No I do
not think
He has
Our best
Interests
In mind
Yes,
I look
forward
To seeing
The back
Of him
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
however awkwardly
It is a mystery worth appreciation even if we are not interested in investigating it. This odd suggestion that we, all of us, are children of one being (Being?) and that our one responsibility, our one task, is to love one another.
Two thousand years ago a man named Jesus claimed that his sole reason for being was to convey to anyone who would listen that his reality and their reality was One Reality, namely, compassionate love and authentic service to everyone, especially those among us who are hurting, poor, sick, or on the edges of society.
These proclamations of caring and action pointed to, he said, what and where God is. Simple as that. God was our caring response to one another.
1 Timothy 3:14-16
The mystery of our religion is very deep
At the moment of writing to you, I am hoping that I may be with you soon; but in case I should be delayed, I wanted you to know how people ought to behave in God’s family – that is, in the Church of the living God, which upholds the truth and keeps it safe. Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is very deep indeed:He was made visible in the flesh,attested by the Spirit,seen by angels,proclaimed to the pagans,believed in by the world,taken up in glory.
For reasons that are still unclear, the power structure of his day wanted Jesus out of the way, gone, even dead. He interfered with their ideology. He was an impediment to their political ambition. He, and the God he rode in on, were inadequate to their personal and authoritative desires.
Not much has changed in two thousand years.
Men and women still reject the mystery and grab for material power.
Jesus is co-opted and made to symbolize vile and self-serving interests.
Zealots and fools murder and round up artificially constructed enemies and people who will serve as a confused Judas to betray what is real.
The power-hungry continue their misdirection and accumulation of wealth and fawning obeisance.
The deep mystery of our religion persists and endures.
The hearts of the power-hungry stiffen and obdure.
Do not be confused today. Do not be fooled.
Reside, however awkwardly, in the mystery.
any follow-up questions
Listened to director of fbi in front of senate for oversight hearing.
Ugly.
Boarish.
Uninspiring.
Quite a shame, the embarrassment of the burlesque.
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
it is worthy to open the search
"I’m confident our sense of fairness will re-emerge” says Robert Reich in his book “Coming Up Short, A Memoir of My America.”
I like his confidence.
Looking down the highway as the four horsemen of the dreaded present (Trump, Vance, Miller, Rubio) gallop full speed across the divide, it is daunting to consider his optimism.
We do know that change is the only constant. These four men will not last. People die. Even incredibly handsome and popular people like Robert Redford (RIP) pass away. Then, the others, like Bondi, Patel, Bongino, Hegseth, Kennedy jr., Burgum, Noem, Duffy, Lutnik, Bessent, Gabbard, Cheung, Musk, and Homan -- a listing that makes my computer cough and sink to the ground with dizziness -- even these will move on, cash in, cash out, and find work in other profitable venues.
I know I will die. I will.
They too will die.
My rabbi, priest, minister, zen master, primary care nurse, cardiologist, oncologist, and dentist all tell me I will be 곧 죽다 (soon dead).
This is no mystery. This is not a right wing or left wing threat. It is not a culture war or civil war provocation.
It is fact. Raw, simple, obvious fact.
Jesus said it and did it. Buddha said it and did it. Mae West, Frank Sinatra, Ted Williams, Ronald Reagan, Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, Pete Maravich, T.S. Eliot, and Pope Francis -- all said it and did it.
Died.
So, will fairness re-emerge?
Hard-tellin’, but, maybe.
Life, let’s face it, is hardly fair. But, it’s a good goal to aim for.
I might not outlive Trump and his cabinet cronies. Might not want to. But I do look forward to their moving away from their dangerous brand of awkward inequality being foisted on America and the world.
Hard figuring out what particular ideology inspires their puzzling proclivities toward cruelty and compassionless antagonism.
Must have been something they ate in their younger years. Something went wrong.
Hereabouts, we look for integrity.
It’s a worthy search.
We might not find it in our current authorities in Washington and selected odd states.
But it’s a worthy search, as I said.
We might not be worthy to ask for such benefit. But we do ask for the word to be said so we can be healed.
Integrity . . . yeah . . . let’s ask for it!
suturing the heart; (or, sanskrit: सूत्र, sūtra)
I sit with God
(Who doesn’t exist)
This early morning
A car goes by
(On Barnestown Road)
Another is gone, is, gone
Come to think
(I don’t exist)
Cat on belly
Calendar says Tuesday
(Some purring, empty road)
Nothing arrives nothing departs
No attainment
(With nothing)
To attain
The edges torn open
Of a wound attended to
(Making, grazi, earnestly, stronger)
Monday, September 15, 2025
asasas
Something that surfaced from 2011:
I practice accepting simplicity, anonymous service, accommodating silence. (asasas)
—Dec.28, 2011. https://meetingbrook.blogspot.com/2011/
moving beyond fear
A time will come
When being for or against anything
Will prove you dangerous
I am for justice, real justice
I am against solipsistic wrongdoing
I am not dangerous . . . I am you, friend
leave the poisons outside the door
The three poisons.
There’s no room in here for them.
The three poisons (Sanskrit: triviṣa; Tibetan: dug gsum) in the Mahayana tradition or the three unwholesome roots (Sanskrit: akuśala-mūla; Pāli: akusala-mūla) in the Theravada tradition are a Buddhist term that refers to the three root kleshas that lead to all negative states. These three states are delusion, also known as ignorance; greed or sensual attachment; and hatred or aversion.[1][2] These three poisons are considered to be three afflictions or character flaws that are innate in beings and the root of craving, and so causing suffering and rebirth.[1][3]
But the three wholesome mental factors . . .
I think there’s room for them.
The three wholesome mental factors that are identified as the opposites of the three poisons are:[10][11]
The Buddhist path considers these essential for liberation.[10]
If it be your will.
Help us make it through the night.
our ladies of sorrow
Just for argument’s sake
Imagine Love dwelt in you
That you felt what is good
That what is right was clear
Looking around outside you,
The tortured ignorance and
Intentional disruption, the
Cynical rhetoric of division.
What sorrow would arise?
Mary and Kuan-yin together
Turning in circles looking
Looking, listening listening
These two women,
Their cloaks of light
Extraordinary sorrow at what
The world is missing,
They see the suffering
They hear the suffering
Those cultivating hatred
Brazen and unapologetic
Those who hear the cries
Of the world, those who sorrow
The missiles, bombs, starvation
The dead ideology of mad leaders
Please, please teach us how to see
Show us your grace of attention
The way you become your core of care
The sound of compassion
Even in silence, even in words
The inner love turning out, the
Quiet offer of solace and healing
What matters now mattering.
You are the eternal womanly
Of Goethe’s words ringing true —
Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan
(The Eternal-Feminine draws us upward)
Draw us upward, draw us within
So we might see what we can be
So what is true is what is you
And what is me is all we see — with love
Sunday, September 14, 2025
the hypocrisy is exquisite
Republican rhetoric has become obscene. They blame democrats for what they themselves have become — projecting dissemblers of their own perversion.
It has become ludicrous, the demonizing rhetoric and ill-will without shame.
I own no guns. I have no bullets. I conscientiously object to their coming escalation of violence.
But, mark my words, something dark this way comes.
I’m unsure there’s any stopping the infuriating malice choo-chooing down the hypocritical tracks.
but unworried lives at ease,
“The imperfect translation of reality into ideas.” That’s what the video-maker of Shunyata/Emptiness has just said in "Empty is the World”
The service-in-training pup from prison is still on my mind. She did not know she was at a “baseball game” but she, in our understanding of it, was indeed there, eating a hotdog, navigating legs and feet, receiving pat-pats on head.
And we? What “game” are we at? We're here, but where exactly is that? What more invisible formulation of unaware involvement are we participating in without the capacity to discern the shape and meaning of that participation, its direction, its encompassing gestalt?
It occurs to me that, perhaps, we might not want to know our whereabouts and purpose. Many might find that way of non-investigation desirable and comforting.
The Buddha said:
"Monks, be islands unto yourselves,[1] be your own refuge, having no other; let the Dhamma be an island and a refuge to you, having no other. Those who are islands unto themselves... should investigate to the very heart of things:[2] 'What is the source of sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair? How do they arise?' [What is their origin?]
"Here, monks, the uninstructed worldling [continued as in SN 22.7.] Change occurs in this man's body, and it becomes different. On account of this change and difference, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair arise. [Similarly with 'feelings,' 'perceptions,' 'mental formations,' 'consciousness'].
"But seeing[3] the body's impermanence, its change-ability, its waning,[4] its ceasing, he says 'formerly as now, all bodies were impermanent and unsatisfactory, and subject to change.' Thus, seeing this as it really is, with perfect insight, he abandons all sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. He is not worried at their abandonment, but unworried lives at ease, he is said to be 'assuredly delivered.'"[5][Similarly with 'feelings,' 'perceptions,' 'mental formations,' 'consciousness'].
(--Attadiipaa Sutta: An Island to Oneself, translated from the Pali by Maurice O'Connell Walshe, ©2007)
Reality isn’t an idea. But we try to express reality in ideas. Most often, not well. As with all translations something is left out, reconfigured, or badly represented.
Sometimes, though, reality nears true expression.
We long for those times.
We eat hot dogs, or Sunday morning pancakes while experiencing something not easily transcribed into our wakeful reading of the situation wherein we find ourselves.
Still, we perdure. We remain in existence through a substantial period of time.
Water surrounds us.
We sit back, look out into horizon, happy to have a welcome hand nearby to pat our head.
We wane.
But, with good luck, happily so.
shhh, sine sono
I cannot
Hear you
No I
Is you
When you
Speak . . .
Everything
Is listening
Without I
Everything
Is
Heard
Saturday, September 13, 2025
ipso dixit
I pray to
What is
Not there
Because
I am
Not here
If you
Hear this
Prayer
You are
Making
Things matter
feast of disappearance
The empty cross
Holds nothing
Which is what is
Not there
We explain it
This way — what the
Cross held is gone
Where? We don’t know
Where does emptiness
Reside? Where does
Nothing hide? (Silence)
We don’t know
And in that not knowing
Arrives the whole cosmos
And the cosmos beyond
Any cosmos we know
What seems obvious is
The cross is empty, all
Manner of appearance gone
Nothing there, nothing
To see. We look at nothing
And see nothing, yet do not
Comprehend our eyes’ report
The data seems dull, evacuated
As is God, Law, and Compassion
(What once we worshipped) now
Disappeared as have the gods —
Evanescence made absence
It is a time of reconsideration
Of reinvestigation, recalculation —
We look for a clue, listen for a sound
Step along a rooted rutted trail stumbling
a theology for no-place and no-thing we today know
Forget about God.
Forget about Jesus.
Political hacks prostitute
God and Jesus for their
benefit. Let them go.
In their place, let truegod
and truechrist show up --
they will, show up, you know.
Nietzsche was right, God is dead.
Matthew Mark Luke & John were
right, Jesus was killed by snipers
with nails and wood and rolling stone
Gone, both of them who are not draped
souvenirs around politician’s necks
but two/thirds of something bigger,
tri-nity, three nity -- yes, try three nity*
*Hindi dictionary
Nity in Hindi refers in English to:—(a) excessive; eternal; essential; invarable; (adv) constantly; always; daily; —[karma/kritya/kriya] daily chores; ~[carya] routine; —[niyama] eternal rule; -[naimittika] regular and casual (chores); ~[prati] every day; daily; -[bhava] permanence; eternity; invariability..—nity (नित्य) is alternatively transliterated as Nitya.
Source: DDSA: A practical Hindi-English dictionary
Nepali dictionary
Nity is another spelling for नित्य [nitya].—adv. always; daily; continuously; constantly;
Source: unoes: Nepali-English Dictionary https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/nity
Let’s go about our lives with whatever
routines we follow, essential, invariable
daily, constantly cheered by familiarity,
no need to look elsewhere, look under feet
look overhead (but not too far) just to top
of trees, wind through leaves (until they fall)
puffs of cloud, hawk and vulture, grosbeak
and mourning dove, chickadee and finch.
Much too much is made of God and Jesus,
now dead, may they rest in peace, amen, amen.
We will have to do with truegod and truechrist
those om-nascent and om-née-present truths
born and bourne (boundary, limit, goal, destination)
presenting itself -- (Presenting Itself) every second,
every minute, every hour, every day -- add in-fin-item
(adding, in the end, one thing, one part of collection)
truegod and truechrist -- the beyond after -- the beyond
before, the beyond now -- where no political scoundrel
no prosperity preacher, no pretend believer -- can go,
can conceive, can perform or pontificate or pervert.
Yes, try nity.
The ordinary
everyday, that which is
arising beyond the comprehension of, just, about all of us
including nietzsche, hemingway, and marcus aurelius
Happened by this commentary. Heard the names of some serious thinkers.
In the midst of mere political rhetoric about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, here is some philosophical and literary thought.
(First, Meetingbrook is saddened by the cruel silencing of anyone whose opinions are deemed offensive and different from yours.)
We grieve any such loss and yearn for a future where cowardice becomes courage and we converse with one another allowing our opinions to turn and dance with those of another.
Robert L. Arnold, On Violence and Speech:
Here:
Or here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/defiance13/p/on-violence-and-speech?r=3jjx4o&utm_medium=ios
Friday, September 12, 2025
translucence then nothing at all
In prison today, two poems, one by Rita Dove, one by Andrea Gibson, on death.
The Native American elder, the Alabama Hinduism scholar, the Somali Muslim, the Greek Orthodox Mainer, the Zen Buddhist and the Roman Catholic — listened to the twice read poems, then reflected.
The shared sheer joy of a Friday morning!
there are reasons we are confused
[all the time I pray to Buddha]
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT HASS
All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
killing mosquitoes.
so many disappointments
Bullet wins
America loses
Respect could win
Repulsive words lose us
Pleas for commonality could win
Hateful screed and sarcasm lose us
A benevolent leader could comfort us
A small, cruel poseur doesn’t try
Thursday, September 11, 2025
well, done
Nothing will change.
Nothing always does.
Go ahead, do nothing.
See if you can.
You can’t.
You want to do something.
Anything.
Nothing is beyond you.
Look, I’ll show you --
Do you see the latest shootings?
Ok. Do nothing. Say things, but
Do nothing. That’s it. Well done!
chipmunk runs across rocks
In chapel/zendo
Light two candles
One incense stick
Dog leads me here
After mountain walk
Lays in front of Buddha
Kuan Yin and sangha sculpture
I do not ask him
Why we are here
Incense rises, god’s breath
Goes in and out window
Dog snores, his work done
He got me here
He god me near
Candles steady at 3 bells
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
looking me dead in the eye
With thanks to Tina, tonight, this poem by Andrea Gibson:
WHEN DEATH CAME TO VISIT
When death first came to visit, I refused
to let her enter my home. She sat outside
in the garden picking buttercups, painting
her face the color of the sun.
I stood at the window for hours watching
her, thinking, Why is she still here?
It's not like she has nowhere to go
I'd try to sleep,
but as soon as I closed my eyes,
I would hear her outside talking
daisies into blooming at night.
I suspect she knew,
I, too am the type to open my petals
for the moon. On my eighth night awake,
I did it. I don't know how, but I did it
I walked out to the garden
and invited her in.
I poured her a cup of lavender tea.
I made up her bed and turned down
the lights. I wished her good dreams,
though I knew her good dream
was to one day take my life.
I used to believe I knew my purpose,
thought for sure I understood my calling.
But my calling, I now know, has always
been this: to parent my own departure.
To never punish the child for being
who she is.
To keep a roof over the head of the truth.
To raise what will end me, with love.
Now people often ask how it feels
raising a delinquent,
a child capable of such awful behavior.
But what rule has she ever broken
besides the ones we make up
in our minds? Ask me instead
how it feels to raise a genius,
a child with a boundless 1Q.
She could get away with anything, yes.
She could get away with me any minute.
But I trust her. I have to.
I see some of the letters on a chart
on a wall. She has infinity/infinity vision.
Besides, who would I be
if I were someone who would say,
I'm gonna ground you
for wanting to heaven me?
I won't do that, ever.
It doesn't matter if I made her
with my body or not. She's mine.
I owe her a stable home. I owe her
an allowance without the stipulation
that she use it to buy me more time.
At night when I tuck her in,
I read her a story with the same three
words on every page:
"You are innocent. You are innocent.
You are innocent." I say. Before I close
the book she asks, But have you ever
known anyone who is so unwanted?
It's the saddest question in the universe,
and she asks it everytime. "People don't
know you," I say. "They'll want you
when they meet you, won't they?"
She says yes, looking me dead
in the eye. And you, she adds.
You're really okay
with who I want to be when I grow up?
I know I have to answer honestly.
I say,
"I don't want you to grow up
too fast. You know that. You know
I can't help but be one of those parents
who wishes their child could stay a child
forever. It's only because I've cherished
these years so much. But
when you're ready, I'll be ready,
I promise. I've committed
the rest of my days to learning
how to give you my blessing
when it's time for you
to follow your dreams.
I know it's how you say, I love you.
I know others will hear it as a curse
and try to rinse your mouth out with soap.
But I will hear your / love you.
I will hear it so clearly my last words
will be / love you too, as I watch you
make something of yourself,
as I open my petals for the moon.
(-- Poem by Andrea Gibson, 8|13/1975 - 7/14|2025)
and yet, and yet . . .
Anne Lamott wrote an opinion piece published in August 31, 2025 Sunday NYT, “What I Told My Sunday School Students About Death.” She wrote it after the recent shooting at the back-to-school Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.
In it, this line:”There should be one inviolable rule: Children are not shot or starved to death.”
It occurs to me there is some fantasy writer imagining a tale wherein a chamber of far right legislators and senators are preyed upon by shooters blasting AR15s and 17s at them shouting “You had your chance to ban these weapons!”
Or a maddened former armed forces personnel now a secret service officer opens fire on members of the executive branch at a Rose Garden ceremony honoring ICE and Homeland Security on a slow news day. Someone is scripting such a TV Series episode for next season’s offerings during ratings week.
These are not Ms. Lamott’s sentiments. Hers are soup and casserole and kids kicking a soccer ball. And, after reading, we tear up and allow our hearts to break, again, with the inevitability and sorrow of violent acts. Gaza. Ukraine. America. The dark incomprehensibility of tolerated evil.
Or: 露の世は露の世ながらさりながら Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara
This dewdrop world — Is a dewdrop world, And yet, and yet . . .
Under the image, someone added: "This poem by Issa was written upon the death of his child. With this in mind, there are two common ways to interpret it. One is pessimistic saying “how can flowers have the audacity to bloom in such a cruel world”. The other optimistic 'even in such a cruel world, flowers bloom’".
I prefer flowers to fantastic narratives of assassination and carnage. You cannot change the tortured human heart or deranged human mind by high velocity ordinance leaving empty casings and further sorrow on the ground.
Equally obscuring is appeal to a remedial deity urging a deus-ex-machina fantastical solution that includes unseeable rational and esoteric historical/theological explanations for actions committed in the world.
God and the devil are unworthy explanations. As are descriptions of mental illness and confused gender narratives. Nor is any other culture war or favorite paranoid talking point applicable to the occasions of horror and terror in our midst.
Why not simply say we don’t care?
Why not admit we love the deaths of the innocent?
Why not accept the fact that whoever gives us the most money will get our vote, or block our vote, for any legislation affecting their corporate bottom line?
We don’t care.
We have not come close to descending to the core of our being and finding there a felt union with all creation, all creatures, and divine obscuration -- experiencing the illogical desire to, finally, love whatever is, love what perennially presents Itself, love what and who we are side by side with everything else nearby.
Drop down dew, heavens above,
let skies rain down the Just One.
Rorate caeli de super,
et nubes pluant justum.
https://hymnary.org/text/do_not_be_angry_with_us_lord_do_not
Here’s a narrative interrogative -- Is there, at our core, an unfathomable interconnective reality that holds everything in an embracing unity -- what once we called love, spirit, God -- but now suspect is inevitable wholeness looking to be seen, waiting to be recognized, longing to be realized, urging us down into it, an invitation to flower our being into a more kindly, caring, and compassionate existence?
At core, care.
Where are we?
Is it possible to be Just One?
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