Patience (# 1766)

1.Meister Eckhart may have more or less said that we should endure our suffering with patience. Included in suffering is the lack of patience with oneself. Lord, give me patience!

2.Being is suffering with us for the mess we have made of our planet. Plants and animals are suffering. Powerful forces are being unleashed.

3.I learned that the Beguines and Dominican nuns of the 13th and 14th centuries were inflicting suffering on themselves in order to be closer to God. Meister Eckhart was teaching that suffering brings us closer to God because God suffers with us.

As I typed that I just saw the argument against corporal penance because, if what Meister Eckhart says is true, the flagellates would be punishing God.

I don’t want to stray too far from the presence of appearance. I don’t quite understand that God is suffering with us. It is quite comforting to think so.

Cutting Strawberries (# 1765)

1.The old man was standing at the kitchen counter cutting up strawberries into a bowl. He wondered, if the lost son was looking from some place, would he think nothing had changed. But there were huge changes inside, a huge empty place.

Later, after some consideration, the old man realized that lunch time had been a place of meeting and sharing space. There was often conversation about what had been done and what was read the previous morning . There may have been a time when strawberries were being cut at the counter to free up space elsewhere. This arising of pain had a trigger.

2.In “Talks of Instruction” Meister Eckhart wrote that God suffers with man:

“However great the suffering may be, if it comes through God, then God suffers first from it. Indeed by the truth that is God, there never was so tiny a pang of sorrow that befell a man, not the least little discomfort or inconvenience, but if he placed it on God, then it would pain God incomparably more that that man, and incommode God more than the man himself”

“But if God endures this for the sake of such benefit as He intends for you thereby, and if you will endure that which God endures and which comes to you through Him, then it inevitably becomes godlike, so that shame is like honor, bitterness like sweetness and the blackest darkness like the brightest light. It takes all its savor from God and becomes godlike: for whatever comes to such a man conforms to God, because he seeks nothing else and has no taste for anything else. Accordingly he gets hold of God in all bitterness just as in the greatest sweetness.”

From Walshe, Talks of Instruction, pp27-8. Quoted from Richard Woods, Meister Eckhart, Master of Mysteries p.162.

Woods says that by “welcoming God’s presence, we transcend pain and bitterness”. How APAPB!!!

3.A few posts ago I speculated about space and raindrops. I was advised to look at time. Yes, the raindrops were moving through space in time.

What we think of as space is mostly air with molecules suspended in space. Do raindrops react with the molecules as they push past on their way to the ground?

4.BrM – Be still!!!

Tree of Life (# 1764)

1.This post owes a debt of gratitude to Sarah Ruden’s Paul Among the People for inspiration and a bit more.

2.Faith is trust. It is the putting aside of one’s objective of self-perspective and instead, relying on God’s Love.

3. “But the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the lower nature with its passions and desires. If the Spirit is the source of our life, let the Spirit also direct our course”.

Galations 5: 22-25 My edition of the New English Bible

The harvest of the Spirit recalls the Buddhist “Four Immeasurables”: equanimity, love, compassion, and joy. The “lower nature” seems to correspond to the Buddhist “kleshas”. It also might equate to the world of samsara.

Ruden notes that the Greek word pneuma means both spirit and breath. Breath “is the most free, most natural and most shared” (Ruden p.40) On the lowest common denominator, it would seem living in the Spirit is being open as opposed to being constricted. Breath relates to both time and space. Breaths happen in time. Space expands and contracts the lungs.

The metaphor of crucifying the lower nature appears in all the translations that I looked at. On the most basic level it appears to say the passions and desires are wiped out. But the cross is the symbol of redemption. We can leave our passions and desires at the foot of the cross. We can rest in God’s Love.

4. When I think about crucifying the passions and desires I keep seeing William Blake’s painting of the cross as the Tree of Life in his series on John Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress. The hero Christian arrives at the cross and his burden falls away off his back. Both St. Bonaventure and Meister Eckhardt equate the cross with the tree of life. In fact it was common belief in the Middle Ages that the cross was made from the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life was introduced in Genesis 2:9 as being in the center of the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve at of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were separated from the Tree of Life and so were destined to die. The “Book of Penance of Adam derives from Kabalistic traditions. Seth is able to enter the Garden and a guardian angel gives him three seeds. He is instructed to plant these in the mouth of Adams when he dies. One grew into the burning bush and eventually ended up in the Ark of the Covenant. It was planted by David and provided Solomon with the wood for the pillar of Jachim and Boaz at a gateway to the Temple in Jerusalem. It prevented unclean things from entering the temple.Some evil priest removed it and threw the wood into a reservoir. The reservoir was drained during Christ’s lifetime and the wood retrieved. It was used a bridge over the brook of Kedron and eventually used for the cross Jesus was crucified on.

“Hence, while “every tree of the garden was given for food,” the tree of life, in the midst of the garden, was provided by Infinite Wisdom as the appointed antidote of disease or decay of the body while, at the same time, the enjoyment of spiritual life, or the indwelling of the spirit of God, and the right of access to the tree of life, thus securing immortality, were conditioned on our first parents not eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge”

John McClintock and James Strong, The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. 1881. Vol. X Su-Z, p.531.

5.Eos sent me this reference: Romans 6:6 (New American Standard Bible): “knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” Another metaphor. Kerplunk, there goes the old self.

Long Life (# 1763)

1.In the last post I learned to think differently about death, that all of us will be mourned. That focuses attention on others rather than the end of one’s existence. That seems to be an opening into the understanding bodhisattva practice of praying for long life in order to help others. In other words, “others” are more clearly identified once one thinks of who will be mourning. This is rather simple and obvious except I did not see it before.

2.Last night reading from Andrew Weeks, German Mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein (New York, 1983), I came across a sentence that left me wondering what is the world was the writer thinking?

“It was not until the year 1155 that Eugene’s successor, Hadrian IV, was able to have Arnold burned at the stake as a rebel”

p.46

The passage refers to Arnold of Brescia who was a follower of Abelard who had strong support from women in Rome and the Commune and was able to drive out Eugene. Eugene III and Hadrian IV were popes. Frankly I shudder whenever I contemplate such a cruel death as burning at the stake. Secondly, why were women so quick to rebel join forces at odds with the authority of the church? Hmmm, could it have something to do with patriarchy?

3.Lying in bed listening to the rain, I was trying to imagine the space between the rain drops but the drops were moving too fast for me. Maybe I should have imagined the space at the top of the raindrop following the drop to the ground.

4.He had been talking for some time. She was sitting across the cafe table from him, sipping her drink, listening to his story. Finally she spoke. You must not conflate loss of faith with going it alone. It will only strengthen the sense of “self”. Instead try to think more about shared awareness. Our most intense experiences are shared with others although we tend to think of them as OUR experiences. He looked at her and thought “how beautiful she is”.

A Time for Mourning (# 1762)

1.Last night I pulled out my mother’s New English Bible to look at the passage about time in Ecclesiastes to see it there anything I missed. There wasn’t. But I kept reading and I found this:

“…for to be mourned is the lot of every man and the living should take this to heart”.

Ecclesiastes 7:2

I looked at a good number of English translations on the online “Bible Gateway” and everywhere else the passage refers to death rather than “being mourned”. Even the New English Bible on the website refers to death rather than mourning. So it can be inferred that this is a very loose, poetic translation. That said, whether it Ecclesiastes or some translator(s), it is an insightful statement on its own. I would even go as far as saying it is divinely inspired through the prophet translator(s).

We all know we are going to die. We may fear. We can keep it out of our plans but it is there. When we die, we will be mourned; there will be a hole in someone’s life. Sometimes a parent will be more concerned with how their children or others will cope than with their own passage from the living world. A dying person’s compassion for the mourners is an inspiration.

I have been thinking about the idea of group awareness as opposed to individual awareness. I am wondering whether the recognition of the mourners left behind is somehow in that category, i.e. a “fact” out there for us to recognize. It belongs to all sentient beings.

2.The first half of Ecclesiastes 7:2 says that is better to die than be born. Might that be a metaphor for the things we accumulate?

3.BrM – 3 breaths. Switching projects. 2 more breaths

Addenda (# 1761)

1.Explanation: In the previous blog I used some abbreviations after the beginning number of each section. These are abbreviations I often use when I am stopping what I am doing to see what my mind is doing and then recording. The abbreviations are not really important to anyone but me but they can be found in the abbreviation tab above, right next to “Home”. R=reflection. BrM=Breathing Meditation.

2.Yesterday I recalled a remembered moment. Since then I wondered why I remembered. All of the adults are dead. The parlor is gone, The clocks may be gone. I have no idea of what was said. Still my mind this this is part of the world and reserves space in a cell or more in my brain. Were the clocks especially loud or was the house very quiet? Still, I am grateful that this warm memory from one red brick row house with a marble front step, in a city with thousands of them. Who knows what memories are being stored in the mind of that little child today who is playing on the floor while the adults talk. We sometimes learn the child is listening intently especially if the conversation turns to them.

3.Working backward: two days ago, I reflected on air. Since then I learned that air cleaners can remove Covid germs from the air. If so, that may have been a factor in keeping me safe a year and a half ago.

I am constantly vacuuming dust that has fallen from the air.

There is so much going on in what looks like empty space. We do not see it usually, we do not hear it, we usually do not smell or taste it but sometimes do. Then there is us. We can not fly through the space on our own but can walk through it, joining the more-numerous-to-count molecules and atoms (each bearing space as well as occupying). While walking, we breath in all that stuff and it goes to our lungs where the oxygen molecules are sorted out and used.

(# 1760)

1.R –
Edited:
Fewer
Words.

2.R –
When I close my eyes,
Multiple observations of the world can appear:
Some more than a half century old.

Sitting on a footstool in a parlor
Listening to the sound of ticking clocks
And the murmur of adult conversation.

Why is that appearing now?

My battery-run clock is ticking nearby
When I open my eyes.

Air (#1759)

1.BrM – Taking a break – three deep breaths. Allowing space.

2.R – Last night,
An interval
Between
Turning out lights
And sleep.
Sailing
Into that space
And other spaces.

I have learned
That
Everything
Contains
Space.
What
About
All
The
Space
Surrounding
My
Bed?

It is Not Empty.

The Space is filled with air.
Molecules.
Floating.

I
Wonder
What
Percentage of
Oxygen
A human
Coverts
At
Night?

Sudhana seeing atoms.
Each with a Buddha.

Tonight
I
See
Molecules
Dancing
In surrounding
space.

Be still!
(Me, not the
Molecules)

Raccoon the Teacher (# 1758)

1.I had a dream last night yada yada. The dream itself is not noteworthy in its content. I was in a crawl space of a house with two others when a crazed raccoon began to attack us. I sent the other two for help while I kept the raccoon at bay. Its eyes were red and it stared at me and i stared back. A few times it attacked me and I fought it off. I began to think it must be rabid. A bow and arrow appeared next to me and I shot an arrow through the raccoon.

It did not take long for me to realize the dream spoke to me about a problem that developed yesterday. In some ways the raccoon represented my fears. I had two ways of looking at the problem, one while awake yesterday, and one in the dream last night. What if there is no problem. The problem exists only in my mind. I can act as if there is a problem or I can act as if there is no problem.

Yesterday, among other things, I was reminded of Donovan’s song in which he sang “there is no mountain then there is”. There is is no problem then there is. It is nice when the message has a catchy tune.

I (# 1757)

1.Last night I realized that “self” was wanting attention by the end of the day. Whoops. Down Self. Down! Who’s a no self. OK, I should take you out for a walk.

2.Last night a dimly remembered dream about making new paths in existing nature centers in order to get better views of the main features. I was proud of my work but I did not tell anyone that is was I who did it.