Jerome A. Stone (2003) elucidates the tension between ‘self-power’ and ‘other-power’ as motivators of practice – a tension which seems to play itself out in most religious traditions. Perhaps the tension between the two is more fruitful than the predominance of one over the other. Continue reading The conversation
Author: gnox
Free self-control
The crux of the human condition is that we have decisions to make. Continue reading Free self-control
Analysis and synthesis
Once the whole is divided, the parts need names. There are already enough names. One must know when to stop.
— Tao Te Ching 32 (Feng/English)
Ego is always wanting to ‘make a difference.’ But there are differences enough already. Maybe one should make a connection instead.
Groundless
The ‘home’ you have to leave, lest it become a prison, is not only your home town (or your home ‘discipline’ if you’re a specialist), but also your vain hope to find a permanent or substantial self within. Continue reading Groundless
Leaving home
The call to homelessness which we find in the Gospel of Thomas (and other gospels) is just as clear in other religious movements that aim at the transformation of experience. Continue reading Leaving home
Give us this day
Now it happened that as he was praying alone the disciples were with him; and he asked them, “Who do the people say that I am?”
Luke 9:18
Slow train coming
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
— Tao Te Ching 1 (Feng/English)
The train that can be expressed is not the express train.
Relative individuality
As Maynard-Smith and Szathmáry point out (1999, 137), the social structures we find among humans (and other ‘higher animals’) are woven together by the mutual recognition of selves. The concept of self is a consequence of this, not a precondition of it: we recognize our selves because we recognize others as individuals (Bogdan 2000 and many others). Continue reading Relative individuality
Who’s there?
Belief is personal; truth is transpersonal.
The aspiration to enlightenment is your own; enlightenment comes to all beings at once.
Saved
For a human, to be conscious of self and of personal experience is to be grounded in the human community, in the social nature of the human animal. Take for instance Simeon, the ‘righteous and devout’ man of Luke Chapter 2. Continue reading Saved