2. Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]"
"Seek and ye shall find." fair enough. Pretty standard. But what does it mean that you will be disturbed once you find? I guess it could mean that once on the path of spirituality, you can start to lose your faith. On the other hand, it might mean that once you find the spirituality, that it will be so contrary to your experience, that it will disturb you. (In the Diamond Cutter Sutra, Buddha says at one point that if he were to truly describe the body of merit achieved by a certain act, that it would "bewilder or disturb men's minds.") In this vein, as I was praying one time, I got a powerful, spontaneous image of Medicine Buddha. I was pretty shocked. Finally, "reigning over all" doesn't sound like a very attractive or spiritual goal.
Disturbance arises directly from knowldge. The more powerful the knowledge, the more on is disturbed. I don't see why "reign over all" needs to be taken literally. You could read it to mean reigning over ones desires or subjective experience, etc.
And then...rest...
Probably the most straigtforward way to interpret this is that it is continuing to promise mystical rewards (secret knowledge, power, ease) to the followers of the teaching.
2 comments:
"Seek and ye shall find." fair enough. Pretty standard. But what does it mean that you will be disturbed once you find? I guess it could mean that once on the path of spirituality, you can start to lose your faith. On the other hand, it might mean that once you find the spirituality, that it will be so contrary to your experience, that it will disturb you. (In the Diamond Cutter Sutra, Buddha says at one point that if he were to truly describe the body of merit achieved by a certain act, that it would "bewilder or disturb men's minds.") In this vein, as I was praying one time, I got a powerful, spontaneous image of Medicine Buddha. I was pretty shocked.
Finally, "reigning over all" doesn't sound like a very attractive or spiritual goal.
Disturbance arises directly from knowldge. The more powerful the knowledge, the more on is disturbed. I don't see why "reign over all" needs to be taken literally. You could read it to mean reigning over ones desires or subjective experience, etc.
And then...rest...
Probably the most straigtforward way to interpret this is that it is continuing to promise mystical rewards (secret knowledge, power, ease) to the followers of the teaching.
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