stories

     After reading some doaist stories, I started to chuckle about the over-the-top fanstasical details and characters. I thought, "How can I take this serious!? What a bunch of supertition and hookem."
   In my mormon upbringing, we take our stories very seriously.  Not only do we hear the details and morals of the stories, we hear how the people really existed and it happened exactly it is printed.   This has been difficult for me lately.
    Then it hit me: what did I learn form the story.  It doesn't the quirky characters, the writer's personal/cultural bias, the history, etc. are not the purpose of the story.  Imagine if we couldn't discuss the parrable of the 3 vinigar tasters, because we couldn't agree on the historical facts.  Crazy, right?
   So I guess I'll need to read the Chronicle of the Tao and such again and ask search not for what happened but what is the writer trying to teach me and accept the power of just stories.

Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith

I have been really affected and grateful for these thoughts.  My favorite:
“In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements. The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people. But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh?”
~Pope Francis, taking aim at ideologically obsessed Christians, October 2013
This I can do!  This i strive for. In this, I can have hope.

The whole list:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/12/11/pope-francis-quotes/

Whom do I follow? The little Child within

My message I can teach:
Inside of us, we each have a true spark or core of the divine eternal, listen deeply and dare to follow.

Don't feel compelled to follow tradition, important or holy people, people we love, Budda, or a book.  If your true core leads you there, that's cool and like a great teacher they can help you grow and develop. However, that true core has only loyalty to the eternal and may lead you away from those traditions, people, or books as it is said
"The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."
     

Buddha and Christ's Grace

If you meet the Buddha, kill him. (逢佛殺佛，逢祖殺祖). —Linj

The buddha is not a person is it a way or a way of living/being.  I think Grace could be substituted. 

If you think you understand the Lord's grace, you need to destroy that image.  Jesus' grace is boundless and can't be set my your definitions.  Destroy that specific idea and embrace more, for the buddha and the Lord's grace would alway is more.

Being in and reflecting on the moment.

... It's very sterile and very misleading to hear about battles only from people who either have already won or at least have already experienced the stability of intermediate victories. It presents a false sense of how hard those battles are. It understates the perilous sense of being in the middle of them. It understates how scary they are. Compare the feeling of listening to a 911 call from inside someone's house while they're afraid a burglar is inside to the feeling of hearing them tell you a week later what it was like that one time they were afraid there was a burglar in the house. The second will give you their reflective version of what happened; the first will give you their out-of-breath panic.


http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/10/29/241585887/present-tense-allie-brosh-donald-glover-and-hurting-right-now?utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook

atheist's version of The Ten Commandments

I thought these were flexible for all of us. :)

Penn Jillette's atheist's version of The Ten Commandments.

Here's his list:

1. The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.

2. Do not put things or even ideas above other human beings. (Let's scream at each other about Kindle versus iPad, solar versus nuclear, Republican versus Libertarian- but when your house is on fire, I'll be there to help.)

3. Say what you mean, even when talking to yourself. (What used to be an oath to (G)od is now quite simply respecting yourself.)

4. Put aside some time to rest and think. (If you're religious, that might be the Sabbath; if you're a Vegas magician, that'll be the day with the lowest grosses.)

5. Be there for your family. Love your parents, your partner, and your children. (Love is deeper than honor, and parents matter, but so do spouse and children.)

6. Respect and protect all human life. (Many believe that "Thou shalt not kill" only refers to people in the same tribe. I say it's all human life.)

7. Keep your promises. (If you can't be sexually exclusive to your spouse, don't make that deal.)

8. Don't steal. (This includes magic tricks and jokes — you know who you are!)

9. Don't lie. (You know, unless you're doing magic tricks and it's part of your job. Does that make it OK for politicians, too?)


10. Don't waste too much time wishing, hoping, and being envious; it'll make you bugnutty.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-10-28/penn-jillette-ten-commandments/50978982/1

Doubts are not signs of apostasy, and they should not be suppressed

Doubts are not signs of apostasy, and they should not be suppressed. Where they exist in good faith and sincere intent, they are simply an intellectual manifestation of a curiosity or concern, and as such should be addressed and investigated. Givens wrote:

I know I am grateful for a propensity to doubt because it gives me the capacity to freely believe. I hope you can find your way to feel the same. The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and which we have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing to be true. There must be grounds for doubt as well as belief in order to render the choice more truly a choice, and therefore more deliberate and laden with more personal vulnerability and investment. An overwhelming preponderance of evidence on either side would make our choice as meaningless as would a loaded gun pointed at our heads.

http://www.connorboyack.com/blog/doubting-your-doubts-before-doubting-your-faith#more-3222