Emil Sinclair

The Therigatha

2008-09-19T22:21:00.004-04:00

Then I took a lamp

and went into my cell,

checked the bed,

and sat down on it.

I took a needle

and pushed the wick down.

When the lamp went out

my mind was freed.

--------

When they heard Patacara's teaching

they washed their feet

and sat down beside her.

Intent on peace of mind,

they practiced the Buddha's teaching.

In the first watch of the night,

they remembered they had been born before.

The Therigatha ("Verses of the Elder Nuns")

Korea and China travel journal

2008-08-25T08:47:00.004-04:00

“The Supreme Way is without difficulty – just avoid picking and choosing.”

6/13/2008

On the plane there was some relatively mild turbulence, and I was plunged into fear and sureness of my impending death. I thought to myself: Oh, I am so foolish and sleepy! I roam around like a zombie and make little effort to change. I felt this so strongly and was reminded of Gurdjieff concluding, at the end of Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, that only by perpetually remembering his/her mortality would a person be capable of real change. I also thought to myself: Remember this feeling, because when the turbulence is over, I will no longer feel it.

I started reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I think that Nietzsche might have the right idea, but he seems very unstable and full of contradictions (he holds lofty ideals, but often seems sort of petulantly angry at the world). It reads very much like Thus Spoke Nietzsche, and ascribing the discourses to Zarathustra doesn’t make his points seem more absolute or prophetic. This is emphasized by my just having finished the Bhagavad Gita, which was among the most lucid religious texts that I’ve read. Philosophy/life does not have to be as miserable as Nietzsche makes it out to be.

6/14/2008

We should have anticipated that the “live baby octopus stew” on the menu would actually include a live baby octopus, but we didn’t and were surprised. It was wiggling all around in the soup and continued to wiggle around as the waitress cut it up with scissors. All the cut up pieces then proceeded to keep wiggling for the duration of the meal as we guiltily ate around them.

There seem to be three types of English-language t-shirts in Korea:

1) Those that honestly attempt to convey an idea in English, albeit with some misspellings and/or grammatical errors

2) Those that employ random phrases apparently taken from the internet and placed onto t-shirts (e.g. “Join our mailing list and win prizes,” and other, often much longer phrases), conspicuous because of their simultaneous grammatical correctness contextual meaninglessness

3) Those composed of random letters that spell no words at all, taking advantage of the sheer novelty of our alphabet

6/15/2008

At the beginning of Saint Augustine’s Confessions, he wonders why babies and children surely sin – how could a baby not be innocent? He almost seems to imply that reincarnation is the explanation, but of course, stops short of going near such a conclusion. I find the book to be more frustrating than inspiring, and his cautiousness comes through more clearly than his religious fervor. It makes Christianity seem so constricting, rather than liberating.

6/17/2008

The Pizza Hut in Korea (specifically, inside Lotte World) took me directly back to the Pizza Hut of my childhood, complete with Simpsons arcade game. This one may have red wine on the menu, but the pizza tastes the same.

6/20/2008

The mind wants to reach objectivity by circumventing subjective experience, but it’s only through subjective experience that objectivity can be reached.

The level of technology in Korea and China is at an interesting place – in the big cities, at least, almost as a rule, the men’s bathroom has auto-flushing urinals next to hole-in-the-ground stall toilets with no toilet paper.

6/23/2008

Americans are surprised that I’m married. Chinese people are surprised that I’m studying Buddhism.

6/26/2008

I was trying to explain to my conversation partner that I like Beethoven. She said she understood, but that it was four people. I said, four people? She said, Bea-ta-le-sa?

6/27/2008

Outside of the beauty parlor on my street there are many clumps of hair on the sidewalk!

In the library when it’s raining the students all place their umbrellas on the ground still open (presumably to let them dry), so they take up a lot of space.

6/28/2008

A British guy on our program, in reference to the climb up the Great Wall, noted that he “probably lost about two stone.”

Here is the interesting thing that I think Gurdjieff is best able to explicate: a sleeping (by which he means ordinary) person does not have the capacity to make choices; choices are made for him or her. As a result, even a very deep feeling of the desire to give oneself up, to serve God and not the ego, is not enough to bring about any real change. Gurdjieff frames this point in an interesting way: he basically says that once a person ‘wakes up,’ then he or she can make a decision about how to behave, whether to serve God or the ego. This is not a decision that a sleeping person is capable of making. Unless the consciousness is active (that is to say, unless I am more or less constantly aware of myself being here, right now, as I go about my daily affairs), change does not occur, for better or worse.

Also: I did not anticipate all of the weird and exotic bugs that I would encounter in China.

6/30/2008

I took an hour-long bus ride and was standing for most of it. When this old couple wearing matching Crocs (those plastic shoes with holes that everyone says are really ugly but really comfortable) got out of their seats to get off the bus, they more or less ordered me to sit down and take their place.

7/1/2008

I spend a lot of my time thinking about religious/philosophical issues. Still, when things (even small things) do not go my way I tend to get upset. I struggle to remember that everything is a test, that a life without difficulties offers the straightest path in the wrong direction – and that, moreover, encountering and transforming difficulties is the most important thing for any kind of spiritual progress.

7/3/2008

I have been here two weeks and today was the second sunny day!

My language partner had an interesting take on learning British English (which is the English that a lot of Chinese people learn). He said that, first of all, the words are more slurred, so it is more difficult. Second of all, he felt that a person learning English should not attempt to speak with that accent unless they already spoke the language very well. Sort of like British English is ‘advanced’ English.

I was having trouble explaining to my conversation teacher what kind of movies I like. I have used the term ‘non-mainstream’ a remarkable number of times in describing to various Chinese people my tastes and lifestyle choices. Nevertheless, the teacher first guessed that the type of movie I was referring to was Korean dramas. She finally said, Oh! I know what kind of movie you like! and wrote down 蓝, 白, 红 - Blue, White, Red. I was surprised that she knew these movies.

7/5/2008

My automatic assumption about what it means to be “active” is that I will figure out what it is and then it will be a static thing. Of course, this is not true – being active is the opposite of being static; they are mutually exclusive. For the consciousness to be active is for it to be perpetually inquisitive.

It seems that I have always sort of unconsciously sought a way to pass a productive and satisfying life in a mechanical manner. Looking back to my days playing Everquest, I remember that underlying my whole approach was a desire to find a stable way to earn (virtual) money and experience, without, if possible, having to take any risks, interact with many people, or use much energy. When I could set myself an easy and predictable, but still arguably (in the context of the game) productive task (like hunting for Greater Lightstones when I no longer got experience from killing Will-o-wisps), I was very happy.

Of course, it was important that the game involved other people – if it had been a single-player game, the whole exercise would have seemed stupid. Although I sought to limit my interaction with and dependence upon other people in the game, the existence of other people capable of observing me and my progress was fundamental to my satisfaction.

Now, trying to settle into a sustainable self-remembering practice, I find that it is the same thing. I want a practice that sustains itself, requiring minimal active participation from me. In Everquest this was occasionally possible, but in self-remembering it is impossible. Still, whenever something goes right in my moment-to-moment practice (which is rare), I immediately stop doing that thing and place it into the mental bank, thinking: Great! I found that! I’ll just store it for later. This is like the story of the man who finds a paradisiacal island by accident and then leaves, planning to return soon. Of course, he doesn’t find it again.

7/6/2008

From my room in my host-mom’s apartment, I often hear someone practicing the flute. The flute-player is playing the same Mozart piece that a guy on the New York subway often plays.

7/7/2008

Apparently, many Chinese high schools do not permit students to date. High school here is so competitive and test-oriented that things loosen up a little bit once safely in college.

7/8/2008

Because I am a perfectionist, I take a sort of defeatist approach to self-remembering. Unless I am really doing it well, I will often feel like I don’t need to try. Either I am making a large burst of effort or I am making no effort. But neither of these things will work. It is a steady effort that is needed, not a burst.

Last night I ‘woke up in my dream.’ On the phone I had been saying that it was good that I had brought so few books to China. In the dream, I was looking at a bookshelf full of my books, and thinking: “Oh, I guess I did bring a bunch of books.” Then I looked down and saw a big pile of video tapes. I thought: “Hmm, I seem to have also brought a rather large collection of VHS cassettes.” Then I thought: “Wait a minute. Why would I bring VHS tapes to China? That makes no sense. Am I dreaming? No, I’m not, but just to make sure, I will jump up and try to fly. This person (my teacher?) standing in front of me will think I’m very weird for jumping.” Then I jumped and, seeing that I could fly, realized that I was in a dream. I started very carefully flying over some kind of landscape. Then I realized that I did not need to move in such a linear fashion and closed my dream eyes. From there, I quickly fell back to sleep.

7/13/2008

The other day we spent a very long time in class answering the pressing question: “Forest Gump says: Life is like a box of chocolate; you never know what you’re going to get. Do you agree or disagree?”

Looking forward to things, even (or especially) little things, enslaves me. For example, during the school day I will often relish the idea of the few free moments in the evening during which I will read, listen to This American Life, listen to music, etc. I pin my freedom on these moments of relaxation, which is very unwise. Forget that I often don’t have time, for one reason or another, to get these moments every day; even when I do have the time, it causes the rest of my day to be spent absent-mindedly and unhappily. To let go of these little hopes would allow me to be content all the time.

There was a huge crowd of people outside a gate on the street. It looked like the president or a celebrity was about to come out and people wanted to catch a glimpse of him. I asked someone what they were waiting for and he said, 孩子 (children). 孩子? Like, a baby prince? Finally he said, 考试 (test). Oh! They were waiting for their children to finish their exams! How weird.

White people not in my program that I pass on the street in Beijing give me one of two looks:

1) What the hell do you think you’re doing here? This town isn’t big enough for the both of us.

2) Thank goodness I found you! You’ve probably been through many of the same experiences of culture shock that I have.

After a mistake on a test where I really should have trusted my gut but instead followed my intellect, I vowed always to follow my instincts on multiple-choice tests. On the next test I encountered a question I really didn’t know the answer to, and guessed against what I thought was right based on my gut. Afterwards I checked my book and realized I was wrong. Why did I trust my gut again? Obviously, the one I thought was right was right. I got the test back and got the answer correct. I said to myself: Instinct, I will never doubt you again.

7/19/2008

On the way to 锡林浩特 (Xilinhot), Inner Mongolia, we saw a lot of beautiful scenery but also a woman who had just been hit by a car and lay, bleeding and dead, in the middle of the road. After we passed it the driver (of this hired 黑车, black cab, exactly the mode of transportation we were instructed not to take) kept calling his friend (brother?) who was apparently also on the road behind us. He was telling him: Have you seen it yet? Hurry up, or the police will come and you’ll miss it! My reaction to the sight of the dead body was sort of predictable: I’ve seen this before, in movies, but this is not a movie. Something is out of sync here.

When we were stopped at the border passing into Inner Mongolia to have our passports checked, we followed the police into the little police station, which had no running water but did seem to have access to McDonald’s. This police station entailed a desk and two beds, presumably where the police officers slept. On one of the beds they were charging their electric beating sticks, which our driver started playing with. On the opposite wall was hung a big sheet with the repeated motif: “fall in love.”

It’s interesting to consider the extent to which I am able to interact with my Chinese teachers, and that if I did not speak Chinese, they would probably seem like strange and mysterious foreigners. Instead, they seem very familiar.

On a similar note, I had a mostly functional conversation with an old man in the lobby of our hotel. I told him I went to Columbia, and he gave me a thumbs-up. A minute later he said, “Harvard?” I said, no, I don’t go to Harvard. He said, “Harvard,” and gave a thumbs up, then said, “Columbia,” and gave another thumbs up, but placed the second thumb lower than the first, thus comparing the quality of the two schools.

Apparently only a few decades ago this city was just the temple and a few surrounding houses. My host-mom actually grew up within the walls of the temple complex. Now it is a remarkably westernized and modern city.

At the end of the trip as we were waiting for the bus back to Beijing, our host-mom’s friend and our guide for the duration of the trip noted that everyone had gotten a tan except me. I said it was because I wore sunscreen. He responded that I did so because I feared returning to America and being mistaken for a black man.

7/23/3008

I was not able to get a sleeper bus to go home from Xilinhot back to Beijing, so I rode a regular bus overnight. Needless to say, I was not able to sleep, and ended up loosely communicating with the old-ish woman sitting next to me. She wanted to practice her English, and so would frequently say something completely incomprehensible to me, and I would think it was Chinese for about ten minutes until I figured out that she was trying to speak English. This continued until we arrived at 4:30 in the morning.

Later in the day I went to Sanlitun to investigate some DVD stores. One of the DVD stores had been ridden of its bootlegs (prompting a British guy to ask, 为什么? [Why?]) and was almost empty. Another had ordinary Chinese movies, which I was browsing when a woman asked me, in English, “Looking for movies?” I said, yes, just browsing, thank you. She went into the back and I kept looking around. She then called, “This way, sir.” I followed her through a long maze of corridors before arriving in a back room where other foreigners were browsing through booklets of movie covers. The customer would tell an attendant which movie he or she wanted, and the attendant would walkie-talkie to another person, presumably in an even further back room, who then brought the movies in.

7/24/2008

Riding a camel in Dunhuang helped me to remember precisely why I didn’t like riding that horse in Mexico as a kid: I was scared of falling off, and it hurt my thighs.

We slept in the desert, and it’s possible that I have never seen the stars so clearly. I have definitely never seen shooting stars so clearly, if at all. The loud Chinese woman made sure the evening wasn’t too peaceful by telling (or shouting) jokes and riddles all night (she later told me that she was a high school math teacher, and when I told her I studied Buddhism, she responded that her mother loved Buddhism, and gave me a Buddhist magazine). We ate ramen noodles for dinner and I slept with the British fellow in a tiny 5-foot by 5-foot tent. There was a sleeping bag but no pillow, so I used the sleeping bag as a pillow.

At my hostel they have a world map which is different from every world map I’ve ever seen because Asia is in the west and America is in the east. I never before realized that Russia (almost?) touches Alaska.

At the Dunhuang carpet factory the woman showing me around and selling me things spoke disconcertingly near-perfect British English. She revealed that she was not a native, however, when we were bartering over the price and she kept saying, “I know, I know, you are the student.”

I went to Dunhuang’s famous Mogao caves, full of Buddhist images and statues. My reaction had three components:

1) Awe at the grandiosity of it. There are over 800 caves, each an unbelievable sight in its own right, some with huge hundred-foot-tall Buddhas, some with thousands of tiny Buddhas. Why, I ask, when there were already five hundred caves, did someone say, “Hey, let’s build another one!” I guess it’s because they had money.

2) Sadness at the fact that it is now a museum for scholars to puzzle over and not a place of worship. As a result, it does not feel like a sacred site in the way that it should. Why would any sacredness stick around just to be stared at by all these tourists?

3) The feeling that no matter how impressive any thing or place like this may be (and this is one of the most impressive things and places I’ve ever seen), it is, at best, a finger pointing at the moon. I might as well find such a pointer anywhere – in a book, or inside myself.

The fact that I had such a complicated reaction highlights an obvious problem of mine: I should have just loosened up and enjoyed it.

7/28/2008

I am like a person deeply in debt who has been given a little money to get back on his feet. Instead of putting this money to good use in fear of my debtor coming to collect, I spend it trying to forget my debt in every way possible. “I do not desire suffering, but, fool that I am, I desire the cause of suffering.”

It seems like humanity’s biggest problem is not that it forgets its mortality, but that it forgets how deeply in debt it already is. When we are able to convince ourselves that we are free and completely unfettered, we start to feel that we can do whatever we want, even that we are owed something. On the other hand, when we realize the extent of our debt – a debt that most of us continue to rack up every moment – being a servant doesn’t seem so bad.

I was listening to an episode of This American Life today titled "Blame it on art," which had a segment in which the host talked about people who spend their lives working at a day-job to make money and putting off their dreams, putting off living up to their full potential. In the end they die and the things they spent their daily lives doing are the things by which they are remembered, the reason they were important. This seemed somehow pertinent to my life.

8/04/2008

My teacher said that more and more Chinese people are practicing Buddhism (at least in the sense of going to the temple and praying), including Communist party members. She said, half-jokingly, that this was maybe because they had done bad things.

8/05/2008

My new language partner turns out to be very interesting: he rides his bike everywhere, and, like a regular Chinese No Impact Man, he brings his own chopsticks to restaurants, doesn’t use disposable items, and doesn’t use air-conditioning.

8/10/2008

The government just opened a newly-refurbished ‘traditional architecture area’ by 前门 (the front gate, south of Tiananmen Square) with famous restaurants and new gift-shops. The area looked more like a loosely Chinese-themed outdoor shopping mall in California than an actual old-fashioned Chinese neighborhood. In the restaurant, I noticed that the men’s bathroom sign said “Gents,” which showed me just how far China has come when compared to the men’s bathroom sign in the temple I was in earlier, which simply read “Man.”

In 798, the modern art district, we were looking for an indie music store when we passed a sign that said, “Welcome President of Latvia to Dahe Gallery!” We found the music store, which was surrounded by suited Latvians. Inside, the guy played us some ambient noisecore (!) before switching to a band called Car Sick Cars, a Chinese band that sounds exactly like Pavement, the Pixies, Sonic Youth, etc. The guy then pulled out an electric guitar and said that he could play along. He plugged it in and started rocking out rather loudly, when a fellow in a suit came in and said to him what could only have been something like, “Sir, could you keep it down! The president of Latvia is next door!”

8/16/2008

Today inside the Olympic park area we went into a ridiculous Coca-Cola museum type thing. As we entered, an enthusiastic employee gestured wildly with both arms as she greeted us with a loud, “Welcome!” Further inside we encountered more and more employees who had apparently been instructed to dance around in place in order to inspire and motivate the visitors, perhaps to make the place seem ‘cool,’ ‘hip,’ ‘in with the youngsters,’ etc. The result was, needless to say, completely absurd. At the end we were given free bottles of Coke, which we took with our meal of McDonald’s. I have probably not eaten at McDonald’s in fifteen years.

On the escalator down to McDonald's (which was underground) they were repairing upward half of the escalator - the escalator computer was out and everything. On our way up from McDonald's a few minutes later, the escalator was working.

I have not had any stomach illness in China, nor did I have any substantial experience of culture shock. I do anticipate some degree of reverse-culture shock upon my return to the US.

"Jixiang Sanbao" and "The Last Sunday"

2008-08-25T08:41:00.001-04:00

The Imitation of Christ

2008-08-25T08:04:00.002-04:00

"On the Royal Road of the Holy Cross"

'Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.' To many this saying of Jesus seems hard. But how much harder will it be to hear that word of doom, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire'. For those who now cheerfully hear and obey the word of the Cross will not tremble to hear the sentence of eternal damnation. The sign of the Cross will appear in the heavens, when Our Lord comes as Judge. Then will all the servants of the Cross, who in their lives conformed themselves to the Crucified, stand with confidence before Christ their judge.

Why, then, do you fear to take up the Cross, which is the road to the Kingdom? In the Cross is salvation; in the Cross is life; in the Cross is protection against our enemies; in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the Cross is strength of mind; in the Cross is joy of spirit; in the Cross is excellence of virtue; in the Cross is perfection of holiness. There is no salvation of the soul, nor hope of eternal life, save in the Cross. Take up the Cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and go forward into eternal life. Christ has gone before you, bearing his Cross; He died for you on the Cross, that you also may bear your cross, and desire to die on the cross with him. For if you die with Him, you will also live with Him. And if you share His sufferings, you will also share his glory.

See how in the Cross all things consist, and in dying on it all things depend. There is no other way to life and to true inner peace, than the way of the Cross, and of daily self-denial. Go where you will, seek what you will; you will find no higher way above nor safer way below than the road of the Holy Cross. Arrange and order all things to your own ideas and wishes, yet you will still find suffering to endure, whether you will or not; so you will always find the Cross. For you will either endure bodily pain, or suffer anguish of mind and spirit.

At times, God will withdraw from you; at times you will be troubled by your neighbor, and, what is more, you will often be a burden to yourself. Neither can any remedy or comfort bring you relief, but you must bear it as long as God wills. For God desires that you learn to bear trials without comfort, that you may yield yourself wholly to Him, and grow more humble through tribulation. No man feels so deeply in his heart the Passion of Christ as he who has to suffer in like manner. The Cross always stands ready, and everywhere awaits you. You cannot escape it, wherever you flee; for wherever you go, you bear yourself, and always find yourself. Look up or down, without you or within, and everywhere you will find the Cross. And everywhere you must have patience, if you wish to attain inner peace, and win an eternal crown.

If you bear the cross willingly, it will bear you and lead you to your desired goal, where pain shall be no more; but it will not be in this life. If you bear the cross unwillingly, you make it a burden, and load yourself more heavily; but you must needs bear it. If you cast away one cross, you will certainly find another, and perhaps a heavier.

Do you think to escape what no mortal man has been able to escape? Which of the Saints lived without cross or trial? Even our Lord Jesus Christ was never without sorrow and pain, as long as He lived. 'Christ must needs suffer,' said He, 'and rise again from the dead, and so enter into His glory.' Why, then, do you seek any other road than this royal road of the Holy Cross? The whole life of Christ was a cross and martyrdom; and do you look for rest and selfish pleasure?

You are greatly mistaken if you look for anything save to endure trials, for all this mortal life is full of troubles, and everywhere marked with crosses. The further a man advances in the spiritual life, the heavier and more numerous he finds the crosses, for his ever-deepening love of God makes more bitter the sorrows of his earthly exile.

Yet a man who is afflicted in many ways is not without solace and comfort, for he perceives the great benefit to be reaped from the bearing of his cross. For while he bears it with a good will, the whole burden is changed into hope of God's comfort. And the more the body is subdued by affliction, the more is the spirit strengthened by grace within. Sometimes he is so greatly comforted by the desire to suffer adversity for love of conforming to the Cross of Christ, that he would not wish to be without grief and pain; for he knows that the more he can suffer for His sake, the more pleasing he will be to God. This desire does not spring from man's own strength, but from the grace of Christ, which can and does effect such great things in the frail frame of man; so that which nature fears and avoids, he boldly meets and loves through ardour of spirit.

Man is not by nature inclined to carry the cross, to love the cross, to chasten the body, and bring it into subjection; to refuse honours, to submit to insults with goodwill, to despise himself and welcome disparagement; to bear all adversity and loss, and to desire no kind of prosperity in this world. And if you trust in your own strength, you will be unable to achieve any of these things. But if you trust in the Lord, you will be given strength from Heaven, and the world and the flesh will become subject to your will. Neither will you fear your enemy the Devil, if you are armed with faith and signed with the Cross of Christ.

Resolve, then, as a good and faithful servant of Christ, manfully to bear the cross of your Lord, who was crucified for love of you. Prepare yourself to endure many trials and obstacles in this vale of tears; for such will be your lot wherever you are, and you will encounter them wherever you conceal yourself. It must needs be so; nor is there any remedy or means of escape from ills and griefs; you must endure them. Drink lovingly the cup of your Lord, if you wish to be His friend, and to share all with Him. Leave consolations to God, to dispose as He wills. But set yourself to endure trials, regarding them as the greatest of all comforts, 'for the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come', even though you alone were to endure them all.

When you have arrived at that state when trouble seems sweet and acceptable to you for Christ's sake, then all is well with you, for you have found paradise upon earth. But so long as suffering is grievous to you and you seek to escape it, so long will it go ill with you, for the trouble you try to escape will pursue you everywhere.

If you steel yourself - as you must - to suffer and to die, all will go better with you, and you will find peace. For although, like Saint Paul, you were 'caught up into the third heaven', you would not on this account be secured against suffering further adversity. For Jesus says, 'I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name.' Therefore, be prepared to suffer, if you wish to love Jesus and serve Him for ever.

Oh, if only you were worthy to suffer for the Name of Jesus! How great and enduring a glory would be yours! How great would be the joy of the Saints of God! How edified your friends would be! For all men commend patience, although few are willing to suffer. It is right that you should suffer a little for the sake of Christ, since many suffer greater things for worldly motives.

Be assured of this, that you must live a dying life. And the more completely a man dies to self, the more he begins to live to God. No man is fit to understand heavenly things, unless he is resigned to bear hardships for Christ's sake. Nothing is more acceptable to God, and nothing more salutary for yourself, than to suffer gladly for Christ's sake. And if it lies in your choice, you should choose rather to suffer hardships for Christ's sake, than to be refreshed by many consolations; for thus you will more closely resemble Christ and all His Saints. For our merit and spiritual progress does not consist in enjoying such sweetness and consolation, but rather in the bearing of great burdens and troubles.

Had there been a better way, more profitable to the salvation of mankind and suffering, then Christ would have revealed it in His word and life. But He clearly urges both His own disciples and all who wish to follow Him ot carry the cross, saying, 'If any will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.' Therefore, when we have read and studied all things, let this be our final resolve: 'that through much tribulation we must enter the Kingdom of God.'

Thomas A. Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Bhagavad Gita and Rig Veda

2008-05-25T12:05:00.004-04:00

"In the bonds of work I am free, because in them I am free from desires. The man who can see this truth, in his work he finds his freedom."

Bhagavad Gita 4:14

"Work done for a reward is much lower than work done in the Yoga of wisdom. Seek salvation in the wisdom of reason (Buddhi). How poor those who work for reward!"

Bhagavad Gita 2:49

"Remove all fear from me, O Lord. Receive me graciously unto thee, O King. Cut off the bonds of afflictions that bind me: I cannot even open mine eyes without thy help."

Rig Veda II.28:6

Elizabeth Haich

2008-05-08T08:44:00.000-04:00

From the book Initiation by Elizabeth Haich:

THE TWELVE SETS OF TWIN CHARACTERISTICS

The next evening I find myself standing before Ptahhotep again.

'The time has come,' says he, 'for you to study and practise the twelve sets of opposites as your next exercise. In your initiation you will be examined concerning them. So listen carefully and make a point of remembering what I'm telling you now:

'Just as keeping silent and talking are the two complementary manifestations of the same force, in the same way there are twelve sets of opposites which you must learn to control. From now on you will spend only your mornings in the temple and then go back to the palace. And you must seize every opportunity to be among people as much as possible, because it is far easier to master each of these sets of opposites when you are in the temple than it is in the palace. Here you only meet people like yourself, neophytes, striving to attain divine unity, as well as priests and priestesses already living in divine unity. But in the everyday world you are subject to all kinds of temptations. You meet people who are slaves of their bodies, and such people try to influence you too. The danger of falling is much greater. If you can master all the characteristics and properties applicable throughout the world, you will also be able to pass the initiation examinations.

'These twelve sets of opposite characteristics are:

keeping silent — talking
receptivity — resistance to influence
obeying — ruling
humility — self confidence
lightning-like speed — circumspection
to accept everything — to be able to differentiate
ability to fight — peace
caution — courage
to possess nothing — to command everything
to have no ties — loyalty
contempt for death — regard for life
indifference — love

[...]

'In order to be a useful co-worker in this great plan, one must first master the whole scale of the sets of opposites. And you too, for your initiation, will have to pass an examination in them.

'Mastering these attributes means that you use them at the right time and in the right place. The same attribute that is divine at the right time and in the right place is satanically evil at the wrong time and in the wrong place. This is because God creates only what is good, beautiful and true. There are no bad characteristics as such, and no bad forces, but only wrongly used characteristics and wrongly applied forces!

'You've already found out what it means to speak or to keep silent at the right time and in the right place. To keep silent is perfectly divine and brings blessings on all concerned, if we do so where and when we should. But on the other hand, if we keep silent in a place or at a time when we should speak up—as for example when we might save a person from a great danger with just a word—our keeping silence becomes satanic.

'And if we talk in the wrong place and at the wrong time, the divine gift of speech is turned into satanic chatter and gossip.

'In the next twin pair of opposites, receptivity is divine if we are receptive and open to everything that is high and beautiful, good and true, that is, if we are receptive to God's will and let Him work in us. On the other hand, the receptivity, or impressionability, is disastrous if it becomes a spineless lack of character and capitulation to influence.

'Ability to resist influence means the ability to put an unflinching resistance to all low influences. But if we also put up resistance against higher forces, we immediately turn our divine attribute of resistance to influence into a satanic kind of self-isolation.

'It is the duty of every co-worker in the great divine plan to give absolute obedience to God's will. The latter can manifest itself directly through you or through other people. You can recognize God's will when you thoroughly examine everything that is asked of you to be sure that it is in agreement with your innermost conviction. God speaks to us through our innermost conviction, and we must give him absolute obedience. On the contrary, to obey someone against our own conviction, purely for reasons of cowardice, fear, material advantage, or merely wanting to "be good"—that is for low, personal reasons, this is servility and is satanical.

'Ruling means giving ignorant and weak people some of the ruler's own willpower. Universal love, uniting all the forces active within the people, should lead the people towards a general well-being, without infringing on their right of self-determination. Any ruler who, without love, and for selfish motives, imposes his will on others and violates their right of self determination makes the divine activity of ruling into satanical tyranny.

'Humility is what we must feel towards the divine, towards the higher self which animates us. You must realize that all the good, beautiful, and true attributes belong to him, that your person is an instrument for manifesting divinity, but by itself and without divinity it represents merely an empty husk. You should recognize within yourself the same divinity, the same eternal being which manifests itself throughout the universe, and you must subject yourself humbly to this divinity. But you must never subordinate yourself to earthly or sub-earthly powers or bow before earthly forms; for this would mean turning divine humility into weak, cowardly, satanic self-humiliation, and by doing this you would violate the divinity which animates you with its own eternal being.

'If you want to be a good servant within the divine plan for salvation of the world, you must never forget that you do not live and work on your own strength. All power comes from God, and all powers you manifest come to you from your higher self—from God. Constantly remember that your person as such is an imaginary being. Your true being—the only, eternal reality within
you—is God! That's why self-confidence means having confidence in the God dwelling within your heart, but not in the phantom being of your person as such. Divine self-confidence is indispensable for every creative activity and represents an inner union with God. But when a person imagines his qualities and powers are his own and not God's, he turns divine self-confidence into satanic false pride and presumption.

'To be a co-worker within the great divine plan you must also be able to make decisions with lightning-like speed. You must learn, instantaneously, without hesitation, to choose the best of a number of different possibilities. Situations can arise in which only a moment's delay can mean missing the unique, never-recurring opportunity. When you can act in a moment, with complete concentration and with a presence of mind that stands above and beyond all concept of time, your power to decide instantly is divine. But acting quick as a flash without concentration and presence of mind turns divine lightning-like speed into satanic haste.

'And that's why you must also learn divine circumspection. Before acting, you must control your temper and with lots of patience allow the decision to ripen within you. In order to recognize the will of God you must often allow yourself time to reach the right decision. That's what it means to act with prudence. But if you carry prudence and circumspection to the point of never reaching any decision at all, you're turning divine circumspection into satanic, doubting indecision.

'As a useful co-worker in the divine plan you must learn to accept everything that fate brings you. Your worth is not determined by external circumstances but by the degree in which you manifest God. Worldly degradations or humiliations cannot destroy, or even reduce, your inner values. By the same token, praise or glorification cannot make them greater either. For this reason, you must never be affected by the way ignorant people treat you. You remain what you are whether people vilify you or glorify you. Learn to be contented in any and all conditions and to accept the circumstances fate gives you with complete imperturbability. Whether your work within the great divine plan requires you to live in abject poverty or to hold a high position and command a great fortune, you must regard either of these merely as means to a great end. Neither of them must change your inner attitude. Learning to accept everything in this way is divine. On the other hand you must always be able to decide when you, as a representative of divine guidance, must defend yourself against humiliation or calumny. In the same way, there are times when you must be able to decide that it's the right thing to do to withdraw modestly from glorification by the crowds and masses. To accept everything must never be allowed to degenerate into apathetic indifference or cowardly lack of character.

Always choose the best and don't be satisfied with what's inferior. You must be able to differentiate and distinguish what's beautiful from what's ugly, the good from the bad, the true from the false, the divine from the satanic. Without a completely developed power to differentiate and distinguish, one can't be a useful co-worker in the great plan.

'If you want to be useful, you must also be able to fight with all your energy. With the sword of truth you must be able to fight the shadow of error in order to help bring about the victory of divinity on earth. But your noble and courageous willingness to fight must never be allowed to degenerate into stupid quarrelsomeness.

'And even though you must often fight bravely, you must not forget that you have to fight with spiritual weapons in order to bring peace to the earth. You must fight to restore unity to what has been torn apart, to restore peace to those who are fighting. But your love of peace must never be allowed to turn into a cowardly or comfortable kind of not wanting to fight.

'In order to be a useful co-worker you also have to learn caution, at the same time being able to decide the right time and right place to use this divine gift. You can save yourself and others from great dangers, harm and useless sacrifices through the proper exercise of caution. But the divine gift of caution slips over into satanic cowardice when one doesn't dare to do something because of fear or lack of self-confidence.

'You must possess unflinching courage, and you must not fear any danger. You must stride forth courageously to face any difficulty, valiantly fending off any attack against the divine when the great goal you're working for requires it of you. But divine courage must never be allowed to deteriorate into daredevil recklessness.

'As a co-worker within the great plan you must also understand what it means to possess nothing. Whether your task demands abject poverty of you or gives you the greatest wealth, you must always remember that nothing, absolutely nothing, ever or anywhere really belongs to you. On the contrary, everything is God's property, and from his property you receive something only for your actual needs, corresponding to your task. Just as it's a matter of indifference to a canal whether more or less water flows through it, because the water doesn't belong to it, you too must regard everything fate gives you as something that comes to you from God, and something you must pass on. What you will have to live on is something you don't need to worry about. You will always receive as much as you need. And no matter how rich you might be, you must always remember the fact that you really possess nothing. But this divinely positive attitude must never slide down into not caring about anything or contempt of things material. You must never expect the people about you to maintain you without work on your part!

'Matter too is a manifestation of God, and so you must respect matter as something divine. But at the same time, you must be master over it. You must master the art of being able to acquire as many material things as you need for your earthly task. And remember well that as long as you are on earth, you'll have to be dealing with matter, not without it, and certainly not against it. It's necessary for you to be able to acquire and hold matter, to master it and use it wisely; for otherwise you're completely at the mercy of earthly powers and, under their control, unable to carry out your earthly task independently and freely. But take care lest the divine ability to master matter deteriorate into a selfish, satanic craving for possessions.

'As a co-worker in the great divine plan you can't allow yourself to be attached to anyone. Learn to recognize the divine, the earthly, and the demonic characteristics in everyone. Don't love the person, but love the divine within the person, tolerate the earthly, and go around the demonic. Whenever your task demands it of you, you must be able to leave without delay the person you love the most, because you must always remember that the lovable characteristics in him are God, not the person himself. The person is only an instrument for the manifestation of God. You can find and love the same manifestations in other people too. Love God in everyone; then you will not be attached to anyone. This not having ties must never be allowed to turn into general indifference and apathy concerning the people around you.

'You should be loyal, in life and in death, toward the people in whom you have recognized God's manifestations. You love your master and your coworkers in the great divine plan because you have recognized God in them. You are loyal to God in them, because you love their person only as an instrument of God. In this way the esteem and loyalty you show towards your master and co-workers can never turn into a cult of persons or personal glorification.

'To play a useful role in the great divine plan, you must be able to use your own person, like an obedient instrument, in front of the public. You must be able, in front of groups of other people, to animate your talents and abilities with your spiritual forces, raise them to a climax of brilliance in such a way that you manifest your spirit in the highest degree through your person, through the posture of your body, through the movements of your hands, through the glance of your eyes and through the persuasive power of your oratory, all so that you can bring people under your influence and carry them upward with you to a higher spiritual level. In other words you must be able to appear before the public without inhibitions and without being bashful. But the art of "appearing in public" must never be allowed to awaken the devil of vanity in you; it must never be allowed to degenerate into self-complacency and the base desire to "show off" with your God-given talents. When crowds of people enthusiastically cheer and applaud you, you must constantly carry in your consciousness the awareness that the people are not enthusiastic about your person —which is only an empty garment—but about God who has manifested himself through your earthly instrument.

'If in your application of the art of "appearing in public" you avoid the beguiling temptations of the devil of vanity, you won't be the least disturbed when, in fulfilling other tasks, it becomes your duty to remain completely unknown and unnoticed by other people. In such a case you must not display your talents, but rather disappear in the crowd as it were, without wanting to stand out or be noticed. However, this modest "remaining unnoticed" must never be allowed to degenerate into personal self-underestimation or selfdestruction. In your heart you must always carry your worth as a human being. 'If you want to be a useful co-worker in the great divine plan, you must be able to achieve complete disregard for death. You must have the unshakeable conviction that there is no death at all. When your body has ceased to be usable, your self casts it off just as you cast off a worn-out piece of clothing. The self however is a branch on the tree of life, therefore life itself, and life is immortal. When you've become identical in your consciousness with life, you won't shrink back in fear of death whenever your task brings you into mortal danger. On the contrary, with complete equanimity and absolute contempt for death, you will be able to face the greatest danger. But never let contempt for death turn into disrespect for life.

'You must appreciate life above everything else. Life is God himself. The eternal being manifests itself in everything that lives. You must never carelessly or wantonly expose yourself to danger. Appreciate life in your body too and live joyously. But the joy in living must never become an end in itself and turn into sensuality.

'And last but not least you must be able to pass the most difficult test of all: The test of love and cruel love: Indifference. This last pair of twin characteristics makes up an inseparable unit right here on the earthly plane. Whenever you manifest one half of it, the other manifests itself automatically.

'You must completely give up your personal viewpoint, your personal inclinations and feelings, learning to love everything and everyone without distinction or discrimination, just as God himself loves everything and everyone! Just as the sun shines—sends its loving radiations—with perfect impartiality on the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the true and the false, you must learn to love the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the true and the false, without discrimination and with perfect impartiality. The highest kind of love of all, divine love, is the perfectly impartial love! It must be a matter of complete indifference to you whether a thing or a person is beautiful or ugly, good or bad, true or false, you must love them all with the same love. You must learn that the beautiful wouldn't even exist without the ugly. You must learn that the good wouldn't even exist without the evil, nor the true without the false. And that's why you must love them all equally. You must learn that the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the true and the false are only reflected pictures of the ineffable which we for convenience' sake call God.

'When absolutely constant and completely impartial love radiates from you to all creatures, your love will never again be mixed with personal inclinations or antipathies. You will consider everything from the standpoint of the whole, and when the interests of the whole community are at variance with those of individual persons, you will unhesitatingly defend the cause of the group with ruthless disregard for the interests of individuals. But this ruthlessness must always be rooted in universal, divine love; it must never spring from personal antipathy.

'And you must also be able to manifest your impersonal, cruelly impartial love for your fellow beings in those cases when their soul can perhaps only be saved at the expense of their earthly well-being, even when such people are very, very near to you personally. You must even be able to look on dispassionately when those nearest and dearest to you get themselves into great danger, and if they don't react to ordinary measures, you must not try to hold them back by spiritual force, hypnosis, or magic powers when the salvation of their soul is at stake. It's better for a person to suffer material or physical ruin, even death, than to lose his soul. Under all circumstances you must endeavour to save his soul. Just as God doesn't meddle in the affairs of men, but rather leaves them their free will, you too must let your fellow human beings apply their free will, and you must never compel them to do anything by force. In your helpfulness, you must always consider everything from the standpoint of spiritual well-being, not from the standpoint of the earthly and physical. But this divinely impartial love must never degenerate into indifference and apathy and you must never refuse to help a person because of personal antipathy when you can save him with earthly measures.

'These are the hardest tests of all because you must give up your personal feelings, simply turning them off as it were. Only when you have completely mastered the preceding eleven sets of opposite characteristics will you be able to recognize the voice of God so clearly as to be able to feel, even in the most difficult cases, what you should do in perfect divine love, and what you should not do!

'Then you will no longer be able to err, because you will BE love itself! And love can only act in love. You will only need to radiate your self, to be your self, and the whole universe will be able to draw from your warmth, from your light, and from your strength. Then you will have become divine yourself, and your consciousness will have become identical with God himself! You will have returned from out of the world of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that is, from out of the realm of the tree of death, where everything is visible in the state of separation, into the realm of divine unity. You will then be eating again of the fruit of the tree of life. And of this fruit you will also give to eat to those who come after you so that all may return to the unity of the immortal, eternal life, to the eternal being, to God.

Nietzsche and the Law of Recurrence

2008-05-02T21:53:00.000-04:00

What if a demon crept after you one day or night in your loneliest solitude and said to you: 'This life, as you live it now and have lived it, you will have to live again and again, times without number; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must return to you, and everything in the same series and sequence - and in the same way this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and in the same way this moment and I myself. The eternal hour-glass of existence will be turned again and again - and you with it, you dust of dust!' - Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who thus spoke? Or have you experienced a tremendous moment in which you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never did I hear anything more divine!' If this thought gained power over you it would, as you are now, transform and perhaps crush you; the question in all and everything: 'do you want this again and again, times without number?' would lie as the heaviest burden upon all your actions. Or how well disposed towards yourself and towards life would you have to become to have no greater desire than for this ultimate eternal sanction and seal?

Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Rudolf Steiner

2008-05-02T21:41:00.000-04:00

It is not so important that one should preach about universal brotherly love. It is best to speak of that as little as possible. Speaking in such phrases is like saying to the stove, "Dear stove, it is your duty to warm this room. Fulfill your duty!" So it is with teachings that are given through such phrases. The important thing is the means. The stove remains cold if I simply tell it that it should be warm. It gets warm when it has fuel. People also remain cold when they are admonished. But what is fuel for the modern man? The specific facts of spiritual teaching are fuel for man. One should not be so lazy as to remain content with "Universal brotherhood." People must be given fuel. Then brotherhood will arise of itself. As the plants stretch out their blossoms to the sun, so must we all look up to the sun of the spiritual life.

Rudolf Steiner, from pg. 188 of Egyptian Myths and Mysteries

Sufjan Stevens sings "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"

2008-05-02T21:28:00.000-04:00

Someone has chosen to match this song with a slide show of black and white animal photos. I prefer it without the visuals, to be honest, but the song is very nice, as is Sufjan's entire album of Christmas carols.

The Cloud of Unknowing

2008-05-02T20:30:00.000-04:00

All who engage in this work of contemplation find that it has a good effect on the body as well as on the soul, for it makes them attractive in the eyes of all who see them. So much so that the ugliest person alive who becomes, by grace, a contemplative finds that he suddenly (and again by grace) is different, and that every good man he sees is glad and happy to have his friendship, and is spiritually refreshed, and helped nearer God by his company.

Therefore seek to get this gift by grace; for whoever really has it will be well able to control both himself and his possessions by virtue of it. It gives him discernment, when he needs it, to read people's needs and characters. It gives him the knack of being at home with everyone he talks to, habitual sinner or not, without sinning himself... to the astonishment of the onlooker, and with a magnetic effect on others, drawing them by grace to the same spiritual work that he practises.

Section 54, The Cloud of Unknowing

The Story of the Weeping Camel

2008-05-02T20:25:00.000-04:00

This is the first ten minutes of the film.

Arvo Pärt

2008-03-20T11:19:00.000-04:00

It is as though we are given a problem to solve, a number (ONE, for example), terribly complex when broken up into fractions. Finding a solution is a long process and requires intense concentration; but wisdom resides in reduction. If it is now conceivable that different fractions (epochs, lives) are united by a single solution (ONE), then that ONE is something more than the solution to a single fraction. It is the correct solution to all problems, to all fractions (epochs, lives) – and always has been.

Arvo Pärt, from pg. 65 of Arvo Pärt by Paul Hillier, 1997

The concept of tintinnabuli was born from a deeply rooted desire for an extremely reduced sound world which could not be measured, as it were, in kilometres, or even metres, but only in millimetres. According to my experience, the listener becomes increasingly sensitised in the process once he is drawn into this dimension. By the end the listening attention is utterly focused. At the point after the music has faded away it is particularly remarkable to hear your breath, your heartbeat, the lighting or the air conditioning system, for example.

Nora Pärt, from "An Interview with Arvo Pärt: Sources of Invention" by Geoff Smith, The Musical Times, 1999

Into Great Silence

2008-02-21T13:54:00.000-05:00

Clip from the film Into Great Silence about the Grande Chartreuse monastery, head of the Carthusian order.

Gurdjieff Movements

2008-02-21T13:53:00.001-05:00

Demonstration of Gurdjieff Movements at the end of Meetings with Remarkable Men.

Vivaldi's Mandolin Concerto

2008-02-21T09:41:00.001-05:00

B. Alan Wallace excerpt

2008-02-21T09:20:00.001-05:00

From Contemplative Science by B. Alan Wallace, 2007, pg. 46-47:

In Edward O. Wilson's presentation of scientific materialism in his well-known book Consilience, he has a great deal to say about the realm of human purposes, meaning, and value, which is widely viewed to be the proper domain of religion. Wilson also writes at length on our ultimate origins and destiny and the experiences of our inner life. In scientific materialism the boundaries between science and religion dissolve, and a new religion is presented as a substitute for all traditional religions. The sacred object of its reverence, awe and devotion is not God or spiritual enlightenment but the material universe, which exists transcendently "outside our heads." In other words, scientific materialism appears to be a modern kind of nature religion, or neoanimism, which had innumerable precedents in the preliterate history of humanity. As such, it appears to be one giant step backward for mankind.
...
While the ideologies of traditional religions and of scientific materialism differ in content, in many respects they are very much alike. As Wilson admits, the principles of scientific materialism "cannot be learned by pure logic; for the present only a leap of faith will take you from one to the other." The validation of this leap of faith, he declares, will eventually be reached through the accumulation of objective evidence acquired by scientists, with biologists leading the way. Thus, the creed's ultimate validation rests on the authority of future biologists, who will take on the role of messiahs to redeem humanity from its present ignorance and delusion.

The Magic Flute

2008-02-21T09:15:00.000-05:00

Silly Symphonies - The China Shop

2008-02-21T09:12:00.000-05:00

B. Alan Wallace

2008-02-21T09:02:00.000-05:00