Samuel Longhorn Clemens

This post has little or nothing to do with Mark Twain. Now that that is out of the way...

I took a trip to Chester Beattie library today in Dublin castle. I was prompted to do this by something I noticed while walking home yesterday. As I was walking, I noticed a sign that said there was a new exhibition showing and that they had borrowed a load of artwork from the Shanghai museum of history (or something) and it was running until May 2nd. There was a lot of interesting work in there as I had suspected... depicting Chinese superstitions, traditions and some stuff like scrolls and pictures painted in ages long since passed as tributes to Daoism and Confucanism, two Chinese schools of thought that I have a particular fondness and interest in. I would recommend viewing this to anyone that is that way inclined or is just curious.

I also noticed that the monument for the special Olympics is still there, right outside Chester Beattie library. And yours truly still has his name on it.

Anyway, I walked around and satisfied my interest somewhat, then decided I'd pay a visit to the other part of the library, just to see what kind of stuff was on display other than the fantastic Chinese scrolls and artwork that I found below. I hadn't been there in about 5 years and it was a nice day, so I went ahead with it. I was hoping to find some Japanese woodblock Yukioe or perhaps some Samurai mementos or some other ancient Asian stuff. I've always been fascinated by it.

The 2nd floor of Chester Beattie library has the biggest collection of native and foreign religious paraphernalia that I have seen in a long time. They have loads of Christian books, a copy of the Qu'ran and other Islamic bric-a-brac and a shitload of Buddhist and Daoist/Confucian related texts on display. They have many detailed explanations about each one too. I love Chinese philosophy... so interesting and so free-willed. Seems to cover all aspects of life that I would ever consider important or blab aboout at great length. There are, of course, more ritualised versions of practice for the hardcore followers of each sect. This, it seems to me is more of what Christianity and Islam is all about. Hell, even Buddhism, Cha'n Buddhism (Zen), Rinzai and Tibetan Buddhism have their routines. The only one I'm any way interested in is Mahayana Buddhism as this isn't just for the religious priest, but the normal layperson too. All it takes is a little appreciation, a lot of awareness and a wee bit of practice to interact with. But all the same, this just got me to thinking.

Doesn't the practice of religious worship just encourage mental illness? Doesn't the whole thing just reek of O.C.D? Doesn't it just breed dependence and fear? Isn't it all just a little bit too theatrical and over the top? I mean, let's look at the mental illness side of things... imaginary friends, schizophrenia and paranoia, the belief that someone can always see and hear you, obsessive compulsive disorder and the repetition of rituals just to feel better and secure, fear complexes and the inability to be independent without some sort of grand master and generally just escapism and depression... fearing life itself and lacking any will to spend your time looking into the things that make you happy as an individual. I mean, yeah, it's OK to have some sort of spiritual benefit while you live, but why live in fear of your death? Why can't we just realise that life can't exist without dying sometime? Maybe then we could reap the full benefits of what little time we have here and then fizzle out as we're destined. To quote Mark Twain - "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it"

It sure was interesting reading about Chinese philosophy the first time. There were 3 schools of thought in Chinese society for all that I knew... Confucius for the social end, Buddhism for the spiritual and then Taoism for consistency.The day I switched off from western oppressive religious scaremongering was the day I just felt better about being alive. Now don't get me wrong, I ain't preaching, I just feel like when spirituality needs to be earthed, I'd rather be looking through the clear glass of common sense than the stained glass of western spirituality.

Anyway, it always comes back to one thing, one simple analogy when the going gets tough in spiritual terms. I always think of the analogy of the flower.

You like the flower and it looks beautiful. You want to make the flower grow bigger so all your friends can benefit from experiencing it's beauty. You put compost on the base of the flower to watch it bloom. But more and more of your friends are becoming interested and they want to see it's glory too, so they start to feed compost to the flower. Eventually, your friends at the back cannot see what it looks like, so you cover the flower in so much shit that it's beauty is lost. All your friends can see is the shit that they piled on top of it.

This is how I feel about spirituality. It's supposed to be simple and clear and on the most part, beneficial and to the point. The more people get into the idea, the more they demand. It's like celebrity being plagued by paparazzi when it gets down to it. Hello! and OK! and HEAT! and all that shit is like the bible for gossip girls. Eventually the thing your interested in gets bled dry just so you can see it on the cover always. There is no interesting story or metaphor. All you're left with is the garbage you demanded.

Ugh, that's enough today. AGAIN I didn't get to write what I wanted.

Peace