Enlightenment at Dalton

Young cat fascinated by the snowfall last Sunday. Photo courtesy Ann Darbyshire

Variety Bash visited Gunning last week much to the delight of Gunning Public School children and other residents. Photo courtesy Michael Cullis

MC Rob Lee Tet welcomes all to the Enlightenment Ceremony last Saturday. Photo Ann Darbyshire

The Age of Enlightenment finished in 1815, so how come Dalton was only catching on 200 years later?

However, this view does a disservice to the Enlightenment Ceremony at Dalton Public Hall closed for 20 years. The lights were switched on in the first stage of an ambitious refurbishment.

There was music, recitations, recollections and even stand-up comedy from Dalton Public School students, bush poet Rob Gorman and Mad Kelpies Playdate.

Les Martin shared some entertaining memories of growing up in Dalton including about the Boorowa Hill tyre race that ended with one whacking into a Holden car parked outside the pub! Also mentioned was Old Bill, the gold miner.

The enthusiastic crowd included Pru Goward MP, Upper Lachlan Mayor Brian McCormack OAM, Mrs McCormack and ULSC Cr John Searl.

Congratulations to the good burghers of Dalton.

Our little town often gets amazing visitors and last week was no exception. The Variety Club visited Gunning Public School as part of their bash from Melbourne to Fraser Island in Queensland.

It was early and new residents of Nelanglo Street adjacent to the school, Lisa and Michael Cullis were awoken from a late morning sleep-in. What could all the fuss be about?

Much to their surprise, Barbie, Elvis and others characters were found visiting the school as part of the Variety Club Bash and handling out goodies to the school students with many other kids in attendance. It was an event that couldnt go without photos.

They were not the only ones to catch the amazing event, with Kerry and Jay Gribbin being forewarned through a relative who was part of the run that Gunning was on the itinerary.

It all goes to show, you never quite know what to expect on the streets of Gunning, in the best possible way.

The Garden Club and Gunning Community Care (GCC) drew raffles recently and I was lucky in both!

GCC had a very successful Garage sale with their Spring Country Produce fundraiser this Saturday. All funds raised go towards enhancing facilities and equipment at GCC.

Fundraising kicked off five years ago by Guy Southwell and Leigh Hickey lead to the skate park. Now the Variety bash may help with a new community fundraising focus - a swing for kids with disabilities.

Social media, email etc check out how to master these at Gunning Library workshops.

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Enlightenment at Dalton - Goulburn Post

T.R. Kerth, Contributor Published 12:38 p.m. ET Aug. 28, 2017

Livingston Daily photographer Gillis Benedict, away from the hordes who ventured to see the total eclipse, witnessed the magical approach of darkness at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area near Cadiz, KY in timelapse. Gillis Benedict/Livingston Daily

T.R. Kerth(Photo: Submitted)

OK, people, the eclipse is over. Time to come back down to earth, wipe the awestruck tears from your eyes, and stop OMGing the wonders of the natural world as you ponder your place in the universe. Lets put the spiritual tizzy behind us, shall we? Its all fun and games until somebody becomes a druid.

Not that I didnt think it was cool.

It was.

For the record, I wasnt at any of the ground zeroes of totality that arched across the nation like a celestial skid mark. I have friends who went, but not me. I stayed home and was out on the sidewalk in front of the house, where it was about 89 percent of perfect totality, which was plenty for me. I dont think Ive ever been closer than 89 percent of perfection in any other thing Ive ever done.

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Still, you knew it was a special moment when several neighbors on my block set out their lawn chairs on the sidewalk just after noon on a Monday. We usually wait until after dinner to do that.

But there were signs that this gathering was special and unique, like the fact that none of us had a beer in our hand. Eclipses can make you do strange things.

I didnt have those special eclipse glasses that were all the rage, but one of my neighbors had a big X-ray sheet his doctor had given him years ago, and he let me look through it to see the eclipse. I was amazed how much an eclipse looks like a broken wrist bone. Or maybe I was looking at the wrong thing.

When the sun was finally 89 percent covered, the day grew dim, although I wouldnt say it was 89 percent dimmer than a normal day proof that an awful lot of daylight just goes wasted. We could probably get by with just 50 percent of the suns power most days and not even notice. Thats good to know, since the sun is scheduled to burn out in about 5 billion years, so were probably good to go for at least another 3 billion years or so as it fades away. Its nice to be able to make plans.

But the eclipse is over now. The sun and the moon have gone back to their daily humdrum routes, and were all left with our own deep thoughts about the experience and the lasting lessons we will come away with.

For one thing, consider how far we have come from the days when an eclipse was seen as an evil omen or a harbinger of troubles to come, like the death of kings or the failure of crops. We now know that those disasters are caused by gluten.

For my part, I was amazed at how accurately weve learned to predict an eclipse, not only to the hour, minute and second, but also to the mile, yard and inch of where it will pass, allowing us to manufacture and stockpile all the glasses, T-shirts, coffee mugs, ball caps and Parking $20 signs we would need well before the event. Primitive man was always taken by surprise by an eclipse, which is why those poor saps were always broke. But today, because we knew exactly when and where the eclipse would happen, hotels, motels and entrepreneurs all along the path of totality saw an infusion of wealth that was nothing short ofwell, astronomical. MoonPies enjoyed record sales.

But when youre talking about the perfect yin-yang union of light and dark that is a total eclipse, for every bit of bright, cheery yang there has to be some dark, gloomy yin to keep the universe in perfect balance.

For example, as eclipse entrepreneurs raked in their dark-dealt dough, how many workers in other jobs can say it was business as usual as the eclipse slid past outside the window? According to the analysis of one accounting firm leading up to the eclipse, American employers will see at least $694 million in missing output for the roughly 20 minutes that workers will take out of their workday to stretch their legs, head outside the office and gaze at the nearly two-and-a-half minute eclipse.

Its not clear yet if those capital losses will wipe out the gains, but as with all things, it probably comes down to location, location, location. Thanks to bustling crowds, businesses sitting under the moon-shadow ended up doing the cash register cha-ching dance. Everybody else left out in the light spent an extra 20 minutes on hold, cursing and listening to the voice say, Please stay on the line, because your call is important to us. Thats the way it is with yin and yang.

And if that isnt enough yin and yang for you, consider this:

Many observers of the eclipse noted that animals were completely fooled by the sudden darkness and lay down to sleep as if it were night.

But the universe stayed in balance, because the eclipse made me miss my nap.

- - -

The author splits his time between Southwest Florida and Chicago. Not every day, though. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Why wait a whole week for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Get T.R.'s book, 'Revenge of the Sardines,' available now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine online book distributors. His column appears every Saturday.

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The View From Planet Kerth: The enlightenment that comes with endarkenment - Naples Daily News

A definition of spiritual enlightenment or spiritual awakening is hard to pin down. This is, in part, because "spiritual enlightenment" and "spiritual awakening" have been used in so many ways to describe so many things, similar to the way in which "love" is used to describe everything from a preference for ice cream to a merging with everything. And it is also because spiritual enlightenment and spiritual awakening are such rich and complex experiences that they are innately hard to define.

Some definitions are very specific and narrow. One such definition for spiritual enlightenment is the complete dissolution of one's identity as a separate self with no trace of the egoic mind remaining. This sets the bar very high and means that very few people qualify as enlightened.

The opposite approach is to say that everyone is enlightened, that there is only awake consciousness. In this view, it's only a question of whether this natural awakeness has been recognized or not. Of course, when a word describes everything or everyone, it loses some of its usefulness. If everyone is enlightened, then why even talk about it?

Perhaps there's a definition that includes both of these perspectives, which recognizes that consciousness is always awake and enlightened, but the amount of awakeness, or aware consciousness, that is present in any moment can vary. This definition acknowledges that there's a difference in the amount of awakeness, or enlightened consciousness, that different people experience or that one person experiences at different times but still suggests that the potential for full awareness or becoming enlightened is the same for everybody. If every apparent individual consciousness is infinite in its potential, then each can also be infinite both in its capacity to expand or awaken and in its capacity to contract or identify with a narrow or limited experience.

If all consciousness is made of the same essential awareness and light, and if everyone has an equal potential for enlightenment, then all expressions of consciousness are equally valid and valuable. Everyone truly is a Buddha or enlightened being, at least in potential. So defining enlightenment in many ways now makes sense, depending on what is being pointed to. One may use the word enlightenment to point to the state of self-realization beyond the ego or to point to the innate potential for this realization in all of us.

As for differentiating between the words enlightenment and awakening, "enlightenment" implies a more finished and constant state of realization, while "awakening" has more of the active quality of a verb and therefore suggests a movement or shift in consciousness. An awakening may be defined as a sudden increase in the overall amount of consciousness an individual is experiencing. There can be small awakenings and bigger awakenings. Not only does consciousness have unlimited potential for the amount of awakeness, but it also has an unlimited potential to shift in any way, at any moment. Consciousness can and sometimes does shift from contracted states of fear, anger, or hurt to expanded states of peace and joy in an instant. Unfortunately, it can also shift in the other direction. Consciousness has no fixed state.

As it is being defined here, a spiritual awakening is a sudden expansion or shift in consciousness, especially a more dramatic one (we don't usually refer to a minor realization as a spiritual awakening). Enlightenment, on the other hand can be used to mark a particular level of realization or awakeness, even if the exact definition varies depending on who is using the word, as it does with every word.

What really matters is what your awareness is doing right now. How is your consciousness appearing or shifting in this moment? Are you realizing more of your experience and Essence right now? Or are you contracting and limiting your awareness with thoughts and identification? Is any shifting happening from reading these words?

Enlightenment or awakening is a profound mystery, and the best definition may be found in the actual experience of your own shifts in consciousness. Just as it's more nourishing to eat an apple than read about one, so it can be more rewarding to explore the movements of your own awareness than to try to understand these things mentally. While definitions of such things can be helpful, it can also be beneficial to not have too many concepts, which could interfere with your actual experience. It's a good thing that language isn't so fixed or defined when it comes to spiritual unfoldment. Maybe the best definition of enlightenment is no definition. Then there is only what is found in your own direct experience of awareness.

(The above is from the free ebook: That Is That: Essays About True Nature available here.)

What are the causes of spiritual awakening or enlightenment?

Consider the miracle of a flower. What is it that causes a plant to flower? Does sunshine cause a plant to flower? Does lots of water? Or is it good soil? Maybe all of these together? Or is there really something more subtle in the nature of the flower itself that causes it to flower? Is it something in the DNA of the plant? Does that mean the whole process of evolution over eons of time is involved? What other factors might cause the flowering? Does gravity play a part? The season and the temperature? The quality of the light? (Some plants will not flower under glass or artificial light.) What about animals that eat the fruit and spread the plant? Or the birds or bees that pollinate the flower? Do they cause the subsequent flowering of the newly established plants? Are there even subtler influences? What about presence and love? The intention and attention of a gardener? And is the existence of the world of form itself necessary for a plant to flower? And what about consciousness? Is there an ultimate force that directs the creation and unfolding of all expressions of form that is behind the appearance of a rose or a daisy?

What if it is a combination of all of the things mentioned? And also what if they have to all be in the right proportion? Is that proportion different for every species of plant? Some plants need lots of water or light to flower. Others will die with too much water or light. There is a unique formula that is involved with the appearance of the simplest apple blossom and the most complex orchid.

When you consider all of these influences and even more that were not mentioned or can't even be known or imagined, then it truly is a miracle when a flower happens. It is impossible to say what causes it to happen with any certainty or completeness. Yet, it's an act of incredible grace whenever all of these diverse, subtle, and gross influences come together in just the right way for an iris or a bird of paradise to open its unique petals to the sky. Ultimately, if you trace all the factors back to all their causes, you find that everything that exists is somehow intimately connected to the cactus flower or dandelion in your front yard. We need a vague and powerful word like "grace" to name this amazing interplay of forces and intelligence. Obviously, to reduce it to a formula doesn't come close to capturing or describing the vast richness of variables and forces at play. There is no formula complex enough to capture the whole mystery of a magnolia blossom...

Spiritual awakening is a kind of flowering of consciousness. When consciousness expands and opens into a new expression, we call that a spiritual awakening. And while there are as many kinds of awakenings as there are flowers, they are all equally mysterious. What is it that causes a child to start to awaken to the nature of words and language? What causes the awakening of sexuality in a teenager? How does one suddenly know they are falling in love? Or even more profoundly, how does one explain the birth of unconditional or divine love?

Finally, what are the causes of the most profound spiritual awakenings, where consciousness suddenly recognizes its ultimate true nature? Why does that type of flowering appear in one consciousness today and another one tomorrow? If the formula for a simple petunia is a vastly complex interplay of earthly, human, and even cosmic forces, then imagine how complex the formula is for the unfolding of a human consciousness into full spiritual enlightenment as one's true nature. The good news is that we cannot and do not need to know the totality of the formula involved to grow some petunias, and we cannot and do not need to know the formula for spiritual enlightenment. Yet, we can be curious about all of the factors involved and even play with them to see what effects, if any, they may have in our individual experience of consciousness unfolding.

Sometimes the mysteriousness and unpredictability of the whole process of awakening leads us to shrug our shoulders and say it is all up to grace or to God. And, of course, that is true; and yet, does that mean there's no place in this unfolding for our own actions? Is there a place for spiritual practice? What about meditation, self-inquiry, or study of spiritual texts? And how about devotional practices or the transmission of presence from being with a great teacher or master? We can easily become disillusioned with any or all of these activities because the results they produce are so unpredictable and varied, and it can seem simpler to avoid the question of their role altogether. Ask any gardener if it works every time to water and weed and fertilize a plant? Or does a plant sometimes fail to flower no matter how well it is cared for? But does that mean you never water or fertilize your plants?

At other times we can be overly convinced that our practice or inquiry will lead to the desired results, often because it seemed to work at least once for us, or for someone we know. The only problem with spiritual practices is that they occasionally work! Then we think that we have the formula and that every time we sit down to meditate or ask, "Who am I?" we will have that same experience of expansion or awakening again. That is like thinking you will always have a bumper crop of marigolds every time you plant them.

There is a middle way between denying the importance or role of spiritual practice and having unrealistic expectations that self-inquiry, meditation, or devotional practice is going to, by itself, cause an awakening. We can experiment and play with these processes, just as a gardener will experiment with different fertilizers or watering patterns to see what happens. It ultimately is all up to grace, and yet, what if grace works through us as well as on us? What if spiritual practice is as much a part of the mystery of existence as anything else?

Maybe we can hold the question of what role inquiry, devotion, effort, surrender, transmission, meditation, gratitude, intention, silencing the mind, study of spiritual books, involvement with a teacher or master, ripeness of the student, karma, grace, and luck play in our enlightenment with an openness and curiosity, instead of a need to define their roles once and for all. The flowering of consciousness in your own existence is as unique as every flower, and ultimately we are all here to discover how it is going to happen uniquely this time around. What is your consciousness like right now? How open is the flower of your awareness? Is it still budding or has it blossomed? Just as every flower fades and another comes along, what about now? And now? What happens this time when you meditate? What happens now when you inquire "Who am I?" How does it feel right now to open your heart with gratitude even if nothing much is happening? What impact does reading this article or any other piece of writing have on you? Every stage of a plant's existence is valuable and even necessary for its flowering. Your experience is always adding to the richness of the unfolding of consciousness in this moment. May you enjoy the garden of your true nature, including when spiritual awakenings are blooming, and when spiritual enlightenment seems far away.

(From the free ebook: That Is That: Essays About True Nature available here.)

About Nirmala:

Advaita spiritual teacher, Nirmala has been offering satsang and spiritual mentoring in the U.S. and internationally since 1998. Nirmala offers a unique vision and a gentle, compassionate approach, which adds to the rich tradition of inquiry into our true nature. He is the author of several books, including Nothing Personal: Seeing Beyond the Illusion of a Separate Self and Living from the Heart. In his books and mentoring sessions, Nirmala points to the wisdom within each of us, and fosters the individuals own potential for spiritual awakening. Free ebook downloads of several of Nirmalas books are available here.

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What Is Spiritual Enlightenment or Spiritual Awakening?

Robert Wright didnt think of himself as a candidate for enlightenment. He had turned to mindfulness meditation, in part, to combat lifelong ADDto focus his thoughts, give him a sense of control. So when his meditation teacher told him he could either focus on enlightenment or write a book about mediation, he was taken aback that enlightenment was even on the table.

He wrote the book, yet he hasnt given up on liberation. Wright recounts this episode in Why Buddhism is True, which is part memoir and deep exploration of mindfulness meditation. The Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist realized that if he was going to start a regular meditation practice hed have to dive in. So he began his earnest quest with a ten-day silent retreat, known as Vipassana.

Once enlightenment was mentioned Wright stepped back to contemplate what that word even means. The term has a bit of ambiguity, given all of the contexts in which its employed. In his book, he writes that the specific sense, the meaning of nirvana, is to rid yourself of the twin illusions many people suffer from: illusions inside of your mind and those occurring in the world.

The illusions are the result of dukkha, a Pali word often translated as suffering, though more precisely implies unsatisfactory. In the Buddhist tradition humans suffer because they dont see the world, or their mind, clearly. They put too much emphasis on personal desires rather than objective thinking. We get too caught up in what we crave rather than what is. Enlightenment is freedom from such thinking. As Wright told me,

As a practical manner, I think of enlightenment as an ongoing process where you try to become more and more aware of the things that are influencing your behavior. By understanding them, to the extent that you want, you try to liberate yourself from them.

A great example of this process can be heard on the NY Times podcast, The Daily. Derek Black grew up in one of the most prominent white nationalist families in America. He believed whites are genetically superior. Relationships he forged while in college taught him otherwise. Two years after attending his first Shabbat dinner he recognized his familys overt reliance on eugenics didnt hold water. More importantly he came to understand that members of other races and belief systems arent inferior. He liberated himself from his narrow thinking.

All humans learn in a similar manner. We have genetic predispositions, but our environment, family, and peers shape our worldview. As we age we apply that worldview to our experiences, suffering when conflicting opinions arise. The Buddha realized thoughts are the problem. Enlightenment is the process of decluttering, or expanding, our worldvieweven, at a point, not having a worldview at all.

Thats a tall order for most, however. As Wright puts it,

Part of what can happen with meditation is you rearrange your narratives. If you want to get into the deepest aspects of Buddhist philosophy, youre trying to get rid of narratives altogether. But I think most of us could do with just dropping the more unfortunate narratives.

Which is what Black did, and what Wright practices. An important step in this process is understanding the difference between situation and disposition. We see a man yelling at the barista one morning. Our first thought: Hes a jerk. Maybe. Or maybe his father died last evening. The supposed jerk is really the victim of an unfortunate situation.

Yet we dont view ourselves this way. Since we are aware of our situation, we normally dont apply jerk-ness to our own experiences, even as we readily affix it to others. This is due to a belief in essentialism: the notion that we have an inner essence that defines us. This longstanding idea has played a role in our cognitive framework for thousands of years, at least. Problem is, its not true. None of us have a singular essence.

We are different people in different situations. All life is situational. Were sweet to this person, but that person really ticks us off, for no reason we can pinpoint. Our reactions are completely different, dependent upon situation. This has real-world consequences.

Incredible research shows that inmates up for parole have a 90 percent chance of receiving it if they appear in front of a judge first thing in the morning. If theyre one of the last cases of the morning session their chances drop to 10 percent. First up in the afternoon? Back to 90 percent. Why? Because the judge has eaten. Hes no longer hungry. Situation matters.

Same with students. Children and undergrads learn better later in the day. Yet for many the hardest classes are first thing in the morning. Is the child stupid for failing? Not necessarily. The science is in on this one. Yet still, as school kicks in this month, there are seven and eight am classes, because thats how weve done it.

Which gets to the heart of the enlightenment question. How Ive done it does not equate to this is best for me. When we confuse the two we dont feel satisfied. Instead of treating liberation as a life-shaking, earth-quaking event, as many interpretations of the Buddhas enlightenment have it, we can best understand liberation as a shifting of perceptions, a different way of being in the world. One in which we dont become so invested in things going our way, but rather seeing the way things go and adapting to the flow.

This is not to say that we don't have a say. We do. According to Wright, that means a daily meditation practice. As he says, the more time you put in, the better the results.

The more you invest, the more it translates into everyday life. If Im meditating regularly I find it easier to catch myself before doing something that Im better off not doing, whether thats sending off some angry email or saying something snide to somebody. You feel the impulse welling up and youre more aware of it. I also think youre just more appreciative of the beauty in the world.

The heavens might not open, but perhaps you can breathe a little more easily. Maybe you smile a bit more. Enlightenment is a process and a discipline. Theres no final state to achieve. Rather, its a state to always aspire to in all situations. A tall order, certainly, but one that puts us in control of our emotions throughout the day.

We do have means for achieving this. It just takes a bit of work to reign in the grasping nature of our mind.

--

Derek is the author ofWhole Motion: Training Your Brain and Body For Optimal Health. Based in Los Angeles he is working on a new book about spiritual consumerism. Stay in touch onFacebookandTwitter.

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How To Achieve Enlightenment | Big Think - Big Think

At the start of his bands concert, Herbie Hancock noted that he feels like a refugee from Mars, loves science fiction, and contemplates moving to another area. This simple quote was a harbinger of the idiosyncratic Sunday night that followed at Red Butte Garden on August 20, 2017. After stating his feelings, Hancock then declared that my wife is here and she would kill me for talking too much tonight! True to his laconic words, the two hour set engendered a triumphantly transcendental feeling.

The moving music included soothe saxophone solos, gutting guitar, peaceful piano progressions, and deafening drums. Drawing on a myriad of genres that encompassed jazz, funk, electronic, and classical, the eclectic instrumentation was marked by abrupt changes in volume and tempo. The music was occasionally sprinkled with chanting, a nod to Hancocks spiritual practice of reciting the Mahayana Buddhist chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo every day.

The aforementioned chant, from the Lotus Sutra, emphasizes that all individuals are capable of Buddhahood. The concoction created by Hancock on Sunday night undoubtedly inspired a feeling that everyone is capable of enlightenment. In nod to their unique spirit, the band ended with a jazz funk encore that got the jovial crowd dancing even in nirvana.

Herbie Hancock At Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City

The rest is here:
Enlightenment with Herbie Hancock - Daily Utah Chronicle

Photo Viewers cheered and howled as they took in the total eclipse in downtown Jackson, Wyo. Credit Celia Talbot Tobin for The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re The Moon Cloaks the Sun, and a Nation Gapes in Awe (news article, Aug. 22): Although I live in a reliably blue state that is home to Bernie Sanders, the national political divide is all too present here, too. Mondays solar eclipse, though, seemed to have no deniers.

Hurrying to court in Rutland, Vt., to represent a client, I came upon a group of 20-somethings outside our library, as I put my quarter in the parking meter. The sky had turned an eerie gray, from a morning of sunshine, and I realized that they just might be there for the eclipse.

Yeah!, one replied, smiling. Theyre handing out glasses in the library; go get one. I made my excuses and hurried off, only to come upon two members of the court staff on the front steps, offering a look through their glasses.

Stunning! And I had nearly missed it because of life.

It seemed as if our whole planet was spellbound, together, for a day. May that feeling of togetherness spread.

Excerpt from:
Seeing Unity and Enlightenment in Solar Show - New York Times

How does a Zen student know if a Zen teacher is a reliable guide, a verified representative of the Zen tradition?

A Zen teacher claims authorization within the tradition and encourages students to give time, heart, and financial resources to the Zen project.But because we dont know what we dont know, how is a student going to assess their teachers authenticity?Well, you could trust your gut. However, the gut can go wrong. Buddha cited intuition as one of the several things that could turn out one of two ways you can be right or you can be wrong.

Why is it important to work with an authentic teacher?

Id say, primarily, so that practitioners can plumb the depths of this way of awakeningand live accordingly with the best guidance possible.

In addition, as James Myoun Ford Roshi writes,

For a surprising number of people, and it seems increasing, the mythic qualities of dharma transmission have become a major seducer, with people seeking and obtaining titles without either significant training, nor, even more sadly, insight. Add in those who just make up titles and, well, there is a jumble of thorns for people to navigate if theyre hoping to practice Zen.

For more than a decade, the Soto Zen Buddhist Association (SZBA), of which Ive been a member since the 90s, has been working on this issue. The group came together with the promise of becoming something more than a collegial group. Led by the late Kyogen Carlson and others, the vision was to create a professional association, a Soto Zen denomination, that would support ethical practices and provide some verification of a teachers training in order to help teachers and students alike.

Granted, it is dicey territory. Zen teachers, and rightly so, are quite sensitive to any qualification of the teachers power to give dharma transmission to whomever they view as appropriate. Fortunately, the SZBA has been careful not suggest that we abridge a teachers authority, but that for membership in a professional organization, more is required.If we are to move in the direction of creating a profession of Zen teacher, then as with other professions in this culture, there are training standards that involve joining a community of similarly trained people who assess if an applicant is qualified. This is an important move from one person authorizing a new teacher to a groups recognition of a candidates qualifications.

Presently, the only qualification for joining the SZBA is that a candidate has dharma transmission in a recognized Soto lineage. Therefore, membership in SZBA says onlythat one person with dharma transmission offered it to another. And because there is a wide range of what is required in Zen training, both in terms of the process and the outcome, this really doesnt say much. And it seems to be saying less and less.

So, Zen students, you would do well to cut through the mist of the mythic qualities of dharma transmission, and pay attention. This, however, as I said above, is tough when you dont know what you dont know.

Here is what the SZBA board is now proposing:

According to Jiang Wu in Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China, the Chan community 17th century China was dealing with some of the same issues. The standards that they settled on (both Linchi and Caodong lineages) required a verified enlightenment experience and transmission in a person-to-person unbroken lineage. Transmissions that were claimed remotely, either in time or space, where not respected. And the handing off of a transmission by one teacher for another teacher to distribute later, proxy transmissions, were also suspect.

One prominent branch of the Linchi lineage began to dig into the Caodong lines and question both the verified nature of their enlightenments and their transmissions. It resulted in many nasty letters, books, and even a lawsuit that led to book burning and a warrant for the arrest of one of the protagonists. These dudes may have had enlightenment experiences but seriously lacked social skills! Later research by the Caodong folks revealed that the Linchi lines also had some questionable links.

There are a couple important points here. First, what is more important in a teacher of the Zen way of awakening than to have had a verified awakening experience? The modern koan curriculum seems to have been developed, in part, for just this purpose and it is very effective. However, not all lineages in Soto Zen, indeed a considerable minority, use a koan curriculum. In the nonkoan lines of Soto Zen, to my knowledge, there is simply no method of verifying an awakening experience. Even if the SZBA standards are accepted, if a teacher is a new member (others will be grandparented in), that just means theyve checked off the boxes in the list, not that there has been any particular outcome like awakening and learning to live with it.

At first I thought Id vote against these standards. I was concerned that voting for them would affirm that the practice period and sesshin requirements are intensive. In my view, they are not. One ninety-day practice period (or four three-week sessions) and seventy-five days of sesshin sets a very low bar far too low by a factor of about five for someone to lead others in these practices.

Ive been surprised to see in the listserve discussions that many see the standards as too high.

So although I view the proposed SZBA standards as setting a very low bar, Ive decided to vote for a low bar better, I hope, than no bar. For those who train with us here in Nebraska, we will offer what we think fitting a much more rigorous process with equally rigorous attention to outcome.

Dsh Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teaches at the Nebraska Zen Center with his wife, Tetsugan Zummach. Dsh also teaches with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training, an internet-based Zen community. Dsh received dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri Roshi and inka shomei from James Myoun Ford Roshi in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. He is the authorofKeep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri.

Excerpt from:
Enlightenment in Dispute: Standards for Zen Teachers Now and Then - Patheos (blog)

The Haskalah, often termed Jewish Enlightenment (Hebrew: ; literally, "wisdom", "erudition") was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with certain influence on those in the West and Muslim lands. It arose as a defined ideological worldview during the 1770s, and its last stage ended around 1881, with the rise of Jewish nationalism.

The Haskalah pursued two complementary aims. It sought to preserve the Jews as a separate, unique collective and worked for a cultural and moral renewal, especially a revival of Hebrew for secular purposes, pioneering the modern press and literature in the language. Concurrently, it strove for an optimal integration of the Jews in surrounding societies, including the study of native vernacular and adoption of modern values, culture and appearance, all combined with economic productivization. The Haskalah promoted rationalism, liberalism, freedom of thought and enquiry, and is largely perceived as the Jewish variant of the general Enlightenment. The movement encompassed a wide spectrum ranging from moderates, who hoped for maximal compromise and conservatism, to radicals who sought sweeping changes.

In its various changes, the Haskalah fulfilled an important, though limited, part in the modernization of Central and Eastern European Jews. Its activists, the maskilim, exhorted and implemented communal, educational and cultural reforms in both the public and the private spheres. Owing to its dualistic policies, it collided both with the traditionalist rabbinic elite, which attempted to preserve old Jewish values and norms in their entirety, and with the radical assimilationists who wished to eliminate or minimize the existence of the Jews as a defined collective.

The Haskalah was an extremely multifaceted phenomenon, with many loci which rose and dwindled at different times and across vast territories. The very name Haskalah only became a standard self-appellation in 1860, when it was taken as the motto of the Odessa-based newspaper Ha-Melitz, though derivatives and the title Maskil for activists were already common beforehand in the first edition of Ha-Meassef from 1 October 1783, its publishers described themselves as Maskilim.[1] While Maskilic centres sometimes had loose institutions around which their members operated, the movement as a whole lacked any such.

In spite of this diversity, the Maskilim shared a sense of common identity and self-consciousness. These were anchored in the existence of a shared literary canon, which began to be formulated in the very first Maskilic locus at Berlin. Its members, like Moses Mendelssohn, Hartwig Wessely, Isaac Satanow and Isaac Euchel, authored tracts in various genres that were further disseminated and re-read among other Maskilim. Each generation, in turn, elaborated and added its own works to the growing body. The emergence of the Maskilic canon reflected the movement's central and defining enterprise, the revival of Hebrew as a literary language for secular purposes (its restoration as a spoken tongue occurred only much later). The Maskilim researched and standardized grammar, minted countless neologisms and composed poetry, magazines, theatrical works and literature of all sorts in Hebrew. Historians described the movement largely as a Republic of Letters, an intellectual community based on printing houses and reading societies.[2]

The Maskilim's attitude toward Hebrew, as noted by Moses Pelli, was derived from Enlightenment perceptions of language as reflecting both individual and collective character. To them, a corrupt tongue mirrored the inadequate condition of the Jews which they sought to ameliorate. They turned to Hebrew as their primary creative medium. The Maskilim inherited the Medieval Grammarians' such as Jonah ibn Janah and Judah ben David Hayyuj distaste of Mishnaic Hebrew and preference of the Biblical one as pristine and correct. They turned to the Bible as a source and standard, emphatically advocating what they termed "Pure Hebrew Tongue" (S'fat E'ver tzacha) and lambasting the Rabbinic style of letters which mixed it with Aramaic as a single "Holy Tongue" and often employed loan words from other languages. Some activists, though, were not averse to using Mishnaic and Rabbinic forms. They also preferred the Sephardi pronunciation, considered more prestigious, to the Ashkenazi one, linked with the Jews of Poland who were deemed backward. The movement's literary canon is defined by a grandiloquent, archaic register copying the Biblical one and often combining lengthy allusions or direct quotes from verses in the prose.[3]

During a century of activity, the Maskilim produced a massive contribution, forming the first phase of modern Hebrew literature. In 1755, Moses Mendelssohn began publishing Qohelet Musar ("The Moralist"), regarded as the beginning of modern writing in Hebrew and the very first journal in the language. Between 1789 and his death, Hartwig Wessely compiled Shirei Tif'eret ("Poems of Glory"), an eighteen-part epic cycle concerning Moses which exerted influence on all neo-Hebraic poets in the following generations. Joseph ha-Efrati Troplowitz was the Haskalah's pioneering playwright, best known for his 1794 epic drama Melukhat Sha'ul ("Reign of Saul") which was printed in twelve editions by 1888. Juda Loeb ben-Ze'ev was the first modern Hebrew grammarian, and beginning with his 1796 manual of the language, he authored books which explored it and were vital reading material for young Maskilim until the end of the 19th century. Solomon Lwisohn was the first to translate Shakespeare into Hebrew, and an abridged form of the "Are at this hour asleep!" monologue in Henry IV, Part 2 was included in his 1816 lyrical compilation Melitzat Yeshurun (Eloquence of Jeshurun).

Joseph Perl pioneered satirist writings in his biting, mocking critique of Hasidism, Megaleh Tmirin (Revealer of Secrets) from 1819. Adam HaCohen was primarily a leading metricist, with his 1842 Shirei S'fat ha-Qodesh (Verses in the Holy Tongue) considered a milestone in Hebrew poetry, and also authored biblical exegesis and educational handbooks. Abraham Mapu authored the first Hebraic full-length novel, Ahavat Zion (Love of Zion) which was published in 1853 after twenty-three years of work. Judah Leib Gordon was the most eminent poet of his generation and arguably of the Haskalah in its entirety. His most famous work was the 1876 epic Qotzo shel Yodh (Tittle of a Jot). Mendele Mocher Sforim was during his youth a Maskilic writer, but from his 1886 B-Sether Ra'am (Hidden in Thunder) abandoned its strict conventions in favour of a mixed, facile and common style. His career marked the end of the Maskilic period in Hebrew literature and the beginning of the Era of Renaissance.

The central platforms of the maskilic "Republic of Letters" were its great periodicals, each serving as a locus for contributors and readers during the time it was published. The first was the Knigsberg (and later Berlin)-based Ha-Meassef, launched by Isaac Euchel in 1783 and printed with growing intervals until 1797. The magazine had several dozen writers and 272 subscribers at its zenith, from Shklov in the east to London in the west, making it the sounding board of the Berlin Haskalah. The movement lacked an equivalent until the appearance of Bikurei ha-I'tim in Vienna between 1820 until 1831, serving the Moravian and Galician Haskalah. That function was later fulfilled by the Prague-based Kerem Hemed from 1834 to 1857, and to a lesser degree by Kokhvei Yizhak, published in the same city from 1845 to 1870. The Russian Haskalah was robust enough to lack any single platform. Its members published several large magazines, including the Vilnius-based Ha-Karmel (18601880), Ha-Tsefirah in Warsaw and more, though the probably most influential of them all was Ha-Melitz, launched in 1860 at Odessa by Alexander Zederbaum.

While the partisans of the Haskalah were much immersed in the study of sciences and Hebrew grammar, this was not a profoundly new phenomenon, and their creativity was a continuation of a long, centuries-old trend among educated Jews. What truly marked the movement was the challenge it laid to the monopoly of the rabbinic elite over the intellectual sphere of Jewish life, contesting its role as spiritual leadership. In his 1782 circular Divrei Shalom v'Emeth (Words of Peace and Truth), Hartwig Wessely, one of the most traditional and moderate maskilim, quoted the passage from Leviticus Rabbah stating that a Torah scholar who lacked wisdom was inferior to an animal's carcass. He called upon the Jews to introduce general subjects, like science and vernacular language, into their children's curriculum; this "Teaching of Man" was necessarily linked with the "Teaching (Torah) of God", and the latter, though superior, could not be pursued and was useless without the former.

Historian Shmuel Feiner discerned that Wessely insinuated (consciously or not) a direct challenge to the supremacy of sacred teachings, comparing them with general subjects and implying the latter had an intrinsic rather than merely instrumental value. He therefore also contested the authority of the rabbinical establishment, which stemmed from its function as interpreters of the holy teachings and their status as the only truly worthy field of study. Though secular subjects could and were easily tolerated, their elevation to the same level as sacred ones was a severe threat, and indeed mobilized the rabbis against the nascent Haskalah. The potential of "Words of Peace and Truth" was fully realized later, by the second generation of the movement in Berlin and other radical maskilim, who openly and vehemently denounced the traditional authorities. The appropriate intellectual and moral leadership needed by the Jewish public in modern times was, according to the maskilim, that of their own. Feiner noted that in their usurpation of the title of spiritual elite, unprecedented in Jewish history since the dawn of Rabbinic Judaism (various contestants before the Enlightened were branded as schismatics and cast out), they very much emulated the manner in which secular intellectuals dethroned and replaced the Church from the same status among Christians. Thus the maskilim generated an upheaval which though by no means alone broke the sway held by the rabbis and the traditional values over Jewish society. Combined with many other factors, they laid the path to all modern Jewish movements and philosophies, either those critical, hostile or supportive to themselves.[4]

The Maskilim sought to replace the framework of values held by the Ashkenazim of Central and Eastern Europe with their own philosophy, which embraced the liberal, rationalistic notions of the 18th and 19th centuries and cast them in their own particular mold. This intellectual upheaval was accompanied by the desire to practically change Jewish society. Even the moderate maskilim viewed the contemporary state of Jews as deplorable and in dire need of rejuvenation, whether in matters of morals, cultural creativity or economic productivity. They argued that such conditions were rightfully scorned by others and untenable from both practical and idealistic perspectives. It was to be remedied by the shedding of the base and corrupt elements of Jewish existence and retention of only the true, positive ones indeed, the question what those were, exactly, loomed as the greatest challenge of Jewish modernity. The more extreme and ideologically-bent came close to the universalist aspirations of the radical Enlightenment, of a world freed of superstition and backwardness in which all humans will come together under the liberating influence of reason and progress. The reconstituted Jews, these radical maskilim believed, would be able to take their place as equals in an enlightened world. But all, including the moderate and disillusioned, stated that adjustment to the changing world was both unavoidable and positive in itself.[5]

Haskalah ideals were converted into practical steps via numerous reform programs initiated locally and independently by its activists, acting in small groups or even alone at every time and area. Members of the movement sought to acquaint their people with European culture, have them adopt the vernacular language of their lands, and integrate them into larger society. They opposed Jewish reclusiveness and self-segregation, called upon Jews to discard traditional dress in favour of the prevalent one, and preached patriotism and loyalty to the new centralized governments. They acted to weaken and limit the jurisdiction of traditional community institutions the rabbinic courts, empowered to rule on numerous civic matters, and the board of elders, which served as lay leadership. The maskilim perceived those as remnants of medieval discrimination. They criticized various traits of Jewish society, such as child marriage traumatized memories from unions entered at the age of thirteen or fourteen are a common theme in Haskalah literature the use of anathema to enforce community will and the concentration on virtually only religious studies.

Perhaps the most important facet of Masklilic reform efforts was the educational one. In 1778, partisans of the movement were among the founders of the Berlin Jewish Free School, or Hevrat Hinuch Ne'arim (Society for the Education of Boys), the first institution in Ashkenazi Jewry that taught general studies in addition to the reformulated and reduced traditional curriculum. This model, with different stresses, was applied elsewhere. Joseph Perl opened the first modern Jewish school in Galicia at Tarnopol in 1813, and Eastern European maskilim opened similar institutes in the Pale of Settlement and Congress Poland. They all abandoned the received methods of Ashkenazi education: study of the Pentateuch with the archaic I'vri-Taitsch (medieval Yiddish) translation and an exclusive focus on the Talmud as a subject of higher learning, all presided over by old-school tutors, melamdim, who were particularly reviled in Maskilic circles. Those were replaced by teachers trained in modern methods, among others in the spirit of German Philanthropinism, who sought to acquaint their pupils with refined Hebrew so they may understand the Pentateuch and prayers and thus better identify with their heritage ignorance of Hebrew was often lamented by Maskilim as breeding apathy towards Judaism. Far less Talmud, considered cumbersome and ill-suited for children, was taught; elements considered superstitious, like midrashim, were also removed. Matters of faith were taught in rationalistic spirit, and in radical circles also in a sanitized manner. On the other hand, the curriculum was augmented by general studies like math, vernacular language, and so forth.

In the linguistic field, the maskilim wished to replace the dualism which characterized the traditional Ashkenazi community, which spoke Judaeo-German and its formal literary language was Hebrew, with another: a refined Hebrew for internal usage and the local vernacular for external ones. They almost universally abhorred Judaeo-German, regarding it as a corrupt dialect and another symptom of Jewish destitution the movement pioneered the negative attitude to Yiddish which persisted many years later among the educated though often its activists had to resort to it for lack of better medium to address the masses. Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn, for example, authored the first modern Judaeo-German play, Leichtsinn und Frmmelei (Rashness and Sanctimony) in 1796. On the economic front, the maskilim preached productivization and abandonment of traditional Jewish occupations in favour of agriculture, trades and liberal professions.

In matters of faith (which were being cordoned off into a distinct sphere of "religion" by modernization pressures) the movement's partisans, from moderates to radicals, lacked any uniform coherent agenda. The main standard through which they judged Judaism was that of rationalism. Their most important contribution was the revival of Jewish philosophy, rather dormant since the Italian Renaissance, as an alternative to mysticist Kabbalah which served as almost the sole system of thought among Ashkenazim and an explanatory system for observance. Rather than complex allegorical exegesis, the Haskalah sought a literal understanding of scripture and sacred literature. The rejection of Kabbalah, often accompanied with attempts to refute the ancientness of the Zohar, were extremely controversial in traditional society; apart from that, the maskilim had little in common. On the right-wing were conservative members of the rabbinic elite who merely wanted a rationalist approach, and on the extreme left some ventured far beyond the pale of orthodoxy towards Deism.[6]

Another aspect was the movement's attitude to gender relations. Many of the maskilim were raised in the rabbinic elite, in which (unlike among the poor Jewish masses) the males were immersed in traditional studies and their wives supported them financially, mostly by running business. Many of the Jewish enlightened were traumatized by their own experiences, either of assertive mothers or early marriage, often conducted at the age of thirteen. Bitter memories from those are a common theme in maskilic autobiographies. Having imbibed the image of European bourgeoisie family values, many of them sought to challenge the semi-matriarchal order of rabbinic families which combined a total lack of Jewish education for women with grating them the status of providers early marriage, and rigid modesty. Instead, they insisted that men become economically productive while confining their wives to the home environment but also granting them proper religious education a reversal of what was customary among Jews, copying Christian attitudes at the time.

The Haskalah was also mainly a movement of transformation, straddling both the declining traditional Jewish society of autonomous community and cultural seclusion and the beginnings of a modern Jewish public. As noted by Feiner, everything connected with the Haskalah was dualistic in nature. The Jewish Enlighteners pursued two parallel agendas: they exhorted the Jews to acculturate and harmonize with the modern state, and demanded that the Jews remain a distinct group with its own culture and identity. Theirs was a middle position between Jewish community and surrounding society, received mores and modernity. Sliding away from this precarious equilibrium, in any direction, signified also one's break with the Jewish Enlightenment.

Virtually all maskilim received old-style, secluded education, and were young Torah scholars before they were first exposed to outside knowledge (from a gender perspective, the movement was almost totally male-dominated; women did not receive sufficient tutoring to master Hebrew). For generations, Mendelssohn's Bible translation to German was employed by such young initiates to bridge the linguistic gap and learn a foreign language, having been raised on Hebrew and Yiddish only. The experience of abandoning one's sheltered community and struggle with tradition was a ubiquitous trait of maskilic biographies. The children of these activists almost never followed their parents; they rather went forward in the path of acculturation and assimilation. While their fathers learned the vernaculars late and still consumed much Hebrew literature, the little available material in the language did not attract their offspring, who often lacked a grasp of Hebrew due to not sharing their parents' traditional education. Haskalah was, by and large, a unigenerational experience.[7]

In the linguistic field, this transitory nature was well attested. The traditional Jewish community in Europe inhibited two separate spheres of communication: one internal, where Hebrew served as written high language and Yiddish as vernacular for the masses, and one external, where Latin and the like were used for apologetic and intercessory purposes toward the Christian world. A tiny minority of writers was concerned with the latter. The Haskalah sought to introduce a different bilingualism: renovated, refined Hebrew for internal matters, while Yiddish was to be eliminated; and national vernaculars, to be taught to all Jews, for external ones. However, they insisted on the maintenance of both spheres. When acculturation far exceeded the movement's plans, Central European Jews turned almost solely to the vernacular. David Sorkin demonstrated this with the two great journals of German Jewry: the maskilic Ha-Me'assef was written in Hebrew and supported the study of German; the post-maskilic Sulamith (published since 1806) was written almost entirely in German, befitting its editors' agenda of linguistic assimilation.[8] Likewise, upon the demise of Jewish Enlightenment in Eastern Europe, authors abandoned the maskilic paradigm not toward assimilation but in favour of exclusive use of Hebrew and Yiddish.

The political vision of the Haskalah was predicated on a similar approach. It opposed the reclusive community of the past but sought a maintenance of a strong Jewish framework (with themselves as leaders and intercessors with the state authorities); the Enlightened were not even fully agreeable to civic emancipation, and many of them viewed it with reserve, sometimes anxiety. In their writings, they drew a sharp line between themselves and whom they termed "pseudo-maskilim" those who embraced the Enlightenment values and secular knowledge but did not seek to balance these with their Jewishness, but rather strove for full assimilation. Such elements, whether the radical universalists who broke off the late Berlin Haskalah or the Russified intelligentsia in Eastern Europe a century later, were castigated and derided no less than the old rabbinic authorities which the movement confronted. It was not uncommon for its partisans to become a conservative element, combating against further dilution of tradition: in Vilnius, Samuel Joseph Fuenn turned from a progressive into an adversary of more radical elements within a generation. In the Maghreb, the few local maskilm were more concerned with the rapid assimilation of local Jews into the colonial French culture than with the ills of traditional society.[9]

Likewise, those who abandoned the optimistic, liberal vision of the Jews (albeit as a cohesive community) integrating into wider society in favour of full-blown Jewish nationalism or radical, revolutionary ideologies which strove to uproot the established order, also broke with the movement. The national Jewish movements of Eastern Europe, founded by disillusioned maskilim, derisively regarded it in a manner similar to other romantic-nationalist movements' understanding of the general Enlightenment as a naive, liberal and assimilationist ideology which induced foreign cultural influences, gnawed at the Jewish national consciousness and promised false hopes of equality in exchange for spiritual enslavement. This hostile view was promulgated by nationalist historians from Simon Dubnow and onwards, and is was once common in Israeli historiography.[10]

A major factor which always characterized the movement was its weakness and its dependence of much more powerful elements. Its partisans were mostly impoverished intellectuals, who eked out a living as private tutors and the like; few had a stable financial base, and they required patrons, whether affluent Jews or the state's institutions. This triplice the authorities, the Jewish communal elite and the maskilim was united only in the ambition of thoroughly reforming Jewish society. The government had no interest in the visions of renaissance which the Enlightened so fervently cherished. It demanded the Jews to turn into productive, loyal subjects with rudimentary secular education, and no more. The rich Jews were sometimes open to the movement's agenda, but mostly practical, hoping for a betterment of their people that would result in emancipation and equal rights. Indeed, the great cultural transformation which occurred among the Parnassim (affluent commumal wardens) class they were always more open to outside society, and had to tutor their children in secular subjects, thus inviting general Enlightenment influences was a precondition of Haskalah. The state and the elite required the maskilim as interlocutors and specialists in their efforts for reform, especially as educators, and the latter used this as leverage to benefit their ideology. However, the activists were much more dependent on the former than vice versa; frustration from one's inability to further the maskilic agenda and being surrounded by apathetic Jews, either conservative "fanatics" or parvenu "assimilationists", is a common theme in the movement's literature.[11]

The term Haskalah became synonymous, among friends and foes alike and in much of early Jewish historiography, with the sweeping changes that engulfed Jewish society (mostly in Europe) from the late 18th Century to the late 19th Century. It was depicted by its partisans, adversaries and historians like Heinrich Graetz as a major factor in those. Later research greatly narrowed the scope of the phenomenon and limited its importance: while Hasklaha undoubtedly played a part, the contemporary historical consensus portrays it as much humbler. Other transformation agents, from state-imposed schools to new economic opportunities, were demonstrated to have rivaled or overshadowed the movement completely in propelling such processes as acculturation, secularization, religious reform from moderate to extreme, adoption of native patriotism and so forth. In many regions the Haskalah played no part at all.[12]

As long as the Jews lived in segregated communities, and as long as all social intercourse with their Gentile neighbors was limited, the rabbi was the most influential member of the Jewish community. In addition to being a religious scholar and "clergy", a rabbi also acted as a civil judge in all cases in which both parties were Jews. Rabbis sometimes had other important administrative powers, together with the community elders. The rabbinate was the highest aim of many Jewish boys, and the study of the Talmud was the means of obtaining that coveted position, or one of many other important communal distinctions. Haskalah followers advocated "coming out of the ghetto", not just physically but also mentally and spiritually, in order to assimilate among Gentile nations.

The example of Moses Mendelssohn (172986), a Prussian Jew, served to lead this movement, which was also shaped by Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn (17541835) and Joseph Perl (17731839). Mendelssohn's extraordinary success as a popular philosopher and man of letters revealed hitherto unsuspected possibilities of integration and acceptance of Jews among non-Jews. Mendelssohn also provided methods for Jews to enter the general society of Germany. A good knowledge of the German language was necessary to secure entrance into cultured German circles, and an excellent means of acquiring it was provided by Mendelssohn in his German translation of the Torah. This work became a bridge over which ambitious young Jews could pass to the great world of secular knowledge. The Biur, or grammatical commentary, prepared under Mendelssohn's supervision, was designed to counteract the influence of traditional rabbinical methods of exegesis. Together with the translation, it became, as it were, the primer of Haskalah.

Language played a key role in the haskalah movement, as Mendelssohn and others called for a revival of Hebrew and a reduction in the use of Yiddish. The result was an outpouring of new, secular literature, as well as critical studies of religious texts. Julius Frst along with other German-Jewish scholars compiled Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries and grammars. Jews also began to study and communicate in the languages of the countries in which they settled, providing another gateway for integration.

Berlin is the city of origin for the movement. The capital city of Prussia and, later, the German Empire, Berlin became known as a secular, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic center, a fertile environment for conversations and radical movements. This move by the Maskilim away from religious study, into much more critical and worldly studies was made possible by this German city of modern and progressive thought. It was a city in which the rising middle class Jews and intellectual elites not only lived among, but were exposed to previous age of enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau.[13] The movement is often referred to the Berlin Haskalah. Reference to Berlin in relation to the Haskalah movement is necessary because it provides context for this episode of Jewish history. Subsequently, having left Germany and spreading across Eastern Europe, the Berlin Haskalah influenced multiple Jewish communities who were hungry for non-religious scholarly texts and insight to worlds beyond their Jewish enclaves.

Haskalah did not stay restricted to Germany, however, and the movement quickly spread throughout Europe. PolandLithuania was the heartland of Rabbinic Judaism, with its two streams of Misnagdic Talmudism centred in Lithuania and other regions, and Hasidic mysticism popular in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Russia. In the 19th century Haskalah sought dissemination and transformation of traditional education and inward pious life in Eastern Europe.[where?] It adapted its message to these different environments, working with the Russian government of the Pale of Settlement to influence secular educational methods, while its writers satirised Hasidic mysticism, in favour of solely Rationalist interpretation of Judaism. Isaac Baer Levinsohn (17881860) became known as the "Russian Mendelssohn". Joseph Perl's (17731839) satire of the Hasidic movement, "Revealer of Secrets" (Megalleh Temirim), is said to be the first modern novel in Hebrew. It was published in Vienna in 1819 under the pseudonym "Obadiah ben Pethahiah". The Haskalah's message of integration into non-Jewish society was subsequently counteracted by alternative secular Jewish political movements advocating Folkish, Socialist or Nationalist secular Jewish identities in Eastern Europe.[where?] While Haskalah advocated Hebrew and sought to remove Yiddish, these subsequent developments advocated Yiddish Renaissance among Maskilim. Writers of Yiddish literature variously satirised or sentimentalised Hasidic mysticism.

Even as emancipation eased integration into wider society and assimilation prospered, the haskalah also resulted in the creation of secular Jewish culture, with an emphasis on Jewish history and Jewish identity, rather than religion. This resulted in the engagement of Jews in a variety of competing ways within the countries where they lived; these included the struggle for Jewish emancipation, involvement in new Jewish political movements, and later, in the face of continued persecutions in late nineteenth-century Europe, the development of a Jewish Nationalism. One source describes these effects as, "The emancipation of the Jews brought forth two opposed movements: the cultural assimilation, begun by Moses Mendelssohn, and Zionism, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1896."[14]

One facet of the Haskalah was a widespread cultural adaptation, as those Jews who participated in the enlightenment began in varying degrees to participate in the cultural practices of the surrounding Gentile population. Connected with this was the birth of the Reform movement, whose founders such as Israel Jacobson and Leopold Zunz rejected the continuing observance of those aspects of Jewish law which they classified as ritual, as opposed to moral or ethical. Even within orthodoxy the Haskalah was felt through the appearance of the Mussar Movement in Lithuania and Torah im Derech Eretz in Germany in response. Enlightened Jews sided with Gentile governments in plans to increase secular education among the Jewish masses, bringing them into acute conflict with the orthodox who believed this threatened Jewish life.

The spreading of Haskalah affected Judaism as a religion because of how much the different sects desired to be integrated, and in turn, integrate their religious traditions. The effects of the Enlightenment were already present in Jewish religious music and opinion on traditionalism versus modernization. Groups of Reform Jews such as the Society of the Friends of Reform and the Association for the Reform of Judaism were formed because they wanted and actively advocated for a change in Jewish tradition, mainly rituals like circumcision. Another non-Orthodox group was the Conservative Jews, who emphasized the importance of traditions but viewed with a historical perspective. The Orthodox Jews were actively against these reformers because they viewed changing Jewish tradition was an insult to God and that fulfillment in life could be found in serving God and keeping his commandments.[15] The effect of Haskalah was that it was a dividing factor between sects.

Another important facet of the Haskalah was its interests to non-Jewish religions. Moses Mendelssohn criticized some aspects of Christianity, but depicted Jesus as a Torah-observant rabbi, who was loyal to traditional Judaism. Mendelssohn explicitly linked positive Jewish views of Jesus with the issues of Emancipation and Jewish-Christian reconciliation. Similar revisionist views were expressed by Rabbi Isaac Ber Levinsohn and other traditional representatives of the Haskalah movement.[16][17]

This articleincorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (19011906). "Haskalah". Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.

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Haskalah - Wikipedia

By Muftau Ogunyemi

Akure A university lecturer, Mr Anthony Akapa, on Thursday advised the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) to partner with the media for effective public enlightenment and sensitisation.

Akapa, a Senior Lecturer of Mass Communication at Joseph Ayo Babalola University (JABU), Ikeji-Arakeji in Osun, gave the advice at the 2017 3rd Quarters Retreat in Akure organised by Ondo State Command of FRSC.

He spoke as the guest lecturer at the retreat entitled: Public Education: A Veritable Tool in Archiving the Corps Mandate.

According to him, FRSC needs to be proactive by introducing policies that can checkmate activities of motorists and manage the public expectations.

In its efforts to be proactive, FRSC must put effective programmes in place with a view to reaching out to the public.

The only way to achieve this and its other mandate is to link up with the media in the area of awareness campaigns and sensitisation of the public

Partnership with the media will drastically reduce carnage on our roads and it will also help to manage public expectations from the corps, he said.

Akapa also charged FRSC officials and personnel to be more dedicated to their duties and avoid acts capable of destroying the image of the corps.

Also, Mr Agustine Aipoh, the Zonal Commander in charge of Osun, Ondo and Oyo, explained that the workshop was to educate and enlighten men of the corps on their relationship with the public.

The idea is to continue to improve on various means and methods of reaching members of the public; for every organisation to succeed, it must have guidelines.

We have an operational guideline which we review periodically to accommodate new developments or updates.

This is why we also have stiff sanctions against anybody that violates the operational guidelines, Aipoh said.

He said that FRSC had been engaging its staff in various conferences, seminars, training and workshops to update their knowledge on public expectations from them.

In his remarks, Mr Vincent MT Jack, the FRSC Sector Commander in the state, said that the retreat was to give men of the corps brotherly perspective on issues at public domain.

The retreat will also help to open up the space to know the issues that basically lead to clashes within our men and motorists.

Public enlightenment will assist the Corps to do its job better and there will be no crisis in the cause of doing our assignment, he said.

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Partner With Media For Effective Public Enlightenment, Lecturer Urges FRSC - SundiataPost (press release) (blog)

Photo Robert Wright

OMS LAW: To the extent that Buddhism encourages its practitioners to cast aside the self on their way to enlightenment, it can seem like a fools errand. The self isnt so easy to shed, as Buckaroo Bonzai noted: No matter where you go, there you are. But that doesnt mean theres no wisdom to be found in the effort. The journalist Robert Wright a practicing Buddhist who often explores the intersection of science and religion, as in his 2009 best seller The Evolution of God makes the case for a Zen lifestyle in his latest book, Why Buddhism Is True, new at No. 4 in hardcover nonfiction.

Wright has been a spiritual seeker for a long time. In 2002 he founded a video site called MeaningofLife.tv, in which he talked to various people about matters relating to (wait for it) the meaning of life. Hes still editor in chief, and last month participated in a conversation posted there with the Buddhist author and emergency room doctor Daniel Ingram. The video, which touches on everything from current politics to Buddhist sociopaths to Wrights own level of spiritual attainment, offers an endearing look at Wright fumbling toward ecstasy. It also suggests that meditation can echo more pharmaceutical paths to enlightenment.

On my first retreat I had an experience that bordered on hallucinogenic, that had to do with viewing the interior of my mind, Wright says as Ingram beams an encouraging, euphoric grin his way. And at first I was, like, Whoa. I mean, this is my first retreat, right? And at first its like red and purple and Im like: Whoa. This is a new place. And then, what I observed was actually in a sense that thought, except that, for the first time, what it looked like was one entity saying it to another, and I realized it was kind of like the inside of my mind. I dont actually consider that the most interesting proximity to not-self that Ive had. But anyway, there is that. Such experiences, he added, can convince you that our ordinary way of seeing things is pretty deeply confused. You have apprehensions that are quite different from your ordinary way of experiencing things. Like and this is another version related to not-self youre meditating on a retreat, and you feel that the tingling in your foot is no more a part of you than a bird thats singing, right?

Right, Ingram said. That tingling is actually important, because thats impermanence, and thats vibrations

Actually, Wright interrupted, this may have just been a tingling in my foot. I dont mean this may not have been a special tingling.

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A Science Writer Embraces Buddhism as a Path to Enlightenment - New York Times