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Just thought I would create a small space for some expressions of the Pure Land........ (This poem was written by a woman who was looking after her husband who suffered from Alzheimers) Assumptions and expectations Of what I can and should do Must be erased from my mind. An inner voice...

Once more I am reading through "The Hidden Ground of Love", the first volume of Thomas Merton's collected letters. This collection has really been a grace and I bless the day that I saw it, priced at a mere £4 in a secondhand bookstore. Just a couple of quotes drawn from the first 30 odd...

I was just browsing through this thread and came across this, and it did get me considering the original question and my thoughts upon it. (Perhaps another one for the funny farm, Zagreus!!:D ) I would say the doctrine would be good if all were predestined to salvation - the double destiny...

Hi!, Perhaps you have a different edition to my own copy? After the sentence you quote there is a reference to Note 31, which when looked up at the back reads......... The bhikkhus did not delight in the Buddha's words, apparently because the discourse probed too deeply into the tender...

The Buddhist faith, like the Christian, has "many mansions". It is not one great monolithic structure that has remained constant since the Buddha first taught approx 2500 years ago. Yet, as far as I know, no Buddhist would actually recognise a supreme creator God, transcendent to the universe...

It does seem to me that to entertain the notion of some "final" state that is "achieved" - whether by grace or grit!! - can be misleading, and leaves us unenlightened mortals feeling a constant sense of lack. I think it has been said that in fact "the path itself is the arrival". Whatever our...

Earl, Thanks for your own quotes! Not much of a connection really, but for some reason the words of Carl Strand reminded me once more of some reflections by Shinran. He was considering the assurance of his own entrance to the Pure Land and wrote of how such an assurance and prospect should...

True communication on the deepest level is more than a simple sharing of ideas, conceptual knowledge, or formulated truth...............And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless, it is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond...

Thanks! yes, I've found it now - for better or for worse!! Formulas? Yes, I think there is a Merton quote on the Thomas Merton thread concerning formulas which I tend to agree with..................... :)

During my "liberal Christian" days I often used to dip into the New testament commentaries of William Barclay. They seem written for "simple folk", which therfeore suited me down to the ground - in the past I have been "flamed" for "sentimentality"!! Anyway, I have always remembered a story...

I was floating around trying to find a thread that asked for our views on the Atonement. I had seen a poll earlier and wanted to offer my ten cents -as the saying goes! Seem to have lost it! Anyway, saw this for the first time. I do feel that "grace" is at the heart of all things. (my ten...

InLove, I came across it amid the journals of Thomas Merton, in this case volume 3 "A Search for Solitude". It was actually his friend Mark Van Doren - on a visit to the monastery - who spoke the words. The full excerpt and context....... Watching those birds was as food for meditation...

InLove, I had never heard of Kakuzo Okakura and his "Book of Tea". Thanks! I looked it up on Amazon and saw that it was a "search inside" book, so took a quick peep. Yes, he seems to be concerned about the stereotyping that goes on between "east" and "west" - both ways! His book seems a...

From a letter to the "Zen Man" Daisetz T Suzuki................. I want to speak for this Western world.................which has in past centuries broken in upon you and brought you our own confusion, our own alienation, our own decrepitude, our lack of culture, our lack of...

Dauer, Thanks for the clarification! I have always loved many Hasidic tales. There is quite a collection of them in a book I have called "The Spirituality of Imperfection". Once in a bookstore I did see a collection by Martin Buber, but unfortunately kept my money in my pocket. Thanks...

Dauer, Yes, I agree about humour as being often the resolving of conflicts, expecially in the conflicts within ourselves that derive from a lack of self-acceptance (which is linked in my own mind to the refusal of grace and in consequenece the need to "justify" ourselves) Seeing ourselves -...

Dauer, I saw this first thing this morning and it has intrigued me during the day. Its often been said that "context is everything" and perhaps this is at the heart of it. Another thought was of something I read long ago concerning the actual/intended meaning of any piece of literature or work...

Well, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining :D Cricket! Now there's a game.................

Just saw this thread and took a peep.Then I saw this. I remember once reading some book by a Jewish guy speaking of this "eye for an eye" verse that is usually referred to as some sort of divine justification for revenge or whatever. This guy said that the words appear more than once in the OT...

Yes, Earl, thanks, As you might say yourself, "a good one" :) I remember someones post from long ago on another Forum, saying that there are no coincidences. I think at that time I did have some sort of instinctive sense of "randomness" which seems now to be eroded. Just as a coincidence...