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

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

What are the lies about?

Death.

Each lie kills without mercy.

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

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

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

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

We'll invite the bowl.

Sound his remains into sea.

Returning.

Ourselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then we forgot.

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

No more distortions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe all does work unto good.

If we completely feel.

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

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

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

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

Parting

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

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

There's a joy in parting found nowhere else.

Going away releases awareness of profound longing.

Soul searches for itself.

Finding.

Nothing other.

At all.

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

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

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

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

Such good food all day.

Cheers and love!

I am in your debt.

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

Who can say, "I am you."

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing else to be said.

Hospitality welcomes everyone as themselves.
Who's there to fool?
Stay who, stay where, you are.

We become sick allowing ego to rule and control. (Ill, us, I, on). We grow ill when "I" is always on and dominating.

We live mostly in illusion. It isn't life or existence that is illusory. Many of us are full of illusion.

A single path upwards
The thousand sages
Do not assist me.
- Jiun Sonja (1718-1804)

Worst part is it's impossible to figure out for sure why anyone does anything.

Let's begin a new version of play -- (ludo, ludere, lusi, lusus = to play) -- wherein we play with and in the world, we play with and for one another, and we play lightened by the joy of playing through life.

To live in illusion is not to play well with others, to be dead serious instead of alively playful.

Let's be well.

And playful.

Within.

Ourselves.

If politicians lead by example, we are a people of put-downs. We are meant to mock and denigrate our opponents. We are to admit no mistake, to say nothing but talking points that repeat verbatim the same response to whatever question is asked, and, finally, if the modeling is effective, to encourage one another to slash and burn, destroy and eliminate anyone standing in our way. It's a strategy resembling 'take no prisoners' but is more like imprisoning everyone in disdain and dismissive dislike. Except, of course, the true believers who will sacrifice intelligent inquiry and settle for mindless prattle that has nothing at all to do with anything but creating an enemy and defeating that enemy. Whatever the political affiliation, these men and women serve something other than you and me, something a little bit below our dignity and honor.

It's an odd leadership and an odd way to lead.

There was a monk who asked the Master, “Does a person who has had sudden awakening still need to continue with cultivation?”
The Master said, “If one has true awakening and attains to the fundamental, then at that time that person knows for himself that cultivation and non cultivation are just dualistic opposites. Like now, though the initial inspiration is dependent on conditions, if within a single thought one awakens to one’s own reality, there are still certain habitual tendencies that have accumulated over numberless kalpas which cannot be purified in a single instant. That person should certainly be taught how to gradually remove the karmic tendencies and mental habits: this is cultivation. There is no other method of cultivation that need to be taught to that person.”
- Kuei-shan Ling-yu (771-853)

With our words we create the world and each other. How are we doing?

"The origin of language is in essence mysterious. And this means that language can only have arisen from the overpowering, the strange, and the terrible, through man’s departure into being. In this departure, language was being, embodied in the word: poetry. Language is the primordial poetry in which a people speaks being.”
(--Martin Heidegger, in An Introduction to Metaphysics)

If we wished to save the world, or enlighten every person, would we do it with our next words and our next words after them?

One does not discover the absurd without attempting to write a manual of happiness. "What! by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
(--from The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus)

I am not happy unless you are.

Well...

Well?

Sometimes you don't care. It's easy to care and it's easy not to care. Caring is tidal. It's noticeable at either lift or bottom. It's a matter of whether caring is worth caring about.

Weary, I yearn for the forest and hills;
Against my will, ten years have I spent
In the world of men.
Burning incense, I take leave of the assembly,
Shunning worldly affairs, I depart.
The mist invites me and I know that it is time to rest.
Men of little talent are not guests fond of mountains.
Men of little virtue do not make companions for gathering leaves.
Should someone ask, “When will you come back?”
I would reply, “The white clouds and the green water
Are boundless and serene.
- Jiun Sonja (1718-1804)

So much is about suffering, the stranger, and service. Maybe they're the tree sisters of ethics. How well do we treat these sisters?

Life is difficult. Life is easy. If we choose either of these statements we are likely to write a story that will confirm the chosen statement.

We're here to live our lives, not live a story. Our lives are fraught with turns, joys, and disappointments.

We pray to see our way through.

Take care. Be care. Or don't

You'll be just fine.

Watched film "Recount." Thing about the past is it never changes. Although someone said when you change your mind, you change the world, past and present. Maybe the better man won and the world went to hell. Maybe the better man lost, and the world went to hell. Politics and elections are not about the best person leading. Politics is about winning. That's all.

When hungry, eat.
When cold, put on clothes
Even children three feet tall,
Are aware of these things.
The teaching beyond doctrine
Is transparently clear;
Why should you have your eyes open
And still act foolishly?
Someone asked me for one of my
Coarse comments,
So I wrote out the above gatha
As a response.
- Isshi Bunchu (1608-1645)

The waitress at breakfast in Belfast said she didn't care for any of them. It's all talk, she said.

It takes a powerful faith to posit the truth will out. And if the truth does out, it is spun and spun until dizzy and unrecognizable. Truth staggers away unsure and impertinent.

They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.
(--Luke 4: 30)

Jesus is nearly unrecognizable. People create image and caricature and wonder where the true man disappeared. They are left holding words no dictionary could breath life back into.

A peanut butter slather on rye toast with cherry preserves on top helps put things into perspective.

Clearly we are not going to throw anyone off a cliff.

What is to be true between us?

Questions being asked: Will the storm nix the Republican Convention? Whose baby is it in Alaska? Is the cross actually the between place, the unifying action that eliminates "other" and "opposite"?

This mind has from the very beginning been independent of birth and death. It is neither green nor yellow, without form and characteristics. It does not belong to either existence or nothingness, and it cannot be reckoned as either young or old. It is neither long nor short, neither large nor small. It transcends all limitations, words, and traces. It is just this very thing- if you stir a thought, you miss it. It is like empty space, without limits, beyond conceptualization. It is only this One Mind that is Buddha, and Buddha is not different from sentient beings.
- Huang-po (d. 850)

It's a tense time.

Political storm as well as hurricane storms mainland. Things will be upset. Change to occur.

About the cross: To die on the cross is to create no other.

Thirty six years ago this day the boy born in a river town hospital is today a fine man going camping without his tomato sauce but with fresh scones. He, too, thinks about the storm and the baby.

A new koan arises: Why did Jesus die on the cross? Because no one had to enter the reality of fractured humanity and remove the cult of the broken. "No one" was his true name. He did nothing other than place "itself" at center. God died for no other reason than to remove "other" from the equation.

Each is now itself.

At center we are free.

A lovely way to be!

A monastic presence asks us the question: "Are we willing to investigate what is going on between us?" It is a life of simplicity, compassion, and faithful engagement.

Who can live such a life in today's world?

Illusion and enlightenment depend on each other,
Principle and actuality are ultimately the same.
All day long, sutras without words,
Through the night, Zen without sitting.
Warblers sing in the willow grove by the river,
A village dog barks at the moon.
I have no one to share my feelings
So I just write what is in my heart.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

A writer late evening buying books at shop said tonight that once you have a "self" and "other" you have capitalism.

"No other" is a different kind of communal compassion and economic sharing.

I want everyone to have health and care for that health.

In prison today we wondered whether public remorse was a stage play. Given a mask, the saying goes, a man will tell the truth. Given a stage, we say, a man will playact. It is near impossible to figure out whether a man is telling or feeling the truth or if he is running his lines.

Let us sit together on a mat of reeds
And watch the mountains
Turn purple in the sunset.
- Rai San’yo

Fireworks over Camden Harbor for Windjammer Weekend. Pizza on patio.

Individual conscience is the measure of character. Informed and clear, the individual conscience is inviolable. The work is to inform and clarify.

We get old.

So it is!

For a moment, consider how the heart of America has changed.

There is suffering in the world. One feels sorrow at the suffering. We try to help see one another through.

Talking about food won’t make you full,
Babbling about clothes won’t keep out the cold.
A bowl of rice is what fills the belly;
It takes a suit of clothing to make you warm.
And yet, without stopping to consider this,
You complain the Buddha is hard to find.
Turn your mind within! There he is!
Why look for him abroad?
--Han shan

Biden says his mother told him, "No one is better than you. Everyone is your equal. And you are the equal of everyone."

One plus one equals one.

I don't know if it matters who becomes president.

The duality lies only in the skill
Or clumsiness, the honesty or
Dishonesty, of the person.
The content of the practices may vary,
But what difference is there in the goal
That is reached?
- Hakuin (1685-1769)

Dirt is dirt. Sight is sight.

Can we see what is right?

Kitchen. Cat plays. Dog plays.

The middle way involves a willingness to accept either rebirth or no rebirth of consciousness in another life. But the problem of rebirth of craving is the most universal, as well as the most significant and most urgent, for it pertains to all times, regardless of whether it be this moment, this life, or future lives if there are to be future lives. If one has solved this problem and is freed from craving, then all other problems cease to be problems, for with respect to them he has ceased to crave.
- Dialogues of the Buddha

Not to want. Not to want to live. Not to want to die. Just not to want.

There is nothing else I can do;
I walk on and on.
(--Santoka Taneda, trans. John Stevens)

Visiting empty rooms where meetingbrook might want to or not want to move to.

Democrats feature Teddy and Michelle.

All we can do, until we can't, is to walk on, walk off, walk with.

For those born today, for those dead today, we pray.

Tom and Taneda practice their gate.

Gone walking.

One Vietnam vet got hot with another Vietnam vet out on the shop's patio while a third Vietnam vet inside grumbled that being a blowhard or even a POW in Hanoi during that war, while excruciating, was not exactly a rationale for deciding the presidential race. Pain as the reason for exacting and prolonging more pain seems counter-intuitive.

Inexplicably, and dangerously, the metaphor is enacted by a woman falling and banging her face on concrete ground. Everyone assembles to help her -- medical nurse from restaurant, ambulance EMTs, a flurry of first aid -- and she is transported, alert, asking how she got on the ground, a hurting time to follow, to emergency room and another length of recovery. Inside the shop a mixture of emotions -- concern for the woman's well-being alongside the veterans' grousing about how anybody who's been in combat can retain a bellicose bravado.

At least one person is silently praying for wounded woman and wounded warriors.

In the Liang Imperial Palace
He would not explain who he was,
But crossed the river
With sealed lips and piercing eyes
Until he arrive at
Complete tranquility:
A single flower,
Five petals together in the spring.
- Shin’etsu (1639-1696)

No wonder Iraq and Afghanistan are so ignored these days by Americans -- they're still fighting the Vietnam war, still blaming Democrats or generic anti-war sentiment for pulling out, and still stuck with the point of view that any acts committed in the name of democracy, no matter how heinous or criminal, get a free pass.

Afghan Leader Assails Airstrike He Says Killed 95
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: August 23, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned on Saturday a coalition airstrike that he said killed up to 95 Afghans — including 50 children — in a village in western Afghanistan on Friday, and said his government would be announcing measures to prevent the loss of civilian life in the future.

Government officials who traveled to the village of Azizabad in Herat Province on Saturday said the death toll had risen to 95 from 76, making it one of the deadliest airstrikes on civilians in nearly seven years of war.

The American military said Saturday it was investigating the attack.

The Karzai government has expressed outrage over recent airstrikes that have led to civilian deaths, as popular support for the coalition presence in Afghanistan dwindles. The tension comes at a delicate time for the American-led coalition, which is facing a resurgent Taliban with a perceived shortage of troops, leading it to rely more on air power to battle militants.

Mr. Karzai also denounced the coalition after an airstrike on July 6 killed 27 people in a wedding party — most of them women and children, including the bride — in eastern Afghanistan.

War, the war-makers like to say, is sloppy. That's shorthand for an assumed permission to shoot and kill anyone proximate to a suspected mark or targeted asset. In war only enemy kills or destroyed targets count. A good soldier or fighting force is forgiven much in the name of a nice try, sorry for the mess, but it was for the good guys, and we are ok.

Pinning the tail on the terrorist is not as easy as we once thought. There's a lot to the narcissus myth.

In the tale told by Ovid, Echo, a nymph, falls in love with a vain youth named Narcissus, who was the son of the blue Nymph Leirope of Thespia. The river god Cephisus had once encircled Leirope with the windings of his streams, and thus trapping her, had raped ("seduced") the nymph. Concerned about the baby's welfare, Leirope went to consult the prophet Teiresias regarding her son's future. Teiresias told the nymph that Narcissus "would live to a ripe old age, as long as he never knew himself."

One day when Narcissus was out hunting stags, Echo stealthily followed the handsome youth through the woods, longing to address him but unable to speak first. When Narcissus finally heard footsteps and shouted "Who's there?", Echo answered "Who's there?" And so it went, until finally Echo showed herself and rushed to embrace the lovely youth. He pulled away from the nymph and vainly told her to leave him alone. Narcissus left Echo heartbroken and she spent the rest of her life in lonely glens, pining away for the love she never knew, until only her voice remained.

Eventually he became thirsty and went to drink from a stream. As he saw his reflection, he fell in love with it, not knowing that it was him. As he bent down to kiss it, it seemed to "run away" and he was heart broken. He grew thirstier but he wouldn't touch the water for fear of damaging his reflection, so he eventually died of thirst and self love, staring at his own reflection. The narcissus flower grew where he died. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(mythology)

We are in danger of never knowing ourselves.

To a Terrorist

For the historical ache, the ache passed down
which finds its circumstance and becomes
the present ache, I offer this poem

without hope, knowing there's nothing,
not even revenge, which alleviates
a life like yours. I offer it as one

might offer his father's ashes
to the wind, a gesture
when there's nothing else to do.

Still, I must say to you:
I hate your good reasons.
I hate the hatefulness that makes you fall

in love with death, your own included.
Perhaps you're hating me now,
I who own my own house

and live in a country so muscular,
so smug, it thinks its terror is meant
only to mean well, and to protect.

Christ turned his singular cheek,
one man's holiness another's absurdity.
Like you, the rest of us obey the sting,

the surge. I'm just speaking out loud
to cancel my silence. Consider it an old impulse,
doomed to become mere words.

The first poet probably spoke to thunder
and, for a while, believed
thunder had an ear and a choice.
(--Poem: "To a Terrorist," by Stephen Dunn, from Between Angels, Norton).

There's no choice in war once war has begun its lumbering crushing roll over human life and human decency. War-makers, like wrecking balls, know only one thing.

Absurdity and holiness vie for our attention.

I cannot imagine any outcome of war other than devastation and revenge. War does not bring peace. Disgust with war and disillusionment with destruction are merely prelude to the proposition of peace.

Forget about Iraq and Afghanistan. Forget about patriotic words proclaiming victory and honor and noble causes. Forget about ever forgetting the insane experience of hateful war.

We're meant to remember the folly foisted on us by depraved minds during a deprived time.

We're meant to attend all of it -- the aftermath of one woman's unexplainable fall, one man's terrible torture, a foreign country's tenacious fight, and a home nation's bitter memories.

Healing begins contemporaneously with the immediate experience and realization of harm. It only remains painful suffering when recovery, understanding, and forgiveness are not practiced wholeheartedly. You would think that consolation and prolongation of healthful care and careful health would be the order of the day, every day.

A counter-intuitive proposition is one that does not seem likely to be true when assessed using intuition or gut feelings.

Scientifically discovered, objective truths are often called counter-intuitive when intuition, emotions, and other cognitive processes outside of deductive rationality interpret them to be wrong. However, the subjective nature of intuition limits the objectivity of what to call counter-intuitive because what is counter-intuitive for one may be intuitive for another.

Flawed understanding of a problem may lead to counter-productive behavior with undesirable outcomes.
(-- from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-intuitive)

A face is a fragile thing. Face, in a different metaphor, is equally vulnerable. Our prayers and attention are given to the woman who recovers from this fall. So, too, to the men who try to adjust their minds to the experiences that have harmed their body and mind. Included in this prayer are those who do not completely comprehend how and why we fall, who throw themselves headlong into unaware and painful devastation, and consequently make bloody and terrified those nearby when they hit hard unyielding reality.

How is it any of us survives to another day?