It's a rare and precious thing to be capable of coming alongside someone as a friend without needing to explain them to yourself - that is, to offer your presence while allowing your friend to maintain their own mysterious integrity, free from your need to fit them - and their thoughts, actions, motivations, joys, passions, and sufferings - into categories that make sense to you and make you feel comfortable. I hope to grow in this capability.I posted this in an online group, and my friend Janine responded with the following:
I'm with you, Mike, hoping to grow in this capability too! Perhaps non-dualistic thinking is the basis for being able to grow in this way. Seems to fit with Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for today:
"Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion (GOAL).
"Reality is “not totally one,” but it is “not totally two,” either! All things, events, persons, and institutions, if looked at contemplatively (non-egocentrically), reveal contradictions, create dilemmas, and have their own shadow side. Wisdom knows how to hold and to grow from this creative tension; ego does not. Our ego splits reality into parts that it can manage, but then pays a big price in regard to actual truth or understanding.
"The contemplative mind will be at the heart and center of all teaching in our new Living School. Only the contemplative mind can honor the underlying unity (“not two”) of things, while also work with them in their distinctness (“not totally one”). The world almost always presents itself as a paradox, a contradiction, or a problem—like our themes of “action and contemplation,” “Christian and non-Christian,” or “male and female” first did. At the mature level, however, we learn to see all things in terms of unitive consciousness, while still respecting, protecting, and working with the very real differences. This is the great—perhaps the greatest—art form. It is the supreme task of all religion."
~ Richard Rohr, June 2012I have to admit that I was surprised and a little proud to be tracking so closely with thoughts from Fr. Richard, whom I admire very much.
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4 comments:
Just read this, very good stuff.
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