Tag Archives: William Blake

The Woman and the Serpent

11:15-19 appears to bring John’s entire eschatological, cosmic vision to an end—the messianic woes have occurred; God’s kingdom has arrived; God’s enemies have been defeated; the final judgment has been pronounced; punishments have been dispensed; and rewards have been bestowed. All that is lacking is the final “Amen!” read more

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The Nine Realms of Darkness

The opening of the great Dhammapada, or the Law of Illumination, states that what the mind focuses on determines its reality. Anger is included here as being most dominant—as The Dhammapada in Light of the Unborn says, “hate is not pure but draining, indeed it is Mind turned against itself. Being free from hate and all abusive thoughts is the beginning of purification and the embrace of sweet peacefulness.” Zuowang paints a similar formulation when it comes to being tangled up in emotional affairs: read more

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The Notion of Time in Buddhism

It needs to be stressed that Buddhism takes a very different stance on the notion of time and its effect on sentient beings. In Christianity there is a triadic-understanding: a person is born at one particular junction in time-based reality, then undergoes a certain trial-based system in which he/she must perform in a moral manner to be made worthy of entering into—eternal life in which they depart from this world in order to enter eternally into God’s “heaven”. So it’s essentially going from point A to point B in a linear fashion with no other variables interfering. From the Buddhist stance, one’s purported lifespan has always been ongoing in an unending cyclic-fashion. The wheel of samsara spins in a diurnal manner and there is no escape from it since one consistently becomes reborn again and again into one of the six realms of impermanence—hence the problem is how to bring this cyclic-existence to a final and successful conclusion. In this model of time, the mind-stream of sentient beings is beginningless, quelling any notion of linear time with a predestination in mind. So for a Buddhist, linear time is not real and is non-existent (except in relative fashion). Ch’an Master Hui-neng goes even further: read more

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Mind at Large

Aldous Huxley’s (1894-1963) best known works are Brave New World, written in 1931, a favorite time-frame of mine since it was the same year that Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein were released; The Perennial Philosophy in 1945, and the work that concerns us here, The Doors of Perception in 1954. read more

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Cultivating Prajñāpāramitā

The Buddha spoke to Mañjuśrī, saying, “When cultivating Prajñāpāramitā thusly, how should one abide in Prajñāpāramitā?” Mañjuśrī said, “Not abiding in dharmas is abiding in Prajñāpāramitā.” The Buddha again asked Mañjuśrī, “Why do you say that not abiding in dharmas is abiding in Prajñāpāramitā?” Mañjuśrī said, “Not abiding in appearances is itself abiding in Prajñāpāramitā.” The Buddha spoke to Mañjuśrī again, saying, “When abiding in Prajñāpāramitā thusly, do one’s good roots increase or decrease?” Mañjuśrī said, “If one is able to abide in Prajñāpāramitā thusly, then one’s good roots neither increase nor decrease, just as all dharmas neither increase nor decrease, and the characteristic of the nature of Prajñāpāramitā likewise neither increases nor decreases. Bhagavān, cultivating Prajñāpāramitā thusly is not abandoning the dharmas of ordinary beings, nor is it grasping the dharmas of the noble ones. Why? Prajñāpāramitā does not perceive the existence of a dharma which may be grasped or abandoned. Cultivating Prajñāpāramitā thusly is also not seeing Nirvāa to delight in, nor birth and death to despise. Why? One does not perceive birth and death, much less something to leave behind. One does not perceive Nirvāa, much less something to delight  in. read more

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