above and beyond yes and no

Yes

above all

mercy

knows no

bounds;

no

knows

mercy,

all, above

Yes

what makes us grateful

There were 10 of us for Buddhist practice and meetingbrook conversation in prison this morning.

There were 5 of us attending the needs of a woman in the emergency department of an Augusta hospital this afternoon and evening.

There are two of us returning tired to the hermitage.

A white dog climbs stairs.

God remains a mystery.

This makes us grateful.

absurd times absurd is absurd squared

Listening to information about TPP, WTO, and NAFTA I'm convinced that the age of Governments is over and the world of Corporations has replaced them.

Here's how it works: people elect politicians, they then make laws benefitting corporations, then they resign and work for the corporations, being paid with the money they funneled to themselves.

Real people are diminished and Corporations are now virtual people. 

People are deemed idiots not to see the absurd way things operate in this absurd world.

fellow volunteer, friend from prison Buddhist/conversation group, sends Rumi, perfect

                                ONLY BREATH

Not Christian, or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu

Buddhist, sufi or zen. Not any religion.

or cultural system. I am not from the East

or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not

composed of elements at all. I do not exist

am not an entity in this world or next.

did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two

worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner only that

breath breathing human being. 

(--Rumi, An Excerpt from the translations of Coleman Barks)

philosophy of education

Learn for yourself what is your passion.

Learn for others what they need you to know for you to do their work.

Learn for the situation what it wants to teach you.

Lernen lassen, workliche.

stoking wood stove, haiku

2 degrees with wind

house draws itself in, prayer

finds its way through dark

Pass me, poetry, please

I'm a better Catholic because I'm Buddhist.

I'm a better Buddhist because I'm Christian.

As an agnostic, I'm a better human.

In another exchange, Fr. Thomas Keating, one of the founders of the Centering Prayer movement, whose purpose is to renew the Christian mystical tradition, asked: "..when one has shed this ego-centeredness with its aggression and selfish self-seeking, is there not still an identity left, which may actually be very good?" 

The Tibetan monk Trungpa Rinpoche responded: "Well, I think now we have reached the key point. Egolessness means that there is no ego –at all." 

Fr. Keating: "That’s what I thought it meant…" 

Trungpa Rinpoche: "Union with God cannot take place when there is any form of ego. Any whatsoever. In order to be one with God, one has to become formless. Then you will see God." 

Fr. Keating: "This is the point I was trying to make for Christians by quoting the agonizing words of Christ on the cross. He cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) It seems that his sense of personal relationship with God, as God’s son, had disappeared. Many interpreters say that this was only a temporary experience. But I am inclined to think, in light of the Buddhist description of no-self, that he was passing into a stage beyond the personal self, however holy and beautiful that self had been. That final stage would then also have to be defined as the primary Christian experience. Christ has called us Christians not just so that so that we will accept him as savior, but so that we will follow the same process that brought him to his final stage of consciousness." 126 

CHRISTIANITY IN THE CRUCIBLE OF EAST-WEST DIALOGUE: A Critical Look at Catholic Participation By James Arraj Originally published by Inner Growth Books, LLC, 2001 ISBN: 0-914073-03-6 (paperback edition) and GOD, ZEN AND THE INTUITION OF BEING By James Arraj Originally published by Inner Growth Books, LLC, 1988 ISBN: 0-914073-20-6 (paperback edition) Copyright James Arraj.Loc 825, kindle)

Thay, it is said, cannot speak

This suggests a rethinking of that --

Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

a lone pre sent,

silence

re

cords

everything

snug

ly

as a 

whole

with

a bow

in pass

ing