18 January 2010

Foresight

Said by Ernest Stein (age 99) on Prairie Home Companion: "Look forward! Don't look back! And have a martini!" (25 XII 99)

Doctrine

Christian doctrines are transcended by their own content.

Mahler

Mahler's Das klagende Lied: harbinger of the end of the Age of Kings.

One Dharma

According to a friend, there is only one dharma. In Buddhism, we open ourselves to it through satori; in the West (Christianity, et al.), "it" opens itself to us through revelation.

History

The historical Jesus and the historical Buddha can't be discovered; perhaps they are ultimately irrelevant. The ultimate koan? Since Jesus and Buddha had no self, they did not leave traces of self and therefore did not leave much for us to find in history, which is mostly the disastrous record of self, individual and collective.

Magical Thinking

Magical thinking, circular reasoning, and the like, are a few of the results, or manifestations in time, of the extra-temporal nature of spirit.

Church and Sangha

The Church, and the Sangha, are the wakes in time, of the passings of Jesus and Buddha through the world.

Fish

A friend said, that "the world has been going downhill since fish first walked on land!"