Memo's from the Pure Land

[laic]

I tend to jump about different forums. On one or two I have slipped into the habit of rambling on about nothing in particular, calling them "Memo's from the Pure Land". The title reflects in a way my warped sense of humour......I mean "Pure Land"?.....

I need to feel a sense of security before rambling away. I have problems with rejection. Despite a sense of an ambience of coldness here on this forum, I feel quite at home.

Recently after a gap of many years I began again a daily (give or take.... ) meditation session. Quite brief. Simple stuff, concentrating on the breath (although I think somewhere that the Buddha spoke of this leading to the highest - whatever the "highest" may be) Once again I find it bearing fruit. During the rest of the day quite often I come back to the breath. The mind/heart clears. Random thoughts are interrupted and for a few brief moments you are back in the only moment there ever is - in touch with that which forever gives, if we are prepared to receive.

This morning my mental health issues were strong. Grandchildren to wake, to feed and prepare for school. My dear wife struggling as usual with mobility, yet filling the lunchboxes and getting one of the breakfasts - nutella on toast! The light of my life. But since dropping them off at school (by taxi, the bus service like most things in the UK, is disintegrating) as I have said, those brief meditation sessions are bearing fruit. I notice the sun shining. For brief moments, all is well. The road goes on, and the road is home.

On another thread here the subject of "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!" came up, of the participation of Matt Hancock, a UK politician. The show was called "shit" by one (actually s***, but I suspect that I have guessed correctly...... ) I actually like the show. I think of the line from a great Robbie Robertson song, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" that goes:-

"Just take what you need and leave the rest"

....which is good advice, just so long as you know what you need (which is not always the case, which brings in the Pure Land path of no calculation, where things are made to become so of themselves; reminiscent of the advice of the Christian mystic St John of the Cross who said that if we wished to be sure of the road we walked on then we should close or eyes and walk in the dark(don't try that on most UK roads....) But I do try to take what I think is best.

Often on the show, "I'm a Celebrity" you see people in a new, fresh light, beyond the media image. For an instinctively judgemental person like myself I find this gently liberating. Those that I have pigeonholed are seen as "other", and this spills over into the rest of my life, the day to day mess and struggle, where, surprised by joy, I recognise a loosening of judgement, a greater acceptance of others as they are whatever that might be. As Thomas Merton has said:-

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them."

So, in a way, a shit show can morph into the beginning of love. And I think of Amida, and the vow to save all, and of grace. I say "thank you".

I think now of a book I have been dipping into lately, T Murti's classic work on the Madhyamika "The Central Philosophy of Buddhism". Very interesting. I'm also reading the latest Cormoran Strike novel by Harry Potter's creator, which is equally interesting. But Murti asserts that the Madhyamika is in effect a development of the "silence of the Buddha" in the face of all metaphysical questions. Further, that though the Dharma is quite rightly associated with "becoming" as against "being", with "anatta" rather than "anatman", it yet expounds the Middle Way which seeks to get beyond all opposites and dichotomies. The Middle Way, not a position between two extremes but a "no position" that supercedes all positions, all views, whatever. Leaving the mind free. Free to welcome Reality-as-is, whatever it brings. Which for a Pure Lander like myself, by trust and faith, I see as infinite compasdion, infinite wisdom, infinite potential.

Truth is transcendent to reason (which is in constant conflict) It can be lived but not thought.

Anyway, I have rambled and waffled enough. If anyone has had the misfortune to stumble upon this "Memo" please accept my sincere apologies. My coffee is getting cold, I have shopping to get, then later I must collect my grandchildren from school and shepherd them home. Lovely little kiddies. Though I am retired, it is all go.

But then again, any comments welcome. My own mind tends to spin off at tangents. Don't be shy. All lurkers welcome.

Thank you.

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

[laic]

A musical accompaniment for those who simply prefer the music......

[Malcolm]

But Murti asserts that the Madhyamika is in effect a development of the "silence of the Buddha" in the face of all metaphysical questions.

He is quite wrong, and Madhyamaka studies have advanced light years beyond his incorrect transcendentalist take on Candrakīrti.

The only metaphysical question Madhyamakas are interested in are one's relating to svabhāva, inherent existence, and ferreting out any naive instances where it may survive in Buddhist philosophy. Otherwise, see my sig.

[laic]

Duplication

[laic]

He is quite wrong, and Madhyamaka studies have advanced light years beyond his incorrect transcendentalist take on Candrakīrti.

The only metaphysical question Madhyamakas are interested in are one's relating to svabhāva, inherent existence, and ferreting out any naive instances where it may survive in Buddhist philosophy. Otherwise, see my sig.

Yes, there is an introduction in my edition of Murti's work which makes some such point. Nevertheless, despite studies advancing "light years", having found and read various takes and disputes about Nagajuna's various writings, I still find much to agree with in Murti's assertions.

We all have them ("assertions" I mean.... )

Thanks

[laic]

Time for another memo ..... maybe not. After the brief interlude of being corrected in whatever I took from Murti's book ("Just take what you need and leave the rest") I'm back again.

Having been corrected, I have given suttas and suchlike a rest and indulged myself in a book by John Higgs. He is a fine writer with various insights into our strange world. His book on William Blake - poet, mystic, artist and madman - "William Blake versus The World" is very good, especially as he sees William Blake as winning the contest.

The book I am now reading is "Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the 20th Century". I have read it once and posted a review on Amazon under another "screen name" (Tariki). Here it is:-

John Higgs makes sense of the Twentieth Century by seeing it as being the loss of any absolute way of seeing our world, of living in it, of relating to it. What was lost for western man as he/she stumbled into the modern age was never the pivot of Tao which gives direct intuition, but nevertheless was some sort of shared, inherited, viewpoint that gave sense and enabled most to live with a degree of stability. Then came relativity, the Great War, the undermining of any absolute perspective.

Mr Higgs sees the main attempt to replace all that went before as being virtually a cult of the individual; and more, individuality without responsibility. He does so in an entertaining way and also often with a degree of humour. There is also a welcome moral tone to the text though this is carried lightly and is never didactic. The sheer multitude of individual perspectives with all the consequent limitations and damage, the rise of the giant Corporations that act in the very same manner i.e. individuality without responsibility - all this is charted with lively examples and, as I have said, in an entertaining way.

Eventually individualism is yielding, in the twenty-first century, to community. Or so it is hoped. Or so we can hope.

Protecting oneself, one protects others. Protecting others, one protects oneself

Recommended.

As you can see, I sought to spread the Dharma with my quote from the Theravada Scriptures. As is said, giving us our mission:-

Go forth, O monks, to bless the many, to bring happiness to the many, out of compassion for the world; go forth for the welfare, the blessing, the happiness of all beings.........Go forth and spread the teaching that is beautiful in the beginning, beautiful in the middle and beautiful in the end. (No, I am not a monk but.......)

Reading Mr Higg's book again now, and it begins with Einstein and relativity. Mr Higg's speaks much of the loss of a fixed point, an "omphalos", a word unknown to me until reading his book. A fixed point, from which we seek to make sense of it all. Apparently you can pick and choose your own "omphalos", which we all tend to do unconsciously. Trouble starts, of course, when we insist that our very own "omphalos" is suitable for all. The beginning of Inquisitions and suchlike.

One sentence caught my eye...... Nothing is at rest, unless it is defined as being so , which holds deep Dharma. We choose to define our self as being at the centre. This has its plus points as well as its minor points. Untangling the two is the trick........as the "Path of Purification" (Visuddhimagga) begins: "Who shall untangle this tangle". Well, the Buddha of course. Just so long as you remain orthodox and don't start treading on anyone else omphalos (or is it "omphalii?) which could be painful.

"Four Quartets" is one of my favorites. T.S.Eliot.....

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving.....

Well, whatever, enough for now. It has been a tough morning mental health wise. Actually had a face to face with my GP. A nice lady, helpful.

All the best to you all.

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

[laic]

Another memo.

Because of posts here I began, at odd moments - some more odd than others - to reflect upon art, of the difference, if any, between religious texts, suttas, "holy books" and more secular poetry and verse. I tend to thing that many "labels" or borders between things are often arbitrary in the "Dharmic" sense that nothing is at rest, unless it is defined as being so. All things are "becoming".

In Christianity there is an often seen difference between the "word as text" and the Living Word. I think that such a difference can be fundamental. Jane Hirshfield has written that:-

  A work of art is not a piece of fruit lifted from a tree branch; it is a ripening collaboration of artist, receiver, and world. 

Again she speaks of the potential of great art or poetry "to evoke, a truing of vision, a changing of vision. Entering a good poem, a person feels, tastes, hears, thinks, and sees in altered ways......by changing selves, one by one, art changes also the outer world that selves create and share."

As I see it, such "change" is true transformation - not the pointless revolutions of thought and word that are simply a revolving of the samsaric wheel. True change is an advance into novelty.

Apparently Nagarjuna wrote his major works in verse. The text was terse, virtually simple "bullet points", a mnemonic device. Students/novices would learn the verses by heart but would need a "master" or a commentary to "fill in" the details, or the actual intent of the words which were not always totally evident. And as time has passed, there were, and are, various commentaries. The differences between them can be subtle.

Anyway, as I sit here in McDonalds, recovering in a sense from a day or two of taxing mental health issues, I'll finish with a couple of poems. Others are invited to open to the words, each according to your own unique perspectives. What "alters"......what "fruit" will you lift from the words?

"First Sight" by Philip Larkin.

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasureable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.



And second, "The Two Headed Calf" by Laura Gilpin.

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.

Both poems call upon us to see with new eyes. Also to rejoice in what others see beyond our own vision. The beauty of difference. Differences that do not bring division and inquisitions and conflict, but rather communion, a sharing, even a giving to others - and a receiving.

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