sirguessalot

i think so, e, in a lot of ways but also, when retribution simply may not be an option, or may never be an option and we are basically stuck with our own ongoing relationships with the crimes and all that graffiti that is still splattered across the walls of our life experience like...even if i find that i no longer have a reason to hate the guy who busted my mom up i may still blame myself for not having had the courage to smash him over the head with a shovel or i may still blame god or the devil for allowing/causing people to do such things or i may even still blame my mom for hooking up with such losers or i may blame society for being such a cesspool and i think this is where things like good friends, open space, skillful means, and greater understanding can become more and more valuable we are all in this together even when we are alone ... good stuff, TGN i really like that advice from Mayberry, too

hehe...speaking of incense and smoke...check this and this out not sure, but it does seem to point to a lot of strict ritual drug use during early early israel's tribal and fire-temple stages and how indigenous and later cultures were often highly territorial about whose 'native sacraments' were holy and whose 'native sacraments' were evil

you bring up some good points obviously tied to forgiveness the topic of victimization also covers too many angles and contexts for a quick, easy conversation especially when considering wide spectrum of fortune and misfortune in life which is part of where things seem to get stuck with any flat duality model in many traditions, their complex many-chambered expressions of heaven and hell were not always meant to be representative of mythic otherwordly places or different times in the past or future, but an actual attempt to graph, or otherwise map the spectrum of human experience, as they saw it occuring in the present tense, right there in the universe and along these lines, i think that when and as we can relax our grip on notions of some preset list of spiritual crimes and laws, and we continue to keep learning to see how life itself is ‘words out of the mouth of god’ we might still find the old term 'unforgivable sin' to be a useful way to talk about the cause of some ‘hellish states of being’ simply unforgivable, perhaps, when occasions of violence or torment are so severe or so traumatic and overwhelmingly invasive, that for whatever reason, it is simply impossible (or near impossible) for the victims to forgive whatever is thought to have caused the violence those occasions when we simply really have no choice in the matter because something has invasively been thrust in us or upon us or around us like the universe itself somehow reaches out and grabs our life by the throat and throttles us and so, to whatever depth or degree we find the ‘wound’ to be it is simply beyond our relative capacity to bear which is simply tragic and unforgivable god or no god who can blame a dying child for not finding a way to forgive what it thinks is the cause of the stray mine? who can blame someone for not being able to forgive a cult if they feel that it wasted 20-30 years of their life? who can blame a crazy world for going crazier after watching and feeling things like 9/11 and war on live tv? what do we do if something happens that would take us 50 years to find a way to forgive on our own but also happens to kill us slowly over the next 6 months? …or, we are already 80 years old when it hits? so i wonder… how might we also find ways to forgive ourselves for not being able to forgive things? …and i do hope we can because life seems to be a continuous cascading affair of crimes upon crimes upon crimes upon crimes and the shape of any one experience may be the result be 99.99% circumstance where forgiveness is simply not always an option as a last resort…we can always just blame the big bang, i guess just play god and find a way forgive the original unforgivable sin itself (tho i prefer to think of it more as a ‘big bang bang banger banging’ …like a thump thump thump thump) btw, here is something i found on ashes and beauty, dooj just sitting with it awhile, it gives some interesting impressions tho i’d love to hear what some of the classical rabbis and jewish mystics say about it or someone who really has gone 'all the way to the mountain and back' with the text

thanks for going there, dooj just some thoughts as i read as i sifted it a few times real slow pardon if i get too deep for anyone but i do believe this subject is already somewhere near bottom of many things, anyway i just cant help but see this common thread throughout the vast topic of forgiveness which is its role in the process of our dying as much as in our living and how it is bound to our very sense of mortality and self-reason but not only in how forgiveness may help shape the experience of our own passing but how it also plays a major role in our experience of the passing of others …there are few things that seem to simply weigh heavier and heavier together as lives pass by even our cynical self may or may not find a reason to forgive the ultimate cause of the universe …for simply sucking til the end just as our fundamental self may or may not find a reason to forgive our holy heavenly father figure …for freewill and the devil…AND for letting the devil win so damn much all the time overall, i think forgiveness is a good word for pointing at the quintessential means to help deal with all the painful dramas that come with being victims of existence itself and is somehow tied directly to the depth and degree we live and die in peace together but in the hyper-materialized, concept-saturated, often self-oblivious mainstream world i think it has become habit to read right over a simple old idea like: "greater understanding leads to greater forgiveness" we easily miss the deeper and wider personal and interpersonal implications and how they are really only amplified by greater knowledge and information this kind of blindness seems like a major cause of our modern travesties especially considering the growing ‘market share’ of the aging population but i also think the modern renaissance of hospice is a godsend, along these lines having a sane rational reason to approach ordinary subjects such as atonement and redemption as it pertains to living and suffering and dying in a world still trying to be post-modern i mean…why not give ordinary subjects like forgiveness, atonement and redemption the same priority that we give to science, medicine, politics, law, sports, or entertainment? and in a way that honors the ways in which people have interpreted their experience of life? especially considering how most all of the world’s great religions and traditions still play a huge role as vessel for the great wisdom of those times when the art of living and dying well was not so out of style although, religion can also get us stuck on the idea that there are some solid preset conditions for forgiveness it can really limit our ability to finally play God like we are ‘supposed’ to which always reminds of how the kid and his gang freaked everyone out in the old stories when they taught and practiced forgiving as if it was an ordinary thing… …which also seems a big part of why they were capable of walking among the poor and dying 'sinners' … btw…in ruminating all this, i just thought of a motto: i’m not concerned as much with personally living forever and ever… …as much as i am about everyone being able to live and die in peace together

ha!..lol. Kathy...now there is an angle i never thought of that has a sense of truth to it.in that, the way i write does sort of require that one reads slowly and patiently, if nothing else. i am actually usually very deliberate with my word choice and i can explain anywhere i have been unclear anyway, if getting stoned helps read what i write...well, that is just kinda funny i could suggest a number of alternatives, though like a couple of cups of the neti neti tea well said, Mark. here is a clean (but very dry) martini of a blurb on Methodological Pluralism...and a snippet:

the way i see it..."nothingness" is almost always been given a bad rap along with "emptiness, darkness, abyss, the void" but its amazing how easily our perspectives change when simply find other more neutral words to describe the same thing because nothingness can also be called a clearing where there is spaciousness and gracious crystal clarity simply always forgivingly allowing everything to be radically honest and true and eternal like an always open door always, everywhere without end consistent invisible oceanic... sound familiar to anyone? in the bible and many other elsewheres... pure emptiness was considered the most feminine aspect of "spirit" as the infinite intimate unfolding layers of space and grace the opening and surrendering of agape love cooing nesting doves from above pure passive allowance etc... nothingness is like the space we call the pupil of an eye and nothingness is always best at getting out of its own way which also makes the greatest pupil the greatest teacher nothingness has also been called the "field of the lord" and where "a christ knows when he knows that he sits there" and ultimate universal "ground" of all things to say that everything sits in spirit is to say that everything sits in space call it spirit or space...it is within everything just as god came neither before nor after that which arose in god, space came neither before nor after that which arose in space holy ground zero is not a thing but the continuum emptiness is at the top and bottom of all things as well as the inside and outside like zeros within zeros within zeros or how "in my father's house are many mansions" like... if body is hard and harder stuff and soul is soft and softer stuff then spirit is the clean clear emptiness that they both appear in the only pure true sense of non-stuff hey...the skeptics might even like this one... perhaps it should be said that "god is the ultimate non-sense" or, the only actual pure holy non-sense that senses all other senses when and as we realize that "spirit being nothing" is not only very very good and true and beautiful... ...but that it also always has been, and always will be ...forever and ever, yada yada yada ...i feel i must warn you...heaven and earth might not ever look the same again but/and...so as not to confuse things... traditionally, the realization of "emptiness" as "spirit" is still only one "side of the story" and as such, is as addictive as anything else and not in the sense that emptiness "one side of the coin" but rather, how emptiness is NOT a side of anything at all ...which leaves only the one true coin now that the "false god" is finally "out of the way" perhaps it could be said that nothingness does have a very unique and vital function ...which is by NOT having form

ok, just part observation and part request now that the good ole curse of "idolatry" is going thru a popularity spike can someone here tell me what it really means (whether you have to start a new thread on it or cleverly put it in the context of this one) I kinda like OM's question on the matter: "how can you be so sure?"

jkboehme...just a quick shout out to say that i have been reading the commentary on vp and twi alongside all this with great interest...please, keep it coming as you can

interesting... and i cant tell ya how much i appreciate your even manner, mark although, i hafta say, your last post in response to me was such a compact chunk of answers, it inspired within me a half dozen off topic questions worth a thread of their own...mostly as they relate to the notions of an exclusive universal church, the various ways of union and seperation and heresy and spin-offs, and the value of texts and textual ethnocentricity and i hate to say it, but your response to my little package of questions sounded more like a pamphlet, to me...it didn't really address the "how" of the question, imo, especially as it relates to the main thrust of this thread some other day, perhaps cheers

heerz another cup of tea... another way to remove god from the picture in a sense Thich Nhat Hanh's centering prayer... i can imagine it being sung slow like the gregorians with full heart and breath and presence Be still and know that I am God... Be still and know that I am... Be still and know... Be still... Be... ...

nice way to put it to add... depending on the depth and devastation of the crime this can actually deliver a shock to the body, to our life it took over 20 years for me to forgive the man who beat and broke my mother in front of me and a crowd of people in broad daylight at the lowest point, it was like i was being literally being turned inside out by this long hissing wrenching sobbing exhale from hell...as i was driving alone along the highway over 20 years later but it was quite a pivotal moment in my life and there is definately a synchronicity of good events that continue to cascade around the relationships surrounding the people involved, more than anything but...im also kind of a freak ive been through a lot more crap than most people i know but ...i'll agree more than anyone...its all easier said than done anyway, reminded me of the "hurling away" you mentioned, dooj and how we emanate "ripples" with everything we say or do and how the shape of our intent, like a parent, is the very first shaper of the character of those ripples that follow...which are then, of course, subject to whatever forces they bounce off and collide and mingle with...yada yada but the point is there is a hurling which can be summed up as our behaviour and how much we really do effect the world around us the people we love health and well-being and understanding yada yada crap like that

i see it like this... pure delusion is our original state, it seems and we are all trying to be free from it, more or less and we come out of it in such a wild variety of ways magnitude and complexity of delusion really only seems to evolve and get wierder more than anything human delusion is common and widespread just as it always has been and so if we can find ways to better understand the nature of delusion itself all those crazy people might not make us crazy as they used to which is good and a certain specific kind of liberty i would think of course, the truth of the matter is a different story entirely

well said and mostly cuz i think i know what you mean but so...where does that leave all the many many branches of christianity? and many many branches of catholicism? and many many hybrid and blends of and with all those other exotic isms? how do we know what is good? what is true? beautiful? if language and interpretation is something beside behaviour?

yes yes...true, like the kid said which is to say..."but, also..and, to add..."etc... i think it is pretty much true of most contemplation and meditation that even if one actually finds a way to use it to reach those kinds of states how we interpret and reinterpret the experiences varies wildly, and naturally so all of which is then further complicated by the distinctions between temporary states and permenant stages, etc... and then notions of ascending and descending styles, whatnot...

thanks Mark yes...i am familiar here is near where i first heard of it i would even go as far as to say that the kinds of practice of "negative theology" and "witnessing techniques" date back as far as the era of Abraham, though it also seems to have appeared in most of the world's cultures, to some degree which is a simple but radical deepening of our own subjectivity, which is useful prior to any thing else we do...from Lectio Divina to changing baby diapers like becoming aware of awareness itself...rather than merely aware of things like "when the fish finally sees how wet it is" "I AM" is what the ancients often said when they realized that there is no "God," per se the "ultimate ground of all being" is another term given to it or "spirit as ultimate emptiness" or "the final starting point" to use a happy paradox and it seems too, like "contemplation" and "meditation" have a lot of the same basic forms archetypical variations in objective and subjective focusing and relaxing and other crazy things the monastics did as they sat and died often mistaken for religion by both science and religion also often considered insanity or demonic behaviour

the notion that "we are connected to that which we do not forgive" is not merely some supernatural or magical saying...it is rooted in objective truth, though it might be expressed in religious terms our mental and physical condition is the actual medium...our actual real live physical body and mind is what we are talking about i mean, right now...imagine a wrong you have not found a reason to release... (but maybe pick a small wrong to do this with, for now) pay attention to what you actually bodily feel where does all that hurt and memory actually really truly exist? honestly and what form does it have? what form does it take? what actual substance and material is that pain or memory made of? rationally? as you sit there, right now it funny, how some even say that our feelings are "not real" they say it is "all in our head" or that it is "just feelings" so it "isnt real" which is just another kind of delusion a religious interpretation will use something very unrealistic to explain truths of this kind of thing (which actually also seems like a realistic thing to do...if one has no other voice for it all, but symbol and myth) of course, highly selective skeptics and religious mindsets simply couldnt see what it is that is being pointed at via the "poetry"...which seems a travesty (more than a tragedy), and some sort of state of confusion

im a skeptic, TL... first, did anyone try the neti neti exercise? i mean...all this talk of truth and proof and whatnot... i find myself skeptical of the actual quality of the "skepticism" going on and second, it seems striking to me how the usual argument goes around and around these days (and not just here) often limited to "is there a god behind the curtain...or is there nothing behind the curtain" as if it covers every possibility and farthest range of logical reasoning i mean...is it possible that there are unexplored options besides those same basic two positions? anyone?

yeah, me too, Belle but i also think this kind of wariness might also bite us in the arse from time to time, as knowledges and sciences and philosophies and religions actually DO learn and understand more and more about history, culture, and human nature and whatnot (in spite of all the many many cults and scams and pop culture trends and other absolutist flat-out stances). that "appearance is deceiving," can also be good news, imo it seems to me, that we have the potential to continue to simply know more and more about the bible stories and other scriptures and traditions, and more and more and more about all the many contexts surrounding their authoring...not to mention knowing more and more and more about all the many branches and lineages and legacies and splinter beliefs that have trailed after meanwhile...many many people seem to naturally continue to live and die according to whatever mythic versions they hold or reject, largely uninterested in learning new or old ways of thinking...perhaps even terrified of those inner "earthquakes" of belief change (and who can blame for that?) but whether it is religious or scientific...it seems as if we should want more and more verifiable knowledge of history and reasons why we believe things...NOT less which is why overall... i think it's more wise to light a candle than curse the darkness imho humanity has only one childhood and it seems we are not quite done with it yet

hi karmic i think i should mention that there are antidotes to the common problems caused by getting lost in neti neti and any such negative theology...(and there are common problems, it seems) which are basically anything you can find that brings you back more fully into your body and soul and the world...any way to fill the space revealed by negative theology i believe the forgiveness and boundless heart threads are some recent examples of how we are always also reaching for the "antidote" to any such feeling or realization of emptiness basically finding ways of opening of the heart to go with the opening of the mind ways of opening the feeler to go with the opening of the thinker i have found that tonglen, the agnostic vajrayana buddhist exercise, works well for this...and as about as direct and simple as neti neti (only moving from another direction) and why therapia (like shadow play) seems to play an valuable role in any practice of negative theology because the shadows cast by the contours of our interior self typically get more engaged and dramatic as we find ways to cause "inward illumination"...we usually need skillful guides to help navigate here and there where we cant see ...much like helping one to untangle the knots in their hair....its more effective to playfully tease out a knot...if you want to keep the hair also, one can get so stuck in extreme negation, that they are simply unable to find a reason or bring themselves to participate in the dirt and suffering of life...its been called things like "the stink of zen," which is funny, because they tend to despise filth like the kid in the story said... BECOME wise as serpents AND as harmless as doves and i just cant stop finding reasons to still believe it

heerz a cup of tea you guys might like i think it goes well with the topic of negative theology im gonna stick my neck out a bit here and share my own little 3rd millenium version of an old hindu exercise called neti neti not the whole story, of course but definately a vital piece of any such notion of any infinite presence it will read like instructions but keep in mind that its really just an exercise try not to take it too seriously though honesty helps ok…take a sec notice your self... notice your space... become present if you can whatever... then ask yourself things like: who am i? where am i? when am i? i start by noticing the world i am in or the room i am in in or even the computer screen noticing how i am obviously not these things because i am the one witnessing them ok…so who am i? then i notice my body, my skin, my muscles, my skeleton but also notice how i am obviously not just these things because i am also the one who is experiencing these things ok, and so…who am i? if i am my body, then who is witnessing my body? if i am my breathe, then who is witnessing my breath? if i am what i think, then who is witnessing my thoughts? if i am what i feel, then who is witnessing my feelings? if i am what i dream, then who is witnessing my dreams? whatever object you think you or feel that you are, simply ask your self again: “who is witnessing this, and who is witnessing this very question?” some might even notice a tension directly behind your eyes or somewhere else in the body…all of which is just another thing you are not, of course…but something you are witnessing and so again…who and where is this witness? when is it? how is it? yada yada… … anyway, that was my own little adaptation of “neti neti” …which means “not this, not that” a generic line of inquiry meant to help things become clearer, if nothing else by using the mind to escape the mind helps more directly show us how we do have an everpresent aspect of self that is neither mind nor body that stays with us throughout our waking and sleeping states i am hoping someone will try it out and tell us what you found "come back and let me know when you think you are done" ...is what i imagine some goofy old white haired master might say now if this were a hollywood movie or something btw – i am not a member of the hindu religion though i am still interested in notions of one true God peace…

i think i can see it, e because forgiveness deals with real and complex arrangement of real things that really happened ...things regarding self, regarding god, regarding others, regarding circumstances... and to rush or otherwise hurry someone through any aspect of this points towards the living lie mentioned in your quote, imo forgiveness it is not false humility or condoning abuse or spiritual by-pass or some mantra-like a baby binky to put us to sleep it is a process and really deals with real things that really happened and are really still happening, in a very real sense

yeah big time more clarity, more info = more forgiveness, in a sense

really nice thread we're weaving here it appears to me if one can even find a reason to start practicing forgiveness alongside everything else we already do (like remember and learn and whatnot) life can become an unravelling of many many knots in many many directions which is not an easy path for the timid or proud in what might even seem a new environment kinda reminds me of how, in many traditional lines such spirituallity is the final medicine for our ultimate suffering where birth and death were once deeply sacred and richly celebrated things and the recognition all the many deaths and breakings we face in life because we will always have this dying aspect of ourselves that neither flat science nor flat religion can provide answers for what caused this? what caused that? who is responsible? the arts of "dying before you die" are not always the fairy tale they appear to be we must first also deal with our own deep rich subtler sense of self made of dreams and memories and thoughts and feeling... though they may seem like most religions to most sciences and seem like most sciences to most religions they are in fact, neither and both plus forgiveness is good word for what may be the most simple and direct path that has been called a gazillion other things agape is the best phrase for it from the bible times, imo the unlocked door another half of the story

neither would i, as it sits i would even go as far as to say that it is only half (or less) true (which is still saying quite a lot)

for example... as we learn more and more about cause and effect we no longer blame the magical puppet sock rock spirit but shift our blame to whatever we think causes the mineral kingdom greater awareness of cause and effect allows us to continue to shift the blame and "forgiveness" itself becomes more of an unfolding affair of nested realities i would even call it a path, of sorts...or general way, direction, or motion like engaging a flywheel