what is man?

"What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" (Psalm 8:4)

Or as the genderly correct might say: What is a human, that thou art mindful of him/her? and the offspring of humans, that thou visitest her/him? But if you take the deeper mystic understanding that these two questions go beyond mere gender differences and their bounds we so love to defend, these two questions reverberate in a deep cosmic cry. Who are we? Who is this breathing us? Why are we alive? What is going on?

Being a psychologist, a mystic and a mythopoet, I see two consciousness realms referred to here. One is ordinary everyday make-a-buck linear eat-and-poop consciousness. The other is mythopoetic cosmic mystic supramental consciousness. The one deals with hardcore matter (condensed lifeforce); the other opens to boundless mystery.

The two questions contain their answers. When we are in ordinal consciousness, everyday consciousness, we are locked into ourselves, and our Source can only be mindful of us. We allow no more than that. We are a private universe chugging along on our own mission.

When we open awareness as the "son of man," as that which is emerging from ordinal consciousness, we are visited by an awareness that goes beyond all human societal definitions, aims, wants, and wishes. We become not only planetary, but cosmic citizens. We move from being a closed system to open interflow with all that is. Our education has just begun.

night and day

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. (Psalm 19: 2)

During the night, we dissolve our bounds. We open to new knowledge, new understanding. We no longer wear our ideological clothing. We see freshly, anew. Knowledge is shown, revealed. Our hearts, as organs of understanding, are happy.

During the day,we solidify, congeal. We go about our business, our busyness. We move both against and in accord with other's daytime demeanor. We leave behind the blessed open ignorance of the night. We take our positions. We act as if we know what we are doing.

shall a child be born?

"Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?"(Genesis 17: 17)

As we get older, we can still bear spiritual fruit. Perhaps even more so. Though we have stumbled and fallen many times over the course of our decades, we have learned and are learning to walk in a more centered and radiant fashion.

The-One-Who-Breathes-Us is still with us, ever patient, ever compassionate, ever requesting that we open to the joys of existing, allowing us to know, to experience that the burning flame of suffering is also radiant light. The flesh of aging suffers but the compassionate open heart is consumed with quiet and radiant joy.

A child is born. Who and what is this child? It is ourselves. We are born again and again. Newness unfolds. Like a flame rising upward from a burning log. The log is decomposing and will eventually return to ground, even as the flame leaps into the air.

We are born into a realm in which we already are. All comes from the One. All lives in the One. All returns to the One from which it never left. We gain experience embodying as flesh. Our woundings are mouths that speak our truth.

We fall on our face and laugh. Partly in disbelief that newness will come, is coming again, and again. Partly in surprised joy. We rise up, give birth to the newness of our being.

Dialogue

Most of you won't be at all interested in this, so go on about your business. If Eastern-Western dialogue is to succeed, Buddhism and Christianity have to understand each other. Buddhism is founded on NoThingNess, Christianity on the One. O and 1. The basis of the Buddhist experience and view is nothing, no thing. The basis of the Christian experience and view is something, some thing. The Buddhists have no name for the nothing, saying if and when you give it a name, it becomes a something. The Christians call the something God. What is the common ground in these world views, these experiential stances? Perhaps it will prove to be the O. Some Christian philosophers have adopted the definition of God (the Ultimate 1) as a circle with no circumference whose center is everywhere. 1 = O.