Cherryfield with windswept snow and below zero chill on Tuesday.
I chauffer and read novel waiting in car about son finding 3 million dollars in his dead father's study. Walking earlier, dogs know as we walk road we'll have to turn back into the wind. They count my steps and shake their heads. We each have icicles on muzzles.
The story is told of one young man coming for instruction and Macarius told him to go to a burial place and insult the dead. After that he was to praise them. The young man did as he was told and when he returned Macarius asked what the dead had answered. The man replied, "nothing," and Macarius then encouraged him to do the same when anyone hurled abuse or flattery on him.
( - about St. Macarius the Elder, January 29) (Monastery of Christ in the Desert)
After dusk we are in Seal Harbor walking the closed carriage path snow below tall pine below the enormity of heavens with illimitable stars and planets. The four of us walk in silence. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.
The dead keep silent. Macarius (born about the year 300) counted on that for the lesson at hand. I think of this fact each time I pass or walk in a cemetery. If the dead are with God it is no surprise their silence.
This is why some bow. This is why some genuflect. This is why the body hunches, head to ground, hands with palms upraised.
No words convey what the body senses.
Reverence with silence.
Monday, January 27, 2003
Maybe it is the persistence of the "let's go to war" crowd, or the passion of the "let's be careful about hastily going to war" crowd.
Whichever it is, a shift is taking place as we near war. I can't be certain what war we are actually engaged in. Is it a war for civilization? Are we at one of those perennial historical cusps where geography and grotesque behavior coincide to erupt into massive movements of munitions, political ambition, and spiritual/religious principles?
Last night's snow makes everything brighter along the mountain.
My treasure is the cloud on the peak
The moon over the valley
Traveling east or west
Light and free on the one road
I don’t know whether I’m on the way
Or at home.
- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)
Virginia writes, "This is Andrew Sullivan about the case for a military action against Iraq and the anti-war movement."
The Sullivan piece is impressive and passionate. His Monday, January 27, 2003 ends with:
I keep thinking that this obsession with Bush is a way of avoiding the awful choices in front of us. But the choices are still there. And Bush's speech tomorrow night represents his terrible duty to lead us to the right one. (Andrew Sullivan, http://www.andrewsullivan.com/)
I respond to Virginia, writing the following:
I've inured myself to the fact we are going in.
As with all wars, I shudder.
As to the oddity that it is George Bush leading the charge, I can only shake my head at the sequence of events positioning him in the presidency and the equally curious political positions and profile of this our president.
I'm from Brooklyn. Silver spoons tucked in family privilege and right-wing patronage does not sit easily with kids from Bay Ridge Avenue. But so what.
Beneath all the surface hoopla I know that bad guys should be rooted out. In Brooklyn it was difficult to sort the hitmen from holy men, the perverts from politicians. Now in the larger world, it still is difficult. Everyone seems to read from the same script and prompter. It's our world. We're not much different then from now, Bensonhurst to Baghdad. Self-interest, local politics, and global mores are seldom separable.
When the war begins I will sorrow. When Iraqis are killed, I'll sorrow. When Americans and allies are killed, I'll sorrow.
And when oil flows freely through liberated pipes to a new coalition of allied ships to McDucks and the Stop & Go in Camden, I'll buy it and drive onto Elm Street with a certain but vague forgetfulness about a lot of things. One of which will be war.
Thanks for the Sullivan perspective. I'll tuck it into my sitting and prayer.
About the coming days I include Sir Kenneth Clark's ending to the book and video Civilisation series,
I said at the beginning that it is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. Fifty years ago W. B. Yeats, who was more like a man of genius than anyone I have ever known, wrote a famous prophetic poem.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Well, that was certainly true between the wars, and it damn nearly destroyed us. Is it true today? Not quite, because good people have convictions, rather too many of them. The trouble is that there is still no centre. The moral and intellectual failure of Marxism has left us with no alternative to heroic materialism, and that isn’t enough. One may be optimistic, but one can’t exactly be joyful at the prospect before us.
-- from ending, Chapter 13 - Heroic Materialism in Civilisation: a personal view Lord Kenneth Clark: 1903 - 1983 (Harper & Row in 1970.)
I'm part of the "lack of confidence" crowd Clark cites.
With Clark, I am optimistic, but not joyful.
Still, with Muso Soseki,
I don’t know whether I’m on the way
Or at home.
“Home,” here, suggests what I think some might be referring to when they protest the upcoming war, or any war. It is the tension felt when we are reminded we are not living yet in a shared sphere of awareness and action that would benefit all life on earth.
Finally, it is Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s view that clarifies what is taking place for me:
In 1925, Teilhard wrote in an essay entitled Hominization: "And this amounts to imagining, in one way or another, above the animal biosphere a human sphere, a sphere of reflection, of conscious invention, of conscious souls (the noosphere, if you will)" (1966, p. 63) It was a neologism employing the Greek word noos for "mind."
In The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard posits: "In truth, a neo-humanity has been germinating round the Mediterranean for the last six thousand years" (1961, p. 212) He thought that a "new layer of the noosphere" would soon be formed. "The proof of this lies in the fact that from one end of the world to the other, all peoples, to remain human or to become more so, are inexorably led to formulate the hopes and problems of the modern earth in the very same terms in which the West has formulated them." Teilhard was convinced that the shape of the noosphere's future would be determined by those developments he saw taking place in the Europe and the U.S.
In midst of a particularly ghastly fulfillment of the dictum "War is hell," Pierre Teilhard de Chardin struggled to hold on to a hope for the human future. Ultimately, he found it in noogenesis and in the future of the noosphere. However, to view his thought as no more than an exercise in science or metaphysics, is to fail to reach the core of Teilhard's vision. At the conclusion of The Phenomenon of Man is an Appendix added in 1948. The final line is: "In one manner or the other it still remains true that, even in the view of a mere biologist, the human epic resembles nothing so much as a way of the Cross." (1961, p. 313)
(- from, Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere, by Rev. Phillip J. Cunningham, C.S.P. http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/mar/cunning.html)
What cheers, Virginia, is the exchange of these words with you and Hugh.
I’ll sit, and pray, with this.
Whichever it is, a shift is taking place as we near war. I can't be certain what war we are actually engaged in. Is it a war for civilization? Are we at one of those perennial historical cusps where geography and grotesque behavior coincide to erupt into massive movements of munitions, political ambition, and spiritual/religious principles?
Last night's snow makes everything brighter along the mountain.
My treasure is the cloud on the peak
The moon over the valley
Traveling east or west
Light and free on the one road
I don’t know whether I’m on the way
Or at home.
- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)
Virginia writes, "This is Andrew Sullivan about the case for a military action against Iraq and the anti-war movement."
The Sullivan piece is impressive and passionate. His Monday, January 27, 2003 ends with:
I keep thinking that this obsession with Bush is a way of avoiding the awful choices in front of us. But the choices are still there. And Bush's speech tomorrow night represents his terrible duty to lead us to the right one. (Andrew Sullivan, http://www.andrewsullivan.com/)
I respond to Virginia, writing the following:
I've inured myself to the fact we are going in.
As with all wars, I shudder.
As to the oddity that it is George Bush leading the charge, I can only shake my head at the sequence of events positioning him in the presidency and the equally curious political positions and profile of this our president.
I'm from Brooklyn. Silver spoons tucked in family privilege and right-wing patronage does not sit easily with kids from Bay Ridge Avenue. But so what.
Beneath all the surface hoopla I know that bad guys should be rooted out. In Brooklyn it was difficult to sort the hitmen from holy men, the perverts from politicians. Now in the larger world, it still is difficult. Everyone seems to read from the same script and prompter. It's our world. We're not much different then from now, Bensonhurst to Baghdad. Self-interest, local politics, and global mores are seldom separable.
When the war begins I will sorrow. When Iraqis are killed, I'll sorrow. When Americans and allies are killed, I'll sorrow.
And when oil flows freely through liberated pipes to a new coalition of allied ships to McDucks and the Stop & Go in Camden, I'll buy it and drive onto Elm Street with a certain but vague forgetfulness about a lot of things. One of which will be war.
Thanks for the Sullivan perspective. I'll tuck it into my sitting and prayer.
About the coming days I include Sir Kenneth Clark's ending to the book and video Civilisation series,
I said at the beginning that it is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. Fifty years ago W. B. Yeats, who was more like a man of genius than anyone I have ever known, wrote a famous prophetic poem.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Well, that was certainly true between the wars, and it damn nearly destroyed us. Is it true today? Not quite, because good people have convictions, rather too many of them. The trouble is that there is still no centre. The moral and intellectual failure of Marxism has left us with no alternative to heroic materialism, and that isn’t enough. One may be optimistic, but one can’t exactly be joyful at the prospect before us.
-- from ending, Chapter 13 - Heroic Materialism in Civilisation: a personal view Lord Kenneth Clark: 1903 - 1983 (Harper & Row in 1970.)
I'm part of the "lack of confidence" crowd Clark cites.
With Clark, I am optimistic, but not joyful.
Still, with Muso Soseki,
I don’t know whether I’m on the way
Or at home.
“Home,” here, suggests what I think some might be referring to when they protest the upcoming war, or any war. It is the tension felt when we are reminded we are not living yet in a shared sphere of awareness and action that would benefit all life on earth.
Finally, it is Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s view that clarifies what is taking place for me:
In 1925, Teilhard wrote in an essay entitled Hominization: "And this amounts to imagining, in one way or another, above the animal biosphere a human sphere, a sphere of reflection, of conscious invention, of conscious souls (the noosphere, if you will)" (1966, p. 63) It was a neologism employing the Greek word noos for "mind."
In The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard posits: "In truth, a neo-humanity has been germinating round the Mediterranean for the last six thousand years" (1961, p. 212) He thought that a "new layer of the noosphere" would soon be formed. "The proof of this lies in the fact that from one end of the world to the other, all peoples, to remain human or to become more so, are inexorably led to formulate the hopes and problems of the modern earth in the very same terms in which the West has formulated them." Teilhard was convinced that the shape of the noosphere's future would be determined by those developments he saw taking place in the Europe and the U.S.
In midst of a particularly ghastly fulfillment of the dictum "War is hell," Pierre Teilhard de Chardin struggled to hold on to a hope for the human future. Ultimately, he found it in noogenesis and in the future of the noosphere. However, to view his thought as no more than an exercise in science or metaphysics, is to fail to reach the core of Teilhard's vision. At the conclusion of The Phenomenon of Man is an Appendix added in 1948. The final line is: "In one manner or the other it still remains true that, even in the view of a mere biologist, the human epic resembles nothing so much as a way of the Cross." (1961, p. 313)
(- from, Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere, by Rev. Phillip J. Cunningham, C.S.P. http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/mar/cunning.html)
What cheers, Virginia, is the exchange of these words with you and Hugh.
I’ll sit, and pray, with this.
Sunday, January 26, 2003
I resign from marketplace. I return to hermitage. There, I revert to silence.
Haiku
when sun turned north, long
frozen mountain remembered
lost pine needle scent
-wfh
Who is this "I" that resigns, returns, and reverts? Surely someone knows.
The cat pulled down the thawing chicken in the middle of the night. One of the dogs finished it. The bag on floor and empty paper on rug spilled their guts when interviewed by householders.
Cat got water sprayed in puss when positioned at scene of theft. Dog sat in snow with ears back. Dog got mild reprimand. He was a dupe. Inculpable recipient of stolen goods.
It occurred to that "I," there and then, its chickenless and fruitless presence in the marketplace. The connection must be esoteric. "I" can decipher neither linkage nor lineup of the insight. But there it was: Go home; Shut up.
Maybe it began with John from Owls Head by way of Jersey arriving with Meher Baba pendant, cd, and book. Suddenly I am back in Rockland County listening of a Sunday morning to Lex Hixon interviewing someone about this Indian sage who'd vowed silence and kept it for over 40 years.
I am sitting in the corner office alone wondering why I am there. Children and teenagers from 21 cottages will be walking with counselors to Mass. They'll pass my office as the radio voices tell of the remarkable silence and presence of this Meher Baba. Up in the chapel the priest will be telling of the remarkable silence and presence of Jesus.
I have seldom known why I have been anywhere. It always felt like a diverted walk-about. I'd wandered out of semi-monastic enclosure into a foreign wood and was lost without direction. A ghost in a dream wandering changing scenes.
Thirty years later and several attempts to work in the world's recognized employments, marriage/divorce, a son now 30, long sits on cushions, long visits to sanctuaries, and it is Sunday morning again. It is silent. And presence remains what it has always been, slightly aslant and skewed toward nescience.
It is enough to be alive. And when death arises, it will be enough to die. What does or doesn’t follow what we know as death is of no interest. Whether some kind of Christian judgment, Buddhist reincarnation, or generic nothingness -- I don't know. It doesn't matter. Whatever will be, will be. It’s that kind of Sunday.
For now, there is this. America plans war against Iraq. Catholic Church waits for sexual abuse scandal to pass. Temperature rises above 10 degrees after 10 days of bending around zero. Super bowl will be played and prayed over tonight. Republican executive, legislature, and judiciary will have their way with issues. Stock market will frighten those capable of being frightened by it. Poverty and the nearing of poverty will worry a significant percentage of the world.
Poverty is having to do with what we have. Willingly choosing poverty is wanting nothing other than what is there. The world of marketplace and commerce, advertising and seduction of the more and mores -- that world doesn't choose poverty. Choosing poverty is a freedom that deprivation and want doesn't have.
Many, far too many, are not doing well and seem to have been given deprivation and want as original birthday presents. No choice here -- just deprivation and want.
Curiously, there are many others who have been given free passes to riches and wealth in this world who oddly cry loudly they too suffer deprivation and want. These are the well to do who want to pay lower taxes and want to receive higher dividends from investments and estates.
It is growing more apparent that the voices of the not doing well and the well to do are both heard in antiphonal harmony to the ears of this administration in America. Who to listen to? Who to serve? Who to bestow fiduciary and financial favors on?
The choice of poverty, that is, making do with what is there, making do with what is not there, is a gift. Not a gift is not having a choice.
In some minds given to spiritual thinking, "no choice" is a great gift. They point out that having what you have, or not having what you don't have, is a freedom unlike any other in the spiritual life. It has to do with accepting and surrendering to "what is" -- to things as they are, without wanting anything other than what is here and now.
The wording, "what is," is sometimes cited as synonym for "God" or "Ultimate Reality." This makes the questions, “What is God? or, “What is Ultimate Reality?” redundancies. It is hard to believe in either God or Ultimate Reality when there is no freedom or no choice.
No freedom and no choice are like the lost pine needle scent to the mountain deep in January. It just seems…gone.
The cabin woodstove must be fired. The brook beyond, visited.
In my middle years I love the Tao
And by Deep South Mountain I make my home.
When happy I go alone into the mountains.
Only I understand this joy.
I walk until the water ends, and sit
Waiting for the hour when clouds rise.
If I happen to meet an old woodcutter,
I chat with him, laughing and lost to time.
- Wang Wei (699-759)
About my resignation, return, and reversion – it is now or never.
“I” must go to be lost to time.
Haiku
when sun turned north, long
frozen mountain remembered
lost pine needle scent
-wfh
Who is this "I" that resigns, returns, and reverts? Surely someone knows.
The cat pulled down the thawing chicken in the middle of the night. One of the dogs finished it. The bag on floor and empty paper on rug spilled their guts when interviewed by householders.
Cat got water sprayed in puss when positioned at scene of theft. Dog sat in snow with ears back. Dog got mild reprimand. He was a dupe. Inculpable recipient of stolen goods.
It occurred to that "I," there and then, its chickenless and fruitless presence in the marketplace. The connection must be esoteric. "I" can decipher neither linkage nor lineup of the insight. But there it was: Go home; Shut up.
Maybe it began with John from Owls Head by way of Jersey arriving with Meher Baba pendant, cd, and book. Suddenly I am back in Rockland County listening of a Sunday morning to Lex Hixon interviewing someone about this Indian sage who'd vowed silence and kept it for over 40 years.
I am sitting in the corner office alone wondering why I am there. Children and teenagers from 21 cottages will be walking with counselors to Mass. They'll pass my office as the radio voices tell of the remarkable silence and presence of this Meher Baba. Up in the chapel the priest will be telling of the remarkable silence and presence of Jesus.
I have seldom known why I have been anywhere. It always felt like a diverted walk-about. I'd wandered out of semi-monastic enclosure into a foreign wood and was lost without direction. A ghost in a dream wandering changing scenes.
Thirty years later and several attempts to work in the world's recognized employments, marriage/divorce, a son now 30, long sits on cushions, long visits to sanctuaries, and it is Sunday morning again. It is silent. And presence remains what it has always been, slightly aslant and skewed toward nescience.
It is enough to be alive. And when death arises, it will be enough to die. What does or doesn’t follow what we know as death is of no interest. Whether some kind of Christian judgment, Buddhist reincarnation, or generic nothingness -- I don't know. It doesn't matter. Whatever will be, will be. It’s that kind of Sunday.
For now, there is this. America plans war against Iraq. Catholic Church waits for sexual abuse scandal to pass. Temperature rises above 10 degrees after 10 days of bending around zero. Super bowl will be played and prayed over tonight. Republican executive, legislature, and judiciary will have their way with issues. Stock market will frighten those capable of being frightened by it. Poverty and the nearing of poverty will worry a significant percentage of the world.
Poverty is having to do with what we have. Willingly choosing poverty is wanting nothing other than what is there. The world of marketplace and commerce, advertising and seduction of the more and mores -- that world doesn't choose poverty. Choosing poverty is a freedom that deprivation and want doesn't have.
Many, far too many, are not doing well and seem to have been given deprivation and want as original birthday presents. No choice here -- just deprivation and want.
Curiously, there are many others who have been given free passes to riches and wealth in this world who oddly cry loudly they too suffer deprivation and want. These are the well to do who want to pay lower taxes and want to receive higher dividends from investments and estates.
It is growing more apparent that the voices of the not doing well and the well to do are both heard in antiphonal harmony to the ears of this administration in America. Who to listen to? Who to serve? Who to bestow fiduciary and financial favors on?
The choice of poverty, that is, making do with what is there, making do with what is not there, is a gift. Not a gift is not having a choice.
In some minds given to spiritual thinking, "no choice" is a great gift. They point out that having what you have, or not having what you don't have, is a freedom unlike any other in the spiritual life. It has to do with accepting and surrendering to "what is" -- to things as they are, without wanting anything other than what is here and now.
The wording, "what is," is sometimes cited as synonym for "God" or "Ultimate Reality." This makes the questions, “What is God? or, “What is Ultimate Reality?” redundancies. It is hard to believe in either God or Ultimate Reality when there is no freedom or no choice.
No freedom and no choice are like the lost pine needle scent to the mountain deep in January. It just seems…gone.
The cabin woodstove must be fired. The brook beyond, visited.
In my middle years I love the Tao
And by Deep South Mountain I make my home.
When happy I go alone into the mountains.
Only I understand this joy.
I walk until the water ends, and sit
Waiting for the hour when clouds rise.
If I happen to meet an old woodcutter,
I chat with him, laughing and lost to time.
- Wang Wei (699-759)
About my resignation, return, and reversion – it is now or never.
“I” must go to be lost to time.
Saturday, January 25, 2003
If we are meant to be intimate with the world, we must be intimate without holding or grasping. How is it not to be attached? Not detached?
For the world in its present
form is passing away.
(1Corinthians 7:31)
To live in intimacy with the world is to live in the world in a way that doesn't hold tight to it, but lets go. Not grasping fast to that which is passing on and changing, but surrendering to the transformation of the world.
What is transforming the world?
What Is Itself transforms the world.
Cover your path
With fallen pine needles
So no one will be able
To locate your
True dwelling place.
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)
Our true dwelling place is What Is Itself.
Where is that true dwelling place? Perhaps Ikkyu is suggesting that true dwelling place is not the same for everyone. Each must find their own. There is no duplication.
This is why in a Laura of travellers to their true dwelling places they pause temporarily dwelling in radiant circumference to each other. They see each others' smoke rising from chimney. They hear footsteps crunching cold snow in passing. They greet the other, mostly in the silence of their eyes, when nearing the others' dwelling.
To dwell lightly in this world is to dwell intimately on the earth, near each other, letting go and surrendering to What Is Itself.
Our true dwelling place is right here right now revealing Itself.
For the world in its present
form is passing away.
(1Corinthians 7:31)
To live in intimacy with the world is to live in the world in a way that doesn't hold tight to it, but lets go. Not grasping fast to that which is passing on and changing, but surrendering to the transformation of the world.
What is transforming the world?
What Is Itself transforms the world.
Cover your path
With fallen pine needles
So no one will be able
To locate your
True dwelling place.
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)
Our true dwelling place is What Is Itself.
Where is that true dwelling place? Perhaps Ikkyu is suggesting that true dwelling place is not the same for everyone. Each must find their own. There is no duplication.
This is why in a Laura of travellers to their true dwelling places they pause temporarily dwelling in radiant circumference to each other. They see each others' smoke rising from chimney. They hear footsteps crunching cold snow in passing. They greet the other, mostly in the silence of their eyes, when nearing the others' dwelling.
To dwell lightly in this world is to dwell intimately on the earth, near each other, letting go and surrendering to What Is Itself.
Our true dwelling place is right here right now revealing Itself.
Friday, January 24, 2003
Ed goes to walk dog. He doesn't like what Rumsfeld is doing or saying in Washington. He says he'll send me something from a German paper decrying recent comments by the secretary of defense.
Last night Dick brought in a Peanuts cartoon. Linus is poised to throw a snowball. Lucy approaches with finger raised, saying "Here's a Gentle Reminder...If you throw that snowball at me, I'll break every bone in your stupid body!" The final frame shows Linus dropping the snowball, saying, "Saved by a Gentle Reminder." (Published 1/23/03)
Dick says is sums up perfectly the situation with Iraq.
I let mind and body go
And gained a life of freedom
My old age is taking place
Among ten thousand peaks
I don’t let white clouds
Leave the valley lightly
I escort the moon as far
As my closed gate.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)(dailyzen.com)
A woman is looking for book by Theodore Roethke. I tell her of my fondness for his poem The Manifestation.
His koan in the final three lines:
What does what it should do needs nothing more.
The body moves, though slowly, toward desire.
We come to something without knowing why.
Many worry what we will come to should war occur with Iraq. It's good Ed and Dick aren't in the shop at the same time. There is something to be said for not having a dictator ruling with iron fist in disregard of his country's people. Ed would refer this statement to Mr. Bush, Dick to Mr. Hussein.
Hughie and Sam talk boats and submersibles with Peter and Joan. Joan opens letter from grandson with a picture from Chateau d' Oex of a cow hot air balloon. Susan reads letters from stepmother and the major in Florida. "Hello everybody --- Life is good in USA," is how he opens the letter.
Wind chill is still below zero. Tom the mailman doesn't remember such a long spell of piercing cold. "It's going to get warmer, right?" he asks. "Don't you think?" is the response.
Laughter and vying to carry the narrative rebound off brick fireplace as Sam pokes and adds wood to stubborn fire.
Life, at least in this small space, carries on in stories, remembering with coffee and tea, the telling of ourselves in the company of others.
"It's always more comfortable to stay where you are more comfortable," says Hughie. Some nodding follows.
The UPS man brings latest issue of Maine Boats & Harbors, The Magazine of the Coast. In the magazine, Peter H. Spectre, in an article "Mal de Mer," ends his story about a ferry crossing with the following:
Or, as the humorist Josh Billings once wrote, "One of the best temporary cures for pride and affectation is seasickness; a man who wants to vomit never puts on airs."
The nautical solution to the current winds of war might be an invitation to Mr. Bush and Mr. Hussein to take a ferry ride together and talk about how to humanely and sensibly conclude their uncertain travels with each other.
They, like Roethke’s final line, might come to something without knowing why.
Last night Dick brought in a Peanuts cartoon. Linus is poised to throw a snowball. Lucy approaches with finger raised, saying "Here's a Gentle Reminder...If you throw that snowball at me, I'll break every bone in your stupid body!" The final frame shows Linus dropping the snowball, saying, "Saved by a Gentle Reminder." (Published 1/23/03)
Dick says is sums up perfectly the situation with Iraq.
I let mind and body go
And gained a life of freedom
My old age is taking place
Among ten thousand peaks
I don’t let white clouds
Leave the valley lightly
I escort the moon as far
As my closed gate.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)(dailyzen.com)
A woman is looking for book by Theodore Roethke. I tell her of my fondness for his poem The Manifestation.
His koan in the final three lines:
What does what it should do needs nothing more.
The body moves, though slowly, toward desire.
We come to something without knowing why.
Many worry what we will come to should war occur with Iraq. It's good Ed and Dick aren't in the shop at the same time. There is something to be said for not having a dictator ruling with iron fist in disregard of his country's people. Ed would refer this statement to Mr. Bush, Dick to Mr. Hussein.
Hughie and Sam talk boats and submersibles with Peter and Joan. Joan opens letter from grandson with a picture from Chateau d' Oex of a cow hot air balloon. Susan reads letters from stepmother and the major in Florida. "Hello everybody --- Life is good in USA," is how he opens the letter.
Wind chill is still below zero. Tom the mailman doesn't remember such a long spell of piercing cold. "It's going to get warmer, right?" he asks. "Don't you think?" is the response.
Laughter and vying to carry the narrative rebound off brick fireplace as Sam pokes and adds wood to stubborn fire.
Life, at least in this small space, carries on in stories, remembering with coffee and tea, the telling of ourselves in the company of others.
"It's always more comfortable to stay where you are more comfortable," says Hughie. Some nodding follows.
The UPS man brings latest issue of Maine Boats & Harbors, The Magazine of the Coast. In the magazine, Peter H. Spectre, in an article "Mal de Mer," ends his story about a ferry crossing with the following:
Or, as the humorist Josh Billings once wrote, "One of the best temporary cures for pride and affectation is seasickness; a man who wants to vomit never puts on airs."
The nautical solution to the current winds of war might be an invitation to Mr. Bush and Mr. Hussein to take a ferry ride together and talk about how to humanely and sensibly conclude their uncertain travels with each other.
They, like Roethke’s final line, might come to something without knowing why.
Thursday, January 23, 2003
Dredging is finished. Harbor is bare. And deeper.
The unwillingness to live sharing who we are and what we have is crippling the human race. This is the Christian secret: God and humankind are not two, not one. Each is itself. The Christ has realized the secret. The Christ shows there is no secret. All is revealed from the beginning. Do we see?
The contemporary view of abundance and the attainment thereof needs revisioning. Intention doesn't accomplish riches.
Rather, abundance is the reality of all creation. It's all there. But for one thing. That thing is the necessity for humankind to let go what they grasp onto as their personal and sole possession and enter empty into the fullness of all things.
Each belongs to itself. No one owns anything. We can only exercise right of use. Proper exercise and use of what is right – this is what keeps us healthy.
For us today, poverty is an enemy to destroy. To Francis and Jesus poverty was a grace. What is ungraceful is our penchant to sequester and hoard what is necessary for the lives of others.
There is nothing wrong with wealth. Many claim much good is accomplished by wealth. And it is.
What always surprises is a belief system that suggests poor people are either undeserving or undesiring of abundance.
Sunlight streams on the river stone.
From high above, the river steadily plunges.
Three thousand feet of sparkling water,
The Milky Way pouring down from heaven.
- Li T’ai-po (701-?)
If tomorrow a catastrophe demolishes with the force of cataclysmic destruction, and all material financial wealth is eradicated in this apocalypse, then who is richer than another? Who is neighbor worth anything? Who shares water? Who shares bread? Who comforts the suffering? Who clothes broken bodies? Who heals splintered spirits? Who has words of solace? Who walks with another to safety? Who pronounces our name with love?
It escapes me how we can so easily forget who we are in each other's lives. Is devastation our only wake-up stick? Are the final gifts we receive following the loss of everything else: 1) our realization we’ve been ignorant, and, 2) our recognition we’ve forgotten why we were born?
Will our realization and recognition result in simplicity of awareness and remembrance at the end?
Allowing each to be itself, acknowledging each as itself – these are gifts.
We can practice now, if we choose, the simplicity of final gifts.
Is this, finally, how heaven pours out from us?
The unwillingness to live sharing who we are and what we have is crippling the human race. This is the Christian secret: God and humankind are not two, not one. Each is itself. The Christ has realized the secret. The Christ shows there is no secret. All is revealed from the beginning. Do we see?
The contemporary view of abundance and the attainment thereof needs revisioning. Intention doesn't accomplish riches.
Rather, abundance is the reality of all creation. It's all there. But for one thing. That thing is the necessity for humankind to let go what they grasp onto as their personal and sole possession and enter empty into the fullness of all things.
Each belongs to itself. No one owns anything. We can only exercise right of use. Proper exercise and use of what is right – this is what keeps us healthy.
For us today, poverty is an enemy to destroy. To Francis and Jesus poverty was a grace. What is ungraceful is our penchant to sequester and hoard what is necessary for the lives of others.
There is nothing wrong with wealth. Many claim much good is accomplished by wealth. And it is.
What always surprises is a belief system that suggests poor people are either undeserving or undesiring of abundance.
Sunlight streams on the river stone.
From high above, the river steadily plunges.
Three thousand feet of sparkling water,
The Milky Way pouring down from heaven.
- Li T’ai-po (701-?)
If tomorrow a catastrophe demolishes with the force of cataclysmic destruction, and all material financial wealth is eradicated in this apocalypse, then who is richer than another? Who is neighbor worth anything? Who shares water? Who shares bread? Who comforts the suffering? Who clothes broken bodies? Who heals splintered spirits? Who has words of solace? Who walks with another to safety? Who pronounces our name with love?
It escapes me how we can so easily forget who we are in each other's lives. Is devastation our only wake-up stick? Are the final gifts we receive following the loss of everything else: 1) our realization we’ve been ignorant, and, 2) our recognition we’ve forgotten why we were born?
Will our realization and recognition result in simplicity of awareness and remembrance at the end?
Allowing each to be itself, acknowledging each as itself – these are gifts.
We can practice now, if we choose, the simplicity of final gifts.
Is this, finally, how heaven pours out from us?
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Wait and see!
Anthem
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.
The wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again;
the dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed,
the marriage spent;
the widowhood
of every government--
signs for all to see.
Can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned up
a thundercloud
They're going to hear from me
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
There is no drum.
Every heart
To love will come
but like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
(-- From: "Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs," by Leonard Cohen
McClelland & Stewart, 1993)
It once seemed that 'wait and see' was a lukewarm delaying tactic phrased by skeptical speaker. Now 'wait and see' means just what it says.
Wait -- be patient, attentive, and willing to sit or stand for a while. In fact, the notion of ‘waiting’ is not really waiting. It is being patient, that is, allowing what is there to be there. It is attentive, which is alert, present, and watchful. And it is willing to be still in mind and/or body, a stillness that does not try to solve or chase away the matter at hand.
See -- just see. Allow the hidden connections to reveal themselves. Permit what is revealing itself to emerge in its own manifestation. Let the fact and reality display its full shape and form inch-by-inch, piece-by-piece.
So, to wait and see is an act of profound faith that what is there is there, and what is not there is not there. No lukewarm delaying, no skeptical doubt. Rather a trust that whatever reveals itself is the will of God at that instant in that form. To wait and see is no longer wary doubt. It is joyful hope at what is coming in our midst.
Some ask whether God wills evil. I don't know. I'd prefer to wait and see whether the evil being done will crack open to reveal a light through it that will heal and transform. Leonard Cohen’s words suggest the crack in everything is how the light gets in.
In the ultimate stillness
Light penetrates the whole realm;
In the still illumination,
There pervades pure emptiness.
When I look back on the
Phenomenal world,
Everything is just
Like a dream.
- Han-shan Te-Ch'ing
At Meetingbrook, light searches for the crack in our thinking. If we pray, is that the crack? If we wait and see, is that a trusting which reveals what we need to know and do?
Stay where and as we are? Speak with others about a fuller, more consolidated expression of three interests:
1. A Laura Common, (that is, A Loosely Knit Community of Individuals Practicing Spirituality in The Thin Place).
2. A Schola Contemplationis et Gratia, (that is, An Open Ongoing Place of Community and Hospitality of Contemplation, Conversation, and Correspondence) to practice with others, speak and learn with others, and enter into engaged service with others.
3. A Community Cafe, Bakery, & Bookshop, that is, a meeting place for the intersection of generations (young with older), perspectives (spiritual, intellectual, personal experience and stories), and service (engaged extension into prison, nursing home, shut-ins, and other places of human need and caring.)
Would this place be in a former Inn that could house and serve these and other events? A place with room for chapel, meditation hall, library, cafe, rooms for retreatants, visitors to area? A place for conversation, poetry, music, art, exploring new expressions of healthy meaningful neighborliness? And would there be enough generosity of vision, spirit, and finances to create a solid and simple community resource that is self-sustainable?
Whether war or community, we wait and see. There are so many reasons for human beings to go their own way, grab what they can, and hoard their fears, talents, and loneliness. Is there heart enough to travel together to a still quiet place of joyful engagement and aloneness with each other?
We watch and pray.
Will you too watch and pray, wait and see?
Anthem
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.
The wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again;
the dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed,
the marriage spent;
the widowhood
of every government--
signs for all to see.
Can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned up
a thundercloud
They're going to hear from me
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
There is no drum.
Every heart
To love will come
but like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
(-- From: "Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs," by Leonard Cohen
McClelland & Stewart, 1993)
It once seemed that 'wait and see' was a lukewarm delaying tactic phrased by skeptical speaker. Now 'wait and see' means just what it says.
Wait -- be patient, attentive, and willing to sit or stand for a while. In fact, the notion of ‘waiting’ is not really waiting. It is being patient, that is, allowing what is there to be there. It is attentive, which is alert, present, and watchful. And it is willing to be still in mind and/or body, a stillness that does not try to solve or chase away the matter at hand.
See -- just see. Allow the hidden connections to reveal themselves. Permit what is revealing itself to emerge in its own manifestation. Let the fact and reality display its full shape and form inch-by-inch, piece-by-piece.
So, to wait and see is an act of profound faith that what is there is there, and what is not there is not there. No lukewarm delaying, no skeptical doubt. Rather a trust that whatever reveals itself is the will of God at that instant in that form. To wait and see is no longer wary doubt. It is joyful hope at what is coming in our midst.
Some ask whether God wills evil. I don't know. I'd prefer to wait and see whether the evil being done will crack open to reveal a light through it that will heal and transform. Leonard Cohen’s words suggest the crack in everything is how the light gets in.
In the ultimate stillness
Light penetrates the whole realm;
In the still illumination,
There pervades pure emptiness.
When I look back on the
Phenomenal world,
Everything is just
Like a dream.
- Han-shan Te-Ch'ing
At Meetingbrook, light searches for the crack in our thinking. If we pray, is that the crack? If we wait and see, is that a trusting which reveals what we need to know and do?
Stay where and as we are? Speak with others about a fuller, more consolidated expression of three interests:
1. A Laura Common, (that is, A Loosely Knit Community of Individuals Practicing Spirituality in The Thin Place).
2. A Schola Contemplationis et Gratia, (that is, An Open Ongoing Place of Community and Hospitality of Contemplation, Conversation, and Correspondence) to practice with others, speak and learn with others, and enter into engaged service with others.
3. A Community Cafe, Bakery, & Bookshop, that is, a meeting place for the intersection of generations (young with older), perspectives (spiritual, intellectual, personal experience and stories), and service (engaged extension into prison, nursing home, shut-ins, and other places of human need and caring.)
Would this place be in a former Inn that could house and serve these and other events? A place with room for chapel, meditation hall, library, cafe, rooms for retreatants, visitors to area? A place for conversation, poetry, music, art, exploring new expressions of healthy meaningful neighborliness? And would there be enough generosity of vision, spirit, and finances to create a solid and simple community resource that is self-sustainable?
Whether war or community, we wait and see. There are so many reasons for human beings to go their own way, grab what they can, and hoard their fears, talents, and loneliness. Is there heart enough to travel together to a still quiet place of joyful engagement and aloneness with each other?
We watch and pray.
Will you too watch and pray, wait and see?
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
A cranky friend writes,
Wrong again. It's not George Bush or Saddam Hussein. It's the thoughts of people that are causing all the problem. The leaders just out picture the
force that's already there. When we as a people can learn to control our thoughts and out picture all that's good then peace will come; meanwhile join
the race, human that is...
D.
Returning from southern Maine it is hard not to be surprised by the crowdedness and busyness there.
Still, one's hermitage is one's heart.
The old timers say, "Don't leave your hermitage!"
I have discarded the world of fame and profit.
How elegant is the morning sun
Shining on the rafters and eaves.
How cool are the terrace and pond after the rain.
I burn incense to break the deep silence,
And drink the spring water and relax in joy.
I penetrate into the wonders of Tao,
And chant ancient sutras.
When my mind is at ease, my spirit is gay.
When understanding is gained,
There is nothing left to comprehend.
Who can say that the realm of Tao is far from us?
How tranquil it is;
As at the beginning of Heaven and Earth.
- Ni T'san (1301-1374)
What howling winds shriek between the mountains! Wind chill will average -25degrees tonight.
Heaven and earth begin in our thoughts and come to reside in our hearts.
It is there we pray. It is there we ponder. It is there we attempt to say, "Father! Mother! My home!"
There may be nothing left to comprehend.
Still, one's heart is one's hermitage.
Wrong again. It's not George Bush or Saddam Hussein. It's the thoughts of people that are causing all the problem. The leaders just out picture the
force that's already there. When we as a people can learn to control our thoughts and out picture all that's good then peace will come; meanwhile join
the race, human that is...
D.
Returning from southern Maine it is hard not to be surprised by the crowdedness and busyness there.
Still, one's hermitage is one's heart.
The old timers say, "Don't leave your hermitage!"
I have discarded the world of fame and profit.
How elegant is the morning sun
Shining on the rafters and eaves.
How cool are the terrace and pond after the rain.
I burn incense to break the deep silence,
And drink the spring water and relax in joy.
I penetrate into the wonders of Tao,
And chant ancient sutras.
When my mind is at ease, my spirit is gay.
When understanding is gained,
There is nothing left to comprehend.
Who can say that the realm of Tao is far from us?
How tranquil it is;
As at the beginning of Heaven and Earth.
- Ni T'san (1301-1374)
What howling winds shriek between the mountains! Wind chill will average -25degrees tonight.
Heaven and earth begin in our thoughts and come to reside in our hearts.
It is there we pray. It is there we ponder. It is there we attempt to say, "Father! Mother! My home!"
There may be nothing left to comprehend.
Still, one's heart is one's hermitage.
Sunday, January 19, 2003
If solitude is the teacher, silence the teaching – then we are students just beginning the practice of learning.
.
If silence is the language of God, creation God's body -- then we are words filled with breath and emptiness.
If we are not deep listening, not loving speech -- then no other prayer can emerge from this human existence to reveal to us the Holy Spirit of Love and Truth.
Divination showed my place
among these bunched cliffs
where faint trails cut off
traces of men and women.
What’s beyond the yard?
White clouds embracing hidden rocks.
Living here still
after how many years
over and over
I’ve seen spring and winter
change.
Get the word to families
with bells and cauldrons
empty fame has no value.
- Han-shan
Who will deeply listen to George Bush as he talks war? Who will lovingly speak to Saddam Hussein as he listens for drones of destruction?
Who knows silence and the ways of silence?
Perhaps if we weep for the imprisoned and terrified peoples everywhere, Saddam Hussein will look off to the distance where our weeping sounds itself.
Perhaps if we weep for the privileged and wealthy elite everywhere, George Bush will pause listening to see where the sound of sorrow faces itself.
We are losing the Catholic Christian Church; it has forgotten Christ. We are losing the United States of America; it has forgotten the unity of we the people.
Christ is not wanted in the church, and is let go. Liberty and justice for all is not wanted in America, and is buried under mounds of money tagged with the words 'private, corporate interest.'
To those who want war rather than justice, and to those who prize institutions over ordinary people, Han-shan says, "empty fame has no value."
Solitude is the body of God. Silence is the language of God.
Stillness reveals what forgetting conceals. It is time to remember.
Pray for remembrance!
.
If silence is the language of God, creation God's body -- then we are words filled with breath and emptiness.
If we are not deep listening, not loving speech -- then no other prayer can emerge from this human existence to reveal to us the Holy Spirit of Love and Truth.
Divination showed my place
among these bunched cliffs
where faint trails cut off
traces of men and women.
What’s beyond the yard?
White clouds embracing hidden rocks.
Living here still
after how many years
over and over
I’ve seen spring and winter
change.
Get the word to families
with bells and cauldrons
empty fame has no value.
- Han-shan
Who will deeply listen to George Bush as he talks war? Who will lovingly speak to Saddam Hussein as he listens for drones of destruction?
Who knows silence and the ways of silence?
Perhaps if we weep for the imprisoned and terrified peoples everywhere, Saddam Hussein will look off to the distance where our weeping sounds itself.
Perhaps if we weep for the privileged and wealthy elite everywhere, George Bush will pause listening to see where the sound of sorrow faces itself.
We are losing the Catholic Christian Church; it has forgotten Christ. We are losing the United States of America; it has forgotten the unity of we the people.
Christ is not wanted in the church, and is let go. Liberty and justice for all is not wanted in America, and is buried under mounds of money tagged with the words 'private, corporate interest.'
To those who want war rather than justice, and to those who prize institutions over ordinary people, Han-shan says, "empty fame has no value."
Solitude is the body of God. Silence is the language of God.
Stillness reveals what forgetting conceals. It is time to remember.
Pray for remembrance!
Saturday, January 18, 2003
Friday, January 17, 2003
Haiku
broken and troubled
sit together in prison
mending and healing
(wfh)
Mist and fog shroud out
the dust of the world.
Mountain and stream embellish
the place where I live.
At a time like this,
should I turn to scribbling poems,
the breeze and moon would surely
look down on me with scorn.
- Tami No Kurohito (unknown)
At prison today,
twelve converse theme "Beauty Within."
And it was, seen
(wfh)
Perhaps the real joy in conversation is simply conversing with one another.
broken and troubled
sit together in prison
mending and healing
(wfh)
Mist and fog shroud out
the dust of the world.
Mountain and stream embellish
the place where I live.
At a time like this,
should I turn to scribbling poems,
the breeze and moon would surely
look down on me with scorn.
- Tami No Kurohito (unknown)
At prison today,
twelve converse theme "Beauty Within."
And it was, seen
(wfh)
Perhaps the real joy in conversation is simply conversing with one another.
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
At Canadian border yesterday we receive yellow card and invited to pull over, "It came up on computer," said customs woman. A brief glance about and we are free to enter Canada for brief pickup of salami, dog biscuits, grapefruit mineral water, and tea.
It is a surprising thought re-entering the United States that someone at the border might say, "You are under arrest, come with us," and be taken away in handcuffs. No lawyer. No charges. No court hearing. Just handcuffs and jail in the name of national security.
A thousand mountains,
Wind and snow,
Stop me in my lonely tracks;
Turning my head to the western sky,
The road a dead end,
I recall the distant event of
Bodhidharma’s arrival in China
An old monkey howls from the highest peak.
- Wu Hsueh Tsu-Yuan (1226 – 1286)
Along with the innumerable email offers received daily to enlarge penis, buy discount viagra, watch barnyard animals and human females do things I can only hope not to imagine, purchase cheap ink replacements for printer, protect my computer from the destructive viruses of people who send out destructive viruses, and those kind requests from Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa to hold millions of dollars for them for a short while --- there are other emails these days.
These emails ask me to sign petitions and circulate telephone and fax numbers of President Bush and assorted Senators. These pleas worry that Mr. Bush only wants war with Iraq, period. They ask to let him know that a significant number of people do not trust he will keep his word and let inspectors inspect, and use force only as a last resort. They worry bellicosity produces bellicosity. They wonder whether the president is being manipulated by less than honorable intentions of other powerful men in his Republican club. These other emails fear deep damage to democracy and painful harm to America's true strength, namely, freedom and justice, tolerance and inclusivity.
Ninety percent of incoming email is about sex, money, viral war, or personal appearance.
Would that the remaining ten percent celebrated the courage to undertake fellowship and neighborly concern in the form, not of war, but of love.
After Mass this morning we sat silently in the empty church. It is Martin Luther King's birthday. In a speech on 4April1967, one year to the day prior to his assassination on 4April1968, he said:
This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John:
Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today.
( -- from speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City )
Some people change their email address to avoid the unnecessary and superfluous things they receive. Some change their physical address and residence to avoid those who would cowardly harm them. Some even change their country when the fear of loss of liberty and menace of authoritative police and military tactics begin to encroach. Today I long to change the mind of this country from arrogance and fear to open inquiry and love.
I suspect the more honest change would be to change my own mind, to become closer to the twofold invitations of Christianity and Buddhism. One, to empty myself and allow in the form of Christ-mind, the other to empty myself and allow the form of Buddha-mind. These two forms, kenosis and shunyata, are for us the practice of simplicity, integrity, and faithful engagement. Worded differently, it is the practice of attentive presence, root silence, and transparent service.
Can we live this way?
And allow embodying love?
It is a surprising thought re-entering the United States that someone at the border might say, "You are under arrest, come with us," and be taken away in handcuffs. No lawyer. No charges. No court hearing. Just handcuffs and jail in the name of national security.
A thousand mountains,
Wind and snow,
Stop me in my lonely tracks;
Turning my head to the western sky,
The road a dead end,
I recall the distant event of
Bodhidharma’s arrival in China
An old monkey howls from the highest peak.
- Wu Hsueh Tsu-Yuan (1226 – 1286)
Along with the innumerable email offers received daily to enlarge penis, buy discount viagra, watch barnyard animals and human females do things I can only hope not to imagine, purchase cheap ink replacements for printer, protect my computer from the destructive viruses of people who send out destructive viruses, and those kind requests from Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa to hold millions of dollars for them for a short while --- there are other emails these days.
These emails ask me to sign petitions and circulate telephone and fax numbers of President Bush and assorted Senators. These pleas worry that Mr. Bush only wants war with Iraq, period. They ask to let him know that a significant number of people do not trust he will keep his word and let inspectors inspect, and use force only as a last resort. They worry bellicosity produces bellicosity. They wonder whether the president is being manipulated by less than honorable intentions of other powerful men in his Republican club. These other emails fear deep damage to democracy and painful harm to America's true strength, namely, freedom and justice, tolerance and inclusivity.
Ninety percent of incoming email is about sex, money, viral war, or personal appearance.
Would that the remaining ten percent celebrated the courage to undertake fellowship and neighborly concern in the form, not of war, but of love.
After Mass this morning we sat silently in the empty church. It is Martin Luther King's birthday. In a speech on 4April1967, one year to the day prior to his assassination on 4April1968, he said:
This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John:
Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today.
( -- from speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City )
Some people change their email address to avoid the unnecessary and superfluous things they receive. Some change their physical address and residence to avoid those who would cowardly harm them. Some even change their country when the fear of loss of liberty and menace of authoritative police and military tactics begin to encroach. Today I long to change the mind of this country from arrogance and fear to open inquiry and love.
I suspect the more honest change would be to change my own mind, to become closer to the twofold invitations of Christianity and Buddhism. One, to empty myself and allow in the form of Christ-mind, the other to empty myself and allow the form of Buddha-mind. These two forms, kenosis and shunyata, are for us the practice of simplicity, integrity, and faithful engagement. Worded differently, it is the practice of attentive presence, root silence, and transparent service.
Can we live this way?
And allow embodying love?
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Why pray?
If prayer is opening to God, to the person whose voice comes from across the room, to the chickadee on branch, and cat on stairs – why, and to what purpose is prayer?
I don’t know. I pray to find out.
Eagle Poem
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
(Joy Harjo)
The beauty of this life in this world!
"... until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the Providence moves, too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
- Goethe
Men who refuse beauty or who wish its substitute -- power, possessions and wealth -- talk of and plan for war.
Prayer opens to these men in their strategy rooms and uncertainty of heart
Why, and to what purpose?
Begin now prayer.
Begin now peace.
If prayer is opening to God, to the person whose voice comes from across the room, to the chickadee on branch, and cat on stairs – why, and to what purpose is prayer?
I don’t know. I pray to find out.
Eagle Poem
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
(Joy Harjo)
The beauty of this life in this world!
"... until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the Providence moves, too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
- Goethe
Men who refuse beauty or who wish its substitute -- power, possessions and wealth -- talk of and plan for war.
Prayer opens to these men in their strategy rooms and uncertainty of heart
Why, and to what purpose?
Begin now prayer.
Begin now peace.
Monday, January 13, 2003
Icicles hang from eave guarding small window in this room as sunrise lengthens light embrace through them. Ice on window melts and drips. January is soft snow and cold freeze.
I live far off in the wild
Where moss and woods
Are thick and plants perfumed
I can see mountains rain or shine
And never hear market noise
I light a few leaves in my stove to heat tea
To patch my robe I cut off a cloud
Lifetimes seldom fill a hundred years
Why suffer for profit and fame?
- Stonehouse (dailyzen.com)
There is no cutting away the human to reach for the divine. Each is in each. They grow together like water and ice. No water, no ice. When season matures, sun comes, melts ice, only water.
But in deep cold of January sun is able only to shine through ice, illuminate it, and reside thereby within and without even in this state of hard encased stillness.
The term [Pleroma] is used in John's gospel...to indicate the perfect presence of divinity in Christ, who is the place where God dwells bodily, but also to indicate Christ as the whole measure of divinity, knowable through the church, his body. (p.698, Encyclopedia of the Early Church, entry by L. Vanyo)
Church, whoever is gathered in the consciousness of Christ, is the body of Christ. Christ is the fullness of the place "where God dwells bodily." Whether zendo, chapel, circle conversation, one-to-one soul-friend meeting, or ever-solitary meander through crunching snow -- it is our good fortune to be body here on earth.
It is not a matter of 'believing' in God. It is the matter of 'being' in God. Being in God as water in ice, as ice in light, and as the slow movement -- lengthening and shortening -- of all three in the world of winter.
There is no need to suffer for profit and fame. We suffer, rather, the coming-to-light of all that is hidden in shadow.
There is no one without the other. Here is one within no other.
Morning! The spirit of birds blur past bright icicles.
I live far off in the wild
Where moss and woods
Are thick and plants perfumed
I can see mountains rain or shine
And never hear market noise
I light a few leaves in my stove to heat tea
To patch my robe I cut off a cloud
Lifetimes seldom fill a hundred years
Why suffer for profit and fame?
- Stonehouse (dailyzen.com)
There is no cutting away the human to reach for the divine. Each is in each. They grow together like water and ice. No water, no ice. When season matures, sun comes, melts ice, only water.
But in deep cold of January sun is able only to shine through ice, illuminate it, and reside thereby within and without even in this state of hard encased stillness.
The term [Pleroma] is used in John's gospel...to indicate the perfect presence of divinity in Christ, who is the place where God dwells bodily, but also to indicate Christ as the whole measure of divinity, knowable through the church, his body. (p.698, Encyclopedia of the Early Church, entry by L. Vanyo)
Church, whoever is gathered in the consciousness of Christ, is the body of Christ. Christ is the fullness of the place "where God dwells bodily." Whether zendo, chapel, circle conversation, one-to-one soul-friend meeting, or ever-solitary meander through crunching snow -- it is our good fortune to be body here on earth.
It is not a matter of 'believing' in God. It is the matter of 'being' in God. Being in God as water in ice, as ice in light, and as the slow movement -- lengthening and shortening -- of all three in the world of winter.
There is no need to suffer for profit and fame. We suffer, rather, the coming-to-light of all that is hidden in shadow.
There is no one without the other. Here is one within no other.
Morning! The spirit of birds blur past bright icicles.
Sunday, January 12, 2003
No water, no life.
The Great Person from time past
Had no fixed abode.
In famed mountains hid his traces,
Grew old amid wind and frost.
From afar, I see your
White-rock hermitage,
Hidden in a haze
Of evergreen trees.
When the moon sets,
It’s mind-watching time;
Clouds arise
In your closed eyes.
Just before dawn, temple bells
Sound from neighboring peaks;
Waterfalls hang thousands of feet
In emptiness.
Moss and lichen
Cover the cliff face;
A narrow, indistinct path
Leads to you.
- Chia Tao (779-843)
It is not distant and separated seclusion the hermit seeks. The hermit seeks pure nature and distinct reality in human nature and the indistinct dispersions of our common everyday experience.
After Saturday Morning Conversation with Richard and Susan it was suggested it is not an oppositional stance the hermit takes, rather a stance in the middle of the values of the society and culture, a stance that dissolves within immediate reality.
Thus says the Lord: All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk! Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare. Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life. (Isaiah 55)
Salt doesn't lose its flavor after it dissolves in water. It is not pure salt; it is salt water. Hermits do not lose their distinctive quiet presence after they disappear into the marketplace. They are not separated seclusion; they are inclusive immersion.
Baptism immerses us in everyday reality permeated with Christic grace. Jesus came to it with John at Jordan. We must face our own beginningless and endless interpenetration with God in all things, in beings with indistinct meander.
"You," said the voice in the Christ experience of Jesus, "are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased."
Come to the water. Come to life.
They lead to you.
Where else would God be watching?
Be well? Be pleased? Be loved?
The Great Person from time past
Had no fixed abode.
In famed mountains hid his traces,
Grew old amid wind and frost.
From afar, I see your
White-rock hermitage,
Hidden in a haze
Of evergreen trees.
When the moon sets,
It’s mind-watching time;
Clouds arise
In your closed eyes.
Just before dawn, temple bells
Sound from neighboring peaks;
Waterfalls hang thousands of feet
In emptiness.
Moss and lichen
Cover the cliff face;
A narrow, indistinct path
Leads to you.
- Chia Tao (779-843)
It is not distant and separated seclusion the hermit seeks. The hermit seeks pure nature and distinct reality in human nature and the indistinct dispersions of our common everyday experience.
After Saturday Morning Conversation with Richard and Susan it was suggested it is not an oppositional stance the hermit takes, rather a stance in the middle of the values of the society and culture, a stance that dissolves within immediate reality.
Thus says the Lord: All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk! Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare. Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life. (Isaiah 55)
Salt doesn't lose its flavor after it dissolves in water. It is not pure salt; it is salt water. Hermits do not lose their distinctive quiet presence after they disappear into the marketplace. They are not separated seclusion; they are inclusive immersion.
Baptism immerses us in everyday reality permeated with Christic grace. Jesus came to it with John at Jordan. We must face our own beginningless and endless interpenetration with God in all things, in beings with indistinct meander.
"You," said the voice in the Christ experience of Jesus, "are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased."
Come to the water. Come to life.
They lead to you.
Where else would God be watching?
Be well? Be pleased? Be loved?
Friday, January 10, 2003
Letter to Rick in Missouri:
More specifically, it's just Saskia and I (with dogs and cat, of course) residing at hermitage. We continue to wish to dwell as hermits in the everydayness of the marketplace. Thus, many of our "conversations" are in town in the bookshop. There are several who would like to be part of a Laura of Hermits, i.e. a community of hermits. I can barely organize myself out of my pajamas -- and so have little skill or energy to contribute to that.
A hermit is one living alone. A Meetingbrook hermit ponders the words, "Embodying the dwelling place of the Alone, stepping aside to make room for another." Dwelling alone with the Alone does not mean isolation from others. It suggests dwelling as no barrier.
We are not a Zen center as typically conceived, as is in Missouri. Thank you for the link. By practicing between traditions, we actually are neither here nor there, but continually pass through a "thin place" which often feels like a mirror's surface, where in and out know no difference, yet are not the same.
The very attempt to see this kind of life through feels like a koan.
God is God; No God is no God. Zen is Zen; No Zen is no Zen.
Saying, "yes" to each of these phrases places us, unknowing, in the middle of our life.
Much was made last night at the bookshop during our conversation after reading Meister Eckhart's 'The Noble Man' that there is a "knowing" that occurs that is beyond beliefs, beyond mere thought and experience. While I affirm that reality, I question it.
It still seems to me that this kind of 'knowing' is a wink-wink, nod-nod secret handshake type of posing that must be watched carefully. It is my suspicion that if someone really didn't know, i.e. looked from a don't know mind, there wouldn't be anything other than the don't know reflection mirroring the presence of the one there.
Francis didn't know Christ, Francis mirrored Christ. The Zen practitioner doesn't know everyday extinguishment, that person is right there by being transparent and empty.
God is being there. "Da-sein," the German word literally translated "there-being," is used to signify 'man' or a human being. For Christians the mystery asks them to ponder, "What does it mean to say that God became human?" What does being there, or being here, or being anywhere have to do with God?
Zen asks, "What is this?" By calling each into the question of "What is," we are invited to dwell as "this" wherever we are. Bird comes, bird. Joanie comes, Joanie. Tom the mailman comes, Tom the mailman. Dredging barge in harbor comes, dredging barge. Snow falling on Friday morning, snow falling on Friday morning.
Enough for now. So it is, always, enough for now.
Best,
More specifically, it's just Saskia and I (with dogs and cat, of course) residing at hermitage. We continue to wish to dwell as hermits in the everydayness of the marketplace. Thus, many of our "conversations" are in town in the bookshop. There are several who would like to be part of a Laura of Hermits, i.e. a community of hermits. I can barely organize myself out of my pajamas -- and so have little skill or energy to contribute to that.
A hermit is one living alone. A Meetingbrook hermit ponders the words, "Embodying the dwelling place of the Alone, stepping aside to make room for another." Dwelling alone with the Alone does not mean isolation from others. It suggests dwelling as no barrier.
We are not a Zen center as typically conceived, as is in Missouri. Thank you for the link. By practicing between traditions, we actually are neither here nor there, but continually pass through a "thin place" which often feels like a mirror's surface, where in and out know no difference, yet are not the same.
The very attempt to see this kind of life through feels like a koan.
God is God; No God is no God. Zen is Zen; No Zen is no Zen.
Saying, "yes" to each of these phrases places us, unknowing, in the middle of our life.
Much was made last night at the bookshop during our conversation after reading Meister Eckhart's 'The Noble Man' that there is a "knowing" that occurs that is beyond beliefs, beyond mere thought and experience. While I affirm that reality, I question it.
It still seems to me that this kind of 'knowing' is a wink-wink, nod-nod secret handshake type of posing that must be watched carefully. It is my suspicion that if someone really didn't know, i.e. looked from a don't know mind, there wouldn't be anything other than the don't know reflection mirroring the presence of the one there.
Francis didn't know Christ, Francis mirrored Christ. The Zen practitioner doesn't know everyday extinguishment, that person is right there by being transparent and empty.
God is being there. "Da-sein," the German word literally translated "there-being," is used to signify 'man' or a human being. For Christians the mystery asks them to ponder, "What does it mean to say that God became human?" What does being there, or being here, or being anywhere have to do with God?
Zen asks, "What is this?" By calling each into the question of "What is," we are invited to dwell as "this" wherever we are. Bird comes, bird. Joanie comes, Joanie. Tom the mailman comes, Tom the mailman. Dredging barge in harbor comes, dredging barge. Snow falling on Friday morning, snow falling on Friday morning.
Enough for now. So it is, always, enough for now.
Best,
Thursday, January 09, 2003
Who knows about God?
A man from Missouri writes and asks about Francis of Assisi and Zen. It is a kind question. He invites looking at what is the relation of theistic approach with Francis and non-theistic with Zen.
Practicing Zen is zazen. For zazen, a quiet place is suitable. Lay out a thick mat. Do not let in drafts or smoke, rain, or dew. Protect and maintain the place where you settle your body. There are examples from the past of sitting on a diamond seat and sitting on a flat stone covered with at thick layer of grass. Day or night the place of sitting should not be dark; it should be kept warm in winter and cool in summer.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
The cabin and front room of house are the sitting places we share. Cabin sits cold during week, front room warm. Lights from stars, moon, and Snow Bowl wander cabin through night. Light from vigil lamp stays on cross with Jesus, icon of mother and child, and sitting Buddha in front window of house. Each stays steady through night.
Who knows or does not know about God? Francis lived connected with all that was there in the Umbrian Hills. Zen is the eyesight of leaves, grass, dove, and squirrel in the hills of Ragged and Bald. Francis knew no other. Dogen changed verb from "has" to "is." Everything, he said, is Buddha-nature. So, to it he looked, and so, as it he watched.
The Soto tradition says -- Just sit! Just do what you are doing. Stand when standing, eat when eating, and make no image when no image need be made.
Francis loved Jesus, so, his spirit mirrored Christ's spirit, his body Jesus' body. There is a place in the speaking about mirrors where there is no subject reflecting object. At that nearside, the place where image and reality are not two, is a transitus. The Latin word, transitus : translates as "crossing, passing over, transit /changing, alteration." Stepping into the mirror changes everything. Inside and outside fall away. All opposites evaporate and become each other. Looking shifts from "at" to "as."
As hermits who live temporarily in both a hermitage and in the marketplace we are learning to live in the midst of others as no other. For us this means we live in distant and separated seclusion from the values of our culture that are hostile to the sacredness of every being or antipathetic to the stillness, silence, and solitude of true nature.
We choose the paradox of living alone with others, together with all alone. Close is too far. Near is not far enough. What Nishitani calls the absolute nearside is neither here nor there – it is all there is here now.
Who doesn't know about God?
Not two of us, not one of us.
Dogs bark in frozen snow outdoors. Bell rings at bottom of stairs for dinner.
Thank you for asking, Rick.
A man from Missouri writes and asks about Francis of Assisi and Zen. It is a kind question. He invites looking at what is the relation of theistic approach with Francis and non-theistic with Zen.
Practicing Zen is zazen. For zazen, a quiet place is suitable. Lay out a thick mat. Do not let in drafts or smoke, rain, or dew. Protect and maintain the place where you settle your body. There are examples from the past of sitting on a diamond seat and sitting on a flat stone covered with at thick layer of grass. Day or night the place of sitting should not be dark; it should be kept warm in winter and cool in summer.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
The cabin and front room of house are the sitting places we share. Cabin sits cold during week, front room warm. Lights from stars, moon, and Snow Bowl wander cabin through night. Light from vigil lamp stays on cross with Jesus, icon of mother and child, and sitting Buddha in front window of house. Each stays steady through night.
Who knows or does not know about God? Francis lived connected with all that was there in the Umbrian Hills. Zen is the eyesight of leaves, grass, dove, and squirrel in the hills of Ragged and Bald. Francis knew no other. Dogen changed verb from "has" to "is." Everything, he said, is Buddha-nature. So, to it he looked, and so, as it he watched.
The Soto tradition says -- Just sit! Just do what you are doing. Stand when standing, eat when eating, and make no image when no image need be made.
Francis loved Jesus, so, his spirit mirrored Christ's spirit, his body Jesus' body. There is a place in the speaking about mirrors where there is no subject reflecting object. At that nearside, the place where image and reality are not two, is a transitus. The Latin word, transitus : translates as "crossing, passing over, transit /changing, alteration." Stepping into the mirror changes everything. Inside and outside fall away. All opposites evaporate and become each other. Looking shifts from "at" to "as."
As hermits who live temporarily in both a hermitage and in the marketplace we are learning to live in the midst of others as no other. For us this means we live in distant and separated seclusion from the values of our culture that are hostile to the sacredness of every being or antipathetic to the stillness, silence, and solitude of true nature.
We choose the paradox of living alone with others, together with all alone. Close is too far. Near is not far enough. What Nishitani calls the absolute nearside is neither here nor there – it is all there is here now.
Who doesn't know about God?
Not two of us, not one of us.
Dogs bark in frozen snow outdoors. Bell rings at bottom of stairs for dinner.
Thank you for asking, Rick.
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
The bookshop/bakery will re-open today at 4:00pm. There will be Buddhist Studies at 5:30pm.
January 2003 Events
All Events at Meetingbrook are free, open & informal
Note: There are several changes on schedule, including Winter Hours, and Evening Conversations. 1) We’ll be closed Mondays and Tuesdays in winter. 2) Maybe Zen, Maybe Not, A Practice/Study focusing on Buddhist Meditative Tradition will be held on Friday Evenings, 5:30-6:30pm 3) A new conversation, Tea and Literature, will be held Saturday afternoons.
Note: Consult "Today at Meetingbrook” for any changes in shedule.
MORNING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE. (6:05am-6: 35am) Silent Sitting - 30 minutes, daily. Then follows (6:40am-7:00am) Chanting/Mindfulness Walking (MWF Christian; TTh Buddhist). Whatever your tradition or practice come sit together. Simply enter, sit, & leave in silence. Note: For the winter, the cabin will be heated only on weekends. Sat/Sun sittings and practices take place at the Cabin just up from the barn. Weekdays held in house front room.
SATURDAY MORNING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE – Weekly Lectio Divina: Sat, 6:45am-8:00am; (In Cabin) Monthly Retreat 7 hrs, 18Jan; 6am-1pm, (Buddhist focus this month)
SUNDAY EVENING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE Each Sunday evening, 6:00-8:00pm. Practice Silent Sitting, Walking, Listening, Eating, Conversing, Chanting. (12,26Jan.Buddhist focus; 5,19Jan.Christian focus) All welcome.
A Place of Conversation, Collation, and Recollection at Camden Harbor
Come anytime, each conversation stands alone.
WEDNESDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30-6:30pm
Wed. 8Jan.03 Topic: Reading The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain. A reading circle
Wed. 15Jan03 Topic: In whose name? A conversation about the threat of war.
Wed. 22Jan03 Topic: Reading The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain. A reading circle
Wed. 29Jan03 Laura Soul-Friend Circle: A monthly reflection about personal spiritual well-being.
THURSDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP
5:30pm-6:30pm.Stepping into the Mirror, A Practice/Study focusing on Christian Contemplative Tradition. Currently reading Selected Writings, by Meister Eckhart. (1260-1328)
FRIDAY EVENING CONVERSATIONS AT THE BOOKSHOP
4:30pm - 5:30pm Poetry. Open gathering invites anyone to bring poetry to read, whether own or others’. “Poetry” for us is Poems, Letters, & Pieces of Journals. From time to time we might even write.
5:30pm-6:30pm Maybe Zen, Maybe Not, A Practice/Study focusing on Buddhist Meditative Tradition. Currently reading Nothing Special, Living Zen, by Charlotte Joko Beck
SATURDAY MORNING & EVENING CONVERSATIONS AT THE BOOKSHOP
9:00am-10:00am: The Many Faces of Death. We are reading book, The Grace in Dying – How We Are Transformed Spiritually As We Die, by Kathleen Dowling Singh. Come by any week.
4:30pm-5:30pm: Tea and Literature. For one hour we’ll read and converse about a prose piece, essay, or short story. (Fiction or non-fiction). Bring or suggest a piece.
MUSIC REHEARSAL AT THE BOOKSHOP
1:00pm-3:00pm (approx) Every Wednesday and Sunday Afternoon. A group playing effort. Join in. Also, any other days for individuals. An opportunity to rehearse with ease in a public place, anytime.
Bookshop & Bakery Schedule
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays,
Open:
Wednesday Noon-7:00pm
Thursday 10:30am-7:00pm
Friday 10:30am-7:00pm
Saturday 9:00am- 6:00pm
Sunday 10:30am- 5:30pm
January 2003 Events
All Events at Meetingbrook are free, open & informal
Note: There are several changes on schedule, including Winter Hours, and Evening Conversations. 1) We’ll be closed Mondays and Tuesdays in winter. 2) Maybe Zen, Maybe Not, A Practice/Study focusing on Buddhist Meditative Tradition will be held on Friday Evenings, 5:30-6:30pm 3) A new conversation, Tea and Literature, will be held Saturday afternoons.
Note: Consult "Today at Meetingbrook” for any changes in shedule.
MORNING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE. (6:05am-6: 35am) Silent Sitting - 30 minutes, daily. Then follows (6:40am-7:00am) Chanting/Mindfulness Walking (MWF Christian; TTh Buddhist). Whatever your tradition or practice come sit together. Simply enter, sit, & leave in silence. Note: For the winter, the cabin will be heated only on weekends. Sat/Sun sittings and practices take place at the Cabin just up from the barn. Weekdays held in house front room.
SATURDAY MORNING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE – Weekly Lectio Divina: Sat, 6:45am-8:00am; (In Cabin) Monthly Retreat 7 hrs, 18Jan; 6am-1pm, (Buddhist focus this month)
SUNDAY EVENING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE Each Sunday evening, 6:00-8:00pm. Practice Silent Sitting, Walking, Listening, Eating, Conversing, Chanting. (12,26Jan.Buddhist focus; 5,19Jan.Christian focus) All welcome.
A Place of Conversation, Collation, and Recollection at Camden Harbor
Come anytime, each conversation stands alone.
WEDNESDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30-6:30pm
Wed. 8Jan.03 Topic: Reading The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain. A reading circle
Wed. 15Jan03 Topic: In whose name? A conversation about the threat of war.
Wed. 22Jan03 Topic: Reading The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain. A reading circle
Wed. 29Jan03 Laura Soul-Friend Circle: A monthly reflection about personal spiritual well-being.
THURSDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP
5:30pm-6:30pm.Stepping into the Mirror, A Practice/Study focusing on Christian Contemplative Tradition. Currently reading Selected Writings, by Meister Eckhart. (1260-1328)
FRIDAY EVENING CONVERSATIONS AT THE BOOKSHOP
4:30pm - 5:30pm Poetry. Open gathering invites anyone to bring poetry to read, whether own or others’. “Poetry” for us is Poems, Letters, & Pieces of Journals. From time to time we might even write.
5:30pm-6:30pm Maybe Zen, Maybe Not, A Practice/Study focusing on Buddhist Meditative Tradition. Currently reading Nothing Special, Living Zen, by Charlotte Joko Beck
SATURDAY MORNING & EVENING CONVERSATIONS AT THE BOOKSHOP
9:00am-10:00am: The Many Faces of Death. We are reading book, The Grace in Dying – How We Are Transformed Spiritually As We Die, by Kathleen Dowling Singh. Come by any week.
4:30pm-5:30pm: Tea and Literature. For one hour we’ll read and converse about a prose piece, essay, or short story. (Fiction or non-fiction). Bring or suggest a piece.
MUSIC REHEARSAL AT THE BOOKSHOP
1:00pm-3:00pm (approx) Every Wednesday and Sunday Afternoon. A group playing effort. Join in. Also, any other days for individuals. An opportunity to rehearse with ease in a public place, anytime.
Bookshop & Bakery Schedule
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays,
Open:
Wednesday Noon-7:00pm
Thursday 10:30am-7:00pm
Friday 10:30am-7:00pm
Saturday 9:00am- 6:00pm
Sunday 10:30am- 5:30pm
Monday, January 06, 2003
The sweet solemnity of Epiphany sees us through.
Is God what is looking through us?
Epi = on, at, besides, after. Phainein = to show. Epiphany is an appearance or manifestation of a divine being.
So many wise ones in our world, so few Magi. So many teachers, so few learners. If teachers are not learners, what then do they teach? If the wise do not embody their wisdom, why travel anywhere to point out the divine shining through another human being?
There is a place we must visit before hanging out a shingle with the word "teacher,” “coach,” “therapist,” or “ordained anything" affixed.
And the people on the street view me behind my own glass in much the same way, and it is the way that I have looked at others in their "foreign licence" cars, and it is the kind of judgement that I myself have made. And yet it seems that neither these people nor this man are in any way unkind and not to understand does not necessarily mean that one is cruel. But one should at least be honest. And perhaps I have tried too hard to be someone else without realizing at first what I presently am, I do not know. I am not sure.
(sic) (Pp.56-57, in story The Vastness of the Dark, in Island, by Alistair MacLeod)
That visit is to the vastness of the dark. It is an inconvenient side trip. It is there, without deflective light from any external source, we begin to see signals and signs pointing to the place we would like to call home, ourselves.
Magi point and leave. Others set up tents, hang out shingles, and ply skills of directing traffic. Like colorful officers waving white-gloved hand signals, those who don't leave direct visitors toward, away from, around, and sometimes through their tents.
God is not in any tent. Magi know this. Magi arrive, leave presents, and leave themselves.
The divine, akin to what Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle points out, shows up and through in a glancing passing presence.
The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. (-- Werner Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927)
No stake fastens the movement of God.
Magi return home. Having seen God, they move on in a delighted weariness continuing their watchful and curious lives.
They move on with what is seeing them on their way.
They see through what is there to be seen through.
They are themselves seen through.
Is God what is looking through us?
Epi = on, at, besides, after. Phainein = to show. Epiphany is an appearance or manifestation of a divine being.
So many wise ones in our world, so few Magi. So many teachers, so few learners. If teachers are not learners, what then do they teach? If the wise do not embody their wisdom, why travel anywhere to point out the divine shining through another human being?
There is a place we must visit before hanging out a shingle with the word "teacher,” “coach,” “therapist,” or “ordained anything" affixed.
And the people on the street view me behind my own glass in much the same way, and it is the way that I have looked at others in their "foreign licence" cars, and it is the kind of judgement that I myself have made. And yet it seems that neither these people nor this man are in any way unkind and not to understand does not necessarily mean that one is cruel. But one should at least be honest. And perhaps I have tried too hard to be someone else without realizing at first what I presently am, I do not know. I am not sure.
(sic) (Pp.56-57, in story The Vastness of the Dark, in Island, by Alistair MacLeod)
That visit is to the vastness of the dark. It is an inconvenient side trip. It is there, without deflective light from any external source, we begin to see signals and signs pointing to the place we would like to call home, ourselves.
Magi point and leave. Others set up tents, hang out shingles, and ply skills of directing traffic. Like colorful officers waving white-gloved hand signals, those who don't leave direct visitors toward, away from, around, and sometimes through their tents.
God is not in any tent. Magi know this. Magi arrive, leave presents, and leave themselves.
The divine, akin to what Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle points out, shows up and through in a glancing passing presence.
The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. (-- Werner Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927)
No stake fastens the movement of God.
Magi return home. Having seen God, they move on in a delighted weariness continuing their watchful and curious lives.
They move on with what is seeing them on their way.
They see through what is there to be seen through.
They are themselves seen through.
Sunday, January 05, 2003
When the divine shines through life, death appears clear and present.
When you are born with a strong presentiment of death, life advances toward birth in reverse. It recovers all of the stages of life in a sort of upside-down evolution: you die, then you live, suffer, and finally are born. Or is it another life that is born on the ruins of death? One feels the need to love, suffer, and be born again only after having known death in oneself. The only life is the one after death. That’s why transfigurations are so rare.
(p.14, in Tears and Saints, by E. M. Cioran)
Is life only seen through death?
Perhaps this is the danger of the Magi. They follow intuition to the divine showing through a child. They’ve brought presents. The present has brought them to their senses. “Now,” they say, “Now we have seen what we have long traveled to see.”
The child is born, recognized, and everyone shivers. They shiver not from some atmospheric chilliness. Their shivering is rapt awareness that the gift of life is the gift of death, and that death must be opened first.
For the divine to shine through we must first reconcile humanity to transparency. See life, see death. See death though life; see life through death. Try to hold on to one of them and discard the other, and a contemporary murderous Herod will try to fool you into reporting back to him what you are willing to sell out for a fool’s errand of personal gain, favor, or praise.
Cioran tells Herod, The only life is the one after death.
Herod is tempted to kill. He is wrong. It is a koan, a deep riddle.
See?
What does a lovely transfiguration ordinarily look like?
Do we dare respond with our own epiphany?
When you are born with a strong presentiment of death, life advances toward birth in reverse. It recovers all of the stages of life in a sort of upside-down evolution: you die, then you live, suffer, and finally are born. Or is it another life that is born on the ruins of death? One feels the need to love, suffer, and be born again only after having known death in oneself. The only life is the one after death. That’s why transfigurations are so rare.
(p.14, in Tears and Saints, by E. M. Cioran)
Is life only seen through death?
Perhaps this is the danger of the Magi. They follow intuition to the divine showing through a child. They’ve brought presents. The present has brought them to their senses. “Now,” they say, “Now we have seen what we have long traveled to see.”
The child is born, recognized, and everyone shivers. They shiver not from some atmospheric chilliness. Their shivering is rapt awareness that the gift of life is the gift of death, and that death must be opened first.
For the divine to shine through we must first reconcile humanity to transparency. See life, see death. See death though life; see life through death. Try to hold on to one of them and discard the other, and a contemporary murderous Herod will try to fool you into reporting back to him what you are willing to sell out for a fool’s errand of personal gain, favor, or praise.
Cioran tells Herod, The only life is the one after death.
Herod is tempted to kill. He is wrong. It is a koan, a deep riddle.
See?
What does a lovely transfiguration ordinarily look like?
Do we dare respond with our own epiphany?
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