Overheard in Friday Evening Conversation:
“I don’t believe in God,
I conceive in God.”
We find ourselves asking:
‘What is it we are trying
to bring into being?”
God is not-yet here
prayer opens heart and mind
to what-is (revealing) God
In prison this morning, poem by Naomi Shihab Nye:
Different Ways to Pray
Our prayer is conversation.
All prayer turns to look at what is there as what is here.*
I have forgotten how to pray
Once, once I thought I knew how —
Now, no idea — sheer emptiness
My Muslim
Brother
Asks about
Prayer
I say
Pay no attention to me
Prayer is when
Everything goes away
Except that which is
Still coming to be*
being
a contemplative
conceals
nothing, not a thing
rather
opens without sound
sight
without recognition of
what
is presenting Itself
within
exterior disappearance
Mirror image.
At the summit:
One rude hut, the snow,
This lonely body, and the wind,
I lean on the rail, heart suddenly struck;
The moon rises from within Great River -there.
—Yuan Mei (1716-1798)
I can barely climb stairs
Here, one disheveled room, after-rain
This broken down body
Silent bed, arrhythmia drumroll
Dawn breeze pushes branches on cedar
—-wfh (today)
clips of commander-in-chief
at most inarticulate
so sad so embarrassing
if I was a praying man
i'd pray for him
but, no, I don’t think I will
don’t want to encourage
god to do something against god’s
interest in caring loving justice
neighbor brings bouquet of flowers
waves from down dooryard, I nod, fairly
undressed, their sweet thoughtful gift
I am not writing a novel in French.
Nor a play in German
No poem in Spanish
I write some pensées
Some quick kurze beinamen
As well as metáforas rápidas
Insignificant brushstrokes
Things in themselves with
No sustaining narrative to speak of —
Speculative nonsense
General impertinence
Discarded drivel
I am a child of this administration
Nothing matters but grift and graft
I wander an equally meaningless life
When his time comes
Many will shrug shoulders
Say ‘he was crude and vile’
Will go to bed delighted
The blight is over
Such an annoying response:
46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
(—Matthew12: 46-50)
Still, we think about it.
Plotinus (204--270 c.e.) wondered: If God is perfect, how can an imperfect world exist?
(As Genesis and Eden pointed out: Damned if I know!)
Tricky, isn’t it? Trying to figure out what ancient scriptures are saying?
That which is moving through is perfect
That mucked and mired unmoving through is imperfect
Look, I’m not saying anything about good or evil
I’m saying Plotinus wondered... I’m saying I’m wandering...
Through, and through, and through
red dump-truck barrels up barnestown --
nothing in it
sitting in chair by window, watching --
nothing in me
Peepers through night
Sparrows and red wing blackbirds
Just after sunrise
Cat in window
Cars heading east on road —
This, this, everything to love
In prison this morning
we spoke about AI, quantum computing
and consciousness
Excitement and hesitation filled room
How will we know when we don’t
Know what is good for us
Sit for a second. Take steps a few inches. Breathe once or twice.
And don’t think you’re anything special.
Of all good works, zazen comes first,
for the merit of only one step into it
surpasses that of erecting a thousand temples.
Even a moment of sitting will enable you
to free yourself from life and death,
and your Buddha nature will appear of itself.
Then all you do, perceive, and think
becomes part of the miraculous Tathagata-suchness.
--Meiho (1277–1350)
I have no way of knowing who I am.
Looking out over greening branches and wet road, there is nothing else I want.
Thank you!
(You’re welcome.)
no eyes no ears no nose no mouth
what a silly sutra
no grass no hill no tree no brook
wait a minute --
when each everything is itself
no need to separate into two or many
also no need not to, --- names names
names --- when I walk, I walk
when I look I look, sitting I sit
who asks silly koan questions?
when I approach the yurt
the yurt approaches me --
when brook flows toward Hosmer
Hosmer swims up brook to mountain
nearing death, death nears me
so close to one -- another -- unknowing MU
Silly talk
Enlightenment, awakening
Ecstasy
Brrrr . . .
Desire, desire, desire —
Gimme, gimme
Morning rain
Wet road
Puddles by wood gate
Ghost of Thomas Merton
Wanders aimlessly —
Not caring how he died
For a split second there is
No first — then
Yes, yes — no me, (he whispers)
Wandering into St Francis Church
in Manhattan in 1962
Behind veil of confessional
I told the friar I felt I was resisting a vocation
to be a Franciscan.
The presumptive hubris of an eighteen year old just elevated from mailroom to actuarial trainee at New York Life Insurance Company after being told by academic dean to take some time away from freshman year in college to decide if I was serious about attending college studies.
Sixty four years later, sitting in wohnküche, reading Beneath the Mask of Holiness, by Mark Shaw about Thomas Merton’s relationship with a young nurse and its historical surround, I feel unusually confessional, à la Kerouac or Lowell, a ruse unsubstantiated by any sustained sincerity going forward, where I’d be more Robert Lax than Thomas Merton, vaguely avant-garde versus conventionally essayist, and, in actuality, neither.
Ain’t that the joy of literature!
At Friday Evening Conversation, the question was asked about our favorite book. Instantly I allowed as how my favorite book (surprisingly) was Los cipreses creen en Dios (1953) about the Spanish Civil War.
José María Gironella (born December 31, 1917, Darníus, Gerona, Spain—died January 3, 2003, Arenys de Mar) was a Spanish author best remembered for his long historical novel Los cipreses creen en Dios (1953; The Cypresses Believe in God), in which the conflicts within a family portrayed in the novel symbolize the dissension that overtook the people of Spain during the years preceding the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39. The book, which won the National Prize for Literature, was the first explanation of the origins of that war that was well received by the Spaniards themselves.
cf. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jose-Maria-Gironella
Also, cf https://thelampmagazine.com/issues/issue-08/fight-kill-die
As I recall from my reading of it some sixty years ago, it was the final page, final paragraph, final line that embedded itself into my emotional luggage that carried it to mind in the conversation.
I’m not fond of ‘favorites’ questions. Our plucking memories are too weak-fingered to sustain such retrieval and assessment. But I remember Gironella and my Franciscan mate Gilberto recommending it to me between assassinations in the sixties.
While at it, read the Robert Lax poem Kalymnos: November 29, 1968 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58583/kalymnos-november-29-1968
It ends like this:
11in theendlesscitythe end-less citythe beg-gars arein oneplacethe copsin an-otherthe finepeoplehere& thepoorpeoplethere(each hashis parisheach hisprecinct)in the endlessendlessendlesscity
Source: Poetry (December 2015)
