try to remember

In the reading we didn't use at morning practice, there was a phrase about Moksha and the unborn.

This, after finding reference on Quora:

To understand the Moksha, one should first understand the concept of Samsara and life cycle of soul. Samsara means cycle of repetitive birth-rebirth. Jiva* gets birth according to his past Karma, then lives, experience fruits of Karma, does new Karma, dies and again born according to previous Karma. Which is subjected to birth-rebirth in different Spicies [sic] and lokas also. These is considered the bondage of Karma and hence suffering in Samsara. 

Moksha/Mukti means permanent liberation from this bondage and Samsara. It's said who attains Moksha never has to return in Samsara. So, unlike Samsara which is subjected to continuous changes, Moksha is considered eternal, free from suffering and bondage. There are various paths (namely Karma, Bhakti, Jnana, Sharanagati) for attaining Moksha, and as per Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2. 

2.20 It is not born, nor does It ever die; after having been, It again ceases not to be; unborn, eternal, changeless and ancient, It is not killed when the body is killed.

2.21 Whosoever knows It to be indestructible, eternal, unborn and inexhaustible, how can that man slay, O Arjuna, or cause to be slain? 

2.22 Just as a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, so also the embodied Self casts off worn-out bodies and enters others which are new. 

(--Quora, research) 

*  In Hinduism the jiva is a living being, or any entity imbued with a life force. The word itself originates from the Sanskrit verb-root jīv which translate to "to breathe or to live". The jiva, as a metaphysical entity, has been described in various scriptures, such as the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads and the Vachanamrut. Wikipedia 

After practice, over tea and toast, the realization that one might make the case that the Christian metaphor also points to the unborn and undying nature of moksha.

Consider, in the mythology:

• Jesus has no earthly father, is conceived miraculously, and fantastically enters the world.
• At the end of his historical narrative, he suffers, dies, is resurrected, and ascends to the realm of  heaven from whence he originated.
• Hence, birth and death are unaccountably transcended and transcendent. He, in the tradition of moksha, is unborn and undies. 
• (Note: for contemporary viewers of the zombie genre, he undies, he is not the undead. If there is no birth and no death, one cannot become unborn or undead. One cannot become the opposite of what is not.)

Thus the consideration:

• Is resurrection the restoration of life to its original clarity and wholeness?
• Is salvation the realization we are safe, unimpeded by fear, but rather, whole and entire?
• Is the Christ, the Messiah, the manifestation of the One without a second -- a nondual moving through what is present and perennial, the energy of compassion and equanimity suffusing the field of Shunyata (emptiness) with Source Love without opposite or other?

For those concerned that this suggests everything is a soup of undifferentiated indistinctness, consider this:

• each person, place, or thing is eminently itself;
• the particular character of each and every entity has no opposite, no antagonistic antonym which serves as denier, obviation, or negation;
• rather, the integrity of each and all is not antagonistic nor antithetical to the each nor the all.

We do not get it -- (the definition of sin). We do not get what we are. We do not get who we are. Rather we cultivate oppositional malaise. This exhibits as belief in separation. This missing the point, this willful inattention -- distracts us from the reality-at-hand.

Source.

Love.

Ever-emerging. Ever-present. Ever-whole.

no tears are enough

Woman back from India.

Recollection of Ramesh Balsekar:

LETTER TO GOD

This is Ramesh’s letter to God, which was published in the book ‘The Ultimate Understanding’ (Publishers: Yogi Impressions).

I bow in worship to that Sadguru (The source or God) Who, though in reality formless, is the very embodiment of compassion. - Jnaneshwar 

Dear God,

This is my record of eternal gratitude to You.

You gave me birth in a most respected Hindu family, but not high enough in social status to make me proud.

You gave me a physical form well-admired for its perfection, but it was small enough to keep me humble.

You gave me education high enough to be most useful in life, but not high enough to make me proud.

You gave me success in sports high enough to be satisfied, but not proud.

You gave me a career in which You took me high enough to be admired, but not high enough to make me arrogant.

You gave me a wife and family for which I have always been eternally grateful, but You did not spare me some grief to remind me not to forget what life is all about, and to be always grateful for what I do have.

You did not forget to place an adequate number of temptations in my way so that I may not be too critical of others who have to face their own temptations.

I am now 84, and perhaps the only wish that remains is that the long life You have given me will not carry a burden at the end. But in that case, I know You will also give me the necessary courage to go with it.

You gave me a lot to show me how little is needed to be content and how much could be given away.

And, undoubtedly, the most important of all - as if the bounty You have showered on me were not enough - You crowned Your achievement by using this psychosomatic apparatus to convey to the world the most important message of Advaita. Truly I am blessed. Or, indeed, my Beloved, have You not blessed Yourself?!

Finally, it occurs to me, if You were to design for Yourself a life in phenomenality, could it have been much different from this one?

And, for this thought, no tears are enough to wash Your Noumenal feet.

                                                                     - Ramesh Balsekar

often deep and rocky

If you are not a practitioner of zen and it’s ways, don’t look to the clouds for direction.

People these days search for a way through the clouds, 

But the cloud way is dark and without sign. 

The mountains are high and often steep and rocky; 

In the broadest valleys the sun seldom shines. 

Green crests before you and behind 

White clouds to east and west 

Do you want to know where the cloud way lies? 

There it is, in the midst of the Void. 

- Han shan  (Dailyzen)

When government officials point up, go down. When they point to left or right, stand still. When they say not to worry, make room for fear in your kitchen.

Yes, this bad weather will pass in time. But the crooked character of dishonest men never straighten out as they slither around corners and crowd into narrow ideology.

Better for your wellbeing to breathe in and out like the sleeping border collie sharing your pillow. He is running in his sleep. There are squirrels and cats, wind in branches and untraceable anxieties to chase after between sleep breathing twitching.

And morning comes, and bamboo slats show dawn light through the sixth day.

It is Friday.

An alarm clock down hall sounds.

Off to clouds.

And prison.

Conversation.

charting end of shift

There is fretting over coronavirus. Worry about confidence.

Will someone who is pathological sidestepper engender trust in situation where politicking and blustering do not suffice?

Stock market shows jitters. Consumer marketplace unsure restocking will occur.

Every sore throat and respiratory distress causes frowns. One million hospital beds for 330 million Americans. Wash hands. Don’t touch face.

I eat orange. Some pieces of chocolate. Take pills. Feel oblique.

One final thought — why do missionaries try to sell Christianity to people when what Christianity is about is the foundation of love at heart of being?

Just love. Teach it by modeling it. Forget the joining and believing.

Rain has stopped.

The pugnacious and bellicose among us are seldom filled with love.

Love them anyway.

It maddens everyone to not expect what is deserved.

beyond grief and loss

It is all right here.

The happiest people dwell in communion with what is.

hören sie wohl

How do we speak a world into generous and gracious existence?

Projective saying is poetry: the saying of world and earth, the saying of the arena of their conflict and thus of the place of all nearness and remoteness of the gods. Poetry is the saying of the unconcealedness of what is. Actual language at any given momentis the happening of this saying, in which a people's world historically arises for it and the earth is preserved as that which remains closed. Projective saying is saying which, in preparing the sayable, simultaneously brings the unsayable as such into a world.

(—from,  1935-1936 The Origin of the Work of Art, Martin Heidegger, 

As if the words of scripture were to read:
           ”I speak now, not I, but Christ-Reality speaks through me.”

Who could hear such language?

Who can face such reality?

Who speaks in such a way?

Does anyone dare open mind and mouth to respond to such questions?

Do we dare open mind, heart, and eyes to become the unsayable?

help

Martin Heidegger writes, 

"In his draft for the hymn 'Mnemosyne' (Memory), Hoelderlin says:   

     We are a sign that is not read, 

     We feel no pain, we almost have 

     Lost our tongue in foreign lands.

(from Lecture 1 in What Is Called Thinking, Heidegger quoting Friedrich Holderlin) 

We live in a time of dangerous ignorance.

Ineloquence is our political punishment.

Words mean nothing to the deluded.

Nothing, in the words of the macerator-in-chief, means anything.

We are desolate.

earth wednesday

We are earth.

And, it is Wednesday.

ex nihilio nihil

No moral courage
No intelligent thought
No feeling for others
No sense of decency
No honest action

then follows despair

Let the Syrian children freeze

to death in Reyhanli Turkey

In Syria, let bombs fall on homes

in Ariha, Idlib Province  —

We don’t care

We don’t care

We don’t care

Our business 

takes our time

And what soul remains

the absurd task of righting what is not wrong

Greetings D, C, L et al —

I’m in Fort Kent.

I’m listening to Alan Watts book This Is It: And Other Essays On Zen and Spiritual Experience, (Macmillan Audio, Scribd, Released June 19, 2018). I’m stopped by a phrase I’ve not heard before, “Sin is behovable.”

I look it up. Found this. (See below)*

While I am a student of interreligious dialogue, and not much of a fundamentalist in any faith, the reference struck me as interesting. 

Is “sin” — in contemporary expression — “not getting it”? 

Modern expressions have sin as “missing the mark”, “belief in separation”, and, I would add, “willful inattention.”

I’ve never much liked the notion of, or explanations of, sin. Perhaps, for me, the simplest description comes from a Leonard Cohen lyric in Sisters of Mercy (1967):

Well, I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned

When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned

C’s attempt to do whatever he thought he was doing became an incident of split and separation from (a) the intention of the gathering, and, (b) the received experience of some or many gathered listening to his words.

There were those in attendance who felt that he, in modern parlance, sinned. He, in turn, feels that those isolating and punishing him for his perceived sin were, themselves, sinning by ignoring the context, intent, and personal accomplishments he’s been making.

And there we all sit. Some in consternation. Some in judgment. Some suffering repercussions. Some trying to heal the breach.

My sense, with my newfound word, is that the behovable nature of this incident could deepen resolve toward reparation and reinstatement, semblance of contrition and gestures of magnanimity.

And you, dear madam facilitator, are just the person to forward the process toward happy resolution.

I trust you in the same way I trust C — to succeed in the absurd task of righting the sailboat after the recent blowdown. Along with that, you’re both good people!

May all be well! 

(I might just step over the border to Canada across the street and beg for asylum.)

Bill

* Revelations of Divine Love — Julian of Norwich    

"Often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not hindered: for then, methought, all should have been well." "Sin is behovable -- [playeth a needful part] -- ; but all shall be well”   

AFTER this the Lord brought to my mind the longing that I had to Him afore. And I saw that nothing letted me but sin. And so I looked, generally, upon us all, and methought: If sin had not been, we should all have been clean and like to our Lord, as He made us.   

And thus, in my folly, afore this time often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not letted: for then, methought, all should have been well. This stirring [of mind] was much to be forsaken, but nevertheless mourning and sorrow I made therefor, without reason and discretion.   

But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said: It behoved that there should be sin; [92] but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.   

(—from Chapter XXVII, Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich, as experienced in May of 1373; also known as A Book of Showings.)

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Dawn —

Safe home
Friends

arrêtez ... pourquoi pas ... allez

Stop Sanders. Stop Trump. Stop billionaires. 

Stop moderates. Stop minorities. Stop immigrants. 

Stop abortions. Stop gun control. Stop middle America. 

Stop coastal liberals. Stop McConnell. 

Stop congressional investigations. 

Stop the greatest deliberative body of 100 senators from hearing evidence. 

Stop the Supreme Court slide to right wing decisions. 

Stop the intelligence community. 

Stop the FBI. Stop career prosecutors in Justice Department. 

Hmmm...

I detect a pattern. 

What are we willing to go for? 

And will we believe anyone who can tell us?