Stop
Me
If
You’ve
Heard
This
Saturday, January 01, 2022
four bells, saturday, second dog watch
Headlights through thick fog
northwest up hill Barnestown Road
Phosphorescent glow
one cracked-open shell at a telling
At wrinkled blanket
zendo chitta cat faces
new day rainy gray
Tea candle never
knows what shadows it will throw
what prayer be shown
versation about birdseed —
how we feed ourselves
words, like worlds, crack wide
open when taken in by
loving present ears
Friday, December 31, 2021
Thursday, December 30, 2021
wherein is whereout
Not thing in itself
but a thing experienced
intentionally —
Consciousness going out from
Itself to itself as there
think a-bout this
Exactly one year
from today it will be five
days after Christmas
Mark your calendar, think a-
bout it will be just like this
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
how hear the source of sound
The song said that everybody hurts.
What do we do? Keep the hurt going? Or, maybe, try healing?
At their best, Black freedom struggles intensify the virtues of American democracy and lend invaluable support to the search for justice. Amid white violence and Black bloodshed — forces we still face — Archbishop Tutu, like Martin Luther King Jr. before him, reminded us of a lesson we should never forget: that forgiveness and reconciliation are the foundation of a vibrant social movement and a healthy democracy. As King argued, the lex talionis — the law of retributive justice described as an “eye for an eye” in the Book of Exodus — is ultimately unsatisfying and harmful. “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind,” King wrote.
With King and Archbishop Tutu as our guides, we can reclaim moral ground and preserve our humanity while achieving the highest form of justice possible. Archbishop Tutu sweetly reverses the usual hierarchy of the West over Africa in colonial thinking when he argues for a conception of justice rooted in his beloved motherland. “Retributive justice is largely Western. The African understanding is far more restorative — not so much to punish,” he said, “as to redress or restore a balance that has been knocked askew.”
(--from, Where Is the Forgiveness and Grace in Cancel Culture?, Dec. 28, 2021 NYTimes)
We're in such a damn hurry to clean up and clear up what's contrary to our way of thinking, our template for a pure and moral world. 'Kill them,' we yell, 'kill the sons o'bitches!'
Stop the steal, hang Mike Pence, let those zygotes get driver's licenses and red hats, stop those coloreds from voting out those nice white folks, keep them non-christians out of our country, the hell with the lazy poor trash who don't have trust funds and high-value stocks! Do you know who I am?
You said your students are afraid to talk about race. Are you sympathetic to the idea of keeping certain words out of the classroom context?
I think it’s dangerous. And there is no word called “the n-word.” For example, Countee Cullen: If we erase the actual word he used, we’re erasing a poem called “Incident,” which should be read because it’s a beautiful poem. Whatever it is that was written, we need to be able to read it. To me, it’s that simple. And you can call me whatever you want to call me. If I don’t like what you’re saying to me, I have a button here on the Zoom that says “off.” So do you. You have to be free. That’s what I hate about the vigilantism that’s happening now. And what is worth killing somebody for? I live on a mountain, and someone could drive down the mountain too fast and hit a squirrel. That squirrel has to eat, and so it has to go looking for food. Squirrel can’t go to Wendy’s or McDonald’s. So you should go down the mountain at five miles an hour. If you’re late you’re still going to be late. You’re not going to be on time because you murdered a squirrel.
Tutu knew, and Giovanni knows, what we're made of -- opinions and insufficient words to plumb the deep bottom of our hearts and being. So we skim the scummy surface of polluted bigotry with oars of bored muzzles with fingers on unsafetied triggers looking to take down and take out with bullets whoever is bad, or other, or just in our way.(from, Talk Nikki Giovanni Has Made Peace With Her Hate, By David Marchese, 26dec2021, NYTimes)
We have not yet begun to plumb the real depths of wording.
Where, at origin, the urge to convey purpose and meaning grunts upward through mute desire toward intimate communication, saying, 'here, here, I am here!'
We don't hear what is here.
We've become deaf to the mutterings of God.
In unhearing isolation we shout obscenities, 'fu*k you, fu*k you', singing deranged Christmas carols of prejudice and propaganda, ignorance and political nonsense against, and against, and against...
Don't talk of hope. ...I've heard that word before. It's sleeping in my memory. I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died... (with apologies to Simon)
How hear the source of sound? The profound longing to say: I'm here...I love you...Do you see me? Can you hear me?
Mutter.
Mutter...
Mother?
作務衣 *
Sitting zazen black
Samue *— inner monk working
Still doing nothing
…. … …
* Monk's working clothes
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Monday, December 27, 2021
cowardly and craven
Chaos
Captures
Cacophony of
Craziness throughout
Country
Concern is
Caustic
Casualty of
Crumpled
Citizenship
Crap
a moment with desmond tutu and tenzin gyatso
A brief, transitory, masterclass of joy.
Extraordinary footage
https://twitter.com/steamedhamms/status/1475041964630421510?s=21
and
https://twitter.com/jaiminism/status/1475154652916117504?s=20
Then, the condolences sent by His Holiness.
How wonderful to have lived in their time!
Sunday, December 26, 2021
where stillness goes
Perhaps love is reality.
human kind
Cannot bear very much reality
(T.S. Eliot, in Burnt Norton)
Hence our penchant for diversion and distraction.
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
(Ibid)
Stillness is that which drops down into love.
by all things
It’s not about control or fear.
It’s all about allowing and acceptance.
Seeing oneself (one’s self) in the explication, expostulation, and exoneration.
“I live by letting things happen.”
— Dōgen
Reality is that which presents itself beyond our thinking or manipulation. Spiritual or religious reality is anecdotal mythology until it becomes antidotal releasement of misread messaging. So much we hold is not there, not vorhanden (not-at-hand.)
“If we don’t know what’s real, we can’t resist.” (Bugs to Neo, Matrix, The Resurrections)
Yes, resist, (from Latin resistere "to make a stand against, oppose; to stand back; withstand,").
To withstand. To oppose might not mean to eliminate. But to make a stand, to with-stand. Our very natures are replete with oppositions. Our personal, psychological, and political selves might be better served by wonder rather than warfare.
To study the Way
is to study the self.
To study the self
is to forget the self.
To forget the self
is to be enlightened by all things of the universe.
~ Dogen Zenji
The Buddha and the Christ looked at good and looked at evil and wondered what to say about what they saw.
So, too, are we invited to look, and to wonder what response best offers life, peace, and hope of love.
What is being born in us that is source of what is both true and replete with peace?
A Step
(by Robert Creeley)
Things
come and go.
Then
let them.
Having to—
what do I think
to say now.
Nothing but
comes and goes
in a moment.
*
Cup.
Bowl.
Saucer.
Full.
*
The way into the form,
the way out of the room—
The door, the hat,
the chair, the fact...
*
Sitting, waves on the beach,
or else clouds, in the sky,
a road, going by,
cars, a truck, animals, in crowds.
*
The car
moving
the hill
down
which yellow
leaves
light forms
declare.
*
Car coughing moves with
a jerked energy forward.
*
Sit. Eat
a doughnut.
Love’s consistency
favor’s me.
*
A big crow on the
top of the tree’s
form more stripped
with leaves gone
overweighs it.
Pieces of cake crumbling
in the hand trying to hold
them together to give each
of the seated guests a piece.
*
Willow, the house, an egg—
what do they make?
Hat, happy, a door—
what more.
(-Poem by Robert Creeley)
Maybe it is seeing.
Maybe, loving.
Maybe — loving seeing.
Or, love/sight.
Maybe it’s not the world that distresses and upsets. But us. Our still as yet inability to see what is there or to love what is seen.
And yet, and yet, and yet…
It is a time of change and exchange.
Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fears!
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