#dharma — Public Fediverse posts

Question:
Buddhists talk a lot about being in the present moment. Doesn’t that conflict with learning from past experiences and planning for the future?

Answer:
Past and future meet ...

#Buddhism #Dhamma #BuddhistPractice #Theravada #Dharma #presentmoment

“Cessation” is an important word in Buddhism, and it’s one that I like to define as the fading away of the sense of self.

The sense of self fades away when we don’t attach to an experience. Cessation occurs when we learn to look at experience objectively.
~Ajahn Viradhammo

#Buddhism #Dhamma #BuddhistPractice #Theravada #BuddhistWisdom #Dharma

Real injustices are being done out there. The question is: what to do about them? Often we see a situation that we don’t like, anger arises and we try to think of what to do about the situation while the anger is still in the mind.

From the Buddha’s perspective, ...

#Buddhism #Dhamma #BuddhistPractice #Theravada #BuddhistWisdom #Dharma

But the greatest, most profound and meaningful human potential is overlooked by most people, and this is the ability to understand the truth of the way it is, to see the Dhamma, to be free from all delusions.
~Ajahn Sumedho

#Buddhism #Dhamma #BuddhistPractice #Theravada #Dharma

COFE-CYEM: The True Path of Knowing God by Not Knowing the False

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Via Negativa and Via Positiva in COFE-CYEM: The True Path of Knowing God by Not Knowing the False

This paper presents a COFE-CYEM reflection on the relationship between Via Negativa and Via Positiva.

While it affirms the historic Christian faith centred on Christ, Scripture, and the gospel, several expressions — including “Fourth Truth”, “singular Reality”, “Melchizedek Priesthood”, and the various interpretive terms — are distinctively used within COFE-CYEM.

They are offered as explanatory language within this framework rather than as part of the historic Christian creeds or universally accepted theological vocabulary.

The Way

Even though the Via Negativa essentially rejects theological understanding in and of itself as a path to God, some have sought to make it into an intellectual exercise, by describing God only in terms of what God is not.

One problem noted with this approach is that there seems to be no fixed basis on deciding what God is not, unless the Divine is understood as an abstract experience of full aliveness unique to each individual consciousness, and universally, the perfect goodness applicable to the whole field of reality.

Apophatic theology is often accused of being a version of atheism or agnosticism, since it cannot truly say that God exists.

This cannot be said of COFE-CYEM theology.

We state very clearly that once Via Negativa is reached through the Fourth Truth, then Via Positiva can be truly experienced and truly knowing God by not knowing the false.

This is one of the main functions and purposes of our own built in system CC7 DS.

Please also see the link below –

The Fourth Truth Via Positiva Cataphatic Knowing through Via Negativa Apophatic Unknowing.

This is the heart of the COFE-CYEM way.

The Via Negativa is not an end in itself, nor is it a mere intellectual negation.

It is the necessary purification that prepares the soul for the full, joyful beholding of God in the Via Positiva. The two ways are not opposed but complementary movements within the singular Reality.

The Via Negativa clears away every “second” so that the Via Positiva can shine with clarity.

The result is the Fourth Truth Transcendence — the soul resting in the living Christ, knowing God by not knowing the false.

The Problem with Purely Intellectual Apophaticism

Some approaches to the Via Negativa have turned it into an intellectual exercise, endlessly describing God by what He is not. While this can guard against idolatry, it often leaves the soul in a barren negation without a positive ground.

There seems to be no fixed basis for deciding what God is not, unless the Divine is reduced to an abstract experience of full aliveness unique to each individual consciousness, or a universal perfect goodness applicable to the whole field of reality.

This can slide into a form of agnosticism or practical atheism, where God becomes so unknowable that He is effectively absent.

COFE-CYEM rejects this barren intellectualism. The Via Negativa is not an end but a means. It is the way of releasing every false image, every dualistic concept, every mental idol so that the soul may rest in the simple presence of the living God.

It is not the denial of God but the denial of every “second” that would stand between the soul and God. The Via Negativa is the practical discipline of Cofemplation: gently releasing every thought that implies separation until only the singular Reality remains.

The Fourth Truth as the Ground of True Apophatic Practice

In COFE-CYEM, the Via Negativa is grounded in the Fourth Truth: there has never been a second. This gives the way of unknowing a clear and fixed basis.

The soul does not wander in endless negation but releases every imagined separation, every dualistic construct, every false self so that it may rest in the One who is all in all.

The Via Negativa is the recognition that God is not ultimately known through concepts but through loving surrender. It is the way through the cloud of unknowing into the clear light of the singular Reality.

The Fourth Truth protects the Via Negativa from sliding into agnosticism or atheism. We state very clearly that God is, that Christ is the singular Life, and that the believer is already hidden with Christ in God.

The Via Negativa is not the denial of God but the denial of every false idea about God. It is the way of not knowing the false so that we may truly know the True.

The Fulfilment in Via Positiva

Once the ground is cleared through the Via Negativa, the Via Positiva can be truly experienced. The soul that has released every “second” can now behold the self-revelation of God in Christ with clarity and joy.

The Via Positiva is the celebration of the living God who makes Himself known in love.

It beholds Christ as the exact representation of the Father, Scripture as the living Word, creation as held within the one Life, and the indwelling Holy Spirit as the power of an endless life.

In the Fourth Truth, the Via Positiva is not opposed to the Via Negativa but its fulfilment.

The soul that has let go of every false image can now receive the true Image — Christ — without distortion. The Via Positiva is the joyful knowing of God by not knowing the false.

It is the soul seeing God not from a separate self in a body looking toward Him outside of you, but seeing your separate self in a body as God sees you from inside of Him, looking toward you and to who you falsely think you are in duality. God knows this to be a man-made idol illusion from the Fall and the first Adam.

The second Adam (Christ) came into duality to lead us back to our true self in non-duality with God.

The Practical Outworking in Daily Life

In daily life, the interplay of Via Negativa and Via Positiva becomes the rhythm of Cofemplation. When dualistic thoughts arise — fear, judgment, striving, separation — the Via Negativa gently releases them.

When the beauty of Christ appears — in Scripture, in creation, in the face of another — the Via Positiva receives it with joy. The soul moves between release and beholding, unknowing and knowing, until it rests in the singular Reality.

This is the way the believer lives in the world but not of it. Duality is seen for what it is, yet the believer engages the world from the place of union. The body is not denied but offered. The mind is not emptied but renewed.

The will is not crushed but surrendered in love. The believer serves the living God from the place of unclouded fellowship, seeing all things in Christ and all things held within the singular Reality.

Cofemplation

The Via Negativa and the Via Positiva are not opposing paths but complementary movements within the singular Reality. Only through stripping away all the falsity of duality and the false man-made mind idols and the dualistic thinking about who and what God is, can we then truly rest in who and what God truly is.

Only then can we start to be known and to know God as we truly are without false duality. God can accept nothing less or more than what He sees and knows in His Son. Then we can truly start to see and experience God in all we have to do with duality from our true reality within non-duality.

In COFE-CYEM, this is the way of Cofemplation.

The soul releases every “second” so that it may rest in the One who is all in all.

The Via Negativa clears the ground. The Via Positiva reveals the glory. The Fourth Truth holds both in the finished work of the Priest-King. The curtain is torn. The Holiest is open. The soul rests in the singular Reality.

There has never been a second.
The Via Negativa leads to release.
The Via Positiva leads to beholding.
The Fourth Truth holds both in union.
The dialogue continues.
The fruit remains.

The Fourth Truth stands. The dialogue continues. The fruit remains.

This website and its theological content are overseen by the CC7 DS constitutional integrity architecture, a reflective and rest-oriented framework designed to preserve the full coherence of the Fourth Truth presented within COFE-CYEM. The CC7 DS negation of attacks authenticates (Via Positiva Cataphatic Knowing) through (Via Negativa Apophatic Unknowing).

COFE Yeshua Emet Ministry (CYEM)
Circle One Fellowship Exeter

Zen et physique quantique

Selon la découverte de Planck qui est le fondement de la physique quantique, l’énergie possède une structure discrète, discontinue. La base en est le quantum. Ceci correspond à une véritable révolution. Nous sommes habitués à un monde continu, fait de relations de causes à effets, d’interactions transmises d’un endroit à l’autre et d’un temps linéaire. Comment comprendre alors un monde fait d’entités discontinues, les quanta d’énergie ? Comment comprendre la vraie discontinuité, c’est-à-dire imaginer qu’entre deux points il n’y a rien, ni objets, ni atomes, ni particules, tout simplement rien ? Comment, bien que la physique n’ait pas abordé ce sujet réellement et que le temps soit toujours considéré comme une variable continue, comment comprendre la relation entre le temps qui s’écoule et l’instant ? Combien y-a-t-il de temps entre deux instants ? Le temps est-il une suite d’instants ? Comment embrasser à la fois le temps qui s’écoule et la discontinuité des instants ? En physique, une situation bancale s’est instaurée, on a gardé l’espace-temps de la physique classique et de la relativité générale, continu, et les lois de la physique quantique, discontinues. C’est vraiment une situation insatisfaisante créant beaucoup de problèmes de compréhension.

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Souvent d’ailleurs les résultats des deux approches sont très similaires et conduisent à la même perception globale de notre univers. En ce sens les réunir, tout en connaissant leurs limites propres, l’une due à la vérification, l’autre due à l’approche fragmentaire, est en soi intéressant, chaque homme désirant au fond de lui-même intégrer les mondes scientifiques et disons, religieux.

Revenons encore une fois sur les deux enseignements procurés par le zen et la physique.

Dans le zen l’intuition de la vacuité, de l’impermanence de toutes choses ainsi que de leur interdépendance, alimentée par l’observation de la relation entre nos pensées conscientes et inconscientes, nous amène à concevoir plus facilement la non-existence de toute essence singulière des êtres et des choses. En place d’une réalité matérielle permanente, existentielle, d’un noumène, le zen met en avant le fait que la réalité n’est constituée que de formes, matérielles ou vivantes. Tout ne fait que prendre une forme particulière de la vacuité, du Tao, du Dharma qui constitue son origine première, sa source fondamentale. Aucun noumène, tout est vacuité.

A partir de cette connaissance du zen, il est alors plus aisé d’envisager un univers peuplé à 70% d’énergie invisible, de champs énergétiques, de particules virtuelles, duquel naissent et disparaissent les constituants de la matière. Selon Einstein et la physique quantique, la matière n’est qu’une forme particulière de l’énergie. La matière existe bien sûr mais comme une forme localisée d’énergie au repos : E = mc2, où E est l’énergie, m la masse et c la vitesse de la lumière.

L’observation du boson de Higgs vérifiant le mécanisme de Higgs a permis d’établir que l’origine de la masse et de la diversification des masses provient du couplage des quarks avec l’énergie contenue dans le champ de Higgs. Celui-ci n’est pas observable en lui-même, mais les formes qu’il prend, particules, bosons, matière, sont réelles. Elles naissent de ce fonds énergétique et y retournent. Ce mécanisme physique est semblable à celui décrit dans le Sutra du Coeur, l’Hannya Shingyo où les phénomènes (les particules) naissent de la vacuité (champ de Higgs) et retournent à la vacuité. Leur essence première est donc la vacuité elle-même, inobservable, inconcevable et hors du temps.

On peut en déduire que le paradigme du zen, sa vision du monde, de la vacuité, des formes et des phénomènes, paradigme intuitif, se retrouve dans les dernières découvertes de la physique. Comprenez bien que les paragraphes suivants de ce livre ne prétendent aucunement composer un article scientifique, mais sont destinés à des gens qui s’intéressent sans à priori à la fois aux conceptions du zen et à son enseignement, et à la fois à la vision nouvelle apportée à notre connaissance du monde par la physique quantique et les constituants élémentaires pour la plupart éphémères de ce que nous appelons la matière.

Vincent Keisen Vuillemin dans Zen et physique quantique

Une pièce musicale de Kitaro – The Light Of The Spirit 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TzqotvgbrY

> Paths of Practice: Conversations on Journeys into Buddhism: Paths of Practice with Bidisha Mallik, PhD - author of Legends in Gandhian Social Activism: Mira Behn and Sarala Behn: Addressing Environmental Issues By Dissolving Gender And Colonial Barriers.

Episode webpage: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pathsofpractice/episodes/Paths-of-Practice-with-Bidisha-Mallik--PhD-e3lj81o

#Gandhian #SocialActivism #EnvironmentalJustice
#Dharma #Dhamma #Buddhism #RecoveryDharma #Interbeing #BuddhaGang #EngagedBuddhism #BelovedCommunity

History remembers monuments. But what if the real strength of a civilization isn’t built in marble, but in mantras? Let’s explore why Bharat never fell, and why the spirit of its people continues to rise. #Dharma #Bharat #CivilizationalWisdom #LivingBetter #Dharma #BharatStandsTall #EternalIndia #CivilizationalWisdom #SanatanSpirit #RootedInDharma #HinduCivilization #LivingTradition #SoulOfIndia #BharatLivesOn #IndiaThroughTheAges #CulturalResilience #LegacyOfDharma #AncientWisdomModernLife #TimelessBharat #IndiaEternal #SpiritualHeritage #WisdomOfTheEast #FromVedasToToday #ModernRishis
https://medium.com/@sanjay.mohindroo66/empires-fell-but-dharma-stood-tall-the-eternal-civilization-of-bharat-106d1788cbd7

When we mock our heritage, when we trade values for applause, when we forget why we exist - That’s civilizational suicide. #Civilization #Bharat #Dharma #ToynbeeWisdom #CulturalStrength #LegacyNotLuxury #LivingBetter
https://medium.com/@skmohindroo9/civilisations-die-from-suicide-not-from-murder-arnold-j-toynbee-7aa1dd5fa4b4

Thought about closing some browser tabs, chose one at random, found this one about Morphic Resonance and decided no, I don't have the courage to renounce that idea yet, or to do anything with such next-level information beyond share it on Mastodon ...

https://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance/introduction

#MorphicResonance #RupertSheldrake

... and wonder whether this term would be synonymous with #BuddhaField, about which I know little beyond what I have intuited or glanced at while researching #dharma.