many of us believe that after we die we go to heaven. maybe we can even catch a glimpse of the ascension as it happens. or is it perhaps the reverse? from heaven on high to earth down below? in any case: nonsense i say! in nature there is no up and there is no down, no beginnings and no endings. it all depends where we are glimpsing from, and what it is we are hoping to see. it is not given to humans to know anything about death, but there is beauty in looking up to the sky and down on the ground. it is given to humans to know something about the beauty of living.
one of the best loved religious practices is prayer. but we should ask: why disclose to god what god already knows? god knows of my needs, my hopes, my fears and my deepest desires. god could grant my prayer even before i know what it is i am praying for. a father or mother do not wait to be asked before feeding their child. why god does? my belief is that true prayer is not a petition to god. not it is an exercise in inner development or spiritual transformation. prayer is a deed we do. we pray with our deeds of embrace of the neighbor. in other words: do not ask me if i prayed or not, ask my neighbor.
If we pay attention, today's holiday is thanks-giving, the focus on the giving rather than then receiving. we never receive as much as when we give to the other. your hand never feels more at home, than when it holds the hand of those you love. at some point we may come to realize that giving and receiving may, and ought to become one and the same deed. that love is just that: when that distinction ceases to appear real. all our anxieties, our sufferings and pains, can all be traced to the moment we realize that all we need is love but we thought it was something else. may it be today a happy giving of thanks to all. many smiles.
buddhist holy war! "if you meet the buddha on the road, kill him!". buddhist interpreters get all worked up about this. i say: master lin-chi was a pretty smart guy. if he meant something other than "kill him", he would have said something other than "kill him". but since he did not say something other than "kill him", we can safely work out of the assumption that he meant nothing other than "kill him". now, of course, i live in new york city and my chances of meeting a buddha on these (wall) streets are nada. so there you have it, i'm a bodhisattva of circumstances. one of these days i need to start spending all this accumulated karma.
zen master hakuin (the "great fool") famously said about himself that he was the most useless man that ever lived. that is wonderful. when zen master dogen speaks of dropping body and mind, hakuin takes this concept to its ultimate existential consequences: the radical dropping out of the social system that gives rise and sustenance to that body and mind. he is now devoid of any utility value, he has become an actualized thou. this speaks to the promise and also to the impossibility of zen.
"buddhadasa bhikkhu called his vision of the nibbanic society, 'dhammic socialism.' for him, dhammic socialism expressed two basic facts: one is that we are inevitably and inescapably social beings who must live together in a form of society that gives priority to the ways we inter-relate, work together, and help each other solve the problems and dukkha of life. thus, the principle of right relationship or right inter-relatedness is the heart of such a society" -santikaro bhikkhu. (nibbanic society is a wonderful concept closely related to buber's religious socialism..!)
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