Spring, Universal Love, and the Threefold Path

 Hi everyone,

hope you are having a happy, hippy, maybe even a hoppy, spring equinoxation.  "The birds are out... the bees are trying to have sex with them... or so I'm told" -- Bart Simpson.  Well, I feel just fantastic, honestly... and I have little-to-no justification for that.  Such is the bittersweet melody of the Rites of the lovely and intoxicating Vernal transition.  If you happen to be welcoming Life into the world at this time, or maybe celebrating a birth-renewal of such a momentous event... Kudos to you and their/your Mother!  And excelsior!!  This could be the time, the time, the time-of-times.

"Time is time  is time  and time is your time  and this news... is captured for the Queen to use."
-- YES.  the song "I've Seen All Good People"

"Philosophy: is the top of a cereal box.  Religion: is a smile on a dog."
-- Edie Brickell from "What I Am"

NATURE is being (re)born.  The same as it has every year around this time, since Life (and thus experiential time, one might argue) began.  But don't worry, it's happening gradually, continuously, and repeatedly.  So "...no reason to get excited." Plowman: "Dig My Earth" (thank you Bob Dylan, or Jimi Hendrix, or both)

It's a strange time for the thinking man, or woman, when the world, the environment,, and it's wild & lively contents,,, are acting out.  I'm guilty of buying into this alarmist paradigm of our times.  I'm Sorry!  But it seems like Mama Nature and Papa Anthropo-Culture are both telling each other to "grow-up!" as in... hurry up and Evolve.  The only rational answer is Love.  A return to Source.  Can you dig that, man?

I don't like to throw around big words that I can't fit into... wait no that's not it.  I do that all of the time.  I'm Sorry!!  It's just that -- it seems like such a quantum leap to go from professing Universal Love to actually promoting or even practicing it.  But maybe it really is the key to making progress towards an "ideal" instead of just a bunch of ideas.  Maybe it is that focal point on the horizon - the one that supports balance and direction, so that your steps don't stumble, and instead they and you follow a path.

How about the three-fold Path?  
>>Buddhist training falls into three categories. In Sanskrit, they are called sila (discipline or ethical living, samadhi (concentration)  and prajna (insight or wisdom)

Sila: Variously translated as discipline, ethics, virtue, or morality, sila encompasses three aspects of the eightfold path: right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Living ethically and purely is both the ground of the Buddhist path and its result.

Samadhi: Translated as concentration, calm abiding, or mindfulness, samadhi is the foundation of Buddhist meditation. By settling and calming the mind through dedicated meditation practice, we achieve peace and are no longer controlled by our delusions and conflicting emotions (kleshas).

Prajna: Translated as wisdom, insight, and discriminating mind, prajna is Buddhism’s unique, defining principle and the key to enlightenment. Using the powerful, concentrated mind of samadhi, we penetrate the true nature of reality and free ourselves from the fundamental ignorance that causes suffering. This is the essential technique of Buddhist meditation. <<

I THINK THAT the key for me here, at this time, is in the freeing all sentient beings from suffering... via experience of the true nature of reality... which I think comes from an integration of the three paths, Sila, Samadhi and Prajna.  One may have argued that there is no sense in concentration and mindfulness without an inclination toward SILA (right speech, right action, and right livelihood... or: talk the talk, walk the walk, and do it like a boss)  I would say yes it seems true that mindfulness and wisdom, while not exclusive from Sila, tend to follow behind the simple discipline of virtuous living.  Erm, well, that's what I've been training for all my life. Thus far. Education, work ethic, and a little bit of creative passion.

No biggie.  It's not going anywhere.  In fact, Universal Love IS the freeing of all sentient beings from all forms of suffering and (realistically-or-metaphorically) freeing them from Samsara, the painful cycle of rebirth.

No wonder the "freeing all beings from suffering" is the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary for Buddhists.  (I went to Catholic School.  If you don't know, mindfulness for young Catholic children takes the form of repeating those prayers.  No, a Hail Mary isn't always that long-distance sports maneuver.  Some times it's just something you say forty times to try to fix something you've done wrong.)

By and by, if there's any rhyme and reason to this deeply penetrating and yet unfortunately shallow look at some of the most important values in the life of a shoulda-been'a-buddha...

I started by noticing the Rebirth of Spring.  With or without "reincarnation" this is more or less the thing that Buddhists are trying to free themselves from... or evolve above.  How very civilized!  Maybe a Buddhist Scholar out there can tell me if there is room in that philosophy for an abiding respect for Mother Earth and her gifts.  Not that I am particularly capable of practicing that kind of thing.  I just think it is, like, the new paradigm or sumpin'.

Universal Peace & Universal Love

Shout out to the ones that give me so much of that,
And I hope and pray that I can give it back or pay it forward ~ *