Love and do what you will

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Love and do what you will (St Augustine)

Just how simple can it get?

Someone once asked the Buddha just what it was he taught, what was the essence of his teaching.........

"Cease to do evil
Learn to do good
And purify the mind"

Well, a child of three could have said this, replied the questioner.........to which the Buddha replied..............but an old man of eighty finds it hard to do.

What is the cause of the proliferation of "beliefs".........."views"..........."doctrines"............."dogmas" of religion. What is the cause of the ongoing need for "analysis"........the endless complications..................the seemingly endless evolution of the various teachings.........

Does it all have - can it have - a positive role to play?

Or does it have more to do with the words of Krishnamurti........."we demand a belief when we want to escape from a fact into an unreality" Or demand yet another "view".........or more analysis, a further complication to cloud everything?

Buddhism seems to take a "middle" view...............to take the teachings as a raft......"for crossing over, not for grasping"..............as the Buddha said when those he was teaching were found to have full realisation of the words he was using..........."bright and purified as this view is, if you treasure it, grasp it, treat it as a possession, would you then be treating my teachings as a raft for crossing over and not for grasping?"

When we strive to love..........to have compassion.........we strike against the ego and its apparent endless selfishness and incapacity for either.

How simple the "answer"...........how difficult to truly practice!


Are "doctines" - or whatever - merely evasion? Or have they a positive role? Would each persons path necessarily involve their own perculiar "complications"
 
Thats true. Beliefs, views, doctrines, dogmas, etc are just concepts created by the mind to explain reality. But people cling to the concepts themselves which just stirs up the mind. The Mind is where true reality is found, not in the outside world, not in language and verbal concepts.
Reality can only bee seen right now. At this very moment. Everything else, all of our concepts and opinions are just creations of the mind, they stir up the mind blinding us from the true reality that is the mind.

We always follow our thoughts endlessly and identify ourselves with them. But if you try for one second to look back at where the thought is coming from, look at the thinker itself, observe the observer, you might get a strange feeling called Kensho, which means seeing into your true nature, your buddha-nature. That is the first glimpse of enlightenment.

About your question
"Are "doctines" - or whatever - merely evasion? Or have they a positive role? Would each persons path necessarily involve their own perculiar "complications""

I think that the doctrines and views create the complications.
 
Well, I agree and disagree. I agree with Buddha's lovely summary, cease to do evil, learn to do good, purify the mind. :) The only problem is as he pointed out--it's easier to say than to do.

I think that doctrines and dogmas and religions, all are man-made yes, but that does not mean they are inherently evil or bad. They are the scaffolding which which we climb, or the raft we use to cross over. It is when we mistake them for our goal that we lose sight of the Truth. It is when we use them to create barriers, rather than bridges, that we lose the Purpose. I attempt to hold my beliefs as I would a dove, firmly yet gently, willing to let them fly when the time is right.

The ladder and the raft are useful. Love sums it up. But then we seem to need further instructions for how to go about loving. :)

peace,
lunamoth
 
The proliferation of doctrine, like the proliferation of civil laws is a result, not a cause, and they result from man's inability to observe 'simple' laws.

As ET said, "Be good."

Everybody says yes, but everybody determines to interpret what is good according to their own weakness.

Thomas
 
Well said Thomas.

I think we should all follow the simple rules laid down by Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan, who said,

"Be excellent to each other, and party on dude."
 
Thanks for the response.

There was a vague thought at the back of my mind concerning an entry in one of Thomas Merton's journals that relates to this. He said something along the lines of "dogma's/doctrines are not defintions of truth, more parameters set against total error".

Anyway, be that as it may, I do think that this also has to do with the reality of "grace".........When we become involved with spiritual materialism - the constant ongoing desire to "attain" some state of "goodness" or "realization" - then such a state becomes an "object" of desire beyond ourselves. As "object" this "good" seems to constantly recede from us as introspective awareness deepens (unless we are very shallow!) and this would encourage the proliferation of "views" or whatever to fill the gap.

When the "good" is understood as "given" - the simple good with which one is endowed by the very fact of existence - then the heart can relax and we can grow within the simple living of each day in gratitude, our deepening awareness of our "foolish" reality only offering a greater realization of further gratitude. (As Thomas Merton has also said, this becomes more a matter of "believing" in the good rather than of seeing it as the fruit of one's effort)

Views, doctines etc do seem to me the result of our failure to "achieve".......of our failure to actually realise and embody the state of "loving and doing what we will". Grace allows us to live with this "failure" without reaching out for some sort of "cover-up"!

Derek
 
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That's a rich thought process, Derek.

From an objective perspective, the statement of doctrine, its consequent dogmatic formulation, and the resistance to heresy (from the Greek 'to choose') was ever a means to correct deviation from the Way to the Narrow Gate - thus the error comes first ("for it must needs be that offences come;" Mat 18:7) and the correction afterwards.

A deeper investigation shows that the most profound theological determinations actually follow doctrinal formulation - the development of Christology within the Latin/Greek churches, for example - and this is a sign of the Spirit at work, and the Presence of a Guiding Grace (Divine Economy).

I once heard a scientist talking about the litmus test of a new theory, and his statement that one can always tell when a theory is 'good' because it not only provides a simple and elegant (ie 'beautiful') solution for the problem in view, but also unexpectedly clears up a whole raft of other issues, totally unexpectedly. This has ever been the way with the development of theology. On the contrary, the promulgation of error (such as the Arian controversy) actually creates a whole raft of problems and issues that complicate the issue enormously.

Plato himself was aware of certain fundamental problems with his own philosophy, for which he could supply no adequate solution. One might say it was providential that Platonism supplied a language for the Christian Mystical tradition, whilst Christian Doctrine supplied a Providential answer to the problems inherent in the philosophy.

Thomas
 
Love and do what you will. That presupposes what love is. How would you define love? How do you know you are not violating that love by doing what you will?
 
Dondi said:
Love and do what you will. That presupposes what love is. How would you define love? How do you know you are not violating that love by doing what you will?
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Love is a process. You can only move through the process if you give in to it. Defining love is not what love is. Any definition of love would be what you would use to build on love or to use love to your benefit but to do either of those would not be love, it would be whatever you are using to control it. Love just Is. How would you want someone to love you? Perhaps, to begin, by letting you be.
 
Dondi poses an excellent point.

This dialogue runs as a thread throughout Christian Mystical Theology - the tensions between Platonic eros, Christian agape, and Aristotelian philia:

"Eros is acquisitive, egocentric or even selfish; agape is a giving love. Eros is an unconstant, unfaithful love, while agape is unwavering and continues to give despite ingratitude. Eros is a love that responds to the merit or value of its object; while agape creates value in its object as a result of loving it... Finally, eros is an ascending love, the human’s route to God; agape is a descending love, God’s route to humans...”
From the "Introduction to Eros, Agape and Philia" by Alan Soble

St Paul speaks of 'agape' or 'charity' famously in Corinthians, but again charity is widely misunderstood, being quantified and thus materialised - charity today is giving to the poor - whereas the true caritas, true love, is the love of something for its own sake, not because of any benefit we might accrue by it.

THis love then, in St Augustine, one might hazard to mean love things because they exist, and show this love by doing what you can to facilitate their existance.

Whenever I think of love, one of my favourite quotes is from the comedian Steve Martin, "Love is one of the best things money can buy."

It is because of this that I would treat Truthseeker's comment with some reserve - although it is true and admirable - love is indeed a process, but too often, and too easily, the world gives in to eros, not agape, and the difference is everything.

I would go further and say that the whole social structure of the West is eros, not agape - the world is put to one end, the further material benefit of those who have - and this is what we call 'progress,' and our own material wellbeing is how we measure it.

Thomas
 
Hi Lunamoth -

Let me know what you think! I haven't read it (I picked up the quote online) and as I'm about to embark upon the life of 'a mature student' (do men ever grow beyond their student years, I wonder?) and start a 5-year Batchelor of Divinity degree, I doubt that it will be on my list.

Being frightfully old fashioned, I rarely read anything post the 7th century - Patristic Theology is the Golden Age for me; in the Scholastics I find too great an emphasis on Aristoleanism, a lack of the 'sense of the sacred' which was there, but just subsidiary to other concerns.

There are obvious exceptions - Aquinas (of course), Bonaventure, Eckhart - but I find the sentimental language of some of the later mystics disturbing.

Modern writers? Robert Bolton (Neoplatonist), Andrew Louth (Orthodox), the late Philip Sherrard (Orthodox), and the Ressourcement theologians of Catholicism: Jean Borella, Yves Ongar, Jean Danielou, Henri de Lubac, von Balthasar (a lot more of him coming my way, I reckon).

I enjoy your company here, also.

Thomas
 
I enjoy your posts as well, Thomas. :D
I'm about to embark upon the life of 'a mature student' (do men ever grow beyond their student years, I wonder?) and start a 5-year Batchelor of Divinity degree
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I hope you find what you are looking for on your quest. :)
 
I think dogmas/doctrines are metaphors gone awry. Visionaries use metaphorical language to attempt to express their otherwise inexpressible, spiritual experience or enlightenment. When the metaphor itself gets mistaken for the truth it points to, then dogma is born.

Joseph Campbell has a couple of interesting ways of describing this phenemonon. He talks about it as seeing someone pointing you to the beauty of a full moon in the night sky and just looking at their finger. Or seeing an entry for "beef steak" on a menu and eating the menu.
 
Dang! This is a great place to hang out! ;) So many great thoughts here!
Abogado del Diablo said:
I think dogmas/doctrines are metaphors gone awry. Visionaries use metaphorical language to attempt to express their otherwise inexpressible, spiritual experience or enlightenment. When the metaphor itself gets mistaken for the truth it points to, then dogma is born.

Joseph Campbell has a couple of interesting ways of describing this phenemonon. He talks about it as seeing someone pointing you to the beauty of a full moon in the night sky and just looking at their finger. Or seeing an entry for "beef steak" on a menu and eating the menu.
Click to expand...
Hmm, are dogma/doctrines the product of the misfiring of 'ego?'
"Egoism is the identification of the power that knows with the instruments of knowing." — Patanjali - Sutra 2.6
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Thomas said:
"Eros is acquisitive, egocentric or even selfish; agape is a giving love. Eros is an unconstant, unfaithful love, while agape is unwavering and continues to give despite ingratitude. Eros is a love that responds to the merit or value of its object; while agape creates value in its object as a result of loving it... Finally, eros is an ascending love, the human’s route to God; agape is a descending love, God’s route to humans...”
From the "Introduction to Eros, Agape and Philia" by Alan Soble

It is because of this that I would treat Truthseeker's comment with some reserve - although it is true and admirable - love is indeed a process, but too often, and too easily, the world gives in to eros, not agape, and the difference is everything.

I would go further and say that the whole social structure of the West is eros, not agape - the world is put to one end, the further material benefit of those who have - and this is what we call 'progress,' and our own material wellbeing is how we measure it.

Thomas
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Profound - as always, Thomas. Like Luna, I now have the title to my next literary venture. ;)
 
Derek, was just reading the current "Tricycle," saw a quote by the Dalai Lama:

"A religious act is peformed out of good motivation with sincere thought for the benefit of others. Religion is here and now in our daily lives. If we lead that life for the benefit of the world, this is the hallmark of a religious life. This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple; your philosophy is simple kindness."

So there ya go.;) Have a good one, Earl
 
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