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I've never studied Zen Buddhism, but Thomas Merton's message seems (to me) to be inspired by the Bhagavad Gita. I like a guy who extols the virtues of meditati

I've never studied Zen Buddhism, but Thomas Merton's message seems (to me) to be inspired by the Bhagavad Gita. I like a guy who extols the virtues of meditation.

fitzwatermellow 10y ago
A fine "beat" poet as well ;) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/thomas-james-merton https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detai... Had he come of political consciousness during the Digital Age, rather than the Cold War, his message would be exactly the same. Any technological advancements that take us further away from the Mysterious Unity, the Mother of All, will necessarily bind us in webs of illusion and ultimately lead to disunity and strife.
- trhway 10y ago
  >Any technological advancements that take us further away from the Mysterious Unity, the Mother of All, will necessarily bind us in webs of illusion and ultimately lead to disunity and strife. i find that blaming of technology is kind of like cheating, kind of easy scapegoating. Emergence of eukaryotes was a great bio-hack by the life back then and that bio-hack directly led to separate organisms as we exist now thus to disunity and strife. I guess we should instead have stayed as simple molecules happily floating in the primordinary soup, in full nirvana and mysterious unity.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    Look, if you're expecting terms like "Mysterious Unity" and "Mother of All", complete with Capital Letters for Extra Cosmic Importance, to actually mean anything, you're expecting too much.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Disunity is inherent in individual embodiment. It's worthwhile to remind oneself of the godhead from time to time, but there's a point past which that can become flight from the nature of one's existence, which strikes me as both wasteful and futile.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
What does the Bhagavad Gita have to do with Zen Buddhism.
- prefect42 10y ago
  Eh? Those are from two different (though somewhat related in history) traditions. I don't remember which meditation book, it's been a while, but it had clear terminology from the Gita. Wasn't one of the books with "Zen" in the title, FWIW.

I've never studied Zen Buddhism, but Thomas Merton's message seems (to me) to be inspired by the Bhagavad Gita. I like a guy who extols the virtues of meditation.

fitzwatermellow 10y ago

A fine "beat" poet as well ;) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/thomas-james-merton https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detai... Had he come of political consciousness during the Digital Age, rather than the Cold War, his message would be exactly the same. Any technological advancements that take us further away from the Mysterious Unity, the Mother of All, will necessarily bind us in webs of illusion and ultimately lead to disunity and strife.

trhway 10y ago
>Any technological advancements that take us further away from the Mysterious Unity, the Mother of All, will necessarily bind us in webs of illusion and ultimately lead to disunity and strife. i find that blaming of technology is kind of like cheating, kind of easy scapegoating. Emergence of eukaryotes was a great bio-hack by the life back then and that bio-hack directly led to separate organisms as we exist now thus to disunity and strife. I guess we should instead have stayed as simple molecules happily floating in the primordinary soup, in full nirvana and mysterious unity.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  Look, if you're expecting terms like "Mysterious Unity" and "Mother of All", complete with Capital Letters for Extra Cosmic Importance, to actually mean anything, you're expecting too much.
throwanem 10y ago
Disunity is inherent in individual embodiment. It's worthwhile to remind oneself of the godhead from time to time, but there's a point past which that can become flight from the nature of one's existence, which strikes me as both wasteful and futile.

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

What does the Bhagavad Gita have to do with Zen Buddhism.

prefect42 10y ago
Eh? Those are from two different (though somewhat related in history) traditions. I don't remember which meditation book, it's been a while, but it had clear terminology from the Gita. Wasn't one of the books with "Zen" in the title, FWIW.