From The Natural Contemplative:
I love the root of the word "Profound" ... it could be said to mean "before the bottom" - I can imagine it as, "lets get to the bottom of this" - or - "the ground of all being" perhaps-- there seems to be several ways in which this etym can infuse the metaphor...
so, I loved that John's metaphor of watching and learning the way of whales, as capturing the essence of meditation, fits in so nicely with this image of diving into the ocean and exploring all of what is there "before the bottom" - this has always been the way Ive enjoyed the root of the word Profound- as a "diving in"... there is an ocean of life here to be lived, and we may never get to the bottom of it- but its clearly the dive itself, where the true meditation lies...
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and too, I found this a perfect thing to share for a delightful thread at Blisschick's (Help Answer a Reader's Question!) - you must check this out too!
Watching Whales, Watching Ourselves
Meditation isn't really worth anything unless it exhausts all of our strategies and concepts and opinions and plans and ideas about who we are and what the world is, and leaves us with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Leaves us with nothing at all to grab onto, no safety net, no life raft, no "self." Nothing but this moment in its marvelous, incomprehensible actuality.
I love the root of the word "Profound" ... it could be said to mean "before the bottom" - I can imagine it as, "lets get to the bottom of this" - or - "the ground of all being" perhaps-- there seems to be several ways in which this etym can infuse the metaphor...
so, I loved that John's metaphor of watching and learning the way of whales, as capturing the essence of meditation, fits in so nicely with this image of diving into the ocean and exploring all of what is there "before the bottom" - this has always been the way Ive enjoyed the root of the word Profound- as a "diving in"... there is an ocean of life here to be lived, and we may never get to the bottom of it- but its clearly the dive itself, where the true meditation lies...
______________________
and too, I found this a perfect thing to share for a delightful thread at Blisschick's (Help Answer a Reader's Question!) - you must check this out too!
2 comments:
Tom, thanks for stopping by and commenting on blisschick -- and thanks for the mention.
And one more thanks (can there ever be too many?!) for the link to the whale watching post. Excellent stuff. :)
it is ALWAYS a pleasure to stop by your pages Christine, thank YOU!
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