Category: Spiritual Exercises
-
The Trick
The trick is to maintain one's equanimity in the face of the samsaric storm. It's easy to be a monk in a monastery, but difficult ex claustro. The trick is to be in the world, and active in it, but not of it. Not easy, and perhaps impossible. Withdrawal and Weltflucht are perhaps all that…
-
Post-Session Fruits of a Formal Session
The fruits of a formal meditation session sometimes come after the sitting. I sat for only about a half-hour this morning, trying with little success to let go of every thought as it arose, in search of the state void of thought at the source of thought. After I arose from the mat, however, unsought…
-
Prayer over Meditation?
This from a reader: As a theist who meditates, would you prioritize prayer over meditation or vice versa? For example, I'm a theist; I like to run, meditate, and pray before work every day. If crammed for time, would you say that one or two are more worthwhile or more important, or that its just…
-
“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”
This is another topic that it would have been great to discuss with Dale Tuggy during his visit thereby bringing my supposed 'gnosticism' into collision with his supposed 'spiritual materialism.' The problems are very difficult and I do not claim to have the answers. The first thing and the main thing, as it seems to…
-
Prayer
Do you pray for worldly benefits and boons such as bodily health and material wealth, whether for yourself or for others? Or do you pray for spiritual goods such as detachment? Do you pray that your desires be fulfilled and your aversions avoided? Or do you you pray to get beyond desire and aversion? I…
-
Equanimity
It is quite a moral challenge these days to maintain one's equanimity while doing one's quotidian bit to battle the lunacy of the destructive Left. It's easy to be a monk in a monastery. It is rather more difficult to be one in the world.
-
Apologia Pro Vita Mea: A Reply to a Friendly Critic
Vito Caiati responds to yesterday's Could it be like this? In yesterday's post, you write, “So I say: if you have the aptitude and the stamina, you live best by seeking the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters with your whole heart and mind and soul, with everything else you do subordinate to that quest…
-
On Corporate Prayer and Institutionalized Religion
Paul Brunton, The Notebooks of P. B., vol. 12, part 2, p. 34, #68: A public place is an unnatural environment in which to place oneself mentally or physically in the attitude of true prayer. It is far too intimate, emotional, and personal to be satisfactorily tried anywhere except in solitude. What passes for prayer…
-
Spiritual Practices and Metaphysical Dogmas
It would be foolish to let the dubiousness of metaphysical dogmas dissuade you from spiritual exercises and the good achievable by their implementation. Don't let the weakness of the three pillars supporting the Buddhist edifice, anatta, anicca, dukkha, keep you from a long and salutary session on the black mat. Related: A 'No' to 'No…
-
Spiritual Practices versus Theological Dogmas
It would be foolish to let the dubiousness of theological dogmas distract you from spiritual exercises and the good achievable by their exercise. Don't let the apparent absurdities of the Chalcedonian definition stop you from saying the Jesus Prayer.
-
Meditation as Inner Listening
Our friend Vlastimil V. worries that his meditation practice might lead him in a Buddhist direction, in particular toward an acceptance of the three marks of phenomenal existence: anicca, anatta, dukkha. He shouldn't worry. Those doctrines in their full-strength Pali form are dubious if not demonstrably untenable. For example, the doctrine of anicca, impermanence, is…
-
No Time to Meditate?
Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) has some advice for you: If thou withdraw thyself from void speakings and idle circuits and from vanities and hearing of tidings thou shalt find time sufficient and convenient to have sweet meditations. (The Imitation of Christ, Chapter XX) Related: Safe Speech
-
More on Meditation: Worldling and Quester
The New Zealander to whom I replied in Impediments to Meditation responds: . . . you rightly sense that there was a certain selfish ambition in my turning to meditation. Though following your post Meditation: What and Why, my stated ambition was to achieve what you called "tranquility". To use your terminology from the article, I grew…
-
Impediments to Meditation
This just in from a New Zealand reader: Firstly let me say, your blog "Maverick Philosopher" has been truly inspiring for me. Particularly insofar as it has freed me from the sense that I need to pursue my love of philosophy and theology from within the academy. I am happy to have been of some help.…
-
If God Created the World, Who Created the Creator? A Good Koan?
Thomas Merton, Journals, vol. 5, p. 183, entry of 25 December 1964: St Maximus [the Confessor] says that he who "has sanctified his senses by looking with purity at all things" becomes like God. This is, I think, what the Zen masters tried to do. A letter from John Wu spoke of running into [D.…