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The Daily Dharma – September 22, 2021

The Kiss Painting by Gustav Klimt

Continuing from The Naked Now . . .

Philosophically and psychologically, a certain assent precedes all true knowing. If you watch closely, you will often see that an initial change of heart or attitude precedes any willingness to change your mind. In my own Franciscan philosophical tradition, both St. Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus taught that love or willingness were higher than mere knowledge. You really know only that which you first love, they felt, because otherwise you invariably distort and divide your sight and eliminate any bothersome or threatening information. Then you do not love it but (at best) only your idea of it. How often we see this in our relationships: romance instead of real love, and infatuation (“false fire” in Latin) instead of genuine fire. Words and thoughts are invariably dualistic, but pure experience is always nondualistic. Think about that!

Richard Rohr
from The Naked Now; Learning to See as the Mystics See
Chapter: But We Have to Make Judgements, Don’t We?

To be continued . . .