This Very Moment

This is now.  Not then, not to come.  What we have done affects our present but does not dictate who we are in this moment.  This moment may affect the next or it may not, who can tell what it holds.  We cannot control the past of others which we might have affected or been affected by, but we can try to heal and relieve suffering through what we do now.
70 times 7 equals 490 but ironically it is a number not intended to be taken literally unless someone has developed a pharisaical nature which analyzes every nook and inconsequential cranny of what it means to be righteous.  Forgiveness is very much a now principle I think.  Forgiveness is about letting go ultimately.
Letting go of the irritation at friends who sleep while you weather your darkest hour.  Letting go of leading and demanding well deserved worship.  Letting go of vindictiveness but instead excersizing compassion.  Letting go of controlling the lives of those who you know are about to betray you.  Letting go of the hatred for the soldiers lifting you up on the cross.  Forgiving the debtor and feeling our own release thereby..
To love without price.  How do we show love without price?  This is probably one of life's greatest challenges.  When others pluck the strings of our out of tune soul, shove us out of balance, commit untold tortures up on us wittingly or not.  To love with equanimity.  Not always an easy step,  perhaps like a graceful ballerina we often appreciate the beauty of the finished product and forget the toil and constant training it took to arrive there.  Love with equanimity is such a practice.  Far more beautiful than roses yet destroyed just as easily and slower to grow.
I need to live Now.  Love now.  Love the people surrounding me in the now.  The past does not define who they are now.  The past must not poison the present.  The past is old news, I must let it go to understand the present with equanimity.  To love with equanimity,   and stop shooting myself in the foot.

Hmmm, Buddha and Fowler Stage 6?

So I spent the weekend with kind of a double dose of things I don't necessarily agree with and for the most part, I let it roll over and pass around me.  I will not criticize here or voice my disagreements.  I am an observer, a guest.  I try to view things with what the Buddhist's call equanimity.  To understand both sides.  To me this is to understand that all of this,  belief systems, thoughts, people, are all a natural part of the universe.  There is nothing that is not natural or separate from the Universe.  We are all pieces.  Your piece and my piece are not necessarily better than the other,  the Universe certainly doesn't respect either more than the other as the ultimate end is the same.  This kind of reminds me of Fowler's stage six of stages of faith.

There is one thing I disagree with this chart on.  It makes it look like a progression and that one stage is better than the other.  I don't necessarily think this is true.  Individuals find their needs met by different systems.  Mine happens to be the basic non-supernatural tenets of Buddhism right now (Secular Buddhism).  Could it eventually change?  Well nothing is permanent.  At this moment it is what makes the most sense to me and fulfills my needs.  Which of course, ultimately, are not needs.  How's that for an obscure Zen paradox?

So this community stuff the chart talks about seems a lot like the wider definition of a Sangha or the concept of oneness.  It makes a lot of sense to me.  We become more focused on the whole as opposed to a piece of it.  To some there is a belief that peace is something you are that is given to you  through devotion.  This is fine.  For others peace is something you cultivate, and ultimately, when you are able to accept things, experiences, fate, other people with their idiosyncrasies and beliefs, the natural bi-product is peace to some extent.  Anyway, just some musings today.  Do good, be kind, help where you can, build your community everywhere you go.