The Governor of Maine opens his mouth and invites the NAACP to "kiss my butt." It's a crude and unthinking remark. I've never made such foolish remarks in my life, so I can take a high horse and ride it proudly.

It is Martin Luther King's birthday. I liked him. He was brave and had vision. I'm sure the Governor of Maine would have liked him too. We all make mistakes. He'll come around. For now it's just peculiar theater.

Cold night, no wind, bamboo making noises,
Noises far apart, now bunched together,
Filtering the pine-flanked lattice.
Listening with ears is less fine than
Listening with the mind.
Beside the lamp I lay
Aside the half scroll of sutra
- Hsu-t'ang Chih-yu

Two of the men in prison last week said there's only one race, the human race. Some of my closest friends are human.

I feel like I'm scattering to unfindable places.

I've left my normal dwelling and wander in pointless meander.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't.

You see?

Enough!

Pray for a blessing!

I think about life. These days I think about death. Which means I am alive and I will die. What happens or what doesn't happen after life or after death is not a worry to me. What happens will or won't happen. For now, right here, it is enough to be here, now.

With an eye to Stringfellow:

'Dynamic and erratic, spontaneous and radical, audacious and immature, committed if not altogether coherent. Ecumenically open and often experimental, visible here and there, now and then but unsettled institutionally. Almost monastic in nature but most of all enacting a fearful hope for society.’
(--William Stringfellow in his book 'An ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land’ -- found on Northumbria Community website)

The cosmos is a very big place. Very big. And I am a speck, an intersecting and interpenetrating speck, but, still, a speck.

hymn to the sacred body of the universe (excerpt)

let's meet
at the confluence
where you flow into me
and one breath
swirls between our lungs

let's meet
at the confluence
where you flow into me
and one breath
swirls between our lungs

for one instant
to dwell in the presence of the galaxies
for one instant
to live in the truth of the heart
the poet says this entire traveling cosmos is
"the secret One slowly growing a body"

two eagles are mating--
clasping each other's claws
and turning cartwheels in the sky
grasses are blooming
grandfathers dying
consciousness blinking on and off
all of this is happening at once
all of this, vibrating into existence
out of nothingness

every particle
foaming into existence
transcribing the ineffable

arising and passing away
arising and passing away
23 trillion times per second--
when Buddha saw that,
he smiled

16 million tons of rain are falling every second
on the planet
an ocean
perpetually falling
and every drop
is your body
every motion, every feather, every thought
is your body
time
is your body,
and the infinite
curled inside like
invisible rainbows folded into light
...
(Excerpt of "hymn to the sacred body of the universe," from love letter to the milky way, by Drew Dellinger)
http://drewdellinger.org/pages/poetry/59/hymn-to-the-sacred-body-of-the-universe-(excerpt)

On a sidewalk at a side street in Rockland this morning as we drove from (shut-down day at) the prison, there was a hawk breakfasting on a dove by a brick building as cars slowed to gape. We continued on to The Rockland Cafe for ours -- where we surprisedly, happily sat with the Clarity Artists family.

It is our difference that accentuates our value. And each is so valuable.

Three Basic Cosmogenetic Principles

David Fenner, PhD, UNF provided the following summary of the Cosmogenetic Principle at the 1996 Earth Stewardship Conference in Jacksonville Florida.
The Cosmogenetic Principle (the form-producing power of the Universe) states that the evolution of the Universe will be characterized by differentiation, subjectivity, and communion throughout time and space and at every level of reality.

1. Cosmogenesis is ordered by differentiation. A Universe of unending diversity, there has never been a time when the Universe did not seek further differentiation. The Universe began in a concentration of energy and at each instant has re-created itself new. The seemingly infinite power for transfiguration in every region of the Universe speaks of an inexhaustible fecundity at the root of reality. The Universe comes to us, each being and each moment announcing its thrilling news: I am fresh. To understand the Universe you must understand me.

Some synonyms for differentiation are diversity, complexity, variation, disparity, multiform nature, heterogeneity, articulation.

2. Cosmogenesis is structured by subjectivity. A Universe filled with structures exhibiting self-organizing dynamics (autopoiesis) - from autocatalytic chemical processes to cells, from living bodies to galaxies. Not just living beings, but self-organizing power within all of creation. Refers to the interior dimension of things, its essence. Everything is endowed with and inner capacity for self-manifestation.

Note for humans: The movement from primordial rocks to mammalian consciousness is a radical one certainly. But we must avoid regarding such consciousness as an addendum or as an intrusion into reality. The integrity of the Universe must always be respected. Everything comes forth out of the intrinsic creativity of the Universe.

Synonyms--- self-manifestation, sentience, self-organization, dynamic centers of experience, presence, identity, inner principle of being, voice, interiority.

3. Cosmogenesis is organized by communion. To be si to be related, for relationship is the essence of existence. Nothing is itself without everything else. The Universe evolves into beings that are different from each other (differentiation), and that organize themselves (subjectivity). But in addition to this the Universe advances into communion--into a differentiated web of relationships among sentient centers of creativity. Note that relationships are discovered even more than they are forged.

Note for humans: The loss of relationship, ie to be cut off from intimacy with other beings with its consequent alienation is perhaps the supreme evil in the Universe or in religious terms the essence of damnation.

Synonyms---interrelatedness, interdependence, kinship, mutuality, internal relatedness, reciprocity, complementarity, interconnectivity, affiliation.

http://reocities.com/rainforest/4084/cosmolgy.htm

This Differentiation, Subjectivity, and Communion -- this life in this existence as resplendent manifestations of Being!

We gather for Friday Evening Conversation reading Raimon Panikkar.

Tonight...I sorrow at the sudden collapsing death last night of Joshua, a college student who sat up front in classes.

Basta!

Benedicite!

I might not be a good friend.

Anamnesis
Anamnesis means remembrance or reminiscence, the collection and re- collection of what has been lost, forgotten, or effaced. It is therefore a matter of the very old, of what has made us who we are. But anamnesis is also a work that transforms its subject, always producing something new. To recollect the old, to produce the new: that is the task of Anamnesis.
(epigraph, in The Radical Critique of Liberalism: In Memory of a Vision, Toula Nicolacopoulos)

But I am a friend.

Remember that.

President Obama's words were fitting and fine in Tucson. A leader's touch.

As are the words of two poets:

Sorting It Out

At the table she used to sew at,
he uses his brass desk scissors
to cut up his shirt.
Not that the shirt
was that far gone: one ragged cuff,
one elbow through;
but here he is,
cutting away the collar
she long since turned.
What gets to him finally,
using his scissors like a bright claw,
is prying buttons off:
after they've leapt,
spinning the floor, he bends
to retrieve both sizes:
he intends to
save them in some small box; he knows
he has reason to save; if only he knew
where a small box
used to be kept.

(--Poem by Philip Booth)

And:

TO THE NEW YEAR

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible
(Poem by W.S. Merwin)

In their memory.

The task now undertaken by commentators and communicators seems to be to find a way to talk about the violent shootings in Tucson Arizona...without...naming or blaming some voices, or philosophies, or strategies that might be construed as contributing to an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

One commentator, Rachel Maddow, traced responses to such violent multiple murders over our recent history that expressed the words "unimaginable" and "inconceivable" in the wakes of carnage. Maddow concludes that those words are no longer applicable, if they ever were. Guns, death by guns, and public massacres are rife and ready. "Lock and load" is as familiar a phrase today as "love your neighbor" once was. The constraint upon identifying the reality and locating responsibility accounting for a culture of armed elimination of perceived enemies has the aspect of an illusory and ignorant deflection of attention.

I don't feel that constraint. I rather suspect that there is a connective continuity that links thought, word, and action in ways that surge and ripple from formless instinct and internalized idea to concretized forms that physicalize and externally actualize in the realm of felt experience.

If you think that words have no impact on acts -- then consider the foolishness of believing in the word of God made flesh and act.

No form, no sound.
Here I am;
White clouds fringing the peaks,
River cutting through the valley.
- Daito

Words matter.

So, we enter silence for a spell.

We need to keep counsel with clearness, and come home to sane truth.

Where stillness rests while keeping pace with peace.

Before coming to word.

And flesh.

We are made of words.

If you understand the first word of Zen
You will know the last word.
The last word or the first word,
Is not a word.
- Wu-men

With no first word, nor any last word -- what are we?

"The language of a people is its fate." (--Amos Wilder)

Listen carefully.

What do you hear?

We read Thomas Merton at practice tonight. ("A Preliminary Warning" from The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation, 2004.)

...[T]he hidden, interior "I" ...has no projects and seeks to accomplish nothing, even contemplation.(--from p.5)

Nothing to get. Nothing to fall back on. Just moving through.

All day long people repeat the
Word prajna aloud,
But do not know their
Self-natured prajna.
They are like one who
Cannot satisfy their hunger
By only talking about eating.
Just talking of voidness
Will not enable one to
Perceive one's nature for
Myriads of eons, and there
Will be no advantage in the end.
- Altar Sutra

A little wary, a little weary of the world. It is far too sophisticated, complicated, and devious for the likes of me.

Love makes it clearer. Acceptance dulls its knife edge. Humor puts it into perspective.

Now is the time for non-violence...

practice.

If you ask people to target public officials, even if your language is metaphoric, do you take credit when someone carries out your intimation?

The ignorant and restive rhetoric insinuating violence, the duplicitous and feigned demure chagrin, is not cute nor kind, nor is it the better nature of this country.

I am livid with the false fanciful fomenting!

I sorrow the carnage in Arizona.

We begin The Rhythm of Being. Friday evenings we'll be reading the Gifford Lectures by Raimon Panikkar.

Panikkar is a wonderful companion.

Efface both mind and objects.

This means that when we are practicing, we initially make the external sense-objects void and calm and then annihilate the internal—the mind.

Since internal and external are both calmed, where can delusion arise? As Kuan-ch'I said, "In the ten directions there are no walls; at the four sides there are no gates. All is innocent, pure and undefiled."
- Chinul (1205)

It was good to get back to the prison after three weeks of closedown Fridays.

"Inspirational," says Saskia, of the evening, of the day, including poetry at the nursing home.

Plus the plenitude of Panikkar.

It is as she's said it.

Today is Epiphany.

All people fundamentally
Possess the wisdom of
Bodhi-prajna.
If they cannot be
Awakened to it,
It is because their minds
Are under delusion.
You should know that
The Buddha nature of the
Ignorant and of the
Enlightened are the same,
The only difference being
That the former are deluded whereas
The latter are awakened to it.
- Altar Sutra

Epiphany, yes.

And...Here

is what is

happening.

There are days when being a hermit demands being a hermit. No matter that you attend a faculty meeting and feel like a stranger in an unseen land, a point fallen off a periphery that has no edge.

Earlier in the day, finishing the reading of Borg's novel, I am easily distracted into meditation:

Who do I say
Jesus is?
I don't know.
That said, that which is
profoundly centered in the
depths of my being --
knows its source and origin.
I don't. I cannot (easily)
get past conditioning and
thought, emotions and history.
I am culturally consumed.
But there is within this space
of being (called my name) an
unknown and sustaining
presence of, I suspect, wisdom
and light, that resounds
the original sound of
creating kindness
touched with
mere joy!
(wfh/5jan11)

I come across a proverb from the Irish:

Tá Dia láidir agus tá máthair mhaith aige.
(God is strong, and has a good mother)
(--from site on the Irish language)
http://www.daltai.com/proverbs/weeks/week128.htm

There is a combination of new moon effect and sense of mortality that covers this early January. On Fresh Air with Terry Gross some Washington Post reporters are speaking about the NRA and guns used in US/Mexico border murders. It tells how US guns wind up in Mexico and how powerful the NRA has become. Guns are more powerful than any Gospel. Lobbying more efficient that preaching. Killing more American than kindness when money and power and guns are involved.

Earlier, I sit:
Sitting through
self to no-self
Living through
name to no-name --
There is something about
stillness and silence
and solitude that
lets fall, lets go
(wfh/5jan11)

The longer I live the more I withdraw from the social, the political, and the customary. I look back...and shiver. There's a dearth that draws little to it.

I can't go back
I can't go back
-- Why not?
I've never left
I've never left
-- And so?
There's nowhere to go
I'm still there
-- What now?
I'm everywhere
I've only to dwell
where I am
knowing this
(wfh/5jan11)

I put on ice-grippers and play ball with the dog. Afterwards, he is on the rug downstairs watching the driveway. He must sense the coming car returning from Portland. Stars are pin-bright. Gravel is frozen hard. Cars drift by up mountain pass. There is more to the night than I can see.

Four Haiku, Wednesday

1.

The present

Not knowing if there

is a future, I wonder

about the present

2.

Epiphany

What if nothing shows

up? Will the trip

be worthless?

Branch shade on white

Snow

3.

Jesus

Never satisfied

with words about him

I wait --

Birds drop to feeder

4.

Truth

It never is what

we think it is. Better to

arrive first then look

(wfh/5jan11)

I'm glad God is strong. I'm glad God has a good mother.

I'm uncertain guns should be sacred utensils sanctified by acolyte congress to hierarchy of National Rifle Episcopacy.

Our way of life, based on security for wealth and utmost protection of property, feels, today, to be untoward.

Today will pass...

Tomorrow will appear...

From within Itself --

A realizing instant.

Perhaps Epiphany is a Bewithing and Beloving mind!

Of course, the new moon. Thus, the torpor.

"Be still, and know that I [am] God..." (Ps. 46:10, King James Bible)

Barnes' Notes on the Bible:
Be still - The word used here - from רפה râphâh - means properly to cast down; to let fall; to let hang down; then, to be relaxed, slackened, especially the hands: It is also employed in the sense of not making an effort; not putting forth exertion; and then would express the idea of leaving matters with God, or of being without anxiety about the issue. Compare Exodus 14:13, "Stand still, and see the salvation of God." In this place the word seems to be used as meaning that there was to be no anxiety; that there was to be a calm, confiding, trustful state of mind in view of the displays of the divine presence and power. The mind was to be calm, in view of the fact that God had interposed, and had shown that he was able to defend his people when surrounded by dangers. If this the divine interposition when Jerusalem was threatened by the armies of the Assyrians under Sennacherib, the force and beauty of the expression will be most clearly seen. (http://bible.cc/psalms/46-10.htm)

I am still.

When we are practicing, we do not think of either good or evil. As soon as any mental state arises, we rest; when meeting with conditions, we rest. The ancients said:

Be like a strip of unbleached silk cloth.
Be like cool, clear water,
Be like an incense burner in an old shrine.
Then you can cut through the spool of silk
And leave behind all discrimination.
Once you like the stupid and senseless,
You will have become partially united with it.

This is the method of extinguishing delusion through rest.

- Chinul (1205) http://www.dailyzen.com/

Earlier I listen to Ken Wilber laud William James (and Bertrand Russell) for "non-duplicity" or non-dual ideas as James presents radical empiricism. Later in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

In the deservedly famous chapter on “The Stream of Thought” James takes himself to be offering a richer account of experience than those of traditional empiricists such as Hume. He believes relations, vague fringes, and tendencies are experienced directly (a view he would later defend as part of his “radical empiricism.”) James finds consciousness to be a stream rather than a succession of “ideas.” Its waters blend, and our individual consciousness — or, as he prefers to call it sometimes, our “sciousness” — is “steeped and dyed” in the waters of sciousness or thought that surround it. Our psychic life has rhythm: it is a series of transitions and resting-places, of “flights and perchings” (PP 236). We rest when we remember the name we have been searching for; and we are off again when we hear a noise that might be the baby waking from her nap. (--William James, First published Thu Sep 7, 2000; substantive revision Fri Oct 23, 2009, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/

My mind is perched right now.

It is afternoon. I read Marcus J. Borg's novel, Putting Away Childish Things: A Tale of Modern Faith in Merton Retreat. It is quiet. Water boils for tea.

Solitude.

A winter silence.

Being -- (cast down, letting fall) -- still.

One of the side-effects of starting the day at 4:30am reading is the inclination to rethink what you know into a different articulation.

Take the Christian notion of the Trinity:

The Beginning Becoming Being.
The Continuing Creating Consciousness.
The Advocating Activating Assistance.

Or, if Unitarian -- (with nod to Jean Gebser):

The Ever-Presenting Origin.

I don't think it is possible to exhaust the expressions of the ineffable.

All the explanations of past patriarchs about the practice of no-mind are unique. Now, I will give a synopsis of these different techniques and briefly describe ten of them.

One: attention. This means that when we are practicing, we should always cut off thoughts and guard against their arising. As soon as a thought arises we destroy it through attention. As a patriarch stated, "Do not fear the arising of thoughts; only be concerned lest your awareness of them be tardy." A gatha says, "There is no need to search for truth; you need only put all views to rest." This is the method of extinguishing delusion through attention.
- Chinul (1205)

Perhaps all notions of God might find expression as:

An Integrality Initiating Itself.

Otherwise, there's Arkansas to ponder:

Thousands of dead fish washed up last week on a 20 mile stretch along the Arkansas River between Ozark and Clarksville. On New Year's Eve thousands of red-winged blackbirds tumbled from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas.

According to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, a tug boat operator noticed thousands of dead drum fish. Experts estimate somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 fish died.

"This is really getting kind of crazy with the fish and the birds and these tornadoes hitting during the winter," said Denise Dickerson, of Ozark.
(-- Mysterious Death of Birds, Fish Puzzle Arkansas Residents, KSPR TV, Mallory Cooke, Reporter, Springfield, MO, http://www.kspr.com/news/local/kfsm-mysterious-death-of-birds-fish-01032011,0,41484.story)

Puzzling -- all of it.

When bell sounded at end of sitting I was a resounding vibration.

Do not be concerned with who is
wise and who is stupid.
Do not discriminate the
sharp from the dull.
To practice whole-heartedly
is the true endeavor of the way.
Practice-realization is not
defiled with specialness;
it is a matter for every day.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

But that was then.

This is now.

Saskia, Rokie, and I row out to channel buoy beyond Sherman’s point. Thirteen other traditional rowing craft are pulled up on Curtis Island for their traditional New Year’s Row.

We give two nickels to the base of the buoy. Mine overshoots and plunges into depth. Saskia’s, a Canadian coin, settles nicely against one of the braces.

It is a beautiful, calm, and warm morning row.

When one lives vitally in the present moment
Without being pressured toward the past or future,
One lives as the present itself.
One actually becomes the present unfolding.
No other place is so vast and broad…
- Ji Aoi Isshi

At morning practice we read from Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist, a book by Stephen Batchelor given us this week by David Stinson. We read Appendix III, Turning the Wheel of Dhamma. We contemplate "no repetitive existence.”

It is a New Year.

Awareness, resolve, and community all help.

Day one gives way to day two.

May yours be filled with health and happiness!

Breathing in, I notice the old year fade.

Closed out the old year
And held a dream of spring behind
Eyes shut, till now
This morning I open them to see
It's really come into the world
- Saigyo (1118-1190)

Breathing out, everything begins anew.

Love, understanding, wisdom, and compassion arrive all at once.

How lovely the night!

How lovely the morning!

Suse spoke the phrase tonight and I think I will adopt it whenever I have to fill out more forms asking my occupation. I will write: retiring.

The Way transcends any aspect of
Going or coming,
Movement or quiescence,
So one cannot realize satori by
Waiting for it.
- Daito (1282-1334)

A retiring personality. Retiring from the world.

The end is certain, and the means as well. To this we say “Amen.”We will be told exactly what God wills for us each time there is a choice to make. And He will speak for God and for your Self, thus making sure that hell will claim you not, and that each choice you make brings Heaven nearer to your reach. And so we walk with Him from this time on, and turn to Him for guidance and for peace and right direction. Joy attends our way. For we go homeward to an open door which God has held unclosed to welcome us.

(--from Epilogue, in A Course in Miracles)

Retiring to bed.

I'm glad I dwell in a hermitage.

Intuition, creativity, vision, soul.

Beyond the point where the rivers
End and the mountains vanish
You have kept on walking
Originally the treasure lies
Just under one's feet
You made the mistake of thinking
That now you would be able
To retire in peace
Look: in your own hut the
Meditation mat has never been warm.
- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)

Thinking, listening, looking, connecting.

If we want to know what is lacking and what is needed to heal this bedraggled planet from the backward inanity of a number of its occupants, take a minute, ponder.

Ready yet?

How about now?

Once I thought I was missing out on something.

Stop searching for phrases and chasing after words.
Take the backward step and turn the light inward.
Your body-mind of itself will drop
off and your original face will appear.
If you want to attain just this,
immediately practice just this.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

Now I don't think that way.

If I am not here, where am I?


And if I were to manage to sense what and where here is, what would I be doing here?

Diane's calligraphy over mud room door says, "God spoken here...".

On back of new hermitage business/calling card facing out to walkway approaching glass sliding door is written: "Here is God." Whoever approaches is looked at through these words.

Blizzard allows me to stay put. Anonymous 4 sing from "Noel" composite album. Rokie snoozes on futon. Mu-ge is asleep on bed upstairs. The car that went off the road into snowdrift across from driveway has been yanked out and the flashing lights have gone.

How often in my life have I been absent, not there? I hear the echoing inquiry: Are you there?

I don't mind being there or not being there. Heidegger and Feuerbach and Jaspers used the German word da-sein, (there-being/being-there), to mean human "existence" or "presence" or "authentic being." (cf. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasein.) These phrases and considerations are at the heart of what it means to be here, as humans, in this existence, within Being itself.

If you desire to meet the real Buddha,
you must see your True-nature.
Unless you see your True-nature,
even if you recite the Buddha's name,
read sutras, and uphold the precepts,
you will just be wasting your time.
- Daito (1282-1334)

We have to be it and see it. Sometimes it happens. Most times it takes practice just to realize there is a question about one's presence that is vital.

What are we to do?

Daniel Ladinsky frames two fragments from Francis of Assisi:

HE ASKED FOR CHARITY

God came to my house and asked for charity.

And I fell on my knees and

cried, “Beloved,

what may I

give?”

“Just love,’ He said.

“Just love.”

(--St Francis of Assisi, p.33, Ladinsky)

And:

A KIND FACE

Joy is the greatest cleanser, and it is

the greatest testimony to our

faith.

“Toil with happiness,” my Lord once

said to me.

God sent a servant on an errand

through a dangerous part

of the world.

The servant, having received in hand

what God wanted

delivered,

turned to the Holy and said,

My Beloved Master, do you have a final instruction?"

and God replied,

“A kind face is a

precious

gift.”

(P.34, Ladinsky Daniel, 2002. in, Love Poems from God. Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West. Penguin Group.)

Let's face it.

Let's be kind.

Here is
where there
is
(--Robert Creeley, in Collected Poems, p.547)

One imagines hearing the following:

"Where will you be?"

"I'll be right over...

Here."