#MandalaOfLove

René Descartes’ Error

This Post 6 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found here.

In a previous article (here), I spoke about Plato’s advice that we know the truth by drawing our attention back into an identification with Consciousness (the ‘Plato’s Cave’ allegory). When we exercise this freedom to direct not just the placement of our attention, but the placement of our identification, the initial effect may be undramatic. This shift may at first seem to change nothing in the content of our experience, but as we look deeper we are usually delighted and amazed.

And if we continue to experiment so that we learn to sustain this shift from our egoic preoccupation with the objects of Consciousness, and start to cultivate the habit of resting as Consciousness, everything changes. To be able to recognise Consciousness as ourselves, and know its qualities as our own, even just for short moments, is the ultimate freedom.

The greater our receptivity in meditation, as we allow ourselves to expand into the imperturbable and equanimous quality of the field of Consciousness, the quieter the thinking function of the mind becomes. And the quieter the thinking function of the mind becomes, the deeper is our experience of Being. Also, as we practice this regularly, we begin to break our habitual identification with our thoughts, recognising that they are only points of view, and points of view that inherently lack objectivity. Paradoxically, it is precisely through our recognition that thoughts can only ever be points of view and therefore have an inherent tendency to lack objectivity, that the capacity for objectivity arises.

“I think, therefore I am”

The 17th Century French philosopher, René Descartes, famously stated ‘I think, therefore I am’. His words reflect a Western world that was starting to abandon the certainties of religious belief. While this intellectual process that he was part of (le Siècle des Lumières – ‘the Enlighmentment’) was in many respects necessary, it also left the Western world in a state of moral disorientation, with only the intellect for guidance – and global culture has been dominated by that dangerous moral malaise to this day. Continue reading

May 2, 2017

Carl Jung’s Psychology of the Archetypes

This is Post 4 in the ‘Mandala of Love’ book blog series.

Carl Jung was a psychiatrist, and he started his professional life working in large psychiatric institutions. He was a student of the neurologist Sigmund Freud who was developing his psychoanalytic method of treatment at that time. Jung had a close friendship with Freud, but his voracious appetite for understanding lead him to his own distinctive style of psychological thinking, which is of great importance for the modern world. His Analytical Psychology was distinguished two powerful concepts: the archetypes; and the collective unconscious.

Because of his pragmatism and alignment with the emerging scientific materialism in medicine, Freud’s more reductive approach was subsequently more widely adopted during the 20th Century. Jung was altogether more ambitious. It is as if he was writing for the 21st Century – and specifically setting himself against both the scientific materialism and religious fundamentalism of the 20th Century. His perspective was, I believe, aiming to be much more comprehensive and – despite his careful efforts to avoid metaphysical speculation – more spiritual.

Jung the Scientist of the Inner World

While Jung was in some ways actually more rigorously scientific and forward looking than Freud, he was also looking back to the roots of psychology in the literature, mythology and psychological reflections of the classical, medieval and Renaissance periods. His archetypes can be thought of as the eternal principles at work in human psychology, and also as the collective psychological forces at work in nations and human groups – forces that the ancients projected onto their gods. Continue reading

April 28, 2017

Objectivity – Meditation and Thinking

This is Post 5 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

Meditation grounded in self-enquiry, of the sort I have been speaking about, is enormously supportive to the thinking function of the mind. Creativity requires thought, and high-level creativity requires high-level thinking. Collaborative thinking especially requires the capacity to think clearly and the capacity to express our thoughts with accuracy and integrity – but all these things spring from the illusive mental quality that we call objectivity.

Objectivity is illusive because it is a function of our relationship to Consciousness. We can choose to embrace objectivity as a value, and can train ourselves to some extent in the discipline of objective thinking, but this requires a systematic study of thought, language and logic, in the context of a study of Philosophy; and ideally a broad study of Thought itself. Only the very best high schools teach thinking (especially in France, I believe), but most do not, so this training is usually only available in the context of higher education institutions – but most of these are increasingly focused on vocational training for industry and commerce. Any training in objectivity will in any case be limited however, unless it is developed with reference to Consciousness, since Consciousness is the only objective observer.

Consciousness is Non-Computational

#Consciousness #Meditation — This image will post to social media if you choose to share this post.

To better grasp the distinctive and extraordinary thinking capabilities of human beings, it is helpful to compare human thinking with that of the logical processing of a computer, and to recognise how profoundly different it is. A computer can never develop the attitude that we call objectivity however powerful it may be – and it certainly cannot develop Consciousness. It can process logically, and even ‘learn’ by accumulating vast amounts of data according to its human programmers intentions, but it is incapable of reflecting on what it is doing. Because a computer cannot consciously observe its own thought processes in the way a human being can, it can never develop the sort of objectivity, or the sort of depth of understanding, that is so characteristic of high-level human reasoning. Continue reading

April 25, 2017

Non-Duality – Buddha, Jesus, and Plato

This is Post 4 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

The unity of Consciousness and that which arises in Consciousness, is often spoken of in terms of non-duality or oneness, but what we actually experience in the self-inquiry experience, might better be characterised as a relational unity. Each of the great spiritual teachers have found different ways of pointing to this fundamental unity or oneness. When Jesus said “I and the Father are One” he was expressing this truth in the context of Jewish tradition. Similarly, the Buddha challenged us to notice that the conventionally assumed atman or soul in Hindu tradition cannot be located, and is actually ‘empty’ of self-nature. Now Quantum Physics is pointing to the same fundamentally unitary reality in which everything arises.

There is great practical psychological value for each one of us in trying to find our own experiential way into the actual perceptual reality behind these confusing and challenging ideas. For me, the core idea experientially behind these teachings, is that we are invited to acknowledge Consciousness – that which is generally overlooked in the perceptual process – and are invited to notice the ethical and relational qualities that are inherent in Consciousness, and to recognise that our assumed state of absolute separateness is a superficial phenomena – one that is denied, or at least relativised, by our more fundamental unity and connectedness on the level of Consciousness.

Plato’s Cave – an Allegorical Description of Consciousness

The unconscious and habitual tendency, which characterises ordinary egoic awareness, is such that we fail to acknowledge Consciousness. All our senses are directed almost exclusively towards objects. In regard to our sense of sight for example, we look ‘forward’ – with our attention solely on the object of our awareness – and do not acknowledge the Consciousness that is ‘seeing’. When we look forward in this way (without reference to what is looking) our perception is always limited and – paradoxically – can accurately be described as ’subjective’.

It is only when we allow ourselves to draw back and include Consciousness in our experiencing, that we become capable of perceiving reality as it is – that is, objectively. This way of experiencing, where we draw our attention back into the observing Consciousness, so as to include, or even give primacy to, the observing Consciousness in the perceptual relationship, is what the Buddhist tradition has come to refer to as Mindfulness. Continue reading

April 24, 2017

The Cross and the Mandala

This is Post 3 in the ‘Mandala of Love’ book blog series.

The Mandala is an archetype – a universal symbol or pattern. Images that reflect this archetypal pattern are found in all cultures throughout history, and in the dreams and visions of humanity since the beginning of recorded history. For Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist, the mandala was a symbol of the wholeness of the psyche and of the cosmos – even a symbol of God. The Cross, the symbol of Christianity, is the most prominent example of a mandala image in world history. For Jung, the life of Jesus was a profound spiritual mystery – one that preoccupied him for the whole of his life. For him, Jesus was a man who lived a mythic life; and the crucifixion of Jesus was, for Jung, both an historical event and a mythic mandala image. It was one of the most important parts of his life’s work, that humanity should better understand this great symbol. Indeed, he found the lack of understanding of that symbol, and of the person of Jesus, to be both tragic and dangerous for the future of humanity.

Carl Jung’s Mandala Archetype

Carl Jung passionately wanted to bring about a healing and a renewal of Christianity, so that it could meet the modern world with a new wisdom and integrity. His search for understanding of the mandala archetype played a key part in that quest. To understand the depth of Jung’s passion in this regard, it is important to understand that he was the son of a protestant pastor, and that he had witnessed, in the course of his childhood, his father’s loss of faith, a painful experience whose impact never left him. He was also painfully conscious by the end of his life that Christianity had failed to prevent a bloody revolution in Russia, two horrific world wars, the rise of modern fascism, the Holocaust, and the nuclear arms race of the cold war era. Continue reading

April 21, 2017

Introduction to the Mandala of Love book blog

This is Post 2 in the ‘Mandala of Love’ book blog series.

I am disturbed by what I see in the world. Even as I am personally seeking to orient myself to that which is eternal and satisfactory, I am keenly aware of the suffering that we are collectively creating for ourselves on this planet. While I hear others expressing wilful optimism, I cannot help but see a world in the grip of a frightening unconsciousness, and making deeply unsustainable choices that will lead to misery. Our world appears to be caught between, on one side, a postmodern world-view that rejects as ideology, the notions of social progress, objective reality, morality, truth and reason (following, it would seem, Friedrich Nietzsche’s dictum – “there is no truth, only interpretations’), leading to various forms of nihilism and narcissism; and, on the other side, fierce amoral world-shaping ideologies such as neoliberalism and religious extremism.

There is however, in the 21st Century, an emerging community of people throughout the world, who are seeking a new ethical basis for humanity; who would wish to seek out and establish a post-postmodern foundation for ethics and social justice. They seek a movement forward culturally and spiritually – one which specifically avoids merely retreating back to either conventional religious belief or the limitations of a merely humanistic moral philosophy. These are the creative and reflective people that will be interested in the content available on this website, where I hope to present understandings and practices that support a grounded spirituality that is deeply ethical because it is rooted in the experiential study of Consciousness. Continue reading

April 20, 2017

The Content of the Mind is Not Important

This is Post 3 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

The title of this article ‘The Content of the Mind is Not Important’ is intentionally somewhat provocative and paradoxical, especially for most meditators because, of course, most meditation practitioners have the explicit or implicit primary goal of becoming more mentally clear, or more emotionally positive, or more focused, or more effective in some way.

While I could guarantee that those results will naturally flow from this approach to meditation, I want to emphasise from the start that these results are not the primary focus of the practice. This is because the practice does not aim merely to change the contents of the mind by a sustained effort of will – but is focused instead on Consciousness itself. When, through self-enquiry, we become deeply familiar with Consciousness and start to fully recognise it, and familiarise ourselves with its nature, the wished for changes to the personal content of the mind will inevitably follow.

April 19, 2017

William Roy Parker

I was born in Bury, Lancashire, in the north west of England, and grew up in Altrincham, Cheshire, which is on the southern edge of Greater Manchester. I currently live in Brunswick Heads near Byron Bay in northern New South Wales, Australia, with my partner Sera.

I became a Buddhist when I was living in Manchester in my early twenties, and lived at the Manchester Buddhist Centre for several years, before moving to the London area. For most of my twenties, I lived (and worked) in a variety of semi-monastic ‘Western Buddhist’ communities, which were part of the Triratna Buddhist Community – a network of Buddhist Centres, retreat centres and businesses, which was initiated in 1967 by an English Buddhist called Sangharakshita (26 August 1925 – 30 October 2018). This period gave me a profound spiritual and cultural education that I have drawn on and reflected on all my life – often critically, but also with great appreciation. Indeed, my writing in this website is, in part, a distillation of the best of what I learned during those years, filtered through, and processed through, three decades of life experience and further spiritual study.

Finding myself somewhat culturally adrift after my full-time Buddhist years in my twenties, I was fortunate enough to find and embrace English Quakerism for ten years from my early 30s to early 40s, and was a warden at the Quaker Meeting House in Hampstead, North London, for much of that time. Originally a Christian tradition, the English Quakers have been an intensely practical and effective force for good in the world since the mid-17th Century. The inspiration for their relentless campaigns for peace and social justice over three and half centuries, has come from a meditative and mystical approach to worship. The English Quakers still sit in silence and open to the presence of the Divine – and they have no creed or required beliefs. My years sitting in silence in Quaker meetings provided one of many threads of spiritual experience that have influenced me to advocate the attitude of meditative receptivity towards the Transcendental, which I have characterised in my articles as ‘Resting as Consciousness’.

Although I have not maintained my connection with the Quaker tradition since moving to Australia, it is still a source of inspiration, and looking back I recognise with gratitude that Quaker meetings provided me with a very deep experience of spiritual community. The spiritual history of Quakerism continues to fascinate me – it has much to teach us about how an ethical sensibility arises in an uncontrived way from the simple practice of resting as Consciousness. We all need to remember that most of the members of the Committee for the Abolition of Slavery were Quakers – and that they campaigned against slavery relentlessly for decades, while the rest of the Christian world just rationalised and presented justifications of the Atlantic Slave Trade based on de-contextualised Biblical quotations.

Although I am no longer working in that profession, much of my time in London was spent working as an Occupational Therapist – running therapeutic programs, and doing counselling, coaching and support work in mental health services. I loved that work, and I dearly loved the staff and patients that I worked with in those contexts, and I loved the humanistic psychological framework of that work, but found myself predominantly drawing on my spiritual understandings, and on the depth psychology of Carl Jung (whose work I had studied during my Buddhist years) and other psychological approaches that were incongruous with the standard psychiatric understandings of mind and behaviour. I was also especially deeply affected by the work of philosopher and psychotherapist, Eugene Gendlin – whose wonderful ‘Focusing’ practice I studied in depth, and practised regularly for many years.

Gendlin’s ‘Focusing’ is a self-empathy / self-inquiry / psycho-therapeutic innerwork practice, that is very little known. I practiced Focusing in the context of a wonderful circle of fellow student practitioners who became my dearest friends. That experience of practising Focusing on a weekly basis was the strongest experience of spiritual community in my life – even deeper in some ways, than my experience of residential Buddhist communities in my twenties, or any other spiritual community that I have come across since. Although Focusing is usually presented, and understood, in humanistic terms, it is, in my view, a profoundly soulful and spiritual practice, and I came to see it as a practice that is closely aligned with Carl Jung’s archetypal psychology, which I continued to study at the same time. In my experience, the practice of Focusing consistently raises us far above a merely humanistic world-view. Our innerwork processes in that practice group frequently led us not only to psychological healing, but to profound spiritual insights and spiritual comfort.

An important part of my journey in the last two decades, has been a long period of seriously debilitating metabolic illness. I now recognise that these patterns of ill health have been with me since my twenties, but have worsened as I got older. This process has forced me into an understanding of health and mental health that is truly holistic. I find myself enormously grateful to several of the doctors in general practice in my local area, who practice various forms of more broad-based functional medicine that incorporates, or works alongside, nutritional, naturopathic, and complementary approaches.

What has lifted my level of well-being most effectively; and what has supported me in living with my limitations most profoundly; and what has prompted me to create this website, has been my return to regular meditation practice in 2016. The approach that I have found is a synthesis of understandings from many sources, and I would dearly like to share it with others.

My approach to meditation is essentially a Buddhist one – it springs primarily from Buddhist sources of inspiration and understanding. Its foundation is in the Buddha’s teachings – especially the brahmavihāras – and in the Five Wisdoms teachings of Indian Mahayana Buddhism (which evolved out of the Buddha’s ’emptiness of the Five Skandhas’ teachings). Like many Western practitioners of Buddhism, I think of myself as a Buddhist universalist however – by which I mean that I do not believe that Buddhism is the only source of valid spiritual truths. There are many other teachers, and several other traditions that have supported my understanding. I was very effected for example, by the work of Eugene Gendlin, which I mentioned above; by the Nonviolent Communication model of Marshall Rosenberg; by the very simple and direct advaita vedanta teachings of ‘Sailor Bob’ Adamson, who was a student of Nisagadatta Maharaj (and also of Dzogchen); by the spiritual exercises developed by Douglas Harding (who was a student Zen); and by the work of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff (who have collaborated to create a brilliant and convincing hypotheses to explain the ‘hard problem’ of Consciousness – via the quantum mechanical functioning of the molecular micro-tubules in the nerve-cells of the brain).

I have also greatly valued the non-duality teachings of Ziji Rimpoche (previously known as Candice O’Denver), and the global community that she has created. Candice O’Denver’s affinity with the Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, led to her adoption by the Tibetan lineage of Wangdor Rimpoche. Ziji Rimpoche’s approach could perhaps be characterised as one which strips Dzogchen back to its culture-free essence and makes it very accessible for Westerners. While I hesitate to attempt to sum up these profound teachings, this essence might be described as an approach to Mindfulness practice in which there is an invitation to recognise the omnipresent and all-embracing nature of Consciousness – repeatedly, if only for short moments, in the midst of life – and to gratefully acknowledge its profoundly beneficial and profoundly supportive qualities. Ziji Rimpoche’s network of teachers and students appear to have broken new ground with this approach – and with their innovative use of internet-based video-conferencing technologies have created a vibrant global self-enquiry community.

While Ziji Rimpoche is now teaching and practicing in the context of a Buddhist lineage, and I love her ultra-simple and ultra-direct approach to Mindfulness; my own path, and the path that I find myself advocating in my articles on this website is a more culturally Buddhist one. My approach could be characterised as ‘Western Buddhist’, in that I do not limit myself to any particular cultural form of Buddhism, or historical phase – and I am very happy to draw on parallel threads of spiritual inspiration in Western literature, poetry, religion, philosophy, and psychology; or on the mythology and spirituality of other cultures.

My approach to self-enquiry and meditation practice does however, take the Buddhist mandala as its starting point, and my preferred entry point into that mandala is the four brahmavihāras – an ancient Indian mandala model that was adopted and modified by the Buddha. I regard the four brahmavihāras model as presenting, not only an ideal to be strived for, but more importantly, a superb description of the tenderness of the Transcendental – an objective and collective reality to be received as a universal blessing by all of humankind.

My advocacy of a meditative engagement with the complexities of the bodies and chakras is also based on my studies and meditative explorations of Tibetan Buddhism in my twenties (mainly Lama Anagarika Govinda – author of the widely read Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism), but with the addition of very precious and very crucial pieces of additional information from a contempory spiritual teacher called Rahasya (Dr Fritjof Kraft) – who teaches a variety of approaches including a form of meditation based on the teachings of 11th Century Buddhist master Atisa. I have found his observations about the alternating polarity of the subtle bodies and chakras, and about how these alternating polarities are opposite in women and men, to be a profoundly supportive to my understanding of the symbolism of the masculine and feminine in Vajrayana meditation practice.

I need also to acknowledge the intimate and kind support that I experienced from Issac Shapiro, a non-duality teacher in the Byron Bay area, whose lineage is that of Ramana Maharshi. Although I have only attended his satsang meetings very infrequently, they have always profoundly affected me. It is precious to live in a corner of the world where you never know when you might bump into a bodhisattva at the local farmer’s market.

The road of my spiritual life has taken yet another turn in the last few years. When I began writing on this website, I did not think of myself as a Buddhist and I had no Buddhist friends. Because of the eclectic nature of my spiritual journey, I thought of myself only as someone with a great love of the historical Buddha and of the Buddhist tradition in general, and as someone whose formative years of spiritual education were in the context of Buddhist community and Buddhist meditation retreats. I was resigned to the experience of being a solitary spiritual practitioner with no affiliations with any particular spiritual community.

In 2020, I noticed a choice taking place in me. I noticed myself longing for spiritual community – for Sangha, the Buddhist say – for a communal context for my life and for my spiritual aspirations. Most importantly there has been a great wish in me to contribute to the spiritual understanding of others, and to teach what I have learned. This has led me to reconnect with old friends and associates from my twenties, and I have found myself wholehearted embracing Buddhism again – and recovering a connection with the particular cultural inspiration and network of spiritual friendships that set me on the spiritual journey back in my twenties. My love of the transcendental Bodhisattva principle, and my recognition of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha (the ‘Three Jewels’ of Buddhist tradition) as the universal principles that have been guiding me, has led me back to the Triratna Buddhist Community. I have even reconnected with the Croydon Buddhist Centre (in South London, UK) where I lived and worked in the 1980s when I was in my twenties, and I now participate in one of that Centre’s Dharma Study groups, and other activities, via Zoom. I have also begun to connect with the Australian (and New Zealand) Triratna Buddhist Community, and have developed an affiliation with the Melbourne Triratna Buddhist Centre.

For more autobiographical reflections and information on the approach I have taken in my writing, please consider reading the two ‘Overview’ articles, the first of which is A Mandala Framework for Meditation and Self-Enquiry, which can be found here.

April 18, 2017

About Mandala of Love

I am disturbed by what I see in the world. Even as I am personally seeking to orient myself to that which is eternal and satisfactory, I am keenly aware of the suffering that we are collectively creating for ourselves on this planet. While I hear others expressing wilful optimism, I cannot help but see a world in the grip of a frightening unconsciousness, and making deeply unsustainable choices that will lead to misery. Our world appears to be caught between, on one side, a postmodern world-view that rejects as ideology the notions of social progress, objective reality, morality, truth and reason (following, it would seem, Friedrich Nietzsche’s dictum – “there is no truth, only interpretations’), leading to various forms of nihilism and narcissism; and, on the other side, fierce amoral world-shaping ideologies such as neoliberalism and religious extremism.

There is however, in the 21st Century, an emerging community of people throughout the world, who are seeking a new ethical basis for humanity; who would wish to seek out and establish a post-postmodern foundation for ethics and social justice. They seek a movement forward culturally and spiritually, one that specifically avoids merely retreating back to either conventional religious belief or the limitations of a merely humanistic moral philosophy. These are the creative and reflective people who will be interested in the content available on this website, where I hope to present understandings and practices that support a grounded spirituality that is deeply ethical because it is rooted in the experiential study of Consciousness.

My belief, based on my experience, and on a lifetime of spiritual study and practice, is that Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of the brain, but exists, and has always existed, as an objective presence in the universe – a presence that is universal and benevolent in particular ways, and can even be described as acting as a compassionate, evolutionary, and healing force. This belief has become a form of faith for me – a deep and passionate conviction. As someone who has, despite experiences to the contrary, lived in a scientific materialist world-view for most of my life, this new knowing has been something of a revelation, and quite a challenge to my old habits of mind.

So, the core of my thesis, and the core theme of the material on this website is that Consciousness, and the subtle qualitative mental functions that arise in association with Consciousness, are the basis of human ethics, and are our only reliable guide to what is ultimately satisfying and sustainable – and this knowledge is easily accessible and knowable in our own experience through meditation and self-inquiry. I hope to be posting articles regularly, and some of these blog posts will be based on sections from my forthcoming book: A Mandala of Love: Consciousness, Ethics, and Society.

One of the most important sub-themes, that I hope to be demonstrating in the book, is the fact that the field of Consciousness has shaped human evolution, and has shaped the human brain, and that our continuous interaction with that field is the distinguishing feature of our humanity. Homo Sapiens is a uniquely empathetic, imaginative, collaborative, and richly creative creature, and all of this springs from the nature of Consciousness. We are almost certainly alone in our galaxy – and possibly unique in the whole universe, and yet this planet and the lives of the human beings who live here are treated without reverence – for lack of a world-view that acknowledges the mystery and wonder of our situation.

My view of evolution is rooted in scientific facts, but goes far beyond the conventional atheist view of most scientific discourse. It is not a religious view either. My aim is to combine the scientific and spiritual sensibilities in a new synthesis that is balanced and respectful to both. The most obvious place in which these two strands are coming together is in new understandings of the mind-brain problem. In my view, no better explanation for Consciousness has yet been put forward, than that proposed by Roger Penrose (a mathematical physicist) and Stuart Hameroff (an anaesthesiologist), whose elegant model places the threshold or interface between the quantum mechanical functioning of the brain (i.e. Consciousness), and classical (i.e. neurological) functioning of the brain, not in the synapses, but in the molecular micro-tubules within neurons.

Because quantum physics is so impenetrable for most people, and because the culture of the scientific community, and that of the religious establishments, have historically tended to be so polarised against each other, the implications of these ideas are only slowly being recognised. But there are now clear signs that this knowledge could provide the foundation for a spiritual renaissance. I believe, like many others, that the 21st Century needs to evolve a universal spirituality, and a spiritual psychology, that can provide a new ethical foundation, one based on experienced truths rather than a beliefs. Science brings with it a spirit of objectivity and universality, which rises above the limitations of language and of cultural forms, and once the implications of quantum mechanics have been accepted, it has the potential to play an important part in the healing of human culture and spirituality.

So in short, it is my conviction – and I am certainly not alone in this – that Consciousness, when we examine it carefully, is in many respects identical to what previous generations would have called God; and that the study of Consciousness is the key to the realisation of human potential. For me, the recognition of Consciousness as the omnipresent field the Divine is our starting point. And the process of becoming deeply familiar with that reality, provides us with a new basis for the ethical discernment, ethical action, and ethical vigilance that we so need to face the complexities and dangers of the modern world.

In my book I hope to set out a body of experiential knowledge that supports this view, drawing on my experience of Buddhism, Quakerism, Christianity, archetypal psychology, my work in the Occupational Therapy profession; together with my studies in brain science, quantum physics, and biology; and on my years of psychological innerwork, self-inquiry and meditation. Such is the culture of specialisation in the modern world that these areas of discourse are not usually brought together, so that many important connections are not made.

My aim is to provide reflection on all these areas in a way that combines and brings new understandings – a new synthesis that, I believe, the world urgently needs. It is my wish that this synthesis will support those who share my concerns, which is why I have decided to share my writing on this website as a series of blog posts.

April 18, 2017

Preface to ‘Mandala of Love: Consciousness, Ethics and Society’

This article was written as the first article, and as the Preface to a series of articles, that were written as chapters for a book project, which I provisionally called ‘Mandala of Love: Consciousness, Ethics and Society’. The plan to write and publish a book, soon evolved into the idea of publishing on this ‘Mandala of Love’ website. Essentially, the subject of the book was the four-fold nature of mind; the four-fold nature of the Divine; the four-fold nature of a comprehensive ethical sensibility; and the four-fold nature of creativity – themes that have fascinated me since my twenties. At that time I was living and working in Triratna Buddhist Order communities, and as a result of the very broad and rich cultural and religious education that I was receiving, I fell in love with the work of the visionary English poet William Blake. Blake had his own very profound understanding of the four-fold nature of the Divine – one which in some ways mirrors that found in the Buddhist tradition and in other spiritual traditions down through history.

In my twenties, when I was a passionate full-time student of Buddhism and living and working in a Buddhist community, I was surprised, one day in my meditation, by a strong visionary experience of the energetic presence of Jesus – Blake’s Jesus. I experienced him as a purifying light descending from heaven. This ecstatic and visionary meditative state was evoked not by any devotional form of words from Buddhist tradition, but by a single recitation of William Blake’s words: “Jesus, the Imagination, the forgiver of Sins” that just burst out of me in a spirit of devotion and petitionary prayer. As a Buddhist, I also recognised this pure-white descending light as the energy of Vajrasattva [more on him here], and the cross-cultural ambiguity of this religious experience was one of several around that time that taught me about the universality of the ultimate spiritual reality. It was revealed to me that the ultimate nature of the divine is beyond any culture or religion, and that every genuine religious or spiritual cultural form may be seen as attempting to approach, and surrender to, the same transcendental reality – though clearly some religious cultures are more effective in that approach than others.

One of Blake’s better known poems is ‘Jerusalem’, which is copied below. Blake wrote it as a preface to one of his longer poetic works. Because I resonate so strongly with so many of the themes of Blake’s poetry, and perhaps because I aspire to follow in his footsteps in some modest way, I would like to use it as a preface to these reflections.

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green.
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire;
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.

by William Blake (1757 − 1827) – part of a preface to his epic poem: Milton (written and illustrated between 1804 and 1810)

William Blake was a dissenting voice in a world that was in the throes of early capitalism – industrialisation, colonialism, scientific materialism, the privatisation of the commons, and the horrors of the Atlantic Slave Trade. He despaired of Christianity’s failure to provide a voice for spiritual truth and social justice in that world. His poems are a call to a humanitarian vision rooted in a spiritual view of man. The ‘Jerusalem’ of this particular poem is a symbolic city – the symbol of a just and sustainable society in Blake’s imaginal world. Continue reading

April 17, 2017