The system is actually very simple, appearances to the contrary.
It is summed up in three practices: the Way, the Word and the Work.
- The Way = the headless way and mindfulness.
- The Word = wisdom literature and mantras.
- The Work = liturgy and theurgy.
The Way is a continuous practice, “every minute zen” or “one eon zen”.
The Word comprises daily reading, meditation and prayer (see the meditation page for the canon).
The Work consists of weekly (Sunday Mass) and monthly (Mushroom Ceremony) rituals.
(Incidentally, these three practices map onto the Buddhist “three treasures”, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.)
Practice means repetition: Way, Word, Work, Repeat. By doing this over and over again, we train the brain and balance the nervous system. We structure the Imaginal, form the Forms, embody the Archetypes, make the Word flesh.
Eventually, we discover a timeless place that becomes gradually and progressively more vividly real, paradoxically here and now, but somehow beyond time and space. Do we discover it or create it? Or both? In any case, we find ourselves entering the kingdom of God, again and again.
T.S. Eliot writes,
“But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—”
This simple system is for those who would seek the kingdom of God and be sanctified thereby. Whether understood clearly and explicitly or obscurely and implicitly to begin with, it is in truth an occupation for the saint, for holy men and women with bodhicitta, the “idea of the holy” and the “thought of enlightenment”.
bread of life 