It is time to sit still in a room, alone, and ponder.

"All of man's troubles come from his inability to sit alone, quietly, in a room, for any length of time." (-- Blaise Pascal)

This room, silent this morning following snow/ice storm, scent of Tibetan incense mingling with organic Echinacea tea, harbor open of ice.

In cold weather I always to go sleep early,
Not waiting for the sunlight to withdraw.
I never shut my cottage door,
Lest it keep the mountain monkeys out.
Falling leaves strike the window;
At my pillow it seems like raindrops.
Rising, I gaze at the western peaks;
The moon has set, the stars are twinkling.
- Wen-siang (1210-1280)

I've sometimes thought of 'ego' as that which is opposing God. (I recall someone's 'elide God out' for 'ego'). We'd have to ask what God is in order to grasp the opposing of God.

These mornings I think of God as the Open, Itself, Origin.

We don't 'know' God. We approach the Open, as Ourselves, Anew. By this I mean that God is not 'something' -- nor are we. God, and thus we, are ever-being-revealed, where we are revealed, as we are revealed.

It scares me to contemplate this. I am not there, not anywhere, when God is with me. Always inchoate. Always nascent. Always alone. (All ways, all one.) Of course, a voice inserts, each of us is distinct, particular, and connected. And, yes, each has history -- as does the world. Still, God is what is taking place this moment; God is this moment speaking. Silence, curiously, is the language of God.

The Enemy Within
An interview with Archimandrite Dionysios

Interview

This article first appeared in What is Enlightenment Magazine, Issue 17, “What is Ego? Friend or Foe...” Spring–Summer 2000

What Is Enlightenment: What is the ego?

Archimandrite Dionysios: When Satan, who was the first and highest angel, looked away from God and turned his attention to himself, there we had the first seed of ego. He took his spiritual eyes from the view of the Holy Trinity, the view of the Lord, and he looked at himself and started to think about himself. And he said, “I want to put my throne in the highest place, and to be like Him.” That moment started the history, the reality and the existence of ego—which is not in fact a reality, but the refusal of reality. Ego is the flower that comes out from the death of love. When we kill love, the result is the ego.

WIE: What is the character of the ego? How does it manifest within a human being?

Dionysios: When we don’t trust. Ego is born when we don’t trust others. When we’re afraid of others, when we need guns against others, then we need to have an ego because we are in the wrong way of life. We think only of ourselves, and we see only our ego. But when we see each other, when we trust each other, there is no need for ego, no reason for ego, no possibility for ego.

WIE: So in the way you’re speaking about it then, ego is the insistence on our separation, our independence?

Dionysios: Yes, on our solitude. Our need to be alone, to have our own way of thinking that satisfies us and preserves our personality in the wrong way.

WIE: Putting ourselves first and foremost?

Dionysios: Yes. And Christ said, “The last is the first.” Because when you want to be the last and you choose the last seat, only then may you call the others friends of yours.

WIE: The ego, this sense of self-importance you’ve been speaking about, is often described in The Philokalia and other writings of the Christian mystics as the primary enemy with which the spiritual aspirant must wrestle in their quest for union with God. Why is the ego considered to be such a formidable adversary on the path?

Dionysios: It is such a powerful enemy because it is the enemy within us. We are enemies to ourselves, like Adam and Eve in paradise. Of course, the snake talked to Eve. But she could have avoided him. The snake said to her, “The Lord lied to you,” but if she would have trusted the Lord, she would not have started to talk to the snake. And Adam, too, lost his communication with the Lord and stayed with his ego. And the two egos worked together, Adam and Eve.

The real enemy is the ego. It is the enemy because it is against love. When I look at myself, I don’t love others. When I want to occupy for myself what is yours, I become the killer of my brother, like Cain killed Abel. When I want to satisfy myself, this satisfaction is gained through sacrificing the freedom of the other. Then my ego becomes my lord, my god, and there is no stronger temptation than this. Because to us, this ego may seem like a diamond. It has a shine like gold. But whatever is shining is not gold. The ego is just like a fire without light, a fire without warmth, a fire without life. It seems that it has many sides and many possibilities—but what is this possibility? What is ego? Only the means by which I protect myself as if I were in a battle, as if every other person is my enemy, and the only thing I care about is winning the victory.
( from The Enemy Within, An interview with Archimandrite Dionysios, Monk, Greek Orthodox, in What is Enlightenment Magazine (now EnlightenNext Magazine), Issue 17 / Spring–Summer 2000, "What Is Ego? Friend Or Foe...")
http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j34/dionysios.asp

Love of the beautiful/holy/good/exalted is what the word 'Philokalia' translates as.
We long for "What Is" beautiful/holy/good/exalted.

Sitting alone, breathing, not actively thinking nor grasping on to thoughts passing, everything is --and is in -- itself.

Itself, as in, not other than.

What.

God.

Is.

Doing .

Here.

Wind howls from Northeast. Snow blinds, frantic to alight. Cars and people fall into ditches on hills and personal valleys. I stay in shop all day, classes at prison and university canceled early.

It is hard to distinguish whether someone is truly mentally distressed or imitating a conservative talk show host. For that matter, imitating anyone speaking to the object of their perseveration.

It's all in a day's meetingbrook. What do we expect? We're each of us a little odd. Anyone denying their oddness is looking for a fight. There comes the blaming of another for what belongs in your home court.

A woman asked what psychotic actually meant, saying someone is dying and was said to be psychotic. Apart from 'sad,' I say something traditional.

If truth be told, I don't know what psychotic means. My guess is that it has to do with a man parking his car on the back of someone looking for the penny they dropped and becoming angry at the US Treasury for not insisting the Department of Agriculture demand a broader variety of penny candy at the corner shop that closed last year because the proprietor, whose sister is named Penny, had a heart attack at her brother Ralph's house who lived next door to the man from whom the parking man bought the car now parked on the back of the elderly Mr. Theodore who hated the idea of wasting money and had just finished a leisurely stroll returning from the Italian restaurant which opened last month, a remodeled space once the corner shop which closed last year. An 'Ow!' was heard as the man who'd parked his car stepped over the outstretched arm under his wheel, now annoyed to have his silent exodus broken by the sound.

REMOVING THE SPLINTER OF EGO
Understanding suffering is very important. The practice of meditation
is designed not to develop pleasure but to understand the truth of
suffering; and in order to understand the truth of suffering, one
also has to understand the truth of awareness. When true awareness
takes place, suffering does not exist. Through awareness, suffering
is somewhat changed in its perspective. It is not necessarily that
you do not suffer, but the haunting quality that fundamentally you
are in trouble is removed. It is like removing a splinter. It might
hurt, and you might still feel pain, but the basic cause of that
pain, the ego, has been removed.
(From Chapter Three, "The Power of Flickering Thoughts," in THE TRUTH OF SUFFERING AND THE PATH OF LIBERATION, edited by Judith Lief, based on talks at the Vajradhatu Seminars conducted by Chogyam Trungpa.)

It's a hard season for folks. Money is small. Cold is constricting. One's history steps out of the shadows and stands there like a ticket vendor to a circus moved out of town. Madness phones up and pretends to want to rent your house, saying you can have one room. Memory plays tricks. You remember things that weren't said. You try to recall names of lovers you've never kissed.

Having it Out with Melancholy
by Jane Kenyon

"If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure."
(--A. P. CHEKHOV The Cherry Orchard)

1 FROM THE NURSERY

When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.

And from that day on
everything under the sun and moon
made me sad -- even the yellow
wooden beads that slid and spun
along a spindle on my crib.

You taught me to exist without gratitude.
You ruined my manners toward God:
"We're here simply to wait for death;
the pleasures of earth are overrated."

I only appeared to belong to my mother,
to live among blocks and cotton undershirts
with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes
and report cards in ugly brown slipcases.
I was already yours -- the anti-urge,
the mutilator of souls.

2 BOTTLES

Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.
The coated ones smell sweet or have
no smell; the powdery ones smell
like the chemistry lab at school
that made me hold my breath.

3 SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND

You wouldn't be so depressed
if you really believed in God.

4 OFTEN

Often I go to bed as soon after dinner
as seems adult
(I mean I try to wait for dark)
in order to push away
from the massive pain in sleep's
frail wicker coracle.

5 ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT

Once, in my early thirties, I saw
that I was a speck of light in the great
river of light that undulates through time.

I was floating with the whole
human family. We were all colors -- those
who are living now, those who have died,
those who are not yet born. For a few

moments I floated, completely calm,
and I no longer hated having to exist.

Like a crow who smells hot blood
you came flying to pull me out
of the glowing stream.
"I'll hold you up. I never let my dear
ones drown!" After that, I wept for days.

6 IN AND OUT

The dog searches until he finds me
upstairs, lies down with a clatter
of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing
saves my life -- in and out, in
and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . .

7 PARDON

A piece of burned meat
wears my clothes, speaks
in my voice, dispatches obligations
haltingly, or not at all.
It is tired of trying
to be stouthearted, tired
beyond measure.

We move on to the monoamine
oxidase inhibitors. Day and night
I feel as if I had drunk six cups
of coffee, but the pain stops
abruptly. With the wonder
and bitterness of someone pardoned
for a crime she did not commit
I come back to marriage and friends,
to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back
to my desk, books, and chair.

8 CREDO

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
but I believe only in this moment
of well-being. Unholy ghost,
you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,
and turn me into someone who can't
take the trouble to speak; someone
who can't sleep, or who does nothing
but sleep; can't read, or call
for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do
against your coming.
When I awake, I am still with thee.

9 WOOD THRUSH

High on Nardil and June light
I wake at four,
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air
presses through the screen
with the wild, complex song
of the bird, and I am overcome

by ordinary contentment.
What hurt me so terribly
all my life until this moment?
How I love the small, swiftly
beating heart of the bird
singing in the great maples;
its bright, unequivocal eye.
(--Poem, Having it Out with Melancholy, by Jane Kenyon)

Once, almost 40 years ago -- a long time ago -- I lived on Brook Avenue in Santa Cruz California. Then Hall Street. Now, the sobriquet meetingbrook is by another ocean another mountain town where sleet and ice threaten to distress covering boards and plate glass with pings and whooshes of wind maddened winter.

It's the feast of Thomas of Aquinas. He wrote:

Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder. (--Saint Thomas Aquinas)

So much. So odd. So big?

John Updike died yesterday. I'd sent him one of my ten Christmas cards in 1966 to thank him for his writing. Someone asked me why? I liked the face in the artist's mirror. His reflection seemed recognizable.

The mirror glances as I pass. The unusual meets the ordinary without being introduced.

I wonder how it all turns out!

Muriel Rukeyser writes:"The fear that cuts off poetry is profound: it plunges us deep, far back to the edge of childhood." (p.15, in The Life of Poetry)

She says that in great poetry you feel a source speaking to another source. Poems invite you to feel. To respond. Poems invite a total response. 

The vagaries of life
though painful,
teach us not to cling
to this fleeting world.
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)

No clinging; but to feel what you feel, think what you think, be what you are. Yes! Then, drop it!

Snow storm approaches. Perhaps classes will be cancelled. I'll return to dream. Who was that visitor last night?

If the poem is Being written -- with -- no wonder -- we're frightened.

It is wearying to live.

Now whether withdrawn on a mountain,
or retired in a city, the essential
thing is the long maturation.
For this, it is good to keep
the examples of the old masters in mind,
or we will be pulled back into
the dust and delusion of the world.
- Torei (1721-1792)

It is time to rub eyes and wonder how it was these last eight years that fear paralyzed nearly all of us.

It was not about 9/11. It was about men with no conscience. It was about people believing the lie.

About something lost.

Fishing
by Kate Scott

Sam was a galunky kind of guy,
my cousin says. He walked like this.
He takes on a bow-legged swagger
that makes us laugh. And boy,
could he drink beer. He lifts his hand,
tipping imaginary cans in quick succession.
He talked real fast too. Back then we laughed,
asked what was the rush? Never slowed him any.
Girls loved him. He was such a big guy,
think they figured he must have a big heart.

My cousin slows a little in his walk,
tugs on his ear to remember more.

We hung out a lot and unless he was excited,
talking fast, he was real quiet, would just sit,
stare out to space like he was someplace else.
Maybe he was thinking about the girl he loved
who died one winter, fell through the ice
as she was skating towards him.
She was only twenty feet away, her arms out wide.
They say he was there all night,
smashed the ice in a hundred places to find her.
They pulled her out in the Spring.
I think when he talked so fast
he was trying to forget,
like the words would fill up the space she left.

My cousin stops in the road,
brushes imaginary hair from his eyes.

I lost touch for some time, years went by.
I didn't hear from Sam, neither of us
were much use at letter writing.
Then one summer I came home to visit,
bumped right into him in a store downtown.
He talked real slow, like he was a clock
that had wound down. He said he'd taken up fishing.
He said he didn't much care for fish
but when he flung the line out hard,
heard the whir as it spun out over the water,
saw the river winking and glinting at him,
he felt he could catch anything.
("Fishing" by Kate Scott, from Stitches. Peterloo Poets, 2003)

We can hardly speak of that time. The lost 8 years.

Not looking back, afraid what we might find.

To know the mind of God is to see the entire picture. We don't; therefore, we don't.

The little retreat is to hide
Among wooded hills;
The great retreat is to vanish
In the capital.
- Kanzan

There's a boat in Izola, Slovenia, named 'Tai Pan.' Were meetingbrook to purchase it, it's name would expand two letters both before the first word and after the second.

It would be called 'Jitai Panis.' ('Jitai' is Japanese for 'Itself.' 'Panis' is Latin for 'Bread.')

The name 'Jitai Panis' means 'Bread Itself,' or, 'Itself Bread.'

Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Itself.

The bread of life is God itself.

Lesson 025

I do not know what anything is for.
Purpose is meaning. Today's idea explains why nothing you see means anything. You do not know what it is for. Therefore, it is meaningless to you. Everything is for your own best interests. That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means. It is in recognizing this that your goals become unified. It is in recognizing this that what you see is given meaning.

You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not you. This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. As a result, you are bound to misuse it. When you believe this, you will try to withdraw the goals you have assigned to the world, instead of attempting to reinforce them.

Another way of describing the goals you now perceive is to say that they are all concerned with "personal" interests. Since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing. In cherishing them, therefore, you have no goals at all. And thus you do not know what anything is for.

Before you can make any sense out of the exercises for today, one more thought is necessary. At the most superficial levels, you do recognize purpose. Yet purpose cannot be understood at these levels. For example, you do understand that a telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity. What you do not understand is what you want to reach him for. And it is this that makes your contact with him meaningful or not.

It is crucial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything. The recognition that they are meaningless, rather than "good" or "bad," is the only way to accomplish this. The idea for today is a step in this direction.
(from Lesson 25, The Course in Miracles)

I don't know what the boat is for. God knows. Nor do we have the money to purchase it. Someone does. Not only that, how could we expect anyone to assist in the purchase of the boat intended for service to God and the mysterious family of brothers and sisters everywhere?

I used to think it was absurd to want to serve.

I no longer think that.

I am absurd. Trying to serve.

Without thought.

Itself Bread. Bread Itself.

Either way, the word we hear is Servus!

Servus (Czech: Servus, Hungarian: Szervusz, Polish: Serwus, German: Servus, Romanian: Servus, Ukrainian: Cepeyc) is a salutation used in many parts of Central and Eastern Europe.

These words originates from the Latin word for servant or slave, servus. The phrase is an ellipsis of a Latin expression meaning, "I am your servant" or "at your service". (from Wikipedia)

We don't know the mind of God --

We are merely trying to be.

At your service.

Note: A lovely sunny day. Shop is open, 

However, there will not be a Sunday Evening Practice at the hermitage. Deadlines demand! 

Most think it's an opportunity. That we'll be vacating this location in April. A change.

I like bamboo as the symbol
of constancy and simplicity.
I built my house deep within a grove.
Strike the bamboo
with a piece of brick.
Perhaps the sound could
awaken a passing Zen monk.
(--Jakushitsu)

Some think it's the times. That it's time. For something big. Involving consciousness. Or the disaster before a shift.

I, for my part, feel it's January during a financial crisis, a cold night, a new administration following a criminal administration, and the collapse of false optimism lipsticked with bravado, bank accounts filled with deception.

I'm not sure consciousness is changing. I've a head cold. Everything is a twist top and chewable or fits into a teaspoon or is taken 4 times a day.

And, we're one day closer to closing these doors. With itchy eyes.

What if God is the Open?

– it is the Lord who speaks.
I will put my laws into their minds
and write them on their hearts.
Then I will be their God
and they shall be my people.
There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour,
or brother to say to brother,
‘Learn to know the Lord.’
No, they will all know me,
the least no less than the greatest,
since I will forgive their iniquities
and never call their sins to mind.
(from Jeremiah 31: 33)

Would we continue to prefer the closed?

No.

As hermits in the open (hito) we prefer the open origin itself.

It's official. The certified letter stated that a man named Fred (one of the current owner/partners) is buying for himself the cape at the harbor we lease, wants to live upstairs, wants the downstairs too, and will convert the bookshop/bakery space into something yet to be determined. And so, at the end of April, when our lease expires, we will have to relinquish the premises after 13 lovely years.

Rain clears from the distant peaks
Dew glistens frostily.
Moonlight glazes the front of
My ivied hut among the pines.
How can I tell you how I am,
Right now?
A swollen brook gushes in the valley
Darkened by clouds.
- Daito (1282-1334)

Clearly something different will be emerging with meetingbrook.

Our original vision, boat and barn, might just find itself retrieved.

Anyone wish to buy us, or help us buy, the 44' Nauticat Schooner currently for sale in Slovenia?
It would be a dockside resource replacing the shop for hospitality, conversations, overnights, and retreat sails.

Tired.

Not-Self

Central to the Buddha's teaching is the doctrine of anatman: "not-self." This does not deny that the notion of an "I" works in the everyday world. In fact, we need a solid, stable ego to function in society. However, "I" is not real in an ultimate sense. It is a "name": a fictional construct that bears no correspondence to what is really the case. Because of this disjunction all kinds of problems ensue.

Once our minds have constructed the notion of "I," it becomes our central reference point. We attach to it and identify with it totally. We attempt to advance what appears to be its interests, to defend it against real or apparent threats and menaces. And we look for ego-affirmation at every turn: confirmation that we exist and are valued. The Gordian Knot of preoccupations arising from all this absorbs us exclusively, at times to the point of obsession. This is, however, a narrow and constricted way of being. Though we cannot see it when caught in the convolutions of ego, there is something in us that is larger and deeper: a wholly other way of being.
(--John Snelling, Elements of Buddhism)

Cold.

Note: 

The bookshop/bakery will be closed today, Wednesday. There will be no Evening Conversation.  We're off doing other work. We'll be back tomorrow, Thursday. 

We go back to our lives.

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
(--from "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen)

Quiet re-emerges from its inner dwelling.

At clear dawn entering the ancient temple,
First sunlight shines high in the forest.
A bamboo path leads to a hidden spot,
A meditation chamber deep in the flowering trees.
The mountain light cheers the natures of the bird,
Reflections in pool void the hearts of men.
All nature’s sounds here grow silent,
All that remains are the notes of temple bells.
- Ch’ang Chien

Dog goes out. Pees. Comes in. Eats biscuit. Settles in under eave.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
(--refrain, Anthem)

The work, and art, are at origin.

Note: The bookshop/bakery will be opening at 4:00pm today, and will have Tuesday Evening Conversation.

.....

As the festivities of Inauguration Day move toward noon swearing-in ceremony, there are a few thoughts that want to step out then get themselves out of the way.

Walking the golf course in Rockport this morning with Rokpa, sun glistening innumerable sparkling gems of snow-light nestled in fresh snowfall suggesting the incomprehensible vastness of space beyond galaxy, infinity beyond incalculable dizzying expanse, while earphones play Maine Public Broadcasting morning classical pieces -- "America the Beautiful" -- the following occurred to me.

Today is a beautiful day! America is a beautiful country. As the transition from one administration to another takes place the joy is palpable.

And yet, something must be acknowledged. The beauty of America is like the particular beauty of each person dwelling both herein and elsewhere. For the past 8 years the beautiful America feels like it has been in an abusive marriage, a domestic violent relationship, one where beatings, lies, infidelities to constituting promises, and turning out under constraining obedience to prostitute itself for the odd sense of revenge and ideological arrogance of fear-addicted powerful men.

That relationship comes to an end. The scars, tears, and ugly concessions that took place are about to be comforted, consoled, and mended. It is a time gone by that cannot be allowed to happen again. The beauty of individuals, like the beauty of a country -- whatever abuse they've suffered -- is not diminished by those who arrive seeing with wisdom and compassion.

This is a time for wisdom and compassion.

There. It has been said. And, for now, put on a back burner. But never to be forgotten, no matter how sincere the forgiveness -- it is not to be forgotten.

What joy there is in this day must be used to heal the individuals, herein and worldwide; heal this great land and country wherein we dwell.

Procedamus in pace! Let's go forward in peace!

Barack Obama becomes the 44th president of this country, Tuesday, 20Jan.2009. 

John O'Donohue's words prepare for it: 

For a Leader

May you have the grace and wisdom
To act kindly, learning
To distinguish between what is
Personal and what is not.

May you be hospitable to criticism.

May you never put yourself at the center of things.

May you act not from arrogance but out of service.

May you work on yourself,
Building up and refining the ways of your mind.

May those who work for you know
You see and respect them.

May you learn to cultivate the art of presence
In order to engage with those who meet you.

When someone fails or disappoints you
May the graciousness with which you engage
be their stairway to renewal and refinement.

May you treasure the gifts of the mind
Through reading and creative thinking
So that you continue as a servant of the frontier
Where the new will draw its enrichment from the old,
And you never become a functionary.

May you know the wisdom of deep listening,
The healing of wholesome words,
The encouragement of the appreciative gaze,
The decorum of held dignity,
The springtime edge of the bleak question.

May you have a mind that loves frontiers
So that you can evoke the bright fields
That lie beyond the view of the regular eye.

May you have good friends
to mirror your blind spots.

May leadership be for you
A true adventure of growth.
(--pp.151-152, Blessing, "For a Leader," by John O'Donohue, from To Bless The Space Between Us, c.2008)

It is a day for delight and gratitude.

And so it is and will be!

Please, God!

I asked God for nothing. I received nothing. I am grateful.

Some speak of ancestral emptiness
A nothing that is yet an infinity
Smallest hint of a germ of a blossom
Yet, the whole world subject to its call

Fish swim and animals leap with it
Men and women are fed and clothed by it
Strange, indeed, its transmutations
One breath swallowing up five colors
- Shih-shu (17th century)

We think we want something. We don't. What we really want is God. Nothing extraordinary.

You Must Be Present to Win --
There is a sign outside a casino in Las Vegas that says, "You must be present to win." The same is true in meditation. If we want to see the nature of our lives, we must actually be present, aware, awake. Developing samadhi [concentration] is much like polishing a lens. If we are looking to see the cells and workings of the body with a lens that has not been ground sufficiently, we will not see clearly. In order to penetrate the nature of the mind and body, we must collect and concentrate our resources and observe with a steady, silent mind. This is exactly what the Buddha did: he sat, concentrated his mind, and looked within. To become a yogi, an explorer of the heart and mind, we must develop this capacity as well.
(--Jack Kornfield, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom)

God was nothing I expected.

I looked around.

Emptiness.

Steady.

Silent.

No.

Mind.

Note: This lovely snow! Shop is open. But no practice at hermitage tonight. Stay home and snug!

Mr Bush goes to Camp David for his final weekend as president. Mr. Obama rides the train to Washington DC for his inauguration in three days. Change, as always, takes place, no matter what.

The joy of living in seclusion deepens as I grow older,
For a new poem is born wherever I turn my eyes.
Flowers that withstood the wind
Fall of their own accord;
Thin rain left by clouds has not yet cleared.
The frail butterfly over the fence
Has left the twig where it sat,
And the silken dove has flown
From the eave to sing in the woods.
To attain a vision transcending the here and now
Is not my concern:
What I see is much too clear,
As in a mirror
- Yi Saek (1328-1396)

Snow on the way. Harbor frozen across. The United States poises. A great uncertainty is moderated by a quiet joy.

There's an old Zen story: a student said to Master Ichu, "Please write for me something of great wisdom." Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word: "Attention." The student said, "Is that all?" The master wrote, "Attention Attention."...

For "attention" we could substitute the word "awareness." Attention or awareness is the secret of life and the heart of practice....[E]very moment in life is absolute itself. That's all there is. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is no past, there is no future; there is nothing but this. So when we don't pay attention to every little this, we miss the whole thing. And the contents of this can be anything. This can be straightening our sitting mats, chopping an onion, visiting one we don't want to visit. It doesn't matter what the contents of the moment are; each moment is absolute. That's all there is, and all there ever will be. If we could totally pay attention, we would never be upset. If we're upset, it's axiomatic that we're not paying attention.If we miss not just one moment, but one moment after another, we're in trouble.
(--Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special: Living Zen)

I bet on an open consciousness. That's what counts. Open consciousness suggests the cult of frivolity is preparing to change. However uncertain we are, the profundity of hope overrides addictive fear. Those who supply fear are vanishing from the street corners of delusion and arrogance. A broom sweeps.

The Gospels are full of wise sayings of Jesus that seem to be ignored, and one of the most poignant of these was in his meeting with that young man who asked over and over again, insistently, “What must I do to have eternal life?.” When, in the end, Jesus told him that if he wanted to be perfect he would have to sell all that he had and give the money to the poor, the young man went away, sorrowing; because he was very rich. What could be more of a waste than that? You tell someone what he has to do, and he is afraid to do it. And yet... 250 years later, St Antony hears the story, and does give away all that he has, and becomes the founder of monasticism. And then again, over 1,000 years later, St Francis of Assisi hears the story, and gives away his possessions (and some of his father’s) and revolutionises Christianity again.
Not all the words that we speak are forgotten, even though we cannot see their effects ourselves. Let us pray that those unknown effects may always be good ones.
(Universalis.com, on Feast of St Antony, Abbot, 251 - 356)

For a penny you can purchase The Catholic Worker paper.

For a song you can see into the heart of wisdom and compassion.

For a change we can see our way clear to trust someone who asks for it.

For now, I can say "I'm glad to be here."

Good.

Night.

After a few dozen tosses of chuck-it ball across enormous parking lot in Bangor following long hike through woods with white dog in 7 degree temperature, I enter 67 degree room to record numbers. Icicles on moustache and ruddy face behind white beard.

If you do decide to start meditating, there's no need to tell other people about it, or talk about why you are doing it or what it's doing for you. In fact, there is no better way to waste your nascent energy and enthusiasm for practice and thwart your efforts so they will be unable to gather momentum. Best to meditate without advertising it.

Every time you get a strong impulse to talk about meditation and how wonderful it is, or how hard it is, or what it's doing for you these days, or what it's not, or you want to convince someone else how wonderful it would be for them, just look at it as more thinking and go meditate some more. The impulse will pass and everybody will be better off--especially you.
(--Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are)

Harbor is frozen.

Nothing moves.

Tiredness.

Falls.

Well below zero.

Brrrr.

Note: Shop closed for most of day. Doing other work in Bangor. 

President Bush says goodbye on TV. Plane ditches in Hudson River and 155 people walk off the sinking plane. Something unusual is taking place.

Shunryu Suzuki on Zazen

When we practice zazen [Zen Meditation] our mind always follows our breathing. When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say "inner world" or "outer world," but actually there is just one whole world. In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think, "I breathe," the "I" is extra. There is no you to say "I." What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all. When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no "I," no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door.

--Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

The door swings. Somehow a plane crash does not kill anyone.

The door swings. An anti-intellectual man and a second secretive manipulating man leave war, cynicism, and destruction behind them.

The door swings. Two bright, competent men will come to office in five days to re-establish the rule of law, constitution, and civility to the Executive Branch of this land.

Having Confessed
by Patrick Kavanagh

Having confessed he feels
That he should go down on his knees and pray
For forgiveness for his pride, for having
Dared to view his soul from the outside.
Lie at the heart of the emotion, time
Has its own work to do. We must not anticipate
Or awaken for a moment. God cannot catch us
Unless we stay in the unconscious room
Of our hearts. We must be nothing,
Nothing that God may make us something.
We must not touch the immortal material
We must not daydream to-morrow's judgment—
God must be allowed to surprise us.
We have sinned, sinned like Lucifer
By this anticipation. Let us lie down again
Deep in anonymous humility and God
May find us worthy material for His hand.
(Poem, "Having Confessed" by Patrick Kavanagh, from Collected Poems. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.)

While I accept the possibility that our perception might be limited, not seeing the enormity of what-is-whole, thereby not comprehending the divine mystery suffusing what we call 'reality' -- I am consoled by the opinion that something very wrong has been at work in this country the past six, twelve, eighteen, twenty four, heck, twenty nine years.

Some worry (and some glee) that nothing will change.

I'm willing to be surprised.

Very cold night.

When I find you again,
It will be in mountains;
This morning I lose you
Once more to farewell.
Free of attachment
In heart and mind
Is that why you can go
Ten thousand li alone?
Traveling without disciples,
You have only
A white dog
For company.
- Chia Tao (779-843)

-19 to -29 below in St John Valley.

White dog sleeps.

For two days straight, care of dog, closed shop, and creation of two courses of study -- aesthetics, and mythology.

The joy of being open to the moment is an equal realization that the moment, not yet arrived, is unopen.

A mind full of light is like a blue sky found in a somber room.
- Hung Ying-ming 1596

Walkng Bayview street at night with reflector vest, snow in park soft and unfrozen -- the desolate streets of January, a man, woman, and dog.

“Man believes the world itself to be overloaded with beauty--and he forgets himself as the cause of this. He alone has presented the world with beauty--alas! only with a very human, all-too-human beauty. At bottom, man mirrors himself in things; he considers everything beautiful that reflects his own image: the judgment "beautiful" is the vanity of his species. For a little suspicion may whisper this question into the skeptic's ear: Is the world really beautified by the fact that man thinks it beautiful? He has humanized it, that is all. But nothing, absolutely nothing, guarantees that man should be the model of beauty. Who knows what he looks like in the eyes of a higher judge of beauty? Daring perhaps? Perhaps even amusing? Perhaps a little arbitrary?
(--from #19, Skirmishes of an Untimely Man, in TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS, -- Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 - 1900)

Like some ghost mountain illumined by faint glow of snow seen from Dellingham Point, Mt Battie wafts behind winter lights of Camden.

Beauty is neither in nor out.

The eye.

Seeing.

It.

Is.

Note: It's a week of other work -- thus the bookshop/bakery is closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Check back for Thursday.

What's changed?

A small room. Winter. Solitude. Sunday night solitude. Frank Sinatra songs of loneliness solitude first listened to fifty years ago.

But I'm not lonely. Not really. (Earlier woman pronounced 'real' as 're-al' -- as if the real is the 'thing or matter of God.')

A green pine is in the east garden,
But the many grasses obscure it.
A frost wipes out all the other species,
And then I see its magnificent tall branches.
In a forest people do not notice it, but
Standing alone, it is a miracle.
I hang a jug of wine on a cold branch;
Then stand back, and look again and again.
My life spins with dreams and illusions.
Why then be fastened to the world?
- T’ao Ch’ien

Morning snow group with Course in Miracles. Then breakfast at Mariners. Begin prelude to final push to course syllabi information.

Walk Bayview with ski poles listening to Grace Paley stories under full moon on fresh snow while elsewhere sitting practice at Ragged Mountain.

Afghanistan Frontline The War Briefing (30Dec2008) readying for sleep.

Nothing changes.

At all.

Note: The lovely snow! The bookshop/bakery will be closed today, Sunday, so as to do other necessary work.

We seem not to want a radical equality. We settle for feint gratitude toward our dominators. Who, in turn, feed off our false submission.

It's a matter of mind. Mind which must somersault. To return to itself.

People ask the way to Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain – the road doesn’t go through
By summer the ice still hasn’t melted
Sunrise is a blur beyond the fog
Imitating me – how can you get here
My heart and yours aren’t the same
If your heart was like mine
You’d return to the very center
- Han-shan

Maybe it's simpler than begging something from someone. Maybe radical equality is radical emptiness in the Buddhist sense. Interconnected and at root of a piece, we have only to remember origin to retrieve grace.

Politically, Rancière favors the concept of equality. "Politics exists when the figure of a specific subject is constituted, a supernumerary subject in relation to the calculated number of groups, places, and functions in a society" (p. 51). Translated into layman’s English, Rancière is saying that politics is the struggle of an unrecognized party for equal recognition in the established order. Esthetics is bound up in this battle, Rancière argues, because the battle takes place over the image of society -- what it is permissible to say or to show.
(--from, RANCIÈRE, FOR DUMMIES, by Ben Davis, review of Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, 116 pp., Continuum, 2006)
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/books/davis/davis8-17-06.asp

A beautiful thing is beautiful of itself.

Recognition.

Equally.

Shown.

Said.

It's no mystery what life will be for us after death. It will be how we live now. If we want to know about there, look here. What thoughts, acts, feelings, behaviors we value and cultivate now, we see a prelude of life then.

Life is, after all, analogous.

Sitting by a teapot in a room bathed with pure breezes and moonbeams, one can read the mind of Heaven in every thing. Walking along a running brook in the clouded mountain, one can observe the mysteries of Tao in every moment.
- Hung Ying-ming 1596

In Protective Custody pod early today one of the men spoke of how we use only (at best) 15% of brain consciousness potential. What of the remaining 85%?

Our calculative knowledge is limited to senses, emotions, and mind.

Is the soul's sphere of influence the realm beyond any knowing?

There's not much we know or can know.

Knowledge belongs to mind and body.

Soul, on the other hand, doesn't know anything -- not now, not then, not ever.

Soul is the thing itself dwelling as itself with/in The Itself.

85%!

Beyond perception. Unknown. A co-inhabited cosmotheandric space.

Soul co-originates no other as nothing to be known.

Three conversations; ten inmates; two of us.

Heaven enough for today.

We asked a man for a house to serve retreat, respite, and hospitality.

He did not see a way to give it to us.

This arrival at zero is love.

Anyone who fails to love can never have known God,
because God is love.
(from 1John4:7-10)

We asked the Wholly Dawning One for guidance. Would this vision take form now?

There was no discernible response but for the view from here the viewing eyes and what is to be seen interviewing silence.

And that too is love.

Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
(--Soren Kierkegaard)

Everything, even the horror of war in Middle East, has to pass through love.

There is no place else to go. No place, as Rilke says, that does not see you.

Itself is all we are.

To find oneself, as itself -- in zero glance of silence -- is nothing else if not itself love.

No rising above. In the craft of Acting, it's better not to rise above someone on stage with you. The audience will always sympathize with the one risen above. Speak to, not down to.

Snow, falling, seeks low ground. Except over the ocean. Silent emptiness says -- Look forward to the next life.

Snow obstructs my brushwood
Door with me inside alone
One by one coral branches
Break in winter woods.
In the light of dawn
Mountain green is gone
If the plums have finished
Blooming I for one can’t tell
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)

Silver tone at dusk over water as sleet slices along mountain.

Damnation is a damnable doctrine. That's what irked Darwin. He, and many of us, favors a benevolence of passage to places we cannot fathom.

Snow On The Backs Of Animals

There is a peacefulness
when snow falls like this, over everything,
and keeps on falling, windlessly,
on fence rails and ditches, made level now,
filling the upturned pail in the yard,
wiping the field clear of corn stubble, even
smothering the news and anyone
attempting to reach us.

A man walks out on a night like this
and the darkness weighs down his arms.
He forgets his purpose, stumbles,
gives up whatever it was he wanted
and enters the bodies of his friends,
growing deep and luminous.
(Poem "Snow on the Backs of Animals," by Dan Gerber, Wynn Books, 1986)

Not long ago it seemed an ending was sure to simply end this awareness of next word and next sound and next breath.

Evolution does not replace religion.

Religion tells the story of how we grew into the awareness of how stories tell the emergence of awareness of God evolving within us.

It snows up and down the harbor.

Not rising above, not falling below. 

Only this telling the story.

Note: Snow and sleet, we retreat, we're closed until tomorrow!

Bow?

Wow!

(I couldn't pass that up.)

Bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. Even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to. Sometimes the disciple bows to the master, sometimes the master bows to the disciple. A master who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to the Buddha. Sometimes the master and disciple bow together to the Buddha. Sometimes we may bow to cats and dogs.
- Shunryu Suzuki (1904-1971)

A man I know gave me a knife today. A chance meeting at Good Will. An invitation. Coffee at his home. Words of distress. He brings knife. He wanted me to leave with it. It had begun to play with his wrist. He wanted that game over. He was arranging help with professionals who know this crisis. He says he trusts in prayer. We part in promise of that trust.

Day by day we bless you, Lord: we praise you for ever and for ever.
Of your goodness, Lord, keep us without sin for today.
Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us.
Let your pity, Lord, be upon us, as much as we trust in you.
In you, Lord, I trust: let me never be put to shame.
(--from Te Deum, on Feast of the Epiphany)

Love made visible also has a sound. It is the sound of our emptiness telling us we are interconnected. We feel one another's inner reality.

Those who cannot see or hear are lucky.

I prefer the unlucky.

I bow to them.

We've nothing. Not worthy. As wise visit.

We're fragile gift. Completely worth this manifestation. As wisdom seeks us.

Alzheimer's people and Zen practitioners both lose their mind. One chooses to.

Where do we go when we go out of our mind?

Sunday Morning
by Tom Sexton

Come down and do your crossword. I worry
when you stay in bed. Last night's early frost
killed the sweet peas but not our patch of berries.
Seven across just might be Limberlost.
The morning paper says a man with Alzheimer's
has wandered off to find his long dead wife.
He told an aide he knows just where to find her.
All he has with him is a butter knife.
Hurry down. I want to see you grimace
when you might be stumped. Five down is breath.
The day is quickly turning cold and grim.
Do you remember a Mary Elizabeth?
The raspberries in your white bowl
are bright and firm and very, very cold.
(- Poem, "Sunday Morning" by Tom Sexton, from A Clock with No Hands. Adastra Press, 2007.)

We go no-where.

We forget that.

Being now-here without recollection is a very mixed state of affairs.

When the Buddha was a Bodhisattva

"Bhikkhus [Monks], before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened Bodhisattva, I too, being myself subject to birth, sought what was also subject to birth; being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I sought what was also subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement. Then I considered thus: "Why, being myself subject to birth, do I seek what is also subject to birth? Why, being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, do I seek what is also subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement? Suppose that, being myself subject to birth, having understood the danger in what is subject to birth, I seek the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbana [Nirvana]. Suppose that, being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, having understood the danger in what is subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, I seek the unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, and undefiled supreme security from bondage, Nibbana.'"
(-- from Ariyapariyesana Sutta, in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, trans. by Bhikkhu Bodhi)

Once I was afraid to not know who I am, not know what I am.

Now I don't.

Say hello anyway.

I will.

The ruse went as follows: someone proposed a contest -- who could hit the other person's arm the lightest? The first person, not seeing the trick coming, taps lightly. The other person, in sheer brutal swing, flattens the gullible contestant and walks away laughing, saying "You win!"

Israel plays this game well.

Life’s fortune and misfortune are caused entirely by the mind. Shakymuni said: “A burning desire for gain is a pit of fire, and an indulgence in greed is a sea of suffering. Once our mind is purified, a flame is turned into a pool; and once our mind awakens us from a dream of worldliness, our ship of life is anchored along the shore of the Great Beyond.” Hence, a slight change of the mind can suddenly make a different situation. Should we not be careful?
- Hung Ying-ming 1596

It is Epiphany. It is said God was recognized in the form of a child. The creator becomes the created. A new game is introduced: What would humans do if God tapped their shoulder lightly?

Of course we should be careful.

If you ask for God, you have to be ready to meet God when God shows up.

I pray the slaughter in Gaza stops.

The meaning is clear: no punches!

We ground our lives in our Catholic-Christian contemplative prayer and our Zen Buddhist meditative practice -- as well as the engaged service that flows from both of these practices and traditions. These two are not two for us. Nor are they one. They are each themselves and we visit them as themselves. They are kind to each other. They respect each other. They dwell comfortably in practice and dialogue with each other and with us.

Becoming a Buddha
There is a simple way to become a Buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome action, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else.
(--Zen Master Dogen, Moon in a Dewdrop, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi)

We do not seek anything else other. We daily try try try this practice.

Reading: St. Augustine's Tractates on St. John. The Twin Commandments on Love

The Lord himself came, the Teacher of love, full of love, shortening the word upon the earth, as it was foretold that he would do. He showed that from the two precepts of love depend the whole of the Law and the prophets.
What are these two commandments? Join me, my brethren, in recollecting them. They ought to be thoroughly familiar to you and not just come into your mind when we recite them: they ought never to be blotted out from your hearts. Always and everywhere, bear in mind that you must love God and your neighbour, love "God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and love your neighbour as you would love yourself."
We must always ponder these words, meditate them, hold them in our minds, practise them and bring them to fruition. As far as teaching is concerned, the love of God comes first; but as far as doing is concerned, the love of our neighbour comes first. Whoever sets out to teach you these two commandments of love must not commend your neighbour to you first, and then God, but God first and then your neighbour. (--Augustine)

In front room at dawn practice dog and cat lay nose to nose between two zafus holding stillness atop.

Augustine continues:
You, on the other hand, do not yet see God, but loving your neighbour will bring you that sight. By loving your neighbour you purify your eyes so that they are ready to see God, as John clearly says: "If you do not love your brother, whom you see, how can you love God, whom you do not see?"
You are told “Love God”. If you say to me “Show me whom I should love”, what can I say except what John says? "No man has ever seen God." But you must not think yourself wholly unsuited to seeing God: "God is love, says John, and whoever dwells in love dwells in God." So love whoever is nearest to you and look inside you to see where that love is coming from: thus, as far as you are capable, you will see God.
So start to love your neighbour. "Share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless pauper into your house. Clothe the naked, and do not despise the servants of your kin."
What will you get from doing all this? "Your light will break forth like the dawn." Your light is your God, your dawn, because he will come to you to end the night of this world — he who, himself, neither rises nor sets but is eternal.
By loving your neighbour, by having care for your neighbour, you are travelling on a journey. Where are you journeying, except to the Lord God, whom we must love with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind? We have not yet reached the Lord, but our neighbour is with us already. So support your neighbour, who is travelling with you, so that you may reach him with whom you long to dwell.
(--Augustine, from Office of Readings, Sat 3Jan09) http://www.universalis.com/readings.htm

God and neighbor -- traveling as we do with each: not two, not one -- this is our practice.
This Saturday morning sitting, walking, reading (Lectio Divina), and offering prayer for all our brothers and sisters in union with not two, not one, but three as each in all.

Sipping coffee, opting fo(u)r union, sun slanting into this room full of open space.

We capitulate.

There's a cherry pie baking in oven.

Crown

BY KAY RYAN

Too much rain 
loosens trees. 
In the hills giant oaks 
fall upon their knees. 
You can touch parts 
you have no right to— 
places only birds 
should fly to.
Kay Ryan, “Crown” from Say Uncle. Copyright © 2000

Now it sits on metal counter, cooling.

Too hot to eat before bed.

Tea and English muffin, New Years tradition, following 1st dawn meditation of the year, morning sitting/walking/chanting meditation, taken with zazen Rinzai guest in Wohnkuche ('dwelling-kitchen') this +1 degree F morning, beginning again. We're usually happy to smile and bow greeting and goodbye wordlessly -- but Saskia holds to the tea tradition and we chat about Pennsylvania and Maine practice and laugh at our foolishness.

I’ve left the world far behind,
My robe is covered with moss;
A small bundle of firewood burns,
Brightening the night.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

Bald Mountain sits in morning practice outside my window.

The Kingfisher
by Mary Oliver

The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a silver leaf. I think this is
the prettiest world--so long as you don't mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your
whole life
that doesn't have its splash of happiness?
There are more fish than there are leaves
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn't born to think about it, or anything else.
When the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the
water
remains water--hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could
believe.
I don't say he's right. Neither
do I say he's wrong. Religiously he swallows the
silver leaf
with its broken red river, and with a rough and
easy cry
I couldn't rouse out of my thoughtful body
if my life depended on it, he swings back
over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it
(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.
(poem, Kingfisher, by Mary Oliver)

We embark to swallow morning Eucharist of silence, word, Rockland Cafe breakfast, walking woods to beach at Birch Point State Park, and sharing bread of companionship.

Start again!

A good anthem.

What new year? Today is Wednesday. Tomorrow, Thursday. Place remains the same. Space continues to extend.

The Dalai Lama's Nobel Prize Lecture

In conclusion, let me share with you a short prayer which gives me great inspiration and determination:

For as long as space endures,
and for as long as living beings remain,
until then may I, too, abide
to dispel the misery of the world.
(--The Dalai Lama, "Nobel Peace Prize Lecture," in The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness, edited by Sidney Piburn)

What place will hermitage be in? What space will practice and service occupy? Questions for an idle mind. So it is mine is.

One, two, three. With so much disparity about, I'm fo(u)r union.

The four seasons don’t ever stop to rest
The years come and the years go
The ten thousand things
Succeed themselves endlessly
But the universe itself does not die or decay
The east is bright and the west is dark
Flowers fall and flowers bloom again
Only the travelers to the Yellow Springs
Go shrouded in mystery and don’t return
- Han-shan

When there is no where to go, where is there to return from?

It's beyond me.

So, I'll sit dawn.

As soon as it and angels arrive!

The Spirit of God surrounds and insinuates itself everywhere.

For this, gratitude!

For this, humble and simple awareness of love!

Replete Isness, this.

The phrase came up during conversation at hermitage. No need for something other, making object, or two. Only the fullness of this as is. Experience isn't as important as the motion of stillness excluding nothing.

We just sit in the midst of this contradiction where, although we aim, we can never perceive hitting the mark. We just sit in the midst of this contradiction that is absolutely ridiculous when we think about it with our small mind. In our zazen, it is precisely at the point where our small, foolish self remains unsatisfied, or completely bewildered, that immeasurable natural life beyond the thoughts of that self functions. It is precisely at the point where we become completely lost that life operates and the power of Buddha is actualized.
- Kosho Uchiyama (1912 -1999) dailyzen.com

Even with eyes closed.

We have to see it first.

What we are doing.

Is the subject.

Of meditation.

Clouds and rain
Shroud the gateless gate;
Frost and snow
Veil the winding road.
With contemplation and
Subtlety of spirit
We discover Tao
And the secret of the Way
Grows within us.
- Loy Ching-Yuen (1873-1960)

Practice this evening.

Was the subject.

Of.

What we are.

Doing.

Dean brought in Kathleen Norris' new book. On acedia. A good conversation.

Please wait for the light of the moon,
The mountain path
Is covered with fallen chestnuts.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

The shop filled chuck full this afternoon. Sam said thanks for opening. I ordered books. Strange time to be ordering books.

Acedia is a word from ancient Greek describing a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one's position or condition in the world. It can lead to a state of being unable to perform one's duties in life. Its spiritual overtones make it related to but distinct from depression.[1] Acedia was originally noted as a problem among monks and other ascetics who maintained a solitary life.
(--from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia

Uh-oh!

I'll think about this later on.

I'm off to bed.

Too tired.

To think.

Puer natus est pro nobis. A child is born. To us. With us. Each child.

What are we missing in the story? What in our story are we missing?

"Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues,
nor in cathedrals:
not in masses,
nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath."
— Kabir

Maine Coon cat crouches on white remnant facing bird activity beyond glass door. Gregorian chant plays to drying dishes and pots in wooden rack. Solitude is its own monastery.

‘Brother will betray brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all men on account of my name; but the man who stands firm to the end will be saved.’
(--Matthew 10:17-22)

What's his name?

Is his name "the practice of love without exception"?

No practice, no love, thus no name. We become nameless when we steal from others their itself-fullness.

"I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.

You don't grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house;
and you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look!

Kabir will tell you the truth: go wherever you like, to Calcutta or Tibet;
if you can't find where your soul is hidden,
for you the world will never be real!"
— Kabir (The Kabir book: Forty-four of the ecstatic poems of Kabir)

It is not difficult to ask of this world, or country, or neighborhood, "Where is the sound of the true name of peace? Of love? Of truth? Of acceptance without reservations or conditions?"

It is not difficult to hear in response the crack of a gun, the blast of a bomb, the snicker of mocking denigration, the shuddering ice of disdain, the resolute sarcasm of professional hatred on radio and cable talk show. Or the mimetic recitation of our own suffering aimed at another or others. 

What is difficult is to be Stephen (in today's feast) or myriad others (in daily history) in the course of their being murdered still staying with the holy name of "the practice of love without exception." Real martyrdom is not being killed or suiciding yourself for something you believe, Real martyrdom is the active incorporation of your murderer (or daily executioner) into your name with the holy name as you travel beyond the limitations of this existence.

"I talk to my inner lover, and I say, why such rush?
We sense that there is some sort of spirit that loves birds and animals and the ants -
perhaps the same one who gave a radiance to you in your mother's womb.
Is it logical that you would be walking around entirely orphaned now?
The truth is you turned away yourself,
and decided to go into the dark alone.
Now you are tangled up in others, and have forgotten what you once knew,
and that's why everything you do has some weird failure in it."
— Kabir (The Kabir book: Forty-four of the ecstatic poems of Kabir)

The 'dark alone' is not the 'Alone' -- that is, we cannot travel alone to the Alone. The Alone is Reciprocity-Itself. When we come to see the reciprocal (Latin reciprocus returning the same way, alternating {Merriam-Webster}) -- we come to see one-in-two, two-in-one. It is our nature, for this time, to have to go out in order to come in, to go in so as to find out.

Waking from Sleep
by Robert Bly

Inside the veins there are navies setting forth,
Tiny explosions at the waterlines,
And seagulls weaving in the wind of the salty blood.

It is the morning. The country has slept the whole winter.
Window seats were covered with fur skins, the yard was full
Of stiff dogs, and hands that clumsily held heavy books.

Now we wake, and rise from bed, and eat breakfast!
Shouts rise from the harbor of the blood,
Mist, and masts rising, the knock of wooden tackle in the sunlight.

Now we sing, and do tiny dances on the kitchen floor.
Our whole body is like a harbor at dawn;
We know that our master has left us for the day.
(--Poem, "Waking from Sleep" by Robert Bly, from Silence in the Snowy Fields. Wesleyan University Press, 1962.)

Christmas season is a celebration of birth. The birth of Jesus, yes.  The arriving of one with God-life. Whose name, we are coming to learn, transcends names. The coming, in a profoundly mythic narrative, of what saves us. And more. Your birth. My birth. Each birth.

What saves us? Maybe we could call it: "Being-With ... What Is ... Loving." 

To be with what is loving requires a presence beyond appearance or words. A silent engagement of one within the other.

Without exception.

No conditions.

There is much in this story to catch up with. So much has gone missing.

There's a papyrus scroll gathering dust in our inner cave of forgetfulness.

It wants to be found.

Inside our own house.

There in the next seat.

Dark, Night

Neither church nor Santa Claus encapsulates Christmas. Something else wants in.

When everything is seen and accepted as itself, as it constantly changes to become itself -- then, the day is what it is meant to be.

Perhaps the great quest in life is to discover this constancy - to know this continuing process of change. With one discovery comes another question. The game is infinite.

Yet in the discovery, perhaps Christ is Born, Buddha Enlightened, the Tao followed, and Truth revealed.
(--from, An Agnostic Celebrates The Birth Of Christ, by Susan Smalley, the Huffington Post, Posted December 25, 2008 | 08:39 AM (EST) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-smalley/an-agnostic-celebrates-th_b_151963.html

Arriving with family or remaining with solitude, we discover, are born, become enlightened, follow way, reveal what is. The mere delight of it all!

As things change.

Integrity is the loincloth round his waist,
faithfulness the belt about his hips.

The wolf lives with the lamb,
the panther lies down with the kid,
calf and lion feed together,
with a little boy to lead them.
The cow and the bear make friends,
their young lie down together.
The lion eats straw like the ox.
The infant plays over the cobra’s hole;
into the viper’s lair
the young child puts his hand.
They do no hurt, no harm,
on all my holy mountain,
for the country is filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters swell the sea.
(--from, Isaiah 11:1-10, Office of Readings, Christmas)

Are we ready?

For love?

For love.

Is. No.

Question.

Nearing dusk

Walking woods on Ragged Mtn with white Border Collie black saddle-spot on back. Solitary tumbling brook sliding around snowy stones. Trees still and quiet as winds suddenly gust animating conversation.

A heart free of desire is true emptiness:
No holding back,
Just drift with the untied clouds,
Existence and non-existence are one
And the same:
Embrace the void.
To the seeker, emptiness is All.
- Loy Ching-Yuen (1873-1960)

Woman leaves for family visit. The mountain sent a pine needle spray for octogenarian mourning her dog's death. House gathers itself for dusk. Fire in wood stove glows red.

Your eternal word leaped down from heaven
in the silent watches of the night,
and now your Church is filled with wonder
at the nearness of her God.
(-- Alternative Prayer, Christmas Morning Hour)

Black and white cat on his back on Wohnkuche rug in front of fire. Newly placed colored lights on yew bush bird house, white lights on potted indoor tree by wall of glass doors.

Gusting whoosh sounds through window.

This is the day.

The Lord has made.

Out of nothing other than nearness.

Dawn

And so...

It is!

...Christmas.

Night wind blows away darkness.

Whisper light breaks over tree.

Recapitulation. (Anakephalaiosis.)

"Start again" -- silence says.

Bayview street is quiet. Shops close early for Christmas Eve. Passing wharf where last night's fire, doused, gone inside itself again, officially inspected, sends charred memory smells across evening.

Saskia shops for family in her own shop. Rokie snoozes as gentle music sits quietly in vacant chairs.

Roof rake from Rankins on top of Element is ready for ride to hermitage and thinks of stretching and pulling in the morning. Black Oil bird seed hunches in rear of car for morning's Eucharist with Blue Jay, Chickadee, Nut Hatch, Junco, Cardinal, Titmouse, White Throated Sparrow and assorted passersby.

Most people can read a book with words, but not one without words, and they can play a lyre with strings but not one without strings. How can they derive tranquil pleasure from a book or lyre, when they exercise their intelligence only on the material, but not on the spiritual, aspect of things?
- Hung Ying-ming 1596

Walking town I nod and smile to those I meet. Each one of us the material/spiritual, each this Eve the expectancy of something conceived without interference or separation. We greet one another on slushy sidewalk.

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, a name which means ‘God-is-with-us.’
(--from Matthew 1:18-25)

It's a lovely thought. A kindly consideration.

Is.

God-with.

Us.

What is born?

On this frosty day, clouds and mist congeal,
On the mountain moon, the icy chill grows.
At night I receive a letter from my home,
At dawn I leave without anyone knowing.
- Fahai

The fire down the waterfront from the balcony was spectacular. http://knox.villagesoup.com/Government/story.cfm?storyID=139836

What comes to be, falls away.

Only aseity perdures.

Beginningless.

Endless.

Now.

If I don't know, is there anything or anyone other? Is it possible that the great revelation in Christian metaphor and lore is the emptiness and transparency of truth and love in our middle in the midst of mere existence?

Not to know, to have don't-know mind, is ground for awakening into this and this and this. If we enter and receive this -- this body, this mind, this heart -- are we in the midst of the innocent unknowing loving presence at once called 'Christ', 'Shunyata', 'Kenosis' ?

'Christ'-- cf. (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ)
'Shunyata' -- cf. (http://www.kheper.net/topics/Buddhism/sunyata.htm)
'Kenosis' -- cf. (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosis)

Here's what I like about Advent and Christmas: If there is no other, who knows?

Versions of Isaiah 45:5

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
"I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me;

King James Bible
I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

American King James Version
I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded you, though you have not known me:

American Standard Version
I am Jehovah, and there is none else; besides me there is no God. I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me;

Douay-Rheims Bible
I am the Lord, and there is none else: there is no God, besides me: I girded thee, and thou hast not known me:

Darby Bible Translation
I am Jehovah, and there is none else; there is no God beside me: I girded thee, and thou hast not known me;

English Revised Version
I am the LORD, and there is none else; beside me there is no God: I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me:

Webster's Bible Translation
I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God besides me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

World English Bible
I am Yahweh, and there is none else. Besides me, there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not known me;

Young's Literal Translation
I am Jehovah, and there is none else, Except Me there is no God, I gird thee, and thou hast not known Me.

Apocalypsis 22:21 Latin: Biblia Sacra Vulgata
ego Dominus et non est amplius extra me non est deus accinxi te et non cognovisti me

Isaías 45:5 Spanish: La Biblia de las Américas (©1997)
Yo soy el SEÑOR, y no hay ningún otro; fuera de mí no hay Dios. Yo te ceñiré, aunque no me has conocido,

Isaías 45:5 Spanish: La Nueva Biblia de los Hispanos (©2005)
Yo soy el SEÑOR, y no hay ningún otro; Fuera de Mí no hay Dios. Yo te fortaleceré, aunque no Me has conocido,

Isaías 45:5 Spanish: Reina Valera (1909)
Yo Jehová, y ninguno más hay: no hay Dios fuera de mí. Yo te ceñiré, aunque tú no me conociste;

Isaías 45:5 Spanish: Sagradas Escrituras (1569)
Yo soy el SEÑOR, y ninguno más hay ; no hay Dios fuera de mí. Yo te ceñiré, aunque tú no me conociste;

Isaías 45:5 Spanish: Modern
Yo soy Jehovah, y no hay otro. Aparte de mí no hay Dios. Yo te ciño, aunque tú no me conoces,

Ésaïe 45:5 French: Louis Segond (1910)
Je suis l'Eternel, et il n'y en a point d'autre, Hors moi il n'y a point de Dieu; Je t'ai ceint, avant que tu me connusses.

Ésaïe 45:5 French: Darby
Moi, je suis l'Éternel, et il n'y en a point d'autre; il n'y a point de Dieu si ce n'est moi. Je t'ai ceint, et tu ne me connaissais pas;...

Ésaïe 45:5 French: Martin (1744)
Je suis l'Eternel, et il n'y en a point d'autre; il n'y a point de Dieu que moi. Je t'ai ceint, quoique tu ne me connusses point.

Ésaïe 45:5 French: Ostervald (1744)
Je suis l'Éternel, et il n'y en a point d'autre; il n'y a pas d'autre Dieu que moi. Je t'ai ceint, quand tu ne me connaissais pas;

Jesaja 45:5 German: Luther (1912)
Ich bin der HERR, und sonst keiner mehr; kein Gott ist außer mir. Ich habe dich gerüstet, da du mich noch nicht kanntest,

Jesaja 45:5 German: Luther (1545)
Ich bin der HERR und sonst keiner mehr; kein Gott ist ohne ich. Ich habe dich gerüstet, da du mich noch nicht kanntest,

Jesaja 45:5 German: Elberfelder (1871)
Ich bin Jehova, und sonst ist keiner, außer mir ist kein Gott; ich gürtete dich, und du kanntest mich nicht: -
(--Isaiah 45:5) http://scripturetext.com/isaiah/45-5.htm

Not me.

I don't know.

But that's the miracle.

That's the gift.

Every blowing grain snowy swirls by barn door this Sunday storm.

Vespers read. Sauerkraut soup. Finish Hawk's Cross, a novel by Mark Varnum. Enjoyed it.

What storm gives, beside storm soup, is quiet punctuated by flashing lights of plows climbing hill to the Bok place, edging Hope

Subject and object from the start
Are no different,
The myriad things nothing
But images in the mirror.
Bright and resplendent,
Transcending both guest and host,
Complete and realized,
All is permeated by the absolute.
A single form encompasses
The multitude of dharmas,
All of which are interconnected
Within the net of Indra.
Layer after layer there is no
Point at which it all ends,
Whether in motion or still,
All is fully interpenetrating.
- Zhitong (d.1124)

History.com archives "The Universe" for our viewing tonight. Things are very big out there. A woman on eve of follow-up visit to medical center tomorrow thinks about how much it matters to live longer. In light of millions of years between celestial bodies, what's 50 or 60 years?

Time goes.

Bye.

It's winter!

Compline completes.