Today at Meetingbrook

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Grey wool hat, yellow monkey gloves

Walking tidal river in Machias with two dogs. Three miles. One hour and four minutes.

Outgoing tide. Water flowing strong under abandoned railway bed.

Listening to eightfold path words from redwood meditation center.

Dusk comes early this November cool.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Contemporaneous mythology instantiated

What becomes itself is the myth of origination.
Going forward, as itself, god is nowhere to be found.
In this understanding the world is yet to be created.
Say the word. Start it all. Reverse the story.
Let the dead bury the dead.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?

Practice Haiku

What am I? What is

this? I don't know! This is what

I am passing through.

Books surround silence

Reaching into bookshelf after sitting, The Door of Everything, by Ruby Nelson

Part One:

The Vision

"I was crowned by my God, my crown is living . . .

I received the face and the fashion of a new person . . .

And the thought of truth led me on.

I walked after it and did not wander.

And all that have seen me were amazed and I was regarded by them as a strange person.

And He who knew and brought me up is the Most High in all His perfection. And He glorified me by His kindness, and raised my thoughts to the height of His truth.

And from thence He gave me the way of His precepts and I opened the doors that were closed.

And broke in pieces the bars of iron; but my iron melted and dissolved before me:

Nothing appeared closed to me, because I was the door of everything."

--Odes of Solomon

Coming to Wohnkuche, researching the Odes of Solomon, these translations and introduction:

ODE 17.
(A peculiar change of personality, scarcely realized until the return from it in the last verse.)
1 I was crowned by my God: my crown is living:
2 And I was justified in my Lord: my incorruptible salvation is He.
3 I was loosed from vanity, and I was not condemned:
4 The choking bonds were cut off by her hands: I received the face and the fashion of a new person: p. 129 and I walked in it and was saved;
5 And the thought of truth led me on. And I walked after it and did not wander:
6 And all that have seen me were amazed: and I was regarded by them as a strange person:
7 And He who knew and brought me up is the Most High in all His perfection. And He glorified me by His kindness, and raised my thoughts to the height of His truth.
8 And from thence He gave me the way of His precepts and I opened the doors that were closed,
9 And brake in pieces the bars of iron; but my iron melted and dissolved before me;
10 Nothing appeared closed to me: because I was the door of everything.

(--from the Odes of Solomon)

Another translation:

Ode 17

Then I was crowned by my God, and my crown was living.
And I was justified by my Lord, for my salvation is incorruptible.
I have been freed from vanities, and am not condemned.
My chains were cut off by His hands, I received the face and likeness of a new person, and I walked in Him and was saved.
And the thought of truth led me, and I went after it and wandered not.
And all who saw me were amazed, and I seemed to them like a stranger.
And He who knew and exalted me, is the Most High in all His perfection.
And He glorified me by His kindness, and raised my understanding to the height of truth.
And from there He gave me the way of His steps, and I opened the doors which were closed.
And I shattered the bars of iron, for my own shackles had grown hot and melted before me.
And nothing appeared closed to me, because I was the opening of everything.
And I went towards all my bound ones in order to loose them; that I might not leave anyone bound or binding.
And I gave my knowledge generously, and my resurrection through my love.
And I sowed my fruits in hearts, and transformed them through myself.
Then they received my blessing and lived, and they were gathered to me and were saved;
Because they became my members, and I was their Head.
Glory to You, our Head, O Lord Messiah.
Hallelujah.

Then, from the Gnostic Society Library:

Gnostic Scriptures and FragmentsThe Odes of SolomonArchive Notes

The Odes date from the second century, and were probably written in Greek or Aramaic. At least one scholar has suggested they may have an origin in Valentinian Gnosticism, though this is of course speculative. The Church Father Lactantius (third century) quoted from them, and the Pistis Sophia mentions about five complete Odes.

In 1909 the English Scholar J. Rendel Harris discovered an old Syriac manuscript with contained all but the second of the 42 Odes. These texts evidence the close inter-relationship of Christian and Gnostic church piety. Translation below is by James H. Charlesworth. (Another more poetic translation of several odes -- from an unknown source -- follows the Charlesworth translation.)

In his commentary on the Odes, Charlesworth notes :
The date of the Odes has caused considerable interest. H. J. Drijvers contends that they are as late as the 3d century. L. Abramowski places them in the latter half of the 2d century. B. McNeil argued that they are contemporaneous with 4 Ezra, the Shepherd of Hermas, Polycarp, and Valentinus (ca. 100 C.E.). Most scholars date them sometime around the middle of the 2d century, but if they are heavily influenced by Jewish apocalyptic thought and especially the ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a date long after 100 is unlikely.... The 11th ode was found among the Bodmer Papyri in a 3d-century Gk manuscript (no. 11).

Five were translated into Coptic in the 4th century and used to illustrate the Pistis Sophia (Odes Sol. 1, 5, 6, 22, and 25). Also in the 4th century Ode 19 was quoted by Lactantius (Div. Inst. 4.12.3). In the 10th century a scribe copied the Odes in Syriac, but only Odes Sol. 17:7-42:20 are preserved (British Museum ms. Add. 14538). In the 15th century another scribe copied them into Syriac, but again the beginning is lost (John Rylands Library Cod. Syr. 9 contains only Odes Sol. 3.1b-42:20). [--The Anchor Bible Dictionary, v. 6, p. 114]
http://gnosis.org/library/odes.htm

This is what happens when your winter zendo is also a library/bookshed/retreat!

Silent Sitting

Merton Bookshed/Retreat.

Tuesday morning.

"No eyes, no ears, no nose..." (--from the Heart Sutra)

Monday, November 12, 2012

Walking past Snow Bowl

Comes a meditation about Jeff's death, love, and a closed field.

Silence

There is the sudden silence of the crowd

above a player not moving on the field,

and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase

before it strikes the ﬂoor,

the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,

the silence of the moon

and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,

the silence of the window above us,

and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning

which I have broken with my pen,

a silence that had piled up all night

like snow falling in the darkness of the house—

the silence before I wrote a word

and the poorer silence now.

(Poem by Billy Collins)

Morning practice

Oh, what is this?

The whole universe and its structure, I have created. The universe is my cinema. But just as an audience becomes absorbed in witnessing a drama on the screen, the film engages their emotions and sways their feelings by its influence, causing them to forget that it is not real -- in the same way, the spectators of the world are charmed by this worldly film show, forgetting themselves and taking it to be real!

So I have come to tell them that this worldly drama in which they are absorbed is not real. I have come to turn their focus toward Reality. Only God is real, and everything else is a mere motion picture.

(Meher Baba, 1932 at Mary Pickford's house, p.40 in Meher Baba, Avatar of the Tortoise, by Kenneth Lux c.2001)

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Think of Iraq and Afghanistan and cry

Men go to war. And women.

They come home.

Almost. But not quite.

What a shame

Watching meditation

Thoughts, like birds, come and go, come and go.

Then, let them!

Saturday, November 10, 2012

One year for Erica

A dime and a nickel for a cup of coffee. With a friend.

At dusk.

Eyes-on-nature; seeing ourselves as being seen intimately within nature.

First day of bird feeders. New kittens are spellbound.

I write to student:

Hi Doug,

Here's what you said:"Philosophy works well without man's intervention."

What immediately resonated with me about your phrasing was how I heard it, namely, the love of wisdom is not necessarily something 'we' love -- as if 'I', (subject), love 'it', wisdom (object).

Rather your phrasing hit me as: the 'love' of wisdom is what is freely and unconditionally given by wisdom to any and all without discrimination. 'Man' will often either not appreciate, or try to manipulate wisdom to suit his egoistic intention, thus not allowing the true nature of the gift to be extended and made intimate. (We do this, similarly mistaken, in our human experience of love with other humans.)

Our intervention into knowledge and wisdom often distorts and diverts from the course (Lao-tzu) the waters (of wisdom) wish to flow.

Allowing philosophy to shape it's own way with us is to turn and enter the intimacy of inquiry and understanding as it is shaped in our very form and shape.

Thanks for providing me this meditation,

Bill

If we allow ourselves to be loved, there is no me and/or you.

Only love.

Friday, November 09, 2012

How difficult is it to remain just one person?

Milosz says poetry reminds us just how difficult.

Because we're not.

Just one person.

That's what poetry is for.

To remind us.

Of each other.

Who we are.

When flexible.

Thursday, November 08, 2012

What is God?

God is any act engaged upon with care, compassion, love, concern, and creativity in service to life.

I have faith in God.

And only God.

With you.

Within us.

God is the continuity of Being in the world.

God is the compassion of being-there, of being-in-the-world, of being-here.

Nowhere else.

Everywhere.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Election Day

Well, that's over.

Monday, November 05, 2012

Tell me, asked the poet, what do you see?

Dreary cold day. Ends the drizzling dampness of election season. The cost of it. The nonsense.

"Crucified in stone
Still his blood is my own."
(--from song, Blessed to be a Witness, by Ben Harper)

Tomorrow will dawn.

All day votes will be cast. All day officials will attempt to deny the vote to citizens.

Maybe it was the man's death by tree yesterday, maybe the residual questions about JFK's assassination and the gaping holes in the story of 9/11 that darkens the mood, perhaps it is any unkind opinion that drips ego-venom into bloodstream -- but, today feels gloomy.

Rise Again

When the waves roll on over the waters
And the ocean cries
We look to our sons and daughters
To explain our lives
As if a child could tell us why

That as sure as the sunrise
As sure as the sea
As sure as the wind in the trees
We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise again

When the light goes dark with the forces of creation
Across a stormy sky
We look to reincarnation to explain our lives
As if a child could tell us why

That as sure as the sunrise
As sure as the sea
As sure as the wind in the trees
We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise again

We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise

(Lyrics, “Rise Again,” by Rankin Family)

Raylene Rankin died early October at 52 of cancer.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

(--from poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Dirge Without Music” from Collected Poems © 1928, 1955)

On CBC.ca, a few months before her death, Raylene Rankin is quoted:

"I'm scared a lot and just it seems when you get to a place where you're not afraid then you're given a reason to be afraid again," said Rankin in a conversation with CBC in June. "But it's something that I'm working through. I'm reading one of these books that I'm trying to work with is you know it's about not having a fear of death, which is the ultimate fear I guess...I'm working on it."

What are we...

working on,

Witnessing?

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Take it for a ride anytime, he said.

Bicycle to hospital to visit patients Sunday morning.

Wind blows through evening meditation practice.

Man we speak to often is felled by tree and dies.

I didn't get to show him my bicycle as he did me his.

How vulnerable this fragile life!

Saturday, November 03, 2012

Someone thinks truth is good for the soul

Egg Nog is back. So is daylight savings time -- or are we returning to standard? Either way, light and dark take a peculiar turn.

Who has taken the light?

The Arrowhead

The arrowhead,
which I found beside the river,
was glittering and pointed.
I picked it up, and said,
“Now, it’s mine.”
I thought of showing it to friends.
I thought of putting it—such an imposing trinket—
in a little box, on my desk.
Halfway home, past the cut fields,
the old ghost
stood under the hickories.
“I would rather drink the wind,” he said,
“I would rather eat mud and die
than steal as you steal,
than lie as you lie.”

Poem by Mary Oliver

I confess.

I am a liar. (Or is it 'lier' -- waiting in ambush for a necessary discovery?)

The light is not mine.

I've hidden it within me.

See me through; please!

Moonlight before dawn

The difficulty many have is bland generalization or peculiar particularity.

Here is my current koan:

This is this,
That is that,
Thus is so!

Don't make two,
Don't make one,
Be thus and such --

See each as each
Feel all as all
Do what is to be done --

and go!

Friday, November 02, 2012

In prison today, remembering to apologize, to forgive, & to love

All hearts want peace. And rest.

Saints and souls wish for holiness to be wholeness.

You do. I do. We do.

Eternal rest.

Infinite compassion.

It is November.

Thursday, November 01, 2012

There was (nor is there) no answer.

Feel anything yet? It's November. Saints and souls, spooks and sprites, along with desperate polling for presidential candidates.

Four Birds

“Wake to the sun,” the rooster croaked,
First bird of the day. The world, light-flecked,
Chiselled its lineaments into form.
Where was all that fine light coming from?

“Trance at the wonder,” the second sang.
Whose five dry notes urged the ongoing
Afternoon on. “Why wake and stir?”
It asked. And asked. There was no answer.

“Live through the muddle.” That from the next one.
Not very helpful. It looked like rain,
Or fog in the offing. Twilight. Then
It sang again from an oak or pine.

Silence. How I waited for the fourth!
Time was a negative dipped into its bath,
The dark a fixative that slowly made
For every windowpane its window shade.

No messages arrived. No music bared
The soul for its penitence. Up the stairs
No hint of a footfall. The night passed.
“Croak by your hand,” said the crow at last.

(Howard Moss, poem, “Four Birds” from New Selected Poems)

Someone thought no one would notice the absence of hope for the country.

I did.

And do.

No hope. Only faith. In what cannot be seen.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Mirror molecules feel not much more

There are not too many words left.

You can't imagine how useless words are in the possession of someone with nothing to say.

They won't stay.

They're going.

Apophatically.

With what once was called

God.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Rain

Rain.

Ra

i

n

Monday, October 29, 2012

As weather, ever-changing, comes to us...

May all find shelter from the storm

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Meetingbrook's re-rendering of the Jesus prayer

Christ stillness of god
Emerge within us
Wisdom, kindness, and truth

...

Christ wisdom of god
Emerge within us
Stillness mercy and knowledge
...

Christ silence of god
Emerge within us
Mercy vision and service
...

Christ kindness of god
Emerge within us
Knowledge mercy and love
...

Christ vision of god
Emerge within us
Clarity kindness and sight

...

For we have forgotten our way...

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Haiku, (for itself)

Moonlight in dooryard
No one asks: Do you trust it?
White glow on gravel

(wfh)

Friday, October 26, 2012

As it tumbles edge over edge

Mokugyo from Kyoto arrives with returning visitors to Japan.

Watch Iranian film after popcorn fire.

Adrienne Rich's poem 7/26/1968 drove the prison conversation today.

Alea jacta est!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Unconfining knowledge is itself holiness

We row the near empty outer harbor around Curtis Island with Rokie in bow of peapod.

Earlier we walk trails of Ragged Mountain engrossed with October rust, two dogs lumbering alongside.

At Thursday Evening Conversation talk of holiness and unconfined knowing.

I tell students for yesterday's midterms I'm not interested in them telling me what they know, but in their learning what they are thinking.

I'm grateful for those who massacre my egoistic fears.

I'm nearly alive when such gifts are extended.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Long, alternate voices

Wisdom via suffering -- the way of Greek tragedy.

And then Wednesday ends.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Nothing lasts forever

Insanity is temporary. Like words.

Now, love -- that's different.

It might be all there is, but many of us cannot see what is right before us.

Sometimes, insanity is what there is...for the moment.

When that is true, only the truth makes sense, even if insane.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Bob Schieffer said it best: "We all love teachers."

One of the two new residents of meetingbrook.

Then the second.

They're not planning to vote.

They ignored the debate.

Not me. I'll vote. I watched the televised commercial for political maneuvers.

Where were the other candidates?

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Robert Creeley wrote: "One thing / done, the / rest follows."

"Where things go to is where they come from." (Shinzen Young)

That sums it nicely!

There seems to be a general impression that the ultimate goal of mindfulness practice is to be able to stay focused on the breath. I sometimes parody that notion with the slogan “Real meditators are able to come back to the breath.” Actually, if you insist that I give you something to always come back to, I would say “Real meditators are able to come back to ‘gone.’”
(--from "The Power of Gone," by Shinzen Young, Tricycle, http://www.tricycle.com/practice/power-gone)

Suddenly, back pain is gone. To where? Who knows. When and if it returns I'll be too distracted to ask it.

Visiting patients in Pen Bay Hospital last evening reminds me of "gone." One is near gone. Another quietly beams as she says she has no idea when, but at 91 and with congestive heart failure, she smiles that there's not much to do about what is happening.

She's right, of course. It is "what is" happening.

After two and a half hours of standing by beds speaking and listening, it was time to go. The walk through doors out across parking lot in foggy autumn mist was the stuff of dreams. Everyone is gone in the passing of the evening and everyone comes along with me turning toward Rockport and Camden.

We
are never
alone.

No
one is
with us.

Returning
to the(e)
source.

{wfh}

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Get the 'f' into place

"Be(lie)f" read the speaker's tee-shirt.

"Be life" I would have thought would be better antidote to belief.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Learning to read "and" right

This word is
truth.
And this word is
alive.
And what is alive is always
changing.

(Just Friday morning prison talk?)

Yeah, truth is just like this -- and that's the truth!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

First, see no harm

Desmond Tutu said we are because we belong.

To be is to belong.

What is love? Love is when we recognize connection is ultimate reality. And compassion flows recognizing suffering.

First we must see reality as it is.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Hermeneutic of wholeness

Virgin birth is wholeness from wholeness. Nothing is taken away.

No part is separate.

“Not for a moment dare we succumb to the illusion that an archetype can be finally explained and disposed of. Even the best attempts at explanation are only more or less successful translations into another metaphorical language. (Indeed, language itself is only an image.) The most we can do is to dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress. And whatever explanation or interpretation does to it, we do to our own souls as well, with corresponding results for our own well-being. The archetype -- let us never forget this -- is a psychic organ present in all of us. A bad explanation means a correspondingly bad attitude to this organ, which may thus be injured. But the ultimate sufferer is the bad interpreter himself. (-- C. G. Jung, “The Psychology of the Child Archetype” in Sacred Narrative, Readings in the Theory of Myth, p.253, Ed. by Alan Dundes)

Be careful with myths.

They are your story.

Monday, October 15, 2012

I'm game

It's obvious, the structures aren't holding. We are learning that death is as near as the next breath. I've decided to enjoy this present breath. And this one. And this.

When people are on the point of drowning, all they care for
is their lives. But as soon as they get ashore, they ask, "Where
is my umbrella?" Wisdom, in life, consists in not asking for the umbrella.
-- John Wu

Besides the noble art of getting things done,
there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
-- Lin Yutang

The foolish reject what they see, not what they think;
the wise reject what they think, not what they see. . . .
Observe things as they are and don't pay attention to other people.
--Huang-Po

Everyone will now let go of structures that no longer serve well the people once dependent on them. Look around. Do you see someone in need? Help them.

If there is a god, that god will be in the middle of anything that helps people through their difficulties.

If there is a you and me, we will be in the middle of god touching with healing those suffering, those longing for you and god and me.

Be a good sport.

Let light and healing be the process of your life, my life, and god's life.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Make no effort; be that which is what you are

Two young and small cats come to meetingbrook to see if we can live together. Two older dogs watch warily the wary watching of them by the cats. The two humans living here watch carefully the initial watching one with each other.

O God, enlarge within us
the sense of fellowship with all living things, and especially with our brothers and
sisters the animals to whom you gave the earth as their home together with us. We remember with shame that we have dominated over them in the past with ruthless cruelty,
so that the voice of the earth, which should have risen to
you in song, has been instead a groan in pain. Teach us that they do not live only for our benefit, but for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life as much as we do.”
— A Prayer of Basil the Great

We'll read from Ramesh Balsakar at table practice after cabin practice. He'll suggest that all there is is consciousness. Five words: Consciousness is all there is.

When the seeker doing the seeking finally asks, "Who cares?" -- that's when something begins happening.

I've been reading heidegger's hidden sources, East Asian Influences on His Work, by Reinhard May (1989), trans by Graham Parker (1996). "Only the destruction of one's own being or of the world as a whole is something total for the human being." (Heidegger, p.84)

Ramesh puts it in the hands of "God."

The ego will dissolve. No effort will assist.

Cat will be cat. Dog, dog. Human, human. God, god.

Dusk comes at 6pm.

Time to sit.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Doing what we see fit

It's not as easy as you might think. Wiping out evil doers was a quaint phrase of simple minds that understand only their narrow view.

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
--Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In Wohnkuche, who is sipping tea, pouring coffee, toasting bread, buttering cranberry-pecan slices, basking in sunshine, laughing at our foolishness, smiling at our loving kindness, appreciating the buddhist sangha and the christian community after morning sitting?

When realizing mind you see that buddhahood is not a place which you must reach.
Since it is a self-existing purity, there is no need to cultivate it.
It is experienced simply as a natural presence …
There is nothing you need to realize apart from it, so settle this issue by realizing it.
(-- Padmasambhava, the ‘Lotus-born’)

Two kittens come to meetingbrook from local shelter today.

We can only open heart to come to understand what is there.

And choose to do what we see fit.

Friday, October 12, 2012

No other place

There is
No time --
Like the
Present

And all good, peace

Iggy visits a brief spell yesterday. This Franciscan has been in Bolivia for forty years. We studied together (played ping pong, tennis, and pool) fifty years ago when we were younger men.

He leaves notecards made by indigenous Bolivian women with real flowers for us to sell or distribute. They are lovely.

He leaves us with embracing blessing in chapel/zendo.

It is good to be with such sweet Franciscan connection spanning so many years and so earthy a spirituality.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

If you ask...

I like Biden over Ryan.

If you don't ask, I'll not say.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Mencius said human nature is good

You are what is right.

So am I.

Now, to be what we are!

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

The concentric relationships tell a tale

Confucius worried no leader in the China of his day would listen to him.

They didn't.

Today we worry the cosmos is not benefitting from man.

It isn't.

❖ “A 14-year-old Pakistan activist who won international acclaim for speaking out for girls denied education under the Taliban was shot and seriously wounded Tuesday on her way home from school”. She is Malala Yousafzai, 9th grader, riding on the school bus when she was shot, one bullet lodged near her spine. A 7th grade girl on the bus was shot in the leg.(--Firedoglake News Desk, http://news.firedoglake.com/

As the human so the cosmos.

Uh oh!

Monday, October 08, 2012

Soon, we'll see...

Imagination.

What the mind sees before any appearance.

Imagine.

What is.

To be.

Seen.

Sunday, October 07, 2012

bodhi svaha

She wanted to be in the waters off Camden.

Now she is.

Form is emptiness, emptiness form.

Gassho, Lizzie!

Saturday, October 06, 2012

Wait up, there's someone lingering behind and beyond and bewith.

The ashes went into the sea. Heart Sutra chanted. Bell Chant rung.

Light and Bodhisattva service, respect and gratitude as the formless woman's remains went below waves.

Saskia, Jory, and Mark step off Schooner Heron before the rain poured down.

Friday, October 05, 2012

Faith is trust in your experience

The Buddha touched the earth. The earth was his witness when illusions were dispelled and his mind shown through with clear light.

Mara, the tempter, was silenced with earth's eloquent affirming agreement -- this Buddha is indeed free.

At prison today Sonny said if we hadn't done the three year independent study together after his near-death experience 20+ years ago, he would today most likely be in a mental institution. Rokie was leaning against his legs.

Some days feel just right.

Today has been one of them.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Rokpa born on St Francis Day

Five years ago

Giovanni Francesco d'Assisi - Va Bene!

Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) thought that ignorance was tightening around knowledge, compressing and shrinking the sphere of knowledge with wide and suffocating squeeze.

He wasn't pessimistic about this. He thought it was the expected contraction which will lead to an extraordinary expansion effecting a shift toward supra-mental insight and truth building upon clarity and truth.

But, the interim closing-in and choking intentional ignorance is daunting. From presidential kabuki debate to prevarication system-wide in institutional solipsism spreading in corporate structures, we are looking to the metaphorical falling sky with cringing worry aliens have dropped into a no longer recognizable horizon.

I could look away. Or look within. Let me think about it.

A Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock

The houses are haunted

By white night-gowns.

None are green,

Or purple with green rings,

Or green with yellow rings,

Or yellow with blue rings.

None of them are strange,

With socks of lace

And beaded ceintures.

People are not going

To dream of baboons and periwinkles.

Only, here and there, an old sailor,

Drunk and asleep in his boots,

Catches Tigers

In red weather.

(--Poem by Wallace Stevens)

There's the word, 'ceinture' -- a reminiscence of sacerdotal vesting when as an altar boy I would hold out braided rope for priest to cinch liturgical vestment costume to perform ritual of death and resurrection, the distribution of sustaining sacrament in bewildering metaphorical solemnity.

Priest after priest backed away from vesting table over decades of disappointment and disillusionment. Ceintures hung from hooks in closets long after anointed hands ceased reaching in to garb the girth of a distracted church whose hosts and wine began to stale in autumn pale.

But there is always Francis.

Open-doored and earthen-hued, Francis, like Siddhartha Gautama, touched the earth, tasted lack, and called us back.

Back to what? (This revelation might help my hurting back.)

Back to Being. Being here. As earth. Is here. As it is. Heaven as earth.

With as much kindness as befits.

The great miracle is to walk the earth.

With all that is...

accompanying. For now.

Until, no...

More...

seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here

(Poem by e.e.cummings)

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Would you throw your vote if you knew it wouldn't be counted?

Do you take this man to be your democrat-chosen candidate?
Some do.

Do you take this other man to be your republican-chosen candidate?
Some do.

Where are the green, libertarian, or justice candidates?
They are excluded.

I now pronounce this debate to be too narrow and too stylized.

You may now kiss off the pretended theatre piece simulating open democracy.

Don't bother with the rings. They're already in bed with each other.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Alone with my own sound

Bard Owl repeatedly asks his question in dark mountain wood.

I translate it according to my diffuse misunderstanding.

"Who speaks for you?"

Everything, Mr. Owl, and everyone.

But I am very often not able to hear, deaf with inattentive inanity.

Hence I prattle idiocy left to myself.

And cannot bear what I hear.

Monday, October 01, 2012

I don't want to think it's too late; do you?

I've been thinking about 9/11.

About thermite, controlled demolition, and whether the American people are worthy and capable of hearing the hitherto unexplained causes of the devastating destruction occurring that day.

I think we are. Worthy and capable. Some disagree. It is a mindset. Fixed? Or, growth?

Look at your mind. I will mine. Let's see what we are capable of seeing.

Truth, it is said, can be terribly unsettling. A startling awakening.

Untruth, it is said, can put us into a deep and untroubled sleep.

Today, I have been chloroform saturated, falling into soporific incredulity.

I'd rather be properly informed, being elevated into clear and unadulterated transparency.

Science, engineering, physics, chemistry, and reasonable hypotheses and evidence lead to consequential though unproven conclusions.

I'll start there.

Architects and Engineers, 9/11 Explosive Evidence, Experts Speak Out
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=YW6mJOqRDI4&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYW6mJOqRDI4

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Ignorance: Some days the broken breaks your heart

Avidya.

6,572 U.S. service members have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom http://apps.washingtonpost.com/national/fallen/

Avidya.

At least 132,000 civilians have died from 10 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new study by Brown university. And that’s a conservative estimate. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/afghanistan-iraq-wars-killed-132000-civilians-report-says/

Avidya

Avidya is like a deeply rooted tree with four thick branches. The first branch is called asmita, or Ego. This is the part of us that seeks its own interests. It considers itself better than others, is bruised when it does not get its own way, and generally causes us to identify with this earthly body and the life it is living. It has no wider perspective than that.

The second branch is called raga and is best translated as Desire or Attachment. This is the part that constantly wants what it does not have. It desires what it does not really need and seeks to accumulate merely for the sake of it. It makes us unsatisfied and causes us to continually compare ourselves unfavorably with others. If we are wealthy, we are unhappy because somebody else is wealthier still. And so on....

The third branch is called dvesa or Refusal. This is like the recoil response. Whatever negative experiences we have had in life make us afraid of repeating them again in case the same result occurs. It can make us reject people, situations and possibilities that just might cause us pain again. In one person, it may be the fear of forming relationships with the opposite sex. In another, it may be a fear of public speaking as a result of negative childhood experiences.

The fourth and last branch on the tree of Avidya is called abhinivesa or Fear. These are specifically fears that are not caused by previous experience. For example, we may fear change, or growing old, or that we may lose everything we worked so hard to earn. In other words, things we may never have experienced before.

Avidya, in all its subtle forms, works within us constantly to root us in our habitual ways and make improvement difficult or impossible. The more we indulge Avidya, the stronger it becomes. Eventually, we feel that we are no longer the doer of these things; they simply happen to us. A person can attract one disastrous relationship after another, or continually experience uncontrollable rage under certain stimuli and feel that it is nothing directly to do with them. It is just bad luck. The person fails to see that there is only one person responsible for everything that happens!

http://www.adishakti.org/_/avidya.htm

Ignorance, Avidya, is the cause of suffering and pain.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

No ant realizes its origin

At the end of his life he craves tuna fish.

That, and the knowledge one person, alone, learning with compassion, sets a tone for reincarnation many will find soothing.

The Tibetan Lama gathers to himself four lineages. The homeless nobody, beginning a tuna on whole wheat, offers bite to companion.

What follows is a world of incalculable understanding suddenly streaming -- a five minute window where eyes look around for the source of such sweet and fleeting joy.

His death is no battle. Not even a chore. It is a final crumb falling to ground vaguely scented with distant sea.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Where did you say to meet you

I hear a man I know suffers a new condition.

Elsewhere I hear it said that when mind conforms to the conditions of the body there is peace.

Origin, it is said, is where everything abides in creative abandon.

We'll meet there, I submit, at origin.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

From one to one; to one as one

It's different from not believing in God in the sense people mean when they ask if you believe in God.

You could say I don't believe in God, but that's not it.

I don't believe in belief.

You could say I dwell in God the same way fish dwell in the sea and earthworms in soil.

Belief has nothing to do with it.

When someone asks, I pray for them. I pray -- not to God -- but, within God.

Ah, you might be tempted to say, then you do believe in God. No, not so. (Mu?)

I call upon what is the reality of their being to be the wholeness which is their true origin and home.

Return, I pray, to the home you are before birth after death during life.

That which is by any other, certainly by no other, name -- the one we call from and to and as -- God.

Good health to you, my friend and friends!

However and wherever and whoever -- you are.

Wholly at home.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Where, then, would it be?

When is a backache not a backache?
When it's not in your back.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Poems are sweet scripture

Not in a garden. Not on a crowded avenue.

One's eyes are for you.

Millions of stars go by.

You are here. And so am I.

We are so fortunate!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

The song said: "I want to know what love is. I want you to show me."

Love is the quality of being.

If you are, you are love.

Show up. Be as you are.

Manifest one another.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Is it time for breakfast or supper? She asked.

In the hospital the women suffer the first day of autumn with iv's, pain meds, Alzheimer's, and pneumonia. I stand by beds and talk with them. About blue jeeps, wild turkeys outside window, deceased husbands, good children, and the way things used to be.

It is Saturday evening. They are gracious.

One person at a time.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Just that

In prison today, zazen.

In true freedom.

Then, around the table, conversation.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

To be -- or not -- to be. This is not the question.

All mythology, the man said, has its origin in the belief there is something behind this visible appearing world.

Behind, in a quasi spatial sense. And behind, in a quasi temporal historical sense.

An invisibility. An emptiness devoid of any separative distinctions or descriptions. Just as the Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao. And the God spoken of in the Jewish scriptures is a no-name God.

I bicycle to town on borrowed bike. Then row the harbor. I cycle home.

Investigate everything. I suspect we find everything incredible. Then, don't believe anything, investigate it. And when you alight on something you feel you can hold on to -- drop it, let it go, investigate the release.

I will say this: the Open is the only non-place to be.

The question is: what is seen by the no-self non-dual whole-sight?

Only you...

Provide what is said next.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Goodnight, darling

The papyrus suggests Jesus had a wife.
The miracle of your mind isn’t that you can see the world as it is. It’s that you can see the world as it isn’t.” (Kathryn Schulz)Mozel Tov!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Emptiness is no views

What goes round is what is round.

See it; have no view.

It is seeing you.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Not a single body which is not me

Some realizations are a complete surprise.

“The whole universe in all ten quarters is the whole body of a mendicant monk.” (--from, Shōbōgenzō: On the Whole Universe in All Ten Directions http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/Shobogenzo/058jippo.pdf

Some, more surprising than that.

EDITORIAL

Death at Guantánamo Bay

Published: September 15, 2012

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni citizen and one of the first detainees sent to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in January 2002, died there earlier this month. There is no official autopsy report yet, but in his decade in prison he had gone on hunger strikes and made several suicide attempts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/opinion/sunday/death-at-guantanamo-bay.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

I died this month in Guantanamo.

Do not send flowers.

Do not cry.

Rather, wonder why you, my friends, think you are still alive.

Look around. Learn from what you see.

As for me, I would prefer to look at what is...

here...with no illusions.

“In the whole universe in all ten quarters, there is not one single person who is not the True Self.” (Shobogenzo, Op cit.)

Let day-old coffee and fresh cream of wheat be your teachers

Morning appears as undifferentiated flow of September brook and slanted sunlight.

The death of expectation blends with an absence of belief in anything other than green silence with open mind.

Someone comes, sits in zendo, leaves. Tires roll over rutted stones onto Barnestown Road.

I abjure all but this unfolding extension of what is revealing itself.

I am

Passing

Away

Into

Breakfast.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

I can't see DC from my porch

Somebody will calculate the upside to anti-American turmoil in the Arab speaking world. It will have to do with oil or votes or getting the stranger out of the White House. There's joy behind closed doors among the plotting class.

Flotsam from Bush and Bush years are raising glasses to the brilliance of their time in office. Money managers prime for Monday markets. Press releases are readied for distribution.

There is a corner that has been turned.

No one pretends any longer venality is not the operative motif. Stud and slut stand smiling at their front door saying goodnight to Johns and Jills sliding into limousines fresh from brandy and coffee laced with cynicism and smug retro-rancor.

Here in Maine it grows chilly.

Back hurts.

Delusion.

Hurts.

Friday, November 16, 2012