this is what is

I wondered after practice this morning about the words by Elie Wiesel. (The content after sitting, and chanting, was about contemplation and The Cloud of Unknowing.) Wiesel's words came to me, "Man defines himself by what disturbs him. and not by what reassures him." And then, "God means movement and not explanation."(--from, Legends of Our Time, The Wandering Jew)

Leaving the chapel/zendo I wondered whether if we did not become disturbed we would not be defined. It felt clearer then, and not encumbered by the possible interpretation that not being disturbed suggested not caring about that which was disturbing.

If not disturbed, is an infinity stretched out as our very being? Or, are we meant to be disturbed (I certainly am) by things and actions that arise contrary and threatening to what we consider the proper or right or humane? Thus, disturbed, we become local, finite, defined.

If heaven is the infinite, down to earth is the definite.

I listened later to someone beginning to talk about his near-death experience:

"I assure you, the only thing you've ever really known is your own consciousness."
"Consciousness is primary and fundamental in the existence of this universe."
(--Eben Alexander III MD, A Neurosurgeon's Journey Through the Afterlife)

 As a Buddhist/Christian, ("You can't say that," said a Catholic priest zen master. "Yes, I can," I responded -- to his smile) -- I hold there is only awareness, or consciousness, or mind. The material world is a manifestation of mind, and, yes, real -- but not the fundamental reality. Which makes this existence dreamlike.

Will you take part in
My life, my love
That is my dream

Life is but a dream
It's what you make it
Always try to give
Don't ever take it
Life has it's music
Life has it's songs of love

(--The Harptones,  1955)

My grandmother used to tell me to mind my mother and father. 

To mind something, now, suggests I enter respectfully and attentively to the reality presenting itself. To go into it. To see it for what it is, as it is, where and when it is.

What, then, is "no-mind"?

When we chant The Heart Sutra we meditate on emptiness. 

Mushin, translated as “no-mind” or “empty mind”, is a state where the mind is not preoccupied by any thought or emotion. It is empty in the sense that it is unbiased, free and adaptable. Mushin is the essence of Zen; and a core princlple of Japanese martial arts. 

In Japan, there is an expression that goes: “mizu no kokoro” or “mind like water”. Mushin is like that, it is like the moon reflected on still water without any ripples and on it’s surface a perfect replica of the moon is reflected, like in a mirror. However, when there are other factors like wind that creates ripples, the image of the moon becomes distorted too. In other words, Mushin is the state when what you observe and what you are become one. The watcher and the watched become the same. When you have thoughts in your mind and your heart, everything is distorted. So you can understand everything and sense everything the way it really is, you have to be completely empty. 

Mushin cannot be grasped with the intellect; it must be experienced.

(--from, Mushin: The Mind Without Mind) 

So, too, this morning, William Menninger ocso told that only God knows our heart. Out intellect might be known by several entities, but our heart, our secret heart, is known only by God. And God is unknowable but by heart.

So, I ask, what disturbs me? That another gunman is shooting in an El Paso mall? That the government is losing interest in the people? That money is the only moral force is business and power?

I am, indeed, disturbed.

I choose the Ganz Allein. The wholly one. The completely alone. The entirely with. That which is through and through loving itself.

In prison yesterday a phase emerged from a reading: "We are afraid of being alone." And, yes, it strikes me that is what God is -- Being Alone.

It is the Shema. The Lord Alone. The Lord is One.

This is what God is!

This!

fifty years later

 Old friends

need know nothing --

ganz allein

rejoice the heart

What does God want?

If God is a transcendent and supreme being beyond imagination, what is wanted?

If "God" is the originary energetic impulse inherent in all manner of matter, is there some destination or goal wanted?

“If we would completely rejoice the heart of God, let us strive in all things to conform ourselves to his divine will. Let us not only strive to conform ourselves, but also to unite ourselves to whatever disposition God makes of us.”  (--Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Uniformity with God’s Will, 5)

  What disposition?

dis·po·si·tion

/ˌdispəˈziSH(ə)n/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1.  a person's inherent qualities of mind and character.

2. the way in which something is placed or arranged, especially in relation to other things.

What is there within us? Inherent?

Or, what is somewhere else? Beyond?

1. • 
     

     
     

     
     

     2.
     the way in which something is placed or arranged, especially in relation to other things.
     "the plan need not be accurate so long as it shows the disposition of the rooms"
     synonyms:

Gazing up at 

The cherry blossoms in spring 

My mind is refreshed 

I can even forget  

The ups and downs of life. 

- Rengetsu (1791-1875). (Dailyzen) 

Either way, it comes down to what is.

It is August.

Time to thank all originators and perpetuators.

Pray to have the heart for it!

a near mortally wounded government

In fifteen months we'll be down to one Democrat candidate for president. 

Between now and then the current occupant of the white house will have exhausted the patience and decency of the greater population. He will either have withdrawn or been deemed utterly unreelectable. 

The Republican Party, damaged beyond recognition after having backed and made excuses for the aberrancy of their prior four years will be splintered into revisionist apologists or reeducated extremists. 

A Democrat will be elected. Who will that Democrat be? It doesn't matter. Whoever it is will be a triage president caring for a near mortally wounded government. 

I think there are hard years ahead.

unitary reality

Listening is the sacrament of silence and forgiveness.

But I remembered once meeting the great humanistic psychotherapist Carl Rogers, who was the grandfather of a good friend. Later, I studied films of him working with patients. I noticed that he rarely spoke, but that his listening was so devout it drew out the truth from his clients like a healing salve. Something he had written had always stayed with me:

Before every session, I take a moment to remember my humanity. There is no experience that this man has that I cannot share with him, no fear that I cannot understand, no suffering that I cannot care about, because I too am human. No matter how deep his wound, he does not need to be ashamed in front of me. I too am vulnerable. And because of this, I am enough. Whatever his story, he no longer needs to be alone with it. This is what will allow his healing to begin.

Sharing our stories helps us to heal. Intuitively, I sensed that the greatest gift I could offer Travis in that moment was my undivided attention. Listening without judgment is probably the simplest, most profound way to connect. It is an act of love.
[...]

Excerpt from: "The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully" by Frank Ostaseski. Scribd.

Each of us is participatory in another’s actions.

Suggesting a deeper prospect of unitary reality.

creation spirituality

In-fleshed

Hands and feet

Touch and travel

Spirit-life

Just

Now

no love, no god

Does saving our soul mean preserving the life of God within and thus without?

Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.”
(—Ignatius of Loyola)

Is this what I have been missing?

Is God before and beyond us as that which is praised, reverenced, and served?

Saying it differently, is that which is praised, reverenced, and served — God?

Do I love God?

And not loving, there is no God?

No love, no God?

For me?

Is God that which is in the very act of praising, referencing, and serving?

Without which nothing else is?

Today is Ignatius’ feast day.

I greet this reality.

vive la différence*

There is a nomadic quality to monads. Wandering away from home into a solitude that longs for home.

We created a motto for our hermitage:

Embodying the dwelling place of the Alone;
Stepping aside to make room for Another.

While looking toward intimacy with all things, all beings -- there is a non-attachment that is called for which some mistake for detachment.

They're not the same thing.

...   ...   ...

* (responding to David Brook's op ed piece, 29july2019)

reversing the blade at each turn

Haiku

      For Sam Manning (d. 9july19)

sculling through narrow

dockage, Sam stood for passage

to smiling kindness 

to love neighbor as self is unambiguous

He has a death grip on everyone's attention.

He will be remembered as a president who shattered the office, broke congress, made criminality his prime bragging right, and left in his wake a disillusioned country. 

He’ll wear all such designations as medals of accomplishment and Emmys of notoriety.

We have in this person a truly disconcerting phenomenon. 

He’s our president. 

We created him.

be an outcast

For a long time poetry has been the way, for me, to see through the world.

I like what I see when I see through poetry.

Be Nobody's Darling  
                  By Alice Walker 

Be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.
Watch the people succumb
To madness
With ample cheer;
Let them look askance at you
And you askance reply.
Be an outcast;
Be pleased to walk alone
(Uncool)
Or line the crowded
River beds
With other impetuous
Fools. 

Make a merry gathering
On the bank
Where thousands perished
For brave hurt words
They said. 

But be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.

There is poetry to putting hands together in gassho whenever passing a cemetery.

Ask those there to pray for us. Invite them to be with God.

My plan is to fashion a tee shirt that says on front:

May God
have  mercy
on your soul 

And on back:

May God
put mercy
in your soul 

I will wear it to every gathering where prejudice and meanness is preached until I get arrested, go to jail, and die in prison.

Someone at Sunday Evening Practice said they'd visit me in prison, sit with me as I lay dying.

That was a kind offer.

(woe)man

This is the age of compromised morality when virtue is for saps and the really cool guys and gals are devoid of any resemblance to family values and religious nobless oblige.

Rather, slime and seduction, mockery and megaphone insults — these are what a real (woe)man, a real leader needs to thrive.

I don’t buy it.

I think that Ms Dowd’s turn to herself as story with self referencing soap operatic memes is a brilliant display of trump-shtick writing mirroring the president-shtick tv show currently running on every channel and reviewed in every news column.

When the Theater of the Absurd had its run last century who would have thought it would be embodied and performed as our daily bread from political and church pulpits much the way Soma was delivered in George Orwell’s Brave New World.

Are we citizens now mere data points for meaningless unconscious consumption of both burlesque governance and parody punditry?

I am loathe to think...

So?

these days

thinking about truth

it cannot be seen

it is God

and who believes in God

just sitting, saturday morning

I don't know

what to think

about this.

...

I don't

know what

to think

about this

...

I

don't know

what

to think about

this

but a whimper

There is a denial of responsibility on part of senate to attend to election health for the country. 

Their tired excuse of staying partisan efforts is ludicrous. 

We are going to have to replace intransigent legislators or see our representative democracy replaced by foe and fiend.

getting on with it

ok

Senate & McConnell refuse election security legislation.

Two things:

I. I'm ok that democracy has run its course with the Republicans in power.
2. I'm ok that Trump has beaten the system and justice, and gotten away with everything.

Now then, my two mile walk through cemetery and harbor side was useful.

And, having watched the Netflix documentary The Great Hack, then, Carole Cadwalladr on TED, I feel what Martin Heidegger's essay on technology warned about has come into play.

Democracy and fairness in elections has played out.

Justice for wrongdoing of people in privileged high places is no longer in play.

ok

Let's get on with it.

Whatever that means.

Lament
BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY 

Listen, children:
Your father is dead.
From his old coats
I'll make you little jackets;
I'll make you little trousers
From his old pants.
There'll be in his pockets
Things he used to put there,
Keys and pennies
Covered with tobacco;
Dan shall have the pennies
To save in his bank;
Anne shall have the keys
To make a pretty noise with.
Life must go on,
And the dead be forgotten;
Life must go on,
Though good men die;
Anne, eat your breakfast;
Dan, take your medicine;
Life must go on;
I forget just why. 

jittai

What does being alive mean?

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Is ‘being’ alive?

Is that the switch? Not that we come to an experience of our aliveness — because such an experience could still leave us alone in our aliveness. Rather, it is ‘being’ that is alive.

Hence, an experience of ‘being alive’ is the first step out of separated existence toward integral existence wherein everything is alive and we are part of vital reality.

It is the first step toward beginning to experience and understand what has been known as the ethic of reciprocity, or, the golden rule.

If everything is alive, and our task is to learn to live in proper relationship with everything and everyone, our attitudes, judgments, laws, and interactions take on a new and profound viewpoint.

Your children are not your children. 

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. 

They come through you but not from you, 

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

(—Khalil Gibran, The Prophet, On Children)

 Life’s longing for itself. 

We long for the ‘Itself’

実態, じったい 

• jittai

• true state 

• actual condition 

• reality

 Itself.

radio drama

Judiciary committee done; Intelligence committee convenes.

If you like the dynamics of rhetoric and persuasive speech, the hearing satisfies.

As a nonpartisan member of the radio audience I appreciate the pro and con efforts of partisan adversaries.

Mueller is hammered, then courted. As a fellow 74 yr old I empathize with the former fbi director’s sometimes stuttering response to the rapid fire shoehorned questions while thumbing through a 400 page report in front of him.

Two things:

1.

I admit to making use of dithering elderly privilege when I dislike any interrogatory sent my way.

2. 

This to Nytimes Bruni op-ed today:

If you’ve read the report you’ve earned the right to be crazed with the obliviousness of those that haven’t. The thing about truth is that it doesn’t care who holds it or who pushes it aside. Truth is it’s own best company. Truth knows that solitude is what it is most given.

Sitting by river in Milo Maine, dog licking water from his coat, the second hearing begins.

Mueller must be tired of the questions. 

So many of us are tired of what the presidency has become and what Congress is not.

surround it with inner space

There is great delight in close and reflective reading, in intelligent and insightful conversation.

Bill Moyers is known for facilitating both.

Bill: What about the notion of creating something from nothing? 

Hugh: You have to have nothing in order to really make something. You have to enter yourself in order to find. He power — to get the gift of being able to emanate something. You have to create space — or allow space to occur. Rilke once said that in order to know a tree, you have to surround it with inner space — only in your renouncing is it truly there.
 (P.6, Bill Moyers, Genesis, A Living Conversation) 

It is a time in our culture and mythology for a new metaphor to stretch us into the contemporary and atemporal beyond.

Inner space is outer manifestation.

Behold what is within without.

finally

Tolstoy wrote of Mosaic Law and Eternal Law

Jesus, he said, acknowledged the former but proclaimed the latter --

Something passing passes; what is perennial is loving wisdom