Thomas Merton was someone I read a lot in my "Christian days," and I still have a great appreciation of him. He was good friends with both the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh. I was always sad that he never allowed himself to fully follow Zen, as he desired, but for some reason, deferred to the church hierarchy. This picture shows Merton with the Dalai Lama not long before Merton died.
I agree with Osho's comment on this:
"It is a very sad story about Thomas Merton. Perhaps he was one of the persons in the West who has come closest to Zen. He had the sensibility of a poet; the others are approaching Zen from their intellect, their mind.
Thomas Merton is approaching Zen through his heart. He feels it, but he could not live the direct experience he is talking about. He would have been the first Zen master in the West, but he was prevented by the Catholic Church.
Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk under the Vatican. The Trappist monks are the most self-torturing ascetics in Christianity. Perhaps that's why they are called Trappist – trapped forever. Thomas Merton wrote beautiful poetry, and he asked again and again to go to Japan and to live in a Zen monastery to have the direct experience of Zen. But permission was refused half a dozen times; again and again he was refused.
If he had really understood Zen he would not have bothered even to ask for permission. Who is the Vatican? Who is the pope? A Zen master asking permission from unenlightened people is simply not heard of. And he followed the orders from the Vatican and from the abbot of his own monastery...."
"I want no heaven for which I must give up my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty; and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality." -Robert G. Ingersoll
“[All religions] make the same mistake. They all take the only real
faculty we have that distinguishes us from other primates, and from
other animals—the faculty of reason, and the willingness to take any
risk that reason demands of us—and they replace that with the idea that
faith is a virtue. If I could change just one thing, it would be to
dissociate the idea of faith from virtue—now and for good—and to expose
it for what it is: a servile weakness, a refuge in cowardice, and a
willingness to follow, with credulity, people who are in the highest
degree unscrupulous.” Christopher Hitchens
quotation from the physicist V. V. Raman, from Krista Tippett's terrific "Einstein's God," which I shared in the thread and which is food for thought:
"I think my involvement in physics and the sciences has given me an historical cultural understanding of many of these enormously meaningful things in life. Because science, among other things, enables us to look at human events in a human terms. Religions, in their context, enable us to look at human events in religious or transrational terms. Both, in a way, are meaningful and illuminating. When you read a sonnet, let us say. Science is the discovery of the rules of prosody, the rules by which the sonnet is constructed, of measure and syllable and accent, iambic pentameter, whatever.
You an analyze the poem and this understanding of the structure of the poem is a significant accomplishment. But it tells us nothing about the meaning behind the poem or about the inspiration that the poem might give. And the universe, to me, is somewhat like that. Science enables us to understand the laws and principles by which the universe is constructed, its functions. That is no trivial accomplishment. One of the greatest intellectual achievements of the human mind is what modern science has been able to do.
But there is always the question of meaning. And while it is possible to derive meaning without going beyond the physical world—and many people do it—it is no less inspiring or fulfilling to find meaning within a religious framework insofar as it is not irrational. There’s a difference between irrationality and transrationality. To me, many of the deeper messages of religions, such as caring, and compassion and respect for others, helping others, love, reverence, these are not rational. They are not irrational. They are transrational and they have their sources in the many religious frameworks of humankind. They not only carry the weight of centuries, they also reflect something deep in the human cultural psyche.” Varadaraja V. Raman
“How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.”
~ American Writer Barry Lopez
"Please clearly understand that when the mind is still, it’s in its natural, normal state. As soon as the mind moves, it becomes conditioned (sankhâra). When the mind is attracted to something, it becomes conditioned. When aversion arises, it becomes conditioned. The desire to move here and there arises from conditioning. If our awareness doesn’t keep pace with these mental proliferations as they occur, the mind will chase after them and be conditioned by them. Whenever the mind moves, at that moment, it becomes a conventional reality.
So the Buddha taught us to contemplate these wavering conditions of the mind. Whenever the mind moves, it becomes unstable and impermanent (anicca ), unsatisfactory (dukkha ) and cannot be taken as a self (anattâ ). These are the three universal characteristics of all conditioned phenomena. The Buddha taught us to observe and contemplate these movements of the mind." Ajahn Chah
"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them—words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear."
From “Different Seasons” by Stephen King
“Philosophers, incidentally, say a great deal about what is absolutely
necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather
naive and probably wrong. . . . You can take every one of
Spinoza's propositions and take the contrary propositions, and look at
the world—and you can't tell which is right. Sure, people were awed
because he had the courage to take on these great questions, but it
doesn't do any good to have the courage if you can't get anywhere with
the question.” Richard Feynman
“I am a lover of truth, a worshiper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish.” ~ Stephen Fry
What I love about science, by way of Carl Sagan:
“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion” [Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address]
"God not only plays dice with the universe, but sometimes throws them where we can't see them." — Stephen Hawking
"What I cannot create, I do not understand." Richard Feynman, found on his blackboard at time of death in 1988. This takes "understanding" to a whole new level, it seems to me. I've been thinking about this quote and its meaning all morning. If we can't create a proton—or a galaxy—do we not understand it? A poet creates a poem—does she understand it? A composer creates a symphony—does he understand it?
"These are all cases of proved or presumptive baloney. A deception arises, sometimes innocently but collaboratively, sometimes with cynical premeditation. Usually the victim is caught up in a powerful emotion -- wonder, fear, greed, grief. Credulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that's what P. T. Barnum meant when he said, 'There's a sucker born every minute.' But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic -- however sympathetic we may be to those who have bought the baloney." Carl Sagan
: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/end.html
S. Goodheary
I am neuro-scienced and brain-scienced out! I have been on a cerebration "high" for at least a week. I have been over-feeding my rational mind with cutting-edge science like an idea/concept junkie. My rational mind has run rough-shod over quiet and presence and being. Hey, over-rational, addictive monkey-mind: shut the f-up! Time to stop. Time to remember the quiet and simply rest in what is.
"Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us -- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along." Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?" Richard Dawkins
"Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write." — Rainer Maria Rilke
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” — Anatole France
With age, great beauty and wisdom can sometimes appear. I love this face.
Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
William Burroughs on Thinking in Images:
“I’m becoming more proficient at it, partly through my work with scrapbooks and translating the connections between words and images. Try this. Carefully memorize the meaning of a passage, then read it; you’ll find you can actually read it without the words making any sound whatever in the mind’s ear. Extraordinary experience, and one that will carry over into dreams. When you start thinking in images, without words, you’re well on the way.”
“If you want to understand the way any society works, ours or any other, the first place to look is who is in a position to make the decisions that determine the way the society functions. Societies differ, but in ours, the major decisions over what happens in the society -- decisions over investment and production and distribution and so on -- are in the hands of a relatively concentrated network of major corporations and conglomerates and investment firms. They are also the ones who staff the major executive positions in the government. They're the ones who own the media and they're the ones who have to be in a position to make the decisions. They have an overwhelmingly dominant role in the way life happens. You know, what's done in the society. Within the economic system, by law and in principle, they dominate. The control over resources and the need to satisfy their interests imposes very sharp constraints on the political system and on the ideological system.” Noam Chomsky from “Manufacturing Consent”
Suzuki Roshi's instructions to the cook:
When I asked my Zen teacher, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, if he had any advice for working in the kitchen, he said, “When you wash the rice, wash the rice. When you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. When you stir the soup, stir the soup.” Taking his words to heart, I found that they had the power to evoke what lies hidden in the depths of being. Something awakens. It is not self, not other, not me, not the world. To “be mindful while you work” carries a certain dryness, not to mention distraction: doing something—practicing mindfulness besides what you are doing. What Suzuki Roshi meant was more like “throw yourself into it” or “immerse yourself in what you are doing.”
-Edward Espe Brown, "Leavening Spirit"
