"I said nothing in secret. Why question me? " (Jesus, in John's account of the Passion)

After late spring rain
The falling petals swirl
Weightlessly; celestial scent
Covers my patched robe
A simple vacant mind
Has no place to go
Resting on the peak
I watch the clouds return.
- Han-shan Te-ch?’ing (1546-1623)

If we are to understand the resurrection we will have to come face-to-face with nothing.

"I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus replied.
"I always taught in synagogues or at the temple,
where all the Jews come together.
I said nothing in secret.
Why question me?
Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said."

When Jesus said this,
one of the officials nearby struck him in the face.
(from John 18:12-27, NIV)

Did his saying that he said "nothing" in secret get Jesus slapped and killed?

No wonder we are so frightened about nothing.

The will of God -- "this way of the good will," as Rudolf Bultmann uses the phrase -- follows:
...but he taught men that the present instant is the moment of decision, in which it is possible to yield up every claim of one's own and submit obediently to the will of God. It is this way of the good will, that Jesus preached, which leads man directly to the awareness of his own unworthiness and worthlessness in the sight of God, and of his own situation as faced with inevitable decision; it is only here that he learns the profoundest meaning of God's forgiveness, which one can receive only as a little child.
(p.74, in Form Criticism, by Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Kundsin, c.1934)

Nothingness, emptiness, vacancy -- the requisites for resurrection.

Was Jesus' resurrection his very incarnation? Was there no "decision" to be made? ("Decision" means "cutting away the other.") Was Jesus' incarnation the undeciding of divine/human?

Nothing left out. Nothing to insanely reach for. Nothing to own. Nothing to lose.

The whole is the whole -- it cannot be divided. Nothing can said about undivided wholeness.

Jesus said nothing when Pilate asked him, "What is truth?"

When Jesus said 'nothing,' when Jesus said 'this'...he was struck in the face.

If nothing, we've forgotten this about Jesus.

The sun slants through trees and comes in to Mu-ge our black and white coon cat lazing on daybed in kitchen.

When we awake, will we remember?

Note: Meetingbrook will be closed and on retreat Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We will re-open Tuesday 13 April. May the reflections invited by this time deepen the resolve for peace, truth, and love in each heart!
...........................


Easter.

Once, word was made flesh.

Now body returns as silence dwelling within us. Carefully -- light and truth .

Like salt in water,
Like adhesive in coloring,
It is certainly there,
But you don’t see its form;
So is the monarch of mind.
Dwelling inside the body,
Going in and out the senses,
It responds freely to beings,
According to conditions,
Without hindrance, succeeding,
At all it does.
- Fu Shan-hui (487-659)

Morning's first nuthatch lands on feeder outside chapel/zendo just before sunrise at 6:02am.

May the risen Lord
breathe on our minds and open our eyes
that we may know him in the breaking of the bread,
and follow him in his risen life.
(--from Alternative Prayer, Easter Sunday, Lauds)

Breathe, and open!

A seeing silence.

Yes.