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Jesus: “Don’t write this down!”
DISCIPLE: “Why, I’m writing down your teachings, oh Lord.”
JESUS: “Why on earth would you be doing that?”
DISCIPLE: “So that I don’t forget them, Master. And so that I may share them with my brothers in far off lands.”
JESUS: “What the hell? I never told you to do that. You should be listening, not writing things down. This is for you, not for some bozo who lives a thousand miles or a thousand years away from here.”
DISCIPLE: “But, but…”
JESUS: “No buts! Shut up and listen - I’m serious! This is intended for you, for right now - only!”
There was a point I reached in high school where I stopped taking notes during class. Teachers would get mad at me, saying that I wasn’t going to remember anything if I didn’t write down what they were saying. But I proved them wrong again and again, much to the consternation of my classmates who would furiously jot down incomprehensible notes as I sat at an empty desk with my hands folded in front of me. I realized at some point that I could engage more fully with the subject matter when I allowed myself to be fully present, rather than trying to act like some kind of historical scribe, translating between this moment and some imagined moment in the future.
And so I’ve been wondering a lot lately: did Jesus really mean for us to right down what he was teaching?
In untangling that question, I’m not interested in getting into conversations about whether or not he was “real,” because frankly that subject bores the piss out of me (especially since my definition of “real” is rather inclusive). I’m interested instead of elaborating on a subject I brought up in my third podcast: the idea that religions evolve as a cultural adaptation to a very specific set of circumstances - that is, they fill a niche within an ecosystem.
If there’s any truth to thinking about religions and ideologies in this way, then we may be able to begin to ask a lot of questions about the importance of the moment. Do our beliefs enable us to exist within and engage the moment more fully, or do they serve to distract us, forcing us to look forward to some imagined point in the future? Or even worse, do our beliefs actually reflect and enable us to adapt to a set of circumstances which no longer even exist? (To go back to our ecological metaphor - are our beliefs an exotic species which has been transplanted out of its natural habitat?)
What if Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament weren’t actually intended for us? What if they were exclusively tailored to the people sitting at his feet as he spoke or travelling with him on the road as he went from town to town healing? A major part of Jesus’ ministry which few people recognize was that he went around physically touching people in order to heal them of their infirmities. Though churches utilize absurdities such as Apostolic Succession to say they have a direct line of sight to the actual physical touch of Jesus himself, what if Jesus’ hands were more important than Jesus’ words?
What’s more important to you in your interactions with people you love: their physical presence or their ideas? What makes you who you are: the thoughts you have and the words you say or the actions you take within the world? Certainly there is no separating the two, and no simple answer. But I think it’s an important thing to ponder in a serious way.
And more on this tomorrow, after I have pondered it all a bit longer…
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Are you starting to feel that spending so much time on the internet, discussing ideas and beliefs and philosophies, is cutting into the actual experience of things? I’m asking because I’ve been feeling this way…and certain elements of your past few posts have touched on this. (for me, anyway.) I’m feeling like we can read and talk and write all we want, but until it’s experience “in the flesh”, maybe not actually involving the flesh, but just not through constant reading and research) it’s just planning. Or signals that are only half-received.
I’m not sure that’s very well thought-out on my part, but that’s just a gut-reaction. Nothing new or mind blowing, I know…but I guess I’m finally starting to get to that “do or die point” where experience really IS what it’s about. I think that “do or die point” is the point where you just know that there’s no way that reading about anything, no matter what it is or who it was written by, will capture you enough to feel like you’re getting anything out of it that you couldn’t get in a more direct way via actually doing it. doing it and not thinking about it.
example: art. I can’t bring myself to do art anymore that requires photographic reference, emphasis on specific materials or methods being the “right” ones to use and “making the picture look like fill-in-the-blank”. I couldn’t care less and I haven’t for the past 3 years. It’s been the best time in my life, in all honesty.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:26 pm
there’s always that tnesion between the place in time and the urge towards universality.
you could make acase that jesus was trying to open up the deep teachings of judaism to a larger audience, and in the case of the buddha, the teachings of hinduism to a non-hindu audience.
and these days there seems to be move to lift the core messsage of all these things out of their limited cultural contexts into a more world centric framework.
but at the end of the day, the shoe made for you fits better than the one off the shelf. and you’re right, even the buddha refused to let people write his stuff down. he even refused to have brahmins translate it into another language for spoken repitition by the priestly caste. make of that what you will.
the point seems to be that if the seed a teacher plants is alive, it will grow in new soil. that’s he real meaning of transmission. new seeds, new plants, new gardens in new places. not a masouleum built around what used to be a garden.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Wait, are you suggesting that Jesus might have been sent only to the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 15:24)? Blasphemy!
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:25 pm
there ia a spot in the brain that remembers annoying commercials and girlfriends faces and other thigs, whether you want to or not, so why not have faith in the process when learning? i tell people this in seminars. no notes please…….give your brain a chance to do what it`s good at.
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:46 pm
It’s known that many of the Sufi schools were set up for specific groups of people in particular times and places and then designed to end completely. Interestingly one of such groups, the Mehlevi Sufi, have lasted hundreds of years after their ‘termination date’ and are perhaps the best known Sufis - the so-called Whirling Dervishes. But according to Rumi’s (alleged) original intentions, the true teaching is long lost from them.
I do not doubt the possibility that Jesus (if he existed at all and isn’t just a folk-figure) would have only intended his teaching for his own immediate outreach. Or that tohch was as vital a medium of transmission, if not more so, than his words.
October 23rd, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Are we all manifestations of creative consciousness?
I love people who are meditative, who do not need to live in a world of concepts or at least are aware of the concepts. People constantly dying to their past and not preoccupied about the future.
That is why simplicity is so important you are not going to enjoy a walk in the park or a cup of tea when your mind is preoccupied with a million thoughs petty or profo nd. When your being is truly in the present, your eyes shine, you give off positive energy, not conceptually but actually.
October 23rd, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Also in a meditative state the mind is not preoccupied with beliefs….
Ancestor Lu
“quietly disapearing into the mountains, stilling his breath and plunging into profound silence, not seeing or hearing anything, he caused his mind to be entirely free of emotion, vastly expanded, open and empty. Yet when one has reached this stage, it is still necessary to go into the ordinary world with all its clamor and toil, experience all kinds of situations, observe all sorts of phenomena, and become familiar with people…You can roam playfully, going in and out of the world without becoming influenced or attached.”
Wen-Tzu
There is something, an undifferentiated whole, that was born before heaven and earth. It has only abstract images, no concrete form. It is deep, dark, silent, undefined, we do not hear its voice…I call it the Way.
The Way is infinitely high, unfathomably deep”
The Tao is formless yet everything takes form because of the Tao. Taoist texts translated by Thomas Cleary.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Oh shoot, I didn’t know that!
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Great way of putting it!
October 24th, 2006 at 1:24 am
It kind of begs the question to ask what a mythical person intended with teachings made up by others….
October 24th, 2006 at 2:10 am
I’ve wondered lately (mostly thanks to the podcasts at Alchemically Braindamaged) if one of the things about having a teacher isn’t necessarily that the verbal teachings are different from what you can read but rather that they have a certain energy they passively exert onto you. It’s sort of like something within you is inactive until it connects with a catalyst that brings it out and the teacher acts as that catalyst.
October 24th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Of course there’s a simple answer:
You are here.
Identity is circumstancial. If you want to know who you are, take a look around. Everything you experience from your particular perspective is you.
Nice quotes, Gnomoly.
October 24th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Everything about Jesus bores the piss out of me. That’s why he ain’t around no more. At least, not around here. But that’s just me.
October 24th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
That’s completely fair. I, however, find it boring that other people are bored by it! So round and round we go! Our only way out is to stop being bored and cynical about everything, I think.
October 25th, 2006 at 12:02 am
You were bored first:
Now I could say something about eyes, splinters and beams, but that would be bloody boring, wouldn’t it?
Being schizophrenic (or so they tell me), I find profound subtext in apparently simple statements. I was looking at a mall directory and it said, “You are here.” I looked around at what ‘here’ was and thought, “Shit, I’m a fucking mall.” Hence the idea that identity is circumstancial. Chuck Palahniuk explores the same theme in his earlier novels (for the same reason if I’m guessing correctly).
So when I write, I usually aim for maximum subtext in minimum text. Each word is chosen carefully. I guess most people don’t take the same care when reading because most of what I say goes unnoticed.
Sigh. Ok let’s go the long way…
Identity is circumstantial. Thoughts and beliefs and actions and whatever else are nothing but scenery. If I wanted to identify with Jesus, I’d find myself in church. Or read the bible or hang a crucifix on my wall or whatever. Jesus would be all around me and very much real.
But fuck all that. Jesus is right up there with The Matrix and 911 on the bore-o-meter. So I look around and Jesus ain’t here, because that story ain’t me, and that’s just the way I like it. It’s not cynicism, it’s a matter of taste.
Everything you see is a projection of yourself upon another aspect of yourself. That’s where “Be the change you want to see in the world” comes from. Corollary: We make the world in our own image.
You are here. If Jesus ain’t, it’s only because you ain’t Jesus. Dig? That’s all I was trying to say.
Jesus, the short version was better. Now I’ve gone and bored myself.
October 25th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Ha ha. It could be just the opposite, and Jesus may have been a raving publicity hound.
Like our ex-presidents , totaly hung up on his ,,, legacy.
That is more likely I think.
If it is true that he thought he was the son of god and so forth, this would lend to that interpretation, more than the other. He obviously had a big ego.
He may have been constantly hassling the disciples to write or memorize everything he said .
He may have even yelled at them about it.
Judas,
get your ass over here, and make damn sure you listen to me this time.
The rest of you , pay attention , because this part is going to be very important, when they try to figure out this story in the future. Now listen up. ~!~!~!