become a question

 If you ask...

Dasein. In ordinary German, Dasein (literally, “being-there” or “being-here”) means existence, usually in the sense of the existence rather than non-existence of some particular thing. Heidegger, however, uses this word in an idiosyncratic way to designate one being in particular: the human being, the being for whom its own existence can become a question. In designating human beings as Dasein, Heidegger is rejecting philosophical conceptions that treat the essence of the human as something independent of historical place and time. Instead, he wants to emphasize that human existence is rooted in a “here”; our distinct way of Being is enmeshed in a particular history and connected to a unique but transient place with all the filiations of language, cultural practices, and traditions that are our own. As human beings, for Heidegger, we are here. We follow the established tradition in leaving the term Dasein untranslated
(—Excerpt from: "Being and Truth" by Martin Heidegger. Scribd.
Read this book on Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/148936287)

...you are here. 

due to illness

No New Year’s Eve

practice

conversation

tonight.

when does never end

You say

You have

Something

To say

About God

Now...

If you’ll

Excuse me

I have

To go

For Christ

(It seems)

Is never

Ending

it had not yet

First it was the mystical presence. Then it was the idea of. Finally it is the indecipherable sound of sheer absence.

So it is with what I have called God.

By the time the summer was over, I was to become conscious of the fact that the only way to live was to live in a world that was charged with the presence and reality of God.
To say that, is to say a great deal: and I don’t want to say it in a way that conveys more than the truth. I will have to limit the statement by saying that it was still, for me, more an intellectual realization than anything else: and it had not yet   .struck down into the roots of my will. The life of the soul is not knowledge, it is love, since love is the act of the supreme faculty, the will, by which man is formally united to the final end of all his strivings—by which man becomes one with God.
[...]
(—Excerpt from: "The Seven Storey Mountain" by Thomas Merton. Scribd.
Read this book on Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/249309404)

So it is with what I call my self.

just monday morning

Must be

feeling more

at home...

free access 

up and down

beds and sofas

max-manjushri, 16 days here

When papers

read, graded,

returned to university

Email sent

informing students,

posting grades.

remembering when poetry saves

This from Robert Creeley:

       A Step

       Things 

             

                    come and go.  

       Then 

       

                    let them.  

       (--from Pieces, 1969) 

truth equals

His two words, formed as question, might be new understanding.

The student writes: “Truth equals?” (dh)

If the question is the answer, then the affirmative statement is “Truth equals!”

Hence, any lie provokes inequality.

Something to it.

metta, saturday morning hermitage

I am listening

With god

To the sound

The universe 

makes

In this place 

At this time —

May the poetry

Of this practice

Find expression

In heart/mind —

In 2020

May vision be clear

Heart open

Mind free!

when

Where are you
going

I have no place
to go

I'll let you know
when

I'm
gone

more on aseitas — some words on no ground

Here, an excerpt:

Meaning. Aseity has two aspects, one positive and one negative. In its negative meaning, which emerged first in the history of thought, it affirms that God is uncaused, depending on no other being for the source of His existence. In its positive meaning, it affirms that God is completely self-sufficient, having within Himself the sufficient reason for His own existence. The technical analysis of this in terms of essence and existence, which took longer to develop in Christian thought, affirms that God possesses existence per se, that is, through, or in virtue of, His own essence. This does not mean that God is literally the cause of Himself in the strict sense of cause, since this would imply some kind of real distinction between God as causing and God as effect. Such a teaching, as St. Thomas Aquinas has pointed out (C. gent. 1.22), would be absurd. What it does mean is that God's existence is absolutely identical with His essence, that His essence necessarily includes existence itself, so that God cannot not exist: He is the Necessary Being par excellence. 

This identity of essence and existence, although held by all Christian thinkers, has been explained in different ways. The following account traces the development of the notion in Catholic thought from the Greek and Latin Fathers to the late scholastics and then concludes with some observations on the meaning of aseity as understood by certain modern philosophers.

(— from encyclopedia.com)

 Then, there’s this:

The foolish man conceives the idea of 'self.' The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of 'self;' thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.
(—Buddha)

There is God. Here is no I.

Here is God. There is no I. 

bare truth bears love

Some words just ring true. As do the words about truth, here:

Again, the conversation is imagined, not historic. But it still serves as a good reminder that — whatever the genuine differences there are in the Catholic Church between progressives and conservatives — neither of the two popes neatly fits conventional ideological binaries as Americans tend to use them. “Truth may be vital, but without love it is unbearable,” the film’s Francis tells the film’s Benedict… quoting the latter pope’s actual 2009 encyclical, which argues that love is “an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace.” (--from,  Christmas with The Two Popes, DECEMBER 24, 2019 BY CHRIS GEHRZ,, pathos.com

Truth without love is unbearable.

I'll sit with that a while. 

second day of christmas

1.
gray cat turns from yard
window, crosses gray blanket
downs on gray hoodie

2.
monks in france chant lauds
hall speaker, monastery
come to mountain edge

3.
Christ, transcendent, yes,
transparent matter -- rising
sun luminescent dawn

4.
purring cat, back to
window feels undulation
breath, turns -- facing light

(wfh, 26dec19)

satis, genug, assez, arketá, abbastanza, dostatochno, גענוג

This by Thomas Merton by way of louie, louie and Beth Cioffoletti:

the darkness is enough Posted: 24 Dec 2019 06:18 AM PST Photograph: During Christmas services in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Palestine, by the American Colony Jerusalem Photo Department, between 1934 and 1939. “Your brightness is my darkness. I know nothing of You and, by myself, I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing You. If I imagine You, I am mistaken. If I understand You, I am deluded. If I am conscious and certain I know You, I am crazy. The darkness is enough.” (—Thomas Merton, prayer before midnight mass at Christmas, 1941.)

only one — is what is

18 Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο.

18 No one has ever seen God. The only one, (45) himself God, who is in closest fellowship with (46) the Father, has made God (47) known. (48)

The Testimony of John the Baptist

19 Now (49) this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaderssent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed—he did not deny but confessed—“I am not the Christ!” 21 So they asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not!” “Are you the Prophet?”He answered, “No!” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Tell us so that we can give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

Notes:

(45) tc The textual problem μονογενὴς θεός (monogenēs theos, “the only God”) versus ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός (ho monogenēs huios, “the only son”) is a notoriously difficult one. Only one letter would have differentiated the readings in the mss, since both words would have been contracted as nomina sacra: thus qMs or uMs. Externally, there are several variants, but they can be grouped essentially by whether they read θεός or υἱός. The majority of mss, especially the later ones (A C Θ Ψ ƒ M lat), read ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός. P א 33 have ὁ μονογενὴς θεός, while the anarthrous μονογενὴς θεός is found in P א* B C* L. The articular θεός is almost certainly a scribal emendation to the anarthrous θεός, for θεός without the article is a much harder reading. The external evidence thus strongly supports μονογενὴς θεός. Internally, although υἱός fits the immediate context more readily, θεός is much more difficult. As well, θεός also explains the origin of the other reading (υἱός), because it is difficult to see why a scribe who found υἱός in the text he was copying would alter it to θεός. Scribes would naturally change the wording to υἱός however, since μονογενὴς υἱός is a uniquely Johannine christological title (cf. John 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9). But θεός as the older and more difficult reading is preferred. As for translation, it makes the most sense to see the word θεός as in apposition to μονογενής, and the participle ὁ ὤν (ho ōn) as in apposition to θεός, giving in effect three descriptions of Jesus rather than only two. (B. D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 81, suggests that it is nearly impossible and completely unattested in the NT for an adjective followed immediately by a noun that agrees in gender, number, and case, to be a substantival adjective: “when is an adjective ever used substantivally when it immediately precedes a noun of the same inflection?” This, however, is an overstatement. First, as Ehrman admits, μονογενής in John 1:14 is substantival. And since it is an established usage for the adjective in this context, one might well expect that the author would continue to use the adjective substantivally four verses later. Indeed, μονογενής is already moving toward a crystallized substantival adjective in the NT [cf. Luke 9:38; Heb 11:17]; in patristic Greek, the process continued [cf. PGL 881 s.v. 7]. Second, there are several instances in the NT in which a substantivaladjective is followed by a noun with which it has complete concord: cf., e.g., Rom 1:30; Gal 3:9; 1 Tim 1:9; 2 Pet 2:5.) The modern translations which best express this are the NEB (margin) and TEV. Several things should be noted: μονογενής alone, without υἱός, can mean “only son,” “unique son,” “unique one,” etc. (see 1:14). Furthermore, θεός is anarthrous. As such it carries qualitative force much like it does in 1:1c, where θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (theos ēn ho logos) means “the Word was fully God” or “the Word was fully of the essence of deity.” Finally, ὁ ὤν occurs in Rev 1:4, 8; 4:8; 11:17; and 16:5, but even more significantly in the LXX of Exod 3:14. Putting all of this together leads to the translation given in the text.

tn Or “The unique one.” For the meaning of μονογενής(monogenēs) see the note on “one and only” in 1:14. 

(46) tn  Grk “in the bosom of” (an idiom for closeness or nearness; cf. L&N 34.18; BDAG 556 s.v. κόλπος 1).

(47) tn  Grk “him”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

(48) sn  Has made God known. In this final verse of the prologue, the climactic and ultimate statement of the earthly career of the Logos, Jesus of Nazareth, is reached. The unique One (John 1:14), the One who has taken on human form and nature by becoming incarnate (became flesh, 1:14), who is himself fully God (the Word was God, 1:1c) and is to be identified with the ever-living One of the Old Testament revelation (Exod 3:14), who is in intimate relationship with the Father, this One and no other has fully revealed what God is like. As Jesus said to Philip in John 14:9, “The one who has seen me has seen the Father.”

(49) tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic. Greek style often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” but English style generally does not.

(—from, NET Bible)

...   ...   ...

1.

Christmas Morning Haiku

Unseen — revealed,

Community, only one,

Is what is — ground view

2.

CMH-2

Now, Kai, now

This is what is given —

Kai  — now, only now

3.

CMH-3

Who are you? (They are 

asking) What do you say about

Yourself? (Look — say nothing)

                           (wfh, 25dec19)