Well, the first thought here, anyway. So I'm 45 minutes away from yoga and sitting here in front of the computer not very sure why I'm starting a blog. The interface doesn't work very well here on my mac and I have nothing resembling an original thought to put out there. However, since this is all the rage, I figured I'd give it a try.
Should I bother?
Should anyone?
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6 comments:
The source of all that troubles and ails you is that you go to Church.
any and all church? no community spirituality is constructive?
In order to answer your question( which is on a certain level invalid) I need to know if you are asking about a "community" or if you meant to say "communal".
Assuming on the basis of ambiquous evidence that you meant "community" I will respond as such:
Community spirituality is constructive. Although Each "community" has its on spirit. You can witness a community spirit at the local fair, bake sale etc. However, YOU as an individual seek answers to the same questions which all of us ( man- the species) ask . Those questions are (baqsically), who am I, Does God really exist, Is there an afterlife and what time does the Met game start.
Your quest for "spiritual" fulfillment is in reality an endeavor doomed to fail.
Church( be it a particular building) or be it used to describe the greater organized order(hmm, I could have worded that better) ,,either way, a particular site for worship ( ie: the local church) or a huge autocratic organization such as " the catholic church"...neither will ever give you any answers to the set of questions which serve to define who you are in the universe.
The answers to those questions may come to you, they may not. I don't know. I am not a Lama.
I prefer to spend my time pondering what is really important. "Spirituality" is nothing but a word to use to describe one's state of mind as they go through the turnstile and enter death.
Will YOU be ready for the Grand Luminosity of the Bardo? How will you handle the Wrathful Dieties?
These are the questions you should ask. These are the issues about which you should worry. Going to "church" for some ill conceived notion of community spirituality may serve to neatly compartmentalize your proletarian existence , it may even help you to rise through the ranks in community - but it won't ever assist you in ascertaining the answers to the questions mentioned above. It is those questions which have bound us a species to the past, and dictate our future. Strip away the bloviating pendantic idiocy of organized "religion" and at the end of the day you have a beast in search of answers. We are the beast. You are the beast as I am the beast.
Everything else is just noise.
Again I repeat- the source of all that troubles and ails you (you being the beast) is that you go to Church for answers.
Yes, I go to church. No, I don't go to church for answers. I started going to this Unitarian church for a single answer - which it was in itself. The question was "how do I give my daughters a broader perspective on theology and religion?" One of the issues I have always had with my own Catholic upbringing has been that I had always been given just one narrow view on things until I myself found my way out of that. I wanted something different for my kids. However, I realized that no matter what I did to teach them on my own I could never do anything but give them my own narrow view on things (being that I have no choice but to speak from my own narrow view at any time). Hence the church.
Getting the other people involved in the process is a way to be sure and give the girls other people's views to chew on along with my own. I'm an atheist. Maybe they won't be. If they never had anyone talking to them about god at all, there wouldn't even be a chance for them to decide.
As for my own questions, I mostly have stopped asking questions. I am more into silent reflection. I go to Yoga, I meditate on the train. I try to find stillness. For, as you say "[e]verything else is just noise", and I have dealt with that noise all too much in my life time (short as it has been thus far).
Your comment "how do I give my daughters a broader perspective on theology and religion" has been ringing through my head and heart for a few days.
So much so that I have even stoppped thinking about the horrors you must have had to deal with being raised Catholic( whatever that may entail; indeed such horrors are not something about which I would have any interest - I have never been a fan of horror movies or books.)
Some people are very large.
I am very small.
Together - me, you and your daughter make up the universe.
The Zen buddhists tell us that there isn't a past, it is over. There isn't a future - it has yet to arrive. The only thing that matters is the present and our relation to the universe in the present.
In a universe so large that are human minds cannot grasp the size, there is at the core of all matter subatomic particles which are so small our minds cannot grasp their size. Everything else is just stuff which varies in size along the fairly wide range of things which fall in the "medium" category. We as man are in that middle range. By default and definition we are medium, average and perhaps the best description is "mediocre".
Embrace the medicority of your existence. It is the reason for our existence. To make the stuff which is bigger so spectacularly mindboggling and to make the stuff which is smaller so mentally baffling.
Churches, religions and other man made inventions which dictate the worhsip of false idols, the embracement of false premises and the acceptance of fallacious reasoning are not the way to spend the limited amount of time we mediocre beings have . Stay focused on what is really important.
That is the best way to guide your daughter.
Zen is something I am a bit familiar with. And you quote it well. But you are a man (in the sense of being a man of old), and you see from your perch things your child will not understand no matter how eloquent or plainly you speak. I offer you the Koan:
"A child views a tree and sees just the tree, rightly. The young man views the tree and sees in it the manifold existences of all things and of the nature of the tree itself. He sees the relationships of all to all and tree to all and to him. Agian, this is right. The wise man views the tree and sees just the tree, rightly and only after he has been a young man."
I agree with what you stated. At heart I, too, am a follower of the ever present moment. But I certianly did not arrive here lightly. I also didn't arrive here with no path. It was struggle and, I believe, only through that struggle with meaning and the world and its views did I come to appreciate what I see now.
I want to offer my children the same oppurtunity to struggle. The same chance at the horror of doubt, fear, uncertianty and the other firey emotions that lead to Satori and knowlegde - and No-Satori and No-knowledge.
I offer From the Heart Sutra: "O my child, a son or daughter of noble family who wishes to practice the profound perfect wisdom should see in this way: seeing the parts of any person to be empty of nature. Form is emptiness; emptiness also is form. Emptiness is no other than form; form is no other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness are emptiness. Thus, my child, all teachings are emptiness. There are no characteristics. There is no birth and no cessation. There is no impurity and no purity. There is no decrease and no increase. Therefore, my child, in emptiness, there is no form, no feeling, no perception, no formation, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no appearance, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no elements, no eye element up to no mind element, no parts of our nature, no mind consciousness elements; no ignorance, no end of ignorance up to no old age and death, no end of old age and death; no suffering, no origin of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path, no wisdom, no attainment, and no non-attainment."
The minister read that at Faye's baby dedication - a pagan baptism of sorts, involving water. Of course, my mother had the minister mix in some "holy" water from her church. It made her happy. But that sums up the whole thing. That moment was perfect. Why? Because we let it be. And we couldn't have let it be, not all of us, without the contructs of the church and the minister and the ceramony. You see?
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