Raymond Sigrist
raymond sigrist
(this is the postscript from a book I wrote)
It is my experience that the ability to be all-embracing, (what the classical daoists called "rong"), is spontaneously generated when a person realizes her own total and immutable innocence. In this realization one senses that there is no fundamental sin, and that there never has been any. Apparently everything has been made precisely to work as it could best be done, by whatever power created this world of experience that surrounds us: the things of this world are made so that they work well for us at times, and also functionally designed such that they fail miserably for us at other times. Gain and loss are the animators of this world. Without gain and loss nothing could move.
Despite what some folks think, the realization of immutable innocence does not entail antinomianism (doing absolutely anything one can and desires to do). This is because love, the most self-beneficial thing I can engage in, requires a trusting intimacy. I cannot get close to you if I am only focused on meeting my own self-limiting desires. What is in my interest is of a much wider scope than what I am able to imagine.
Immutable innocence means that whatever I do and have done, no matter whether it has caused healing or injury to others, I sense that it was the best I was capable of doing at the time, given my scant understanding of what I thought was in my best interest at that time. When I have gained enough wisdom, I will realize that what is most often in your best self-interest is also in my best self-interest.
If we realize our immutable innocence, if we love ourselves as unconditionally as we are able, our love will flood forth from our hearts effortlessly, saturating each of the moments in which we encounter another being. Loving ourselves unconditionally allows us to love all others unconditionally. That does not mean I will not hurt you if I think that you are needlessly hurting someone else. It does mean that I will love you no matter what you do.
Your preciousness lies in your essence; it cannot be lost by anything that happens. Zhuangzi Chapter 21
When I understand that, I will be free. At that moment there will be no one who I will not love.
It is my experience that the ability to be all-embracing, (what the classical daoists called "rong"), is spontaneously generated when a person realizes her own total and immutable innocence. In this realization one senses that there is no fundamental sin, and that there never has been any. Apparently everything has been made precisely to work as it could best be done, by whatever power created this world of experience that surrounds us: the things of this world are made so that they work well for us at times, and also functionally designed such that they fail miserably for us at other times. Gain and loss are the animators of this world. Without gain and loss nothing could move.
Despite what some folks think, the realization of immutable innocence does not entail antinomianism (doing absolutely anything one can and desires to do). This is because love, the most self-beneficial thing I can engage in, requires a trusting intimacy. I cannot get close to you if I am only focused on meeting my own self-limiting desires. What is in my interest is of a much wider scope than what I am able to imagine.
Immutable innocence means that whatever I do and have done, no matter whether it has caused healing or injury to others, I sense that it was the best I was capable of doing at the time, given my scant understanding of what I thought was in my best interest at that time. When I have gained enough wisdom, I will realize that what is most often in your best self-interest is also in my best self-interest.
If we realize our immutable innocence, if we love ourselves as unconditionally as we are able, our love will flood forth from our hearts effortlessly, saturating each of the moments in which we encounter another being. Loving ourselves unconditionally allows us to love all others unconditionally. That does not mean I will not hurt you if I think that you are needlessly hurting someone else. It does mean that I will love you no matter what you do.
Your preciousness lies in your essence; it cannot be lost by anything that happens. Zhuangzi Chapter 21
When I understand that, I will be free. At that moment there will be no one who I will not love.
