In the Beatitudes, Christ does not glorify suffering or misfortune (“blessed are the poor…”),
he points the way to transformation.
True alchemy is embodied by Jesus.
Christ transforms suffering.
Thomas Merton quotes the scholar and Zen practitioner D.T. Suzuki: “Without suffering there can be no escape from suffering”.
Christ invites to transcendence. Through suffering, access non-suffering.
You have to be “hungry” to be “satiated”.
A distorted understanding of this fundamental principle leads to the cult of suffering, pain.
In Zazen, the disciple, as long as he makes room, lets this alchemy take place within him.
Sitting in Zazen, the suffering of the day emerges and blows away.
Groupe de Pratique
Recueils — Participations
Many thanks to all
Notes & Silence 
In alchemy, transformation is a complex process of heating and cooling, diluting and hardening, dissolution and rebirth.
How does one refine without the fire? How is there growth without death? How does one proceed without leaving?
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
Hi Simon,
I’m surprised to see this post appear today on the blog,
as it was programmed a while ago but finds its way among its letter-brothers just when its title was arising in our conversation.
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J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
I wondered to what extent it was as coincidental as anything might be. The Cosmic Joker is laughing again…
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
I’ve always been highly reluctant ( and suspicious of people who claim ) to adhere to this compulsive sign-reading habit, as it might hide a self-centered representation of the world (« I am being talked to by God / The universe » / « everything happens in relation to me » and therefore have nothing to do with spirituality, and everything to do with a psychological condition…
While being a firm defender of the following : everything is a sign.
this contradiction, if not apparent only, may also be a psychological condition that needs to be dealt with.
The thing is : i don’t believe in dealing with conditions.
In itself, this is, in the eyes of system-proclaimed professionals a sub condition that has to be addressed.
so they say.
I don’t agree with granting importance to what such people say…
Another condition ?
Trust issues ?
Sheer anarchy.
Free spirit.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
Anarchy is its own self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps. In the chaos of life, everything would be a sign of the anarchic.
The problem with signs, I find, is that they only look like such with hindsight. If the universe wishes to communicate, it seems to be remarkably cryptic.
Which proves absolutely nothing, save my lack of foresight.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
this is also the very definition of interdependence in Buddhism.
On another level, there has never been anything such as birth and death, arising and declining, pleasure and suffering…
(Heart Sutra)
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
You knocking on the door of that 9th level again?
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
trouble is there’s no-body to open it.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
Then you must barge through for yourself…
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne