| Re: Enlightenment without love is not enlightenment.
Posted by Butch on 1/25/2008, 12:01 pm, in reply to "Re: Enlightenment without love is not enlightenment."
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: Greetings All,
:
: Today, I heard the saying, "same but
: different". When i first heard these
: words, oh so many years ago, it reminded me
: of the days when i could just see the
: difference, or the commonality of things.
: So, when i ask myself, gar, what is
: enlightenment i think back to the time when,
: 'this and that dissolved into a state where
: duality is lost.
:
: Reality now appeares to me through three
: eyes, one eye fo this, another eye for that,
: and a third eye for neither, this or that.
:
: in peace,
: gar
:
: gar,
:
: I am reminded of a chapter from the New
: Testament.
:
: "If I speak in the tongues of men and
: of angels, but have not love, I am only a
: resounding gong or a clanging cymbol. If I
: have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all
: mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a
: faith that can move mountains, but have not
: love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess
: to the poor and surrender my body to the
: flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not
: envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It
: is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is
: not easily angered, it keeps no record of
: wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but
: rejoices with the truth. It always protects,
: always trusts, always hopes, always
: perseveres. Love never fails. But where
: there are prophesies, they will cease; where
: there are tongues, they will be stilled;
: where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
: For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
: but when perfection comes, the imperfect
: disappears. When I was a child, I talked
: like a child, I reasoned like a child. When
: I became a man, I put childish ways behind
: me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a
: mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now
: I know in part; then I shall know fully,
: even as I am fully known. And now these
: three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the
: greatest of these is love."
:
: 1 Corinthians 13, NIV. The Love Chapter.
:
: I believe what Paul is saying is the same
: but different from what many of the great
: sages, East and West, have said one way or
: another about what is truly essential. It
: does not matter what a person believes if
: they do not have love in their heart. Love
: is the gravity of metaphysics. As Rumi the
: Sufi mystic and poet noted, "The
: Love/Religion has no code or doctrine. Only
: Love."
:
: True love, love that is whole, is
: unconditionally open. Love is the essence of
: the eternal Tao.
:
: Butch
:
:Greetings Butch,
:
: It seems to me, Butch, that in the realm of
: neither this nor that, lies the mother of
: love.
: "I" like to think that in the
: essence of all things resides the kindred
: spirit that makes us one.
:
: in peace,
: gar
:
:
gar,
I respect your desire to not reduce the essential to this or that. But, to speak, to use words, is to reduce to a part what is by nature whole. Are we to quit using words altogether? The Buddha spent the last 40 years of his life talking about not talking. Hum? The OldBoy--Lao Tzu, said that nothing can be said where the Tao is concerned then went on to speak about it as best he could, metaphorically. Jesus spoke in parables. The sage speaks indirectly about a direct reality. Such is the nature, or limit(s), of words.
So, when I say the essence of the Tao is Love, then please forgive my audacity. But I would add that the Love that I am speaking about, pointing to, is not relative love. Not the love of love/hate. It is the love that is the underlying unity of love/hate. That which is beyond this or that. Though the string of love has two ends, it is a whole string.
I put forth that it is the nature of the Tao to love all of its creation, all of its being. Without hate how do we know what love is? Rationally speaking. But the Love to which I am pointing is beyond dualistic distinction, beyond logic. Nor is it separate, but is a greater, more whole reality.
I know of no other word that describes the essence of the Tao than Love. In fact I see the two words as interchangeable. The love that can be described is not the eternal Love.
Love even your enemies as you love yourself. Why? Because at a fundamental level there is no self/other. The underlying unity of the string of self/other is Interbeing--as the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh calls it. The interbeing that can be described is not the eternal Interbeing.
So I point as best I can with the realization that the more I do not think of myself as a separate I I speak more from the I that is the I of all I's. I must diminish so that I can increase.
Reality is not paradoxical. It is the thinking that anything is separate from the whole that creates seeming paradoxes. Reality is whole. "From the first totality is a unitive one." Hui-Neng. "The Father and I are a unitive one." Jesus. We are each a part of that which has no parts.
Butch
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