Benji
@benji
Benji
The image that stayed with me from Welwood’s work is being a big tent at a festival. The life inside it is the life inside us always at play, but we’re also the container that protects that life from the elements with wide open sides that enable an ongoing interplay with the world. We’re tied to the earth, but constantly expanding in all... See more
When anything difficult arises—any kind of conflict, any notion of unworthiness, anything that feels distasteful, embarrassing, or painful—instead of trying to get rid of it, we breathe it in. The three poisons are passion (this includes craving or addiction), aggression, and ignorance (which includes denial or the tendency to shut down and close... See more
lionsroar.com • Three Methods for Working With Chaos – Lion's Roar
Is Life Predetermined or Are We Free to Choose?
youtu.beIs life predetermined, or are we free to choose the path we take? What is the best attitude to have in relation to that? And if we make a choice to live a life of service, how do we know that is not just an egoic pursuit?
Rupert says: ‘If God was a man, our destiny probably would have been written right from the very beginning. But as we now know, God is a woman, and she’s always changing her mind. And thank God for that – that we have no idea what we’re destined for, that there is freedom and creativity.
‘The best attitude to take in relation to that is openness and surrender, not just for the good things that happen, but also the painful and challenging things – because they have no inherent power over us. Say yes to everything, even if you don’t understand why it’s happening.
‘And don’t curtail your work in the world by considering it egoic. If you have this love and understanding, and you have a vision of somehow wanting to bring it to humanity, that’s not an egoic impulse. Follow it. Be passionate about it. Do whatever is required to bring your vision to humanity.’
One last thought about Heinlein’s “dying culture” claim: Is it true that our culture is dying, given all the rudeness? And if so, are we too far gone to turn it around? On many days, things do look bleak, as online nastiness seems to become the dominant style. But my personal defense mechanism also aims to act as a countercultural force: I see... See more
Arthur • Resist the Snark and Be Happy
• The question of goodness permeates Murdoch’s entire body of work, but she plumbs this particular aspect of it — its bearing on truth and morality, lensed through Plato — in greater depth in an essay titled On “God” and “Good,” also included in Existentialists and Mystics.
• With an eye to the relationship between the good and “the real which is the proper object of love, and of knowledge which is freedom,” she considers what it takes for us to purify our attention in order to take in reality on its own terms, unalloyed with our attachments and ideas.
• What it takes, she suggests, is “something analogous to prayer, though it is something difficult to describe, and which the higher subtleties of the self can often falsify” — not some “quasi-religious meditative technique,” but “something which belongs to the moral life of the ordinary person.”
• Half a century after the existentialist and mystic Simone Weil liberated this raw mindfulness from the strict captivity of religion with her lovely observation that “attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer,” for it “presupposes faith and love.”
