he’s not funny

It’s no longer funny — the crudity, bullying, lies and deceit, insane meetings with dictators and false outcomes.

Stop it.

Now.

return home to truth

Before enlightenment, men who lie.

On the day of his enlightenment, in front of the lecture hall, Tokusan burned to ashes his commentaries on the sutras. He said: “However abstruse the teachings are, in comparison with this enlightenment they are like a single hair to the great sky.  

However profound the complicated knowledge of the world, compared to this enlightenment it is like one drop of water to the great ocean.” Then he left the monastery.   -- The Gateless Gate (https://www.dailyzen.com/)

After enlightenment, men who lie.

Arjuna : 

Tell me of those who live in wisdom, Ever aware of the Self, O Krishna; How do they talk, how sit, how move about?    

Sri Krishna: 
They live in wisdom 
Who see themselves in all and all in them, 
Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed 
Every selfish desire and sense craving 
Tormenting the heart. Not agitated 
By grief or hankering after pleasure, 
They live free from lust and fear and anger. 
Fettered no more by selfish attachments, 
They are not elated by good fortune 
Nor depressed by bad. Such are the seers.  

Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, 
The wise can draw in their senses at will. 
Aspirants abstain from sense pleasures, 
But they still crave for them. These cravings all 
Disappear when they see the Lord of Love. 
For even of those who tread the path, 
The stormy senses can sweep off the mind. 
But they live in wisdom who subdue them 
And keep their minds ever absorbed in me
 https://www.bmcm.org/inspiration/passages/living-wisdom/

Those unwilling or incapable of finding true home in truth of non-separate interdependence and shared unity of love, choose the lie of the world — inequality, superiority, disdain for others, treating people, animals, themselves as objects to use and abuse.

Truth isn’t an option when convenient. It is the only thing real.

Abandon lies.

Return home to truth.

undermost

gone
gone

gone beyond
gone completely

beyond awakening —
no

one
going

on

adiutorium nostrum in nomine domini

Outside world
Chaotic

Inside world
Empty

Where God
Is

long view, a time will come

The current president of the United States is no longer interesting.

He will fade, whether by means of criminal liability or vamoosing out of town on a get-out-of-jail card.

America, though, will endure.

The corrections necessitated by his erroneous thinking and larcenous spirit will take place over time and after unnecessary pain inflicted on ordinary people.

But he, the man, will become a reference citation illustrating ineptitude and irrelevance as to forwarding the spirit of justice and proud citizenship in a once proud and authentically patriotic land become a wounded country.

His brand of posturing and pretentious puffery stuffed by pretend-patriotism will flush away.

He will be forgotten.

America will recover.

Independence Day, July 4th, will be celebrated again without his insincere and worrisome presence as celebrity-in-chief monopolizing the news and embarrassing those intent on living lovingly with others.

trees

Let’s not talk about abuses.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. (—from, Declaration of Independence: A Transcription)

Nor worrisome individuals.

The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.(Preamble to the Bill of Rights)

Let’s not despair over lies and truculent showboating.

Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election! Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t Shady James Comey and the now disgraced FBI agents take and closely examine it? Why isn’t Hillary/Russia being looked at? So many questions, so much corruption! (6/28/18, @realDonaldTrump, Twitter)

Rather, consider poetry. A poem by Christian Wiman.

From A Window        

          (—poem by Christian Wiman)

Incurable and unbelieving

in any truth but the truth of grieving,

I saw a tree inside a tree

rise kaleidoscopically

as if the leaves had livelier ghosts.

I pressed my face as close

to the pane as I could get

to watch that fitful, fluent spirit

that seemed a single being undefined

or countless beings of one mind

haul its strange cohesion

beyond the limits of my vision

over the house heavenwards.

Of course I knew those leaves were birds.

Of course that old tree stood

exactly as it had and would

(but why should it seem fuller now?)

and though a man's mind might endow

even a tree with some excess

of life to which a man seems witness,

that life is not the life of men. 
And that is where the joy came in. 

my contemplation will be this diet

Feast of Thomas.

St. Thomas, (born, probably Galilee—died 53 CE, Madras, India; Western feast day December 21, feast day in Roman and Syrian Catholic churches July 3, in the Greek church October 6), one of the Twelve Apostles. His name in Aramaic (Teʾoma) and Greek (Didymos) means “twin”; John 11:16 identifies him as “Thomas, called the Twin.” He is called Judas Thomas (i.e., Judas the Twin) by the Syrians.(--Encyclopaedia Britannica), https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Thomas

The Sayings presented by him are intriguing and koan-esque.

21 Mary said to Jesus, "What are your disciples like?" 

He said, They are like little children living in a field that is not theirs. when the owners of the field come, they will say, "Give us back our field." They take off their clothes in front of them in order to give it back to them, and they return their field to them. For this reason I say, if the owners of a house know that a thief is coming, they will be on guard before the thief arrives and will not let the thief break into their house (their domain) and steal their possessions. As for you, then, be on guard against the world. Prepare yourselves with great strength, so the robbers can't find a way to get to you, for the trouble you expect will come. Let there be among you a person who understands. When the crop ripened, he came quickly carrying a sickle and harvested it. Anyone here with two good ears had better listen! 

22 Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father's) domain." 

They said to him, "Then shall we enter the (Father's) domain as babies?" 

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the (Father's) domain]." 

(--Frontline, From Jesus to Christ, Gospel of Thomas)    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/primary/gthomas.html 

As I grow older and nearer cessation of present form, I suspect there will be a transformation into present emptiness. The enigmas and koans will no longer need the ego commentary of keepers of the mysteries or masters of the practice.

Rather, things will merely be themselves. Without commentary. Without exegesis. Without obeisance.  Without deference. Without miasma of celebrity. Without strut or swagger of being somebody.

As itself, what is will simply be itself.

As themselves, things will owe nothing to nobody, nor be owned by anybody.

The world has become far too occupied by inhospitality and instrumentality. The zombie-esque movement toward bland possession and cold pronouncement of self-promotion is confusing, especially at a time when anatta (the "no-soul or no-self doctrine" of Buddhism.) and kenosis (In Christian theology, kenosis (Greek: κένωσις, kénōsis, lit. [the act of emptying]) is the 'self-emptying' of Jesus' own will and becoming entirely receptive to God's divine will. The word ἐκένωσεν (ekénōsen) is used in Philippians 2:7, "[Jesus] made himself nothing ...") (--Wikipedia)  are inviting us desperately toward something more real, caring, engagingly mysterious, and meaningful.

I'll take my meditation here:

4 Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live. For many of the first will be last, and will become a single one." 

5 Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that won't be revealed." 

6 His disciples asked him and said to him, "Do you want us to fast? How should we pray? Should we give to charity? What diet should we observe?" 

Jesus said, "Don't lie, and don't do what you hate, because all things are disclosed before heaven. After all, there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and there is nothing covered up that will remain undisclosed."   (--Ibid) 

 My contemplation will be this diet.

2 Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will rule over all." (--Thomas)

one other way

If the universe had no beginning, there is no creator.

If there is no creator, then no need for a god.

If no god, then creation itself is what we would have called god .

What do I think? I think god is creation.

One way or the other.

in with

if

God is love

what are you

in love with