mess

Maybe it doesn't matter what the politicians say or do in Washington.

Maybe it does.

In the middle of the muddle they manufacture it is hard to tell.

a vision softly creeping

We need a new language.

Let's call it a language of presence.

It speaks and hears experience.

Beyond words, emotion, and thought.

It resides in the intelligence of the present moment revealing itself to those with ears and eyes.

It is the place where particular languages abandon their differences in order to empathetically become that which is beyond difference.

Our new language is the next sound we hear.

elsewhere life is here

maybe

what we call

death is

life-being

called

elsewhere

an ancient enmity

Against Certainty

by Jane Hirshfield

There is something out in the dark that wants to correct us.
Each time I think “this,” it answers “that.”
Answers hard, in the heart-grammar’s strictness.

If I then say “that,” it too is taken away.

Between certainty and the real, an ancient enmity.
When the cat waits in the path-hedge,
no cell of her body is not waiting.
This is how she is able so completely to disappear.

I would like to enter the silence portion as she does.

To live amid the great vanishing as a cat must live,
one shadow fully at ease inside another.

(Source: Poetry Foundation; Jane Hirshfield. After. Copyright 2006 by Jane Hirschfield)

As is.

Source of learning.

One seeking wisdom.

this is water

This is my favorite part about philosophy:

.

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how's the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes,

.

“What the hell is water?”

(--David Foster Wallace, (text) http://www.metastatic.org/text/This%20is%20Water.pdf, and (shorter video) This is Water Commencement Speech by David Foster Wallace)

.

There, in a nutshell, or small pond, is our study.

between certainty and the real hides presence

Feels like heart is stopping.

Shhhh

Give it a rest.

watch this white house

Is it a coup?

Or revolution?

Or a cornered brat?

it's the right thing to do

Are you
(Yes?)
tired?

Get some
sleep.
Yes.

I will
sleep
now.

if we define what the true and the false are

These are good words:

Aristotle defined truth in words of one syllable: "If a man says of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, he speaks the truth; if he says of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, he does not speak the truth." Defining truth is easy, finding it is harder.)   http://schoolsucksproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Logic-Podcast2.pdf 

Elsewhere:

Greek	Latin	English
ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδὲ μεταξὺ ἀντιφάσεως ἐνδέχεται εἶναι οὐθέν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀνάγκη ἢ φάναι ἢ ἀποφάναι ἓν καθ᾽ ἑνὸς ὁτιοῦν. [25] δῆλον δὲ πρῶτον μὲν ὁρισαμένοις τί τὸ ἀληθὲς καὶ ψεῦδος. τὸ μὲν γὰρ λέγειν τὸ ὂν μὴ εἶναι ἢ τὸ μὴ ὂν εἶναι ψεῦδος, τὸ δὲ τὸ ὂν εἶναι καὶ τὸ μὴ ὂν μὴ εἶναι ἀληθές, ὥστε καὶ ὁ λέγων εἶναι ἢ μὴ ἀληθεύσει ἢ ψεύσεται: ἀλλ᾽ οὔτε τὸ ὂν λέγεται μὴ εἶναι ἢ εἶναι οὔτε τὸ μὴ ὄν.	At vero nec medium contradictionis nihil esse contingit, sed necessarium aut dicere aut negare unum de uno quod>cumque. Palam autem primum quidem diffmientibus quid ↵ verum et * falsum. Dicere namque ens non esse aut hoc esse falsum *, ens autem esse et non ens non esse verum *; quare et dicens * esse aut non verum dicet aut mentietur; sed neque ens dicit non esse aut esse neque non ens,	Chapter 7. But on the other hand there cannot be an intermediate between contradictories, but of one subject we must either affirm or deny any one predicate. This is clear, in the first place, if we define what the true and the false are. To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true; so that he who says of anything that it is, or that it is not, will say either what is true or what is false; but neither what is nor what is not is said to be or not to be.

--Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 4, Ch.7 http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Aristotle/metaphysics/l4#jp383

We need simple words. We need new words. So to be able to speak what is revealing itself constantly before our faces in our seeing and in our hearing.

This is why we study. This is why we converse.

What is true matters.

What is false matters.

And the courage to distinguish.

is silence nothing

I ask myself: Would I be interested in living a life of prayer?

"Souls of prayer are souls of great silence "-Mother Teresa

My self, having become more stupid and ignorant than I can remember, thought a minute.

Then another minute.

Is there anything you wish to say?

(Nothing is heard.)