Meditation on “Imagine” pt. 3

Jon2 Comments

Imagine there?s no countries
It isn?t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

“And no religion too” has a been a difficult part of the song for me until recently. One of the key points is understanding what is meant by “religion.”

It’s often pointed out that “religion” comes from the Latin for “to bind again.” In a positive sense, this is _repair_, binding us together again, making us whole, building community, creating moral underpinnings, providing purpose and hope, establishing a base upon which to reach out to others, and at its very best, providing an entrance through which one can experience the numinous.

In a negative sense, though, binding is bondage, creating vast arrays of mental garbage that prevents many _from_ discovering God, themselves, and full human life. It also implies separation.

Imagine (no pun intended) a stick bound in a bundle with other sticks. They become a group, a unit. Yet, in being bound together, they are also bound away from everything else. A single stick loses its fractured “identity” as a simple stick, and becomes a part of something larger than its small broken self, yet smaller that the whole it is inherently part of (all the wood on Earth).

This, in miniature, reflects the deficiency of “identity” given by the rebinding of religion. It’s excellent as far as lifting the individual to the next higher step, yet the very bonds that lifted him up to that point might inhibit him from being able to reach the next step beyond that. If so, he may identify with the religion, and create an identity from it. Our religious identities are as flimsy as our national identities, though they seem not to be at first. After all, I can have an experience of God, but does anyone have an experience of “country?” I don’t think so.

At times in my life, I have imagined (pun intended) that I was a Baptist, a Methodist, a Charismatic, a Lutheran, a Messianic gentile, a member of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, or a Catholic. Since my first experience of Christ, I’ve imagined I was “a Christian.” Yet Jesus only asked people to follow him, not to “become Christians!”

The truth is I am a human being, and as far as I can tell, even that apparent condition is only in effect until I die. I am spirit, or consciousness, or life. In Judeo-Christian terms, I’m made in “the image of God,” imago Dei. Other religions have other terms. Whatever it’s called (and it’s important to not attach to any particular language), that is the only thing that is unchangeable.

Yet the identification with a religion has nothing to do with the knowledge of God. The former gives the language and interpretation, the mental filling, that comes before and after those sacred moments of knowing. And the labels are purely products of the mind. No doctor has ever identified a Muslim headache or a Catholic T-cell. The Baptist gene remains stubbornly beyond discovery, and the Daoist dermis seems to be a myth! Yet there’s no shortage of people to tell you that you “are” Shi’a or Anglican or Jodo Shin Buddhist, or whatever.

Imagine there’s no religion…

Since the experience I had in January, I can. It’s much simpler than religion. Simpler than any concept of God or nirvana. Simpler than a single word It’s just:

.

Posts in this series: pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, interlude, conclusion.

Is the Buddha a recognized Christian saint?

Jon8 Comments

Saint Siddhartha Gautama, pray for us!

Sure, I’ve recognized the Buddha as a saint for years, but imagine my surprise when I received an email from a reader today pointing out that “Saint Josaphat” is a figure derived from the story of Siddhartha Gautama.

I decided to check it out, and found these links:

Check out the Wikipedia article on Saint Josaphat.

Still, I was wondering if this might be Christo-Buddhist wishful thinking, until I saw this article in the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, which simply affirms that the story of Josaphat is a Christianized version of the Buddha’s story. The article nowhere calls Josaphat a saint, which leads to the question, did he actually become a Catholic saint or not, and if so, is he still?

The email I received stated that the Catholic Church “proclaimed” him a saint, and he was later reaffirmed as such by St. John of Damascus (aka the Hermit, aka Damascene) who died in the mid-8th century. Technically speaking he certainly wasn’t “proclaimed” a saint. Proclamation, the culmination of the rigorous process of canonization, had not yet been developed by the Church. Saints in the first millennium were recognized by popular acclamation, and it does seem he was regarded as a saint, with a feast day of November 27. And here at the Online Medieval and Classical Library is the story of Barlaam and Ioasaph, attributed to St. John of Damascus.

Apparently his feast day was removed from the Catholic liturgical calendar in 1969, but that technically does not “de-saint” a saint—it merely de-emphasizes them. (And sometimes not very successfully; just google St. Philomena or St. Christopher to see that devotion to those saints persists contrary to Church efforts.)

Of course, all this ultimately is irrelevant. Is the Buddha a saint? Duh!

Peaceful Warrior

Jon2 Comments

I just got out of the Naro’s showing of Peaceful Warrior, based on Dan Millman’s novel, Way of the Peaceful Warrior. It’s simply *perfect.* Finally, a film with overt teaching on the path, that succeeds on all levels and by any standards. I’ll write a full review this weekend.

In the meantime, let me say, SEE THIS MOVIE! Bring your friends. Bring your enemies. Just don’t miss this.

Ashtavakra Gita

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In the “(ext)WisdomReading”:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WisdomReading group, we’re beginning the Ashtavakra Gita, one of my favorite of the world’s Scriptures despite the fact that it’s relatively little-known.

Here’s a except from a recent post I made there:

…
The challenge with ??Ashtavakra?? is probably in being able to take it literally enough. It is nonduality, completely and totally uncompromised, presented plainly, in every verse. God is all that is, forms are part of _maya_, “the magic show.” ??Ash??. considers the world false, and [unlike the Bhagavad Gita] has no use for war, caste, or anything that divides the One:

v.2b Seek the nectar of truth,
of love and forgiveness,
of simplicity and happiness.

v.5a: You have no caste
No duties bind you.

…

To people who haven’t had an experience of nonduality, Ashtavakra’s use of the word “you” might require a little explanation. At times, ??Ash??. addresses the egoic self, the familiar self, the “you” you think you are, as in v. 1-6b. At other times, “you” is “the Self,” the One being that really is, no matter how many bodies and minds there seem to be, as in v.6c:

You are everywhere,
forever free.

It’s not hard to tell the difference. ??Ash??. constantly contrasts the illusion of forms and the limited “you,” with the boundless Self.

12 is another verse worth remarking upon:

The Self looks like the world
But this is just an illusion.

The Self is everywhere.

One.
Still.
Free.
Perfect.

That’s an interesting departure from the usual pictures given to explain pantheism and “panentheism”:/spirituality/biblical-panentheism/. Panentheists sometimes say that the world is the “Body of God.” This would give some real substance 🙂 to the physical universe. ??Ash??, of course, doesn’t, and says that God “looks like” the world but that even that is illusion. ??Ash??. says the Self is Everywhere not “everything” because from his viewpoint, there are no “things.”

Remember, you’re welcome to join us.

There I am

Jon3 Comments

You know the guy who never remembers where he parked his car, and has to survey the parking lot before he finds it? That’s me.

Now, I don’t identify with my car… But recently, I had that experience and when I saw my car, thought “Oh, _there_ I am!” This has probably happened hundreds of times, but this time, I realized how odd it is to see a car and call it yourself. (Really, I *don’t* identify with my car!)

And yet in non-duality, there is no car and no self. Maybe someday I’ll look at another person and say, “Oh, _there_ I am!”

Meditation on “Imagine” pt. 2

Jon2 Comments

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

This part screams to me. “Imagine there’s no countries / It is isn’t hard to do…” To which my first response is “Duh! How can anyone believe countries exist?” I’ve posted on the subject a couple of times before here and here; not only do I find it “not hard” to “imagine there’s no countries,” but it seems a simple, obvious fact that there are none.

However, looking back, it wasn’t always obvious to me… it was a revelation that came to me over a period of reflection. I think I was in high school, and I was thinking about phrases I would hear in the news… “Russia said,” “China announced,” “Washington replied,” “Israel demanded,” etc.

I realized that statements like these were simply shorthand for quickly describing something far more complex: “Russia” hadn’t said anything… A statement was issued with the authority of the Soviet government declaring something. And that statement probably had probably gone through some quick drafts and discussion among General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and his advisors, clarifying shades and nuances of what precisely was meant, what should be said, and why. In short, a small group of people, strongly influenced by a single individual, in essence different from no other persons on the globe, had made a statement.

Now this statement had some weight in the world, because the individuals who issued it were presumed to have “power” over a “country.” I realized that “power” itself was another slippery fiction. Again, it was a shorthand for the notion that a person had the means to effect what he or she desired to do, in spite of opposition. In the Soviet Union, the “power” of the individuals making a statement, was considered close to total… that if anyone resisted their effort, say they tried to turn off the microphone or take the statement out of the speaker’s hand, they would be immediately arrested and certainly face dire consequences.

Yet the only way they could be arrested was for other individuals chose to act in accord with his orders, thus granting him “power.” If no one?no soldiers, no police, no judges, no comrades—would cooperate, he would have no “power.”

Ditto, then, for all the supposed countries making statements. All that was really happening was persons at the head of organizations with usually-respected chains of command were making statements… Countries were not talking. The country was something with no existence other than the fact that a large group of persons agreed to pretend it existed and respect the established chains of command.

Could a mass of people destroy a country by simply no longer agreeing to pretend it existed? That was a question on many minds in 1991. For over a year, persons in Vilnius, Lithuania had declared that “the Soviet Union” did not exist in the area called Lithuania, that Lithuania was “independent.” Yet most people inside and outside the Soviet Union kept agreeing to pretend that it did.

Their willingness to do so collapsed following the kidnapping of President Gorbachev in August that year. Suddenly “the Soviet Union” seemed a flimsy and undesirable fiction to hold on to. Others were proposed and found more appealing: Russian Federation, Ukraine, Commonwealth of Independent States, etc. On Christmas Day, 1991, the flag of the Soviet Union was lowered from the Kremlin forever, no longer a symbol of “rule” but a piece of cloth evoking the past. Influential persons living in the landmass that had been called the Soviet Union had agreed to stop pretending it existed, and it was gone.

That is the extent of reality a country has. That is why you were taught to believe your country (no matter what it is), is real, and that your country (no matter what it is), is “good.”

At this time, Southwest Asia, from Afghanistan in the East, to Iraq in the center, and Lebanon and Israel in the West, is engaged in varying levels of warfare, with Syria and Iran participating behind-the-scenes.

But imagine there’s no countries… only people. No past to avenge. No future to fight for. No cause to enlist into a militia or terrorist group for. Nothing to kill or die for. Only men and women, boys and girls, all alike in having the same human needs, fears, aspirations.

That’s the way I see it now. What will it take for others there to imagine it too?

Posts in this series: pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, interlude, conclusion.

Tagged! 5 Weird Things/Habits

Jon4 Comments

OK, I?ve been tagged by friend and fellow blogger Darrell in a cybergame that goes like this:

The first player of this game starts with ?5 weird things/habits about yourself.? In the end you need to choose 5 people to be tagged and list their names. The people who get tagged need to write a blog about their 5 weird things/habits, as well as state this rule clearly, then tag 5 more victims. Don’t forget to leave your victim a comment that says ?you’re tagged!? in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

Hard to limit myself to just five, but here they are:

1. I burst into song at the drop of a hat. Any hat. Perhaps I was raised on too many musicals as a youngster. I thought it would be cool if people spontaneously burst into singing to express themselves in real life; I started doing it, and haven’t stopped.

2. It’s virtually gone now, but milk used to taste colors to me. Yes, you read that right. Especially during my undergrad years, I tasted milk on a spectrum of yellow-to-blue. Fresh milk was yellow (meaning delicious!) and less fresh milk moved into the blue zone. Stale was dark blue, and sour, black. Also, skim milk tended to taste just a tad bluer, or less yellow, than whole milk, no matter how fresh it was.

I learned that this cross-sensory perception is called synesthesia. Apparently many composers have it. Olivier Messiaen wrote about composing “stain-glass window chords,” Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov heard specific musical keys as colors. Music-color synesthesia might have helped during those years, as I was a composition major. But noooooo, I got milk-color!

3. I used to save my pennies, then Scotch-tape together in short stacks of five or ten. Then I’d carry them in my pocket to spend them as ordinary change. When a cashier was suprised to be handed one of those mini-rolls, I explained “it’s a fat nickle (or dime),” as if it were the most natural thing in the world. (Most of them didn’t like this.)
4. Anagrams. I love them, but there are no anagrams for Jon Zuck. However, “Jon Meyer Zuck” converts to:

MERE COZY JUNK and
ZEN MUCKER JOY.

5. I love alternate writing systems. I developed the first computer font for an alternative English alphabet known variously as the Second Shaw alphabet, or Quickscript, or the Read Alphabet. Here’s a copy of the Lord’s Prayer in that font:

Lord's Prayer in Read Alphabet

I also developed my own personal shorthand. It’s a mixture of Gregg, Quickscript, and my own stuff.

Be it known to all, that on this 30th day of July, in this the year of our Lord 2006, I do hereby tag:
Ryan, Zach, Julie, Bob, and Meredith

Breaking through…

Jon11 Comments

Have you ever felt that the Universe was a projection, playing upon a screen, and the only thing beyond is the light of God?

Have you ever felt you could tear the screen down?

Have you ever done it?

Have you ever experienced it happening

Meditation on “Imagine” pt. 1

Jon1 Comment

Something i’ve wanted to do for a long time is post on John Lennon’s song, Imagine. What kept me from it was not wanting to make a really, really, long post. You’ve might have noticed I do like to keep things short! The solution ? take it in parts.

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

I used to have a love/hate relationship with this song. On one hand, I lauded Lennon’s idealism and desire for peace, but on the other, his antipathy to religion was quite off-putting to me until fairly recently.

Some years ago, I did come to imagine “no hell below us,” though. And that willingness to *imagine* and consider, eventually became a willingness to “re-examine the hell idea” in depth. I’m happy to report it didn’t survive the scrutiny!

Reexamining “good” and “evil” seems to be going around in my local blogosphere, particularly in Trev’s and Julie’s blogs.

A large number of people, however, are not yet able to earnestly question what they’ve been taught about “good” and “evil.” That in itself isn’t a problem. But those unquestioned presuppositions can become the source of great suffering. Large parts of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish world are engaged in open warfare at the time of this post. It’s fair to say that every entity involved in the fighting views itself as “good,” and their enemy as “evil.”

Lennon urges us to look at ordinary life, rather than philosophy or religion, for the direction on how to live. Ironically, this echoes the idea present throughout all the mystics that ethics is as simple as the Golden Rule: Do to others as you would have them do to you. Love your neighbor.

Is this raw atheism? Is there really “only sky” above us? Does “living for today” mean there is no afterlife? Not at all. I believe (yeah, I do have beliefs!) that there is far more to This than what is the visible world. (Really it’s far less, but I won’t get into that here!) But the thing is that we are only responsible for our interactions in this tangible world with each other, under the sky.

“Only sky” means that there is no heaven except at this moment, and no hell except at this moment, no life at all except the single moment we have to live now. The past and the future exist only in the mind. The only experience is the experience of the present moment.

And at every moment, we are constantly involved in creating heavens and hells for ourselves and each other. The eyes of the Father are not looking down upon us, so much as looking out through us… every one of us.

Posts in this series: pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, interlude, conclusion.