the space of the between

painting by hadas

god is not an entity in the heavens or on earth, not above nor below, not within nor without, not in the soul or in the flesh, not transcendent or immanent, not hidden or revealed, not material nor spiritual. god is the between of an i and a thou. 

when one says 'thou', one becomes a 'thou'. conversely, when one says 'it', one becomes an 'it'. there is no i that is separate from either one of the two pairs, i-thou, or i-it. "i" by itself, does not exist. the i of the i-it is the "ego". the i of the i-thou is the "self". 


we can say thou to man and to all other beings, sentient and insentient. when we say "it" to man and all other beings, we are cancelling out the possibility of the presence of god, as god cannot be in us unless she/he is between us. when we say "thou" we are saying thou to god, as the lines of relationship, in buber's words, intersect in the eternal thou.


when one says thou, one opens the window to hear thou back. when one hears thou back, the i-thou encounter becomes the space of the 'between'. the space of the between is where him/her which is eternally a thou, emerges into being. 

saying thou is nothing other than our steadfast refusal to say "it". or in other words: saying thou is the transformation of the social and economic institutions that build and sustain "it". or in yet another word: god is an ethical project.

when there is no reciprocity to one's thou saying, the act of saying thou, by itself, is the deed of addressing him/her who is eternally a thou. in other words, thou saying is its own reciprocity.

martin buber said: “god is not only found in people, god is found between people..when you and i are truly aware of each other, god fills the space between us so that we are connected. both love and true friendship are more than a way of knowing that we matter to someone else. they are a way of mattering to the world, bringing god into a world that would otherwise be a vale of selfishness and loneliness.” 


some things we miss by letting them go. others by holding on to them. enlightenment is to know which is which. but in the space of the between there is neither holding on, nor letting go. 

a few preliminary sketches on the principles of religious anarchism

the basic "theology" of religious anarchism is founded on the understanding that god emerges into existence as the between of an i-thou dialogue. the god of dialogue is the god from dialogue. god is not an entity in the heavens or on earth, not above nor below, not within nor without, not in the soul or in the flesh, not transcendent or immanent, not hidden or revealed, not material nor spiritual. god is the between of an i and a thou. 


religious anarchism is the spirituality of the realm of the social. social spirituality argues that the presence of god in us manifests itself as the presence of god between us. at the center of the religious anarchist faith stands the practice of i-thou dialogue with god and all beings. there is no relationship with god that is separate or apart from the relationship with the world. we find the presence of god in the relationship with all beings.


it is that dialogical practice that informs the religious anarchist's stance in regards to his approach to god, to the institutions of religion, to his fellow practitioners and to society at large. within the context of religious anarchism it is important to understand that i-thou dialogue does not refer to mystical states of consciousness, nor do they entail manners of relationships outside of the ordinary and concrete lives of the here and now. dialogue, in this context, is a social, economic and political form of organizing society. i refer to this social philosophy as the dialogical organizational principles of society. in the dialogical society, i-thou is nothing other than the resolute determination to refuse to regard god and all other beings as "it". the other is a thou when we relate to him as a non-it. all beings, sentient and insentient can be thous or its. same with god. i am a thou when i say thou to the other, and i am an it when i say it to the other. but an it-god is not a true god, as god, to us, is our eternal thou. 

to summarize religious anarchism, we can say that this philosophy of religion pertains to five different issues:

1. the relationship between a person and the divinity:

religious anarchism rejects institutional coercion and theological authority. what makes this stand specifically religious, is that in the case of the religious anarchist, the rejection of coercion and authority is not limited only to that exercised through the institutional hierarchies of organized religion, it extends to god himself. rather than submission to the will of god, a religious anarchist practices dialogue with god. in the between of a dialogical relationship, one believes with god, not in god. one prays with god not to god. there are no commandments, there is only dialogue. a religious anarchist believes that religion is born through moments of inception. moments of inception are the betweens of personal and communal dialogical encounters with all beings. it is those betweens that constitute the actual being of god. any i-thou encounter with all beings and between all beings, become the moments of inception of the religious life in the presence of god.

2. the relationship between the person and the religious institutions built around the divinity:

moments of inception cannot be institutionalized. they cannot be codified , nor ritualized nor cannonized into a system of theology. therefore the religious anarchist will argue that we cannot establish organized institutions for faith relationships. no churches, no holy books, no clergy and no official theologies or beliefs of any kind. the dialogue is the presence of god, and dialogue cannot be reenacted in the manner of ritual sacraments.

3. the relationship of a person with the community of fellow believers:

a religious anarchist will therefore prefer "havuroth", or base communities, rather than organized churches. havuroth are free base-communities of fellow practitioners devoid of any manner of internal and external authority. no clergy, no temples, no pre-codified worship, no binding theological commitments. in these faith communities there are no pre-set list of canonized forms of worship and all attempts at ortho-doxy and ortho-praxis are dismissed as inimical to the god of dialogue.

4. the relationship between the religious institutions built around the divinity and the divinity itself:

for a religious anarchist, moments of inception are infinite in number and in depth, because so are the manifestations of dialogue in the universe. there are an infinite number of places and times in which one is able to be present in dialogue and create the between from which god emerges as a living presence. therefore no institution can be built to contain within it the truth of the relationship with god. the use of institutional monarchic language in regards to god is considered a fundamental act of rejection of the dialogical relationship and a form of categorical dismissal of the participants who have found each other in the space of the between.

5. the commitment to social transformation that derives from a religious anarchist position:

martin buber wrote that all real life is encounter and at the beginning it was the dialogue. from that foundation, the religious anarchist approaches religion not as a theological system or an ontological proposition concerning the being of god. since dialogue is first philosophy, religion is an ethical project that manifest itself in the pursuit of the transformation of society from a capital-oriented system of "itification" to a libertarian socialist dialogical society.

blaise pascal wrote: "god wishes to move the will rather than the mind. perfect clarity would help the mind and harm the will." in two steps, pascal argues two commonly held notions about the religious life. 1. one must surrender one's own individual will to the will of the transcendent god. 2. humble innocence, or "beginners mind" is required in the path of faith. the religious anarchist's dialogical perspective, will argue otherwise. the will of god emerges in the between of the encounter of an i and a thou. one encounters the thou only with one's whole being, with the mind, the will and the body.

martin buber summed up the concept and practice of the social spirituality of religious anarchism with his genial statement that religion without socialism is like a soul without a body and socialism without god is like a body without a soul. in both cases the being in question is not alive. buber affirmed the essential identity of the spiritual life with the life of dialogue in community. 


the need to integrate a holistic view of the inter-being of man together with the ecological world that lives around and within man, has lead me to conceive of the concept of dialogical ecology. i have called "dialogical ecology" that philosophy which incorporates the social spirituality of martin buber together with religious anarchism and dialogical-mindfulness practices as found within teachings of zen. 

(© Hune Margulies-2000-2012)

moses, jesus and the purpose of religion

is social transformation a consequence of enlightenment, or is enlightenment a consequence of social transformation?

the religion of moses was conceived as a two step process. the first step was moses' fully committed activism in the struggle for radical social transformation. the second was his engagement in the revelation of the torah which was aimed at completing with inner transformation the lives of the people whose social conditions have been previously radically altered. 

moses did not reveal the torah of inner transformation while in captivity in egypt with the hope that enlightenment of the mind and heart would naturally prompt his oppressed people to seek out their outer freedoms. for moses, his understanding of what buddhists call "skillful means" was that social change precedes inner change, and it fully depends on it.  

the practical goal of moses's struggle for freedom was to get the people to that place and time when inner enlightenment could begin to be pursued. mount sinai was the goal of exodus, but the means to get there required the antecedent social transformation of the people. only a free people can pursue enlightenment, and therefore the first step in the process of inner liberation is to achieve outer liberation. 


for moses, one does not become free through enlightenment, one becomes enlightened through freedom. and for that reason, once freedom from slavery was achieved, the subsequent torah revelation, with all its extraordinary significance, did not become the final step in moses' strategy for salvation. once the torah has been revealed the next goal is to enter the land where the social and inner promises of the torah must be actualized. it is the circle of life: from freedom to enlightenment to freedom. and we should know that this is what entering a promised land truly means. in the promise land enlightenment and freedom cease to be two separate categories of being, they become one and the same.

ultimately, freedom is of the whole being, mind and body, the individual and the social, and therefore inner and outer freedoms are one and the same and cannot be separated from each other without killing both in the process. in a very real sense, the pursuit of social freedom is, in itself, the pursuit of torah, there is no difference. clearly, the message of moses was that freedom will never be complete if not pursued at both the outer and inner realms of existence. but clearly as well, for moses the pursuit of inner peace begins at the time when the struggle for outer peace begins, and can only be attained only after the social transformation has been achieved. in a very deep sense, we must conclude that the pursuit of inner peace is nothing other than the actual engagement in the struggle for outer peace. 

the pursuit of inner peace is first and foremost a deed one does. it should not be confused with what is sometimes referred to as "altered states of consciousness" nor just with emotional contents one experiences in the heart. the heart of course must be there, and it should and will feel the intensity of the deed, but only if the deed is done. the heart can never lead, nor it can follow, it can only hold your hand and walk together with you. 

jesus focused his attention too on the deeds of peace as deeds of precedence. for jesus, first comes the deed, then inner transformation may follow. turn the other cheek jesus said. the makers of peace are the blessed ones he said. so we need to actualize the reality of peace through a deed, which for jesus meant the pacifist deed of turning the other cheek, his cheek. for jesus peace is a deed we do, and the point is not just to hope for it, or be emotionally committed to it, or engage in heartfelt prayers for it, or expecting one to be emotionally prepared for it beforehand. for jesus one prays with one's cheeks. and doing the deed is the key to heaven as the deed itself is the inner transformation we seek. jesus went to the cross because he chose the deed of turning his other cheek to the oppressors of his people and his land. he cried on the cross perhaps because he was not emotionally ready just yet to suffer and die. but he knew that there is no optimal time to do the deed. jesus knew that his deed must be done here and now, for the sake of attaining his own peace and the peace that he dreamt for, for all beings.

in essence, there is no inner-outer dualistic distinction, as doing is being. the very deed of peace we do, is itself all the inner peace we could ever hope to attain. and it is for that reason that the pursuit of social transformation is the primary function of the religions of moses and jesus. religion is not to help us adapt to the conditions of our lives as it might presently be, or to help us see the circumstances of our lives in a different light. the function moses and jesus conceived for religion was not to adapt but to transform, not to see differently but to make that which we see different. religion is meant to set us free, inner and outer, whole-being redemption

we pursue dialogical relationships as both the means and the end of whole-being transformation. a dialogical relationship is going beyond mere personal kindness towards each other. kindness is essential, as the dalai lama once said that his was the religion of kindness. but i-thou relationships must be placed and implemented within the wider context of the social-economic-political realm of human relationships. it is important to be kind and considerate of others, but it is of little consequence if we, at the same time, acquiesce to live in a social-economic-political system in which the relationships between each-other are manifested in the manner of i-it. it is within the social-economic plane of relationships that we live our lives in community, and it is that realm that needs to be transformed if we are to ever be able to live a dialogical life.

the same principle of social transformation applies to all other religions. the religions of "nothingness" or "emptiness", or unperturbed "clear minds" share a most poignant sense of irrelevance to the lives of those of us who live outside of a monastic context. for those of us living and toiling within the social context of a market economy, "no-self" or "true-nature" are concepts devoid of any existential significance. living within the context of a market economy, not only we cannot "drop body and mind" as dogen called for, we must actually raise, nourish, preserve and strengthen our "egos". this much maligned "ego" is both the method and the purpose of market economies. to the extent that "no-ego" religions continue to press their case, their only path to true relevance is for them to become advocates and organizers for a radical non-market oriented social transformation. this is what martin buber called religious socialism, or buddhadasa bikkhu called dhammic socialism, or father gustavo gutierrez called liberation theology. we must reconstruct religion as social spirituality.

therefore the point of religion is to bring religious concepts and practices back to their most basic concrete manifestations in real life. since real life, as buber wrote, is the encounter between i and thou, it needs to be there, in the realm of human dialogue, where religions must answer their call. if they do not, i have no interest in them. and this is precisely the central point: sunyata is an ethical project, not an ontological one or even a mystical practice. one discards the "it-ego" with all it's negative traits, and releases thereby the "thou-self". since the self is dialogical by nature, then the social transformation will flow naturally. dialogue creates freedom and only within freedom dialogue can exist.

being-in-dialogue

the concept of "being" is only partially correct, and that is a problem for a concept, as is also the case with "god", that purports to encompass the totality of all that exists. there is no "being" per-se, there is only the being-in-dialogue, the inter-being, the dasein. there is no "god" per-se, there is only the god that emerges in the between of an i and a thou.


the essence of being, the nature of reality, the body of the buddha, suchness, all terms and concepts that keep some of us perpetually perplexed. "this is it" they answer in zen and there is nothing more than "this". and i think "this" they say is true. buber too wanted to direct our attention from asking about concepts, to the concrete-encounter with the reality those concepts pretend to represent. life is embraceable said buber, even if not comprehensible. but here's one dialogical answer to the question of being that has not been surpassed since antiquity. sapphos the poetess said: "i say whatever one loves, is"


the term "interbeing" was coined by zen master thich nhat hanh, who established the zen "order of interbeing". this is also the buberian answer to the question of the reality of being. buber said that at the beginning it was the encounter, and all real life is encounter. 


being can only be defined as it is actualized in the context of dialogue. being is dialogue with all beings and it has no meaning outside of the relationship. there is the I, the Thou and the It, and being is attached to either one of the two modes of relationship, i-thou or i-it. since being is a deed, buber, as does hanh, views dialogue and interbeing not just as a concept, but rather as an ethical project, the actualization of which is through forms of communal libertarian socialism. the key is to understand that being is a deed and therefore there is only "the-way-of-being", rather than just "being". it is not being "and" dialogue, but being "in" dialogue.

dialogue and the essence of freedom

martin buber argued that all real life is encounter. he also said "at the beginning it was the dialogue". following buber, and in an important sense also emannuel levinas, i've argued that dialogue is first philosophy. dialogue does not derive as a corollary from any antecedent system of thought, but all follow from it. 


a way to reason our way to affirming dialogue as at the essence of humanness is to consider the issue of free will. we seem to understand that ethics is predicated on our ability to make free choices. a forced action is ethically neutral. we sometimes go even further and explain the existence of evil in a world created by a wholly-good god on account of god's desire to provide us with the attribute of free will.


but from a theistic viewpoint, free will runs into inherent categorical contradictions. an all-knowing god knows our future and therefore it has already been predetermined by a will other than ours. at the same time if god controls all aspects of the life of the universe, we, humans, are no more free than any other sentient or insentient being on earth. the talmud sages have tried to capture these dichotomies with clever formulations which in essence declare that reason is unable to offer a proper solution to the inherent contradiction in the theistic definition of free will. in pirkey avot 3-18 we find the maxim that "everything has been predetermined but we are free to chose". another version of the same idea in berachot 33b but more focused on the purported goal of life itself states that "all is in the hands of heaven, except for the fear of heaven". looking at these teachings with a modern philosophical eye, it is clear that the rabbis were directing us to the existential aspect of free-will, away from its philosophical disambiguation. the purpose of life, its logos, is the fear of heaven, and therefore there is no point arguing this point, we just need to engage in the deed itself an stay with it and within it.


outside of the theological realm of intellectual conundrums, we face the issue of free-will and ask: what are we free from and what are we free for? we were born into the world not of our own free will, nor do we die of our own choosing. and in between birth and death, our lives have been predetermined by a constellation of facts and events none of our own choosing: the time, place and family of our birth, our gender and ethnic predominances, all the needs of our bodies that we must meticulously comply with, the flow of time and the composition of space. what are we then free from and free for? what small aspect of our lives are we still free to chose by the will of our wills? 


spinoza spoke of the chain of causes and effects that determine each of our actions and our emotions. we arrive at this deed and at this thought by virtue of another that preceded it and so forth. it is like a karma reason is able to psychologically and physically dissect. shopenhouer reflected on the fact that we are free to chose at will, but not to will what we will. everything that exist, including humans, are the effects of causes which in turn are the effects of previous causes and the causes of other effects. 


another perspective on free will is that of sunyata. if there is no-self, there can be no-will, free or otherwise. or yet another variation to the concept of no-self is the mystical merging of one's will with that of god's. but if my will is wholly god's, then it no longer reflects a category of existence any attributes could be predicated of. based on the theistic definition of god, in the self of god all human categories are absorbed and transcended. from my personal perspective, the entire concept of the unity of self and god is not comprehensible in any manner that will allow me to draw any conclusions concerning freedom of will. i am drawn back to the dialogical concept that the "i" of the i-it pair, which is the ego, is devoid of free will. the "i" of the i-thou pair, which is the self, is the only possible locus for freedom of the will.


if we turn our focus away from the intellectual or religious perspectives and we place it instead it on the existential aspect of the free will question, since our lives are always lived in relationship, the realm of existence in which we are still able to practice freedom of will is in the dialogical life. freedom exists only in the between of an i and a thou. we need therefore to revert back to the existential stance if we are to attempt an answer to the problem of free will. we should know that living within the framework of our own un-free lives, we can still chose to say "it" or to say "thou" to all beings in the world, and that includes our own minds and the contents that reside within it. we live always in relationship and never outside of it, and from an existential viewpoint we can say that the philosophical answer to free will may not be fully apparent, but my relationship between i and the other is given to me. the presence of the other is a deed-answer of our own free will. therefore, the only answer we can attempt is in the way we chose to live the lives we have, in all of their concrete, ordinary, day-to-day ways life has given itself to us. there is no other possible life but the one as it was given to us and we happen to live. in other words, free will is to live the life of encounter.


it is for that reason that the basic premise of a free life is to realize that the limited realm of free-will we seem to be able to exercise is the freedom to dialogue. if we part from this basic existential fact, we can adopt for ourselves buber's premise that all real life is i-thou dialogue. dialogue is the real or the genuine life, because in it we are able to live as free beings, and despite whatever nature dictates in regards to freedom, to live an enlightened life is to learn to accept life-as-is. and it's not a coincidence that enlightenment is also called "liberation". even if we argue that all has been predetermined and our freedoms have been surrendered to the hands of heaven or the composite laws of the universe into which we are fully-integrated, all has been predestined except for our choice to either say thou or say it to all beings.


and it is within the practice of dialogue, in the between of an i and a thou, that god emerges and takes its stand. there is no god outside of us nor within us, there is only the god that is the between of an i and a thou. for that reason at the beginning is the dialogue, since without god, we could not actualize our freedom to exist.

assorted thoughts on god, buddha, love and sin

blaise pascal wrote: "god wishes to move the will rather than the mind. perfect clarity would help the mind and harm the will." in two steps, pascal argues two commonly held notions about the religious life. 1. one must surrender one's own individual will to the will of the transcendent god. 2. humble innocence, or "beginners mind" is required in the path of faith. the dialogical perspective will argue otherwise. the will of god emerges in the between of the encounter of an i and a thou. one encounters the thou only with one's whole being, with the mind, the will and the body.



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antonio porchia wrote: "god has given a lot to man; but man would like something from man." indeed. from looking at god so much, we have missed each other. and that's a shame, as the only way to look at god is to look at each other, and the only way to receive from god is to give to men. or as martin buber said it much better, "the lines of relationship between i and thou intersect in the eternal thou." porchia was right beyond measure. he reminds me of fernando pessoa and that adds to my awe.


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some of us feel close to the teachings of the buddha, but not to the religion that was founded around the person of the buddha. based on its own core teachings, buddhism ought to be the dharma of social transformation, not a "skillful means" of adaptation to the system. and the word buddha could be replaced with the word "jesus" and the sentence will remain the same. it is very difficult to approach a religion that is absolutist or totalitarian. same of course with any ideology that fits that description. those are religions that believe that every thing that needed to be said, was said, and we are left only with the task of repeating or expounding on the said words. even seeing things differently will not change the thing seen. there can be no innovation through addition or subtraction, and we will remain faithful to the religion only to the extent of the strictness by which we abide by the word and its revealed or hidden intents. intent is notoriously hard to decipher, but the good clergy is there to distort through clarification. perfection, tathagatha, sainthood, not only are those concepts we use but cannot comprehend, but it makes it extremely difficult to sit with a perfect man and have a beer. what if they order the wrong kind? that would be devastating to the faith..

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love of god is always the love for each other, there is no other love. love is a deed, not just a feeling or an emotion, as beautiful as it indeed is. essentially, love is a way of living in relationship with the concrete, ordinary here and now of our daily lives. love is a deed that actualizes itself in the dialogue with all beings, and as i like to explain it, dialogue is not a mystical relationship with humans or other beings. dialogue is a very concrete and prosaic deed of encounter which does not require nor does it engender any form of altered state of consciousness. dialogue is simply the active and consistent refusal to say "it" to other people and to all other sentient and insentient beings. dialogue therefore is a social-ethical project, and as such, it is as difficult and as simple to be in dialogue with with animals and plants as it is with our fellow humans.


there is a story about suzuki roshi. a student once asked him what zen people do with their free times? and he started to laugh in a bemused manner. everything one does, all the time and everywhere is zen if done in a certain way. all our relationships are i-thou first, not only at special moments of mystical strength, and especially not at such moments. i-thou is the natural way of being, our true nature as buddhists like to say, and unless one specifically choses to do otherwise and become purposefully inconsiderate of all other beings, one is always saying thou and nothing around us ever becomes an "it". i've argued that capitalism is the social system in which all other beings are purposefully "it" and therefore it is important for us to do our best to revert back to our true dialogical nature through the process of radical social transformation.



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according to some religious faiths, we are born from and in original sin. but it does not really matter as we are still able to be "saved" from its consequences. in buddhism it's the exact opposite, we are born in and from original perfect buddha nature. yet it also does not seem to matter as we are rarely aware of our true nature and of the existential demands it places on our concrete lives. however, observing from the outside, it seems clear that regardless of the chosen path, we should nonetheless find ourselves arriving at the same blessed end-place. in that case, does it make any difference which path do we chose to take? or is it as master yogi berra once said that when we get to the fork on the road, we should just take it? 


from a theistic religious perspective the path itself is of the essence as there can be no arriving by means of any other. from a non-theistic perspective we can chose our own individual paths, and we are also taught of the importance of enjoying the journey. or better yet, to understand that life itself is that journey. but regardless of whether there is only one path dictated by god or many paths open in front of us, our choice of path is a very faithful event, as we can only be in one single path at any given moment. there is only one direction our next step can take. we have no means to help us make a fully mindful choice of paths, as we can only know one path at the time and remain in complete ignorance of any other. we make our paths as we walk as the poet alberto machado said, and it seems all we can take with us on the road is great faith, great doubt and great determination as zen master daido loorie said. one thing we do know is that the path is a very narrow bridge, as rabbi nachman of bratzlav said, and we should not be afraid at all, as he added. or we can also say: there are no paths and there are no ends, there is only breath, just breath, as the poet rumi said. god is likened to breath, as buber said, always between us and within us at the same time and place.

the mind, its contents and the dialogue of sunyata

it is an established principle of all hindu-derived religions that the mind is not the same as its contents. the verbal, the images and the emotional contents of the mind are independent, and in a sense, apart, from what the mind is in the true nature of its own reality. the contents are in the mind like birds on a tree, but are not of the mind, like birds are not of the tree. 

we become aware of our minds through its contents. but the focus of our attention has  always been on the understanding of the contents of the mind, rather than on the recognition and the realization of the mind that is before and after.

there are three basic principles concerning the relationship between the mind and the contents found in it. 

1. the mind and its contents are two separate entities. the contents of the mind are like birds sitting on a tree. the tree might imagine that the birds are a part of its own self, but this would be an illusion. the birds doubtful think the tree is part of them. one needs therefore to engage the contents of the mind by observing them as they come and go and move about, and reflect on the fact that as separate entities, they are inherently unable to affect the mind, unless allowed to. pretty much the way the tree observes the birds resting on its branches, flying away at will and coming back. the birds come and go on their own terms, but the tree remains, it does not depend on the birds.

2. the observation of the contents of the mind must be done in the manner we observe birds passing through the trees, or clouds flying through the blue skies. the birds cannot affect the tree as they are not a part of it, nor the clouds the sky, but if the tree attempts to get a hold of the birds, or the sky trap the clouds, not only they will utterly fail at that, but they could also harm themselves and them. contents are able to cause harm to the hosting mind as the method by which the mind attaches itself to its content is through the exercise of judgmental valuing. by value-judging the contents of the mind, by valuating them in accordance with rules and standards that aren't the mind's but those of the contents themselves, we manage to attach ourselves to a bewildering array of emotional responses. those emotional responses bind us to dependence on the contents of the mind making us unable to be at peace.

3. the contents of the mind operate through their own internal rules, needs, influences and procedures, not those of the mind's. this is so in two different senses: a. the contents of the mind, like the birds, come and go on their own volition, and behave towards the mind irrespective of the mind's own needs and rules. b. the mind thinks in language and images, and language and images respond to both their own internal grammatical rules as well as the cultural context from which they emerge. contents are not of the mind but of the culture, and so the mind belongs not to itself, but to the culture. when the mind thinks, it can only do so in accordance with the structure and internal rules of the tools it decides to use. therefore, once the mind becomes free from its contents, then it becomes able to operate in accordance to its own unique internal rules and procedures. this is what its called sunyata, the mind empty of the binding rules of its contents.

once the mind frees itself, it becomes able to operate in accordance to its own true nature. at that moment, the free mind relates to all its contents in a dialogue of reciprocal freedom. the point of enlightenment is not to have control over thoughts, or being able to select which ones to keep and which to discard. all forms of dualism are renounced in the the true nature of the mind. enlightenment is the creation of a "dialogical-between" where the mind meets all its contents as an i meets a thou. this is the meaning of the famous zen story where the master hopes to meet a person who has gone beyond all words, and with him, enjoy a good talk.

For an understanding of Dialogical Ecology

for the complete essay please follow this link:
http://dialogicalecology.blogspot.com/2011/10/dialogue-is-first-philosophy.html


"...For an understanding of Dialogical Ecology.
Dialogue as First Philosophy

I understand Martin Buber thus: (and thus the importance of his philosophy)

1. Dialogue precedes existence.
2. I dialogue, therefore I am. I say Thou therefore I am a Thou. I say It, therefore I am an It.
3. Saying Thou is simply the act of not saying It.
4. All real life is dialogical encounter.
5. Dialogue is an ecological process, not only an inter-personal relationship.
6. God 'is' the 'between' of the dialogical encounter.
7. The between is a social system, it is the dialogical society. We define the dialogical society as a form of Libertarian Socialism.

Dialogue is first philosophy because the deed of dialogue does not derive as a corollary that follows from an understanding of a prior system of philosophy or religion. All systems of thought and religions derive as a corollary from it. Buber, therefore, should not be regarded as an existentialist, but rather as an 'encounterist'..." 


The essence of being, the nature of reality, the body of the buddha, suchness, all terms and concepts that keep some of us perpetually perplexed. "This is it" they answer in Zen and there is nothing more or other than "this". And I think "this" they say is true. Buber too wanted to direct our attention from asking about concepts, to the concrete-encounter with the reality those concepts pretend to represent. Life is embraceable said buber, even if not comprehensible. But here's one dialogical answer to the question of being that has not been surpassed since antiquity. Sapphos the poetess said: "I say whatever one loves, is"

the inner, phenomenology and social transformation

a foundation of the spiritual life is to not essentialize the spirit as an entity in itself. the spirit is not an entity, and it does not reside in some mysterious way within our bodies. nor can the spirit be found somewhere else outside of us. it is common to think that we can orient ourselves towards the spirit by looking inwards, but the spirit is not in me nor in you, the spirit is between you and me. buber likened the spirit to the air we breath, it is always within us and at the same time it is in the world in which it participates. remove one or the other and life comes to an end. spirit is what emerges in the between of an i and thou, it is a creation of the relationship. 


‎martin buber wrote ".. the meaning of the inter-human is to be found neither in one of the two persons nor in both together, but only in their dialogue itself, in this 'between' which they live together.." in other words, the between in which persons live together, is the community in which they share their lives. the spirit is not within me nor is it an entity in itself, the spirit is in the way in which we chose to live together as a community. the community therefore is the locus of dialogue, there where the of the inter-human finds its actualized meaning. it is within that between of the life the community where god emerges and participates in our lives. 


when we meditate, or during some prayers, we will sometimes close our eyes. the assumption is that limiting our mental and physical exposure to the stimulation of objects and other contents in our surroundings, will aid in the often difficult task of concentration and mindfulness. the idea is to privilege the within by preventing the outside from encroaching. but whatever we have within, is the same as what is outside. if the outside wasn't within us, it wouldn't be in the outside in the first place. we use our inside world in order to create the outside world, and then we carry it deep within us wherever we go and whatever we do. the outside world is a reflection of our inner world, and therefore it cannot be meditated away, it must be given away. the freedom of the within utterly depends on the social transformation of the without. to be able to free our within we must radically transform our without. 


one of the consequences of the dualistic error of making a distinction between the inner and the outer is manifested in the way we often interpret the concept of materialism. we contrast to materialism the concept of the realm of the spiritual. but materialism does not refer to objects, nor does spiritual to non-objects. materialism is not an ontological concept, it is a way of relationship with all other beings, it is the i-it, and that mode of relationships applies to both objects and non-objects. likewise, the spiritual does not refer to an ontological category of being, it is a way of entering into relationships with other beings, it is the i-thou, and it applies to our relationships with both objects and non-objects. both materialism and spirituality should be understood as ethical projects, and therefore the key for the spiritual life lies not in the within, nor in the without, but in the between of the i and the thou. the spiritual is the transformation of our modes of relationships from i-it to i-thou. it is that existential change that will in turn also bring about a fulfillment of the practice of meditation. 


this conceptual identification of the material as referring to physical substance, has resulted in generations of erroneous spiritual practices. through our poetic expressions and mystical terminology, we have internalized a form of geographic-spiritual imagery with which we orient ourselves as we walk through our spiritual paths. terms such as inner and outer, higher and lower, deep or shallow, are all spatial images that bear no relevance to the spiritual way of life. but this spatial imagery has guided our understandings of the spiritial life through and through. so we close our eyes to go "deeper", or we believe in "inner" transformation detached from the transformation of our social lives, or we ascribe transcendent meanings to what essentially is nothing more and nothing less than the here and now. but if we see that there is no depth to the spirit, that depth is a physical category and a poor semblance for a metaphor of the spirit, and especially, if we come to realize that the spirit will not be found somewhere floating inside our bodies, we will then be able to understand that spirit is a word to describe an ethical project. the spiritual life is the relationship with the neighbor, it is the sacrament of the neighbor that we celebrate with our here and now, concrete and ordinary daily efforts at i-thou relationships. it is to this that martin buber referred to as religious socialism.

it is as a result of that geo-spiritual error that we so often fail to see that there is nothing at all that is hidden inside, or behind and beyond the phenomenal world of the concrete, ordinary here and now existential reality. this world, as is, is magnificent in its immanence, not because of what lies "within" it. there is nothing within, and accepting that "this is it" is not only the path, but is the actual state of whole-being liberation.

free markets as contradiction in terms

free-markets, by definition, are a contradiction in terms. markets are never free. the capitalist markets operate in accordance to very strict and inflexible internal laws of its own, laws that resist most attempts at outside intervention (except for taxpayers bailouts). human interaction with the markets and its laws is motivated by, and mediated through, some of the basest of human psychological traits, such as greed and materialism. we are free to be in the market but the market does not make us free, as by participating in it, we consent to be bound for life to its near absolutist rules. from a dialogical perspective it is clear that what we get out of our interactions with the market, is exactly what we have brought in to it in the first place. in the capitalist markets, we, the people, become the commodities the market buys and sells.

two poems

Eric Cockrell

The True Disciple (For Hune)

by Eric Cockrell

the true disciple, 

wearing the robes of doubt...

dividing the atoms of the soul, 

searching for fibers that connect.

exploring universes of question, 

whetted by the blade of truth; 

to immerse in 'i and thou'...

crossing the final desert

to the promised land! 

the true disciple, 

follows his own footsteps!

-------

Limitless Thoughts, For Hune

by Eric Cockrell

Buddha was married, had a child, was a prince

with all anyone could ever want in the material 

world. when he got out in the world, he saw 

suffering, he felt it, and change began.

he left behind what he had, and began his search...

but what he searched for for so long was already

there... it always is! 

there is truly no inner and outer world, that is 

an illusion put forth by our conceptual minds...

what is, is! 

he learned to let go of conceptual understanding, 

and to just live! a part of that which breathes, 

and is beyond time and human understanding...

there are no words for this, words are limited, 

and often misconstrued! and what we are talking

about is limitless... 

on zen, buber and dialogical ecology. or zen's "heidegger problem"

is zen to be considered a methodology only, and as such it could be said to apply to any and all activities of life? or is there also a zen-content to the zen-method, in which case many of those life activities could be rendered incompatible with zen enlightenment? 


the first premise that sees zen as primarily a method, leads us to the spread of those notorious teachings about the zen of this and the zen of that, and of almost everything else. a content-driven zen, in contrast, will argue, as the buddha said, that there is such thing as "wrong livelihood", and that is so, even if done in the "zen way". given the amount of physical and mental time we spend through a lifetime on livelihood related activities, livelihood is a perfect testing ground for the value and veracity of zen. those advocating a "dhammic socialist" society, for instance, or an engaged and pacifist buddhism, are practitioners of zen as a method for the purpose of a content. method and content together is what we call a "practice". 


this discussion mirrors western religions where the question is if the practice of prayer commits us to a given set of ethical values, or prayer is just an empty vessel which carries within it any and all behaviors and desires? can we pray for war for instance? or for slavery, or for other people's poverty or injustice? i would argue that any of those contents nullifies prayer to an absolute void.

this issue exists poignantly for zen buddhism too. reading "zen at war" by brian victoria, one finds troubling teachings of a zen that perceived itself as a method only, while its contents included within it just about anything, even cruelty and war. victoria quotes rinzai zen master nantembo (1839-1925) as preaching what doubtless is an anti-buddhist teaching: "(there is) no bodhisattva practice superior to the compassionate taking of life." content-less buddhism could take their practitioners even to doctrinal aberrations such as this quote by master shaku soen  (1859-1919): "war was an inevitable step toward the final realization of enlightenment." and indeed why wouldn't this be so if zen is not a teaching of ethics but rather a method for the betterment of the mind's inner capabilities? even the capabilities to kill indiscriminately and mindlessly as many zen masters where urging japanese soldiers to do. the method of sunyata therefore will apply equally to buddha or emperor as argued in this quote victoria attributes to a japanese soldier "seeking nothing at all, you should simply completely discard both body and mind, and unite with the emperor." these forms of aberrant teachings are more liable to occur when there is a clear line of demarcation between method and content.  sunyata, from a dialogical perspective, is as an ethical project, not an ontological statement about the nature of being. for that reason, method oriented teachings must heighten for us the need to engage in intellectual rigor and ethical awareness, especially so, when the believers believe themselves to be on a path leading to salvation.

elsewhere in these pages, i've argued that from a zen perspective it could be said that martin buber's dialogical philosophy begins where zen meditation ends. that is, the enlightenment zen brings to the fore, requires a dialogical approach to life if it is to be actualized. this is what i call dialogical ecology. there is no enlightenment without it being actualized, for in that case it would remain just an idea, a concept in the mind, not an actual enlightenment. meditation has the power to release the sense of compassion, but that is not enough if compassion is not manifested as a dialogical practice. we know from all religious traditions that compassion could sometimes be understood in many different ways, some even as aberrant distortions of the true essence of compassion. take for instance this quote from victoria's book: shaku soen said: "i wished to inspire our valiant soldiers with the ennobling thoughts of the buddha, so as to enable them to die on the battlefield with confidence that the task in which they are engaged in is great and noble. i wish to convince them...that this war is not a mere slaughter of their fellow-beings, but that they are combating an evil." from all this we can learn that the promise of enlightenment does not lie only on its non-rational intuitive perception of the nirvanic state of mind. the enlightened mind needs to lead to the nirvanic society as a matter of nirvanic necessity. nothing at all changes in life by the way we look at it, it only changes by the way we enter into a relationship with it. looking "thou" but saying "it" is precisely what mara was attempting to get the buddha to do before those most faithful moments under the boddhi tree. he failed.

ego, self and dialogue

it is very important to differentiate between two concepts that are often, erroneously, used interchangeably: ego and self. we think of ego and self as one and the same concept, but self is the opposite of ego. there is no 'i' unless it is the 'i' in relationship. i-it is the relationship that attaches the ego to the self. i-thou is the relationship that removes the ego and releases the self to its true pre-ego nature. therefore nothing could be added to the self, nor removed away from the self -the ego in both cases- unless through a relationship. 


the distinction therefore is between the ego and the self, not between the self and the emptiness of being. the ego is what it is, but the self is not within me or you, but in-between you and me. therefore, the focus of our mindfulness ought not be towards the within, but rather towards the between, to the dialogical encounter from where alone the self can emerge. the i, in itself, does not exist. buddha said that, and in the cultural and religious context the buddha came from, that state of no-self, was called sunyata. what exists is the i in relationship. either i-thou, or i-it. the i in the i-it is the ego. the i in the i-thou is the self. the self is our true nature, the flower the buddha held in his hand.


master doge zenji spoke of the dropping of body an mind. it makes it clearer to understand the existential demand that the "dropping of the self" entails, if we define ego as the "it" and the self as the "thou". the "dropping" is an existential demand we are answering to, because it is a life choice we make to either live a life of it, or to live a life of non-it. there is no life of thou per se, there is only a life of non-it. ego or self is not just a matter of inner consciousness, it is a matter of concrete, ordinary, here and now life of relationships. ego is the crust of artificial "its" that attaches to the self and over time represses it into a state of existential depression. the self, therefore, is not something to be attained, it is here all the time, it only needs to be dis-covered, that is, it needs to have the covers of "it" removed from its very body. in this context, the buddhist concept of sunyata does not mean the emptying of the self, it means the dropping of the ego. once the self is free, it is able to perceive reality as is, unencumbered by the ego-filters of false-consciousness and false-volition. the free self is often described as luminous and spacious, able to become a  true correspondent with the true selves of all beings. the ego is unable to know the other as other, only as self. looking within we find the ego, not the presence of the other. the self however is free and can see the other as the other is. sunyata, therefore, is the scraping or pealing away of the its that constitute the ego and the release of the true self that lies behind. this true self becomes now the one who relates to the world and with whom the world relates. 


buddhism argues that one can meditate his way through the ego and into the self. meditation can help drop the ego by helping the self detach from the "its" that bind it. the process of meditation helps the self become cognizant of the its that bind it so it can break through them and drop them. meditation drops the ego by detaching it from the self. and that is the true meaning of detachment as used in buddhism: it is not a detachment from the self or of the self, but from and of the ego. 


a dialogical approach to the ego and its detachment from self, contemplates the i-it relationship as the process leading to the creation and manifestation of the ego. this process could be formulated as i-it-ego. in contrast, the i-thou relationship is the actualization of the  newly freed self. it could be formulated as i-thou-self. the self is not a new creation or state of being, it is simply what remains after the it-ego has been pierced through and scraped away. the dialogical approach argues that it isn't enough to meditate one's way back to the self. since the basic human condition is one of relationships with all beings, and since i-it and i-thou are the two basic forms of relationships, the "dropping" of the ego requires a reorientation in the relationship process we engage in, in our daily lives, with all beings. i-thou is not a special form of mystical relationship, it is nothing but the relationship that remains after the i-it relationship is dropped. zen does not argue against the dialogical approach, it just sees the necessity to work on the human mind before it becomes capable to say thou to life. but the mind cannot become enlightened unless it lives an enlightened life of relationships. the dialogical approach does not deny the importance of the liberated mind in the context of liberated relationships, but argues that the dropping of the i-it must be practiced at the same time as meditation. meditation and i-thou become one and the same practice. 


and here is something important that martin buber explained. dialogue is not mysticism, it is its exact opposite. there is no merging of the self with a higher being. there is the saying of thou to the higher being and to all other beings just as well. dialogue is the non-ego confirmation of otherness from the inner and outer realms of the true self. similarly to the bodhisattva who refuses to enter nirvana because his task is to help liberate all beings, the dialogist, does not enter mysticism for his task is to remain present to all beings.



a few postcripts on the distinction ego-self.

the distinction between ego and self is a false dichotomy employed by those unable to transcend either. and that is part of the misunderstanding too, since there is nothing to transcend. there is no essential distinction between ego and self except as it pertains to the dialogical project. ego-self is not an ontological category, it's an ethical project.

ultimately, from an ontological perspective, there is no ego, and nowhere to step out from , and there is no self, and nowhere to step in to. the task is to answer the call of the between in the encounter of my-i and the whole of existence. if we decide to avoid terms such as inner-outer, and especially, if we step out of linguistic constructs, what is left "behind" is simply the experience of being-in-the-world. (dasein for lack of a better term). in that being-in-the-world the i emerges in the between of our dialogical encounters with all beings. that's why it ego-self is an ethical project, it is our choice to say thou or to say "it", and there is a different "i" that emerges when we say "it" (the ego) and another when we say thou (the self). we are attached to "it" and freed by "thou".

if we use the common terms: self and ego, the dialogical-buberian conclusion is that once we find the self that is trapped within the ego, as buddhism also speaks of, and also logotherapy does, we need to realize that the self is just a potential waiting to be made manifest. but the context of our societal system conspires to repress the self and augment the ego instead. 


it has been said that a cup's value is in that it is empty. we are indeed like empty cups, but rather than seeing the freedom that affords, the system makes sure to fill it for us with contents of its own. none of the practices required for enlightenment are possible within the capitalist system: meditation, mindfulness, emptiness, detachment, no-ego-greed-mine-selfishness-craving, non-uniformity, creative expansiveness, rebelliousness, non-conformity, non-grasping, non-pursuing and non-conventionality, none of this can be actualized as a practice in our daily here-and-now lives, as the capital-oriented system places its own demands on our daily concrete and ordinary lives, demands that are precisely the exact opposite and contradiction to the demands of enlightenment. our capital-oriented economies, (both of the state and the free market varieties) invent the ego and operate through it. therefore, when psychotherapy speaks of ego-self, to the extent that it abstracts the ego away from its larger social-economic context, it can only transform us to become more and better adjusted to the system we have docilely accepted as our lot. this is what thoreau described as being content with our quite despair. or being "comfortably numb". if we don't change the between, then nothing ultimately changes. 

capitalism and culture: freedom from - freedom to and wrong livelihood

capitalism, as a system, will not be defeated in the economic field of disputes. capitalism is far more than an economic system, and strictly as such, it has its shares of advantages as well as disadvantages. the dispute with capitalism can only be resolved in the civilization field of disputes. we need to define capitalism in all its complex comprehensive significance rather than dispute it in the narrow senses of economic policy.

capitalism is a comprehensive cultural system. it is a philosophy of relationships between person and person, between person and nature and between nature and nature. it is a psychological disposition to the enjoyment of mental contents and the sources from which they arise. it is a system of ethics with its own hierarchy of personal and social values, encouraged norms of behavior, and uniformity of attitudes and approaches. it is a system of governing that entails the interaction of state, capital, class differentiation and a very complex legal and taxation jurisprudence.

when seen in the light of its entire significance, capitalism ought to be disputes along all the lines of its complex structure. it is firmly attached to the inner workings of our personal and social psychologies, as this has been a method of self-preservation cultivated to a science by the leading protagonists of the system. capitalism, to survive, requires endless consumption and the attachment to consumption, and that can only be assured through a very sophisticated system of relentless psychological indoctrination. indoctrination comes also in the traditional ideological sense as constantly repeated values emerging from all educational, media and even religious sources.


free-markets, by definition, are a contradiction in terms. markets are never free. the capitalist markets operate in accordance to very strict and inflexible internal laws of its own, laws that resist most attempts at outside intervention (except for taxpayers bailouts). human interaction with the markets and its laws is motivated by, and mediated through, some of the basest of human psychological traits, such as greed and materialism. we are free to be in the market but the market does not make us free, as by participating in it, we consent to be bound for life to its near absolutist rules. from a dialogical perspective it is clear that what we get out of our interactions with the market, is exactly what we have brought in to it in the first place. in the capitalist markets, we, the people, become the commodities the market buys and sells.
gustav landauer, martin buber's political teacher, famously said that the state is a form of relationships and it will only be ended once the relationships change. capitalism is likewise, as i argued before, a system established on the concept and practice of i-it relationships. it will only be ended as we shift to i-thou relationships. but if capitalism is all i argue it is, the task ahead of us is nearly utopian in its magnitude.

as to the questions framed as "freedom from?" versus "freedom for?", capitalism gives an inadequate answer to the former and an empty answer to the latter. capitalism argues that capital is the one tool best able to limit the scope and realm of the state, thereby providing individuals with "freedom from" the oppressive encroachment of state power. but in capitalism, the power of the state is replaced with the powerful and equally unflappable power of capital. in capitalism individuals are submitted to the oppressive encroachment of the scope and realm of capital. that capital is not seen by observers as oppressive of basic human rights, and in a manner much more insidious than the state itself, is perhaps for reasons as sofocles explained "what people believe prevails over the truth." 

when it comes to "freedom for", the best capitalism offers is the theoretical ability and the right to create and accumulate wealth. without entering into the discussion as to whether the methods of capitalism are just or not, to the issue of materialist consumerism, jesus had already provided an answer: "wow to you who are rich...sell everything and give it to the poor...do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth..." clearly capitalism and the spiritual life are not compatible, it is one or the other.

for the american psyche, which is trained to be inherently anti-authoritarian, the most natural inclination ought to be the rejection of both forms of oppressive power, capitalism and statism. intellectually, it should not be that difficult to cease to fall into the illusion that one is the opposite of the other. perhaps one probable answer to the quest for human freedom, which alone insures dignity and rights, was offered by martin buber when he wrote that "religion without socialism is like a spirit without a body, and socialism without god is like a body without a spirit." none can be a living being. the balancing of a spiritually oriented life with socialist libertarian principles and practices, is the most adequate answer to the quest to be "free from" tyranny so as to be "free for" a way of life that is both the means to, and the actualization of our true nature.


the sources for the concept and practices of 'religious socialism', start with the general thesis by martin buber that 'religion without socialism is like a spirit without a body and socialism without god is like a body without a soul.' i find these paragraphs from one of levinas' talmudic readings: 'not only are we responsible for everyone else, but we are also responsible for everyone else's responsibility...behind the responsibility attributed to everyone for everyone, there arises, ad-infinitum, the fact that in the society of the torah i am still responsible for this responsibility! it is an ideal, but an ideal that implies the humanity of mankind. in the covenant (the torah), when it is fully understood, in a society that depolys all the dimensions of the law (the torah), society is also community"


capitalism as wrong livelihood:

wrong livelihood is an allusion to the buddha's noble eightfold path in which he lists the right outward behaviors and the inner mental attitudes for those seeking to lead the life of the dharma. the buddha also listed five specific occupations people should not engage in. the reasons behind these prohibitions are manifold. it has to do with ethics as well as with the pursuing of a life that is compatible with the life of enlightenment at its most basic psychological and emotional levels. each of these prohibited occupations include different behaviors and mental attitudes, all contrary to the the life of dharma: "monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. which five? business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison. these are the five types of business that a lay follower should not engage in." it was understood that monks, by the nature of their vows, would refrain from all the above, but the buddha did not limit the liberation of dharma to monks only. dharma is a way of life to be followed by every person as a condition for enlightenment. the notion that buddhism only asks for an individualistic ethics of meditation and disengagement from society is clearly not found in the teachings of the buddha himself. the correct life in society was at the basis for achieving enlightenment and for making it manifest in real life.

martin buber spoke of religious libertarian socialism as the conduit and manifestation for a life of dialogue. it is however important to note that the term "religious" does not refer to the institutions that create, codify and regulate the contents of our faiths. religious refers here to the process of dialogue with that which is eternally a thou. socialism, in this context, needs to be defined not only in terms of its opposition to the oppressive economic relationships that characterize capitalism. it is not just a matter concerning the equitable distribution of assets and incomes throughout a classless society. the essential character of capitalist oppression is spiritual in nature. capitalism commodifies all beings and by that, it subordinates the realm of the creativity of the spirit to the pursuit and administration of material wealth. martin buber genially expressed this by saying that socialism without god is like a body without a soul and religion without socialism is like a soul without a body. it is essential to understand that the alternatives expressed here are not between the material and the spiritual. that dualistic dichotomy is not intellectually tenable. the alternative is between the way of life manifested in materialistic pursuits and the administration and attachment to wealth, and the pursuit of a life of meaning. materialism needs to be understood not as an ontological category, but as an ethical stance.

similar teachings about the dichotomy between market-centered livelihoods and the life of the spirit are found elsewhere. here are some talmudic quotes on the subject.

spiritual teachings on the subject of capitalism: faith, community and social justice.

one of the salient points of hebrew prophecy was the identification of faith with community and social action. the prophets argued: what does god ask of you?.. to do justice, peace, freedom and so on.. in that vein i just read the following from fr. virgilio elizondo: "do you want to see, understand, and appreciate jesus today? i cannot think ...of a better way than to enter the lives of those who are living similar experiences and struggles today, those living in the 'galilees' of today's world (i.e, a backwater of the empire and a meeting place of many cultures) those living in the margins and crossroads..."

the biblical narrative clearly did not anticipate a time when humanity will put a final end to all social ills. this goal was assigned to the messianic times. however, later rabbinic teachings encouraged people to pursue justice regardless of what one could reasonably expect to accomplish. (the midrash: "its not your duty to bring results, but you're not exempted from doing the work") the other midrash (teaching) was to be like the children of aharon: lovers of peace and pursuers of peace. to love and to pursue are two different stances, the assumption being that one does not necessarily follow the other. since the dawn of humanity, the time of redemption has never been a present reality.

outside of the theistic traditions, the emphasis on personal awakening or enlightenment, was not any more successful in bringing individual practitioners and seekers into a larger aggregate just society. it is perhaps this very emphasis on the "inner" that renders community as no more than an aggregate of individuals, and thus a corollary of individual enlightenment rather than a path to it.

in the analysis of thinkers like buber, frankl, levinas and others, dia-logos, logos and ethics is "first philosophy". the standing in dialogue does not follow as a consequence of prior philosophical or psychological conclusions about the nature of being, but rather to the contrary: all philosophical and ethical understandings derive their content from the basic phenomenology of dialogue.


here's a biblical exegesis on the subject of religious socialism. one of the most important rabbis of safed in the 16th century, moshe alshech, known as "ha-kadosh", the holy one, (only a handful of rabbis were given that title in all of rabbinic history) explained the verse in leviticus 22 "and when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: i the lord am your god", by pointing out that the words “your land” are written in the plural: "the torah uses the plural to designate the common ownership of the field by the owner, the poor, and the stranger, for in truth, they share in it. do not think that you are giving to the poor from your own possession, or that i despised the poor person by not giving him as i gave you. for he is my son, as you are, and his share is in your grain; it is to your benefit to give him his share from your property." according to alshech, religious socialism is rooted in the very teachings of the torah itself. from a dialogical perspective we can say that the state of holiness does not designate a transcendent state of being, nor does it manifest itself through altered states of consciousness. the dialogical understanding is that holiness, in essence, is an ethical project. holiness is the i-thou relationship between humans, and with all beings. therefore the actualization of holiness is the creation of a society radically different than those based on the production, accumulation, distribution and sustaining of capital.

some texts in the talmud: "i give thanks before you, god, that you have placed my portion amongst those who study at the religious academy and you have not placed my portion amongst those who do business in the market, for i arise early and they arise early - i arise for words of torah and they arise for words of futility; i toil and they toil ... i toil and receive reward while they toil and do not receive reward; i hasten and they hasten - i hasten to the world-to-come and they hasten to the depths of hell." r. nehunya ben hakana (1 century a.d.). this is clearly a more radical approach to the entire life style in which business takes precedence to the dialogue with god. worship here is seen as the only activity that conveys meaning to life and any engagement with any other type of activity beyond the basic sustenance of one's life, as indicated in the term "market" used in this teaching, is seen as a life wasted in the present times as well as lacking in the reward of the world to come.

the famous rabbi hillel stated (babylonian talmud, avot 2:5): "nor can one who engages too much in business become wise." this statement moderated somewhat the previous one but it retains the same sense of dichotomy between wisdom on this side and business on the other. hillel's was bsically the same teaching as that of the very important rabbi meir who asserted (babylonian talmud, avot 4:10): "rather limit your business activities and occupy yourself with the torah instead."

rabbi beroka hozaah asked elijah the prophet: "is there any person in this market who is destined for the world to come? he replied, no... while they were conversing, two people passed by. elijah said: these two are destined for the world to come. rabbi beroka approached them and asked them what they did. they replied: we are jesters, and we cheer up people who are depressed. also, when we see two people who are quarrelling, we work hard to make peace between them (babylonian talmud, taanit 22a). this story adds to the previous ones by clearly stating the the market, in itself, is not slated for the world to come, only those who in some form, in their choice of livelihood, are at odds with the normal functioning of the markets. "seven have no share in the world to come: a scribe, a teacher of young children, the best of doctors, a town judge, a shop-keeper, a law-officer, and a butcher (babylonian talmud, avot d'rabbi natan, 36:5)."

in "the seven storey mountain (1948), thomas merton wrote: "it is true that the materialistic society, the so-called culture that has evolved under the tender mercies of capitalism, has produced what seems to be the ultimate limit of this worldliness. And nowhere, except perhaps in the analogous society of pagan rome, has there ever been such a flowering of cheap and petty and disgusting lusts and vanities as in the world of capitalism, where there is no evil that is not fostered and encouraged for the sake of making money. we live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest." merton is of course not the only one, and not only from within christianity, to see the spiritual and moral failings underlying the system of capitalism.

the buberian perspective is that the search for spirituality is essentially a social praxis. spirituality is not an inner quest, but a practice of relationships manifested in the manner in which society arranges its economic and social interactions. to argue that happiness can be had independent of external factors is probably true as a fact, but it is of no liberating consequence if society remains unreformed. it brings to mind j. krishnamurty who said that being well adjusted to a profoundly sick society is not a sign of mental health. the idea that inner peace makes us better persons in our relationships is also correct, but to engage in "better" interactions when the core relationships within society are inherently non-dialogical, it is not a manifestation of actualized enlightenment. sometimes, this sense of conformism and complacency embedded in the assumption of "inner-peace" becomes the most powerful hindrance to the quest for true liberation.

it is very likely that the reason most of us are not working to change the current economic system, is because we tend to agree that capitalism seems to be the system best suited to help us accomplish and manifest those values that motivate and animate our lives. it is very likely that we hold those values so important either because we have been persuaded to that effect by the relentless and omnipresent indoctrination of capitalist advertising, or because our spiritual and religious traditions have left us empty handed when it comes to right and wrong livelihoods, or we just do not engage enough in practices of liberation, as those talmudic quotes remind us. or perhaps it is as marx had it: our education and religious systems were conceived to support and reproduce the capitalistic privileges of the ruling classes.

but even those who do see that capitalist materialism is wrong livelihood, do not fully commit to changing society into one that is both more conducive towards liberation and that it also becomes the manifestation of a different set of underlying values. marc chagall said it beautifully: "the habit of ignoring nature is deeply implanted in our times. i had to find some special occupation, some kind of work that would not force me to turn away from the sky and the stars, that would allow me to discover the meaning of life". chagall is the summation of the goal to engage life in the right kind of livelihood as a means for inner and outer liberation. but the task of liberation when conceived as a revolutionary project, is fraught with difficulties and disappointments. it is very likely therefore, that this is the reason why some have conceived of the concept of a super-natural messiah that will come and save us all from our own selves. by ourselves we just can't seem to be able to do it.

on worship, liturgies and finding god in the moments of inception

a foundation of the spiritual life is to not essentialize the spirit as an entity in itself. the spirit is not an entity, and it does not reside, in some mysterious way, within our bodies. nor can the spirit be found somewhere else outside of us. it is common to think that we can orient ourselves towards the spirit by looking inwards, but the spirit is not in me nor in you, the spirit is between you and me. buber likened the spirit to the air we breath, it is always within us and at the same time it is in the world in which it participates. remove one or the other and life comes to an end. spirit is what emerges in the between of an i and thou, it is a creation of the relationship. 


god is not to be found in our temples, we find our temples in god. god is not in the liturgies by which we offer our worship to him, our worship-liturgies are in god. that is to say: the finding of the god we believe in, precedes the liturgies we utilize in order to worship him. only after we have chosen our god -be the means by which we came to adopt a given faith what they might- we ask of him to reveal to us the manner by which he wills to be worshiped. and since we believe this is the will of god, we feel engulfed in spiritual enthusiasm. 

and it is for that reason that different religions teach different liturgies, and believers find their god in their own versions, but not in that of others. 

worship-liturgies do not reveal god, the believer believes that god is revealed in them. once god has revealed his will, the belief that our liturgical worship is a direct response to our god's own wishes and desires, imbues our practices with that incomparable sense of profound spiritual satisfaction. it is in the belief that this is the will of god that we find satisfaction, not in the liturgy itself. liturgies are neutral, and from history we know that often times they are also time, culture and space dependent.

the biblical injunction "na'ase v'nishma" (let us first do and then we will hear) adds a different dimension to the idea of worshiping in the manner proscribed by the will of god. it adds the dimension of reward for the fulfilling of god's wishes. but the desire for rewards, be that in this life or in the world to come, is not the same as the love of god as actualized in the pure fulfillment of his wishes. love and rewards are two separate things, often at odds with each other.

it is only in zen-buddhism that the concept of "liturgy first" finds a true expression. it is the na'ase v'nishma of the bible but in a wholly different sense. in contrast to conventional religions, zen does not require an antecedent faith in the buddha. since the buddha himself is not an object of faith, there can be no antecedent faith in the teachings he taught, and therefore he cannot become an object of worship. the buddha must remain a "thou", never an "it". in zen the practice itself, the "liturgy", is the entire content of the faith and therefore the practitioner must begin from what in conventional religions would be the back door. in zen, we first do, then we know. for that reason, zen does not proscribe a "compulsory" and universal worship-liturgy in the conventional sense. 


we could stop at the thought that the assumption that the same practice (zazen, koans) will benefit equally all different individual personalities, is a bold assessment as to the essence of human nature. the mind is seen as one, as god is one, and all individual minds partake of the same one essence. this is indeed a bold predication as to the attributes of the mind, but that is a separate discussion. 

to add a point of clarification, the idea that god allows us to chose our own forms of worship, and to the extent that it is done with a pure heart of love and devotion it will always be acceptable to god, it is also another form of accepting that revelation precedes worship. without our antecedent theological beliefs in god and his attributes, our worship-liturgies become like empty gestures, the kind we often identify as idolatry when practiced by members of other religions. 

what this discussion is about, is the understanding that whatever other values we ascribe to our worship-liturgies, they ought not be considered binding in any religious or theological sense. they may have a psychological or sociological value, and certainly an institutional ecclesiastical value, but not a religious one. it is important that the distinction between god and religion be upheld. no doubt, we find many spiritual treasures in our own personal choices for devotional practices, but they ought to remain just that: personal choices, our own humble requests to god to accept our offerings. the moment we commit to the belief that our forms of liturgy-worship are the one offerings god herself wishes, proscribed or expects from us, god ceases to be the eternal-thou and becomes instead the it-of the moment. 


in our relationships with god, we need to return time and again to those moments-of-inception in which we find his presence in us manifested as his presence between us. our dialogue with all beings is the deed by which god becomes present in our lives. it is like showing god we have found him by creating and sustaining our dialogical-between with all beings. but it is at that moment-of-inception that we chose the manner of our offerings, not before that. each person and each community, must find the way to actualize the dialogue with the god in the presence of whom we worship, and with whom we place our faiths. (please note: the god not "in" whom, but "with" whom we place our faiths). 


i have seen the god of dialogue and i worship my god "with my feet" in the glorious sense that a. j. heschel taught while marching with martin luther king. or in the way liberation theologians speak of in terms of the sacrament-of the-neighbor. it is in the between of an i and a thou, with all that this entails in terms of personal and social  engagement, that the presence of god manifests itself.

postscript note:

martin buber wrote: "actually there is no such thing as seeking god, for there is nothing in which he could not be found." buber was reflecting on a basic hasidic teaching about the manner of god's omni-presence. but we can't stop there. we need to take the next step and accept that the moment we seek is the moment we miss. or in other words, that which we seek is that which we miss. and it is for that reason that we never stop seeking. there is nothing to seek, it is here already. the moment we turn to seek, we have failed to see that "that" is already in us and in-between us. fernando pessoa, the poet, had it right all along: it is all futility. (and so did the writer of that famous psalm). every seeking is not-finding. and this has nothing at all to do with seeking outside or within, or with finding the buddha on the road, or finding him on the image of the buddha on the image of the road on the image we hold of our own minds. every seeking is not-finding, and this is the foundation of the zen teaching of non-attainment, a concept which itself is based on the earlier understanding as to the unattainable, all-present and ineffable tao.


every seeking is not finding, and i suspect that we might find when we stop seeking. is there anything to find? i don't know, i haven't sought it yet. i'm holding back, because i want to find. and i suspect, yet again, that the firm understanding that the here and now is all that is, is exactly what enlightenment is, and nothing else.