Newpath Tenrikyo -Graphic Metaphors and Idioms - INTERNALIZING THE METAPHOR - FIRE WATER WIND
Fire Water Wind
We have looked at the graphic metaphor Fire Water Wind as a piece of art and
as a metaphor for ideas and concepts that can express the total original
cause and ongoing engine of nature and hopefully have added some depth to
our pondering in the process. Our next step in going deeper with our
pondering involves expanding our work with the concepts and ideas that we discussed as
pertaining to the original cause and the ongoing workings of
causality in nature to include ourselves. We are after all a part of nature,
though we often reason as if we are not. To do this we will want to find
ideas and concepts that we can use to match the three elements "Fire Water Wind" to
the causal workings of our own body and mind and see if we can make our
ideas and concepts of those three elements match up or be in accord with the
ideas and concepts that we formed when pondering the workings of those three
elements in the natural world.
Let's
begin with Fire (Sun). That each of us are here and able to read this is the
result of causes set in motion by our parents and their parents and their
parents going all the way back to the point when the original cause (fire)
first gathered and set in motion the instruments that were to eventually
evolve into human beings as well as everything else in the world. Our
parents were conscious when we were conceived and each of us was conscious
at the time of our birth. When we look at the complexity of conceiving and
giving birth we, the person who was born, really didn't play any
self-centered causal roll in the process. Of course our parents played a
roll but even that is small compared to the complexity of the instrumental
processes involved in a conception and birth. The instruments assembled and
working together are responsible for the causality leading to a successful
birth. Without (Fire) the original consciousness those changes either would
not take place at all or they would be taking place in the dark (another
metaphor, "the dark and muddy ocean") and life as we know and experience it
would be absent. Though consciousness (fire) is absolutely essential for our
existence and experience of life it is something that we ordinarily take for
granted. So right away we can see that the self centered foundation for our
thinking lacks depth when compared with the role played by our original
consciousness (fire). To discover and be in accord with that original (fire)
consciousness will require clearing off the worldly common self centered
foundation of our reasoning and in so doing exposing the original core
consciousness (Fire) that was with the original instruments of creation, our
parents at our conception and was with us before we began to imagine being a
separate self (Water Wind).
Moving on to internalizing the representation of "Water" in the graphic
metaphor "Fire Water Wind" (note that I am leaving out the commas to show that
they represent not three separate elements but a single truth). This one is
easy as there is a poem that clearly states that "Water" is a metaphor for the
human mind and that the truth can be understood by the words "clear or muddy"
(two more metaphors). Everybody has a mind but how often do we look
into just exactly what that "mind" is. In my own case I have determined that
what I call "my mind" is a collection of ideas about the world that are
attached to a fundamental idea of myself as a separate person. It may be of
some interest that I identify more with an image of myself based on
ideas and concepts than with the body that they are identified with in time
and space. I know, or at least I imagine that I know that there are other
minds that identify primarily with a body image and not so much with ideas
and concepts. When looked at in detail it is clear that there are no two minds that are
exactly the same.
Since I introduced the metaphors "clear" or "muddy" in relation to the truth
of the metaphor "Water" let's deal with that now. Quite simply the clear
water is the perfect reflection of "Fire" or the original consciousness.
Muddy water is the collection of self-centered, I am this separate body,
ideas of self and all of the associated ideas and concepts that rise out of
that fundamental idea of separation. In the scheme of the graphic metaphor
"Fire Water Wind", though the self centered imagination is very cool and
marvelous, it is entirely dependent upon (Fire) the original consciousness,
the original cause of any and everything. The Tenrikyo Dynamic Mission makes
the claim that now is the time for all human beings to be able to
distinguish between the original cause (fire ) and the causes that
flow from and because of it (water wind) and that by quickly doing so will make it
possible to begin the "construction" (another metaphor which we will get to) for the recreation of a world of joyous life for all.
The
metaphor "Wind" can then rather easily be seen as representing
the ideas, beginning with the idea that I am a separate body and
accumulating as the moving target that is my self image, that rise up in and from the (water) of my mind and that are more or less constantly
going through changes and are on the move.
As concerns the changes in my body, the "winds" of change best fit with the
stages of development of my body and of course both the beginning and end
points marked by birth and death. When I think about why my body goes
through changes I find that I really haven't much of a clue other than my rather
shallow notion of physiology and my direct experience that my body indeed
changes over time. Though I can't say that I have paid much attention to the
changes that my body has gone through over the years, other than at those
times when it isn't working right, I can say that the more I ponder it from
the point of view that what I call my body is in fact an abstraction, a
thing borrowed from God's body, the better I feel about it and the natural
world of changes in general. Pondering in this way also lends confidence to
my ability to easily distinguish between good and evil, by seeing things as
they are as opposed to how I am encouraged and conditioned to imagine them
to be. This I think is particularly important in these times when the "upper
people", yet another metaphor, are so busy disseminating their truths of the world that tend to
cover over the
true intention of a joyous life for all equally that our original parental heart
intends for us. Regardless, without "Fire"
"Water Wind" just isn't happening. So quickly exposing and resolving the "Parental Heart"
(another metaphor for "Fire" our original consciousness) from within our own
mind is the primary task of the Tenrikyo Dynamic Mission.
We have used the
graphic metaphor Fire Water Wind to guide our pondering and have
established some premises, namely:
None of the premises numbered above are new to the human experience. As questions they have been around for a long time. What is new for us however is the clear, simple methodology available for all human beings equally for testing their truth.
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