hungry ghosts

On Reason and Passion

And the priestess spoke again and said: “Speak to us of Reason and Passion.”

And he answered saying:

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.

But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing;

And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.

Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows - then let your heart say in silence, “God rests in reason.”

And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, - then let your heart say in awe, “God moves in passion.”

And since you are a breath In God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

His denial was typical, with its hope to take credit and claim innocence at the same time. I didn’t doubt he killed that man. It fit everything I thought I knew about my father: driven by pride, anger, and violence. Especially pride. The most startling detail was not the murder, but the lack of remorse for the child who grew up without his father as a result of my father’s actions. The boy is never again mentioned in the text. I wanted to meet him. I imagined getting to know him, going to bars together and drinking Budweiser, and one day saying, “My father killed your father.

in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism, those moments of unknowing when the mind is naturally loose from it’s moorings are said to be special opportunities for realization. During orgasm, at the moment of death, or while falling asleep or ending a dream are times when the veils of knowing are spontaneously lifted and the underlying luminosity of the mind shines through. But we have a powerful resistance to experiencing this mind in all of it’s brilliance. We are afraid to let ourselves go all the way. To set ourselves adrift requires a trust that for most of us was lost in childhood.