A Hindu says that, since the change, he has:
"'...lost the feeble glimpse of the ultimate that I once had...'" (p. 173)
Mandelbaum replies that the Hindu's mind has become too strong for:
"'...the kind of trance which was your particular fetalization...'" (ibid.)
What an appalling antithesis!
Contemplation is not a trance. In zazen, we sit in an alert posture with eyes open facing a wall. Contemplation and intelligence are complementary. I expect them to coexist in a better future but we need to build that future to find out.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Short of the Second Coming, there's never going to be a wholly better future. It's going to remain the usual mix of bad and good.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But there isn't going to be a Second Coming. It should have happened in the lifetimes of people alive then.
We have to do everything ourselves and we can certainly build something better than this present world system.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Disagree, I write and think as a Catholic, and interpret the Scriptures as the Church does.
And all "systems" are going to be flawed because we are all of us innately flawed. Something to be managed, not "solved."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Disagree. The scriptures are contradictory. There are definitely statements that the end will be soon. Statements that "We don't know when" were rationalizations added later. Jesus initially preached, like the Baptist, that the kingdom was at hand. That meant that God would reimpose his direct rule on Earth very soon.
We are not innately flawed. We have become what we are now and can become more. Nothing is fixed or unchanging.
Paul.
(I prefer discussion to uncompromising disagreement!)
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