At prison a few days ago we wrestled with the Trappist monk's koan: "Cheer up (Bill), things are only going to get worse."

It's a gift.

Comprehending the fundamental,
Embracing the spirit,
Roam the root of heaven and earth,
Wander beyond the dust and dirt,
Travel to work with non-involvement.
Take care not to let mechanical
Intelligence burden your mind;
Watch what is not temporal
And remain unmoved by things.
- Lao tzu

It doesn't matter what is going on around you -- not in the sense that it determines your inner disposition.

If someone tears down your stone wall, build it up again. If they knock it down again, the next morning place one stone on another and see it stand again. No need for judgment or harsh resentment. Just the fact of what happens and your willingness to cultivate a mind that practices what needs to take place.

So much doesn't seem right.

"What's wrong," said Richard Hugo, "will always be wrong."

It would be wrong not to note what is wrong, but it would be equally wrong to drown in the wrongness of life -- its unfairness, injustices, and hurtful moments.

04.20.2007, The Unseen Dead: Virginia Tech and Health Policy, by RJ Eskow.

My heart breaks for the 33 people who died Monday. It also breaks for the estimated 50 Americans who died on the same day as a result of inadequate health coverage. Most of them had families who loved them, too. Where is their candlelight vigil? Where are their Presidential eulogies, or their exhaustive television coverage?

Instead of receiving their moment of silence, these invisible dead face an eternity of silence.

Lack of health insurance results in the deaths of 18,000 Americans each year, according to studies compiled by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine. That equates to 49 or 50 deaths every day. As the Institute has documented, deaths result from late identification of curable cancer and other conditions, and from inadequate treatment for a range of illnesses that include renal disease and other chronic conditions. (--in The Huffington Post)

It is not as interesting to consider deaths from lack of care -- not when the stunning news of another type of death flashes suddenly before us. The facts of both events are brought to us.

The practice of compassion follows a long hard look at the reality presented to us, and then enters that reality with the ease of acceptance -- maybe even forgiveness -- needed to transform the reality within us. Maybe nothing changes outside us. Maybe it does.

The kitten
holds down the leaf,
for a moment.
(Haiku by Issa, 1763-1827)

For this moment, this kitten, and this leaf.

And then? Ok...And then?

It matters.

It doesn't matter.

What gift is this?

A spring day.

Brook runs. Cat rubs. Dog sleeps. Saskia visits prison. Mice hide in cabin. Birds feed. Squirrels hoard. Ground loosens. Water seeps to surface. Sky is blue. Mountain inhales. I pause. Then, exhale.

Those who are known
As Real People
Are united in essence
With the Way,
So they have endowments yet
Appear to have none;
They are full yet
Appear to be empty.
They govern the inside,
Not the outside.
Clear and pure, utterly plain,
They do not contrive
Artificialities but return
To simplicity.
- Lao tzu

“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.” (-Francis of Assisi)
It's good advice. I'll try to be careful.

Searching for source of St. Francis of Assisi quote: "What we are looking for is what is looking." Still looking. Could be truest words yet.

First sun in many days. Finally, April.

Some Days

Your handwriting stands
like a small forest on the page
You could enter it anywhere

Your rooms look new to you
maybe you moved a lamp
stretched a swatch of white gauze
across a window

Single stick of incense
waiting

Remember when you wrote:
I devote myself to short sentences

Air answers
Breath remembers

A streak of light
signs the floor

You missed it

Do you know its name yet?
(--Poem by Naomi Shihab Nye)

Bamboo wind-chimes dance. Breeze surveys brown leaves flat against earth.

Inside Out

I have no-
where found
what here-
in dwells
with grace-
full silence
(-- Friday Haiku, wfh, now)

Squirrel complains that someone tossed a twig, interrupting his seedy quest!

What am I missing?

I'll look into it.

"To understand everything is to forgive everything" (- Buddha)

Temporarily, mostly without understanding, we still attempt to practice forgiveness as a worthwhile spiritual undertaking.

Mark Buehrle of the Chicage White Sox throws a no-hitter against the Texas Rangers. It's not important news. It's just the way life goes on.

Outside kitchen window, dawning light Up hill, gently swaying top of tree. Those who wake, wake from night's rest. Those who grieve, grieve even in their sleep. First sparrow arrives at feeder at 5:34am.

Sages lean on a pillar
That is never shaken,
Travel a road that is
Never blocked, are
Endowed from a
Resource that is never
Exhausted, and learn
From a teacher that
Never dies.
They are successful
In whatever they undertake,
And arrive wherever they go.
Whatever they do, they
Embrace destiny and go along
Without confusion.
- Wen-tzu

Tommy, in his stuffed chair, keeps statistics and box score of baseball games he watches. It passes the time. It's a log of movement and event. Who grounded to third? Who walked with a man on? Who was thrown out at second?

We are glad to have facts. They stand by themselves. At times, someone interprets facts, drawing wider or deeper meaning from them. At other times, facts are just there -- nothing added, nothing subtracted.

...one of the beauties of baseball is that you never know what you'll get to see on any particular day. On this one, Buehrle looked like his old, stellar self, working quickly, throwing strikes, and dominating hitters. The end result was a gem, and the White Sox' first no-hitter since 1991, and their first at home in 40 years. In fact, it was the first time the Rangers had been held hitless in more than two decades.
(--'Buehle quick to quiet Rangers,' By Mark Simon, ESPN Research)

We need quieting. Sparrow cracks seed. On tree some 15 yards behind feeder a red squirrel leaps from trunk to trunk arriving at feeder like Nureyev at center stage. The pas de deux between window and green feeder begins. For whom, exactly, are the seeds meant -- bird or squirrel? I am only a sometime arbiter.

Sometimes -- no, often -- 'intention' collapses and a 'lawless' event takes place. Almost always there is a rushing in of interpretation, attempts to assign 'meaning' or 'blame' -- to make sense of an event that teeters on the meaningless, the senseless. Just like on a college campus, after one man shoots, killing and wounding dozens of ordinary people on a Monday morning, there arrives on campus hundreds of guns and semi-automatic weapons drawn with safety off, to secure the event once it has transpired. Anyone, to those guns, is the intruder. Anyone might be targeted.

There is a danger someone might consider it possible that no such event will ever take place again. Loaded guns in the right hands will take on the task of anticipating and nullifying-at-inception any breach of the intention to secure and ensure safety. The idea of safety is a good one. It is a tight idea. It could be seamless. We are tempted toward an unbroken ideal of safety and security. Who wouldn't be?

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
(Poem, Lyics of 'Anthem' by Leonard Cohen)

Every pitch in every game is thrown with the intent of retiring the hitter, of allowing no-hit. Seldom does that intent complete itself successfully. But, once in a while, it comes close.

Buehrle delighted a cold but enthusiastic crowd of 25,390 at U.S. Cellular Field, who watched him throw the first no-hitter at the ballpark. Only one Rangers batter reached base—Sammy Sosa on a fifth-inning walk—and Buehrle promptly picked him off first base.
(--Chicago Tribune)

Families mourn and attend the unhappy task of burying their dead. We face this fact with quiet respect. Life, some would say, is not a game. It's not. Life is a mystery we face daily. Part of that mystery is the breaking of life, the seeming cessation, suddenly and unexpectedly, of the clear sound and sight of life -- especially the sound and sight of those we love. It happens every day.

As we go on.

We revel at times. At other times we merely, silently, gaze.

Sometimes, rarely, a no-hitter occurs.

The very fact of it.

In understanding.

You.

Forgive me.

And I.

You.

Sorrow is sorrow. It cannot be parceled. If we are going to be sorrowful, let's be sorrowful wherever sorrow exists -- not just our version of sorrow, but the whole of it.

Outwardly go along
With the flow,
While inwardly keeping
Your true nature.
Then your eyes and ears
Will not be dazzled,
Your thoughts will not
Be confused,
While the spirit within you
Will expand greatly to roam
In the realm of absolute purity.
- Huai-nan-tzu

In prison today an inmate asked me to relay his grief to the larger community about what happened in Virginia. I said I would; here I do so.

April 16, 2007: CBC News
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.

In the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history, at least 33 people were killed and several others wounded after a gunman opened fire at Virginia Tech. There are two separate shootings about two hours apart at opposite ends of the campus of 26,000 students, the first at 7:15 a.m. ET at a residence housing more than 800 students and the second at an engineering building. The suspected gunman is among the dead.

We did a class on Spirituality and Lifetime Recovery using poems by Mary Oliver, Derek Walcott, Theodore Roethke, Richard Hugo, Cheslaw Milosz, Jane Kenyon, David Wagoner, Vaclav Havel, and Hafez-e Shirazi.

We are not lost. We are actually happy. No two hurts are the same. We don't have to be good.

4 Blasts in Baghdad Kill at Least 183; STEVEN R. HURST and LAUREN FRAYER | AP | April 18, 2007 07:39 PM EST

BAGHDAD — Suspected Sunni insurgents penetrated the Baghdad security net Wednesday, hitting Shiite targets with four bomb attacks that killed 183 people _ the bloodiest day since the U.S. troop increase began nine weeks ago.

The most devastating blast struck the Sadriyah market as workers were leaving for the day, charring a lineup of minibuses that came to pick them up. At least 127 people were killed and 148 wounded, including men who were rebuilding the market after a Feb. 3 bombing left 137 dead.

Still, there's this death and absurd killing continuing every day in Iraq.

I sorrow for the Virginia Tech students and families.

I sorrow for the Iraqi men, women, and children.

I sorrow for our soul.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.
(from Ars Poetica?, Poem by Czeslaw Milosz )

It is difficult.

Isn't it?

Relentless rain soaks sodden earth in mid-coast Maine.

Sages send their spirit
To the storehouse of awareness
And return to the beginning
Of myriad things.
They look at the formless,
Listen to the soundless.
In the midst of profound
Darkness,
They alone see light;
In the midst of silent vastness,
They alone have
Illumination.
- Huai-nan-

Elsewhere, in Iraq, continual horror.

Elsewhere, in Virginia, something like Iraq -- only closer to home.

In both cases someone thinks it passable that others should be shot dead.

As the president and his wife travel the 272 miles from Washington D.C. to attend a memorial convocation ceremony in Blacksburg, Virginia, I join with them in their public concern and sorrow for all innocents killed, here and there.

I join the pilgrimage. I wish to end the hostilities in Iraq. I wish to end the hostilities in Virginia.

It's all I have to bring today (26)

It's all I have to bring today—
This, and my heart beside—
This, and my heart, and all the fields—
And all the meadows wide—
Be sure you count—should I forget—
Some one the sum could tell—
This, and my heart, and all the Bee
Which in the Clover dwell.
(Poem: "It's all I have to bring today (26)" by Emily Dickinson.)

It's a beginning. Public display of consolation and contrition are significant first steps.

I'll start: I'm sorry for what I've done and not done in Iraq. I'm sorry for what I've done and not done in Virginia.

Forgiveness is all I have to begin with. It may be all there is left to us.

It might not be much. But...

It's a beginning.

A yielding.

Like rain.

Rain.

What sages learn
Is to return their nature
To the beginning
And let their minds
Travel freely in
Openness.
What developed people
Learn is to link their nature
To vast emptiness and
Become aware of the
Silent infinite.
- Huai-nan-tzu

Everywhere, over and under everything, rain.

Toward Ultimate Things
Only the walker who sets out toward ultimate things is a pilgrim. ...The pilgrim resolves that the one who returns will not be the same person as the one who set out. Pilgrimage is a passage for the reckless and subtle. The pilgrim--and the metaphor comes to us from distant times--must be prepared to shed the husk of personality or even the body like a worn out coat. A Buddhist dictum has it that "the Way exists but not the traveler on it." For the pilgrim the road is home; reaching your destination seems nearly inconsequential.
--Andrew Schelling, Meeting the Buddha, edited by Molly Emma Aitken

Wind lashes chime with wet striker; night bows head to unknown mystery with no name.

Single candle lights.

Light is prayer; see well.

Dark is prayer; unseen guest.

Extinguish the flame, gust knocks on window frame.

A hundred million drops find sound arriving with earth.

Still. Listening. Rain.

This bare road.

The wandering zen poet monk, Taneda Santoka (1882-1940) -- a haiku nonconformist, an ordained Zen priest -- spent most of his life wandering all over the country of Japan as a begging monk. He wrote today's weather forecast as well as today's soul- & psyche-cast many years ago.

Here in the stillness of snow falling on snow
(--Haiku by Taneda Santoka)

Nothing moves outside window. Across road is Bald Mountain. All is still as death. They say a storm approaches. A wet and wild hurricane-strength wind, they say, gathers its strength to slam New England tonight. Maine will flood. But right now, everything sits zazen. For now, the tomb appears empty, and no matter how often someone peeks in, nothing is seen, nothing moves, and nothing makes sense according to our dim and diminishing lights.

Attain the center of emptiness,
Preserve the utmost quiet;
As myriad things act in concert,
I thereby observe the return.
Things flourish,
Then each returns to its root.
Returning to the root
Is called stillness:
Stillness is called return to Life,
Return to Life is called the constant;
Knowing the constant is called enlightenment.
- Tao-te Ching

There's a great profundity in what we do not know. You would think we'd be enthused over such a prospect -- what we don't know is magnificent, we're nearly there, just drop over the line, fall through floor of pretended savvy, recant and renounce anything pronounced by us as "the way it will be," "'the' truth," and, "do it my way, the only right way."

Choice of Diseases

Now that I'm sick & have
all this time to contemplate
the meaning of the universe,
Father said, I understand why
I never did it before. Nothing
looks good from a prone position.
You have to walk around to appreciate
things. Once I get better I don't
intend to get sick for a while. But
if I do I hope I get one of those diseases
you can walk around with.
(Poem: "Choice of Diseases" by Hal Sirowitz, from Father Said. Soft Skull Press.)

I've always been prone to doubt and despair. Now I like to stand, walk around them, and come to some perspective on them that nods head, mutters "hmmm," and looks off into the distance, rubbing whiskers, coming to see the unmoving tops of trees backed by white snow on mountain side out top frame of bedroom window. What's this side of the mountain got to do with the other side?

Mountain Guides
A good spiritual friend who will help us to stay on the path, with whom we can discuss our differences frankly, sure of a compassionate response, provides an important support system which is often lacking. Although people live and practice together, one-upmanship often comes between them. A really good friend is like a mountain guide. The spiritual path is like climbing a mountain: we don't really know what we will find at the summit. We have only heard that it is beautiful, everybody is happy there, the view is magnificent and the air unpolluted. If we have a guide who has already climbed the mountain, he can help us avoid falling into a crevasse, or slipping on loose stones, or getting off the path. The one common antidote for all our hindrances is noble friends and noble conversations, which are health food for the mind.
(--Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies)

This morning the noble friend is mountain itself. The conversation -- between silence and stillness.

Nothing transpires beyond this mere, empty, and lovely realization: I am what you are and it is...as it is...true.

The mere fact -- of being.

The empty gaze -- of life.

The lovely gift -- of it all.

Morning sparrows, their voices say the snow’s
arrived in the distant mountains
(--Santoka Taneda)

And, at last:

The shrike's crying -
For discarding my body,
There is no place.
(--Santoka Taneda)

* Although Santoka may not have been referring to it, there is a famous story about Kuya, a priest who taught the chanting of Buddha's name in the Kyoto area in the tenth century: when Kuya was living amongst the beggars in Kyoto a high-ranked priest named Senkan recognized him at the river side near Shijo Street (nowadays downtown Kyoto), Senkan asked Kuya, "How can I be saved after death?" Kuya answered, "How strange. I rather, should ask you such a question. I'm just a vagrant person who wanders around confusedly. I've never thought of such a thing." Senkan didn't give up, and very respectfully asked him again. Kuya said, "Just discard your body anywhere", and hurried off.
(--Terebess Asia Online {TAO}, Taneda Santoka's Haiku,
http://www.terebess.hu/english/haiku/taneda.html)

No hurry.

Sparrow.

Flies.

Away.

Once we were found. But now we're lost. Once saw. But now are blind.

Our amazing disgrace in Iraq and Afghanistan must be placed where it belongs. On me.

The whole universe,
The whole world, is you;
Do you think
There is any other?
This is why the ancients say,
“People lose themselves,
Pursuing things;
If they could turn things around,
They would be the same as Buddha.”
- Hsueh-feng (822-908)

I did it. Yes -- I did have help from Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, Tenet and Perle, Rice and Powell, narrow ideology and puffed-up sense of importance -- but I am the one responsible. I dropped the bombs, set the mortars, fired automatic rifles, screamed at innocent people to drop or be shot, and smiled for the cameras while smugly calling into question the patriotism of anyone whose opinion of our unitary superpower status and privilege differed from mine.

I know men and women who believe that by thinking about the war I am drawing attention and attraction to "negative vibrations" that will only cause me not to get what I want from the universe. I do not live on the same earth as those people.

April 15, 2007
Marines’ Actions in Afghanistan Called Excessive
By CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan, April 14 — American marines reacted to a bomb ambush with excessive force in eastern Afghanistan last month, hitting groups of bystanders and vehicles with machine-gun fire in a series of attacks that covered 10 miles of highway and left 12 civilians dead, including an infant and three elderly men, according to a report published by an Afghan human rights commission on Saturday.

Families of the victims described in interviews this week the painful toll of the attacks, which took place on March 4 in Nangarhar Province. One victim, a 16-year-old newly married girl, was cut down while she was carrying a bundle of grass to her family’s farmhouse, according to her family and the report. A 75-year-old man walking to his shop was hit by so many bullets that his son said he did not recognize the body when he came to the scene.
(--The New York Times)

I lie on the street, my body torn in two from retaliatory gunfire, my life snuffed out because (some say, stupid and arrogant) men and women want to kill and revenge killing.

I've had enough of war. I'll fire my gun until everyone is dead. I'll return to America, collect a medal, then begin to dismantle my church, my community, and my government. I am a hero. I am the sleeping bad dream of a nation that sacrifices nothing while their military service people sacrifice everything. I love this country that uses me, laughs behind my back, and says "Atta boy!" to my face.

I am the president. I no longer believe in my ability to care.

That won't stop me.

I am you.

No?

Watching After Innocence (about exonerees) upstairs over shop. A community prison-related event with pizza and mint chocolate ice cream.

no path but this one —
I walk alone
(poem by Santoka Taneda)

I simply don't know. Tossing.

Two crusts to the sea.

Envy is defined as "painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage." (Merriam-Webster)

If you pass your
Whole life half asleep,
What can you rely on?
- Kuei-shan Ling-yu (771-854)

To be jealous is to be "hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage."

Let no one imagine that baptism consists only in the forgiveness of sins and in the grace of adoption. Our baptism is not like the baptism of John, which conferred only the forgiveness of sins. We know perfectly well that baptism, besides washing away our sins and bringing us the gift of the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of the sufferings of Christ. This is why Paul exclaims: "Do you not know that when we were baptised into Christ Jesus we were, by that very action, sharing in his death? By baptism we went with him into the tomb."
(--From the Jerusalem Catecheses)

In the film "The Razor's Edge," Larry says to Isabel: "It doesn't matter." And: "There is no payoff."

It is ego's delusion to want to hold on to what is not ours -- just as it is ego's illusion to attempt to disown what is our very being.

Is it possible to live with no purpose? With no meaning?

If everything is itself and belongs to itself, no exterior meaning or purpose is necessary. When something is what it is, nothing else is needed.

What is true is what is doing itself.

Truth is what is showing itself.

We are all old-timers,
each of us holds a locked razor.
(from poem "Waking in the Blue," by Robert Lowell)

The razor's edge, salvation, is literally -- a greeting, a healing, and a safe passage.

Hello. Can I help? Where is home for you?

Easter Wednesday in Maine is sunny and warm at 43 degrees. The foot of snow from 7 days ago is melting. Patches of hill show. There will be more snow, or rain, tomorrow.

If you wish to cast aside the false
And return to true,
Concentrate and settle your
Mind in wall gazing.
Self and other,
The unenlightened
And the saintly,
Are all as one.
- Bodhidharma

Perhaps what Bodhidharma refers to as wall-gazing is looking at what is there as what is there.

I practiced a kind of "wall gazing" while on retreat. I watched. Without embellishing nor disparaging, keeping eye on what presented itself. By and large, what else is there but what presents itself? We so often create images of what we'd like to call the divine or the holy -- reminders of past figures, events, stories, or experiences.

Looking at what is there as what is there is zen practice. As we become skillful, we come to see, and say what is there in such a way that we are here with what is here. (I have to deepen my practice.)

Holding It All In
I think a lot about the fact that the Buddha made a separate category for Right Speech. He could have been more efficient and included it in Right Action, since speaking is a form of action. For a while I thought it was separate because we speak so much. But then I changed my mind--some people don't speak a lot. Now, I think it's a separate category because speech is so potent. During the 1960s, when the social ethos was "letting it all hang out," I had recurrent fantasies about writing a book called Holding It All In. I think I was alarmed that people had overlooked how vulnerable each of us is. In recent years, I've revised my book title to Holding It All In Until We've Figured Out How to Say It in a Useful Way. I believe we are obliged to tell the truth. Telling the truth is a way we take care of people. The Buddha taught complete honesty, with the extra instruction that everything a person says should be truthful and helpful.
(--Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think)

I am grateful for all the helpful people who have practiced right speech on me.
For all who've shared bread, themselves, and looking, with me.

Then they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread.
(--Luke 24:35)

Seeing what is there (as what is there) is seeing you, as you are, seeing itself.

Retreat Log

St Joseph's Abbey, Spencer MA,

///

Good Friday

I cannot grasp the notion of "being washed in Jesus' blood.” Maybe I will. (Maybe I won't.) Traveling by way of the cross is a deeply physical as well as metaphorical journey. I've not been satisfied with explanations of sacrifice, whether animal or human blood, in order to settle or attain something. The fact that we die, the fact that Jesus died, are facts to acknowledge. But I'm not yet moved by the notion that animal-killing, blood-feuds, war-slaughter, or even son/daughter killing-sacrifice has anything to do with, nor is associated with, what is in fact the sacred.

I note the suffering and death of Jesus. I'm unconvinced of the subsequent explanation of the purpose and divine order of execution so prevalent in the theology and spirituality of our heritage. Whether the case is Abraham (ready to cut Isaac's throat), Angels (smearing lamb's blood on lintels to facilitate the killing of the right first born), or Adonai (willing/allowing the death of his son as expiation for sin) -- I am reluctant to hold such stories in divine light. I grieve for the first-born that are killed -- whether in ancient Judaic lore, or in contemporary Iraq lawless war.

If the human psyche glorifies slaughter as divine will and historic wish, then (heaven help us!) there is no better way to honor the divine than by participating in the slaughter and murder of the first-born. If the so-called "good guys" as well as "bad guys" utilize the method of killing innocents in the erstwhile liberation/salvation stories of the Ancient Near East, and such telling is celebrated annually as desired rendition, I can't help but feel we are a people with a lost and devastated heart/mind.

///

As night passes, I dream about Slavic cabdriver taking me around New York City. Then I meet a nemesis and we talk a brief while. He says he was hurt by me.

After Vigils at 4:30am, I sit in silence for 30 minutes. One other person in chapel. Woman in first pew is a Sister, a friend of monk Robert.

I am thinking about the prison. I can only face what is.

“What is” is I am not chaplain. My choice was not to be an employee. I am as befuddled by the choice to be offered and accept the position for 6 months as I am delighted by choosing not to continue it. The joy I experienced working with the population of over 900 men -- all religions (and none), all levels of faith understanding (and none) -- was remarkable. Sitting with Buddhists, Christians, Jewish, Muslim, Native, Pagan, AA, and none-of-the-above, whether at their cell doors or in small groups -- was a lesson in learning and service.

Meetingbrook's prison conversations will continue. I'll change status and return to volunteering. :

• Offer to teach independent studies for university credit for those who wish.

• For those not interested in college courses, do time-specific ordinary studies -- (Individual Tutorial Studies) for inmates so interested. (Perhaps 3 ITS's at any given span.) Any topic, any focus -- individualized time and interaction to increase learning.

• Perhaps, through Education Dept., a program in Protective Custody Pod -- or even in SMU (Special Management Unit, the old “Super-Max.”)

• Meet with individual men for purpose of human hospitality and engaging inquiry.

• Begin in outside community prison-related discussion groups, e.g. Restorative Justice, or Prison Fellowship, or Innocence Project.
  
  

  ///

Afternoon, Holy Saturday

The monk Robert says -- “Cheer up! Things will get worse.” He refers to Jesus', “Now is the Son of Man glorified.” He is on the cross. All hurts, humiliations, depressions, pains, snubs, diminishing comments, injustices, doubts, and delusions hang there. And this is the death and reconciliation of the limited and the unlimited -- this being, this man, drawing all to himself, turns the world upside down. It is the weak, the poor, those ill, those without security or means, the broken and the heart-broken -- to these belong the kingdom of heaven.

I walk the woods. Three deer, two ducks, and a tail-slapping beaver later I climb the hill back to retreat house.

I went to see Robert after his conference to talk about recent experience at the prison. He says it was a gift, a grace to be so angry, frustrated, and humiliated. Thomas Aquinas in his ethical teachings claimed virtue existed in the middle between the opposite of the vice and the defining virtue -- but that anger had no opposite. Only the suffering of it. (Maybe “no-anger” -- but that's the absence, not the opposite.)

“Cheer up; things will get worse,” he says, cheerfully.

The way he says it, the prospect isn't unattractive.

The experiential undergoing of injustice deepens the intense longing for justice. The single candle in the dark longs to give way to the bright sun.

///

Final Hours of Holy Saturday

Icon-painting monk asks me if I am a hermit.I say yes. I am, (I think to myself), most likely lying. But I'm not. This hermit is not in seclusion. This hermit dwells within solitude.

There's a difference. This hermit, 90% of the time, arrives late and stays in the rear. (Except visiting the monastery - I arrive on time and stay in the rear.)

Then there's the issues of being active in the bookshop/bakery, at conversations, teaching a course at the university, and the regular visits to prison. Hardly a hermit in any classical sense. More the template of hermit in the open. My cloister is the inter-related solitude of the human heart, one to one, inquiring into “Who am I?” Yet, still a hermit: one dwelling alone with the Alone or Another.

The realms of what some call the relative and absolute dissolve into what I might call the interrelating whole. Jesus tried to teach he and the father were one as we are one with him and the father. We dwell in the interrelating whole. Sometimes we forget this. We then remember. At either times of forgetting or remembering we are prone to hurting one another. Thus the notion of “hurting God” as we hurt one another -- because God is not other than any one or two of us.

We are not equal to God. Equality is a relative term. We are co-responding and co-relating with God. This is not the same kind of relativity or responsibility as the terms seem. To be co-responsive is to share the wording-of-act, and acting-of-word with God. To be co-relating is to be with God in each act. Whether we are conscious of it or not impacts the response we make after the co-responding takes place, Whether we intend our presence or not influences the mind we have after co-relating takes place.

When people ask: How could God allow suffering in the world? We might respond: How can I be of assistance to the one suffering? We, perhaps in a fit of forgetfulness, might have caused the suffering. It always seems reasonable to have someone ask: How could God allow such and such to happen? And yet, mostly, we forget our co-responding and co-relating existential and ontological true nature vis-a-vis God. (Does God forget when we forget?)

The ancient hymn says: “Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not reach out his hand to make himself equal to God. Instead, he emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave.” (Philippians)

Might we say: One form, many examples of emptiness? Or: One emptiness, many forms of it?

However we try to word what is beyond words, the Name of God bends us with humility. The profound co-relative and inter-responding entirety of the sacred presence is the meditation and contemplation of our heart/mind as mendicants wandering a strange land.

The Ancient Homily at Vigils says: “Something strange is happening--there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness.”

The homily concludes: “The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.” Which brings us back to birth. Incarnation. Life.

So: Come alive! Someone once said: “The Glory of God is man fully alive.” (Irenaeus)

Adyashanti says: “The awakeness of this moment is the unconditioned being.”

///

Easter Darkness, 2:02am

Adyashanti says: “It's not about embracing, it's about letting go of not pushing away. That's all.”

///

Easter Morning, 9:42am

The stained-glass metaphor used by Adyashanti works well. The source of light is beyond the red, green, and blue of the glass. The colored glass is our conditioned mind. It sorts light into variety of colors. The result is aesthetically pleasing and soothing.

The unconditioned, unborn, and undivided is the source. If we get a glimpse into that reality, all remains beautiful and undifferentiated. But we often contend one color against another, worship one, demand our color is 'the' color -- thus making warfare and dissension.

Jesus has risen. Indeed, he has truly risen!

So it is we attend the truth of this Christian mystery. Unity consciousness, 'coincidentia oppositorum,' undifferentiated suchness -- Christ Consciousness -- rises following the death of the servant of God.

Whoever serves God undergoes this death. (There are so many willing to assist and expedite this death -- if not, as preface, the suffering leading thereto.)

To be born is to die. To enter the unborn is to practice resurrection.

///

Easter Haiku, 9:29am

to be born is to

die; to enter the unborn

is to practice re-

surrection

(wfh, 8april2007)

[note: the traditional 17 syllable count for haiku is here exceeded by 3 unaccountable syllables.]

+++

haiku 6:14pm

crucifixion ends

abbot lifts host -- we are to

be vault, ground repose

(wfh, 6apr2007)

+++

haiku 8:51am

he was one of us

when we accused him, broken

into two, came death

(wfh, 7apr07)

+++

haiku 8:56am

innocence -- no one

is free from accusation --

there we are, entombed

(wfh, 7apr07)

On retreat. In silence.
...

Nature regenerates itself. White Bald Mountain. Snow through night. Innumerable small falling flakes rendered full moon invisible. With morning, snow shrouds mountain stone with same soft ease it did brilliant moon -- this religious liturgy.

Boundless and free
Is the sky of samadhi,
Bright the full moon
Of wisdom!
Truly, is anything
Missing now?
Nirvana is right here,
Before our eyes;
This very place is the
Lotus Land,
This very body
The Buddha.
- Hakuin

History and sacred memory call to mind the first evenings of Passover. Slavery is repugnant to nature. Yet it continues. From Guantanamo to Pakistan, Africa to towns and suburbs across America -- enslavement is unregenerate nature.

Nicholas Kristof writes about disturbing incidences of sex-slavery. "This kind of neo-slavery is the plight of millions of girls and young women (and smaller numbers of boys) around the world, particularly in Asia."

This nexus of sex trafficking and police corruption is common in developing countries. The problem is typically not so much that laws are inadequate; it is that brothel owners buy the police and the courts.

But Ms. Parveen’s tale arises not only from corruption, but also from poverty.

“If I had money, this wouldn’t be happening,” said Ms. Parveen’s mother, Akbari Begum. “It’s all about money. In the police station, nobody listens to me. The police listen to those who sell narcotics.”

“God should never grant daughters to poor people,” she added. “God should not give sisters to poor brothers. Because we’re poor, we can’t fight for them. It’s very hard for poor people, because they take our daughters and dishonor them. There’s nothing we can do.”
(-- "Sanctuary for Sex Slaves," By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, Published: April 3, 2007, The New York Times, Meerwala, Pakistan, http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/opinion/03kristof.html?hp)

Think of Passover, think of Crucifixion, in a new way. Think anew the ancient narratives, not merely as historico-religious recherché, but as contemporaneous real-life revelation impacting our brothers and sisters worldwide. This memoria is daily awareness of the suffering experienced in our world, suffering promulgated by human forgetfulness and human ignorance. We forget, and we cultivate ignorance, when we refuse to stop, turn, and consider with compassion the suffering we cause by our unmindful acts and ego-obsessed behavior. We are called to a much clearer way of being.

Sacred time and sacred awareness invite us into profound emptiness -- there to encounter and embody mystery-of-being yearning to fully realize itself in our midst.
We have to open our being to the unobvious. Often, profound experience and truth dwell just out of view, beyond our distracted attention. We are being called to dwell in an open place of kindness.

In other words, we have to begin a new life, and we cannot do so until our previous life has been brought to an end. When runners reach the turning point on a racecourse, they have to pause briefly before they can go back in the opposite direction. So also when we wish to reverse the direction of our lives there must be a pause, or a death, to mark the end of one life and the beginning of another.
Our descent into hell takes place when we imitate the burial of Christ by our baptism. The bodies of the baptised are in a sense buried in the water as a symbol of their renunciation of the sins of their unregenerate nature.
(--From the book, On the Holy Spirit, by Saint Basil, bishop, Office of Readings, Tuesday of Holy Week, http://www.universalis.com/readings.htm)

Is Basil's presentation of 'baptism' a call requesting our burying Christ, our burying ourselves (self-emptying) in the profound loving and compassionate regeneration? Is what we are, and how we are, actually (and really) at core, the mystery of nature, at origin? Will regenerating nature wash over us -- darken our understanding so as to enlighten our soul -- bringing us to the precipice, to the starting line of authentic life with what we call "God and neighbor"?

Will we ever come to see -- here?

Notes from the Other Side

I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching
one's own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course
no illness. Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light.
(--Poem: "Notes from the Other Side" by Jane Kenyon, from Constance. Graywolf Press.)

Is 'there' (possible and possibly) 'here'?

There is so much said and written about degenerate behavior. Do we have the heart to pause, stop, and turn -- to fall below surface, to let flow over and through us a regenerating spirit interpenetrating our being itself?

Do we stay stuck in unregenerate nature because we fail to see and enter into the 'undergoing' emptiness of reversal and return?

Is the call to 'regenerate nature' what Passover and Baptism, Surrender and Enlightenment, Ahimsa and Moksha, Hashem and Avalokiteshvara, Tao and Waken Tanka -- all sound toward us?

Panta Rhea, ("Everything flows"), wrote Heraclitus.

Nature regenerates itself.

Going under.

And through.

This week.

In silence.

On retreat.

On retreat

...

Juncos arrive and scatter along ground below feeder. They join sleet, rain, and snow delivering Monday afternoon teisho.

What does it matter,
The new year, the old year?
I stretch out my legs
And all alone have a
Quiet sleep.
Don’t tell me the monks
Aren’t getting their instruction;
Here and there the nightingale
Is singing;
The highest Zen.
- Bankei, 1622-1693)

Snow flakes, size of silver dollars, slant foreground of Bald Mountain. Scattered and few, they are like rare visitors passing through only once. If unseen, then gone. If seen, then (also) gone, but first seen.

"Solitude can be a jungle," Mac once cautioned, when I fantasized about plunging into the monastic life. For this reason, he said, the Trappist novice is closely monitored when he begins his initial experience with solitude. "The first discoveries in solitude are generally not reassuring," Mac explained. "You confront your essential aloneness. You learn that whatever your life may be, it is of your making. Whatever others do to you, good or ill, they do by your leave, and often at your suggestion.
"Alone with your God, you find freedom. You are freed from the need to blame, freed of whatever holds you, impotent, in your past. No longer bound by fear of failure, or the need to be what you believe pleases others, you will discover what it is to be yourself."
(--from pp.35-36 in, Voices of Silence, Lives of the Trappists Today, by Frank Bianco, c.1991)

Nothing is done to me by another without the invitation to see the other as one's incorporable self. This is not easy meditation. Benefits include no lingering blame nor inclination to recrimination. Lifted from our disturbed mind is gerbil-wheel repetition of hurt feelings, revenge tactics, and special membership into club of injustice victims. (All these experiences might be true, temporarily needed, and really felt -- but they are not our identity.) We are not what we think we are. We are not the category of agony we file ourselves into.

We are sharers in silence. This silence is open-ended. It hesitates to break itself into story -- but it sometimes, compassionately, does. It shies from anything repetitive; looking, rather, for the once and once and once -- that which is always at origin, that which is inchoate -- the unfolding itself longing to be what it is in itself.

Do we hear the silence? Are we within the incorporable mystery of Christ-being revealed today.

Who is Christ if not the Word of God: "in the beginning was the Word, and the Words was with God, and the Word was God? This Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us." He had no power of himself to die for us: he had to take from us our mortal flesh. This was the way in which, though immortal, he was able to die; the way in which he chose to give life to mortal men: he would first share with us, and then enable us to share with him. Of ourselves we had no power to live, nor did he of himself have the power to die.
In other words, he performed the most wonderful exchange with us. Through us, he died; through him, we shall live.
The death of the Lord our God should not be a cause of shame for us; rather, it should be our greatest hope, our greatest glory. In taking upon himself the death that he found in us, he has most faithfully promised to give us life in him, such as we cannot have of ourselves.
(--From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop, Office of Readings, Monday of Holy Week)

This wonderful exchange -- dying through us, living through him -- is Augustine's way of wording what Juncos dance atop split-open shells under feeder looking for seed not yet consumed. That seed, taken in by Junco, disappears into a reality it itself now creates.

Christ Teisho Junco -- A Holy Week Flap

Broken, open shell
disappearing seed through one-
another, shows how

wholeness dances -- now
is itself here...Christopher?*
...disappears. What joy!
(-wfh, 2apr07)

Fog mist surrounds everything this afternoon with its own soft obscure kindness.

Mountain disappears.

Who can bear it?
...

*{"Christopher" -- means "bearing Christ", derived from Late Greek (Christos) combined with (phero) "to bear, to carry".}

On retreat.
...

Last what? Last breath? Last "his"? The reading on Palm Sunday says, "With these words he breathed his last."

Seeing the Moon
A Zen poem says, "After the wind stops I see a flower falling. Because of the singing bird I find the mountain calmness." Before something happens in the realm of calmness, we do not feel the calmness; only when something happens within it do we find the calmness. There is a Japanese saying, "For the moon; there is the cloud. For the flower there is the wind." When we see a part of the moon covered by a cloud, or a tree, or a weed, we feel how round the moon is. But when we see the clear moon without anything covering it, we do not feel that roundness the same way we do when we see it through something else. When you are doing zazen, you are within the complete calmness of your mind; you do not feel anything. You just sit. But the calmness of your sitting will encourage you in your everyday life.... Even though you do not feel anything when you sit, if you do not have this zazen experience, you cannot find anything; you just find weeds, or trees, or clouds in your daily life; you do not see the moon.
( --Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind; Tricycle's Daily Dharma: April 1, 2007)

Cesco walks near my Sorel boots at Moose Point State Park in Searsport. Sea is unrippled. He is greeted in open field by shaggy gentle Bronson, twice his size. We walk edge of land. Cesco laps snowmelt.

Eucharist is rhubarb muffin and coffee from Chase's Daily. I visit church in Belfast for gospel reading and Fr. Joseph's preaching. I pray for Paco, and all the rest.

The veil of the Temple was torn right down the middle; and when Jesus had cried out in a loud voice, he said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit’ With these words he breathed his last.
(--from Luke 22:14 - 23:56)

On earth, on this planet, breath is lifeline. Jesus gives his breath back. He sends it back to, what is for him, source and only source of, life. As he dies. Gives over life-breath.

I will look again this Holy Week. Listen again. Again consider the mystery underlying each breath. This mystery points out nothing can be kept -- not breath, not unchanging self. The far side of the mystery is that only nothing can be kept.

But where do you keep nothing?

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
(-- Poem by Robert Frost

No need to stay.

It's just...Why go? And, where?

Happy to be silent.

Just this.

One breath.

Make it.

Last.

It is a fascinating two weeks. What we call 'nature' and 'sacred' come together in celebrations worldwide. Leading figures are noted and feted. Historical events are recalled and restated.

• Snow melts

• Vernal Equinox Wednesday, March 21, 2007

• Rama Navami, The Birthday of Lord Rama, Tuesday, March 27, 2007

• Mawlid al-Nabi (12 Rabi 1), Prophet Muhammad's Birthday. This holiday (in 2007, 31March/1April) celebrates the birthday of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. It is fixed as the 12th day of the month of Rabi I in the Islamic calendar. Mawlid means birthday of a holy figure and al-Nabi means prophet.

• Pesach (Passover) Start - Sundown Monday, April 2, 2007 through Wednesday, April 4, 2007 End - Sundown Sunday, April 8, 2007 through Tuesday, April 10, 2007

• Holy Thursday, Thursday, April 5, 2007

• Good Friday Friday, April 6, 2007
  

• Easter Sunday Sunday, April 8, 2007

• Shakyamuni's Birthday (Gotan-e), or the Flower Festival (Hanamatsuri), Sunday, April 8, 2007

(http://www.curw.cornell.edu/holidays0607.html)

The confluence of Pagan, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim themes over this two week period calls to mind.

What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for
Self-realization, but continue
To ask yourself even more
Intensely,
What is it that hears?
- Bassui (1338-1500)

When we listen to the individual drops of rain splashing, do we hear rain itself? If hearing includes both -- and more, hears itself throughout the hearing -- everywhere 'nature' and 'sacred' are celebrated. As we are -- celebrating. What mind is this? What heart is this?

Citta
In Pali, heart and mind are one word (citta), but in English we have to differentiate between the two to make the meaning clear. When we attend to the mind, we are concerned with the thinking process and the intellectual understanding that derives from knowledge, and with our ability to retain knowledge and make use of it. When we speak of the "heart" we think of feelings and emotions, our ability to respond with our fundamental being. Although we may believe that we are leading our lives according to our thinking process, that is not the case. If we examine this more closely, we will find that we are leading our lives according to our feelings and that our thinking is dependent upon our feelings. The emotional aspect of ourselves is of such great importance that its purification is the basis for a harmonious and peaceful life, and also for good meditation.
(--Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies)

Light of day slips quietly below last season's silent leaves finally revealed out from under passing snow on hillside. Above, the slightest sway of high limbs kissing dust away. Everywhere else televisions tune into Final Four broadcasting from Atlanta. This religion too, as well as beginning of baseball season, round out the devotee's devotion. There is enormous variety in how we respond to the holy.

René Descartes said, "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

John Fowles said, "Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want."
(--The Writer's Almanac, 31mar07)

There is joy in moments no want is felt. Times no need to say 'No" -- nor say 'Yes.' Just the gaze. Only looking. (What is it...looking?)

All the great scriptures were probably penned by poet-mystics. Mysticism is not an aim of art (nor is it an aim of mystics!): mysticism is a pejorative used by critics in a rational age to denote a departure from the established meanings of words. Every good poet is a "mystic"; that is, he departs from the dictionary, as the painter departs from the straight line and the perfect circle.
(-- Karl Shapiro, in "What is Not Poetry", The Poet's Work, ed by Reginald Gibbons,c.1979)

Day is its own poetry. Dusk, a seeing naming itself. Tomorrow someone will be heard saying: "Hosanna! Make him king!" We'll watch with foreknowledge and again the whirlwind failing truth will gather reasons to make us forget another face made sorrowful for us. We live in a time of war. We who are far away are not asked to sacrifice much. It's easy to forget faces we never look into. Look carefully at what is loved. That gaze will carry beyond forgetting. The liturgy of remembrance is upon us.

(Old dog laps water. No other sound -- his drinking. Walks around table.)

Tracks

The small birds leave cuneiform
messages on the snow: I have
been here, I am hungry, I
must eat. Where I dropped
seeds they scrape down
to pine needles and frozen sand.

Sometimes when snow flickers
past the windows, muffles trees
and bushes, buries the path,
the jays come knocking with their beaks
on my bedroom window:
to them I am made of seeds.

To the cats I am mother and lover,
lap and toy, cook and cleaner.
To the coyotes I am chaser and shouter.
To the crows, watcher, protector.
To the possums, the foxes, the skunks,
a shadow passing, a moment's wind.

I was bad watchful mommy to one man.
To another I was forgiving sister
whose hand poured out honey and aloe;
to that woman I was a gale whose lashing
waves threatened her foundation; to this
one, an oak to her flowering vine.

I have worn the faces, the masks
of hieroglyphs, gods and demons
bat-faced ghosts, sibyls and thieves,
lover, loser, red rose and ragweed,
these are the tracks I have left
on the white crust of time.
(--Poem: "Tracks" by Marge Piercy, from The Crooked Inheritance. Alfred A. Knopf.)

What is -- wonderful delight!

So many faces!

We wear.

Out.

Hello.

(Then the gaze.)

Goodbye.

Throughout, a crazed suspicion -- "Perhaps I've never ever been here."

Cast off what has been realized
Turn back to the subject
That realizes,
To the root bottom,
And resolutely
Go on.
- Bassui (1338-1500)

What is, at root, bottom?

There is a story (to be) told:

The Sickness of Adam

In the beginning, at every step, he turned
As if by instinct to the East to praise
The nature of things. Now every path was learned
He lost the lifted, almost flower-like gaze.

Of a temple dancer. He began to walk
Slowly, like one accustomed to be alone.
He found himself lost in the field of talk;
Thinking became a garden of its own.

In it were new things: words he had never said,
Beasts he had never seen and knew were not
In the true garden, terrors, and tears shed
Under a tree by him, for some new thought.

And the first anger. Once he flung a staff
At softly coupling sheep and struck the ram.
It broke away. And God heard Adam laugh
And for his laughter made the creature lame.

And wanderlust. He stood upon the Wall
To search the unfinished countries lying wide
And waste, where not a living thing could crawl,
And yet he would descend, as if to hide.

His thought drew down the guardian at the gate,
To whom man said, "What danger am I in?"
And the angel, hurt in spirit, seemed to hate
The wingless thing that worried after sin,

For it said nothing but marvelously unfurled
Its wings and arched them shimmering overhead,
Which must have been the signal from the world
That the first season of our life was dead.

Adam fell down with labor in his bones,
And God approached him in the cool of day
And said, "This sickness in your skeleton
Is longing. I will remove it from your clay."

He said also, "I made you strike the sheep."
It began to rain and God sat down beside
The sinking man. When he was fast asleep
He wet his right hand deep in Adam's side

And drew the graceful rib out of his breast.
Far off, the latent streams began to flow
And birds flew out of Paradise to nest
On earth. Sadly the angel watched them go.
(--Karl Shapiro, From "Adam and Eve")

Always, alone, we continue. Even, with another, still alone.

Do not fret this.

There is (we hold) no other. Hence, alone is never what we think it is.

Goodbye. (Gazing.) Hello.

We are.

Here.

All.

Right.

Place yourself well.

"The art of literature, vocal or written, is to adjust the language so that it embodies what it indicates."
-- A.N. Whitehead

Then, all is well.

The Suffering Itself Is Not So Bad
It is possible to take our existence as a "sacred world," to take this place as open space rather than claustrophobic dark void. It is possible to take a friendly relationship to our ego natures, it is possible to appreciate the aesthetic play of forms in emptiness, and to exist in this place like majestic kings of our own consciousness. But to do that, we would have to give up grasping to make everything come out the way we daydream it should. So, suffering is caused by ignorance or ignorant grasping, or suffering exaggerated by ignorance or ignorant grasping and clinging to our notion of what we thing should be, is what causes the "suffering of suffering." The suffering itself is not so bad, it's the resentment against suffering that is the real pain.
--Allen Ginsberg, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol. II, #1

Some place.

You have.

Here.

To trust is to allow each thing its own being; each person their own being.

"Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves."
-- T.S. Eliot

It is rare to find trust.

Equally rare to give it.