not to love

Not to love is not to be in existence, not to be in humanity, not to be in god, not to be in creation.

How does it feel to be nowhere? There is no feeling. There’s only drugs, alcohol, mockery, and cynicism.

Not to love is not anywhere or anything any of us ... want.

don’t answer

 Friday Evening Conversation ends with talk about The Physics of Angels.

Questions about source, illusion of separation, ignoring that which is our soul of identity, and the darkness experienced in the unsupported belief in disconnection.

We are not other than the whole. When we attempt to cut and fragment, divide and sever, we hurt everything and everyone.

To love god is to love creation, humanity and existence.

To love existence is to love humanity, god, and creation.

To love humanity is to love creation, existence, and god, 

To love creation is to love existence, god, and humanity.

To love any one is to love each and all. 

Self is self and self is Self.

“Whole sight; or all the rest is desolation.” (John Fowles)

There is no other place to go — we’re already there.

And so, the question resounds: Where are you? 

Where are we?

Don’t answer.

Be the question!

Watch what is appearing and emerging through the inquiry.

See whole; and each manifests itself.

for no surprise

 Haiku             

               (for no November surprise)

As election nears

the choice is easy -- pick one

who loves and tells truth

last week, middle october

Haiku

          (after rowing season)

Two wooden oars bare-

ly touching sun-speckled wa-

ter, outer harbor 

not seeing what is around them

Bleary men debate

climate change  --  Earth burns outside

their blindness  --  pains all

ici

 When my father was born, I was born.

My gratitude, dad. With love. We were here.

off

 No class today, swab

Tests of inmates and staff — cars

Rush down Barnestown road

et nunc et semper

It is enough

To say nothing

When asked about something

is there

Love 

All 

There is

All

Love

Is there

it is not the time you think it is

 It calculates as twenty one years ago.

But eternal now means it is just happening in what we call the present.

Good night, dear sister, rest peacefully.

simply stumbling around

 2. Subtleties of Daily Life

One day Shih-t’ou said, “I’ve come to visit you. What have you been doing?” 

The Layman said, “If you’re asking what I do every day, there’s nothing to say about it.”
 

Shih-t’ou said, “What did you think you were doing before I asked you about it?”
 

The Layman made up a verse:

What I do every day

 Is nothing special:

I simply stumble around.

 What I do is not thought out, 

Where I go is unplanned.

 No matter who tries to leave their mark,

The hills and dales are not impressed.

 Collecting firewood and carrying water 


Are prayers that reach the gods.

 Shih-t'ou approved, saying, “So, are you going to wear black or white? * 

The Layman said, ''I will do whatever is best.”  

It came to pass that he never shaved his head to join the sangha.
...   ...   ... 
 

* Black robes were worn by monks, and white robes were worn by laypeople.  

(--from, The Sayings of Layman Pang, tr. by James Green)

all is possible

The old monk wrote poetry.

Can the Creator of all lure poetry out of a stone?

Or cause a stirring of Divine Love in a human heart?

All is possible for the Creator of all,

Who loves to manifest the impossible

In endless configurations. 

(—Thomas Keating, “Out of a Stone”)

And the rest of we elderly monastics think about reheating coffee and toasting English muffin spreading organic peanut butter and cherry preserves from France.

The non-dual heart/mind abandons the dueling heartless mind to it’s necessary demise and it’s disintegration/reintegration into selfsame oneness.

walking mountain, tending gravesite