tariki

This seems to be a repeat of your post on the Merton/Dharma thread. I responded there.

Hello again Rom, Following the 13th century zen master Dogen, we must each find our own path, time and place. In such a way we each "actualise" our own reality Zen itself, irrespective of many "new age" type books on the subject (which warble about it being "beyond words" and suchlike) developed and cannot be fully understood outside of a worldview that sees reality itself as a vital, ephemeral agent of awareness and healing. Putting the two together, as another has said, "however lowly one’s symbols and practices are as in, say, a peasant’s religion, one is nevertheless entitled to enlightenment if and when one uses them authentically. Here is the egalitarian basis for the claim that Dōgen’s religion is a religion of the people." To care is therefore paramount.

As a spin off from another thread, a few words on the meaning of the word "Dharma", this very much drawn from a book by Sangarakshita, AKA Dennis Lingwood of Romford (now known for his falling away from pure Buddhist ethics by his predilection for..............no, let's leave it.....) Two basic meanings:- The first – Dharma as truth or law or principle or reality – refers to the objective content of the Buddha’s experience of Enlightenment. And the second – Dharma as doctrine or teaching – refers to the Buddha’s expression of his experience for the benefit of others. In the well known Dhammapada, it says, ‘Not by hatred is hatred ever pacified here [in the world]. It is pacified by love. This is the eternal law.’ The word for ‘law’ here is Dharma. It’s in the very nature of things that hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love. This is the principle, this is the law, this is the truth. As the character of the Buddha's teaching, dharma (Dharma = Sanskrit, Dhamma =Pali) the Dharma is:- svakkhato. This literally means ‘well-taught’, or ‘well-communicated’ suggesting it is appropriate fir human beings. sanditthiko, which can be translated as ‘immediately apparent’. In other words, you will see the results of your practice of the Dharma yourself, in this lifetime. ehipassiko. Ehi means ‘come’ and passiko derives from a word meaning ‘see’, so ehipassiko means ‘come and see’. The implication is that we need not take on the Dharma in blind faith, or believe it because somebody tells us to believe it, or because it is written in some holy book. paccatam veditabbo vinnuhi – a phrase which can be translated ‘to be understood individually'. This means that the Buddha’s teaching is to be experienced by each person for himself or herself.

Thanks Paul, and as I see it we have to get away from any particular "moral" or "goodness" or "ethical" dimension for recognising such people. This is why, from my own perspective, "emptiness" (which contains and is the source of all things) is better for me than "God", with all the baggage that can accompany that word. Also as I see it, such is the reason that the "Godhead beyond God" is a feature of some Christian mysticism. Just as both Merton and Suzuki were in agreement on the importance of the exclamation "Praise be to God that I am not good!" It makes me think of something Alan Watts said concerning the various faiths, that each would - or have - developed their own way of carrying out our various daily tasks. The beauty of difference, far beyond any purely moral dimension. Much like the Jewish story, of the guy who travelled over a 100 miles having heard of a famous rabbi. Upon his return he was asked what the man taught. "Oh, I wasn't interested in his sermons, I just wanted to see how he tied his shoelaces" Once again, it comes back to the zen koan:- "A clearly enlightened person falls into the well. How is this so?" As per the zen layman Pai-chang, "the graduations of the language of the teachings—haughty, relaxed, rising, descending—are not the same. What are called desire and aversion when one is not yet enlightened or liberated are called enlightened wisdom after enlightenment. That is why it is said, “One is not different from who one used to be; only one’s course of action is different from before.” Why in the Mahayana there is no betrayal of this world for some imagined "other", samsara IS nirvana. Perfection is vastly overated, it can leave us with nowhere to go. In the end I feel that I am working my own slow and staggering way to "acceptance" of others, irrespective of who or what they are. Looking for anything in particular in another, particularly "goodness", is a non-starter. First we must see others, beyond any pre-conceptions or expectations. Anyway, I have waffled enough. My coffee is getting cold.

Just deviating, this in certain respects highlights why introductory books on Buddhism are better if many of the key terms are left untranslated. It may well seem easier at first to scan over "suffering", "teaching", "no-self" etc yet the actual Pali of dukkha, Dharma and anatta respectively have a depth and connotation, an inter-relationship, that relate to the complete depth of Buddhist thought/experience and insight. It is when such is grasped (as much as we are able) that we can then seek to relate it all to the Faith of another, again with the proviso that we have a sufficient grasp of that faith. This is why I find Thomas Merton such fertile ground as I make my own uncertain steps towards understanding, comparison and openess to others.

Ah ha! The old tried and tested "projection" angle. Always good for a trial run. 😊

I think Merton "had it"......The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. The beginning.....

Yes, the word does have many meanings and as far as I can recall Merton never used the word. Dharma (capital "D") = truth. The ultimate. dharma = the Buddha's specific teachings. dharmas = specific bits and pieces, or the 10,000 things, all lacking self existence.

🤔 I think you might need to get a sense of humour.

I must admit that until now I thought that I was the king of waffle. 😊

David, I have engaged with the various sayings of Jesus in the past, over many years. I am now a Pure Land Buddhist. Here, it is not "salvation by faith". Putting it simply, faith (shinjin) IS salvation. Trust. Letting go. Not identifying with any particular belief. It is a way of no-calculation (Japanese "hakarai") where things are made to become so of themselves. The "training ground" is life. All life. I no longer seek to relate to particular "sayings" of anyone. It is more relating to each moment, as mindfully as possible. That is as clear as I can make it. Thank you

Anyone familiar with my ramblings will know of my liking for Thomas Merton. Recently I ran a thread elsewhere on how my own path within the Dharma was interrelated with many of Merton's writings/musings. It is rather long, but here it is. Some might find it interesting. One thing that I have always liked with Merton is that he was rarely didactic. He seemed to have learnt a rich lesson:- I have tried to learn in my writing a monastic lesson I could probably have not learned otherwise: to let go of my idea of myself, to take myself with more than one grain of salt................In religious terms, this is simply a matter of accepting life, and everything in life as a gift, and clinging to none of it, as far as you are able. You give some of it to others, if you can. Yet one should be able to share things with others without bothering too much about how they like it, either, or how they accept it. Assume they will accept it, if they need it. And if they don't need it, why should they accept it? That is their business. Let me accept what is mine and give them all their share, and go my way. Echoes of the line I have quoted before, from "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".........Just take what you need and leave the rest. Thomas Merton wrote many books but I've tended to favour his Journals and Letters. They tend to get under the radar of the Monastic censors. Merton wrote to many, of all faiths and persuasions. One was D.T.Suzuki and this is from a letter written in 1959, speaking of how Christianity should perhaps have approached those of other Faiths:- If only we had thought of coming to you and loving you for what you are in yourselves, instead of trying to make you over into our own image and likeness. For to me it is clearly evident that you and I have in common and share most intimately precisely that which, in the eyes of conventional Westerners, would seem to separate us. The fact that you are a Zen Buddhist and I am a Christian monk, far from separating us, makes us most like one another. How many centuries is it going to take for people to discover this fact? … Relevant to this are a few words Merton wrote when praising Suzuki, this from the book "Zen and the Birds of Appetite":- Speaking for myself, I can venture to say that in Dr. Suzuki, Buddhism finally became for me completely comprehensible, whereas before it had been a very mysterious and confusing jumble of words, images, doctrines, legends, rituals, buildings, and so forth. It seemed to me that the great and baffling cultural luxuriance which has clothed the various forms of Buddhism in different parts of Asia is the beautiful garment thrown over something quite simple. And further on:- I did feel that I was speaking to someone who, in a tradition completely different from my own, had matured, had become complete and found his way. One cannot understand Buddhism until one meets it in this existential manner, in a person in whom it is alive. Then there is no longer a problem of understanding doctrines which cannot help being a bit exotic for a Westerner, but only a question of appreciating a value which is self-evident. I find a phrase there beautiful and profound........" a value which is self-evident" Anyway, moving on, an episode in New York when Merton had tunnelled his way out of his monastery and met up with Suzuki in the flesh. As Suzuki left Merton read out a few words of a South American theologian, "Praise be to God that I am not good". Suzuki was quite taken by this and said:- "That is so important". Shades of Bodhidharma when telling the Emperor of China that he had earned no merit at all from his good deeds. All genuine ethics are selfless, by-products of "wisdom". Or something like that. A poem comes to mind, "Heaven Haven" by Gerald Manley Hopkins:- I have desired to go Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail, And a few lilies blow. And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea. Perhaps not the best of desires at times, but nevertheless..... Anyway, back to Merton if I might be so bold and nobody is offended. One of his books is a series of essays on zen, "Zen and the Birds of Appetite". After the essays comes a second section, a dialogue between himself and D.T.Suzuki, "Wisdom in Emptiness". A goldmine of insight and mutual understanding; at least I find it so. On one point, however, these two worthies deviate, this on the subject of "eschatology", or the "last things". Suzuki speaks of "an eschatology of the present moment" in which we become once again "the Tom's, Dick's or Harry's we have always been." Thomas Merton seems not satisfied with such and speaks of further things beyond our ken, some form of new creation. You never know in Merton's published books whether or not he says things purely for the sake of the censor. Who knows. But I am with Suzuki. Coming back to the present moment, yet perhaps with the caveat as found in a book on the zen master Dogen:- "To teach students the power of the present moment as the only moment is a skillful teaching of buddha ancestors. But this doesn’t mean that there is no future result from practice." (Dogen's teacher in China to Dogen) I find in "Zen and the Birds of Appetite" some of Merton's finest writings, matched only by his essay "A Study of Chuang Tzu" which serves as the introduction to his set of (rather loose!) translations of Chuang Tzu, which I have mentioned before somewhere. This essay I have read several times and for me expresses wisdom that transcends all differences between the various Faith traditions, philosophies and religions. Which reminds me of another book I have mentioned before, "Tariki: Embracing Despair,Discovering Peace" by Hiroyuki Itsuki. Mr Itsuki had known very hard times, as I mentioned, and therefore his own trust/faith was not born of good fortune or superficiality. He writes:- The Other Power (Tariki) derives from the true and full acceptance of the reality that is within us and surrounds us. It is not a philosophy of passivity or iresponsibility, but one of radical spiritual activity, of personal, existential revolution. Its essence is the spontaneous wondrous force that gives us the will to act, to "do what man can do and then wait for heaven's will." Importantly, Other Power is a power that flows from the fundamental realization that, in the lives we live, we are already enlightened. This enlightenment does not come easily. It is born of the unwelcome understanding that, despite our protestations, we are insignificant, imperfect beings, born to a hell of suffering that defines human existence. But in this hell, we sometimes excounter small joys, friendship, the kind acts of strangers, and the miracle of love. We experience moments when we are filled with courage, when the world sparkles with hopes and dreams. There are even times when we are deeply grateful to have been born. These moments are paradise. But paradise is not another realm; it is here, in the very midst of the hell of this world. Other Power, a power that transcends theological distinctions, avails us of these moments. In the endless uncertainties of contemporary life, Other Power confers upon us a flexibility of spirit, an energy to feel joy, and the respite of peace. "Transcending distinctions". Yes. Though we all walk our own path. Merton wrote to all sorts and his letters have been published in 5 volumes. In the introduction to Volume 1, "The Hidden Ground of Love" you find:- (Merton) wrote about Allah, Anglicanism, Asia, the Bible, the Blessed Virgin, Buddhism, China, Christ, Christendom, Church, conscience, contemplation, and the cold war; about Eckhart, ecumenism, God, happiness, his hermitage, and his hospital interludes; about illusions, Islam, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Koran, Latin America, liturgy, the love of God, poetry, political tyranny, precursors of Christ, prophets, psalms, silence, solitude, and sobornost; about technology, Trinity, unity, the will of God, his own writings. In one episode in the volume devoted to his "personal friends" he had written to the young daughter of one of his older correspondants. In reply the little girl sent him a picture of a house. Merton wrote back, thanking her, and saying how nice the house looked, but that unfortunately it had no path to the door. Very soon he received a new picture from the little girl, the same house but with a path up to the door. Merton then wrote back about "the road to joy that is mysteriously revealed to us without our exactly realising it." Maybe such exchanges have connections with my own Pure Land leanings, of hakarai, "no calculation" where "things are made to become so of themselves." Anyway, moving on, an excerpt from another letter. I have posted this before on an Interfaith Forum and one responder spoke of "a beautiful paradox". This letter of Merton's was written to E.D.Andrews, an expert on the life and beliefs of the Shakers (or the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing). Andrews had sent Merton a copy of his book, Shaker Furniture, and Merton was responding to the gift. (Sadly, though written in 1961, the words "in our day" remain appropriate) This wordless simplicity, in which the works of quiet and holy people speak humbly for themselves. How important that is in our day, when we are flooded with a tidal wave of meaningless words: and worse still when in the void of those words the sinister power of hatred and destruction is at work. The Shakers remain as witnesses to the fact that only humility keeps man in communion with truth, and first of all with his own inner truth. This one must know without knowing it, as they did. For as soon as a man becomes aware of "his truth" he lets go of it and embraces an illusion. I find that "paradox" is at the heart of many things, if not everything. Getting back to "joy", and the road to it, and relating it to dukkha, very early in my immersion in the Dharma I was questioning what "the end of suffering" would/could actually be. Once I posted a section from a book by a renegade Buddhist (!) who spoke of not wishing to stay involved with pursuing a "pseudo evolved transcendence of personal pain". Leaving that aside, in some ways I have found that having certain/fixed ideas of what "the end of suffering" would be can be counter-productive. Another quote of Father Louis: We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen I thought then of the zen koan, "A clearly enlightened person falls into the well. How is this so?" Maybe enlightenment is not all its cracked up to be! Much like the guy in the lotus position who is heard to say:- "I'd read so much about it beforehand that now I'm actually enlightened I'm just a little bit disappointed." Anyway, I do think that plotting a forward path of study with various anticipations of "greater insight" can be the polar opposite of "being a lamp unto ourselves". One thing said of Thomas Merton, and I have noticed this also, is that often he would exclaim that he had "found what (he) was looking for". It seems that he was often "finding" and yet, apparently it was never quite "it" and the journey continued. One incident when he "found what he was looking for" was on his Asian Pilgrimage. Merton was in an area in Sri Lanka known as Polonnaruwa which contains many statues of the Buddha and his disciples. This is what is to be found in his Journal:- The vicar general, shying away from "paganism," hangs back and sits under a tree reading the guidebook. I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything - without refutation - without establishing some other argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well-established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening. I was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures.................looking (at them) I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. The queer evidence of the reclining figure, the smile, the sad smile of Ananda standing with arms folded.....The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem, and really no "mystery". All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya.....everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I remember way back posting some of this on another Forum and an ardent Christian said to me: " You do realise that he was looking at rocks" , obviously implying idolatry. I think I spoke about William Blake, of seeing through the eye, not with the eye, but the distinction was lost on him. Well, as said, that was one of Merton's eureka moments. Some advise not to become attached to such, let them go, do not identify. I think good advice. Further on for Merton, on his last pilgrimage, meeting with many Buddhists, he gave a talk just hours before his untimely death. He spoke of "true communication"..... True communication on the deepest level is more than a simple sharing of ideas, conceptual knowledge, or formulated truth...............And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless, it is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are. (I have added "and sisters" to spare Merton's blushes) Yes, true communication. There is a book by a Pure Land Buddhist, "Tariki: Embracing Despair,Discovering Peace" by Hiroyuki Itsuki. In it he speaks of the actual transmission of "truths/dharma" as being, ideally, face to face. I keep forgetting the Japanese word for it, it might be menji but I am not sure. Hiroyuki Itsuki had a disturbing childhood, a few years as a refugee. He spoke of times, waking up, finding the one next to you had died in the night, and feeling glad.......you could take his clothes and other possessions. Itsuki spoke of his father, a man who was constantly seeking to better himself, never satisfied. Itsuki spoke of when his father came home in the evening, sat down with a deep sigh on the bed and took off his boots. "I learnt more from my father's sigh than from all the books of philosophy I have read". "Menji" or, communion. Learning together. Beyond any separate "self". Another thing from Merton's words is the "what we have to be is what we are". This has echoes for me of the Mahayana teaching of Original Enlightenment, that everything of true value is a realisation and not truly an attainment. It is a gift. Given. Not earned in spite of the effort we often put into practice. Dogen was troubled by the Mahayana doctrine, and wondered what was the point of practice, why the masters of old poured over the sutras and practiced so assiduously. He had to find his own answer, as maybe we all need to do. Dogen eventually found his own path, time and place. We must find ours. They are, paradoxically, the same yet different. In some Pure Land imagery the individual is seen as the lotus flower, while the undifferentiated nature of enlightenment is of gold. The Pure Land is one of infinite golden lotus flowers. So, communion. And it can be "now". Much religion is - as I see it - a betrayal of this world for some imagined "other". It need not be so. By the way, Thich Nhat Hanh was actually a visitor to Merton's hermitage, built in the woods around his monastery. Merton met all sorts there. Joan Baez once (with whom he planned some sort of midnight escapade when engaged in his dalliance with a young female nurse - but that is more one for the tabloid press rather than a forum such as this.....

Stephen Batchelor:- Dharma practice requires the courage to confront what it means to be human. All the pictures we entertain of heaven and hell or cycles of rebirth serve to replace the unknown with an image of what is already known. To cling to the idea of rebirth can deaden questioning. Failure to summon forth the courage to risk a nondogmatic and nonevasive stance on such crucial existential matters can blur our ethical vision. If our actions in the world are to stem from an encounter with what is central in life, they must be unclouded by either dogma or prevarication. Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of hope and fear.

Rom, Hope all is as well as can be with Mrs Rom. Always good to be reminded just how a lot of responses here are squeezed in between various states of unrest and activity! Hope today is better.

Ha ha! You've made me think of the Monty Python sketch, where the group all begin trying to outdo each other over the poverty of their childhood. Can't remember much, but it went from "we lived in a two up, two down" to one claiming to have lived in a matchbox! And Yorkshiremen..... The guy who takes his cat to the vet. "I'd like 'e to look at my cat" "Is it a tom?" " No, it's outside in t' car" 😊 (...then there was the lady from [H]uddersfield)

It was 1963 that I remember. My first year as a paperboy. Mum would often say things like "there's a foot of snow out there boy!" and upon going out there would be about 1 cm. On this sunday morning dear old mum said much the same, I smiled knowingly, and found 2ft! Literally. And it was still coming down! But it never occurred to me to turn around and get back in bed. We were made of sterner stuff in those days! It was a cold winter, the snow and ice hung around for about 8 weeks, turning to hard ice on the road edges, making cycling treacherous. But I survived - obviously - and the tips that year were good.

Oh, there is. But we all need to drop our baggage. Thomas Merton:- And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless, it is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers [and sisters], we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are. Sincerely, all the best.

I simply meant in the context of "clarity" of expression, not anything else. Thanks

If you offered to buy the round you would be most welcome. 😀

Snow here in the UK and last night, as it began to fall, I feared for today. "Global Britain" can quite often grind to a halt at the merest hint of a snowflake. Our grandchildren were staying over, mum away on Care duty, and this morning we needed to get them to school (and picking them up later to take back to their own home, to "water and feed" until mum gets in about 10.30 pm) They were excited by the snow and (I think) rather hoping that school would be cancelled! However, I was anxious, wanting a normal day (whatever a normal day is......🙂) But I need not have worried. About two inches of snow, but the main roads already cleared early on. The taxi arrived on time (the buses here are unreliable) and we dropped the kiddies of at school. They immediately ran into the playground, where a snowman had already been constructed, and a few snowball fights were in progress.......I love children! Me, I am the packhorse, with rucksack and two rather heavy carrier bags full of assorted stuff to drop off at my daughter's home. Amid the assorted stuff, Dave the minion and Brownie the teddybear. Then a bus into town, now having a coffee in McDonalds, with shopping to get after. At 73, I thought I had retired long ago! But I would not have it any other way. After seeing that snow last night I did think that today might turn into a nightmare. My eyes being hindered by blind passions, I cannot perceive the light that grasps me; Yet the great compassion, without tiring, Illumines me always (Shinran, from "Hymns of the Pure Land Masters") Namu-amida-butsu! PS What did one snowman say to the other? " Can you smell carrots? "

Without seeking to be rude, I would suggest that you try to do much the same. You really need to drop a bit of baggage, if not all of it. From my perspective. Once again, I am a Pure Land Buddhist (if we must use labels) You obviously seek to engage in some sort of debate. I accept that this is a discussion forum, but really I seek no such thing. But I gave up seeking to "relate" to all the various sayings of Jesus long ago (I have in fact read the entire NT about 7 times, and also many commentaries by various theologians, academics etc etc) His sayings are, in my opinion, in the context of his life and his relationships, as recorded. Extracting them from such a context only leads to formulas and theologies, inquistions and conflict. You are welcome to engage in such debate and conversations, but not with me. Thank you.

I also said that I was speaking from a particular perspective, and that there are other perspectives. Regarding "therapy" I was simply saying that as far as I am concerned "therapy" is not any sort of "answer" as such. We all need to strive to see the entire context of any set of words. But obviously I have been unclear. These things could be sorted in double quick time over a pint of ale in a tavern. Which is a rather good context, although I am now teetotal. 🙂

Who is speaking of "therapy"? “So this holy life, bhikkhus, does not have gain, honour, and renown for its benefit, or the attainment of virtue for its benefit, or the attainment of concentration for its benefit, or knowledge and vision for its benefit. But it is this unshakeable deliverance of mind that is the goal of this holy life, its heartwood, and its end.” (Majjhima Nikaya 29:7) Or, "you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free"

Who is? Meanings are infinite. Here is Wei Wu Wei, the famous English gentleman racehorse owner, speaking of a saying from the Gospel of Thomas (no, not canonical, but who decided what is, or was, or will be?) It is interesting to note that in the recently discovered collection of sayings of Jesus there is one in which he formally adjured His disciples to divest themselves of all their 'garments'. It is understandable that such a statement should have been omitted by those later compilers who had no idea what such a requirement could mean. But to us it should be a commonplace. As far back as Chuang-tse we find the story of the old monk who, in despair of knowing enlightenment before he died, went to see Lao-tse. On arrival Lao-tse came out to meet him, welcomed him, but told him to leave his followers and his baggage outside the gate, for otherwise he would not be admitted. The old man had no followers, and no baggage, but he understood, went in and found his fulfilment. 🙂

Hi Jessie, I would say that you would fit in anywhere where any random group of human beings would congregate. But obviously, you are asking what particular Christian denomination would suit. Possibly a Universalist Church? But really, I doubt you will ever find a large group of totally like minded people who would agree with all your various opinions. Maybe then, a bit of give and take, living and learning. Acceptance of others irrespective of differences. No inquisitions, crusades or excommunications! But I would hope others might try an answer for you. All the best.