Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Michael's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, December 14th, 2006
3:26 pm	Truth is non-symbolic, but it finds itself expressed in our lives symbolically. This is the same whether we see infinity in a work of art, a piece of nature, or a religious icon. We arrive at something when the object stops being an object while we stop being our selves. If that is possible, which I think it is. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 12th, 2006
6:01 pm	Absurdity is the most immediate quality of everything in life. But it is also the most superficial. Is this true, or is there a higher order of absurdity that I just haven't realized yet? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 24th, 2006
11:08 pm	I was out walking tonight, and I stood in a field one way facing toward the campus where I now feel at home, the other way facing toward a night sky with brightly lit clouds. I set out on this walk looking to leave behind the world of men and look into a different sort of reality. As I grew cold and I began to think that I had nowhere to go but back, I realized how in a way the two worlds (but I know they are not really separate worlds!) had become reversed for me. The starry sky may as well have been my home, and the lights of campus contained the very same infinite mystery I had left them to look for. Tonight once again the mysterious became familiar to me, and the familiar became mysterious. My greatest fear is that, despite everything that I know, I am still too proud. I know that there is no room for arrogance within a state of contemplative knowing. But I am afraid that it finds itself manifest in the ways through which I bring my contemplation into the uncontemplative moments of my life. It seems like there is only one way and that is to live always on that higher level, and I don't know if that is something I will ever be capable of doing. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
9:35 am	What have I been thinking about all summer? The difference between dreams and wakefulness is that only in wakefulness can we doubt. When I am awake, I constantly doubt the reality of the world around me. In dreams, I never do. So is it our capacity to doubt the existence of the external world precisely what makes it real? And how does this relate to the existence of the holy (if existence and holy is either an appropriate word), which we experience as a quality of other perceptions and thoughts? What is my prison? Surely I must have preconceived values that limit me! How do I realize what they are? Is it really possible for man's faith to become imprisoned within the confines of organized religion? No matter how much tradition might bind one's actions, the spirit can find itself expressed in anything. It does not matter what objects are sanctified or what process makes them so- even the narrow awareness of the divine realized in, say, the communion of a Catholic or the whirling of a Sufi, expressed in a single object or ritual, is nevertheless wholly universal, and all you need to do is talk to certain people to realize that this is powerful enough to build one's life around. I still don't think organized religion is at all necessary- but neither is it really harmful to man's spirituality. (The problem of organized religion's effect on morality, of course, is an entirely separate topic and a pretty obvious problem in the world today.) Build our lives around a "quality of perceptions and thoughts"? Absolutely! Because that quality contains infinity- because that quality is how we come to know infinity. Our senses, limited though they are, are the most liberating faculty we possess. Not only do they bring us to the outside world, to the "Other", but they allow us to develop our own understanding of it. Where one sees beauty another might see ugliness; where one hears danger another might hear nothing out of the ordinary. And this is a miracle! It is a miracle because we experience not only the material universe itself and the physical qualities that can be measured; we also get something else, too, something that is a part of us and a part of the object in one. And maybe Something more than that, too? What people have come to call the devil, or the demonic aspect of God, is the tremendous force of natural disasters and the deepest terror we feel at the threats of an unknown universe. It is when the smooth rhythm of waves on the beach gives way to the crash and the spray of the ocean beating against the rocks. How do we face it? It is not placated by superstition or "virtue". No matter how far the frontiers of man's knowledge expand, it will still be there behind our backs and in dark places. No, we overcome this terror by embracing it. "Sweep me up!" We must accept the unknown forces, those that threaten to remove us from this world in the blink of an eye, as an essential aspect of the cosmos. I don't believe in any sort of afterlife, and from what little I know of death I know that it is always a violent thing- but nevertheless I still take comfort in the thought that, once my consciousness has ceased to animate my body, all of the matter that allowed me to be will slowly dissolve, united in death as in life with all of the world. "Something mysteriously formed, Born before heaven and earth. In the silence and the void, Standing alone and unchanging, Ever present and in motion. Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things. I do not know its name. Call it Tao. For lack of a better word, I call it great."                         -Tao Te Ching (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 22nd, 2006
8:01 pm	I am back Just got back today from seeing the world, so I have many things to talk about. Since I don't know where to start, here are some things you might not know about Israel: -Every single building in Jerusalem is made of limestone- it looks a lot like our Central Texas stone. I didn't expect this. The effect is incredible. It has a very 'foreign' look to it. Every city should look that nice. -Israelis love ice cream. Every single place in Israel sells it. It never felt dangerous. But we never really went into the occupied territory, except a little bit of driving in East Jerusalem. Our only counter with Islamic extremism was when one of the guards on the Temple Mount made our guide leave because she wore a dress that revealed the backs of her knees. The only time I felt nervous was one night when we stayed at a kibbutz on the Lebanese border, where a few weeks before we came, a sniper had killed a soldier at a nearby base. But I didn't feel too nervous, because there was a large military base between us and the border. One thing that impressed me as far as the Palestinian conflict is how small all of the distances involved are. The Palestinian farms that are made inaccessible by the wall Israel is building? Smaller than the hill at school. The farms that Hezbollah has sworn to fight Israel in order to recover? A single rocky hillside, even smaller. For the most part, the ancient holy sites didn't do much for me. The Wailing Wall looks like a wall of limestone. The Dome of the Rock is very pretty because it is the only colorful building in the whole city because everything else is limestone. My favorite Christian thing was the Catholic section of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which had abstract, modernistic Jesus sculptures in contrast to the over-the-top gold mosaics they had everywhere else. A few other interesting things in Jerusalem: The Old City is chock full of white-bearded old men in really funny costumes and ridiculous hats. Also, there are some pretty outrageous things for sale in the shops there: vials of water from the Jordan River to anoint your home, a neon-green-embroidered-on-black art deco Last Supper, crowns of thorns (I am not making that one up! they are specially made and blessed by nuns) and more. There were soldiers everywhere, which took a little getting used to. There were also black-coated Hasidim everywhere. When we were at the Wailing Wall, a scruffy-looking Hasid put his hand on Joe's head and gave him a blessing, and then asked for money. When Joe didn't give him any shekels, I think he put a curse on us in Yiddish. (Apparently, they don't curse in Hebrew because it is a holy language) Roman ruins are pretty cool. They've got them all over in that part of the world. My favorites are the ones where they have excavated but have not restored anything, so you can still see where the columns fell and all of that. The Baha'i gardens in Haifa were interesting. The Baha'i are sort of like Muslim Unitarians. According to Wikipedia, their holiest day of the year is on my birthday. They have a massive garden complex that is supposed to look like Paradise. I don't think Paradise would be quite so symmetrical, though. One of the high points of the trip was meeting my long-lost Goldberg cousins over in Israel. The family story goes something like this: My great-grandfather, Joe Goldberg, left Poland in 1915 and came to America. One of his brothers stayed in Poland and had three sons. When World War II looked imminent, he told his sons to go to Israel, and to memorize Joe Goldberg's address in Texas in case they couldn't make it. So they walked to Israel. They were 11, 12, and 14 years old. The youngest disappeared somewhere along the trip- one of my cousins speculated that he was killed in a Russian prison. The other two brothers both made it to Israel, but were separated along the way. They each never even knew the other had arrived until my great-grandfather visited them years later. Their children and grandchildren are my cousins in Israel today. I've written too much. But I've got a lot to talk about because now I have seen a bunch of the world. Ask me more about it sometime. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006
6:16 am	I am in Istanbul I've been traveling with my family for the past week. We were in London for two days, Istanbul for four, and we leave for Israel tonight. So far, I've been pretty impressed. Some highlights: -If I were a major city, I think I might be London: Kind of absurd and haphazardly thrown together, but with a sense of grandeur that is often excessive. (I mostly get this impression from the architecture) Saw the National Gallery and the British Museum. The Parthenon marbles and the car-sized fist of Ramses II were pretty impressive. Of the paintings, I was impressed more than I expected to be by the works by Titian and Veronese. I also liked the ones by El Greco, Rubens, and Tintoretto- but I have always liked their paintings. The food in London was very expensive and bland. -What you might already suspect about Istanbul is that its residents have one passion and one religion, and that is Sales. I'm not exaggerating. They are really serious about selling things, and really good at it. Much better than tourist places in Mexico or anywhere else I've been. Hagia Sophia was sort of disappointing, because the middle of it was filled with scaffolding because they were renovating it. I liked the Sultan Ahmed Mosque better. Standing in the middle of the square and hearing muezzins chant prayers from 4 different minaret towers all in different directions is pretty impressive. -What you might not know about Istanbul is that it is full of kittens. There are kittens everywhere, always begging for food at outdoor restaurants and almost getting run over by cars. I am very eager to see Israel. I feel like it is inevitable that I will end up spending at least part of my life on a kibbutz there, so I should try to pick up some Hebrew now. I look forward to seeing everybody back in Austin in 2 weeks or so. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 17th, 2006
8:14 am	description of a spiritual experience For some reason, I haven't felt strongly inclined to write about spiritual things in the last month or so. But here's something I wrote for a theology paper last week that I think would be appropriate to post here. It is a description of my first spiritual experience, the moment that set me towards being who I am now. "As best I recall, it was at the end of a rather difficult day. After I got home exhausted, I took a shower. Standing there that night with the water running over me, the strongest impression that I can remember was that the air that I was breathing had suddenly become a living thing. All the world around me became like a single living thing, and I realized that I was indistinguishable from the rest of it. Looking down at my body, I felt it to be made of this same sacred substance that filled the air and water around me. And at the same time I had an unshakable impression that, while I was a part of all of this, the thing that I was experiencing was something entirely outside of myself, something that included me as it included the rest of the world but could not possibly be the product of my own consciousness. It was loving, but not in the same way as a person might be able to be loving. No human could love so indiscriminately, so powerfully, except only insofar as he or she knows this divine love. Immediately after I got out of the shower, I wrote down my impressions of what I had experienced. For the rest of the night, eating dinner, talking with my family, I acted as I always do, mentioning nothing about how I felt, but still internally aglow. As I lay down to sleep that night, I felt safer than I had ever felt, sheltered in the arms of some ultimate Other of which I was a part. The following morning, I wrote, “The epiphany may be gone, but the sacredness remains.” From that day up until the present, that has been true. I have never forgotten how the world we inhabit might suddenly acquire such a sacred dimension, which is always present, waiting only for us to realize it." After I wrote this, I felt like it was the closest I've ever come to putting into words how I felt that night and how I have felt many times since. It is the center of who I am. (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 20th, 2006
7:21 pm	Suffering as rebirth It struck me today that the only good way people deal with suffering is to interpret it as an experience of rebirth. Throughout our history, we have taught ourselves two things: 1) Suffering is punishment for wrongdoing, and 2) Through suffering, we grow as individuals. The problem with the first one is that it generally is not what we see in the world. But I won't fully endorse the second one, because I don't think exactly that it is our growth as individuals that gives a purpose to our sufferings. It is something more radical than that: it is rebirth. For a long time I have wondered why people feel that rebirth is a greater miracle than birth: It is because rebirth is something we know, something we experience every time we overcome our sorrows, whereas birth (of ourselves and of the world) is something we lose to the past. I'm pretty sure the suffering-as-rebirth teaching is a universal one. It is certainly the core of the Christian myth; in Judaism, however, the divine-punishment messages of the prophets seem to go against it. It is possible to interpret our centuries of exile as the prelude to the rebirth of a stronger Israel (either the state that exists today or one in an indefinite future). But that's kind of forced- I'm not sure if I can really find a good suffering-as-rebirth message in Judaism. But here's something related from the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu:     "All at once Master Yu fell ill. Master Si went to ask how he was. "Amazing!" said Master Yu. "The Creator is making me all crookedy like this! My back sticks up like a hunchback and my vital organs are on top of me. My chin is hidden in my navel, my shoulders are up above my head, and my pigtail points at the sky. It must be some dislocation of the yin and yang!"     Yet he seemed calm at heart and unconcerned. Dragging himself haltingly to the well, he looked at his reflection and said, "My, my! So the Creator is making me all crookedy like this!"     "Do you resent it?" asked Master Si.     "Why no, what would I resent? If the process continues, perhaps in time he'll transform my left arm into a rooster. In that case I'll keep watch on the night. Or perhaps in time he'll transform my right arm into a crossbow pellet and I'll shoot down an owl for roasting. Or perhaps in time he'll transform my buttocks into cartwheels. Then, with my spirit for a horse, I'll climb up and go for a ride. What need will I ever have for a carriage again?" I know it sounds silly, but that is Chuang Tzu's style. Anyways, that is certainly an interpretation of suffering as the transformation of rebirth. So here's what I'm thinking: If finding ourselves reborn through our miseries really is the solution to the problem of evil in the world, then a few things logically follow. First, is it necessary for suffering to end before the sufferer can be reborn? And second, what exactly is it that makes us realize that we are reborn through our sufferings? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
10:11 pm	First of all, something that I am concerned about: Am I full of shit? In the sort of writing that I am trying to do in this journal, there is a line that can be crossed. Once that line is crossed, the validity of the sentiments expressed in the writing becomes irrelevant, because the writing becomes bullshit. This sort of New Age-y bullshit is what it is because the words and symbols themselves become divorced from the ideas they express, so all you can read is nonsense. I read today work of some fellow who starts off just about where I am, and then crosses the line into bullshit. I can't say anything about the truthfulness of his talk about astral projection or enlightened beings- but it is that sort of talk that transforms good thinking into bullshit. My friends, I count on all of you to please tell me when I cross the line and start talking bullshit when I am trying to be serious. I need that. But is New Age religion that starts out with genuine mysticism and spiritual experience and then degenerates into chakras and alternate realities really any different than any other sort of religious mysticism? Is it really so different when one person brings God into himself through transcendental meditation when another does so through communion? I suppose that it isn't really bullshit that I'm afraid of, but rather religion. Religion, as practiced in every form I have ever seen or learned about, is two things: ways to connect man to God, and ways of interpreting that connection. But those interpretations are layers we build between ourselves and the experience itself! I disagree with those who claim that every religion is a different path to the same God. Every religion is a different path away from God, because there is nothing we need- no ritual, no prayer, no sacrifice, no meditation- to connect ourselves to Him, save for our own consciousness and our sensations of the world around us. All religion offers us is a time-tested system of truths that is generally easier to adopt than it is to find our own way of experiencing God. And that can be a good thing, if you can think in the same way as the ancient patriarchs of your faith and find that you reach God the same way that they do. I think our senses are important, because an important part of spirituality is the aesthetic experience of it. Ultimately, that is the root of pantheism- seeing the divine beauty of the world around us. But I certainly can't claim that is the only way it makes itself manifest. I do not doubt that we can also find God through meditation that lacks an external object- but I've never done that, personally. I spoke negatively about prayers a moment ago, and I am generally not a big fan of praying. But here's a prayer from Teilhard de Chardin I came across that I like : Domine, fac ut videam. Lord, we know and feel that you are everywhere around us; but it seems that there is a veil before our eyes. Illumina vultum tuum super nos- let the light of your countenance shine upon us in its universality. Sit splendor Domini nostri super nos- may your deep brilliance light up the innermost parts of the massive obscurities in which we move. And, to that end, send us your spirit, Spiritus principalis, whose flaming action alone can operate the birth and achievement of the great metamorphosis which sums up all inward perfection and towards which your creation yearns: Emitte Spiritum tuum, et creabuntur, et RENOVABIS FACIEM TERRAE. (Most of the Latin parts pretty much mean the same thing as the English parts. The last part means something like, "Send us your spirit, and we are created, and make the world anew." But I'm not too sure of that.) And what do you know? I'm actually listening to music right now. Current Music: Mississippi John Hurt - Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 6th, 2006
6:48 am	On Success, Resignation, and Other Things I'm not sure if keeping this blog is a good thing. When my spiritual joy is tinged by the dirty little voice asking, "How shall I write about this?", then I am not ready to write about it. How easily peace of mind is lost and regained! So long as one is aware of it, it will not be lost; but if it is taken for granted, then it is in danger. Which is greater: the absolute subjective or the absolute objective? They are both names for the same thing, but each describes a different pathway to it. Through the subjective, we look upon objects of the world and think, 'That, too, is Me.' It is not solipsism, exactly, but it is close. Through the objective, it is not we who apprehend the world through our senses but the world that apprehends us. Instead of consuming the food that sustains us, we are consumed by it! If we give ourselves over body and soul to God, a part of that is giving up our actions. It is submission to fate, in a way; or, if you prefer, giving up those parts of our lives that are beyond our control. It is a fate that is unknowable and maybe not even predetermined. But we do not truly accept our fate as our own unless we also at the same time accept the fate of all others, and of the world. This does not mean we shouldn't endeavor to do good! But it does mean that we must find a new foundation for our ethics. We must do right because it is God's will to do so, and for no other reason. We look for that place within our own consciousness and our own desires where our will is the same thing as the will of the universe. Do my worldly successes, both relatively unearned (getting into college) and entirely unearned (being able to pay for it) undermine my ability to say, "Give yourself up to those things that you cannot control"? It seems like they do. One might reply, "Resignation might have worked for you, Michael, but it has brought me only failure." I do believe that I could take failure as well as I now take success. But I can't know. I can hardly wish failure upon myself- not only do such things tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies, but also that would turn my failures into successes of another sort. And that's hardly what I want either. I suppose that successes and failures, being nothing more than the fruits of action, have no place as a part of God. But man is also a creature of matter! It is the fruits of our labors that sustain our bodies and thereby maintain our conscious and spiritual existence. Primitive man's answer to this was to ritualize his actions with festival and rite. In this way profane action (which has consequences) becomes sacred action (which bears no fruit). That way, they still get to eat! (I don't mean that spiritual action should be pointless; I mean it should be action performed for its own sake rather than for its consequences.) Can we ritualize all our actions in the modern world? I'm sure it is possible. I'm sure it is difficult. I'm not sure it is necessary. It does not deal with the essential problem: man's hunger cannot be sanctified, only his answer to it can. Those who admire the noble savage forget too easily that when he is hungry he is as unhappy as we are- and if anything, civilization means being hungry less often. Or can hunger be sanctified? This is certainly what makes men become ascetics. But allow me to argue against myself: I've been assuming that sacred action (no fruit) is preferable to profane action (with fruit). But does action even need to hold any importance at all? Perhaps it does, though. In the process of writing, the focus of my thoughts shifts from a more concrete reality to a more abstract one, and at the moment I am deep enough into the abstract that I cannot be sure whether or not action needs to be important (which is, after all, a rather concrete thing.) Speaking of abstraction, I have lately realized how much I like seeing the world without my glasses. My vision is very poor, so all distant objects become meaningless colors. It's not that a blurry world is more beautiful. It is the absence of crisp detail in the objects I see that somehow brings them closer to me, makes them in a way easier to recognize, and easier to love. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 20th, 2006
6:58 am	Of what use are all the particular joys and sorrows of our lives if they do not point us towards the more universal joys and sorrows of humankind? (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006
5:40 pm	Mindfulness Peace of mind is not only for those isolated moments of eternity when it comes thundering down upon you from the mountaintops. It is possible to be at all times in a state of mindfulness. Mindfulness, to borrow the term from Thich Nhat Hahn, is state of mind in which the mind and the soul cease to be enemies- in other words, for every thought and for every perception there is a recognition. You turn to yourself and say something like "I am aware of the taste of the food I am eating" or "I am aware that I feel upset right now". They also call it detachment- at least, I think the two are the same thing. It is meta-cognition, the faculty of thinking about thinking that separates man from the beasts; and yet it is a potential that is fulfilled in few of us. With mindfulness, all actions are filled with tenderness and care for the action itself, and the objects and consequences of our actions no longer burden us. When you bring yourself to mindfulness, there is a part of you that can only say, "This is what I am doing, and I accept it." To be sure, there can be joy without mindfulness; but I do not think there can be mindfulness without joy. The part that gives me trouble is this: Profane action is that which takes the higher faculty of meta-cognition and lowers it into the dirt of ordinary thought. The instant that you focus your entire mind towards something, mindfulness is lost. And it is so easy to unintentionally throw yourself entirely into things! The exercise of reason; social interaction; great effort and exertion- many wise men have shunned these things because they can interfere with the practice of mindfulness. But in truth, mindfulness can improve all of these things, because in great concentration with mindfulness, man is capable of so much more than without it. If I sound more preachy than usual today, it is first and foremost because I wish I could follow my own advice. But also, this is not just about my personal beliefs. It is something that anybody can practice and everybody should. Don't listen to me- go out there and find somebody who knows more about this than I do, and listen to them. Or better yet, don't listen to anyone at all except that still, small voice within yourself that tells you always to accept your thoughts and experiences for what they are, because it is in that way and that way alone that you can love the world around you. (Comment on this)
Friday, March 10th, 2006
12:05 am	Is there such a thing as progress? This is a long entry, but I don't know how to make a post and link to it. Sorry. Is there such a thing as progress? This question has been on my mind for a long time. Progress is fundamental to the worldviews of two of the writers I most admire (Saint-Exupery and Teilhard de Chardin); the transformation of mankind from the darkness of ignorance to the splendors of enlightenment is essential to almost every philosophical tradition I can think of. However, the way I conduct my life seems to be guided by the underlying belief that progress is impossible. True, every one of man's achievements falls away in the light of God's presence; and it is impossible to see where in the world improvements are needed while at the same time in the grip of a vision of absolute perfection. But I now think that all of our efforts need not be in vain. Though we cannot bring God into the world through our actions, we can play our role as a part of the divine process that transforms illusion into reality. I'm saying that man has a part in completing the work of creation, and it is this: Our eyes are blind, our ears are deaf, that we cannot always experience God's presence in the world around us. Whether man is born ignorant or he is corrupted as he grows is irrelevant; the fact is that so long as we remain unaware of that subtle light illuminating our world, we are incomplete. So the work of man on earth is twofold: First, to live as a part of God in the utmost, fully realizing sanctity in all things; and second, to work towards the transfiguration of the world, that we might all realize just what it is that we are a part of. It seems so simple to me now, the notion of progress. But my resistance to it is my resistance to the command, "Act!" I am readily able to accept God as the purpose behind my passivities- so too let it be the purpose behind my activities. And when I go now into the world of men, let it never be far from my mind that progress is making visible the hidden truth within all things. Counterpoint: That point of view presupposes a certain division between illusion and reality. I do not doubt that man's actions can affect the extent to which he realizes the divine; but this division leads to a concept of human existence as something that takes place on a profane level of reality- and, in turn, that it is only man's realization of God that can move our being to the level of the sacred. This is something I am not always sure of. If man's experience of God is so much less than the unknowable ultimate truth that lies outside our means of perception, then the sanctity that can inhabit men's actions becomes limited indeed. But this goes against something I know in my heart to be true: that in man's experience of God he himself becomes infinite just as is the Being of whom he partakes. To phrase this challenge to progress in a different way: If we live in a world whose essence is as unchanging and eternal as the Spirit that inhabits it, then how could progress be possible? In various times I have felt God's presence both in stability and in flux; if change is only a transitory illusion, then surely man's progress is meaningless. What reason do I have to doubt that things change? I could turn to a true dualism and say that there is a changing world of matter that is a pale reflection of an unchanging ideal world of the spirit- but not only is this distasteful and unnecessarily complicated, it also goes against the role of God as directly present in all things of this world. I suppose my only real reason to doubt the reality of change is a circular one: If creation is unchanging, then surely in God it is perfect; and perfection would necessarily be an unchanging thing because change could only worsen it. But if the world is not yet complete, then a God that exists in all matter is also incomplete. And while at times I have felt a sense of stability in my own religious experiences, I have never felt any sense of incompleteness. All things are complete in God; man is incomplete to the extent that he is ignorant of God's presence. Therefore, human progress is the completion of man in God. In my head this makes good sense, but on some level I am not yet convinced. I won't demand to see human action that bears cosmic significance- but I don't know if anything short of that can truly convince me that there is such a thing as progress. (But how is the alleviation of suffering, even on a minor scale, not progress? I think a large part of my aversion to taking action is that, focusing solely on absolutes, I ignore the fact that our imperfect actions can create a more perfect world.) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 5th, 2006
5:56 pm	"Look into that closed room, the empty chamber where brightness is born!" Man at his full potential does not dwell on the precise forms of things. Instead, like one who is in a dark room lit only by a single candle, he stares in wonder at the flickering and indistinct shapes. The shadows in that room are as beautiful as the light; the moments when God is absent in our lives become as much the object of wonder as those when God is present, and thus our whole life becomes something more. We don't need to stare at that candle to see its light, we need only watch the dance of the shadows it casts to know that it is there and that moreover the light and its shadows are not distinct things, either from one another or from the rest of the world. "Don't listen with your ears, listen with your mind. No, don't listen with your mind, but listen with your spirit. Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things. The Way gathers in emptiness alone. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind." -Chuang Tzu (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 26th, 2006
12:09 am	Higher Existence I went for a walk tonight. When I walked out the door, I felt so detached from the world around me that I could not conceive how it could possibly be real; in the middle, I was so overcome with love for the ground I was walking on that I wanted to crawl on my hands and knees just to be closer to it; and as I arrived back home I felt like both of those were somehow the same thing. Like most journeys, it could be interpreted as the journey of life, taken in miniature. But I don't really see life that way. What was on my mind as I walked was this: Like the mystical writers that I am so fond of, I often speak in terms of life's ultimate goal being the knowledge or the experience of God. But that's not enough: Knowledge and experience both presume a division between subject and object that has no place in a wholly sanctified cosmos. Rather, the highest point man can achieve is Being. Fulfilling our own being through being in God, man's full potential is realized: To look upon the world and say, "This, too, is Me; this, too, is holy." Our labors toward building a better world, our searches for understanding in ourselves, all are unified in the consummation of divine Being that transforms our lives into something infinitely greater than ourselves. It is only natural that there is some instinct within us that revolts at the thought of having the ego burned away in these fires, never allowing us to live our lives in the same way or do anything as we did before. But I cannot emphasize enough how being in God brings us so much closer to everything around us. Detachment leads to a higher form of attachment, and vice versa. The more we turn away from the world, the more its beauty grows within us; and the more we recognize that beauty, the more we realize what higher purpose that beauty is directed towards. For you Christians out there, try this: When you set out to 'love your neighbor as yourself', don't try to love him as though he were yourself. Rather, endeavor to love your neighbor as an actual part of yourself, united with you in that single essential state of Being. (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 19th, 2006
7:18 am	A New Way of Experience I think a purer way of experiencing the world might be to attempt to only use one of the five senses at a time. So when you walk, either you live in the soles of your feet touching the ground and you only keep your eyes open enough to not run into things, or you don't feel your feet on the ground at all but you set your gaze in all directions. When you listen, when you eat: close your eyes and take in those purer sensations, and experience the world undiluted. As it goes for the senses, so too let it be for the passions and the other operations of the mind. You are angry? Accept the anger and dwell in it, and its object disappears. You are trying to reason something out? Focus on it and exclude all else. It is one of the most essential contradictions of how I see the world that, by enveloping yourself in some particular aspect of things, the wholeness of it comes close to you and you move towards union with the All. Perhaps this is because by becoming one of our sensations, we slip past the barriers we create between the Self and the Other. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 16th, 2006
10:26 pm	To What Extent Is The Material World Real? I'm going to explore a couple of answers that I've been thinking about. 1) It is utter illusion. The problem: Then how does it point to God, whose reality is made manifest in the material world? (This is a truth more fundamental/axiomatic to what I believe than any statement about matter itself) 2)It exists to the extent that divinity is realized in it. Problem: Too individual/solipsistic. Also, gets into a circular problem- God is what makes reality real, but reality remains the pathway to God. 3)It is utterly real; it is profane when independent of the divine, and sanctified when brought into contact with it. Problem: Classical panentheism, I guess (as opposed to pantheism, below)- but somehow I can't entirely stomach a profane reality independent from God which is then transformed into a sacred one. It just doesn't feel enough to say, "God is ocean, we are fish"- the thought of dry gills gasping for breath is enough to make me want to find something of God that is fundamental to the very essence of matter- i.e. that reality without God is impossible. Not an abstract 'prove-god-exists' type of bullshit, but rather something drawing on the nature of my own experiences. But I don't have an answer to this yet, I don't think. 4) Though the scope of human knowledge is limited to material reality, God is perceived to be synonymous with this knowable material world, which is thereby made real in His presence. Here, there is no distinguishing between the false attributes and true essences of things- both partake equally of the divine. Here, also, the problem of evil falls away, as even human misery acquires that divine dimension that validates it as an integral part of the universe. No "divine plan" bullshit- the middleman is removed and your pain becomes God as well! Counterpoint: but the Individual still suffers, and the individual, suffering Self cannot, in this metaphysical worldview, be dismissed as illusion, because it is integral that EVERYTHING IS REAL. Furthermore, this worldview suggests a simple moral code: All objects, being divine, should be treated with worship. That could be all there is to it! Here's my problem: I am using very analytical language (the only kind I really know how to use) to talk about something that is hardly fit to be analyzed at all. If I talked about it with symbols instead (Christ Incarnate In The World Of Matter, for instance) then it would be much more familiar and much more palatable. But I can't do that! Not only do I lack the symbolic vocabulary to do it, but also I feel that this kind of writing is far more honest, even is logically talking about things that don't make much sense feels pretty confusing even as I write it. Ergo, in conclusion: It is all real! Everything! When the body dies and the soul ceases to be, something truly is lost- for this departing element of God is, in truth, the heir of all others in the universe. In death there is so much to grieve for and so little, because after all, every fragment of reality carries within it the full glory and potential of this entire divine reality. (Comment on this)
4:20 pm	Do not give it a direction. Do not give it a name. Do not give it a voice. Give it a sound: like the ringing in your ears. Do not give it a shape. Give it a form: its image is every form. Give it your mind, and you shall know wisdom. Give it your heart, and you shall know peace. Give it your soul, and you shall know the universe. "Leap into the boundless and make it your home!" I wrote this last night and it seemed good at the time. Now it seems a bit more of a wannabe Taotejing but it's OK anyways. I think I might fall too much into the trap of describing 'it' too much in negative terms: after all, who was ever stirred by words about what enlightenment isn't? I've always found poetic language pretty limiting. A symbol is a very effective way of conveying many ideas; but the sort of truth I'm trying to talk about, the kind I believe to be the highest truth, is non-symbolic. Nothing can represent it save for itself. It can be represented in symbol only so far as everything is equally a symbol that points toward it. It feels like I am just writing bullshit right now because my heart's not in it at the moment. Just wanted to put that poem up there. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
4:21 pm	Love, Action, and My Life A topic most appropriate for today, Valentine's Day. A discussion in my theology class today I think could stand to be repeated here and elaborated upon. We were talking about the definition of love. I offered the meaning I believe in: that love is the recognition and awareness of the highest form of beauty within the other. To look into another's eyes and see not merely their personal virtues and flaws, not merely the common characteristics of the humanity of which they are a part, but instead something above and beyond all of those, something that is nevertheless composed of all things within it. Every personal trait and every element of human nature becomes a window onto the divine. That is what I believe it means to truly love another person. Ms. Tucker criticized my definition as being too passive; she said that love needed some kind of action to give it meaning. Yes, it is entirely passive. But I do not believe that invalidates it. I am concerned so little with action because I believe that no human action can affect the true essences of things, and it is precisely those true essences that are the only possible objects for this kind of love. Many describe this as the mystic's love for all creation. Far from being isolating, this kind of love has the power to connect a man to the world around him in a far more intimate way than is otherwise possible. The lonely hermit on a mountaintop can be infinitely closer to his brothers and sisters in the world of men than they are to one another. What today's discussion also made me realize is that this concept of love is very ill-suited for relationships between people. I suppose it is no coincidence that my first numinous experience happened at the same time as the end of the last crush I ever had. But even if my love of God makes me unable to love a woman in the way that most men do*, I am not upset. It is a sacrifice I would gladly make many times over- because any love that one person might feel for another is only a fragment of the divine love that connects all things. It is only the divine inside the human being that can love, and only the divine inside the human being that can be loved. Love is the recognition and awareness of the highest form of beauty within the other. *I'm not talking about sex. That's an entirely separate thing. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 7th, 2006
4:15 pm	the physical world Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the fellow I quoted last night, did not believe in the division between matter and spirit that was such a tenet of Chardin's Catholic tradition. Instead, he believed that matter itself was a spiritual thing: the divinization of the bread and wine of the Mass brought with it an infusion of the holy into the entirety of the material world. Matter, sacred matter, is the face with which God presented himself to mankind. Similarly, in the interview Mr. Woodruff sent us, Gia-Fu Feng speaks of the Tao as an ultimately physical body of teachings. Westerners intellectualize things when they should instead feel their way through them (I mean this in a tactile rather than an emotional sense). The Tao is energy flowing from the center of our being through all of our organs; it nurtures us and guides our actions. When I thought about these two teachings together, I was suddenly made aware that the division between matter and spirit (or body and soul: they are analogous) is something entirely different from the division between self and other, or internal and external. After all, Chardin sees God in the external world of matter, while Feng finds the Tao in the workings of his own body. But they both share a connection to this world. Any attempt to experience the divine without regard for worldly, sensory experience is, I think, ultimately doomed to fail. I don't know if I'm an empiricist or a rationalist; I don't know whether all knowledge originates with the senses or if there are such a thing as innate ideas. But I don't think it matters. I cannot conceive of a path to God that lies in the rejection of sensory experience. Perhaps, for some, mathematics might lead to a realization of divine order? I don't know. But I am certain of this: By experiencing the world around me, by continuing to live in my own physical body, I am forever knowing the divine. (Comment on this)