when you have to go there

First we go out. Then we return in.

“Let each of you make your home a church.” (—John Chrysostom, On Genesis, p.53)

IT SEEMED THE BETTER WAY 

It seemed the better way When first I heard him speak But now it's much too late To turn the other cheek It sounded like the truth It seemed the better way Though no one but a fool Would bless the meek today I wonder what it was I wonder what it meant This rising up with love This lying down with death Better hold my tongue Better know my place Cup of blood with everyone Try to say the Grace

Copyright © 2001, 2003 Leonard Cohen.

We hear the question: "Do you attend church?"

Often the response: "No, I stay home." 

"Home is where the heart is" said Pliny the Elder.

I'd like to go home.

She said, he said, to him “I love you”

Yes

Sitting with the dying woman

Midday

I am thanked for my interest

Taking my leave

bye bye

I have an idea

Every family must give up one child

To be taken away and put somewhere

Without hope they’ll ever be returned

Ok...
Let’s start

That one, that one, that one, that one.

Thank you for your cooperation

a spit of cheer amid a continent of sludge.

Philosophers say there is clear thinking, and, there are mere opinions.

The events of everyday politics, especially here in America, are not just the foolish meanderings of a vain and ideological narcissism. There is a massive governmental collapse of thinking. We witness this aberration with alarm and anger.

Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma 

see no Dharma in everyday actions.  

They have not yet discovered that there are 

no everyday actions outside of Dharma. 

—Dogen

What is the dharma* of America’s actions?

* Origen & History: dharma — 1796, in secular sense, "caste custom, right behavior;" in Buddhism and Hinduism, "moral law," from Skt., "law, right, justice," related to dharayati "holds," and cognate with L. firmus, all from PIE base *dher- "to hold, support" (see firm (adj.)). (Dictionary.com)

I cannot ‘hold’ or ‘support’ the cruel politics of this administration.

“Be reasonable and demand the impossible now.” With jam, added!
(Be Reasonable by Robb Johnson, https://youtu.be/0SR2cKkr-SA)

A spit of cheer amid a continent of sludge.

aphasia

Hermit days. 

Just reading.

And so, in the quiet days that followed the crash, Emilio Sandoz turned inward for a time and probed the sense of mourning that had come over him, tried to understand why he felt so strongly that something inside him was dying.        (--p.305, The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell)

The end of spring. Comes summer. 

This quiet — 

como dices "¡para!"

Silence, as prayer, deepens inquiry.

Silence, in law & politics, means consent.

Right now is no time for silence.

Speak now! 

Reunite children with parents.

Find lost voice of compassion.

Admonish this administration.

searching zen

Q: Where will you go?

A: There is nowhere to go.

Q: Is this where home is?

A: This? Yes!

yes

   Juneteenth
 

January 1, 1863 was the official day for President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation;

But, it was two and a half years later before the start of the freedom celebration.

Many attempts were made to explain this delay;

It has remained one of the great mysteries until this day.



One story says the messenger of freedom was murdered on his way to Texas;

This was supposedly the first one of the conspiracy theory nexus.

Another on reports the land owners censored the news to maintain their labor force;

One of the more popular stories, but who was the source?



Yet another tale of federal troops allowing another harvest of cotton;

Of all the dirty tricks, this one was the most rotten.

Regardless of whether any stories gives the correct news;

Many good people in Texas remained without freedom and singing the blues.



Finally in June of 1865, Major General Gordon Granger with a flag and a gun;

Stormed the shores of a Texas town called Galveston.

The Generals first order of business was to announce the news of freedom;

And this time he brought along enough Union troops to make the people heed them.



Some people reacted with shock, while others reacted with complete jubilation;

The news of this day finally spread all over the nation.

Most people could not wait to leave the plantation and start living free;

So, from their home state they started to flee.



Regardless of where they went, they were followed with freedom’s challenges;

These challenges came from making decisions and environmental changes.

They never forgot that joyous 19th day of June;

When people once enslaved could finally sing their freedom tune.



The celebration started with reassuring and praying;

The adults were eating and drinking while the children were playing.

It was also a time for the reuniting of family members;

It was one of the happiest days many of them remembers.



Today it is a day of pilgrimage to that town;

Let the shouts of freedom for all make a holy sound.

Soon the day will come when in unison we say;

“Forever and ever all Americans will celebrate Juneteenth, the freedom holiday”!

By Arthur Kroll

no one expected this, we’ll say

Of course he’s a genius. And America is a school child. 

The genius teaches desolation. The students cheer and lift their brews and toast the demise of boring, plodding democracy.

We’ll look back on this time, raise a glass to the Trump Family, and saunter to the shelters desolation builds. 

No one expected this, we’ll say.

Lets practice saying this.

We’ll grow used to it.

(—in response to We’ll  be  cleaning  up Trump’s  mess  for  generations,   bY Catherine RampellColumnistJune 18 at 7:43 PM, Washington Post)

experience is what a man does with what happens to him (ah).

I remember reading words about not being a saint. They were similarly phrased, attributed to two different French writers, and neither with source citation in their various appearances.

1. “Life holds only one tragedy, ultimately: not to have been a saint”. - Charles Péguy
2. “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.” - Léon Bloy

The above words came to me after reading in morning laze the patient novel hiding for months around the house.

“...it seems to me that sainthood, like genius, is rooted in a sort of inspired persistence. It’s a consistent willing of one thing. It’s that kind of consistency and focus I see at work in Emilio.”
( —p.251, in novel The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell)

I am not that. However much the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj or the Veda story with refrain tat tvam asi, try to suggest otherwise, I remain unconvinced, inconsistent, unfocused, and impersistent.

In my search for the source of the Bloy/Péguy quotes, I came across Huxley:

• The poet is, etymologically, the maker. Like all makers, he requires a stock of raw materials — in his case, experience. Now experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and co-ordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. It is a gift for dealing with the accidents of existence, not the accidents themselves. By a happy dispensation of nature, the poet generally possesses the gift of experience in conjunction with that of expression.

• Texts and Pretexts (1932), p. 5. Aldous Huxley

What is needed in a dark time are poets.

This is a dark time.

We need poets.

Perhaps what we really need is a way of engaging experience as one might welcome stranger crossing border into strange land. 

And here, again, “It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and co-ordinating.“ (Ibid, Huxley)

There are many unsaintly people living in a country run by other profoundly unsaintly people.

No one feels welcome.

Our experience is unfruitful.

a dream, it's what we make it

June 19th, 2018

The universal body of reality
Is so subtle that
You do not hear it
When you deliberately
Listen for it,
And you do not see it
When you look at it.
As for the pure knowledge
That has no teacher,
How can it be attained by
Thought or study?

- Huanglong

(-daily zen.com)

pack your bags tonight by nine

The country seethes.

Call it suspended animus.

God cannot find a place to rest.

Time to leave for someplace less hostile.

Travel deep interior of mind without return ticket.

this, on twitter

Watching

Intently

Trump’s

Callous

Hubris.

Waiting;

It

Takes

Careful

Haruspicy.

Witch

Investigations

Transcend

Caustic

Hideousness.

gaming the ethical

To my republican friends, concerning your stance on the immigration issues staring you in the face: 

Political sterility, I suppose, is more morally acceptable than infanticide/euthanasia of decency.

fatherless

There is a country that welcomes the stranger and the outcast. 

It is a good country. 

It protects the young, the ill, and the elderly. 

It loves its family and its neighbors. 

It used to be the United States. 

Now it isn’t.

he said, ‘“I’m a complementarian“

Sometimes the simplest response is the most beautiful one.

MR. WILCZEK: And I think that's the essence of complementarity, that you have to view the world in different ways to do it justice, and the different ways can each be very rich, can each be internally consistent, can each have its own language and rules, but they may be mutually incompatible. And to do full justice to reality, you have to take both of them into account. 

MS. TIPPETT: Somewhere you say, “Complementarity is both a feature of physical reality and a lesson in wisdom.” And I think just what you just said about reality is equally true of — and I know you have to be careful to do too much of this stretching these things, but it's equally true of the human condition. 

MR. WILCZEK: Oh, very much so. [laughs] Oh, I think so. When people ask me what my religion is, I say I'm a complementarian. 

MS. TIPPETT: [laughs] That's right. 

MR. WILCZEK: I believe that it's really interesting and really fun and really informative, and the right thing to do, to be able to look at things in different ways and appreciate their different ways of looking at things that each have their own validity. And they may conflict if you try to apply them both at once, but OK, that's fine. You apply one at a time [laughs] and try to appreciate both. 

(—from On Being, Krista Tippett interviewing FRANK WILCZEK,Why Is the World So Beautiful?) https://onbeing.org/programs/frank-wilczek-why-is-the-world-so-beautiful-jun2018/

In prison yesterday, one of the men said that God was perfecting act.

There is no end that arrives at perfection.

There is only perfecting acts, aware and moving activity, that moves through everything with a compassion of humility.

World

              (Within)

Without

               (No)

End

               (Other)