tariki

Another "modernist" poet, T S Eliot, begins "Four Quartets" with these words...... Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. ​Four Quartets ends with T S Eliot affirming the words of the Christian mystic Mother Julian of Norwich:- "And all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well" So Eliot works out his own "answer".

A garden of sorts, in fact the gravestone of the poet and artist David Jones. The circle is significant. David Jones once said that everything constituted a sort of circle in some way. "I need to think that everything is complete somewhere". Dogen (bringing in another thread) spoke of "continuous practice"........."On the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moments gap; continuous practice is the circle of the way" Bringing yet another thread - can't remember where - there was the suggestion that though we live ("common sensically") in linear time frame, Reality itself is not simply linear.

Joseph, you made me think of the episide recorded in the Gospels of the veil in the temple being ripped apart from top to bottom - this at the monent of the death of Jesus. I would wish to associate this with the text "behold, I make all things new". Sadly, looking up one or two Christian sites, the ripping apart of the veil announces merely a new set of beliefs and affirmations, doctrines and creeds. "All things" really do need to "new" moment by moment. Just at the mment I am digesting the life of David Jones ( see the Zen Gardens thread ) who, whie being a true "modernist" was nevertheless steeped in past cultures and traditions.......these he transformed/ transmuted according to his own experiences. Experiences that included the trenches of WW1 on the western front, shell shock and on-going depression and agoraphobia. "Out of darkness light shall shine". Yes.

Yes, a fishing rod if appropriate.

Hi Soma, there is a passage in the Theraavada Canon where the Buddha speaks of the elephant and the various blind men. The moral of the story - at least according to Stephen Batchelor - is to reject "views". The Dharma cannot be reduced to a set of truth-claims. Only by letting go of such views will one be able to understand how dharma practice is not about being "right" or "wrong". ​Batchelor cites a zen master, who in effect said that any appropriate response to any situation in hand need not relate to some from of abstract truth, pre-conceived and "believed in". For me (as I gravitated towards Buddhism) this relates to the apophatic tradition of Christianity, the "negative way", the way of "unknowing". So, thinking abut it, and the other thread about hunger, an appropriate response in the moment ​may well be simply to give food to alleviate hunger. In THAT moment, it may be THAT simple.

Broadly speaking, I am with Tom. I would say that we all just "are". Distinguishing the "spiritual" is just dualistic and inevitably leads to judgement ( of others and ourselves ) In Pure Land terms we are "made to become so naturally" by the working of Reality-as-is ( the Source )

In my context, I was just saying that the problem must be recognised as multi-dimensional. The "answer" I offered was an example of not recognising that.

Hi Tom, I see far too much sheer wastage and dead ends when looking at the evolutionary process to move directly to "ah! intelligent design". Something must have gone "awry" somewhere along the line - which opens the door to the "fall". But again, for me t seems indisputable that things were "awry" well before human beings of any description appeared on the scene. Myself, I get back to what is often discounted as the "mystical"..........Meister Eckhart's "Love has no why". Simply put it is faith, not sight.

Great. Thanks. Being at heart the emotional sort, I was deeply moved come the finish. Thanks again.

I still see only the multi-dimensional. To zero in on just one problem - hunger or anything else - is to miss the point. The "answer" to "hunger" becomes "food". But is "hunger" as such a problem? Are all "hungry" people totally discontented? More discontented than an obese New Yorker looking forward to his next 16oz steak? Happier or less happy? Is being "happy" a worthy goal anyway? Of course, when famine strikes, we give. The UK's record for donations on Red Nose Day - and all the other days - is second to none. Long may it continue.

Joseph, Nature "seeking a balance" often collaborates with humans. The Black Death that has ravaged the European population in wave after wave through the centuries, the native populations of both North and South America decimated by disease when invaded by the European colonists. Each time the population was so reduced there remained hunger, maybe if you were of the wrong colour or class.

The problem is multi-dimensional. It involves the entire worlds economic system/systems which contribute to gross inequalities. It involves world climate (warming, cooling or whatever) that relates to floods, droughts and more. It involves our human greed and lack of a will to solve the problem. It involves the cultures of the people - who hunger - themselves, where only an extended family can be looked upon as a help in old age. So an approach that merely offers the "charity" of food aid at each and every famine, is not adequate. To be honest, in many ways I could despair. Listening to the opinions of those around me I hear, more often than not, the voice of ignorance and the seeds of tomorrows famines. There are other seeds. All sorts of "seeds" are in all of us. Really what is new?

Community is where I am. Home alone, or home with partner, or home with extended family, or at the Oxfam shop and those who call in, and the people I visit as a "befriender". Each moment is unique.

Tom, the Catholic monk Thomas Merton once said that a "saint" is not so much one who has reached a certain level of sanctity, but more that they always see something to love in others.

Trees. David Jones again.

After the influx of Gnomes, some back gardens painted by David Jones. He really is an endearing person to read about. A fine biography.

Hello Tom, welcome.

Hi Matthew, welcome to the Forum.

As long as I remember I have had a love of trees. Part I think because of the sheer chaos of the branches within a deeper symmetry. I really do find them reassuring and healing to look at.

I love "sullied" threads, so much more interesting than those that go in a straight line. But about crossing the road and looking, for me it goes back visits paid to my school by a policeman who drove the "code" deep into my themn immortal head. "Look right, look left, then right again". It saved my life once, seriously. I was walking along a very busy street in London and reached a junction to cross. The thought that any car could actually enter that road junction st speed was really not a possibility. But instinctively I looked to the right even as I was taking a step into the road. I just stepped back in time as a sports car zipped past at a real pace, having sped crazily straight across the busy road. As you love the question, please carry on with all its academic attributes. By the,way, I do not drive. Never chose to learn.

For me the question of free will is largely academic. I will continue to "choose" to look before crossing the road. Just as I will continue to walk on a flat earth and watch as the sun moves across the sky. My own suspicion is that the answer to the free will question is lost within another "common sense" experience - i.e. that we live in a linear time frame.....and actual reality itself is not so. But really, who at the moment knows? "That there IS suffering, that I know".

"Rubbish" I'm pretty attuned to. As far as the knacker's yard is concerned, I'll cope with that when the time comes.

"Knackered" is a bit near the mark for an English Gentleman like myself. Laughing Face!

"He's got the whole world in his hands" Perhaps more "the whole world IS his hands"? But then, why "his" hands? Why "hands" and not "beak" or "claws"? Properly understood? Or more "properly imagined"?

Just a summary for my own clarity of mind. I no longer ask "Is there a God?" The question has so many presuppositions and baggage that I can no longer see the wood for the trees. The loud voices of the over ardent drown me out. For me I/we live in a Cosmos, not a chaos. There is significance to our lives. I love books like "Gods Gravedigger" and other such anti theist tomes. They explain with great clarity exactly what cannot be. What is left after what cannot be, unsayable and beyond logic, must needs be lived.