Zen, Saturday morning, imagination

Non-intellectual, like first light through bamboo blinds, only a space of seeing what is emerging.

Let's not make anything other than what it is.

Zen is seeing what is being itself.

Nothing else.

All of existence is coming to understand

It takes the whole of humanity to be God.

All of it. From out of nowhere. 

Thanks

Is

Given

The word becomes you pronouncing it

What are you . . . saying? 

"Every creature is a word of God." (Meister Eckhart)

Yes!

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” (Meister Eckhart)

Fine words!

Passing observation

Wind winds through

bare brown branches 

blown smooth 

empty 

after rain

As dawn so death

Cat and mouse debate Wednesday morning under window by bed as sound of rain, low growling, and unfinished argument patter over motley colored rug.

If I were to die today, like mouse having wandered from walls to open space, would I know the difference between anything? Or would I not be there to consider anything, having fallen into the open with no boundaries or references to suggest anything other whatsoever?

Two cats, agents of no-othering, prowl the contours of steel shelving for signs of what seems to be considering itself still other.

Walking where once I walked

Every day twice a day.

Thirty two years ago this was my daily sojourn.

Today is that time by means of place.

We are never that far from whence we've been.

What is...your being...seeing

If every year is a marble, how many marbles do you have left? How many sunrises, how many opportunities to rise to the full stature of your being?     

     --Joy Page

 After an eternity of seeking the sudden threshold of seeing and finding leaves one filled with a strange paradox of ecstasy and grief. I was born to see.

        -- Joy Page

Seeing Through Illness is spiritual practice and community engagement with one another

MEETINGBROOK STILL,MARBLES CENTER: An Initial Invitation

Twitter post, Sunday 24Nov2013:  We’d like to begin: STILL,MARBLES. (Seeing Through Illness, Meetingbrook at Ragged Bald Life Experiencing Spirit.) Interest in investing?

hermitage@meetingbrook https://twitter.com/meetingbrook/status/404615625135640576

ABSTRACT:

We learn that the property across Barnestown Road is on the market. We’ve walked it. We were shown it by a broker. Several members of the wider meetingbrook community have also walked and thought along with us. It consists of 50 acres, an animal barn, an extended house, open lawns, woodland, a pond, two streams, and our own rise of mountain. It is ideal for an extension of meetingbrook hermitage

We are inviting investors to support the purchase of this property to be used as a center to see through illness, for learning, conversation, groups, support, therapeutic meditation, movement, soul-friend interaction, community outreach, gardening, creative projects, various re-entries, and an open place for quiet visits, prayer, reading, solitude, hiking, or just sitting.

STILL,MARBLES CENTER 

The name is an acronym signifying: Seeing Through Illness, Meetingbrook at Ragged Bald Life Experiencing Spirit.

The goal is to focus on the oftentimes difficult navigation individuals experience through illness, be it cancer, heart condition, or other unsettling emotional, spiritual, mental, or physical issues. Particular interest will be extended to those making the journey through illness to share their attendant steps and views in communal conversations.

The Center would consist of a Meditation Room, a Community Room, a Hospitality Kitchen, a Chapel, Meeting rooms, Respite Rooms for overnight stays, and lovely grounds with streams, pond, trails, woods, mountain, and decks for quiet enjoyment of nature’s healing gifts.

Those in transition, caregivers, family members, healthcare personnel, friends, veterans, and other interested folks looking to learn and experience simple care and presence would be invited to STILL,MARBLES to enjoy the ongoing conversations, groups, respite, arts, poetry, films, talks, seminars, ordinary hospitality and relaxation.

MEETINGBROOK HERMITAGE is a place of collation and recollection between Ragged & Bald Mountains. Our personal practice, which for 20 years we’ve done at the hermitage, in the marketplace bookshop and bakery (for 13 years), state prison, hospital, libraries, nursing home, with the dying, hospice volunteers, university students and church communities, and an idiorhythmic extended meetingbrook community, is a practice that is open to and responsive with all traditions both East and West, all denominations, faiths, or none of the above, those who are looking to find their way through life with its difficulties and joys. We are not alone. Meetingbrook is committed to seeing through illness, wherever the individual is, however their path winds its way.

Please consider investing to acquire the property and invest your spirit in being of service to others at MEETINGBROOK STILL,MARBLES CENTER.

Best,

Saskia Huising, Bill Halpin

Meetingbrook Hermitage, Camden, Maine, 04843  207-236-4346

STILL,MARBLES

Three hours before dawn thinking about possible use of neighboring property.

If a man does not think too much, he rejoices at rising in the morning, and at eating and drinking. He finds satisfaction in them and does not want them to be otherwise. But if he ceases to take things for granted, he seeks eagerly and hopefully during the course of the day for moments of real life, the radiance of which makes him rejoice and obliterates the awareness of time and all thoughts on the meaning and purpose of everything. One can call these moments creative, because they seem to give a feeling of union with the creator, and while they last, one is sensible of everything being necessary, even what is seemingly fortuitous. It is what the mystics call union with God. Perhaps it is the excessive radiance of these moments that make everything else appear so dark. Perhaps it is the feeling of liberation, the enchanting lightness and the suspended bliss that make the rest of life seem so difficult, demanding and oppressive. I do not know. I have not travelled very far in thought and philosophy. However I do know that if there is a state of bliss and a paradise, it must be an uninterrupted sequence of such moments, and if this state of bliss can be attained through suffering and dwelling in pain, then no sorrow or pain can be so great that one should attempt to escape from it.

                          (--Hermann Hesse, in Gertrude, as translated by Hilda Rosner)        http://dshenai.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/

STILL,MARBLES

Seeing Through Illness, Meetingbrook at Ragged Bald Life Experiencing Spirit.