posted June 16, 2006 01:26 PM              

~Fenelon

posted June 16, 2006 08:47 PM            

This last part especially struck me:

"While we go with the stream, we are unconscious of its rapid course; but when we begin to stem it ever so little, it makes itself felt."

posted June 19, 2006 04:10 AM              

quote:

---

That stumble upon old virtue, and exclaim,
"What a novel idea. I shall claim it as my own!"
And practice it only when its practice is no longer enforced?

---

I don't know.
For one who always tries to enforce virtue's practice and receives no greater results from such....how does one continue beholding faith in a sightless vision?

I suppose all we can do is do what feels natural to our hearts at the time and hope that it is flowing into some hidden intuitive river that will carry us out to our Sea one day.

posted June 19, 2006 06:26 PM            

"For one who always tries to enforce virtue's practice and receives no greater results from such....how does one continue beholding faith in a sightless vision?"

It is said that the highest virtue is blind to results.

The highest good is good "for goodness sake",
and is not conscious of being "good"
(because it is not conscious of that which
a lesser virtue regards as "not good").

Perhaps, it is a necessary process,
to become disillusioned with results, effects.

Perhaps the end will not be to abandon virtue,
but to abandon expectation,
and embrace, all the more,
the pure impulse to do good;
to dwell always in that realm of cause, to create,
without regard for the fate of our creations,
but with regard only for the process, the journey,
the eternally present act of creating.

"I suppose all we can do is do what feels natural to our hearts at the time and hope that it is flowing into some hidden intuitive river that will carry us out to our Sea one day."

Well said.
I think you just summed up all wisdom.

I wonder, though, if we ever do anything else.
Even when we doubt,
don't we trust ourselves
(we trust our inclination to doubt!)?

And when the intuitive, right brain is silent,
it may be silently urging us to utilize the left.

Mysterious ways, indeed.

posted June 22, 2006 03:54 AM              

quote:

---

Perhaps the end will not be to abandon virtue,
but to abandon expectation,
and embrace, all the more,
the pure impulse to do good;

---

The most beautiful exultation.
So beautiful it can scarcely be seen by the human eye.

Silent strength remains quiet in honorable hearts.

thank you, Stephen.

posted June 26, 2006 12:32 PM              

Is my feeling right...contemplation blossomed liberation?

Are you doing ok these days?
You know I worry and care.
Am here listening whenever/ifever you fancy an ear.

to you.

posted June 30, 2006 11:16 PM            

I haven't checked this thread in days.
Sucks, because I hate to miss your posts.
Things have been kind of hectic for me,
so i have been somewhat distracted lately.

I'm okay, I guess.
Maybe its just the usual ups and downs.
But they are always extreme.
You'd think I'd learn to wait out
the bad times, and expect the good.
Thank you for your concern,
it really means a lot to me.

How have you been?

"contemplation blossomed liberation"

I'm not sure what you mean.
Could you explain?

posted July 03, 2006 12:45 AM              

You'd think you would learn to ride out the bad and expect the good?
I was so struck by the timeliness of your saying that. (are you inside my head? )
Yes, funny, the bad times are more seldom, yet it seems all the more intense for it.
And I find myself having the conscious thought during, more than I have ever had before, that I need to ride it out, and tomorrow will be bright again as it always is. Yet simulataneously having the most terrible hopeless thoughts and fantasies. Yet that consciousness is there all the while, patient. Deep within as if disassociatingly observing the storm from afar. I suppose it's what saves.

I'm ok. Really ok.
Thanks for asking.

What did I mean by contemplation blossomed liberation?
Well, it was a feeling I got from these words of yours, even more than here:

quote:

---

The tenor of these days is hard to place.
Blessings sit strangely beside soul battles.

I don't know if I have ever felt so sinful.

I want to wear the knowledge of my sin
as a badge of righteousness.

I polish it, unfix my hair in its reflection.

I wait for Jesus to stand me up (again).

---

I suppose I was thinking of how when you deeply contemplate in a 'soul battle' way, you experience such profound thoughts and emotions that are zoomed of focus. For example, guilt, such as feeling bad for doing bad (the deed is the focus) can progress to shame, which is
feeling "I am bad". A bad deed can cause you to question your entire self-worth. You wrote wonderfully of mercy from God~compassion for self. Here is where that enters.

Deep contemplation prods one to go over every angle, every scenario, every way of perceiving, until the mind, spent from the exhaustion of over-limit, naturally enters the Zen state of Suchness~ no mind.
The state of no-grasping. There is a surrender of faith in this moment that is liberating. Not surrender as in "giving up". Surrender, as in truly releasing faith in unseen forces, and letting go of fierce control. Letting go of the reigns and flowing into Unconsciousness. Freeing the spirit from the grasp of the mind.

"What is the Unconscious? It is not to think of being and non-being; it is not to think of good and bad; it is not to think of having limits or not having limits; it is not to think of measurements (or of non-measurements); it is not to think of enlightenment nor is it to think of being enlightened." ~ Shen-hui

Well, just something I wondered if you were feeling. Is it anywhere close?

posted July 03, 2006 03:52 PM            

I think so,
as long as one is taking real steps,
to provide oneself with adequate
shelter from future storms.

"Deep contemplation prods one to go over every angle, every scenario, every way of perceiving, until the mind, spent from the exhaustion of over-limit, naturally enters the Zen state of Suchness~ no mind."

Yes. I thought that is what you meant.
I suppose I have felt something like that.

"The state of no-grasping. There is a surrender of faith in this moment that is liberating. Not surrender as in "giving up". Surrender, as in truly releasing faith in unseen forces, and letting go of fierce control. Letting go of the reigns and flowing into Unconsciousness. Freeing the spirit from the grasp of the mind."

All of which sounds very close to my experience,
like the "King of Cups" reading you shared with me.
I am not yet willing to let go.
So, I am still the King of Cups,
enthroned near the water,
but unable to release control.

"Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished."
- Shakespeare

"Oh, no, not me, I never lost control.
You're face to face with the man who sold the world."
- Bowie

Glad to hear you are well.
I know it gets difficult.
Life is like a box of chocolates
and tiny landmines.

Thank you for the Shen-hui quote.
Have you heard of Seng T'san
and the Hsin Hsin Ming (book of nothing)?
It was one of Osho's favorites.
It is very short, but infinitely deep.
Here is one translation:
http://www.hsuyun.org/Dharma/zbohy/Sruti-Smriti/Gathas/hsin-hsin-ming.html

posted July 04, 2006 12:26 PM              

The past few years, I've contemplated much on the Zen philosophies and tried to keep the out of mind in mind. It's helped me a lot in some traumatic times.
I think I've come a long way for it...but of course It's something that I will always be journeying to, with many distractions and detours along the way.

I believe so much of life is equally a potential for transformation as it is a potential for detriment. And, sometimes these things take time. How we react in the moment of challenge doesn't potray a permanent masonry of mindset. It's an unfolding.

Objectivity comes hard when your feelings are so greatly immersed. And oh, how great our emotions can pull us away from that center of silent stoic understanding that what is outside is not of us, yet is us.

But...in Zen as with any Divine Truth, it seems there are contrasts that I have a difficult time accepting. Some readings tell you to embrace each joy and sorrow fully, unclutchingly. And others say to disattatch from emotion altogether.
I'm more inclined to seek the harmony between both ways of being. Perhaps that's why the contradictions. The integration that unites dualities within us.

During an out of body experience, I felt emotion the same as in body. So without the mind, disattatched from weighted existance, emotions were carried just as real to that other realm, and so I have difficulty comprehending the theory of emotion being distinct from Soul and confined to 'human' experience. I don't believe it's something benefitial to transcend, nor do I believe it is possible to.

Well, taking this in for now; unfolding.
It was timely and is appreciated.

I think I need to work on expecting the land-mines just as much as I hope for a beautiful land-mine-free world.