"When We Walked with God" by Galen Pearl
The Garden of Eden story fascinates me. I’m going to ask you, just for purposes of this post, to take the story out of Biblical context. Put aside all the theology, all your beliefs and opinions, whatever they are, about the Bible and religion. Just for a few minutes, consider this story without any preconceived notions. Disregard for the moment issues about obedience, sin, and punishment. Please understand that I am not challenging or disrespecting anyone’s beliefs. And I’m not asking anyone to change what they believe. This is just an invitation to look at the story itself without any additional context to see what we notice.
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"Selling Water by the River" by Adyashanti
Many seekers do not take full responsibility for their own liberation, but wait for one big, final spiritual experience which will catapult them fully into it. It is this search for the final liberating experience which gives rise to a rampant form of spiritual consumerism in which seekers go from one teacher to another, shopping for enlightenment as if shopping for sweets in a candy store. This spiritual promiscuity is rapidly turning the search for enlightenment into a cult of experience seekers. And, while many people indeed have powerful experiences, in most cases these do not lead to the profound transformation of the individual, which is the expression of enlightenment.
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“Lecture on Zen” by ALAN WATTS (transcribed by Alan Seaver)
Once upon a time, there was a Zen student who quoted an old Buddhist poem to his teacher, which says:The voices of torrents are from one great tongue, the lions of the hills are the pure body of Buddha. 'Isn't that right?' he said to the teacher. 'It is,' said the teacher, 'but it's a pity to say so.'It would be, of course, much better, if this occasion were celebrated with no talk at all, and if I addressed you in the manner of the ancient teachers of Zen, I should hit the microphone with my fan and leave. But I somehow have the feeling that since you have contributed to the support of the Zen Center, in expectation of learning something, a few words should be said, even though I warn you, that by explaining these things to you, I shall subject you to a very serious hoax.
If I allow you to leave here this evening, under the impression that you understand something about Zen, you will have missed the point entirely. Because Zen is a way of life, a state of being, that is not possible to embrace in any concept whatsoever, so that any concepts, any ideas, any words that I shall put across to you this evening will have as their object, showing you the limitations of words and of thinking.
“This is Water” — Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace (full transcript and audio) - Courtesy of Fs Blog
This was David Foster Wallace‘s 2005 commencement speech to the graduating class at Kenyon College. It’s rich in wisdom, insight and heart. It has never been more apropos than now…. The speech was transposed and into book form entitled, “This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life.”
“Indigenous Religious Traditions” — Colorado College
The other day I visited my grandmother at her nursing home in Denver. The lobby of the building was filled with senior citizens, as one would expect in assisted living. Most of the people were in wheel chairs or using walkers and many were sleeping where they sat. As I walked through the building in search of my grandmother, I began to feel a little depressed. The overwhelming presence of people approaching their death gave the building a sad energy, and I felt sorry for each person I passed. But the longer I thought about it, the less I could understand why I felt such grief. I thought about our experience at Pine Ridge and how I viewed the elders there compared to the elders I encountered in this instance. I saw the elders at Pine Ridge as wise and full of knowledge, but I saw the people living with my grandmother as senile and fragile. My differing experiences at Pine Ridge and at the nursing home inspired me to take a deeper look at how elders are perceived in Native American culture versus mainstream American society.
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“Choosing Love in a Time of Evil” from the Center for Action and Contemplation
I have been deeply moved by the wisdom of Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) for quite some time, and found myself returning to her journals many times over this past year. She died at Auschwitz at the age of 29, but her deepening relationship with God in the last two years of her life led her into great solidarity with those who suffered and to loving God even in her enemies. Living at the Westerbork transit camp, first as an employee of the Jewish Council and later as an inmate, Hillesum did everything in her power to help others. Here are excerpts of her wisdom:
“Faith after Doubt” by Brian McLaren — a Nomad Podcast Interview with Brian McLaren and Book Notes by Sam Radford
I’ve been reading books by Brian McLaren for coming up to twenty years. He is someone whose faith journey is several steps ahead of mine and, as such, he’s been a mentor from afar to me.
His latest book, Faith after Doubt, is my favourite of his books to date.
=It captures the journey I’ve been on for the last twenty years as well as providing vision and encouragement for the years ahead.
The book offers a map for where I’ve come from. He shares language and frameworks that give definition to the steps I’ve been taking these last two decades.
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Buddha and the Gas Pump — Rick Archer Interviews (excerpt) David Godman on Maurice Frydman
This is a long except from a "Buddha at the Gas Pump" interview with David Godman. I singled out the section pertaining to the life of Maurice Frydman. If there were a human prototype fitting for sainthood Frydman might be a serious candidate.
The interview was conducted by Rick Archer.
Enjoy!
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