Children at dusk on Curtis Island as I round from inner channel. A new generation to succeed the elder who slows and grows silent.

Evening meditation on passing.

Bye.

What does it mean exactly to say that we have a right to freedom? In his most explicit passage on the topic, Kant writes: “Freedom (independence from being constrained by another’s choice), insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every human being by virtue of his humanity."
(--from, Kant on the Right to Freedom: A Defense, by Louis‐Philippe Hodgson, in Ethics 120 (July 2010): 791–819, University of Chicago)

We shingle part of remaining patch on bookshed. It will be covered soon.

It is autumn.

Leaves begin exodus.

Ground.

Free.

Everything disappears within the experience of life. God did. So does what I call "I."

When you are sitting in meditation, watch carefully to know when your consciousness starts to move. Consciousness is always moving and flowing. According to its coming and going, we must all be aware of it. Use the wisdom of a diamond to control and rule it, since just alike a plant there is nothing to know. To know there is nothing to know is the wisdom to know everything. This is the Dharma-gate of One Form of a Bodhisattva.
- Tao-shin (580-651)

Fog lifts. Full moon less one night shines through. I come to Merton Retreat to sleep. UPS does not arrive with oars.

There is only life. And everything disappears within it. Everything.

So too, memory disappears within soul.

Mind goes, body goes, and only life remains. Then it goes. Leaving only soul.

Where everything resides that once elsewhere did.

There's no map for this place.

You've arrived where you've never not been.

The four horses need to ride together side by side like a team attached to stage coach. Body, spirit, emotions, mind. The Pale, white, black, and red assemble in creative strokes of nameless artist.

All external conditions have no immutable forms of their own. Right and wrong, becoming and disbecoming are all only from the mind. If one is able to attain no-mind, he will not be hindered by dharmas. If one's mind does not mind anything, who will distinguish right from wrong? If rights and wrongs are all negated, all forms of things will be peaceful forever. Because dharmas and the ten thousand delusions are all like the Principle of Suchness.
- Tun-huang manuscript 2

I have considered the way of war. I reject it. And all its ugliness. And all its false promises.

I cry for those dead in war. I lament the lies and fools sending them to their deaths.

But today is autumn. Overnight, leaves turn colors. Suddenly, a chill wind blows under full moon.

Ask questions.

Become a skeptic without judging.

See things.

As they are.

The seal, the island, the zazen seiza in peapod coming back to inner harbor.

Brewing Tea

Green clouds spiral and twine,
Are drawn into the wind in a long stream;
On my cup's surface the faces of
White foam flowers are cool;
The mountain moon comes into my window;
Plum tree shadows move;
Pouring again and again into my unglazed cup
I sip the lingering fragrance.
- Betsugen Enshi (1295-1364)

I cannot separate mind and body.

I will let death pretend to do that.

Until then, mind is body, body is mind.

The whole earth is eucharistic.

The whole day is shunyata.

I bow and gassho to you.

And you.

In Genesis the repetitive phrase: "Let there be...".

It is spoken, we are to assume, by "Here." By Presence Itself.

Project your meditational concentration into everything that you think or do and make everything subject to meditational concentration.
- Shosan (1579-1655)

"There" comes to be by means of "Here" withdrawing itself for the sake of what is to be there.

Here is there with emptied self.

This "t" is how we come to be.

We are crucified into here in order to be there.

Dasein, the German word for there-being. For man.

Follow your heart there to embody here.

.......

Pachamama gathering tonight.

This is my haiku for 100 years hence:

2010-2110

We do what is right

and reverent, not waste and junk --

Thus we are happy

There is no other place to be.

There's only 5 billion years, give or take a billion, left in the sun. When it goes, earth goes. Our progeny will be far away across the expanse of what we call space by then. I probably won't be around. You?

It puts things in perspective.

Zen is to make one believe, practice, and realize the principle of without thought, without cultivation. What matters is the direct pointing to the true nature of your mind. Therefore, in the five divisions of the teachings there is also, besides the scriptural teachings, mind-to-mind transmission. Worshipping Buddha statues is nothing more than resorting to an expedient for those who do not understand true nature. However many scriptures you have finished reading over the many years, I think you will not understand through them the way of mind-to-mind transmission.
- Toui (d.825)

I drift around the universe of mind.

I drink water and eat chocolate Vienna ice cream on Dutch apple pie. The evening passes after spaghetti with sausage.

Maybe it's advancing age. But, everything seems without border or boundary. Like a Japanese saying there's no barrier between one thing and another one thing.

We walk Ragged Mtn and see the sun climb Bald Mtn while it simultaneously descends the far side of Ragged out of view.

There's really no place to go.

We're here.

For now.

Soon we won't.

Summer's lease is soon up. It will move out into stories. It's stay this year was as full of loveliness as was spring's. Maine was blessed.

Two musicians visited yesterday and left two albums of theirs. Last evening, rowing around island at dusk, a harbor seal accompanied me. I felt accompanied.

Can this matter of Zen be understood or not?
If you say that it can be explained and understood,
Then you are attaching to words and concepts
And miss the basic fact.
On the other hand, if you say
It cannot be understood,
Then how can the Zen Dharma be taught to all beings?
What can you do?
Look clearly!
A crow's head is black
A crane's head is white.
- Ma-tsu (709-788)

At Sunday Evening Practice, reading from Ibn al Arabi (1165-1240), we consider the experience of God to be the experience of our conversation at table. Incomprehensible; still, occurring.

There is no substitute for this experience.

I'm going there.

You come to.