ignacio

 Having studied with

Jesuits, I remember

thinking with delight

un buen hombre

 Mater misericordiae

We all should be a mother of mercy

 Et cum fratribus nostris absentibus et sororibus absentibus

Especially tonight Peter M. on hearing of his death lejanas filipinas

experiential learning

 Where do the dead go?

Go where the dead do.

prognosis

Even this pain 

Will

Fade

Wait it out

One day it

Or you

Will be gone

¿Entiende?

memoryless joy

 What fine phrasing:

“the memoryless  joy of a man just risen from the grave” (—from Wendell Berry novel Jayber Crow)

And curious prospect. 

uta (詩) for republican smallness

 no use thinking there

will be change of mind in them

only seeking self --

they sink in mud up to mouth

feet long lost hope long gone choked

via negativa

 at conversation

I am defined by what I'm

not, everything gone --

paring down stripping away

til left with nearly nothing

et tu, brute

 The mockery crowd 

Mock four police officers

For telling their truth --

It is a side of these times

Rotten festering ugly

which is worse -- the war against iraq or the war against america

The seesaw teeters. 

Will anyone (above the rioters) be held accountable for 6Jan2021 insurrection, riot, terrorism against America?

How about the 2003 invasion of Iraq?

 Everything is different, but nothing has changed.  (--Capital Police Officer Harry Dunn, Select Committee 6Jan21 Hearing on Insurrectiuon, held 27July21)

The application of justice to crimes is a noble ideal.

But it is often dangerous to apply justice to wrongdoers.

Take the former president. Or the one before the one before.

Not bad men, argumentatively, just not held responsible.

without reference

 I would 

Pray but

I’ve fallen

Between bows

Empty zendo

Empty cross

Bird flies

Into day

before chimes

Not caring

Nor worrying

Morning arrives

Without sound

In dooryard

Light orange

the difficult thing

 Why is it so many people are judgmental?

“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”                                                                 ( ~ Carl Jung. Born on this day, in 1875)

And if to think is to thank, why is it gratitude is so rarely expressed in our troubled time? 

you demonstrate the truth of zen

Town is busy.

So many distractions. 

Living secluded

Above the cloud

At the top of Mount Su

Abiding in your origin

You demonstrate the 

Truth of Zen

You have moved far from town

From now on you renew

The Way of Bodhidharma.  

- Soseki

Origin is quiescent.

As is right concentration. 

no you in connection with

Make the world go away. 

 Again Bahiya pleaded “Awakened one, no one can know for sure the dangers there may be for you or for me. Teach me the Dhamma for my long-term welfare and lasting happiness.”

Finally, the Buddha relented: “I will teach you the Dhamma, Bahiya. Listen carefully to my words. Train your self in this manner: In what is seen, there is only the seen. In what is heard, there is only the heard. In what is sensed, there is only the sensed. In what is cognized, only the cognized.

This is how you should train yourself. When for you there is in what is seen only the seen, in what is heard only the heard, in what is sensed only the sensed and in what is cognized only the cognized, then Bahiya there is no you in connection with what is seen, heard, sensed or cognized, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor there nor anywhere in-between. This and only this is the end of stress and unhappiness.”  (—from, BAHIYA SUTTA, UDANA 1.10, THE MINDFULNESS OF BAHIYA, BY JOHN HASPEL)

Become one with it. 

seeing through icon

 Small crosses hanging

in windows — what is seen there

what they tell us — now