Where to look?

To you my eyes are turned
(from Psalm 140)

Are you good looking?

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.
(1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)

No one is good. No one is bad.

We are, in fact, perfect and holy.

It's your call.

It's Advent.

Stay awake!

If these are the last words I write, they are pleasure to write.

‘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.’

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)

The great word "that" is.

Is that all I have to say?

Then, that's that!

Against the gently flowing spring morning
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.)

Beyond all.

Speaking.

Three ways of viewing what meditation practice on Thanksgiving morning might suggest:

1. What is not the ego is what is revealing God as being with us.

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.

I like facts and gratitude.

A good Thanksgiving!

Only answer the question asked.

The rich worry about getting poor
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)

If I want to know more, I'll ask.

Gratitude is its own accomplishment.

Really, there is nothing.

To accomplish...

After yesterday in Oxford and Norway, today in St Albans and Hartland Maine -- drizzle. fog and rain throughout -- we return to Tuesday Evening Practice in bookshed. And the question: Is the only 'trap' the one wherein we repeat the habits and patterns of ego's fears until we cannot take one further step with our lives?

To be is to become.

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,
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

I'd like to be a saint and nobody knowing about it.

Not knowing is a grace.

My gratitude for not knowing what or who I am!

Why or how this came to be.

Becoming itself.

Icy rain in Oxford Maine this morning.

I see perfect winter zendo chairs for bookshed/retreat in discount store there.

My long white hair is framed by
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)

For 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!

ELIZA:
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)

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.

What will prevail when our civilization derails?

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)

From there. To here. No departure. No arrival.

Dwells the Source.