Water
A Brahman named Sangarava bathed every morning and evening in the river so that he could be cleansed from whatever sin he might have committed during the day.To him, the Buddha said, "If bathing could purify one from sins, then all the frogs, turtles, and crocodiles would be free from sin! The real lake is the lake of goodness, with grace as its shore for bathing. Clear and undefiled, it soothes all who immerse themselves. Plunge into the waters of goodness and learn to swim."-Samyutta Nikaya
From "Buddha Speaks," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000.
For though you wash yourself with snow water, and take you much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me, says the Lord God.
+Jeremiah God-Seer
If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean, yet you shall plunge me in the ditch, and my clothes shall abhor me.
+Job God-Seer
You desire to be baptized by me. And you shall taste of my baptism. And you shall drink of my cup. -- The same cup and baptism that he prays to pass by, if possible.
+Lord Jesus
The like figure, even baptism - compared to Noah, the flood and the deliverance of his family and most other species saved by the waters’ flood, raising them out of it’s destruction and raining the same upon the rest, baptism does also, now, save us; not by the putting away of the filth of the flesh; rather the answer of a good conscience towards God.
+Saint Peter
Let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance...of the teaching of baptisms....Leaving the first principles.
+Saint Paul writer to the Hebrews
Consider: Water has and is of supreme importance to all the species and creature life of this Earth and the whole of the Universe. From the beginning our genesis came out of the first creation’s Earth, where the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Even here there were the first waters, the expanse of the firmament, or water, over, beneath and within the Earth. It is not for nothing that our bodies are eighty to ninety plus percent, depending upon who you listen to, water. For seven to ten thousand years of ‘recorded’ history the religions of the world have revered the place of water in our genesis and our perpetual being. All birth comes forth from the deluge of water from within the womb of life bearing. In both the East and West all peoples celebrated the waters of being by, at least, an annual feast day in behalf of their essence to our being, and to all things living. It is only after the Protestant Reformation, in the sixteenth century, in the West, that this reference for our first created womb is left in the dust. Even most of them, still, baptize, with varying amounts of water, their communicants, or potential ones, in water, as, in varying understandings, each are found to be given a ‘new birth’ into a ‘new community’. All Traditions celebrate a ritual of ‘The Blessing of the Waters‘, save for most of the Protestant groups, as well as those that claim their own autonomy by way of varying forms of Atheism, overt and otherwise, with, no doubt a few exceptions, from the whole of the Earth that we were formed. Water does not make our character. Water only gives us the opportunity to have character. Like being the Image Bearer of the Divine, the Image is only beheld if the likeness of truth and light grows into what and who the Bearer is, even as any genesis has its progenitor. Water is both an Icon of our Being and, like the Spirit, the connector, what gives us our collective consciousness, or being. Yes, water is the icon. If we remain in the icon, we may be tempted to slowly become comfortable until the icon smothers our life’s breath, ironically, also water, the expanse of the firmament in the atmospheric giving. Truth and purity never requests one to be static or stagnant. Purification from disconnectedness from our neighbor, especially those that hate us, and from the One that gives all our genesis, and from our truest self, this is the prototype of the baptisms, or birth of all, birth towards more.
And what, monks, is Right Thought? The thought of renunciation, the thought of non-ill-will, the thought of harmlessness. This, monks, is called Right Thought.-Digha Nikaya
'If there is to be any peace it will come through being not having.' + Henry Miller 'Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.' + Martin
A Brahman named Sangarava bathed every morning and evening in the river so that he could be cleansed from whatever sin he might have committed during the day.To him, the Buddha said, "If bathing could purify one from sins, then all the frogs, turtles, and crocodiles would be free from sin! The real lake is the lake of goodness, with grace as its shore for bathing. Clear and undefiled, it soothes all who immerse themselves. Plunge into the waters of goodness and learn to swim."-Samyutta Nikaya
From "Buddha Speaks," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000.
For though you wash yourself with snow water, and take you much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me, says the Lord God.
+Jeremiah God-Seer
If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean, yet you shall plunge me in the ditch, and my clothes shall abhor me.
+Job God-Seer
You desire to be baptized by me. And you shall taste of my baptism. And you shall drink of my cup. -- The same cup and baptism that he prays to pass by, if possible.
+Lord Jesus
The like figure, even baptism - compared to Noah, the flood and the deliverance of his family and most other species saved by the waters’ flood, raising them out of it’s destruction and raining the same upon the rest, baptism does also, now, save us; not by the putting away of the filth of the flesh; rather the answer of a good conscience towards God.
+Saint Peter
Let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance...of the teaching of baptisms....Leaving the first principles.
+Saint Paul writer to the Hebrews
Consider: Water has and is of supreme importance to all the species and creature life of this Earth and the whole of the Universe. From the beginning our genesis came out of the first creation’s Earth, where the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Even here there were the first waters, the expanse of the firmament, or water, over, beneath and within the Earth. It is not for nothing that our bodies are eighty to ninety plus percent, depending upon who you listen to, water. For seven to ten thousand years of ‘recorded’ history the religions of the world have revered the place of water in our genesis and our perpetual being. All birth comes forth from the deluge of water from within the womb of life bearing. In both the East and West all peoples celebrated the waters of being by, at least, an annual feast day in behalf of their essence to our being, and to all things living. It is only after the Protestant Reformation, in the sixteenth century, in the West, that this reference for our first created womb is left in the dust. Even most of them, still, baptize, with varying amounts of water, their communicants, or potential ones, in water, as, in varying understandings, each are found to be given a ‘new birth’ into a ‘new community’. All Traditions celebrate a ritual of ‘The Blessing of the Waters‘, save for most of the Protestant groups, as well as those that claim their own autonomy by way of varying forms of Atheism, overt and otherwise, with, no doubt a few exceptions, from the whole of the Earth that we were formed. Water does not make our character. Water only gives us the opportunity to have character. Like being the Image Bearer of the Divine, the Image is only beheld if the likeness of truth and light grows into what and who the Bearer is, even as any genesis has its progenitor. Water is both an Icon of our Being and, like the Spirit, the connector, what gives us our collective consciousness, or being. Yes, water is the icon. If we remain in the icon, we may be tempted to slowly become comfortable until the icon smothers our life’s breath, ironically, also water, the expanse of the firmament in the atmospheric giving. Truth and purity never requests one to be static or stagnant. Purification from disconnectedness from our neighbor, especially those that hate us, and from the One that gives all our genesis, and from our truest self, this is the prototype of the baptisms, or birth of all, birth towards more.
And what, monks, is Right Thought? The thought of renunciation, the thought of non-ill-will, the thought of harmlessness. This, monks, is called Right Thought.-Digha Nikaya
'If there is to be any peace it will come through being not having.' + Henry Miller 'Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.' + Martin
posted by Timothy's at 8:45 PM
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