Married Catholic clergy

Perhaps sometimes 'God' needs to take a lot of stuff away from us, before he can help us properly. To continue the example of someone fallen into a well, that is truly when a person has to cry for help. There is no alternative. A person has lost all ability to help themselves. It's the desperation of the 'dark-night-of-the soul'.

But -- changing the metaphor -- the problem may be that a person wants to 'rise' or to pass through 'the narrow door' that leads to freedom but also wants to take their house and all their heavy baggage. God may need to strip away a lot of that material and emotional baggage. That is going to cause tears.

I am not insisting a person has to lose everything but there's going to have to be a stripping down. And unless a person is prepared to 'let go and let God' it is going to hurt. That is why people think: I prayed but God didn't respond.

God is not perhaps as interested in a person's material welfare as in the soul. Not to say God does not help the 'seeker' in this world too. But the soul is the priority. A teacher I knew used to say: The boys upstairs will put you under a bus if that's what needs to be done.

Sorry, I am not preaching, but I believe it's an important understanding. Of course it is only my own opinion. But the the 'non-duality' movement actually seems to me to be trying to encourage people towards self-deification: I am God. I am Christ. I Am. There's no humility.

EDIT: But a person has to ask. The higher spirit forces are not permitted to interfere with human free will. Imo

Anyway ...
 
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RJM Corbet said:
it's an important understanding
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Yes, it is.

"I Am" (whether of God or of Ourselves) is a very Christian/western assertion. As I said/implied elsewhere, "falling into the well" within the context of the zen koan, does not mean a cry for help. It refers more to our ideas of perfection, of exactly what the end of dukkha might mean, this in the Buddhist context of anatta (no-self) without the understanding of which all Buddhist teaching becomes misunderstood.

Losing ALL our "baggage" is a perennial demand throughout zen and much other Buddhadharma.

Of course, narcissism is a problem, of course a form of self-deification lurks in wait. It is acknowledged. It lurks, in a multitude of forms in ALL Faiths.

That a human being does not subscribe to the idea that a form of transcendent Being actually determines in some fashion to take something away from us does not necessarily lead to the corruption of the "path".
 
CobblersApprentice said:
"falling into the well" within the context of the zen koan, does not mean a cry for help.
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But it is implicit in the image. No-one who falls into a well isn't going to cry for help. It totally involves the message that outside help is the only possible rescue. These koans have a lot of different 'answers' anyway, depending on the time and place in life.
 
RJM Corbet said:
But it is implicit in the image. No-one who falls into a well isn't going to cry for help. It totally involves the message that outside help is the only possible rescue. These koans have a lot of different 'answers' anyway, depending on the time and place in life.
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Implicit to you, at your time of life.
 
Dogen's "Genjokoan".....

Gen. to appear, to show up, to be in the present moment, of something unseen that can now be seen

Jo. to become, to complete, to manifest, to appear and become.

Koan. Carries the connotation of both a truth and a question. Ko. To be public, to equalise inequality, in the broader sense to equalise the unfair or unequal situations among beings that arise in this world of disorder and discrimination. An. To keep one's lot.

Thus, koan, refers to both the equality of all things AND to the uniqueness or particularity of each and every being. Ko and an are thus in opposition to each other.

Reality, or emptiness, includes both unity and difference.

(Drawn from "Realising Genjokoan")
 
RJM Corbet said:
But it is implicit in the image. No-one who falls into a well isn't going to cry for help. It totally involves the message that outside help is the only possible rescue. These koans have a lot of different 'answers' anyway, depending on the time and place in life.
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There is also the death-and-rebirth aspect to it.

No-one is going to come out of that well alive. The one who emerges or is rescued is not quite the same as the one who fell in.
 
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Then there is the guy walking thru the graveyard who falls.into an open grave one they had dug deep for the husband as the wife survived him and she would be placed on top later. He spent hours jumping and clawing and could not get out.

Just before dawn a drunk wandered thru and fell in the same grave. The other fellah was fast asleep. After jumping and clawing and moaning and yelling he woke the other guy up. Who laid in the corner and said.'I've tried, you'll never get out"

He kept screaming grabbed the edge and dispute slipping did not quit grabbing, struggling and climbing till he was on top.

Encouragement, incentive can come from unknown corners.
 
:)

But really, that story about the husband's grave ready to receive the wife's coffin, is a bit of a crude segue back to the topic of "married catholic clergy"...
 
Cino said:
There is also the death-and-rebirth aspect to it.

No-one is going to come out of that well alive. The one who emerges or is rescued is not quite the same as the one who fell in.
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Implicit to me, at my time of life, is that a CLEARY ENLIGHTENED PERSON can, nevertheless, fall into a well. To me it is not about what they may or may not do afterwards, but how. Which is the actual question asked. Which I find instructive, even encouraging.

As Jack Kornfield said, "after the ecstasy, the laundry".
 
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