Forest Poetry

The following passage is quoted from the classic Buddhist text The Dhammapada (translated by Gil Fronsdal):

“One who recites many teachings
But, being negligent, doesn’t act accordingly,
Like a cowherd counting other’s cows,
Doe not attain the benefits of the contemplative life.

One who recites but a few teachings
Yet lives according to the Dharma,
Abandoning passion, ill will, and delusion,
Aware and with mind well freed,
Not clinging in this life or the next,
Attains the benefits of the contemplative life.”

This passage highlights an important issue for Traditionalists: the balance of contemplation and activity. We are excited by explorations of traditional wisdom, as we should be, given that this wisdom is the greatest human possession, a boon from the divine that can show us the best way to live; but we must not forget to simply live. In the worst circumstances we can become too attached to the academic search for wisdom and neglect the implementation of wisdom in our lives. If one feels regret or is distressed that one will never master the terminology and symbolism of every traditional doctrine, or that studying these doctrines in their original languages would take a lifetime of work, one must carefully examine one’s deepest motivations for study and see if they are pure. Buddhism stresses this point by stories of lowly figures such as washerwomen attaining enlightenment without ever studying the scriptures. The Christian tradition also features unlearned mystics who received the gift of grace. Academic learning is not essential to living a healthy spiritual life.

That is not to say, of course, that we are anti-intellectual. In traditional societies there are individuals whose sole duty is to engage in intellectual study of sacred doctrines, preserving the proper understanding of revelation for the entire community. But in the West, traditional civilization has long since disappeared, and those of us who wish to restore Tradition must understand that we cannot approach life as if we were members of a learned class whose sole occupation is to engage in intellectual activity. Proper intellectual activity is key, and without it no restoration can take place, but when traditional civilization collapsed, all of the traditional societal functions disappeared, not just the intellectual function. For the time being, we must be more versatile, and integrate the wisdom that we have into lives more or less within the mainstream of society as examples for change.

“This method of spiritual recognition has two inescapable and mutually inclusive sides: on one hand ethics as a guide for behavior for the external, material world, and on the other hand a contemplative exercise for inward, spiritual experience. In order to know the Divine, beyond all the acknowledged metaphysical theory, both these interdependent and indivisible aspects must be present within a given religion.¹

What exactly is this contemplative praxis? Very simple: Prayer.”

Read the full article here.

In countless myths from all traditional cultures of the world, strong, fair heroes do battle with vile and deformed beasts. Sometimes the heroes are remarkable mortals, sometimes the gods themselves, the villains also varying in power. These tales have endured in popularity, even to the modern day, although their true meaning is no longer widely understood. It is often assumed that these tales serve to show the triumph of good over evil and to serve as an inspiration to act in a similar manner. While this is an accurate interpretation, it is not the most profound level of understanding, and one must not neglect the metaphysical significance, the meaning of the tales that can be applied to internal spiritual realization.

The characters in these myths represent the eternal metaphysical principles that govern the world and the life of man. The “battle” that takes places represents the struggle in manifested things that exist suspended between the beauty and order of the divine and the shadow existence of matter. These things can either hold fast to the divine and thereby stabilize their existence (that is, the heroes can be triumphant), or they can veer towards matter and dissolution (that is, the villains can be triumphant). The Greek philosopher Proclus describes it thus, referencing the myth of Athena doing battle with the giants:

“The true warfare with the giants takes place in souls: whenever reason and intellect rule in them, the goods of the Olympians and Athena prevail, and the entire life is kingly and philosophical; but whenever the passions reign, or in general the worse and earth-born elements, then the constitution within them is tyranny.” ¹

Many of those who deplore modernity lament that the glorious struggles of past legends are absent from a world that has been reduced by technology and quantitative valuations, and they long for an age when a man can exert all of his energies in a struggle for the good. While such external conditions are indeed desirable, a yearning for such an external struggle must not obscure the true battle. If the true battle is in our souls, then good men must be more fervent in this battle; they must crave victory and sacrifice in this struggle just as assiduously as they would with swords in their hands. Unlike the physical battle, this inner battle does not end, at least not for any but the most advanced spiritual masters. Consider, then, how hard you would fight and strain when facing enemies on the field, and make that thought present in your mind when the worse elements within yourself begin to assert themselves.

¹Proclus. Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s “Parmenides” Trans. Glenn R. Morrow and John M. Dillon. New York: Princeton UP, 1992. Print, 71.

Roughly three months ago, Jon Meacham published an article for NEWSWEEK titled The End of Christian America. In this article, the author mentions that “the rising numbers of religiously unaffiliated Americans are people more apt to call themselves ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘religious.’ (In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, 30 percent describe themselves this way, up from 24 percent in 2005.)” […]

What this means for Christians today is that we won’t be saved by simply fulfilling self-imposed obligations of praying, reading the Bible, etc. However, we do have to maintain behavioral standards for spiritual living, and these disciplines will involve structure and order to some extent.

-Link

The moment that a man communicates his spiritual emotions to another man, religion takes shape, because from this communication, a dialectic springs forth, and association occurs. Through the success of these ideas, or Revelations, Religion becomes the inescapable connection between the human group and the Divine.

Reading the article in this light, we notice the loss of contact from people towards this connection, to place themselves exclusively in the grounds of spiritual individuality. Why does this happen? A diversity of cultures living together and having a common territory produces a system which has to sustain them economically based on a democratic and secular ambience independent of their beliefs, creating space for an elective form of spirituality for the individual. However, this form of spirituality is often lacking.

We know that the mystic experience takes the form of the subjective , but its action framework doesn’t end there. It tends to be communicated, compared, and transmitted simply due to the love for Truth. Beyond seeing religious precepts as norms, religion brings behavioral standards to aid in a successful life in the community.

What does a man or woman gain by entering into traditional religion?

-Knowledge, peculiar to the communicative nature of religious association.

-Familiar integration in religious activities.

An individual of spiritual wealth can only benefit from traditional religion, acquiring associative capabilities and an opportunity to share knowledge.

En Español

As explained in our article “The Problem of Technology”, humanity has lost many things through its obsession with mechanistic advancement. Here are some things we stand to win by using technology in a responsible manner, or not using it at all.

Community: While communications technology connects us to ever more distant people, it disconnects us from our more immediate environments, leading to isolation and social ineptitude. With the time you gain back by not using communications to interact with or read about distant people who are most likely inconsequential, focus on developing relationships with your family, friends, church, and township.

-Join a cultural group (choruses, historical societies, environmental initiatives, book clubs, newspapers, churches etc.) in your community and help it to flourish.
-Take a role in town politics.
-Pick and maintain close friends.
-Teach your children a useful skill, like fishing.
-Take time off with your spouse.

Environment: Much how communications technology has attached us to people with whom we have no spiritual or pragmatic relationship, it has also attached us to lands that are foreign to our own, warping our sense of cultural and geographical identity, as well as robbing us of skill sets that can only be gained through a close relationship with wilderness. Skip the irrelevance associated with being a “citizen of the world” by foregoing overexposure to international media, and instead become a citizen of your backyard and the land and streets surrounding it.

-Work and play near your place of residence, and spend time becoming accustomed to the outdoors through cycling, hiking, hunting, or the like.
-Know what crops grow well in your region, and learn how to cultivate, prepare, and store them.
-Know the game and edible wild plants of your region, well enough to be able to survive off the land alone if you had too.
-Know the streets and trails in your community well enough to give accurate directions to any thinking passerby.
-Know the history of the land you live on, why it’s important, and teach this to others.

Mental: Technological advancement has provided access to an exponentially increasing pool of data in the form of electronic media, but overexposure to this hollow information can desensitize and preoccupy us, robbing our minds of mental quietude. With the mental space that you gain by ignoring excess media like television, spend time devoting yourself to a task that exercises and improves your brain, rather than filling it with useless “facts”.

-Pray regularly.
-Take on creative projects, such as building a table for your house, or writing poetry.
-Develop new skill sets, and improve old ones. Focus on your weak areas, and learn by doing rather than reading.

It should be stated that while it is nice to think that self control alone can accomplish these goals, for many of us this is unrealistic. Do not be afraid to throw away the television, break a CD in half, unplug the computer, or even cancel your subscription to national newspapers if the temptation proves too great.

All this comes with the added benefits of money saved and time reclaimed. Plus you will have a renewed sense of self confidence at your ability to ignore modern trends, and instead forge a better path.

Additionally, while disconnecting from modernity and re-connecting with the immanent is indeed a spiritual mandate, and will reflect and augment our spiritual health, it can never replace an actual connection to spirituality in itself. We should never use activity as a surrogate for philosophical understanding, and perhaps most importantly we should not mistake one for the other.

The obvious irony of all this is that you are reading these words thanks to some form of electronic technology, and we are writing them with the assistance of that technology. As explained before(“The Problem of Technology”), this can only be rationalized as being a temporary, necessary evil, whose consequences are far less severe than the alternative. In any case, these words are written with the intent and hope that once their meaning is fully comprehended and internalized by all, then we will no longer desire the machines on which they were written.