{"id":559,"date":"2008-05-05T15:22:32","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T21:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=559"},"modified":"2008-05-05T15:22:32","modified_gmt":"2008-05-05T21:22:32","slug":"a-burning-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=559","title":{"rendered":"A Burning Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a065\u00a0 bar falls 29.94 0mph S dewpoint 30 Beltane<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Moon (Hare Moon)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life and activity; it affords protection to all beings. (Buddhist\u00a0 Sutra)<\/p>\n

Though this comes from a Buddhist sutra (thread) it resonates with\u00a0Taoist\u00a0thought.\u00a0 These two ancient traditions crossed paths over and over again in China.\u00a0 At least one of those occasions created Chan Buddhism, which, in Japan became Zen Buddhism.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Buddhist element I see here is the notion of unlimited kindness and benevolence, an attribution to the forest that I do not believe my brother Taoists would make.\u00a0 They would agree that the forest is a peculiar organism (among many) and would further concur that it makes no demands for sustenance (on humans) and does extend its product of life and activity (generously–well, maybe to a Buddha, but probably not to a tree) and would also acknowledge its protection to all beings (except those plants killed by competitive toxins and the small prey animals killed by predators).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taoism is a fascinating (to me) blend of reason and organismic thinking which produces a vibrant metaphysic understandable at the tinest particle of matter and at stages of complex organization from thence upwards to the Heavens themselves, the 10,000 things.<\/p>\n

Mostly clean up outside today.\u00a0 Getting ready for the more ambitious projects that will soon occupy my time.<\/p>\n

From the deck last\u00a0evening I looked at our Magnolia.\u00a0 It stood against the seven oaks like the flame atop a Thai Buddha.\u00a0 Its white glinted, mirrored back by white daffodils.\u00a0 This evening, for this moment, the Magnolia had a nimbus, a sacred aura, as if it had transcended its treeness and become another living entity all together a vegetative, blooming fire.\u00a0 A burning tree.<\/p>\n

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\u00a065\u00a0 bar falls 29.94 0mph S dewpoint 30 Beltane \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Moon (Hare Moon)\u00a0 The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life and activity; it affords protection to all beings. (Buddhist\u00a0 Sutra) Though this comes from a … Continue reading A Burning Tree<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,87,17],"tags":[433,4351,257,378],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-and-spirituality","category-garden","category-great-wheel","tag-buddhism","tag-garden","tag-taoism","tag-trees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}