"Sane people did what their neighbors did..."
George Eliot
Middlemarch
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Dorothea in Middlemarch
"she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to have those aspects;"
George Eliot
Middlemarch
Much the same could have been said of my younger self.
George Eliot
Middlemarch
Much the same could have been said of my younger self.
Chief Characteristics of Satori - 4
"4. Affirmation. What is authoritative and final can never be negative. For negation has no value for our life, it leads us nowhere; it is not a power that urges, nor does it give one a place to rest. Though the satori experience is sometimes expressed in negative terms, it is essentially an affirmative attitude towards all things that exist; it accepts them as they come along regardless of their moral values. Buddhists call this kshanti, 'patience', or more properly 'acceptance', that is, acceptance of things in their suprarelative or transcendental aspect where no dualism of whatever sort avails."
D. T. Suzuki
Zen Buddhims
D. T. Suzuki
Zen Buddhims
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
The Worth of a Man
"Every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself."
Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
Chief Characteristics of Satori - 3
"3. Authoritativeness. By this I mean that the knowledge realized by satori is final, that no amount of logical argument can refute it. Being direct and personal it is sufficient unto itself. All that logic can do here is to explain it, to interpret it in connection with other kinds of knowledge with which our minds are filled. Satori is thus a form of perception, an inner perception, which takes place in the most interior part of consciousness....So, it is generally said that Zen is like drinking water, for it is by one's self that one knows whether it is warm or cold."
D. T. Suzuki
Zen Buddhism
D. T. Suzuki
Zen Buddhism
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Characteristics of Initiation into the Mysteries in 2nd Century A.D.
Lucius, the protagonist of Apuleis' Golden Ass, is initiated into pagan mysteries (specifically those of Isis and Osiris) three separate times. Some interesting characteristics emerge -
1) Divine Authorization
When Lucius first sought initiation he was told to patiently wait for divine approval to be given to the priest who would officiate. For those in charge would not do so "unless personally ordered to do so" by the authorizing divinity.
2) Washing and anointing
"...when the priest said the moment had come, he led me to the nearest baths, escorted by the faithful in a body, and there, after I had bathed in the usual way, having invoked the blessing of the gods he ceremoniously aspersed and purified me." Asper is an unusual verb in 21st century English, meaning to sprinkle - mostly used in reference to the Catholic practice of sprinkling Holy Water.
3) Ceremonial Garments
"Then the uninitiated were all made to leave, I was dressed in a brand new linen robe, and the priest took me by the hand and conducted me to the very innermost part of the sanctuary."
At the end of the ceremony Lucius had assumed a somewhat more elaborate costume -
"...though my dress was only of fine linen it was colorfully embroidered, and from my shoulders there fell behind me to my ankles a costly cloak....This is what initiates call an Olympic robe....and my head was encircled with a beautiful crown of palm..."
"The very next night I dreamed that there appeared to me one of the faithful dressed in linen and carrying a wand tipped with ivy and other things I may not mention."
In a dream that urges him to be initiated a third time Lucius is reminded "the goddess's holy symbols which you received at Cenchreae are still in the temple there where you left them, so that here in Rome you cannot wear them to worship in on feast days or receive illumination from that happy attire when ordered to do so."
4) A Sacred Journey Towards Salvation
"the initiation ceremony itself took the form of a kind of voluntary death and salvation through divine grace."
"I came to the boundary of death and after treading Proserpine's threshold I returned having traversed all the elements; at midnight I saw the sun shining with brilliant light; I approached the gods below and the gods above face to face and worshiped them in their actual presence."
5) Sacred Saving Truth Imparted.
Lucius undertook religious disciplined to prepare himself to "better attain to the secret mysteries of this purest of religions." The information given was centered on "the keys of hell and the guarantee of salvation."
6) Content Points Towards a Regeneration of Life
Those who passed through initiation "had been as it were reborn."
"I celebrated my rebirth as an initiate..."
7) Content of Ceremony is a Sacred Mystery
In other words it is kept secret. The priest of Lucius' first initiation calls them the "holy mysteries of our faith."
"...he made me to stand at the goddess's feet and privately gave me certain instructions which are too sacred to divulge."
"I dare say, attentive reader, that you are all agog to know what was then said and done. I should tell you if it were lawful to tell it; you should learn it if it were lawful to hear it. But then your ears and my tongue would both incur equal guilt, the one for sacrilegious loquacity, the other for importunate curiosity."
"So all that can without sin be revealed to the understanding of the uninitiated, that and no more I shall relate."
"The very next night I dreamed that there appeared to me one of the faithful dressed in linen and carrying a wand tipped with ivy and other things I may not mention."
Quotations from
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Translated by E. J. Kinney
1) Divine Authorization
When Lucius first sought initiation he was told to patiently wait for divine approval to be given to the priest who would officiate. For those in charge would not do so "unless personally ordered to do so" by the authorizing divinity.
2) Washing and anointing
"...when the priest said the moment had come, he led me to the nearest baths, escorted by the faithful in a body, and there, after I had bathed in the usual way, having invoked the blessing of the gods he ceremoniously aspersed and purified me." Asper is an unusual verb in 21st century English, meaning to sprinkle - mostly used in reference to the Catholic practice of sprinkling Holy Water.
3) Ceremonial Garments
"Then the uninitiated were all made to leave, I was dressed in a brand new linen robe, and the priest took me by the hand and conducted me to the very innermost part of the sanctuary."
At the end of the ceremony Lucius had assumed a somewhat more elaborate costume -
"...though my dress was only of fine linen it was colorfully embroidered, and from my shoulders there fell behind me to my ankles a costly cloak....This is what initiates call an Olympic robe....and my head was encircled with a beautiful crown of palm..."
"The very next night I dreamed that there appeared to me one of the faithful dressed in linen and carrying a wand tipped with ivy and other things I may not mention."
In a dream that urges him to be initiated a third time Lucius is reminded "the goddess's holy symbols which you received at Cenchreae are still in the temple there where you left them, so that here in Rome you cannot wear them to worship in on feast days or receive illumination from that happy attire when ordered to do so."
4) A Sacred Journey Towards Salvation
"the initiation ceremony itself took the form of a kind of voluntary death and salvation through divine grace."
"I came to the boundary of death and after treading Proserpine's threshold I returned having traversed all the elements; at midnight I saw the sun shining with brilliant light; I approached the gods below and the gods above face to face and worshiped them in their actual presence."
5) Sacred Saving Truth Imparted.
Lucius undertook religious disciplined to prepare himself to "better attain to the secret mysteries of this purest of religions." The information given was centered on "the keys of hell and the guarantee of salvation."
6) Content Points Towards a Regeneration of Life
Those who passed through initiation "had been as it were reborn."
"I celebrated my rebirth as an initiate..."
7) Content of Ceremony is a Sacred Mystery
In other words it is kept secret. The priest of Lucius' first initiation calls them the "holy mysteries of our faith."
"...he made me to stand at the goddess's feet and privately gave me certain instructions which are too sacred to divulge."
"I dare say, attentive reader, that you are all agog to know what was then said and done. I should tell you if it were lawful to tell it; you should learn it if it were lawful to hear it. But then your ears and my tongue would both incur equal guilt, the one for sacrilegious loquacity, the other for importunate curiosity."
"So all that can without sin be revealed to the understanding of the uninitiated, that and no more I shall relate."
"The very next night I dreamed that there appeared to me one of the faithful dressed in linen and carrying a wand tipped with ivy and other things I may not mention."
Quotations from
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Translated by E. J. Kinney
Chief Characteristics of Satori - 2
"2. Intuitive Insight. That there is a noetic quality in mystic experiences has been pointed out by James in his Varieties of Religious Experience, and this applies also to the Zen experience known as satori. Another name for satori is 'ken-sho'...meaning 'to see essence or nature'....That this seeing is of quite a different quality from what is ordinarily designated as knowledge need not be specifically noticed. Hui-k'e is reported to have made this statement concerning his satori..."it is not a total annihilation; it is knowledge of the most adequate kind; only it cannot be expressed in words...."
Without this noetic quality satori will lose all its pungency, for it is really the reason of satori itself. It is noteworthy that the knowledge contained in satori is concerned with something universal and at the same time with the individual aspect of existence. When a finger is lifted, the lifting means, from the viewpoint of satori, far more than the act of lifting. Some may call it symbolic, but satori does not point to anything beyond itself, being final as it is. Satori is the knowledge of an individual object and also that of Reality, which is, if I may so, at the back of it."
D. T. Suzuki
Zen Buddhism
Without this noetic quality satori will lose all its pungency, for it is really the reason of satori itself. It is noteworthy that the knowledge contained in satori is concerned with something universal and at the same time with the individual aspect of existence. When a finger is lifted, the lifting means, from the viewpoint of satori, far more than the act of lifting. Some may call it symbolic, but satori does not point to anything beyond itself, being final as it is. Satori is the knowledge of an individual object and also that of Reality, which is, if I may so, at the back of it."
D. T. Suzuki
Zen Buddhism
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