Senators McCain and Obama met in Louisiana tonight in their first debate. Good for them. We need to hear them side by side.

No matter what they said, the fact of saying it in full sight with no place to hide is important. Even if there are misrepresentations or sleight of hand comments, we can watch how they respond to the peculiar jousts.

Where he lives is indeed most
Elegantly secluded,
And the people who live there
Have all attained tranquility.
Dense groves of bamboo line
Both side of the road,
The clear brook flows by the hut.
How free and relaxed is the monk,
Having abandoned all the worry
And anxiety of the world,
The four meditations unite him
With Suchness so that he regards
Everything as illusory.
- Meng Hao-jan (689-765)

In prison this morning we red Raymond Carver's poem, "Happiness."

Happiness

So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.

When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.

They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.

I think if they could, they would take
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.

They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.

Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.

Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
(Poem by Raymond Carver)

One of the men said he sometimes looks out his window at the chain link fence with rolled razor wire atop, and sees it as beautiful.

To see anything as itself is to see beauty.

The longing to see this moment reveal itself, to see what is wholly itself, is beauty.

Look here!

Beautiful!

God is one.

Monk Ch’ung-fan! Monk Ch’ung-fan!
You left in autumn to go to Mt. Fu-fu,
Now it is spring and you have not yet returned.
You must be fascinated by the bustling scene of
Falling flowers and singing birds,
You must be enjoying the solitude, surrounded
By brooks and mountains just outside your door
And window.
Surrounded by hills, who cares anything about
The affairs of the world?
As the city dwellers gaze into the distance,
They see nothing but peaks covered with clouds.
- Wang Wei (701-761)

There is no other.

We're home.

No matter what they tell us.

I prefer compassion.

To you, who are like a solitary cloud coming
Out freely from the mountain cavern,
Any famous scenic mountain serves as your refuge.
- Yuan-chien

Over being right.

Oscar the dog had a bath. His human companion looks for work. Couple from Florida stop by. Maine autumn briskness delights them.

Toy with the flowers
And their fragrance
Scents your garments.
- Kido Chigu (1185-1269)

Walked to Rockport Harbor and back last evening. At harbor a newly constructed boat sits at dock. I climb stairs to look at her.

ADVENTURE is a 53-foot historic replica of an 18th century colonial trading vessel designed by the late William Baker. She will replace an existing replica that currently is on display at the Charlestowne River landing.
(--Rockport Marine writeup)

Belted Galloway herd chewed hay. Said hello to Herb at his grave site in Rockport Cemetery. In my ear the public radio version of the urgency of financial repair.

This morning, church. Waking at dawn, first color coming from eastern horizon. Water in harbor unmoving. Calm at end of dark night. We ate upstairs after Saskia and Rokpa returned from rowing and I from walk. I'm reading from The Moral of the Story, An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature (Singer and Singer editors). The stories remind just how complex living as a human in this existence can be.

One of the regulars talks to two women about hypnosis, psy-ops, proliferation, and other world issues of population, sustained economies, and personal as well as world problems.

Russian chant plays from cd. Now Gregg and Susan's cd, Rambling Sailors, Wanderlust plays sea chanteys. Four women row out to sailboat for first autumn sail. O'a comes by to pick up Rokpa to play with Bailey the elder poodle up on the 12.8 acres for sale.

I drink Kefir, probiotic raspberry version. The air becomes ungrounded with theories swirling like drunken nutrinos just off their trajectory from some unnamed galaxy.

An Opportunity to Create the Future
It is a characteristic tendency of human beings to indulge in emotions such as happiness, grief, or anger in response to present conditions, failing to balance these feelings with the awareness that present conditions are results of past causes. It is illogical to face the present only as an object of enjoyment or tolerance, neglecting to use it as the opportunity to create the future.
(--Muso Kokushi, in Dream Conversations)

If the world is stranger than can be proven, it is not stranger than we can imagine.

Dissociative fugue: People with this condition dissociate by putting real distance between themselves and their identity. For example, you may abruptly leave home or work and travel away, forgetting who you are and possibly adopting a new identity in a new location. People experiencing dissociative fugue typically retain all their faculties and may be very capable of blending in wherever they end up. A fugue episode may last only a few hours or, rarely, as long as many months. Dissociative fugue typically ends as abruptly as it begins. When it lifts, you may feel intensely disoriented, depressed and angry, with no recollection of what happened during the fugue or how you arrived in such unfamiliar circumstances.
(--MayoClinic.com)

Maybe we don't remember who we are. Maybe there are multiple dimensions and multiple personalities. Maybe there are two, three, four, or five Americas, each ruled by secretive cabals intent on hiding their actions and decisions from each other and from the general populace. I don't know. That's beyond me. I like cookies and peanut butter and jam on English muffins.

The Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs Committee gathered this morning to hear Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission Christopher Cox testify.

But after hours of back-and-forth, the committee’s leaders said explicitly what had seemed clear all day: that they rejected the administration’s plan. “What they have sent us is not acceptable,” the committee chairman, Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, told The Associated Press.

The panel’s ranking Republican agreed. “We have to look at some alternatives,” Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama told The A.P.

One after another throughout the session, senators from both parties said that, while they were prepared to move fast, they were far from ready to give the administration everything it wanted in its proposed $700 billion plan to buy up and hopefully resell troubled mortgage-backed securities. (-- Bailout Plan a Hard Sell on Capitol Hill, By MARK LANDLER and STEVEN LEE MYERS, Published: September 23, 2008 The New York Times)

How do we hear what is true? How put into practice what we know to be true? How do we discern the real from the unreal, the natural and authentic from the fabricated and fraudulent?

His mother and his brothers came looking for him, but they could not get to him because of the crowd. He was told, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside and want to see you’ But he said in answer, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice.’
(--Luke 8:19 - 21)

In quiet places I sometimes ask out loud for help to listen to what is true. I never hear any response out of the ordinary.

Only ordinary sounds.

From mothers'.

Brothers'.

Sisters'.

Hearing.

Sometimes the ugly sound of a bomb is exactly what it is -- an ugly sound. Whether that bomb is made of destructive metal and explosive detonators, or if it is made of 700 billion doubtful dollars, much of which will go to benefit very greedy men and institutions at root the cause of this financial fiasco. The sound of the oncoming bomb should give us pause.

Between the cost of the Iraq war (some three trillion, says the Washington Post) and the cost of the administration's Wall Street debacle (most likely well over one trillion) -- you would think someone would have thought of simple things like health care for everyone, equal expenditure for educational quality for our children, and proper care of bridges and roads. The sound of our imbalanced priorities hurts the ears of anyone listening.

The sound of peaceful music, the sound of terrible noise, are both clearly revealed as they are and nothing else. Nonetheless, we prefer the peacefulness and dislike the irritation of the noise. We try to control, to change things to how we want them. This can be done with a certain degree but cannot be done completely and eternally. If, on the other hand, we accept things as they are and see things as clearly revealed as they are, that acceptance itself is the first step toward unbreakable peacefulness.
- Eido Tai Shimano (b. 1932)

This might be the one straw too many. It's hard to imagine that enormous amounts of money will be paid out to failed leaders by failed leaders while so many support their "betters" utterly against their own interests and needs.

Do not refuse a kindness to anyone who begs it,
if it is in your power to perform it.
Do not say to your neighbour, ‘Go away! Come another time!
I will give it you tomorrow’, if you can do it now.
Do not plot harm against your neighbour
as he lives unsuspecting next door.
Do not pick a groundless quarrel with a man
who has done you no harm.
Do not emulate the man of violence,
never model your conduct on his;
for the wilful wrong-doer is abhorrent to the Lord,
who confides only in honest men.
The Lord’s curse lies on the house of the wicked,
but he blesses the home of the virtuous.
He mocks those who mock,
but accords his favour to the humble.
(Proverbs 3:27 - 34)

Wisdom and humility are in short supply these days. We are crowded in by mocking mendacity.

We need silence. And space for solitude. Stillness and a sense of holy diffidence. All will, we want to think, be well.

Jesus said:
‘No one lights a lamp to cover it with a bowl or to put it under a bed. No, he puts it on a lamp-stand so that people may see the light when they come in. For nothing is hidden but it will be made clear, nothing secret but it will be known and brought to light. So take care how you hear; for anyone who has will be given more; from anyone who has not, even what he thinks he has will be taken away.’
(Luke 8:16 - 18)

Jesus was talking about understanding, not money. If you have it, it will increase. If you don't have it, what little you might think you have will dissipate. To understand requires stark engagement with what is taking place.

It is good counsel to "take care how you hear."

So many sounds come our way. It is difficult to discern the sincere from the sarcastic -- there are training programs to coach the sinister to sound like the sacred.

Only genuine inner silence will hear the difference.

Listen well.

We are brothers and sisters -- first and foremost.

Learn this first.

Peace wants you.

The mountain air sparkles as the sun sets,
Birds in flocks return together.
In these things there is a fundamental truth,
But when I start to explain it, I lose the words.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

Surrender now.

Friday Evening Conversation reading John O'Donohue's Beauty.

Lola begins, and others contribute to, what we might say (right there, right then) 'beauty' is. We arrive at: Beauty is the longing for this moment to reveal itself -- and what is needed -- so to complete itself.

My mind is like an autumn moon,
Pure and transcendentally elegant.
It is impossible to compare
This mind with anything.
How could it be possible
For me to explain it to you?
- Unknown

When things reveal themselves, when someone shows up at a time of need -- we think: 'beautiful!' When early morning sunlight slants through silence, we experience beauty.
When some person appears and presents an unfiltered view of their own mere nature, without pretense or posturing, we share beauty. When that radiant peace that cannot be articulated visits, and we pause in the open place of grace, we have become for that instant and forevermore -- with beauty, beautiful.

Simply give away your beauty
without talk and reckoning.
You are still. She says for you; I am.
And comes in meaning thousandfold,
at last comes over everyone.
(-- Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke)

For 'You are still' the German also allows 'You are silent.'

Explanations, excuses, apologies, attacks and accusations are very often dull reminders we fail beauty.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.
(--Poem by William Carlos Williams)

Read.

And weep.

Here's a solution to the rash lies being promulgated by certain members of the campaign for the American presidency: Do not vote for them. Lies have predominated civic discourse for years. It is time to stop lying. I'll start -- I'll stop.

Only the Things Themselves
What one thinks or reads is always qualified by the preposition "of,"or "about," and does not give us the thing itself. Not mere talk about water, nor the mere sight of a spring, but an actual mouthful of it gives the thirsty complete satisfaction.
(--D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism)

A visiting Baptist minister and his wife visited today. We had a good conversation as brownies baked upstairs. A strong hug said goodbye. We've disagreed over the years. Now none of that matters. We're just who we are.

Tommy and Michael bet a dime whether there'll be a draft by May. I'd lay a side bet their dime won't be worth 4 cents by that time.

"No ideas but in things"
(--William Carlos Williams,from his 1944 poem "A Sort of Song")

Here's the thing: a disaster looms as financial markets collapse and the same government that encouraged predatory lending is patting the failed lenders on the knee, offering their bruised egos some ice cream, and sending them home with a quarter of our future. Meanwhile, foreclosures abound, and the borrowers are out on the curb, no change, no ice cream, no assistance from their government. The scourge of free market socialism for the rich and old fashioned brushoff poverty for the rest of us!

There's scant better humor than Jon Stewart's over the foolishness and crisis.

I don't like the unkind ways the ads have turned.

Appeals to our stupidity are not pretty.

It's hard to laugh them off.

Wall Street is bombed by blind pilots dropping good sense into shredding machines.

the moon's brightness
does it know
where the bombing will be?
(--Santoka Taneda)

The two women talked about their disappointment with the Catholic church and their delight to have made a retreat with Benedictine women. Of course it is strange that monastic spirituality would be deemed other than a Catholic experience.

Maybe it is.

Who else but profoundly contemplative prayerful people would understand the nothing and emptiness of any concept, any image of God.

We laugh together. They play with Rokpa. There is no God.

Like.

God.

What is good for us?

The wind is still, but blossoms fall,
Birds sing in the quiet of the mountain.
This is Kannon’s wondrous wisdom:
Ah!
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

To be here, as who we are, shall we be here.

Last evening's Kabuki theater. Full moon rising seesaws with orange sun falling. Earth rolls with the tide and evening gives round white light in sky a black backdrop. Harvest light from harvest moon.

More and more I realize less and less. As it stands today, I am nobody.

Light

Dwell!
You are the Light itself.
Rely on yourself,
Do not rely on others.
The Dharma is the Light,
Rely on the Dharma.
Do not rely on anything
Other than Dharma.
- Pali verse

I belong nowhere. I know nothing. And even that, I'm not too sure of. To most people, I am nothing. This is a glorious life!

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
(--Poem by Emily Dickinson)

A high school student snaps shutter pointing through window display. Her mother says thank you for the high contrast opportunity. It's what we do.

We'd like to think we're not owned. Not indebted. We are. We'd like to think we are free. Unfettered. Our own persons. We are. Strange to consider that true. Probably is.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which I cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
(--Poem by E.E. Cummings)

Young woman taking side trip from college stops by. We talk a bit. She takes Thomas Merton tapes and says she'll be back.

I'm aware things seem tenuous. Nor does it matter. The sun is out. Peanut butter cookies are handed over. Coffee poured. Plum cake (Flammenkuchen) is cut. Two women ignore me as they come in, look at something, then leave. Such confirmation is rare.

Everything and everybody is intensely fragile.

Stocks and banks fall and fold.

The future is not where some thought it might be.

Among the sorrows that tear a mother's heart, disrespect toward her child by inattentive and neglectful others is particularly hurtful. Mary knows a mother's sorrow.

"Buddhist teachings say that every being has been our mother in the past."
( --from Women of Wisdom, by Tsultrim Allione.)

So much room for sorrow!

49. As the bee takes the essence of a flower and flies away without destroying its beauty and perfume, so let the sage wander in this life. . . .

54. The perfume of flowers goes not against the wind, not even the perfume of sandalwood, of rose-bay, or of jasmine; but the perfume of virtue travels against the wind and reaches unto the ends of the world. . .

58. Even as on a heap of rubbish thrown away by the side of the road a lotus flower may grow and blossom with its pure perfume giving joy to the soul, in the same way among the blind multitudes shines the pure light of wisdom of the student who follows the Buddha, the one who is truly awake.
(from - The Dhammapada, trans. by Juan Murasco from Everyday Mind)

The sorrow Mary experiences now is the tendency of our civilization not to see whole, the denial of whole-sight. There exists, rather, a vapid unwillingness to assent to and confirm all that is, all that is needfully alive, and all that is alive and intimately part of us.

One of the endless fascinations for me in studying Shakespeare's texts is the fact that he does not content himself with one view of any given problem. In Romeo and Juliet, for instance, he does not settle for a simple look at the evils of those who engage in feuding, but he factors in many variations on the theme: people who actively engage in feuding die, people who condone feuding suffer, and people who claim that they do not approve of feuding but who lack the courage or strength to actively oppose or stop it also pay the price for their folly. Romeo and Juliet die for their rashness. The Montagues lose two family members for their feuding, as do the Capulets. Even the Prince suffers the loss of family members because, he says, he ignored the wrong-doing. All are punished. Similarly, in Julius Caesar, an even-handed justice is meted out to a number of people who fail to live up to an appropriate standard of loyalty to others.

(--from "All are Punished": Studying Varying Loyalties in Julius Caesar, by Carolyn P. Henley, http://www.shakespearemag.com/fall98/punished.asp)

In Stonington today a once lovely converted sardine carrier lists to port dishevelled and peeling, hardware tossed haphazardly on upper deck, tied to dock like a disoriented mad-woman in a bad movie lashed to her bunk by her feuding offspring.

Financial institutions that sailed fast and devil-may-care, saddled by an inattentive and dry-rotted non-regulatory administration, come crashing down on ledges at low tide threatening to sink many, a dry-drunk executive unable to connect the dots of forecast, frantic profits, and fiscal folly.

The neglected ship of state and state of ship are two sad sights on a financially sad day.

Still, the sun and brisk wind on a warm September day brought us along the peninsula in good cheer. Visiting wharves and churches, Renys and Good Will, donut shop and small cafe, we eat our way into the middle of the ninth month smelling the fragrance of seaweed in low tide and whitecaps on blustery bay.

There is a way to counter sorrow.

Don't be other than it.

Sorrowful situations demand sorrowful attention.

Then -- move through and beyond it as best you can.

Our mothers wish us well.

Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve!
(Our life, our sweetness, and our hope, greetings!)
(--from anthem, Salve Regina)

Greet well one another.

The cross is the transition from ignorance and harmfulness to true aliveness and wakefulness. To die on the cross is to awaken here and now.

So, when Christians celebrate Jesus' death on the cross, it is not some gruesome murder that is the mystery. Rather the mystery is the transition from unconsciousness to consciousness, from mindless reactive impulse to mindful active feeling. The mystery is that anyone could make that transition given the deceit and misdirection that tries to pass for leadership in this country today.

In spring, hundreds of flowers,
In summer, refreshing breeze.
In autumn, harvest moon,
In winter, snowflakes accompany you.
If useless things do not hang in your mind,
Every season is a good season.
- Mumon (1183-1260)

On the feast of the Holy Cross we celebrate this transition. We die to separation and awake to community. We die to arrogance and wake to genuine inquiry. We die to fragmentary interpretations and awaken to integral realization -- we are one another, we are the earth, we are that of God awakening in this existence.

The corpus is not -- neither dead nor alive. The body is transition.

We are crossing over.

Today we crossed the footbridge in Belfast to visit Alden. We like him. We talk of boats, politics, loved ones gone beyond, and the need to vote intelligently.

Jim loaded his skiff for bay crossing to island.

We cross paths with one another -- enriched by realizations experienced therein and within.

It is a fool's errand to try to nail the world to the cross. Only the individual, voluntarily and free of any duress, can step into or onto the transition -- step openly through awareness transitioning into love, justice, and wholesome equality.

Would that there were one or two of us willing and able to put off false self and take up true self full of grace and wisdom.

Accept no substitutes.

It's not about lies. Everybody tells lies. No, the political lies and distortions are about something else.

Holding his stick,
He points directly to humanity,
Yet as he was originally without form,
This portrait is not true.
His form cannot be seen
As form,
His benevolence is merely his
Natural benevolence.
If, all of a sudden,
You can understand this law,
Then your spirit can roam
Beyond the world.
- Ingen (1592-1673)

What are the lies about?

Death.

Each lie kills without mercy.

Presence, attention, listening, & acceptance. That's the answer.

Here's the question: How do you know someone loves you?

Joshu (778-897) asked his teacher, Nansen (748-834),
“What is the Tao?”
Nansen replied, “Ordinary mind is the Tao.”
Joshu asked, “Shall I try to seek it?”
“If you try for it, you will become apart from it,” Nansen replied.
“How can I know the Tao unless I try for it?” persisted Joshu.
“The Tao is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion, not knowing is ignorance. When you have truly reached the Tao, undoubtedly you will find it as vast as the boundless space. How can it be discussed on the level of right and wrong?” With these words, it is said that Joshu came to a sudden realization.
(- Case 19 from Gateless Gate)

Tomorrow on Schooner Bowditch, a memorial for Richard. He died the first of December. We'll bring his brass bowl.

We'll invite the bowl.

Sound his remains into sea.

Returning.

Ourselves.

I imagine, at the instant of their transitioning deaths, the three thousand from seven years ago today made an intention. Their instant of what we call death was spent in prayer. They saw reality, true reality, as only the at-death can see it -- and their hearts and minds opened. That opening expressed a core longing of human existence -- a longing for compassion, love, forgiveness, and peace.

Untainted Space
One of the most common analogies used to describe the Buddha-nature is space itself. This analogy has three aspects. First, just as space is omnipresent and yet is unpolluted by everything it pervades, similarly, Buddha-nature pervades every sentient being without being in any way tainted. Second, just as galaxies and universes arise and pass within space, so do the characteristics of our personalities arise and pass within Buddha-nature. Our sensations arise and pass away; Buddha-nature continues. Third, just as space is never consumed by fire, so this Buddha-nature is never consumed by the "fire" of aging, sickness, or death.
(--B. Alan Wallace, in Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up, from Everyday Mind)

So, too, we today. We open heart and mind to vast and clear space. Our longing is for compassion, love, forgiveness, and peace. That mind, that longing, traverses time and transcends our ordinary consciousness. With this liberated mind we find ourselves comixing here with there, this time with that time -- all is the service of now, the presencing of presence itself.

This comixed, always originating now, is the prayer of compassion, love, forgiveness, and peace.

We share in this with our brothers and sisters of September 11th, each and every expression of September 11th, each and every place we find ourselves.

They teach us in this openness as we teach them in this openness.

The time we share is rife with compassion, love, forgiveness, and peace -- remember how this gift spread in 2001 immediately following the devastation?

And then we forgot.

Let's remember the real gift they gave us, that we give them.

No more distortions.

Rain this Tuesday. John in from Bangor. Chris from Belfast. Dean from the old Camden bookstore. Sam and Susan play harmonica and splice line. Rock climbing couple come in to check radar on web. She's not happy to be flying to Florida in the eyebrow of Ike the storm.

John, Chris, and I have at the large movements of history, economics, population numbers, and geologic shudders. Perhaps what has been looked at as moral flaws of government representatives has merely been their awareness of the inevitability of decline and deterioration resulting in a single-minded effort to survive and prosper during the down slide. Don't we each wish to remain alive and ahead of the jaws of predation?

So many folks are looking at climate and atmosphere and registering despondency. Where, they ask, has the leadership been? Why has there been such reluctance to admit that forces beyond morality and human intention are at work -- the undulations of civilizations laboring under their own weight, the down turn of creativity into decline and rule by dominant minority stifling political creativity with their totalitarian rules and theocratic pronouncements? The stages of genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration were identified by Toynbee -- will there be surcease from the repetitive wheel threatening western civilization at this time of American power?

In a classical text entitled "The Questions of King Milinda," a monk named Nagasena uses an allegory. . . A group of people gathered on the edge of a flooding stream want to go to the far shore but are afraid. They don't know what to do until one wise person comes along, assesses the situation, takes a running leap and jumps to the other side. Seeing the example of that person, the others say, "Yes, it can be done." Then they also jump. In this story the near shore is our usual confused condition, and the far shore is the awakened mind. Inspired by witnessing another, we say, "Yes, it can be done." That is one level of faith. After we have jumped ourselves, when we say, "Yes, it can be done," that is quite another level of faith.
(-Sharon Salzberg, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Spring 1997)

Jay has found a lovely spot for himself and pup to meadow roost awhile. Anne calls for schedule of evening conversations. Tina confirms that 'foal' might mean pregnant. Tom brings mail and asks if we got the earlier box of books. Rain stops.

At evening conversation we read from Thomas Moore's foreword to the book by Anthony de Mello, Sadhana. (Sadhana is a Sanskrit term meaning spiritual practice, or, a means of accomplishing something -- a discipline in pursuit of a goal. (Wikipedia). A phrase jumped out: "...the manifestation of the soul in the body" -- leading us to speak of body/soul in this existence, of feeling our way through, and the cause/effect dynamic in Buddhism and the present moment.

Joan, Carol, Saskia, Deb, and I complete the hour as visitor David arrives at end of conversation. He and friend join in a post-final circle extension. He says his faith is what keeps him (to consternation of others) either sane or insane. His intensity bespeaks a vibrancy about positive living.

At snow-bowl an old and wizened frog refuses to budge from roadway as we walk Rokpa the Border Collie -- who suddenly notices a hop and turns when Saskia looks closely at the road sitter. We go by and leave it to its drizzly meditation.

If we saw things differently, would we live free from fear and negativity?

Maybe all does work unto good.

If we completely feel.

It is my friend Jo-Ann's birthday. Someone I love.

Rokpa wanders docks in Rockland. The Jenny Norman leans in with the wind. We walk breakwater to lighthouse.

Students today do not know the truth at all. They are like goats nosing around, taking whatever they find into their mouths. They cannot distinguish the servant from the master, the guest from the host. People like this enter the path with the wrong attitude; they cannot enter into clamorous situations, yet they call themselves genuine renunciants. In fact they are really worldlings.
- Lin Chi (d 867)

Burning stick of incense and lighted remains of tea candle before icon of Mary. A birthday bow to this kind apparition. What an exceptional gift, this birth!

Parting

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
(Poem "Parting," by Emily Dickinson. Public domain.)

There's a joy in parting found nowhere else.

Going away releases awareness of profound longing.

Soul searches for itself.

Finding.

Nothing other.

At all.

Through gate early this morning a man and woman who would marry later on the J&E Riggin schooner out of Rockland. They said they were following a Buddhist custom wherein on your wedding day you present a gift to monks in honor of the day.

Susan and Greg make music and leave their latest cd as gift to mono's (monastics of no other) at meetingbrook. Inside chapel/zendo, next to seated Buddha, a square package wrapped in tan thread is left. We arrive as they exit, greet with embrace, and quietly part to sit a while, to pray for them, to serve this lovely tradition.

Mist darkens the peaks of
A thousand mountains;
Wind sings, blows the tips
Of the beautiful trees into leaf.
The tip of the pagoda rises
Through the clouds;
Setting sunlight lingers
In the after glow.
- Minagawa Kien (1734-1807)

The bay blew hard but the sun came clear for their vows.

Such good food all day.

Cheers and love!

I am in your debt.

Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your fellow men you have carried out your obligations. All the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and so on, are summed up in this single command: You must love your neighbour as yourself. Love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour; that is why it is the answer to every one of the commandments.
(--Romans 13:8 - 10)

Who can say, "I am you."

Amness is amnesty. Isness is forgiveness.When we don't awake to Being, when we fail to remember Being, we consequently do not practice forgiveness -- not extending it nor receiving it. Forgiveness is the all-encompassing. Nothing is left out. It is only when we intentionally and repeatedly attempt to push ourselves away from the all-encompassing, when we attempt in word and act to push others out and away from the all-encompassing, that we dwell in unreality and illusion, thereby choosing to live in a false and insubstantial realm of what has traditionally been called 'sin' and also known as delusion. This delusion very often harms everyone encountering the delusional aspect of fragmentation and separation.

We are, as many are coming to understand, better people than harming and hurting agents fostering separation and divisiveness.

We must remember, recall, and re-embody what we really and truly are -- being all-encompassing.

“There is no material that exists for the production of Name and Form; and when Name and Form cease, they do not go anywhither in space. After Name and Form have ceased, they do not exist anywhere in the shape of heaped-up music material. Thus when a lute is played upon, there is no previous store of sound and when the music ceases it does not go anywhither in space. When it has ceased, it exists nowhere in a stored-up state. Having previously been non-existent, it came into existence on account of the structure and stem of the lute and the exertions of the performer; and as it came into existence so it passes away. In exactly the same way, all elements of being, both corporeal and non-corporeal come into existence after having previously been non-existent; and having come into existence passes away.”
-- Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

Nothing comes and nothing goes. In Vedanta it is called pure consciousness.

Nothing else to be said.