to present the teachings and the practice in such a way that people can make use of them and transform themselves.
As I said, Vietnamese Buddhism is very close to original Buddhism, but we make good use of the spirit of Mahayana. There are a lot of wonderful things in Mahayana Buddhism. For instance, in original Buddhism the Buddha’s body is the nirmanakaya, his human form. But in Mahayana, the Buddha’s real body is the dharmakaya, the body of ultimate truth, and that body never dies.
So if you know how to listen mindfully, the Buddha never stops teaching. The earth is a beautiful expression of his teachings. The wind, flowers, and trees continue to teach impermanence and no-self. That is the body of the Buddha —the body of truth that never dies. So if you have mindful eyes and ears, you continue to see the Buddha. This corresponds to the notion that the kingdom of god is available in the here and the now. We could even help Christians change the notion of the kingdom of god. god can be the dharmakaya, the true body of the Buddha.
[https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/interviews-with-thich-nhat-hanh/shambhala-sun-january-2014#filter=.types-pdf.topics-buddhism]
What does this mean? When Julian hears God’s voice, what is she hearing? When Thich does not hear God’s voice, what is he not hearing? He says, “God is that great understanding, that great love within us. That is what we call Buddha also, the enlightened mind that is able to see through all ignorance.”
God is Love, but does Love need to be able to know us and care for us to be Love?
What is going on?
And where is our wisdom meme?
Is the best we can do a riddle?
Why is it that the suspension of all judgement reveals an infinite explosion of love?
And devotion to God also reveals an infinite explosion of love?
And awareness of the impermanence, interdependence, complete lack of separate self-entities, and absence of either being nor nonbeing also reveals an infinite explosion of love?
What is this Love that chooses everyone, that is infinitely larger than we are and yet that is also us?
What is going on, and what should we do about it?
How do the universal values of aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, compassionate, loving kind and joyfully-sharing keep us on the path to the Truth of the Love that chooses everyone?
And how can we humans all together accept this situation and work together to prioritize the universal values and the Love they lead to and which they depend upon for their fullest motivation, justification, and explication?
How can we, in different settings, with different levels of personal intimacy and oversight, best protect the soul’s search to attain, grow with, and share the Love that chooses everyone?
In democracy, we seek to collectively simultaneously select for workable compromises in our cultures and our governments. By together growing culture and government together, we create a sustainable path forward for everyone and thus a sustainable path forward for our democracy.
Democracy requires first and foremost a commitment to the democratic process: fair elections, freedom of speech, separation of and checks on powers, a competent and independent bureaucy, an independent media, open government, anti-corruption rules. Why all this? It is because people need to safety and trust in order to be decent. If people think the system is no fair and their only option is to either figure out how to manipulate it to look out for themselves and their loved ones, they justify no end of evil.
The point of democracy is to together safeguard, prioritize, and work within those values without which none of our worldviews/paths can mean anything to any of us. In this way, we grow our cultures and governments sustainably by creating the safety and space to be both good and successful. Success is good if it is predicated upon the understanding that my success is your success: that we are all in this together and must therefore create and sustain systems of self-organization that allow us all together to find more safety, thriving, and most of all wisdom. A good politician is one who follows the universal values with others to find better ways forward for everyone. A good business person is one who follows the universal values with others to create products and procedures that are helpful and not hurtful.
We know the way forward, but how can we find the space in ourselves, our communities, and in our governments and other organizational structures to keep first things first: the Love that chooses everyone and those values that lead to and from it?
We separate church and state, but not because we believe that religion doesn’t matter. We separate church and state because combining them tempts people to lie to themselves and others about the most sacred things, and to corrupt both religion and government.
We don’t reject authoritarianism because strength doesn’t matter. We reject it because strength is not the thuggery of might-makes-right; strength is the wisdom of cultures and systems that recognize we are all in this together, and that we can only act meaningfully as individuals or groups to the degree that we hold to the universal values and the Love that animates them.
Where is the wisdom meme?
Where is the meme that sinks into each conscious space and goes to work until that conscious space is turned ever-more towards the Love that chooses all?
Where is the meme that sinks into us all and goes to work building a shared understanding until we are all turned ever-more towards that Love in ourselves and in each other?
Where is the meme that reveals an infinite explosion of Love while opening us up to an insight into how to sustain, grow, and share this Love in ourselves and in our many overlapping communities, systems, and organizations?
Where is the wisdom meme?
Tuesday Evening
Tired.
Is the only difference between the theists and the Buddhists that the former find an individual self in the Love that is All, from which all springs and that sustains and shines through and ultimately is everything; and the latter find no individual self in the Love that is All, from which all springs and that sustains and shines through and ultimately is everything?
But then there’s also the quibble over pre-determination. Julian of Norwich says God has preordained everything to the last detail. But the Buddhists (and lots of Christians too) maintain freewill exists.
How do we Something Deeperist dogmatists resolve these issues? Well, we maintain that Pure Love is all that really exists, and It shines through everything, including each conscious moment, and It is the only aspect of experience that is not caused by some prior cause in a causal chain.
From which it follows that we are our true selves and free only to the degree our feeling/thinking/acting is arranged around the Pure Love shining through each conscious moment, and flows cleanly off of the Pure Love — poetically interpreting (imperfectly, but not therefore necessarily inadequately, pointing towards) Pure Love into feeling/thinking/acting. Therefore, it is possible to maintain both that everything is predestined and that we are free: we are free insofar as we are the Pure Love that alone Knows what is Best.
So we are free to the degree we are oned to God. And it seems also likely that God is the ultimate cause for all causal chains, since God is the only self-caused aspect of reality (everything finite is jostled about with other finite causers). So only God (aka: Pure Love or Buddha Nature) truly chooses anything, but we are most essentially God and so when we are our truest selves, we are also free like God is: free to follow our true nature and choose what is kindest and best. The question would then just be whether God is making this up as God goes along, or God set it all in motion before we began to exist; except that No: because God is acting from prior to timespace, so even if God was making it up as God goes along, that would all happen prior to timespace and thus the sense of deciding in real time what to do would still have to be illusory. [On second thought: No, I don’t think so: We can slip into timelessness to the degree we are oned to God.] So we are free in the way we feel ourselves to be: when we are wise and clear, we are free to follow wisdom and clarity, and move in accord with God’s perfect will. Are we free to become wise and clear? Well, Godlight is the yeast that works through all the dough; so God’s freedom will ultimately win out. Right?
Anyway, on the one hand Julian says that God does everything and all is well; but then later she says, at the close of the 34th chapter, “All this that I have now told, and more that I shall tell after, is comforting against sin. For in the Third Shewing when I saw that God doeth all that is done, I saw no sin: and then I saw that all is well. But when God shewed me for sin, then said He: All shall be well.” [Chapter 34]
But what is this God? Does God know us? Is God Atman: the True Self? Or is God without any separate self-existence?
Wait! Could God be part of the impermanent interdependent flow? Well, that’s what TNH seems to be getting at when saying that God is our capacity to truly love. But then who is this God who seems to speak to, hold, and guide Julian? A conscious flow of love that encompasses all possible selves and is yet free of all selves?
Why not assume that beyond being and nonbeing such questions can be resolved, but for here and now it’s not the end all or be all: different wise people have different metaphysics due to different experiences and proclivities; it is enough to know that we are loved and are called to love in and through and for the Love that chooses everyone always over and over forever. The mark of wisdom is not belief in specific metaphysical dogmas, but insight into Love: into kind delight, shared joy, and the peace that passes but still relates meaningfully to human understanding. We can together stay within the bounds of personal and shared meaning by together prioritizing the universal values and the oh-so-gentle Love that motivates, justifies, and explicates them.
Still, the wisdom meme eludes us.
It needs to sink in and capture our interest and guide us to individual and shared wisdom.
A spark of wisdom that catches fire in us as individuals and groups.
We already have shared wisdom tools. Democracy is one. How do we stop the GOP’s assault on democracy? How do we stop this mistake from destroying this important tool?
Hmm
Thursday, July 27, 2023
Dear God,
What is the poetry that helps?
What is the poetry that heals?
What is the poetry we write together?
What is the song that carries us all together to what is best for all?
What is the poetry of the heart, of the Love that chooses everyone?
gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā
gone beyond the beyond to enlightenment
And how does this poetry soak through our lives individual and collective?
How does this poetry guide our cultures, organizations, governments?
A winged insect long and frantic flits through an open window and crashes again and again, wings beating in vain, against a closed window across the way.
A dirty T-shirt thrown over its terrifying curving length, stilling its mile-long thickly transparent but black-framed and -laced wings. A table moved and a window loosed, revealing cobwebs in the never-budged corners. The T-shirt, crinkle-crumpled and almost soggy from humid summer life, is lifted and the creature — whose strange bug-eyes, worn on top like an aviator’s cap, cut life into a thousand prisms — dashes in flight out the window, back into the city.
Now what?
Thursday Evening
What would you have us do, God of our understanding?
The wisdom meme is impossible.
Now what?
The most important commandment is Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.
The wise rest on impermanence, interdependence, and empty-of-selfedness.
Like a seagull rests on a gusting wind or a sloshing sea.
The philosophers refrain from assent and dissent and find themselves fortuitously free of disturbances.
The Great God loves us all infinitely and the Great God chooses and does all things.
There is no personal God and we are free to change the paths we’re on.
Evil is what humans do to the degree they’re turned away from the God = Love that shines through everything and everyone.
Evil can be increased to the degree circumstances allow humans to harm themselves and others.
Good is what humans do to the they’re organized around and flow cleanly off of God = Love.
Good can be increased to the degree circumstances allow humans to help themselves and others.
Democracy is a spiritual good because it allows citizens to protect and prioritize the universal values while acting as a final check on madness and corruption and working together to evolve their shared culture and government.
The sustainable way forward for all is for us all to evolve culture and power together, while always prioritizing those values without which none of our worldviews are meaningful and those systems required for us to continue our honest exchange and good-willed collaboration.
What are we to do?
Friday, July 28
A hurt so deep inside the gut.
Arch the back and stretch out the arms,
trying to let it leave, let it melt or bleed or radiate out
And it does all that, but it also stays forever so loud and hurtful inside and all through
Child abuse, a guess
Sexual abuse, a guess
The gut and sex flow together
The hurt
For so many years now
trying to deal
What would you God have me do?
What would be any good?
I’m tired
How to make things better for anyone?
I love you
I want to be a man for you
be good for you, be good to you
How can I talk to you in a good way?
The country wobbles
Evil babbles forward, proud to hurt
A strong man, a farce, rub their bellies right
Why do they like that?
Why do they squirm and coo around your careless fingers like that?
please tell me
how to sing the songs that help that heal that open heart and mind
that speak clear, honest, true, of what is and is not loving, helpful, kind, competent
that speak gently enough for us all to hear our own thoughts relax enough to self-correct
round and round
empty circles
in the workaday
or at the writings no one needs to read
round and round
going nowhere
rubbing one’s own belly
with promises of eternal satisfaction
I can say I can’t do this anymore
I can say this doesn’t work for me
I can say I don’t know what to do
Suspend judgement to let things as they really are reveal themselves as best they can?
Open up to how all is empty of being, nonbeing, or anything but the kind joy beyond being and nonbeing?
Love God with your all and let God completely enclose you in and explode you through with God’s Love?
How to together step away from the edge and begin to share wisely?
Dear God,
We tried to find a wisdom meme
To infect ourselves and others with the spark that catches and burns away all falsehood and folly
But words are just words
And people are as they always are
And wiser souls than we have spoken wiser words than we’ll find, and still all is not well
We tried to hit a home run
To find a few lines that would make us wise alone and together
Give us a shared hold on the essential path
That we might share Reality enough to share reality enough to share culture and government and a way forward as individuals, groups, and all together in this nation and the others.
To loose ourselves from the cruelty that seeks power rather than kind resolve.
We tried desperately
over and over again
Now what?
Now what, God?
What to do now?
except where noted as quoted, writing and editing BW and AW and copyrighting AMW
