Numinous, luminous

Love has no properties, nothing to validate a story, swear allegiance to or believe in. The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes it as “the luminous splendour of the colourless light of Emptiness.

Edifice complex

Most men fear not knowing. To settle themselves, they develop beliefs. When these are codified, churches erupt. The builders install gargoyles in the upper reaches to remind themselves of why they built them. (If there were no God, would men build churches anyway?)

Cats

Where is the necessity for belief? Nothing in the natural world believes anything. (This is especially true of cats.) Beliefs fill the breach that is created when questions arise that cannot be answered.

Death and dying

Death is the falling away of everything we don’t need—our traditions, beliefs, habits, hopes, memories, worries, fears, resentments, five-year plans, medications, opinions, cultural associations, club memberships, loyalties, animosities, calculations, the voice in the head that interprets, judges, discriminates, rejects, invites and analyzes.

This falling away is already happening—as I write this, as you read it.

The bifurcated mind

Life swings between pain and pleasure. Everything is orderly, stable, secure, and then it’s not. Wanting and fearing establish themselves. We remember happiness. We run after it. We remember pain. We run away from it. Beliefs, assertions, opinions and much religious activity are products of this bifurcated mind.

Babies don’t have this mind. Neither do dogs. Well, some dogs do—the ones whose leash is held by an axe-split human.