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Hi, I'm a 17 year old interested in programming. I come to this website in the hopes of me being able to stick to a religion.

You clearly don't understand Christianity, nor the theology of the folk that might call themselves Progressive Christians. You don't enter into discussion, you won't answer simple questions and you are (I suspect) a sock puppet that has been here before. And post spam all over the internet.

I was browsing through my own Blog and picked out one at random. On Nothingness, which must have occupied me at the time, pre Covid, post Brexit. Reading through I can barely believe that I wrote it, a vague lack of connection. Was that me? Maybe dementia is on the way. The "Krapp's Last Tape" syndrome. But here it is. Enjoy the pictures, maybe the best part. Lately I have, amongst other things - great and small - been delving into a few philosophical works on "nothingness". All much ado about nothing, but it does seem to be the battleground of much inter-faith dialogue these days. Perhaps there is a more appropriate word than battleground but maybe not. Again, given the lack of belief in anything much in our pop culture - apart from celebrity itself - any talk and debate on "nothingness" will obviously pass under the radar of many, and if heard of at all, be dismissed as academic and of no concern by those seeking to "live life to the full." Nothingness? How about a selfie! I will now drift onto the subject of forgiveness which has also gained my attention for one reason or another. I'm sure there is a connection between "nothingness" and forgiveness (although it escapes me at the moment) but this change of subject is in keeping with my rambles, so I shall continue. For me, I am sure that forgiveness, like all things, is simply a by-product of wisdom - wisdom defined as the mind/heart, thirsting for emancipation, seeing direct into the heart of reality. Trying to forgive because it is the right thing to do, this itself a belief, just disintegrates into the self-righteousness of the Pharisee. "I" have forgiven. Subject and object. Each distinct. William Blake, English mystic, poet and painter, saw the need not to dissect, and thus saw that mutual forgiveness of each vice opens the gates of paradise. Jacob's Ladder (Detail) by William Blake For me, Grace is the heart of Reality, the hidden ground of love, a love that "has no why". Grace is all things; mercy, relationship, diversity, wisdom and potential. Knowing we live by, in, and with grace, forgiveness flowers towards all others. In fact, often, ideally, no hurt or fault is even recognised. Knowing deeply our own need for mercy is the ground of forgiveness towards others. Maybe we can try to grade ourselves according to some scale of wrongs, acts or thoughts, but as I see it this misses the heart of reality. Lack of forgiveness, a judgemental heart, witnesses to having not accepted ourselves. Pure acceptance is the catalyst of all potentials and becomes the necessary ground of any diversification which follows. Creating a scale of wrongs, all according to our own calculations, before pure acceptance, inevitably chains us to the world of birth and death. Trust the ground Cherishing opinions, identifying with them, is a form of self justification; but when not "cherished" they can become appropriate in each unique moment, unclaimed yet participating in a truly life bestowing becoming. The dharma is for passing over, not for grasping. So it is terrible to read of those who condemn others, terrible for our own hearts to harbour hatred. This is simply to be out of synch with Reality. Well, that's it really. Not sure exactly what nothingness has to do with this except for the faint suggestion that Meister Eckhart's "love has no why" somehow connects things in ways beyond conventional logic. Just to say that as far as I understand, to put the "eastern" idea of nothingness in direct opposition to the "western" idea of Being, is to go astray. "Nothingness" to a Western ear, is simply a term of negation, and in the religious sphere, invokes ideas of nihilism, this opposed to the positive ideas of "salvation" and heavenly cities and Kingdoms of God. In Japanese, however, there are various terms for negation. For the Japanese the Western notion of "being" is given another term, a term meaning "having at hand" or "manifest", something that "strikes the hand". Its opposite, nothingness, means something like "present, but not in hand." Thus, nothingness signifies a presence that is not anything identifiable, something there without being in any sense "manageable" like other things present to us in the world (thank you James Heisig for much of this) Nothingness - calligraphy For me, this seems to speak of a childlike acceptance, seeing everything as if for the first time without preconceptions, giving it no name, more experiencing each and every thing, maybe as if back in Eden before the naming of anything. And the end of all our exploring will be to "arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." A kind of "unknowing." Related Quotes:- "O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer" (The "O Felix Culpa" of the Catholic Church) "One must have the mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is" ("The Snow Man", Wallace Stevens) "Ride your horse along the edge of the sword Hide yourself in the middle of the flames Blossoms of the fruit tree will bloom in the fire The sun rises in the evening" (Zen Saying - quoted by Thomas Merton in his book "Zen and the Birds of Appetite") "The birds don't know they have names" (From the Journals of Thomas Merton)

United States 2.55K United Kingdom 2.19K Russia 519 Germany 430 Belgium 149 China 143 Ukraine 135 Unknown Region 128 Finland 127 France 85 Canada 75 Turkmenistan 74 Brazil 43 Spain 38 Thailand 35 Ireland 33 South Korea 29 Other 801 The above is from Google Statistics, giving "hits" on my Blog, "Dookie's Place: Ramblings of a Pure Land Buddhist." Almost 19,000 hits now since I began my rambles in 2016, but some seem to be by artificial bots based in Hong Kong or Singapore. Not sure, I've tried to look this up but the information is very patchy and contradictory. I find writing the Blog therapeutic just in and of itself, but it does provide some sort of pleasure and reward to think that just some place, somewhere, another human being is reading it. So, cheers from Greggs. No one has yet asked me to move along so first impressions are good. May true Dharma continue. No blame. Be kind. Love everything.

Just thinking lately of another song, "The One I Love" by David Gray. I seem to remember mentioning it before somewhere, but at my age the memory is sometimes not what it used to be - some say it is the first thing to go, for me it is the second. I'm trying to learn it on my guitar, simple chords, quite easy, and I will add to my repertoire of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "The Wheels On the Bus". I first heard the song when on the night shift at Wilko's, when I was a Stock Replenishment Executive (AKA Shelf Filler) They played a tape each night and we all had our favorites. We all joined in with "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" and "Do You Wanna Be In My Gang" (don't mention the name of the artist Pike!) We all dreaded the Christmas tape, which being in the retail trade, would start early November, two months after the first Xmas stock came in. But I'm waffling again, in McDonald's with my coffee. But yes, "The One I Love", which I liked, and not listening intently to the lyrics - concentrating instead on making sure the AnuSol was placed on the correct shelf and aisle - took to be a simple "boy meets girl" love song. "You're the One I Love" yeah, yeah, yeah. Then some of the lyrics started to penetrate my mind/heart, words about bullets whispering through the grass, and tracers in the sky, of blood leaking out. So I looked up the lyrics, and its about a guy breathing his last on some battlefield (take your pick, there's plenty to choose from) and with his dying breath his vision is not of heavens or hells, but of his first dance with his loved one, holding hands on the old dance floor. Or maybe his last dance. Gut wrenching, and now two weeks into kicking my anti-depressants, tear jerking. But somehow, strangely, tears more of affirmation than despair. Anyway, here is the song.... Gonna close my eyes Girl and watch you go Running through this life, darling Like a field of snow As the tracer glides In its graceful arc Send a little prayer out to ya 'Cross the falling dark Tell the repo man And the stars above That you're the one I love, yeah Perfect summers night Not a wind that breathes Just the bullets whispering gentle 'Mongst the new green leaves There's things I might have said Only wish I could Now I'm leaking life faster Then I'm leaking blood Tell the repo man And the stars above That you're the one I love You're the one I love The one I love Yee hee, yee hee Don't see Elysium Don't see no fiery hell Just the lights up bright, baby In the bay hotel Next wave coming in Like an ocean roar Won't you take my hand darling On that old dance floor We can twist and shout Do the turtle dove And you're the one I love You're the one I love The one I love Yee hee, yee hee Not sure about the "yee hee, yee hee" bit, just might leave it out when I try entertaining the grandkids. Who is the "repo man"? I see it as that love cannot be repossessed. Love is the hidden ground in which we live and move and have our being. Someone once said that love is the reason that there is something rather than nothing, and another (Meister Eckhart) said that "love has no why". So tell the repo man to stuff it. Make of that what you will, meanwhile maybe think of the things "you might have said" to your own loved ones, and say them. Before you're shot down.