Dear hotboy! I am glad to hear you have ditched the tedious Thomas Merton book to free up more time for enjoying the view here on my island.
You asked for input on Catholics turning into Buddhists. I have known perhaps a dozen lapsed catholics in my life, and what many of them have in common is a desire to seek out and then practise some substitute ritual. I can't blame them, as the Catholic church, like the British Royal Family, does ritual so very well, and I did enjoy Diana's funeral.
Some of the substitutes that I have seen my friends take up: various communes; a new-age Christian church; FWBO; political activism; living one's entire life according do a political dogma of choice; feminism; misogyny; men's groups; not forgetting bliss-chasing.
Mind you, I have seen just as many non-catholics do the same thing, and I myself benefit from the twice-yearly bottling ritual here on the islands, so maybe you should forget my theory.
But people do enjoy rituals, and why not?
For Westerners, the word "ritual" has almost no positive meanings or connotations, whereas for people a thousand years ago (or even two-hundred-and-fifty years ago) performance of ritual was very positive, even necessary. Call it religious magic or spiritual technology, rituals can bring an individual, a community, or maybe the whole world into harmony and balance.
I hope this helps. robmcj.
PS - Hotboy, I am not suggesting your own BlissWork is on the same level as living by Marxism or Amway. I'd be trying the Bliss myself if I wasn't so busy reading and writing blogs. And as you said, when I'm hit by a bus I'll have nothing to fall back on except my photos of the Glasgow Buddhist Centre, which I will shortly be posting here in my blog.
(Some text stolen from http://www.intrex.net/chzg/zenfaq.htm)
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10 June 2005 at 10:41
ritual
Hotboy said...
How wise! Unfortunately, whilst chasing ra bliss I have also been chasing ra piss. Catholics and non-catholics are eligible for this alternative occupation. Hotboy
p.s It is a shame that the only bliss chaser is me. This might make me a solitary realising foe destroyer, as they say. Also, "superior being" of course. I'm not too happy with being a superior being somehow. Just as long as I'm not a flatheid!
~
