прослушивание (proslushivaniye, listening)

There is a knowledge that transcends the learning of it.

"Any assertion requires a fore-having of whatever has been disclosed;" (p.199, Being and Time, by Martin Heidegger)

There is a heartfelt connection before awareness of need for it.

Listen.

Listening, listen to the listening.

content with no content

Bodhisattva of compassion

Hears cries of world

Listening

Practicing only skill

Having no content

No end

Merely

Attending 

Itself

remaking

See the world

With open heart

Even what is

Wrong is

Forgiven with

Love

fourteenth way

Flying to keep

Up with cawing

Blackbird weaves

Silhouette of branch

Leaves with

Needle call

listening

This time

Four AM

When

Everything

 Is

Poised

To wake

...   ...   ...

There is One Thing,  

which has always been bright and holy; 

It has no beginning and no end,  

and It has neither name nor form. 

  -- Xishan (1520-1604). --DailyZen.com

on back of cross, after 5 hours vigil with J

Numbers 6:24-26New International Version (NIV)

24 “‘“The Lord bless you
    and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace.”’

Ut benedicat tibi Dominus

    et custodiat te;

XXV Dominus vultum suum ad te,

    et misereatur tui

XXVI convertat Dominus vultum suum ad te,

    et det tibi pacem. ''

what is before us

At Sunday Evening Practice we read dharma talk, Hold to the Center!  Zen advice for when things blow up around you, by Wendy Egyoku Nakao Roshi. 

A monk asked Xinghua Cunjiang,“What should one do when things come from every direction?”   

The master said, “Hold to the center.” 

The monk bowed. 

The master then said, “Yesterday, as I was on my way to a dinner in the village, I was caught in a sudden storm with heavy rain and violent wind, so I headed for an old shrine and found shelter.”  

Ying’an Tanhua commented:  “The assembly considered the matter and said, ‘Taking shelter in an old mausoleum refers to the self that precedes the Kalpa of Emptiness, or to the place where Xinghua attained peace of mind and fully realized his original nature.’” 

(–Entangling Vines: A Classic Collection of Zen Koans, trans.  Thomas Yuho Kirchner)

Nakao Roshi writes:

As a member of the Zen Peacemaker Order, I have come to rely on what we refer to as the Three Tenets, which are Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action, as an effective way to hold to the center in any given situation. With regular application, the practice of the Three Tenets can become a way of living from the center at all times. Although the tenets are taken in order when you study them, the practice is not necessarily linear. Each tenet reflects the others; they are seamlessly embedded in each other, flowing as center, circumstance, and action in an ever-unfolding and endlessly varied circle of life. https://tricycle.org/magazine/hold-to-the-center/

 Someone at table spoke of a similar pattern in the 4th step of 12 step process, namely: acceptance, awareness, action.

Earlier Sunday a silver car brought a family who’d attended the Catholic liturgy in town. The gospel text, they said, was the sowing of seeds and the need before us. to be attentive as to where they fell. Matthew 13:3-9

The Parable of the Sower concerns a sower who scatters seed, which falls on four different types of ground. The hard ground “by the way side” prevents the seed from sprouting at all, and the seed becomes nothing more than bird food. The stony ground provides enough soil for the seeds to germinate and begin to grow, but because there is “no deepness of earth,” the plants do not take root and are soon withered in the sun. The thorny ground allows the seed to grow, but the competing thorns choke the life out of the beneficial plants. The good ground receives the seed and produces much fruit. https://www.gotquestions.org/parable-sower.html

We are invited to awareness/not-knowing, bearing witness/acceptance, and entering action. 

Everyone quietly longs to appear and disappear into what is taking place before them.

As I sit with anyone, I long to disappear into the manifesting reality presenting itself before me. 

In that quiet revelation we are transformed and transubstantiated into holy presence, one that is nothing other than what is before us.

What is before us... 

that which God sees now

One becomes formless by being completely within form without attachment to form.

Look out into what appears as form. See it. See into it. See through it.

There is no separate object against which to contend.

There is that which is in sight. “You” are not that which sees. There is only seeing through the sight seen.

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."
Arraj, James. Christianity in the Crucible of East-West Dialogue / God, Zen and the Intuition of Being (2 Volumes in 1) (Kindle Locations 821-822). Inner Growth Books and Videos, LLC. Kindle Edition. 

When Trungpa writes “Then you will see God” does “see God” mean that God is a “see God”? (This is not a verb/object grammar, rather a descriptive of what God is -- God is a see God.

Further, is it the desire to see God that eventuates the see God? (E.g. you ‘will’ see God). Is the “see God” brought into appearance because one wills (one desires) to(ward) see God?

We do not have to see God. Not as some object to be seen as separate. But to see God might be to let gaze go as what is seeing, into, and through.

Are we expecting to see God out there as some definable shape?

Or is our looking a looking as, into, and through what is there without making anything seen that which is separate and distinct as “God”?

Is God, therefore, that which is seeing without object -- rather, a “see God” in itself that which is being seen through?

All time collapses into now.

Like the white haired gentleman I shook hands with in his hospice bed last evening, a non-differentiated touch seemingly three weeks spanning a prison room with low fat milk and cake to mashed potatoes and gravy of a summer’s evening sudden recognition in quiet space.

See God

and live through

That which

God sees

Now