Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Relation Between Man and Vegetable

"More servants wait on man than he'll take notice of." Ralph Waldo Emerson


Many over the eons have conceived of, and written of a conception of nature, herself. However in 1848 the American thinker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, engaged himself in the "Free Soilers" movement with other contemporaries such as the future president, Abraham Lincoln and emerged with an expanded notion of Nature. He wrote about the subject of nature and the soul in his book, Nature, in 1836 to form the early ideas of Transcendenalism. Nature expressed Emerson's theories that the imagination of man is shaped by nature herself, most plainly and most cleanly.

Quickly he emerged as a central figure in the nascent American Transcendentalist movement. Now, before you laugh too hard over the title of this post, read a bit further into the mind of one of our Nation's great thinkers. Emerson wrote of Nature that:

"To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches... The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection.

Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood... The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right."

Bassui: An Arrow Flies Straight to Hell

"The mind is host, the body is guest."

Zen master and historical figure, Bassui was born in Japan in 1327. Rejected by his mother at birth, Bassui is recorded to have been raised by a family servant. At age 29 he became a monk, but he did not shave his head or wear robes; he did not recite Sutras, like other monks. His practice was the most simple practice. It can be called the practice of no practice. This was to be Bassui's Way throughout his life.

As a Zen master, Bassui was often questioned; often he gave reply. In one instance he was asked: "The spirit is this skin, this skin is the one spirit. Is this correct?"

Bassui replied affirmatively to the question.

"If so,' continued the questioner, 'who will become buddha after the body's dispersed to the four winds? Who will sink into the sea? What will be the reason for keeping the precept that prevents crime?"

To this Bassui replied, "If you continue holding this view, in which you deny cause and effect [karma], like an arrow, you will fly straight to hell. Do you have dreams?

Questioner: Yes.

Bassui: What do you usually see in your dreams?

Questioner: It's not always fixed. I usually see things that occur in my mind and through my body.

Bassui: The rising and sinking after death are also like that. All thoughts that come are by way of the four elements that comprise the physical body. Dreams in the night follow suit and appear in accordance to the good or bad thoughts of the day... An ancient said, 'You receive a body according to Karma, and your body in turn produces Karma. You should realize the continuity of the body in this life and in the next... If you truly understand this, then you cannot doubt the statement that the one spirit in this skin is the one spirit in that skin.

Questioner: Now I realize that the body and the mind are not separate. This being the case, the significance of 'seeing into one's Buddha nature' is relegated to the leaves and branches [of a tree]. If you simply stop doing bad deeds concerning your physical body, practice various good deeds, practice the precepts, and eliminate evil thoughts, will you then become a Buddha?

Bassui:
All thoughts are born of deluded ideas feelings [disordered thinking]. If you do not see penetratingly into your own nature, though you try to eliminate evil thoughts, you will be like the one who tries to stop dreaming without waking up. All evil deeds are rooted in deluded thoughts. If you cut out the roots, how can the leaves grow?... If he were a man who penetrated his own nature, how could he even think of committing a sin in which he breaks precepts?

Love Transcending, Walt Whitman

"How beautiful is candor..." Walt Whitman 1855, preface Leaves of Grass

Published in 1855, just prior to the American Civil War, Leaves of Grass was Whitman's work written in a sensuous manner for the more ordinary in society, the common, everyday man of America. While many writers of the period wrote for the elite about the elite and their day to day lives, Whitman determined that for his work, he would not follow in like fashion.
He stated in the preface of the 1855 volume that his desire was to 'united the physical flesh with the spiritual,' to be a poet of the physical, a poet of the soul. He was striven to accept all of life as revealed to him on simple, equal terms. While many of his contemporaries were offended by such overt references, Whitman excluded nothing, accepting all in nature.

Like author D. H. Lawrence who wrote in the 20th century, Whitman was intent on exploring the mind/spirit/body connections of everyday life. His frankness was shocking to many, and the book was declared obscene immediately upon publication in 1855. This however only added to its cachet. And yet clearly his stated intention is not the intent of those in the 20th and 21st centuries who wish to use him and his words for their and their own devices.

"A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. Sex contains all, bodies, souls, Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk, All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth, These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself. Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex, Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers. Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women, I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded sufficient for me, I see that they understand me and do not deny me, I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of those women. 

They are not one jot less than I am, They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds, Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength, They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves, They are ultimate in their own right--they are calm, clear, well-possess'd of themselves. I draw you close to me, you women, I cannot let you go, I would do you good, I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others' sakes, Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards, They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me. It is I, you women, I make my way, I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you, I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you, I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States, I press with slow rude muscle, I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties, I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me. Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself, In you I wrap a thousand onward years, On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America, The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers, The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn, I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love- spendings, I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you interpenetrate now, I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now, I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now."

--A Woman Waits for Me 1856 by Walt Whitman, American Poet

The Transcendentalism of his age is spelled out here, clean within the lines, the poet makes the statement that all is in the world, all joined, simple frankness. And he writes of America as if it were a woman, curiously of sons and daughters fit for these (united) states.What's more, Whitman attributed his 'fire' to the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, leader of the transcendentalist movement,whom he said brought him to himself, to his fire. In December 1856 Henry David Thoreau paid Whitman a visit. He wrote later that, "he (Whitman) does not celebrate love at all.It is as if the beasts spoke... But even on his side, he has spoken more truth than any American or modern at present." 
 Whitman, through sexual energy, identifies with the generative aspect of nature itself. And he holds a belief in both the seen and the unseen.
As for Emerson, he declared that 'every man should commune with the divinity of the animating soul within himself.'
These thoughts have animated spiritual thinkers for the modern age and beyond.

The Human Self, One, Irreplaceble

"I would know you in order to know myself."

The word person has great significance. "Today our way of thinking about people is defined in quantity...so many thousands, millions...yet there is always one, human person indivisible." That person is unique, irreplaceable, the creation of which remains a metaphysical mystery.
Persons may be described and regarded as form, physical bodies, not unlike other bodies, both animate and inanimate. However in the individual a development takes place. The development of thought, knowledge and intellect takes place on a deeper level in the person.
All are on the developmental plane as persons. Even the least gifted person whom we may meet belongs to this great human reality of the person in development.

Is each human person really created in the image and likeness of God, the Creator? While man may not deny his link to nature, and resemblance to the world known in past times as the animal world, it is not possible to integrate all that a person possesses without recognition of the "something more" that defines him.
The something more which defines him may be called the conscience. A person is, in the view of theologian and philosopher, Karol Wotjyla in fact, conscience. The conscience provides the definitive structure which differentiates the person from other elements in the created world. It is the basis of the definitive and unrepeatable I.

A story that comes out of the World War II era, one from a Polish concentration camp, recounted by Max Kolbe regarding his own execution by a camp executioner. Both he and the executioner were human beings, each presumably with a conscience. On one hand, one is one admired and esteemed for his faith and courage in horrible circumstances; the other is a person to be rejected by others of every faith, scorned and repudiated.

The greatness or smallness of a person is first developed within his conscience. When considering this notion, we must look to the ends of its development, that is in death. Is then death the full ends of a person? Is it in fact a defining reality? The materialism of the world sees death as an end, so much so that a person's life is a steady progression towards its inevitable end in death, beyond which there is nothing.
The Judeo-Christian tradition teaches in the Tanakh or Old Testament book, Genesis, "You are dust, and to dust you will return."
But if death is really the final end, then what happens to lead one to a final heroic act of faith and courage, and another to play the part of executioner, halting a life?
What about good and evil?
The French thinker and writer, Jean Paul Sartre wrote that man aspires to that which he defines as God, "even if this is an empty word, so that it is a useless passion." Yet persons are multidimensional. They develop slowly, unevenly; they develop judgment and wisdom over time. That development is the beginnings of eternal life.
In the course of a person's development he comes to know that there is a tree, if you like, of good and evil; he finds that at any turn he may choose good or evil. This knowledge, these decisions, and actions are of value. They present a person with either the good, or the evil as value.
Indeed human life is lived between good and evil. Human beings are great because they can freely choose, they possess what Augustine of Hippo called, free will.
 Despite the will and the ability to choose, man, in knowledge, has chosen evil; he has played the executioner. In a certain sense, the ability to choose evil testifies to man's greatness in freedom.

Yet freedom calls, requires something of the chooser. It exacts a price. In evil we are cut off from the source of life, from love, from co-union with the Creator. The created are then exceeded in the bounds of the "tree."
The God of the Bible remains steadfast in regard to his creations. He does not cut himself off from them; he is more like the story of a lover seeking his beloved, the Song of Songs, his lost child. He looks everywhere for him.
His first and last thoughts are for the Beloved, his creation. The precepts of the Bible, of the Buddha, have come into the world to lead the Way to our redemption, our enlightenment, to our peace, our joy, our rest in the One.
--paraphrased from The Way to Christ by Karol Wojtyla

Citizen Awake!

"We dare defend our rights! Live free or die! Wisdom, justice and moderation. Let it be perpetual!"  --United States state's mottoes

Citizen awake; today we learn that we sleep in the dust, that in our slumber there is terror in our land; that our government proposes there be enemy combatants in our house! How can this be? How can we, as citizens of the United States of America, be we patriots descending back to the founding of this nation, native born, or naturalized citizens stand restless as the elect-citizens* of our nation propose to deny the rights and duties of every citizen to some citizens? Where does the "natural law" fall herein?

At issue is the surviving accused Boston Marathon bomber, who lies critically wounded in a Boston hospital. He, a naturalized US citizen, innocent until proven guilty under law, afforded all the rights and benefits of his citizenship now be proposed that he be an "enemy combatant"?
How can this be?
Are we afraid, those of us either native-born citizens or naturalized citizens?
I am very worried, terrified even, that at the highest levels of government, citizens-elect*, think it wise to propose such effrontery against one, against all.

As has been stated here several times, the Simple Mind knows full well that religion is integral to everyday life; it is instilled in politics and government fully. Those of us living under democracy, monarchy, a designated government or state religion may easily attest to this. From this flows much else. Here in the United States, our ancestors, my ancestors, fought against tyranny, against rule from a distant shore; they preferred self-rule over monarchy. They dared to defend their rights, to live free or die. Free thinking, republican, libertarianism was the call of their generation.They called for moderation against others who would dictate without justice, without prudence.

Have we now lived so long without rulers absolute that we no longer recognize them within our own citizenry? It is and always will be for the citizens of this nation to arise and check the despotic impulses of others. For if we do not, if we neglect the meaning of the natural law upon which this nation founds itself, we may then be lost.
A citizen must not be reduced in status to an enemy combatant, no more than a man should be a slave.
 If this be the case, then no native born citizen and especially no naturalized citizen is protected from the whims and capriciousness of a government responding to illegal or repugnant acts committed within its borders by its citizenry.

Let me explain so that you may determine upon your own conscience the course of action to be taken:

In the words of one Revolutionary War veteran, Levi Preston, regarding the words of men like, Harrington, Hobbes or John Locke on the principles of eternal liberty, or freedoms accorded by the natural law: Preston is said to have remarked, "I never heard of them. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, the Almanac and Watt's Psalms, and Hymns... [We fought because] we had always governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They [the British] didn't mean that we should."

This independent thought is our tradition. Our bill of rights and our constitution stand on this position of historical, natural rights and free thinking. The 14th amendment of the US Constitution is this: 
 "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without the due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."  --section 1, XIVth amendment to the US Constitution

This Amendment is most often said to protect a person's right against government violations; our founding Fathers sought to return to a state of Common-law, laws of nature from which they believed each was "endowed with by the Creator." As John Locke wrote of the natural, common law, "God has furnished men with Faculties sufficient to direct them in the Way they should take, if they will but seriously employ them."
US Supreme Court Justice James Wilson wrote, "American common law is closer to the common law of the Anglo-Saxons... The Anglo-Saxon, like the American, held a more expansive notion of individual liberty...our common law is not a list of laws, but a way of thinking, a sensibility focused on freedom of association."

And when our government goes back on those common laws, reneges, thus claims civil laws, like imperialism, by itself, we can do nothing less than react to preserve our citizenship, our natural dignity as human beings.
For not every power government engages are just powers, powers for the common good. 
Have courage, speak against the un-legislated assumption of power by the federal government; act as if you, yourself count among the Founding Fathers of this nation.

Some call civil-law, the "ever emerging child of fantasy rebelling against facts or lessons from the past; it will not secure the future."
However, your actions may secure the common good, the rightful status of a citizen. Our Declaration of Independence empowers us:  "under absolute despotism, it is their right [the right of a citizen], their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards [guardians] for their future security." Act now; tell your elected officials this attack on citizenship cannot be permitted.


*those persons, citizens elected by ballot.

Feminists, Unsettled Lives

"Then all of them together, crying loudly, moved to the malevolent shore that awaits anyone who has no fear of God." -- Inferno, Canto III by Dante

In his belief, born of experience first as a cloistered monk and then as a Jungian therapist, Thomas Moore comes now to realize that "what was really at the root of those unsettled lives was religion... I didn't always realize the extent to which spiritual issues were playing a central role... The obvious spiritual problems had to do with disturbing experiences surrounding religion in childhood." In his book, The Soul's Religion, Moore writes "in these ordinary, troubled lives, spirit and psyche were closely connected. In other cases, spiritual issues were more subtle and required a broadening of the idea of spirituality."

Today, society to the extent that it acknowledges religion at all, sees itself "in relation to an image of a "gentleman God," the grandfather and patriarch." This pushes the feminine into the shadows, hidden beneath the surface of everyday life. Neglected feminine nature in the world is often felt in oppressive and mysterious forces that may make living an everyday life almost impossible. For the feminine energy, as her balance, masculine energy needs recognition for composure in daily living. Many today neglect, even deny the feminine nature; they are hostile to its alleged weak frailty. Yet many seek its compensations in a professional life that includes care-taking in fields like nursing, elementary school teaching, social work; merely doing this everyday, external work doesn't solve an interior, spiritual lack or need for the feminine energy. There are, Moore notes, countless females who mother and nurture all those they contact almost to death. We often seek to escape them. Allowing the feminine, the Marian, into daily life as a spiritual role or guide "is an effective way to heal" the lack of a divine mother in a man or woman's life. She takes her proper place as an 'avatar' rather than a lived out female image. Here, she is spirit; she is soul.

"In matters of soul and spirit, things are not always what they might seem." Moore observes, "I have come to understand sexism and violence against women as a spiritual issue, as a failure to appreciate the feminine mysteries" which no amount of nudity, ogling, looking or voyeuristic regard will alleviate. The deepest interior, which cannot be seen, can only be sensed when the soul-heart is at issue. "Today many spiritual passions are disguised in politics, war, money, sex or athletics." Even so, most secular, enlightenment outlets for spiritual passion are inadequate because they address merely a surface issue, meaning that recognition is admitted only indirectly, often unconsciously, so we don't often even grant that they are religious. These modern, secular, indirect forms "siphon off spiritual steam, leaving unsatisfied religious needs."

This loss of recognition of the spiritual, the religious, as an attitude, a way of life, a lifestyle, leads to great degrees of loss, of illness, of alienation in modern life. Some have written of the "sick soul." Many relationships, families and marriages fail "because we now treat them as sociological constructions or psychological arrangements, partnerships, rather than as holy mysteries. As a result we continue to crave religion of the deepest kind, often in disguised form; yet so much of what we try is inadequate, "only increasing the craving and emptiness" of our deepest selves, writes Moore.

In maturity, spiritual growth, like growth in any other area of our life, renders to us a "quest and search." What we discover is a deepening and a broadening of our self; we are not obliged to a single path, our perceptions deepen, wisdom accrues. We often discover paradoxes at work. How to combine apparent opposites into one coherent, whole is our challenge and our grace. In doing so, we find the gifts of our life.

Shintoism and Japan Today

"Human beings have the potential to become Kami." --The Essence of Shinto: Japan's Spiritual Heart by Motohisa Yamakage

In the Shinto mind there are many, many symbols of heaven here in earth. Armed with no other knowledge, the casual observer while traveling in Japan may remark upon the many shrines. There are about 80,000 Torii-gated Shinto shrines in Japan. They are located throughout the countryside and in towns and cities as well. Passers-by may spontaneously pause at these little edifices for prayer and reflection, taking a moment of their busy, modern day. A few of the best known: Ise Jingu Shrine, the most sacred site of Japanese Shintoism, as it enshrines the ancestry of the Japanese Imperial family. It may be said to represent the 'grander' side of things. Shrines to the Imperial family, both old and modern, serve to strengthen the state and its core symbol, the heavenly-descended Emperor.

 Ise Jingu and Yasukuni Jinja shrines, stand as products of the modernizing influence of revolution. Ise Jingu resulted from a Chinese led coup in a seventh-century palace that altered an earlier style of loosely affiliated clan-ship into the more centralized style of the Chinese invader. Yasukuni Jinja was a result of the Meiji Revolution. Built in 1869, its original name was Kyoto Shokonsha. Today it is best known as a memorial to World War II.
Increased contacts with the West  prompted the evolution of Japanese society into a more Westernized military-industrial complex over time. While the result of  the Meiji Revolution was the restoration of the Emperor, he no longer ruled singularly or directly.

 Ise Jingu Shrine, while emphasizing the Imperial ideals within Shintoism, composed of the inner and outer buildings, Naiku and Gekku, focuses upon a remarkable ritual symbolizing the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, from whom the Emperor is traditionally thought to have descent; so it is with great importance of place many Japanese regard this shrine, an essential element of beauty. Curiously, both Naiku and Gekku portions of the Shrine are completely taken apart every 20 years, then identically rebuilt on adjacent sites. This has been going on for almost 1,500 years; it will again  occur in 2013.

Author Motohisa Yamakage writes in The Essence of Shinto, "the union of the sacred and the mundane is a distinctive feature of Shinto... Shinto is found in our relationship and interdependence with Kami... Shinto is the path with which we seek to realize ourselves fully as human beings by acquiring the noble characteristics of Kami... but we must first become attuned to Kami... the essence of Shinto..."

He writes further that in the modern, consumer world values such as the intangibles of spirit, selflessness and sacrifice are increasingly lacking. He makes reference primarily to the 'invisible' world, the world that may be felt but not seen. Many disregard, or actively disbelieve what they cannot see before them. Simply put, as a point of reference: can we believe in the winds that bring rain, though we do not see them? We may only feel the wind. So what is wind? What is Shinto or Kami? Yamakage challenges his reader to find the unseen, the Spirit in the modern world today. He writes of a lack, a hunger to reconnect with these spiritual values within a living, breathing Shintoism.

Nature as Written

"More servants wait on man than he'll take notice of." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many over the eons have conceived of, and written of a conception of nature, herself. however in 1848 the american thinker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, engaged himself in the "Free Soilers" movement with other contemporaries such as the future president, Abraham Lincoln and emerged with a notion of Nature. He writes of it in his book, Nature, in 1936. Nature expressed Emerson's theories that the imagination of man is shaped by nature herself, most plainly and most clearly.

Quickly he emerged as a central figure in the nascent American transcendentalist movement.Emerson wrote of Nature that:

"To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches...The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood... The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right."