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June 10 - June 25, 2023
to truly love God one must demonstrate that love through the action of loving fellow human beings in a genuine way, loving one’s neighbor.
If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience, and understanding.
As we are discussing the cultivation of equanimity in the context of Christian practice, however, perhaps it is possible to invoke the idea of Creation and that all creatures are equal in that they are all creations of the same God.
in Christian theology there is the belief that all human beings are created in the image of God — we all share a common divine nature. I find this quite similar to the idea of buddha-nature in Buddhism. On the basis of this belief that all human beings share the same divine nature, we have a very strong ground, a very powerful reason, to believe that it is possible for each of us to develop a genuine sense of equanimity toward all beings.
However, we should not see equanimity as an end in itself. Nor should we feel that we are striving for a total state of apathy in which we have no feelings or fluctuating emotions toward either our enemies or our loved ones and friends. That is not what we are seeking to achieve. What we aspire to achieve is, first of all, to set the foundation, to have a kind of clear field where we can then plant other thoughts. Equanimity is this even ground that we are first laying out. On the basis of this, we should then reflect on the merits of tolerance, patience, love, and compassion toward all. We
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Best part: "If you pray but then do not live according to that prayer, it is not of much benefit."
“As far as offerings of material gifts are concerned, I am destitute; I have nothing to offer. What I have to offer in abundance is the gift of my spiritual practice.”
negative or unwholesome attitudes and emotions — anger, hatred, disturbed states of mind — undermine physical health.
believe that the purpose of our existence is to seek happiness, to seek a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. However, since we do experience hardships, pain, and suffering, it is crucial that we develop an outlook toward them that allows us to deal realistically with these trials of life so that we gain some benefit from them.
If the problem is such that there is a way out, a solution, there is no need to worry about it. If, on the other hand, there is no way out or no solution, there is also no point in worrying about it!
“Someone whose faith is not grounded in reason is like a stream of water that can be led anywhere.”
this tells us that true and genuine compassion is a compassion that is free from attachment, free from the limitations of personal bias.
Every aspect of your life — your religious practice, your spiritual growth, even your basic survival — is impossible without others.
Similarly, religion is like nourishment for your spirit and your mind.
When in the company of others I shall always consider myself the lowest of all, And from the depth of my heart Hold them dear and supreme.
Since the essence of all spiritual practice is the practice of love, compassion, and tolerance, once you have had a profound experience of these it is natural that you should wish to share it with others.
in the case of spiritual teachings it is crucial for the teacher to have at least some degree of realization and personal experience.
But an important spiritual ideal is pointed out here: spiritual practitioners should not be complacent about their own levels of realization. It is critical to serve others, to contribute actively to others’ well-being. I often tell practitioners that they should adopt the following principle: regarding one’s own personal needs, there should be as little involvement or obligation as possible, but regarding service to others, there should be as many involvements and obligations as possible. This should be the ideal of a spiritual person.
We’ve seen the world from the moon. And science is talking more and more about interdependence in nature. But we still don’t understand what it means to be interdependent as one mind — mentally and emotionally.
When we know we are not self-sufficient but interdependent and responsible for each other, then we “know our need of God,” or are “poor in spirit.” In this sense the term also denotes non-possessiveness or a non-clinging attitude to everything.
The “gentle” will inherit the earth. Nonresistance is the best way to overcome evil. The “earth” does not necessarily mean this present life. Evil is always self-destructive. Its failure is in its finitude. Gentleness triumphs because it is endless.
The love of the right, of justice, brings true happiness. Righteousness means uniting one’s will with the will of God. It is inseparable from compassion applied to real life.
The “peacemakers” are children of God. Reconciliation of enemies is a Christian work that is often recommended in the Gospels. Such people share in the divine nature, as Saint Peter says in one of his letters, because it is the nature of God to bring peace and unity to discord and division. A child shares the being of the parent.
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
The meaning of the cruel death that Jesus underwent is not, however, that we are saved by suffering. Rather, his death on the Cross represents the lengths to which the divine love will go to communicate itself to human beings. Therefore the Cross is really a symbol of love and a means of transformation. Suffering is therefore given a positive or redemptive meaning.
This unknowability of God, who can be known only through love, is the essence of all Christian mysticism.
“You cannot observe the coming of the Kingdom because in fact the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”
Suffering calls forth compassion in Jesus, as it does in us. Of course it is easy to focus only on the physical cure and to neglect the healing of the whole person, which is the total meaning of the Kingdom.
The lifestyle of a disciple of Jesus is one of material poverty and of a radical simplicity.
This also assumes that people specially charged with teaching have a right to be supported by the wider community.
The only command Jesus emphasized was to love one another.
Love is the nature of God (the Father loves the Son and this love is the Holy Spirit).
His uniqueness does not exclude other revelations of the Truth, but Christian belief would see Jesus as the full self-revelation of God in human form.
Death is not the end of life but the final entry into fullness of life, which is sharing in the being of God.
God is love.
Philosophically, in the formulation of Saint Ambrose, God is greater than anything that can be thought or imagined, and as such is inexpressible and impossible to conceptualize or objectify.
Anything that is said about God is inadequate metaphor and, while words and images are unavoidable, they run the risk of being taken literally.
the words we use about God have inherently different meaning from the same words applied to human experience.
Jesus said he did not come to judge but to save the world. God does not punish; sin contains its own judgment and punishment.
Philosophically he could be daring and asserted that in the end all creatures, including even the devil, would be saved by the love of God.
A result of illusion and selfishness, sin contains its own punishment (God does not punish),
“Help others if you can; but if you cannot, at least refrain from harming others.”
An emphasis on a combination of learning and reflection is characteristic of a Buddhist orientation to life
For the Buddha, an understanding of the dynamics of cause, conditions, and effects is critical to an individual’s spiritual quest.
Nothing comes into being without a cause, and when all the conditions are created, there is nothing that can prevent the consequence.
The true path to freedom lies in the development of insight into the absence of such a permanent “self.”
(1) all conditioned things are transient, (2) that which is defiled by negative mental states necessarily produces suffering, (3) all things are empty of any fixed essence or self, and (4) nirvana is true peace.
(1) suffering exists, (2) there is an origin of suffering, (3) there is a cessation of suffering, and (4) there exists a path leading to that cessation.
The six perfections are generosity, morality, patience, joyous effort, concentration, and wisdom;
the four means are giving what is urgently needed, always using gentle speech, giving ethical guidance to others, and demonstrating these principles through the example of one’s own life.
