In Augusta Maine and Washington DC people gather to say "No" to President Bush's intended war with Iraq. In Minnesota a state mourns at the death of Senator Paul Wellstone, family members, workers, and pilots in plane crash yesterday as investigators prepare to sift through the site for clues as to how and why it happened. The weather turns raw and wet along the coast, a bleak statement corresponding to antipathy toward war and sorrow at death.

Before I was forty I quit my job
and came to tread the way
of saints and sages.
If I come out, it’s just
because I love the hills
and streams.
My ears are clean,
my vision’s ample.
When you ponder it,
this is true happiness.
The golden girdle girds calamity;
purple robes, pain.
Are they better than my briar
cane and cap of straw?
- Chang Yang-Hao

Who are these men and woman who give up briar cane and straw cap for purple robes of governance and power? And how can they, and we, sort through the temptations to ignorance so rife in human rational ego? How do we come to serve rather than be served? How transform the inclination to rule with benefit to some few and begin to serve with benefit to everyone?

Workers from Prock Marine are tearing out the deck pilings outside the shop. Sawn tired debris of 40 years lay on side. New full replacements stand fresh and green from mid-tide under dock. There is, always, much to replace, much to reform.

To transform is to allow what is occurring or being said by another to pass through our very form there present with another. Transformation is more difficult than replacement or reformation.

It is a day to pray for those attempting peace. It is a day to pray for those attempting to rule. For wisdom, compassion, understanding, and service.

It is a day to pray for those dying, and those who have died.

Waking this dawn, Meetingbrook mala beads in hand, the words occur:
Jesus lived his life living God.

Practice is practice

At Tuesday Evening Conversation on Buddhist Studies John C. and Saskia collaborate unknowingly on a wording of practice that fits: "Naturally -- it's not hard, and doesn't hurt -- practice."

Earlier a woman spoke of playing piano years ago. She seemed wistful when asked if she kept her hand in. "If you don't practice, you forget." (Susan F.) With prompting she realized what she'd said. Her words apply to any practice, particularly that of zazen and mindfulness.

We practice to remember -- to remember who we really are and what is the ground of our being. There is no future goal -- no goal of enlightenment or heaven. We practice sitting meditation and mindfulness to remember our ground.

When sitting there is no technique, word, breath regulation, mantra, image, or guided formula we follow. There is only sitting. There is no "subject" concentrating on some "object." There is just sitting.

Remember -- earth is earth. We arise from earth and return to earth. While sitting we sit with earth as earth.
Remember -- God is God. We are within God and return to God. While sitting we sit in this creation with this creating God.
Remember -- each one of us is each one of us. We present ourselves within the presence of each being. While sitting we sit with each presence as it is in itself.

This is what we practice, this remembrance.
If we don't practice, we forget.

Naturally, it's not hard and doesn't hurt, practice.

Four inmates and two outmates conversed about Jean Paul Sartre's "Condemned to be Free" essay and Andre's poem about that place within where we still have choice whether to go to light or to dark.

The fishing hole each finds is a virgin future. Alone in the moment, accompanied by the presence of all who have touched us, appreciating what is there for the first time. Ed brought us to that fishing hole. Paco brought the touch of all he's known with him. Andre brought his poem. Sonny knows the place well once and once again.

It was raining as we went inside the walls. The sun was shining as we said goodbye at the fishing hole of our appreciation for each other.

Lori calls to tell me Rocky B's funeral was today. Friend and neighbor of my parents on 69th street. We'll keep them in prayer.

All things are
perfectly
resolved in the
Unborn.
- Bankei (1622-1693)

We know why he died. Because he was born. How can one be unborn? Much less come to terms with the phrase "Born again?"

Originally, yes, nothing is born.
Perhaps if we learn to unask a question we might learn what is unborn. Until then, tired, it is time to sleep.

Everything is relational -- no subject, no object. There is only two "jects," says Forrest at Thursday Evening Conversation. We laugh. Without "sub" or "ob" what is there but simply to be thrown?

Land well, Rocky!

Theme: Trow-el: To Disturb or To Trust God?

Our country, right and wrong.

It occurs to me this damp storm-readying day that the difficulty we are having in this country with ethical thinking is lists. On one side of the page, correct behavior. On the other side, incorrect. Therefore, keep to the correct; avoid the incorrect. Sounds right and reasonable. Are we missing anything?

The exceptions to this list are thrown into the area known as murky or unclear. They follow the question, When is the right thing not good to do? Or, When is the wrong thing good to do?

When kill? When deprive people of their rights? When choose death over life by withholding services or medical assistance? When not make medical insurance, and thus care, not available to increasing numbers of people? When choose to take from the rich to give to the poor? Or, the more common decision - When take from the poor to give to the rich?

The murky unclear usually calls for guidelines or principles for use in determining where and when such and such an action might be taken without incurring punishment or too great a common public outrage. The human mind is often very clever in devising criteria for such situations. The popular mind shrinks differing views into simplistic allegiances and categories -- like Republican versus Democratic, or conservative versus liberal. Commentators and political pundits whose aim seems to be parody and divisive antagonism pick up still further simplifications. They load complex issues into simplistic jingoes and fire their guns into airwaves and newsprint. Their aim is to kill meaningful conversation and reasoned debate by substituting mockery, name-calling, othering, and arrogance.

Arrogance especially. Not asking questions in such a way inviting responses that explore ways to meaningful solutions honoring all participants affected by the issue, all touched by the topic. Instead, the bottom line becomes: them versus us; we've got it versus they want it; and finally, God favors the strong and bright and disfavors the weak and stupid. These designations are arrived at by architects of arguments who are intent on winning and preserving their way of life. It is not a conversation created by those seeking thoughtful insight, those longing for diminishment of suffering for all peoples.

We don't know the so-called right time and right place to concentrate the energies of the nation toward a purposeful goal of neutralizing or eliminating evil. Pragmatists and idealists alike worry that such goals are foolhardy. Others contend that if not now, when? If not us, who? If not definite action, what? Talk and more talk while outrageous attacks on individuals and communities continue?

This is the crux of ethics and our contemporary world. What used to be the concern of ethics and morality -- namely, sexual behavior, honesty in interpersonal and business dealings, use and abuse of substances such as alcohol and drugs, assisting people to die according to their own decision, or not -- has changed. Today's concerns seem different.

Today's concerns have escalated from complicated issues that divide and offend cultures different from each other -- to simplistic solutions of elimination of those whose difference you cannot abide. This is another list. Ethnic, religious, sexual preference, economic status, racial complexion, class strata, political philosophy -- all manner of variety and diversity, plurality and difference -- are on a list. This list is earmarked for elimination.

In days gone by the list was controlled by religious zealots and institutional hierarchy. Those on the list were going to hell for everlasting damnation in fire and unceasing suffering. It was known as the division of saints and sinners. Agents of God administrated the list. The good went to heaven. The bad consigned to hell. Wars and inquisitions, crusades and ritual condemnation were enough to strike fear into hearts of the undecided.

Today, God is still used to condemn and destroy. Whole nations and/or whole sections of people are earmarked for destruction. We are capable of making these lists. We make these lists. We study the names. We check them off one by one.

My country does this. Many countries do this. And multitudinous factions within countries, religions, ideologies, and mental constructs do this. These mental constructs reduce all conversation and worldview to good/bad, right/wrong, evil/our way. It is a mind, a mental construct that is hopelessly dualistic. This dualism, a helpful way of navigating our technological and mechanized world, has deteriorated into an either/or in the moral/ethical realm that deeply endangers our ability to seek solutions that fall outside simplistic categories of deliberation.

I think we need to seek solutions using tools of archeology. We need to trowel and excavate awareness from the debris of history. We need to find again the lost origin of our being-in-the-world. This digging needs careful sifting through debris accumulated by dust raised by passing wars, laws, ambitions, failures, fears, accomplishments, and grand (at the time) successes.

What lay at bottom of human action? What ground wishes to reveal its original reason for being? What has the earth to say about what has emerged from it?

And where, really, is what we call "God?"

Our country is right and wrong -- about wealth, war, human worth, freedom, happiness, and systems of sharing resources of the earth with all dwelling therein and on. Beneath the right/wrong is the origin of our being here at all. Beneath the mental constructs we've developed to manage the opinions and resources of personal and planetary existence is a profound reality hidden.

What profound reality remains hidden beneath, beyond, and within us?

That profound reality hidden is life itself.

Not the mental construct that asks questions like: When exactly for legal purposes does life begin in a woman's body? When exactly are we justified to take another's life? Does life end when the body dies? Not the questions that proliferate the majority of minds -- about inheritance, investments, security, power, and pleasure. Neither the phrase “life-style” nor "the life of this country." But -- life itself – beyond the divisions and distinctions we place on it.

The profound reality hidden is how we look into permeating questions all share. Such as: What is life? Who are we in each other's life?
Really.

If we stopped everything for a week and asked ourselves this question, over and over, perhaps something will be unearthed.

Perhaps we will return to earth.

Finding there God.

Really.
Not right and wrong. Not ideas about God. Not creeds, constitutions, charters, real estate deeds, personal finance portfolios, nor nurtured hurts with (in the words of poet Richard Hugo) "compensations too lovely too leave."

Only God. Originating earth. Cosmos eternal. The ground, center, spirit, and light of existence.
Life and love. An ever-present origin, (in Jean Gebser’s words).

To think, or suppose, God?
Any trow-el handy?

Colors appear in crisp light. What matters appears in clear light.
Mark and friends visit from New York this Columbus holiday. Wind blows from northwest gusting to 35 knots.

See for yourself.
Directly transcend the
principles and activities
of the buddhas and patriarchs.
Go through the forest of thorns.
Transcend the barriers
of potential described by
ancestral teachers.
Pass through the silver mountain
and iron wall; then for the first time
you will realize there is a
transcendent fundamental endowment;
you can sit, helping people solve their
sticking points and untie their bonds.
- Shoitsu (1202-1280)

Walking Ragged this morning after zazen and psalms with Sando and Cesco, leaves glistening in first sunlight, cool air invigorating their pace.
Karl is back from Christ in the Desert, delighted. A honeymooning couple visit the shop. He'd been a short while with the Trappists. Retired Lutheran minister over from central Maine earlier. Those longing for unsticking point and untied bonds surround us.

The heart of monastic practice is wholeheartedness. David Steindl-Rast OSB said this to poet David Whyte -- about the antidote to exhaustion being wholeheartedness.

If we are going to sit, then completely sit. If praying the psalms, completely pray them (with objections as well as affirmations). If walking mountain trails, then completely walk the trail. All of it is prayer. All of it, mindfulness.

The terror of Bali explosion, Maryland/DC sniper killings, and the obsession of the United States president with attacking Iraq and its obsessive dictator is the realization how little matters to those whose eye is filled with death and destruction. Ideology doesn't equal the value of human life. Whether the ideology of capitalistic democracy or the ideology of oil powered tyranny -- neither come close to the importance of a single human life. Neither is more important than earth itself we stand on.

Look at us. Look at all of us. Abandon ideology; receive living beings with hospitality and humility.
Take a look at what really matters.

Look through clear light.
See for yourself.

The human heart longs to return home to itself.

Moni dies. Several weeks ago she sat in center of canoe as we paddled the pond near Rangeley Lake. So quiet. She was experiencing back pain on her visit to the double 80th birthday celebration. On the canoe ride, peace and silence.

Reading Dowling Singh at this morning's 'The Many Faces of Death' conversation we wondered about the Ground of Being. Earlier at Lectio the parable of the wedding feast -- which at first and second reading sounds like the resolution just passed by Congress authorizing first strike permission to the president. On third reading it might be metaphor for abandoning ego self for God self -- else, punishing behavior toward everybody, even those gaining access to the mystical oneness of the wedding feast.

Punishment precedes and succeeds the self-aggrandizing posturing of dictators of every stripe, star, and crescent scythe. War cannot distinguish between the self-indulgence of tyrannical leader or democratic leader. All are punished for the evasion rife in willing the world in our own image.

There is sorrow in death, as there is sorrow in the preface to war. Powder is loaded and flint readied for striking.

If we were wise, we would say, “Send innocent and foolhardy peace pilgrims to Baghdad. Let them enter the feast of union, or let them be killed trying.” No one is killed when the innocent die willingly -- taking no life, but allowing their lives to be offered for peace.

But we are not wise. So we prepare to send warriors to shoot and bomb and kill those who do not wish to die.

We who are about to live in the prayer of peace and silence salute you in the name of what is holy. Do not create death by taking other's lives. Create life by abandoning all illusion and false ideology -- whether tyrannical power or executive power. Look for the opposite of war.

Look for what is looking for the human heart.

No war will return the human heart to itself.

At dawn, frost gathers on tent top. Unzipping sleeping bag not heavy enough for autumn in Canada, light glows behind island mountains across from St. Andrews.

Walking path behind Katy's Pond we see mother deer and two young ones at edge of beach across growing expanse of light.

Last night at Christian Contemplative Conversation, we speak of the word ecology. Oikos = ‘home’ in Greek. Logos = ‘meaning’ or ‘wording of.’ Wording of home, meaning of home, or dwelling at home -- this is what ecology is.

Once there was a way to get back home again, went the words of a song.

Now?

As sun peeked over island mountain, lengths of sticks waded in salt stillness near shore.
This is a way of seeing oneself home.

Two people, two dogs, and three deer walked that path one sweet cold morning in Canada.

On the road, two days away.

My home’s in the
flowering mountains.
My joy is purest reflection
in a rush hut by a blue grotto,
at the end of a crazy winding path.
At noon I take a simple meal
and when I’m full
I take my staff
and wander to the
mountain top and gaze.
- Yun-K’an Tzu

What is there to see?
Looking at earth, at nature, at nothing in particular.
Looking as earth, as nature, as nothing in particular.
This cosmotheandric gaze – Earth/Nature, God, Each One of Us.

Nothing in particular?
God is not a thing, no thing, nothing. Is it true? Are we nothing in particular?

I have nothing to say about this. I don't know. God alone knows.
God’s language is earth, nature, each one of us.

God speaks silence lovingly within each one -- and all -- we see.

Thirty people filled the cabin for dedication. Many sang together. Then each. Kristen sang. SuSane sang. John sang. Saskia, Virginia, Sam, and John played instruments. Robert read poem. Susan blessed water for Buddhist blessing of place for practice. Cesco drank the blessing water. Transitus night was this combination -- as well as silence and hands on cabin walls leaving blessings by hands and hearts.

After Eucharist in Rockland, prison today, Andre's poem "Then He Came." A gift --
from the darkest of the skies came light,
a bright spark,
he caught the people's eyes,
and helped with their vision
(excerpt, poem by Andre W.)

Tonight's sitting and compline complete the lovely celebration of Francis.

This is our practice.
In silence and prayer to hold each in heart and light -- this is our promise.
In gratitude!

Dedication of Chapel/Zendo Cabin
Meetingbrook Dogen & Francis Hermitage
Oct 3, 2002



1. Welcome

2. Reading from Living Buddha, Living Christ

3. Songs & Music

4. Buddhist Blessing

5. Words of Gratitude

6. Songs & Music

7. Psalm Prayer

8. Hands & Hearts, Final Blessing of Touch

9. Refreshments

………………………………..
To study the way is to study self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others. (Zen Master Dogen)

All praise be yours, My Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all the weather's moods,
By which you cherish all that you have made.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water,
So useful, lowly, precious and pure.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
Through whom you brighten up the night.
(Saint Francis)

Angels today. Therese yesterday. Francis of Assisi tomorrow evening, then the 4th, and all October.

You ask why I live in the mountain forest,
I smile, and am silent,
and even deep within remain quiet:
the peach trees blossom,
the water flows.
- Li T’ai-po (701-?)

The brook is a sleepy tumbling passage from one place to another. Francis went to the core. He faced the mirror. He stepped into the mirror. He is known as the mirror of Christ.

This path is worth stepping.

Finishing ladder steps to loft in chapel/zendo. Dedication on Thursday evening 3Oct., Transitus of Francis. Woodbox placed on porch. Windows cleaned. Loft arranged.

The iris pond has flowered
Before the old temple;
I sell tea this evening
By the water’s edge.
It is steeped in the cups
With the moon and stars;
Drink and wake forever
From your worldly sleep.
- Baisao (1675-1763)

The delight of a place to pray and sit zazen! Rough wood, candlelight, and woodstove. Grand simplicity of sacred space.

If the radical core of creation is at center, then as we open our mouth and heart, mind and intention to reach that place of presence we engage the open way of place itself.

The very place of prayer is where Christ emerges. The very place of silent sitting is where Buddha awakens.

Practice makes perfect sense. Prayer reaches no end. Awakening silence within practice and prayer -- it is time to begin again. I am still in my own dream. Now it is time for sleep.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
(--from poem “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke)

Two dogs get biscuits by bed. When will they chew?

“Heartwood circle up,” the woman said on the sloping roof of Sr. Bette's yurt-in-progress. Tied by rope at waist to copula beam, we join the slow and meditative work of fashioning cedar shingle to round arc and jigged height Saturday afternoon at lighthouse road Stockton Springs.

Forty-some years I’ve lived in the mountains
Ignorant of the world’s rise and fall
Warmed at night by a stove full of pine needles
Satisfied at noon by a bowl of wild plants
Sitting on rocks watching clouds and empty thoughts
Patching my robe in sunlight practicing silence
Till someone asks why Bodhidharma came east
And I hang out my wash.
- Shih-wu (1252-1352)

The koan might easily be: Why does Christ come in human form?
And Saskia kneads dough in kitchen for bread.

It is feast of all angels. Notably: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel.
These four names of Archangels rise in translation like haiku poem for us:

Coming to be Conveyance, a Haiku of Angels
Who is like God? Strong
One of God. Blessing of God.
My light is like God.
(wfh)

These Angels come to earth because this is where Christ comes. Wherever else the benefit of Angels and Christ, earth is blessed.

The world’s rise and fall is again in the mouths and minds of those whose odd delusion is the planning of destruction, war, and remaking in their image.

Hidden in the center of the world is Christ. What is Christ? Christ is not the religious object of religious people. Christ is the radical core of creation. Jesus was a Jew, a man of his time. Christ is where Jesus found himself.

Angels permeate creation as questioning, strong, blessing, light. They are inspiration and intuition of creation and humanity. They, like God, like us -- long that light show through each and all with glowing warmth and clear sight.

Here is creation. Here is where we find ourselves. Here in creation. Here is Christ, the radical core of creation. Here is laundry swaying in breeze. Here is fragrance of bread becoming itself in oven.

Finding our way is the kindness light offers.
Practicing silence. Practicing creation itself.

Lola says she and Carter wait on Bear, their elderly dog, to teach them when and how to let go.
When do we actually die? As a question it ranks with -- When are we actually born?

Around the circle this morning we consider why many consider oncoming death 'tragedy,' while others do not. It is a sweet gift to speak of death. And rare.

In a pellucid ocean,
Bubbles arise and dissolve again.
Just so, thoughts are no
Different from ultimate reality,
So don’t find fault; remain at ease.
Whatever arises, whatever occurs,
Don’t grasp—release it on the spot.
Appearances, sounds, and objects
Are all one’s own mind;
There’s nothing except mind.
- Buddha

At Lectio this morning in the cabin, "Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus." Emptying, serving -- like death to life.

Sitting in loft for night prayer, candlelight glowing rafters.
It doesn't matter what comes in our life. Whatever comes is our life.

The highest truth is not difficult,
just avoid picking and choosing.
-- Zen master Seng-ts'an, 7th century

Rain comes. This day, this rain is our life.

Earth flag on barn signals allegiance. I pledge this allegiance to the earth, on which I stand.
This is where I live. This is where I die. This day. This place. This is my life.

When the zen master was asked for a definition of truth that would be true 500 years from now, he said, "The truth...is just like this."

I don't understand this.

Just to clearly see it would suffice.
And to share the soul of what is at origin, truth.

If prayer lifts up mind and heart, God is equipresent.
If zazen quiets mind and body, presence is equally God.
Beyond this, nothing matters, nothing is said.
September night. Moonlit chill skims Hosmer Pond.

Anytime we think we are sufficient, something goes missing.

Careful! Even moonlit dewdrops,
If you’re lured to watch,
Are a wall before the Truth.
- Sogyo (1667 – 1731)

It is not out there, nor is it in here. It is not the moon, nor dewdrop, nor our eyes. It is the watchful participation of each with each with each that engages no-wall truth.

In chapel/zendo Richard wonders about the 6.5 billion of us, and how many serve life, how many serve God. It is the light of God that catches our attention.

All the 6.5 billion are repositories of that light. Our mistake is looking for sufficient examples that, to our thinking, are models of light. We pass over each other looking for saints, masters, divas, angels, ascendant beings, great teachers, and official spokespeople for exalted notions of what is right or perfect.

If we are lured to watch something or someone outside ourselves, we are walling up that person or thing, event or teaching. But if we recognize there is only one new being each time, each instance of engagement with another person, event, place, or thing -- then we are creativity itself in the act of birthing a new form of existence.

If we are careful, there is a way through the forgetfulness, disappointment, and suffering this world cultivates. If we are careful we might see the light of God in another. In that seeing, for that instance, we might engage with joy what is being revealed there and then.

In a space the size of a salt granule fallen from an old pretzel, all might reside in peace -- in flavoring joyful engagement serving life.

The cabin is now Meetingbrook Hermitage's Meditation Cabin. Morning and evening sittings, Saturday Morning and Sunday Evening Practice will be held there. It is our Chapel/Zendo.

Emptiness is a name for nothingness,
A name for ungraspibility,
A name for mountains, rivers, the whole earth.
It is also called the real form.
In the green of the pines,
The twist of the brambles,
There is no going and coming;
In the red of the flowers
And the white of the snow,
There is no birth and no death.
- Ryusai

No name contains everything. It will be, ineluctably, the Cabin.