Saturday, August 17, 2019

the real expression of itself

“I” doesn’t care for “you.”

If there is only care...

No”I” and no “you” — no duality to confirm Descartes’ speculation that mind and matter — the thinking thing and the extensive thing — can never connect or reach each other, then what are we left with?

We are left with reality as it is.

As it is? Does reality care?

There is nothing outside of reality. Even illusion is a distortion of reality from the inside.

Thus, “I” cannot care for “you.”

Rather, care resides as reality resides, as, with, through itself.

Thus, if we do not care, we are living illusory or unreal lives.

In truth, to be real is to care.

To care is to be the real expression of itself.

Of oneself. Not the self. Oneself.

What remains if subjects and objects are taken away?

What is gone? Gone? Gone beyond? Gone completely beyond?

Is there a willingness to wake up...

And see?

Friday, August 16, 2019

no object; reflective action

Ask me

If I care

I will tell you

I don’t care.

Ask me if I will help

Someone suffering

I will say, yes, I will.

Caring is not a state of being.

Caring is right now being aware of,

And serving, someone needing help.

I don’t care for you.

I am

You.

And I am

Has no object.

Only reflective action.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

assumption (הנחה) day

Here is my assumption: one is present with, (יהוה).

We will slowly come to see when we begin to be, completely, one with one's wholeness (שלום).

Becoming, (הופך), what we are.

one is present with, יהוה

Mary.
Jo-Ann.
Janet.

What does it mean to be assumed into heaven?

I assume, if there is some heaven beyond my comprehension, these three women are there.

Why?

Because they just might be where they were when they were walking this earth.

Where once you are when you are there, so forever are you where you are when you are there.

If heaven is where God is, and God is where one is present, then one is in heaven and in God when one is present where one is.

Mary.
Jo-Ann.
Janet.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

off watch

Red squirrel
Comes off mountain
Wanting on bird-feeder

I cannot permit
As long as I look —
This trespass

what is looking out

Your language is silence. No wonder we do not hear you.

Morning sunlight through green leaves. An old tree beyond unwired fence post. And stillness. Everything in place. You sound yourself and there is nothing to hear but silence. You move with profound slowness and all we see is stillness. 

We, on the other hand, are noisy and bustling. It is our way. Saying so much yet hardly nearing truth. Moving so fast yet seldom arriving anywhere near peace.

You move with the breeze, shadows of leaves sweeping zendo floor raising no dust. You return to stillness and stone on rug is forever just touching surface rippling.

We think we are born and think we die but know nothing of the apparent two edges of life. In this instant there is no birth no death and we still know nothing but do not know what we know.

You are edgeless. I am all boundary. You are the empty pause between sound. I am the chattering of squirrels when protesting their inconvenience.

In the solitude of silence and stillness...everyone is here, aren’t they?

There is nowhere to go, is there?

There’s nothing to see, is there?

There’s no one asking these questions, is there?

I don’t know if I am looking out at the green and sunlight or if what is the inside of everything is emptying itself from within to show what is looking out from the center of everything.

When I began this I was going to quote Micah. Here it is:
From the book of the prophet Micah  The nations go up to the mountain of the Lord  
Thus says the Lord: In days to come the mount of the Lord’s house Shall be established higher than the mountains; it shall rise high above the hills, And peoples shall stream to it: Many nations shall come, and say, “Come, let us climb the mount of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, that we may walk in his paths.”For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
 

He shall judge between many peoples and impose terms on strong and distant nations; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. Every man shall sit under his own vine or under his own fig tree, undisturbed; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.   
For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, But we will walk in the name of the Lord, our God, forever and ever. On that day, says the Lord, I will gather the lame, And I will assemble the outcasts, and those whom I have afflicted. I will make of the lame a remnant, and of those driven far off a strong nation; And the Lord shall be king over them on Mount Zion, from now on forever.  (Micah 4, 1)
To walk “in the name of the Lord” is to wander through no name, everywhere, where time is not.

At this, little remains to do, little has been done, little is what we are.

There is the returning to inside of everything. There is this pilgrimage to allow the passage.

As the mouth of the Lord of host speaks.

Nothing, all of this, is heard.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

today is a good day

some get told they have six months to live

some look to left as truck hits car

the rest of us never know

so, in zazen, we die daily

Monday, August 12, 2019

yanah

Where do they all come from? Where do they all go?

Zen people say there is no birth. They say there is no death.

And yet they are here. And each one will soon enough leave.

You
Are
Not
Alone
Here.

haiku

             (for “tutti quanti”)

Former tennis opposent

Another set

A different court

...   ...   ...

(On learning of a death. Last match 42 years ago)

Sunday, August 11, 2019

andirivieni, coming and going

Why not admit that there are enemies?

I have in mind those that can be called, and actually are, enemies.*

I know many of their names. I find it difficult to love them.
The language of enemies is seen as the end of a conversation—or the end of relationship. 
We assume everyone is doing their best, or failing on some things but not everything, or that people are cogs in a complex machine over which they have little control. We let systemic oppression be the problem. When we see others hurt, when we encounter people enacting terror on their neighbors, we assume they are simply misguided. 
Yet Christians follow scriptures in which enemies are named with clarity and vigor. The third chapter of Luke begins by naming the names of the tormentors of the Jews of the first century: Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, and Herod. Right up front we are introduced to the full swath of political actors who oppress and terrorize the common people of Judea. 
Tiberius was the emperor known for his extreme paranoia and wrath that spread like a disease across his territories. Pontius Pilate, the prefect of Judea, executed political enemies without trial and was infamous for his bribes and insults. Herod Antipas imprisoned and executed his enemies over personal slights. 
Luke sets the scene for the gospel in a tyrannical, volatile, and oppressive political climate. And he wants us to know who is in charge, who makes this repression possible. He doesn’t reduce the problem to “good people who do bad things.” He doesn’t blame systems. He names enemies.
(--from, THE FORGOTTEN CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE OF LOVING YOUR ENEMIESIf you're going to love your enemies, you need to know who they are.  BY MELISSA FLORER-BIXLER, Sojourners, sept-oct 2019)
They don't want to have a conversation with me. My silence is uncertain it wants to break for them even if they did.

I used to sit with a man who was on Nixon's enemies list. There was a leftover pride he and his family felt even four decades later.

My enemy seems self-driven and self-absorbed. (When I think of self, the word anattā arises.)

My enemy seems fixed and stuck in an unyielding opinion about Browns and Blacks, Muslims and Democrats, Women and Humility. (When I think of unshakable opinions and unrelenting prejudice, the word anicca arises.

My enemy seems unaware of the harm and consternation, fear and cynicism, disheartened apathy following in his (their) wake as they roil and rant in demeaning depredation. (When I think of this behavior, the word dukkha arises.)

There are men and women who are my enemies. You know their names.
And yet, in turn, these enemies have characteristics that don't exactly have faces, they are three poisons --greed, aversion, delusion.
The three poisons (Sanskrit: triviṣa; Tibetan: dug gsum) or the three unwholesome roots (Sanskrit: akuśala-mūla; Pāli: akusala-mūla), in Buddhism, refer to the three root kleshas of Moha (delusion, confusion), Raga (greed, sensual attachment), and Dvesha (aversion).[1][2] These three poisons are considered to be three afflictions or character flaws innate in a being, the root of Taṇhā (craving), and thus in part the cause of Dukkha (suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness) and rebirths.[1][3].    (Wikipedia) 
Last night while sitting in vigil with a man just deceased I thought about how, in one final instant, all the things that were carried to that moment -- medical issues, mental concerns, emotional worries, financial depletion, spousal surprise at sudden turn, the labored agonal respiration -- just fell away, and quiet stillness, what some call peaceful resting, others call death of the body, and yet others might call the mysterious disappearance.

Andirivieni.**

**The coming and going -- of, in, and through -- this life.

Can we, can I, love this?

All of it?

...   ...   ...

*
en·e·my
/ˈenəmē/
noun
plural noun: enemies
  1. a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.
    synonyms:foeadversaryopponentrivalnemesisantagonistcombatantchallengercompetitor, opposer, hostile party; More
    • a hostile nation or its armed forces or citizens, especially in time of war.
      noun: the enemy

      "the enemy shot down four helicopters"

    • a thing that harms or weakens something else.

      "routine is the enemy of art"

no click nor clack

havahart traps

wide open unbaited —

no one wants to travel

stumbling into a crowded page

all the bright lights

the sounds of accomplishment

not here --

red cardinal and yellow finch