Buddhism often speaks of compassion, of mercy, of the
development of both in the human soul. This in contradiction
to passion.
Passion can quickly lead to fanaticism, emotionality,
blindness that prevents us from clearly seeing and hearing.
Calvin's passion was partly the cause that dissenters
ended at the stake.
Fundamentalists are passionate believers, like the Ku
Klux Klan.
In short: passion often leads to intolerance. Hitler
was also a passionate man.......
An important aspect of (Zen) meditation is precisely
the detachment of passions.
In its place originates a calm mind that leads to insight
and, last but not least, to compassion.
Obviously, compassion is of an altogether different
order than passion.
In the latter case, the saying that the road to hell
is often paved with good intentions maybe applicable
as well.
Just compare a silent lake to a lake that is violently
driven by the wind.
The violent lake is totally preoccupied with itself,
but when you toss a small pebble into the silent lake,
the lake will clearly react.
Also compare emotion and feeling.
The violent lake is preoccupied with itself, passionate
as it were, while the silent lake is more receptive,
sensitive. In our culture, the two concepts are often
lumped together, just like love and sex for instance.
Our culture doesn't seem evolved enough to be aware
of this difference between feeling and emotion.
To me, Jesus seems more a figure of compassion than
of passion, although I can imagine that theologians
could hold a passionate debate about this.
In short, some comments to the concept of passion seem
useful.
From the figures mentioned, I'd like to highlight Mary
Magdalene.
She is also mentioned in a recently published book by
professor in theology Auke Jelsma.
The book is called: "doorgevingen van Jezus."
Jesus appears to Auke Jelsma in a sort of vision, and
also speaks about who Mary Magdalene really was. It
appears that Mary Magdalene was a paranormally highly
developed woman. And although they loved each other
very much they never had an erotic relationship, because
Jesus, as he said himself in this book, didn't have
time for that. The absence of any form of patheticness,
which I think is related to passion, in my opinion added
to the believability of this document.
Ruud Steenbergen
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