Sadly, these words are appropriate again this week…. but hopefully this latest conflict will ease up soon…
Israel has agreed “on the principles” of a ceasefire proposal, raising hopes of an end to its conflict with Palestinian militants in Gaza…
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Umbrella, light, landscape, sky —
There is no language of the holy.
The sacred lies in the ordinary.
No one is able to describe the spiritual except by comparing it to ordinary things. One scripture describes the divine word as an “umbrella of protection.” Another says a god is light. Heaven is supposed to be in the sky, and even ascetics who have rejected sex use erotic images to describe enlightenment. People have to resort to metaphor to state the divine.
Even esoteric languages have been invented, and they mystify the outsider. Holy words always appear that way to the uninitiated. After one learns to read them, their message becomes assimilated. We no longer worry about the images, for we have found the truth that the words were indicating.
When you buy something that has assembly instructions, you follow the directions, but you do not then venerate the instructions. Spiritual attainment is no different. Once you’ve gained it, instructions becomes secondary. Spirituality gained is no different than the ball game you play, the work you do, the car you drive, the love you make. If you constantly regard Tao as extraordinary, then it remains unknown and outside yourself — a myth, a fantasy, an unnamable quantity. But once you know it, it is yours and part of your daily life.
All religion, as theologians – and their opponents – understand the word, is something other than what it is assumed to be. Religion is a vehicle. Its expressions, rituals, moral and other teachings are designed to cause certain elevating effects, at a certain time, upon certain communities. Because of the difficulty of maintaining the science of man, religion was instituted as a means of approaching truth. The means always became, for the shallow, the end, and the vehicle became the idol. Only the man of wisdom, not the man of faith or intellect, can cause the vehicle to move again.
– Alauddin Attar (Shah 261)
Chao-Chou asked Nan-Ch’uan, “What is the Way?” Nan-Ch’uan answered “Ordinary Mind is the Way.” We each takes up the path of awareness and care, and we attend to what is going on, within and without. And we discover things. Whether we are Zen students, take up the practices of Vipassana, or simply engage the spiritual practice of conversation so much beloved by Unitarian Universalists; in each of these disciplines we commit to being present, to showing up, to listening and paying attention. In any of these ways, we commit to using our ordinary mind, no capitals; paying attention to the ordinary things of life.
And as we do this, we may discover we really do give up the capital letters. As we attend we may find ourselves letting go of our ideas of what should be. What we may have been searching for originally–Wisdom, capital “W,” Salvation, capital “S,” whatever–in our presence to our suffering and longing, we may find ourselves dissolving into another way of seeing, of being.
At this point we may discover the miracle of ordinary mind, with no capital letters. Here we may discover each breath to be a new beginning. Here we may engage the world with freshness, humility and play. Here we may well cultivate the biggest of shrubs, that will indeed, let the birds of heaven shelter in its shade.
— James Ishmael Ford
I think there are far too many people who venerate the instructions – the words of religion – rather than the results. They choose to live shallow lives, feeling all virtuous and tisk-tisking others for not being virtuous people, instead of seeing the hypocrisy of their actions. They look at ordinary life and see people who aren’t religious, instead of seeing the spirituality of all things.
Religion is a means to an end – the acceptance of others and the finding of our own spirituality. Once you are comfortable in your own spirituality, the religion, the instructions, aren’t really all that necessary, unless you forget something and have to go back and refer to them.
The words of all religions can be quite beautiful and inspiring. But that is what they are meant to do – inspire us to become better people, not to use as a club to beat others into submission. When religion is misused for that purpose, it becomes tainted. Religion needs to be about how to live an ordinary life and a spiritual one – at the same time, not just on Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings.
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