[Buddha-l] gorgeous sung version of Heart Sutra

[Joy Vriens]

Richard P. Hayes wrote:

> So, given that almost everyone who is not Dutch thinks that Vriens is a
> woman's name, I'm going to ask you to change your name to something more
> masculine, such as Joy Jaegermeister.

An alternative would be to call me by the name Joy is derived of: Janus.
"(Janus is the Roman god of gates and doors (ianua), beginnings and 
endings, and hence represented with a double-faced head, each looking in 
opposite directions. He was worshipped at the beginning of the harvest 
time, planting, marriage, birth, and other types of beginnings, 
especially the beginnings of important events in a person's life. Janus 
also represents the transition between primitive life and civilization, 
between the countryside and the city, peace and war, and the growing-up 
of young people. Janus was represented with two faces, originally one 
face was bearded while the other was not (probably a symbol of the sun 
and the moon)." How's that for androgyny?

> By the way, are you a non-dualist, or just a pseudo-non-dualist?

That's a question I am incapable of answering and that happens to haunt 
me at the moment. But yes I do feel quite drawn to non-dualism, not as a 
description of reality but as the most suitable path to peace. I have 
been reading David Loy's Non-duality on and off and I keep coming back 
to it. Especially the chapter on the Bhagavad Gita. The way he explains 
the unity or combined practice of the three paths, jnana, karma and 
bhakti makes a lot of sense to me (he compares them with the three 
poisons in Buddhism in the way they interact). It's a dynamic approach 
in which intellect, emotions and action need to be involved all three. 
Bhakti has always been the most problematic for me and still is, but I 
have come to realise that it is an aspect that needs to be dealt with, 
although I still don't know how. None of the suggested approaches 
completely satisifes me.

Loy suggests that to have access to the impersonal absolute (brahman) a 
personal intermediary is needed often in the form of a personal god. 
That makes sense because the whole being with all its aspects needs to 
be involved in a spiritual path. But that makes a personal god merely 
into an instrument, and knowing a personal god as an instrument, how can 
one develop genuin bhakti (surrender)? It struck me the other day that 
in Tibetan Buddhism, there are many songs by yogis etc about their 
yearning and devotion for their guru, but hardly any about a yearning 
devotion for deities. I am not talking about praising hymns which are 
merely a part of liturgy but about personal songs of realisation. So 
Tibetan yogis somehow seem to sense the instrumental role of deities. In 
TB the guru took over the place and "bhakti-rights" of the deity (it is 
taught the guru is more important because he is the source of the 
deity). But even there, the guru is only important because he is the one 
that makes one's own realisation possible. From this point of view he is 
not more than an instrument and is that enough to stimulate our 
emotional involvement? It could be a purely "business" type of 
relationship.

> The
> real non-dualists among our readers would probably rather know that than
> whether you sport a lingam or a yoni. 

> Androgynously yours,

Talking about androgyny, I also happen to be reading Shiva et Dionysos 
by Alain Danielou, which I find most interesting. He perhaps doesn't do 
all the necessary groundwork but I find his theories very stimulating. I 
wonder how Danielou is considered in the academic world?

Janus