Category: Buddhism
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A Credo and a Plea …
While contemplating my current series of posts on Genesis, I felt the need to remind myself, (and explain to any interested reader), where I’m coming from, and what is one key source to which I keep returning. Here’s an edited quote from the Prologue to Volume One of “The Masks of God” by Joseph Campbell. […]
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My Religious Paradigm (1) Is there a God?
At the beginning of this new year, and following on from my previous posts, I’m asking myself, having once been a preacher, what my current religious paradigm is. What do I think and feel I can reasonably and credibly believe? When people say, “there is a God”, or “there isn’t a God”, it’s clear to […]
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2022
THIS would be a good “fingerprint” for all of us to ‘make our mark’ with on the year ahead – whether religious or non-religious …..
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The Nativity Stories (v) Unconditional Love
I’ve been suggesting that the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke are two different stories that invite us, while enjoying what’s on the surface, to think a little more deeply. Some people might imagine that because I don’t regard these stories as historical, their meaningfulness for me must be sadly impoverished, but not so ! […]
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Common Sense? I
Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753) is famous, or infamous, for arguing that esse est percipi – “to be is to be perceived”. What we humans experience as material objects exist solely in our perceptions of them. In other words, there are no material objects as such, but only minds (human and divine) containing mental ‘representations’. Hence […]
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A Lesson from a Flower
Once, so we’re told, instead of giving a talk, the Buddha simply held up a flower for his listeners to contemplate. Although I’m not a buddhist, it’s my experience that buddhism has ways of seeing things that are of value, even for those who belong to a different religion or none at all. Among other […]
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A little Poem that says a Lot …
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening : Robert Frost Some time ago, in one of my blog posts, I tried to show that Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road not Taken”, isn’t as simple and straightforward as it might, at first sight, appear. There’s a bit of ambivalence and ambiguity that invites us to dig […]
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“There isn’t any there there” …
The ‘past’ doesn’t exist, except in our minds now. The ‘future’ doesn’t exist, except in our minds now. But ‘now’ has already gone by the time the word is said. SO, when you get ‘there’, there isn’t any ‘there’ there. ‘There’ is ‘here’, and life is ‘here’, or it’s nowhere. The picture and words are […]
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