Month: October 2022
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Chapter 2: Reflection 5 – That I Might Have Seen
As Chapter Two begins, Julian explains that “this revelation” was made to her, “a simple creature unlettered,” on May 8, 1373. She further shares that she had “before” longed for three gifts, 1) “mind of the passion”; 2) “bodily sicknes”; and 3) three “wounds”: i. “very contrition,” ii. “kind compassion,” and iii. “wilful longing for…
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Chapter 2: Reflection 4 – Two Figures Made Almost as One
It has been said that by the time of his death 1337, the artist Giotto di Bondone “had revived painting from its long sleep” and that his “brush created figures that truly seemed to live and breathe.” 1 One of the greatest testimonies to his visionary abilities is inscribed on the walls of a small chapel…
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Chapter 2: Reflection 3 – Be Like a Swan
“This revelation was shewed to a simple creature unlettered, living in deadly flesh …” 1 The adjective “deadly” carries a number of meanings and resonances in modern English and in Middle English. These certainly include “subject to death” and “mortal,” but also “perishable, fleeting, transitory.” 2 The evanescent quality of embodied human life, and indeed,…
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Chapter 2: Reflection 2 – He was Washing Dishes in the Sink
When TM expressed his desire to study Dzogchen to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader recommended that TM get a solid grounding in the philosophical tradition that the Tibetans inherited from earlier Indian Buddhist scholars. To do this, His Holiness suggested that TM “consult qualified Tibetan scholars, uniting study and practice,” and one of the…
Julian of Norwich and Other Tibetan Lamas 