tariki

A couple of poems there for further thought. A Tree Like Me made me think of the very first psalm. Well, here's a quote, actually the words of Sir Humphrey Davy. Another drawn from the treasury of the previous thread spoken of. For me the words seem to push aside some of the more "profound" insights, the talk of the various paths and ways that often seem beyond me to understand, let alone to walk. Just a reminder of what perhaps is a possibility for anyone........yet they can become truly profound in there own particular way.... Life is not made up of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, of which smiles and kindness and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart.

........and tariki enters. This is a poem that I first became aquainted with on the thread I spoke of. ITs important to me because when I first read it for some reason - now forgotten - I was eager to be somewhere else and it made no impression and was discarded by my mind. Later, when meandering through the thread again its words and meaning really hit home. So it reminds me just how easy it is for opportunities to be missed.........which to a certain extent is its meaning. The Two-Headed Calf Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum. But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual. - Laura Gilpin

Way back on a now defunct Forum someone began a favorite poetry and quotes thread. For me it became a treasury of various bits and pieces. Just thought it could be a good idea here. If you like, just add a few words to explain just how the verses/words have figured in your life..........but this is not obligatory! So the door is open......

David, You stated........ The universalist argument is that everyone goes to Heaven regardless of their behavior The universalist "argument" ends at the word Heaven. Thomas Talbots book "The Inescapable Love of God" is worth a read. He deals in depth with "behaviour" and its consequences within a Universalist perspective. By the way, thanks for your words on Sartre. I never really spent much time on the atheist existentialists nor subsribed to their views, though I retain a deep respect for the sheer humanity of Albert Camus. All the best. Derek P.S. I'll retire now to the relative safty of the "Other Wisdom Traditions" section, where I feel more at home.

davidk, Interesting? At least a little headway! As I said before, I'm not strong on logic, yet as far as I can see you only offer assertions and opinion rather than logical argument. Once again, I see no reason why the consequence of any act need be "eternal" for that act to be free or made in the face of a choice between "good" and "evil". Logic does seem a funny thing at times, whole self-contained systems can be created, each of the systems points being consistent with each other and supporting each other. Yet ultimately the whole system exists only like the grin of the Cheshire cat, having no relation to reality. As someone has said in another context.......Ho Hum! Those whose grasp of logic is greater than my own have argued on both sides of the "universalist/non-universalist" dilemma. Again as I indicated before, for me it is experiences unique to ourselves that often lead to our beliefs and conclusions rather than any argument of others, the still small voice of the heart that whispers amid the tumult of life as lived each day. Just as a by-the-way, there is an argument made by the French existentialist philosopher John Paul Sartre. He has claimed that if there is a creator God then no human being could ever possibly be inherently "free" as they would not have chosen their own essence. Not really sure what to make of that myself, and I lean toward the "eastern" Pure Land approach anyway. We have our own "self-contained" systems! Suffice to say, religion to me is not a means to an end (i.e to act in such a way as to gain salvation) but a response to an infinite compassion that has been recognised to have been given (grace) irrespective of anything I have been or done.(and given to all) An ethics of gratitude. And in my experience this transmutes in time into an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of hope and fear. Neither speak ill of others, nor well of yourself. The moment you open Your mouth to speak, The autumn wind stirs And chills your lips. (Buson) Just a word concerning texts. They do seem open to multiple interpretations. I have always loved the way the Jewish people approach them. They draw from the most arid words of the OT the most wonderful insights into the wonder of Gods world and its ways. For me any text is an exchange between the words and ourselves; no text speaks purely for itself.

rivanna, The words of Luther you speak of jogged my brain cells and brought to mind a poem by Philip Larkin, "First Sight".You may already be familiar with it. Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, waiting too, Earth's immeasureable surprise. They could not grasp it if they knew, What so soon will wake and grow Utterly unlike the snow. It seems in some ways to reconcile the "this world" "next world" distinction that JosephM points to in his last post. Soon after any series of posts of my own my mind seems to settle upon certain ideas as being particularly relevant to the current moment.............this time it was the words of St Thomas Aquinas concerning all he had written being "straw" in comparison to an experience of the divine. How far ranging this is...............

I may be out of order here as I fortunately live in a parallel universe where a reasonably coherent Buddhist Pure Land "apologetics" results in ultimate felicity for all. Nevertheless, I would like to make a couple of points while allowing and apologising for the fact that logic has never been my strongest attribute............(In my experience logical arguments never ultimately determine our beliefs, more our total life experience which is unique to ourselves) I see no reason why the consequence of our choices should - or need be - eternal for them to have significance, or to give meaning to "good" and "evil". And I always find it difficult to understand why, if "free will" is so important, it should be given for just one short sharp ambiguous life and then taken from us to suffer its apparent misuse forever. I also agree with Thomas Talbott that, given that God wills for us the very thing we really want, the idea of any human being making a fully informed choice against such a will is finnaly incoherent. ( See Talbotts book "The Inescapble Love of God") God is infinite and again, I see no reason why any form of time limit should be set for "redemption". I've written elsewhere concerning the words of St Augustine who said that we were made for God and therefore we find no rest until we rest in God (or words to that effect) so will not repeat myself, but these words do form the basis for a reasoned argument for Universal Salvation. In the words of Julian of Norwich.........on Easter Sunday...... He is Risen! The worst conceivable thing has happened, and it has been mended...... So that the end of everything shall be well. I say again, all manner of things shall end well. Amen Just popped back as I decided to look up my previous post regarding the words of St Augustine...... Freud came to this conclusion about human beings, that.......it is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestation of their aggressiveness. ("Civilization and Its Discontents") The main argument against Universalism seems to revolve around "free will". For me, the key comes with the words of St Augustine...."You made us for thee, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee". Within Time, duration, Divinity will always be seeking the "salvation" of all. And each will remain "restless" until they become aware of the infinite Love of Reality-as-is. "Eternity" , as duration, IS a long time, as you say! My hope and trust is that all will eventually find such "rest" (though I understand it more as "infinite creativity" than "rest"!) It seems to me that if "acceptance" of God's love is required, and a time limit set to such acceptance, then "hell" as eternal suffering can be a conclusion. Yet if we think more in terms of becoming aware of a Love that is eternally "given", and set no limits in time, then the Universalist conclusion seems a genuine hope.

Billmc, You have your Saints mixed up, St Augustine was the authority on the eternal fate of unbaptised infants. It was St Thomas Aquinas who believed that the "beatitude" of the "saved" would be enjoyed more by being able to see the fate of the dammed. In mitigation, St Thomas did have an experience of the divine close to his own demise taht made him declare that all he had written - in comparison - was "straw". However, I must say I am in general sympathy with the main points of your post. And it does seem to me that a fixed correspondence between our morality and any "reward" would compromise the ultimacy of "grace". Well, it certainly does, given the slant given on such things within the Pure Land way. Maybe Christianity is different.

Billmc, By inclination I'm pretty sympathetic towards your view, though being English I tend to think in terms of "having had a good innings"!! There was a passage in a book by a Japanese guy that I liked where he spoke of his own images and symbols...........his idea was of all of us just being individual drops of water being carried along in a mighty river and each will eventually be accepted and absorbed into the sea. And again, the point JoesephM makes, that all is NOW and there can be no after.......well, that rings its own bells for me.......that the present "has no extension but intensity" The rose that with my mortal eye I see flowers in God through all eternity Nevertheless, I must witness to some stray thoughts that give me pause for thought, not least the lives I see around me (and back in linear time)that are the polar opposite of a "good innings". I believe all of us here share some sort of idea that "God" is "love", even that "justice" would play some part in the divine economy. No matter just what "mystical" ideas enfold me and guide me, the idea that the lives of some who suffer beyond my capacity to even understand are somehow just absorbed and that is the end of it..............well, as I say, I pause for thought. I gave a few moments to the thread on this forum on the Trinity, and was taken by the second point....."It represents a continuum of relation and interdependence of the aspects of existence". Within Buddhism the word "non-duality" is used, and often understood to be the polar opposite of "duality" so that "reality" is then seen us some sort of undifferentiated glug! But Buddhist "non-duality" embraces "duality" and is certainly not seen as its opposite. In my own Pure Land symbolism, the undifferentiated aspect of "enlightenment" is represented by gold, and the individuality, or "suchness"/uniqueness of each, by the lotus flower. Visions of the Pure Land abound with pictures of an infinity of golden lotus flowers..... There seems to me "room" in eternity for differentiation, not just a total absorption. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard"

To admin and flow..........................many thanks for the welcome!

Thanks! (I just popped back to the thread you mentioned, I had not visited that forum for some time and had missed your contribution - and Earl's!)

DavidD, Thanks for your post, which I enjoyed reading, especially the way you weaved it around the two words "approach" and "way". Words are very powerful to me, and like you, they "suggest" different emotive responses. "Approach"................perhaps I'll give it a go and see what happens? "Way".................this is it, I'm going to give it everything! You say the "way" makes it sound like someone has been there before, makes you feel more secure. In my own Pure Land Buddhist path ("way"!) Amida, the Buddha of infinite light and infinite compassion, has "walked the path before me" through ten kalpas of time...........not quite infinite but quite a long time! Amida is seen as both a personification of "tranquil nirvana" and as the source of boundless activities of salvation, working in infinite ways to bring each to the realization of enlightenment.( "Realization" rather than any "attainment". Enlightenment is "gift", "bestowed" not "earned".) Anyway, your post did remind me of a poem written by the Christian Trappist monk Thomas Merton. His words to me express various things that unite the Christian and Buddhist path.............. "In one sense we are always travelling, Travelling as if we did not know where we were going. In another sense we have already arrived. We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life: That is why we are travelling and in darkness. But we already possess God by grace. Therefore, in that sense, we have arrived and Are dwelling in the light. But oh! How far have I to go to find You In Whom I have already arrived" Merton also speaks of "waiting to be healed", safe in the thought that even in our "unenlighened/unsaved/sinful" state, God yet choses to dwell within us.....and does so, fully. We need only the eyes to see.............or as Pure Landers would say, reach the state of "no-calculation" where "no working is true working". Anyway, thanks again for your post.

Just registered after a recomendation on another forum (Buddhist) I've said myself that "I no longer know if I'm a Buddhist learning from Christianity or a Christian learning from Buddhism" . But what's in a name......or a title..........or a label I do follow the Pure Land Buddhist path, the Buddhism of "Other Power", even - some have said - of "grace". Anyway, I already recognise a few names here. (Hi there Earl! Keep the Eckhart quotes going!) Not sure just how much I will post or what questions I will ask.....................(I think often my questions are more interesting than my "answers" - was it Picasso who said "computers are useless, they only give you answers"?) Anyway, enough waffle!