Tuesday, October 19, 2010

see

The principal assumption of deconstructive contemplation is that reality is created through our beliefs. This assumption allows us to see the constructed nature of our experience. This is an assumption which is itself deconstructed - leaving "reality-as-it-is". So in the final analysis, deconstructive contemplation is a "non-event". As the Perfect Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) tradition of Buddhism says, it is a radical teaching that is openly presented as a non-teaching. However, for as long as we figure that there is something we need to do, deconstructive contemplation fits the bill, for some at least, as a sophisticated tool for recovering that which we can neither gain nor lose. by Peter

Any genuine solution to our problem with lack involves overcoming this way of thinking about time and realizing something about the nature of the here and now. A spiritual life involves learning how to live in the here and now—and we’ve never been anywhere else, of course—rather than always living with reference to the future. On the other hand, we don’t want to get rid of time, either. In Zen practice there’s a paradox. On the one hand, we’re completely perfect right here and now. There’s nothing lacking in me or in the world right now, there’s absolutely nothing to gain, nowhere that we have to go. And yet, in order to realize that and, even more, in order to live in that way, we often have to engage in extraordinarily intensive practice. So, we’re trying to live in the present, but there’s a certain future orientation in the sense that most of us have to follow a spiritual path in order to realize that there’s absolutely nothing lacking now. If you just say, “Oh, I’m just here and now,” it doesn’t work. You need a practice in order to realize that here and now, otherwise we just get diverted, the mind becomes unfocused and wanders. And yet, if you become preoccupied with what you have gained or want to gain from that practice, then you lose what it is that you’re practicing for. Exactly the same paradox is true for socially engaged spirituality. Personally and socially we need both sides of it: The world is perfect just as it is now, and yet it also calls desperately for radical action. That paradox can’t be resolved in an intellectual or rational way, but it can be resolved in our practice, in how we actually live our lives. We need to realize something wholly healing about the here and now at the same time as we’re trying to develop in a fruitful direction. Does that make any sense? D. Loyconsciousness plays a melody of highest and deepest love
the music of the stars dance to the bend of the rainbow
the sound of the wind blows across the ocean to touch the sky
the whispers the calm song charges at the darkness of nights
flowers are and always will be the breathing heart of awareness