Where is truth?

                                           
                                           Do not seek the truth.
                                           Only cease to cherish opinion.

Chien-chih Seng-ts-an

Third Zen Patriarch

606AD

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.

Francis Bennett: I Am That I Am.

I have a body, but I am not that body.

Who am I?

One of the fruits of the discipline of meditation I have practiced since my young adult life has been a clear and distinct awareness of this I, as a separate level of existence from all else in my world.

Though at an ego level am familiar with this I, comfortable with this I, reassured by the presence of this I, what Ego has never done is become conscious of the many layers and qualities this I possesses.

David Ford, my friend, neighbor and fellow parishioner at our little mountain church, has introduced me to the work of Francis Bennett.

Bennett, a Roman Catholic on a lifetime journey of discovery that has taken him in and out of a plethora of spiritual traditions, has prepared a memoir of his learnings about the I in him. Appropriately enough, the tile of his book is I Am That I Am.

 

Over and again in reading Bennett's journal I recognized the similarity of his experience with my own, the familiar descriptions of experiences I have had but never verbalized. Throughout my life journey this recognition has been a signal to me that I am in the presence of something genuine, eternal and universal.

And yet in reading these pages I've found myself alternating between enjoyment and impatience. I particularly appreciate the stories he tells, recounting in first person what his actual experience was. Less valuable are his attempts at generalizing, theorizing, interpreting, comparing. When he comes to exploring parallels between his experiences and the words in the New Testament about the supposed teachings of Jesus, he loses me. My present understanding of the socio-political history of these writings prevents me from considering them an authority on much of anything, and it feels like a waste of energy to look for meanings. They had their purposes in history, and that's all I'll say about it here.

In reading Bro Bennett's writings I also grow impatient with the limitations of human language, and his attempts to use it, in explicating this most mysterious of experiences. Analysis falls short, feels false. This is not a statement about the author. It's a comment on the ethereal, and on the smallness of the human mind and the feeble results of filtering this level of reality through such a clearly restricted and restrained transmission channel.

This is one piece of the puzzle, the vast elephant. Bro Bennett is one blind person, describing as best he can a vast, infinite experience.

I begin this exploration from the ground of my own experience. I know who this I is. I want to learn Who this I is.

Considering these writings in light of Hesse's Siddhartha and his life brings me one step closer to wholeness. 

Adding in the experience of Beauty, and the possibility of consciously allowing myself to explore that element of this world, I may be able to continue my journey.

Catholic Transcendentalism.

March 2013.

Max Weber, one of the fathers of religious sociology, contrasted the transcendental feelings enjoyed by Catholic mass-goers with the Protestant obsession with behaviour. 

 Architecture supports purposes.

We create a world, then the world creates us.

Between sacred and secular.

Max Weber, one of the fathers of religious sociology, contrasted the transcendental feelings enjoyed by Catholic mass-goers with the Protestant obsession with behaviour. 

I come across a writing in a companion online journal, Z.

Encountering it by chance, I'm taken back by how long I've been pondering the same things.

I like what I've said here.

The graphic also reminds me of my sensitivity, my awareness, sometimes my obsession with Systems.

Seeing the time and the distance between then and now, I'm encouraged to continue the exploration.

A Touchstone of History.

I cannot say enough about the power this book has had on my understanding of the social/political/religious world we live in.

There is so much information, so many threads woven together, that reviewing it takes nearly as many words as the book itself contains. Every concept is important. Every idea is a piece of a massive puzzle.

I've made other notes, created other links, at one of my companion journals, Exploring Social Systems.

Life changing.

A few years ago I spent three weeks on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. It was breathtaking. Awe-inspiring. Days, weeks, one jaw-dropping vista after another.

I returned home, sorted images, shared powerpoints, created albums. 

One year ago today I was in Italy.

I returned home and I was a different person.

Siena, Italy. March 2013.

Who am I?

                                          I have a body, but I am not my body.

                                          I have a mind, but I am not my mind.

                                          I have feelings, but I am not my feelings.

Where did that essence, that I, come from? How long has it existed?
Where was it before I was born?

I have a body, but I am not my body.


Who am I?

Christian Cosmology: a first look.

Terrifying.

Welcome to Christian cosmology. The Book of Revelation.

          I have a body, but I am not my body.

Who am I? Who is the one that knows I have a body?

Where does I go when I die? What happens to the me that is not my body? Does my essence cease to exist when my body dies?

Looking for a Christian answer to the questions? We come to the Book of Revelation, the only place in the Bible containing more than a hint about what's to come after death.

About which I can only say, after thousands of years of writers far more sophisticated than I, who the hell knows what it could possibly mean?

The best treatment of this piece of literature I've seen is by Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton University.

          REVELATIONS: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation

My personal experience with this book, I will write about at another time. I will say here that I believe the book addresses archetypal energies, universal forms. Doing so, it has value and is worth exploring, studying, pondering and understanding. Not an easy or a simple slog, and perhaps not achievable except under states of altered consciousness.

A tiny, even miniscule slice of existence, Revelation makes no attempt to portray the story of the soul, in all its forms and levels of existence. It's the story of a battle.  As such it's not much of a framework to hang your hat on for forming a coherent story of the Journey of the Soul. If  you do happen to go to the Book of Revelation seeking guidance, be prepared to be immersed in a nightmare of blood and gore and violence and evil.

Yet Revelation contains the only writings in the Bible that come remotely close to talking about other layers of existence. Since the writings of the Bible are the sole basis of the Christian faith, this is it.

Where does that leave the Christian with fundamental questions about human existence? To struggle alone, without institutional support, without a cumulative history, without traditions, without ritual or ceremony.

If one of the purposes of religion is to guide people through the mysteries of existence, I have to conclude, from what I've seen and experienced to this point in my life that Christianity is an abysmal failure.

When it comes to matters of the Spirit, it is silent.

At the edges

Do not search for the truth.

A long time incubating, the ideas here are ready to be explored in written form. I nearly said they are ready to find expression, but that is not at all accurate.

Yes, I've arrived at some tentative answers to deep and inviting questions. Yes, I've come to some conclusions that make sense to me for where I am right now. Yes, I think the solutions I see appear to fit the pieces of the puzzle I've been shown so far.

But I know enough about my own process to realize these are by no means final, irrevocable positions that I can accept in their present form as any approximation of truth. My experience is too limited. My mind and my heart are too small.

Do not search for the truth. Only cease to cherish opinions.

Including my own.

Without knowing a single thing about Seng-ts'an, who he was or when he lived, I saw this expression early in my life and it spoke to me. In the decades since I first encountered it I have found myself returning to its wisdom again and again. When the internet arrived, and google, and wikipedia, I could fill in the details to satisfy the curiosity of my Thinker. But I didn't need all that to recognize the power of the words I had heard.

In eleven words it captures the lesson Herman Hesse explored in Siddhartha, a story of the quest.

And so in this Easter season of 2014, this time of rebirth, I come to give form and substance to some understandings, open myself up to the hope and the possibility of others, allow a time and a space for the movement of the Universe and the Holy Spirit.

What new ways of experiencing this existence await me?