Time tells

Home/Textes/Time tells

Time tells

Yesterday I read about a guy in the United States who preaches something that he calls practical mysticism. Apart from the fact that he is in big trouble because three people died and many others are hospitalized after one of his practices in a sweat lodge turned bad, I’ve been wondering what « practical mysticism » could be. Seems to be what we call in English an oxymoron (two contradictory terms). By nature, what is « mystical » is not « practical » and what is « practical » is not « mystical. »

Meanwhile, here in Europe, while we sleep tonight what we agree is the « time » will not follow our usual notion of its pattern. It will « fall back. » Does that mean we will all be a bit younger? Or what if we are actually neither young nor old, the hour not ahead or behind? What if we are in fact time?

By | 2015-10-02T12:37:31+00:00 octobre 24th, 2009|Textes|7 Comments

About the Author:

Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste. The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.

Related Posts

7 Comments

  1. little lake 29 octobre 2009 at 9 h 23 min - Reply

    yes.

    i gues we could also differentiate

    "seeing" as in knowing without knowing
    = Prajhna??? ( i don’t know how this word is used – maybe it is just "knowing"?)
    no action

    and prajhna into action = compassion???
    doing without doing?

  2. tu es cela 27 octobre 2009 at 15 h 51 min - Reply

    in this context, in conjunction with mysticism, as in the aforementioned guy’s "practical mysticism," we could say "practical" is like "concrete" perhaps, or "relative."
    it is true that the relative and the absolute are not two. but they are not one, either.

  3. little lake 27 octobre 2009 at 11 h 52 min - Reply

    what do you mean by practical, Sensei?

  4. Ting 26 octobre 2009 at 18 h 13 min - Reply

    “Free us of silly devotion…” is part of a prayer?
    I can appreciate a paradox and this one is a beauty!

    Devotion certainly is our own doing, but is time our own doing as well?
    Our measuring of time is.
    And what is time if it is not measured?
    What is anything if it is not measured, named and classified?

    Truth.

  5. Peter 26 octobre 2009 at 11 h 22 min - Reply

    It seems when we become self-aware as children – a relationship to past, present, future time is also born. eg Sometime before there was no "me" and sometime there will be no more "me".
    See: Kohnstamm, D. "I am I. Sudden flashes of self awareness in childhood". Athena Press, 2007

  6. wilde primula 25 octobre 2009 at 19 h 53 min - Reply

    Mystical – practical

    Theresa of Avila had a prayer:
    "Free us of silly devotion…" – and told her sisters to help one another instead.

    I saw the website – it is more like: if you do this , then you get that…
    c’est de la commerçe ???

  7. little lake 25 octobre 2009 at 9 h 28 min - Reply

    By nature, what is "mystical" is not "practical" and what is "practical" is not "mystical."

    what will "the mystical" be – if not right here , right now, concrete, practical???
    I once saw " a master without words " just cutting the carrots…

    What if time is just a concept to confirm our existence – ego?
    where is the notion of time in pure awareness?

Leave A Comment