Saturday, February 25, 2017
on learning today that Paula passed away
haiku
(for Paula)
i see you’ve gone in-
to a view we can’t see -- out
of your words -- clear light
(wfh/25feb17)
Which is all fine with me, as I tend toward a disembodied existence a few inches above my head and outside my skin. So why not inhabit a story, a history ? Where else is there to go ? Where do 10,000 wordless hours on a zafu bring you but into the silences of your own brain ? Is God or enlightenment there more profoundly than in that which we construe in words ? In the beginning, after all, was the Word which was with the Wordless which, in fact was the Wordless.
Posted by Paula at Wednesday, October 15, 2014 Paula’s House of Toast
Friday, February 24, 2017
what he’d say truth was
Like this.
It’s just like this.
That’s what the Zen Master said the truth was -- it’s just like this.
Are you happy with this explanation?
Yes.
It’s true.
Truth is just like this.
It’s just like this.
That’s what the Zen Master said the truth was -- it’s just like this.
Are you happy with this explanation?
Yes.
It’s true.
Truth is just like this.
Thursday, February 23, 2017
ama nesciri
I'm thinking of turning myself in.
crossing rt 161, Aroostook County, Presque Isle to Ft Kent Maine 22feb17 |
"The increased threat of deportation has sent many immigrants into hiding." (NYTimes morning briefing, 23feb17)
Presque Isle, Maine, UMPI |
I came here from a dark watery place. Before that I was in deep hiding somewhere outside known terrain. I was the conception of two agents intent on snuggling me into this existence before their sleepy cells took to snoring somnolence.
Presque Isle Maine, 22feb17 |
Now, some seventy plus years later, I return to the spiritually hidden place of pre-conception.
Nobody knows my name.
Unknown.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
wisdom seeks for wisdom
Seek.
Rev. Suzuki’s talk
July 22, 1965
We are studying now the sutra of the sixth patriarch, in the evening lecture, and PRAJNA (this is of course Sanskrit word) we mean, wisdom, but this wisdom is not intellect, or knowledge. This wisdom is so-called our inmost nature, which is always in incessant activity. Zazen practice is to….wisdom seeking for wisdom is zazen practice, if I use technical term. Wisdom seeks wisdom is zazen practice, and our everyday life is wisdom. Realization of our precepts is our everyday life. When wisdom…When our everyday life is based on wisdom we call it percepts. When we sit, we do not do anything; we just sit. There’s no activity of our mind. We just sit and all what we do is taking inhaling and exhaling. Sometimes you will hear some birds singing, but that is not actually….you are not hearing. Your ears will hear it. You are not hearing it. Just, you know, sound come, and you will make some response to it, that is all. This kind of practice is called “wisdom seeks for wisdom”.
Originally offered: July 22nd, 1965 | Modified October 27th, 2009 by Shunryu Suzuki RoshiAnd may we find.
http://suzukiroshi.sfzc.org/dharma-talks/july-22-1965/#more-225
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
reading paper about sila, pranna, and samadhi
Speed limit is 75 on 95 in northern maine from Benedicta to Houlton,
Then follow 12 wheeler up into Presque Isle.
Arrive tired. A fairly constant condition.
We tossed snow pieces over high banks off helipad at hospital in Millinocket.
Such a good
Dog
Then follow 12 wheeler up into Presque Isle.
Arrive tired. A fairly constant condition.
We tossed snow pieces over high banks off helipad at hospital in Millinocket.
Such a good
Dog
Monday, February 20, 2017
evolving out of garbled grunts and groans
In dialogue with a student:
RE: how we might think differently about the election,
a philosopher’s point of view
a philosopher’s point of view
theme: to care is to change
In Canada it is family day.
In America it is presidents' day.
In prison this morning it was Immanuel Kant and J.S.Mill and Nel Noddings, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sam Cooke.
How do you arrive at what’s correct? one man asked. And what about ego?
Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, was one response. Ego and integrated ego. The isolated self and the team player.
If you don't change, you don't care; if you don't care, you don't change.
Philosophy, it can be argued, is a family arête.*
In America it is presidents' day.
In prison this morning it was Immanuel Kant and J.S.Mill and Nel Noddings, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sam Cooke.
How do you arrive at what’s correct? one man asked. And what about ego?
Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, was one response. Ego and integrated ego. The isolated self and the team player.
If you don't change, you don't care; if you don't care, you don't change.
Philosophy, it can be argued, is a family arête.*
*Note:
In discussing arête, Plato leads the examination of humankind’s quest for excellence. Henry Marrou describes arête as “the ideal value to which even life itself must be sacrificed.” Although Marrou considers ludicrous the translation of the word from ancient Greek to mean virtue (he prefers valor), virtue is the term used by translator W.K.C. Guthrie in two of Plato’s dialogues to describe this quality that is made and not born in us, the quality of excellence toward which we strive in our daily conduct in society
.https://philosophynow.org/issues/45/Arete
Sunday, February 19, 2017
gracias, tibi
Not in church this morning
Not that kind of church
Dripping roof water, white noise waves, a trilling phone alarm in another room
All the baptisms, confirmations, communion and go-in-peace
Are unwalled, without vestments, no longer arguing pastor or priest, male or female, born once or born again
There is a freedom from that mind and time
Stay-at-home fruit juice and walnut raisin toast sunlight on February porch
I don't know who Jesus was, whether he liked jews catholics or protestants better
I don't know whether accepting him as personal lord and savior punches your ticket to glory
Or if Albert Camus is sitting in Algerian cafe smoking and thinking about absurdity
As the United States sells off sanity and buys crazy
Terrorists storing their dangerous ideas in foldaway tents and going on holiday
Until retirement benefits click in and yield 5.7% on the dollar
And jesus' 21st century caption reads "if you see me, say something" -- an invitation to
Post-prayer non-liturgical unfrocked morning ordinariness with half and half in coffee
As the apocalypse takes shape in idiots' minds looking to buy guns and shorting options
And nothing we know of arrives at end of driveway looking to befuddle us with bagels and donuts
Ita missa est
gracias, tibi
Saecula saculorum
Hoc est enim corpus meum?
Deus ibi est . . .
Not that kind of church
Dripping roof water, white noise waves, a trilling phone alarm in another room
All the baptisms, confirmations, communion and go-in-peace
Are unwalled, without vestments, no longer arguing pastor or priest, male or female, born once or born again
There is a freedom from that mind and time
Stay-at-home fruit juice and walnut raisin toast sunlight on February porch
I don't know who Jesus was, whether he liked jews catholics or protestants better
I don't know whether accepting him as personal lord and savior punches your ticket to glory
Or if Albert Camus is sitting in Algerian cafe smoking and thinking about absurdity
As the United States sells off sanity and buys crazy
Terrorists storing their dangerous ideas in foldaway tents and going on holiday
Until retirement benefits click in and yield 5.7% on the dollar
And jesus' 21st century caption reads "if you see me, say something" -- an invitation to
Post-prayer non-liturgical unfrocked morning ordinariness with half and half in coffee
As the apocalypse takes shape in idiots' minds looking to buy guns and shorting options
And nothing we know of arrives at end of driveway looking to befuddle us with bagels and donuts
Ita missa est
gracias, tibi
Saecula saculorum
Hoc est enim corpus meum?
Deus ibi est . . .
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