We can say yes to any part of the day, to any part of our life. Or we can hold no as yes-shattering cudgel each time someone invites us to view the passing yes from the place we are.
Cold cliffs, more beautiful the deeper you enter
Yet no one travels this road.
White clouds idle about the tall crags;
On the green peak a single monkey wails.
What other companions do I need?
I grow old doing as I please.
Though face and form alter with the years,
I hold fast to the pearl of the mind.
- Han shan
It rains and rains.
A person should desire no other path, even if he is at the summit of contemplation; on this road he walks safely. All blessings come to us through our Lord. He will teach us, for in beholding his life we find that he is the best example.
What more do we desire from such a good friend at our side?
(-- St. Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582)
No room of the inner castle, said Teresa, should be left unexplored. They are each places where water reaches. Room of joy. Room of depression. Room of insight. Room of pain. Room of doubt. Room of yes.
Of course there is a room of no. Just off the room of fear.
In each room, the reality of God takes place.
We are not to shun where we live.
Going on...hearing no...feeling fear...surrendering control...saying yes.
Passing through the place we are.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Language speaks. What's more, silence is its own language. Its dialect is sacredness.
All sacred places seek us to recognize them. Sacred places are everywhere found and nowhere absent. We humans might just be opportunities for sacredness to root itself to sentience.
Or, we might merely enjoy pepperoni and sausage pizza because it tastes good.
Mind set free in the Dharma-realm,
I sit at the moon-filled window
Watching the mountains with my ears,
Hearing the stream with open eyes.
Each molecule preaches perfect law,
Each moment chants true sutra:
The most fleeting thought is timeless,
A single hair's enough to stir the sea.
- Shutaku
Rain is coming again. Ground shrugs. Still damp from last torrent days ago, ground remains dark brown under yellow leaves on autumn green.
How To Be a Poet
(to remind myself)
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill-more of each
that you have-inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
(Poem: "How To Be a Poet" by Wendell Berry from Given: New Poems.)
Maybe we're all poets. There is a silence in every word. Small words carry small silences. Great words reveal profound silence.
In such silence we pray back sacredness with stillness and sentience.
No need ever worry what to say.
Let silence reveal itself.
In your own words.
Without speaking.
All sacred places seek us to recognize them. Sacred places are everywhere found and nowhere absent. We humans might just be opportunities for sacredness to root itself to sentience.
Or, we might merely enjoy pepperoni and sausage pizza because it tastes good.
Mind set free in the Dharma-realm,
I sit at the moon-filled window
Watching the mountains with my ears,
Hearing the stream with open eyes.
Each molecule preaches perfect law,
Each moment chants true sutra:
The most fleeting thought is timeless,
A single hair's enough to stir the sea.
- Shutaku
Rain is coming again. Ground shrugs. Still damp from last torrent days ago, ground remains dark brown under yellow leaves on autumn green.
How To Be a Poet
(to remind myself)
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill-more of each
that you have-inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
(Poem: "How To Be a Poet" by Wendell Berry from Given: New Poems.)
Maybe we're all poets. There is a silence in every word. Small words carry small silences. Great words reveal profound silence.
In such silence we pray back sacredness with stillness and sentience.
No need ever worry what to say.
Let silence reveal itself.
In your own words.
Without speaking.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Johanna Macy tells us to act our age. At 13.7 billion years of age, it is about time we recognize our interconnection and the mistakes we make when we fail to.
Magnanimous Mind is like a mountain,
Stable and impartial.
Exemplifying the ocean,
It is tolerant and views everything
From the broadest perspective.
- Dogen
It is time to turn to one another and live close and quiet.
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.
(-- Albert Einstein)
Rose crosses Elm with us. Walking back to shop from Camden Opera House we pass Gilbert's pub where five guys are calling loudly to passersby something about walking too fast. The fragrance of stale beer dances with their laughter.
Back at car alongside bookshop and bakery lights are out inside -- Peggy's group on non-violent communication has gone.
We look out at harbor.
On wind direction pipe up above deck, waving earth flag is ripped and fraying.
She told us not to be afraid of the dark.
Someone created light.
We recall wholeness.
Magnanimous Mind is like a mountain,
Stable and impartial.
Exemplifying the ocean,
It is tolerant and views everything
From the broadest perspective.
- Dogen
It is time to turn to one another and live close and quiet.
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.
(-- Albert Einstein)
Rose crosses Elm with us. Walking back to shop from Camden Opera House we pass Gilbert's pub where five guys are calling loudly to passersby something about walking too fast. The fragrance of stale beer dances with their laughter.
Back at car alongside bookshop and bakery lights are out inside -- Peggy's group on non-violent communication has gone.
We look out at harbor.
On wind direction pipe up above deck, waving earth flag is ripped and fraying.
She told us not to be afraid of the dark.
Someone created light.
We recall wholeness.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
May all names, finally, be inscribed in the Book of Life.
Deep green needles glow against a cobalt sky;
They radiate something that only few can sense.
Snow white peaks, tops shrouded in the clouds,
Shine and echo, shine and echo
Through both sides of the skin line.
Oh, in all of this does lie some deep implication,
Yet when I try to say more, I become silent, mute.
- Ji Aoi Isshi
Teshuvah, return to the light at center of each moment and each molecule -- this is how community saves each member. Letting go into wholeness within wholeness.
Captain Renault: What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.
(from film, Casablanca, 1942)
What waters? Can anyone tell exactly why they find themselves where they are, doing what they are doing? And if someone does enter the deep water of human self-knowing, are they willing to share that water with anyone inquiring after their motivation, intention, and inner direction? Share, not sell.
Often, we're misinformed. We want to be informed. But mistakes are made. We fail to glean that form, as the Buddhists say, is emptiness. Instead we try to shape and form our impressions and desires into something solid and secure that will save us from something else we cannot even name.
A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the - not always greatly hopeful - belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense, too, are under way: they are making toward something. (-- Paul Celan)
Yom Kippur invites us to speak -- to make toward God, to another -- about mistakes we've made.
Articulating and correcting mistakes, or perhaps better said, returning to original wholeness, is holy attention.
"Attentiveness," went one of Paul Celan's favorite quotes by Malebranche, a 17th century French Catholic priest, "is the natural prayer of the soul."
We pray tonight for all names to be written, finally, naturally, in the Book of Life.
Deep green needles glow against a cobalt sky;
They radiate something that only few can sense.
Snow white peaks, tops shrouded in the clouds,
Shine and echo, shine and echo
Through both sides of the skin line.
Oh, in all of this does lie some deep implication,
Yet when I try to say more, I become silent, mute.
- Ji Aoi Isshi
Teshuvah, return to the light at center of each moment and each molecule -- this is how community saves each member. Letting go into wholeness within wholeness.
Captain Renault: What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.
(from film, Casablanca, 1942)
What waters? Can anyone tell exactly why they find themselves where they are, doing what they are doing? And if someone does enter the deep water of human self-knowing, are they willing to share that water with anyone inquiring after their motivation, intention, and inner direction? Share, not sell.
Often, we're misinformed. We want to be informed. But mistakes are made. We fail to glean that form, as the Buddhists say, is emptiness. Instead we try to shape and form our impressions and desires into something solid and secure that will save us from something else we cannot even name.
A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the - not always greatly hopeful - belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense, too, are under way: they are making toward something. (-- Paul Celan)
Yom Kippur invites us to speak -- to make toward God, to another -- about mistakes we've made.
Articulating and correcting mistakes, or perhaps better said, returning to original wholeness, is holy attention.
"Attentiveness," went one of Paul Celan's favorite quotes by Malebranche, a 17th century French Catholic priest, "is the natural prayer of the soul."
We pray tonight for all names to be written, finally, naturally, in the Book of Life.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Play with new schedule at breakfast in Corner Shop -- silent sittings at evening conversations, incorporating prayer, and widening events -- this day spent mostly in Rockport.
When we cross parking lot later at Shaws market, Justin is walking out to gather shopping carts. We greet and hug hello. He is glad to see familiar faces.
Earlier we stop at Quarry Hill nursing facility to say hello to Fanny. She points out dahlia on window shelf. The flowering is lovely. She says she stays put. It is painful to move.
One who has attained the Tao
is master of herself,
and the universe is
dissolved for her.
Throw her in the company
of the noisy and the dirty,
and she will be like a lotus flower
growing from muddy water,
touched by it,
yet unstained.
- T'u Lung
The best we can do is pray. We say --"Au voir, Fanny!" We wish her well -- courage, peace, and rest. She says these are good things.
Leaving the food market earlier we call to Justin ranging over white lines to corral rolling carts, wave and say -- "Goodnight Justin!"
That's what prayer is -- saying hello, saying goodbye.
And feeling each utterance.
The poignance of passing.
Pronouncing each name.
Prayer at play.
When we cross parking lot later at Shaws market, Justin is walking out to gather shopping carts. We greet and hug hello. He is glad to see familiar faces.
Earlier we stop at Quarry Hill nursing facility to say hello to Fanny. She points out dahlia on window shelf. The flowering is lovely. She says she stays put. It is painful to move.
One who has attained the Tao
is master of herself,
and the universe is
dissolved for her.
Throw her in the company
of the noisy and the dirty,
and she will be like a lotus flower
growing from muddy water,
touched by it,
yet unstained.
- T'u Lung
The best we can do is pray. We say --"Au voir, Fanny!" We wish her well -- courage, peace, and rest. She says these are good things.
Leaving the food market earlier we call to Justin ranging over white lines to corral rolling carts, wave and say -- "Goodnight Justin!"
That's what prayer is -- saying hello, saying goodbye.
And feeling each utterance.
The poignance of passing.
Pronouncing each name.
Prayer at play.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Walking tree-lined road in misty rain.
Keep your heart clear and transparent
and you will never be bound.
A single disturbed thought, though,
creates ten thousand distractions.
Let myriad things captivate you
and you will go further and further astray.
How painful to see people
all wrapped up in themselves.
- Ryokan
We never really find what we look for.
We walk. Then turn. Head back. Sit and eat at corner table as water pours to lowering tide.
Each mouthful a prayer not needing to be said aloud. Each step what meditation would be if it did not calculate itself.
In this way we come to edge of sleep. In respectful silence. Another day.
No longer looking.
Ready to see.
Keep your heart clear and transparent
and you will never be bound.
A single disturbed thought, though,
creates ten thousand distractions.
Let myriad things captivate you
and you will go further and further astray.
How painful to see people
all wrapped up in themselves.
- Ryokan
We never really find what we look for.
We walk. Then turn. Head back. Sit and eat at corner table as water pours to lowering tide.
Each mouthful a prayer not needing to be said aloud. Each step what meditation would be if it did not calculate itself.
In this way we come to edge of sleep. In respectful silence. Another day.
No longer looking.
Ready to see.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Hard blowy rain. Brook rages against banks and under footbridge. One day later, one full flow. Tent stands firm and unfazed. We cannot cross second fork. We'll have to think of second bridge.
"Mind and body dropped off; dropped off mind and body! This state should be experienced by everyone; it is like piling fruit into a basket without a bottom, like pouring water into a bowl with a pierced hole; however much you may pile or pour you cannot fill it up. When this is realized the pail bottom is broken through. But while there is still a trace of conceptualism which makes you say 'I have this understanding' or 'I have that realization', you are still playing with unrealities."
- Dogen Zenji
Water passing through. Fruit falling through.
We stay in the emptiness. Emptiness goes through our life every time we try to grasp our life to make sense of it. Nothing doing.
So we let go a while and stay put. Wonderful rain falling, falling -- seeking ground, sluicing brook to pond to river to ocean.
Maybe it doesn't matter what we think. Wind and water will be wind and water.
Warn those who are rich in this world's goods that they are not to look down on other people; and not to set their hopes on money, which is untrustworthy, but on God who, out of his riches, gives us all that we need for our happiness. Tell them that they are to do good, and be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share -- this is the way they can save up a good capital sum for the future if they want to make sure of the only life that is real.
My dear Timothy, take great care of all that has been entrusted to you. Have nothing to do with the pointless philosophical discussions and antagonistic beliefs of the 'knowledge' which is not knowledge at all; by adopting this, some have gone right away from the faith. Grace be with you.
(from letter of Paul, 1 Timothy 6)
The life of a hermitage is like water going through an empty parenthesis -- nothing special. From morning coffee and afternoon tea to pumpernickel and onion pretzels early evening -- one thing leads to another.
We forget, time to time, who we are and what we are doing. It's daunting to try to make sense of mystery. We are irrelevant. Our life smaller than raindrops. We fall to ground without knowing direction or purpose.
Gregory (540-604) tried to get the attention of his compatriots (then and now, men):
There is something else about the life of the shepherds, dearest brothers, which discourages me greatly. But lest what I claim should seem unjust to anyone, I accuse myself of the very same thing, although I fall into it unwillingly -- compelled by the urgency of these barbarous times. I speak of our absorption in external affairs; we accept the duties of office, but by our actions we show that we are attentive to other things. We abandon the ministry of preaching and, in my opinion, are called bishops to our detriment, for we retain the honourable office but fail to practice the virtues proper to it. Those who have been entrusted to us abandon God, and we are silent. They fall into sin, and we do not extend a hand of rebuke.
But how can we who neglect ourselves be able to correct someone else? We are wrapped up in worldly concerns, and the more we devote ourselves to external things, the more insensitive we become in spirit.
(from A homily of Pope St Gregory the Great)
It will rain for a few days.
Our spirits might grow damp.
We'll try to remain sensitive.
Within and without.
... (...) ( )
"Mind and body dropped off; dropped off mind and body! This state should be experienced by everyone; it is like piling fruit into a basket without a bottom, like pouring water into a bowl with a pierced hole; however much you may pile or pour you cannot fill it up. When this is realized the pail bottom is broken through. But while there is still a trace of conceptualism which makes you say 'I have this understanding' or 'I have that realization', you are still playing with unrealities."
- Dogen Zenji
Water passing through. Fruit falling through.
We stay in the emptiness. Emptiness goes through our life every time we try to grasp our life to make sense of it. Nothing doing.
So we let go a while and stay put. Wonderful rain falling, falling -- seeking ground, sluicing brook to pond to river to ocean.
Maybe it doesn't matter what we think. Wind and water will be wind and water.
Warn those who are rich in this world's goods that they are not to look down on other people; and not to set their hopes on money, which is untrustworthy, but on God who, out of his riches, gives us all that we need for our happiness. Tell them that they are to do good, and be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share -- this is the way they can save up a good capital sum for the future if they want to make sure of the only life that is real.
My dear Timothy, take great care of all that has been entrusted to you. Have nothing to do with the pointless philosophical discussions and antagonistic beliefs of the 'knowledge' which is not knowledge at all; by adopting this, some have gone right away from the faith. Grace be with you.
(from letter of Paul, 1 Timothy 6)
The life of a hermitage is like water going through an empty parenthesis -- nothing special. From morning coffee and afternoon tea to pumpernickel and onion pretzels early evening -- one thing leads to another.
We forget, time to time, who we are and what we are doing. It's daunting to try to make sense of mystery. We are irrelevant. Our life smaller than raindrops. We fall to ground without knowing direction or purpose.
Gregory (540-604) tried to get the attention of his compatriots (then and now, men):
There is something else about the life of the shepherds, dearest brothers, which discourages me greatly. But lest what I claim should seem unjust to anyone, I accuse myself of the very same thing, although I fall into it unwillingly -- compelled by the urgency of these barbarous times. I speak of our absorption in external affairs; we accept the duties of office, but by our actions we show that we are attentive to other things. We abandon the ministry of preaching and, in my opinion, are called bishops to our detriment, for we retain the honourable office but fail to practice the virtues proper to it. Those who have been entrusted to us abandon God, and we are silent. They fall into sin, and we do not extend a hand of rebuke.
But how can we who neglect ourselves be able to correct someone else? We are wrapped up in worldly concerns, and the more we devote ourselves to external things, the more insensitive we become in spirit.
(from A homily of Pope St Gregory the Great)
It will rain for a few days.
Our spirits might grow damp.
We'll try to remain sensitive.
Within and without.
... (...) ( )
Friday, October 07, 2005
Damp October sweat on stone and falling leaf. The day blows near wet.
To shake off the dust of human ambition
I sit on moss in Zen robes of stillness,
While through the window,
In the setting sun of late autumn,
Falling leaves whirl and drop to the stone dais.
- Tesshu Tokysai
Tarps are set and tied over tent at site above moist but unflowing brook. Another place of hermitage. Cutting intrusive saplings, stacking short-sticks by tree, half-hitches shoring hemp twine through grommets sloping for runoff from upcoming storms.
We walk the mountain with Cesco. We sit on toboggan run and gangway up off Hosmer Pond as wind skips over water.
We step a few days from shop. Uncertain whether to travel to maritimes, we settle for walking today into and back to hermitage.
To shake off the dust of human ambition
I sit on moss in Zen robes of stillness,
While through the window,
In the setting sun of late autumn,
Falling leaves whirl and drop to the stone dais.
- Tesshu Tokysai
Tarps are set and tied over tent at site above moist but unflowing brook. Another place of hermitage. Cutting intrusive saplings, stacking short-sticks by tree, half-hitches shoring hemp twine through grommets sloping for runoff from upcoming storms.
We walk the mountain with Cesco. We sit on toboggan run and gangway up off Hosmer Pond as wind skips over water.
We step a few days from shop. Uncertain whether to travel to maritimes, we settle for walking today into and back to hermitage.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Solitude is an empty place. Community surrounds emptiness.
Both solitude and community are necessary in order to face what is taking place in our lives and in the world. However we understand the notion and/or reality of God, we cannot ignore the unfolding manifestation of what is taking place in our midst.
Empty places are nothing special. We need to visit empty places often. Some see emptiness as the dwelling place of what we call God. Is it true? Is God nothing other? Is nothing other, or no other, the environment, if you will, the dwelling place of what is called God?
I went into the woods yesterday. Solitude created a space enfolded by green canvas. A temporary tent went up -- a place away from hermitage and chapel/zendo. A place of poustinia. Poustinia, a Russian word, means ‘desert’, a place to meet Christ in silence, solitude and prayer. Community in solitude.
Let the sun and the moon revolve by themselves!
When I have time I read the sutras,
When I am tired I sleep on my straw bed.
If you ask me, “Whom do you see in your dreams?”
I would answer,
No one special.
- Saigyo
Ayya Khema, a Buddhist nun in the Theravada tradition, writes on "Nothing Special" --
Spiritual practice is often misunderstood and believed to be something special. It isn't. It is one's whole body and mind. Nothing special at all, just oneself. Many people think of it as meditation or ritual, devotional practice or chanting to be performed at a specific time in a certain place. Or it may be connected with a special person without whom the practice cannot occur. These are views and opinions that lead to nothing.
In the best case they may result in sporadic practice and in the worst case, they lead to fracturing ourselves, making two, three or four people out of ourselves when we aren't even one whole yet.
Namely, the ordinary person doing all the ordinary worldly chores and the other one who becomes spiritual at certain times in diverse ways. Meditation, rituals, devotional practice, chanting, certain places, certain people can all be added to our lives but they are not the essence of our spirituality.
Our practice consists of constant purification; there's nothing else to be done. Eventually we will arrive at a point where our thought processes and feelings are not only kind and loving but also full of wisdom, bringing benefit to ourselves and others.
("Nothing Special" by Sister Ayya Khema)
Bringing benefit to ourselves and others -- solitude in community. There's nothing else to be done but realize the interconnected and non-divided reality of existence. It seems that our most difficult task is dismantling the illusion of separation without attempting to fuse fast what is on its own. This work is the mystery of the middle. It is our true home. It is dwelling in the midst of this and that -- in a place called not this/not that. We can barely decipher where this place actually is -- but I suspect, it is home. And it is nothing special. We suffer when we fail to find ourselves in our authentic yet variable home. Home, for us, is a variable feast.
The realization of where our dukkha [suffering, or dissatisfaction] comes from must be followed by the understanding that disliking it will not make it go away; only letting go of wanting makes dukkha disappear, which means unequivocal acceptance. Accepting oneself results in being able to accept others. The difficulty with other people is that they present a mirror in which we can see our own mistakes. How useful it is to have such a mirror. When we live with others we can see ourselves as if it were a mirror image and eventually we learn to be together like milk with water, which completely blend. It is up to each one of us to blend; if we wait for others to do it we are not practicing. This is a difficult undertaking but also a very important one.
Eventually we will create the inner comfort to expand our consciousness and awareness to an understanding of universality.
The world at large is very busy and we get caught up in extraneous matters. The world inside is also very busy but we can do something about that. We can quiet it down to see more clearly. The way of spiritual practice is nothing special, just our whole body and mind.
(in "Nothing Special" by Ayya Khema, from the January 1994 issue of GASSHO, a Buddhist electronic newsletter, published by DharmaNet International)
Each person has a poustinia. It is our desert place -- a little bit away from busyness, a space in heart and mind reserved for the emptiness we must face. It is here I carry our koan: "Embodying the dwelling place of the Alone; stepping aside to make room for another." If embodying emptiness is our incarnational task, that prospect seems unattractive -- thus it is understandable that we are uninterested in the spiritual life. If God meets us in the solitude of our heart -- a heart that sometimes is broken -- then it is no surprise we prefer the company of others we believe will save us from what we call desolation and loneliness.
The empty dwelling place of the desert, the deep woods of solitude, is a resting place on the journey of the spiritual life. That resting place is temporary. Strangers pass by it. We sometimes see them pass. They sometimes see us in our solitude. A simple gaze. An unexpected meeting. This encounter asks us to welcome one another in an open space, in the emptiness of no expectations, in the shared presence of nothing special. The mere fact of it. Not making anything other of it -- just that it is taking place. One hand reaches out to touch another. We are invited to make room as time touches and changes hands.
Here we are thrown into another koan, a variation of "not two/not one" -- this one is phrased "What is beyond separation/before union?" The response that reveals itself to us is our marriage to what is taking place.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty writes about poustinia:
Touching God
As I have explained to you before, when a Russian goes into a
poustinia, he goes for others as well as for himself - but
predominantly for others. Upon returning, he should tell members of
his family or community what he has received during his stay in the
poustinia. If one were in a Russian village, these words would be
meant for everyone in the village. I do this at the community in
Madonna House. I either catch them at supper, or later on in the day
which follows my poustinia. I bow before them and say, "May the
peace of the Blessed Trinity be with you," or something similar, and
they answer, "And also with you." I then share with them a word from
the Lord.
Someone may ask, "How do you hear this `word of the Lord'?"
Let me explain.
It is understood that since the reason for entering the poustinia
is one of listening to God in prayer and fasting, the first act of a
poustinik is to fold the wings of his intellect and open the doors of his
heart. The Russians would say: Put your head into your heart and try
to achieve a deep and profound interior silence. It is then, when one is
deeply silent, that God begins to speak.
When I say "God begins to speak," I mean that the mind is
purified, the heart is at peace, and out of the depths of both come
forth the gifts or the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Quietly, imperceptibly,
out of this overshadowing of the Holy Spirit comes a word, a thought,
or a sentence, as the case may be.
Someone might say, "All this sounds very mystical." There is a
difference between what the East means by mystical and what the
West means. I think the East would call normal many things that the
West might term mystical. If you are in the poustinia and God knocks
on your door and speaks to you, that doesn't sound mystical to me; it
sounds quite normal. He said He would speak to us.
(from POUSTINIA, Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer, book by Catherine de Hueck Doherty)
Let's return to this "normal." Our conversation with, as, in, and through God is our normal (some say mystical) reality. But we have, unfortunately, manufactured an artificial environment of blather and noise, opinion and propaganda, dogma and doctrine that substitutes for the real thing.
The real thing is innocent silence and loving resting presence with the ever-present and ordinary manifestation of God within each being, each thing, each moment, and each appearance suddenly showing up in our midst.
Throughout history there have been individuals attempting to solidify these complementary paths approaching the dwelling place of what is holy -- the solitary and the solidary -- being alone and with others.
In early October we celebrate Francis of Assisi. He wandered between solitude and community. He understood the family of all things, the family of all beings. St. Bruno, born at Cologne about the year 1030 and died 6 October 1101, was another of these individuals.
St. Bruno's distinction as the founder of an order was that he introduced into the religious life the mixed form, or union of the eremitical and cenobite modes of monasticism, a medium between the Camaldolese Rule and that of St. Benedict. He wrote no rule, but he left behind him two institutions which had little connection with each other--that of Dauphiné and that of Calabria. The foundation of Calabria, somewhat like the Camaldolese, comprised two classes of religious: hermits, who had the direction of the order, and cenobites who did not feel called to the solitary life; it only lasted a century, did not rise to more than five houses, and finally, in 1191, united with the Cistercian Order. The foundation of Grenoble, more like the rule of St. Benedict, comprised only one kind of religious, subject to a uniform discipline, and the greater part of whose life was spent in solitude, without, however, the complete exclusion of the conventual life. This life spread throughout Europe, numbered 250 monasteries, and in spite of many trials continues to this day.
(on St. Bruno, in Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03014b.htm)
We seem to be always on our way home. Where is home? I don't know. Perhaps home is contemplation of fullness and emptiness. Perhaps home is conversation held between silence and words. Perhaps home is correspondence between solitude and community.
Is home the "between," the exchange and the touching of dyadic complementarity? Is it the "sandokai" wherein one and two join hands?
Christians say that Christ -- though he was in the form of God, "emptied himself." Buddhists say form is emptiness, and emptiness form.
In The Art of Living (2001) the 14th Dalai Lama says, "As your insight into the ultimate nature of reality is deepened and enhanced, you will develop a perception of reality from which you will perceive phenomena and events as sort of illusory, illusion-like, and this mode of perceiving reality will permeate all your interactions with reality. […] Even emptiness itself, which is seen as the ultimate nature of reality, is not absolute, nor does it exist independently. We cannot conceive of emptiness as independent of a basis of phenomena, because when we examine the nature of reality, we find that it is empty of inherent existence. Then if we are to take that emptiness itself is an object and look for its essence, again we will find that it is empty of inherent existence. Therefore the Buddha taught the emptiness of emptiness."
(http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/index.html)
Where is this "home" we are being called to? Are we being called to let go of all the illusions and distractions created by ideologies, dogmas, and doctrines telling us what to believe and what kind of future world must come to be? Are we ready to relinquish what we have come to think of as my country, my religion, my people, and my God? Are we ready to open our hands and let fall to ground what no longer nourishes and satisfies?
The Future
For God's sake, be done
with this jabber of "a better world."
What blasphemy! No "futuristic"
twit or child thereof ever
in embodied light will see
a better world than this, though they
foretell inevitably a worse.
Do something! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead. The day is
clear and bright, and overhead
the sun not yet half finished
with his daily praise.
(Poem: "The Future" by Wendell Berry)
Let our hands do something. Let them open the gate and invite one and all home.
It is time to come home, to praise, to surrender to what is calling us home.
Do we hear the lovely silence, the sweet solitude, and profoundly beautiful community of our true home?
What is taking place beyond separation/before union?
What is, God, you, me, right here?
Rest easy -- it's nothing special.
Full of joy; full of praise!
Both solitude and community are necessary in order to face what is taking place in our lives and in the world. However we understand the notion and/or reality of God, we cannot ignore the unfolding manifestation of what is taking place in our midst.
Empty places are nothing special. We need to visit empty places often. Some see emptiness as the dwelling place of what we call God. Is it true? Is God nothing other? Is nothing other, or no other, the environment, if you will, the dwelling place of what is called God?
I went into the woods yesterday. Solitude created a space enfolded by green canvas. A temporary tent went up -- a place away from hermitage and chapel/zendo. A place of poustinia. Poustinia, a Russian word, means ‘desert’, a place to meet Christ in silence, solitude and prayer. Community in solitude.
Let the sun and the moon revolve by themselves!
When I have time I read the sutras,
When I am tired I sleep on my straw bed.
If you ask me, “Whom do you see in your dreams?”
I would answer,
No one special.
- Saigyo
Ayya Khema, a Buddhist nun in the Theravada tradition, writes on "Nothing Special" --
Spiritual practice is often misunderstood and believed to be something special. It isn't. It is one's whole body and mind. Nothing special at all, just oneself. Many people think of it as meditation or ritual, devotional practice or chanting to be performed at a specific time in a certain place. Or it may be connected with a special person without whom the practice cannot occur. These are views and opinions that lead to nothing.
In the best case they may result in sporadic practice and in the worst case, they lead to fracturing ourselves, making two, three or four people out of ourselves when we aren't even one whole yet.
Namely, the ordinary person doing all the ordinary worldly chores and the other one who becomes spiritual at certain times in diverse ways. Meditation, rituals, devotional practice, chanting, certain places, certain people can all be added to our lives but they are not the essence of our spirituality.
Our practice consists of constant purification; there's nothing else to be done. Eventually we will arrive at a point where our thought processes and feelings are not only kind and loving but also full of wisdom, bringing benefit to ourselves and others.
("Nothing Special" by Sister Ayya Khema)
Bringing benefit to ourselves and others -- solitude in community. There's nothing else to be done but realize the interconnected and non-divided reality of existence. It seems that our most difficult task is dismantling the illusion of separation without attempting to fuse fast what is on its own. This work is the mystery of the middle. It is our true home. It is dwelling in the midst of this and that -- in a place called not this/not that. We can barely decipher where this place actually is -- but I suspect, it is home. And it is nothing special. We suffer when we fail to find ourselves in our authentic yet variable home. Home, for us, is a variable feast.
The realization of where our dukkha [suffering, or dissatisfaction] comes from must be followed by the understanding that disliking it will not make it go away; only letting go of wanting makes dukkha disappear, which means unequivocal acceptance. Accepting oneself results in being able to accept others. The difficulty with other people is that they present a mirror in which we can see our own mistakes. How useful it is to have such a mirror. When we live with others we can see ourselves as if it were a mirror image and eventually we learn to be together like milk with water, which completely blend. It is up to each one of us to blend; if we wait for others to do it we are not practicing. This is a difficult undertaking but also a very important one.
Eventually we will create the inner comfort to expand our consciousness and awareness to an understanding of universality.
The world at large is very busy and we get caught up in extraneous matters. The world inside is also very busy but we can do something about that. We can quiet it down to see more clearly. The way of spiritual practice is nothing special, just our whole body and mind.
(in "Nothing Special" by Ayya Khema, from the January 1994 issue of GASSHO, a Buddhist electronic newsletter, published by DharmaNet International)
Each person has a poustinia. It is our desert place -- a little bit away from busyness, a space in heart and mind reserved for the emptiness we must face. It is here I carry our koan: "Embodying the dwelling place of the Alone; stepping aside to make room for another." If embodying emptiness is our incarnational task, that prospect seems unattractive -- thus it is understandable that we are uninterested in the spiritual life. If God meets us in the solitude of our heart -- a heart that sometimes is broken -- then it is no surprise we prefer the company of others we believe will save us from what we call desolation and loneliness.
The empty dwelling place of the desert, the deep woods of solitude, is a resting place on the journey of the spiritual life. That resting place is temporary. Strangers pass by it. We sometimes see them pass. They sometimes see us in our solitude. A simple gaze. An unexpected meeting. This encounter asks us to welcome one another in an open space, in the emptiness of no expectations, in the shared presence of nothing special. The mere fact of it. Not making anything other of it -- just that it is taking place. One hand reaches out to touch another. We are invited to make room as time touches and changes hands.
Here we are thrown into another koan, a variation of "not two/not one" -- this one is phrased "What is beyond separation/before union?" The response that reveals itself to us is our marriage to what is taking place.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty writes about poustinia:
Touching God
As I have explained to you before, when a Russian goes into a
poustinia, he goes for others as well as for himself - but
predominantly for others. Upon returning, he should tell members of
his family or community what he has received during his stay in the
poustinia. If one were in a Russian village, these words would be
meant for everyone in the village. I do this at the community in
Madonna House. I either catch them at supper, or later on in the day
which follows my poustinia. I bow before them and say, "May the
peace of the Blessed Trinity be with you," or something similar, and
they answer, "And also with you." I then share with them a word from
the Lord.
Someone may ask, "How do you hear this `word of the Lord'?"
Let me explain.
It is understood that since the reason for entering the poustinia
is one of listening to God in prayer and fasting, the first act of a
poustinik is to fold the wings of his intellect and open the doors of his
heart. The Russians would say: Put your head into your heart and try
to achieve a deep and profound interior silence. It is then, when one is
deeply silent, that God begins to speak.
When I say "God begins to speak," I mean that the mind is
purified, the heart is at peace, and out of the depths of both come
forth the gifts or the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Quietly, imperceptibly,
out of this overshadowing of the Holy Spirit comes a word, a thought,
or a sentence, as the case may be.
Someone might say, "All this sounds very mystical." There is a
difference between what the East means by mystical and what the
West means. I think the East would call normal many things that the
West might term mystical. If you are in the poustinia and God knocks
on your door and speaks to you, that doesn't sound mystical to me; it
sounds quite normal. He said He would speak to us.
(from POUSTINIA, Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer, book by Catherine de Hueck Doherty)
Let's return to this "normal." Our conversation with, as, in, and through God is our normal (some say mystical) reality. But we have, unfortunately, manufactured an artificial environment of blather and noise, opinion and propaganda, dogma and doctrine that substitutes for the real thing.
The real thing is innocent silence and loving resting presence with the ever-present and ordinary manifestation of God within each being, each thing, each moment, and each appearance suddenly showing up in our midst.
Throughout history there have been individuals attempting to solidify these complementary paths approaching the dwelling place of what is holy -- the solitary and the solidary -- being alone and with others.
In early October we celebrate Francis of Assisi. He wandered between solitude and community. He understood the family of all things, the family of all beings. St. Bruno, born at Cologne about the year 1030 and died 6 October 1101, was another of these individuals.
St. Bruno's distinction as the founder of an order was that he introduced into the religious life the mixed form, or union of the eremitical and cenobite modes of monasticism, a medium between the Camaldolese Rule and that of St. Benedict. He wrote no rule, but he left behind him two institutions which had little connection with each other--that of Dauphiné and that of Calabria. The foundation of Calabria, somewhat like the Camaldolese, comprised two classes of religious: hermits, who had the direction of the order, and cenobites who did not feel called to the solitary life; it only lasted a century, did not rise to more than five houses, and finally, in 1191, united with the Cistercian Order. The foundation of Grenoble, more like the rule of St. Benedict, comprised only one kind of religious, subject to a uniform discipline, and the greater part of whose life was spent in solitude, without, however, the complete exclusion of the conventual life. This life spread throughout Europe, numbered 250 monasteries, and in spite of many trials continues to this day.
(on St. Bruno, in Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03014b.htm)
We seem to be always on our way home. Where is home? I don't know. Perhaps home is contemplation of fullness and emptiness. Perhaps home is conversation held between silence and words. Perhaps home is correspondence between solitude and community.
Is home the "between," the exchange and the touching of dyadic complementarity? Is it the "sandokai" wherein one and two join hands?
Christians say that Christ -- though he was in the form of God, "emptied himself." Buddhists say form is emptiness, and emptiness form.
In The Art of Living (2001) the 14th Dalai Lama says, "As your insight into the ultimate nature of reality is deepened and enhanced, you will develop a perception of reality from which you will perceive phenomena and events as sort of illusory, illusion-like, and this mode of perceiving reality will permeate all your interactions with reality. […] Even emptiness itself, which is seen as the ultimate nature of reality, is not absolute, nor does it exist independently. We cannot conceive of emptiness as independent of a basis of phenomena, because when we examine the nature of reality, we find that it is empty of inherent existence. Then if we are to take that emptiness itself is an object and look for its essence, again we will find that it is empty of inherent existence. Therefore the Buddha taught the emptiness of emptiness."
(http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/index.html)
Where is this "home" we are being called to? Are we being called to let go of all the illusions and distractions created by ideologies, dogmas, and doctrines telling us what to believe and what kind of future world must come to be? Are we ready to relinquish what we have come to think of as my country, my religion, my people, and my God? Are we ready to open our hands and let fall to ground what no longer nourishes and satisfies?
The Future
For God's sake, be done
with this jabber of "a better world."
What blasphemy! No "futuristic"
twit or child thereof ever
in embodied light will see
a better world than this, though they
foretell inevitably a worse.
Do something! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead. The day is
clear and bright, and overhead
the sun not yet half finished
with his daily praise.
(Poem: "The Future" by Wendell Berry)
Let our hands do something. Let them open the gate and invite one and all home.
It is time to come home, to praise, to surrender to what is calling us home.
Do we hear the lovely silence, the sweet solitude, and profoundly beautiful community of our true home?
What is taking place beyond separation/before union?
What is, God, you, me, right here?
Rest easy -- it's nothing special.
Full of joy; full of praise!
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Today in Iraq five more American soldiers are killed. Remember Iraq?
To practice Zen, you need deep roots.
People with deep roots are rare.
In the past anyone could practice Zen.
But not now.
Zen depends completely on yourself.
It's much harder, especially now.
- Sheng-hi
Why not now?
We honor Francis of Assisi today.
He knew how useless and cruel deaths are in a stupid politically religious war.
Francis sorrowed then.
We sorrow now.
To practice Zen, you need deep roots.
People with deep roots are rare.
In the past anyone could practice Zen.
But not now.
Zen depends completely on yourself.
It's much harder, especially now.
- Sheng-hi
Why not now?
We honor Francis of Assisi today.
He knew how useless and cruel deaths are in a stupid politically religious war.
Francis sorrowed then.
We sorrow now.
Friday, September 30, 2005
As dusk settles we finish burying Sando up hill from brook where Ragged begins to climb.
We experience again -- after hours digging dirt, rock, and root -- why a farmer many years ago named the pre-parceled land "Rocky Hill Farm."
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world.
(from The Buddha's Words on Kindness, Metta Sutta)
By bridge, up hill, encircled by stones -- one we've cherished is under single lantern vigil candle.
Tomorrow we'll witness two other beings into their marriage at Ogunquit. She and he will pronounce themselves willing to dwell in the thin place, the middle place where past and future change hands, a place that is beyond separation/before union -- in other words, where one and one is not two, nor is one and one...one. Then what is it?
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
(from the Beatitudes,Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5)
Marriage is what is taking place.
"What is" might be what marriage has always longed to be. For something, or two people, to be "what is" means to embody the manifestation which is each moment, each event. Not two, not one -- merely whole sight -- the pronounced willingness to enter into and pass through the reality of the exquisite ordinariness of life with one another.
What is taking place between one another?
Life itself!
With one another -- dwelling in the sacred ordinary, stepping through its midst with kindness and love -- each is happy, safe, and free from fear.
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
(from The Buddha's Words on Kindness, Metta Sutta)
Goodbye Sando!
Hello Renee and Patrick!
We experience again -- after hours digging dirt, rock, and root -- why a farmer many years ago named the pre-parceled land "Rocky Hill Farm."
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world.
(from The Buddha's Words on Kindness, Metta Sutta)
By bridge, up hill, encircled by stones -- one we've cherished is under single lantern vigil candle.
Tomorrow we'll witness two other beings into their marriage at Ogunquit. She and he will pronounce themselves willing to dwell in the thin place, the middle place where past and future change hands, a place that is beyond separation/before union -- in other words, where one and one is not two, nor is one and one...one. Then what is it?
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
(from the Beatitudes,Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5)
Marriage is what is taking place.
"What is" might be what marriage has always longed to be. For something, or two people, to be "what is" means to embody the manifestation which is each moment, each event. Not two, not one -- merely whole sight -- the pronounced willingness to enter into and pass through the reality of the exquisite ordinariness of life with one another.
What is taking place between one another?
Life itself!
With one another -- dwelling in the sacred ordinary, stepping through its midst with kindness and love -- each is happy, safe, and free from fear.
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
(from The Buddha's Words on Kindness, Metta Sutta)
Goodbye Sando!
Hello Renee and Patrick!
Thursday, September 29, 2005
After long, slow morning mountain walk we stop at meditation cabin. Sando goes in, lays down, and stays all day.
Charlotte visits, bringing her flowers. Saskia sits with her as afternoon dims with wind and rain. I converse with root and rock digging into mountain for resting place.
At 5:30pm Dr Jim arrives.
In Robert Pirsig's novel, Lila, an Indian is asked the question, "What kind of dog is that?"
His response came slowly and thoughtfully, "That's a good dog". (Ch 32)
Sando, our good dog, quietly, and with tired grace, dies.
After long silent vigil by Cesco, Saskia, and I, Sando's body remains for tonight in the chapel with the archangels, under the quiet watchfulness of mother/child Icon, sitting Buddha, standing Francis, framed Dogen, and wooden cross radiating circles of welcome.
We already miss her.
Charlotte visits, bringing her flowers. Saskia sits with her as afternoon dims with wind and rain. I converse with root and rock digging into mountain for resting place.
At 5:30pm Dr Jim arrives.
In Robert Pirsig's novel, Lila, an Indian is asked the question, "What kind of dog is that?"
His response came slowly and thoughtfully, "That's a good dog". (Ch 32)
Sando, our good dog, quietly, and with tired grace, dies.
After long silent vigil by Cesco, Saskia, and I, Sando's body remains for tonight in the chapel with the archangels, under the quiet watchfulness of mother/child Icon, sitting Buddha, standing Francis, framed Dogen, and wooden cross radiating circles of welcome.
We already miss her.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
We took the day to spend quietly at hermitage with Sando. There was no conversation at bookshop this evening.
We four walked easily together the mountain early. We thought of going in to the shop.
Instead we cleared fell wood out from mostly dry brook. The incursion happened last winter. There was a large tree trunk spanning what we call Sando's pool up beyond crossing footbridge. Recently the tree had split and angled in brook. (Sando walks up to where we work pulling twigs and leaves, ambles into concave collection of water from recent rain, and drinks.)
We sit on bench. She's on ground near wooden bridge built two summers ago at a retreat workday. Behind us pickaxe and spade lean against tree. Turned earth and torn root show richer shade of brown near graves of Jitai, Koto, and Mini.
Back of barn and house we tear through heavy growth over septic, cut fledgling maples and rip out thorny stalks. We get out extension ladder. I climb high to saw limbs that reach over barn. We want to eliminate rubbing edge of leaf and branch on roofing asphalt and siding shingle. The highest branch would not let go. Holding ladder with left arm through rungs and wrapped around tree, right arm extends high and saws repeatedly with bowsaw. Tough limb hangs by willpower.
Blade un-seizes for final few thrusts overhead. Rest. Saw. Rest. Saw. Saskia gathers what has made it to ground successfully. Two dogs peek around barn, wander, settle to ground themselves. Sando barks with weakened voice at black lab next door charging down hill from neighbor's house. Who will protect us next time?
We finish. Get water to drink. Take leash. Walk up back past pickaxe, spade, bench, bridge, brook-pool, hillside climb, worn path to T-bar, vacant snowbowl. Cross back over ball field. Walk road to dooryard and house.
A brief stop in cabin. Sit a spell. Tomorrow is feast of archangels Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael.
Gabriel seems to be composed of the Hebrew words, gebher: man, and 'el: God. It means, therefore, "Man of God", or, "Strength of God."
Michael from the Hebrew Mikha'el, meaning: "Who is as God"?
Raphael, from the Hebrew rapha': to heal, and 'el: God, means "God heals."
The vet said Saskia should call him in the morning. If Saskia and Sando say so, he'd come out to house.
We've had a good day together.
One day.
A lifetime.
We four walked easily together the mountain early. We thought of going in to the shop.
Instead we cleared fell wood out from mostly dry brook. The incursion happened last winter. There was a large tree trunk spanning what we call Sando's pool up beyond crossing footbridge. Recently the tree had split and angled in brook. (Sando walks up to where we work pulling twigs and leaves, ambles into concave collection of water from recent rain, and drinks.)
We sit on bench. She's on ground near wooden bridge built two summers ago at a retreat workday. Behind us pickaxe and spade lean against tree. Turned earth and torn root show richer shade of brown near graves of Jitai, Koto, and Mini.
Back of barn and house we tear through heavy growth over septic, cut fledgling maples and rip out thorny stalks. We get out extension ladder. I climb high to saw limbs that reach over barn. We want to eliminate rubbing edge of leaf and branch on roofing asphalt and siding shingle. The highest branch would not let go. Holding ladder with left arm through rungs and wrapped around tree, right arm extends high and saws repeatedly with bowsaw. Tough limb hangs by willpower.
Blade un-seizes for final few thrusts overhead. Rest. Saw. Rest. Saw. Saskia gathers what has made it to ground successfully. Two dogs peek around barn, wander, settle to ground themselves. Sando barks with weakened voice at black lab next door charging down hill from neighbor's house. Who will protect us next time?
We finish. Get water to drink. Take leash. Walk up back past pickaxe, spade, bench, bridge, brook-pool, hillside climb, worn path to T-bar, vacant snowbowl. Cross back over ball field. Walk road to dooryard and house.
A brief stop in cabin. Sit a spell. Tomorrow is feast of archangels Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael.
Gabriel seems to be composed of the Hebrew words, gebher: man, and 'el: God. It means, therefore, "Man of God", or, "Strength of God."
Michael from the Hebrew Mikha'el, meaning: "Who is as God"?
Raphael, from the Hebrew rapha': to heal, and 'el: God, means "God heals."
The vet said Saskia should call him in the morning. If Saskia and Sando say so, he'd come out to house.
We've had a good day together.
One day.
A lifetime.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
We have come here to see what is taking place.
Do we see what is taking place?
In the still night by the vacant window,
Wrapped in monk's robe I sit in meditation.
Navel and nostrils lines up straight;
Ears paired to the slope of the shoulders.
Window whitens -- the moon comes up;
Rain's stopped, but drops go on dripping.
Wonderful -- the moon of this moment,
Distant, vast.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)
The chanting of Heart Sutra is wonderfully of a piece tonight. Candlelight in cabin and at table lights up self. When we realize self, we realize nothing excluded. One person, one thing awakens, everywhere, everyone, and everything is awake.
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." (Aldo Leopold, American ecologist, 1887-1948)
War ends here. Community begins here.
Hands together, bowing deeply -- here.
Here wonderful work done by what is taking place.
This is what we come to see.
Do we see what is taking place?
In the still night by the vacant window,
Wrapped in monk's robe I sit in meditation.
Navel and nostrils lines up straight;
Ears paired to the slope of the shoulders.
Window whitens -- the moon comes up;
Rain's stopped, but drops go on dripping.
Wonderful -- the moon of this moment,
Distant, vast.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)
The chanting of Heart Sutra is wonderfully of a piece tonight. Candlelight in cabin and at table lights up self. When we realize self, we realize nothing excluded. One person, one thing awakens, everywhere, everyone, and everything is awake.
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." (Aldo Leopold, American ecologist, 1887-1948)
War ends here. Community begins here.
Hands together, bowing deeply -- here.
Here wonderful work done by what is taking place.
This is what we come to see.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Zazen in cabin with Sando and Britta. Saturday dusk -- a good description of my mind. Bow to two dogs. Extinguish heart-glass candle below icon. Sound bell-chant. Walk path to house and this room.
For all these years, my certain Zen:
Neither I nor the world exist.
The sutras neat within the box,
My staff hooked upon the wall,
I lie at peace in moonlight
Or, hearing water splashing on the rock,
Sit up. None can purchase pleasure such as this:
Spangled across the step-moss, a million coins!
- Ryushu Shutaku (1308--1388)
There are only few days of meditation remaining with Sando. Her body weakens with cancer. This good dog fourteen years sitting partner!
There are times I cannot read anything having to do with spirituality, theology, or "isms" with any prefix. These hermit days I read novel about philosophy, nap, soak, take short walks, and sit in silence on zabuton or cabin porch swivel chair -- merely listening, simple watching. The trees are good company. The path meandering up to brook is moist brown. I cut grass. Britta, (the visiting young German Shepherd), paces back and forth eyeing wheels; Sando stretches out and watches.
Jesus Christ, although he shared God's nature, did not try to seize equality with God for himself; but emptied himself, took on the form of a slave, and became like a man -- not in appearance only, for he humbled himself by accepting death -- even death on a cross. (Philippians 2)
What is "like a man?" Of course we accept death. Is there a choice? To accept death is one thing, but to want to die is frowned upon. It is curious that the one thing in life we are certain about -- that we will die -- is something we should not want to happen, work hard to put off, and never choose to suicide.
"Quotidie morior" -- I die daily. Poetry helps.
While my bowl is still half full,
you can eat out of it too,
and when it is empty,
just bury it out in the flowers.
All those years
I had in my pocket.
I spent them,
nickel-and-dime.
Each clock tick falls
like a raindrop,
right through the floor
as if it were nothing.
In the morning light,
the doorknob, cold with dew.
(Poems by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser, from Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry, Cooper Canyon Press c.2003)
As if it were nothing, the day disappears into itself. Dogs are fed. Red Sox win. Yankees lose.
If there is a tomorrow, and things go as they might, the Sunday New York Times will be brought into the dooryard.
Tota Pulchra est...
Maria!
Wisp of smoke extinguishes Saturday.
For all these years, my certain Zen:
Neither I nor the world exist.
The sutras neat within the box,
My staff hooked upon the wall,
I lie at peace in moonlight
Or, hearing water splashing on the rock,
Sit up. None can purchase pleasure such as this:
Spangled across the step-moss, a million coins!
- Ryushu Shutaku (1308--1388)
There are only few days of meditation remaining with Sando. Her body weakens with cancer. This good dog fourteen years sitting partner!
There are times I cannot read anything having to do with spirituality, theology, or "isms" with any prefix. These hermit days I read novel about philosophy, nap, soak, take short walks, and sit in silence on zabuton or cabin porch swivel chair -- merely listening, simple watching. The trees are good company. The path meandering up to brook is moist brown. I cut grass. Britta, (the visiting young German Shepherd), paces back and forth eyeing wheels; Sando stretches out and watches.
Jesus Christ, although he shared God's nature, did not try to seize equality with God for himself; but emptied himself, took on the form of a slave, and became like a man -- not in appearance only, for he humbled himself by accepting death -- even death on a cross. (Philippians 2)
What is "like a man?" Of course we accept death. Is there a choice? To accept death is one thing, but to want to die is frowned upon. It is curious that the one thing in life we are certain about -- that we will die -- is something we should not want to happen, work hard to put off, and never choose to suicide.
"Quotidie morior" -- I die daily. Poetry helps.
While my bowl is still half full,
you can eat out of it too,
and when it is empty,
just bury it out in the flowers.
All those years
I had in my pocket.
I spent them,
nickel-and-dime.
Each clock tick falls
like a raindrop,
right through the floor
as if it were nothing.
In the morning light,
the doorknob, cold with dew.
(Poems by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser, from Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry, Cooper Canyon Press c.2003)
As if it were nothing, the day disappears into itself. Dogs are fed. Red Sox win. Yankees lose.
If there is a tomorrow, and things go as they might, the Sunday New York Times will be brought into the dooryard.
Tota Pulchra est...
Maria!
Wisp of smoke extinguishes Saturday.
Friday, September 23, 2005
The form of the Buddha is empty. The body of Christ is not-to-be found. Two bird bodies lie still under hibiscus tree, their whatever-you-call-it no longer within them propelling wings and song.
There's no telling where everything's going. It's anyone's guess. Some say there's no need guessing. What matters and what counts is awareness of life that attends with grace and hospitality that which and those who present themselves. Awareness and presence -- close and far. Something that resides in a place we know not.
Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(the world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound
(from "For a Dancer" by Jackson Browne)
Water breaks over and through levees in New Orleans flooding again as new hurricane blows over Gulf toward Texas and Louisiana. Bus catches fire fleeing toward higher ground killing twenty-four elderly people on Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston.
She is like white clouds rising from the mountains,
No-mind from the start.
She is like the roosting bird who feels no longing
For the woods of home.
Because this person of the Way happens to enjoy
The mountains and streams,
She wanders among them unconcerned about how deep
Into the lakeside mountain peaks she goes.
She has gone to the empty cliffs to pay respect to
The hundred thousand forms of the Buddha.
- Su Dongpo (1037-1101)
We pay respect to the hundred thousand forms of the Buddha. We pay respect to the hundred thousand forms of the Christ.
"Do not be afraid! For the Lord of Hosts says this: 'A little while now, and I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all the nations and the treasures of all the nations shall flow in, and I will fill this Temple with glory, says the Lord of Hosts. Mine is the silver, mine the gold! -- it is the Lord of Hosts who speaks. The new glory of this Temple is going to surpass the old, says the Lord of Hosts, and in this place I will give peace -- it is the Lord of Hosts who speaks.'"
(Haggai 1:15 - 2:9)
This notion, this promise there will be a surpassing of the old sits quietly off to the side of history. For thousands of years human consciousness attempts to convey sense and order on events that occur. We form opinions, weave theories, and create systems of belief with no seeming clarity of existential or empirical verification. In short -- we simply don't know. We don't know how life came to be, from where, by what means, to what end, or whether our deepening consciousness will ever come to know and even effect change that will have permanent and ontological significance.
Poet Wendell Berry gives two poems for us to consider:
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
(Poem by Wendell Berry)
And:
Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
("Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, c.1973 by Wendell Berry)
Perhaps marriage is the affirmation that everything we've believed is inaccurate. Revisiting what we've called marriage, the country of marriage, we make tracks over tracks looking for new direction.
Marriage is where individuals say aloud in the presence of others: "We are not two; we are not one -- we are nuptial being; we are ground itself."
Perhaps marriage is what once was called life but now is called resurrection. Resurrection -- that which is -- beyond separation; that which is -- before union.
Is this "joyful sound?" Beyond separation/before union?
Joyful sound dwells between silence and stillness. It is resurrection within.
If we listen with conversation in this place, in this thin place, we begin to hear now something new.
Go ahead, practice resurrection.
Praise not-knowing.
Be empty form found.
Be loving-place.
As you are.
There's no telling where everything's going. It's anyone's guess. Some say there's no need guessing. What matters and what counts is awareness of life that attends with grace and hospitality that which and those who present themselves. Awareness and presence -- close and far. Something that resides in a place we know not.
Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(the world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound
(from "For a Dancer" by Jackson Browne)
Water breaks over and through levees in New Orleans flooding again as new hurricane blows over Gulf toward Texas and Louisiana. Bus catches fire fleeing toward higher ground killing twenty-four elderly people on Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston.
She is like white clouds rising from the mountains,
No-mind from the start.
She is like the roosting bird who feels no longing
For the woods of home.
Because this person of the Way happens to enjoy
The mountains and streams,
She wanders among them unconcerned about how deep
Into the lakeside mountain peaks she goes.
She has gone to the empty cliffs to pay respect to
The hundred thousand forms of the Buddha.
- Su Dongpo (1037-1101)
We pay respect to the hundred thousand forms of the Buddha. We pay respect to the hundred thousand forms of the Christ.
"Do not be afraid! For the Lord of Hosts says this: 'A little while now, and I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all the nations and the treasures of all the nations shall flow in, and I will fill this Temple with glory, says the Lord of Hosts. Mine is the silver, mine the gold! -- it is the Lord of Hosts who speaks. The new glory of this Temple is going to surpass the old, says the Lord of Hosts, and in this place I will give peace -- it is the Lord of Hosts who speaks.'"
(Haggai 1:15 - 2:9)
This notion, this promise there will be a surpassing of the old sits quietly off to the side of history. For thousands of years human consciousness attempts to convey sense and order on events that occur. We form opinions, weave theories, and create systems of belief with no seeming clarity of existential or empirical verification. In short -- we simply don't know. We don't know how life came to be, from where, by what means, to what end, or whether our deepening consciousness will ever come to know and even effect change that will have permanent and ontological significance.
Poet Wendell Berry gives two poems for us to consider:
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
(Poem by Wendell Berry)
And:
Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
("Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, c.1973 by Wendell Berry)
Perhaps marriage is the affirmation that everything we've believed is inaccurate. Revisiting what we've called marriage, the country of marriage, we make tracks over tracks looking for new direction.
Marriage is where individuals say aloud in the presence of others: "We are not two; we are not one -- we are nuptial being; we are ground itself."
Perhaps marriage is what once was called life but now is called resurrection. Resurrection -- that which is -- beyond separation; that which is -- before union.
Is this "joyful sound?" Beyond separation/before union?
Joyful sound dwells between silence and stillness. It is resurrection within.
If we listen with conversation in this place, in this thin place, we begin to hear now something new.
Go ahead, practice resurrection.
Praise not-knowing.
Be empty form found.
Be loving-place.
As you are.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Always retiring, today feels like solitary celebration of retirement. From what? To what?
re·tire
v. re·tired, re·tir·ing, re·tires
v. intr.
1. To withdraw, as for rest or seclusion.
2. To go to bed.
3. To withdraw from one's occupation, business, or office; stop working.
4. To fall back or retreat, as from battle.
5. To move back or away; recede.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=retire)
Today, at least, I retire from summer.
Far away, steep mountain paths,
Treacherous and narrow, ten thousand feet up;
Over boulders and bridges, lichens of green,
White clouds are often seen soaring,
A cascade suspends in mid-air like a bolt of silk;
The moon's reflection falls on a deep pool, glittering.
I shall climb up the magnificent mountain peak,
To await the arrival of a solitary crane.
- Shide (8th century)
Reading Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans, Neoplatonists, and Mysticism in Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World, A Novel About the History of Philosophy. (A light tapping on door; opens; small bowl of fruit placed on bookshelf, thank you.) I am retiring today. Considering Cynic's and Stoic's attitudes to sickness and death -- with fruit to boot!
To what shall
I liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane's bill.
(-- Dogen)
In prison Tuesday, eighteen students of ethics listened to Dogen's take -- then wrote theirs. Plato's cave and neo-Platonist sparks of light vied with one another. Split? Or, solid?
Herod said, "John? I beheaded him. So who is this I hear such reports about?" (Luke 9: 8)
It happened twice -- in morning prison college class and again in afternoon university college class one town away. It had to do with the use of the word "part," as in -- I am part of this or that. "You are not part of anything," was the response. (Silence. Waiting. It's only words, but they're all we have.) We're not part; we're it -- the whole. It's not what you think. We're not part of anything -- except in our thinking mind and scientific-analytic sorting out one from the other. There is the whole. We are not other than the whole. We are the whole.
"So what?" someone asks. Indeed, so what?
Herod was right to be confused -- and so was the woman in afternoon class. John? Jesus? Herod? You? Me? -- the whole of it.
Even so, "Who is this?" and "So what?" -- are reliable questions.
Last week I had a fever
for four days and the world
took on a kind of flickering darknessÂ?
it seemed so thin, so insubstantial,
not the kind of place a person could live.
This guy who came to the card game
last night, he says he dreams
of a dead friend all the time,
this friend walks out of a black alley,
walks always in a kind of shadow.
I asked him what it's like to be dead,
the guy said, fumbling a face-down card,
and he said it's not a place, heaven,
it's a feeling, the feeling of knowing
everything you never knew. Then the friend
told him one of the numbers to play
this week in Megabucks.
(Excerpt from Poem: "Something Else" by Christian Barter, from The Singers I Prefer.)
There is much I don't know, have never known. At times the feeling inside this apprehension lacking comprehension is fear. As when intimation of impermanence, glimpse of death, or sense of deterioration rooting into physicality. But then there is Dogen -- moonlight, drop of dew, shaken loose, life-flight-passing.
Flight takes fright. Or is it: Fright takes flight?
"The number," the poet said at poem's end, "was eight."
That seems right.
Infinitely.
Wholly.
8
re·tire
v. re·tired, re·tir·ing, re·tires
v. intr.
1. To withdraw, as for rest or seclusion.
2. To go to bed.
3. To withdraw from one's occupation, business, or office; stop working.
4. To fall back or retreat, as from battle.
5. To move back or away; recede.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=retire)
Today, at least, I retire from summer.
Far away, steep mountain paths,
Treacherous and narrow, ten thousand feet up;
Over boulders and bridges, lichens of green,
White clouds are often seen soaring,
A cascade suspends in mid-air like a bolt of silk;
The moon's reflection falls on a deep pool, glittering.
I shall climb up the magnificent mountain peak,
To await the arrival of a solitary crane.
- Shide (8th century)
Reading Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans, Neoplatonists, and Mysticism in Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World, A Novel About the History of Philosophy. (A light tapping on door; opens; small bowl of fruit placed on bookshelf, thank you.) I am retiring today. Considering Cynic's and Stoic's attitudes to sickness and death -- with fruit to boot!
To what shall
I liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane's bill.
(-- Dogen)
In prison Tuesday, eighteen students of ethics listened to Dogen's take -- then wrote theirs. Plato's cave and neo-Platonist sparks of light vied with one another. Split? Or, solid?
Herod said, "John? I beheaded him. So who is this I hear such reports about?" (Luke 9: 8)
It happened twice -- in morning prison college class and again in afternoon university college class one town away. It had to do with the use of the word "part," as in -- I am part of this or that. "You are not part of anything," was the response. (Silence. Waiting. It's only words, but they're all we have.) We're not part; we're it -- the whole. It's not what you think. We're not part of anything -- except in our thinking mind and scientific-analytic sorting out one from the other. There is the whole. We are not other than the whole. We are the whole.
"So what?" someone asks. Indeed, so what?
Herod was right to be confused -- and so was the woman in afternoon class. John? Jesus? Herod? You? Me? -- the whole of it.
Even so, "Who is this?" and "So what?" -- are reliable questions.
Last week I had a fever
for four days and the world
took on a kind of flickering darknessÂ?
it seemed so thin, so insubstantial,
not the kind of place a person could live.
This guy who came to the card game
last night, he says he dreams
of a dead friend all the time,
this friend walks out of a black alley,
walks always in a kind of shadow.
I asked him what it's like to be dead,
the guy said, fumbling a face-down card,
and he said it's not a place, heaven,
it's a feeling, the feeling of knowing
everything you never knew. Then the friend
told him one of the numbers to play
this week in Megabucks.
(Excerpt from Poem: "Something Else" by Christian Barter, from The Singers I Prefer.)
There is much I don't know, have never known. At times the feeling inside this apprehension lacking comprehension is fear. As when intimation of impermanence, glimpse of death, or sense of deterioration rooting into physicality. But then there is Dogen -- moonlight, drop of dew, shaken loose, life-flight-passing.
Flight takes fright. Or is it: Fright takes flight?
"The number," the poet said at poem's end, "was eight."
That seems right.
Infinitely.
Wholly.
8
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
The bell, invited by breeze, tolls lightly, slowly.
I cannot find the Monastery of Heaped Fragrance,
Miles up now into the clouds of the summit.
There is no footpath through the ancient woods.
Where did the bell sound,
Deep in the gorge, deep in the mountain?
The voice of the torrent gulps over jagged stones;
Sunlight hardly warms the bluish pines.
As dusk deepens in these unfathomable mazes,
I practice meditation
To subdue the dragon of desire.
- Wang Wei (701–761)
Richard Rorty calls for redescription. He says not to refute ideas, rather, make a redescription of the reality, the thing itself, underlying the idea.
Sunlight returns to midcoast Maine. It accompanies solitude. A dogbark up hill. Car engine approaches and ascends Ragged/Bald Barnestown Road incline. The moment might be filled with discomfort, but it is the moment itself allows the written words, "The bell, invited by breeze, tolls lightly, slowly."
Poised between what once was called birth and death, listening to bell, the sunlit day makes its way up Ragged and Bald with no noise, no sound, no hurry.
Makes our way, thus.
I cannot find the Monastery of Heaped Fragrance,
Miles up now into the clouds of the summit.
There is no footpath through the ancient woods.
Where did the bell sound,
Deep in the gorge, deep in the mountain?
The voice of the torrent gulps over jagged stones;
Sunlight hardly warms the bluish pines.
As dusk deepens in these unfathomable mazes,
I practice meditation
To subdue the dragon of desire.
- Wang Wei (701–761)
Richard Rorty calls for redescription. He says not to refute ideas, rather, make a redescription of the reality, the thing itself, underlying the idea.
Sunlight returns to midcoast Maine. It accompanies solitude. A dogbark up hill. Car engine approaches and ascends Ragged/Bald Barnestown Road incline. The moment might be filled with discomfort, but it is the moment itself allows the written words, "The bell, invited by breeze, tolls lightly, slowly."
Poised between what once was called birth and death, listening to bell, the sunlit day makes its way up Ragged and Bald with no noise, no sound, no hurry.
Makes our way, thus.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Petals fall from flower; words fall from language. Friends visit from Boston. They'll wed in two weeks. They wish petals and words to weave through Metta Sutra and Beatitudes.
"On the field of sunyata each thing becomes manifest in its suchness in its very act of affirming itself, according to its own particular potential and virtus and in its own particular shape." (Keiji Nishitani, in Religion and Nothingness, p.131)
Taitetsu Unno adds, "This is the "in-itself" of reality, the be-ification of emptiness. Each being, thus affirmed on the field of sunyata, becomes the center of a circle without a circumference, free of fixation in any form, without subject or object." (from talk given at Amherst College, "Encounter with Emptiness" conference, 1984)
The bay is gray today. Damp breeze blows through screen door in Harbour Room. Karl has arranged upstairs computer. Another set of eyes looking out at horizon beyond Curtis Island.
In everyone it towers like
A mile high wall,
Flashing a great precious light
In everyone's presence.
One thought ten thousand years,
Ten thousand years one thought,
Eating when hungry,
Sleeping when tired,
Who worries about the alternation
Of light and dark,
The change of the seasons?
- Daio (1235-1309)
Each person tries to learn the language necessary to respond to another person. We try to learn to respond, not to a person's problem, but to the person herself.
At Sunday Evening Practice the question is asked whether powerful men who do what is considered evil actually believe they are right and doing good. The question is put to rest. No, they don't believe they are right and are doing good. They know they are wrong, they know they're in it for the power. And they lie. They lie to themselves. They lie to others. They don't think they're right. They only think they won't be stopped.
We need a language inseparate from that which falls from it. Only words intimate to, and extension of, their source can be true. Source. Where good knows no other.
The Japanese word for language, "koto-ba," was defined by Martin Heidegger as "flower petals that flourish out of the lightening message of the graciousness that brings forth." (in The Way to Language, p.53)
It is only from the thing itself can we learn of the thing.
From the pine tree
learn (the koto) of the pine tree.
And from the bamboo
(the koto) of the bamboo.
-- Basho
We are at heart good. When we think or do what is not good we deceive, we think, sometimes others, but not ourselves. Never ourselves. Why not ourselves? Because it is not possible to deceive oneself. There is only this to rely on. There is no other. It is a trick of mirrors and smoke to pretend we do not understand. We understand. We have to pretend not to. The clever disappear behind their deceit. Soon enough, we can only hope, we'll all tire of the pretense.
Authentic presence does not know it is good and doing good. It is simply what is itself doing what is itself to be done.
We forget how to speak. There are only tears in our eyes. We carry on wordless and humbled by the only good remaining in the world. What is that remaining good? Yes?
It is not so much what we say -- it is that we are there, saying or not saying anything. It is not so important to convince someone we are right or wrong -- it is best merely to be there, as we are, inseparate from source. We seldom remember anything more than presence.
Philosophy
In sophomore year the great philosopher,
Then ninety, out of retirement came, to pass
His wisdom on to one more generation.
Reading his last lecture to our class,
That afternoon the mote-filled sunlight leaned
Attentively with purpose through the tall
Windows in amber buttresses that seemed
To gird the heavens so they wouldn't fall.
The blaze of his white mane, his hooded eyes,
The voice that plumbed us from reflection's skies
So far above temptation or reward --
The scene has never left my mind. I wrote
His lecture down, but, in an old trunk, my notes
Have crumbled, and I can't recall a word.
(Poem: "Philosophy" by Daniel Hoffman, from Makes you Stop and Think)
We are good.
Isn't that beyond all?
"On the field of sunyata each thing becomes manifest in its suchness in its very act of affirming itself, according to its own particular potential and virtus and in its own particular shape." (Keiji Nishitani, in Religion and Nothingness, p.131)
Taitetsu Unno adds, "This is the "in-itself" of reality, the be-ification of emptiness. Each being, thus affirmed on the field of sunyata, becomes the center of a circle without a circumference, free of fixation in any form, without subject or object." (from talk given at Amherst College, "Encounter with Emptiness" conference, 1984)
The bay is gray today. Damp breeze blows through screen door in Harbour Room. Karl has arranged upstairs computer. Another set of eyes looking out at horizon beyond Curtis Island.
In everyone it towers like
A mile high wall,
Flashing a great precious light
In everyone's presence.
One thought ten thousand years,
Ten thousand years one thought,
Eating when hungry,
Sleeping when tired,
Who worries about the alternation
Of light and dark,
The change of the seasons?
- Daio (1235-1309)
Each person tries to learn the language necessary to respond to another person. We try to learn to respond, not to a person's problem, but to the person herself.
At Sunday Evening Practice the question is asked whether powerful men who do what is considered evil actually believe they are right and doing good. The question is put to rest. No, they don't believe they are right and are doing good. They know they are wrong, they know they're in it for the power. And they lie. They lie to themselves. They lie to others. They don't think they're right. They only think they won't be stopped.
We need a language inseparate from that which falls from it. Only words intimate to, and extension of, their source can be true. Source. Where good knows no other.
The Japanese word for language, "koto-ba," was defined by Martin Heidegger as "flower petals that flourish out of the lightening message of the graciousness that brings forth." (in The Way to Language, p.53)
It is only from the thing itself can we learn of the thing.
From the pine tree
learn (the koto) of the pine tree.
And from the bamboo
(the koto) of the bamboo.
-- Basho
We are at heart good. When we think or do what is not good we deceive, we think, sometimes others, but not ourselves. Never ourselves. Why not ourselves? Because it is not possible to deceive oneself. There is only this to rely on. There is no other. It is a trick of mirrors and smoke to pretend we do not understand. We understand. We have to pretend not to. The clever disappear behind their deceit. Soon enough, we can only hope, we'll all tire of the pretense.
Authentic presence does not know it is good and doing good. It is simply what is itself doing what is itself to be done.
We forget how to speak. There are only tears in our eyes. We carry on wordless and humbled by the only good remaining in the world. What is that remaining good? Yes?
It is not so much what we say -- it is that we are there, saying or not saying anything. It is not so important to convince someone we are right or wrong -- it is best merely to be there, as we are, inseparate from source. We seldom remember anything more than presence.
Philosophy
In sophomore year the great philosopher,
Then ninety, out of retirement came, to pass
His wisdom on to one more generation.
Reading his last lecture to our class,
That afternoon the mote-filled sunlight leaned
Attentively with purpose through the tall
Windows in amber buttresses that seemed
To gird the heavens so they wouldn't fall.
The blaze of his white mane, his hooded eyes,
The voice that plumbed us from reflection's skies
So far above temptation or reward --
The scene has never left my mind. I wrote
His lecture down, but, in an old trunk, my notes
Have crumbled, and I can't recall a word.
(Poem: "Philosophy" by Daniel Hoffman, from Makes you Stop and Think)
We are good.
Isn't that beyond all?
Saturday, September 17, 2005
In the Stigmata, it is said, Francis of Assisi received into his body imprints of the wounds experienced by Jesus. Often, since, much is made of blood and pain -- suggesting a miraculous mirroring of inflicted torture that serves to illustrate closeness of recipient to Christ.
In a culture that holds as sacred and patriotic the infliction of torture, there might be a need to break free of such a particular interpretation. Torture is only torture. Jesus was not sacred because he was tortured -- he was holy despite it. Governments are not noble or peace-loving because they torture non-believers of their creed and constitution, they are simply torturers seeking to punish, protect, and convert. Torture inflicts pain and is used by those willing and able to torture in order to justify a belief in a way of life that, in itself, is contradicted and opposed by means of the very torture inflicted.
Those who awaken never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise and leave the lake.
On the air they rise and fly an invisible course.
Their food is knowledge.
They live on emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.
Who can follow them?
(- Buddha in the Dhammapada)
Under rain on roof of cabin during Saturday Morning Practice we end chanting Lauds with added words acknowledging Francis' stigmata. We prayed that we, too, might come to appreciate and love the body of Christ as we encounter it in ourselves and in others. We asked that we might love, respect, extend, and receive -- in the company of one another -- the radiance of the body of Christ in this existence.
It would be a limitation to equate love with torture and pain. Buddha said there is suffering in life, and there is. Jesus said there is love in life, and there is. Buddha and Jesus both embodied their correct relationship with the whole of the world and thus experienced both suffering and love. The marks of Jesus are as much in the green wet leaf this rainy morning as in his once and forever hands and eyes. The marks of Buddha are as much in the fallen-numb legs sitting in silence as they are in the apricot jam and chocolate donut on plate at hermitage table.
The art of embodiment is the practice of open, acknowledging, embrace of the world as it presents itself to us. "Itself" might mean "God" to one person, and "The Real" to another. However we choose or are able to conceive or see what-is-itself, there is an enormity of the yet-unknown ahead of us to be revealed.
Arts Councils
(for Jacques Barzaghi)
Because there is no art
There are artists
Because there are no artists
We need money
Because there is no money
We give
Because there is no we
There is art
(Poem "Arts Councils" by Gary Snyder, from Axe Handles.)
Art is how we see and what we make of what we see.
Suddenly, outside my window, steady crescendoing rain!
One dog barks across the street. Britta (a visiting German Shepherd) climbs stairs after Saskia. Sando (rife with cancer) rests in front room, Cesco stretches in middle room as cat steps gingerly past.
The body of Christ, the mind of Buddha, and the splashing sounds of heaven/nirvana occur on road and eaves.
Peace flows through the art of instrumentality -- the art of forgiveness, interdependence, and humble engagement of what we do not yet understand.
There are far too many methods and instruments of torture.
May we, on this remembrance of Francis' embodiment of the whole Christ, be instruments of peace!
In a culture that holds as sacred and patriotic the infliction of torture, there might be a need to break free of such a particular interpretation. Torture is only torture. Jesus was not sacred because he was tortured -- he was holy despite it. Governments are not noble or peace-loving because they torture non-believers of their creed and constitution, they are simply torturers seeking to punish, protect, and convert. Torture inflicts pain and is used by those willing and able to torture in order to justify a belief in a way of life that, in itself, is contradicted and opposed by means of the very torture inflicted.
Those who awaken never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise and leave the lake.
On the air they rise and fly an invisible course.
Their food is knowledge.
They live on emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.
Who can follow them?
(- Buddha in the Dhammapada)
Under rain on roof of cabin during Saturday Morning Practice we end chanting Lauds with added words acknowledging Francis' stigmata. We prayed that we, too, might come to appreciate and love the body of Christ as we encounter it in ourselves and in others. We asked that we might love, respect, extend, and receive -- in the company of one another -- the radiance of the body of Christ in this existence.
It would be a limitation to equate love with torture and pain. Buddha said there is suffering in life, and there is. Jesus said there is love in life, and there is. Buddha and Jesus both embodied their correct relationship with the whole of the world and thus experienced both suffering and love. The marks of Jesus are as much in the green wet leaf this rainy morning as in his once and forever hands and eyes. The marks of Buddha are as much in the fallen-numb legs sitting in silence as they are in the apricot jam and chocolate donut on plate at hermitage table.
The art of embodiment is the practice of open, acknowledging, embrace of the world as it presents itself to us. "Itself" might mean "God" to one person, and "The Real" to another. However we choose or are able to conceive or see what-is-itself, there is an enormity of the yet-unknown ahead of us to be revealed.
Arts Councils
(for Jacques Barzaghi)
Because there is no art
There are artists
Because there are no artists
We need money
Because there is no money
We give
Because there is no we
There is art
(Poem "Arts Councils" by Gary Snyder, from Axe Handles.)
Art is how we see and what we make of what we see.
Suddenly, outside my window, steady crescendoing rain!
One dog barks across the street. Britta (a visiting German Shepherd) climbs stairs after Saskia. Sando (rife with cancer) rests in front room, Cesco stretches in middle room as cat steps gingerly past.
The body of Christ, the mind of Buddha, and the splashing sounds of heaven/nirvana occur on road and eaves.
Peace flows through the art of instrumentality -- the art of forgiveness, interdependence, and humble engagement of what we do not yet understand.
There are far too many methods and instruments of torture.
May we, on this remembrance of Francis' embodiment of the whole Christ, be instruments of peace!
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