Haiku

(Between Friday & Sunday)

Holy Saturday:

Nothing is happening here --

Mist soaks still mountain

(23april2011)

Potter's Field took in strangers. A final resting place for the poor, indigent, and friendless.

When divine egolessness is at play, even questionable transactions find beneficial outcomes.

Be at rest with peace, Judas.

Christ is sleeping and will wake in the concretion of the Spirit.

Through this dark time.

Communion. Building together. One with.

It is Thursday of Remembrance.

Having realized true entrusting
Majestic and boundless
By the working of
Unhindered Light,
The ice of blind passion
Melts without fail
To instantly become
The water of enlightenment.
- Shinran

Passover meal, obedience, bread, wine.

Because he has given freedom to the destitute who called to him,
to the poor, whom no-one will hear.
He will spare the poor and the needy,
he will keep their lives safe.
He will rescue their lives from oppression and violence,
their blood will be precious in his sight.
(--from Psalm 71)

Send me away.

Empty.

Waco, Oklahoma City, New York, D.C., Baghdad, Kandahar.

The wagers of war carve distinct niches.

Buddhas know beings' minds,
Their natures each different;
According to what they need to be freed,
Thus do the Buddhas teach.
To the stingy they praise giving,
To the immoral they praise ethics;
To the angry they praise tolerance,
To the lazy they praise effort.
- Avatamsaka Sutra

Reading a Libertarian view. Here's a hard opening paragraph:

"The Davidian cult in Waco was dealt with by armored vehicles," remarked Muammar Gaddafi in February, defending his own crackdowns in light of the U.S. government’s. April 19 marks eighteen years since the end of the Waco siege and exactly one month since Obama began bombing Libya. Now that the federal government is again shedding blood in the name of humanitarianism, we might reflect on how it obtains legitimacy for its most brazen acts of violence.
(from, From Waco to Libya: 18 Years of Humanitarian Mass Murder, by Anthony Gregory)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory210.html

That and "Why the Left Won't Stop the Wars" make upsetting reading. http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory209.html

The hobo at his campfire focuses on one thing.

To the lovers of war the Buddhas speak about hot dogs and universal love.

We create the world in our image.

War this Holy Week is between those embodying Christ Mind and those who think Jesus is a mercenary returning to convert or kill the Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Women, and Catholics. It's a nasty business, a simple-minded religious zealotry masquerading as Civil Servant Representatives. It is a war. Jesus is fodder.

As for no-mind, how could it require that the mind be darkened and put to no use? Instead, no-mind resembles a bright mirror that reflects things: does it have a mind? You should know that all living creatures first had no-mind. Their mind and body were originally still. Being still, they were in constant use. Being in constant use, they remained still. They reflected and distinguished whatever situation they encountered, and what they reflected was always the true nature. It is not that one must have a mind before one can be of use. But most living things do not understand that their mind is first still, and foolishly they scheme to have a mind…
- Taisho Tripitaka

I'm staying close to earth this year.

The pageantry doesn't attract.

I'm staying with water, fire, air, and soil.

I'm betting my soul on care and compassion.

I'll leave the grandiose politics of divine and satanic forces to those with no imagination for decency and simplicity.

Surely some treachery is afoot!

Someone asked: Just why did they make such a fuss when Jesus entered Jerusalem?

Maybe it was because they’d not seen someone without ego before.

But then they realized it was them that needed to be free from ego, that it wasn’t enough to delight in someone else's liberation.

For the future life,
"Namu Amida Butsu" is sufficient;
Beyond this you need have no concern.
Shingon monks follow the practice of incantation;
Dew, bestowed upon the grasses
Of the autumn fields,
Gradually soaks in the reflection of the moon.
Zen monks are captivated by the autumn moon
And springtime blossoms;
But when satori comes,
There's no need for spring or fall.
- Gocho (1749-1835)

Ego drives this country & this world these days. ‘My’ needs, ‘my’ wants, ‘my’ accomplishments. There’s no room for anyone else in the crowded space of ego-self.

The soul loves to meditate, for in contact with the Spirit lies its greatest joy. If, then you experience mental resistance during meditation, remember that reluctance to meditate comes from the ego; it doesn't belong to the soul.
(--Paramahansa Yogananda)

Soul, mind, consciousness -- let’s find them.

Holy Week isn’t a memorial of a time gone by. No mausoleum of memory.

No, it is the step forward into now where everything is again and again up for grabs.

I’ll go for the donkey man.

Riding in without ego.

A taste of freedom.

If one thing is everything, what is the one thing?

The wind blows hard outside the window tonight.

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

Someone says someone close to them has died and they have lost interest in living. I hear that.

No man is an island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

(Poem by John Donne)

We die when someone close dies. Most people pretend it's not so. But it is.

How do we go on once we realize we, too, have died?

There's the mystery!

Tell me when you find out.

And I'll share it with this person.

Who will, I'm sure, be grateful to know.

Maybe, only poetry matters.

Poem
BY MURIEL RUKEYSER

I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.
As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,
We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.

I lived in the first century of these wars.

(--Muriel Rukeyser, “Poem” from The Speed of Darkness. Copyright © 1968 by Muriel Rukeyser)

If we want to wake.

Try poetry.

_/\_ be-with...one-another_/\_

It's a silly life, being a hermit-in-the-world.

There's really nothing to it.

Watched “Mindwalk” in class.

It is like how a goldsmith must smelt ore to obtain gold before he can fashion it into implements for use. If you have a body, you have bodily impediments. And if you have bodily impediments, your dharma body is obscured by your outer shell. If you have a heart, you have impediments of the heart. And if you have impediments of the heart, your true wisdom will be obscured by your thinking and apprehensions.
- Taisho Tripitaka

Thomas said at end: “Life feels Itself.”

Breath, that’s what I think ‘mind’ is.

Try not to lose it.

John Searle says computers cannot think. He would agree with Krisnamurti -- Calculate, yes; contemplate no.

Listen to me for a second about the effects
Of a certain medicine
The pill I'm talking about is called
Penetrating One's Nature and Becoming a Buddha
Chew it well, chew it well
Won't you take my pill?
- Hakuin (1685-1769)

In my mind everyone looks as they did forty, fifty years ago. The mind is like that. It doesn't age. Why then should anyone kept in mind age?

A poet in Belfast, Jacob Fricke, ends a poem with: "No, Don't ever let your mind go to your head."

For forty years.

Wandering.

I have wondered.

I live quietly with other temple monks,
Get up at dawn to chant Namu.
The valley stream transcends clamor and stillness,
Mountain clouds know nothing
Of being or nonbeing.
Room a half a span wide,
Empty enough to hang a bell in;
Gruel in a gourd bowl
That might be left dangling.
And since I came here, what have I done?
"Bathed in the Yi, enjoyed the breeze
In the rain altars."
- Gensei (1623-1668)

What it was.

To say.

"Life Together."

As if there was a way to be.

Apart.

As is my wont.

This breath.

Is my first.

Buddha, in his bodhisattva stage,
Made the universal vow:
When beings hear my name
And think on me
I will come and welcome them.
Not discriminating at all between
The poor and the rich and the well born,
Not discriminating between the
Inferior and highly gifted;
Not choosing the learned
And those who uphold pure precepts.
Not rejecting those who break precepts
And whose evil karma is profound,
Solely making beings turn about
And abundantly say the name,
I can make bits of rubble
Change into gold.
- Tz'u-min ( 8th century) DailyZen

This breath.

Is my last.

First and last are silly concepts.

There is only this breath.

Hundreds of miles away, fiftieth reunion of High School graduation. Not been to any. Here, wood stove burns glowing orange.

Tall pines chant in the wind,
Rain falls lightly at dusk.
East Cloister is half-shut,
West Cloister is locked.
I walked through mountains all day
Yet met no people;
The perfume of wild plum blossoms
Fills my sleeves.
The resident monk laughs at me
For being so enamored of pure scenes.
He dislikes the remoteness of mountains,
But he cannot leave.
Though I love the mountains,
I, too, laugh at myself.
Solitary withdrawal harms the spirit,
It would be hard to carry on.
How much nicer, on West lake,
To drink fine wine,
The scents of red apricots and green peaches
Filling the hair.

- Su Shi (1037-1101)

I am satisfied with jar of water.

Rowing around Curtis Island with Rokie in bow and Saskia in 2nd rowing station, we navigate chop and trough from southwest wind.

At morning Buddhist meditation practice we read after sitting then Heart Sutre the chapter by Shunryu Suzuki on Bluejay song in commentary on Sandokai.

My face hurts in the changing season.

Even so, everything is as it is.

And all's well.

Stephen and Ondrea Levine show presence with one another.

A person who has no body has a large body. He who has no mind has a large mind. With a large mind comes a wisdom that covers all myriad things. With a large body he can respond and react without end. So it is that someone who holds onto his body as his own loses this great responsiveness, and one who holds onto his mind as his own loses this great knowledge. That is why all the sutras and treatises teach that one must take leave of the body and mind and break free of all holding and attachment before entering into what is true and real.
- Taisho Tripitaka

In prison today conversation with a dozen men in two places.

That’s all, just conversation.

With fellow beings.

Ishiguro's film "Never Let Me Go" breaks ethical mind and sympathetic heart.

Winding back and forth
Among green trees
The golden shuttle
Of the oriole
Weaves silk
The color of spring.
A monk sits
Dozing…
Even the stones smile
- Kusan Sunim (1909-1983)

Pragmatists and Utilitarians exit here.

Existentialists sip coffee thoughtfully.

Each must tell of themselves.

Each of Itself.

Sluggish.

Go straight to the empty and free and vast, with no pondering what to think. The previous thought is already extinct, the following thought does not arise, the present thought is itself empty.
- T’aego

The weariness of traveling nowhere.

The United States Government threatens to shut down.

Something silly is going on.

Wu Mountain's person of the Way
Has a mind like water,
With eyes clear, so free from dust
There's none to sweep away.
That's why he can lodge powerful emotions
In marvelous phrases,
Using this leveling device,
To test old East Slope.
- Su Shi (1037-1101

I wonder if the folks on the right think that war, starvation, global weather crisis, poverty, health uncare, and diminishing work opportunities are second fiddle to their pet projects and personal morality priorities?

Here’s what I think: Some people are unwilling to come to earth and live here as human beings. They want to be designees of some idealized God-projected mandate. Some other people are unwilling to be at home on earth and are constantly trying to step-off into some wish-fulfilling heaven away from here. Neither of the two groups are to be trusted. They are not of earth.

The great myth of Christianity is that Jesus embodied God and came to earth by becoming human.

What is it that Christians do not understand?

As for the rest of us? Do we remember the words: “Thy will be done, on earth. As it is..."?

Let the will of Love be accomplished on earth!

Forget all the 'other' stuff.

Think no-other.

Friend...please

Arrive here

Where the rest of us are.

Guest makes delicious soup.

Hospice and Spirituality with new volunteers today.

UConn wins over Butler in NCAA final.

Heart is a quieter mind.

To be unstained in all environments is called no thought…If you stop thinking of myriad things, and cast aside all thoughts, as soon as one instant of thought is cut off, you will be reborn in another realm…The Dharma of no-thought means: even though you see all things, you do not attach to them, but, always keeping your own nature pure, cause the six thieves (the fields of the senses) to exist through the six gates. Even though you are in the midst of the six dusts, you do not stand apart from them, yet are not stained by them, and are free to come and go.
- The Platform Sutra

We're only here for a short time. Then, we pass through the unknown and might be here differently forever. Who knows?

We are in this world with one another.

What else is there to note?

Use two feet.

Stand up.

Enter this world.

Hospice is a mom-n-pop vocation. (That is: merely open mind - nears - presenting open presence)

Hospice practice involves your being ma & pa. (That is: merely alone & patiently aware.)

These acronyms are thoughts that visit during Quaker Meeting this morning, and at tea and toast afterward with help from a Friend.

Brother, I’ve seen some

BY KABIR

Brother, I’ve seen some
Astonishing sights:
A lion keeping watch
Over pasturing cows;
A mother delivered
After her son was;
A guru prostrated
Before his disciple;
Fish spawning
On treetops;
A cat carrying away
A dog;
A gunny-sack
Driving a bullock-cart;
A buffalo going out to graze,
Sitting on a horse;
A tree with its branches in the earth,
Its roots in the sky;
A tree with flowering roots.

This verse, says Kabir,
Is your key to the universe.
If you can figure it out.

TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI BY ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=241222

Comment:

Many of the bhakti poets came from the bottom of the Hindu caste ladder. Among them you find a cobbler, a tailor, a barber, a boatman, a weaver. One, Janabai (see epigraph to “Chewing slowly”), was a maidservant. They wrote in the vernaculars (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati) rather than in Sanskrit, the language of the gods and the preserve of Brahmins. Occasionally, eschewing his abrupt debunking manner, Kabir speaks in riddles. These enigmatic poems (see “Brother I’ve seen some” and “How do you”) are called ulatbamsi or “poems in upside-down language,” in which the intention seems to be to force the reader (or listener) into new ways of thinking and seeing. They each end in a revelation, though exactly what has been revealed is open to question. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poemcomment.html?id=241222

I like being open to question.

As

Being

Open

Is,

As it is,

An ulatbamsi gift