Saturday, April 22, 2017

is it REF-yooss or is it ree-FYOOZ

I can-

not

see the

sense of

denying

what is

revealing 

Itself

before our eyes.

Truth is truth.

It is the

politics of truth

that curls it

into

appropriated

refuse

ethics’ ontology is cosmology

I’ve been

thinking

about rain

how it falls

this earth day

to earth --

seems right

Friday, April 21, 2017

what is the sign of the cross

yes,



that’s it

the sign

of the cross



is

what is



(how does

that change

your view?)

un-less

when I

die

I'll

say no

more

Thursday, April 20, 2017

the facticity and natural revelation of what is appearing; the don’t know is

In notes for talk to hospice volunteers, I notice I’d written: “We do not know what appends after death.”   ( 附加 Chinese = appends)

Perhaps I meant “happens” -- but appends it was.

Our life, in this use of word, is a writing. And the writing ceases. What appends the writing, we don't know. 

There is the suspicion that the writing, or at least the storying, continues. We don’t know.


It is possible that the “don’t know" is what continues.


By this is meant the “don’t know" is, itself, a continuity of narrative, only without the self-reflexive narrator mirroring back to its now former self the details and analysis of what used to be called perception.


Is it possible that the continuity of not knowing is the continuous? The continuous continuing itself with an awareness that does not double back to describe, with apologetics or justification, everything seen, heard, or done?


A straight-ahead encountering without doubt or explanation?


A 100% correct relationship that sees things as they are, accepting what is there in its being there, understanding one’s place in the facticity and natural revelation of what is appearing?


What relation does this “don’t know” mind have to mu-shin 
無心, (no-mind)?

"Mu" or "emptiness" in Mushin refers to an empty mind in the sense that distractions, preoccupations, fears, worries, are absent and are no more an issue for the mind, whether in combat or daily life. 
The concept of Mushin is identical to the Japanese metaphorical expression "Mizu no Kokoro" or the "mind like water." This mental attitude refers to a mind that is in total harmony with the Cosmos that it resembles a still pond of water without any ripples where the surface reflects a clear and perfectly undistorted image of the surroundings, like a mirror.  http://www.zen-buddhism.net/zen-concepts/mushin.html
 So often we worry about death. This is understandable. 

I will die, yes. But the where, the when, and under what circumstances -- these we don't know. And perhaps, it can be argued, we don’t need to, nor should we, know.


Except if we come to another way of thinking being, one that realizes this step, this breath, this glance is our final step, final breath, final glance.


Or might be.


I am taken by “don’t know” and “don’t know is”.


 It becomes a mode of moving through the continuous, a becoming which provokes thinking and no-thought in the same instance.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

as a loud and snarly voice leaves airways

Rain

Washes

Night

a good time to mull

“Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.”

Tao Te Ching, 1

a matter of digestion

Is DT/45 the embodiment of Lin Yutang’s “scamp”?

This from “Philosophy Now”:
"Lin Yutang’s ideal is the ‘scamp’ – an amiable loafer who wanders through life, learning, loving, living. He is a good-natured Renaissance Man, dabbling here and there, connoisseur of nothing, dilettante extraordinaire. He is earthbound, a man of his biology and of his senses. (For Lin, happiness is “largely a matter of digestion.” He favorably quotes a college president who admonished his freshmen that “There are only two things I want you to keep in mind: read the Bible, and keep your bowels open.”) Lin’s loafing scamp is a profoundly embodied mind, not a brain on a stick. And most of all, he’s eminently ‘reasonable’ – a trait Lin mentions throughout, and points to as the very foundation of the Chinese character.”                                                                                 
(--from Mark Cyzyk article “The Importance of Living” by Lin Yutang, in Philosophy Now, Issue 119, April/May 2017)      https://philosophynow.org/issues/71/The_Importance_of_Living_by_Lin_Yutang
Well, maybe the ‘reasonable’ part is still to come.

non-existing since

For an hour
I look at
words

they say
nothing

I listen
to mourning dove
in dooryard

chanting
five note
antiphon

and it is
Easter
Wednesday

never
seen or heard
before

or non-
existing
since

can-
not
be

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

streethood

Where does someone go after they rise from the dead?

How odd must it be to wander into the realm of unforeseen clarity?

Tonight I have a slice of key-lime pie.

I say -- let the living unborn the living.

There’s no shame in not-knowing anything.

Just try to make a habit of giving spare change to a panhandler --

he offers you a blessing -- a new cleric after ordination to streethood.

Monday, April 17, 2017

slogging toward horseneck

Walking dunes and beach along green sea with windswept waves. One stride one stride one stride.

Hold 3 hour university class live online -- their challenges and responses -- commenting on one another's observations, 331 posts.

It is Easter Monday. Splashing.

It seems inevitable there will be bombs falling here or there.

Some new international romper room playground seeks mature mediator to quell escalating hostilities
among the children.

All are powerless to forstall the petulant provocateurs.

Sing psalms of variegated emotion and praise, night is upon us.

God come to our assistance.

Lord make haste to help us.

Dominos vobiscum

Et cum spiritu tuo

Sunday, April 16, 2017

into formless dispersion

It is Easter. With white dog on this deck in southern Massachusetts, we are alone. Peepers sound sun going down. Chickadees call their last messages  of the day. At far edge of large stone yard a stone Buddha in front of swampy stretch. Everyone is at another house for dinner. There were chips and triscuits a a few rolled up slices of ham from brunch and some Swiss cheese. A glass of seltzer and we call it good.

Solitude.

After monastery the loving chaos of small children, attentive parents, grandparents and aunt along with the zealous border collie chasing ball after ball was just enough encouragement to tumble into nap and decline of evening festivities.

A steady breeze erases heat of the day. Bare trees sway up high with falling sun climbing to tops.

What do I say about Easter?

The monks in conferences and homilies pastiched a wide and consistent picture. These are Catholic contemplatives who live the life.

No summary from me.

What stays is the German monk’s rercall of the only line remembered from 3 volume work on John. He quoted Raymond Brown’s writing that the Holy Spirit is the presence of the risen Lord in us.

I think of the Angelus: “And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.”

Time out of time.

The sun has leapt off tops of the trees into formless dispersion -- fading light blown by sea wind into darkening space.

Stone Buddha will stay atop gray rock in motionless meditation through the night.

White dog wonders now that we are back after a week whether he’ll ever eat at normal time again.

Cat crosses back edge of yard, stops once. White dog looks up, disinterested, curls on lawn.

And Christ, they say, has risen.

Peepers resound.

Wind chants through swaying branches.

It is a good day!

Easter morning

walking back

from communion

each step

belongs

to itself