Saturday, May 09, 2015

whether reports; weather reticently


You might say pay no attention to the grunting mind foraging for descriptives to vent frustration over fomenting failures of the world to fit into our conceptions of what it is actually about.
Our hearts and minds change from moment to moment, just as the clouds shift in the evening sky as the sun goes down. Who are we to think we have grasped the true nature of our souls? The Buddha-mind within us will not be constrained by the limits of language.
-- Abbess Fushimi, "Shedding Light" (Tricycle)
 If there is only Mind, and if my mind is merely the specific local expression of this Whole Mind, then Buddha-mind is awakened specificity of sparse articulation of seamless elocution barely faintly sounding as simple serene stillness.

So little need be said. The gift seems to be unsaying before speech what my mind threatens with breath to satisfy some primal reactive impulse aimed at cutting away or eliminating the perceived trespass against "my" self and its huffy projection.

"MU"

Unsort!

Unsay!

Unconstrain!

De-word that breath! Let it free without vibration of sound or squiggle of ink.



Look into this.

Look again.

This is looking into itself.

Wait...

Wait...

Wait...

Now, when there's nothing left to say or write, say it, write it.

What lovely clouds!

Friday, May 08, 2015

About that red clown nose

Let's say there's no one here. And that so much of our interaction is silliness. 

Especially pretending importance of being here.

It's what we do.

The silliness.

Thursday, May 07, 2015

One and one are not two


The history of war is the story of dualistic thinking.

We near the end of war.

Comes, quietly, nondualism.

Mind this arrival.

Of true thinking.

Doris sends this; opening poem final class


Variation On A Theme By Rilke 
                               (The Book of Hours, Book I, Poem 1, Stanza 1)

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me -- a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic -- or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

(Poem by Denise Levertov
From, Breathing the Water)

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

Herewith ends East Asian Philosophy class with Kabir



I won’t come
       BY KABIR
       TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI BY ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA


I won’t come
I won’t go
I won’t live
I won’t die

I’ll keep uttering
The name
And lose myself
In it

I’m bowl
And I’m platter
I’m man
And I’m woman

I’m grapefruit
And I’m sweet lime
I’m Hindu
And I’m Muslim

I’m fish
And I’m net
I’m fisherman
And I’m time

I’m nothing
Says Kabir
I’m not among the living
Or the dead

(--Source: Poetry, March 2011).

Tuesday, May 05, 2015

5:05AM, 5/05/15

Yes

Five words

A world itself

Monday, May 04, 2015

simplicity, boundless

Oh, the full moon
Rising as we 
arise
During practice
Last night
With Mother 
Prajnaparamita
Seen by Lex
Hixon.

Was the resurrection
Awareness of 
arising
From death from birth
As one 
continuous
Moving through
Mother 
without limit?

Sunday, May 03, 2015

know this, unknow everything else


Wisdom attend!
Second reading
1 John 3:18-24

My children,
our love is not to be just words or mere talk,
but something real and active;
only by this can we be certain
that we are children of the truth
and be able to quieten our conscience in his presence,
whatever accusations it may raise against us,
because God is greater than our conscience and he knows everything.
My dear people,
if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience,
we need not be afraid in God’s presence,
and whatever we ask him,
we shall receive,
because we keep his commandments
and live the kind of life that he wants.
His commandments are these:
that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and that we love one another
as he told us to.
Whoever keeps his commandments
lives in God and God lives in him.
We know that he lives in us
by the Spirit that he has given us.
(-- from Readings at Mass, 3May15 
Violence doesn't work. It might effect harm. But it doesn't work. It punishes. But it doesn't work.

"God is greater than our conscience and he knows everything." God knows what we do not know. And what is that? God knows that we don't know, and yet, still, the ground of love is underfoot and spread wide around us.

So, "if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience, we need not be afraid in God’s presence" -- suggests non-dual absence of other. Our conscience clear, presence of God. Conscience not clear, we are not there where God is.

"We know that he lives in us." God the unknown is the knowing that unknowing is essential to life as knowing is useful to building and repairing the structures necessary to permit life to continue to express itself.

"We know that he lives in us
by the Spirit that he has given us."

Spirit sees.

And seeing, forgives what is allowed by humans in the world of knowing obduracy.

Du mußt dein Leben ändern! (Rilke)