Mystieke Overpeinzingen

Vierde edele waarheid

2012-02-24T23:33:00.004-08:00

~Kees Voorhoeve

De vierde edele waarheid is de weg waarlangs we leren de frustratie te accepteren en het vuur van de hunkering te begrenzen.

De vierde edele waarheid is ‘marga’, de weg. Als we in de bossen zijn verdwaald en we stuiten op een pad is dat zo’n opluchting. Plotseling voelen we weer hoop en vertrouwen. Nu kunnen we beginnen ergens heen te gaan. We weten misschien niet waar het pad ons heen zal voeren, maar we weten dat er eerder mensen zijn geweest. Op het pad zijn betekent beginnen met een bepaalde richting in te slaan. Zegt de derde edele waarheid ‘nee’ tegen de neiging rond te dolen. De vierde waarheid zegt ‘ja’ tegen het volgen van het pad. Dit pad is de middenweg. Deze middenweg omvat zowel ja en nee. Het vermijdt de uitersten. [David Brazier. Zonder Gruis geen Parels]

In het boeddhisme vormt deze weg het achtvoudige pad waarin verschillende aanwijzingen worden gegeven hoe te handelen om in evenwicht te komen en de weg van het midden te volgen. Het gaat om de juiste visie, het juiste denken, het juiste spreken, het juiste handelen, het juiste levensonderhoud, de juiste inspanning, de juiste aandacht en juiste ‘samadhi’.

Juiste ‘samadhi’, de achtste stap, vormt de essentie van het pad. Hierin biedt de Boeddha een transformerende visie die de weg ontsluit naar een authentiek leven vol vertrouwen; ‘Samadhi’ betekent vervoering en verwijst naar de visionaire verlichtingservaring van de Boeddha. Hij zag de werkelijkheid zoals het is: open, helder en verbonden, in direct contact met het leven zonder weg te vluchten van het lijden en zonder er in meegezogen te worden. De Boeddha werd wakker voor zijn ware aard en ontdekte een ervaring van evenwicht, een ervaring van ‘in het midden zijn’.

Zie: Mystieke Overpeinzingen

Vedic Experience / Prelude

2012-02-24T01:17:00.005-08:00

Translation and commentary Raimon Pannikar Vedic Experience

PRELUDE

In the beginning, to be sure, nothing existed,
neither the heaven nor the earth nor space in between.
So Nonbeing, having decided to be, became spirit and
said: "Let me be!'' He warmed himself further and
from this heating was born fire. He warmed himself
still further and from this heating was born light.

Numerous texts are to be found in the Vedic scriptures, of extraordinary diversity and incomparable richness, which seek unweariedly to penetrate the mystery of the beginnings and to explain the immensity and the amazing harmony of the universe. We find a proliferation of speculations, doubts, and descriptions, an atmosphere charged with solemnity, a sense of life lived to the full--all of which spontaneously bring to mind the landscape of the Himalayas. These texts seem to burst forth impetuously like streams issuing from glaciers. Within this rushing torrent may be discerned a certain life view, deep and basic, an evolving life view that can yet be traced unbroken from the Rig Veda, through the Atharva Veda and the Brahmanas, to the Upanisads.

What is fascinating about the experience of the Vedic seers is not only that they have dared to explore the outer space of being and existence, piercing the outskirts of reality, exploring the boundaries of the universe, describing being and its universal laws, but that they have also undertaken the risky and intriguing adventure of going beyond and piercing the being barrier so as to float in utter nothingness, so to speak, and discover that Nonbeing is only the outer atmosphere of Being, its protective veil. They plunge thus into a darkness enwrapped by darkness, into the Beyond from which there is no return, into that Prelude of Existence in which there is neither Being nor Nonbeing, neither God nor Gods, nor creature of any type; the traveler himself is volatilized, has disappeared. Creation is the act by which God, or whatever name we may choose to express the Ultimate, affirms himself not only vis-à-vis the world, thus created, but also vis-à-vis himself, for he certainly was neither creator before creation nor God for himself. The Vedic seers make the staggering claim of entering into that enclosure where God is not yet God, where God is thus unknown to himself, and, not being creator, is "nothing."

Without this perspective we may fail to grasp the Vedic message regarding the absolute Prelude to everything: that One, tad ekam (which is the less imperfect expression), or this, idam (which is the other way of saying it). Idam, this, that is to say, anything that I can refer to, though it is never exhausted by the reference; idam, that which I think, mean, touch, imagine, will, reject, love, hate--anything to which I may be able to point with any means at my disposal, my senses, mind, intuition, emotions, or whatever; idam, that which takes as many forms as I am capable of imagining and constantly transcends all of them; this, that is, whatever can fall into the range of my experience, idam, at the absolute Prelude, was neither Being nor Nonbeing, neither Consciousness nor Ignorance. This, in whatever form, is tad, that: outside, beyond, transcendent, hidden in its own immanence, absolutely ungraspable and ineffable.
Furthermore, this that is ekam, One, absolute oneness, because all specific generic and ontic differences are included in the ekam and it is precisely this that makes differentiation intrinsically possible. Things can differ only against a background of oneness.

Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Germ, appears here as a powerful symbol and Prajapati is one of the most important mythical names for the carrying out of this process, though he emerges at the very end of it. For a fuller understanding of the myth we may consider it in three stages or moments which are, of course, neither chronological nor perhaps ontological, but which are certainly anthropological (or rather metahistorical) and helpful for our understanding: Solitude, Sacrifice, Integration.

1. SOLITUDE

In the beginning, things undoubtedly began. But what about the beginning itself "before" the actual "beginning"? We cannot say "before" the beginning without falling into contradiction. The beginning is precisely the beginning, because it has no "before," because it is itself beginningless. Thus, if we want to speak about the beginning in itself, we shall have to use a language of opposites and make ample use of paradoxes: in the beginning there was neither Being nor Nonbeing, there was neither space nor the sky beyond, neither death nor nondeath, no distinction between day and night. In the absolute void the One breathed by its own propulsion without breath; shadows were concealed by shadows. The symbol here is utter solitude. The One enwrapped in the void took birth. Nonbeing made himself atman, and cried: I will be! Let me be! This was the Self in the form of a Person. But the Primal Being is not yet fully born, he is not yet fully "out," for when he is looking around he sees nothing. So he is forced to look upon himself and take cognizance of himself. Only then is he born; only then does he discover properly not only himself but also his total solitude, his helplessness, one could say. When self-awareness comes to birth it discovers that it is alone and is afraid, "for the one who is alone is afraid," because aloneness is an unnatural state and thus even Being needs to be surrounded and "protected" by Nonbeing. The ontologic anxiety of Being facing Nonbeing is born simultaneously with self-awareness. It looks for an object, for "some-thing" which can be grappled with: anxiety tends to be converted into fear. Now, fear is overcome by a second act of reflection: the discovery that nothing exists to be frightened of. But the cost of this rationalized defense is boredom; there is no joy at all in brooding over oneself. Then arises the desire for another. It is the beginning of the expansion, the breaking of the Self--and thus starts the process of the primordial Sacrifice.

2. SACRIFICE

Prajapati desires a second but he has no primary matter out of which to create the universe. This dilemma is important. A second identical to him will not satisfy his craving, for it will merge with him; a second inferior to him will obviously not do either, for it will be his puppet, the projection of his own will. It will offer him no resistance, nor will it be a real partner. The Vedic Revelation unveils the mystery by means of the myth of the sacrifice of Prajapati, who dismembers himself in order to let the world be, and be what it is. Creation is the sacrifice, the gift of Prajapati in an act of self-immolation. There is no other to whom to offer the sacrifice, no other to accept it. Prajapati is at the same time the sacrificer, the sacrifice (the victim), the one to whom the sacrifice is offered, and even the result of the sacrifice. Even more, as we shall see later on, sacrifice becomes the first Absolute.

Prajapati, being alone and self-sufficient, can have no external motivation impelling him to create the worlds. The texts, however, mention two factors that are not motives for action but indwelling principles of reality itself: kama and tapas, love and ardor. Whether reference is being made to the personalist tradition of Prajapati or to the nonpersonalist tradition of the One emerging from Nonbeing, it is invariably by means of these two powers that the creative process commences. Tapas is the primordial fervor, the original fire, the supreme concentration, the ultimate energy, the creative force that initiates the whole cosmic movement. Order and truth (rita and satya) were born from tapas. Furthermore, "desire [kama] was the original development [of the One] which was the first sowing [retas] of consciousness [manas]." Thus kama enters upon the scene. This love or desire cannot be a yearning toward any object; it is a concentration upon the Self and is related to tapas. Tapas incited by kama penetrates into the Self to the point of bursting asunder, of dismemberment.

Tapas and kama go together. Love is the fervor that imparts power to create and tapas is the energy of love which produces the world. "He desired: Can I multiply myself? Can I engender? He practiced tapas, he created the whole world, all that exists." But this world, once in existence, has its own destiny. This is the third act of the drama.

3. INTEGRATION

Whereas the first act of the drama has no actor, properly speaking, and the whole action is played behind the curtain, and whereas the second act has God as the actor, this third part presents Man as the hero. Prajapati, having created the world out of the self-sacrifice of himself, is exhausted, feeble, drained away, and on the point of death. He is no longer powerful and mighty; the universe has the possibility of escaping the power of God; it stands on its own. "Once engendered, the creatures turned their backs upon him and went away." They try to free themselves from the creator, but fall into chaos and disorder. If the universe has to subsist, God has to come again and penetrate the creatures afresh, entering into them for a second time. This second redeeming act, however, needs the collaboration of the creature. Here is the locus for Man's collaboration with the unique act of Prajapati which gives consistency and existence to the world. This is Man's place and function in the sacrifice.

This sacrifice is not just a kind of offering to God so that he may release to us what we have earned. On the contrary, it is the action by which we create and procreate along with God and reconstruct his Body. This action gathers the first material for the total yajna (sacrifice), not from animals, flowers, or whatever, but from the inmost depth of Man himself. It is the outcome of Man's urge to be in tune with that cosmic dynamism which enables the universe constantly to win over the power of Nonbeing. "That I may become everything!" is the cry that the Shatapatha Brahmana put not only into the mouth of Prajapati, but also into the heart of every being. This is the cry that every man will feel in face of the limitations of his own person and the small field of action in which he can operate. When confronted with himself, when beginning to enter into the poised state of contemplation, when at peace with himself and at the threshold of realization, Man has this tremendous desire to be this and that, to become this and that, to be involved in every process and to be present everywhere. It is not so much the hankering for power which drives Man, as some moralists would have us believe, much less a simply hedonistic urge; on the contrary, it is this existential desire to be and thus to be everything and, in the last instance, to Be, not just to share a part or to be present in a corner of the banquet of life and existence, but to be active at the very core of reality, in the divine center itself whence all emerges and is directed. "Let me have a self!" is another refrain. The wise Man, described time and again in the shruti, is not the escapist and unfriendly solitary, but the full Man who, having realized his own limitations, knows how to enter into the infinite ocean of sat, cit, and ananda, of being, consciousness, and joy.

Ster van de Verlossing [04]

2012-02-22T00:24:00.004-08:00

Niet-niets.
Het kennen van het Al.
Relationeel en dialogisch van aard.
Gelijk-oorspronkelijke aanwezigheid.
In het Nu als pure feitelijkheid.

Dit is een ervaring van vòòr het denken.
Een soort niet-denken, of niet-weten.
Maar dit niet-weten is niet alleen gericht op het niets
en de ontkenning van iets.
De beweging gaat juist ook van het niets naar iets.
God ervaren als tegenwoordigheid, aanwezigheid.

Onbeschrijfelijke paradoxale denkbewegingen.

Voltooid worden in een mystiek schouwen van God.
Zichtbaar in het hexagram als ster.
De Ster van de Verlossing,
De twee driehoeken,
Hemel en Aarde,
Ze zijn in elkaar verweven.
In het midden danst de Mens.
Een onverbrekelijke band.
Wederzijde betrokkenheid.

De dood als existentiële grenservaring.
Er ontstaat ruimte.
Voorbij de idolisering en identificatie.
De luchtbel wordt doorgeprikt.
Een wonderbaarlijke ontvouwing.
Een openbaringservaring wordt ons gegeven.
Dit valt niet meer te analyseren.
Er is geen mentale aanvaarding van de dood.
Niet meer afzetten tegen niets of iets.
Als of je dat echt kan bedenken.
Het is deelnemen aan de openbaring,
De feitelijke levende ervaring.

In het centrum van de Davidster,
de ruimte-die-ik-ben,
wordt de waarheid getoond.
De bezieling van Niet-Drie:
God, Mens en Wereld
Eénheid in verscheidenheid.

~Kees Voorhoeve

Zie: De Ster van de Verlossing

Zurchungpa’s Testament / Virtues of faith

2012-02-20T09:47:00.002-08:00

A Commentary on Zurchung Sherab Trakpa’s
Eighty Chapters of Personal Advice

~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

The virtues of faith

Son, there are six virtues of faith.
Faith is like a very fertile field.

When a fertile field has been well ploughed and tilled, each grain the farmer sows, whether wheat, rice, or any other kind, will yield thousands more grains, and the farmer will become very prosperous. In the same way,

the whole crop of virtue will grow.

When one has faith, one will naturally feel a great longing to practice the Dharma, and through this one will be able to achieve all good qualities. As the Buddha said, faith is like a jewel or treasure. It is the root of all other trainings and practices.

Faith is like a wishing-gem—
it fulfills all one’s own and others’ desires.

Someone who finds a wishing-gem and places it on top of a victory banner will have all his wishes and prayers fulfilled. All the clothes, wealth, food, and valuable things he could want will be effortlessly provided, not only for him but for everyone else in the region who prays and makes wishes before that wishing-gem. Similarly, if we have faith, everything we desire to achieve in our Dharma practice, such as being able to listen to the teachings, to reflect on them, and to meditate on them, will be effortlessly
granted, along with all the good qualities that arise from these.

Faith is like a king who enforces the law.
He makes himself and others happy.

As a result of faith, we naturally recognize that all happiness comes from observing the law of cause and effect, from acknowledging that negative actions lead to suffering and that positive actions lead to happiness. We develop mindfulness and vigilance, distinguishing between what is to be avoided and what is to be adopted, and we then become suitable vessels for the qualities of the Dharma. When a king enforces the laws he has decreed, there is peace throughout the kingdom and there are no quarrels, feuds, or bandits. Similarly, when we have faith, not only are we happy, we are able to make others happy too. The spiritual qualities that we gain from having faith will be perceived and shared by the people around us. And like a medicinal tree that heals anyone who touches it, our own faith will inspire others to endeavor in the Dharma and to seek liberation.

Faith is like someone who holds the stronghold of carefulness.
He will not be stained by defects and he will gather qualities.

A temple or mansion that is built on the solid rock of a mountain is extremely safe and invulnerable to attack from hostile forces. Inside it feels very secure and one can collect within it all sorts of valuable things. Similarly, if we have faith, we will gradually be able to gather and store safely the whole treasury of precious qualities of the Dharma, such as those of listening, reflecting, and meditating. Sakya Pandita said that if one studies one verse a day, one can gradually become very learned, like a bee gathering honey. Even though a bee has a tiny mouth, by collecting the nectar it is slowly able to amass a large quantity of honey. Likewise, by studying gradually with the mouth of faith we will be able to gather the qualities of the Dharma—disillusionment with the world and diligence directed toward liberation.

Faith is like a boat on a great river.
It will deliver one from the suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

With a boat one can cross even a very wide river. One has little difficulty in safely carrying oneself across and transporting all sorts of goods and valuables. In the same way, if we have faith, we can recognize the defects of our condition in samsara, where we are afflicted by the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness, and death. Moreover, we gradually recognize that the only remedy for this is the Dharma, and through practicing the Dharma we are able to free ourselves from these four root sufferings of samsara.
When Buddha Shakyamuni’s disciples encountered problems, the Buddha used to explain how these difficulties had come about through actions they had committed in their past lives. By this means, his disciples naturally began to understand the workings of the law of cause and effect and the fact that nothing in samsara is beyond suffering. As a result, they rapidly attained the level of Arhat. Faith has the power to dispel any of these four main sufferings. To illustrate how it dispels the suffering of old age, there is a story from ancient India about an old man of ninety years who requested ordination from Lilavajra. Lilavajra told him that since he was so old and did not even know how to read or write, it was too late for him to take ordination and to begin the path of Dharma in the usual way. But there was a special practice he could do, and he gave him the empowerment and instructions on the sadhana of White Mañjushri. Because the old man had great faith and possessed the appropriate karma, within seven
days he had a vision of White Mañjushri and attained the accomplishment of immortal life. It is said that to this day he dwells in Payul Phakpachen. So through faith one can even overcome the suffering of old age. One can equally alleviate the suffering of sickness. By meditating on the Medicine Buddha and reciting his dharani, one can purify the negative actions that are the cause of one’s illness and thus be cured of disease.

Faith is like an escort in a dangerous place.
It will free us from the fears of samsara and its lower realms.

Through faith we acquire confidence in the Dharma. We acknowledge the defects of samsara and we realize that the cause of our suffering in samsara is our past negative actions, which in turn arise from afflictive emotions. This leads us to exert ourselves in practicing the Dharma, and as a result we are naturally freed from the lower realms. This is why it is very important to repeatedly generate faith in our minds.

EMPATHY

2012-02-18T03:22:00.001-08:00

~David Brazier

Interessant artikel van de boeddhistische leraar David Brazier over Empathie in relatie tot fenomenologie en de therapeutische context.

INTRODUCTION

The true nature of empathy is a central question for phenomenology. In philosophical phenomenology this is called the problem of inter-subjectivity. "The world of my daily life is by no means my private world but is from the very outset an intersubjective one, shared with my fellow men, experienced and interpreted by others; in brief, it is a world common to us all" (Schutz 1970, p.163) and yet the fundamental questions of what it means to truly understand another person in his or her otherness and how it is that such a process of understanding is possible at all, are complex.

Empathy is the opposite of ego. When I am full of ego, it is my own importance which matters. When I am full of empathy it is the other person who matters. Egotism, self-preoccupation, is the commonest barrier to empathy. Empathy is the most effective remedy for egotism. "To be with another in this way means that for the time being, you lay aside your own views and values in order to enter another's world without prejudice. In some sense it means to lay aside your self" (Rogers 1980, p.143).

Empathy is to be able to enter and experience the other person's frame of reference without appropriating it. If one appropriates the other person's frame of reference then we are talking about identification. In empathy one sees through the eyes of the other. In identification one appropriates the viewpoint of the other as one's own.

Empathy is an accurate understanding of another person's world as seen, felt and understood from the inside. It is a sensing of the other person's private world, their eigenwelt, as if it were one's own, but without ever losing the "as if" quality (Rogers 1980, p.140). Empathy is distinct from identification which is what occurs when the "as if" quality is lost and from sympathy. In sympathy there is an element of agreement and/or pity which are not part of the idea of empathy. One may be able to empathise with both parties to a dispute but only sympathise with one side or the other. This distinction is a modern one, however, and in earlier times the term sympathy included empathy.

Empathy involves a deep acceptance of the other person. This, in itself, is therapeutic. "As the client finds the therapist listening acceptantly to her feelings, she becomes able to listen acceptantly to herself" (Rogers 1978, p.11). Empathy, therefore, has to do with being in the flow of the experiences of the client.

A BASIC FACT OF LIFE

A human child is able to survive in this world only insofar as it is cared for. Caring depends upon some degree of empathy on the part of the care-takers. Empathy is thus a basic element of our lives from the very beginning. Many theories of early development suggest that the infant's sense of its separate existence from the mother is at first rudimentary if it exists at all. We begin life from a matrix of identity.

Furthermore, many schools of western psychology also see the development of empathy as an essential step in the growth of the person. Thus, for instance: "The ability to take the perspective of the other has long been considered by symbolic interactionists and cognitive developmentalists as fundamental to the development of the self" (Figurski 1987, p.197). Without empathy we are unable to see our own part in things from anything other than a purely narcissistic perspective with all the vulnerability to unnecessary pain which that entails.

Through empathy one is able to achieve a sense of relativity about what one believes, thinks and feels and it is this ability which we call maturity. Referring to the position from which one views something as the zero point, Edith Stern writes:

From the viewpoint of the zero point of orientation gained in empathy, I must no longer consider my own zero point as the zero point, but as a spatial point among many. By this means, and only by this means, I learn to see my living body as a physical body like others (Stein 1989, p.63).

Stein goes on to analyse how it is that empathy also provides the key to understanding how the world as a whole, and not just other people, comes to be experienced as real for us.

The perceived world and the world given empathically are the same world differently seen. But it is not only the same one seen from different sides as when I... go from one standpoint to another. [In empathy] the new standpoint does not step into the old one's place. I retain them both at the same time. The same world is not merely presented now in one way and then in another, but in both ways at the same time. And not only is it differently presented depending upon the momentary standpoint, but also depending upon the nature of the observer. This makes the world dependent on individual consciousness, but the appearing world... is made independent of consciousness. Were I imprisoned within the boundaries of my individuality, I could not go beyond "the world as it appears to me"... its independent existence... would always be undemonstrable. But this possibility is demonstrated as soon as I cross these boundaries by the help of empathy and obtain the same world's second and third appearance which are independent of my perception. Thus empathy as the basis of intersubjective experience becomes the condition of possible knowledge of the existing outer world" (Stein 1989, p.64)

Empathy, therefore, is more than simply a factor in therapy. It is a central constituent of the psychological life of the healthy person.

CARING AND EMPATHY

Caring and empathy are not the same thing. Caring (altruism) seems to be, at least in some basic respects, inbuilt. It is part of the instinctive heritance of all creatures which care for their young (mammals and birds) at least. Empathy, the capacity to experience the world as from the perspective of the other (allocentrism), on the other hand is not so readily given to us.

Recent studies of vervet monkeys (Seyfarth & Cheney 1992), for instance, shows that while the mother monkey clearly cares for her off-spring, she has only a very limited, if any, capacity for appreciating how the world appears to the baby. Thus, in one experiment, it did not occur to the mother that her offspring would be ignorant of the existence of a danger which she had seen, even though the youngster was not in a position to have seen the danger directly himself.

The monkeys will give appropriate alarm signals when a predator threatens, thereby saving the whole troop, even though this may in some cases put the individual in danger. There is thus a kind of in-built altruism, an instinctive willingness to self-sacrifice in the interests of the collective, but this does not, in itself, guarantee any capacity to understand the viewpoint of others.

Thus, for instance, as happened to me this morning, when one's young child comes into one's bedroom at five a.m. in order to tell you that they have just realized that it is not time to get up yet, this is not a sign of uncaring. The child expects that you will be interested in this important piece of information. The problem, if there is one, is that it simply does not occur to the child how this situation is experienced from the other person's point of view. The child is altruistic in that it wants to involve you in something interesting and important but is incapable, as yet, of being allocentric.

Now we can readily understand from the example just given how altruism without allocentrism creates problems because although "well motivated" it leads to behaviour which is not actually appreciated by the other. Children may thus easily get a large part of their natural caring knocked out of them, as it were, by the reactions which they provoke in others by their innocent attempts to be loving and giving. In varying degrees, our clients and ourselves have all suffered this fate and we thus find ourselves "defending against love" (Jampolsky 1990, p.93 et seq.).

We can see that this distinction is important for therapists to understand. Love is not enough (Bettelheim 1950), it needs empathy. Or, as Buddhists would say, compassion is not enough, it needs wisdom. The beginning therapist or counsellor is likely to be caring. The capacity for genuine allocentrism, however, remains to be developed. All therapists are trying to help their clients (altruism) but these attempts will not be skilful if empathy is lacking.

A THERAPEUTIC SKILL

Research suggests that there is quite a strong correlation between clients satisfaction about the outcomes of their work with counsellors and therapists, and their rating of the extent to which the worker seemed empathic. The better the client feels understood, the more therapeutic the client finds the therapy process to be. Empathy seems to be an essential characteristic of the good therapeutic relationship no matter what school of thought the therapist belongs to.

Fortunately, most people can improve their ability to be empathic fairly readily:

Therapists can learn, quite quickly, to be better, more sensitive listeners, more empathic. It is in part a skill as well as an attitude. To become more genuine or more caring, however, the therapist must change experientially, and this is a slower and more complex process (Rogers 1978, p.11).

We can say, therefore, that a certain level of empathic ability can be cultivated as a skill. There are, however, limits to this. In the first place, becoming empathic is a matter of shifting one's attention in such a way that one is seeing the world, as it were, through the eyes of the other person. Most of us find that we can do this easily up to a point. We hit a block as soon as this requires us to go beyond the rigidities in our own pattern of perception which have to do with our mental attachments.

For instance, it may be easy to empathise with the client who is angry with his brother but more difficult to empathize with the client who is angry with the counsellor. The ability to adopt an empathic perspective is equivalent to the ability to be objective about ourselves: "adopting the perspective of the other toward ourselves is dependent upon the ability to first consider the other's internal experience, specifically the perception of ourselves from that perspective" (Figurski 1987, p.200).

Similarly, it is difficult to empathize with things which one has "pigeon-holed" in one's own mind. Thus, Carl Rogers, commenting upon his work with groups of black and white people, points out that many of the responses made by white people are quite inadequate to the depth of feeling being expressed:

Rage needs to be heard. This does not mean that it simply needs to be listened to. It needs to be accepted, taken within, and understood empathically. While the diatribes and accusations appear to be deliberate attempts to hurt the whites - an act of catharsis to dissolve centuries of abuse, oppression, and injustice - the truth about rage is that it only dissolves when it is really heard and understood, without reservations (Rogers 1978, p.133).

POWER

In On Personal Power, Rogers portrays empathy as a way of sharing power within relationships. He is talking here not just about therapeutic relationships but about all personal encounters. His hope is that the ideas and data he presents may intrigue you into opening your mind to new possibilities. And this may increase the chance that you will try it out, in your own experience, in a small way.. if you try them at all, you open yourself to visceral learnings that may change your behavior and change you.

You may begin to be more empathic, and trusting of an adolescent son or daughter... Or you may try to understand your wife (or husband) purely from his or her point of view, not trying to change or control those perceptions [or] if you are a teacher, give your students freedom of choice.. where you feel comfortable in doing so. In every case you would be altering the politics of the relationship in some small way and then carefully observing the attitudinal and behavioral consequences. (Rogers 1978, p.103)

There is certainly a sense in which becoming empathic means completely abandoning the attempt to have power over others. It is an active way of disengaging from conflict with the world by practising a deeper kind of acceptance, accepting others as they are subjectively, and not trying, in any way, to manipulate them nor to tell them how they should be.

NEUTRALITY

A phenomenological approach to therapy is one which stresses the importance of appreciating the subjective world of the client and it is also one which keeps open the possibility that there may be any number of different ways of construing a given situation. To apply these principles means that the therapist must maintain a special kind of neutrality in which his own personal biasses are laid aside as far as possible. I say, a special kind, because what we are talking about here is not a coldness nor clinicism, but simply an openness of vision coupled with a warm receptivity toward whatever may arise. Thus:

In order to assist clients in their investigation of their world views as optimally as possible, it is necessary for phenomenological therapists to maintain both empathy with and personal neutrality towards their clients' life experiences. Through empathy they are able to enter their clients' internal experience of the world as far as is possible in order to reflect it back as accurately as they are able.

Equally, through neutrality, they are more able to bracket their own meanings and interpretations of the world so as not to make it their task to value, judge or criticize their clients' experience, nor to instruct their clients as to how to live out their lives in ways which imitate and have the approval of the therapist. (Spinelli 1989, p.130)

There is, perhaps, a difference of emphasis between Rogers and other phenomenologists on this question. For Rogers, the most important thing is to achieve as deep and accurate an appreciation of the perspective which the client has as possible. The aim is that the client should feel deeply understood. Other phenomenologists may take the view that while this is undoubtedly important, it is also important to be able to see that there are possibilities in the client's situation other than the one to which he is currently attached. Spinelli, again, continues:

Phenomenological therapists must maintain this awareness of the wide range of existential possibilities available to their clients and have the inner integrity (not to say humility) to allow their clients to / arrive at their own decisions and make their own choices about how to live their lives. This, in turn, requires therapists to have a substantial degree of self-knowledge so that they are more aware of the biases and assumptions in their own lives in order to be better able to bracket them (Spinelli 1989, p.130-131)

Rogers believes that the "self-actualizing tendency" of the client will ensure that the client will find the best path provided that the right psychological climate can be provided. Other phenomenologists tend to believe that the actualizing tendency is itself a product of perceptual shifts and that these can happen through the medium of the counsellor-client relationship which is, therefore, a creative rather than just a liberating process. To some extent, Rogers gets round this difficulty in his theory by allowing that at advanced levels of empathy the therapist may sense and give voice to perspectives of which the client was not yet aware.

ELEMENTS

Empathy may be analyzed in several different ways according to
i. its dimensions,
ii. the faculties it affects,
iii. perceptual field,
iv. mode,
v. temporal aspect.

Dimensions
It is possible to consider several conceptually distinct dimensions in empathy. Empathy includes (1) sensing the feelings of the person; (2) clarity about what the person thinks and means;
(3) appreciation of the person's motives and intentions; and (4) understanding of the frame of reference and implicit assumptions which give significance to what the person says and does.

Faculties
Empathy involves the cognitive, perceptual, feeling, imaginative and creative faculties:
Cognitive means that I understand how the other person thinks about and makes sense of the world. This is a matter of beliefs and values.
Perceptual means that I can see things as if looking from the person's viewpoint.
Feeling means that I can feel in my own body what the other person experiences, their fear, anger, joy and so on.
Imaginative means that I use my imagination to enter into the client's world. As the client tells his story I bring it to life in my own mind as if I were participating in it in the same way that he has done.

Empathy is creative in that it is a process whereby the counsellor co-operates with the client who is engaged in constructing a representation of his life. We would be mistaken to think that the client already knows what he needs to know and is simply conveying this to us as information. It is in the course of the dialogue that the client brings into being a form of words or imagery which represents his experience. This is a process of composition and the counsellor plays an important role in this creation. As the client's experience is represented adequately, so new experiences are brought into being. From a phenomenological perspective, we should not think simply that what is happening in therapy is a process of revealing what is already there.

Fields
In a counselling session, we may say that there are the following perceptual fields:
i. those things which only the client knows and of which the counsellor becomes aware only as the client reveals them. This is sometimes called the inner world of the client.
ii. the shared world of meanings and images which is built up through the dialogue and becomes the private property of the counsellor and client jointly together.
iii. the client's appearance, which can (unless there is a mirror) only be directly perceived by the counsellor. This includes all the client's body language and facial expressions.
iv. the counsellor's appearance most of which can only be directly perceived by the client.
Lastly, there is the counsellor's inner world which may be considered as consisting of two parts, namely,
v. the counsellor's experience of her own private life which is not, for the most part, visible to the client, and,
vi. the counsellor's awareness of how she is inwardly reacting to the client's presence.
Therapeutic empathy is the counsellor's attention to the first three of these fields. Empathic responses are largely, however, based upon the last of them. It is what the counsellor experiences inwardly while attending outwardly which gives her the necessary information to know when and how best to respond.

Modes
It is also useful to distinguish between receptive and expressive modes of empathy. Receptive empathy is the capacity to listen and understand. Expressed empathy is the ability to clearly convey back to the person what it is that one has understood. Such a reply is generally referred to as an empathic response or an empathic understanding response or a reflection. Expressed empathy requires a command of appropriate language and an ability to match tone of voice, energy and body language in a way that leaves no doubt about one's appreciation of the person's mood and sense.

An empathic response may take the form of a pure reflection in which what the client has expressed is repeated in his own or synonymous words, a summary in which a number of things expressed are linked in a single response, a key word response in which a single significant word used by the client is high-lighted or an intuitive response in which the therapist expresses understanding based on an appreciation of the significance and meaning to the client of something which may not yet have been put into words.

In attempting to empathically understand what a person says, a number of different aspects can be distinguished. The client may tell a story. The story itself is referred to as the content. The story will be told with a certain tone of voice, tempo, facial expression, gesture and involuntary body language which reveal the client's mood, emotion and attitude. We may say that this is the manner in which the person tells the story. A message cannot be fully understood without an appreciation of both content and manner. When there is a mismatch between these, as when people smile while telling you they are miserable, this indicates that there is something more to be understood than is revealed by either the content or the manner considered alone.

Temporal aspect
The temporal aspect of empathy refers to the fact that mostly clients are talking about things which did or will take place in a time other than the immediate present. It is therefore possible to empathize with
i. the thoughts, feelings, meanings and motives which appeared at the time being talked about, that is, the there and then material, and/or
ii. the thoughts, feelings, meanings and motives which are arising now in the act of retelling the story, that is, the here and now material.
Thus the client may be telling a story which is sad in itself but may be amused to be relating it now. An important skill for counsellors is to learn to pay attention to the here and now material and to understand not only what is it that the client is telling me but also what is the significance of the client telling the story at all, telling it to me, telling it in a particular manner and so on.

UNDERSTANDING THE CLIENT

By attending to the content and manner, with the use of all one's concentration and faculties, entering the client's frame of reference in an imaginative way the counsellor hopes to understand the personal significance to the client of what is happening. This may have a number of aspects to it. Five primary aspects are the problem, the person, the purpose, the relationship and the present vantage point.

The problem refers to the unresolved issues which the client feels engaged with. The story will have some relevance to this and may be told as an illustration of it. A trap for the inexperienced counsellor is to become embroiled in elucidating the stories without ever seeing that they are simply illustrations. If a client feels his problem is a lack of confidence and tells a story about a time when he failed to ask for something he wanted it does not usually further the counselling much to draw out more and more facts about the incident. On the other hand, it is also important to realise that the problem itself is also merely symptomatic.

Beginning counsellors tend to be rather problem centred. They work on the assumption that all will be well if the problems can be solved. However, what is a problem for one person is a satisfaction for another and an irrelevance for a third. Problems only exist in relation to purposes. As counsellors become more experienced they tend to become less problem centred and more person centred. That is, they tend to come to see the presented problems as simply illustrative of the kind of person the client is and rather than trying to solve them for the client, they are interested in looking at how it is that the client lives her life in such a manner that problems of that kind emerge.

This latter, person centred approach can lead us to start seeing strengths rather than weaknesses. If a person tells me about a problem which has arisen in their life, my first assumption is that this problem probably serves some important function in maintaining the equilibrium of the person's life or in furthering purposes which are important to them. Rather than take the problem away, I am interested to know what it tells us.

Understanding the person, therefore, refers to the fact that the story will always reveal the client in a certain light, perhaps as a winner or a loser or a victim or a clever person or whatever. Appreciating that this is the client's attempt to reveal his experience is important. One's first important task as a counsellor is to gain as deep and thorough an understanding of what makes this person tick as possible. The fact is that everybody sees the world in their own particular way and we have to understand the drama of each person's life in its uniqueness.

This uniqueness is often best defined in terms of the person's motives or purposes. The purpose refers to the way the story indicates basic values and directions held by the client in life. Each person goes about accommodating the basic existential concerns in their own way. Without understanding a person's basic intentions, one has no real understanding of the person nor of why something would be a problem for them. For instance, it is common for counsellors to wrongly assume that all their clients want to be free of pain or to be happy, but this may be very low on the priority list of many people. For many people it may be more meaningful to do their duty, or to get vengeance against their enemies or to be of service to others or to protect their children or any one of a number of important motives, than to be happy, for instance.

Relationship, here, refers to the fact that since the story is being told by the client to the counsellor, the choice of story and the manner of telling it must say something significant about the relationship between these two people. It may indicate, for instance, that the client now feels safe enough to reveal this particular information. It may mean that the client wants you to see her in a particular light. It may mean that the client has picked up the idea that these are the sort of stories you like to hear and since she wants to please you she is telling you another one. It may mean that there are important things the client believes she should tell you about but knows that this will be painful or embarrassing and so wants to fill up the time with something more entertaining. There are any number of possibilities.

In particular, it is likely that, consciously or not, what the client tells the counsellor is a way of testing the counsellor out. The client needs to know how trust-worthy the counsellor is. Before I reveal my best kept secrets, I want to know how reliable the listener is. How am I to find out? One way is to tell the therapist something embarrassing but not too dreadful and see how she responds. Depending upon how well I think she handles this disclosure, I may or may not reveal other things which are more significant for me.

The present vantage point refers to the fact that in order to relate a story one has to have attained a degree of distance from the events. The manner of telling the story reveals not only how the client was then but also where he is seeing these events from now. In one sense, the client is always engaged in telling the counsellor about himself as he is now, even when the content of what is actually said is concerned with events of time past. This is because the story reveals not only what the client sees as they look back but also the vantage point they must now have reached in order to be able to describe it in the way that they do. Furthermore, we must always remember that there must be some current relevance to the material or the client would not bother to look at it at all. Most of what is recounted in therapy is "unfinished business" of one sort or another. It is the present relevance which provides the narrative with its driving force.

LEVELS OF EMPATHY

When empathy is lacking the therapist sees the client only from the outside, from the therapist's own ego-centric perspective. In this state the therapist does not have any awareness the client's conscious feelings and is likely to say things which are not appropriate to the mood or content of the client's statements. The therapist might be bored or uninterested or might be engaged giving advice but does not show an awareness of the client's own thoughts and feelings.

A first step toward empathy begins as an attempt to acknowledge what the client has expressed. This beginning attempt may still over-look any subtle feelings and meanings and may be full of mistakes and inaccuracies but if there is an attempt to show that some of what the client has said has been received, then there is the beginning of empathy.

Once one starts to appreciate the client's viewpoint, one realizes that there is more to what the client is trying to express than is immediately apparent. One has a sense that there are deeper feelings and meanings behind what is being said and one is conscious that one does not yet really understand what these are. The counsellor who is at this point is likely to make responses which are supportive but non-specific like: "It sounds as though that was a difficult time for you," or "So there were a lot of feelings around," without any clarity about what precisely was difficult or which feelings were being experienced.
The attempt at empathy gets deeper when one starts to recognise less superficial meanings and feelings. Some of the therapist's attempts may be clumsy or inaccurate in some respects but there is a genuine attempt to achieve some accuracy and specificity about what the client intends. Really, at this stage, it would be truer to say that the worker is trying to diagnose than to empathise. There is a serious attempt to understand but as yet the client's own perspective has not been fully appreciated, since "true empathy is always free of any evaluative or diagnostic quality" (Rogers 1980, p.154).

Real empathy begins when the worker is making a genuine attempt to see things from the client's own perspective. Initially this may not be very accurate as far as the less obvious feelings and meanings are concerned but rather than reaching for a conclusion about the client's state, the worker at this stage will express herself tentatively so that errors do not jars. Sometimes the therapist simply communicates awareness of the difficulty of understanding another's inner world.

As real empathy develops the worker comes to recognise most of the client's present feelings, intentions and meanings, including those which are implied rather than stated. We may say that the worker is "with" the client, tuned in to the client's present state and able to identify what the client is feeling and the underlying meaning of what the client expresses. The worker perhaps does not yet always appreciate the full intensity of each element and his responses may sometimes have a somewhat static quality so that although the client may feel understood, the dialogue does not yet flow smoothly.

Once the therapist begins to sense the true intensity of most of the client's feelings and meanings there comes a much clearer understanding of underlying emotions and intention. There
may still be material present which is not recognised by either
the therapist or the client, but the two are now exploring together and the therapist is able to point out the more significant or emotionally laden material as it appears, sensing accurately what is most important to the client.

At an advanced level of empathy, the worker accurately senses and understands all the client's conscious feelings and is adept at uncovering their underlying significance, voicing meanings in the client's experience of which the client is scarcely aware. Rogers writes about this:

empathic understanding.. means that the therapist senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that are being experienced by the client and communicates this understanding to the client. At its best the therapist is so much inside the private world of the other that she can clarify not only the meanings of which the client is aware but even those just below the level of awareness. When she responds at such a level the client's reaction is of this sort: "Perhaps that is what I've been trying to say. I haven't realized it, but yes, that's how I do feel!"" (Rogers 1978, p.11).

Since the therapist uses a degree of trial and error there are still some inaccuracies of understanding but these do not get in the way since they are held lightly. In this rather advanced kind of empathy the worker expresses fluently feelings and experiences that the client has only hinted at, changing track easily whenever it is apparent that he has taken a wrong turn. The content that comes to light may be new but is not alien.

When there is complete empathy, the worker is attuned to the exact intensity of the client's full range of feelings, understands the full depth of what is implied by each thing the client tries to express and is able to communicate this attunement and understanding with precision, fluency and immediacy. This degree of empathy is unusual.

The epitome of empathy is better described as an event than a state or level. There are those very special and rare moments when therapist and client are so completely attuned that words really seem unnecessary. These are "magic moments" which constitute an altered state of consciousness. Rogers, again, records that:

When I am at my best, as a group facilitator or as a therapist, I discover another characteristic. I find that when I am closest to my inner, intuitive self, when I am somehow in touch with the unknown in me, when perhaps I am in a slightly altered state of consciousness, then whatever I do seems to be full of healing.. it seems that my inner spirit has reached out and touched the inner spirit of the other (Rogers 1980, p.129)

WHICH RESPONSES ARE EMPATHIC?

You might like to consider the following example and see which of the responses offered seem most empathic, or in what context they might become empathic and which would not be. Which might be most useful?

Client: On Saturday I wanted Sally to dance with me but I didn't have the courage to ask her.
Possible responses:
1) So that is an instance of this problem of lack of confidence which you are concerned about.
2) Was it being with Sally that was important or just having someone to dance with?
3) Courage.
4) You knew what you wanted to do but somehow you couldn't bring yourself to do it.
5) A lot of people feel shy in situations like that.
6) I can really envisage the scene and I have a feeling she was probably as shy as you were.
7) You would like to be a bold person. You would like to be able to ask Sally to dance without feeling timid.
8) You sound quite fed up with yourself.
9) You wanted her, and yet...
10) If Sally was here now, what do you think you might say to her?
11) In here with me you can tell me about your failures and problems but out there in the world it is still a struggle risking being vulnerable with another person.
12) I know just what that feels like.
13) I have a sense of you going over it and over it in your head, rehearsing what you might say to her, but not quite being able to get yourself into action.

An empathic response is one which demonstrates to the client that one understands what is he or she is experiencing and that one is able to understand it from the client's own perspective. However, this still leaves the worker with a good deal of choice about what to focus upon since there are usually quite a few different things going on for the client simultaneously. Empathic responses may therefore be:

1. Descriptive: What do you see in front of you?
eg "I notice you are frowning as you say that"

2. Focused on emotion:
eg "You seem sad"

3. Focused on cognition:
eg "It sounds like you are reviewing your situation in your mind"

4. Key words:
Echo just the words used which seem to have particular force

5. Accuracy checking:
"If I have understood that right, you are saying ...

6. Highlighting ambivalence:
"So on the one hand... and on the other...

7. Recapping
"So let's try and summarise, so far..

ROLE REVERSAL

So far we have thought about empathy as a therapeutic quality of the therapist which creates a healing atmosphere for the client. Developing empathy is, however, also a valuable step for the client. It is often by developing an empathy for the world views of others that the client moves from a position which is entrenched and "stuck" to seeing new possibilities in life situations and relationships, from a sense of unreality to one of engagement, and from a feeling that his own problems occupy the whole universe to a recognition of their relativity.

The development of empathy for significant others is not often discussed in therapeutic theory, but is frequently used in psychodrama, where role reversal is used to allow the protagonist to experience the world through the eyes of another. Such an exchange of roles often brings about a sudden shift of perspective for the protagonist, allowing them to experience real connection with the other, where previously it was blocked.

A similar situation can arise spontaneously in therapy where a client talks at length about a loved one, struggling to appreciate the difficulties which that person is experiencing. When a degree of empathy for the other's position is achieved, there is frequently a breakthrough for the client. In place of suspicion or hurt, appreciation and caring often take over. The "problem" is seen from a new angle.

A client can also develop empathy for the therapist in the session. It is frequently recognised that towards the end of therapy clients begin to show more interest and concern for the therapist as a person. This ability to show caring for another, whilst using space to explore one's own issues, is recognised as a sign that a new level of interaction has been reached, one in which person to person connection can take place. The criteria for therapy being at an end could be said to be the emergence of that degree of mutuality in the relationship which comes when the client is no longer pre-occupied with self.

From an eastern perspective, it might be said that it is actually the failure to achieve empathy (or compassion) which is the root of all mental suffering and the cultivation of tenderness toward others coupled to the wisdom to help them in skilful ways, a path known as exchanging self with others (Gyatso 1986, pp.264-282), is then seen as the essence of therapy for ourselves and others alike.

EMPATHY AND TRANSCENDENCE

From a phenomenological perspective, we have to admit the idea that empathy is a much wider phenomenon than simply the understanding of one individual by another. We generally live our lives within a set of assumptions and attitudes which phenomenologists call "the natural attitude" (Schutz 1970, p.72). The natural attitude includes all the taken for granted assumptions which we make in the course of our ordinary lives and which we share in varying degrees with those around us. It is the fact that these assumptions are, by and large, shared, that makes our society hold together. Most of the time we do not think about any of this.

What happens in therapy when one person empathizes with another is not only that the client feels understood but also that many of the client's taken for granted assumptions are brought into consciousness. In order to demonstrate that she understands the client's frame of reference, the therapist states many of its elements explicitly. This is something which the client does not usually do. The fact that the therapist does it brings these elements into focus and so available to inspection. This has the effect of subtly bringing them into question.

The effect of this is to, in a sense, lift the client to a higher vantage point than is usually occupied. Normally we live our lives within a rather confined space in which we are only in touch with a limited range of experience. We have built a niche for ourselves which, in everyday life, we defend. The therapist's empathy has the effect of melting these defenses and putting us in a position from which we can take a wider view of our life situation. There is a move from small mindedness to what we might call big mindedness. This movement is what is called transcendence.

When a client expresses enthusiasm for something in which she is interested, this can be seen as a form of empathy, an investment of energy outside of the self. There is, therefore, an extended sense in which the term empathy can be used to cover our relations not just with other people but also with places, things, ideas and the natural world. Empathy is the way in which the mitwelt (Brazier 1992) comes to life for us and thereby we ourselves are brought alive. We come to life via the things which live for us.

At best this can be an amazingly liberating experience. Once out of the confines of their accustomed view, the client can suddenly find many new possibilities crowding forward for attention. The client's own empathy expands. Instead of believing that there are only one or two possibilities in life, there emerges a sense that anything is possible. This produces a sense of communion with the world in general which may manifest as a restored feeling of connection with nature or a deepened sense of peace in relation to other people generally.

CONCLUSION

Empathy is more than a therapeutic skill. It is a central element in life providing the essential basis for a truly human way of seeing the world and relating to others. As such it is needed by our clients as much as by ourselves, and by ourselves as people, not just as professionals.

Empathy plays a central part in therapy and counselling being the means to restoring a sense of reality to life, mutuality to relationships and communion to our appreciation of our being in the world.

Empathy is, at a simple level, a skill which we can all improve with good effects upon both our professional work and our private lives and, at a deeper level, is a challenge to us to overcome the obstacles to life within ourselves and to deepen the basis of our appreciation of others.

REFERENCES

BETTELHEIM B. 1950. Love is not Enough. New York: Free Press*
BRAZIER D.J. 1992. Eigenwelt and Mitwelt. Newcastle: Eigenwelt Interskill.
FIGURSKI T.J. 1987. Self-awareness and other-awareness: The use of perspective in everyday life. In K. Yardley & T. Honess (eds.), Self and Identity, (pp.197-210). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons*
JAMPOLSKI G.G. 1990. Out of Darkness into the Light: A journey of inner hearing. New York: Bantam*
ROGERS C.R. 1978. On Personal Power. London: Constable*.
ROGERS C.R. 1980. A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin*
SCHUTZ A. (H.R.Wagner, ed.) 1970. On Phenomenology and Social Relations: Selected writings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
SEYFARTH R.M. & CHENEY D.L. 1992. Meaning and mind in monkeys. Scientific American, 267, 6, pp.78-84#
SPINELLI E. 1989. The Interpreted World. London: Sage*
STEIN E. (translated by W. Stein) 1989. On the Problem of Empathy. Washington: ICS Publications*
TRUAX C.B. 1967. A scale for the rating of accurate empathy. In C.R.Rogers, E.T.Gendlin, D.J.Kiesler, & C.B.Truax (Eds.), The Therapeutic Relationship and its Impact: A study of psychotherapy with schizophrenics. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.

Dh.D.J. Brazier
1993

Source: IZT Library / Amida Trust

Intimacy

2012-02-17T01:31:00.010-08:00

Learn to behave in deepest distress

Be awake and feel the prison!

It is spiritual madness

Giving up my own will

Hiding myself

O, Lord

Salvation is at hand

Freeing from corruption

Vanquishing the demons

Resurrection of the dead

An empty mind

Nothing is blurred

Bound to nothing

Only cleaving to You, My Friend

A wondrous and unborn Intimacy

I take up my cross and follow Christ
Suffering beings are numberless

I vow to save them

Let there be light in the darkness

~Kees Voorhoeve

Foto: Mother and Child.

Mechelen, Zuid-Limburg. Netherlands

See: Mystical Poetry

Stervend schaduwspel

2012-02-16T07:53:00.003-08:00

~Ton Lathouwers

“Het stervend schaduwspel van de dag… en de aarde is vervuld van avond”

De titel van deze bijdrage is ontleend aan een boeddhistische tekst. Het is weliswaar geen koan-tekst - ze komt ook uit een andere traditie -, maar de geladenheid ervan komt wel heel dicht bij dat wat ons in de klassieke zenteksten wordt voorgehouden.

„Het stervend schaduwspel van de dag… en de aarde is vervuld van avond…‟ Het klinkt geheimzinnig, als een raadselachtige vraag die ons wordt opgegeven, maar het is tegelijk ook een waarschuwing. Het tekent een perspectief dat zowel in positieve als in negatieve zin kan worden geduid. Wat hier gezegd wordt over avond- en schaduwspel – het blijkt uit de context waarin deze regels staan – raakt aan wat Hisamatsu uitdrukt in de moeilijkste regel van de gelofte aan de mensheid: "Laten we ons bewust zijn van de doodsstrijd, persoonlijk en maatschappelijk, en de bron ervan onderkennen".

Enkele jaren voor zijn dood schreef Hisamatsu een even schokkende als bewogen tekst: De ondergang van de moderne tijd. Daarin verbindt hij de bovenstaande regel uit zijn Gelofte direct met zijn ongerustheid over de ontwikkeling van onze Westerse cultuur. De hele tekst is een soort manifest, een oproep tot bezinning. Hisamatsu ziet onze moderne tijd bedreigd door een ramp van een omvang zoals die gesymboliseerd wordt door het oudtestamentische verhaal van de zondvloed. Hij beschrijft deze moderne zondvloed als een „crisis van totale vernietiging‟, die de hele aarde dreigt te omvatten en waarmee heel de mensheid geconfronteerd wordt:

“De lucht die we inademen dreigt elk moment meer te verworden tot een giftig gas. Het water dat we drinken dreigt elke dag meer te veranderen in een vergif dat voor alles wat leeft de ondergang kan betekenen…. Wetenschappelijke mogelijkheden, die wel degelijk ook ter vernietiging kunnen worden aangewend, worden steeds meer bepaald door een grenzeloos egoïsme… Wij leven in een noodtoestand die de wereld letterlijk dreigt te veranderen in een brandende hel … Deze crisis kan door geen enkele louter wetenschappelijke en politieke aanpak en evenmin door de traditionele religies bezworen worden. Er is zowel een fundamentele innerlijke ommekeer alsook een totaal nieuw standpunt nodig. Maar een hartstochtelijk verlangen om de wereld te redden is hier evenzeer vereist… We kunnen het ons niet langer veroorloven louter toeschouwers te zijn bij deze hopeloze tekenen van verval….Wij moeten zoeken naar de bron van dit verval… Wij moeten niet alleen deze kanker van de moderne tijd keren. Wij moeten de wereld op een totaal nieuwe wijze, creatief en concreet, uit de haar bedreigende ondergang doen verrijzen…De basis voor deze opstanding is de herontdekking van de onscheidbare eenheid van het Universele en het afzonderlijke, van gelijkheid en verschil, van Leegte en expressie, van het Ene en het vele.”

Deze tekst van Hisamatsu zou ik willen illustreren met een citaat uit het verhaal Shambala van de Nederlandse schrijver F.C.Terborgh (1902-1981). Het verhaal, dat door de auteur in een boeddhistische context is geplaatst, gaat over een Nederlandse sinoloog, Bading, die een reis maakt naar Verre Oosten. De regels die ik citeerde als titel voor deze bijdrage: „Het stervend schaduwspel van de dag…en de aarde is vervuld van avond…‟ zijn afkomstig uit dit verhaal.

Als een rode draad loopt door dit werk de tegenstelling heen tussen enerzijds het perspectief van de Grote Dood en Groot Ontwaken waarover niet alleen het boeddhisme maar elke authentieke religieuze houding spreekt, en anderzijds het zwarte perspectief waarvoor Hisamatsu in zijn Manifest waarschuwt. Het gaat om de twee tegengestelde houdingen die ook de Nederlandse dichter Ed Hoornik uitdrukt in zijn ontroerende gedicht Hebben en Zijn. Omdat die tegenstelling daarin zo aanschouwelijk en in zo‟n „gewone‟ taal wordt voorgesteld, en daardoor ook zoveel dichterbij komt, citeer ik het hier in zijn geheel:

Op school stonden ze op het bord geschreven;
Het werkwoord hebben en het werkwoord zijn.
Hiermee was tijd, was eeuwigheid gegeven,
De ene werkelijkheid, de andere schijn.
Hebben is niets. Is oorlog. Is niet leven.
Is van de wereld en haar goden zijn.
Zijn is, boven de dingen uitgeheven,
Vervuld worden van goddelijke pijn.
Hebben is hard. Is lichaam. Is twee borsten.
Is naar de aarde hongeren en dorsten,
Is enkel zinnen, enkel botte plicht.
Zijn is de ziel, is luisteren, is wijken,
Is kind worden en naar de sterren kijken
En daarheen langzaam worden opgelicht.

Terug naar Terborghs verhaal, waarin dit gedicht van Ed Hoornik voortdurend lijkt door te klinken. De reis naar het oosten die de hoofdpersoon in Shambala, de Nederlandse sinoloog Bading, onderneemt – of liever de innerlijke reis die hij daarbij maakt – illustreert het perspectief dat Hoornik aanduidt met het woord „zijn‟. Kort voor de aanvang van zijn tocht stuit hij op een bekend Chinees boeddhistisch boek: Het leven van Hsuan-Tsang. Deze beroemde pelgrim vertrok in de vijfde eeuw uit China, om op zoek te gaan naar de zuivere leer van het mahayana boeddhisme. Hij reisde alleen, dwars door Azië, door steppen en, door zwarte gebieden vol lava en door ruig bergland, over het Dak der Wereld. Tot hij uiteindelijk in India kwam, om daar te mediteren, te zoeken en de authentieke boeddhistische teksten te verzamelen. Tenslotte kwam hij acht jaar later in China terug, met alle teksten die hij gevonden had, en bracht daardoor nieuw leven in het Chinese boeddhisme.

Bading vertaalt enkele teksten uit het leven van Hsuan-Tsang, die ook in het verhaal van Terborgh zijn opgenomen. Het zijn fragmenten over doorstane gevaren en ontberingen, overwonnen moeilijkheden, over grootse vergezichten van haast onmenselijke leegte en eenzaamheid. Daarna begint het reisverhaal van Bading zelf, die zo'n 1500 jaar na Hsuan-Tsang dezelfde tocht onderneemt:

"Een onzekere tocht in de leegte begint, een tocht waar onzichtbare gevaren en Dood dreigen uit het niets. Gedurende eeuwen zijn hier karavanen langs getrokken, pelgrims, monniken, heiligen. Van de oude roem blijven enkel verweerde rompen van leem over.
Het avontuur begint; het grote en onbekende, het niet te voorziene. Weten wij waarnaar wij zoeken? Geloven wij werkelijk het te vinden? Of zijn wij er heimelijk van bewust dat wij het essentiële, dat wij verlangen, hier nooit zullen zien? Op het vertrek komt het aan, op de steeds hernieuwde poging, op het opbreken, het zich niet gewonnen geven…
De rest is leegte zonder einde… Oude gedachten blijven achter; voor het nieuwe: een onbegrensde ruimte. Het onmetelijke breekt aan, lokt, en absorbeert… Voor de geest geen vast punt, geen beperking die aandacht vraagt; hij dwaalt, volgt ingeving en toeval. Vrij en gebonden tegelijk…"

Tegen de achtergrond van deze innerlijke zoektocht, die gestalte krijgt in een daadwerkelijke reis door verlaten gebieden zoals Hsuan-Tsang ooit tegenkwam, een reis waarbij Bading tenslotte omkomt in een sneeuwstorm, staat een ander verhaal. Het is een perspectief dat getekend wordt door de fransman die Bading kort na zijn aankomst in China ontmoet. Het laat de mogelijkheid zien van de catastrofe die Hisamatsu beschrijft in zijn Manifest, met bijna dezelfde woorden, alleen uitgebreider en nog meer bedreigend. Terborgh publiceerde deze tekst ruim veertig jaar geleden. Ze werd geschreven met dezelfde intuïtie voor de mogelijkheid van zo‟n vernietigende ontwikkeling die we bij Hisamatsu zien. Hier volgen de belangrijkste fragmenten:

"Laprade wees op een rij esdoorns aan de overkant. „Sterke bomen, zij hebben hun blad verloren, we zijn in het najaar. Maar als u goed kijkt zult u zien: drie ervan zijn dood: de derde, de vijfde, de zesde. En als u wilt weten waarom, hier is de oorzaak‟: een zwaar beladen vrachtwagen met slecht geregelde verbranding reed voorbij. Een zwarte wolk stank rolde over de weg. Gassen, giftige gassen; daar is op den duur geen boom tegen bestand. Maar niet alleen dit. Een motor verbruikt ook zuurstof, en beangstigend veel. Voor een enkele reis van ruim driehonderd mijl is even veel zuurstof nodig als toereikend wordt geacht voor een heel mensenleven. En de bronnen die de zuurstof leveren, de bossen, van zulk vitaal belang, worden gekapt, vernietigd, zonder dat men aan de gevolgen denkt. Onophoudelijk worden de steden armer aan oxygeen… Er zijn nu ruim dertig jaar van onze eeuw verstreken, en wat ons te wachten staat ligt voor de hand.
Een niet te remmen bevolkingsgroei in de komende decennia. En naast meer levende zielen, meer auto's, meer motoren, meer fabrieken en machines, meer verbranding, en meer verbruik van zuurstof - een beklemmende, een ademberovende vernieling van voor de mens vitale materie.
De chemie zal haar deel opeisen, in ongekende mate. En als u wilt weten wat enkele fabrieken aan dodelijke afval produceren, ga dan naar de rivier, naar de beken en kanalen in de buitenwijken, waar het stinkende bruine schuim opborrelt en kolkt, waar giftige dampen boven dood water hangen. En zie of daar nog een enkele levende vis is te vinden. Bomen en velden worden besproeid tegen plantenziekten. De grote vogelsterfte begint. Insecten verdwijnen, behalve die het schadelijkst zijn en een duivelse gave hebben zich aan te passen. Geen vrucht zal meer de natuurlijke smaak hebben. Wat nuttig is en bevorderlijk voor de mens verdwijnt. Het 'duurzame', het 'steriele' wordt aangeprezen, en vergeten wordt dat het in wezen gelijk staat met 'dood'. Het vale, het schimachtige ondermijnt de resistentie van het lichaam, de gezondheid slinkt en verzwakt.
De technocraten zullen opstaan en alle gezag opeisen, omdat zij naar hun mening de enige zijn die een zo ingewikkeld en diabolisch geheel nog kunnen beheersen en overzien. En men zal hen geloven en wijken. Niet de mens meer geeft het ritme aan, maar de machine, de nieuwe, duivelse tiran. Een blinde en doelloos groeiende productie, ter wille van het produceren zelf. Een steeds hectischer jachten in de steden, onrust en haast, opstopping en niet te voorzien tijdverlies. Niet meer het hart beslist, of de ademhaling, maar de meedogenloze robot.
Een tijd is aangebroken die elk menselijk doel uit het oog heeft verloren. Arrogant geloof in techniek, overschatting van wat berekend en gewogen kan worden, de roes van steeds duizelingwekkender vorderingen en constructies leiden tot de waan dat, wat maat noch gewicht heeft, ook niet existeert. Alsof het menselijk bestaan in enkele vergelijkingen is te vatten, te verklaren uit reeksen en verhoudingen van cijfers. Gevangen in de dode scheppingen van het verstand, vergeet de mens dat elke daad, elke gedachte, elke vondst een fragment alleen maar is, het antwoord geeft op slechts een enkele vraag, maar in wezen niets oplost. Erger nog: dat elk probleem waarop technisch kunnen een antwoord vindt, nieuwe problemen schept, groter en moeilijker en bedenkelijker dan het vorige. En de oude problemen blijven intussen bestaan: motoren verslinden zuurstof, verdelgingsmiddelen doden vogels, en afvalwater vernietigt visgronden… Elke samenhang is verloren gegaan, elke grote visie, en niemand schijnt het te hinderen.
Over dertig, veertig jaren zal het dreigend monster, het broedsel van de onverschilligheid, voor allen zichtbaar zijn. Het zal uit spleten rijzen en het schaarse water verderven, het zal boven de steden en in straten hangen, een verstikkende, giftige walm, die hart en longen aantast. Men zal commissies vormen, decreten publiceren, boeten opleggen, plannen maken. En het zal blijken dat het dramatische punt is bereikt. Het zal blijken dat de ontwikkeling niet meer ongedaan kan worden gemaakt. Erger nog: men zal haar zelfs niet tot staan kunnen brengen. Niemand ontkent de gevaren, maar eenieder verklaart en bewijst dat hij er zelf niets aan kan doen, dat zijn aandeel aan het bederf van water en lucht maar heel gering is, miniem vergeleken bij dat van anderen. Hij zal zeggen dat hij zijn apparaten, zijn technische, zuurstofverslindende gemakken nu eenmaal niet kan missen, omdat alles erop is ingesteld. Dat zuiveringsinstallaties te duur zijn, veel te duur, en economisch niet verantwoord. Dat men moet waken voor de gevaren van buitenlandse concurrentie; immers: houdt een enkel productiecentrum zich niet aan wat is afgesproken, dan is het nadeel voor anderen niet te overzien. Nadeel en voordeel zijn de uitsluitende overwegingen, de gemakken van het ogenblik, maar niet het gezond verstand. Laag winstbejag, egoïsme, zijn nu de grondslag van elk argument, en de niet uitgesproken en geruststellende gedachte dat pas een later geslacht met werkelijk vitale moeilijkheden zal hebben te kampen. Men went eraan, men leert met het groeiende monster te leven. Lapmiddelen, hier en daar, sussen het geweten en bedaren de groeiende onrust en angst. Wat hart en longen belast, wordt door medicijnen in hachelijk evenwicht gehouden. De wetenschap is immers, zegt men, 'met reuzenschreden vooruit gegaan'. En 'de wetenschap zal op alles een antwoord vinden'.
Weer een generatie verder, misschien niet eens, misschien veel minder, want het monster groeit met verbijsterende snelheid. Het leven is nagenoeg ondraaglijk geworden… Het is alsof het hart blijft stilstaan. In de krachtbronnen stagneert iets. Geen verbranding komt meer op gang. Geen energie wordt meer geleverd. Een evenwicht is verbroken. En niemand heeft het willen voorzien…
Het Grote Sterven begint. Elke weerstand neemt af. Alle leven wordt zwakker, primitiever. Hulpbronnen zijn uitgeput; slechts enkele gedegenereerde eilanden houden nog stand. En binnen weinig decenniën is een beschaving vergaan, vlugger dan Rome, en oneindig veel grondiger, vergeten, verwaaid onder stof; nog slechts een vage legende."

Een beklemmend relaas, door Terborgh een halve eeuw geleden neergeschreven, maar met een profetische kijk op wat er in de toekomst kan gebeuren als de fundamentele verandering niet plaatsvindt waartoe Hisamatsu oproept.

"Het stervend schaduwspel van de dag… en de aarde vervuld van avond…" Deze dubbelzinnige woorden houden inderdaad ook de mogelijkheid in van het onheilspellende scenario dat hierboven wordt getekend. Maar ze houden op paradoxale wijze evenzeer het tegendeel in: het geloof tegen alle evidenties in dat elke dood overstegen kan worden, elke „doodsstrijd, persoonlijk en maatschappelijk‟, ook het verschrikkelijke perspectief dat hierboven werd gesuggereerd.
Eén van de laatste regels in het verhaal gaat over het „verzoenende licht‟, juist van de ondergaande zon. Het is dit „verzoenende licht‟ dat in zoveel verhalen van Terborgh terugkeert, juist in uitzichtloze situaties, als verwijzing naar dat onuitsprekelijke dat nooit te bewijzen is maar enkel persoonlijk ervaren kan worden. Dat is ook de boodschap van Terborghs verhaal Shambhala, een verhaal dat ik iedereen kan aanbevelen.

Bron: Maha Karuna Ch’an: Nieuwsbrief 2010 Nr. 1

Derde edele waarheid

2012-02-15T03:01:00.003-08:00

~Kees Voorhoeve

De derde waarheid is de oplossing voor de gehechtheid. Hoe kunnen we het lijden en de gehechtheid doorbreken? Het principe van bevrijding vormt het centrale uitgangspunt van het boeddhisme. Het gaat er om uit de gehechtheid los te komen en het lijden de overstijgen.

Hoe doe je dat?
Nirvana of bevrijding wordt vaak vertaald als uitblussen. De gehechtheid en het lijden dienen helemaal losgelaten te worden. Maar dat wordt niet bedoeld. Bevrijding is afgeleid van het woord ‘nirodha’ dat ‘begrenzen’ betekent. Het gaat om de dorst of het vuur van de hunkering te beteugelen en niet uitdoven. Het vuur of de dorst is immers edel en vormt een natuurlijke neiging om ellende te ontvluchten en de liefde te omarmen.

De kunst is mee te stromen met de levende ervaring. Laat het leven toe, accepteer de werkelijkheid, zonder te oordelen. Het leven mag er in haar volheid zijn, maar ga niet mee met de zuigkracht, laat het vasthouden aan het leven weer los. Laat het leven leven.

De Boeddha danst. Hij is een danser, die de schepping danst. In het moment genieten en meestromen met de volheid van het leven. Maar op onze zoektocht naar waarheid denkt de mens te veel. Zelfs als hij de dans beschouwt die wij schepping noemen, piekert hij er de hele tijd over, spreekt, bedenkt, analyseert en filosofeert: allemaal woorden en lawaai. Wees stil en kijk. Alleen maar kijken: een ster, een bloem, een verwelkt blad, een vogel, een steen, een mens.
Kijken, luisteren, ruiken, aanraken en proeven en dan zal het zeker niet lang meer duren totdat we ook echt gaan dansen, één geworden met de dans van de Boeddha.
[Voorbij de Woorden. Boeddhistische verhalen]

Zie: Mystieke Overpeinzingen

Kabbalah en de Boom des Levens

2012-02-13T15:37:00.000-08:00

Naar aanleiding van de lezing in het Vrijzinnig Centrum Harderwijk,
hier twee schema's over
de Boom des Levens:

Kabbalah en de Boom des Levens
Boom des Levens, Paden en Letters

Zie verder:
Kabbalah Personen en Kabbalah Boeken

Artikel:
En Soph, de grenzeloze Bron van het bestaan

Tip: Rabbi Laitman / Kabbalah Info

Four Hundred Texts on Love

2012-02-13T02:47:00.001-08:00

~St Maximos the Confessor

16. He who loves Me, says the Lord, will keep My commandments (cf. John 14:15, 23); and ‘this is My commandment, that you love one another’ (John 15:12). Thus he who does not love his neighbor fails to keep the commandment, and so cannot love the Lord.

17. Blessed is he who can love all men equally.

18. Blessed is he who is not attached to anything transitory or corruptible.

19. Blessed is the intellect that transcends all sensible objects and ceaselessly delights in divine beauty.

20. If you make provision for the desires of the flesh (cf. Rom. 13:14) and bear a grudge against your neighbor on account of something transitory, you worship the creature instead of the Creator.

Douglas Harding

2012-02-11T03:09:00.001-08:00

A Minty Fresh Mind

2012-02-10T00:21:00.000-08:00

Five sure-fire tips to get yourself on the cushion every day

~Brad Warner

So now you’re convinced. You’ve read the Wikipedia page about Buddhism, watched a few videos of famous masters on YouTube, gone to the local New Age bookshop and bought a couple of Buddhist magazines, and now you’re ready to try some meditation for yourself. You visited the local sangha and sat with the group and listened intently as the teacher there told you the secret to practice was to meditate every single day. So you took the plunge and went to the gift shop and bought yourself a genuine meditation cushion. You set it up in the corner of your bedroom, where it waits for you every morning, lonely, sad, and neglected.

The problem is, you just can’t seem to find the motivation. Your will is strong. Your belief is there. But darn it all, you just never seem to be able to get it together to meditate. Whenever you find a moment to meditate, you seem to do something else instead.

I hear you. I too suffered from the same problem. So I’d like to share with you my five sure-fire tips to get you on the cushion every day.

{ 1 } There are no sure-fire tips to get yourself on the cushion every day. That was just a come-on to get you to read the rest of this. If there’s one lesson that runs through pretty much every Buddhist tradition, it’s this: there are no magic solutions. Our belief in magic solutions that may happen some day in the future keeps us from doing what we really need to do right here and right now. So forget about sure-fire tips to get yourself on the cushion every day. That’s my first sure-fire tip.

{ 2 } Motivation is overrated. While it’s nice to be motivated, the people who really manage to get things done are those who find a way to work at whatever it is they’re interested in even when they don’t really feel like doing it. This goes for musicians, athletes, world-class chefs and all the rest. And it goes double for meditators.
I meditate every morning and every evening, and to tell you the truth, there are plenty of times when I just hate it. Meditation doesn’t always feel like bliss and peace. Sometimes it feels like a five-car pileup in the middle of World War III during an alien invasion and a peewee football game gone mad. My head is buzzing with nervous energy and my body just can’t seem to find anything even close to comfort. But I meditate anyway. Discipline is being able to do things when you don’t want to do them.

{ 3 } Don’t worry about results. You might have heard that the secret to meditation is to have no gaining ideas. But you have all kinds of gaining ideas! You want peace of mind, you want reduced stress, you want enlightenment. You never can seem to get rid of these desires. Should you just give up?

Nope. Everybody has gaining ideas. Everybody. Including the Buddha himself. It’s not that you need to make these ideas go away. You just need to stop worrying about them. Whatever you might gain from your practice won’t be anything like what you imagine it will be. So just leave those ideas as they are. They’ll pass of their own accord if you let them. And if they don’t, that doesn’t matter either. Sit with your gaining ideas.

{ 4 } Meditate before breakfast. This is the only thing resembling a technique that I really have to offer. I discovered this trick long ago, and it seems to work. I’m not allowed to eat breakfast until I finish my morning sitting. I’m pretty strict with myself on this one. There are no Fruity Pebbles for Brad until he is done with meditation, and that’s final.

Maybe breakfast doesn’t work for you the way it works for me. But there’s something in your life you like to do every day. So tie that in with your practice. You don’t get to do whatever that thing is until you finish your meditation.

{ 5 } Wake up half an hour earlier. You’re busy. I know. So am I. So is everyone. But when I decided to commit myself to a daily practice, I looked honestly at what I did each day, and I saw a lot of wasted time. I did all kinds of things in the name of “leisure” or “relaxation” that weren’t really that relaxing. I shopped. I watched inane television shows. I goofed off in a myriad of ways. So I revised my schedule and started going to bed a little earlier and waking up a little earlier so that I could meditate. Maybe the same thing can work for you. That one last thing you need to look up on the internet can wait.

These days, meditation for me is like brushing my teeth. Remember how it was when you were young? Your parents had to force you to brush your teeth. But now you do it every morning and night without being asked. Why? You do it because you know how much better you feel after you finish. You do it because you’d never get a date if you didn’t. You do it because you’d be embarrassed to talk to your coworkers with stinky breath and stuff stuck to your teeth. So you do it for yourself and you do it for others.

Do your meditation for the same reasons. Do it because you know how much better your interactions with others are on days when you do your meditation as opposed to days when you find some excuse to skip it. Do it because it makes your mind feel minty fresh! Then you won’t need any sure-fire tips.

[Brad Warner is a Zen monk, writer, bass player, and filmmaker. He is the author of four books, most recently Sex, Sin, and Zen. His blog is located at Hardcore Zen]

Source: Tricycle

Ster van de Verlossing [03]

2012-02-08T00:05:00.001-08:00

Iemand willen zijn.
Of toch maar liever niemand.

Ik wil mijzelf ontkennen.
De doodsangst lijkt ondragelijk.
Zoveel lijden, waarom?
Ik wil wegvluchten.
Het wordt te veel.

Het alternatief van de roes is aantrekkelijk.
Mijn geest opblazen.
Verlamming zoeken.
Geen golvende emoties meer.
Ik wil rust.

Maar op deze wijze is de doodsangst een vlucht voor het leven.
We leven niet echt maar in een vernauwing.
In slaap, doods. Bang om toe te laten.
Afgesloten van het wonder.

Biedt de filosofie een oplossing?
Niet de Cartesiaanse dualiteit.
Niet de Kantiaanse rationaliteit.
Niet de Hegeliaanse dialectiek van de verabsolutering.
Van deze filosofieën blijft niets meer over.
Deze brave systematiek is niet eigenzinnig genoeg.
Het leven laat zich niet systematiseren.
Een filosoof met een hamer is op z’n minst noodzakelijk.
Vastgeroeste structuren dienen doorbroken te worden.

Een filosofie die de dood ontkent,
gaat uit van het niets.
Dat is een heilloze weg.

De Ster van de Verlossing is een nieuwe ontregelende filosofie.
Het afzonderlijke wordt overstegen.
In de vreze des doods aanwezig zijn.
De filosofie van het Al met een nieuwe blik op het niets.
Het niets van de dood is geen absoluut niets,
Niets is iets.

Luister naar de schreeuw.
Geen misleiding meer.
Voorbij de materialistische tendensen.
Voorbij idealistische ego-roerselen.
Het gewone denken bereikt een grens.
Uitgeput geraakt.
Helemaal ontvankelijk.
In de paradox openbaart zich het Al.
Niet-Niets.

~Kees Voorhoeve

Zie: De Ster van de Verlossing

Meister Eckhart and Buddhism [02]

2012-02-07T09:07:00.000-08:00

~D. T. Suzuki

Below are further quotations from Eckhart giving his views on ‘being’, ‘life’, ‘work’, etc.:

Being is God. . . . God and being are the same – or God has
being from another and thus himself is not God. . . . Everything
that is has the fact of its being through being and from being.
Therefore, if being is something different from God, a thing has
its being from something other than God. Besides, there is
nothing prior to being, because that which confers being creates
and is a creator. To create is to give being out of nothing.

Eckhart is quite frequently metaphysical and makes one wonder how his audience took to his sermons – an audience which is supposed to have been very unscholarly, being ignorant of Latin and all the theologies written in it. This problem of being and God’s creating the world out of nothing must have puzzled them very much indeed. Even the scholars might have found Eckhart beyond their understanding, especially when we know that they were not richly equipped with the experiences which Eckhart had. Mere thinking or logical reasoning will never succeed in clearing up problems of deep religious significance. Eckhart’s experiences are deeply, basically, abundantly rooted in God as Being which is at once being and not-being: he sees in the ‘meanest’ thing among God’s creatures all the glories of his is-ness (isticheit). The Buddhist enlightenment is nothing more than this experience of isness or suchness (tathata), which in itself has all the possible values (guna) we humans can conceive.

God’s characteristic is being. The philosopher says one creature
is able to give another life. For in being, mere being, lies all
that is at all. Being is the first name. Defect means lack of
being. Our whole life ought to be being. So far as our life is
being, so far it is in God. So far as our life is feeble but taking it
as being, it excels anything life can ever boast. I have no doubt
of this, that if the soul had the remotest notion of what being
means she would never waver from it for an instant. The most
trivial thing perceived in God, a flower for example as espied in
God, would be a thing more perfect than the universe. The
vilest thing present in God as being is better than angelic
knowledge.

This passage may sound too abstract to most readers. The sermon is said to have been given on the commemoration day of the ‘blessed martyrs who were slain with the swords’. Eckhart begins with his ideas about death and suffering which come to an end like everything else that belongs to this world. He then proceeds to tell us that ‘it behooves us to emulate the dead in dispassion (niht betrüeben) towards good and ill and pain of every kind’, and he quotes St Gregory: ‘No one gets so much of God as the man who is thoroughly dead’, because ‘death gives them [martyrs] being, – they lost their life and found their being’. Eckhart’s allusion to the flower as espied in God reminds us of Nansen’s interview with Rikko in which the Zen master also brings out a flower in the monastery courtyard. It is when I encounter such statements as these that I grow firmly convinced that the Christian experiences are not after all different from those of the Buddhist. Terminology is all that divides us and stirs us up to a wasteful dissipation of energy. We must however weigh the matter carefully and see whether there is really anything that alienates us from one another and whether there is any basis for our spiritual edification and for the advancement of a world culture.

When God made man, he put into the soul his equal, his active,

everlasting masterpiece. It was so great a work that it could not

be otherwise than the soul and the soul could not be otherwise

than the work of God. God’s nature, his being, and the Godhead

all depend on his work in the soul. Blessed, blessed be

God that he does work in the soul and that he loves his work!

That work is love and love is God. God loves himself and his

own nature, being and Godhead, and in the love he has for

himself he loves all creatures, not as creatures but as God. The

love God bears himself contains his love for the whole world.

Eckhart’s statement regarding God’s self-love which ‘contains his love for the whole world’ corresponds in a way to the Buddhist idea of universal enlightenment. When Buddha attained the enlightenment, it is recorded, he perceived that all beings non-sentient as well as sentient were already in the enlightenment itself. The idea of enlightenment may make Buddhists appear in some respects more impersonal and metaphysical than Christians. Buddhism thus may be considered more scientific and rational than Christianity which is heavily laden with all sorts of mythological paraphernalia. The movement is now therefore going on among Christians to denude the religion of this unnecessary historical appendix. While it is difficult to predict how far it will succeed, there are in every religion some elements which may be called irrational. They are generally connected with the human craving for love. The Buddhist doctrine of enlightenment is not after all such a cold system of metaphysics as it appears to some people. Love enters also into the enlightenment experience as one of its constituents, for otherwise it could not embrace the totality of existence. The enlightenment does not mean to run away from the world, and to sit cross-legged at the peak of the mountain, to look down calmly upon a bomb-struck mass of humanity. It has more tears than we imagine.

Thou shalt know him [God] without image, without semblance

and without means – ‘But for me to know God thus, with nothing

between, I must be all but he, he all but me.’ – I say, God

must be very I, I very God, so consummately one that this he

and this I are one ‘is’, in this is-ness working one work eternally;

but so long as this he and this I, to wit, God and the soul

are not one single here, one single now, the I cannot work with

nor be one with that he.

What is life? God’s being is my life, but if it is so, then what is

God’s must be mine and what is mine God’s. God’s is-ness is

my is-ness, and neither more nor less. The just live eternally

with God, on a par with God, neither deeper nor higher. All their

work is done by God and God’s by them.

Going over these quotations, we feel that it was natural that orthodox Christians of his day accused Eckhart as a ‘heretic’ and that he defended himself. Perhaps it is due to our psychological peculiarities that there are always two opposing tendencies in the human way of thinking and feeling; extrovert and introvert, outer and inner, objective and subjective, exoteric and esoteric, traditional and mystical. The opposition between these two tendencies or temperaments is often too deep and strong for any form of reconciliation. This is what makes Eckhart complain about his opponents not being able to grasp his point. He would remonstrate: ‘Could you see with my heart you would understand my words, but, it is true, for the truth itself has said it.’ Augustine is however tougher than Eckhart: ‘What is it to me though any comprehend not this!’

De Wereld wakker maken [Quote 4]

2012-02-05T04:27:00.001-08:00

Een universele dimensie voor spirituele oefening

~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

De eerste stap

Ik zag mijn Heer in mijn dromen en ik vroeg,
“Hoe kan ik U vinden?”
Hij antwoordde, “Laat jezelf achter en kom!”
~Bâyezîd Bistâmî

Zet één stap weg van jezelf en –
Zie daar – het pad.
~Abû Sa’îd ibn Abî-l-Khayer

VOORBIJ ZELF-VERVULLING

De eerste stap op het spirituele pad is in vele opzichten de meest radicale en de moeilijkste. Het is het herkennen dat het niet over “mij” gaat – , de reis naar Huis, de reis terug naar God is de reis van de ziel en niet van het ego, en niet van het “ik” . Wij zijn niet de pelgrim op het pad, maar een obstakel op de reis waarin de ziel of het Zelf, de substantie in het hart van het hart, terugkeert naar de Bron, die nooit verlaten is.

Hoe kunnen we dit begrijpen wanneer alles wat we kennen ego is? We zien ons leven door de ogen van het ego: ons leven gaat over ons. In het begin kunnen we alleen de spirituele reis in het kader van het ego en zijn waarden zien, en zo stellen we ons deze reis gemakkelijk voor als het proces van spirituele zelfontwikkeling, die leidt naar een dieper en bevredigender leven. Daarbij komt nog onze Westerse obsessie met het individuele zelf. De waarden van onze cultuur gaan over individuele voldoening, of het nu is op materieel, seksueel of emotioneel niveau. We projecteren deze waarden gemakkelijk op de spirituele reis en scheppen louter en alleen een verheven beeld van bevrediging. We willen niet alleen emotioneel of seksueel bevredigd worden; we willen ook “spirituele bevrediging,” die we vervolgens voor een betekenisvoller leven houden. Binnen deze droom van spirituele bevrediging kunnen we dan onze beelden projecteren, van het hebben van een geleid leven of een spiritueel betekenisvolle relatie, van geaccepteerd of geliefd worden; we projecteren misschien ook wel de mythe van “verlichting.” We kunnen niet voorbij de horizon van onszelf kijken.

Dit beeld van het begin van de reis is begrijpelijk: hoe kunnen we ons iets voorbij onszelf voorstellen wanneer de wereld van het ego alles is wat we kennen, wanneer de ogen van het ego onze enige middelen zijn om te zien? Maar helaas wordt dit beeld van de reis ons ook gespiegeld door veel “spirituele” literatuur en leringen, die allemaal bevrediging beloven. We worden verteld dat we ons in de volheid van het leven kunnen verheugen door in het moment te leven; we worden geïnstrueerd hoe we van onszelf moeten houden, zelfs hoe we verlicht seks kunnen beleven. En zo wordt de wereld dus vernauwd in de waarden van het ego en blijft gecentreerd op onszelf.

Maar is dit alles wat we kunnen begrijpen? Zijn we zo geconditioneerd door een cultuur die op eigen bevrediging uit is? Ons niet langer op een beter materieel leven concentrerend, kunnen we misschien naar spirituele doelen verlangen, maar beseffen niet dat we alleen maar een andere vorm van zelfinteresse geschapen hebben, en nog steeds gevangen zijn door het ego en zijn eindeloze cirkel onvervulde behoeften. Moeten we in deze patronen blijven die ons voldoening geven? Of zijn we bereid te erkennen dat dit grote avontuur niet over ons gaat? Onze cultuur, zowel subtiel en openlijk ontzegt ons de leringen en de middelen die ons kunnen bevrijden uit de op zichzelf gerichte obsessie. We geven zo veel van ons leven aan de eisen van materiële voorspoed die onze tijd en energie verspilt. Moeten we ook onze ziel geven aan het beeld van spirituele voorspoed? Hoe zit het met de oude waarheid dat we voorbij het ego kunnen gaan met zijn verleidingen en wensen, dat we kunnen ontsnappen aan deze Maya? Durven we een moment te kijken naar de geweldige natuur van de reis die ons kan voeren voorbij onze kleine op onszelf gecentreerde wereld?

DE KRACHT VAN HET GODDELIJKE BINNENGAAN

Nu, in deze tijd is er nog een wezenlijk aspect op deze vraag. We zijn ons bewust dat dit een moment is van universele crisis, dat onze huidige waarden, de samengestelde krachten van materialisme en hebzucht, onze planeet vernietigen. We kunnen misschien voelen dat spiritueel bewustzijn een belangrijk
onderdeel is van de genezing en transformatie van onze wereld, en dat we de verantwoordelijkheid hebben om veranderingen te scheppen voordat deze krachten onomkeerbaar, zowel de uiterlijke als de innerlijke werelden, vernietigen. Maar hoe kunnen we toegang krijgen tot onze spirituele kracht en ons potentieel, om verandering te scheppen wanneer we spiritualiteit benaderen met dezelfde op zichzelf gecentreerde waarden die onze universele orde hebben geschapen?

Juist de natuur van het ego bestaat uit het zich afgescheiden zien: de ontwikkeling van het ego is wat ons gevoel van afgescheiden zelf creëert wanneer het kind gescheiden wordt van de moeder. Maar het ego scheidt ons ook af van het goddelijke en zijn allesdoordringende eenheid. Het is de basisidentificatie met ons ego wat ons de toegang ontzegt tot onze aangeboren spirituele wijsheid en kracht. Daarom onderwijzen spirituele paden ons om afstand van het ego te doen of het over te geven, en daarom zijn zo veel spirituele leringen op subtiele wijze corrupt – door ons de illusie te geven van individuele vervulling, zij houden ons binnen het ego, en op die manier ontzeg het ons de toegang tot wat echt is. Wanneer we binnen de waarden van het ego blijven, hebben we alleen toegang tot de energie en de visie van het ego, zijn patronen van illusie. De wereld kan niet geheeld worden door spirituele illusie. Maar zij kan geheeld worden door de echte macht van het goddelijke dat in ieder van ons is.

Alleen het goddelijke kan de wereld helen en transformeren – de krachten van tegengestelde machten in de wereld zijn voor ons te krachtig samengesteld om op te lossen; de patronen van hebzucht die het levensbloed van de planeet leegzuigen en zijn ecosysteem vernietigen, zijn te stevig verankerd. Maar we kunnen geen toegang tot de energie van het goddelijke hebben, tenzij we voorbij ons egogebonden zelf gaan.

De kracht van het goddelijke kan op veel verschillende manieren begrepen worden. Het is het licht van het Zelf, de heilige krachten in de schepping, de echte vreugde van het leven, de energie van onze eeuwige natuur, onze liefde voor God en Zijn liefde voor ons. Echte spirituele tradities die voorbij het ego kijken, verbinden ons met deze kracht en leren ons hoe we hen in het leven kunnen brengen: hoe vanuit het goddelijke centrum van onszelf te leven, te midden van het leven van alledag. Zij leren ons hoe we dienstbaar kunnen zijn aan het goddelijke, niet aan de wensen van het ego. Deze spirituele tradities leren ons ook dat offeren een onderdeel van de reis is. We moeten “sterven voor we sterven”: de waarden van het ego overgeven, om de grotere dimensie van het Zelf te omarmen. Zonder de houding van overgave of offerande kan er geen reis zijn; ook kunnen we geen leven van ware dienstbaarheid leven.

Met de juiste houding van spirituele dienstbaarheid kunnen we voorbij het ego en zijn beperkingen gaan, en de dimensie van onze goddelijke natuur, het Zelf, binnengaan. Om deze kwaliteit in het leven te brengen, is het nodig dat we deelnemen aan het goddelijke: wij zijn de wachters van de planeet. We moeten met deze energie werken voor het welzijn van het totaal.

Ons egogeoriënteerde leven heeft een gefragmenteerde wereld van conflicten geschapen, met verschillende fracties die naar dominantie streven. We moeten wedijveren en vechten, gevangen in de beelden van winnaars en verliezers, en al die andere drama’s van het dualisme. In deze wereld hebben we geleerd om op onszelf te passen omdat niemand anders dat doet. In onze afgescheidenheid voelen we ons vaak alleen en geïsoleerd, niet in staat om echte veranderingen te weeg te brengen. Bovendien is het toe te schrijven aan onze zelfgecreëerde illusie van afgescheidenheid van de aarde, dat we ons eigen aan het vernietigen zijn. Als we zouden beseffen hoe intrinsiek we verbonden zijn met de aarde, zouden we haar niet zo slecht behandelen.

Wanneer we eenmaal uit de illusie van onze eigen afgescheiden zelf gestapt zijn, komt er een radicaal ander beeld te voorschijn. Onze goddelijke natuur bestaat in een dimensie van eenheid. In tegenstelling tot het ego dat altijd op zoek is naar zijn eigenbelang, spiegelt het Zelf een beeld van eenheid, waarin ieder individueel deeltje gevoed wordt volgens de werkelijke behoefte. Een glimp van het Zelf geeft ons een gevoel van een onderling verbonden eenheid, waarin niets gescheiden is; alles is een uitdrukking van een eenheid die dynamisch leeft. Iedere persoon, iedere steen is deze eenheid; alles is verbonden en onderling afhankelijk. Ons individuele Zelf is het Universele Zelf en alles is een levend organisme van licht en liefde.

Wanneer we met een bewust besef onze intrinsieke eenheid leven, brengen we deze eenheid in ons collectieve bewustzijn, dat sterft door de illusie van gescheiden zijn. Ons licht is het licht van de werelden; ons goddelijk bewustzijn is het spirituele bewustzijn van de wereld – niets is afgescheiden. De energie en het besef van het goddelijke zijn in ieder van ons, zijn ieder van ons. Wanneer we ons afkeren van het ego en zijn wensen, weten we dat we deze heilige substantie belichamen. En we zijn ook het leven, verlangend naar wat heilig is. In het dynamische onderling afhankelijke geheel zijn we de inademing en de uitademing van het leven – een leven dat niet alleen haar fysieke bestaan is maar een multidimensionaal levend organisme van licht en liefde. Wij zijn het spirituele levensbloed van de planeet en we moeten deze dimensie van het leven eren, deze kwaliteit van eenheid die in alles aanwezig is.

What Is True Happiness?

2012-02-04T02:29:00.000-08:00

Tricycle speaks with scholar B. Alan Wallace about the quintessential pursuit.

For more than three decades, scholar and contemplative B. Alan Wallace has considered the perennial question What is happiness? from the dual perspectives of modern science and traditional Buddhist meditation practice. These two disciplines are at the heart of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, launched by Wallace a year ago to conduct rigorous scientific study of contemplative methods in collaboration with established investigators in psychology and the neurosciences. Initial research co-sponsored by the Institute includes the Shamatha Project, a long-term study of the effects of intensive shamatha—tranquility—practice on cognition and emotion, and the UCLA Mindful Attention Program (MAP), which is evaluating mindfulness training as treatment for Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Cultivating Emotional Balance, a program now in clinical trials, combines techniques from Buddhist tradition and Western psychology, with widespread potential applications for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. All this furthers the Institute’s mission to identify and cultivate the mind states associated with optimal happiness and well-being. So far, the research seems to confirm what Wallace and other Buddhist practitioners have discovered empirically over the past twenty-five hundred years: that meditation can not only counter destructive emotions that get in the way of happiness but also foster the positive factors that give rise to it. True happiness, as Wallace emphasizes in a new book, Genuine Happiness (Wiley, 2005), is the fruit not of worldly trappings and ambitions but of a focused mind and an open heart.

Tricycle Editor-in-Chief James Shaheen visited Wallace at his California home, near the Santa Barbara Institute, to discuss what Buddhism—and meditation—have to offer us in the pursuit of happiness.

What is genuine happiness? I prefer the term “human flourishing,” which is a translation of the Greek word eudaimonia. The usual translation is “genuine happiness,” but “flourishing” is more accurate. Like the Buddhist notion of sukkha, and ananda—bliss, joy in the Hindu tradition—flourishing is a sense of happiness that’s beyond the momentary vicissitudes of our emotional state.

And what would that happiness entail? A meaningful life.

What makes for a meaningful life? I consider each day, not just the life as a whole. I look at four ingredients. First, was it a day of virtue? I’m talking about basic Buddhist ethics—avoiding harmful behavior of body, speech, and mind; devoting ourselves to wholesome behavior and to qualities like awareness and compassion. Second, I'd like to feel happy rather than miserable. The realized beings I've known exemplify extraordinary states of well-being, and it shows in their demeanor, their way of dealing with adversity, with life, with other people. And third, pursuit of the truth—seeking to understand the nature of life, of reality, of interpersonal relationships, or the nature of mind. But you could do all that sitting quietly in a room. None of us exists in isolation, however, so there is a fourth ingredient: a meaningful life must also answer the question, “What have I brought to the world?” If I can look at a day and see that virtue, happiness, truth, and living an altruistic life are prominent elements, I can say, “You know, I’m a happy camper.” Pursuing happiness does not depend on my checkbook, or the behavior of my spouse, or my job, or my salary. I can live a meaningful life even if I only have ten minutes left.

So physical health is not a necessary ingredient? Not at all. One of my former students has a very rare disease, and every day he goes to the hospital for dialysis and drug treatment, and will for the rest of his life. You could say, “Well, that’s a tragedy, a dismal situation.” But the last time I spoke with him, he said, “Alan, I’m flourishing.” And he was. He was finding a way within the very limited parameters of what was available to him. His mind is clear. He’s reading, he’s growing, he’s meditating, he’s teaching meditation to other terminally ill patients in his hospital. He’s living a very meaningful life in which he can honestly say that he’s flourishing.

What’s his secret? He’s not looking for happiness outside himself. When we rely on things like a job, a spouse, or money to fulfill us, we’re in an unhappy situation, because we’re banking on something external. Furthermore, other people are competing for the same pot, and it’s not an infinite pot. That’s the bad news.

And the good? The good news is that genuine happiness is not out there in the marketplace to be purchased or acquired from the best teacher around. One of the best-kept secrets is that the happiness we’re striving for so desperately in the perfect spouse, the great kids, the fine job, security, excellent health, and good looks has always been within and is just waiting to be unveiled. Knowing that what we are seeking comes from within changes everything. It doesn’t mean you won’t have a spouse, or a car, or a satisfying job, but if you’re flourishing, your happiness won’t depend so much on external events, people, and situations, which are all beyond your control.

Everyone’s heard that wealth does not buy happiness, but few of us live as if it were true. On a deeper level we doubt it and try again and again to take control of our external environment and to extract from it the things we think will make us happy—status, sex, financial and emotional security. I think a lot of people in our society have given up on the pursuit of genuine happiness. They’ve given up hope of finding happiness, fulfillment, and joy in life. They think, “Well, genuine happiness just doesn’t seem to be available, so I’ll settle for a better stereo.” Or they’re just getting by: “Forget about pleasure. I’ll just try to make it through the day.” That’s pretty tragic.

That sounds like depression. It’s a state in which the space of the mind compresses and we lose vision. I think of lovingkindness—the first of the Four Immeasurables, or Four Divine Abidings—as a vision quest. In traditional maitri [Sanskrit for lovingkindness] practice, you start with lovingkindness for yourself. That doesn’t mean “What kind of a good job could I get? How much money could I possibly have?” but “How can I flourish? How can I live in a way that I find truly fulfilling, happy, joyful, meaningful?” And as you envision that for yourself, you extend it out: “How can other people who are suffering find genuine happiness?”

Shantideva said, “Those deciding to escape from suffering hasten right toward suffering. With the very desire for© Bill Armstrong happiness, out of delusion they destroy their own happiness as if it were the enemy.” Why is this so? Why wouldn’t we adopt a life of virtue if it brings the genuine happiness we so want? It comes back to the idea that we’re clueless as to what would really bring us the happiness we seek. It may take us a very long time before we even notice what’s happening, because we’ve become so fixated on the symbol, the image, the ideal, the mental construct: “If I only had this type of spouse, this type of job, this amount of money; if only people respected me to this degree; if I only looked like this....” It’s delusion. We all know people who are in good health, have love and fame and wealth, and they’re miserable. Those people are some of our greatest teachers. They show us that you can win the lottery and lose the lottery of life, in terms of the pursuit of genuine happiness.

If one approaches the path of Buddhist practice with a strong emphasis on the via negativa and the idea that nirvana is just being free of stuff, then at first glance, nirvana can look pretty boring. But nirvana is not just getting up to neutral, or Freud’s “ordinary level of unhappiness.” It’s a lot more than that. And this is where we tap into this issue that our habitual state is dukkha, being dissatisfied, anxious. But the Buddhist premise, which is enormously inspiring, is that what’s truly “habitual” is your natural state of awareness, the ground state of awareness. This is a source of bliss and can be uncovered, beginning with the meditative practices like shamatha, the refinement of attention, and becoming aware of how things really are. The whole point of Buddha-dharma is that liberation comes not by believing in the right set of tenets or of dogmatic assertions, or even necessarily by behaving in the right way. It’s insight, it’s wisdom, it’s knowing the nature of reality. It is only truth that will make us free.

When you say “genuine happiness,” the implication is that there’s another kind. Yes. We mistake what Buddhists call the Eight Mundane Concerns for the true pursuit of happiness: acquisition of wealth and not losing it; acquisition of stimulus-driven pleasures and avoiding pain; praise and avoiding abuse or ridicule; and desire for a good reputation and fearing contempt or rejection. The point to mention is that there’s nothing wrong with the ones on the positive side. Take having: would you be a better person if you didn’t have that sweater you’re wearing? No. There’s nothing wrong with acquisitions, but there’s something wrong with thinking they’ll bring you happiness.

Genuine happiness is simply tapping into the true causes of happiness as opposed to things that may or may not catalyze it. And that’s basically the difference between pursing the dharma and pursuing the Eight Mundane Concerns. Some people actually meditate to serve the Eight Mundane Concerns—solely for the sake of acquiring the pleasure that they get in meditation. They’re taking meditation like a cup of coffee, or jogging, or massage. That’s not bad or wrong, but it’s very limited. Meditation can do something that a good massage can’t do. It can actually heal the mind.

In Genuine Happiness, you write, “When we’re experiencing dissatisfaction or depression without any clear external cause for it, no bad health, disintegrating marriage, or other personal crisis, could this be a symptom or message to us coming from a deeper level than biological survival? How should we respond? Antidepressants essentially tell such feelings, 'Shut up, I want to pretend you don’t exist.’ But what is the feeling telling us?” Can you comment? What we’re talking about here is dukkha—not as in “I feel miserable because I lost something that was dear to me, or I didn’t get something I passionately wanted,” but this deeper stratum of dukkha that is nonreferential and not stimulus-driven. There are times when, in the absence of unpleasant stimuli, you still have a sense of unease, of depression, of restlessness—something’s not right but you can’t quite identify what it is. This is one of the most valuable symptoms we have of the underlying dysfunction of our minds. Once you sense that you’re tapping into that, you may say, “I don’t like this feeling, and I’m going to cover it up. I’m going to get lost in work, entertainment, booze, drugs.” This society is the most ingenious in history in suppressing that basic sense of unease. We go into chemical overdrive. Here is a symptom of a life that is not working very well, of a mind that is prone to imbalances and afflictions, and instead of taking that as a welcome symptom, we basically shoot the messenger. The drug industry says that if you feel anxious, depressed, unhappy, or angry it’s because of a chemical imbalance in your brain. “Take our prescription drug, and this is going to make you happy.” The downside of these drugs is that many people think that bad experiences have primarily a material basis—that a chemical imbalance is the root cause. In other words, the Second Noble Truth, the cause of suffering, is chemical imbalance in the brain. And therefore the cessation of suffering means getting numbed out. What this is doing is veiling our engagement with reality rather than getting to the roots of depression and anxiety. What you’re experiencing is the First Noble Truth. And the Buddha says, “Don’t just make it shut up, but recognize it, understand it.” This is the beginning of the path to happiness.

The existentialists understood that we pursued happiness in vain. How does the Buddhist take differ? In Buddhism, pursuing happiness is not just a moving away from one thing—the acquisition of external objects—but moving toward another, dharma practice. It’s extricating yourself from the actual sources of dukkha, which are internal, and moving toward greater freedom, greater mental well-being, greater balance, greater meaning. In existentialist philosophy, this is referred to as “living authentically.” Moving away from the true sources of dukkha toward the true sources of happiness—that is basically the whole Buddhist psychology right there.

We have a misperception that if we can get everything to work right, we’ll find the happiness we’re seeking. Then there comes a point when you say, “I see. This has never worked. It’s not working now, and it will never work in the future.” That’s what a lot of the existential philosophers recognized. Camus, Sartre—they refer to the vanity, the futility, the fundamental meaninglessness. Buddhism, like the existentialists, sees the vanity, the futility, the emptiness of the Eight Mundane Concerns. But it doesn’t just say, “Here’s a problem and there’s nothing we can do about it.” It says, “Those are the mundane concerns, and then there’s the dharma. Having some faith would be helpful, but if nothing else, you still have the practice.”

You argue that practice keeps us in the world, and that’s a great challenge. For instance, many of us follow the news, and it’s easy to get pretty depressed. How can we stay in the game without being brought down by it? The first thing is to recognize that the news is not all the news that’s fit to print or to broadcast. It’s taking place in a one hundred percent commercial context. They’re broadcasting the news because they’re paid for it by their advertisers. And they are giving us the news that sells, that they feel that people would want to watch. It’s a very selective slice of what’s going on. This is not to say that there are no people in the media who are trying to perform a public service, but the system itself is commercially oriented.

In Buddhism, we say yes, there is an ocean of suffering. So it’s not bad to show that there’s anger, hatred, delusion, and greed in the world. In a way, the media are presenting some very important facts. Given that, we can look for different emotional responses in ourselves. We can get out of the rut of our cynicism, depression, anger, and apathy by cultivating the Four Immeasurables. When we see suffering and the causes of suffering, then it’s time for compassion. When we see people striving diligently to find happiness, that’s a time for lovingkindness. That rare coverage where they show something wonderful that has happened is a time for mudita—for empathic joy, for rejoicing in other people’s happiness and in virtue. And then there are circumstances like natural disasters. When we see there are responsible people and institutions doing their best to alleviate the suffering, we can decide to maintain equanimity and then do the practice of tonglen—taking in the suffering of the world and offering back joy and the causes of joy. The Four Immeasurables are extraordinarily powerful ways of engaging with reality. And they balance each other. They’re like the Four Musketeers: when any one goes astray, the other ones leap in and say, “I can help you.”

So if you’re feeling indifference instead of equanimity, then compassion will balance that? Precisely. Or if you’re really hunkered down into attachment and anxiety, that’s a time for equanimity.

This alternative route to happiness seems to require a leap of faith, and that can be scary. If I let go of all the externals, what will become of me? We don’t need to jump into the deep end. The Tibetans call that “hairy renunciation.” It’s like suddenly getting an infatuation and saying, “Oh, the whole of society is a pit of blazing fire. I can’t stand it. I’m going to go off to the bliss of practicing Buddhism.” It’s called hairy because I’d better shave my head to show I’m serious. Then, of course, in a day or two or a couple of weeks, you say, “Oh, this is not so much fun, and where is that girlfriend I left behind, anyway?” It’s like a fling.

So what’s required is not a sudden, abrupt, and total abandonment of the eight worldly dharmas—the Eight Mundane Concerns—and practicing only the sublime dharma. It’s like taking a child into the water to teach him how to swim: you don’t fling the kid into the deep end and see what happens. You take him from the first step into the shallow end. So have a trial period. Try meditation for a session in the morning and a session in the evening. See how that impacts the rest of your day. Then, as you start to get a taste of dharma, you may say, “Well, this is actually tapping into my inner resources. This feels good. And it’s not just good, it’s also virtuous, and what’s more, I’m engaging with reality more clearly than I have in the past. If I want to bring something good to the world, I’m in a better position to do so.” It is a gradual shift in priorities until eventually your primary desire, your highest value, is living a meaningful life, devoting yourself to dharma. The Eight Mundane Concerns—they’ll come and go. In fact, when they’re there, they can even support you in your life. As grist for the mill? They’re not necessarily grist for the mill, but adversity does provide us with an opportunity if there is a wise engagement with it. For instance, one of the greatest obstacles to a meaningful life is arrogance. Well, it’s really hard to be arrogant when you’re encountering great adversity. Then there’s that unease we’ve spoken of. If we view that with wisdom, it can arouse our curiosity or maybe even be a very powerful incentive for transformation, for uprooting the underlying causes giving rise to such distress. If you’ve gone through terrible interpersonal strife, or a loss, or a financial crisis, for example, you could look at it and say, “How did that happen? What did I contribute to it? And why am I suffering so much now?” These are messages—symptoms of an underlying discord, a disengagement from reality, coming out of delusion, hatred, and craving. I think the Three Poisons are as important for understanding the human situation as the three laws of Newton are for understanding the physical universe. And when you see how important dharma is in the face of adversity, then it becomes a priority. You let it saturate your life. That’s when dharma really takes on its power—when it’s not confined to a meditation session here or there.

Which brings me to your view that the culmination of the Buddha’s practice was not enlightenment under the Bodhi tree but service to others. I believe the Buddha achieved something utterly extraordinary under the Bodhi tree, but he recognized that if this event was to be as meaningful as possible, it had to be shared with others. Enlightenment isn’t something just for yourself: “Now I’ve got the good stuff, and therefore I’m finished.” Entire civilizations were transformed by this one man’s presence, but it wasn’t just the forty-nine days sitting under the Bodhi tree that did it. It was the next forty-five years, engaging with courtesans and beggars and kings and warriors—the whole range of human society—and having something to offer to everyone. So if we go back to the four aspects of a meaningful life, what happened under the Bodhi tree is clearly the culmination of virtue, happiness, and truth. And for the next forty-five years he was out there, bringing something good to the world. So I would say the Buddha is the paradigm of a meaningful life.

Source: Tricycle

Tweede edele waarheid

2012-02-02T15:48:00.000-08:00

~Kees Voorhoeve

De tweede edele waarheid verwijst naar de oorzaak van het lijden. Hoe komt het dat ons bestaan voornamelijk gekenmerkt wordt door frustratie?
De Boeddha geeft als aanwijzing dat het lijden veroorzaakt wordt door gehechtheid. We raken gehecht aan dat wat we willen hebben. De drijfveer van deze gehechtheid is dorst. De Boeddha omschrijft dit als een vuur, het vuur van de hunkering. Maar ook deze tweede waarheid is edel. Dorst is natuurlijk. Niemand hoeft zich daar voor te schamen. Dingen willen hebben en ons met mooie zaken identificeren is een normaal proces in het leven, als het maar niet gaat overheersen. Wordt die gehechtheid de grondtoon van ons bestaan en zo dominant dat we er in vast komen te zitten, dan raken we in een bewustzijnsvernauwing. We zien de werkelijkheid niet meer helder, we raken verblind door bezit en de zuigkracht van het leven. Dan komen we vast te zitten in een vicieuze cirkel van vastgrijpen en vasthouden en wordt ons leven gekenmerkt door lijden en frustratie.

Een boeddhistische leraar zat in meditatie verzonken aan de kant van de rivier, toen een van de leerlingen twee grote parels voor zijn voeten neerlegde als teken van verering en toewijding. De leraar deed zijn ogen open, nam een van de parels in zijn hand en liet deze vervolgens achteloos uit zijn hand glijden, langs de helling, de rivier in. De ontstelde leerling dook meteen de parel achter na, maar hoewel hij tot laat in de avond steeds weer probeerde de parel op te duiken, hij kon hem niet vinden.
Tenslotte ging hij naar de leraar volkomen uitgeput en zei:
‘U hebt de parel zien vallen, u weet precies waar die terecht kwam’.
De leraar pakte de tweede parel op, gooide hem in de rivier en zei:
‘Precies daar!’”
[Voorbij de Woorden. Boeddhistische verhalen]

Zie: Mystieke Overpeinzingen

Mystiek Leven

2012-02-01T02:03:00.001-08:00

Mystiek Leven

Kick Bras

In zijn nieuwste boek tekent Kick Bras een weg uit waarlangs mystiek leven zich ontvouwen kan. Aan de hand van mystieke teksten uit heden en verleden worden thema’s uit het mystieke leven toegelicht. Deze toelichting blijft niet steken in theorie, maar wijst heen naar de praktijk van leven.

Video

Website

Berneboek

Zie ook artikel: Aanbidding en mystieke ervaring

Citaat uit artikel: Zo spreekt Mechtild van Maagdenburg erover ....
Toen de ziel het land van de engelen zag en zonder moeite herkende, was de hemel voor haar opengegaan. Daar stond zij, en haar hart ontbrandde en ontsteeg haar en zag haar Lief aan en zei: ‘O Heer, als ik u aanschouw, moet ik u lofprijzen in een wonderbare aandacht. Waar ben ik? Nabijgekomen, ben ik nu in u verloren en kan ik niet meer aan het aardrijk denken noch aan enig hartenleed. Toen ik u zag, wilde ik de aarde voor u aanklagen. Nu heeft uw aangezicht mij, Heer, verslagen, en u hebt mij boven mijn adelstand ver verheven’. Toen knielde zij neer en dankte hem voor zijn genade en nam van haar hoofd de kroon en zette die op de rozenkleurige nerven van zijn voeten en voelde een verlangen, om hem nader te mogen komen. Toen sloeg hij zijn goddelijke armen om haar heen en legde zijn vaderlijke hand op haar borst en keek haar aan. Toen werd zij gekust. En in zijn kus geraakte zij in verrukking, verrukt tot in de hoogste hoogte, boven alle engelenkoren.

Where in the world am I?

2012-01-31T09:01:00.000-08:00

A Call to Live / Torah Guidance on Healing

~Avraham ben Yaakov

When you wake up from your sleep only to feel pain all over your body... when you look around you, and even familiar surroundings seem strange and alien... and you rub your eyes and you ask yourself, "Where in the world am I?" this may seem like a question born of confusion and chaos. But in truth, asking this and other searching questions about the new reality you face in your life is a sign of an awakening mind and spirit.
Serious illness or injury may bring a welter of different thoughts and feelings, some so private that we cannot begin to share them with the healthy, chirpy people around us going about their business in such blissful ignorance of our own pain, shock, grief and anxiety. We may be bitter and angry: "Why me?" Perhaps we feel betrayed by our bodies. We worry about the future: "Will I suffer pain? Will I be permanently disabled or disfigured? Am I going to die? What's it like in the grave?"

It is right and natural to be seriously concerned about what is happening to you. But don't let anxiety push you into despair. Admitting physical vulnerability does not mean you will necessarily remain permanently weak from now on. Confronting the fact of your mortality does not mean you are going to die soon.

Your worries and concerns are in fact a signal to you to embark on an extensive examination of yourself and your life. You must now act as doctor to your own inner self. Just as a medical doctor first carries out a thorough examination and then prescribes treatment, so you should now take an honest inventory of yourself and your life. Then you must start developing your own self-healing strategy. This is your part in the healing process.

Don't think only about your physical condition and how you are going to get well. Consider also all the other issues in your life, including any problems within yourself, in your work, your relationships or other areas. Be ready to face things you might normally prefer not to think about. Be willing to ask the deepest questions -- about your body and your soul, what this life is about, how you've been using your time, and how you'd like to use it in future. Where do you want to go? How are you going to get there?

Starting to work on yourself in this way is a major step forward on your self-healing journey. You'll come away with a new inner confidence founded upon greater wisdom and understanding. You'll be able to live your life more freely and joyously. And living is what healing is all about.

Who is in control?

For many people, the most frightening aspect of illness and death is the loss of control. After having been born helpless babies totally dependent on others, we gradually gained control of our hands and legs and our various faculties. We grew from childhood to adolescence and onwards, taking ever more control of our lives.
And then came the illness or injury... and suddenly we find ourselves helpless again, maybe to the point that we cannot even move. We hope that the doctors have things under control. But at times it seems as if everything is haywire -- as if some wild force has taken charge and is beating us down time after time.

One of the things we have to learn to accept in this life is that sooner or later we are going to have to give up our control com- pletely. We all have to die, and death is the ultimate loss of control.

For much of our lifetimes we are given a certain ability to direct and control things. Not that we can control everything. We can't fly. We don't choose our parents, our bodies, our minds and many other things. Yet there are major areas in which we do have a degree of control, if we choose to exercise it. In fact some of us put enormous energy into trying to manipulate other people and things in the hope of being able to keep various aspects of our lives under control.

But in the end we have no control. We may try to hold on for as long as we can. Sometimes death seems to stare us in the face, and we beg: "Not yet! Please! Let me get through just this one time!" But in the end there is no escape. Death is the ultimate loss of control. A dead body can do absolutely nothing for itself.

One of the greatest mysteries of this universe is how man enjoys his allotted time of glorious freedom -- he flexes his muscles, runs out into the world and does what he wants... but at last his strength is exhausted, he shrinks back into second babyhood... and finally surrenders. His body becomes a useless clod that rots and turns to dust. All the pride and splendor are forgotten.... And then God is in control.

The Source

"God" is the English name for the ultimate Power that sustains and controls the entire cosmos and everything in it -- from the furthest reaches, way way beyond the most distant of galaxies, right down to the smallest, finest details of creation, such as the eccentric, sauntering path of a single leaf that's fallen from the tree and is gently tossed and patted by a breeze until it comes to rest at its appointed place on earth, there to decay and merge back into the ecological cycle.
Take a few moments to think about the wonder of this universe. Think about the diversity and complexity of the natural world of plants, trees, insects, birds, animals, microorganisms, molecules, atoms, particles, waves, energies.... Consider the diversity of teeming humanity -- all the different faces, types, ages, stages, activities, thoughts, feelings and secret inner worlds.... Think about this planet: the cities, plains, hills, mountains, forests, deserts, rivers, seas and oceans. Think of the moon, the sun, the stars... galaxies upon galaxies stretching out for endless millions of light-years, further and further away... until the human mind is totally overwhelmed and you have to turn your thoughts to something more immediate and graspable.

The divine Being that sustains this unimaginable richness and diversity is utterly beyond the power of the human mind to envisage or understand. Jewish tradition refers to the ultimate Power that is the source and cause of all existence as Eyn Sof. The Hebrew means "No End!" The human mind is only able to grasp things that are finite, i.e. things that have limits and boundaries. But Eyn Sof is literally without end -- beyond all limits -- and therefore cannot be conceived in any way.

This amazing universe is not an accident. It is a system, albeit one so vast that our minds could never grasp it, though at times, when we experience certain quirks of fate, strange coincidences, mysterious happenings, beautiful serendipity and the like, we may be granted a faint glimpse of how everything ultimately fits together.

The unity that underlies the entire universe is expressed in the main name of God in the Bible: YHVH (traditionally pronounced as Adonai when praying, or as Yud Keh Vav Keh when referring to the name at other times). The Hebrew root of this name is HaVaH, which means "is" or "exists." The name YHVH signifies "the One that causes existence or being," i.e. the Source of all phenomena on every level, a Power beyond space and time, One that has been always, is now in the present, and will be for ever and ever.

Another biblical name of God is Elohim (pronounced as spelled when praying, but referred to at other times as Elokim). This name signifies that the One God is the supreme power underlying and controlling all the multiplicity of different powers manifested in the universe.

Refining your understanding of God

In childhood many people develop their own images of God, only to reject them as they grow older and find them inconsistent with what they have learned about the way in which the world seems to work. Modern science has made some traditional conceptions of God appear primitive. Many find it hard to relate to conceptions of God as a kind of super-person who "speaks," "creates," "works miracles" in nature, in history, and the like.
Religious traditions frequently refer to God as "Father." This may be problematic for those who have experienced difficulties in their relationships with parents. Some resent the idea of God as a ruler with a set of laws telling people how to behave. The image of a strict, reproving, chastizing God may be perceived as a repressive threat to one's freedom to make one's own choices in life. Some reject the authority of religion because in their experience it has been falsely invoked by human beings to serve their own mundane interests.

The rejection of false and outworn images of God is indeed necessary in order to develop a more mature conception that will aid rather than inhibit us in our personal growth and development. Sometimes childhood ideas about God remain embedded deep within us. It may take a conscious effort to exorcise them in order to reach a higher understanding. Thus the young Abraham, founding father of Judaism, smashed the idols in his father's house before setting off alone on his journey to the Land of Israel -- a journey that was really into his own self and soul.

Ultimately each person must find his or her own way to conceive of and relate to the supreme Source of this universe and of our very lives. Re-examining our ideas about God in the light of authentic Jewish teachings on the subject can help us clarify and deepen our understanding.

Choices and consequences

Whether we like it or not, ultimately God (however we understand God) is in control. We cannot control death, and there are many other circumstances in our lives that are chosen for us, such as the family and socio-economic group we are born into, our bodies, minds and other endowments, and the many other external and internal factors that leave their imprint on us down to our very core.
Yet amazingly, within these parameters we are free. Far from being a repressive tyrant, God gives us complete control over vital aspects of our lives and destinies. It is up to you whether you put your time, energy, money and other resources into food, drink, sex, work, play, household, family and other relationships, hobbies, sports, entertainment, art, intellectual development, spiritual growth, service of others or anything else. It is up to you whether to strive to make the best of the advantages and disadvantages you've been given, or to rail against fate and say "to hell with trying."

You are free to choose. And then you must live with the consequences of your choices. No matter what you do or don't do in life, there are always consequences of one kind or another. Every one of your choices leaves its mark on your body, your soul, the quality of your life and the lives of those around you.

Our predicament as human beings is that while we have no option but to make choices, the long-term effects of our decisions are usually unknown at the moment we actually make them. Science may provide information about the probable effects of certain courses of action. But science can tell us nothing about whether they will bring happiness and fulfilment.

It is our very inability to know in advance the long-term consequences of our choices that gives the real edge to our freedom. If at the very outset we already knew the evil consequences of wrong choices, we would never make them.

Taking responsibility

As you take stock of yourself and survey your life, you must take responsibility for any poor choices you may have made. Consider carefully whether your own behavior may have been a factor leading to your present illness or other undesirable aspects of your life. This does not necessarily mean that you bear responsibility for causing these problems. Many of the things that happen to us are sent by God for reasons that cannot be understood in worldly terms.
Yet there are also many cases where people's lifestyle, attitudes and behavior do cause or contribute to their problems, including actual physical illnesses. The point is not to grieve over your past mistakes, but rather to admit them honestly in order to take responsibility for your life and make wiser choices from now on.

But how can you make wise choices when you don't always know what the consequences of your choices are going to be? The Torah -- God's teaching to mankind -- gives us guidance about good choices to make at each of the different junctures in our lives in this world, from birth to death.

The Torah views human life from the perspective of eternity. We are more than merely people living here and now in this world. Each one of us is a soul with roots and branches stretching out into the entire cosmos, a soul that has existed for much longer than we can remember, a soul that will be alive and aware long after our bodies are dust.

God is good. Good is by nature expansive: good seeks to spread itself. Thus God desires to bestow good on all creation. God wants every single soul to have the very best -- eternal good. And God wants it to be our very own. Thus God placed us here in a world where we have to earn the good for our souls through our own efforts.

In a world filled with falsehood and confusion, our mission is to strive to do good and be good, and thereby know God, who is all good. Our actions in this world affect not only our lives here but also the destiny of our souls in higher realms after death. The soul enjoys the good earned in this world for ever.

The Torah gives guidance as to how to earn this eternal good by following simple pathways of conduct in practical, everyday life. We should eat and satisfy our other needs in moderation, with gratitude on our lips. We should show kindness and compassion to others. We should conduct our business affairs with honesty and integrity. We should strike a balance between work and recreation, celebrating Shabbat and festivals... And so on.

The Torah prescribes and suggests, but the actual choice remains ours. We see no police going around compelling people to be kind, give charity, pray, observe Shabbat, follow the dietary rules, etc. The Torah code is "advice" which everyone is totally free to take or ignore as they choose -- and live with the consequences of their decisions.

Faith

Do you believe in the medical treatment you are receiving? If you do, is it because you yourself are a medical expert and you know that the treatment is bound to work? Or do you have faith (or hope) that the doctors know what they are doing?
In critical areas of our lives there are many things we have to take on trust. This certainly applies in healing the inner self. It takes a leap of faith to believe that Torah pathways of kindness, charity, prayer, meditation, Shabbat and so on can bring inner healing and fulfilment.

No scientist can measure the greater sense of meaning and happiness to which these pathways lead. Fulfilment in life and connection with the divine are levels of experience barely discussed by science. But that doesn't make them any less real and important to you.

God is on a plane that science cannot reach because science deals only with phenomena that can be experienced with our physical senses. God, as the ultimate cause and source of these phenomena, cannot be experienced directly.

Knowledge of God comes not from scientific enquiry but through the stance or mental attitude we call faith. People often find their faith to be confirmed by what they see around them. But you don't get faith because you've seen proof. First you have to decide to have faith; understanding comes later.

To have faith is to have the humility to admit that there are mysteries about our existence in this world that our minds cannot understand. The essence of faith is to believe that everything we see around us is part of one vast, single, unified system that encompasses many other planes of existence besides the material world with which we tend to be so preoccupied.

Interpenetrating this material world of space and time are emotional, intellectual and spiritual realms that are also called "worlds." Life in this world is one leg of a journey that leads to a higher plane of existence in the "next world." Belief in the afterlife is one of the fundamentals of Judaism.

It is this faith that gives meaning to many aspects of life here in this world that would otherwise be incomprehensible. In terms of this world, injury, illness and death are the antithesis of life. They signify destruction and the negation of life as we know it. Why should people have to work and struggle so hard and endure so much in their lives, only to end up helplessly ravaged by pain, suffering and physical destruction before finally dying? Often the end of life is like a shipwreck that makes everything seem so futile.

But what to our eyes seems like meaningless suffering is a cleansing of the soul in preparation for its eternal journey. What we see as death is in fact a transition to a new state of being. When the time comes for the inner self and soul to move forward, the worn body, having served its purpose, is discarded like the skin of a caterpillar, while the soul takes wing and flies to new horizons.

From our perspective in the material world it is impossible to imagine what this new, higher life might be like. But deep inside, the soul knows its destiny. This is why it happens that at critical moments in our lives we naturally begin to wake up and ask, "Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?"

The destruction wrought by injury, illness and death is not purposeless. It is to enable the soul to build anew on a higher level. Having this faith will enable you to live more happily in this world, because you will know in your heart of hearts that all your struggles, efforts, pain and suffering have meaning and purpose. If pain and illness are the antithesis of life in this world, they will lead to a higher level of synthesis and harmony in the world to come.

People ask: "Why did this illness or injury happen to me?" But what has happened is a fact you cannot change. What you can change is the way you live your life in the face of your problems and difficulties. And this way you can change the meaning they have in the wider canvas of your life as a whole.

As soon as you accept your present condition as a necessary stage in your spiritual journey, you can learn to use it for your long-term growth and development.

Be yourself

Faith means more than having faith in God "out there." You must have faith in the God who is with you here and now: the God within your heart and your innermost self. You must have faith in the divinity contained within your highest hopes and aspirations, in your finest traits and faculties, in your subtle thoughts and feelings.
You must have faith that you are important and what you do in this world matters. The goodness you bring into this world is very precious. Your struggle is important and worthwhile.

Have faith in the power and resourcefulness of your soul and its incredible capacity to heal. For the soul is invincible.

One of the most amazing features of the creation is that everything is unique, down to the smallest detail. God is a master artist who loves originality. Nothing displays the infinite power of divinity more spectacularly than the uniqueness of every blade of grass, and especially the uniqueness of every human being, each with his or her unique individuality.

Because you are unique, you have to find your own unique way of relating to God and developing the divine spark within yourself. You must develop your own understanding of how to apply traditional spiritual guidance in your life and circumstances. God dwells with each person in the very place and situation in which they find themselves. God "hears" them there, and subtly guides them in their chosen path in order to bring them to their ultimate goodness and fulfilment.

To be yourself, you must discover who you really are and clarify what you want in your life. Our upbringing and life experiences often leave us with a tough protective mask that we wear even to ourselves. It gives us a certain identity, outlook, opinions and attitudes. But deep inside us there is a sensitive, often wounded inner self that may have been repressed and stunted owing to background, upbringing and other factors. We have to tend and nurture that inner self. We must have the courage to be who we really are and live.

In the revelation at Mount Sinai, God introduces Himself as "I am." "I am YHVH your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt..." (Exodus 20:2). It can be disconcerting to realize that God is a live "personality," as it were, with a "self," an "I," just like we have. Some people experience this as a threat to their own independence, which is why they prefer an impersonal God or none at all. But in the end we all have to acknowledge that God alone can say "I." "I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is no-one that can deliver out of My hand" (Deuteronomy 32:39).

The inner reality of that divine "I" is totally beyond the grasp of the human mind. But even so, as long as we are alive, we do have some idea of what it is, because each one of us is also an "I." Within limits, we too are free to create and control. Only the all-powerful God could create an independent being -- an "I" -- that can also create and control. The inner "I" -- the soul -- is the most Godly part of us.

God's intention was not that this "I" of ours should be timid and repressed. We must be humble, yes. We have to know our limits. We have to know where our power comes from. But true humility is to rejoice and exult in the gift of power and creativity that God has given us. God wants us to use this power to create!

Whether you know it or not, control of your destiny is in your hands. Wake up to your freedom and grasp the reins of control. Take your life in your hands and direct yourself to where you want to go.

Set your goals and work towards them! It is the process of striving to attain your goals, with all the ups and downs this involves, that will bring you true happiness and satisfaction in life.

Mara

2012-01-29T09:00:00.000-08:00

Mara, the Beast

The Buddhist Devil

Seductive and fat

Hungry for self-affirmation

I am unfaithful

Hooked and entangled

Idols instead of icons

Now I am waiting

Surprised

Behold

A breakthrough

It is easy

Christ is personally present

Founded as the Universal Man

In touch with a non-consuming Fire

Surrounded by an uncreated Light

Born in the middle of an eternal Rhythm

The power of the resurrection

Roaring like a lion

The lamb is sacrificed

Walking together with Mara

The profiler who supported me

My heart is full of compassion

~Kees Voorhoeve

Foto: Christ
Herrenwies. Schwarzwald. Germany

See: Mystical Poetry

Zurchungpa’s Testament / Faith

2012-01-28T01:23:00.000-08:00

A Commentary on Zurchung Sherab Trakpa’s
Eighty Chapters of Personal Advice

~Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Uit het Voorwoord:

The great eleventh-century Tibetan master Zurchung Sherab Trakpa was someone who, by practicing the Buddha’s teachings throughout his life, attained the highest possible level of spiritual realization. Shortly before he left this world, he shared his extensive experience of Buddhist practice with his disciples in a series of instructions, the Eighty Chapters of Personal Advice. Beginning with basic topics such as faith, impermanence, and renunciation, these simple yet profound instructions cover the path of the three trainings—discipline, concentration, and wisdom—and culminate in the extraordinary view, meditation, and activity of the Great Perfection. Zie Snow Lion

I. Faith

Showing the importance of faith as a prerequisite—

without faith there is no way one can even begin to practice the Dharma—

and the fault in not having faith,
for without faith one is not a suitable vessel for the teachings.

Son, since it is a prerequisite for the whole of the Dharma, it is important to recognize the fault in not having faith and the virtues of having it.

Here “Dharma” means “that which will lead us to liberation from samsara and to ultimate omniscience and enlightenment.” The word “Dharma” derives from a root that means “to correct.” Just as when one makes a statue out of clay, first sculpting a rough form and then carefully correcting all the small defects to make a perfect representation, when we practice the Dharma, it corrects all our imperfections and brings all our good qualities to perfection.

Another meaning of Dharma is “to hold,” or “to catch.” For instance, when a fish is hooked, it cannot but be taken out of the sea and end up on dry land. Once one has entered the door of the Dharma and been “hooked” by the Dharma, even if one does not practice very much, the blessing of the Dharma is such that one can only be benefited and drawn toward liberation. Of the many different kinds of activity, the Dharma, which is the activity aspect of the enlightened Buddha, is the most important. And
when we take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the ultimate refuge is, in fact, the Dharma.

The Dharma has two aspects, transmission and realization—the teachings in the scriptures of the Tripitaka, which we can study, reflect upon, and practice; and the experiences and realization that grow out of such practice. These two aspects include all the Three Jewels. The Buddha is the one who expounds the Dharma; the Sangha comprises the companions on the path who accompany us in practicing the Dharma. Of all the different meanings of the word “dharma,” the most important is this Jewel of the Dharma, the vast and profound teaching of the Buddha.

One might wonder whether the scriptures are the Jewel of the Dharma. They are not the ultimate realization, but they are nevertheless the Jewel of the Dharma. This is because they are the support for that realization. Just as, on the physical plane, a statue or other image of our Teacher inspires devotion when we look at it, and through generating devotion we receive blessings and can progress along the path, similarly the scriptural Dharma sustains our realization. This is why, when Lord Buddha passed into Nirvana, he said that the Dharma would be his representative. Through studying the Dharma one can know what the Buddha himself is like and what the teaching is like; one can know the path to enlightenment. The Dharma is thus a likeness of the dharmakaya; it is the dharmakaya made visible.

In order for us to practice the Dharma, faith must come first. We need to know what are the drawbacks of not having faith and what are the qualities and benefits that come from having it. Faith, disillusionment with the world, and the desire to get out of samsara are not things that everyone has naturally, from the beginning. But they can be developed, for every sentient being has the tathagatagarbha, the buddha nature, within himself or herself. The presence of the buddha nature naturally helps all good qualities to grow, just as the presence of the sun in the sky naturally dispels darkness over the earth. It is this tathagatagarbha that is pointed out through the instructions of Mahamudra and the Great Perfection, and because of this buddha nature that we have within us, it is quite easy for faith, determination to be free, and so forth to arise on their own within our minds. To help these qualities grow in us, we need to receive teachings from our teacher, to follow him, and to reflect on the enlightened qualities we can see in him. As we do so, we will naturally understand the drawbacks of not having faith.

Now we may talk about faith, but unless we know what we mean by faith, it will merely be an empty word.

The essence of faith is to make one’s being and the perfect Dharma inseparable.

When the Dharma and one’s being have truly mingled, then there is perfect faith. Faith also implies aspiration, a sense of longing. When we long to become very rich, for example, we do everything necessary, undergo great hardship, and expend a lot of energy to achieve this goal. The same is true for wishing to become famous or to achieve any other worldly goal: if our aspiration and determination are strong enough, we will manage to achieve what we want. This is a very powerful quality. Similarly, with faith there is a strong motivation and wish to achieve something, and a natural understanding of the drawbacks of not having this sort of aspiration. When faith has become truly blended with one’s mind and become part of it, then one’s Dharma practice naturally becomes genuine and pure. This is what is meant by the “perfect Dharma.” This clear aspiration to practice the Dharma is what we call faith.

The etymology of the word “faith” is: the aspiration to achieve one’s goal.

When we hear about all the qualities of the past Buddhas, the lives of the great teachers, and the realization they achieved, we may aspire to achieve such qualities ourselves and to set out on the path. This longing is what we call yearning faith. We may, for instance, think that the Dharma is something valuable and therefore start to learn Tibetan. As we gradually begin to understand the language, our longing to understand the teachings will grow more and more. This is the fruit of our aspiration. If we were to distinguish different kinds of faith,

The categories of faith are three: vivid faith, yearning faith, and confident faith.

The first of these, vivid faith, is the natural interest and vivid joy we feel when we hear about the lives of Guru Rinpoche and the great siddhas, and the miracles they performed.

Yearning faith is the longing and hope we have when we then think, “If I practice the teachings, then in this life or at least in a future life I myself will achieve the level of Guru Rinpoche and the siddhas.” We may also experience yearning faith when we hear of the qualities of Buddhafields such as the Pure Land of Bliss and aspire to be reborn there.

Confident faith is the confidence that gradually builds up when we have both vivid and yearning faith and we think, “If I practice these teachings, there is no doubt that I will be able to attain Buddhahood myself.” It is the certainty that as in the past beings were able to gain realization through the Dharma, so it will be in the future. It is confidence in the truth of the teachings. It is confidence in death—in its fearfulness, imminence, and unpredictability— and in all the other aspects of the teachings.

There are six faults that come from not having faith.

If we do not have faith, we will not be suitable vessels for the teachings.

Without faith one is like a rock at the bottom of the ocean—
the Dharma will not benefit one’s being.

A rock on the bottom of the sea may remain there for thousands of years but it never gets any softer. It stays as hard as ever. Similarly, if we do not
have faith, the Dharma will never penetrate our being and benefit us.

One is like a boat without a boatman.

If the ferryman or boatman is absent, there is no way one will be able to cross a big river or lake. In the same way, without faith

one will not be able to cross to the other side of samsara.

One is like a blind person who goes into a temple—

he is unable to see the precious relics and sacred objects, such as statues, that represent the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind; and since he cannot see them he cannot give rise to faith, respect, and devotion.
Similarly, if one has no faith,

one will be unable to understand the words and their significance.

One is like a burnt seed—
the sprout of enlightenment—devotion, diligence, and compassion—will not grow.

Without faith

One is like a sheep stuck in a pen

or like a sheep that has fallen into a steep-walled pit with no way to climb out:
there is no liberation from suffering in the ocean of samsara.

One is like a maimed person who has landed on an island of gold.

Someone with no hands, even if he lands on an island filled with gold and precious jewels, is unable to bring anything back with him. Similarly, although in this life one may have obtained a precious human existence, met a spiritual teacher, and entered through the gateway of the Dharma, if one has no faith, one will not be able to reap any of the achievements or qualities of the path:

one will return empty-handed at the end of this precious human life—
the freedoms and advantages will have been squandered.

Mind Like a Mirror

2012-01-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

The shimmering reflections of consciousness

~Andrew Olendzki

“The mind is luminous, but is polluted by the toxins that are dumped into it.” This is a translation, updated for our times, of a well-known passage found in the early discourses of the Buddha (Anguttara Nikaya 1.6). It has been taken by some to point toward a transpersonal consciousness that is somehow abiding below, behind, or above the consciousness arising each moment in a person’s experience when a sense object impinges upon a sense organ, but it does not seem to have this sense in the early literature. Rather we find the image of a pool of limpid water that, when still, can clearly reflect the nature of whatever impinges upon it. Consciousness is not a force larger than ourselves but a process taking place within ourselves, with no individualizing characteristics beyond the basic function of “knowing” an object. Mind is thus neither the source of light, like a shining sun, nor the reflected light of something greater, like the moon, but a shimmering pool of contingent potential, capable of reflecting sun, moon, and any other object that happens to dance upon its surface. Its function is more important than its essence, and is influenced significantly by the nature of what gets stirred into its pristine waters.

The diversity of experience comes not from consciousness itself but from the other four aggregates in the mix: an apparently infinite array of physical and mental objects; the interpretation of these by means of the symbolic language of perception; their texturing with varying shades of pleasant and unpleasant feeling tones; and both the active intentions and passive dispositions that respond each moment to the impingement of these objects with the enactment of karma. In this sense, consciousness itself is like a mirror whose only function is to reflect whatever it encounters—the content of experience is provided by other mental processes. In particular it is the karma formations of the sankhara aggregate that color the experience of an object with mental states and emotional responses. Whenever we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or think of an object, we do so with a particular attitude or emotion that gets stirred in like an additive to consciousness. These can be either wholesome or unwholesome— healthy or toxic—and can thus either clarify or contaminate the mind’s ability to know itself and its environment.

The image of polluted water is elaborated upon in the Numerical Discourses (Anguttara Nikaya 5.193). “Suppose there is a bowl of water,” says the sutta, going on to describe the water as impinged upon in some way by an external factor that pollutes its depths or agitates its surface. Under such circumstances, “If a man with good sight were to examine his own facial reflection in it, he would neither know nor see it as it really is.” The text goes through a list of mental states called the five hindrances, showing how each one of them can be seen to obscure the natural luminosity and reflective ability of the mind.

Sense desire, the subtle inclination of the mind toward alluring objects, is said to be like a bowl of water “mixed with lac, turmeric, blue or crimson dye.” The pellucid quality of the mind is ruined by dumping such distorting and obscuring substances into its clear waters.

Ill will, the equally subtle inclination of the mind away from all disturbing or unpleasing objects, is said to be like “water being heated over a fire, bubbling and boiling.” Even in English we refer to this sense of anger and hatred as fires that heat the mind up with destructive emotions. Boiling furiously, the mirroring potential of the mind is lost.

Sloth and torpor, those mental factors contributing to sluggishness, sleepiness, or laziness of mind, are likened to “water covered over with water plants and algae.” Such growths take root in indolence and a lack of diligence, and so encumber the mind that its surface becomes obscured.

Restlessness and remorse, their opposite qualities, are identified with “water stirred by the wind, rippling, swirling, churned into wavelets.” When the mind is agitated by gales of anxiety, hyperactivity, multitasking, or incessant internal chattering, it is no longer capable of seeing things as they are.

Doubt is the hindrance that causes us to lack confidence, questioning ourselves, our actions, our teachers, and almost everything else. It is said to be similar to “water that is turbid, unsettled, muddy, or placed in the dark.” Here too, the conditions for the mind’s natural reflectivity are hampered so much that it can no longer function.

Such a model of the mind encourages us always to take on the dual projects of tranquilization and purification. Meditation can be understood as an enterprise of quieting the mind, in order to allow its surface to settle into a reflective plane. But the quality of the water itself also needs attention. This involves, among other things, examining its depths for the presence of toxins, neutralizing these contaminants at every opportunity, and developing diligent moral habits to ensure that new pollutants are dumped into the mind as little as possible. Fortunately, the texts also offer a set of antidotes for each of these poisons, so pouring in such dispersants as non-attachment, lovingkindness, energy, tranquility, and confidence, is sure to have a wholesome, purifying effect.

It can be exceedingly difficult to entirely shut off the source of toxic influxes into the mind, especially those that flow in from the deepest reaches of the psyche. This is finally accomplished only by an arahant or a buddha. Yet there are plenty of ways in which we can stem the flow, working each moment to calm the waters, siphon out the debris, and catch glimpses of what the world looks like when the mind is able to let it all come and go without attachment, appropriation, or interference. Everything becomes luminous when we clarify the waters and let all things be just what they are.

Source: Tricycle

De Ster van de Verlossing [02]

2012-01-25T00:32:00.000-08:00

"Van de dood, van de doodsangst, stamt al het kennen van het Al"
~Franz Rosenzweig, De Ster van de Verlossing

Overschreeuwen.
De doodsangst niet willen voelen.
Maar het is volop aanwezig.
De veiligheid blijkt tijdelijk te zijn.

Openbreken van de donkere kant.
Een onvoorstelbare negativiteit.
Destructie dringt zich naar voren.

Op het scherpst van de snede.
Chaos, pijn, vernietiging.
Zinloosheid, absurde agressie, lijkenzakken.

En dan … tegen alles in:
Het eeuwige licht.
Het ware, goede en schone.
God als openbaring.

Een waanzinnige paradox.

Is het nu mogelijk de aardse angst af te werpen?
De gifangel van de dood onschadelijk te maken?
Ik ga op zoek naar de waarheid voorbij de dood.

Maar is deze ontkenning wel realistisch?
Kan de mens de doodsangst overstijgen?

Het licht van de verlossing is zichtbaar.
Midden in de angst aanwezig durven zijn.
Leven en dood vormen één geheel.
Geen van beiden kan ontkend worden.
Ze zijn tegelijkertijd aanwezig.

Hoe te leven in de paradox?

Iemand willen zijn.
Vechten tegen de eenzaamheid.
Een ondraaglijk niemandsland.
Jezelf bevestigen.
De dictatuur van Ikken.

Maar mijn ik-bestaan is sterfelijk.
Deze iemand zal ophouden te bestaan.
Mijn lichaam zal ooit opgebaard liggen in zijn doodskist.
Hoe om te gaan met deze doodsangst en het angstzweet?
Er verschijnt een diepe verstilde onbeschrijfelijke paniek.

~Kees Voorhoeve

Zie: De Ster van de Verlossing

Irina Tweedie

2012-01-24T08:36:00.000-08:00

See also:
*Daughter of Fire
A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master
*An Interview with Irina Tweedie

Facing a World in Crisis. Part 4

2012-01-23T11:10:00.000-08:00

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

We have said how important it is that, seeing how inevitably corrupt the various types of religious, secular, and social organizations are, to belong to any of them not only prevents the unburdening of one’s conditioning but also prevents one from seeing things clearly. We have said that is important to be able to stand completely alone, not adhering any group or sect, following any teacher or guru, so that we can bring about quite a different kind of society. I do not know if you see the importance of or have an insight into this question, because most of us are very confused. There are so many demands and pressures that most of us lean on somebody—we want to be guided and told what to do. In ourselves we have no clarity, and of course there are those who say that they are very clear, in a state of enlightenment, or of freedom, and so on. And being uncertain ourselves, we more or less yield to their persuasion and so not only become more conditioned but accept a new form of conditioning. And if we are conditioned in this way, our mind inevitably becomes almost mechanical.

Please, as we have also said, we are sharing this thing together, thinking over these problems together and therefore understanding them together. It is not that I am telling you what to think or how to think, but rather that we together investigate, understand, have an insight into all these problems, so that you are very clear at the end of it. So that in that clarity you stand alone. Because one must bring about a totally different kind of society, a totally different kind of human being, and the more one sees what is happening in the world, the greater the demand for such a human being.

It is only the mind that is capable of standing alone—in the sense of not belonging to any group, any party, any community, any set of dogmas, beliefs, conclusions—that can be creative. So I think we have to go into the question of what it is to be creative, because if that is not clear we are apt to follow those things that make the mind more and more mechanical, dependent, and attached. So what is it to be creative? Because if you are not creative, you will inevitably be fragmented, accept authority, succumb to all the absurdities of escapes. I do not know what the word creative means to you. It is not, surely, creating some new kind of physical thing—a new invention, a new mode of speech, of painting, or of music. We are talking of a mind that is standing alone and therefore capable of being creative.

Most of us are in conflict, caught in various kinds of demands, not only physical but environmental, social, and so on. We depend on each other both physically and psychologically, and therefore our whole nature, our psychological structure, is fragmented. Please observe it in yourself. Can a mind that is fragmented, contradictory in itself, be creative? Or does creation take place when there is the absence of the continuity of fragmentation? I don’t know if you follow all this. Does it interest you? Because if we are not creative in the deeper sense of that word, into which we are going, we are bound to escape from the central fact of deep frustration. And the escapes then become very important, whether they are religious, political, sexual escapes, or escapes into good works. So the escapes become all-important, and not the factor of this fragmentation in which a mind is caught. Please do follow this. And observing this in oneself—how one is fragmented, contradictory, being pulled by different desires, demands—how is a mind to be free, in which alone there can be creation?

First of all, do you know what it means, what takes place, when you have an insight into something? Say, for instance, you have an insight into the whole business of organized religion; you see what is implied in it, how corrupt, how false it is. You can have such insight only when the mind is not conditioned, not attached to any particular form of belief, right? Now, having an insight into the religious structure, you then draw a conclusion from that. But when you draw that conclusion, you terminate that insight. You put an end to it by drawing a conclusion from it. Is that clear?

I must make this very clear so that you understand it. I see very clearly what it means to belong to any political party, which must be nationalistic, run by people who are utterly corrupt, working for themselves in the name of the party, wanting power, position, and all the rest of it. I have an insight into that, not through book knowledge, not through reading, but actually through seeing it. From that perception I draw a conclusion that politicians, all politics, are dreadful. Now, by drawing a conclusion from it, I have terminated that insight. You follow? So I act from the conclusion and not from that insight. So my action from a conclusion is mechanical, and being mechanical I then say, “How terrible to live mechanically. I want to escape.” I join a community, I become whatever I do, escaping from the mechanical process of living, which is the result of a conclusion from an insight I had into something.
You see the sequence of it? So when I act on a conclusion, my action must be continuously mechanical, though at the beginning I may have had an insight. Now, if one doesn’t draw a conclusion at all, and there is only insight, then action is nonmechanical. Therefore that action is always creative, always new, always living. So a mind that has insight and acts from that without drawing a conclusion is in the movement of continuous, constant insight. Do you understand this? Understand, not verbally, but actually see the truth of this, as you see the truth of a precipice?

Now, this constant insight without a formula, a conclusion that puts an end to that insight, is creative action—have you got it? Please look at it, go into it yourself. It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight. It is only when the mind is not operating mechanically in the structure of thought that you have an insight. When you have an insight, thought draws a conclusion from that insight. And then thought acts, and thought is mechanical. Are we following each other? So I have to find out whether in having an insight into myself—which means into the world, myself being the world and the world is me—there is no drawing of a conclusion from it. If I draw a conclusion, I act on an idea, on an image, on a symbol that is the structure of thought, and so I am constantly preventing myself from having insight, preventing myself from understanding things as they are. So I have to go into this whole question of why thought interferes and draws a conclusion when there is a perception. Have you understood my question?

I perceive something to be true, I perceive that to control oneself—listen to this carefully—brings about a division in myself between the controller and the controlled and therefore conflict. I have an insight into that, that is the truth, but my whole thinking process is conditioned to the idea that I must control. My education, my religion, the society in which I live, the family structure, everything says to me “control,” which is the conclusion that has been handed down to me, the conclusion that I have also acquired, and I act according to that conclusion, which is mechanical. And therefore I live in constant strife.

Now I have an insight into this whole problem of control, an insight that came into being when the mind was free to observe, unconditioned. But this whole structure of conditioning still remains. So now there is a mind that says, “By Jove, I have seen this thing very clearly, but I am also caught in the habit of control.” So there is a battle. One thing is mechanical, the other is nonmechanical. Now, why does thought cling to the whole structure of control? Because thought has brought about this idea of control. Do you see this?

What does it mean to control? First, it implies suppression. Division in oneself, with one part, one segment of me saying, “I must control the other segments.” That division is created by thought. Thought says, “I must control myself because otherwise I would not adapt myself to the environment, to what people say, and so forth, so therefore I must control.” So thought, being the response of memory—which means the past, one’s experience, one’s knowledge, which are all mechanical—has immense power. So there is constant battle between perception, insight, and conditioning.

Now what is the mind to do? This is our problem. You see something new, but the old is still there—the old habits, ideas, beliefs, all that is tremendously waiting. So how is the mind to sustain an insight without ever having a conclusion? Because if I have a conclusion, it is mechanical, the result of thought, the result of memory. From memory there is a reaction as thought. Then it becomes mechanical, then it becomes old. Now, please experiment with me.
There is insight—seeing something new, seeing something that is totally new, clear, beautiful—and there is the past with all the memory, experience, knowledge, and from that there is thought that is cautious, watching, afraid, concerned about how to bring the new into the old. Now, when you see this problem clearly, what takes place? Have you understood my question: We are the result of the past. The younger generation may try to break away from the past, and think they are free to create a new world, but they are not free from the past. They are reacting to the past and therefore continuing with the past. I don’t know if you follow this. So there is not a break with the past but a modified continuity of the past.

So I see this: I see what thought has done, and also there is clear perception that insight exists only when there is absence of thought. Now, how do you solve this problem? Perhaps you are thinking about it, looking at it for the first time. So how do you respond to this? How does the mind respond to this?

Let me put the question differently. Mind must have knowledge: I must know where I live. Mind must know the language it speaks. It must exercise thought—thought that is the response of memory, experience, knowledge, which is the past. Otherwise there would be no communication between you and me; I wouldn’t know where I lived and all the rest of it, and absurdities begin if I am not capable of thinking clearly. So I see knowledge is necessary to function in the mechanical world. Going from here to the place I live is mechanical, speaking a language is mechanical, acting from knowledge is mechanical, acting from all kinds of experience is mechanical. And that mechanical process must to a certain extent continue. Like my insight. Have you got it? So when there is insight there is no contradiction between knowledge and freedom from knowledge.

So there is the insight now that knowledge is necessary, and there is also the insight that comes when there is the absence of thought. So there is perception, insight, all the time, not a contradiction. I wonder if you see this?

The Secret of Health and Healing

2012-01-22T00:30:00.000-08:00

A Call to Live / Torah Guidance on Healing

~Avraham ben Yaakov

The key to health and healing is ultimately simple: keep happy! Simchah -- happiness and joy -- is the elixir of the soul. And the health of the soul is the key to the health of the body.

It can take time and effort to attain true joy and self-fulfilment. The way to start is by making yourself happy with little things. Pamper yourself with small pleasures and comforts, good food and the like. Spend time with people who make you feel good. Lift your spirits with stimulating conversation and interesting reading. Listen to your favorite music. Joke. Laugh. Enjoy yourself!

This may work for a while, but you probably wonder how you can possibly be really happy when you are ill, in pain, confined to surroundings not of your choosing and troubled by many other problems. Even so, you must make every effort to find ways to be happy, even in face of all this adversity. Do everything possible to lift your moods.

For when you are happy, your mind becomes settled. You can then see things more clearly, and you will begin to understand the positive aspects of your present situation and your life in general, and uncover the good that exists even in adversity. This is the way to genuine happiness and fulfilment, which are the key to health and healing.

Why happiness promotes health and healing

Contemporary medicine is rediscovering the ancient truth that our mental and emotional states affect our bodies just us much as our bodily states affect our minds and feelings. The destructive effects on the body of excess tension, anxiety, negativity, frustration and depression are seen daily in heart, cancer and other clinics. Conversely, it is now well established that positive attitudes play a vital role in recovery, rehabilita- tion and long-term health.

To understand the reason for this, you must under-stand what keeps your body alive and functioning. The cells of the body grow, develop, reproduce, regenerate and maintain themselves to form organs and body systems of astonishing complexity and subtlety. Each individual cell and organ of the body goes through its own highly specialized sequences of biochemical reactions at its own unique pace.

The miracle is that all the individual rhythms of the different body cells, organs and systems are perfectly orchestrated. They work together to maintain overall stability and health in spite of constant fluctuations within the body and in the external environment. This balance is vital for the continuation of life.

What is it that makes unity out of the diversity of all the different bodily rhythms and functions? How are they all orchestrated? How is everything controlled? Physiology explains that our heart rate, breathing, digestion, excretory and other functions are regulated by the brain and nervous system. But if the body is under the control of the brain and the nerves, how are they controlled?

The brain and nervous system, and indeed the entire body, are subordinate parts of a greater system: the whole person. As soon as we consider bodily functioning in the broader context of the person as a whole, it becomes clear that, if we are to discover the master control system that ultimately sustains and governs our physical and mental functioning, we must search beyond the body and beyond the conscious mind.

The Soul

Religion and mysticism teach that the master control system is the soul. It is the presence of the soul that makes the difference between a living person and a dead body. People find it hard to form a clear conception of the soul. This is not surprising, since the soul is not something tangible like the hand, the heart or the brain. But although we cannot see or physically feel the soul, we do experience it directly on the level of our conscious awareness. The soul is "I," the sentient, feeling, thinking, purposeful ego sitting in the driver's seat of the body.

The soul is a complex system comprising a variety of subsystems. Some of them are accessible to our conscious minds, others are not. Thus the soul controls our bodily processes via the autonomic nervous system without our even being aware of it.

Even in the realm of our conscious behavior, we often do not know why we act the way we do. Our stream of everyday consciousness involves complex structures of highly subtle logical and non-logical thoughts, fantasies, intuitions, feelings and emotions that have roots stretching deep into our unconscious minds. In addition, we are usually quite unaware of the way in which higher, spiritual parts of our souls are quietly guiding our lives and destiny in this world.

For although the soul is "in" the body and therefore "in" the physical world, it is really rooted in a qualitatively different dimension of existence. The spiritual dimension interacts with the physical dimension yet it reaches way beyond it. You may have vague contact with these exalted spiritual levels at certain highly significant moments in life, as when you become subliminally aware that you are somehow being guided by a superior force. Such awareness sometimes comes in dreams, only to be lost on waking up.

The higher soul in each person is itself part of a far greater system that has its own master control. The ultimate master control over the entire creation is the mystery we call God.

Bodily rhythms and the music of the soul

How do the mind and soul actually control and influence the body? As we have seen, bodily functioning is a matter of rhythms. The rhythms of the various cells, organs and body systems are regulated and coordinated by other, higher order rhythms. These are the patterns of neural impulses relayed from one part of the nervous system to another. But how are these master rhythms controlled?

This can be understood by considering music. A piece of music is made up of a melody line with a rhythm. Usually the rhythm is the most infectious aspect of the music. Listen to a lively piece of music and see what happens. The rhythms created by the players travel in the form of the pulsating sound waves that cause your ear-drums to vibrate, thus penetrating your conscious and unconscious mind.

Before you know it, your hands and feet are tapping, your head is nodding to and fro, and your whole body is moving in unison under the sway of the rhythm. For the moment, the rhythm is "controlling" you and all your body movements.

Yet the rhythm of the music is itself subordinate to the melody line. Each melody has an inner quality that calls to be expressed appropriately through a suitable rhythm. So the rhythm is governed by the melody, which in turn is created by the mind of the master musician or composer. Through the melody and rhythm of the music, the composer "controls" the movements of all the musicians playing the music, the rhythmic tapping and swaying of the audience, and all the thoughts and feelings inspired in them by the music.

With the help of this analogy we may begin to grasp how the intangible, spiritual soul controls the tangible, physical body. Just as the body movements of the listener are influenced by the rhythms of a piece of music, so the functioning of individual body cells and organs is governed by the rhythms and patterns of the brain and neural impulses. These in turn are governed by a higher order control system: the melody sung by the soul.

The soul is the creator, conductor, player and singer of amazing "music." You may not always hear it, but it is this music that controls the rhythms of your brain and nervous system, sending you your thoughts, your feelings and your very life. In short, it's the music of your soul that makes you and your body tick.

What kind of song are you singing? Is it a happy song that is sending energy and vitality into every fiber of your being? Or has your inner music become hushed, muffled, sad and plaintive? Or is it tense, angry, aggressive and destructive?

Your mental states, your attitudes and general outlook have a direct effect on your body. Excess tension, anxiety, insecurity, anger, frustration, depression and other forms of negativity can cause distortions in your physical posture; they may restrict your breathing; they may drive you into poor dietary patterns, substance abuse and other destructive habits. Over time these may take a heavy toll on your joints and muscles, your arteries, heart, lungs and other vital organs, your digestion, nerves, immune system, general metabolism, resilience and vitality.

The weaker and more depressed the music of the soul, the more sluggish the metabolism becomes. This leaves the body less and less able to withstand regular wear and tear, let alone the ravages of illness or injury. But with happy music -- positive attitudes, cheerfulness and joy -- the entire system becomes invigorated and the functioning of all the cells and organs of the body is enhanced, bringing heightened physical immunity, increased stamina and greater wellbeing on every level.

You must feed and nourish the cells of your body with the right songs: the happy, healing songs! The songs of life! This applies quite literally. Get into the habit of singing a happy tune. Hum inspiring melodies. Try! Experiment! Choose a favorite tune and work with it for five minutes. See what happens. At first your singing may feel a little uninspired, but if it's a good melody and you are prepared to "get into it," you'll soon see how the melody will start to lift you up, bringing you new vitality, greater optimism and more positive thoughts and feelings. Do this regularly! When you don't feel like singing yourself, have others sing or play to you, or listen to recordings of your favorite music.

The melody of life

It's not only tunes and songs in the literal sense that bring health and healing. You must turn your very life into a melody.

What is music? Music is made up of sequences of notes. To play music, you have to hit the right notes in the right order, one after the other. Each note is produced by air vibrations. If you don't know how to play, you may produce little more than a succession of strident noises. But a skilled musician can create profoundly stirring and inspiring music simply by moving artfully up and down the scale.

So too in all of life, every one of our thoughts, words or actions also produces "vibrations." Each one is a "note" in the total symphony of life and creation. How much "bad air" can be produced by one careless, cruel or selfish act, a single cutting remark or even an evil thought! Our syndromes of worry, fear, anger, frustration, depression and gloom create soul- grinding rhythms and melodies that destroy our bodies and our lives and those of the people around us.

But all this "bad air" can be dissipated, purified and sweetened by thinking good, positive, generous thoughts, by smiling, sharing a kind word, offering a helping hand.... There's always something good you can think, say or do.

The art of happiness is always to go for the good: to see the good points and pick out the good notes rather than harping on the bad. This applies to how you view the various situations you face in life and to the way you play out your roles in them. It applies to the way you look at and deal with the people around you. And it applies to the way you look at and deal with yourself. Each good point you find is a note in the melody of life.

Rejoicing in the good

It is natural to be happy in good times, when things are good and when you're feeling good. And if things are bad? In bad times, you have to search for the good. Have faith that good exists even in the worst adversity. Know that there is a way in which everything can be turned around for good. As King Solomon said, "On a good day, enjoy! And on a bad day, you must look" (Ecclesiastes 7:14). In other words, when things are bad, you must look around and search until you discover the positive side.

Being positive does not mean you have to deny the truth. If you are in pain and discomfort, your suffering is very real. You don't have to pretend you're fine if you are far from it. Being positive means keeping yourself from sinking into a quagmire of morbid negativity by having faith in God's goodness even at the hardest moments.

You may face seemingly intractable situations in your life. You may feel locked in deep problems within yourself. But in many cases one of the best ways to improve a situation is by learning to look at it dif- ferently. The way you view things plays a major part in whether you experience them as good or bad.

Use your mind and all the inner resources you possess to break out of negativity and depression and to be positive. You have the power to control and direct your thoughts. Don't allow yourself to be drawn into syndromes of negative thoughts and feelings. Find new, more positive ways of looking at yourself, other people and the various problems and difficulties you face. When bad thoughts come into your mind, make every effort to direct your thoughts elsewhere. Often the best way to put yourself in a better frame of mind is through humor and joking or acting a little silly.

Your laughter is the best medicine of all. Your happiness is vital. The life of your body and soul depend on it. For keeping happy is the key to good health, as it is to healing.

Having become sick, you must now make a special effort to pick yourself up and make yourself happy again. Turn the search for good into a way of life, because this is the key to happiness and fulfilment. Joy will enable you to focus on your true mission in this life and accomplish all that you must.

Vier edele waarheden

2012-01-21T00:51:00.000-08:00

~Kees Voorhoeve

Toen de Boeddha onder de Boom ontwaakte, ontdekte hij de vier edele waarheden, de essentie van de boeddhistische leer.

Eerste edele waarheid

De eerste edele waarheid is: het leven is lijden. In het Sanskriet wordt er gesproken over ‘dukkha’. Dit wordt ook vertaald als frustratie of ontevredenheid.

De negatieve aspecten van het bestaan willen we het liefst vermijden. Maar volgens de Boeddha is dat een illusie. Het leven is een beweging tussen geluk en lijden. Het lijden kunnen we daarin niet ontkennen. De Boeddha spreekt over natuurlijk lijden. Dit lijden heeft fundamenteel te maken met ziekte, ouderdom en sterven, maar ook in psychologisch opzicht met een gevoel van ontevredenheid of teleurstelling als het niet loopt zo als we graag willen en onze verwachtingen niet uitkomen.

Deze vorm van lijden hoort bij het leven en wordt daarom edel genoemd. Het lijden is werkelijk en maakt het leven werkelijk. Dukkha is onontkoombaar. De mens heeft echter veel moeite dit lijden toe te laten en zodoende ontstaat er frustratie en komen we in een strijd terecht waarin we steeds voor het geluk kiezen en het lijden willen wegstoppen.

“Over het algemeen wordt het boeddhisme gepresenteerd als een manier om het lijden te boven te komen. Het wordt geformuleerd als middel tegen alle pijn. De boodschap van de Boeddha zoals je die hier zult aantreffen, is niet die van een vlucht, maar die van een manier om edel en bevredigend leven te leiden waarin verdriet en problemen even essentieel zijn als het gruis is voor de parel.”

[David Brazier. Zonder Gruis geen Parels]

Zie: Mystieke Overpeinzingen

Pascal verbindt denken en geloven

2012-01-20T10:18:00.000-08:00

~Marc van Dijk / Trouw

Als je erop gokt dat God bestaat, dan zit je altijd goed, stelde de zeventiende-eeuwse filosoof en wiskundige Blaise Pascal. Onlangs verscheen een essaybundel over zijn religieuze denken. Wat was zijn visie op het geloof? Drie hartstochtelijke Pascal-lezers aan het woord.

Arjan Plaisier (1956), scriba van de Protestantse Kerk in Nederland, schreef een essay over de relevantie van Pascals mensbeschouwing: "Wat ik het bijzonderst vind aan Pascal, is de intensiteit van zijn godservaring.

"Heel zijn denken trilt op de ervaring van God, misschien kan ik zelfs beter zeggen: de ervaring van Christus. Pascals denken wordt getekend door de sfeer van het 'Mémorial', het document dat hij eigenlijk niet voor publicatie had bestemd."

Het Mémorial is een dierbaar en bij leven geheim stuk perkament van de Franse wis- en natuurkundige en filosoof Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). Zijn zus trof het na zijn dood aan, ingenaaid in zijn jas. Er stond een handgeschreven tekst op, waarin Pascal een religieuze ervaring beschrijft die hij had gehad, die hij nooit meer wilde vergeten en die hij altijd bij zich wilde dragen. Het werd een van de bekendste fragmenten van Pascal.

Na zijn dood verdiepten zijn nabestaanden en vrienden zich ook in zijn overige aantekeningen. Ze konden er weinig orde in ontdekken. Ze wisten dat hij werkte aan een apologie, een verdediging van het christendom. Ze hebben de aantekeningen genummerd, 1 tot en met 912, en gepubliceerd. Het werd een bijzonder invloedrijk filosofisch werk: 'Gedachten' (door Boom uitgegeven in de reeks Grote Klassieken).

Arjan Plaisier: "Pascal had een scherp gevoel voor de tijd waarin hij leefde. In die vroegmoderne tijd begon het besef door te dringen dat de aarde een stenen brok is die door een onmetelijke leegte suist. Het harmonische middeleeuwse wereldbeeld viel in duigen. De orde van de kosmos veranderde in de chaos van het heelal. En wie door een microscoop keek, zag ook niets dan chaos. Dat deed de traditionele godsbewijzen wankelen, want die waren gebaseerd op orde.

"'De eeuwige stilte van deze eindeloze ruimte vervult me met angst', schrijft Pascal in gedachte 201. Ik denk niet dat hij persoonlijk deze angst had, maar zijn tijdgenoten wél, en hij nam die angst serieus. Pascal wilde het christelijke geloof verdedigen vanuit dat nieuwe levensgevoel. Hij begon na de religieuze ervaring die hij beschrijft in zijn Mémorial grondig de Bijbel te lezen. En hij werd getroffen door een afgrondelijke God die ons in onze afgrondelijke wereld tegemoet komt. Een God die mens geworden is en die zich waagt in het niemandsland. Die oog heeft voor de mensen, die volgens hem zijn als 'denkend riet': uniek door hun denken en besef van hun eigen sterfelijkheid, maar ook uitermate klein en kwetsbaar.

"De golven waarin we ons bevinden zijn groter dan we denken. We doen weleens alsof mensen elk jaar een nieuwe mentaliteit krijgen, maar in feite bevinden wij ons nog steeds in de beweging die in de zestiende eeuw begonnen is en waarvan Pascal een van de eerste representanten was: net als hij en zijn tijdgenoten zijn we op onszelf teruggeworpen. Maar volgens Pascal is dat uiteindelijk geen eenzaam avontuur."

'Een afgrondelijke God voor een afgrondelijke wereld'

Theo de Boer (1932), emeritus-hoogleraar wijsgerige antropologie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam, schrijver van onder meer 'De God van de filosofen en de God van Pascal' (1989): "Er zijn altijd gekke dingen beweerd over Pascal. En dat gebeurt nog steeds.

"Laatst nog, nadat ik een lezing over Pascal had gehouden voor de Rotary, kwam er een man naar me toe, die zei: 'Waarom verzwijgt u die ordinaire weddenschap van Pascal?'

"Ik wist meteen wat hij bedoelde. Pascal schrijft in zijn postuum verschenen magnum opus 'Gedachten': 'We moeten wedden.' In gedachte nr. 418 zegt hij, vrij weergegeven: als je erop gokt dat God bestaat, dan zit je altijd goed. Want stel dat hij inderdaad blijkt te bestaan, dan kom je na de dood in de hemel en is je winst oneindig. En stel dat hij niet blijkt te bestaan, dan heb je wel een nutteloos offer gebracht door tevergeefs te geloven, maar wat stelt dat offer voor als je het afzet tegen de oneindigheid van het niets waar je na de dood in valt?

"Met die uitspraak lijkt Pascal de stem van de calculerende burger te vertolken. Iemand die tegen de geringste kosten de grootste winst wil behalen. Maar als je het fragment goed leest, is dat zeer onterecht.

"Ten eerste staat deze redenering tussen aanhalingstekens. De redenering komt volgens mij niet van Pascal zelf. Hij citeert een discussie die hij ergens gehoord heeft, waarschijnlijk in een gezelschap van jezuïeten. Hij ging wel vaker als een soort reizende columnist te werk, die overal zijn oor te luister legt.

"Ten tweede veronderstelt de weddenschap dat het geloof een last is, terwijl Pascal het elders als een bron van vreugde en vrede beschrijft.

"Volgens mij is de pointe bij Pascal: zulke redeneringen kloppen misschien wel, maar ze slaan nergens op. Hij schrijft over godsbewijzen om te laten zien dat ze in feite irrelevant zijn. Hij illustreert dat met zijn ervaring dat hij die bewijzen, hoe knap ze ook bedacht zijn en hoe kloppend ze soms ook lijken te zijn, nooit kan onthouden. Dat herken ik, mij vergaat het ook zo. Bewijzen pro of contra het bestaan van God ontschieten mij. In de liturgie, juist als het erop aankomt, ben ik ze weer vergeten. Dat hangt samen met het verschil tussen denken en ervaren. De bekendste uitspraak van Pascal is niet voor niets: 'Het hart heeft redenen, die de rede niet kent.' Dit staat in fragment 423, na de passage over de weddenschap.

"De katholieke kerk leert nog steeds dat het bestaan van God op redelijke gronden bewijsbaar is. Dat is nog tijdens het Eerste Vaticaans Concilie (1869-70) tot dogma verklaard. Geen wonder dat Pascal problemen had met de jezuïeten. En voor een deel bepalen zij nog steeds de manier waarop zijn Gedachten gelezen worden."

'Een ordinaire weddenschap, Pascal onwaardig'

Willem Jan Otten (1951), dichter en schrijver, leest en herleest Pascal sinds zijn twintigste: "Pascals 'Gedachten' zullen mensen altijd blijven aanspreken, omdat ze ondanks hun religieuze uitkomst gericht zijn op mensen die zonder God proberen te denken. En daar zijn er natuurlijk nogal veel van.

"Iedereen die wetenschappelijk denkt, probeert stellingen zonder God of andere buitenmenselijke instantie te bewijzen. En daar was Pascal zelf vreselijk goed in.

Hij was een wetenschapper van wereldformaat. Dus als geen ander begreep hij mensen die niet kunnen geloven, of die denken dat ze niet hoeven te geloven. Dat is ook zo fascinerend aan hem: hoe is het mogelijk dat zo'n verlicht, rationeel, alles zelfdoordenkend brein een geopenbaarde God wil belijden?

"Eén van de kernen van Pascals religieuze denken is dat God de mensen heeft vrij gelaten om in hem te geloven. Voor Pascal is het onmogelijk zichzelf of andere mensen naar God te denken. Het heeft dus geen enkele zin om een godsbewijs te construeren waar God uit rolt, want God is niet het sluitstuk van een menselijke redenering. Als God uit een wiskundige these voortvloeide, dan moesten we wel in God geloven, dan konden we daar niet omheen. Dan had God ons niet vrij gelaten om in hem te geloven.

"Pascal speelt nooit mooi weer. Ten aanzien van de positie van de mens is hij genadeloos, Beckett en Nietzsche bij elkaar opgeteld: face reality. Hij zal de menselijke toestand nooit gunstiger of hoopvoller afschilderen dan hij is. Hij is zich altijd bewust van de nietigheid en de volstrekte onbeduidendheid van het menselijk denken. Maar het feit dat we als mensen weet hebben van onze eigen kleinheid, maakt ons volgens Pascal tegelijkertijd groots en bijna goddelijk. Die paradox vind ik raadselachtig en aangrijpend.

"Mijn favoriete passage is Pascals beschrijving van 'het mysterie van Jezus'. Pascal probeert zich in dat stuk in te denken wat het grootste lijden van Christus is geweest. Volgens Pascal was dat niet Jezus' martelgang en kruisdood, maar de volstrekte verlatenheid op Getsemane, vlak vóór zijn lijdensweg: niemand die gelooft wat hij gelooft, niemand die denkt dat wat hij doet het goede is. De eenzaamheid die Pascal in die passage oproept, is poëzie en filosofie en gebed en alles in één.

"Ik vind Pascals werk zeer aangrijpend. Hij is enorm dramatisch, hij weet zich voorbeeldig in te leven in de geestelijke huishouding van tegenstanders. Zelf heeft hij God gevonden, maar hij blijft voortdurend de positie van de ongelovige stem geven. Een tegenstem-bedenker. Dat is wat ik als toneelschrijver ook moet zijn."

Bert Blans, Willem Jan Otten, Ad Peperzak, Arjan Plaisier, Rudi te Velde (red.): 'Pascal als religieus denker', Boekencentrum Uitgevers; 160 pagina's; ISBN 9789086870868; € 18,95

Bron: Trouw

A Note on Self-Remembering

2012-01-18T03:29:00.001-08:00

Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

~Maurice Nicoll

It is useful to make a memorandum in one's mind about what practical work means. The most important thing is self-remembering. You must try to remember yourselves at least once a day, and you must do it willingly, from yourselves. All other work on oneself ultimately depends on selfremembering. Only half a minute is necessary, and even if it consists in nothing else than stopping your thoughts and trying to relax everything, it is better than nothing. Don't think about self-remembering, but do it. At first it is best to do it at some definite time that you decide upon. The first sign that you are doing it rightly is that you have a distinct feeling of force entering you, as if something had opened in you. Immediately you feel this, stop. You must stop instantly, and forget about the whole thing.

Another form of self-remembering is called making "inner stop" in oneself. This is done in connection with self-observation. For example you observe that you are beginning to talk in a certain mechanical way, or that you are getting annoyed with somebody, etc. You then make "inner stop", as it is called, but this must be made completely, as if something were cut off. It does not matter if later on the things you are trying to stop come back. Let me say before going on that all self-observation should be accompanied by some degree of self-remembering. Remembering why you are observing yourself and feeling the presence of the work in your mind while observing yourself is a degree of self-remembering. Actually it brings carbon 12 up to the place in the human machine at that point where the First Conscious Shock can be given. Next comes practical work on the centres. Let me remind you that all work means effort.

Work on Intellectual Centre
Everyone should have intellectual work of some kind. Any form of thinking that requires attention puts you into the conscious side of Intellectual Centre, such as thinking over something you have heard and trying to recall it, reading a book that needs attention, even writing letters or doing your accounts, etc., etc. There is a saying in this work that everybody must move his brains every day.

Work on Emotional Centre
The observation and the inner separation from all sorts of subtle depressions apart from the more obvious negative emotions, stopping imagination, working on negative states, and using your Intellectual Centre to remember exactly what was said, apart from what you imagined: all this is work on the Emotional Centre.

Work on the Moving Centre
Everyone in daily life should have some form of work that requires the use of Moving Centre. Some effort of the body is necessary and must be done willingly. If you do a thing willingly you do it from yourself—that is, you do it consciously; and everything that is done consciously is saved for you—it belongs to you. What you do unwillingly simply because you are told to do it is worse than useless. You have to tell yourself to do things. Again if you do things mechanically you get no benefit for yourself.

Work on Instinctive Centre
This is not necessary at our stage because the Instinctive Centre is far more clever than we are and knows far more than we do, but if something is wrong with the body we must try to help the Instinctive Centre as far as we can. Instinctive Centre regulates the inner work of the physical body and warns us that something is wrong, either by pain or discomfort. One of the worst things is to interfere with the work of Instinctive Centre when there is no cause to do so.

Of course many things have been left out in this short note. But you must all try to make some memorandum of this kind and apply it during the day-time. Remember that when you cannot work on one centre then you can work on another centre. Apart from your general aim you should have more or less three subsidiary aims connected with the Intellectual, Emotional and Moving Centres respectively.

Boeddhisme 'raakt bron van westers denken'

2012-01-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

Interview met André van der Braak

Het boeddhisme wekt al twee eeuwen belangstelling in Nederland, en wint nog steeds aan populariteit. André van der Braak, die aan de VU de nieuwe leerstoel boeddhistische filosofie bekleedt, vindt dat heel verklaarbaar.

Aan de muur van zijn huiskamer hangt een portret van de Boeddha naast een madonna met kind. In de boekenkast staat aartsengel Michaël gebroederlijk naast een oosterse godheid met vijf hoofden en heel veel handen. "Dat is Avalokiteshvara", zegt zenleraar André van der Braak (1963). Lichtjes stotterend spelt hij het Indiase woord.

"Avalokiteshvara is de bodhisattva (een verlichtend wezen) van de compassie. De verering van hem ontstond aan het begin van het grote voertuigboeddhisme, rond het begin van onze jaartelling. De mensen vonden het oude boeddhisme te mager geworden. Het moet niet alleen gaan om inzicht, zeiden zij, maar ook om mededogen. Daarom heeft deze bodhisattva duizend handen: hij komt letterlijk handen tekort om mensen te helpen."

Hij glimlacht even. "Mooi hè."

Dat beelden uit het christendom en boeddhisme zo dwars door elkaar in zijn kamer staan, past wel bij Van der Braak. Sinds enkele weken bekleedt hij de nieuwe leerstoel 'boeddhistische filosofie in dialoog met andere levensbeschouwelijke tradities' aan de Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam. De VU tuigt momenteel ook een bachelor en een master boeddhisme op, die in september van start moeten gaan - een primeur aan de Nederlandse theologische faculteiten. In de toekomst moet daar nog een postdoctorale boeddhistische ambtsopleiding bij komen. Hiermee ontwikkelt de VU zich niet alleen tot een echt centrum voor intereligieuze dialoog, maar sluit ze ook aan op een trend, aldus Van der Braak. Want de populariteit van het boeddhisme in Nederland groeit. "Het aantal mensen dat zich in Nederland met boeddhisme bezighoudt, neemt sterk toe, ook onder jonge mensen."

Niet verwonderlijk, vindt Van der Braak. "In het Westen is sprake van een zingevingcrisis. We kunnen niet meer op de klassieke manier over God praten en moeten nieuwe vormen vinden om aan onze religieuze verlangens tegemoet te komen. Het boeddhisme kan daarbij helpen, omdat het geen transcendente godheid kent. Het kan de leemte vullen die de ontkerkelijking heeft geslagen."

Afkomstig uit een katholiek nest brak Van der Braak op zijn zeventiende met de kerk. Hij voelde zich aangetrokken tot oosterse spiritualiteit en pelgrimeerde enige keren naar India. Daar kwam hij terecht bij een Amerikaanse goeroe, bij wie hij intensief meditatie beoefende. Later verdiepte Van der Braak zich in het zenboeddhisme. "Ik was echt 'n zoeker. Ik wilde verlichting bereiken."

Maar op zijn vijfendertigste belandde hij in een diepe crisis. Hij schreef er het boek 'Enlightenment Blues' over. "Ik was gedesillusioneerd. De verlichting werd zo absoluut gezien. Je moest er alles voor opofferen. Ik keerde terug naar Nederland en wilde me opnieuw oriënteren. Daardoor ontdekte ik dat óók in de westerse traditie veel rijkdom te vinden is." Van der Braak raakte gefascineerd door de christelijke mystici, zoals de woestijnvaders en Meister Eckhart, en ook door Nietzsche, over wie hij een proefschrift schreef.

Tegenwoordig noemt hij zich boeddhist én christen. "Hier in het Westen reageren mensen daar verbaasd op. Maar de katholieke monnik Thomas Merton deed dat ook. In Azië vinden ze die combinatie volstrekt normaal."

U zegt dat boeddhisme steeds populairder wordt in Nederland. Maar gaat het dan wel om het échte boeddhisme, of om een verwaterde vorm?
"Vooral om dat laatste. Het boeddhisme in Nederland is erg aan de westerse levensstijl aangepast. 'Boeddhisme light' noem ik dat: een uitgeklede vorm van boeddhisme die vooral benadrukt dat je nergens in hoeft te geloven en dat je alles moet toetsen aan de eigen ervaring, in het hier en nu. Een mooie, laagdrempelige inleiding in het boeddhisme, maar als je daarbij blijft, mis je veel."

"In het Westen is vaak sprake van 'spiritueel materialisme': je doet het omdat je er zelf beter van wil worden. Logisch ook, je begint er immers aan omdat je denkt dat er wat te halen valt. Je wilt een bijzonder mens worden. Maar er valt helemaal niets te halen, het gaat er juist om jezelf helemaal te geven, net als Avalokiteshvara. Dat is het geheim. Pas als je dat inziet, begin je het boeddhisme te begrijpen. Het boeddhisme vergt een heel andere manier van denken."

Wat houdt die andere manier van denken in?
"Het boeddhisme geeft niet andere antwoorden op dezelfde vragen; het stelt andere vragen. Het vertrekpunt is radicaal anders. Westerse mensen denken in termen van afzonderlijke 'individuen': een harde kern met een grens erom. De Canadese filosoof Charles Taylor noemt dat het 'omheinde zelf'. In het boeddhisme staat juist de onderlinge verbondenheid centraal. Het Chinese boeddhisme ziet de mens bijvoorbeeld als een optelsom van zijn relaties. Met wie je verbonden bent, dat bepaalt je identiteit. Noem het een 'verbonden zelf', of een 'netwerkzelf'.

"Ik denk dat die visie een uitweg kan bieden uit de huidige zingevingcrisis in het Westen, maar dat gaat niet vanzelf. Het vergt een omkering in het denken die veel energie en tijd kost. Met één yocacursusje gaat dat niet. Toch ben ik optimistisch. Mensen praktiseren die nieuwe manier van denken al wel een beetje, op tal van sociale netwerksites. Het moet alleen nog veel meer vorm krijgen."

Wat is het grootste struikelblok voor westerse mensen bij het beoefenen van boeddhisme?
"Als je je echt verdiept in het boeddhisme, stuit je onvermijdelijk ook op de religieuze dimensie ervan. In een zendo buig je je bijvoorbeeld voor een boeddhabeeld. Mensen in het Westen vinden dat vreemd. 'Ik dacht dat er geen rituelen waren in het boeddhisme', zeggen ze dan. Maar die zijn er dus wel. En niet voor niets: ik heb zelf ondervonden dat een ritueel iets met je doet, ergens diep onder je motorkap, daar waar je met je denken niet bij kan. Je kunt het boeddhisme intellectueel wel vatten, maar het vergt jarenlange training om het je ook echt eigen te maken. Het moet indalen tot in je botten. Daar helpen rituelen bij.

"Bij boeddhisme lopen filosofie en religie dwars door elkaar heen. Dat vinden westerse mensen moeilijk te begrijpen. Maar bij boeddhisme gaat het nadenken en filosoferen nooit buiten je persoonlijke betrokkenheid om. Trouwens, dat was voor de oude Grieken niet anders. Bij hen was filosofie ook iets existentieels. Een levenswijze. Met boeddhisme ga je dus ook terug naar de bronnen van het westerse denken."

Ieder zijn Boeddha
Boeddha verscheen in Nederland niet pas in de jaren zestig van de vorige eeuw in het kielzog van de hippiecultuur, zoals vaak wordt gedacht. Nee, Boeddha speelde zich al veel eerder in de kijker. Al in de nadagen van de Franse Revolutie was er een kleine schare Nederlanders heftig geïnteresseerd in deze oosterse levensvisie. Boeddha werd toentertijd, onder invloed van de Romantiek, gezien als een gids naar een levensbeschouwing die ook de vrijdenker tevreden kon stellen.

Dat laten Marcel Poorthuis en Theo Salemink zien in 'Lotus in de lage landen' (2009), hun boek over de geschiedenis van het boeddhisme in Nederland.

Iets later, rond 1900, raakt het oosterse bij de elite écht in de mode. Soms omvat dat ook islam, jodendom en zelfs Jezus - zolang het maar in contrast staat met de westerse cultuur. Men plaatste Jezus schouder aan schouder met Boeddha: geestverwanten, op grote afstand van de dorre dogmatiek van de kerken. Voor academici was Boeddha een wetenschappelijke 'ontdekking', vanuit een verlangen om 'objectieve' kennis te verwerven over onontdekte culturen en religies. Voor christen-anarchisten en religieus-socialisten was Boeddha een bron van wijsheid, die kon bijdragen aan een spirituele herbronning van het westerse socialisme en aan een beter lot voor mens en dier. Veel christelijke theologen bleven evenwel vijandig. Voor hen was Boeddha vooral een heidense dwaalleraar - een duivelse verleider voor de vrome christenziel.

Het boeddhisme als lifestyle is iets van de laatste dertig jaar. Het religieuze karakter speelt steeds minder een rol. Boeddhisme raakt meer en meer verweven met zelfontplooiing, management en succesvol ondernemen.

In de geschiedenis van het boeddhisme in Nederland, zo concluderen Poorthuis en Salemink, gaat het overduidelijk niet om één Boeddha. Het gaat om meerdere Boeddha's, op maat gesneden van de verschillende milieus. "Onderzoek naar de beeldvorming van Boeddha in Nederland onthult dan ook vooral iets over het zelfbeeld van de Nederlanders in tijden van snelle veranderingen."

Zie: Trouw

Spiritual Mediator

2012-01-15T05:03:00.000-08:00

A spiritual mediator mediates between heaven and earth.
Only possible after a long-term process of contemplation.
Surrender to God, the Divine Force can work through our vessel.
We become a mediator, with nothing of ourselves.
Helping to change and heel the world.

Letting go of attachments.
Purification of our being.
Breaking down the false self.
Kenosis. Becoming empty.
The inner consciousness flies open.
The soul is born.

Awareness without identification.
Being in contact with everything in this strange world.
Grounded like a mountain.
Not identified with all sort of different impulses.

Practicing contemplation again and again.
God is cutting through my illusions.
I have a lot of illusions.
There is ignorance.
I am not seeing things from a whole,
but from a dualistic perspective.
I am identified with what is happening,
seeing it as 'me' or 'mine'.

Be aware of this very forceful attachment.
Be totally open to the Source.
God is doing the work and the purification.
It is not about improving my life and to be in control.
I don’t see it as self-realization.

It is service.
To serve the Divine Inspiration.
I have to turn myself around.
It is called Metanoia.
Changing one's mind and becoming a new being.
Ego is not in the centre anymore.
The soul, or Ruach, is awakened in the heart.
We surrender to God.
It is dying. A mystical death.
Anxious, wonderful and mysterious at the same time.

I remind myself that God is directing my journey and prayer,
breaking down the barriers and purifying my will.
I try to keep God in view, all the time.
Not an easy task, I often forget.
But this remembrance is not of my doing.
I have to be totally receptive, like a mirror.
It is the essence of 'Dhikr' or Remembrance of God.
Gelassenheit or Letting go.

Dhikr or Gelassenheit is the practice of God Himself.
The Breath of the All-Mercyful.
Who humbles man and is penetrating our hearts,
with a gentle heat or an arrow of light,
restoring the balance in life.

~Kees Voorhoeve

Foto: Horus as Spiritual Mediator
Louvre, Paris

See: Mystical Poetry

Meister Eckhart and Buddhism

2012-01-13T03:41:00.000-08:00

~D. T. Suzuki

In the following pages I attempt to call the reader’s attention to the closeness of Meister Eckhart’s way of thinking to that of Mahayana Buddhism, especially of Zen Buddhism. The attempt is only a tentative and sketchy one, far from being systematic and exhaustive. But I hope the reader will find something in it which evokes his curiosity enough to undertake further studies of this fascinating topic.

When I first read – which was more than a half century ago – a little book containing a few of Meister Eckhart’s sermons, they impressed me profoundly, for I never expected that any Christian thinker ancient or modern could or would cherish such daring thoughts as expressed in those sermons. While I do not remember which sermons made up the contents of the little book, the ideas expounded there closely approached Buddhist thoughts, so closely indeed, that one could stamp them almost definitely as coming out of Buddhist speculations. As far as I can judge, Eckhart seems to be an extraordinary ‘Christian’.
While refraining from going into details we can say at least this: Eckhart’s Christianity is unique and has many points which make us hesitate to classify him as belonging to the type we generally associate with rationalised modernism or with conservative traditionalism. He stands on his own experiences which emerged from a rich, deep, religious personality. He attempts to reconcile them with the historical type of Christianity modeled after legends and mythology. He tries to give an ‘esoteric’ or inner meaning to them, and by so doing he enters fields which were not touched by most of his historical predecessors.

First, let me give you the views Eckhart has on time and creation. These are treated in his sermon delivered on the commemoration day for St Germaine. He quotes a sentence from Ecclesiasticus: ‘In his days he pleased God and was found just’. Taking up first the phrase ‘In his days,’ he interprets it according to his own understanding:

. . . there are more days than one. There is the soul’s day and
God’s day. A day, whether six or seven ago, or more than six
thousand years ago, is just as near to the present as yesterday.
Why? Because all time is contained in the present Nowmoment.
Time comes of the revolution of the heavens and day
began with the first revolution. The soul’s day falls within this
time and consists of the natural light in which things are seen.
God’s day, however, is the complete day, comprising both day
and night. It is the real Now-moment, which for the soul is
eternity’s day, on which the Father begets his only begotten Son
and the soul is reborn in God.

The soul’s day and God’s day are different. In her natural day
the soul knows all things above time and place; nothing is far
or near. And that is why I say, this day all things are of equal
rank. To talk about the world as being made by God to-morrow,
yesterday, would be talking nonsense. God makes the world
and all things in this present now. Time gone a thousand years
ago is now as present and as near to God as this very instant.
The soul who is in this present now, in her the Father bears his
one-begotten Son and in that same birth the soul is born back
into God. It is one birth; as fast as she is reborn into God the
Father is begetting his only Son in her.

God the Father and the Son have nothing to do with time.
Generation is not in time, but at the end and limit of time. In
the past and future movements of things, your heart flits about;
it is in vain that you attempt to know eternal things; in divine
things, you should be occupied intellectually. . . .

Again, God loves for his own sake, acts for his own sake: that
means that he loves for the sake of love and acts for the sake of
action. It cannot be doubted that God would never have begot
his Son in eternity if [his idea of ] creation were other than [his
act of ] creation. Thus God created the world so that he might
keep on creating. The past and future are both far from God
and alien to his way.

From these passages we see that the Biblical story of creation is thoroughly contradicted; it has not even a symbolic meaning in Eckhart, and, further, his God is not at all like the God conceived by most Christians. God is not in time mathematically enumerable. His creativity is not historical, not accidental, not at all measurable. It goes on continuously without cessation with no beginning, with no end. It is not an event of yesterday or today or tomorrow, it comes out of timelessness, of nothingness, of Absolute Void. God’s work is always done in an absolute present, in a timeless ‘now which is time and place in itself ’. God’s work is sheer love, utterly free from all forms of chronology and teleology. The idea of God creating the world out of nothing, in an absolute present, and therefore altogether beyond the control of a serial time conception will not sound strange to Buddhist ears. Perhaps they may find it acceptable as reflecting their doctrine of Emptiness (sunyata).

From: Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist

Sogyal Rinpoche: What meditation really is

2012-01-12T12:26:00.000-08:00

De Wereld Wakker maken [Quote 03]

2012-01-11T13:18:00.003-08:00

Een universele dimensie voor spirituele oefening

~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Wanneer we reageren op de levensroep ten gunste van ons spirituele commitment, zullen we ontdekken dat de oude spirituele waarheden ook leven en veranderen, en dat ze een nieuwe identiteit onthullen. De reis naar Huis is geen geschreven manuscript in een oud boek, maar een deel van het goddelijke mysterie van het leven. Ons verlangen naar God en de reis naar Huis zijn de essentie van de schepping. Zij zijn onderdeel van het vele leed in het leven. Zonder de vele zielen die zich naar God wenden, zou het leven zijn muziek en heilige betekenis verliezen. Maar terwijl de eenheid van het leven verandert en zich ontwikkelt, verandert ook de manier waarop de reis zich presenteert. Het is altijd dezelfde reis, de eeuwige roep van de ziel naar haar bron, het huilen van het riet, getrokken uit het rietbed. Maar nu moet de reis het leven van eenheid erkennen en de onafhankelijkheid van heel de schepping. Eenheid moet in de cellen van de reiziger gestempeld worden, zodat vanaf het begin van de reis, vanaf het moment dat de ziel zich tot God wendt, we het geheel eren. We moeten het ons tot God wenden in de cellen van ons lichaam brengen, in de adem die ons verbindt met heel het leven. We kunnen het ons niet langer veroorloven ons het innerlijk van het uiterlijk te scheiden, de ene van de velen.

Het pad verandert. De deuren van de innerlijke werelden die ons openden voor mystieke geheimen zijn gesloten, terwijl andere deuren, vaak temidden van het leven, geopend worden. Het pad onthult ook diepere waarheden die tot nu toe geheim waren gehouden. Er zijn spirituele leringen, oude tradities die de innerlijke reis verbonden met heel het leven; die het evenwicht bewaarden tussen de innerlijke en de uiterlijke werelden, en de spirituele oefeningen gebruikten om het geheel te ondersteunen.
Sommige van deze oefeningen zullen geleidelijk onthuld worden en hun esoterische dimensie aanpassen aan deze tijd. Onderdeel van het doel van dit boek is om op deze dimensie en deze spirituele oefeningen te wijzen – te laten zien hoe de as van liefde functioneert in het centrum van de wereld en hoe het hart verschillende niveaus van werkelijkheid met elkaar verbindt.

Eeuwenlang waren dit streng bewaakte geheimen van ingewijde naar ingewijde. Maar het is tijd dat de mensheid meer verantwoordelijkheid op zich neemt voor haar spirituele erfgoed; het werk dat alleen gedaan werd door een paar geselecteerden, kan nu door velen beoefend worden. Tijden van overgang zijn altijd gevaarlijk en het kan zijn dat deze waarheden misbruikt worden. Maar het is noodzakelijk dat de mensheid de kennis gegeven wordt die nodig is om de wereld te transformeren. Dit boek neemt de lezer mee naar de arena van spirituele dienstbaarheid die tot de toekomst behoort. Het is geen gedetailleerde kaart en geen exacte beschrijving van spirituele oefeningen. Dit is een tijd van overgang waarin de nieuwe manieren nog niet volledige gevormd zijn. Veeleer schetst dit boek een paar grondbeginselen, patronen die zich ontwikkelen in de innerlijke en de uiterlijke werelden, en het deel dat wij hierbij moeten verrichten. Het verwijst naar sommige spirituele gedragingen die we achter moeten laten, en naar anderen die we moeten ontwikkelen. Het beschrijft ook enige gevaren en moeilijkheden van deze tijd van overgang, de gebrekkige gedragslijnen van onze cultuur en de enorme krachten die daaronder in conflict zijn. De intentie is om onze waarneming uit te breiden van wat spiritueel leven is, en de lezer af te stemmen op het werk dat gedaan moet worden.

In deze tijd is er weinig definitief of zeker. Maar iets leeft dat zowel ons als onze planeet verandert, waarbij onze deelname essentieel is. We worden gevraagd om op een andere manier aanwezig te zijn, om meer dienstbaar te zijn voor het geheel. Deze hoofdstukken zijn voetafdrukken naar een toekomst die al aanwezig is – als we onze ogen durven openen. Onze Geliefde onthult Zich op een andere manier en we zijn hier om dat te getuigen, te zeggen, “Ja. Ja. Ja!”

A Call to Live

2012-01-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

Torah Guidance on Healing

~Avraham ben Yaakov

Many people never really appreciate what a blessing health is until illness or injury suddenly changes the course of their lives.

If you are ill, in pain, frustrated, anxious and despondent, you may feel that you have reached a very low point in your life. But it need not be so -- if you are willing to hear the deeper message your illness or injury is sending you. It is a call to live! If your normal life has been disrupted, it is to teach you to be more fully aware of the preciousness of life, so that you will live your life with greater purpose each day and every moment up to the very last.

By heeding this call, you can transform what you are going through now into a profound learning experience that will open up new dimensions in your life and bring you to deeper fulfilment and happiness.

You surely want to heal in order to be able to achieve all your goals in life. Then don't wait until you are feeling better before you start living. There is no more effective way to encourage the healing process than by living your life to the full extent that you can now.

To be healed is to be able to live life to the full. Living well is a skill, which, like any other, can only be developed through practice. Practice now! Decide that you are going to live now! Making this decision is one of the most important steps you will take to recovery.

Living on a higher level

Physical and other limitations may make it difficult for you to continue with many of your usual activities at present. But don't grieve over what you can't do. Instead, think about all the things you can do to give meaning to your life at this time. Your physical limitations need not prevent you from living an active, fulfilling life on the mental and spiritual planes. These are precisely the levels within yourself that you should now seek to cultivate in order to be truly healed.

Be ready to explore new pathways of mind and soul. Learn how to relax and to meditate. Ponder the meaning of life in this universe. Reflect on your own destiny and purpose. Discover who you really are. Even if you are under stress owing to your physical condition, your medical treatment, emotional, financial or other pressures, be sure to avoid sinking into morbid anxiety and depression. Turn your pain and frustration into prayers. Try to see the positive side of what you are going through.

As you work on yourself, work also to enhance your relationships with others -- your dear ones, friends, and all the other people with whom you have contact. If you are experiencing pain and hardship, learn from them to empathize with other people who may also be suffering. Even as you seek to fulfil your personal needs and pursue your purpose in life, take account of the needs and sensitivities of others. Develop your ability to communicate and live cooperatively with those around you. Be willing to learn from everyone.

Healing the Inner You

Many people think of healing as having to do mainly with the restoration of normal bodily functioning. It is certainly proper to do everything necessary on the physical level in order to bring about recovery. But medicine alone is not enough. That is because your body, crucial as it is to your existence in this world, is nevertheless only one part of an even greater whole: YOU.

You are a whole person with your own unique identity, your thoughts, feelings, emotions, needs, desires, memory, reason, imagination, goals, ideals, aspirations... as well as amazing untapped potential. The essential You, the living, thinking, feeling, creative I at the center, is what philosophers and psychologists call the mind or psyche, while religious and mystical traditions call it the soul or spirit.

A physical illness or injury obviously has far reaching effects on the mind and soul as well as on the body. Your bodily condition directly affects your mental states, your thoughts and feelings. However, the relationship is more than just one-way. Your mental and emotional states, your attitudes, your feelings about yourself and the way you run your life have a decisive influence on your level of physical health, your immunity to illness and injury, the extent to which your body is able to heal, and at what rate.

More than this, your mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing are really the key to your overall happiness in life since your inner life is the very essence of your life. The health of your inner self -- your mind and soul -- is what makes the difference between a fulfilling, satisfying life and one that is not. There are people who may be technically fit and healthy physically, but they really have no life at all because their lives are wasted by emptiness and depression.

Your doctors may be treating you medically to try to cure your body. But as you wait and hope for your body to mend and heal, know that your inner personal healing -- healing the bruises of your self and soul -- is primarily in your hands. Since the mind and soul influence the body, the more you succeed in healing and cultivating your inner self, the greater your body's ability to heal. Therefore the most important contribution you can make to improving your physical condition is by working to heal and develop your inner self.

Life after life

There are times when the body cannot heal. Some conditions are chronic, others terminal. Everyone eventually ages and deteriorates physically, because in the end our bodies have to die. The body is a finite, material structure of limited duration: in due course it must disintegrate.

The body dies, yes, but the inner you never dies! The essential self and soul is non-finite spirit, and the spirit is everlasting. For the soul, death is not the end but a new beginning. Death is the gateway to a higher stage of life, a new state of being on a plane that we cannot even imagine as long as we are still in our bodies.

Death is death only in relation to the material world. But for the essential you -- your soul -- death is the stepping stone to a more exalted, more intense and vastly more joyous level of life on the spiritual plane. This is because of the greater ability of the soul to expand in the spiritual dimension when liberated from the physical body. If the prospect of death is awesome, this is because the soul then draws closer to the Source of all things -- God -- and God is awesome.

Illness may make us deeply aware of the great step that lies ahead of us. Sooner or later everyone must face this. A dangerous, life-threatening condition is a call to make your peace and come to terms with the prospect of death in order to use the time you have left in this world in the best possible way. Your body may be weak and in pain, but this need not crush your spirit. For the spirit is invincible.

Being willing to accept the prospect of death does not mean necessarily that you are going to die soon. Life and death are in the hands of God alone. No-one dies a moment before or after their appointed time.

You cannot control death, but that does not mean that you cannot choose how to live in the face of it. The idea is not to spend all your time morbidly preparing for death. On the contrary, you should shift from being a passive victim of fear and anxiety to actively taking charge of your life. Take stock of yourself. Work out your priorities. Drop whatever is meaningless and wasteful. Say what you want to say to your dear ones and friends. Fix what is in your power to fix in this world -- and live.

Know that death leads to new life, and therefore you will never really die but only live. Now you are alive here in this world; afterwards you will be alive there, on a higher plane. Whether you are here or there, the main thing is to be alive! By deciding to live now, even within the limitations of illness or injury, you are making the most of your time here while at the same time preparing yourself in the best possible way for your life after life there later on.

Now!!!

Seriously ill or not, the fact is that in this world we are all condemned to death! None of us knows when his or her time will come. Sick or healthy, everyone can only benefit from accepting the fact of their own mortality. When we know that our time here is limited, we value it more and take full advantage of it.

Every single moment is precious. That is why you must live now. Don't put off living until tomorrow, saying I can't live the way I want to right now because I'm not well: I'll wait till I'm better and then I'll start living. The day you are hoping for may never come, and even if it does, you do not really know what it may bring. In this world it is not possible for everything to be perfect. You have to carry on living even when things are not as you might want them to be.

You only have today! Discover how rich life can be right now, even amidst all your problems and difficulties. Find joy in whatever comes to hand. Prize each new insight you gain about life, especially those won through pain and suffering. Treasure times with dear ones and friends. Enjoy each act of kindness and love that you or others perform. Cherish each smile, each kind word, each good thought, each word of prayer and outreach to God. It is by living life now that you will heal, because this is precisely what healing is all about: living now!

Source: Azamra

Na het feest komt de afwas

2012-01-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

~ Kees Voorhoeve

Als we het mystieke pad volgen en uiteindelijk helderheid en evenwicht bereiken, zijn we dan volkomen gelukkig en zullen we ons nooit meer laten raken door de negativiteit van het leven?
Jack Kornfield geeft aan dat dit een illusie is. Er is geen verlicht pensioen. Iedere keer als we ergens doorheen gaan en bepaalde emotionele patronen doorbreken, volgt weer een nieuwe fase van strijd en worsteling. In zijn prachtige boek “Na het feest komt de afwas” geeft hij hierover het volgende weer:

Er bestaat niet zoiets als een staat van verlicht rentenieren; er is geen ontwaakervaring die ons boven de wet van verandering plaatst. Alles ademt en gehoorzaamt aan cycli. De maan, de effectenbeurs, ons hart, de spiraalnevels – alles expandeert en trekt zich samen op het ritme van het leven zelf. Momenten van diepe vrede en een nieuw gevonden liefde worden gevolgd door periodes van verlies, zich afsluiten, angst of ontkenning en verraad. Als we de berg afdalen zullen we schrikken als we merken hoe onze oude gewoonten ons daar beneden op wachten, als een stel gemakkelijke, vertrouwde kleren. Zelfs als we een geweldige transformatie hebben doorgemaakt en we ons vredig en onwrikbaar voelen, zullen we onvermijdelijk door een deel van datgene wat met ons mee teruggekomen is, op de proef gesteld worden.
[Na het feest komt de afwas, wijsheid voor het hart op het spirituele pad]

Ook al zal na een transformatieproces meer en meer de Boeddhanatuur in ons wakker worden, iemand die volledig wakker is, zal zich nog steeds door het leven laten raken. Emoties bepalen immers de kleur van het leven. Natuurlijk ervaart een Boeddha verdriet en pijn én geluk en enthousiasme. Alleen hij of zij blijft er niet in hangen. Er is sprake van meestromen vanuit een houding van niet-identificeren. Vanuit een authentieke ervaring beleven we het leven zoals het is, in het hier en nu, zonder haast. We laten niet het leven zelf los, maar juist de krampachtige houding van vastgrijpen en vasthouden. Zodoende ontwaken we voor de Bron van het leven en verblijven we in dit grote mysterie. Dan ervaren we de werkelijkheid vanuit een totaal nieuw perspectief of zoals T.S. Eliot het zo mooi aangeeft:

Het eind van al ons zoeken is bereikt als we terug zijn aan het begin en die plek voor het eerst echt kennen.

Zie: Mystieke Overpeinzingen

De Mens als Tempel van de Ziel

2012-01-08T02:35:00.000-08:00

Lezing door Kees Voorhoeve

Vrijzinnig Centrum te Harderwijk
Maandag 16 Januari / Aanvang 19.30

In vele culturen en religies komen tempels voor die een uitdrukking zijn van heilige grondstructuren. Naast de tempelgebouwen, vormt de mens een innerlijke tempel waarin de hemel en de aarde samenkomen. Door verschillende zuigkrachten in de wereld raakt de mens steeds meer verwijderd van deze goddelijke blauwdruk en leven veel mensen in een bewustzijnsvernauwing. Om deze vervormde toestand te herstellen, is er een mystieke weg aanwezig waarbij de mens getransformeerd kan worden tot een wezen waarin hemel en aarde weer verenigd zijn. Deze mystieke weg betreft een ontplooiingsproces van de Ziel waarbij onze ervaring fundamenteel veranderd kan worden in wijsheid en compassie en wij zodoende bewust meewerken aan het evenwicht in onszelf en de wereld.

1ste lezing
Wat is de betekenis van de Mens als Tempel van de Ziel voor onze huidige tijd?
Naar aanleiding van het spanningsveld tussen Chaos en Kosmos en het proces van regeneratie en degeneratie, zal gekeken worden naar het belang van de Mens als Tempel van de Ziel en op welke wijze we een Tempel kunnen worden.

Zie: Lezingen

Eerst als tragedie, dan als klucht

2012-01-07T02:17:00.001-08:00

Eerst als tragedie, dan als klucht

Slavoj Žižek

Hegel stelde dat de geschiedenis zich steeds herhaalt. Marx beaamde dit, maar verbeterde hem op een essentieel punt. Historische gebeurtenissen vinden eerst plaats als tragedie, maar keren vervolgens terug als klucht. In Slavoj Žižeks kernachtige nieuwe boek is dit gegeven het uitgangspunt voor een messcherpe analyse van de situatie anno nu.

Eerst als tragedie, dan als klucht kijkt terug op de eerste tien jaar van de eenentwintigste eeuw. In 2001 begonnen deze met een tragedie: de aanslagen op 11 september.

Zeven jaar later eindigen ze met een klucht: de economische crisis. In die twee momenten stierf het liberalisme feitelijk twee keer: als politieke theorie en als economisch systeem.

Toch houdt het lijk van deze ideologie niet op ons op allerlei manieren te bespoken. Een bijzonder ernstige zaak, omdat het verhindert de kritieke staat van de wereld adequaat aan te pakken.

Volgens Žižek staat de apocalyps op de stoep, niet alleen in ecomomische zin, maar ook ecologisch, biogenetisch en sociaal. Het is de hoogste tijd dat progressievelingen en vemeend ‘links’ ophouden met navelstaren en serieus over de revolutie gaan nadenken!

Uitgeverij Boom
First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

Recensie: Volkskrant
Artikel: Trouw
Fragment: Sargasso

Žižek op YouTube
Boeken/Artikelen Žižek

De Ster van de Verlossing

2012-01-05T09:49:00.000-08:00

Naar aanleiding van de indringende openingszin van het eerste hoofdstuk van De Ster van de Verlossing van Franz Rosenzweig: "Van de dood, van de doodsangst, stamt al het kennen van het Al", volgen een aantal mystieke overpeinzingen.
[Zie Engelse vertaling bij Google Books en Scribd]

"Van de dood, van de doodsangst, stamt al het kennen van het 'Al'. De aardse angst af te werpen, de dood zijn gifangel, de Hades zijn pestadem te ontnemen, dat matigt zich de filosofie aan. Al het sterfelijke leeft in deze angst voor de dood, elke nieuwe geboorte vermeerdert de angst met een nieuwe reden, want zij vermeerdert het sterfelijke. Zonder ophouden baart de schoot van de onvermoeibare aarde iets nieuws en alles is voor de dood bestemd, alles wacht met angst en beven op de dag van zijn tocht naar het donker. Maar de filosofie loochent deze angsten van de aarde. Zij springt over het graf dat zich bij elke stap voor haar voet opent. Zij geeft het lichaam aan de afgrond prijs, maar de vrije ziel fladdert daarover heen. Dat de doodsangst van een dergelijke scheiding in lichaam en ziel niets weet, dat ze 'ik ik ik' brult en van een afbuiging van de angst als zou zij slechts een lichaam betreffen niets wil horen - wat kan dat de filosofie schelen. Al kruipt de mens als een worm in de plooien van de naakte aarde voor de aansuizende schoten van de blind onverbiddelijke dood, al bespeurt hij daar geweldadig onontwijkbaar wat hij anders nooit bespeurt: dat zijn 'ik' slechts een 'het' is, als het sterft; en al schreeuwt hij daarom, met elke schreeuw die nog in zijn keel is, zijn ik uit tegen de onverbiddelijke, van de kant waarvan hem een dergelijke onvoorstelbare vernietiging dreigt - de filosofie glimlacht om al deze nood haar lege glimlach en wijst het schepsel, wiens ledematen beven van de angst om zijn aardse bestaan, met uitgestrekte wijsvinger op een generzijds, waarvan het volstrekt niets wil weten. Want de mens wil allesbehalve aan boeien, welke dan ook, ontkomen; hij wil blijven, hij wil leven."

Wat is de betekenis van de doodsangst voor het kennen van het Al?

[01]

Ik wil leven,

een oerinstinct,
een overlevingskracht.

Iemand zijn.
Unieke geboorte.
Mens worden.
Alles in mij wil het leven bevestigen.
Ik hou van het leven.
Ik wil ermee versmelten, genieten, liefhebben.
Vecht, huil, bid, lach, werk en bewonder.

Een enorme groei impuls.
Duizelingwekkende processen
van hechten, grijpen,
verzamelen, jezelf bevestigen,
op zoek naar erkenning.

Iemand worden
Niet zomaar iemand
Een unieke persoonlijkheid
Met gegeven talenten
In een uniek lijf aanwezig gesteld.
Identificatie als de basis.
Ik moet mij spiegelen aan anderen.
Nadoen, gefascineerd worden, opzien, geraakt zijn.
Waar zijn mijn idolen?
Zo wil ik zijn, op zoek naar zelfverheerlijking.

Als dit nu eens zou stoppen.
Ik word wakker geschud.
Wat een hoogmoed.
Het leven is eindig.

Hoe vreselijk om te verdwijnen.
Hoe heftig om het verzamelde op te geven.
Hoe onmogelijk als een geliefde sterft.
Een bittere schreeuw, ik, ik, ik brult.

Ik voel de doodsangst.

~Kees Voorhoeve

Thomas Keating and Centering Prayer

2011-12-30T01:34:00.001-08:00

Waarom bidden, hoe bidden?

2011-12-29T00:16:00.000-08:00

Waarom bidden, hoe bidden?

Enzo Bianchi

Na een historische schets van het christelijk gebed zet Enzo Bianchi de verschillende stappen van het bidden uiteen.

Een boek met tal van bruikbare inzichten om als modern christen met het gebed het geloof levend te houden. Bianchi betoogt dat het bidden een manier is om God in onszelf te ontdekken. Om vervolgens, gesterkt in zijn liefde, ons in staat te voelen om onze medemens nog meer lief te hebben.

Na dit prangende kernhoofdstuk beschrijft Bianchi hoe we kunnen bidden. In een laatste hoofdstuk stelt Bianchi de grondvraag naar het waarom van het gebed, en weerlegt tal van obstakels.

Uitgeverij Lannoo en zie artikel: Over Bidden en Evangeliseren

Indra's Net and the Internet

2011-12-28T02:58:00.000-08:00

Arising to the Interconnectedness of Life?
A Buddhist Perspective on the Occupy Movement

~Bernie Glassman

Buddha means the "awakened one." Awakened to what?

The definition of Enlightenment in Buddhism is awakening to the interconnectedness of life. This is illustrated through the story of Indra's Net from the Avatamsaka Sutra.

A long time ago, in a far away place, there lived a king. His name was Indra. Indra was a great king. In fact, he was king of all the Gods. One day, he called his architect, Johnny.

"Johnny! I am such a wonderful king that I'd like you to make a monument of me for all people to see." After thinking for a while, Johnny exclaimed, "I've got it! Let's go to the royal treasurer, Sally, because this will be expensive." They went to Sally and Johnny said, "I want to build a monument for our king, Indra. I want it to be a net that extends throughout all space and time and I want to place a bright pearl at each node of the net. Do we have enough resources to build this net?"

"You're in luck!" said Sally. "I happen to have an infinite amount of thread spun by spiders and an infinite amount of pearls." Johnny proceeded to construct the net of pearls so big that it extended throughout all space and time.

Each pearl contains the reflection of every other pearl. Each pearl is contained within every other pearl. If you touch the net anywhere, it is felt everywhere.

Every phenomenon is a pearl in the net. Each of us at a given instant is a phenomenon. Everything at each moment is a phenomenon.

Everyone and everything is contained in me. I am contained in everyone and everything.

Many years later, somebody came along and turned Indra's Net into the Internet. Instead of pearls, they put computers at each node. They created a physical system of interconnectedness around the world. Then, we started to see languages for communicating across the net. We call them Facebook and Twitter. Soon, we started to see what I call arisings or awakenings around the world. For me, the first big one was the "Arab Spring." The second big one was the "Israeli Summer."

Arab Arising

I've worked in Jordan, Israel and Palestine. We had Peacemaker staff there. A man that we worked with a lot, Sami Awad, is the nephew of a man known as the Gandhi of Palestine. Sami is one of many people continuing his uncle's work. They've been doing nonviolent peace work in Palestine for years. For many years, they've had concerns that their message of nonviolence was not being taken seriously by many people and governments in the area. I feel that they was being marginalized. Now, after the Arab Spring, both Fatah and Hamas are seriously looking at their work. Government leaders are talking to the peace activists about training leaders in nonviolent methods. To me, that is an arising of the energy of Indra's Net.

I was with Sami about a month ago in Bethlehem, where he is based, making plans to assist him in his nonviolent work in Palestine. He had just finished meeting with his staff. He told his staff that if any of them are blaming anyone as an enemy or as an Other, he doesn't want them on his staff. It is important to see how we are all affected by the conditions and to see how our work can change the conditions.

He formed this view in 2004 at one of our Auschwitz Bearing Witness Retreats. He's done two of them. After doing a retreat he said, "I have been doing nonviolent work for years, but now I see that even thoughts and words can still be violent." He says he's been transformed from seeing himself as a Palestinian activist to seeing himself as a global activist. He now believes that his work can't include thoughts or language of Other or it will only generate more violence.

Israel Arising

In Israel, a women in her early 20s, who couldn't afford her rent, put a tent in downtown Tel Aviv, saying "we need a new system." A week later, as it spread through Facebook, 10,000 people put up tents. Weeks later nearly half a million people arose with a variety of different messages. It continues and it's changing the government structure. The military budget has already gone down. Pundits ask "Who is the leader? What is the goal? What is the strategy?" But there is no single leader organizing things.

Then in the United States, something called Occupy Wall Street started. A few months later, nearly 2,000 cities around the world have joined. My hope is that a new paradigm is arising out of Indra's Net. My faith is that eventually that will be true. However, I'm concerned about what's happening now.

Occupy Arising?

Are the current arisings awakenings to the interconnectedness of life or will they merely create new ways of creating separations between people?

In the Zen Peacemakers, we follow the precept of Not Elevating Oneself and Blaming Others. Another statement that gets at the Buddhist appreciation for language is the Verse of Atonement:

"All harmful karma ever caused by me since of old,
on account of my beginningless greed, anger and ignorance
born of my body, mouth and thought,
now I atone for it all."

Including mouth and thought in the verse means that what we say and what we think can be just as harmful or more harmful than physical violence. And our words are connected to our actions. In my view, it is even possible to commit acts of physical violence from a standpoint of interconnectedness as long as it is not done from a standpoint of separation. When we treat cancer, we wouldn't say that we are attacking something outside of our bodies and we wouldn't take lightly the side-effects of chemotherapy.

At the Auschwitz Bearing Witness Retreat, we sit on the tracks where inmates were selected for either immediate extermination or slave labor. In the morning, we share in small groups about what comes up. In my group this year, a German man asked, "How could human beings have created such an efficient system for killing other humans?"

My experience is that the first step is through language and thought. First, I identify who is the Other. Then, I convince you of how the Other is so terrible. If I can convince you, we can kill the Other. If I can convince you that those people are rats, you will want to find an efficient way to get rid of rats.

For me, arisings to the interconnectedness of life do not use the violent language of separation. When I look for arisings, I ask: Is the language we use violent? Does it use dualistic thinking that separates one group from another? Do the actions taken reduce suffering? Are there different energies arising and coexisting at the same time? Are each of the groups involved open and accepting to other groups?

When I hear the word Occupy, it makes my blood cringe. Having worked in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, I feel that Occupation has a negative, military connotation: Israel-occupied Palestine. Soviet-occupied Poland and East Germany. Allied-occupied West Germany. The list goes on. To the Native Americans, the United States occupies their land.

When I read "We are the 99% who will no longer tolerate the greed of the 1%" as the Occupy Wall Street website states, I hear: "They are the bad ones." That's not the energy of Indra's Net. I'm not interested in making anyone into an Other.

When we talk about awakening in Buddhism, we talk about awakening to the experience of interconnectedness. Everything is interconnected, but we don't always experience it that way. The only reason we don't is that we are attached to our opinions. One particularly powerful opinion that we have is that there is an Other. Through meditation you can let go of your attachments and extend your awakening deeper. And there are other ways. We can see how awakened to interconnectedness we are by the size of the set of people we include as One with ourselves.

I call the energy of interconnectedness "love" -- not the love we usually talk about. It's much more natural and intrinsic. It is automatically taking care of other people because we experience them as us.

I've lived through many protests. From my opinion, whenever the language of the arising labels someone as Other -- whenever it is against someone -- it leads to more violence. When I awaken to the Oneness of myself, I can't call pieces of myself the Other. I don't attack myself. I take care of myself. When I see everything, including the social system, as myself, I take actions to reduce suffering. I heal the system as healing myself, not fixing someone else who is to blame for all the problems.

Source: Huffington Post

Taming the Horse, Riding the Mind

2011-12-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

~Chögyam Trungpa

Learning from a non-ego point of view, is based on opening one's heart and discovering a natural sense of discipline. Discipline in this case means attuning ourselves to our inherent purity. We don't have to borrow anything from outside ourselves or mimic anybody. We are naturally pure and intelligent. We may already have some idea or experience of that, but we also need to go further in opening ourselves. When we begin to open, learning isn't a struggle anymore. It becomes like a thirsty person drinking cool water. It is refreshing and natural. And the more we learn, the more we appreciate. It is quite different from a military academy approach or learning based on struggle of any kind.

Our path is sometimes rough and sometimes smooth; nonetheless, life is a constant journey. Whether we sleep, eat, dress, study, meditate, attend class ... whatever we do is regarded as our journey, our path. That path consists of opening oneself to the road, opening oneself to the steps we are about to take. The energy which allows us to go on such a journey is known as discipline. It is the discipline of educating oneself without ego, and it is also known as training one's mind.

Educating oneself is said to be like taming a wild horse, a horse which has never been touched by anyone. First you try putting a saddle on its back. The horse kicks, bites, bucks; you try again and again. Finally you succeed. And then you manage to put the rein over its head and the bit into its mouth. Maybe you have difficulty making the horse open its mouth, but at last the bit goes in. That is a great success. You feel good; you feel that you have accomplished something. Nonetheless, you still have to ride the horse. And that is another process, another struggle. It is quite possible that the horse will throw you off. If you are able to hold on to the reins, that might help you to control the horse; but it is still questionable. Maybe that would give you 40 percent control. For the rest, you are taking a chance.

Our state of mind is like a wild horse. It contains memories of the past, dreams of the future, and the fickleness of the present. We find that to be a problematic situation, and so we practice what is known as meditation. The word meditation has various meanings, as it is referred to in different traditions. According to The Oxford Dictionary, meditation means that you meditate on something. For example, when you are in love, you meditate on your lover. Your lover is so beautiful. He or she is extraordinary in lovemaking-moves beautifully, kisses beautifully, and quite possibly smells fantastic! Meditating on those kinds of perceptions just means that you are dwelling on something, occupying yourself with something.

In the fundamental sense, Buddhist meditation does not involve meditating on anything. You simply arouse your sense of wakefulness and hold an excellent posture. You hold up your head and shoulders and sit cross-legged. Then very simply, you relate to the basic notion of body, speech, and mind, and you focus your awareness in some way, usually using the breath. You are breathing out and in, and you just experience that breathing very naturally. Your breath is not considered either holy or evil; it is just breath.

When thoughts arise, you just look at them and you notice "thought," It's not "good thought" or "bad thought." Whether you have a thought of wisdom or a thought of evil, you just look at it and say, "thought." And then you come back to the breath. By doing that,you begin to develop the notion of putting the saddle on the horse. Your mind begins to be trained. It becomes less crazy, less drowsy, and more workable at that point. This particular practice of meditation is known as shamatha, which literally means "dwelling in peace." In this case, peace is not a euphoric or blissful state but simply a basic and down-to-earth situation that results from cutting out hassle and turmoil. We aren't trying to achieve any goal or attain any particular state of being, in either the religious or secular sense.

When we practice in this way, we find that thoughts which perpetuate neurosis melt or evaporate. Ordinarily we don't pay any attention to our thoughts. We unknowingly cultivate them by acting according towhat ever they command. But when we sit down quietly and look at them, without judgment or goal-just look at them-they dissolve by themselves. In shamatha meditation, one's attention span is naturally extended, and one's open-mindedness is developed. You become more steady and also more cheerful-free from turmoil. That is why it is called "shamatha," dwelling in peace.

So that is the first stage in learning: learning how to learn. That is the first step. First you cut through the basic notion of ego, of holding on to neurosis. Beyond that, there is what is known as vipashyana, which literally means "insight," practice. In this case, insight is seeing things as they are-not adding passion or aggression to them. Now we are beginning to step outside the meditation compound and examine how we relate to our world.

The world that we live in is fabulous. It is utterly workable. We see motorcars going by in the street, buildings standing as they are, trees growing, flowers blooming, rain and snow falling, water flowing, and wind clearing the air, ventilating . .. whether there is pollution or not. The world we live in is all right, to say the least. We can't complain at all.

We should begin to learn how to appreciate this world, this planet on which we live. We should realize that there is no passion, aggression, or ignorance existing in what we see. We begin by developing mindfulness of our steps, as we walk. Then we begin to experience the sacredness of brushing our hair and putting on our clothes.

Activities such as shopping, answering the telephone, typing, working in a factory, studying in school, dealing with our parents or our children, going to a funeral, checking ourselves in at the maternity department of the hospital . . . whatever we do is sacred. The way we develop that attitude is by seeing things as they are, by paying attention to the energy of the situation, and by not expecting further entertainment from our world. It is a matter of simply being, being natural, and always being mindful of everything that takes place in our day-to-day life. That develops naturally from shamatha meditation. Sitting meditation is like taking a shower. Vipashyana, or awareness practice, is like drying your body with a towel and then putting on your clothes. So there are two aspects to our journey, to our learning process: there is learning by sitting meditation and learning by life experiences. And there is no problem in joining these two together. It is like having a pair of eyes and then putting on glasses. It is the same thing.

From: The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Volume 2

Nativity Sermon of St. John Chrysostom

2011-12-25T07:39:00.000-08:00

I behold a new and wondrous mystery! My ears resound to the Shepherd's song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn.

The Angels sing!
The Archangels blend their voices in harmony!
The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise!
The Seraphim exalt His glory!

All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven.

He Who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side, the Sun of Justice. And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed, He had the power, He descended, He redeemed; all things move in obedience to God. This day He Who is, is Born; and He Who is, becomes what He was not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became He God from man; but being the Word He became flesh, His nature, because of impassibility, remaining unchanged…

And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him Angels, nor Archangels, nor Thrones, nor Dominations, nor Powers, nor Principalities, but, treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless womb.

Yet He has not forsaken His angels, nor left them deprived of His care, nor because of His Incarnation has he departed from the Godhead.

And behold kings have come, that they might adore the heavenly King of glory;

Soldiers, that they might serve the Leader of the Hosts of Heaven;
Women, that they might adore Him Who was born of a woman so that He might change the pains of child-birth into joy;
Virgins, to the Son of the Virgin, beholding with joy, that He Who is the Giver of milk, Who has decreed that the fountains of the breast pour forth in ready streams, receives from a Virgin Mother the food of infancy;
Infants, that they may adore Him Who became a little child, so that out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings, He might perfect praise;
Children, to the Child Who raised up martyrs through the rage of Herod;
Men, to Him Who became man, that He might heal the miseries of His servants;
Shepherds, to the Good Shepherd Who has laid down His life for His sheep;
Priests, to Him Who has become a High Priest according to the order of Melchisedech;
Servants, to Him Who took upon Himself the form of a servant that He might bless our servitude with the reward of freedom;
Fisherman, to Him Who from amongst fishermen chose catchers of men;
Publicans, to Him Who from amongst them named a chosen Evangelist;
Sinful women, to Him Who exposed His feet to the tears of the repentant; and that I may embrace them all together, all sinners have come, that they may look upon the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.

Since therefore all rejoice, I too desire to rejoice. I too wish to share the choral dance, to celebrate the festival. But I take my part, not plucking the harp, not shaking the Thyrsian staff, not with the music of the pipes, nor holding a torch, but holding in my arms the cradle of Christ. For this is all my hope, this my life, this my salvation, this my pipe, my harp. And bearing it I come, and having from its power received the gift of speech, I too, with the angels, sing: Glory to God in the Highest; and with the shepherds, and on earth peace to men of good will.

Raimon Pannikar

2011-12-25T00:12:00.001-08:00

Silence, suffering, and identity

2011-12-23T10:06:00.000-08:00

~Timothy Scott

‘One word spake the father, which Word was His Son, and this Word He speaks ever in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul.’ (St John of the Cross)

‘To have understood that nothing is gained by questioning about the Principle, but that it is to be contemplated in silence, this is what is called having obtained the Great Result.’ (Chuang-tse)

‘If you ask him: “What is silence?” he will answer: “It is the Great Mystery!” “The holy silence is His voice!”’ (Ohiyesa)

‘Be silent that the lord who gave thee language may speak.’ (Dīvāni, Shamsi Tabriz)

Prayer is communication with God; but not all communication is obviously two way. The silence one may be met with during prayer can feel like a great void, a chasm between oneself and a remote God. Worse, it can feel like a confirmation of the nagging doubt that maybe there really is nothing “out there” to answer. Yet this is to misunderstand silence. The silence one faces in prayer may be said to express a greater truth than were God to manifest into our presence like a genie and grant our prayers like wishes.

The most vital thing we can pray for is to come closer to knowing God. Silence is a very real response that leads us to the truth that God is beyond words, beyond any of the limitations we might place on the divine in calling God this or that, Him or Her, Immanent or Transcendent. Even to call God “good” is in the end a limitation; it is a way for us to understand. But God is infinitely beyond questions of good and evil. God is beyond any question of individual prejudice, and it is this that means the Divine can be truly intimate and personal with everyone.

God is beyond words and thus answers with silence. For those of us who want answers in our language this silence is deafening and terrifying. For those who are willing to come to God on His terms, this silence is the sound of His infinite and eternal Presence and Love. ‘Silence’ says Swami Sivananda, ‘is the language of God: it is also the language of the heart.’ Underlying the clamour of our world, God’s silence is always there. It is in meeting this silence that we can finally hear it. As Angelus Silesius remarks, ‘God is so present everywhere that one cannot speak: Thus thou wilt praise Him better through silence.’ For those with “ears to hear,” silence is the eternally proclaimed word of God.

What is it to have “ears that hear”? It is to come to God on His terms. In praying to silence—even when full of doubt and fear—one sacrifices the desires of the ego and opens oneself to the will of God. We show our willingness to do this when we come to a particular place of worship that might be hard to get to, at a time that might be inconvenient, to hear a reading or a teaching that may seem outdated and irrelevant; to pray to a silence that may seem empty and cold. Still we come, rather than demanding that God come to us. Of course God is already with us—‘closer to us than our jugular vein’ as the Qur’an tells us—still it is our act it is our act, our sacrifice, that gives us eyes to see His Presence and ears to hear His silence Word.

What is it to know the unfailing Presence of God? The Judeo-Christian God is described as a “good shepherd.” He cares for his flock while they feed and wander aimlessly, safe and, most often, unaware in this care. The sheep do not find their own pastures; they do not fend off the wolves; they do not grow their own feed for times of drought. All this is done for them by the shepherd, out of His love for his sheep. Sheep, of course, aren’t known for their intelligence. Though their life is secure they wander astray to find their own food. They wander and get lost. It is the shepherd who rescues them and brings them back. The message of the Good Shepherd story is that of the unfailing and constant love of the shepherd, who will lay down His life for his sheep. As the psalmist tells us: ‘…his faithful love is strong and His constancy never-ending.’ It is this ever-present Love, which allows the sheep—even those who stray—the opportunity for absolute trust in their well being. Yet one may only be said to “trust” when one realises the steadfastness of the shepherd. The presence of the shepherd is with us even when we are astray; it is we who do not realise it. The Love of God is with us in our darkest times, but it is our darkness that stops us from seeing that we are not alone. ‘The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it.’

In the Semitic traditions the divine Light and the divine Sound are synonymous. This is epitomized in the Fiat Lux of Genesis. We find this in the words of Jalāl al-Din Rūmī when he describes creation thus:
‘…when that purest of lights threw forth Sound which produced forms, He, like the diverse shadows of a fortress, became manifold.’ The brightness of the divine Light is blinding; pure Light underpins all vision but we may only see through colours. The volume of the divine Sound is deafening; incomprehensible in itself, it is the empty sheet upon which the symphony of the world’s music is written. We fear the divine Silence, for how are we to answer it? So we run away, we go astray. But we are not forsaken, the shepherd comes to rescue us, His love is unfailing, the call of His voice never ceases.

How can one answer this Voice? How can one answer God? Simply, by being as God is. ‘Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.’ Like is known by like. In the Mundaka Upanisad we are told: ‘Anyone who knows that supreme Brahman becomes Brahman indeed.’ In the story of the Good Shepherd Christ declares, ‘I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the father.’ How does the Son know the Father? By identity. For ‘The Father and I are one’ (John10:30). We must be like God and to do this we must be like Christ, who, as Peter tells us, left ‘an example for you to follow in his steps.’ This, however, is a hard example, an example of “undeserved punishment,” of suffering and silence in the face of insults and threats: the example of the Cross.

There is merit if, in “stretching forward” (epektasis) towards God, one endures the pains of undeserved punishment. This “merit” is the knowledge of God, which comes with identification. It is a merit for it is our very purpose. It is our duty and it is our reward. For to know God is to be as God is. The “undeserved punishment” is the “darkness” of ignorance wherein this world exists. It is the “suffering” of the shepherd willing to lay down his life for his sheep; suffering born from his love for the sheep that has gone astray in the darkness.

For Christians Jesus Christ is the good shepherd. His suffering on the Cross was only outwardly the suffering of nails piercing flesh. His deeper suffering burst His heart with His love for his fellow man: ‘Father, forgive them; they know not what they are doing.’ The good shepherd does not fear the attack of the wolf but through His bruises he brings back the lost sheep on the day of clouds and darkness. If we are to be shepherds we must suffer out of love for our neighbour. We suffer because we realise that they are really not other than us. The Father and I are one. My neighbour and I are one. This is the key to the bodhisattvic ideal in Buddhism. In Christianity it is summed up in two words: ‘Jesus wept.’

God suffers and His cry fills the void with such a super abundance of Sound that all we hear is silence. This is creation. How might we respond? By meeting silence with silence. By accepting our fears and doubts and letting these wash over us and into the void. By trusting in the ever-present Love of God. When we can not see the shepherd through the darkness of our making, when we can not hear Him but are met by silence, then we must trust and have faith. When in despair, when we don’t know what to do and all our answers have dried up, then this is good. This is the beginning of letting go of our wilful going astray, letting go of the illusion of looking after our selves. ‘I myself shall take care of my flock and look after it,’ declares God. So we must step forward into the Silence and Darkness. Be led like a blind person, trusting in our guide. Facing the darkness and silence of the Cross, Jesus admitted his own fear. But he did not desert his flock like a hired man. He placed his trust in his Father. ‘Let your will be done, not mine.’

See Website: Timothy Scott

Stille renaissance

2011-12-22T10:27:00.000-08:00

~Jan Oegema

De afgelopen decennia is mediteren langzaam gemeengoed geworden. Niet op grote schaal, maar toch. In spirituele centra en in kerkelijke bijzaaltjes, tijdens wekelijkse bijeenkomsten of meerdaagse retraites: mediteren begint erbij te horen. Jong en oud, bouwvakker en intellectueel, christen en atheïst: door de oogharen zien de stiltezoekers elkaar zitten in een kring, de handen in een mudra, de billen op een kussen of een bankje, wachtend op de klankschaal die hen uit deze allengs ongemakkelijker positie bevrijdt. Mudra duidt op de positie van de handen: de linker rustend op de rechter, liefst niet te ver onder de navel.

De gestes die de stilte begeleiden komen bijna allemaal uit het oosten, een zichtbaar bewijs dat stilte zoals wij die celebreren een importproduct is. Natuurlijk, het Westen heeft zijn woestijnvaders, zijn al dan niet ingemetselde kluizenaars, zijn romantici die in alleen de natuur introkken, zijn nonnen en monniken in de afzondering van hun cellen. In het continent van de lege kerken (zoals Europa aan het eind van de vorige eeuw werd genoemd) is stilte niet nieuw. Maar we beleven haar wel opnieuw, dankzij de technieken en rituelen overgenomen uit exotische oorden.
Zo kan gemakkelijk de gedachte postvatten dat we de stilte die we tot ons nemen een van hindoeïstische of boeddhistische origine is. Maar dat is een misvatting. Waar culturen zich mengen ontstaat onherroepelijk iets nieuws, iets met een eigen signatuur. We benaderen de stilte vanuit onze eigen culturele achtergrond en mentale concepten, en zonder dat we het beseffen verandert daardoor ook de stilte zelf. Onze stilte is geen hindoeïstische of boeddhistische, ze is onze eigen westerse, crossculturele stilte.

En om de demystificatie meteen een stap verder te voeren: het lijkt erop dat het exotische aura van de nieuwe stilte een product is van westerse fantasie. Beauty is in the the eye of the beholder, in dit geval. We denken uitkomst te vinden in vreemde religies, maar wat ons daarin treft, is ten dele ons eigen maaksel. De Leidse boeddholoog Jonathan Silk zegt in dit verband: ‘Sommige boeddhisten mediteren, maar meditatie is geen centraal aspect van de meeste boeddhistische praktijken. Het is eerder een moderne, westerse interpretatie van het boeddhisme.’

We zijn dus ongemerkt bezig onze eigen stilteculturen te creëren, dat is fascinerend om mee te maken. We zijn al enkele decennia getuige van een ware stilterenaissance. En zoals Pico della Mirandola op zijn manier de Oudheid gebruikte, zo gebruiken wij nu de teksten uit de rijke korven van de yogatraditie en het Mahayana-boeddhisme. Pranayama? Vipassana? Mindfulness? Voortzetting van christendom, humanisme en Europese levenskunst met onverdachte middelen. Waarbij ons ontgaat hoe anders onze stilte is vergeleken met de culturen waaraan we haar denken te ontlenen.

Zeker, onze stilte is anders. Onze omgang met stilte staat in een lange traditie van psychologiserend zelfonderzoek, begonnen bij kerkvader Augustinus. In de stilte ontmoeten we in de eerste plaats onszelf, een individu met buitengewoon individuele verlangens, vragen, preoccupaties, blokkades, een individu bovendien met een onvervreemdbaar eigen geschiedenis. Die geschiedenis is in bij de klassieke technieken van yoga en zen irrelevant; voor ons is ze dat allesbehalve. Als iets opvalt in de getuigenissen van moderne westerlingen die een oosterse weg gaan, dan wel het aandeel van de autobiografie en de individuele levensvragen. De artikelen die ze schrijven, de boeken die ze afscheiden: ze bevatten doorgaans een sterk persoonlijk element. Deze auteurs kunnen licht menen dat ze een nieuwe weg zijn ingeslagen, maar in feite lopen ze hand in hand met de dichters uit de Romantiek, die de stilte van de natuur zochten uit behoefte daarin een spiegel te ontdekken voor het zelf.

‘Iemand die in zijn leven niet ruimhartig ruimte maakt voor eenzaamheid, zal nooit de capaciteiten van zijn intellect ontrafelen,’schrijft Thomas de Quincey aan het begin van de negentiende eeuw.
Mediterenden in het westen miskennen hun eigen culturele wortels. Overigens is dit zonder ironie geconstateerd; cultuurgeschiedenis kent eenvoudig haar eigen ironieën. Ik vind het juist geweldig hoe westerse auteurs de stilte nu exploreren en haar aan taal helpen. Ik geniet juist van de persoonlijke toon van hun impressies, ik geniet van hun particuliere observaties naar aanleiding van een koan – die helpen mij vaak meer dan de koan zelf. Ik vermoed zelfs dat ook Aziaten daar steeds meer van zullen profiteren; niets zo weldadig als de frisse blik van de toegewijde beginneling.
En zen mind is beginners mind, per slot. Inmiddels in onze contreien al bijna een gevleugeld spreekwoord.

Een goed voorbeeld van autobiografisch getint proza gecombineerd met beginnersnieuwsgierigheid is te vinden in de dagboeken van Oek de Jong, De wonderen van de heilbot (2003). Tussen de regels door laat hij merken met enige regelmaat op een meditatiekussen plaats te nemen. De ervaringen die hij al zittende heeft opgedaan leidden tot een observatie die om verschillende redenen interessant is. In het navolgende fragment verwijst de Jong overigens niet naar Oosterse wijsheidsliteratuur, maar naar de Apophtegmata, een verzameling teksten afkomstig van woestijnvaders en ontstaan circa 300 na Christus.

In de Apophtegmata [...] zegt ene Abt Pastor: ‘Any trial whatever that comes to you can be conquered by silence.’ Ik geloof dat dit waar is, maar meestal ben ik niet in staat om die stilte toe te laten, en als ik ertoe in staat ben, dan weet ik haar niet lang genoeg te bestendigen, en als ik haar tot stand kan brengen dan maak ik haar ten slotte toch weer kapot, vaak juist op het moment dat ik de werkzaamheid van die innerlijke stilte begin te voelen.

Dit is mooi opgeschreven. En er komt veel in dit fragment samen. Er is het verzet, het altijd weer de kop opstekende verzet om je aan de stilte over te geven. Er is het besef van vertraagde werking: als meditant weet je niet precies wat stilte met je doet, hoe die werkt en inwerkt. Er is de hulpeloosheid van het niet-weten, die maakt dat je als vanzelf troost zoekt bij de stiltezoekers die je zijn voorgegaan. Voor De Jong is dat een woestijnvader, een routinier die voor hem een twijfelachtig soort bemoediging in petto heeft: ‘Iedere beproeving, welke dan ook, kan men doorstaan in en dankzij de stilte.’

Maar behalve de kwaliteit van de observatie is er ook de kwaliteit van de woorden: die twee hangen samen. Dit is literatuur, en wel Europese literatuur, herkenbaar aan de combinatie van introspectie en zelfspot, vrijheidszin en een in dit geval subtiel gedoseerd defaitisme. Met vrijheidszin doel ik op de particulariteit en onafhankelijkheid van de waarneming, die haar autoriteit het liefst niet ontleent aan ideologie en moraal maar aan de intelligentie en elegantie van de verwoording.

Ja, wat zo aangenaam is aan dit fragment is de vrijheid ervan – de vrijheid van denken en voelen. Het lijkt erop dat westerlingen steeds vrijer durven te spreken over de stilte en de effecten daarvan, geholpen door een keur aan poëzie, bellettrie en populaire psychologie. Vergis ik me niet, dan is het vreemd genoeg onze verbaliteit die ons in het westen helpt de stilte verder of juist opnieuw te verkennen. Vreemd genoeg is het ons diepe vertrouwen, het op vele wijzen gevoede en op vele wijzen beproefde en geplaagde vertrouwen in het gesproken en geschreven woord waardoor we stilte met meer onbevangenheid tegemoet treden en in staat zijn haar als het ware aan zichzelf terug geven.
Klonk het niet dwaas en verwaand, dan zou ik zelfs durven beweren dat we de stilte zelfs een beetje stiller maken. Dat komt doordat we de stilte als stilte onderzoeken, doordat we haar met welhaast wetenschappelijke blik tegemoet treden. Als geoefende fenomenologen lichtten we haar uit de ideologische kaders van christendom en zenboeddhisme, taoïsme en hindoeïsme en onderwerpen haar met de frisse argeloosheid van de betere tv-maker aan vergelijkend warenonderzoek.
Die argeloosheid heeft recent tot een schokkende ontdekking geleid. Een ontdekking waardoor religieuze stilte nooit meer dezelfde zal zijn. Ze komt op naam van iemand die rebels en jong was in het hippietijdperk, een studievriendin van Bill Clinton. In de jaren zestig was ze een activiste, nu een moderne kluizenaar die bewust alleen ofschoon mét internet op een verlaten platteland woont. Na de luidruchtige revolutie van de flower power voor deze auteur nu de geruisloze renaissance van de stilte.

Sara Maitland werd geboren in 1950 en is in Engeland niet alleen bekend als literair auteur maar ook als feministe. In 2008 publiceerde ze A Book of Silence, waarvan de vertaling (Stilte als antwoord) in deze krant werd besproken op 20 maart 2010. Dit boek is een essay in de beste zin van het woord: een intellectueel avontuur en een persoonlijke zoektocht culminerend in een onafhankelijke visie. Maitland heeft jaren nagedacht over stilte, stapels literatuur doorgenomen en zich onderworpen aan verschillende experimenten. Ze verhuisde van de grote stad naar een huisje op de zeer stille hei, woonde veertig dagen op een praktisch onbewoond eiland voor de Schotse kust, liet zich opsluiten in een cabine voor sensorische deprivatie en reisde naar de Sinaï om persoonlijk de stilte van de woestijnvaders te ondergaan.

Hun ervaringen – van die vaders dus – vergelijkt ze onder meer met die van bergklimmers en solozeilers, twee categorieën van avonturiers die blootstaan aan langdurige stilte. De vergelijking is verrijkend en ontnuchterend. Ze komt tot de conclusie dat hetgeen in de christelijke traditie doorgaans aan God is toegeschreven, in feite een effect is van de stilte zelf. Ze somt acht kenmerken op die gevonden kunnen worden bij individuen die lang in stilte vertoeven. Ik zet ze even achter elkaar om een indruk te geven. Stilte leidt tot een verheviging van zintuiglijke en emotionele indrukken; spontane manifestaties van ontremd gedrag; een sterk op de voorgrond tredend besef van dankbaarheid en verbondenheid; gehoorshallucinaties; vervaging van grenzen en persoonlijke identiteit; een opwindend besef van risico en gevaar lopen; gewaarwordingen van onuitsprekelijkheid en van grote gelukzaligheid.

Interessant is nu dat Maitland lid is van de Anglicaanse kerk, een feit dat ze niet op de voorgrond plaats maar toch meespeelt in haar studie. Haar interesse voor stilte is ook een religieuze interesse, vandaar ook dat ze als participerend onderzoekster op bezoek ging bij stilte-experts in het Westen – de quakers – en in het Oosten – de zenbboeddhisten. Maar het denken over stilte dat ze in beide kampen aantrof overtuigde haar niet. Waarom niet?

Omdat stilte in praktisch alle religie als instrumenteel wordt gezien. Stilte geldt als een middel, bijvoorbeeld om zich open te stellen voor de goddelijke aanwezigheid, bijvoorbeeld om staten van samadhi of verlichting te bereiken. Maar vergelijkend warenonderzoek leert Maitland dat stilte méér is dan een middel-tot. Het is het ding zelf, het Ding-an-sich, waarvan de inwerking zich volgens haar grotendeels aan onze meditatieve waarneming voltrekt.

Daarmee doet ze overigens geen statement tégen de religie, want religie is voor Maitland een bewezen weg om stilte werkzaam en heilzaam te maken. Wel doet ze een statement tegen het routineuze religieuze denken over stilte. Religies zien de inkeer in stilte hooguit als een wijze van voorbereiden; het heilige dient zich in of na de stilte te openbaren. Religie is altijd gefixeerd op het moment waarop de stilte onderbroken en doorbroken wordt, alsof pas dán het heil zich manifesteert en het uur u zich aandient. Maar het overgrote deel van het heil bevindt zich in de stilte zelf, zoals Maitland overtuigend weet aan te tonen aan de hand van logboeken van haar alpinisten en zeezeilers. Die maken gewag van sensaties van dankbaarheid en givenness (een Engels woord dat beter onvertaald kan blijven) van vergelijkbare intensiteit als die we kennen uit de biografieën van bekende en minder bekende religieuzen.

Mijmerend over het boek van Sara Maitland laten zich twee conclusies treken. We zijn stilte intrigerend gaan vinden en bestuderen haar nu met welhaast wetenschappelijke hartstocht. Dat geldt overigens niet voor religieuze stiltezoekers maar ook voor beoefenaars van de kunsten en de humanoria. Dichters hebben een verbond gesloten met de witregel, componisten hebben hun publiek leren luisteren naar leegte, filosofen zijn mateloos geboeid door wat er aan de grenzen van taal en waarneming gebeurt.
Ook wetenschappers hebben intussen de stilte ontdekt. In boeddhisme geïnteresseerde psychologen meldden met enige regelmaat dat meditatie meetbare en positieve gevolgen heeft voor concentratie en gezondheid, een mededeling overigens die iets te opgewekt zondigt tegen een oude spirituele waarheid. Ze voedt namelijk de illusie alsof wij het zelf zijn die al die positiviteit bewerkstelligen, alsof we die te danken hebben aan onze ‘ikkracht’ – terwijl we in feite dankbaar moeten zijn voor de ‘anderkracht’ van de stilte.

Die noodzakelijke nuancering voert naar een tweede conclusie. Een ongemakkelijke conclusie, omdat ze zo aanmatigend klinkt: de stilte is stiller aan het worden. Bij de avant-garde van de stilteverkenners is het besef groeiende dat de oude oorzaak-gevolg-redenaties aan herziening toe zijn. We worden niet gelukkig omdat we meditatietechnieken toepassen: het geluk kruipt onder die technieken door. God schenkt ons geen vrede omdat we stil zijn: de vrede komt met de afzondering en de inkeer.
Dat betekent dat de stilte leger wordt, minder goed inpasbaar in onze mentale concepten. Daarmee wordt ze misschien ook angstiger, want ze biedt de stiltezoekende mens nóg minder houvast dan voorheen. Maar die stiller wordende stilte zal voor menigeen ook bevrijdend kunnen werken, want ze neemt de duizelingwekkend hoge doelen weg waarop de religieuze stiltezoeker zich van oudsher geacht werd te richten.

Wordt de stilte daardoor minder religieus? Dat kan, dat hoeft niet. De religieuze verbeelding is lenig en nieuwsgierig, ze voedt ze voortdurend met nieuwe feiten en sensibiliteiten. Sara Maitland komt in haar boek tot de slotsom dat God voor haar niets dan stilte is. Ze zegt dat op een manier die een diepe vertrouwdheid verraadt met de mythologie van het christendom. Ik voel althans op de achtergrond een eigen interpretatie van de kruisdood meeklinken.

‘God is stilte, een stilte die positief, levend werkelijk en van ‘nature’ onbreekbaar is. […] In plaats van dat alle stilte wacht om te worden doorbroken, schreeuwt alle spraak het misschien wel uit […] om weer te worden opgenomen in de stilte, in de dood, in de nauwelijks waarneembare ruimte die opent naar de aanwezigheid van de eeuwigdurende stilte.’

En ik voel op de achtergrond nóg iets meeklinken. De eeuwigdurende stilte… eigenlijk is die stilte betrekkelijk recent. En ze is van westerse origine. Die stilte is alleen maar denkbaar en voorstelbaar dankzij een wetenschappelijke ontdekking die inmiddels behoort tot het bezonken cultuurgoed van de beter opgeleide West-Europeaan.

Rond 1930 lanceerde de Belgische priester en astronoom Georges Lemaître de oerknaltheorie. Het begrip oerknal komt niet van hem, de achterliggende theorie wel. Nadenkend over de betekenis van infraroodverschuivingen kwam Lemaitre tot de conclusie dat het heelal gestaag uitdijt. De ruimte rondom ons is niet statisch, begreep hij, ze is in beweging en breidt zich iedere minuut uit met miljoenen kubieke kilometers vacuüm. Later in de eeuw kwam daar het besef bij dat geluidsgolven zich niet kunnen voortplanten in een molecuulloze atmosfeer. Zo drong mede dankzij Lemaître langzaam tot ons door dat stilte het hoofdbestanddeel moet zijn van het groteske universum dat ons omhult.

Dit besef is even onbevattelijk als onvergetelijk. Het is een besef dat zich in het dagelijks leven goed laat verdringen – totdat je op een meditatiebankje plaatsneemt en je je opent voor de stilte. En je op een dag begint te dagen dat jij als moderne westerling de stilte anders beleeft dan anders dan de boeddhistische kluizenaar die tegen het ochtendgloren wacht op de eerste merels, anders dan de woestijnvader die bij de eerste zonnestralen de volgende psalm memoriseert. Die merels zingen nog altijd wonderschoon, zoals de zon zich in de eerste uren van een woestijndag weldadig aan de hemel toont. Maar áchter die hemel? Wat huist daarachter? Een koelbloedig expanderende stilte.

Dit essay verscheen op 22 oktober 2011 in het kater Letter & Geest van Trouw.

Man is not a Unity but Multiple

2011-12-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

~Maurice Nicoll

(1) If a man takes himself as one, no struggle can develop within him. If no struggle develops within him, he cannot change. Why is this so?

(2) If a man supposes there is only one thing that acts, thinks and feels in him—that is, one 'I'—then he cannot understand that there should be one thing that commands and another that obeys. This means that if man regards himself as a unity, nothing can change in him. The work says: "Unless a man divides himself into two, he cannot shift from where he is in himself"—that is, he cannot be different in himself.

(3) If a man is so hypnotized and therefore so asleep as to think he is one, he cannot receive the ideas of the work. What is the object of the practical side of the work—that is, the ideas and instructions relating to work on oneself? This object is to make a man work on himself by dividing himself into a work-side and a mechanical side—that is, to observe himself from the angle of the work ideas. In that case, the observing side looks at the side to be observed. So a man becomes two —an observing side and an observed side.

(4) If a man thinks he is one and a unity, and that it is always the same self that acts and thinks and does, how can he observe himself? He cannot, because he imagines he himself is one and so nothing is to be observed about himself. In such a case, a man often believer that observation means observation of something outside himself—of 'buses, streets, people, scenery, etc. But self-observation is not done via the external senses which shew only what is not oneself-—i.e., the outer world.

(5) Unless the work is established in a man by means of Observing 'I', nothing can change in him. Observing 'I' is more interior than life as sense. But if Observing 'I' is not supported by some depth of continual and renewed understanding of the work, it weakens and, in stress of outer life-circumstances, fades away—then a man finds himself simply back in life and if life is favourable at the moment to his selfinterests, he does not suffer.

(6) The establishing of Observing 'I' is to make something more interior in a man, so that it can observe what is more exterior in him (exterior not in the sense of outer exterior life, but in him, in his personality, in Johnson, if his name is Johnson). Unless this Observing 'I' is established—that is, unless a man is willing to observe himself (and himself is not anything in outer sense-given life, his house, his furniture, his money, his dinners, his garden, his business, his social position, his medals, his pedigree, his clothes, etc.)—unless he can begin this inner act, nothing can change in him. He remains the same person.

(7) After a long time in the work the inner system, which starts from willing Self-Observation—that is, from a willing Observing 'I'—begins to act and control the mechanical man. It does this by means of collecting round it all 'I's in Personality which wish to and can work. This stage is Deputy-Steward. If this persists in spite of temptations, something very strange begins to happen. Temptations in this first stage of the work are wholly struggling against doubts, evil interpretations, slander, scruples, finding fault, making requirements, and so on, for no other temptations exist for us at this stage. This is where a man must first be tempted in this way to be any good for any further awakening. Observing 'I' collects round it 'I's that can work and understand the work. They form a small group of 'I's called Deputy-Steward, which have to struggle and fight, not only with False Personality but with undeveloped Essence. If Deputy-Steward, in spite of endless failures, becomes strong enough, "Steward" draws near. "Steward" belongs to something above man. It comes at first in flashes and often when it draws near, people have great difficulties either externally or in struggles with negative states in the form of illness, etc. "Steward" comes from a different level. To receive, as it were, "Steward", a man must undergo a new setting of himself, a new ordering of his mind, or even brain cells. But this always takes place in the way best for the individual and can be endured. The work is to get in touch with higher centres. But they work in their own way so changes have to take place in a man. A man cannot produce these changes himself for he knows nothing of the new connections necessary. It is through his personal work and the struggle of Deputy-Steward in him that they are brought about—that is, what is trying to enter from above a man brings this about when the conditions are right. Once brought about, the man is a different man. His feeling of 'I' is different. His ideas and thoughts, his reasoning and his actions are different. He has undergone the self-evolution latent in him. He is "born again" as the phrase in the Gospels puts it. But all this is impossible unless a man establishes Observing 'I' to begin with and has the help of the work, via the understanding of it for himself, which means the clustering of other 'I's in him round Observing 'I', so that a small band of 'I's is formed in the chaos of his inner life called "Deputy-Steward". But, of course, if a man remains in the conceit that he is one and can only be one, and that there is always one thing that acts, feels, thinks, speaks, etc., in him, all that has been said above remains impossible of realization.

The Age of Absurdity

2011-12-20T15:07:00.000-08:00

The Age of Absurdity
Why Modern Life Makes it Hard
to be Happy

Michael Foley

In ‘The Age of Absurdity’ beschrijft de Ierse schrijver Michael Foley het hier en nu: een wereld waar de mens zijn dagen laat verzieken door giftige cocktails van onvrede, rusteloosheid, verlangen en wrok. Een wereld waarin iedereen jonger, rijker, getalenteerder, beroemder en vooral seksueel aantrekkelijker wil zijn dan hij is. Een wereld waar het barst van de types die diep van binnen zeker weten dat ze ‘meer’ in hun mars hebben dan er tot dusver is uitgekomen, die ervan overtuigd zijn dat ze eigenlijk ook voor ‘meer’ zijn voorbestemd; en die het stiekem een schande vinden dat dat ‘meer’ hen nog altijd niet in de schoot is geworpen.

Zie Amazon en Recensie: Guardian

De zeven zonden van Europa

2011-12-19T09:35:00.000-08:00

~Marco Visser

Het Europese ideaal van de gemeenschapszin sneuvelt nogal eens in de politiek van alledag. Het bracht het Duitse Die Zeit er toe de handelingen van onze Europese politici eens onder de loep te nemen. Het resultaat zijn de 'Zeven zonden van Europa' waarbij elke ondeugd typerend is voor een land.

Zo is gemakzucht een typische Griekse zonde. Populistische politici, betogers en de boulevardbladen wijzen naar Duitsland als oorzaak van alle ellende. Niet de Griekse staatsschuld is het probleem, nee, het zijn de strenge vermaningen van anderen iets aan deze schuld te doen dat Griekenland aan de rand van de afgrond bracht.

"Daarmee houden zij zichzelf en Europa voor de gek. Wat je in Athene van je stuk brengt, is de ongelooflijke neiging van de Grieken om zichzelf overal van vrij te pleiten", schrijft Zeit-journalist Michael Thumann.

Volgens hem vellen Atheense populisten een hard oordeel over Merkel, maar een mild oordeel over de verantwoordelijken in eigen land. "Omdat zij liever tegen een verre boeman tekeer gaan, dan dat zij zichzelf de waarheid zeggen. Deze zwakte, dit onvermogen tot zelfkritiek, is de eigenlijke crisis van Griekenland."

Zwitserland krijgt van Die Zeit de zonde verduistering toegewezen. In het kleine niet EU-land hebben (vooral) Europeanen voor 1560 miljard aan buitenlands spaargeld ondergebracht. Groot-Brittannië, met name de Kanaaleilanden, doet daar met 1400 miljard niet veel voor onder. Ministaatje Luxemburg is goed voor 440 miljard euro.

"Al deze staten verlenen hand- en spandiensten aan belastingontduikers. Zij trekken buitenlands kapitaal aan en leven van de rente", stelt Peer Teuwsen. Deze Duits-Zwitserse journalist hekelt ook de houding van Luxemburg. Pogingen van de Europese Commissie om een einde te maken aan deze belastingontduikingen, worden door Luxemburg afgewezen. "...hetzelfde Luxemburg, dat zo graag de Europese solidariteit predikt."

Die Zeit reserveert schijnheiligheid voor het eigen land. "Kan er een Europa bestaan, waarin één land exporteert en winst boekt, terwijl de andere landen alleen maar consumeren en schulden maken?" vraagt financieel journalist Mark Schieritz zich af. "... als een land voortdurend meer goederen aan het buitenland verkoopt dan dat het daarvandaan betrekt, dan is dat voor alle betrokkenen eigenlijk geen goede zaak."

Het overschot op de Duitse handelsbalans maakt duidelijk dat veel goederen die in Duitsland worden geproduceerd op krediet worden gekocht door Zuid-Europese staten. "Lees: de rijkdom van de Duitsers is gebaseerd op de schulden van anderen. En wie klaagt er het hardst over deze schulden? Precies, Duitsland."

Spanje treft de zonde van gulzigheid. Die geldt met name voor de vissers en boeren. De afgelopen jaren heeft de Spaanse visserijsector een miljard aan Europese subsidie ontvangen. Met dat geld vaart de Spaanse visserijvloot naar de kusten van Mauritanië en Senegal. "Daar blijft voor de lokale vissers weinig te vangen over, terwijl de afgesproken vangstquota's worden overschreden", schrijft Afrika-redacteur Andrea Böhm.

Dan zijn er nog de landbouwmiljarden waarmee goedkope vlees-, melk- en groenteproducten uit Spanje, Italië, Frankrijk en Duitsland op de Afrikaanse markt worden gedumpt. "Dat is goed voor de armen, zeggen de exporteurs. Maar de plaatselijke voedselproductie in landen als Ghana, Kameroen en Ivoorkust stort in. En in geval van een stijging van de agrarische grondstoffenprijzen kunnen deze landen zich de import van melkpoeder, vogelkarkassen of tarwe uit de EU niet meer veroorloven."

De Ieren wordt egocentrisme verweten. Met lage belastingtarieven is Ierland een magneet voor buitenlandse ondernemingen. De meeste lidstaten eisen een belastingafdracht van 30 procent. Ierland neemt genoegen met 12,5 procent. "Hoe is het in hemelsnaam mogelijk dat op een interne markt, waar ieder dezelfde concurrentiemogelijkheden zou moeten hebben, zoiets bestaat?" vraagt Europa-correspondent Jochen Bittner zich af.

"Ierland moet volgens Dublin nu eenmaal een paar natuurlijke nadelen in de concurrentiestrijd compenseren. Zo kun je bijvoorbeeld niet per trein naar het eiland reizen. Nou ja. Sinds wanneer kan dat de IT- en verzekeringsbranche iets schelen?"

Arrogantie is een onvermijdelijke zonde voor de Fransen. Zodra een onderneming bekend maakt banen te moeten schrappen, springt de Franse overheid in de bres voor de werknemers. Let wel: voor de Franse werknemers. Toen autoconcern PSA Peugeot Citroën onlangs bekendmaakte dat het arbeidsplaatsen moet schrappen, beloofde de minister van Industrie meteen dat in Frankrijk alle banen behouden zouden blijven. Ook Renault werd al eens ter verantwoording geroepen toen zij een deel van de productie naar Turkije wilde verplaatsen.

"Het 'verbod' op de uitbesteding van de productie aan opkomende landen is vandaag de dag overigens een belangrijke oorzaak van de problemen van de Franse autofabrikanten", schrijft freelance journaliste Karin Finkenzeller. "Dat is wat er gebeurt als de staat zich als hoeder van de economie opdringt. De productiekosten stijgen, de goederen worden te duur."

Finkenzeller wijst er op dat in 2004 de toenmalige minister Nicolas Sarkozy er persoonlijk voor zorgde dat Siemens geen voet tussen de deur kreeg bij zijn Franse concurrent Alstom. "Diezelfde Sarkozy had in 2004 ook de overname van het Duits-Franse farmacieconcern Aventis door het Franse Sanofi op touw gezet, waardoor het op twee na grootste farmacieconcern ter wereld het licht kon zien. En conform zijn wensen werd de formulering van een 'interne markt met vrije en onvervalste concurrentie' uit het EU-hervormingsverdrag geschrapt. Hoe lang zal de Europese Unie zoveel hoogmoed nog tolereren?"

Hebzucht is een zonde die aan de Britten kleeft. "Hebben de Britten de klap dan niet gehoord?" vraagt Londen-correspondent John F. Jungclaussen retorisch. "Alsof de financiële wereld de afgelopen drie jaar niet ineen is gestort, blijven zij denken het verlies van hun industrie te kunnen goedmaken door te speculeren met buitenlands geld. Het verlies van de ander moet nog steeds hun winst blijven."

Jungclaussen verbaast zich over het ongereguleerde systeem van de Londense city, waar speculanten handelen in derivaten en andere waardepapieren die in 2008 de crisis veroorzaakten. Ondanks dat Europese regeringen de banken te hulp moesten schieten, blijven de Britten zich verzetten tegen het idee een deel van de risico's bij beleggers onder te brengen. "En de door de Duitse regering voorgestelde belasting op financiële transacties, waardoor het 'short sellen' op de valutamarkt aantoonbaar aan banden zou kunnen worden gelegd, werd door de Britse minister van Financiën George Osborne theatraal "een gouden kogel in het hart van de City" genoemd. Wie zo onverbeterlijk tegen de stroom in zwemt, kan misschien maar beter ergens anders gaan baden."

Bron: Trouw

How Experience Imbues our Essence

2011-12-17T07:25:00.000-08:00

~Kabir Helminski

Every human soul is in the process of acquiring experience. Does it matter that we acquire experience? Does it serve any purpose? Yes, the Divine has sent souls into the world in order to share in its ecstasy and love. If we go through life relatively unconscious, numb, unappreciative, ungrateful, and absorbed with our petty desires, we are forfeiting our chance to share in God’s ecstasy and love.

There is a way of meeting experience that allows our soul-essence to be inscribed, imprinted with the impressions received by life. If the soul-essence can simultaneously receive sensory impressions, while being aware of its own being, a bridge, a connection, a communion is possible, a meeting between the Divine and the existential, between different levels of existence, and out of this a meaningfulness is experienced, and more and more experience is imbued with the quality of ecstasy.

Poets and artists cultivate this quality of experience. Others may live only at the level of thing-ness in a relatively lifeless world, driven by their egos’ desires to somehow satisfy an unsatisfiable desire that material existence in and of itself cannot satisfy. Poets, artists, mystics, and lovers consciously experience the momentousness of the moment, the existence of eternity within time, the radiance of love behind all phenomena.

The soul that begins to live in a state of remembrance, that is in conscious relationship with the Divine radiance, with the holy presence, that soul-essence is impressed and inscribed by its experiences, gradually acquiring something like flavor and fragrance, overtones, hues. In other words, it changes qualitatively.

It learns from every experience, not only the so-called good experiences. It will learn from “mistakes” as much as from doing things “right.” It will learn as much from its sorrows as from its joys. This is the real meaning of Mercy. Every condition of life teaches us about life, when the soul is conscious, humble, and grateful. Such a soul is continually aware that all of life is emanating from a Divine Source. The eye of the heart sees that Source as the master truth, the essential reality that unifies all experience.

The more experiences of this kind that the Heart has the more magnetic and powerful it becomes. It is not a power to dominate or control, but rather a power that brings coherence within ourselves. This coherence is the power of the soul functioning in harmony with the Divine Presence. Yes, it is powerful, but it is not the power of self-will apart from Divine will.

Self-will is the negative aspect of our free will. We are free to turn away from the Real, to disconnect from the Divine Presence, but the one who takes the path of self-will gets ambushed by negative (Shaytanic) forces.

In contrast the soul-essence that lives with humbleness, gratitude, and love is enveloped by the Mercy and Ecstasy of Divine Being and develops into a coherent radiant body of light that can survive the dissolution of the physical being that has been its vehicle. Whoever does not attain this coherence and radiance will, at best, cling like a hungry ghost in the regions of its fleeting desires and attachment and eventually disintegrate, though nothing is ever completely lost in the universe, everything serves some purpose. Everything is food or compost for something else, and that is an aspect of Mercy, too.

The Sufi Path is designed by a Higher Intelligence to help the soul-essence develop its coherence and participate in the ecstasy of the Divine. It is a joyous process because every detail of life is understood to be a gift of the Divine Mercy. No suffering goes to waste; no joy is taken for granted. The illusion of the separate ego is gradually dismantled and the soul realizes it’s essential nature through opening to a network of interdependent loving relationships which help the false self to be more and more erased and the real self, as previously described, is cooked, made flavorful, qualitatively transformed.

But the foremost shall be the foremost (sabiqun), those who were brought near, who will be in a garden of delight (naim). Qur’an 56:9-10.

Truly the hours of the night impress the mind most strongly and speak with the clearest voice, whereas during the day a long chain of events is your portion, but remember (i.e. dhikr) the name of your Sustainer and devote yourself with utter devotion. Qur’an 73:6-8.

Source

De Wereld Wakker maken [Quote 02]

2011-12-13T11:29:00.000-08:00

Een universele dimensie voor spirituele oefening

~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Onze individuele reis is onderdeel van de reis van de wereld. Dit ontkennen betekent leven binnen de sluier van de afscheiding. Een simpel besef van eenheid verenigt ons met heel het leven, met ieder steen, met ieder insect, met ieder limonadeblikje, verkreukeld tot afval. We zijn het leven zelf, ademend, lijdend en zich verheugend. We zijn de pijn van de zieke en de lach van het kind. We zijn niet beter en niet slechter dan welk deeltje in de schepping dan ook. Ons verlangen naar de bron, ons zoeklicht naar het goddelijke is het verlangen van het leven, de zoektocht van het leven. We moeten onze reis teruggeven aan het leven en de eenheid erkennen die alles verenigt. Er is niets gescheiden. Alles is Hij.

Deze stap zetten betekent veel van onze spirituele verwachtingen vaarwel zeggen. Hoe vaal hoopten we niet dat onze reis ons zou bevrijden van de moeilijkheden in het leven, hoopten dat we iemand speciaal waren, anders waren dan het gewone, ‘verlicht’ worden? Het ego tracht alles voor zichzelf te claimen, verandert zelfs het verlangen van de ziel naar de Waarheid in een andere illusie. Hebben we de moed om deze illusies, onze dromen op te geven, en de arena van echte spirituele dienstbaarheid binnen te gaan? Kunnen we deze verleidelijke maar beperkte verbeelde spiritualiteit achter ons laten en het echte onbekende omarmen? Durven we het aan te zien wat leven en liefde echt van ons willen, de kwetsbaarheid en de totale deelname van nodig zijn? Hier wordt niet onderhandeld, hier is geen veilige plek, maar een geven van onszelf, zonder verwachtingen: een antwoord op een behoefte die in iedere ademhaling aanwezig is. Het leven heeft ons spirituele commitment nodig; anders zal het sterven, vernietigd worden door hebzucht en materialisme, door een cultuur die alleen aan
zichzelf denkt.

Iedere ademhaling is een herinnering aan God, en een mogelijkheid om totaal aanwezig te zijn in het leven. Hij is één en wij zijn een deel van die eenheid. Wij zijn aanwezig in Zijn wereld voor Zijn belang. En het leven roept naar ons, zodat we ons commitment herinneren, onze belofte om te eren wat echt is.Onze herinnering aan God is wat het meest kostbare is in deze wereld. De adem die zich Hem herinnert, is Zijn adem van het leven. Het leven heeft dit nodig zoals een mens die verdrinkt
lucht nodig heeft.

En toch vertellen eeuwen spirituele geschiedenis ons om ons van het leven af te keren, alleen de innerlijke reis te zoeken en het uiterlijke af te zweren. Ons wordt verteld over de duisternis en de gevaren van onze instinctieve natuur, dat we zo gemakkelijk verleid en besmet kunnen worden door de wereld. Dit zijn de verhalen van onze voorouders die zichzelf hebben gegeven aan de eeuwige zoektocht naar de Waarheid. Hun wijsheid is echt en toch hoort zij bij een tijd die voorbij is. We kunnen niet ontsnappen aan de eisen van nu. We kunnen niet doof zijn voor de aanhoudende behoefte van het leven. Wakker zijn is reageren op de behoefte van het moment en op dit moment heeft de wereld ons nodig. Kunnen we de roep van de ziel van de wereld ontkennen?

Bourgeois Buddhists

2011-12-11T03:52:00.000-08:00

Do Americans miss the Point of Buddhism?

~Owen Flanagan

Last month when my new book, "The Bodhisattva's Brain: Buddhism Naturalized" (MIT, 2011) was published, I was deep in the jungle among the Achuar, an indigenous people living on two million acres of primary rain forest in southeastern Ecuador and northeastern Peru. The Achuar had not been contacted until the 1970s, and they are -- despite the thirst for the oil on their lands -- committed to living harmoniously and sustainably with nature. Nowadays the Achuar say -- but only as an afterthought, a courtesy, and perhaps only to well-off Westerners like me -- that they are "Catholic." But there are no churches. There are numerous shaman. The Achuar interpret their dreams every morning in order to plan their days. They shape shift. They use hallucinogens to see their futures. And many men have multiple wives.

I was raised as a Catholic, so I was amused and perplexed by this odd and ill-fitting appendage to a noble form of life. In what sense of "Catholic" are the Achuar people Catholic? Are they Catholics (as many as 40%, are Evangelical Christians, but even they say they are Catholic) primarily because they have learned to say that the spirit of the rain forest, arutum, is the spirit of Jesus Christ? The question generalizes: What beliefs or practices are enough to make one a bona fide member of any spiritual tradition?

This question arises in a serious way for American Buddhists. What kind of Buddhists are American Buddhists? Buddhism is first and foremost a complex philosophy about the nature of reality, the self and morality. Philosophically what is interesting is the connection between understanding that I am no self and that I have reason to be maximally compassionate and loving to all sentient beings. Do most American Buddhists know about the philosophy or enact the moral message of Buddhism?

In my experience the answers are "no." Most Americans who say that they are Buddhist mean they meditate, possibly regularly. The code for this is to say that one "practices." If you ask why a person who "practices" practices, typical answers involve vague new-agey and self-satisfied slogans about "centering," "mind clearing," serenity -- possibly, if they are really bullshiting that they are "getting in touch with their Buddha nature." If you ask what kind of meditation they do, most only know about mindfulness meditation, which unlike lovingkindness meditation, is almost entirely self-centered.

Many Americans -- who tend towards the "spiritual but not religious" answer on social networking sites -- know enough about Buddhism to know that it countenances no creator God. What they make of the hocus pocus about karma and rebirth is another matter. Many who have read the Dalai Lama's best-seller, "The Art of Happiness," and heard about some of the neuroscientific research on meditators, will claim that it has been shown that meditators are especially happy. So the idea I take it is that meditation is good for the person who practices because it makes him or her happy.

My best surmise is that most American Buddhists think that most "real" Buddhists, for example, in Asia, meditate, and that they do so as a sort of mental-moral hygiene that makes them more relaxed, nicer and happier. But this is false. Buddhism has about as little to do with meditation as Jesus's message of love has to do with prayer, which is some, not entirely nothing; but almost nothing. Thinking that meditation is the essence of Buddhism would be akin to a group of converts to Catholicism thinking that real Catholics say Mass everyday because priests do.

In Thailand (and Myanmar and Sri Lanka) possibly the most Buddhists countries in the world, most everyone gives monks gifts (most monks are "short-timers," men preparing for marriage) for "merit" (better rebirth). But few ordinary Thai Buddhists meditate. They learn how to meditate. But it is not a central part of most lives. Among Tibetan Buddhists at large monastic universities the size of Ohio State (now mostly in India), there is lots of soccer, lots of memorizing texts aloud, and lots of debating, but very little meditating. According to George Dreyfus in his wonderful "The Sound of Two Hands Clapping," virtuosity at meditation among Tibetan Buddhists is left to a few adepts who are able in meditation to reconfirm the truths of Buddhist philosophy: that there is abundant suffering, that much suffering is caused by avarice and clinging to what we want but don't need; that everything is impermanent including my self; and that I ought to live like a bodhisattva, attuned to the exploitation and misery in the world, not only in me. If you think that, at least, most Zen Buddhists have regular meditation practices, go to Japan and ask around.

What about the claim that meditation produces happiness? I was lucky enough to be a participant at the meetings with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India in 2000, where several excellent neuroscientists hatched ideas for studies on the effects of meditation. Dan Goleman's "Destructive Emotions: Scientists Collaborate with the Dalai Lama" is a fine report on our meetings. There is by now evidence that meditation -- now mostly completely "de-Buddhistized" in the style of Jon Kabat-Zinn's program of "Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction" (MBSR) -- does no harm and likely produces good health effects. Does MBSR or any genuinely Buddhist meditation also make one happier? You will hear that it does, but there is no scientific evidence that this is so. None. Zero. Nor is there any evidence that meditation makes people nicer, more compassionate, loving and kind. But, in any case, the question about happiness is itself a trick, at the end of which lies a sucker punch. Americans love happiness. We have a right to pursue it. If a spiritual tradition offers happiness, we are all over it. But really, how important is happiness? When I ask my students, 'Was Jesus happy?' -- Was Buddha or Confucius happy? Was Mother Teresa happy? Socrates? Martin Luther King Jr.? Gandhi? Sojourner Truth? -- they immediately see that meaning, purpose, significance, flourishing and fulfillment are different from happiness and that happiness is not the main or most important thing. One wonders whether American Buddhists, especially those who think that Buddhism is largely about meditation, and the personal psychological goods, the self-satisfaction on offer from sitting in, what has become, a laughably bourgeois pose, aren't missing something essential about Buddhism, about what Buddhist philosophy is mainly and mostly about, namely, wisdom and goodness.

Bron: Huffington Post

Warm and Crazy

2011-12-08T10:42:00.001-08:00

God is Love
God is Life
The ground of being

Sensing
A warm feeling
The Supreme Law
Out of my control
Crazy infatuation

Glancing
Looking away
Not mingling

An empty house
Empty of myself
In my heart
A deep silence

Metanoia
An outburst
Overflowing richness
Warm and crazy
Uncontaminated
Fulfillment of Infinite Intelligence

~Kees Voorhoeve

Foto: Sophia and Christ.

Schinnen, Zuid Limburg. Netherlands

Zie: Mystical Poetry

Knowledge and the Sacred. Quote 04

2011-12-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

~Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Turning to Western Asia, we discern the same concern for knowledge as the key to the attainment of the sacred and the doctrine that the substance of knowledge itself is sacred in Zoroastrianism and other Iranian religions such as Manichaeism which bases the whole of religion on the goal of freeing, through asceticism and knowledge, the particles of light scattered through the cosmos as a result of the sacrifice of the primordial man. Besides mystical tales of the quest of the gnostic after knowledge which abound in Mazdaean literature, the whole of Mazdaean angelology is based on the doctrine of illumination of the soul by various agencies of the Divine Intellect. All religious rites are an aid in creating a closer link between man and the angelic world, and man's felicity resides in union with his celestial and angelic counterpart, the Fravarti. The religious life and all contact with the sacred are dominated by angelic forces which are elements of light whose function it is to illuminate and to guide. Concern with knowledge of the sacred and sacred knowledge is at the heart of Zoroastrianism while the more philosophical Mazdaean religious texts such as the Dēnkard have dealt in greater detail with the question of knowledge, thereby developing more fully the doctrine of innate and acquired wisdom and their complementarity and wedding which leads to the attainment of sacred knowledge.

Nor is this concern in any way absent from the Abrahamic traditions although because of the desacralization of the instrument of knowing itself in modern times, modern interpretations of Judaism and Christianity have tended to neglect, belittle, or even negate the sapiential dimensions of these religions. This process has even taken place to some degree in the case of Islam which is based completely on the primacy of knowledge and whose message is one concerning the nature of Reality.

In Judaism the significance of ḥokhmah or wisdom can hardly be overemphasized even in the legal dimension of the religion which is naturally concerned more with correct action than with knowledge. In Genesis (3:22) knowledge is considered as an essential attribute belonging to God alone, and the wisdom writings emphasize praying to the “Lord of Wisdom.” The Jewish people accepted the Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes as books of wisdom to which the Christians later added the Psalms and the Song of Songs. In the Jewish wisdom literature although wisdom belonged to God, it was also a divine gift to man and accessible to those willing to submit to the discipline of the traditional teaching methods consisting of instruction (musar) and persuasion (‘eṣah). This means that Judaism considered the attainment of wisdom or sacred knowledge as a possibility for the human intellect if man were to accept the necessary discipline which such an undertaking required. This doctrine was to be elaborated by later Jewish philosophers, Kabbalists, and Hasidim in an elaborate fashion, but the roots of all their expositions are to be found in the Bible itself where, in the three books of Job, the Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, the term ḥokhmah (later translated as sophia) appears nearly a hundred times. Long before these later elaborations were to appear, the maskilim of the Qumran community were considered as recipients and dispensers of sacred knowledge of the Divine Mysteries like the pneumatikoi mentioned by Saint Paul.

The Jews also believed that the Torah itself was the embodiment of wisdom and some works like the Wisdom of Ben Sira identified the Torah with the preexistent wisdom of God while the Kabbalists considered the primordial Torah to be the Ḥokhmah which is the second of the Sephiroth. The whole Kabbalistic perspective is based on the possibility for the inner man to attain sacred knowledge and the human mind to be opened to the illumination of the spiritual world through which it can become sanctified and united with its principle

The famous Chabad Chassidus text, the Liqquṭei Amarim [Tanya], says, “Every soul consists of nefesh, ruaḥ and neshamah [the three traditional elements of the soul]. Nevertheless, the root of every nefesh, ruaḥ and neshamah, from the highest of all ranks to the lowest that is embodied within the illiterate, and the most worthless, all derive, as it were, from the Supreme Mind which is the Supernal Wisdom (Ḥokhmah Ila‘ah).” The same text continues.

In like manner does the neshamah of man, including the quality of ruaḥ and nefesh, naturally desire and yearn to separate itself and depart from the body in order to unite with its origin and source in God, the fountain-head of all life, blessed be He.

This propensity to unite with the One is “its will and desire by nature,” and “this nature stems from the faculty of ḥokhmah found in the soul, wherein abides the light of the blessed En Sof.”

No more explicit expression of the presence of the spark of divine knowledge in the very substance of the soul of man and the attainment of the sacred through this very supernaturally natural faculty of intellection within man could be found in a tradition which, although based on the idea of a sacred people and a divine law promulgated by God for this people, possessed from the beginning a revelation in which the primacy of wisdom was certainly not forgotten. This doctrine was, however, emphasized sometimes openly as in the Proverbs and sometimes symbolically and esoterically as in the Song of Songs where the verses “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine” and “I am black, but comely.…” certainly refer to esoteric or sapiential knowledge (to Sophia identified later with the Virgin Mary) and its transmission, although other meanings are not excluded. In the day of profane knowledge certainly sacred wisdom appears as dark, and it is through the mouth that the Name of God is uttered, the Name whose invocation is the key to the treasury of all wisdom, the Name which contains within itself that sacred knowledge whose realization is accompanied by that supreme ecstasy of which the ecstasy of the kiss of the earthly beloved is but a pale reflection.

As for Islam, which like Judaism remains in its formal structure within the mold of Abrahamic spirituality, the message of the revelation revolves around the pole of knowledge and the revelation addresses man as an intelligence capable of distinguishing between the real and the unreal and of knowing the Absolute. Although the earthly container of this message, that is the Semitic Arab mentality, has bestowed upon certain manifestations of this religion an element of emotional fervor, impetuosity, and a character of inspirationalism which on the theological plane have appeared as an “antiintellectual” voluntarism associated with the Ash‘arites, the content of the Islamic message remains wed to the sapiential perspective and the primacy of knowledge. The testimony of the faith Lā ilāha illa’Llāh (There is no divinity but the Divine) is a statement concerning knowledge, not sentiments or the will. It contains the quintessence of metaphysical knowledge concerning the Principle and its manifestation. The Prophet of Islam has said, “Say Lā ilāha illa’Llāh and be delivered” referring directly to the sacramental quality of principial knowledge. The traditional names used by the sacred scripture of Islam are all related to knowledge: al-qur’ān “recitation,” al-furqān “discernment,” and umm al-kitāb “the mother of books.” The Quran itself refers in practically every chapter to the importance of intellection and knowledge, and the very first verses revealed relate to recitation (iqra') which implies knowledge and to science (‘ilm—hence ta‘līm, to teach-‘allama, taught),

Recite [iqra']: In the name of thy Lord who createth,

Createth man from a clot.

Recite: And thy Lord is the Most Bounteous,

Who teacheth [‘allama] by the pen,

Teacheth man that which he knew not.

[XCVI; 1–5, Pickthall translation, slightly modified]

Even the etymology of the Arabic word for Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) is related to intellection or knowing. In Islam and the civilization which it created there was a veritable celebration of knowledge all of whose forms were, in one way or another, related to the sacred extending in a hierarchy from an “empirical” and rational mode of knowing to that highest form of knowledge (al-ma‘rifah or ‘irfān) which is the unitive knowledge of God not by man as an individual but by the divine center of human intelligence which, at the level of gnosis, becomes the subject as well as object of knowledge. That is why the gnostic or illuminated sage is called al-‘ārif bi‘Llāh, the “gnostic who knows through or by God” and not only the gnostic who knows God. The Arabic word for intellect al-‘aql is related to the word “to bind,” for it is that which binds man to his Origin; etymologically it could be compared to religion itself, for in this case religio is also what binds and relates man to God. Even the Arabic word for poetry (al-shi‘r) is related to the root meaning consciousness and knowledge rather than making as is the case with poiēsis. The Islamic tradition presents blinding evidence of the ultimately sacred character of knowledge and the centrality of the sapiental perspective in the spiritual life, a perspective which remains faithful to and aware of the saving function of knowledge and the nature of intelligence as a precious gift from God which, once actualized by revelation, becomes the most important means of gaining access to the Sacred, intelligence being itself ultimately of a sacred character.

Before turning to the Christian tradition which is of special concern in this study because of the rise of a purely secular concept of knowledge within a civilization which was Christian, a word must be said about the Greek tradition. Usually this tradition is seen today either from the point of view of modern rationalism or of the mainstream of early Christianity which, having to save a whole humanity from the excesses of rationalism and naturalism, emphasized more the contrast between Greek wisdom as knowledge of a this-worldly nature and love and redemption associated with and issuing from the grace of Christ and his incarnation in human history. A reevaluation of the meaning of the Greek sophia and philo-sophia as sacred knowledge in contrast to the sophistic and skeptical forms of rationalism during the later life of Greek civilization and religion will be carried out later, as will the Christian appreciation of this aspect of the Greek legacy. Here suffice it to say that the Orphic-Dionysian dimension of the Greek tradition, which was to become crystallized later in the Pythagorean-Platonic school, and also Hermeticism, which resulted from the wedding between certain aspects of the Egyptian and the Greek traditions, must be studied as sacred knowledge much like the metaphysical doctrines of Hinduism, and not only as profane philosophy. These forms of wisdom are related to the Greek religious tradition and should be viewed as such and not only in opposition to “revealed truth.” In the more universal sense of “revelation,” they are in fact the fruit of revelation, that is, a knowledge which derives not from a purely human agent but from the Divine Intellect, as in fact they were viewed by the long tradition of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian philosophy before modern times. There is an aspect of Greek philosophy which is sapientia without whose appreciation one cannot understand those sapiential schools within Christianity and even Judaism which were based on a unity above and beyond the current dichotomy between so-called Greek “intellectualism” and Hebrew “inspirationalism.” A major problem in the rediscovery of the sacred root of knowledge and knowledge of the sacred is the type of interpretation of Greek philosophy which has dominated the mainstream of Western thought in modern times and which has caused an eclipse of the sapiential quality of certain aspects of the Greek intellectual heritage and obliterated the real nature of the content and meaning of the message of many Christian and Jewish sages who are simply excused away as being “Neoplatonic,” as if this term would somehow magically annul the inner significance of doctrines of a sapiential character.

Compassie is rebellie tegen de norm

2011-12-04T05:14:00.000-08:00

~Annemarie Opmeer

Als je hem op straat tegenkomt, denk je waarschijnlijk van alles over Noah Levine – een brede, kale, hip geklede, volgetatoeëerde jongen: houdt van sneakers en van z’n auto, heeft wat op z’n kerfstok, punk-rocker? Maar vast niet dat ’ie boeddhistisch leraar is. Toch is het allemaal waar.

Noah Levine (1971), zoon van meditatieleraar Stephen Levine, had een extreme jeugd vol verslavingen, geweld, arrestaties en zelfmoordpogingen. Op z’n zeventiende kwam hij opnieuw in de jeugdgevangenis terecht. Toen gaf zijn vader hem een advies dat alles zou veranderen: let op je adem. ‘Hij had het al zo vaak gezegd’, glimlacht Levine, ‘maar dit keer hoorde ik het. Ik zat er echt doorheen en ik merkte dat het hielp.’

Hij kickte af en jaren van beoefening later is hij meditatieleraar. In mei was hij in Nederland voor een tiendaagse retraite. Wie daar een zaal vol punks en een strenge discipline verwachtte, kwam bedrogen uit. Levine maakt grapjes, gebruikt grove taal en heeft een broertje dood aan rituelen.

Is je gebruikelijke publiek een zootje ongeregeld?
‘Nee, eigenlijk niet. Het is veel diverser dan je denkt, al zitten er altijd wel wat ex-verslaafden tussen. Ik wil er ook niet alleen maar voor alternatievelingen zijn. Ik merk dat de zeventig-jarige dametjes het net zo geweldig vinden.’

‘Ik presenteer de dharma als een vorm van rebellie’

Een deel zal problemen hebben met autoriteit. Hoe zorg je ervoor dat ze blijven zitten?
‘Door de praktische voordelen uit te leggen: gelukkiger worden, minder lijden. Dan stel ik het wel zo: het vergt meer moed om stil te kunnen zitten als een krijger en je innerlijke demonen onder ogen te zien dan om je gedachten te volgen. Ik daag mensen uit. Ik presenteer de boeddhistische leer, de dharma, als een vorm van rebellie. Dit zitten en lopen, deze compassie en liefdevolle vriendelijkheid is de grootste rebellie tegen de norm van haat, hebzucht en illusie. Dat inspireert: ik zit hier in discipline, omdat ik zie dat mijn ongedisciplineerdheid onderdeel is van het probleem, van de ‘norm’. Ik wil abnormaal zijn door normaal te lijken.’

Dus je verbindt de dharma met het verlangen af te wijken?
‘Ja, want dat was mijn manier. Mijn leven draaide om rebelleren. Toen ik het boeddhisme vond, dacht ik: betekent dit nu dat ik me conformeer, dat ik een hippie word? Ik maakte me echt zórgen. Mijn punk-rebellie was juist tegen degenen met het boeddhisme. Ik dacht altijd dat ze waanideeën hadden: dat gelukzalige geloof in vrede! Het boeddhisme bleek geen waanbeeld, maar hard werken om vrede te creëren van binnenuit. Het bleek een voortzetting van wat me tot mijn punk-rock rebellie bracht.’

Hebben mensen met een heftig verleden een voorsprong?
‘Ik denk dat iedereen die dit pad wil betreden een diep begrip moet hebben van wat lijden is, dukkha. Dus niet een filosofisch of intellectueel idee. Lijden kan je inspireren om gaande te blijven, op het kussen, in therapie. Dat was mijn ervaring. Ik kwam net uit de hel en dit was het enige dat werkte.’

‘Ik kwam net uit de hel en dit was het enige dat werkte’

Wat zeg je tegen mensen die bij je komen met zulke problemen?
‘Eigenlijk hetzelfde als tegen anderen. De dharma blijft hetzelfde. Tegen verslaafden zeg ik ook: werk met de Twaalf Stappen, ga naar de AA, doe wat psychotherapie. Denk niet dat je alles gewoon weg kan mediteren! Hoewel dat waar kán zijn, maar we hebben zulke goeie andere gereedschappen.’

Kan er zoiets zijn als te veel discipline?
‘Als je meditatie een middel wordt om jezelf te veroordelen, dan mis je compassie, zachtaardigheid, vergevingsgezindsheid. Je kunt wel blijven zitten als je pijn hebt, maar dan zit je daar heel gedisciplineerd in die kwelling en je haat elk moment. Wat je moet doen is: bewegen, zachtaardig zijn, liefdevolle vriendelijkheid naar de pijn sturen. Erkennen, ja, én actie ondernemen. Sommige mensen nemen alles te serieus. En die moeten, weetikveel, eens flink met iemand naar bed of zo – hahaha! – die moeten eens goed relaxen.’

Is dat waarom je een leraar nodig hebt?
‘Dat is waarom je je eigen leraar moet worden! Een goede leraar kan van buitenaf wel zeggen: het ziet eruit alsof je wat te los bent, beetje strakker. Of juist andersom: iemand die ik opleid tot leraar was een beetje te strak. Als groep besloten we: diegene moet op dansles. En dit was een die hard punkrocker, onder de tattoos. Die zei: no fucking way, ik ga niet dansen met de hippies! Maar voor ons was het duidelijk dat diegene niet nog een stille retraite nodig had, maar eens flink naakt moest gaan dansen. Dus een leraar die dat kan is belangrijk. Maar die ziet alleen de buitenkant, of je stilzit of niet. Uiteindelijk zijn wijzelf de enige autoriteit.’

Kun je een verslaving vervangen door een ‘verslaving’ aan de dharma?
‘Een verslaving is een gehechtheid aan iets wat lijden veroorzaakt, dus kun je niet “verslaafd” raken aan de dharma. Maar ik snap wat je bedoelt, ik zie het in mijn eigen leven. Ik heb compulsieve, verslavingsgevoelige neigingen. Eerst met drugs en alcohol, later met boeddhistische beoefening. Maar zelfs als ik “verslaafd” ben, denk ik dat het een gezonde verslaving is. We beginnen natuurlijk vol onwetendheid. Mijn eerste jaren waren gedisciplineerd, maar vol ego, trots, spiritueel materialisme. Je ziet verslaafden boeddhist worden en ze blijven gestoord, maar dan met boeddhisme! Maar hopelijk niet zo lang. Vijf, tien jaar later hebben ze veel meer balans.’

‘Sommige mensen nemen alles te serieus. Die moeten weetikveel, eens flink met iemand naar bed of zo’.

Tijdens je retraite viel het me op dat je niet streng bent. Waarom?
‘Voor mij werkt een zachtaardige aanpak het beste, die me zo compassievol als mogelijk laat zijn. Want ik ben van nature niet zo. Ik veroordeel mezelf en anderen graag. Dus ik moet ervoor zorgen dat ik zo min mogelijk fout kan doen. Weinig regels, behalve het schema: zitten, lopen. Dat is meer dan genoeg, toch?’

Heb je als beoefenaar een autoriteit nodig?
‘Het gaat er vooral om je eigen autoriteit te worden. De laatste woorden van de Boeddha waren: zoek geen extern toevluchtsoord, wees een gidslamp voor jezelf en streef ijverig voorwaarts. Voor mij is dat een helder statement: wees je eigen autoriteit. Een goede leraar is nuttig, maar een leraar moet een spirituele vriend zijn, geen hiërarchische spirituele meester.’

Vaak is het juist andersom.
‘Weet ik. Maar dat is bullshit. Hahaha. Mensen behandelen sommige lama’s of zen-meesters alsof ze superwijs of compleet verlicht zijn. Die verering is iets waar de Boeddha tegen ageerde. Dat zoeken van externe toevluchtsoorden. Ik ben nu boeddhist, dus God kan me niet redden, maar misschien wel mijn goeroe, lama, ajahn, sensei. De Kerstman doet het niet voor me, maar misschien de Tibetáánse Kerstman wel. Als leraar moet je je daartegen verzetten!’

‘Ik veroordeel mezelf en anderen graag. Dus ik moet ervoor zorgen dat ik zo min mogelijk fout kan doen’.

Maar na jouw retraites zie jij ook dat mensen niet willen dat je weggaat.
‘Ja, en het is mijn taak om dat niet persoonlijk te nemen en te denken: oké, ze zijn verliefd geworden op de dharma. En ik kan ook wel verantwoordelijkheid nemen. De manier waarop ik de dharma deel, werkt blijkbaar. Deel van de rol van leraar is om mensen hun projecties te laten hebben, net als een therapeut of een ouder. Je kunt je leerlingen best een beetje laten denken: oh hij of zij is zo geweldig. Want dat inspireert. Maar het moet niet ontaarden in wat we vaak zien: oh, hij is zo verlicht, ook al gaat 'ie naar bed met z’n studenten.’

Is het voor jou niet vreemd een autoriteit te zijn?
‘Heel raar! Ik ben een anti-autoritair persoon en dan ineens dit. En het wordt nog vreemder, want ik train nu leraren. Natuurlijk hoef ik dat niet te doen, maar ik merk dat zo veel mensen deze aanpak waarderen, dat het nodig is. Maar het is wel wat anders dan met studenten. Dan kun je nog zeggen: je legt geen verantwoording af aan mij, maar aan de dharma.’

Bron: BodhiTV

De ene zitplaats

2011-12-02T01:41:00.000-08:00

~Kees Voorhoeve

De Boeddha zat geworteld op de aarde en toen verscheen Mara, de boeddhistische duivel van de verleiding. De Boeddha keek met open ogen, vol van spirituele moed, naar de begeerte, haat en angst die Mara naar voren bracht. De Boeddha kon echter alles wat Mara uitprobeerde om hem van slag te brengen weerstaan. Hij brulde als een leeuw en Mara verdween. Meditatie betekent dus de confrontatie met het leven en onszelf aangaan. Vanuit de ene zitplaats gaan we door de poort van het lijden. We ervaren pijn, verdriet en tegenslagen. Zie het leven, laat het leven toe, maar ga niet mee met de zuigkracht. We zijn geopend naar alles wat verschijnt ook naar de donkere kanten van de persoonlijkheid. Kijk er met veel compassie naar. Tegelijkertijd dienen we grenzen te stellen aan de chaos en niet mee te gaan met alle sensaties en prikkels van het drukke leven, kortom fundamenteel aanwezig zijn vanuit die ene zitplaats.

Jack Kornfield omschrijft de ‘ene zitplaats’ als volgt:

“Als we genoegen nemen met een beetje oefenen volgens de ene traditie, en nog een beetje van een andere en nog een andere, zal het werk dat we hebben gedaan meestal niet accumuleren als we op de volgende oefenmethode overgaan. Het komt overeen met het graven van allerlei ondiepe kuilen, in plaats van een diepe put. Dit van de hak op te tak springen leidt ertoe dat we nooit genoodzaakt zijn onze eigen verveling, ongeduld en angsten onder ogen te zien. Zo worden we nooit met onszelf geconfronteerd. Dus moeten we een in de tijd beproefde methode met voldoende diepgang kiezen, een methode die ons hart aanspreekt. En vervolgens dienen we het vaste besluit te nemen om in die methode te volharden gedurende alle tijd die nodig is om onszelf te transformeren. Dit is het uiterlijke besluit van de ene zitplaats.
Als we deze uiterlijke keus hebben gedaan uit de vele beschikbare wegen naar de top, en een begin hebben gemaakt met systematisch oefenen, ontdekken we vaak dat we van binnenuit worden overvallen door allerlei vormen van twijfel en angst; allemaal gevoelens die we nooit bewust hebben durven ervaren. Uiteindelijk zal alle ingedamde pijn van een mensenleven buiten zijn oevers treden. Als we eenmaal een oefenmethode hebben gekozen, zullen we de moed en de vastberadenheid moeten opbrengen om er trouw in te volharen, ondanks al onze problemen. Dit is het innerlijke aspect van het innemen van de ene zitplaats.”
[Een licht voor jezelf; gids voor een spiritueel leven. Servire]

Zie: Mystieke Overpeinzingen

Boehme for Beginners

2011-12-01T06:47:00.000-08:00

~Cynthia Bourgeault

Fall 1997 / Gnosis Magazine

It was in deep contemplative stillness that this German shoemaker, gazing at a pewter dish sparkling in the sunlight, was suddenly swept up in such a firestorm of unitive vision that "in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at a university." Twelve years passed before he was able to fashion his cosmic revelation into words; even then they are -- to borrow from e.e. cummings -- "such great writhing words, as uttering overmuch, stand helplessly before the spirit at bay."

To approach Boehme's teachings from a philosophical mindset simply won't work. His thinking moves in jagged leaps; in many places he contradicts himself as he grapples for concepts to express the truth grasped unitively, in one great gulp of higher mind. Boehme is one of those underground geniuses of the Christian mystical path. He is read in virtually no seminaries of either Roman Catholic or Protestant persuasion, and even eminent contemporary theologians stumble over his name (one of my acquaintances refers to him as Jacob Boheme, as in La Boheme; in older versions his name is sometimes rendered as "Behmen"). His work is kept alive principally through the steady attention of the Christian Hermetic tradition, and through an ongoing handful of devotees in the Christian mainstream, ranging from Angelus Silesius in the seventeenth century through Evelyn Underhill in the twentieth.

Boehme would doubtless have considered himself an unlikely bearer of such sweeping revelation. Born of peasant stock in 1575, near the town of Gorlitz in southeastern Germany, he was trained as a shoemaker, married the butcher's daughter, fathered four sons, and for most of his external life lived a stable and conventional existence. But inwardly, his brooding and dreamy nature was preparing to receive that overpowering revelation in 1600 and the twelve years of disequilibrium and spiritual seeking that followed it.

At last, in 1612, his first book, the Aurora, was completed, only to fall into the hands of Gregorius Richter, the chief pastor of Gorlitz, who attacked Boehme violently for heresy and maneuvered a decree forbidding him to write for five years. But his work continued to circulate among the Gorlitz intelligentsia, where it won him many admirers, particularly among the students of Hermetic philosophy and mysticism. In 1619 Boehme took up the penagain, and in the five years before his death in 1624 he completed all his major works.

I had long suspected that the contemporary meditational practice of Centering Prayer, with its emphasis on interior stillness as a radical consent to God, might provide an experiential access point to Boehme's complex cosmology. Last summer I had the opportunity to test out this intuition with a group of experienced Centering Prayer meditators in British Columbia. The material in this article emerges largely from our group effort to find a way into the heart of Boehme's mystical illumination by the mode of direct experience. My hope is that GNOSIS readers will feel intrigued to explore further along these lines, offer feedback, and refine as motivated.

In this project, I am in part attempting to rescue Boehme from that aura of arcaneness that is so intimidating to most readers. I myself felt drawn toward Boehme for many years (it turns out that one of his earliest English disciples, William Law, is a distant forebear of mine), but had always been warned that without extensive knowledge of medieval alchemy it would be useless to proceed. The alchemical aspect is definitely there, and I suspect that initiated Hermeticists travel much further into Boehme than I. But Boehme's importance is not limited to this realm, nor is it accessible only within it. Boehme offers a remarkably unified Christian metaphysic, with cosmology and psychology reinforcing each other in a powerful transformative path. This path needs to be recovered and presented in a way that will invite more people to explore this powerful visionary, whose works, I believe, still hold the key to what inner Christianity is all about.

For me, the significance of Boehme's work can be summed up at both a macrocosmic and microcosmic level in his deep understanding that will, desire, pain, and anguish are the raw materials through which something powerful and mighty is brought to pass. God is love, to be sure, but love is itself the triumphant issue of a process whose eternal, hidden building blocks are in desire, pain, and anguish.
Thus these things are not to be feared or denied in my life but transformed. And so I propose that we move from the known to the unknown, letting some familiar touchstones in contemplative practice provide a gradual ascent to Boehme's monumental cosmology.

INTERIOR SILENCE

1. The student said to the master: "How may I come to the supersensual life so that I can see God and hear him speak?" The master said: "If you can sweep up for a moment into that in which no creature dwells, you can hear what God speaks."
2. The student said: "Is that near or far?" The master said, "It is in you. If you could be silent from all willing and thinking for one hour you would hear God's inexpressible words."
3. The student said, "How can I remain silent in thinking and willing?" The master said: "When you remain silent from the thinking and willing of self, the eternal hearing, seeing, and speaking will be revealed in you. . . . Your own hearing, willing, and seeing hinders you so that you do not see and hear God."

These three little versicles from Boehme's Sixth Treatise ("On the Supersensual Life") are the starting point for the experiential journey into Boehme. I am trusting that most GNOSIS readers will have an established meditation practice, and by whatever method can understand the difference between their own "hearing, willing, and seeing" and "the eternal hearing, seeing, and speaking."
In his teachings on Centering Prayer, the Benedictine monk Thomas Keating characterizes these two states as "ordinary awareness" and "spiritual awareness." Ordinary awareness is our usual jumble of thoughts, impressions, and reactions, fueled by the self-reflective nature of the human mind; the Buddhists call it "monkey mind."
In spiritual awareness, the mind moves beyond its preoccupation with the contents of its own thinking and comes to a "resting in God." While the content might appear to be empty, one is actually present to a higher level of intensity, coherence, and purposiveness than is apprehensible though our normal modes of thinking. Spiritual practitioners discover that they can sometimes move globally from deep interior stillness to right action without the usual "downloading" into linear thinking. This is key to unlocking what Boehme means by being "in the will of God." The first step into Boehme, then, is through the actual experience of that higher "hearing, seeing, and speaking" in me. This higher level is somehow more vibrant and vital, more charged with a purposive life; it can be mysteriously infused in us when we, in Annie Dillard's picturesque words, "do not waste most of our energy spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves."

Lees verder

Knowing The Future

2011-11-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

~Ariel Bar Tzadok

"Before destruction, a man's heart becomes arrogant, but before honor is humility." Proverbs 18:11

Let me be blunt. Your life is a lie! Everything that you know and think you know is but a shadowy reflection of truth. Not you and not I knows the actual truth about life, the universe and everything. All we have are small fractions, none of which add up to any real whole number.

How many of us remember the rules of adding fractions? Math rules state that when adding fractions of unequal denominators, that a common denominator must first be found. In math, finding common numbers is easy. In life, however, finding the proper common denominator is an arduous and sometimes impossible task.

This is why, when we penetrate deep enough to contemplate the truth of anything, nothing in life makes any real sense. Thus, in the end, we are forced to acknowledge that in reality we know nothing and everything that we think we know doesn't add up. In math, if the numbers don't add up, then the answer is wrong. So too is this with everything else in life. Being that we do not have the proper common denominator to add things together, every answer we derive is by definition not the absolute proper one!

The mind of every human being is somehow infected by what the Bible calls the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Good and Evil. Knowledge is what we think. Thus, what we think is blemished, contaminated as it is by the confusion between good and evil. Many people believe ideas to be good that are in actuality evil. Of course, the opposite is also true, some people consider certain things to be evil, that are in fact good. The human mind is easily deceived and confused. The forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Good and Evil has done its share of harm.

While the mind of man, individually and collectively is blemished and confused, the human heart can still partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life and be reborn, revived and resurrected. Although there is an angel waving a sword of fire blocking access to the sacred tree, nevertheless, access is granted to those of "pure heart and clean hands." The blemished mind may not understand this, then again, the blemished mind rarely understands anything. Yet, deep within, the heart knows. Deep within, those who silence the objections and chaos of the mind are entitled and enabled to hear the still, silent voice arise from within and direct one in the paths of God and life.

Many people talk about God and claim to represent Him and His truth. Many are willing to act in many inhumane ways to prove this. Yet, God's Word is the Word of Life. The Word of Life does not bring death and darkness, it brings Light! Those who live by Light embrace a life that seeks to unite God's creation under the banner of the true common denominator. No mind can know this. No idea, belief or doctrine can figure this out and explain it to others. There is a mystery here.

The mind is confused, but the heart that embraces Light and Life can be made to understand that which the mind cannot. In such a case, words cannot describe truth, but even without words, what is known is known. It is embraced and lived. The mind cannot solve the mystery, but the heart can.

There is a time and a purpose for all things under Heaven. There is a time for illness and there is a time for healing. Today we are in the days of illness. But in not too many tomorrows, the time of healing will come. Those who are sick will be healed. But the illness itself, will cease to exist. The illness will die, so that we can live.

All we must do now is chose. Which are we? Are we part of the illness, or part of the cure? Our minds and thoughts cannot answer this properly, because there is no common denominator upon which to form an answer. If we chose to contemplate the question, then we must let the answer arise from within our hearts. Individually speaking, is each of us part of the illness or part of the cure?

In our arrogance, we are each convinced that our way is right and that our views, beliefs and doctrines are the correct ones. We are convinced that God is on our side and that equally God is not on the side of any who oppose us or dissent from us. Such elitism is arrogance. The mind embraces this arrogance and the heart is taken along for the ride. When this happens hope for change is lost and the fate of said individual is sealed. One who has succeeded in corrupting one's heart, silencing it from hearing the still soft inner voice, is doomed. Such a one is part of the illness and the illness will soon be removed. The time of healing is coming and the ill amongst us will not survive. This is, in the end, their own choice. It is not like they have not been warned.

Collective humanity today is heading towards a global disaster. It will not be avoided because it is only natural that it comes. The illness must be healed. This is the natural order of things. Therefore, the closer we get to the destruction of the illness, the great becomes the arrogance in the hearts of those slated for destruction. Deep within them, their own hearts rise up against them and allow their minds to embrace deception. The more the mind embraces deception the faster that individual runs towards his own doom. Deep within, the blemished are led towards their cleansing, even though this cleansing means the death of their bodies and the release of their souls.

Honor awaits those who are humble. Humility is the acknowledgment of truth. This truth is that we lack the common denominator of life. As such, we follow Heaven and seek to unify all things in our best understanding of truth. Lacking the common denominator in life we do not leave this precious work to the activity of our minds and thoughts. On the contrary, we silence the mind, we remove question and doubt. We allow the heart to open to hear the still soft inner voice and in faith we follow its directives. The directives of Life take us to life and light. This is how we recognize the fractions of truth that we can indeed embrace in our present blemished state.

Humility is simplicity of thought. We do not try to make sense out of that which cannot be rationally understood. We cannot overcome the blemish of the forbidden fruit, at least not yet, not now in the time of illness. But when the time of healing dawns upon us very soon, we will see how our healing will take place. For now, how this will be must remain a secret. The blemished mind is not able to handle such information, so as not to be a further stumbling block before those already blind. Certain knowledge is reserved for the "pure of heart and clean of hands."

There is only one guaranteed safe haven for today and anytime in the future. This is God's holy Name YHWH. This Name alone is the One that God, the Creator revealed Himself. God Himself said this is His Name when He said, "I am YHWH," (Ex. 20:2).

This Name alone contains the promise of salvation. "And it shall be, in all the land, says God (YHWH) two parts in it shall be cut off, and die, but the third shall be left in it. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried, he shall CALL UPON MY NAME and I will answer him. I will say, this is My people, he will say YHWH is my G-D." Zechariah 13:8-9.

See: Kosher Torah