I’ve made a few changes to the site this last week. I’ve jazzed up a couple of the stylesheets, revised and reposted the pages on Biblical Panentheism and Universal Salvation. Also I completely rewrote the review of Waking Life. Its vision of life as a lucid dream was something which I could not get when it first came out. Now, it’s screamingly obvious. When I’m more aware, I see that my existence is very much like a lucid dream. Ordinary life, without awareness, is like a sleep. One who’s begun to realize his true nature, begins to see it as a lucid dream, aware that he is dreaming. It’s an incredible metaphor, actually much better as metaphor than The Matrix.
I also came back to two texts with much greater understanding. The Tao Te Ching was the first Eastern religious text I had ever read. I’ve read it several times, but not in the last five years since I began meditating and exploring the nature of things. In the past, my "mysticism" was philosophical, now it’s much deeper. There’s so much in there that no one can understand deeply until they begin practicing it deeply, and then it opens up.
Also, I revisited The Gospel of Thomas again. I read that more recently, but going back again, since my practice has deepened as a quest to know my being in the Ground of Being, I understand so much more there than I ever did before. The scholars write commentary after commentary, but cannot "get" it, since it’s beyond everyone who’s not practicing.
Come to know what is in front of you, and that which is hidden from you will become clear to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not become manifest. —Thomas 5
That brings me to what really "updated" me tonight. In my last post I was quite discouraged and in a state of "spiritual indigestion." But taking Mark’s advice regarding SI was helpful— very, very helpful. As he suggested, I sat down quietly and renounced knowledge and desire from my heart. (I know nothing, I need nothing, I want absolutely nothing.) Tonight, after sitting in the quiet of that no-thing-ness for a little, something just "popped," and I realized, this is it. This is really it!
Soto Zen calls just-sitting meditation "the first enlightenment." The thing is that simply being in that awareness of Being is what enlightenment is. The abbot of The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counsel pretty much says the same thing, that this is the contemplative work of eternity. It’s so easy to get caught up in seeking the big, explosive, once-and-for-all "capital E" Enlightenment, which is nothing more than neurotic, clinging, desire. My teacher told me to give up wanting enlightenment, and now I think I have. I can see its here.
As Jesus said: Come to know what is in front of you, and that which is hidden from you will become clear to you.
It’s so easy. My heart overflows with gratitude. Thank You, Father.