Pleasure Reading Ch.54-72

Liz found a new form of meditation called Vipassana.  You sit perfectly still for several hours at a time, not allowed to shift or move or scratch…nothing for the duration.  Furthermore, you don’t get a mantra to focus on, for that is considered cheating. “Vipassana meditation teaches that grief and nuisance are inevitable in this life, but if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass.”  “There isn’t even any talk about “God” in Vipassana, since the notion of God is considered by some Buddhists to be the final object of dependency, the ultimate fuzzy security blanket, the last thing to be abandoned on the path to pure detachment.”  

Liz talks about faith.  She says that you pursue God by prayer, self mastery, improving your virtues, etc. in the hopes that you will get something in return that is greater than what you sacrificed.  There is no guarantee of return for your good (and hard) works, but that is faith.  This unknowing is what makes humanity courageous.  She writes that if we had guarantees about God and life we wouldn’t have faith but an insurance policy.  “I’m not interested in the insurance industry. I’m tired of being a skeptic, I’m irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate.  I don’t want to hear it anymore.  I couldn’t care less about evidence and proof and assurances.  I just want God.  I want God inside me.  I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.”