Closed out the old yearBreathing out, everything begins anew.
And held a dream of spring behind
Eyes shut, till now
This morning I open them to see
It's really come into the world
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
The Way transcends any aspect ofA retiring personality. Retiring from the world.
Going or coming,
Movement or quiescence,
So one cannot realize satori by
Waiting for it.
- Daito (1282-1334)
The end is certain, and the means as well. To this we say “Amen.”We will be told exactly what God wills for us each time there is a choice to make. And He will speak for God and for your Self, thus making sure that hell will claim you not, and that each choice you make brings Heaven nearer to your reach. And so we walk with Him from this time on, and turn to Him for guidance and for peace and right direction. Joy attends our way. For we go homeward to an open door which God has held unclosed to welcome us.
(--from Epilogue, in A Course in Miracles)Retiring to bed.
Beyond the point where the riversThinking, listening, looking, connecting.
End and the mountains vanish
You have kept on walking
Originally the treasure lies
Just under one's feet
You made the mistake of thinking
That now you would be able
To retire in peace
Look: in your own hut the
Meditation mat has never been warm.
- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)
Stop searching for phrases and chasing after words.Now I don't think that way.
Take the backward step and turn the light inward.
Your body-mind of itself will drop
off and your original face will appear.
If you want to attain just this,
immediately practice just this.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
If you desire to meet the real Buddha,We have to be it and see it. Sometimes it happens. Most times it takes practice just to realize there is a question about one's presence that is vital.
you must see your True-nature.
Unless you see your True-nature,
even if you recite the Buddha's name,
read sutras, and uphold the precepts,
you will just be wasting your time.
- Daito (1282-1334)
HE ASKED FOR CHARITY
God came to my house and asked for charity.
And I fell on my knees and
cried, “Beloved,
what may I
give?”
“Just love,’ He said.
And:“Just love.”(--St Francis of Assisi, p.33, Ladinsky)
A KIND FACE
Joy is the greatest cleanser, and it is
the greatest testimony to our
faith.
“Toil with happiness,” my Lord once
said to me.
God sent a servant on an errand
through a dangerous part
of the world.
The servant, having received in hand
what God wanted
delivered,
turned to the Holy and said,
My Beloved Master, do you have a final instruction?"
and God replied,
“A kind face is a
precious
gift.”
(P.34, Ladinsky Daniel, 2002. in, Love Poems from God. Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West. Penguin Group.)Let's face it.
Here isOne imagines hearing the following:
where there
is
(--Robert Creeley, in Collected Poems, p.547)
"Now is he redeemed. And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God." (ACIM)How to think about this prefacing morning? Cat purrs on chest. Last night's embers rekindled in woodstove as dawn stars guide dog and cat out Wohnkuche sliding door to morning pee. The night was giving way. We are its quiet remains.
Every year the sea breezePerhaps this is a nativity reflection for this morning. There is one. World. Only.
ruffles the cold and lovely pearls
hidden in the center of the flowers
as if remembering them
by touch alone.
A calm and lonely, trembling beauty
that frightened me in youth.
Now their loneliness
feels familiar, one small thing
I've learned these years,
how to be alone,
and at the edge of aloneness
how to be found by the world.
Innocence is what we allow
to be gifted back to us
once we've given ourselves away.
There is one world only,
the one to which we gave ourselves
utterly, and to which one day
we are blessed to return.
(~ David Whyte ~ from, House of Belonging)
file:///Volumes/meetingbrook/poem,%20Ten%20Years%20Later%20--%20David%20Whyte.webarchive
A curtain of cloud hangsStill, heaven and earth.
Before the meditation seat
An ice wheel of moonlight
Turns through the railing
Don't say I have erased
All trace of attainment
Behind me there are still
Heaven and earth.
- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)
Christmas Haiku:Cat and dog are in. Saskia gone to family. Cold wind passing through.
If I were you I’d
wonder why I’d written this
to someone I am
Our use for words is almost over now. Yet in the final days of this one year we gave to God together, you and I, we found a single purpose that we shared. And thus you joined with me, so what I am are you as well. The truth of what we are is not for words to speak of nor describe. Yet we can realize our function here, and words can speak of this and teach it, too, if we exemplify the words in us.What happens when the words become exemplification?
(--from December 20th - Lesson 354, A Course in Miracles))
Zen-sitting is the way of perfect tranquility:Twitterless un-con-consciousness without illusions -- sign me up!
Inwardly not a shadow of perception,
Outwardly not a shade of difference
Between phenomena.
Identified with yourself,
You no longer think,
Nor do you seek enlightenment
Of the mind or disburdenment of illusions.
You are a flying bird with
No mind to twitter, a mountain
Unconscious of the others rising around it.
- Meiho (1277–1350)
The Original SelfA few days to Christmas. Today, I am alive.
Even those who have set aside all judgments of right and wrong and do not view people in terms of self and other cannot be said to be truly on the Way as long as they have not seen the original state before personal history.
- Muso Kokushi (1275-1351)
Death and life are looked onA student writes:
As but transformations;
The myriad creation is all of a kind,
There is a kinship through all.
- Huai Nan Tzu (2nd c. BCE)
"I tried to think logically about how the story could be the way it was but if you just let it be… it is. Being transcnds reason. Being allows for everything to be at once.”She sees something here.
-- Melyssa K, 15dec2010
Then Isaiah said:All obedience is contained in the phrase: "Listen now."
‘Listen now, House of David:
are you not satisfied with trying the patience of men
without trying the patience of my God, too?
The Lord himself, therefore,
will give you a sign.
It is this: the maiden is with child
and will soon give birth to a son
whom she will call Immanuel,
a name which means “God-is-with-us.”’
(-from Isaiah 7:10-14)
He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’ Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet:We are, it feels. far from home as we listen to the fears and frustrations, savaging and sycophanting, noisily clanking though the streets and hallways of our collective sleep and disturbing dreams.The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel...a name which means ‘God-is-with-us.’ When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home.
(-from Matthew1:18-24)
Nature may be compared to a vast ocean. Thousands and millions of changes are taking place in it. Crocodiles and fish are essentially of the same substance as the water in which they live. People are crowded together with the myriad other things in the Great Changingness, and their nature is one with that of all other natural things. Knowing that I am of the same nature as all other natural things, I know that there is really no separate self, no separate personality, no absolute death and no absolute life.It is the ordinary that sustains us.
- T'ien T'ung-Hsu (8th c.)
If you miss the mark even by a strand of hair,Maggie turned 90 today. Gertrude read the same poem twice and recited her quote twice. She's 91.
You are as distant as heaven from earth.
If the slightest discrimination occurs,
You will be lost in confusion.
You could be proud of your understanding;
Have abundant realization, or acquire
Outstanding wisdom and attain the way
By clarifying the mind. Still, if you
Are wandering about in your head,
You may miss the vital path of letting your body leap.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
Dewdrops,
let me cleanse
in your brief,
sweet waters
these dark hands of life.
- Basho (1644-1694)
This is what a vocation is: to listen, and by listening to call out from concealment that which longs for communion, commonality, and commensurability.Dialogue is important for Panikkar but not purely mechanical or informative dialogue but rather what he calls “dialogical dialogue” which leads to recognizing difference but also to what we have in common, which in the end produces mutual fecondation. Dialogue is not a luxury for mankind, it is something absolutely necessary and inter-religious dialogue plays an important role. By this Panikkar does not mean an abstract theoretical dialogue, a dialogue about beliefs, he means a deep-reaching human dialogue in which one seeks the collaboration of the other for mutual realization since wisdom consists in being able to listen. Religion is not an experiment for him, it is an experience, an experience of life through which one is part of the cosmic adventure, with neither worry nor anxiety. This, for example, leads him to put forward the notion of “identity”. He was once asked during an interview: “Where do you find your identity?” His answer was:” By losing it rather than looking for it: by not wanting to hold onto an identity which has not yet been fulfilled and therefore is impossible to find in the past because it would only be a copy of something old. Life is a risk; adventure is radical innovation; creation comes about day after day, it is something absolutely new and unforeseeable”.(-- from Laudatio of Raimon Panikkar Alemany, during the solemn academic ceremony of his investiture as Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Girona. Presented by Prof. Josep-Maria Terricabras, sponsor of the new Doctor.)
The real way circulates everywhere;I'm dwelling in this very place.
How could it require
Practice or enlightenment?
The essential teaching is fully available;
How could effort be necessary?
Furthermore, the entire mirror is
Free of dust; why take steps to polish it?
Nothing is separate from this
Very place; why journey away?
- Dogen (1200-1253)
Trying to find a buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It's not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can't grab it. Beyond this mind you'll never see a buddha. The buddha is a product of your mind. Why look for a buddha beyond this mind?I will be staying closer to home. I suspect the return home nears. I find little reason to leave home.
- Bodhidharma (d. 533)
His visit with the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan monks impressed Merton more than all other Asian encounters. Of course, these Tibetans have experienced Marxism as a force that destroyed much of their monastic structure. And Merton is confronting Marxism also as a political force that destroyed all structures. What happens when these structures are destroyed? In the future, he says, we will not rely on structures. We cannot be sure whether any of the structures with which we are familiar will outlast even our lifetime. What then are we supposed to do? What is the essence of monastic life?
Here is the high point of his whole Bangkok talk, the background of which is the story of Trungpa Rimpoche, who moved to the U.S. and founded a number of lively, prospering meditation centers. Merton met him on his Asian journey and was impressed. When the communists invaded Tibet, Trungpa Rimpoche was abbot of a large monastery, but was out on a visitation and got caught by the invasion at some farmhouse. Now the question was, what should he do? Should he go back to his own monastery, or should be flee across the border? He sent a message to a nearby abbot-friend to ask, “What shall we do?” The abbot sent back a message which Merton found most significant: “From now on, Brother, everybody stands on his own feet.”
Merton goes on to say, “To my mind, this is an extremely important monastic statement.” (Remember, this man is now speaking in the last hours of his life!) “If you forget everything else that has been said, I would suggests that you remember this for the future: ‘From now on, each one will have to stand on his own feet.’” He throws everything back on each monk personally: “Don’t rely on structure; stand on your own feet.” Then Merton expresses his relationship to structures: “Yes, we do need structures; we are supported by structures. But they may be destroyed at any moment by a political power or a political force. We cannot rely on structures. Use structures, but do not rely on structures.”
The moment we stand on our own two feet, the moment we find contemplative life at the root of monastic life, deep down in our own hearts, in our own center, we go beyond division. That is the third essential that Merton sifts out in facing the monastic identity crisis: that the Christian monastic calling is one that unites us with all monks. There again is this crack where he breaks out from the enclosed shell of a Trappist, Christian, monastic structure into universal monasticism. Monks East and West share the same quest, the contemplative quest of the human heart, in which we are all united. We go beyond division to an inner liberty which no one can touch.
Merton sees the essence: “What is essential in the monastic life is not embedded in buildings, not in a habit, not necessarily even in a rule.” (That must sound like enormous heresy to some.) “It is somewhere along the line of something deeper than a rule. It is concerned with this business of total inner transformation.” Once we have reached that last quest for total inner transformation, to quote Saint Paul, “there is no longer slave or free-born, there is no longer Jew or Gentile,” there is no longer Asian or European, but we have transcended these divisions. “This kind of monasticism,” Merton said in his last talk, “this kind of monasticism cannot be extinguished. It is imperishable; it represents an instinct of the human heart.”
(from, Thomas Merton, Now at the Crack of Dawn, by Br. David Steindl-Rast, OSB, http://www.gratefulness.org/readings/dsr_merton-crack2.htmThe Heart Sutra, chanted at this morning's practice, has a section that says:
Therefore, O Sariputra,in emptiness there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness ;
No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind ; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind ; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to :
No mind-consciousness element ; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to : There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.
There is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment.
(trans. by E. Conze)
IXWe renew our promises, watch film biography, and eat pizza.
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles
On Going to see a Taoist master
A dog barksI lean on the realization that Merton is so right for Meetingbrook.
Amid the sound of water;
A heavy dew stains
Peach blossoms.
In these deep woods,
I see several deer;
At noon along the stream,
I hear no temple bell.
Wild bamboo
Divides grey clouds;
Waterfalls hang
From blue peaks.
No way to tell
Where you've gone;
Disheartened, I lean
Against a second, now a third pine.
- Li Po (701-762)
To search for enlightenment or nirvana beyond this mind is impossible. The reality of your own self-nature, the absence of cause and effect, is what's meant by mind. Your mind is nirvana. You might think you can find a buddha or enlightenment somewhere beyond the mind, but such a place doesn't exist.Rory Kinnear as Hamlet was felt through and through.
- Bodhidharma (d. 533)
There ’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’t is not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is ’t to leave betimes?Thoroughly felt.
(--Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2. by William Shakespeare)
Wondering if it's a winter shower,If I was born immaculately whole, something broke afterwards.
I wake in my bed
And hear them:
The leaves that
Couldn't withstand the storm.
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
"Sweep away thoughts!" means one must do zazen. Once thoughts are quieted, the Original Face appears. Thoughts can be compared to clouds. When clouds vanish, the moon appears. The moon of suchness is the Original Face. Thoughts are also like the fogging of a mirror. When you wipe away all condensation, a mirror reflects clearly. Quiet your thoughts and behold your Original Face before you were born!When death nears, there's a question asked: "What happens at the end, what happens after death?"
- Daito (1282-1334)
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor—one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same
. . . Here at least/ We shall be free . . .
we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. (I:251-263)
— John Milton (Paradise Lost)
“Each time society, through unemployment, frustrates the small man in his normal functioning and normal self-respect,” Hannah Arendt wrote in her 1945 essay “Organized Guilt and Universal Responsibility,” “it trains him for that last stage in which he will willingly undertake any function, even that of hangman.” (-- Chris Hedges, Happy as a Hangman, Truthdig, 6Dec2010)We have good reason to be wary. There seems to be, oddly, a concerted effort to widen the imbalance of those who have far more than they need and those who have far less than they need.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his book “The Gulag Archipelago” writes about a close friend who served with him in World War II. Solzhenitsyn’s defiance of the Communist regime after the war saw him sent to the Soviet gulags. His friend, loyal to the state, was sent there as an interrogator. Solzhenitsyn was forced to articulate a painful truth. The mass of those who serve systems of terrible oppression and state crime are not evil. They are weak.I'm confounded by the way the economic institutions in our country and world operate with such ease of function to reap enormous profits while, at the same time, finding new ways to extract money and encourage debt from so many ordinary citizens who have no resources to counterbalance the system or money brokers in our midst.
“If only there were vile people ... committing evil deeds, and if it were only necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them,” Solzhenitsyn wrote. “But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
(--from, Happy as a Hangman, by Chris Hedges, on Truthdig, Posted on Dec 6, 2010, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/happy_as_a_hangman_20101206/
To drink up the ocean and turn a mountainI look at the mountain full of falling snow and ask it about its original face. It looks back at me -- frowning, furrowing, befuddled, and dispirited.
Upside down is an ordinary affair for a Zennist.
Zen seekers should sit on the site of universal
Enlightenment right in the midst of all the thorny
Situations in life,
And recognize their original face while mixing
With the ordinary world.
- Huanglong
Snow
At every hand there are moments we
cannot quite grasp or understand. Free
to decide, to interpret, we watch rain
streaking down the window, the drain
emptying, leaves blown by a cold wind.
At least we sense a continuity in
such falling away. But not with snow.
It is forgetfulness, what does not know,
has nothing to remember in the first place.
Its purpose is to cover, to leave no trace
of anything. Whatever was there before—
the worn broom leaned against the door
and almost buried now, the pile of brick,
the bushel basket filling up with thick,
gathering whiteness, half sunk in a drift—
all these things are lost in the slow sift
of the snow's falling. Now someone asks
if you can remember—such a simple task—
the time before you were born. Of course
you cannot, nor can I. Snow is the horse
that would never dream of running away,
that plods on, pulling the empty sleigh
while the tracks behind it fill, and soon
everything is smooth again. No moon,
no stars, to guide your way. No light.
Climb up, get in. Be drawn into the night.
(--Poem, Snow, by Jared Carter, from Poetry, c.1999, 2003)The mountain continues to fill with snow.
Now, in this world and in other worlds, in India and China, buddha ancestors equally carry the buddha seal and teach the practice of sitting immersed in steadfastness. Although circumstances may vary in a thousand ways, whole-heartedly practice Zen, giving yourself fully to the Way. Why give up the sitting platform of your own house and wander uselessly in the dust of a remote land?I consider myself a wanderer.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
The knowledge of the pure clean mindThe good thing about rowing around Curtis Island in middle afternoon is that the light fades and when there is a northerly wind the exercise you get is not an elective choice. Rather you are rowing against exhaustion to get back to inner harbor and not get blown out across the bay or slump over thwart with heart failure.
Is as yellow gold to the world;
The spiritual treasury of wisdom is
All in the body and mind.
The uncreated spiritual treasury
Is neither shallow nor deep.
The buddhas and bodhisattvas
Understand this basic mind;
For those who have the chance
To encounter it, it is not
Past, future, or present.
- Fu Shan-hui (487-659)
He cried:That's it.
That's it! That's it! That's it. That's me! That's me that's shining so brilliantly!
How deeply he was moved and what wonder he felt. From this comes all of the Buddha's dharma. From within this state of mind the Buddha said:
How wondrous, how wondrous! All beings are endowed with this pure nature! What a wondrous, astonishing thing has been realized! All the ten thousand things, all the flowers, all the trees, all the rocks, all things everywhere are shining brilliantly! What an amazing thing! It's the same landscape, but how brilliantly it is illuminated! What freshness is everything!
From within this deep illumination of the mind of the Buddha, all the Buddha's wisdom was born. All of Zen is held within the deep impression of the Buddha's mind at that moment.
People vow to experience this very same experience of the Buddha as they approach the rohatsu sesshin. In every single Zen dojo, people put their lives on the line to be able to experience the exact same state of mind, on the eighth of December, as that of the Buddha. This is the firm vow with which they come to the rohatsu sesshin.
(--from Morning Dewdrops of the Mind: Teachings of a Contemporary Zen Master, by Roy Tribelhorn, Shodo Harada Roshi, c.1993)
Instead, our meeting is so brief and accidental,How fortunate we smile on each other.
unnoticed by the monocled eye of History,
you could be the man I held the door for
this morning at the bank or post office
or the one who wrapped my speckled fish.
You could be someone I passed on the street
or the face behind the wheel of an oncoming car.
(--from poem, Dear Reader, by Billy Collins)
Do not say the mind monarch is emptyNo bobbing and sinking.
In having no essential nature;
It can cause the physical body to do
Wrong or do right.
Neither being nor nonbeing,
It is concealed and revealed
Without fixation.
Although the essence of mind is empty,
It can be ordinary and can be saintly:
Therefore I urge you to guard it yourself
Carefully; a moment of contrivance,
And you back to bobbing and sinking.
- Fu Shan-hui (487-659)
Study the Way and never grow oldVideo of Anthony de Mello at table portion of practice tonight. Good words.
Distrust emotions; truth will emerge
Sweep away your worries
Set even your body aside
Autumn drives off the yellow leaves
Yet spring renews every green bud
Quietly contemplate the pattern of things
Nothing here to make us sad
- Shih-shu (17th-early 18th c.)
To you my eyes are turnedAre you good looking?
(from Psalm 140)
May the God of peace make you perfect and holy; and may you all be kept safe and blameless, spirit, soul and body, for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. God has called you and he will not fail you.No one is good. No one is bad.
(1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)
‘You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do . . .’ (--from, A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin, 1968)I choose nothing...but...to see things in God's view.
‘It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man’s hand and the wisdom in a tree’s root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.’The great word "that" is.
Staying his knife on the carved wood, Murre asked, ‘What of death?’
The girl listened, her shining black head bent down.
‘For a word to be spoken,’ Ged answered slowly, ‘there must be silence. Before, and after.’
(--from, A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin, 1968)
Against the gently flowing spring morningBeyond all.
The arrogant rattle of a passing coach
Peach blossoms beckon from the distant village
Willow branches caress the shoulder of the pond
As bream and carp flash their golden scales
And mated ducks link embroidered wings
The poet stares about; this way, then that
Caught in a web beyond all speaking.
- Shih-shu (17th-early 18th c.)
1. What is not the ego is what is revealing God as being with us.I like facts and gratitude.
2. What is,
not the ego,
is what is revealing
God as being with
us.
3. What is not,
the ego,
is what is
revealing God
as being
with us.
The rich worry about getting poorIf I want to know more, I'll ask.
For me poverty would be a good year
I followed fate into these myriad peaks
You don't need a penny here
Thatched eaves beside a racing brook
Cragflowers draping the bamboo fence
In winter, I turn my back to the sun
Come summer, park myself at water's edge.
- Shih-shu (17th-early 18th c)
Yes, I will try to be. Because I believe that not being is arrogant. (~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin)Many years ago, I recall writing: "We marry ourselves and are shocked by the inevitable divorce."
If you want to attain buddhahood,I'd like to be a saint and nobody knowing about it.
Don't be stained by anything.
Though the essence of mind is empty,
The substance of greed and anger is solid.
To enter this door to the source,
Sit straight and be Buddha.
Once you've arrived at the other shore,
You will attain the perfections.
- Fu Shan-hui (487-659
My long white hair is framed byFor silence and silent sitting practice -- with apologies to the original lyrics: All we need is a room somewhere. Between barn and cabin in cold night air. Warm space with two new chairs. Wouldn’t that be? Love her. See!
Green mountains
My body is surrounded
By a thousand cliffs and gorges
The pine gate is silent
No one passes by
The only ones who visit
Are the drifting clouds.
- Han-shan Te-ch'ing (1546-1623)
ELIZA:We watch Book of Eli and find it stark and interesting. Makes me want to read again novel read in the 1960s, A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
All I want is a room somewhere,
Far away from the cold night air,
With one enormous chair.
Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?
Lots of chocolate for me to eat.
Lots of coal makin' lots of 'eat.
Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet.
Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?
Oh, so loverly sittin' absobloominlutely still.
I would never budge 'till spring
Crept over the windowsill.
Someone's 'ead restin' on my knee,
Warm an' tender as 'e can be,
Who takes good care of me.
Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?
Loverly, loverly, loverly, loverly.
(Song, "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" from My Fair Lady, music by Frederick Loewe; lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, 1964)
The First Book of Moses, called Genesis
1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
(Beginning, King James Bible)
After late fall rainI love prayer and meditation.
The falling leaves 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)
Like salt in water,In prison today there was a presentation of a conversation entitled: "Let's just see how it goes!" This is a phrase used by Maezumi Roshi whenever a student wanted to try to accomplish something. The gathering was a forum for the emotional needs and stress related aspects of prisoner release.
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)
Five Points for ConversationIllusions will end.
1.
The way you feel now is how you’re going to feel.
(feel, acknowledge, free)
2.
See your way through, don’t be distracted by expectations.
(your or others; rather, focus on what you are doing)
3.
“Don’t think: Look!” (--Ludwig Wittgenstein)
(avoid explanations, rationalizations, excuses, blaming, targeting, or trying to fix.)
(Rather: look clearly and carefully, feel, and free)
4.
“Man is defined by that which disturbs him.” (--Elie Wiesel)
(be aware of what disturbs, pisses you off, makes you angry, makes you crazy.)
You are not that. Find a way to move through. Movement, not explanation.)
5.
Revelation of non-illusory reality is initially terrifying.
(while illusory existence might be comfortable, true reality is liberating)
Today I sat before the cliffs
Sat until the mist drew off
A rambling clear stream shore
A towering green ridge crest
Cloud's dawn shadows still
Moon's night light adrift
Body free of dust
Mind without a care.
- Han shan
What I teach people justI prefer being...
Requires you not to take
On the confusion of others.
Act when necessary,
Without further hesitation or doubt.
When students today do not attain this,
Wherein lies their sickness?
The sickness is in not
Trusting yourself.
If your inner trust is insufficient,
Then you will frantically go along
With changes in situations,
And will be influenced and
Affected by myriad objects,
Unable to be independent.
If you can stop the mentality
Of constant frantic seeking,
Then you are no different
From Zen masters and Buddhas.
- Linji (d. 866)
In human life, if you feel that you have made a mistake, you don’t try to undo the past or the present, but you just accept where you are and work from there. Tremendous openness as to where you are is necessary. This also applies to the practice of meditation, for instance. A person should learn to meditate on the spot, in the given moment, rather than thinking, “. . . When I reach pension age, I’m going to retire and receive a pension, and I’m going to build my house in Hawaii or the middle of India, or maybe the Gobi Desert, and THEN I’m going to enjoy myself. I’ll live a life of solitude and then I’ll really meditate.” Things never happen that way.At evening practice we listen to Pema Chodron on Maitri.
(—Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Transcending Madness , From "Your Life Is Your Practice" by Glenna Olmstead)
Maitri is translated in a lot of ways, maybe most commonly as love, but the way Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche translated it was unconditional friendliness and in particular unconditional friendliness to oneself. (Pema Chodron, in Shambhala Sun, )Let's do that.
Names of the unified mind are
Buddha-nature,
True suchness, the hidden essence,
The pure spiritual body,
The pedestal of awareness,
The innocent, universal round mirrorlike knowledge,
The open source, the ultimate truth,
And pure consciousness.
The enlightened ones of the past, present, and future,
And all of their discourses,
Are all in your fundamental nature, inherently complete.
You do not need to seek,
But you must save yourself;
No one can do it for you.- Xuefeng (822–908)
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
(-- 3rd and 4th verses from For The Fallen, poem by LAURENCE BINYON. Originally published in The Times on 21 September 1914)For those, everywhere, who have served to protect and secure life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, their fellows in combat, their families and friends at home, and the natural inheritance of respect and revering all life, all existence -- on this day, we express gratitude.
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
