IN THE 4TH CENTURY, C.E., MONKS IN UPPER EGYPT BURIED DOZENS OF TEXTS. Why? Because a powerful bishop in Alexandria had condemned the use of non-canonical books. We can assume the texts were buried rather than burned because the monks valued the texts and hoped they might be welcomed again at a later date. Instead, …
Mist on a Breeze #12
Thank You If the only prayer You say in your entire life Is “Thank You,” That would suffice. — Meister Eckhart (1260-c.1329) (from Meditations with Meister Eckhart, Matthew Fox, Bear & Co., 1983) Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoyed this post or found it insightful, please share it with your friends. And …
When Thoughtlessness Is a Good Thing
USUALLY, WHEN SOMEONE SAYS, “YOU’RE SO THOUGHTLESS!” IT MEANS you’ve done something wrong, something about which you should feel shame; but it’s not always so. Recently, I’ve been re-reading Brian Walker’s rendition of the Hua Hu Ching (now spelled Huahujing), a Daoist text attributed to Laozi, which had been preserved only through oral tradition for …
Breathing a Wind That Blows Where It Will
THE ARC OF SPIRITUALITY IS BENDING TOWARD INCLUSIVITY. Some 3,200 years ago, Ramesses II, pharaoh of the New Kingdom in ancient Egypt, presented himself to his people and the world as the son of the high god Ra, and as a god himself. In the highest of ancient civilizations, spirituality was a strictly royal phenomenon. …
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Triangulating
JUST AS COMPARING BIBLE TRANSLATIONS HELPS US UNDERSTAND both specific passages and the Bible as a whole, so comparing religious traditions helps us understand both specific traditions and religious phenomena more broadly. Comparative study brings witnesses with differing points of view into play, in the hope they’ll clarify one another. Last week, while re-reading The …
Into the Cloud, Whereabouts Unknown
WHILE I AM NOT A MYSTIC, I HAVE SPENT MOST OF MY ADULT LIFE STUDYING (directly and indirectly) both religious experience in general and mysticism in particular. Right now, I’m re-reading, for at least the fourth time, The Cloud of Unknowing, a classic 14th century English manual of Christian contemplative prayer. This will be the …
Different Roads, One Path
AS THE WAR AGAINST FASCIST IMPERIALISM REACHED ITS CLIMAX around the world in 1944-45, Aldous Huxley was in southern California publishing The Perennial Philosophy. The book, still in print and now a popular classic in the comparative study of religion, spells out what Huxley called the “highest common factor” in the world’s religions. While differences …
Embracing Doubt on the Spiritual Path
CONTRARY TO WHAT MIGHT SEEM OBVIOUS, DOUBT ISN’T THE ENEMY OF FAITH. Certainty is. In fact, doubt and faith, properly understood, are complementary drivers in a dialectic of growth. Certainty, on the other hand, stalls growth and often weakens faith. The primary problem behind our common misunderstanding of doubt and faith is our tendency to …
Hide and Seek
Alan Watts told a remarkable story about God playing hide-and-seek. It was a playful presentation of key ideas from Hindu philosophy. The Upanishads say, "You are That." Watts said, "You're IT!" The story goes something like this ...
Reaching One Through Addition
THE HISTORY OF RELIGION ACTUALLY HAS SOMETHING TO SAY that’s important for us to hear, right now. Recognizing the ambiguity of the American national motto, E pluribus unum, points us toward the same understanding. How does one get to one, through subtraction or addition? In mathematics, reaching one through addition means we’re dealing with abstractions …
Soul Spirit Wisdom 