Anthony de Mello

[snailfist]

Has anyone else read this guy? he does books of short (<60 seconds to read- one book is called one minute wisdom) stories with a philisophical/religious content. One cool one concerns a master whose cat makes a nuisance of itself in religious ceremonies. The master then has it tied down in the ceremonies. Then the cat dies. The master buys another one and it is tied down too. Then the master dies, and the cat continues to be tied down. Then that cat dies and another cat is bought to replace it to be tied down. Thus it became a fundamental part of the ceremony that a cat was present to be tied down throughout it. :)

[YODA]

Sounds interesting - I'll check him out.

And yes - many martial arts styles are still tying down that cat :D

[YODA]

Looks well worth further reading - thank you snailfist :D

http://www.spiritwalk.org/demello.htm

I like this......

Wisdom

It always pleased the Master to hear people recognize their ignorance.

"Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance,"
he claimed.

When asked for an explanation, he said,
"When you come to see you are not as wise today
as you thought you were yesterday,
you are wiser today."

[YODA]

........ and I just LOVE this ......

The Eagle who thought he was a chicken

A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked.

"That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth--we're chickens." So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.

[shortstick]

I have heard one close to what snailfist wrote.

"Every holiday when I was a kid growing up, I waited to taste grandma's great holiday ham. She would prepare it with so much care. I always wondered why she cut both ends of the ham off before placing it in the oven....I thought maybe that was the secret to the great flavor. Well, years later in my own house, i continued the ham tradition. Following Grandma's list of secret ingredients that had been written down by her grandmother. I also would cut the ends off the ham, even though that was not written. Then last year I was lucky to have Grandma come to our Holiday dinner. I prepared the ham, under her watchful eye. But when I cut the ends off just before putting it in the oven, she dropped her jaw and asked why I had done that. I told her growing up I always saw her do it. The she said " I did that because the baking pan was too small to fit the ham!"

[snailfist]

Hehehe. There's a couple of other good 1s that i can't really do justice with my recollection of them. I'd also recommend reading the screwtape letters by Cs Lewis in this vein. they're a series of letters from a senior devil to a junior tempter imparting advice on the corruption of souls. I see what i have read in that book evrywhere i go. it's scary!

[KenpoDavid]

thats a great book, snailfist.

[CKava]

I've heard quite a bit from Anthony De Mello.. he was apparently quite popular in the 80's. Id recommend his set of tapes 'Waking Up To Life' he's got quite a light and humourous way of speaking when he's talking to a group. Oh and dont let the fact the title sounds like a bad self help tape (or the fact that he was a Jesuit) put you off- he was a very, very smart man. And on my own behalf alot of stuff Id read on Buddhism didnt click till I heard some of his stuff...