I am in your debt.

Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your fellow men you have carried out your obligations. All the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and so on, are summed up in this single command: You must love your neighbour as yourself. Love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour; that is why it is the answer to every one of the commandments.
(--Romans 13:8 - 10)

Who can say, "I am you."

Amness is amnesty. Isness is forgiveness.When we don't awake to Being, when we fail to remember Being, we consequently do not practice forgiveness -- not extending it nor receiving it. Forgiveness is the all-encompassing. Nothing is left out. It is only when we intentionally and repeatedly attempt to push ourselves away from the all-encompassing, when we attempt in word and act to push others out and away from the all-encompassing, that we dwell in unreality and illusion, thereby choosing to live in a false and insubstantial realm of what has traditionally been called 'sin' and also known as delusion. This delusion very often harms everyone encountering the delusional aspect of fragmentation and separation.

We are, as many are coming to understand, better people than harming and hurting agents fostering separation and divisiveness.

We must remember, recall, and re-embody what we really and truly are -- being all-encompassing.

“There is no material that exists for the production of Name and Form; and when Name and Form cease, they do not go anywhither in space. After Name and Form have ceased, they do not exist anywhere in the shape of heaped-up music material. Thus when a lute is played upon, there is no previous store of sound and when the music ceases it does not go anywhither in space. When it has ceased, it exists nowhere in a stored-up state. Having previously been non-existent, it came into existence on account of the structure and stem of the lute and the exertions of the performer; and as it came into existence so it passes away. In exactly the same way, all elements of being, both corporeal and non-corporeal come into existence after having previously been non-existent; and having come into existence passes away.”
-- Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

Nothing comes and nothing goes. In Vedanta it is called pure consciousness.

Nothing else to be said.

Hospitality welcomes everyone as themselves.
Who's there to fool?
Stay who, stay where, you are.

We become sick allowing ego to rule and control. (Ill, us, I, on). We grow ill when "I" is always on and dominating.

We live mostly in illusion. It isn't life or existence that is illusory. Many of us are full of illusion.

A single path upwards
The thousand sages
Do not assist me.
- Jiun Sonja (1718-1804)

Worst part is it's impossible to figure out for sure why anyone does anything.

Let's begin a new version of play -- (ludo, ludere, lusi, lusus = to play) -- wherein we play with and in the world, we play with and for one another, and we play lightened by the joy of playing through life.

To live in illusion is not to play well with others, to be dead serious instead of alively playful.

Let's be well.

And playful.

Within.

Ourselves.

If politicians lead by example, we are a people of put-downs. We are meant to mock and denigrate our opponents. We are to admit no mistake, to say nothing but talking points that repeat verbatim the same response to whatever question is asked, and, finally, if the modeling is effective, to encourage one another to slash and burn, destroy and eliminate anyone standing in our way. It's a strategy resembling 'take no prisoners' but is more like imprisoning everyone in disdain and dismissive dislike. Except, of course, the true believers who will sacrifice intelligent inquiry and settle for mindless prattle that has nothing at all to do with anything but creating an enemy and defeating that enemy. Whatever the political affiliation, these men and women serve something other than you and me, something a little bit below our dignity and honor.

It's an odd leadership and an odd way to lead.

There was a monk who asked the Master, “Does a person who has had sudden awakening still need to continue with cultivation?”
The Master said, “If one has true awakening and attains to the fundamental, then at that time that person knows for himself that cultivation and non cultivation are just dualistic opposites. Like now, though the initial inspiration is dependent on conditions, if within a single thought one awakens to one’s own reality, there are still certain habitual tendencies that have accumulated over numberless kalpas which cannot be purified in a single instant. That person should certainly be taught how to gradually remove the karmic tendencies and mental habits: this is cultivation. There is no other method of cultivation that need to be taught to that person.”
- Kuei-shan Ling-yu (771-853)

With our words we create the world and each other. How are we doing?

"The origin of language is in essence mysterious. And this means that language can only have arisen from the overpowering, the strange, and the terrible, through man’s departure into being. In this departure, language was being, embodied in the word: poetry. Language is the primordial poetry in which a people speaks being.”
(--Martin Heidegger, in An Introduction to Metaphysics)

If we wished to save the world, or enlighten every person, would we do it with our next words and our next words after them?

One does not discover the absurd without attempting to write a manual of happiness. "What! by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
(--from The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus)

I am not happy unless you are.

Well...

Well?

Sometimes you don't care. It's easy to care and it's easy not to care. Caring is tidal. It's noticeable at either lift or bottom. It's a matter of whether caring is worth caring about.

Weary, I yearn for the forest and hills;
Against my will, ten years have I spent
In the world of men.
Burning incense, I take leave of the assembly,
Shunning worldly affairs, I depart.
The mist invites me and I know that it is time to rest.
Men of little talent are not guests fond of mountains.
Men of little virtue do not make companions for gathering leaves.
Should someone ask, “When will you come back?”
I would reply, “The white clouds and the green water
Are boundless and serene.
- Jiun Sonja (1718-1804)

So much is about suffering, the stranger, and service. Maybe they're the tree sisters of ethics. How well do we treat these sisters?

Life is difficult. Life is easy. If we choose either of these statements we are likely to write a story that will confirm the chosen statement.

We're here to live our lives, not live a story. Our lives are fraught with turns, joys, and disappointments.

We pray to see our way through.

Take care. Be care. Or don't

You'll be just fine.

Watched film "Recount." Thing about the past is it never changes. Although someone said when you change your mind, you change the world, past and present. Maybe the better man won and the world went to hell. Maybe the better man lost, and the world went to hell. Politics and elections are not about the best person leading. Politics is about winning. That's all.

When hungry, eat.
When cold, put on clothes
Even children three feet tall,
Are aware of these things.
The teaching beyond doctrine
Is transparently clear;
Why should you have your eyes open
And still act foolishly?
Someone asked me for one of my
Coarse comments,
So I wrote out the above gatha
As a response.
- Isshi Bunchu (1608-1645)

The waitress at breakfast in Belfast said she didn't care for any of them. It's all talk, she said.

It takes a powerful faith to posit the truth will out. And if the truth does out, it is spun and spun until dizzy and unrecognizable. Truth staggers away unsure and impertinent.

They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.
(--Luke 4: 30)

Jesus is nearly unrecognizable. People create image and caricature and wonder where the true man disappeared. They are left holding words no dictionary could breath life back into.

A peanut butter slather on rye toast with cherry preserves on top helps put things into perspective.

Clearly we are not going to throw anyone off a cliff.

What is to be true between us?

Questions being asked: Will the storm nix the Republican Convention? Whose baby is it in Alaska? Is the cross actually the between place, the unifying action that eliminates "other" and "opposite"?

This mind has from the very beginning been independent of birth and death. It is neither green nor yellow, without form and characteristics. It does not belong to either existence or nothingness, and it cannot be reckoned as either young or old. It is neither long nor short, neither large nor small. It transcends all limitations, words, and traces. It is just this very thing- if you stir a thought, you miss it. It is like empty space, without limits, beyond conceptualization. It is only this One Mind that is Buddha, and Buddha is not different from sentient beings.
- Huang-po (d. 850)

It's a tense time.

Political storm as well as hurricane storms mainland. Things will be upset. Change to occur.

About the cross: To die on the cross is to create no other.

Thirty six years ago this day the boy born in a river town hospital is today a fine man going camping without his tomato sauce but with fresh scones. He, too, thinks about the storm and the baby.

A new koan arises: Why did Jesus die on the cross? Because no one had to enter the reality of fractured humanity and remove the cult of the broken. "No one" was his true name. He did nothing other than place "itself" at center. God died for no other reason than to remove "other" from the equation.

Each is now itself.

At center we are free.

A lovely way to be!