Tuesday: The Zen of Sin

Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful - just stupid).
Robert Heinlein

Sin seemed to be ingrained in our psyche. It sells books. It sells religion. Sin sells! They even nicknamed a city after it - Sin City.

We all seem to have this idea that if we enjoy something it must be a sin. Puritan roots go deep into our culture. These roots however are based in a lie. To sin means to miss the mark. In other words, when we try to obtain a desired outcome, we shoot our arrow toward the goal, and when we miss our target, we have sinned. What is wonderful about this concept is that it implies that we can try again to obtain our goal. We have all sinned and fallen short of the mark. [Romans 3:23 ]

It is almost impossible to go forth and sin no more because as humans we are all striving to reach the goal of enlightenment or joy or a better job or more money. We strive and in our striving statistically we cannot always hit the mark. We perhaps need to develop a new Art of Sin! We will call it the Zen of Sin!

To be a sin master, one must learn renewing and refreshing power of self-forgiveness. If we look for our epiphany in the eyes of another's forgiveness and tolerance we will always miss the mark to some degree. If we delve deep into our own selves and explore our inner reality, the path to joy will be found in learning to tolerate our own weaknesses. We will usually find that our greatest weakness holds within it the polarity of our greatest strength.

Some Zen Sin:

If I sin and I don't feel guilty, have I sinned?

Commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways! William Shakespeare

If I don't remember it, it didn't happen.

Please comment and add your Zen Sin!

Announcing the Epiphany Awards to recognize the Englightened Writer.

This is a call for submissions to compete for the Epiphany Award presented by Lightsource and ManifestReality.com

The rules are simple: Write a 500-700 word essay about the person or situation that empowered you with awareness - an epiphany - of your expanding spiritual possibilities. Deadline for submissions for the first award is September 1, 2005. These essays will be juried by a panel of professional, published writers. The winners will be featured in Light Source and on ManifestReality.com . Writers and staff of LightSource or ManifestReality are not eligible to enter. More about this in our July 21st edition of Light Source.