isit
Is it?
Is it!
I sit.
(wfh)
(Note: "isit" takes its place in the procession of koan-mottos at meetingbrook)
Saturday, June 07, 2003
June 2003 Update, Meetingbrook Dogen & Francis Hermitage
Theme: Returning Silence, Broken Empty
What ever-present resource cannot be devoured?
Light green leaves waver in breeze this June morning. Squirrel chatter berates presumption black charcoal stove lid will dissuade ascent or descent to green bird feeder near chapel/zendo. His diatribe is not praising my efforts to reserve feeder for birds. There is no resource without theft and misappropriation. Squirrels have to be factored. Hence we have payoff, pork, and protection rackets from back alleys of Mott Street to corporation lobbyists in halls of congress.
Meetingbrook settles into itself. Late spring drives to Cape Breton and Lincolnville Beach Duck Trap River gave looks at properties imagined for Retreat/Laura/Schola. Is it just another attempt to see if seed-place might be an attractive potential within our grasp? Are we squirrel or bird? For whom is seed?
Cape Breton is lovely. Canada continues to beckon. In these uncertain and disturbing times Canada remains a refuge from new arrogance and messianic impulse descending on Middle East territories. Occupiers or liberators? A shell game question. Jargon replaces discourse. The language of economics and shareholder benefit threatens to turn all rhetoric into profit and loss bottom line bank statements.
In Lincolnville along Duck trap River a Retreat Estate part of credit card bank's vast holdings is on the market. It would make a lovely lay monastic hermitage retreat. Would the CEO and bank donate it to Meetingbrook? Would it be a place of silence and sanctuary? Or does other noise arrive to counter dream? Squirrel comes chattering back for another attempt. I move the resource. Squirrel scampers off.
For Meetingbrook the dream moves outside to inside. Saskia "saw" the retreat property in dream, a slumbering watchfulness the night before we happened upon the place. Her dream was vivid, specific, and invitatory. A man at building and water beckons. She wades in. Welcoming. It is wondrous how prolepsis anticipation arrives at unknowing awareness.
In Laura Soul Friend Conversation Nan speaks of her practice and how Meher Baba used the phrase something to the effect, “ unknowing awareness, hollowing out.”
Squirrel maneuvers, scouts, plots and scampers to feeding trough. I clap hands. Twice he exits. I am not applauding. I am discouraging. He is maddened. Nuthatch returns. Female cardinal comes and goes without seed. Squirrel falls three times, four times.
We fall a lot. We madden friends with our approach, assessment, and failures. What is this call we respond to? And why are we so dense? Squirrel will not be dissuaded. If the seed is there, it is there for him. Despite his unrelenting passion to hoard resource for himself, he probably has a reasonable right to share the seeds.
It is June. This June begins Meetingbrook Hermitage's eighth year in town with its bookshop/bakery. Conversations, hospitality, ordinary prayer and reflective meditation -- without nametag or fanfare -- in marketplace by the harbor. It is a lovely anniversary. Sitting on porch of cabin with sound of brook and birdsong after silent sitting and chant this Tuesday morning is seed, is gift.
Canon lawyer visited Meetingbrook from Catholic diocese. She said she is confident the Bishop wishes to write approval and encourage what Meetingbrook has become and continues to be. It is always a matter of not interfering with the Spirit drawing all into itself. Inclusion. Seed draws songbird and chattering squirrel at same time to itself.
God is itself.
We become what and who we are in the presence of itself. For anyone to dwell in the presence of itself is to live a life of prayerful meditative association nearing God.
If Meetingbrook were capable of articulating its goal it would be this -- to near God.
Where is God?
Near. And nearing.
No one can say with certainty where God is not. God is not either side of the myriad dualisms. The myriad dualisms serve our current mental state of consciousness. They serve the mental ego’s function making distinctions, cultivating notions of ‘other,’ and protecting the ego’s construct of a separate, isolated self. They form a context of thought suggesting God might be in a "place" somewhere we can recognize. The construct placing God calls that place ‘good,’ and those at that place ‘good.’
Yet, can we say anything of God that nears God? Or is the apophatic* tradition one we might look to? Does nearing God require an unsaying, a silence that does not feed the clamoring mind with discursive squirrel frenetic racing to ‘there’ from ‘here’ and the good/bad, right/wrong, mine/yours chattering of everyday mental activity and commerce?
* While Christianity and Hellenic thought have quite different conceptions of the nature and function of God, they are fully in agreement about His ineffability. As Raoul Mortley said, "the via negativa... is the most remarkable feature of the philosophical life of late antiquity, Greek and Christian." (quoted in Pelikan 197) The use of this so-called negative, or apophatic, (from Greek "to deny," or "to say no") theology tends to take two forms. One form is a philosophical ana-lysis, the "breaking apart" (from Greek "to undo" (Am. Heritage Dic.)) of all qualities seemingly attributable to the divine to arrive at an understanding of His underlying nonqualified nature by knowing what that nature isn't. St. Macrina explained this method in this manner: "In the very act of saying that a thing is `not so and so,' we by implication interpret the very nature of the thing in question." (Pelikan 205) This form of apophaticism is more pervasive than might be realized. Words such as "infinite" and "ineffable" are obviously negative. Less apparent is the negation hidden in words like "individual" or "immense" (not measurable). Finally there is apophaticism hidden even in positive terms. For example, one defines God as "free" in order to show that He lacks the contrarieties found in finite creatures, and one calls Him "alive" merely to discriminate His nature from that of the lifeless. (James 431)
The other form of apophaticism is a more contemplative awareness of ineffability, a perception of just how transcendent and thus incomprehensible God's nature is. Armstrong says that, by this perception, "we mean that, however dimly, we are aware in all things which we apprehend of the presence of something or someone which exceeds them, and on which their total existence depends, so that there is nothing in them which is not there because of that presence, which... makes them exist." (Armstrong 1979, essay XXIV, 177) This perception affirms the incomprehensibility of God, who "exceeds" all things. Contemplation of the created world points to its underlying essence which is unattainable, for that which proceeds from the Principle does not necessarily provide any clue as to the essence of that Principle. An example is that a machine is produced by, or proceeds from, a human maker, but an examination of the machine would not necessarily provide any clues as to the essence of the human. It may provide clues about the function of the maker, as, for example, an umbrella handle implies the shape of the human hand. Functionally, then, one could say that God's act of creating, for example, which is self-evident, evidences His function as a Creator. Such knowledge is indirect; it is not the same as "quidditative," or essential, knowledge. Even scripture can not provide a real description of God's nature. "Who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord?" asks the Psalmist. (Ps 89:6)
It must be pointed out at the beginning of this discussion that negative theology is not "negative" in that word's usual sense. Part of the reason that the term `apophatic' is pressed into service, says historian of Christianity Jaroslav Pelikan, is because "speaking about a negative theology sounds--how should one put it?--too negative." (Pelikan 1988, 6) Apophatic theology is not to be understood as a form of skepticism or, far less, atheism. Atheism is an active disbelief in or denial of divinity. (Am. Heritage Dic.) As such, it is not so much the opposite of belief as it is its dialectical component. That is, atheism shares the same concerns as religion, i.e. the search for an absolute, but differs only in that it arrives at a diametrically opposed answer. While (most) religions emphatically posit an Absolute, atheism wholly denies it; "There is no God," the atheist avows. (Pelikan 1993, 8) The antithesis of religious belief, then, would be skepticism, a state of agnosticism or active doubt. Skepticism is to be distinguished from apophaticism because it often takes the form of refraining from making any statements and taking any stance, positive or negative.[3] The via negativa, however, is quite active; it is a way, or via, of philosophizing. The genuine pursuer of the way of negation, writes Armstrong, "spends his time destroying his God-concepts and perhaps (if he is as radical as his principles require) undermining his whole system of thought till it falls in ruins. Then he picks himself up quite cheerfully and begins again." (Armstrong 1979, essay XXIV, 178)(in Saying Nothing about No-Thing: Apophatic Theology in the Classical World, by Jonah Winters) http://bahai-library.org/personal/jw/my.papers/apophatic.html
This “place,” (if that which is between everything and among everyone can be designated as a “place”) is an integrative, contiguous, interpenetrative, and undifferentiating suchness. It is when, how, and where each is, and continually becomes, itself. Mental formulations are not God. God is God.
The Celtic designation of "The Thin Place" tries to help. It offers a view beyond the either/or dichotomy. George MacLeod, founder of The Iona Community called The Thin Place …“between prayer & politics, work & worship, secular & sacred” … where we seek the “rebuilding of the common life.”
What is common is what all shares. What is common is what is shared by each and all. It is neither yours nor mine, but ours. This “common life” is much misunderstood and often feared. It is seldom tried and, with few exceptions, unsuccessful.
The "neither/nor" template of inquiry has helped loosen the dualistic grip with which we inventory most things. To wit, God is -- neither close nor far, neither in nor out, neither full nor empty, male nor female, good nor evil, Christian nor Jew, Muslim nor Hindu, Taoist nor Pagan, Orthodox nor Liberal, Buddhist nor Unitarian, American nor Iraqi.
Dwelling near or nearing The Thin Place is akin to removing the divisions and finding oneself at center of contradiction. There, at center of contradiction, in the still place where all contrary ways of saying what-is-there have enfolded themselves into simple silence. At center of contradiction is unknowing peace, or, as some have said, peace that surpasses understanding.
Bright red Cardinal arrives with sharp chirp at feeder. Squirrel forages ground.
Is it time to remove the resource? The aggressive bickering on the part of many squirrels keep far away those for whom the seed is intended.
Is God near? Is God nearing?
Nearing God is not different from nearing life or nearing death. Touch one, touch all three. And touch what is at center of all three.
After seven years in town at the harbor and eleven years at the foot of the mountain we approach silence. We near seed. Like squirrel clamoring for what is near we try and fall, leap and miss, speak and are wrong, seek and do not find. Nor do we not find, nor are we wrong, nor do we remain fallen, nor will we cease from inquiring into the now nearness of what is our ground of being.
Ours is no other place, no other God, and no other life. We are asked to empty our minds of distracting dichotomies and center our hearts within empty openness. This Thin Place, this between, this centering openness -- this is the practice of no other. Neither mind nor heart knows what to make of the practice. So, don't "make." Just visit, stay a while, dwell a moment in this unmade place.
Squirrel looks at me on porch. We've exhausted early morning. What do we do with our mind's frantic search, our heart's clinging desire?
Come and go.
Come eat seed. Then go away. Stay near. Don’t cling.
We do not have here, nor anywhere, any permanent abode. We are visitors. Wanderers. Passing pilgrims. Transients in a transitory time.
We look in on each other. We inquire after each other. We share details and data about our efforts in the world. We take to each other. We enter into, sometimes kindly sometimes unkindly, one another’s lives. We counter kindness with kindness, hurt with hurt, -- and sometimes -- hurt with kindness and kindness with hurt. We do the best we can most the time. It might not always the best thing that can be done for the situation -- but, well, there we are. Perhaps we’ll learn.
Red squirrel scares off chipmunk and in turn has to move over for grey squirrel. Morning doves fly off. Finch and chickadee, nuthatch and sparrow find feeder I moved to distant temporary placement nearer barn. The ongoing competition for resources!
The seed of nearness, the dwelling reality of absolute nearside, unsaying devotional silence in the presence of each being – are these an ever-present resource that cannot be devoured?
Is this what we refer to as God? Is this what we refer to as Original Oneness? True Reality? The face we had before our mothers and fathers were born? Buddha-nature? Christ-nature? Holy Spirit? Now?
The green canopy of late spring leaf sways in soft breeze shading chapel/zendo near washing brook sounding down Ragged Mountain.
Rhythmic chant song of squirrel and bird fill morning with God's praising liturgy.
Meetingbrook returns to silence.
Seed resource. Broken empty.
Come. Gone.
Listen!
Gratefully,
Bill, Saskia, Sando , Cesco , Mu-ge , and all who grace Meetingbrook
Theme: Returning Silence, Broken Empty
What ever-present resource cannot be devoured?
Light green leaves waver in breeze this June morning. Squirrel chatter berates presumption black charcoal stove lid will dissuade ascent or descent to green bird feeder near chapel/zendo. His diatribe is not praising my efforts to reserve feeder for birds. There is no resource without theft and misappropriation. Squirrels have to be factored. Hence we have payoff, pork, and protection rackets from back alleys of Mott Street to corporation lobbyists in halls of congress.
Meetingbrook settles into itself. Late spring drives to Cape Breton and Lincolnville Beach Duck Trap River gave looks at properties imagined for Retreat/Laura/Schola. Is it just another attempt to see if seed-place might be an attractive potential within our grasp? Are we squirrel or bird? For whom is seed?
Cape Breton is lovely. Canada continues to beckon. In these uncertain and disturbing times Canada remains a refuge from new arrogance and messianic impulse descending on Middle East territories. Occupiers or liberators? A shell game question. Jargon replaces discourse. The language of economics and shareholder benefit threatens to turn all rhetoric into profit and loss bottom line bank statements.
In Lincolnville along Duck trap River a Retreat Estate part of credit card bank's vast holdings is on the market. It would make a lovely lay monastic hermitage retreat. Would the CEO and bank donate it to Meetingbrook? Would it be a place of silence and sanctuary? Or does other noise arrive to counter dream? Squirrel comes chattering back for another attempt. I move the resource. Squirrel scampers off.
For Meetingbrook the dream moves outside to inside. Saskia "saw" the retreat property in dream, a slumbering watchfulness the night before we happened upon the place. Her dream was vivid, specific, and invitatory. A man at building and water beckons. She wades in. Welcoming. It is wondrous how prolepsis anticipation arrives at unknowing awareness.
In Laura Soul Friend Conversation Nan speaks of her practice and how Meher Baba used the phrase something to the effect, “ unknowing awareness, hollowing out.”
Squirrel maneuvers, scouts, plots and scampers to feeding trough. I clap hands. Twice he exits. I am not applauding. I am discouraging. He is maddened. Nuthatch returns. Female cardinal comes and goes without seed. Squirrel falls three times, four times.
We fall a lot. We madden friends with our approach, assessment, and failures. What is this call we respond to? And why are we so dense? Squirrel will not be dissuaded. If the seed is there, it is there for him. Despite his unrelenting passion to hoard resource for himself, he probably has a reasonable right to share the seeds.
It is June. This June begins Meetingbrook Hermitage's eighth year in town with its bookshop/bakery. Conversations, hospitality, ordinary prayer and reflective meditation -- without nametag or fanfare -- in marketplace by the harbor. It is a lovely anniversary. Sitting on porch of cabin with sound of brook and birdsong after silent sitting and chant this Tuesday morning is seed, is gift.
Canon lawyer visited Meetingbrook from Catholic diocese. She said she is confident the Bishop wishes to write approval and encourage what Meetingbrook has become and continues to be. It is always a matter of not interfering with the Spirit drawing all into itself. Inclusion. Seed draws songbird and chattering squirrel at same time to itself.
God is itself.
We become what and who we are in the presence of itself. For anyone to dwell in the presence of itself is to live a life of prayerful meditative association nearing God.
If Meetingbrook were capable of articulating its goal it would be this -- to near God.
Where is God?
Near. And nearing.
No one can say with certainty where God is not. God is not either side of the myriad dualisms. The myriad dualisms serve our current mental state of consciousness. They serve the mental ego’s function making distinctions, cultivating notions of ‘other,’ and protecting the ego’s construct of a separate, isolated self. They form a context of thought suggesting God might be in a "place" somewhere we can recognize. The construct placing God calls that place ‘good,’ and those at that place ‘good.’
Yet, can we say anything of God that nears God? Or is the apophatic* tradition one we might look to? Does nearing God require an unsaying, a silence that does not feed the clamoring mind with discursive squirrel frenetic racing to ‘there’ from ‘here’ and the good/bad, right/wrong, mine/yours chattering of everyday mental activity and commerce?
* While Christianity and Hellenic thought have quite different conceptions of the nature and function of God, they are fully in agreement about His ineffability. As Raoul Mortley said, "the via negativa... is the most remarkable feature of the philosophical life of late antiquity, Greek and Christian." (quoted in Pelikan 197) The use of this so-called negative, or apophatic, (from Greek "to deny," or "to say no") theology tends to take two forms. One form is a philosophical ana-lysis, the "breaking apart" (from Greek "to undo" (Am. Heritage Dic.)) of all qualities seemingly attributable to the divine to arrive at an understanding of His underlying nonqualified nature by knowing what that nature isn't. St. Macrina explained this method in this manner: "In the very act of saying that a thing is `not so and so,' we by implication interpret the very nature of the thing in question." (Pelikan 205) This form of apophaticism is more pervasive than might be realized. Words such as "infinite" and "ineffable" are obviously negative. Less apparent is the negation hidden in words like "individual" or "immense" (not measurable). Finally there is apophaticism hidden even in positive terms. For example, one defines God as "free" in order to show that He lacks the contrarieties found in finite creatures, and one calls Him "alive" merely to discriminate His nature from that of the lifeless. (James 431)
The other form of apophaticism is a more contemplative awareness of ineffability, a perception of just how transcendent and thus incomprehensible God's nature is. Armstrong says that, by this perception, "we mean that, however dimly, we are aware in all things which we apprehend of the presence of something or someone which exceeds them, and on which their total existence depends, so that there is nothing in them which is not there because of that presence, which... makes them exist." (Armstrong 1979, essay XXIV, 177) This perception affirms the incomprehensibility of God, who "exceeds" all things. Contemplation of the created world points to its underlying essence which is unattainable, for that which proceeds from the Principle does not necessarily provide any clue as to the essence of that Principle. An example is that a machine is produced by, or proceeds from, a human maker, but an examination of the machine would not necessarily provide any clues as to the essence of the human. It may provide clues about the function of the maker, as, for example, an umbrella handle implies the shape of the human hand. Functionally, then, one could say that God's act of creating, for example, which is self-evident, evidences His function as a Creator. Such knowledge is indirect; it is not the same as "quidditative," or essential, knowledge. Even scripture can not provide a real description of God's nature. "Who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord?" asks the Psalmist. (Ps 89:6)
It must be pointed out at the beginning of this discussion that negative theology is not "negative" in that word's usual sense. Part of the reason that the term `apophatic' is pressed into service, says historian of Christianity Jaroslav Pelikan, is because "speaking about a negative theology sounds--how should one put it?--too negative." (Pelikan 1988, 6) Apophatic theology is not to be understood as a form of skepticism or, far less, atheism. Atheism is an active disbelief in or denial of divinity. (Am. Heritage Dic.) As such, it is not so much the opposite of belief as it is its dialectical component. That is, atheism shares the same concerns as religion, i.e. the search for an absolute, but differs only in that it arrives at a diametrically opposed answer. While (most) religions emphatically posit an Absolute, atheism wholly denies it; "There is no God," the atheist avows. (Pelikan 1993, 8) The antithesis of religious belief, then, would be skepticism, a state of agnosticism or active doubt. Skepticism is to be distinguished from apophaticism because it often takes the form of refraining from making any statements and taking any stance, positive or negative.[3] The via negativa, however, is quite active; it is a way, or via, of philosophizing. The genuine pursuer of the way of negation, writes Armstrong, "spends his time destroying his God-concepts and perhaps (if he is as radical as his principles require) undermining his whole system of thought till it falls in ruins. Then he picks himself up quite cheerfully and begins again." (Armstrong 1979, essay XXIV, 178)(in Saying Nothing about No-Thing: Apophatic Theology in the Classical World, by Jonah Winters) http://bahai-library.org/personal/jw/my.papers/apophatic.html
This “place,” (if that which is between everything and among everyone can be designated as a “place”) is an integrative, contiguous, interpenetrative, and undifferentiating suchness. It is when, how, and where each is, and continually becomes, itself. Mental formulations are not God. God is God.
The Celtic designation of "The Thin Place" tries to help. It offers a view beyond the either/or dichotomy. George MacLeod, founder of The Iona Community called The Thin Place …“between prayer & politics, work & worship, secular & sacred” … where we seek the “rebuilding of the common life.”
What is common is what all shares. What is common is what is shared by each and all. It is neither yours nor mine, but ours. This “common life” is much misunderstood and often feared. It is seldom tried and, with few exceptions, unsuccessful.
The "neither/nor" template of inquiry has helped loosen the dualistic grip with which we inventory most things. To wit, God is -- neither close nor far, neither in nor out, neither full nor empty, male nor female, good nor evil, Christian nor Jew, Muslim nor Hindu, Taoist nor Pagan, Orthodox nor Liberal, Buddhist nor Unitarian, American nor Iraqi.
Dwelling near or nearing The Thin Place is akin to removing the divisions and finding oneself at center of contradiction. There, at center of contradiction, in the still place where all contrary ways of saying what-is-there have enfolded themselves into simple silence. At center of contradiction is unknowing peace, or, as some have said, peace that surpasses understanding.
Bright red Cardinal arrives with sharp chirp at feeder. Squirrel forages ground.
Is it time to remove the resource? The aggressive bickering on the part of many squirrels keep far away those for whom the seed is intended.
Is God near? Is God nearing?
Nearing God is not different from nearing life or nearing death. Touch one, touch all three. And touch what is at center of all three.
After seven years in town at the harbor and eleven years at the foot of the mountain we approach silence. We near seed. Like squirrel clamoring for what is near we try and fall, leap and miss, speak and are wrong, seek and do not find. Nor do we not find, nor are we wrong, nor do we remain fallen, nor will we cease from inquiring into the now nearness of what is our ground of being.
Ours is no other place, no other God, and no other life. We are asked to empty our minds of distracting dichotomies and center our hearts within empty openness. This Thin Place, this between, this centering openness -- this is the practice of no other. Neither mind nor heart knows what to make of the practice. So, don't "make." Just visit, stay a while, dwell a moment in this unmade place.
Squirrel looks at me on porch. We've exhausted early morning. What do we do with our mind's frantic search, our heart's clinging desire?
Come and go.
Come eat seed. Then go away. Stay near. Don’t cling.
We do not have here, nor anywhere, any permanent abode. We are visitors. Wanderers. Passing pilgrims. Transients in a transitory time.
We look in on each other. We inquire after each other. We share details and data about our efforts in the world. We take to each other. We enter into, sometimes kindly sometimes unkindly, one another’s lives. We counter kindness with kindness, hurt with hurt, -- and sometimes -- hurt with kindness and kindness with hurt. We do the best we can most the time. It might not always the best thing that can be done for the situation -- but, well, there we are. Perhaps we’ll learn.
Red squirrel scares off chipmunk and in turn has to move over for grey squirrel. Morning doves fly off. Finch and chickadee, nuthatch and sparrow find feeder I moved to distant temporary placement nearer barn. The ongoing competition for resources!
The seed of nearness, the dwelling reality of absolute nearside, unsaying devotional silence in the presence of each being – are these an ever-present resource that cannot be devoured?
Is this what we refer to as God? Is this what we refer to as Original Oneness? True Reality? The face we had before our mothers and fathers were born? Buddha-nature? Christ-nature? Holy Spirit? Now?
The green canopy of late spring leaf sways in soft breeze shading chapel/zendo near washing brook sounding down Ragged Mountain.
Rhythmic chant song of squirrel and bird fill morning with God's praising liturgy.
Meetingbrook returns to silence.
Seed resource. Broken empty.
Come. Gone.
Listen!
Gratefully,
Bill, Saskia, Sando , Cesco , Mu-ge , and all who grace Meetingbrook
Friday, June 06, 2003
June 2003 Events
All Events at MEETINGBROOK are free, open & informal
Note:
1. Tuesday Evening Conversation returns with Buddhist Meditative Studies
2. Wednesday Evening Conversations now focus on Personal Practice & Laura Soul Friend topics. (“Laura,” various paths.) What, who, & how of one’s spirituality.
3. Friday Evening Conversation returns to 5:30-6:30pm and to poetry/journal focus.
Consult “Today at Meetingbrook” For any changes in schedule.
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: Cabin is always open and available for silence, meditation, or prayer.
SATURDAY MORNING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE – Weekly Lectio Divina: Sat, 6:45am-8:00am; Monthly Retreat 3rd Saturday 21June. Retreat this month Christian focus.
SUNDAY EVENING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE Each Sunday evening, 6:00-8:00pm. Practice includes Silent Sitting, Walking, Listening, Eating, Conversing, Chanting. (1,15,29June Buddhist focus; 8,22June. Christian focus) All welcome.A Place of Conversation, Collation, and Recollection at Camden HarborCome anytime, each conversation stands alone.
TUESDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30pm. -6:30pm. Maybe Zen, Maybe Not. A Practice/Study focusing on Buddhist Meditative Tradition. Currently beginning After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path by Jack Kornfield
WEDNESDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30pm. -6:30pm Laura Soul-Friend Conversations. Wednesday Evening Conversations focus on Personal Practice & Laura Soul Friend topics. (“Laura,” various paths.) What, who, & how of one’s spirituality. Topics will reflect an individual’s personal, spiritual, psychological, intellectual practice, interest, or concern. Each Wednesday some person, or some aspect of practice, will begin the conversation.
THURSDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30pm-6:30pm. Stepping into the Mirror, A Practice/Study focusing on Christian Contemplative Tradition. Currently reading A Monk in the World, Cultivating a Spiritual Life, by Wayne Teasdale
FRIDAY EVENING CONVERSATIONS AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30pm - 6:30pm Poetry & Journal Readings. An open gathering inviting anyone to join in the practice. Bring or find poems or journal writing.
SATURDAY MORNING & EVENING CONVERSATIONS AT THE BOOKSHOP 9:00am-10:00am: The Many Faces of Death. We are reading the 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. Currently reading stories from Island, by Alistair MacLeod
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.
Closed Mondays. Open by 10:30am to 7:30pm Tuesday-Sunday (Sunday 'til 5:30pm). Let us order your books and music! Thanks!Bookshop/Bakery, 50 Bayview Street, Camden, ME Dogen & Francis Hermitage 64 Barnestown Rd, Camden, ME mono@meetingbrook.org (207) 236-6808
All Events at MEETINGBROOK are free, open & informal
Note:
1. Tuesday Evening Conversation returns with Buddhist Meditative Studies
2. Wednesday Evening Conversations now focus on Personal Practice & Laura Soul Friend topics. (“Laura,” various paths.) What, who, & how of one’s spirituality.
3. Friday Evening Conversation returns to 5:30-6:30pm and to poetry/journal focus.
Consult “Today at Meetingbrook” For any changes in schedule.
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: Cabin is always open and available for silence, meditation, or prayer.
SATURDAY MORNING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE – Weekly Lectio Divina: Sat, 6:45am-8:00am; Monthly Retreat 3rd Saturday 21June. Retreat this month Christian focus.
SUNDAY EVENING PRACTICE AT THE HERMITAGE Each Sunday evening, 6:00-8:00pm. Practice includes Silent Sitting, Walking, Listening, Eating, Conversing, Chanting. (1,15,29June Buddhist focus; 8,22June. Christian focus) All welcome.A Place of Conversation, Collation, and Recollection at Camden HarborCome anytime, each conversation stands alone.
TUESDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30pm. -6:30pm. Maybe Zen, Maybe Not. A Practice/Study focusing on Buddhist Meditative Tradition. Currently beginning After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path by Jack Kornfield
WEDNESDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30pm. -6:30pm Laura Soul-Friend Conversations. Wednesday Evening Conversations focus on Personal Practice & Laura Soul Friend topics. (“Laura,” various paths.) What, who, & how of one’s spirituality. Topics will reflect an individual’s personal, spiritual, psychological, intellectual practice, interest, or concern. Each Wednesday some person, or some aspect of practice, will begin the conversation.
THURSDAY EVENING CONVERSATION AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30pm-6:30pm. Stepping into the Mirror, A Practice/Study focusing on Christian Contemplative Tradition. Currently reading A Monk in the World, Cultivating a Spiritual Life, by Wayne Teasdale
FRIDAY EVENING CONVERSATIONS AT THE BOOKSHOP 5:30pm - 6:30pm Poetry & Journal Readings. An open gathering inviting anyone to join in the practice. Bring or find poems or journal writing.
SATURDAY MORNING & EVENING CONVERSATIONS AT THE BOOKSHOP 9:00am-10:00am: The Many Faces of Death. We are reading the 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. Currently reading stories from Island, by Alistair MacLeod
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.
Closed Mondays. Open by 10:30am to 7:30pm Tuesday-Sunday (Sunday 'til 5:30pm). Let us order your books and music! Thanks!Bookshop/Bakery, 50 Bayview Street, Camden, ME Dogen & Francis Hermitage 64 Barnestown Rd, Camden, ME mono@meetingbrook.org (207) 236-6808
Thursday, June 05, 2003
Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
If you memorize slogans, you are unable to make subtle adaptations according to the situation. It is not that there is no way to teach insight to learners, but once you have learned a way, it is essential that you get it to work completely. If you just stick to your teacher’s school and memorize slogans, this is not enlightenment, it is a part of intellectual knowledge. ( Fayan, dailyzen)
Marriage. The lovely woman who sang and spoke last evening has been looking toward marriage for many years. Reciprocity evades.
If we don't speak now we are not saying anything. Even if many words issue forth they are fluttering filler stuffing noise into open spaces.
What is marriage but now engaged within itself? No one left out.
Another woman buys three South American hand woven bookmarks. She says, "I wish I had a dog. And that it would take care of itself."
Now, what do you say for yourself?
Sunday, June 01, 2003
"Our boy looks tired," says Carol to Kevin. John Joseph holds miniature cement truck in one hand, thumb in mouth, eyes drooping.
It rains. Birch logs burn in fire place. Hugh and Virginia play harmonica and guitar. Dogs lay wet between benches.
Saskia sorts cheese sticks.
Rain rolls down glass.
Sunday afternoon.
Puddles pop.
It rains. Birch logs burn in fire place. Hugh and Virginia play harmonica and guitar. Dogs lay wet between benches.
Saskia sorts cheese sticks.
Rain rolls down glass.
Sunday afternoon.
Puddles pop.
Saturday, May 31, 2003
Peter spoke.
Judas was gone. Mathias was chosen. He'd been with them. Joseph Justus was not chosen. Joseph Justus led a life afterwards no words describe. This telling ends. Where did he go? What life is known outside its story told by another? Unchosen. Left to unnamed disappearence.
Woman at well wondered where the stranger would get a bucket. She had hers. The stranger said he had living water. She was asked about her husband. The conversation, as does the reading, stops. Isn't she enough? Why the husband? Sure, sure -- she'd had several. Make the point. Are you finished? Fine.
Revealing the name.
· "They have kept your word."
· "Now I am coming to you."
· "Keep them in your name that you have given me."
He'd given them the word but they no longer belong to the world. He prayed they be consecrated in truth.
"Your word is truth."
(John 17)
Then he shut up. His prayer finished.
He didn't want them to be taken out of the world. He wanted them to be protected from the evil one.
The realm of non-thinking
Can hardly be fathomed by cognition;
In the sphere of genuine suchness
There is neither “I” nor “other.”
- Yunmen (864-949)
A good prayer.
A good prayer is spoken of itself. Just that. Nothing else. Of itself.
God is of itself.
We pray to be of itself revealed in name, that is, in complete presence.
Let us forget absence. Absence is full of men's words manufacturing names that carry noise into the world making of absence deluded wealth. Man's idea of this world.
Pray, rather, with holy presence. Consecrated.
Holy presence of itself.
Arrive at no idea of oneness itself.
Judas was gone. Mathias was chosen. He'd been with them. Joseph Justus was not chosen. Joseph Justus led a life afterwards no words describe. This telling ends. Where did he go? What life is known outside its story told by another? Unchosen. Left to unnamed disappearence.
Woman at well wondered where the stranger would get a bucket. She had hers. The stranger said he had living water. She was asked about her husband. The conversation, as does the reading, stops. Isn't she enough? Why the husband? Sure, sure -- she'd had several. Make the point. Are you finished? Fine.
Revealing the name.
· "They have kept your word."
· "Now I am coming to you."
· "Keep them in your name that you have given me."
He'd given them the word but they no longer belong to the world. He prayed they be consecrated in truth.
"Your word is truth."
(John 17)
Then he shut up. His prayer finished.
He didn't want them to be taken out of the world. He wanted them to be protected from the evil one.
The realm of non-thinking
Can hardly be fathomed by cognition;
In the sphere of genuine suchness
There is neither “I” nor “other.”
- Yunmen (864-949)
A good prayer.
A good prayer is spoken of itself. Just that. Nothing else. Of itself.
God is of itself.
We pray to be of itself revealed in name, that is, in complete presence.
Let us forget absence. Absence is full of men's words manufacturing names that carry noise into the world making of absence deluded wealth. Man's idea of this world.
Pray, rather, with holy presence. Consecrated.
Holy presence of itself.
Arrive at no idea of oneness itself.
Friday, May 30, 2003
Return. Our koan.
Forty days and gone.
Ascension Thursday disappears into Friday. Birds at dawn convey their song. Monastics of morning chant laud into new light permeated with return.
The Main Case
A monk asked Zhaozhou, "The myriad things return to one. Where does the one return to?" Zhaozhou said "When I was in Jing Zhao, I made a cloth shirt. It weighed seven pounds."
In both Wednesday and Thursday Evening Conversation Ascension made its way into words. The Zen Buddhist deliberation questioning if ten thousand things returning to one, then, where does the one return to? This helps look into the Christian mystery of the Ascension.
The monk in this koan is asking a very important question. "When the myriad things return to one, where does the one return to?" When everything, all beings, creatures, actions, thoughts, memories, experiences, desires, objects — when every single thing has returned to its origin, its essence — where does that origin return to? (from Dharma Talk by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Sensei)
Does the one return to the 10,000 things? To feed, nourish, guide, and share in their communion each with each. Does Jesus the Christ do the same? Is this Eucharist?
Beatrice Bruteau, in her essay Eucharistic Ecology and Ecological Spirituality writes:
A sense of the Eucharistic Planet, of the Real Presence of the Divine in the world, is something we need now for the protection of the planet. It may be that biblical religion has encouraged Western civilization to take unfair advantage of the natural environment under the belief that it was given to humanity by God for purposes of human exploitation and has no rights of its own. It may be that we need to tell ourselves a new story about how we fit into the general scene and what it's all about. I don't dispute that. But I would like to emphasize that on the basis of the Gospel we can say something quite constructive and very exciting that will give us the new story and a vision of the wholeness of the planet.
The core of the story, as I see it, is the communitarian life taught by and instituted by Jesus. It is based on a vision of being that differs from the one we usually assume. Instead of taking as the norm of Reality those things that are outside one another, he takes as standard and paradigm those who are in one another. His prayer, his vision, is "that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us . . . that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one" (John 17:21-22). This is the heart of what Jesus is about, I believe. And I don't think that we should regard it as something on an always receding horizon, a merely guiding ideal, something unreal to be striven for but never actually achieved. On the contrary, I think he meant that this is how Reality is fundamentally constructed: this is how it is, and we are to wake up and know it, realize it.
This basic insight, vision, revelation, was developed in the church in terms of two great dogmas, which, however, haven't perhaps been sufficiently appreciated as the structural models that they are. The two great dogmas, from which probably everything can be derived, are the Trinity and the Incarnation. And they are encapsulated in the single sacrament of Holy Communion, the Incarnation of the Trinity. I mean, of course, the mutually feeding, mutually indwelling, community, in which all members give themselves to one another as food, for the sake of life, abundant life.
It only remains to be said explicitly that this community is not limited to human beings but includes all life and the entire cosmos, and we have a religious view that not only enables but demands an ecological morality with regard to both the human community and the total cosmic community. The whole universe is structured and organized in such a way that all members depend on one another; they are all, in fact, dynamic processes constituted precisely by their relations to one another. It is exactly the Trinity that the universe images, which it, in fact, incarnates, embodies, phenomenalizes, shows forth, reveals, glorifies. The universe puts into flesh, into matter, the Trinitarian perichoretic Life--with its differentiation by relation, its self-sharing, its mutual indwelling--by which the nature of God is expressed.
(Bruteau, in Cross Currents)
Perichoretic (from the Greek perichoresis; translates as "reciprocal inter-penetration; being-in-one-another"). It is a different world if we see, honor, and behave according to we-are-in-one-another. The cycle of the story of creation, Christ, and circumincessional interpenetration
. . . the standpoint from which one sees oneself in others and loves one's neighbor as oneself means that the self is at the home-ground of every other in the "nothingness" of the self, and that every other is at the home-ground of the self in that same nothingness. Only when these two are one--in a relationship of circuminsessional interpenetration-does this standpoint come about. (Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), p. 279.)
One bird sings outside window. In my ears and heart this singing is my dawning.
Wells and alleys lead me to the rocky hills.
From a traveler’s pavilion up in clouds and haze
I watch the sun full, far from the city
Up in the blue mountains mirrored by distant water.
On the shore a lonely boat is anchored.
Fishermen and evening birds go home.
Dusk comes to the silent expanse of heaven and earth,
And my heart is calm like this wide river.
- Wang Wei (699-759)
When not conditioned and overwhelmed by dualistic thinking and separative behavior, we experience unisonal resonance. Unisonal/resonance, this harmonious agreement or union of sound/continuing to sound, invites us to hear sparrow song and morning dove coo fresh and new. It is our own sound.
Arrival is departure, departure is return, and return is arrival. This appreciation allows us to hear Theodore Roethke’s first line of poem “The Manifestation” fresh and new, “Many arrivals make us live.”
I like the phrasing in Mark, “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
When they had gathered together they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” (Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11)
With, in, through, and as each other, we arrive where we’ve always unknowing been, and know it for the first time. Poets and mystics sense this and glimpse it in words for us. Until comes time, or, until dissolves time into now, where, and when, the word becomes flesh, becomes us, returning home through the movement with, in, through, and as each other – the very love of God. Nor is God other than the unisonal/resonance flowing through each and every being we dwell with in this creation and dimensions of being/heaven as yet unimagined by us.
Is this good news?
For some, perhaps many, it is frightening news, signaling the dissolution of everything we’ve believed or claimed to believe. We are now being invited to see for ourselves. “Don’t think; look” said Wittgenstein. “From now on you’re on your own,” said the Buddha.
"Jesus said to his disciples: 'Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel (the good news) to every creature'." (Mark 16:15-20)
To be “on your own” is not alienation and secluded loneliness. Rather with unisonal/resonance to be on your own is to see we are now one, we are alone with the Alone, none other than God within and through us, within and through each and every expression of love’s very being-in-the-world.
For Francis of Assisi all of nature was God’s breath forming and unforming, entering, leaving, and returning in a joyful song/dance of life. Like the Hindu stories of Brahma, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva – a joyous and perplexing dance of creation, flourishing, destruction, re-creation on and on toward recognition of our common life, communal relational responsibility to everything that is – we arrive at every moment, now, now, and now.
And what of the seven pound cloth shirt and the ten thousand things?
Dogen is talking about the same issue we’re exploring here, what is the relationship between the one and the many, between unity and difference? Between you as an individual and the sangha? Dogen says the Buddhas always train themselves in the Way alone. Which is absolutely true, and isn’t it interesting that in training alone in sesshin, we’re never by ourselves. We’re always in the midst of sangha; sitting, eating, resting, sleeping, working, chanting. Every moment of the day. Yet, we train ourselves in the Way alone. But Dogen goes on to say that the Way is always identified with all things, in other words, the Way is all things. So we train in complete solitude, and in that solitude, everything is present, each and every thing, the whole sangha, the whole universe.
This aloneness is very different from loneliness. In this aloneness there is complete identification. In loneliness, there is no identification; there is separation and alienation. Where does that alienation originate? Within ourselves. What we feel inside is exactly what we find in the world. When we feel distant from other people, if we look closely, we’ll find that we’re distant from ourselves. How else could it be that we could be in an intimate relationship and be lonely, in the midst of family and be lonely, or in the midst of sangha and be lonely, all the while surrounded by people who care about us, and who love us? But we can’t feel it — something is in the way.
Dogen goes on to say that we must act in accord with each other. The thing we don’t realize is that when we’re not acting in harmony with each other, in that moment, we’re not in harmony with ourselves. That’s why it doesn’t feel good. It’s pretty simple. That’s why, even when we feel terrible, and we’re able to do something for someone else, suddenly we feel better. Something shifts. How could that be? It doesn’t make sense. Could it be the power of being in accord with the truth, with ourselves? How could it not have an affect that’s confirming?
(Zhaozhou’s Seven Pound Cloth Shirt, Dharma Talk by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Sensei, M.R.O. Blue Cliff Record, Case 45)
Ascension, Christ’s and our, is an affirming affect of the power of being in accord with the truth. This affect, this influence, this touch – frees. It frees into the necessity of seeing and hearing things clearly, engaging things faithfully, and touching one another in passing with affirming confidence we are in this together.
Return? Our koan.
What a lovely shirt!
Forty days and gone.
Ascension Thursday disappears into Friday. Birds at dawn convey their song. Monastics of morning chant laud into new light permeated with return.
The Main Case
A monk asked Zhaozhou, "The myriad things return to one. Where does the one return to?" Zhaozhou said "When I was in Jing Zhao, I made a cloth shirt. It weighed seven pounds."
In both Wednesday and Thursday Evening Conversation Ascension made its way into words. The Zen Buddhist deliberation questioning if ten thousand things returning to one, then, where does the one return to? This helps look into the Christian mystery of the Ascension.
The monk in this koan is asking a very important question. "When the myriad things return to one, where does the one return to?" When everything, all beings, creatures, actions, thoughts, memories, experiences, desires, objects — when every single thing has returned to its origin, its essence — where does that origin return to? (from Dharma Talk by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Sensei)
Does the one return to the 10,000 things? To feed, nourish, guide, and share in their communion each with each. Does Jesus the Christ do the same? Is this Eucharist?
Beatrice Bruteau, in her essay Eucharistic Ecology and Ecological Spirituality writes:
A sense of the Eucharistic Planet, of the Real Presence of the Divine in the world, is something we need now for the protection of the planet. It may be that biblical religion has encouraged Western civilization to take unfair advantage of the natural environment under the belief that it was given to humanity by God for purposes of human exploitation and has no rights of its own. It may be that we need to tell ourselves a new story about how we fit into the general scene and what it's all about. I don't dispute that. But I would like to emphasize that on the basis of the Gospel we can say something quite constructive and very exciting that will give us the new story and a vision of the wholeness of the planet.
The core of the story, as I see it, is the communitarian life taught by and instituted by Jesus. It is based on a vision of being that differs from the one we usually assume. Instead of taking as the norm of Reality those things that are outside one another, he takes as standard and paradigm those who are in one another. His prayer, his vision, is "that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us . . . that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one" (John 17:21-22). This is the heart of what Jesus is about, I believe. And I don't think that we should regard it as something on an always receding horizon, a merely guiding ideal, something unreal to be striven for but never actually achieved. On the contrary, I think he meant that this is how Reality is fundamentally constructed: this is how it is, and we are to wake up and know it, realize it.
This basic insight, vision, revelation, was developed in the church in terms of two great dogmas, which, however, haven't perhaps been sufficiently appreciated as the structural models that they are. The two great dogmas, from which probably everything can be derived, are the Trinity and the Incarnation. And they are encapsulated in the single sacrament of Holy Communion, the Incarnation of the Trinity. I mean, of course, the mutually feeding, mutually indwelling, community, in which all members give themselves to one another as food, for the sake of life, abundant life.
It only remains to be said explicitly that this community is not limited to human beings but includes all life and the entire cosmos, and we have a religious view that not only enables but demands an ecological morality with regard to both the human community and the total cosmic community. The whole universe is structured and organized in such a way that all members depend on one another; they are all, in fact, dynamic processes constituted precisely by their relations to one another. It is exactly the Trinity that the universe images, which it, in fact, incarnates, embodies, phenomenalizes, shows forth, reveals, glorifies. The universe puts into flesh, into matter, the Trinitarian perichoretic Life--with its differentiation by relation, its self-sharing, its mutual indwelling--by which the nature of God is expressed.
(Bruteau, in Cross Currents)
Perichoretic (from the Greek perichoresis; translates as "reciprocal inter-penetration; being-in-one-another"). It is a different world if we see, honor, and behave according to we-are-in-one-another. The cycle of the story of creation, Christ, and circumincessional interpenetration
. . . the standpoint from which one sees oneself in others and loves one's neighbor as oneself means that the self is at the home-ground of every other in the "nothingness" of the self, and that every other is at the home-ground of the self in that same nothingness. Only when these two are one--in a relationship of circuminsessional interpenetration-does this standpoint come about. (Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), p. 279.)
One bird sings outside window. In my ears and heart this singing is my dawning.
Wells and alleys lead me to the rocky hills.
From a traveler’s pavilion up in clouds and haze
I watch the sun full, far from the city
Up in the blue mountains mirrored by distant water.
On the shore a lonely boat is anchored.
Fishermen and evening birds go home.
Dusk comes to the silent expanse of heaven and earth,
And my heart is calm like this wide river.
- Wang Wei (699-759)
When not conditioned and overwhelmed by dualistic thinking and separative behavior, we experience unisonal resonance. Unisonal/resonance, this harmonious agreement or union of sound/continuing to sound, invites us to hear sparrow song and morning dove coo fresh and new. It is our own sound.
Arrival is departure, departure is return, and return is arrival. This appreciation allows us to hear Theodore Roethke’s first line of poem “The Manifestation” fresh and new, “Many arrivals make us live.”
I like the phrasing in Mark, “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
When they had gathered together they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” (Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11)
With, in, through, and as each other, we arrive where we’ve always unknowing been, and know it for the first time. Poets and mystics sense this and glimpse it in words for us. Until comes time, or, until dissolves time into now, where, and when, the word becomes flesh, becomes us, returning home through the movement with, in, through, and as each other – the very love of God. Nor is God other than the unisonal/resonance flowing through each and every being we dwell with in this creation and dimensions of being/heaven as yet unimagined by us.
Is this good news?
For some, perhaps many, it is frightening news, signaling the dissolution of everything we’ve believed or claimed to believe. We are now being invited to see for ourselves. “Don’t think; look” said Wittgenstein. “From now on you’re on your own,” said the Buddha.
"Jesus said to his disciples: 'Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel (the good news) to every creature'." (Mark 16:15-20)
To be “on your own” is not alienation and secluded loneliness. Rather with unisonal/resonance to be on your own is to see we are now one, we are alone with the Alone, none other than God within and through us, within and through each and every expression of love’s very being-in-the-world.
For Francis of Assisi all of nature was God’s breath forming and unforming, entering, leaving, and returning in a joyful song/dance of life. Like the Hindu stories of Brahma, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva – a joyous and perplexing dance of creation, flourishing, destruction, re-creation on and on toward recognition of our common life, communal relational responsibility to everything that is – we arrive at every moment, now, now, and now.
And what of the seven pound cloth shirt and the ten thousand things?
Dogen is talking about the same issue we’re exploring here, what is the relationship between the one and the many, between unity and difference? Between you as an individual and the sangha? Dogen says the Buddhas always train themselves in the Way alone. Which is absolutely true, and isn’t it interesting that in training alone in sesshin, we’re never by ourselves. We’re always in the midst of sangha; sitting, eating, resting, sleeping, working, chanting. Every moment of the day. Yet, we train ourselves in the Way alone. But Dogen goes on to say that the Way is always identified with all things, in other words, the Way is all things. So we train in complete solitude, and in that solitude, everything is present, each and every thing, the whole sangha, the whole universe.
This aloneness is very different from loneliness. In this aloneness there is complete identification. In loneliness, there is no identification; there is separation and alienation. Where does that alienation originate? Within ourselves. What we feel inside is exactly what we find in the world. When we feel distant from other people, if we look closely, we’ll find that we’re distant from ourselves. How else could it be that we could be in an intimate relationship and be lonely, in the midst of family and be lonely, or in the midst of sangha and be lonely, all the while surrounded by people who care about us, and who love us? But we can’t feel it — something is in the way.
Dogen goes on to say that we must act in accord with each other. The thing we don’t realize is that when we’re not acting in harmony with each other, in that moment, we’re not in harmony with ourselves. That’s why it doesn’t feel good. It’s pretty simple. That’s why, even when we feel terrible, and we’re able to do something for someone else, suddenly we feel better. Something shifts. How could that be? It doesn’t make sense. Could it be the power of being in accord with the truth, with ourselves? How could it not have an affect that’s confirming?
(Zhaozhou’s Seven Pound Cloth Shirt, Dharma Talk by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Sensei, M.R.O. Blue Cliff Record, Case 45)
Ascension, Christ’s and our, is an affirming affect of the power of being in accord with the truth. This affect, this influence, this touch – frees. It frees into the necessity of seeing and hearing things clearly, engaging things faithfully, and touching one another in passing with affirming confidence we are in this together.
Return? Our koan.
What a lovely shirt!
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
The banner on lectern at church this morning was a collage with scattered words "Come" "Holy Spirit" and "Jesus."
Wanting nothing,
With all your heart stop the stream.
When the world dissolves,
Everything becomes clear.
Go beyond this way or that way
To the farther shore where the world dissolves,
And everything becomes clear.
Beyond this shore and the farther shore,
Beyond the beyond,
Where there is no beginning, no end,
Without fear, go.
- Buddha in the Dhammapada
We decided "Come" was surrogate word for "Father" or "Origin."
What is God but invitation?
Beyond the beyond,
Where there is no beginning, no end,
Without fear, go
Like lyrics of song from years ago -- "Come go with me."
This eve of Ascension.
Come.
Go.
Wanting nothing,
With all your heart stop the stream.
When the world dissolves,
Everything becomes clear.
Go beyond this way or that way
To the farther shore where the world dissolves,
And everything becomes clear.
Beyond this shore and the farther shore,
Beyond the beyond,
Where there is no beginning, no end,
Without fear, go.
- Buddha in the Dhammapada
We decided "Come" was surrogate word for "Father" or "Origin."
What is God but invitation?
Beyond the beyond,
Where there is no beginning, no end,
Without fear, go
Like lyrics of song from years ago -- "Come go with me."
This eve of Ascension.
Come.
Go.
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Three day rain pauses.
Perfumed springs ripple over skeletal outcrops
In the distance a hint of smoke rising
I hear perpetual stillness in these hills
Sense the rush of swirling waters
White plum blossoms blanket a dozen miles
Save for this single, tiny hut
Tigers, half-tame, loiter near the door
Chattering monkeys guard my gate
A wild mountain-man, white hair streaming
Tops the slate summit with a bamboo staff
Caught unawares, I laugh at the distant bell
Follow the twist and turn of an ancient stream.
Zen hearted, washed free of all desire
Never again will I wander the noisy dust.
- Shih-shu (17th century-early 18th)
Perhaps there are two worlds -- noisy dust and zen hearted. The noisy dust of the world covers so much. Perhaps the 'so much' is the Zen hearted.
We are one. We are interconnected. And yet we are also divided. We are fragmented.
Two worlds.
The resurrection of the body means that the Real Presence of the Absolute is realized in the world in all its ordinariness. The world of mountains and rivers, of bread and wine, of friends and enemies, is all held and displayed in the universal monstrance, the Showing, the phenomenalization of the Absolute. This is, as far as I can see, what the Mysteries, in their various mythic forms and traditions, are trying to tell us.
Can we recognize the presence of the Absolute in the ordinariness of the world? Do we know what is going on when bread is broken for supper? I want to see all our interconnectedness as expressions of the agape, the karuna, the hesed, the jen--of the Absolute. I want to perceive Earth as a Eucharistic Planet, a Good Gift planet, which is structured as mutual feeding, as intimate self-sharing. It is a great Process, a circulation of living energies, in which the Real Presence of the Absolute is descerned. Never holding still, continually passing away from moment to moment, it is the shining face of the Eternal. It is living as an integral Body, as the Glory Body of the Real. (in EUCHARISTIC ECOLOGY AND ECOLOGICAL SPIRITUALITY, By Beatrice Bruteau, Cross Currents, Winter 90-91)
Walking Ragged with Sando and Cesco, fingering beads, one foot then the other, no words but fingers and beads as prayer.
So much noisy dust, clamoring soot of power and politics.
Zen heart and shining face of eternal, a stream bounding after rainfall.
Incense rises.
Perfumed springs ripple over skeletal outcrops
In the distance a hint of smoke rising
I hear perpetual stillness in these hills
Sense the rush of swirling waters
White plum blossoms blanket a dozen miles
Save for this single, tiny hut
Tigers, half-tame, loiter near the door
Chattering monkeys guard my gate
A wild mountain-man, white hair streaming
Tops the slate summit with a bamboo staff
Caught unawares, I laugh at the distant bell
Follow the twist and turn of an ancient stream.
Zen hearted, washed free of all desire
Never again will I wander the noisy dust.
- Shih-shu (17th century-early 18th)
Perhaps there are two worlds -- noisy dust and zen hearted. The noisy dust of the world covers so much. Perhaps the 'so much' is the Zen hearted.
We are one. We are interconnected. And yet we are also divided. We are fragmented.
Two worlds.
The resurrection of the body means that the Real Presence of the Absolute is realized in the world in all its ordinariness. The world of mountains and rivers, of bread and wine, of friends and enemies, is all held and displayed in the universal monstrance, the Showing, the phenomenalization of the Absolute. This is, as far as I can see, what the Mysteries, in their various mythic forms and traditions, are trying to tell us.
Can we recognize the presence of the Absolute in the ordinariness of the world? Do we know what is going on when bread is broken for supper? I want to see all our interconnectedness as expressions of the agape, the karuna, the hesed, the jen--of the Absolute. I want to perceive Earth as a Eucharistic Planet, a Good Gift planet, which is structured as mutual feeding, as intimate self-sharing. It is a great Process, a circulation of living energies, in which the Real Presence of the Absolute is descerned. Never holding still, continually passing away from moment to moment, it is the shining face of the Eternal. It is living as an integral Body, as the Glory Body of the Real. (in EUCHARISTIC ECOLOGY AND ECOLOGICAL SPIRITUALITY, By Beatrice Bruteau, Cross Currents, Winter 90-91)
Walking Ragged with Sando and Cesco, fingering beads, one foot then the other, no words but fingers and beads as prayer.
So much noisy dust, clamoring soot of power and politics.
Zen heart and shining face of eternal, a stream bounding after rainfall.
Incense rises.
Sunday, May 25, 2003
We honor and pray for all dead and deadened by war.
Clouds release the hillsides
And wake the scene of spring
Where is the plum tree
That wafts that subtle scent
I grab my staff intending
To search secluded valleys
Then find a single branch
Against my eastern wall.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)
Even in absence of full field of blossoming peace and understanding, a single branch will do.
If we find ourselves a single expression of peace, then one other person might find us. We might find them. Each might find each.
In the aftermath of war it still applies that to the victor belong the spoils. It seems to be the truest statement about war. Further below that truism is another truth -- someone has to die, no, many have to die in war. War demands sacrifice only death satisfies.
In this vein it can be said that the victors and vanquished inherit the spoils of dead from wars. These dead linger watching those who’ve sent them to die. They wait to see if their deaths are honored, worthwhile, and beacon truth. Not with flags and flowers. Not with parades and scripted rhetoric. But deeper.
The dead from war wait for justice, truth, fairness, and in the case of the United States, proof that genuine democracy is the benefit of their sacrifice.
Memorial Day asks that we remember life as sacred. Life is not a poker chip in a game of chance played only by wealthy, powerful men. Life is our shared existence in this realm, on this planet, and in dimensions undetected but within which we all are interconnected. This is the surprise waiting those counting up the spoils of war. It doesn't belong to the counters. It belongs to everyone, living and dead.
Life is seamless. Right living, right action, and right intention are intimately integrated with wrong living, wrong action, and wrong intention. Wholeness is wholeness. No exclusion.
God is that integration. The dead are in God. We, the living, must face this. And those who order death will have a more profound awakening to face before them. Only God sees simultaneously within and without, those in form of living biology and those in emptiness of beyond this existence.
The so-called judgment of God at end will not be an accounting. It will be a recounting of each life’s story. We will tell our story in the face of God’s loving attention, and we will see everything we might not have seen before. It will astonish us. We will joy and sorrow simultaneously. The question is – will we be able to enter the wholeness after facing the parts of the story spoiled by our ignorance and deluded thinking?
We pray for those facing death. We pray for those in God. We pray for those seeking peace.
Be neither victor nor vanquished. Be unspoiling.
At Memorial Day we pray for all dead and deadened by war.
Life continues healing in all its forms and emptiness.
Be life. Be a single branch.
Clouds release the hillsides
And wake the scene of spring
Where is the plum tree
That wafts that subtle scent
I grab my staff intending
To search secluded valleys
Then find a single branch
Against my eastern wall.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)
Even in absence of full field of blossoming peace and understanding, a single branch will do.
If we find ourselves a single expression of peace, then one other person might find us. We might find them. Each might find each.
In the aftermath of war it still applies that to the victor belong the spoils. It seems to be the truest statement about war. Further below that truism is another truth -- someone has to die, no, many have to die in war. War demands sacrifice only death satisfies.
In this vein it can be said that the victors and vanquished inherit the spoils of dead from wars. These dead linger watching those who’ve sent them to die. They wait to see if their deaths are honored, worthwhile, and beacon truth. Not with flags and flowers. Not with parades and scripted rhetoric. But deeper.
The dead from war wait for justice, truth, fairness, and in the case of the United States, proof that genuine democracy is the benefit of their sacrifice.
Memorial Day asks that we remember life as sacred. Life is not a poker chip in a game of chance played only by wealthy, powerful men. Life is our shared existence in this realm, on this planet, and in dimensions undetected but within which we all are interconnected. This is the surprise waiting those counting up the spoils of war. It doesn't belong to the counters. It belongs to everyone, living and dead.
Life is seamless. Right living, right action, and right intention are intimately integrated with wrong living, wrong action, and wrong intention. Wholeness is wholeness. No exclusion.
God is that integration. The dead are in God. We, the living, must face this. And those who order death will have a more profound awakening to face before them. Only God sees simultaneously within and without, those in form of living biology and those in emptiness of beyond this existence.
The so-called judgment of God at end will not be an accounting. It will be a recounting of each life’s story. We will tell our story in the face of God’s loving attention, and we will see everything we might not have seen before. It will astonish us. We will joy and sorrow simultaneously. The question is – will we be able to enter the wholeness after facing the parts of the story spoiled by our ignorance and deluded thinking?
We pray for those facing death. We pray for those in God. We pray for those seeking peace.
Be neither victor nor vanquished. Be unspoiling.
At Memorial Day we pray for all dead and deadened by war.
Life continues healing in all its forms and emptiness.
Be life. Be a single branch.
Saturday, May 24, 2003
What does it mean to be offspring of original universal energy, substantiated and concretized in particular generative experience as creating expression of unbroken oneness?
Christ!
Father!
Mother!
Spirit!
Words are of a twofold kind. ...They are deloma pragmatos (onoma), revelation of things, and deloma praxeos (rhema), revelation of an action. (Martin Heidegger, p.48, in Introduction to Metaphysics)
What revelation of things and action are we capable and willing to contemplate?
In prison yesterday Zach, Dick, Josh, Gail, Joe, Ryan, and I wondered aloud what these revelations seemed like in our midst. We read Albert Camus, Theodore Roethke, Taoist tale of two enemies and karma, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Buddha, and Galway Kinnell.
In the flash of a single thought,
The agitated mind is put to rest.
All the inner and outer sensations
Become lucid and transparent.
Breaking the great void
By a turning of the body,
The ten thousand phenomena
Of the majestic world
Rise and disappear.
- Han-Shan Te-Ch’ing
Ryan said 'the Christ' noun/verb (Greek, onoma/rhema) was easiest for him to enter the revelation. The historical repetition of biographical facts of Jesus and Paul were wearing and numbing. He preferred to consider the a-historical relevance of the Christ in present reality.
Zach quoted the final line of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises as rain fell all about prison grounds.
Gail said it was the solidarity, the simple conversing together interconnecting inside/outside the walls that gave her (and all of us) much joy.
What is the revelation-taking place?
This, surely.
Christ!
Father!
Mother!
Spirit!
Words are of a twofold kind. ...They are deloma pragmatos (onoma), revelation of things, and deloma praxeos (rhema), revelation of an action. (Martin Heidegger, p.48, in Introduction to Metaphysics)
What revelation of things and action are we capable and willing to contemplate?
In prison yesterday Zach, Dick, Josh, Gail, Joe, Ryan, and I wondered aloud what these revelations seemed like in our midst. We read Albert Camus, Theodore Roethke, Taoist tale of two enemies and karma, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Buddha, and Galway Kinnell.
In the flash of a single thought,
The agitated mind is put to rest.
All the inner and outer sensations
Become lucid and transparent.
Breaking the great void
By a turning of the body,
The ten thousand phenomena
Of the majestic world
Rise and disappear.
- Han-Shan Te-Ch’ing
Ryan said 'the Christ' noun/verb (Greek, onoma/rhema) was easiest for him to enter the revelation. The historical repetition of biographical facts of Jesus and Paul were wearing and numbing. He preferred to consider the a-historical relevance of the Christ in present reality.
Zach quoted the final line of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises as rain fell all about prison grounds.
Gail said it was the solidarity, the simple conversing together interconnecting inside/outside the walls that gave her (and all of us) much joy.
What is the revelation-taking place?
This, surely.
Thursday, May 22, 2003
“Ask,” Jesus said, “and you will receive.”
The moon’s the same old moon,
The flowers exactly as they were,
Yet I’ve become the thingness
Of all the things I see!
- Bunan (1602-1676)
Ronald told us at the shop something his mother taught. Translated from Dutch – “No, you have. Yes, you may get.”
His point, ask – what’s to lose?
No?
Yes!
The moon’s the same old moon,
The flowers exactly as they were,
Yet I’ve become the thingness
Of all the things I see!
- Bunan (1602-1676)
Ronald told us at the shop something his mother taught. Translated from Dutch – “No, you have. Yes, you may get.”
His point, ask – what’s to lose?
No?
Yes!
Sunday, May 18, 2003
Meetingbrook's vision is for a Schola Contemplationis et Gratia -- i.e. A Place of Contemplation and Gratefulness.
The eye sees it,
But no hands can take hold of it.
The moon in the stream:
This is the secret of this school.
(- Shinkage-ryu school)(dailyzen)
Residing at the intersection of four traditional expressions of learning, prayer, contemplation, and creative expression, Meetingbrook Schola Retreat Hermitage is a middle place. Between university, monastery, library, and meditation retreat center.
Meetingbrook Schola Retreat Hermitage will serve as a new form for the dwelling of intelligent inquiry, prayerful service, artistic expression, and silent sanctuary.
A dream? Yes, an active one. It will be a place of eco-spirituality and hospitality dwelling profoundly in nature's embrace, welcoming openly each arriving face.
Will there emerge a contemplative center that is interfaith, interreligious, multicultural, and open to the Spirit in our world?
What would any of us be willing to support if it were dedicated to peace and understanding, service and hospitality in the midst of a troubled and dangerous world crying out for new life and healing for all?
If you would, today, take a minute. In your heart say a prayer. In your mind hold a thought. In your imagination wish this prospect well.
God is longing from within our experience to fully enter this earth, this world, this moment now.
It is a simple request.
See it.
The eye sees it,
But no hands can take hold of it.
The moon in the stream:
This is the secret of this school.
(- Shinkage-ryu school)(dailyzen)
Residing at the intersection of four traditional expressions of learning, prayer, contemplation, and creative expression, Meetingbrook Schola Retreat Hermitage is a middle place. Between university, monastery, library, and meditation retreat center.
Meetingbrook Schola Retreat Hermitage will serve as a new form for the dwelling of intelligent inquiry, prayerful service, artistic expression, and silent sanctuary.
A dream? Yes, an active one. It will be a place of eco-spirituality and hospitality dwelling profoundly in nature's embrace, welcoming openly each arriving face.
Will there emerge a contemplative center that is interfaith, interreligious, multicultural, and open to the Spirit in our world?
What would any of us be willing to support if it were dedicated to peace and understanding, service and hospitality in the midst of a troubled and dangerous world crying out for new life and healing for all?
If you would, today, take a minute. In your heart say a prayer. In your mind hold a thought. In your imagination wish this prospect well.
God is longing from within our experience to fully enter this earth, this world, this moment now.
It is a simple request.
See it.
Friday, May 16, 2003
How lovely to hang laundry in soft breeze of a sunny Friday morning.
Mu-ge tries to dismantle railing of staircase. He leaps, and claws, meowing with determined craziness. I have not looked yet. But it is my hope he has not yet succeeded.
In chapel/zendo earlier after silent sitting, these words,
O see in guilt I was born,
a sinner was I conceived.
(- from Psalm 51)
Catholic and former Catholic friends would look at this couplet and see a basis for shudder, a theology of guilt and shame thrust on them from earliest years. But this morning there is a different sound rising from the verses.
The "I," some say, emerged from a suspicion of separation. Once humankind became aware of the complexity in the simplicity of Being, it was the beginning of evolutionary consciousness arising from unconscious oneness wherein all Being was only, merely itself with no sense of otherness.
Finding oneself other -- sensing separation, having the ability to detach, stand outside, even blame and accuse -- was a heady experience. If we were able to blame, we could hold ourselves blameless. If stand outside, one could juxtapose an inside. So too with accuse, be innocent; detach, then grasp as one's own. Even notions of God come as a Great Otherness.
Fast-forward hundreds of thousands of years. The "I" is born with the suspicion experience of otherness. But as awareness grows through its painful and exhilarating experience of billions of interactions, events, chattering and silences, awareness begins to suspect something long forgotten yet newly awakened.
Awareness suspects there is no other. Small glimpses, gentle intuitions, lighted areas previously dark begin to emerge with increasing frequency within millions of hearts and minds through countless generations.
Something unusual and profoundly open is emerging from dark unknowing through skeptical suspicion into bright morning sunlight.
With this generous and compassionate inclusivity of sight, though, comes clear recognition that in times gone by we've excluded, been miserly to, acted unkindly with, and been blind concerning others.
Guilt and "I" know each other well.
"Sinners" is a word that has been applied to all of us who've in some manner behaved, thought, or vocalized a blaming, accusing, disdaining, or othering injury that hurt or diminished someone in our sight. We have sacrificed others in our unseeing.
Now, we are preparing to forgive ourselves our shortsightedness. We are preparing to welcome back all we've made other. We are ready to sit down, silently appraise, then stand up and audibly proclaim what is nearly impossible to put into words.
We are now alert enough to move to the penultimate quatrain of Psalm 51 with new vision,
For in sacrifice you take no delight,
burnt offering from me you would refuse,
my sacrifice, a contrite spirit.
A humbled contrite heart you will not spurn.
To wake up. To awaken to the climb up from the valley of darkness and death to mountain height of light and life!
This is holy making; this is true sacrifice. In this climb we no longer suspect, but grow more alert and aware to "I" diminishing and "No-Other" coming to be seen as what we are -- in, with, through, and for each and every one.
It is Christ journey.
And it is Buddha journey, all-human journey, yours, mine, and ours.
Those of us who practice Jesus' revelation face the decrease/increase spirituality of the Christ.
Those practicing the Buddha's way face the dissolve/resonate spirituality of the Bodhisattva.
Two Poems Written on the Wall at Kozosan
I acquired this hermitage a year ago;
Cloudy peaks, moon in the valley,
Companions in withered Zen.
Come morning,
I descend the mountain road.
In front of this crag,
What mountain rock will I sleep on next?
- Jakushitsu (1290 – 1367)(dailyzen)
As bell rings laundry dances alongside rusty plough between barn and brook.
Sleep and wake.
Morning!
Mu-ge tries to dismantle railing of staircase. He leaps, and claws, meowing with determined craziness. I have not looked yet. But it is my hope he has not yet succeeded.
In chapel/zendo earlier after silent sitting, these words,
O see in guilt I was born,
a sinner was I conceived.
(- from Psalm 51)
Catholic and former Catholic friends would look at this couplet and see a basis for shudder, a theology of guilt and shame thrust on them from earliest years. But this morning there is a different sound rising from the verses.
The "I," some say, emerged from a suspicion of separation. Once humankind became aware of the complexity in the simplicity of Being, it was the beginning of evolutionary consciousness arising from unconscious oneness wherein all Being was only, merely itself with no sense of otherness.
Finding oneself other -- sensing separation, having the ability to detach, stand outside, even blame and accuse -- was a heady experience. If we were able to blame, we could hold ourselves blameless. If stand outside, one could juxtapose an inside. So too with accuse, be innocent; detach, then grasp as one's own. Even notions of God come as a Great Otherness.
Fast-forward hundreds of thousands of years. The "I" is born with the suspicion experience of otherness. But as awareness grows through its painful and exhilarating experience of billions of interactions, events, chattering and silences, awareness begins to suspect something long forgotten yet newly awakened.
Awareness suspects there is no other. Small glimpses, gentle intuitions, lighted areas previously dark begin to emerge with increasing frequency within millions of hearts and minds through countless generations.
Something unusual and profoundly open is emerging from dark unknowing through skeptical suspicion into bright morning sunlight.
With this generous and compassionate inclusivity of sight, though, comes clear recognition that in times gone by we've excluded, been miserly to, acted unkindly with, and been blind concerning others.
Guilt and "I" know each other well.
"Sinners" is a word that has been applied to all of us who've in some manner behaved, thought, or vocalized a blaming, accusing, disdaining, or othering injury that hurt or diminished someone in our sight. We have sacrificed others in our unseeing.
Now, we are preparing to forgive ourselves our shortsightedness. We are preparing to welcome back all we've made other. We are ready to sit down, silently appraise, then stand up and audibly proclaim what is nearly impossible to put into words.
We are now alert enough to move to the penultimate quatrain of Psalm 51 with new vision,
For in sacrifice you take no delight,
burnt offering from me you would refuse,
my sacrifice, a contrite spirit.
A humbled contrite heart you will not spurn.
To wake up. To awaken to the climb up from the valley of darkness and death to mountain height of light and life!
This is holy making; this is true sacrifice. In this climb we no longer suspect, but grow more alert and aware to "I" diminishing and "No-Other" coming to be seen as what we are -- in, with, through, and for each and every one.
It is Christ journey.
And it is Buddha journey, all-human journey, yours, mine, and ours.
Those of us who practice Jesus' revelation face the decrease/increase spirituality of the Christ.
Those practicing the Buddha's way face the dissolve/resonate spirituality of the Bodhisattva.
Two Poems Written on the Wall at Kozosan
I acquired this hermitage a year ago;
Cloudy peaks, moon in the valley,
Companions in withered Zen.
Come morning,
I descend the mountain road.
In front of this crag,
What mountain rock will I sleep on next?
- Jakushitsu (1290 – 1367)(dailyzen)
As bell rings laundry dances alongside rusty plough between barn and brook.
Sleep and wake.
Morning!
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
“God is self-evident, but what it is to be God is not self-evident to us.” (Thomas Aquinas)
Could Thomas Aquinas' sentence read, “God is self, evident, but what it is to be God is not-self evident to us”?
The paradox takes time to appear. But, right now: If God is self, then to be God is not-self.
Is this why God is invisible to us, quoted often, used as bludgeon repeatedly, but seldom felt in evident realms of compassion, justice, and peace? The notion of God, the idea of God used by embezzlers of divine reality, siphons off the name of God to exact self-styled benefits for self-absorbed individuals.
Spacious and content,
Without confusion from
Inner thoughts of grasping,
Effectively overcome habitual behavior
And realize the self
That is not possessed by emotions.
Be broad-minded,
Whole, without relying on others.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)
The self not possessed is the not-self evident to us.
‘Self’ suggests an enclosed, separate entity, distinctly other than another self, something owned and operated as private property and needing to be defended at all times. It is this ‘self’ that attracts all the advertising, flattery, importance, notions of accomplishment, success, and superiority. This ‘self’ also attracts feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, failure, inferiority, and absorption.
This ‘self’ is manipulated and seesaws between inflated and deflated opinion of its worth.
Not-self cannot be manipulated. Nor can God be manipulated. Only notions of self and ideas of God can be manipulated to achieve ends designed and devised by those manipulating.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet says, “To be or not to be … that is the question.”
It is in the ellipsis, that pause, that unknowing emptiness that the interstices of God-self/not-self occurs.
Could it be that there is no God outside the interrelated incidence of God-self/not-self?
What is God and what is you … occurring in the interval?
Is this why we cannot see God? Who can see what is not there but which is the very inquiry seeing itself as no-thing present to itself and everything surrounding itself?
Spacious and content, Without confusion from Inner thoughts of grasping,
God is. Great. We are.
Could Thomas Aquinas' sentence read, “God is self, evident, but what it is to be God is not-self evident to us”?
The paradox takes time to appear. But, right now: If God is self, then to be God is not-self.
Is this why God is invisible to us, quoted often, used as bludgeon repeatedly, but seldom felt in evident realms of compassion, justice, and peace? The notion of God, the idea of God used by embezzlers of divine reality, siphons off the name of God to exact self-styled benefits for self-absorbed individuals.
Spacious and content,
Without confusion from
Inner thoughts of grasping,
Effectively overcome habitual behavior
And realize the self
That is not possessed by emotions.
Be broad-minded,
Whole, without relying on others.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)
The self not possessed is the not-self evident to us.
‘Self’ suggests an enclosed, separate entity, distinctly other than another self, something owned and operated as private property and needing to be defended at all times. It is this ‘self’ that attracts all the advertising, flattery, importance, notions of accomplishment, success, and superiority. This ‘self’ also attracts feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, failure, inferiority, and absorption.
This ‘self’ is manipulated and seesaws between inflated and deflated opinion of its worth.
Not-self cannot be manipulated. Nor can God be manipulated. Only notions of self and ideas of God can be manipulated to achieve ends designed and devised by those manipulating.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet says, “To be or not to be … that is the question.”
It is in the ellipsis, that pause, that unknowing emptiness that the interstices of God-self/not-self occurs.
Could it be that there is no God outside the interrelated incidence of God-self/not-self?
What is God and what is you … occurring in the interval?
Is this why we cannot see God? Who can see what is not there but which is the very inquiry seeing itself as no-thing present to itself and everything surrounding itself?
Spacious and content, Without confusion from Inner thoughts of grasping,
God is. Great. We are.
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Gently, the Final Say.
Truth?
Just like this.
What do we hear when we listen for truth? Who has final say?
If one were to despair their country because of disbelief in its way of life, where would they go? If one no longer recognized those who say they represent you, where turn? If one feared rather than loved the institutions pledged to serve, how continue in their shadow?
The spirituality of redemptive violence put forth by any administration conducting a global war, nominally to extract terrorism and insert democracy, is antithetical to the spirituality of redemption embodied by the person in whose name the violence is done. A spiritual bait and switch, a scam selling faux-Christian battle plans disguising apocalyptic economic control in shiny wardrobe costume of democratic principles, a play to overcome non-like-us peoples, has begun and continues.
How can we ever lose interest in life?
Spring has come again
And cherry trees bloom in the mountains
- Ryokan (1758-1831)(dailyzen)
Spring comes to soothe tired hearts. Words and ways of arrogance, dominance, and condescending certitude exhaust dwindling remnant trust.
In birth country many once great dreams strain in vacant eyes. Calculating souls use errant ambition to conquer, grab spoils, and disregard decency.
If we conceive of God as somehow violent, however redemptive we imagine this violence to be, we will then conceive of the road to peace as also lying in violence.
Sadly that is often the case, within Christian and secular circles alike. We too often think of God as someone who will use violence to overthrow evil and bring about justice and peace. We conceive of God as a force for redemptive violence.
What is redemptive violence? It is what happens at the end of a movie, storybook, or song, when the hero finally beats up the bully who has been terrorizing everyone. (- Rolheiser)
At Sunday Evening Practice we read this section from The Holy Longing, chapter “A Spirituality of Justice and Peacemaking” subsection ‘A Nonviolent God Who Underwrites Justice and Peace.’ It was Mother’s Day. Three of us sat with soup and bread, mothers gone beyond, and wondered, male and female, what mothering is desperately called for today.
Finally, the story reaches its climax. The bully corners the hero, who now has no choice – either fight or die. The redemption takes place. The hero, pushed beyond the limit, takes off his jacket, calmly rolls up his sleeves, and beats the bully to death…and tears come to our eyes because now, finally, justice has been done. Evil has been crushed and goodness has been vindicated.
We hardly stop to think that what has really happened is that goodness has now been more violent than evil. We fail to notice that our good hero began as Mother Teresa but ended as Rambo and Batman. We certainly fail to see that the ending of this redemptive story is radically opposite to the story of Jesus. When he, Jesus, was finally cornered and the choice was to fight or die (“If you are the son of God, come off that cross!”) he, unlike our mythical heroes, chose the latter.
We must be careful, particularly in trying to create justice and peace, not to confuse the Christian story of redemption with the story of redemptive violence. We must try to bring about justice and peace as Jesus did, recognizing that the God whom Jesus called “Father” beats up no one. (- Rolheiser)
In Conversations at the Prison a recent Friday a sentence emerged from variety of phrases spoken by inmates and guests. “It is a necessary offering of life. Take away intentional hostility and arrives homage, acceptance, and humility.” Hostility and violence breed hostility and violence. What is needed is absence of hostility. What is needed is the truth of reverence, acceptance, surrender, and walking humbly on this earth.
Prisons are places to contemplate the experience of what it means to be trapped by time and circumstance. There is much to contemplate in our contemporary culture, in and out of prison, that threatens fear and rejoices violence. The freedom of people to choose their own leaders and way of life is at risk everywhere. Dictators, terrorists, and errant administrations all force their will on peoples too powerless and heedless to resist.
Leaves refresh branches hiding houses
up high hill, only new life
surrounding light green solitude (- wfh)
This is rainy day talk.
In the Gospels, Jesus is described as powerful, more powerful in fact than anyone the crowds ever encountered. However, the word that is used to describe Jesus’ power, exousia (in Greek) does not refer to the power of muscle, speed, or even extraordinary grace or brilliance. It refers to something for which in the English language, we have no easy translation. What is exousia? What constitutes Jesus’ real power? What ultimately brings about justice and peace?
Daniel Berrigan provides a good answer to this question. He was once asked to give a talk at a university gathering. The topic was something to the effect of “God’s Presence in Today’s World.” His talk, I suspect, surprised a number of people in his audience, both in brevity and in content.
He simply told the audience how he, working in a hospice for the terminally ill, goes each week to spend some time sitting by the bed of a young boy who is totally incapacitated, physically and mentally. The young boy can only lie there. He cannot speak or communicate with his body nor in any other way express to those who come into his room. He lies mute, helpless, by all outward appearance cut off from any possible communication. Berrigan then described how he goes regularly to sit by this boy’s bed to try to hear what he is saying in his silence and his helplessness.
After sharing this, Berrigan added a further point: The way this young man lies in our world, silent and helpless, is the way God lies in our world. To hear what God is saying we must learn to hear what this young boy is saying. ( - Rolheiser)
What is our practice?
The practice of true reality
Is simply to sit serenely
In silent introspection.
When you have fathomed this,
You cannot be turned around
By external causes and conditions.
This empty, wide-open mind
Is subtly and correctly
Illuminating.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)(dailyzen)
Fidelity?
To work for justice and peace in this world is not to move from being Mother Teresa to being Rambo or Batman. The God who undergirds justice and peace beats up no one and His or Her cause is not furthered when we do.
(-- quotes excerpted from pp185-188 of The Holy Longing, The Search for a Christian Spirituality, by Ronald Rolheiser, c.1999)
It has been a stark, long, cold, and desolate time. That’s what different people in Cape Breton said about the winter. That’s what many in Maine say about this past time and the uncertain path our country is marching down.
Buds emerge. Seeds crack open. Remaining patches of snow huddle in shaded places facing north. Something is ending.
What is?
This!
To hear what God is saying we must learn to hear what this young boy is saying.
Truth, a Zen Master said, is just like this.
Our spirituality is to listen with holy longing.
Shhh!
Be still!
Rest!
God never overpowers. God’s power in this world is never the power of a muscle, a speed, a physical attractiveness, a brilliance, or a grace which (as the contemporary expression has it) blows you away and makes you shout: “Yes! Yes! There is a God!” The world’s power tries to work that way. God’s power though is more muted, more helpless, more shamed, and more marginalized. But it lies at a deeper level, at the ultimate base of things, and will, in the end, gently have the final say. (- Rolheiser)
What is this?
If we ask, so must we listen and long.
Mother this; mother truth.
Truth?
Just like this.
What do we hear when we listen for truth? Who has final say?
If one were to despair their country because of disbelief in its way of life, where would they go? If one no longer recognized those who say they represent you, where turn? If one feared rather than loved the institutions pledged to serve, how continue in their shadow?
The spirituality of redemptive violence put forth by any administration conducting a global war, nominally to extract terrorism and insert democracy, is antithetical to the spirituality of redemption embodied by the person in whose name the violence is done. A spiritual bait and switch, a scam selling faux-Christian battle plans disguising apocalyptic economic control in shiny wardrobe costume of democratic principles, a play to overcome non-like-us peoples, has begun and continues.
How can we ever lose interest in life?
Spring has come again
And cherry trees bloom in the mountains
- Ryokan (1758-1831)(dailyzen)
Spring comes to soothe tired hearts. Words and ways of arrogance, dominance, and condescending certitude exhaust dwindling remnant trust.
In birth country many once great dreams strain in vacant eyes. Calculating souls use errant ambition to conquer, grab spoils, and disregard decency.
If we conceive of God as somehow violent, however redemptive we imagine this violence to be, we will then conceive of the road to peace as also lying in violence.
Sadly that is often the case, within Christian and secular circles alike. We too often think of God as someone who will use violence to overthrow evil and bring about justice and peace. We conceive of God as a force for redemptive violence.
What is redemptive violence? It is what happens at the end of a movie, storybook, or song, when the hero finally beats up the bully who has been terrorizing everyone. (- Rolheiser)
At Sunday Evening Practice we read this section from The Holy Longing, chapter “A Spirituality of Justice and Peacemaking” subsection ‘A Nonviolent God Who Underwrites Justice and Peace.’ It was Mother’s Day. Three of us sat with soup and bread, mothers gone beyond, and wondered, male and female, what mothering is desperately called for today.
Finally, the story reaches its climax. The bully corners the hero, who now has no choice – either fight or die. The redemption takes place. The hero, pushed beyond the limit, takes off his jacket, calmly rolls up his sleeves, and beats the bully to death…and tears come to our eyes because now, finally, justice has been done. Evil has been crushed and goodness has been vindicated.
We hardly stop to think that what has really happened is that goodness has now been more violent than evil. We fail to notice that our good hero began as Mother Teresa but ended as Rambo and Batman. We certainly fail to see that the ending of this redemptive story is radically opposite to the story of Jesus. When he, Jesus, was finally cornered and the choice was to fight or die (“If you are the son of God, come off that cross!”) he, unlike our mythical heroes, chose the latter.
We must be careful, particularly in trying to create justice and peace, not to confuse the Christian story of redemption with the story of redemptive violence. We must try to bring about justice and peace as Jesus did, recognizing that the God whom Jesus called “Father” beats up no one. (- Rolheiser)
In Conversations at the Prison a recent Friday a sentence emerged from variety of phrases spoken by inmates and guests. “It is a necessary offering of life. Take away intentional hostility and arrives homage, acceptance, and humility.” Hostility and violence breed hostility and violence. What is needed is absence of hostility. What is needed is the truth of reverence, acceptance, surrender, and walking humbly on this earth.
Prisons are places to contemplate the experience of what it means to be trapped by time and circumstance. There is much to contemplate in our contemporary culture, in and out of prison, that threatens fear and rejoices violence. The freedom of people to choose their own leaders and way of life is at risk everywhere. Dictators, terrorists, and errant administrations all force their will on peoples too powerless and heedless to resist.
Leaves refresh branches hiding houses
up high hill, only new life
surrounding light green solitude (- wfh)
This is rainy day talk.
In the Gospels, Jesus is described as powerful, more powerful in fact than anyone the crowds ever encountered. However, the word that is used to describe Jesus’ power, exousia (in Greek) does not refer to the power of muscle, speed, or even extraordinary grace or brilliance. It refers to something for which in the English language, we have no easy translation. What is exousia? What constitutes Jesus’ real power? What ultimately brings about justice and peace?
Daniel Berrigan provides a good answer to this question. He was once asked to give a talk at a university gathering. The topic was something to the effect of “God’s Presence in Today’s World.” His talk, I suspect, surprised a number of people in his audience, both in brevity and in content.
He simply told the audience how he, working in a hospice for the terminally ill, goes each week to spend some time sitting by the bed of a young boy who is totally incapacitated, physically and mentally. The young boy can only lie there. He cannot speak or communicate with his body nor in any other way express to those who come into his room. He lies mute, helpless, by all outward appearance cut off from any possible communication. Berrigan then described how he goes regularly to sit by this boy’s bed to try to hear what he is saying in his silence and his helplessness.
After sharing this, Berrigan added a further point: The way this young man lies in our world, silent and helpless, is the way God lies in our world. To hear what God is saying we must learn to hear what this young boy is saying. ( - Rolheiser)
What is our practice?
The practice of true reality
Is simply to sit serenely
In silent introspection.
When you have fathomed this,
You cannot be turned around
By external causes and conditions.
This empty, wide-open mind
Is subtly and correctly
Illuminating.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)(dailyzen)
Fidelity?
To work for justice and peace in this world is not to move from being Mother Teresa to being Rambo or Batman. The God who undergirds justice and peace beats up no one and His or Her cause is not furthered when we do.
(-- quotes excerpted from pp185-188 of The Holy Longing, The Search for a Christian Spirituality, by Ronald Rolheiser, c.1999)
It has been a stark, long, cold, and desolate time. That’s what different people in Cape Breton said about the winter. That’s what many in Maine say about this past time and the uncertain path our country is marching down.
Buds emerge. Seeds crack open. Remaining patches of snow huddle in shaded places facing north. Something is ending.
What is?
This!
To hear what God is saying we must learn to hear what this young boy is saying.
Truth, a Zen Master said, is just like this.
Our spirituality is to listen with holy longing.
Shhh!
Be still!
Rest!
God never overpowers. God’s power in this world is never the power of a muscle, a speed, a physical attractiveness, a brilliance, or a grace which (as the contemporary expression has it) blows you away and makes you shout: “Yes! Yes! There is a God!” The world’s power tries to work that way. God’s power though is more muted, more helpless, more shamed, and more marginalized. But it lies at a deeper level, at the ultimate base of things, and will, in the end, gently have the final say. (- Rolheiser)
What is this?
If we ask, so must we listen and long.
Mother this; mother truth.
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Squirrel wants to steal seeds from birdfeeder. Finch and chickadee perch a short distance away. Loud and imposing, this annoying rodent power is smart enough to figure out ways around usage and purpose of birdfeeder.
Interlopers and predators attempt to take for themselves what they want from what is intended for others.
I sought Zen from temples and teachers,
Then found it along the way of Tsao His
Inside this moment forever.
When walking now, I walk Zen.
When sitting, I sit Zen.
Talking, quiet; moving, stillness,
The calm within.
- Hsuan Chyuen (655–713)
In Vom Advent Zum Advent, Meisterwerke Christlicher Kunst Liturgisher WochenKalender Fur Das Kirchenjahr for Sunday 11 May 2003, this line:
"Das Verhaltnis zwischen Gott dem Vater und seinem Sohn ist Urmodell und Urgrund der Gemeinschaft Jesu mit den Seinen." (line by Sr. M. Johanna Hauke OCD)
(Translated literally): "The relationship between God the Father and his Son is the original model and original reason for the community of Jesus with his."
(Re-rendered...): "Wholly related with what is appearing between God the Father and offspring is the original model and original ground of community embodied in Jesus and those who see themselves through and with him." (...with liberties, by wfh)
The shepherd helps move through gate and pasture those carrying brokenness or otherness through this life. It's what shepherds do. The need is for shepherd willing to help us move freely with courage through portal to open safety.
We are safe in the ursprung und ursprache, (arising ever-present origin and original word/expression).
Hospitality is deep longing. Hospitality is allowing arriving at home, encouraging dwelling in the open.
We grow weary and wary of those instilling fear. Anyone, foreign or domestic, evoking fear and unease for own benefit, is enemy and unwelcome predator. It is wise to watch alertly those who benefit from what ails us.
As for squirrel at feeder, they only want seed, not the death of birds. I shoo them away, move feeder, and attempt to dissuade them.
Shoo away, move, and dissuade interlopers and predators.
Now is our task to discern and be wholly related with what is appearing, the original model and original ground of community embodied in the resurrection, 40 day watchfulness, ascension, and arrival of urgrund und ursprache (arising ever-present origin and original word/expression) within and around us.
Seeds, break, open.
Mother, this!
Interlopers and predators attempt to take for themselves what they want from what is intended for others.
I sought Zen from temples and teachers,
Then found it along the way of Tsao His
Inside this moment forever.
When walking now, I walk Zen.
When sitting, I sit Zen.
Talking, quiet; moving, stillness,
The calm within.
- Hsuan Chyuen (655–713)
In Vom Advent Zum Advent, Meisterwerke Christlicher Kunst Liturgisher WochenKalender Fur Das Kirchenjahr for Sunday 11 May 2003, this line:
"Das Verhaltnis zwischen Gott dem Vater und seinem Sohn ist Urmodell und Urgrund der Gemeinschaft Jesu mit den Seinen." (line by Sr. M. Johanna Hauke OCD)
(Translated literally): "The relationship between God the Father and his Son is the original model and original reason for the community of Jesus with his."
(Re-rendered...): "Wholly related with what is appearing between God the Father and offspring is the original model and original ground of community embodied in Jesus and those who see themselves through and with him." (...with liberties, by wfh)
The shepherd helps move through gate and pasture those carrying brokenness or otherness through this life. It's what shepherds do. The need is for shepherd willing to help us move freely with courage through portal to open safety.
We are safe in the ursprung und ursprache, (arising ever-present origin and original word/expression).
Hospitality is deep longing. Hospitality is allowing arriving at home, encouraging dwelling in the open.
We grow weary and wary of those instilling fear. Anyone, foreign or domestic, evoking fear and unease for own benefit, is enemy and unwelcome predator. It is wise to watch alertly those who benefit from what ails us.
As for squirrel at feeder, they only want seed, not the death of birds. I shoo them away, move feeder, and attempt to dissuade them.
Shoo away, move, and dissuade interlopers and predators.
Now is our task to discern and be wholly related with what is appearing, the original model and original ground of community embodied in the resurrection, 40 day watchfulness, ascension, and arrival of urgrund und ursprache (arising ever-present origin and original word/expression) within and around us.
Seeds, break, open.
Mother, this!
Saturday, May 10, 2003
John, looking over glasses, said final words at Thursday Evening Conversation. He said, "I see God through other people."
As will happen, his sentence transformed itself with a comma.
"I see God through, other people."
No one, it is said, has ever seen God. That's because God is not there to be seen. God is there to be seen through.
Seeing through God is abandoning viewing the world with a point of view that is other than what is being viewed through.
Seeing God through. Not possessing God. Not seeing God. Not even knowing God. But seeing God through.
And when we do see God through, only then do we, can we, see other people. Not our intention or will for other people. Not our image in other people. Not even some hierarchic or hieratic othering of people. But seeing God through, other people.
This, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, is not about seeing God. It is about seeing what God sees through and through.
Common, (comma), life itself!
As will happen, his sentence transformed itself with a comma.
"I see God through, other people."
No one, it is said, has ever seen God. That's because God is not there to be seen. God is there to be seen through.
Seeing through God is abandoning viewing the world with a point of view that is other than what is being viewed through.
Seeing God through. Not possessing God. Not seeing God. Not even knowing God. But seeing God through.
And when we do see God through, only then do we, can we, see other people. Not our intention or will for other people. Not our image in other people. Not even some hierarchic or hieratic othering of people. But seeing God through, other people.
This, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, is not about seeing God. It is about seeing what God sees through and through.
Common, (comma), life itself!
Thursday, May 08, 2003
Before black flies, mosquitoes, flowers, and tourists, we travel to Cape Breton.
Rounding Cape Smokey from Sonny and Kay's place on north Cabot Trail, Ingonish stretches out into North Atlantic, lobster traps stacked on wharf for this week's season start. Bleak and warm, sparse and friendly solitude, hiking land above sea before night's blowy storm crosses from Cheticamp.
My hut settled among neighbors,
I ignore the noise of horses and carts.
You ask how I get along;
My mind remains wide,
So my place is naturally remote.
- Tao Yuan Ming (365 – 427)
Away these days. Back.
The naturally remote exhausts.
Moose scat underfoot.
Word’s land.
Rounding Cape Smokey from Sonny and Kay's place on north Cabot Trail, Ingonish stretches out into North Atlantic, lobster traps stacked on wharf for this week's season start. Bleak and warm, sparse and friendly solitude, hiking land above sea before night's blowy storm crosses from Cheticamp.
My hut settled among neighbors,
I ignore the noise of horses and carts.
You ask how I get along;
My mind remains wide,
So my place is naturally remote.
- Tao Yuan Ming (365 – 427)
Away these days. Back.
The naturally remote exhausts.
Moose scat underfoot.
Word’s land.
Sunday, May 04, 2003
Concresence is a growing together.
Perfection is making do with what moves through.
No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. (1John 4:12)
Not at any time.
...its own being for it
is infinite, inapprehensible,
unintrospective, pure, like its outgazing.
Where we see future, it sees Everything
itself in Everything, forever healed.
(- Rilke, in Eighth Duino Elegy)
What about now?
Perfection is making do with what moves through.
No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. (1John 4:12)
Not at any time.
...its own being for it
is infinite, inapprehensible,
unintrospective, pure, like its outgazing.
Where we see future, it sees Everything
itself in Everything, forever healed.
(- Rilke, in Eighth Duino Elegy)
What about now?
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