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Raymond M. Smullyan, in the introduction to The Tao is Silence, writes of his conversion from Zen Buddhism to Taoism.
Actually, I came to Taoism first through Zen-Buddhism. It took me quite a while to realize to what extent Zen has combined Taoism and Buddhism, and that it was primarily the Taoistic elements which appealed to me. The curious thing about Zen is that it first makes one's mouth water for this thing called Satori (enlightenment) and then straightaway informs us that our desire for Satori is the very thing which is preventing us from getting it! By contrast, the Taoist strikes me as one who is not so much in search of something he hasn't, but who is enjoying what he has.
So, purity is the pureness of our communion with Life as it presents itself to us in the ordinary of the world. The harmony arises nowhere but here. This purity is related to "enjoying," as noted yesterday ["The Grace of Joy," 05.11.2020].
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Yesterday, during a community meal, I ate with the community where I live. I usually eat alone in silence, mindfully and quietly. A friend invited me to enjoy the dish she prepared. I said, "Yes." Eating with the community, I was enjoying the meal. I felt gratitude for the gift of food. Some others at the table were talking about various things, including where it would be best to buy groceries. I looked up, and one said, "You look confused." I said, "I'm just enjoying the meal, regardless of where or where not it came from. I'm enjoying it so much, where it came from is of no importance to me." Translated. . . "I'm not confused, I'm undistracted, totally present to the food, the eating, the one eating, those gathered here, and with gratitude for the gift. I'm in-joy-with-this." Others at the table may have experienced the same being-present in their own way, also. Yet, if so, the being-present is the same, only manifesting in diverse ways, as Unity does. But, for me, one reason I enjoy eating by myself is the aloneness that facilitates this presence to the gift of Life given me through food, rejoicing in the rite of the meal, without distractions whereby I miss the sacredness of the gift of Earth and Life. Eating, then, is like prayer, is prayer.
In my childhood home, the table was a place of this harmony. The table was a sign of unity, of being undistracted, of gratitude. We need these places to affirm the Unity, to nurture awareness of life as sacred, arising to the self as a gift. Some persons may see us as strange to approach life with this attention and awareness, but it is unnatural to do otherwise.
I recall serving as pastor to a dear woman in Mississippi in the 1980s. She was raised a child among many siblings. She told me, with fondness, of her mother having a time regularly to sit on the steps of the house reading the Bible to the children, as I recall some seven in number.
Another woman, the wife of the president of the college I was a professor at, was from the East. She spoke of her dad leading her siblings and her to a hill near the home. They would go daily to watch the Sun setting.
I refer to the above examples, to stress the need for times and places set aside to quieten ourselves and enjoy the moment without distraction. In such places and times, we are reminded of communion with everything. We realize again we live within That making all possible and without Whom, or Which, we could not be. These places and time can be part of realizing the Unity we, which all things, are.
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When a child and youth, I was taught a sharp distinction between the ordinary, everyday world and the spiritual world - a Protestant gnosticism. There is some truth to this, but only a half-truth. Through reciprocity with the Unseen, this enriches our relationship with the seen. This relationship is the Way. The Unseen, not-of-this-world, is first-order in this-world. As we grow in connection with Grace, we experience the world as more and more graceful. Communion with the Unseen enhances and purifies our relationship with the natural order. We may begin the Way needing to focus more on denial, for we are usually so out of harmony with Life, having saturated our senses and forfeited proper restraint, that we need this before relaxing self-denial in affirmation. See, the world is not a problem; the self governed by inordinate desire presents the problem. Yet, the disunity provides the context to realize a resolution in reconciliation wherein denial and affirmation become one.
This, also, must entail the reconciliations of the religious and spiritual projection of "inside" and "outside." This focus on inside as opposed to outside, as though inside is off to itself and is more spiritual than outside, is a subtle opposition in much spiritual teaching. This split needs healing, and it will be resolved in time, if one continues the Way, for the Way includes equally all ways.
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The indulgence by the self is really self-indulgence, things being the means for the self to pull to itself in greed for pleasure, rather than referring things to the Unity creating all things out of and within Itself. In the self self-satiating, we lose the knowledge of what joy is, confusing it with pleasure, which we futilely pursue. The self, by denial, engages in reconciliation with the Sacred and, so, sensitivity to Its good; harmony, then, can be restored through the Grace-of-Life.
The spiritualized being is joyful and grateful. The tensions of the inner and outer, the self and the world, resolved in reconciliation with the All.
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©️ Brian Wilcox, 2020
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