the earth; keeps

Spinning around.

The following is adapted from a talk Myogen Steve Stücky gave at San Francisco Zen Center, where he served as abbot. Stucky passed away from cancer one year ago, the morning prior to New Year’s Day 2014. —Eds.Tricycle Magazine

To what shall
I liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane's bill.
—Dogen, Zen Master 

... 

Buddhist practice is a wonderful, very important expression of people's interest in something that goes beyond their own self-interest. It is a profound practice, a lineage practice. We actually have the capacity, and, in a sense, each of us has the responsibility—whether we know it or not or like it or not—to understand it. Study it. Practice it. Make it available to others. And in that way, this lineage can continue to be sustained and evolve and develop and be helpful. This has been the most important thing: to do this practice. I propose to each of you, if you can find something better, then do that. But whatever it is, make it the most profound expression of your life. 

(--from, To the Last Moment, Facing a terminal diagnosis, a Zen teacher reflects on what he'll leave behind.   by Myogen Steve Stücky) http://www.tricycle.com/blog/last-moment

 Morning light.

Joyful sound. 

hey good; looking

Peace isn't difficult.

What's difficult is trying to find someone awake to recognize it.

As it wanders in our midst within our gaze alongside our ordinary lives.

in a word

He said God is "the deep-down basic whatever there is." (Alan Watts)

So, I ask you:

Q. In a word...Will you tell me what prayer is?

A. Yes!

continuāre

The old brothers in their zucchettis lived in a different realm. There was an impish humility as they labored at tasks deflecting attention.

Mary, the Holy Mother of God, a 1Jan feast, calls them back to mind.

What is it to call this young Jewish woman Miriam, מרים, by this title? 

Perhaps it is, among other things, a reminder that attention to anything is to mother that occasion, that incidence, that surrounding. 

And if there is only God, then to mother anything with mere attention is to mother God.

A brown zucchetto accompanies me in meditation and prayer. Like a newborn infant’s skullcap, it gives warmth and security to that place length meets emptiness, height meets no-longer-oneself.

It is a connective humility of prayerfulness, a reminder we are here for one-another. 

It reminds that what happens under the solideo is what is taking place above it -- that the world is both a receiving and a creating -- an originating and a forgetting interbeing where mind and body come to be and fall away in the interplay of matter, form, and emptiness.

Monastics, all.

An unabasing humility of being child, being mother, being world.

Santa Maria, 

Ora pro nobis!

Creatio mundi 

continuāre.

...   ...   ...

Notes: from  Miriam meaning | Miriam etymology __ Abarim Publications

Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names reads Their Rebellion. NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Obstinacy, Stubbornness. 

To a creative audience, the first part of the name Miriam could also be regarded as related to the verb מרר (marar), meaning to be bitter or to be strong: 

And the second part of the name Miriam holds some resemblance to the word ים (yam) meaning sea:Hence, the name Miriam also means Bitter Waters or Waters Of Strength. 

Jerome (4th century AD) suggested relations with the word מאור(ma'or), meaning star, from the verb אור ('or), to be light or shine. Combined with the word ימ (yam), sea, the name Miriam would translate to Stella Maris (star of the sea), but that strikes as a very free interpretation. 

Here at Abarim Publications we like to believe that these names have to do with מר (mor), meaning myrrh

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Miriam.html#.VKXF6HTxT8s 

not divided

Listen up.

The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the “I” out of the experience. We pretend that we are amoebas, and try to protect ourselves from life by splitting in two. Sanity, wholeness, and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate “I” or mind can be found.To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening. 

(--from, The Wisdom of Insecurity" by Alan Watts)

As Wednesday becomes Thursday.

As 31 becomes 1.

As 14 becomes 15.

Become the hearing of listening.

cold night, firewood

Bangor Daily News after stoking wood stove at 3:30am. The many ways we encounter or cause suffering. Honoring our humanity, practicing compassion. Breathing in, breathing out. The silence of prayer.

what is between; the word, “happy”

We say,  “I remember the time.” It’s a trick phrase. One the mind creates to soothe the worry that everything is right now, right here, all at once. It is a useful expedience.

One in All
All in One—
If only this is realized,
No more worry about your not being perfect!    
                                                         - Sosan Ganchi Zenji, "Shin Jin Mei

Yesterday, remembering Thomas Becket, I thought of T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral.” Which threw me to “Burnt Norton.” Hence, to Morris Weitz:

We must start with the temporal, the ever-changing experience; and come to see its dependence upon the Timeless: 

                                Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.

In the final movement of 'Burnt Norton', the distinction between the Timeless and the temporal becomes the distinction between The Word and words. Words lie, but it is only through words that we can conquer them, to express the truth which is The Word. And what we want to say we cannot say because words are always changing, being in the flux; but even with words we can suggest The Word: That God, Who is the Final
Cause, did initiate the first event and does determine the last event:

Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.

The movement and the poem end with a concrete and visual return to the rose-garden with their contrast between the inadequate affirmation of the sole reality of the flux and the true recognition that there is something more, the Eternal, echoing in the laughter of the children. How ridiculous, then, the sole acceptance of 'the waste sad time Stretching before and after'. 

--Morris Weitz, from “T.S. Eliot: Time as a Mode of Salvation." Sewanee Review (1952). http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/norton.htm

2014 has a single day remaining. 2015 happens in a fraction of a second measured by an atomic clock.

Q: What happens in the interval between ‘before’ and 'after'?

A: The poem.

Hubble photo

The poem is un-being written, whose first word arrives as being . . . ‘happy'.

The between gives birth to what is ‘new'.

Some call it a 'year’.

no; getting away from it

One.

Two?

One.

Three?

One.

while sitting with quakers

dios sola; ora sola

(god alone; only now)

what role as actor do you long to disappear into?

---

I think Stephen would understand. So too John. As also the Holy Innocents. It is awareness itself of family. your brightness is my darkness  "Your brightness is my darkness. I know nothing of You and, by myself, I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing You. If I imagine You, I am mistaken. If I understand You, I am deluded. If I am conscious and certain I know You, I am crazy. The darkness is enough." (—Thomas Merton, prayer before midnight mass at Christmas, 1941) (--from louie, louie website) http://fatherlouie.blogspot.com/

"Night holds no terrors for me sleeping under God's wings."(Antiphon, compline)

Awareness itself knows nothing other.

mute ontic nothingness only silence

The poetics of mythic narrative serves to move the mind through impossible leaps of assumption and investigation.

John, if there was a John, wrote some words, if these are a valid reconstruction, about origin, if pinpointing a speck of infinite eternity with semiological coordinates and reference bespeaks a transcendance of mute ontic nothingness only silence (monos).

Still, this:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.   (John 1, NIV)

We're biasd toward English, or Indo-European. And the human species. A decipherable, translatable communication. Not tree-talk, or drop-of-water speak. Certainly not vague utterance of sand grain.

Outside our hearing, what does the urge-to-create sound like?

If we began to think about it, everything is alien to us. Even one another. It's a marvel anything is, and that the faintest semblance of sanity shows itself. So, we amble on tepidly assured ours is the prototype and apex. We shop at Walmart and Saks Fifth Avenue and turn our radios on after starting the car. If a prominent man embezzles 4 million dollars, we tsk tsk. If a street kid steals 50 dollars or some cigarillos we lock him up or shoot him dead. We're not fond of the not-wealthy or people a different skin-color. Our opinions are more important to us than God -- whatever ideas we have of that possibility.

What do you say to a space alien? This question might not be the foremost puzzle in your life, but it was the subject of a lively two-day conference at California's SETI Institute this week.
Here's why: A decade of research by astronomers now suggests that a trillion planets dot the Milky Way. It takes a real Debbie Downer to believe that they're all as dead as the Equal Rights Amendment. Unless Earth is special beyond reason, you can confidently assume there are plenty of societies out there.
...
But a linguist precipitated on this parade by noting that -- given the uncertainties about why Homo sapiens even has language (is it merely a talent conferred by a random genetic mutation that hit our species 150,000 years ago?), there's no guarantee that the extraterrestrials will be blessed with the gift of gab. They might not have language any more than we have a great sense of smell. 

(--from, Talking to Aliens, by Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute)Posted: 11/14/2014 12:13 pm http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-shostak/talking-to-aliens_b_6159330.html

There's a simplicity to monos.

Someplace to reside thought after seeing no further reach toward sensible resolution of a given moment.

As if...prayer.

Ora sola.

think again; nothing to say -- the rare joy of unsaying

Now that word has entered voice, we must learn whether there is something to say.

How pronounce it, where to allow it to be said, and the skill to say it in silence.

All without any saying becoming attached to the one saying it. Emptiness.

If God is a success it is because this is God's open accomplishment.

God is before, because of, and beyond any words of God. 

As though hearing without hearer a wordless voice.

A glance, a mere gaze, through, unknowing.

The sound of what is being said.

A rustling of tree in wind.

An empty resonance.

A felt utterance.

Still, in all.

Gone by.

Here.

Now.

See?

Oh!

And so, it is...

Now 

gratefulness.org

rain and mud

A single candle.

"When the sun rises in the morning sky, you will see the King of kings coming forth from the Father like a radiant bridegroom from the bridal chamber."

(--Antiphon, vespers)

Lighting what is near.

Faith, the zen master said, is "I am"

Will I?

Antiphon. “Today you will know the Lord is coming, and in the morning you will see his glory."              (--Invitatory, 24Dec2014)

Will we?

There is a wonderful Christian saying which says If faith, then faith. If you could penetrate that you would go right through to the bottom. If faith, what need of results? What need of changing things, getting things, getting rid of things? If faith, then faith. But so often faith is a bribe.   

We say to God, I’ll have faith in you, but you must deliver. And when he doesn’t deliver, we complain, saying, “I had faith in him so why is all this happening to me? Was my faith not strong enough?” If you have faith in the practice and this faith is that the practice is going to produce something for you, then you are a merchant trafficking in some kind of magical results for which you are prepared to pay what you call faith. But on the other hand, if faith then faith. If one prays to God and that comes out of faith, then nothing else matters.
(--from, A fountain of miracles, article by Albert Low) http://www.zenmontreal.ca/en/teacher/fountain.htm

Prayer is itself-faith.

Itself-faith is profound trust in what-is taking place, what-is showing up, right here right now, as it is.

Nisargadatta, in a conversation that he had with a visitor, said, ”Remember whatever happens, does so because ‘I am'”. You are the tenth person.* Everything is contained in you. To say, “I am everything” or “I am the whole world” is really redundant. ‘I am’ is “I am the whole world”. The whole world, at the moment, is the totality of your experience that is possible because ‘I am’. Even ‘I am’ is redundant. ‘The world’ is the result of being able to live without the sense of self, without the reflection back in a verbal way.   

The truth that the whole world is contained in ‘I am’ is fundamental. It is not something which we learn, nor is it a philosophy that we acquire. It is not something that we get hold of or get to know about. Everything, every philosophy, everything we get to know about, the whole division of experience in the multiplicity of words comes out of the most fundamental truth, the whole world is ‘I am’. Knowing is being. This is true whether you are conscious of it or not.
... 

 Mu is non reflection. “From the beginning, not a thing is”, or, if you like, “True self is no self.” When Dogen said, “To know the self is to forget the self,” he too is saying no reflection. Let go of the reflection and then you are, as Bassui has pointed out, “one with the ten thousand things”. You must go directly towards simplicity. ‘Letting go,’ ‘non attachment’ is non reflection, non turning back. This takes great courage because in doing so you let go of the sense of self. It seems as though you are dying, because the sense of self gives the illusory sense of existing.   

All religions talk of thee need for the death of the old person and birth of the new. But all that is required is just an unfolding. For a long time we just don’t have the faith. We feel that we have to hang on, we cling, we struggle. But if we can see our practice as the self releasing its grip on the self, we will have the confidence that we are coming home. 

Wherever you are is real; you can never get outside yourself. Theoretically I could duplicate your body in every possible detail, but I cannot duplicate you. I cannot get you outside of yourself in anyway. There is no outside of you, nor is there an inside. 

Nisargadatta told his visitor, “Whatever happens, happens because ‘I am’. All reminds you that you are.” Everything is your face. He went on to say that to experience, you must be.  

When Nisargadatta says that you are, he don’t mean that you are ‘something.’ All that I can say is that you are; I cannot say what you are. I sometimes say that you are pure awareness, or that you are knowing. But this is saying far too much. I say it because I want to direct your orientation away from things and objects. But what you are is truly inexpressible. When I ask, “Who walks?” some people still sit and think about this. And yet I ring the bell, and up they leap and off they go without a thought. Now, who responded to the bell? Who walks? Who bows? Who eats?  

(--from Thoughts Along the Way, Zen Master of the Montreal Zen Center Albert Low’s articles about life, The Spasm of the Mind, by Albert Low 2Oct2014) https://albertlow.wordpress.com

...

*Note: I thought , perhaps, there was a misprint with this word “tenth.” After research I came upon this interesting reference:

In the 2013 film, World War Z, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is riding through the streets of Jerusalem as Jurgen Warmbrunn (Ludi Boeken) explains how the city was able to avoid the zombie apocalypse: 

 The tenth man. If nine of us look at the same information and arrive at the exact same conclusion, it’s the duty of the tenth man to disagree. No matter how improbable it may seem, the tenth man has to start thinking with the assumption that the other nine are wrong.  

While Hollywood may have simplified the idea a bit for the screen, this is apparently a very real tactic which Israel has used in the past. Their military has a unit often referred to as the “devil’s advocate office” [PDF]. And yes, the goal is simply to avoid falling prey to group think.
(from, THE 10TH MAN THEORY, GOD OF DEVIL’S ADVOCATE, July 28, 2014, 5 minute read, by Anoop Rajiv)   http://anooprajeev.com/the-10th-man-theory-god-of-devils-advocate/   

nobody’s side

WIth us. A strange name, “With us.”

“O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people, come and set us free, Lord our God.”(--antiphon, vespers)

Are you with us? someone asks.

You’re either with us or against us, another says. And it becomes clearer.

This side-taking talk is all about God.

With us in no side-taking.

Against us is side-taking.

a, b, c, d, -- the tremendous challenge of being;lettered

Who needs poetry?

Nobody.

What does poetry need?

"Poetry needs the breath. It needs the voice. It needs the body. It needs the mind."

(-- Anne Waldman, "Radical Presence")

OK. Now substitute spelling the word "God" for "poetry."

Now do you see why so few give themselves completely to either one of those spellings?

prologue

Silence means consent.

“O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart; O Keystone of the mighty arch of man, come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust.”
(--antiphon, Vespers)

Dust, the consonants of God. Vowels are God’s breath.

Breath and earth fashion the form of human comprising the word God is.

Cosmos opens its mouth.

It has something to say.

auslander

Start with bread where you are.

Now, go straight.

No need to know where you go.

Roethke tells us, we learn by going where we have to go. 

if God wanted to become human, why not our wanting to become human

“O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

(--antiphon, Vespers)

Humans aren’t certain.

Often befuddled.

Only unhumans are certain and convinced beyond doubt.