Nothing ventured nor gained; forgives

Nothingness, Chuang Tzu said, had the night-colored pearl. Not Science, not Analysis, not Logic.

Nothingness had it.

The two cats weren't at practice in the zendo earlier. 

They're not interested in Thomas Merton's "readings" of Chuang Tzu. 

I don't know, exactly, what they're interested in.

It is Yom Kippur.

A day to take note.

The Yellow Emperor said: 

"Strange, indeed: Nothingness 

Who was not sent 

Who did no work to find it 

Had the night-colored pearl!"     

(-From, The Lost Pearl, p.74, in, The Way of Chuang Tzu, by Thomas Merton)

How find the lost in the obvious?

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha'olam asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu l'hadlik neir shel (shabbat v'shel) you hakippurim. 

After the candles are lit, the Shehecheyanu prayer is recited.
The evening service that begins Yom Kippur is commonly known as Kol Nidre, named for the prayer that begins the service. “Kol nidre” means “all vows,” and in this prayer, we ask G-d to annul all personal vows we may make in the next year. It refers only to vows between the person making them and G-d, such as “If I pass this test, I'll pray every day for the next 6 months!”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/holiday4.html

If I say "I'm sorry!" -- will that unlock the prison door?

The concluding service of Yom Kippur, known as Ne'ilah, is one unique to the day. It usually runs about 1 hour long. The ark (a cabinet where the scrolls of the Torah are kept) is kept open throughout this service, thus you must stand throughout the service.  

There is a tone of desperation in the prayers of this service. The service is sometimes referred to as the closing of the gates; think of it as the “last chance” to get in a good word before the holiday ends. The service ends with a very long blast of the shofar. (Ibid) 

Lock the door behind me. 

There is nothing remaining to enclose.

Conscious awareness

Wallace wishes us way more than luck.

Even now, it is heartfelt.

His words.

don't say it

Looking at news write-ups

So little to see

Turn away

Fall into silence

Rice cooks

Bu Ji : Nothing doing.

Merton is read.

Dusk is falling.

Dog chases green ball.

Cat wrestles with ball of paper.

Thursday evening conversation.   

Wu Wei : no effort

9/11

Morning comes .

And evening wanes.

We wander in new day.

We walk mountains.

Not to care is also caring

Fog sets in.

Dusk approaches slowly,

Daylight fades,

Nothing but...

 If Jesus was Christ, and Christ is God, what do we see of God?

A man. A man who found himself in the hands of unkind powerful men who tortured then murdered him.

Sound familiar?

Yeah.

To contemplate one must first be able to gaze, not to stare at something or merely see with the physical eye, but to penetrate with the heart what is ordinarily missed by the eye. The eye of the heart must be opened by grace, enlightened by knowledge and strengthened by love. For Clare the eye of the heart learns to see rightly in the mirror of the cross.
(--p.56, in Clare of Assisi, A Heart Full of Love, by Ilia Delio osf, c.2007)

That cross crosses time. It appears in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, China, America, Russia. You name it, it appears there.

What are we to think?

The cross is human suffering, especially suffering caused by other humans for reasons spurious and specious. In other words, ignorant. There's something they want. Something they believe in. Something better than what you are thinking, feeling, doing. And they know that something better.

What they don't know is nothing.

The nihility of 'creatio ex nihilo' may be spoken of as a simple relative nothingness, the existence that comes about on the ground of that nothingness can ever be truly independent. Truly free existence can only be posited on and rooted in absolute nothingness. This, it seems to me, is the kind of nothingness Eckhart has in mind when he says, "The ground of God is the ground of my soul; the ground of my soul is the ground of God."
(--p.68, in Religion and Nothingness, by Keiji Nishitani, c.1983)

 Is nothing God?

Out of nothing doesn't come something; out of nothing comes the ground of being, and that is nothing to sneeze at.

Is God nothing or nothing God?

We are a bit puzzled by the question: Why is there something rather than nothing?

John Leslie in his book Infinite Minds might have answered the question with the words from "The Sound of Music":

 Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

(--from Something Good, in Sound of Music)

(Here's a review of Leslie's view: (http://www.academia.edu/481771/BOOK_REVIEW_John_Leslie_INFINITE_MINDS),,)

Nothing is what we have to look at, look forward to, and look back on.

If there is something it is because nothing has stepped aside, disappeared, gone missing.

Mystics and contemplatives from all times have had nothing to say listening to nothing with nothing to show for it.

Choose your life; I, mine.

God forgive us, there's nothing but...

Forgiveness! And reconciliation. With nothing better to do.

Except, maybe, to continue, to show up again.

Glancing

September.

Nosing into breeze.

There's a long drop from there to here

Drop the "t" -- you can't get here from here.

You're already here but (for thinking) you're not.

Unthink that thought.

Drop into where you are.

Here?

T-less.

25 consonants and vowels to go!

But thee and me; and I am not sure of thee

When chance for solitude comes, disappear.

Choose your own version of insanity; leave others theirs. They so want to give you theirs.

Every Time a Good Time
A hundred flowers blossom in spring, the moon shines in autumn, there is a fresh breeze in summer, and there is snow in winter. If your mind isn’t occupied with trivial matters, every time is a good time.
(--Wumen Huikai, "Zen Basics")

When a thing appears as it is, with no metaphor or simile, it appears as it is, sui generis.

As itself.

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” 

(― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967)

The abyss doesn't look back at you when you gaze into it. That's literary conceit. No, something else occurs.

You come to see no one else, nothing else, only the looking itself.

The looking itself.

As itself.

You might say:

Gone.

Grammar, (from Greek, feminine of 'grammatikos', 'of letters')

No silence is God.

No silence; is God?

No, silence is God.

Seeing things this way

What, the question asks, if this is it?

Exegetical wisdom consists in reading the signs and symbols presented by the immediate and immanent.

What if reality, call it the universe or existence, were presenting what is true and truly mystery in every phenomenon and appearing disclosure of felt, sensed, intuited, and obvious things in our experience?

Welcome the stranger!

It's not that the ugly and perverse isn't ugly and perverse. It's more that our mind/heart sees what things really are and is still willing to hold what is there with kind, thoughtful, appreciation toward the transformation needed for everything.

Doors open with a mind that is open.

Windows are seen through with a heart willing to look.

Difference is not difficulty. Difference is only difference.

Seeing things this way is a step toward sanity.