Whoever stole
The presidency
Please give
It back
Saturday, September 20, 2025
it yet remains to see
In his essay, “Inspiring a Pope and a Politician” Randy Boyagoda writes about the fifth-century text by St. Augustine “City of God” and how it is interpreted differently by Pope Leo XIV and Vice President J.D. Vance.
Christianity discourages domination for its own sake and encourages a more detached disposition while living in the City of Man. This doesn’t come from a simplistic acceptance of present-day suffering for future reward; rather, Christians understand that they are always-ready pilgrims who must journey toward an eternal end and citizens who must respond to the immediate demands of a messy, fallen world.
The question of how to privilege these commitments is where Vance’s and Leo’s views diverge. In its most discussed volume, Book 19, Augustine establishes a “hierarchy of human associations” for carrying out Christianity’s foundational imperative: to love others. “First,” he writes, “we have the home; then the city; finally, the globe.” Herein lies the controversy of ordo amoris.
Vance is more drawn to Augustine’s realism. As much as you can be committed to the City of God, you are living and, in his case, leading others in the City of Man. Doing so, in Vance’s application of Augustine’s thought, requires the practical prioritizing of the first two types of human association — home and citizenry — to the diminishment, if not exclusion, of the third.
Pope Leo would certainly appreciate the importance of immediate and local needs, not least given his extensive work with Peruvian communities before he came to Rome. But this spiritual leader of a global flock responds more to the aspirational than the realist dimensions of Augustine’s text, reminding Christians that they are hoping to become permanent citizens of heaven rather than just temporary citizens of one flawed country. Thus, their love, demonstrated through practical aids and supports, should not be strictly constrained by national borders. (ibid)
In my view their divergent opinions have to do with two factors: 1) dualism or non-duality, and, 2) intention or ideology.
1) One might look at the threefold listing by Augustine, “home, city, globe” as either a dualistic separation and stacking in importance (as Vance does); or as a non-dualistic gathered elaboration of one reality in three instances of the same elaboration (as, I surmise, Leo does).
The first take is rational and hierarchical. The second take is an organic gestalt.
2) Then, of course, there is intent and ideology. If your ideology is to make a list, the bottom of which can and should be eliminated, you go with Vance.
If your intent is to gather into a wholeness of inclusion representative of a mysterious trinity of expression, you go with Leo.
. . .
Inexplicably, at this point, I am drawn to the poem by Emily Dickenson.
My life closed twice before its close (96)
Emily Dickinson1830 – 1886
My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
The "third event", if applied to the Vance/Leo interpretations, suggests the incorporation of seeming difference into a unitive perspective. Namely, "home, city, globe” are enfolded elaborations of one thing presented in distinctive discourse. You can’t say all three words at once.
“Parting” is the distinctive presentation of each as each to be incorporated into the whole so as to effect a salvific and inclusive community. (Leo, heaven)
Whereas, the act of separating out and assigning value according to descending and diminishing criteria is a prioritizing exercise prior to dropping off the least desireable. (Vance, hell)
. . .
In order to be transparent about my biases and perspectives, I must own that I have very little respect or appreciation for J.D. Vance as Vice President or politician. And, that I have an initial respect and appreciation for Leo XIV as the new Pope and Chicago baseball fan.
As for Augustine, he had a good mother (Monica) and he seemed to be able to make his way through a shaky moral and theological morass as a younger man. Good for him!
I look forward to Mr. Vance’s rehabilitation.
he snores, i nod
At end of our walking the mountain
Ensõ turns right on return through gate
To chapel zendo and stands by door
I relent, we enter and sit after hour-and-half
Trail meandering, listening to phenomenology
of spirit each step, circling return, we pray
Sext from France, listen to angelus, bells,
Sit (and lay) in the Gregorian psalm tones — I
Am lucky to have such a spiritual friend
je ne le vois tout simplement pas
I am
Not abandoning
You
I am
Abandoning
Me —
Will you
Abide the
Difference?
let’s settle this
6am
Computer chime
From desk
Nothing else
Just telling
Itself time
I see
Branches blowing
In first light
Cat purrs
Early visit
On blanket
If you love me
(He said) keep
My commandments
Love and
Love is what
He said
Utter absurdity —
How could we love
Through the hate
You want love?
Drop the
Hate
You want truth?
Drop all
Opinions
If you don’t
Want anything
You’ve died
Not wanting
Drops what is not
(Essentially)
What is not
Is not — what is
Is all there is
If no choice, no
Wanting what is not
Here —
I am grateful
You — yes, you
Are here
What is
Is only and completely
What is
Here
a dripping metaphor
If hypocrisy
Were ice cream
The Washington
House would be
Dripping cone
Unable to
Contain the
Melting lies
(Finally)
Unbottoming,
Falling into
Street gutter
Friday, September 19, 2025
what are you, telling me
Search me
You’ll find
nothing
Nothing
(I say)
Worth your effort
I’ve offloaded
Everything
Worth anything
Leaving only
Your empty soul
seeking something
Lonely, isn’t it
Discovering nothing
Just like that
Here’s a tip
Become nothing
Something will give up
Walk down block
Around corner
And disappear
a study of no-other that pervades real presence
Reading Hegel
Speaks about
Elimination of other
Seems to me
there are two ways
To do this
Eliminate others
From their material form
(Which is murderous)
Or eliminate other
From your thought form
(Which is meditative sanity)
America seems to choose
The former. American people
Could choose the latter.
I choose retaining no-other
In physical form — even my enemy
Is no-other to me
If he wishes to kill me
I will become him, for he
Has taken my life into himself
Or as Aunt Ronnie ended most
Of her stories —
“And there she [he, they] remained”
Thursday, September 18, 2025
simply cease to live rather than die
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), in his essays, writes of solitude and sufficiency.
Here in section 9:
Section 9
To be self-sufficient, to be all in all to oneself, to want for nothing, to be able to say omnia mea mecum porto—that is assuredly the chief qualification for happiness. Hence Aristotle's remark, [Greek: hae eudaimonia ton autarchon esti]14—to be happy means to be self-sufficient—cannot be too often repeated. It is, at bottom, the same thought as is present in the very well-turned sentence from Chamfort:
Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisée: il est très difficile de le trouver en nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs. [Happiness is not an easy thing: it is very difficult to find it within ourselves, and impossible to find it elsewhere.]
...
No man can be in perfect accord with any one but himself—not even with a friend or the partner of his life; differences of individuality and temperament are always bringing in some degree of discord, though it may be a very slight one. That genuine, profound peace of mind, that perfect tranquillity of soul, which, next to health, is the highest blessing the earth can give, is to be attained only in solitude, and, as a permanent mood, only in complete retirement; and then, if there is anything great and rich in the man's own self, his way of life is the happiest that may be found in this wretched world.
Note -->
16 (return) [ Paradoxa Stoidorum: II.]
I have said that people are rendered sociable by their ability to endure solitude, that is to say, their own society. They become sick of themselves. It is this vacuity of soul which drives them to intercourse with others,—to travels in foreign countries. Their mind is wanting in elasticity; it has no movement of its own, and so they try to give it some,—by drink, for instance. How much drunkenness is due to this cause alone! They are always looking for some form of excitement, of the strongest kind they can bear—the excitement of being with people of like nature with themselves; and if they fail in this, their mind sinks by its own weight, and they fall into a grievous lethargy.1 Such people, it may be said, possess only a small fraction of humanity in themselves; and it requires a great many of them put together to make up a fair amount of it,—to attain any degree of consciousness as men. A man, in the full sense of the word,—a man par excellence—does not represent a fraction, but a whole number: he is complete in himself.
(-- THE ESSAYS OF ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, By Arthur Schopenhauer, Translated By T. Bailey Saunders, COUNSELS AND MAXIMS. Project Gutenberg)
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins its piece on Arthur Schopenhauer with the following:
Arthur Schopenhauer was among the first 19th century philosophers to contend that at its core, the universe is not a rational place. Inspired by Plato and Kant, both of whom regarded the world as being more amenable to reason, Schopenhauer developed their philosophies into an instinct-recognizing and ultimately ascetic outlook, emphasizing that in the face of a world filled with endless strife, we ought to minimize our natural desires for the sake of achieving a more tranquil frame of mind and a disposition towards universal beneficence. Often considered to be a thoroughgoing pessimist, Schopenhauer in fact advocated ways – via artistic, moral and ascetic forms of awareness – to overcome a frustration-filled and fundamentally painful human condition. Since his death in 1860, his philosophy has had a special attraction for those who wonder about life’s meaning, along with those engaged in music, literature, and the visual arts.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/
I don’t experience him as a pessimist, as many contend he is. I prefer to see him as a clear-eyed observational-realist. (But, then again, look at me!)
The world can be remarkably harsh. The society of others can be notably dispiriting. The authorities presumably looking after our best interests are often depressingly obtuse and degenerative. I could be an optimist and accept those sentiments.
There is in solitude a stark invitation to dispel descriptives laid across what might be called self-evaluation. The falling away, if possible, of opinion, judgment, and comparison lends itself, in solitude, a greater spaciousness within which to look at what is there. We might experience the same attacks of unworthiness as when with others, or in comparison to the accomplishments of others, or their quarrelousness -- but solitude offers a ready opportunity to let all these potential obstructions to a clear mind/clear heart to evanesce and empty with little or no opposition.
The final paragraphs of his essays in Gutenberg begin with:
In one of the Vedic Upanishads (Oupnekhat, II.) the natural length of human life is put down at one hundred years. And I believe this to be right. I have observed, as a matter of fact, that it is only people who exceed the age of ninety who attain euthanasia,—who die, that is to say, of no disease, apoplexy or convulsion, and pass away without agony of any sort; nay, who sometimes even show no pallor, but expire generally in a sitting attitude, and often after a meal,—or, I may say, simply cease to live rather than die. To come to one's end before the age of ninety, means to die of disease, in other words, prematurely. (ibid)
I never thought I would live beyond 30, then 40 then 50 then ... you get the picture. I'd be as surprised to reach 100 as I’ve been becoming an octogenarian.
When I was nineteen -- there were ten of us across the nation chosen -- I was offered a position in a New York Life Insurance Company to become an Actuarial Trainee. I wore a suit. I had a desk. I rode the elevator up and up. They told me there were ten levels of training that I would go through. I would be measuring death.
An actuary is a professional with advanced mathematical skills who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty.[1] These risks can affect both sides of the balance sheet and require asset management, liability management, and valuation skills.[2] Actuaries provide assessments of financial security systems, with a focus on their complexity, their mathematics, and their mechanisms.[3] The name of the corresponding academic discipline is actuarial science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuary
Instead, to the chagrin of my betters, I chose to enter seminary, study classical languages, theology, philosophy, and religion, and wander through the humanities. Death has been my companion ever since attending many many dozens of funerals as alter-boy, attending wake after wake in my Italian/Irish neighborhood, and later as hospice volunteer attending so many generous souls on their way elsewhere.
I can’t say death doesn’t unsteady me. But I walk within the Latin phrase Schopenhauer wrote above, omnia mea mecum porto, (I carry everything with me.)
Nor do I consider the Zen Buddhist Trappist monk who sold us jams for our bookshop/bakery to be a pessimist when he would say to me -- “Cheer up, Bill, things are only going to get worse.”
Clear-eyed prophet that he was!
seeing things our eyes cannot see
This poem has always been both disturbing and intriguing.
I think he’s talking about more than poetry.
Four Thousand Days and Nights
by Ryūichi Tamura
For one poem to be born
we must kill
We must kill many things
We shoot, assassinate, poison the many things we love
Look
We shot
the silence of four thousand nights and the glare of
four thousand days
simply because we wanted the trembling tongue of one small bird
from the sky of four thousand days and nights
Listen
We assassinated
the love of four thousand days and the pity of four thousand nights
simply because we needed the tears of one hungry child
from all the rainy cities and blast furnaces
and the midsummer wharves and the coal mines
Remember
We see things our eyes cannot see
We hear things our ears cannot hear
We poisoned
the power of imagination of four thousand nights
and the cold memories of four thousand days
simply because we wanted the fear of one stray dog
To give birth to one poem
we must kill the things we love
This is the only road to take to resurrect the dead
This is the road we have to take
(Poem by Ryūichi Tamura 1923-1998; Translation by Samuel Grolmes and Tsumura Yumiko)
at core, care
Hate is our
surface meandering.
At core is care
But we run around
on edge, periphery
on broken glass surface
We are reluctant
to fall into
our core
there,
is
care
but our disturbed
mind runs frantic
through its madness
the mental illness
of paranoid obviation
two uncrossing tracks
for the rest of us
living with disturbance
jagged surface upheaval
and yet
and yet
and yet
the perennial invitation
let go, drop through, fall
into feeling, at core, care
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
non et sic
No I do
not think
He has
Our best
Interests
In mind
Yes,
I look
forward
To seeing
The back
Of him
however awkwardly
It is a mystery worth appreciation even if we are not interested in investigating it. This odd suggestion that we, all of us, are children of one being (Being?) and that our one responsibility, our one task, is to love one another.
Two thousand years ago a man named Jesus claimed that his sole reason for being was to convey to anyone who would listen that his reality and their reality was One Reality, namely, compassionate love and authentic service to everyone, especially those among us who are hurting, poor, sick, or on the edges of society.
These proclamations of caring and action pointed to, he said, what and where God is. Simple as that. God was our caring response to one another.
1 Timothy 3:14-16
The mystery of our religion is very deep
At the moment of writing to you, I am hoping that I may be with you soon; but in case I should be delayed, I wanted you to know how people ought to behave in God’s family – that is, in the Church of the living God, which upholds the truth and keeps it safe. Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is very deep indeed:He was made visible in the flesh,attested by the Spirit,seen by angels,proclaimed to the pagans,believed in by the world,taken up in glory.
For reasons that are still unclear, the power structure of his day wanted Jesus out of the way, gone, even dead. He interfered with their ideology. He was an impediment to their political ambition. He, and the God he rode in on, were inadequate to their personal and authoritative desires.
Not much has changed in two thousand years.
Men and women still reject the mystery and grab for material power.
Jesus is co-opted and made to symbolize vile and self-serving interests.
Zealots and fools murder and round up artificially constructed enemies and people who will serve as a confused Judas to betray what is real.
The power-hungry continue their misdirection and accumulation of wealth and fawning obeisance.
The deep mystery of our religion persists and endures.
The hearts of the power-hungry stiffen and obdure.
Do not be confused today. Do not be fooled.
Reside, however awkwardly, in the mystery.
any follow-up questions
Listened to director of fbi in front of senate for oversight hearing.
Ugly.
Boarish.
Uninspiring.
Quite a shame, the embarrassment of the burlesque.
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
it is worthy to open the search
"I’m confident our sense of fairness will re-emerge” says Robert Reich in his book “Coming Up Short, A Memoir of My America.”
I like his confidence.
Looking down the highway as the four horsemen of the dreaded present (Trump, Vance, Miller, Rubio) gallop full speed across the divide, it is daunting to consider his optimism.
We do know that change is the only constant. These four men will not last. People die. Even incredibly handsome and popular people like Robert Redford (RIP) pass away. Then, the others, like Bondi, Patel, Bongino, Hegseth, Kennedy jr., Burgum, Noem, Duffy, Lutnik, Bessent, Gabbard, Cheung, Musk, and Homan -- a listing that makes my computer cough and sink to the ground with dizziness -- even these will move on, cash in, cash out, and find work in other profitable venues.
I know I will die. I will.
They too will die.
My rabbi, priest, minister, zen master, primary care nurse, cardiologist, oncologist, and dentist all tell me I will be 곧 죽다 (soon dead).
This is no mystery. This is not a right wing or left wing threat. It is not a culture war or civil war provocation.
It is fact. Raw, simple, obvious fact.
Jesus said it and did it. Buddha said it and did it. Mae West, Frank Sinatra, Ted Williams, Ronald Reagan, Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, Pete Maravich, T.S. Eliot, and Pope Francis -- all said it and did it.
Died.
So, will fairness re-emerge?
Hard-tellin’, but, maybe.
Life, let’s face it, is hardly fair. But, it’s a good goal to aim for.
I might not outlive Trump and his cabinet cronies. Might not want to. But I do look forward to their moving away from their dangerous brand of awkward inequality being foisted on America and the world.
Hard figuring out what particular ideology inspires their puzzling proclivities toward cruelty and compassionless antagonism.
Must have been something they ate in their younger years. Something went wrong.
Hereabouts, we look for integrity.
It’s a worthy search.
We might not find it in our current authorities in Washington and selected odd states.
But it’s a worthy search, as I said.
We might not be worthy to ask for such benefit. But we do ask for the word to be said so we can be healed.
Integrity . . . yeah . . . let’s ask for it!
suturing the heart; (or, sanskrit: सूत्र, sūtra)
I sit with God
(Who doesn’t exist)
This early morning
A car goes by
(On Barnestown Road)
Another is gone, is, gone
Come to think
(I don’t exist)
Cat on belly
Calendar says Tuesday
(Some purring, empty road)
Nothing arrives nothing departs
No attainment
(With nothing)
To attain
The edges torn open
Of a wound attended to
(Making, grazi, earnestly, stronger)
Monday, September 15, 2025
asasas
Something that surfaced from 2011:
I practice accepting simplicity, anonymous service, accommodating silence. (asasas)
—Dec.28, 2011. https://meetingbrook.blogspot.com/2011/
moving beyond fear
A time will come
When being for or against anything
Will prove you dangerous
I am for justice, real justice
I am against solipsistic wrongdoing
I am not dangerous . . . I am you, friend
leave the poisons outside the door
The three poisons.
There’s no room in here for them.
The three poisons (Sanskrit: triviṣa; Tibetan: dug gsum) in the Mahayana tradition or the three unwholesome roots (Sanskrit: akuśala-mūla; Pāli: akusala-mūla) in the Theravada tradition are a Buddhist term that refers to the three root kleshas that lead to all negative states. These three states are delusion, also known as ignorance; greed or sensual attachment; and hatred or aversion.[1][2] These three poisons are considered to be three afflictions or character flaws that are innate in beings and the root of craving, and so causing suffering and rebirth.[1][3]
But the three wholesome mental factors . . .
I think there’s room for them.
The three wholesome mental factors that are identified as the opposites of the three poisons are:[10][11]
The Buddhist path considers these essential for liberation.[10]
If it be your will.
Help us make it through the night.
our ladies of sorrow
Just for argument’s sake
Imagine Love dwelt in you
That you felt what is good
That what is right was clear
Looking around outside you,
The tortured ignorance and
Intentional disruption, the
Cynical rhetoric of division.
What sorrow would arise?
Mary and Kuan-yin together
Turning in circles looking
Looking, listening listening
These two women,
Their cloaks of light
Extraordinary sorrow at what
The world is missing,
They see the suffering
They hear the suffering
Those cultivating hatred
Brazen and unapologetic
Those who hear the cries
Of the world, those who sorrow
The missiles, bombs, starvation
The dead ideology of mad leaders
Please, please teach us how to see
Show us your grace of attention
The way you become your core of care
The sound of compassion
Even in silence, even in words
The inner love turning out, the
Quiet offer of solace and healing
What matters now mattering.
You are the eternal womanly
Of Goethe’s words ringing true —
Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan
(The Eternal-Feminine draws us upward)
Draw us upward, draw us within
So we might see what we can be
So what is true is what is you
And what is me is all we see — with love
Sunday, September 14, 2025
the hypocrisy is exquisite
Republican rhetoric has become obscene. They blame democrats for what they themselves have become — projecting dissemblers of their own perversion.
It has become ludicrous, the demonizing rhetoric and ill-will without shame.
I own no guns. I have no bullets. I conscientiously object to their coming escalation of violence.
But, mark my words, something dark this way comes.
I’m unsure there’s any stopping the infuriating malice choo-chooing down the hypocritical tracks.
but unworried lives at ease,
“The imperfect translation of reality into ideas.” That’s what the video-maker of Shunyata/Emptiness has just said in "Empty is the World”
The service-in-training pup from prison is still on my mind. She did not know she was at a “baseball game” but she, in our understanding of it, was indeed there, eating a hotdog, navigating legs and feet, receiving pat-pats on head.
And we? What “game” are we at? We're here, but where exactly is that? What more invisible formulation of unaware involvement are we participating in without the capacity to discern the shape and meaning of that participation, its direction, its encompassing gestalt?
It occurs to me that, perhaps, we might not want to know our whereabouts and purpose. Many might find that way of non-investigation desirable and comforting.
The Buddha said:
"Monks, be islands unto yourselves,[1] be your own refuge, having no other; let the Dhamma be an island and a refuge to you, having no other. Those who are islands unto themselves... should investigate to the very heart of things:[2] 'What is the source of sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair? How do they arise?' [What is their origin?]
"Here, monks, the uninstructed worldling [continued as in SN 22.7.] Change occurs in this man's body, and it becomes different. On account of this change and difference, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair arise. [Similarly with 'feelings,' 'perceptions,' 'mental formations,' 'consciousness'].
"But seeing[3] the body's impermanence, its change-ability, its waning,[4] its ceasing, he says 'formerly as now, all bodies were impermanent and unsatisfactory, and subject to change.' Thus, seeing this as it really is, with perfect insight, he abandons all sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. He is not worried at their abandonment, but unworried lives at ease, he is said to be 'assuredly delivered.'"[5][Similarly with 'feelings,' 'perceptions,' 'mental formations,' 'consciousness'].
(--Attadiipaa Sutta: An Island to Oneself, translated from the Pali by Maurice O'Connell Walshe, ©2007)
Reality isn’t an idea. But we try to express reality in ideas. Most often, not well. As with all translations something is left out, reconfigured, or badly represented.
Sometimes, though, reality nears true expression.
We long for those times.
We eat hot dogs, or Sunday morning pancakes while experiencing something not easily transcribed into our wakeful reading of the situation wherein we find ourselves.
Still, we perdure. We remain in existence through a substantial period of time.
Water surrounds us.
We sit back, look out into horizon, happy to have a welcome hand nearby to pat our head.
We wane.
But, with good luck, happily so.
shhh, sine sono
I cannot
Hear you
No I
Is you
When you
Speak . . .
Everything
Is listening
Without I
Everything
Is
Heard