Words... Words... Words!

There are sermons that are given without the sounds of words given that are enlightening to those advanced disciples whose minds have been disciplined in previous lives, but which are useless to novices who are dependent on words and definitions and style to keep their interest; the novice can not depend upon them for his attaining the essential nature of perfect accommodation.

*****
The keeping of the precepts is a necessary part of the practice of Dhyana, but the novice can not depend upon them alone to bring him to the nature of perfect accommodation.

 The Surangama Sutra

A Buddhist Bible

Edited by Dwight Goddard

(pp. 255-256)

~

 “Dhyana” is the practice of seeking instant enlightenment by means of a word or phrase. In Western culture there is a similar phenomenon we call “a white light” experience. Raised a Catholic, with so many saints held in high regard who’d claimed such an experience, I expected that the only way to hit that sweet spot would have to be instantaneous. But there is another way to do approach this experience and that is called by the philosopher, William James, “the educational variety” of spiritual experience. But just because it is called the educational variety doesn’t translate into me becoming a dictionary and concordance of the text. I often hear pedantic references to the Big Book or the Bible whereby words and phrases are defined and expounded on as meaning this or that without any understanding at all the spirit of the words. A word has no power at all until it is put into action and that action is sometimes bold and sometimes humble. But my action taken in the Spirit of Compassion is more powerful than all the words in all the dictionaries, scriptures, and concordances. One act of kindness is a step in the right direction above all those words... words... words... empty sepulchers for the dry bones of dead religions.

 geo 4870