11 : The Unwavering Path
Being active in our faith, can help us to remember where we were and where we are going! Many times, we forget as Christ Followers that we were not always walking with God. We look around and see professed Christians but know that somehow, they are just not quite on the same path.
11 : The Unwavering Path
Not once since that dream began in middle school did Truhitt waver from the path she set for herself. After high school, she attended Meridian Community College before transferring to MSU-Meridian, where she said the rigorous university coursework, along with a semester-long internship, helped her combine what she learned in the classroom with real-world application.
Bits and pieces of the myth are in Malachi Martin's conspiracy-hauntedThe Keys of the Blood and in Carl Bernstein's controversial account of thePope and the CIA, His Holiness. But it is nowhere so completely realized, sofully, even encyclopedically documented as in Jonathan Kwitny's Man of theCentury. In its preface, he sets out his hero's unwavering path: "KarolWojtyla, as bishop of Krakow, forged the Solidarity revolution--in hisphilosophy classes, his community synods, his secret ordination of priests, his clandestinecommunications seminars, the smuggling network he oversaw throughout theEastern Bloc...In interviews, colleagues reveal how Wojtyla guided them in amajor hunger strike that was the Boston Tea Party of the Solidarity revolutionand handed out envelopes of cash to sustain their work. Time and time again, aspope, he single-handedly rescued the revolution he begat."
Henking has continuously demonstrated her commitment to the care of others through her respiratory work, but she decided to switch fields and pursue speech-language pathology at TWU. She believes her new field will allow her to have an even greater impact on the lives of others.
Though that path was not always easy for Henking. She worked hard at keeping a balance while juggling school, family and work, and her commute to class and back home for three to four days each week for four years was more than an hour each way. Fortunately, she had the love and support of others to keep her motivated.
Emma Handy and Autumn Burchett are two contenders with a history of collaborating, and neither have been a consistent member of any major testing team. Together, the two forged their own path to the Grand Finals and developed an unwavering bond along the way.
I think the sailing metaphor is a much better one for life than the perfectly straight path headed directly for the goal. At least in my life and in the lives of most people I know. And these people I know are NOT just aimlessly wandering, never accomplishing anything with their life folks. As an example, I had a total of six guest speakers in my Purdue class this past semester. All smart. All accomplished. All doing great things. All told a story of a life path that was crooked, wandering, filled with unexpected opportunities and more than a few dead ends. All noted that they had absolutely no idea they would land where they currently were; yet all were quite thrilled with both their current place and the journey that got them there.
So, I hereby grant everyone, including me, the wisdom to embrace the journey. To drop our desire to script the un-scriptable. To stop heading directly into the wind, which only wears us out. To dance and weave toward our aspirations, sometimes taking two steps forward and one step to the side. To learn from our attempts, successful or not. To know deeply that the richness is in traversing the path and that the endpoint is only the bright light that guides us.
More detours than direct paths, at least at the outset. My first tenure-track position was at the University of Arizona in 1985, 18 years after I got my PhD. In between, I spent 10 years in Europe (Prague, London, Bergen), then some time at the University of California, San Diego, the University of California, Irvine, and Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. All this change was both invigorating and time-consuming.
In our new collection we explore the elements that rule the twelve zodiac signs; Water, Earth, Fire and Air. These energy forces exist in all of us and have sustained life since ancient times. When forged together in their unique combinations, they beautifully represent our distinct personalities and predict the paths we are destined to follow. From earthly powers to spiritual realms, discover the element that tells your story.
Loid asks what Fiona is doing, and she explains in code that she wants to make sure Yor is prepared for the physical rigors of Operation Strix. In her thoughts, Fiona plans to crush Yor and have her relinquish her role as the mother. Loid tells Yor that she does not have to accept, but Yor believes if she declines or loses, Loid will report her to the SSS for being a weak tennis player and replace her with Fiona, and thus she accepts the challenge. Reading both of their minds, Anya can feel the tension between the women and flashes back to Becky, who excitedly told her about the latest episode from Berlint in Love, where the main character's fiancé encountered his childhood friend, but Anya could not sympathize as she preferred cartoons. Relating this to the current situation, Anya claims to understand what Becky was talking about, saying she likes action battles too. Before starting their game, Fiona tells Yor to come at her with everything she has. Yor agrees with Fiona's statement and decides to go all out, making a powerful swing as she serves. However, Yor appears to have missed her shot, and the ball drops to the ground.
9. "When he has given up, renounced, let go, abandoned and relinquished [the defilements] in part,[7] he knows: 'I am endowed with unwavering confidence in the Buddha... in the Dhamma... in the Sangha; and he gains enthusiasm for the goal, gains enthusiasm for the Dhamma,[8] gains gladness connected with the Dhamma. When he is gladdened, joy is born in him; being joyous in mind, his body becomes tranquil; his body being tranquil, he feels happiness; and the mind of him who is happy becomes concentrated.[9]
"He abides, having suffused with a mind of compassion... of sympathetic joy... of equanimity one direction of the world, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth, and so above, below, around and everywhere, and to all as to himself; he abides suffusing the entire universe with equanimity, with a mind grown great, lofty, boundless and free from enmity and ill will.
Knowing (viditva). Sub.Comy.: "Having known it either through the incipient wisdom (pubbabhaga-pañña of the worldling, i.e., before attaining to stream-entry) or through the wisdom of the two lower paths (stream-entry and once-returning). He knows the defilements as to their nature, cause, cessation and means of effecting cessation." This application of the formula of the Four Noble Truths to the defilements deserves close attention.
Abandons them (pajahati). Comy.: "He abandons the respective defilement through (his attainment of) the noble path where there is 'abandoning by eradication' (samucchedappahana-vasena ariya-maggena)," which according to Sub.Comy. is the "final abandoning" (accantappahana). Before the attainment of the noble paths, all "abandoning" of defilements is of a temporary nature. See Nyanatiloka Thera, Buddhist Dictionary, s.v. pahana.
If, in the last group of terms, covetousness is taken in a restricted sense as referring only to the craving for the five sense objects, it is finally abandoned by the path of non-returning; and this is according to Comy. the meaning intended here. All greed, however, including the hankering after fine material and immaterial existence, is eradicated only on the path of Arahatship; hence the classification under the latter in the list above.
Comy. repeatedly stresses that wherever in our text "abandoning" is mentioned, reference is to the non-returner (anagami); for also in the case of defilements overcome on stream-entry (see above), the states of mind which produce those defilements are eliminated only by the path of non-returning.
Bhikkhu Ñanamoli translates this paragraph thus: "And whatever (from among those imperfections) has, according to the limitation (set by whichever of the first three paths he has attained), been given up, has been (forever) dropped, let go, abandoned, relinquished. "
Comy.: "When reviewing (paccavekkhato)* the abandonment of the defilements and his unwavering confidence, strong joy arises in the non-returner in the thought: 'Such and such defilements are now abandoned by me.' It is like the joy of a king who learns that a rebellion in the frontier region has been quelled."
*["Reviewing" (paccavekkhana) is a commentarial term, but is derived, apart from actual meditative experience, from close scrutiny of sutta passages like our present one. "Reviewing" may occur immediately after attainment of the jhanas or the paths and fruitions (e.g., the last sentence of Sec. 14), or as a reviewing of the defilements abandoned (as in Sec. 10) or those remaining. See Visuddhimagga, transl. by Ñanamoli, p. 789.]
The Comy. applies now the same interpretation to our present textual passage, saying: "Attha-veda is the enthusiasm arisen in him who reviews his unwavering confidence; dhamma-veda is the enthusiasm arisen in him who reviews 'the abandonment of the defilement in part,' which is the cause of that unwavering confidence..." Hence the two terms refer to "the joy that has as its object the unwavering confidence in the Buddha, and so forth; and the joy inherent in the knowledge (of the abandonment; somanassa-maya ñana)."
Our rendering of attha (Skt.:artha) b; "goal" is supported by Comy.: "The unwavering confidence is called attha because it has to be reached (araniyato), i.e., to be approached (upagantabbato)," in the sense of a limited goal, or resultant blessing. 041b061a72