Knocking at shop door today were spontaneous quarrels. What was each looking at?

Today the talk, by nearly anybody who came in, is about 'anybody but Bush.' We get back after a week of door's being closed and find things humming.

It started early. It continues even now, six hours later. Unlikely people with strong opinions are concerned this administration's policy is dangerous and the men that run it intent on single-mindedly reforming the world in their image.

The voice of success and profit
May stir the vault of heaven,
But not this place.
In the rounds of the day,
You wear threadbare clothing
And eat simple fare.
When the mountain snow deepens,
Your thoughts
Are far from those of men.
Occasionally,
Immortals pass your door
And knock.
- Kuan-hsiu (832-912)

Richard and Tommy, were they not in their 70s and 60s, might have erupted into a fistfight. Joanie interrupts for clarification of something to do with Korean or Vietnam war. Charlotte has just walked a labyrinth in Lincolnville and emits Quakerly disinterest. John returns for Buddhist conversation and jostles the edge of a disagreement. Jim is hoping the Amnesty International potluck goes well tonight. Karl writes in his palm pilot and is heading home to attend to caring for his cold.

Earlier Leonard and another man with his small daughter had the same intensity standing in front of the counter about the neocons and hardliners whose brazen certitude, they feel, threatens to further harm the principles of democracy and self-determination with which the United States birthed itself.

All day the level of discourse is charged with dissatisfaction. Even the documentary filmmaker talking with Sam and Susan and ready to set off to get footage of them rowing their dory stops to write down three websites dealing with issues (surprise) that seem controversial and worry of conspiracy. The conversation up to that point was about Cape Breton boatbuilding and he'd never been in before. Is it the icon of Christ or the photograph of Palden Gyatso that reminds him of the need for passionate but loyal dissidence?

Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" and Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" were interspersed into the conversation mix of politics and religious thought.

(I, at this point, imagine myself looking out a hermitage window in Cape Breton as the light of dawn sweeps snow from windowsill.)

...we are told things about the world [today] by people whom we do not know, working in places we have not been. Trust is no longer bestowed on familiar individuals; it is accorded to institutions and abstract capacities thought to reside in certain institutions.... We trust the truth of specialized and esoteric scientific knowledge without knowing the scientists who are the authors of its claims.... The gentleman has been replaced by the scientific expert, personal virtue by the possession of specialized knowledge, a calling by a job, a nexus of face-to-face intervention by faceless institutions, individual free action by institutional surveillance. (Steven Shapin, quoted in article "The Dawn of McScience," by Richard Horton, in The New York Review of Books, March 11, 2004)

A former president of Harvard, Derek Bok, says Horton, argues:
The concerns of research...have become skewed toward answering questions that are concerns of industry, not of the public. Secrecy disrupts a productive collegiality among scientists, leading to waste and inefficiency as investigators are forced to duplicate the hidden work of others. Opinions are rented out to the highest bidder. A nefarious web of incentives is introduced into research. And most worrying of all, public confidence in medicine, science, and the academy is undermined. Knowledge is just one more commodity to be traded. (Horton, p.9, NYRB)

Shunryu Suzuki's writings on Zen end the day with quiet reflection:
So the important point is to practice without any idea of a hasty gain, without any idea of fame or profit. We do not practice zazen for the sake of others or for the sake of ourselves. Just practice zazen for the sake of zazen. Just sit.
Thank you very much.
(p.32, in not always so, practicing the true spirit of zen, by Shunryu Suzuki, c.2002)

Suzuki said: I used to think that after attaining enlightenment, I would know who was in the backyard talking, but there is no special person hidden within who is explaining a special teaching. All the things we see, all that we hear, is an expression of Buddha nature. When we say Buddha nature, Buddha nature is everything. Buddha nature is our innate true nature, which is universal to every one of us, to all beings. (p.31)

The backyard was abuzz today.

Nothing special was said.

Only what we see.

As we are.

Joy and sorrow dwell together. Suffering and awareness resound love.

Looking for Immortals

At the stream's source,
The path leads on
To gray cliffs.
Everywhere,
Among blossoming apricot trees,
Dwell immortals.
A hermit says,
"More can be found
on West Peak,
and two or three
have their home
in the clouds."
- Chang chi (776-829)

It is the price paid for remaining engaged with the world and one another. A Bodhisattva continuance. A Christ emergence.

We each stay with one another to see one another through.

No love without suffering; no joy without sorrow.

This -- this is the dwelling place of the immortals. This is where love lives.

As it is.

Chains cannot hold breath.

Chains can only restrict bodies and restrain movement toward or away.

There are Zen students who are in chains
When they go to a teacher,
And the teacher adds another chain.
The students are delighted,
Unable to discern one thing from another.
This is called a guest looking at a guest.
- Linji (d. 867)

A foot of snow overnight. Jim comes by with plow. Sando groans on daybed. Ralph Nader announces his candidacy for president as an Independent. He joins Bush, Kerry, and Edwards as the men most talked about as winter saunters toward March.

In this country we so much want to believe that one man will lead us fairly and wisely. It is a curious belief. Forces of market money, corporate power, cultural and religious passion have overtaken that belief and tossed it to the sideline. The world has raced ahead of any system that claims to bridle and brake it. The term 'war' is applied to almost every aspect of the effort to contain runaway forces governing peoples everywhere.

There are 'wars' on poverty, on drugs, on terrorism. There are culture wars, religious wars, ideological wars, and sexual wars. And of course there are military wars -- the ones using guns, bombs, and fighting troops splattering human blood and remains -- splintering what remains of the human -- across streets and fields and into newsprint and videotape for our eyes to view.

We used to speak of peace. Peace sounds like a quaint word these days.

What would 'peace' even look like if we were able to imagine all these 'wars' being transformed into a different metaphor? It seems that the metaphor of 'fighting' prevails. We fight bad breath, fight aging, fight illness, fight for our rightful places, and we fight death.

In proposing a framework of moral principles to serve a strategy for peace, this book rejects the many calls for a "new ethics" or for some worldwide religious or psychological or political conversion after which peace will arrive, as it were, by itself. We cannot count on such a transformation of society to wipe out the threat of war. Conversions, moreover, can go astray and new ideologies disappoint. When mass transformations bypass reflection, they open the way to uncritical acceptance of beliefs; they can then find unanticipated and brutal outlets, as we have surely witnessed in our own century. The verdict attributed to Voltaire still holds: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." (pp.xvii-xviii, in A Strategy For Peace, Human Values and the Threat of War, by Sissela Bok, c.1989)

Believe absurdities, commit atrocities -- a scary formula that seems as solid as two plus two equals four.

In beginning to work for piecemeal rather than global change as part of a strategy for peace, we can learn from a suggestion of Gandhi's that we carve out spaces or territories in personal relations where violence, say, or deceit will not be used: territories in the family, in the community, with friends and even opponents, where we have more control and also greater responsibility. Such an effort requires that we reconsider the role of violence or deceit in our work -- as news reporters or police officers, as public servants or industrial workers, as scientists or executives -- and at home, with family and friends, in community service, recreation, and entertainment. If one begins thus, with the personal and the piecemeal, one can then try to expand the reach of these spaces or territories of peace. This is the path already chosen by many individuals, community groups, professional organizations, and religious bodies in searching for ways to establish nonviolence.
I see all those who strive to reduce distrust as working for peace, even if they produce no immediate and direct effect on the nuclear balance of terror. (pp.151-152, Bok)

Maybe two plus two equals what goes into the formula, not an end product.

We are encouraged to trust only what is trustworthy. If trust begets trust, and fear begets fear -- a formula confirming what we most long for needs be created.

Perhaps one plus one equals each one.

Breathing centers one entering and leaving. Learning liberates one wondering and watching. Loving releases one trusting and asking.

Breathing learning loving -- we confirm one and one and one again -- a worthy trust.

Unchaining.

Note: Meetingbrook will re-open Tuesday, Feb. 24th.
.....

It's nice to know there's nothing(ness) to worry about.

The news headline read -- "The universe has at least 30 billion years left."

It's also nice to know there's enough time to shingle the barn roof.

A detailed analysis of light from ancient exploding stars has yielded powerful support for the idea that recently discovered "dark energy" that pervades the universe might be what Einstein originally dubbed the "cosmological constant." If confirmed, the findings support theories that the cosmos will continue its slow expansion toward nothingness instead of violently ripping apart or collapsing, astronomers said.

The results were hailed as pivotal new data that will help answer the most pressing and profound questions about the universe, such as what makes up most of the void and what eventually will happen to it.

..."The simplest assumption is that the universe will become ever darker, and ever emptier, as the galaxies recede from us," Rees said. "And in the very far future, there will be nothing in evidence. Everything will have disappeared beyond the horizon."
(from "'Dark Energy' Backs Idea Einstein Junked," by Rob Stein, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, February 21, 2004; Page A02)

In cabin this evening, glancing out over Sando's stretching body, through windows to old apple tree, Sally's land disappears into the horizon. Snow and sleet hit against north windows; an 'Open' banner creaks in wind at southwest corner of porch.

There are other things inviting our attention:
Proverbs 30

2 "I am the most ignorant of men;
I do not have a man's understanding.
3 I have not learned wisdom,
nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.
4 Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands?
Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and the name of his son?
Tell me if you know!

5 "Every word of God is flawless;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
6 Do not add to his words,
or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.

7 "Two things I ask of you, O LORD ;
do not refuse me before I die:
8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

15 "The leech has two daughters.
'Give! Give!' they cry.

"There are three things that are never satisfied,
four that never say, 'Enough!':
16 the grave, the barren womb,
land, which is never satisfied with water,
and fire, which never says, 'Enough!'

18 "There are three things that are too amazing for me,
four that I do not understand:
19 the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a maiden.

29 "There are three things that are stately in their stride,
four that move with stately bearing:
30 a lion, mighty among beasts,
who retreats before nothing;
31 a strutting rooster, a he-goat,
and a king with his army around him.

32 "If you have played the fool and exalted yourself,
or if you have planned evil,
clap your hand over your mouth!
33 For as churning the milk produces butter,
and as twisting the nose produces blood,
so stirring up anger produces strife.
(New International Version (NIV) © Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society)

So much of this part of the universe cries out 'Give me, give me,' and, 'It's mine, it's mine,' and, 'It's not enough, it's not enough.'

With 30 billion years left, perhaps we'll forget the impertinence of small mean men -- the individual...
who retreats before nothing;
a strutting rooster, a he-goat,
and a king with his army around him.

Let's not retreat before nothing, let's stop strutting, and let's graze the pastures of kingless, armyless wisdom.

Nothingness, like Godliness, is next. Cleansed minds and refreshed hearts have no need of worry.

Gratefulness and nothingness are friends.

All is as it is.

Friendly.

Note: Meetingbrook will be closed for the remainder of the week. We will re-open Tuesday, Feb. 24th.
.............

The rolling hills and snowy roadside drifts are lovely.

We travel the length of Maine this week doing the part-time work that actually contributes to making payments for rent, oil for shop, propane gas for house, wood for stove, and those nice people who really hate the thought of charging late payment fee at credit card companies.

Sages since time immemorial have only explained the problems of pollution. If one does not have all that false consciousness, emotional and intellectual opinionatedness, and conceptual habituation, one is clear as autumn water, pure and uncontrived, placid and uninhibited. Such people are called Wayfarers, or free people.
- Kuei-Shan (771-854)

On the road 1000 miles so far this week: six bottles of water; three salami sandwiches; one pizza; some Chinese food; three coffees; five cadbury fruit and chocolate bars; trudges through snow; walks on rural roads and sidetrip stroll on Canadian beach.

The dogs think we've moved into the car. A little small, they think, but ok. Time for another walk? -- cool!

Nomadic conversations.

Where is home?

Vagrant. Vagabond. Wayfarer.

Take this turn.

Note: Meetingbrook will be closed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday this week. We're on the road doing other work.
....................

"Phenomenology is a means of being led by the phenomenon through a way of access genuinely belonging to it." (Richard Palmer, in Hermaneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthy, Heidegger, and Gadamer, p.128, c.1962)

Each thing, each person, belongs to itself. When we allow that understanding to become a way of being-in-the-world, we participate in the liberation of each to dwell in their true home.

Comprehending the fundamental,
Embracing the spirit,
Roam the root of heaven and earth,
Wander beyond the dust and dirt,
Travel to work with noninvolvement.
Take care not to let mechanical
Intelligence burden your mind;
Watch what is not temporal
And remain unmoved by things.
- Lao tzu

What does 'unmoved by things' here mean?

If each thing is what it is, and there is no gap between ourselves and each thing, therefore when each thing moves we move, being what we are.

Each thing, each person, is not an object for us to move, or to be moved by. If each-is-each, when one moves -- all moves. I am not separate. "That is what 'I' means. 'I' means everyone." (Maezumi Roshi)

So when you practice shikantaza, just sit. This is the condition of openness. Then being totally open, you are nothing other than all space and time. Dogen Zenji says, "On this body, put the Buddha seal." The Buddha seal is this openness, where there is no conditioning, no division between yourself and the object, no division between yourself and your life. (from article "Appreciate Your Life," by Maezumi Roshi, in Shambhala Sun Magazine, May 2001)

Just like that -- morning comes. And we drive to Fort Kent, Presque Isle, Lincoln, and Millinocket.

No gap. Just miles.

Embracing spirit!

If we become what we love, and we see what we are, then, will we be able to say what we love?

This middle February seems laden with odd truths. And odder loves.

"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream -- a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought -- a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"
He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.
(-- final lines, "The Mysterious Stranger," in Mark Twain's Best, Eight Short Stories by America's Master Humorist, c.1962)

Ask someone what they love -- if you dare. You are asking them to face a truth that is fraught with questions. And those questions, if also faced, are fraught with further questions. Further and deeper, deeper and further fraught-filled questions follow each enquiry.

Paco wondered yesterday in prison if the questions were worth asking. Ryan, Diane, Mike, Saskia, and I were also taken up into the question of grace at the Thin Place where one thing shines through another -- where revelation takes place in and through the most peculiar and often terrible metaphors found in prison.

How retain one's feeling humanity in the face of hateful, harmful experiences? How retrieve trust in an atmosphere of deceit? How believe in the integrity of the relationally-felt when so much fragmentation occurs in the numbing-distortions?

And there we sat.

With one another in the questions.

Don't be surprised,
Don't be startled;
All things will arrange
Themselves.
Don't cause a disturbance,
Don't exert pressure;
All things will clarify
Themselves.
- Huai-nan-tzu

If we become what we love, and we see what we are, then, will we be able to say what we love?

For a period of time -- in prison and in middle February oddities of love -- we sift through our dreams and questions.

Arrange.

Clarify.

See.

Say.

Are we the story we tell about ourselves?

Vast and far-reaching
without boundary,
secluded and pure,
manifesting light,
this spirit is without
obstruction.
Its brightness does not
shine out but can be
called empty and
inherently radiant.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091-1157)

The thought comes, following Thursday Evening Conversation, that everything really is relational -- felt relational -- or we are adrift in a numbing sea of abstract ideas and calculated complaints (consciously, or more likely, unconsciously formulated) that separate us from each other; a separation, only seemingly real, made rigid by unfeeling judgmental mind.

Depression is not about pain. Depression is about the absence of pain, the absence of feeling.

Depression covers anxiety and fear like a fog. Once depressed, I was no longer anxious about my children. If I drank a cup of coffee, my mood was not enhanced; if I went to a party, I didn't feel better.

If I read poetry, my soul no longer blossomed as it had in the past. No feeling is what depression is about, and the condition created a barrier between me and my children, my husband, my friends.

Depression is not about pain: it's about everything gone away. ...

Women in each generation of my family endured lives of poverty; they passively suffered the births of many children, yet they knew there were other lives they could have lived. They were afraid to look. ....

At an early age I learned that things stand for other things. ...

I have had to look at my life. And I have escaped from madness by understanding transformation, how each thing transcends its own reality. I either go mad or I learn about metaphor.

(from "Thorazine Shuffle" by filmmaker Allie Light, in the book Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness, ed. by Rebecca Shannonhouse)

Light's final three sentences are the map to relational feeling; to what is relationally felt.

Is 'what is' relationally felt?
Is 'God' what is touching and holding us together, each to each?

What story are we telling today?

Are we listening?

Suicide bombing in Iraq; 20 Iraqis killed. Next day, another suicide bombing in Iraq; 50 Iraqis killed. Calculations take place. On one side: can we start a civil war? On other side: how do we get out of this country.

Evening meditation,
Enfolded in mountains,
All thoughts of the
World of men dissolve.
Quietly sitting on my cattail cushion
Alone, I face the empty window.
Incense burns away
As the dark night deepens,
And my robe is a single fold
As white dew thickens.
Rising from deep meditation,
I stroll in the garden,
And the moon is already above the highest peak.
( - Ryokan)

Zen poet monk Taigu Ryokan (1758-1831) (nicknamed Great Fool) wrote of his life simply, wisely, and directly. He was no politician. He didn't have to explain his whereabouts during an awful war. He didn't have to justify every word and act over the past 30 years. Nor did he have to accumulate a hundred million dollars in order to get the one job that could distribute hundreds of billions of dollars around the world and at home to loyal friends.

I've made my choice for the upcoming presidential election. I want to come out early, once, and finally and be done with it.

I support no one for president. I recommend a council of the wise -- elderly and young -- to take on the conversation daily about how to live in this world with others toward mutual support, respect, and well-being. This council of the wise will know what to do -- they're wise. Whether they model after Native American Circles, or Canadian/British Parliamentary representation, I'm confident they'll find a system that is fair, representative of all Americans, and responsive to the needs of the whole globe.

No more fund-raising. No more advertisements as though candidates were underwear being sold. No more buying and selling of votes and influence so as to benefit and profit a few at the expense of and exclusion of others.

I have fallen to less useful diffidence.

Too confused to ever earn a living
I've learned to let things have their way.
With only three handfuls of rice in my bag
and a few branches by my fireside
I pursue neither right or wrong
and forget worldly fortune and fame.
This damp night under a grassy roof
I stretch out my legs without regrets.
(- Ryokan)

Tuesday Evening Conversation followed reading on 'Changing Karma' by Shunryu Suzuki.
In conversing it seems it is not a matter of right or wrong -- as though dualistic list-making and side-taking could remedy complex human difficulties. It is more the willingness to look hard and long at the difficulties and let arise from the core of the difficulty itself information necessary to move to the next step in the right direction. "Enjoy your life," Suzuki said, "and do not be fooled by things."

All karma is present at each moment. We might not even know what good or bad effects of good or bad causes are there in the moment, in the very next action we are about to perform. It is not necessary to know, to be able to predict or analyze outcome or payoff. What is necessary is to engage what is there and next there with attention and clear mind -- to do what is requested by the situation to be done -- without concern for the fruits of the action, without calculation of benefit or deficit following. A clear and selfless act records no karma.

The flame of attention both lights up and dissolves karma. Loving attention needs nothing other than itself.

REPLY TO A FRIEND
In stubborn stupidity, I live on alone
befriended by trees and herbs.
Too lazy to learn right from wrong,
I laugh at myself, ignoring others.
Lifting my bony shanks, I cross the stream,
a sack in my hand, blessed by spring weather.
Living thus, I want for nothing,
at peace with all the world.
(- Ryokan)

There are many worlds, worlds beyond description. 'Universe' and even 'Multiverses' probably do not begin to reveal the worlds-within-worlds and the worlds-beyond-worlds gracing what we call existence or being. Each human being, each animal, each insect, each life-cell -- each a world unto itself that we find convenient to categorize into species and bio-animate clusters. Billions and trillions of worlds to the nth power reside side by side near and far. What would it mean for us to be "at peace with all the world"?

Your finger points to the moon,
but the finger is blind until the moon appears.
What connection has moon and finger?
Are they separate objects or bound?
This is a question for beginners
wrapped in seas of ignorance.
Yet one who looks beyond metaphor
knows there is no finger; there is no moon.
(- Ryokan)

Richard's contribution ended the final circle comments. In them, in that way he has, he called the other four of us 'novices' in our understanding. This I took as a great compliment. To be a beginner is just about where I suspect I am, we are, he she or it is -- if we are in the process of approaching and stepping into right understanding of life. Lloyd laughed. Saskia laughed. John laughed. I laughed. And Richard? -- he too laughed.

Winter dinghy, overturned with crusty snow atop blue covering tarp below birdfeeders and tucked underside Loon IV, bobs in sea of ignorance riding swelling stillness and solitude.

Ryokan has it: there is no ocean, there is no land.

There is just question -- and metaphor.

Ask, or don't ask -- still, one speaks through another.

Only listen.

Tommy sits by fire. He tells of Sunday caucus. Maine turned out.

Flat Lake cold penetrates
Water-lily clothes
The mountain by the lake
Is neither right nor wrong
Dusty tracks all end
The world is far away.
White clouds and gulls
Have no hidden plans.
- Han-shan Te-ch'ing (1546-1623)

Tommy tells me to go back into solitude when I say I'd begun to feel sorry for Bush Sunday morning as he tried to present himself as a war president with war before his eyes everyday. A conservative columnist for the New York Times suggests Bush is living each day as though it were September 12, 2001. The nation has gone forward 880 days.

Tommy's for Kucinich. He'll be a state delegate.

Joanie comes in. She and Tommy debate whether he really was able to tell she wasn't wearing her leg brace anymore. She claims he couldn't tell. He said he could. It's like listening to the argument before the invasion into Iraq whether it was possible to prove there weren't any WMD. It's always hard to prove a negative. Tommy and Joanie go to opposite corners of the shop for a spell, then reach a truce. She asks him for a ride home when he leaves. He wonders if the step on his pickup is too high for her. If only Saddam had asked the same of Bush -- just give me a ride out of Iraq when it's time for me to go.

Richard comes in and Joanie tells the story of her fall, hit head, and broken elbow to him. He and Tommy talk football. They're still rolling about the Patriots win in the Super Bowl.

It's a hard emergence from solitude. Were I more gracious I'd emerge more easily.

On way to cabin this morning, crunching frozen snow. Dogs arrive. Saskia arrives.

No hidden plans.

Three days solitude.

Snow fell wet and slippery. Crusted with cold. Now softens with warmer light.

Cranes in the wilderness,
Lonely clouds,
Their destination is uncertain;
Where in this world
Am I to address my deepest thoughts?
Forest trees in serried ranks
Ascend the cliff walls.
Like a series of brush strokes,
Hills and peaks arrayed
Out to the horizon;
My mind brims with
Zen clear as water,
Old bones jut angularly
Thin as kindling;
Fame is nothing one can keep for long;
A hundred years of light and dark
Before we reach our end.
- Betsugen Enshi (1296 - 1364)

If I never again left this hermitage I'm not sure I'd miss anything beyond the gate.

"Since I have embarked on the wide ocean, and given full sails to the wind, I say there is nothing in the whole universe that persists. Everything flows, and is formed as a fleeting image. Time itself, also, glides, in its continual motion, no differently than a river. For neither the river, nor the swift hour can stop: but as wave impels wave, and as the prior wave is chased by the coming wave, and chases the one before, so time flees equally, and, equally, follows, and is always new. For what was before is left behind: and what was not comes to be: and each moment is renewed.
(--from Ovid, Bk XV:176-198 Pythagoras's Teachings: The Eternal Flux)

It is narrow corridor passing between simple accepting appreciation of everything, and indifferent allowing of everything to be what it is. While the former seems the more attractive attitude, given our penchant for positive engagement -- the latter seems to be a step back non-engaging mere viewing of what is there. They might not be any further apart than the middle lines running through their midst -- both horizontally and vertically.

"Son, thy sins are forgiven thee..." Jesus says to the paralytic lowered thru the roof in Mark 2:1-10. Some thought he blasphemed. Jesus told him to "...arise, take up thy pallet, and go to thy house." Jesus often was quoted using the words, "Go thy way."

What we call sin is personal. We feel its effects. We feel outside. We're unsure why. We don't know. We can't see clearly. Our movements are constrained. We feel there's no place to go. Life is suffering.

Sin, from another view, is the fact of existence not a thing in existence escapes. Whatever 'is' finds itself deeply rooted in the fact of existence -- suffering uncertainty.

If sin is taken away, do we then no longer suffer? Are we no longer uncertain? Is the central fact of existence dissolved? Are we indeed free? Are we no longer a felt fact suffering unknowing existence?

I don't know. I am a fact of unknowing existence. I am what some call sinner.

If Jesus takes away, or forgives, sin in individuals, or even the world -- what is taking place? Is there no longer sin? So far, even with the life of Jesus celebrated as the life of the Messiah, the one who takes away the sins of the world -- sin seems secure and well situated in the world. What, if anything, has changed?

Nothing.

Nothing has changed. But -- something has been added. That which has been added is awareness. Awareness has been introduced to complement ignorance. Unknowing existence is no longer simply blind, no longer simply paralyzed. It no longer simply follows the dictates of mind and emotions, rote and mechanical.

Awareness is the crossing line in existence.

Rather than increasing suffering, awareness sees suffering as it is. Rather than numbing us to the consequences of our actions and choices, awareness places us within the very fact of action and choice. Awareness takes away nothing -- awareness is not a thing. Rather, awareness shines light through nothingness, right through the center nothingness.

This is how awareness and sin coexist today -- one shines through the other -- and in that passage through, we are able to see, affirm, and release what light has illumined. Some might want more: the elimination of the experience of separation, or eradication of remorseful residue caused by hurtful acts or attitudes. It's something else I look to.

I want no amputation of human existence. I'd rather the light shining through human existence -- with its cruciform intersection illuminating and liberating -- pointing out from within the way before us.

Sins are for giving each one of us light to show us through this existence.

O happy fault! Light's Christing passage!

Light, like time, "... flees equally, and, equally, follows, and is always new. For what was before is left behind: and what was not comes to be: and each moment is renewed." (Ovid)

"Go thy way," Jesus tells them.

We assume they do.

Note: The bookshop/bakery is closed today, Sunday, and there will be no formal Sunday Evening Practice at the Hermitage.

..........

Solitude with cat.

Mu-ge stretches on black daybed cover in kitchen. There's no more cut wood. There is Irish music on "Thistle and Shamrock."

I cannot get used to war.

THE MIRROR

Seeing is believing.
Whatever was thought or said,

these persistent, inexorable deaths
make faith as such absent,

our humanness a question,
a disgust for what we are.

Whatever the hope,
here it is lost.

Because we coveted our difference,
here is the cost.
(Poem by Robert Creeley, in Life and Death, c.1998)

Same and different, the Zen Master said, exist only in the mind. The mind with fondness for war is not easy to understand. The mind making excuses for war is hard to listen to. Those who say, "We're all the same!" are as difficult to listen to as those saying, "We're all different."

DIVINE CONTEMPLATION
Who in this mortal life would see
The Light that is beyond all light,
Beholds it best by faring forth
Into the darkness of the Night.
(from "The Cherubinic Wanderer," by Angelus Silesius, 1624-1677)

It is quite a dance twirling between birth and death, light and dark, something and nothing. I cannot help wondering what it is I do not yet comprehend about myself and fellow humankind that we so easily put to death and cause to be annihilated those animals and humans getting in the way of our craving minds.

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. (- Paul Valery)

Mu-ge is on watch. The sounds in the walls will soon begin.

Solitude is like that.

Charlotte and John play guitar earlier and sing. One goes; one stays sitting in silence.

Looking out at harbor, a glaze of white falling snow. In right hand pane of lower window, reflection of fire back across the room.

This message is not just
For the rich and noble
The thousand flowers
And the hundred grasses
All have spring within them
Profound people in later days
Who read the sutras
Do not ask the way to the
Great road of enlightenment.
Stop! Stop!
Why do you have to wander the south?
The site of enlightenment is right
Under your feet.
- T'aego (1301-1382)

News brought through shop is of a man who summers across harbor, he has a type of cancer; will we keep him in prayer? Another man from nearby is separated from wife and child; he's been seen and doesn't look good, (says the bearer of news), thinks he is hiding -- maybe drinking?

An emigre says this country is beginning to unravel the lies and distortions surrounding the war against Iraq, bad economic policy, and perhaps the deeply disturbing atmosphere of intimidation and fear will begin to lift -- won't it? Commissions are being formed, special investigations begin, newspapers and magazines are emboldened raising questions and expressing opinions -- truth will out?

Open your ears, O God, to my prayer,
and do not hide when I call on you:
turn to me and answer me.
My thoughts are distracted and I am disturbed
by the voice of my enemy and the oppression of the wicked.

They let loose their wickedness on me,
they persecute me in their anger.
My heart is tied in a knot
and the terrors of death lie upon me;
fear and trembling cover me;
terror holds me tight.

I said, "Will no-one give me wings like a dove?
I shall fly away and rest.
I shall flee far away
and remain all alone.
I shall wait for him who will save me
from the stormy wind and the tempest?"
-- Psalm 54 (55)

Snow blows dusk into harbor. Tide rises, lowers, ebbs, turns again. Turning hidden beyond storm clouds, full moon is somewhere else seen.

If enlightenment were to be of anyone's concern, it could be looked for embedded in each person's life and situation.
If we were to wish to fly away and rest we could turn around right where we are -- far away and absolutely near where our thinking thought we were -- recognizing the place as origin -- remaining, all, alone.

Psalmist words for us: O God -- Turn to me as we to thee.

In turning is the return -- whether turning toward or away -- it is in the return to origin we find what we are looking for.

Loss only prepares in us what we are reluctant to acknowledge.

What is that?

If we look under our feet, what is seen...?

A locked church sent him into the shop.

His brother dies and is not found for over two weeks. He takes a friend into his house the night before he learns of his brother. The needy friend reminds him of his brother. Why do we pray?

A single moon
Bright and clear
In an unclouded sky;
Yet still we stumble
In the world’s darkness.
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)

We stumble into one another's presence.

We pray to recognize each in each.

Power is passing.

When the fury of emotion appears before us or within us -- bow head, be submissive, surrender to the passing enormity that cannot be controlled -- only let go,

Creaking to the post office
on my rusty bike
I saw one purple iris
wild in the wet green
of the rice field.
I wanted to send it to you.
I can only tell you
it was there.
(-- Maura O'Halloran, in Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind, The Zen Journal and Letters of Maura "Soshin" O'Halloran)

At Wednesday Evening Laura Conversation we pronounced questions that accompany us on spiritual path. Eight silences speak the same number of questions.

Encircling the middle, interest ("inter"= between; "esse"= to be) in what is asked.

What is asking is what is answering.

In silence, listening with one another, and speaking.

It was there.

In Boothbay the man about to turn 80 said over soup and sandwich, "You know what it's like to experience the futility of life?" With his eyes he anticipated a yes. I said yes.

When silent illumination is complete,
The lotus will blossom,
The dreamer will awaken.
The hundred rivers flow to the ocean,
The thousand mountains
Face the loftiest peak.
Like the goose preferring milk to water,
Like a busy bee gathering pollen,
When Silent Illumination
Reaches the ultimate,
I carry on the original tradition.
This practice is called Silent Illumination.
It penetrates from the deepest to the highest.
- Hung Chih Cheng Chueh (1092-1157)

Lighting fire this morning I thought about the realities of solitary life. It's not so much being alone that characterizes a solitary life. It's more a willingness to be irrelevant.

The supreme support for a person who has just died is the depth of our own practice and the strength of our positive, compassionate intention. If through our practice we are familiar with the nature of mind and can rest undistracted in that state, then meditating on behalf of our deceased friend will "show" him the truth of his own nature. As Padmasambhava said:
"As soon as our body has separated into mind and matter, in the gap before it has been encased once again in the net of a future body, the mind along with its magical display has no concrete material support. For as long as it lacks such a material basis we are independent and we can recognize. This power to attain stability by just recognizing the nature of mind is like a torch which in one instant can clear away the darkness of eons."
(p.189, in Facing Death and Finding Hope, A Guide to the Emotional and Spiritual Care of the Dying, by Christine Longaker)

Irrelevant, I light fire in the morning; and in the afternoon break ice by dock in harbor alongside Sam and Susan's dory.

To be irrelevant is to love to be unknown.

Just recognizing.

Enough for now.

Fire sparks at end of day in shop fireplace. At Hermitage, woodstove in cabin easily warms interior now that temperature has neared +20. Kitchen woodstove cheers the house.

Silvery moon hangs high in the sky.
I ride a tiny boat in the vast and misty sea.
Moon and sea forgotten;
I forget that I have forgotten.
And before the window
I sit quietly in meditation until midnight.
- Jakushitsu (1290 - 1368)

Maybe for only Sunday Evening Practice tonight.

Chris read from William James at Saturday's Poetry, Tea, and Literature. I find this today:
Summing up in the broadest possible way the characteristics of the religious life, as we have found them, it includes the following beliefs: --

1. That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance;

2. That union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our true end;

3. That prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof -- be that spirit "God" or "law" -- is a process wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world.

Religion includes also the following psychological characteristics: --

4. A new zest which adds itself like a gift to life, and takes the form either of lyrical enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and heroism.

5. An assurance of safety and a temper of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections.
(p.475, Lecture XX Conclusions, THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, A Study in Human Nature Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902)

It occurs to me writing someone in the Midwest that all we can do is try to see what is being seen:
As a practitioner of Buddhism I subscribe to the middle way. As a Christian I've always believed Christ was the center, at center, of everything in creation -- literally in the middle of everything. So, the middle is a good place to be aware of -- but it takes practice for me.
If I were looking with an open heart, I'd be looking through that middle reality existing at core and between you and me. If I were aware of what I was looking at and through, I'd be ok.

Darkness is ending. It is February. The sun warms.

Hugh C. writes, "Hello Liam O' hAlpin," and sends the following:
IMBOLG or BRIDGID'S DAY
Imbolg (Feb 1) is "a solemn and joyful time: the ending of darkness after
the 'seed of light' which began at the Solstice [which] gradually pushes
its way into the air." It is also the time when first-born lambs emerge and
the hours of daylight increase. Imbolg is called St. Bridget's Day and she
is still known as Mary of the Gael. She is invoked with Mary (spelled Muire
in Gaelic) in birthing or in lighting the fires or in the evening by
"smooring" or putting ashes on, the fire. She is petitioned with prayers to
protect the house and the household throughout the night. According to
legend she was the midwife and wet-nurse to Jesus and as such was invoked
during childbirth. Above all doorways it used to be the custom to place a
Brigid's Cross (the off-centered cross symbolizing also the wheel of life).
It was traditionally woven with rushes (reeds) on the eve of Imbolg. In
times gone by the response to a greeting such as "Dia agat" was "Brid agus
Muire agat" (breejus mwirragut).

Women in the Highlands of Scotland invoked St. Brigid with the prayer
Come, thou Brigid, handmaid calm
Hasten the butter on the cream
See impatient Peter
waiting the buttered bannock
Come Mary Mother mild
Hasten the butter on the cream
See Paul and John and Jesus
Waiting the gracious butter.

Brigid was Abbess of Kildare and is the patron saint, not only of birth and
milking and churning, but also of poets, smiths and healers. In these forms
she is the continuation of the "tripartite goddess: the young girl, the muse
of the poets; the matron, whose skill...also shapes the material world; and
the crone, the old woman, whose wisdom enables her to heal those who ask her
for help." Cormac's Glossary (10th century) says that Brighid [was] a
poetess, daughter of the Dagda. She is the female sage, woman of wisdom, or
Brighid the Goddess, whom poets venerated because [she was] very great and
famous for her protecting care. She was therefore called "Goddess of Poets".
Her sisters were Brighid the female physician, and Brighid the female smith;
among all Irishmen, a goddess was called "Brighid." According to Eric
Partridge, the etymologist, her name is akin to the Sanskrit "brhati",
meaning lofty and hence powerful.
(Quotes are from "The Celtic Year" by Shirley Toulson and "The Encyclopedia
of Celtic Wisdom" by Caitlin Matthews.)

It cheers there are such women and men about who are willing to look and to see.

For each and all of us this day: Assurance of safety, a temper of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections!

And may we see and find ourselves a middle way.

Mythos, from muthos, "tale," has as much to do with silence as it does with telling.

Even if "You Have to Say Something," as Dainin Katagiri Roshi's book is titled, we sometimes have to look beyond the usual choices for a response.

Robert Pirsig suggests a way to think outside ordinary duality:
Yes and no ... this or that ... one or zero. On the basis of this elementary two-term discrimination, all human knowledge is built up. The demonstration of this is computer memory which stores all its knowledge in the form of binary information. It contains ones and zeros, that's all.

Because we're unaccustomed to it, we don't usually see that there's a third possible logical term equal to yes and no which is capable of expanding our understanding in an unrecognized direction. We don't even have a term for it, so I'll have to use the Japanese mu.

Mu means "no thing.'' Like "Quality'' it points outside the process of dualistic discrimination. Mu simply says, "No class; not one, not zero, not yes, not no.'' It states that the context of the question is such that a yes or no answer is in error and should not be given. "Unask the question'' is what it says.

Mu becomes appropriate when the context of the question becomes too small for the truth of the answer. When the Zen monk Joshu was asked whether a dog had a Buddha nature he said "Mu,'' meaning that if he answered either way he was answering incorrectly. The Buddha nature cannot be captured by yes or no questions.

That mu exists in the natural world investigated by science is evident. It's just that, as usual, we're trained not to see it by our heritage.
(- p.320, Robert Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

If Pirsig suggests 'heritage' trains us 'not to see' -- perhaps 'hermitage' invites us to see.

This hermitage was here first
Only then, the world.
When the world crumbles,
This hermitage will not be destroyed.
The host inside the hermitage
Is present everywhere.
The moon shines on the eternal void;
The wind whistles through
Ten thousand openings.
- Shiwu (1347)

Hermitage, for this view, might be seeing what is core and care of what is. That anything is at all, is itself invitation to look into it. It is the inner view that helps develop vision for how to respond to outer necessities -- like food, clothing, shelter, human interaction with one another, with created matter, and with the unknown which surrounds and interpenetrates this existence.

Hermitage is practicing seeing, saying, and serving. This in a silence that permeates both wordless and wording presence.

Jesus found he had to say something.
And he said, "Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went away. (from Luke 4:21-30)

There's something both musical and mythical about "passing through the midst of them" and disappearing.

The best place to find and lose oneself is in the midst of where we are. To be there, wherever we are, is to learn telling silence.

We are only passing visitors here.

This hermitage was here first.

As each with each in silence.

This is the nature of conversation.

"The tension between solitude and communion has existed at nearly every stage of the history of spirituality." (p.43, in article "Mending Broken Connections: A Process Spirituality," by Kathleen R. Fischer, in Chicago Studies, April 1987).

This morning at prison Joe comes in half way through the conversation. In one hand crumpled paper, stapler in the other. He sits down. After 5 minutes he nods, says "That's what I needed, to calm in this environment. I just put 40 staples into one paper while putting up with annoying interruptions." There's laughter. He's smiling as he leaves.

We talked of the Latin "Hoc" in the Christian rite of consecration. Ryan asked at end, "You know what the answer is?" Then he answered, "Faith in this."

One who gives rise to the awakened mind should know that what is called a self or person, a living being or a life span, is not so in essence but only in concept. That names self, person, living being, or life span are names only. Subhuti, you should know that all things of the world are like this, and you should have confidence in their essence without names.
- Diamond Sutra

Around fireplace Peter, Tommy, and Gale are trying to decide whether female energy would change the imbalance of power and violence in today's militaristic approach to problems. Their words approach stalemate.

When any part of the whole appropriates to itself what belongs to the whole, that's when trouble shows its face, that's when difficulty arises. Whether male/female, patriarchal/matriarchal, liberal/conservative, left/right, right/wrong -- or any myriad either/or opinion -- when we fragment the whole for purposes of determining superiority/inferiority, we lose the sense of whatever grace resides at origin.

"Religion is only man telling God what God ought to be," says Tommy before he launches into his song "Treebird" accompanying himself on small acoustical guitar that hangs out by the dog's water bowl. He sings, "The bird may find that flying is a good thing to know." (The bird didn't want to fly, he explains.)

We sit for Friday Evening Interreligious Dialogue with Nasr's book on the Heart of Islam.

Saskia says the piece about Islam's encompassing and taking in all the other religions -- is something for her to think about. Gale, Tommy, Lloyd, Patricia, Dick, Saskia and I encircled the text with open listening. We wondered what is actually asked of us by surrender?

After everyone leaves and departure nears, Saskia rubs lotion on her hands. Bakery is closed. Lights all out but for remaining one over refrigerator. Car warms in frigid parking lot.

She says when asked, "The nature of conversation is listening deeply and speaking from one's heart."

This practice of conversation is a lovely one.

This (Hoc) is the body we recognize in the pronouncing words celebrating the solitude and communion of gratefulness. No matter how it is ritualized, one thing does not become something else -- rather, each thing or person is recognized as itself.

"This," Nancy said as we drove from prison, "is Meetingbrook's presenting practice."

This is the nature of conversation.

Sometimes we each feel like an orphan.

Susan liked what Will said. The connection between matter and mater (L. 'mother'). We wondered whether 'mother consciousness' would make our attention to matter more loving and caring.

Subhuti, do not think that when one gives rise to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened mind one needs to see all objects of mind as nonexistent, cut off from life. Please do not think in that way. One who gives rise to the awakened mind does not deny objects or say that they are nonexistent.
- Diamond Sutra

It is more the task of losing the limiting liabilities of matter -- not eliminating matter itself. Many have held that a descent into matter is a degradation of spirit. Many long only for spirit, to be rid of body, to step away from matter with the accompanying belief in its inferiority, sinfulness, and crass barriers and boundaries.

Redeeming creation is not shunting away what is created. It is more about returning creation and matter to original state -- that which it is at origin -- its center fullness. The original 'what-is-ness' of matter resides within everything in creation.

Perhaps to redeem is to remind a thing of its original wholeness.

Will spoke of Integral Yoga, Sri Aurabindo, as his path. He spoke of the path of knowing (jnana), of devotion (bhatki), and of works (karma) -- each of which flows into the other as they find fullness.

What did the words of that song say? -- "When we awake we will remember everything."

We think we are what is holding together all that is. But if we let go, 'what-is itself' will hold us all together in divine embrace upholding.

Mother of God -- mothering God!

No orphan.

Maybe it isn't.

Is each fact true? Each fact is itself alongside others. Yet, one thing is not the other. Or is it?

Cream of Wheat with banana, blueberries, and vanilla Stonyfield yogurt.

Arvo Part's 'Magnificat' plays. It serves this morning as a prelude to surrendering interest in politics, presidential race, and postscripts to deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as report issued in England following investigation of former arms inspector's suicide last year. Each fact stands alone.

Jen said last evening it is best to let the low level, dark resonances of others' negative thoughts pass by noting, 'these are not mine.' Richard retells story of rescuing dog while thin ice held him aloft. Shunryu Suzuki's Not Always So suggests when breathing and activity are in harmony, when mind and body are clear and still together -- we are free, liberated, to engage everything and everyone without fear. Lloyd, John, and Saskia bravely step over threshold engaging question of inseparable experience.

Purifying our self direction,
Our emotions, and behaviors
In all endeavors, one grows
In understanding of the Way.
But our individual abilities vary
And the exalted Way has many
Different rules.
To students of Tao,
This sincere forewarning:
Only with a clear, honest spirit
Can we begin meaningful learning.
With an unsullied heart we may
Even move the immortals.
Debasing the Way,
Not even a heaven forgives us.
- Loy Ching-Yuen (1873-1960)

The Way opens before us. Each true step -- and we traverse infinite time and space in each instant and inch of geography. Each false step -- and we fall into the morass of deception imprisoned in the very space encircling us. Who can tell which step we have just taken? Who foretells the next step we take?

Sitting in cabin just before sunrise this morning, glancing out along fallen stone wall below floor level windows, gray squirrel steps across stones, right to left, on way to ground seed under bird feeders near overturned dinghy.

Chanting through expanding billows of worded breath, we sing:
Blessed be the name of the Lord, from this day hence, and forever. From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Ah-ah-ah-amen.

If we want truth, a Zen Master said, only drop opinions.

Even Thomas Aquinas found straw the equivalent to his Summa Theologica. It was his final opinion on his life's work.

Practicing no opinion -- Wednesday opens.

Standing alone.

Maybe it is.

Coast Guard cutter Tackle breaks harbor ice. Floes, 8 to 10 inches thick and yards long, drift with outgoing tide down channels.

Priscilla said her husband seemed to be able to hear an individual's spirit speaking when he talked with that person. He'd write a poem or story. She brings in his writings and some of her artwork. Do we ever understand what we are seeing or saying? These writings will visit to see if they find their own context, even context in another's view.

Isn't that our prayer?

Prayer
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that
(Poem: "Prayer," by Galway Kinnell, from A New Selected Poems, c.2001)

A woman from France and man with either Middle Eastern or Middle European accent speak by fireplace over lemon tea bread, apfel kuchen, and pain chocolat.

Today -- longing for a hermit's solitude.

The shade of noble trees
Spreads in all directions
Below the trees a tiny
Hut is perfectly secluded
Beyond the sound of cart
Or horse or sign of human tracks
All day behind my door
I sit alone cross-legged.
- Han-shan Te-ch'ing (1546-1623)

Talk of Turkey, India, Greece, France, and England.

Ice is gone to open bay. I am gone to the sound intersecting mute origination and silent attentiveness.

Whatever 'what is' is, only and but, that.

Light at end of day climbs over Wayfarer roof. Remaining large floes inch slowly through water as stillness ebbs. The man's healing shoulder and wrapped arm rests under red sweater.

...This is, I think,
what holiness is:
the natural world,
where every moment is full

of the passion to keep moving.
Inside every mind
there's a hermit's cave
full of light,

full of snow,
full of concentration.
I've knelt there,
and so have you,

Hanging on
to what you love,
to what is lovely. ...
-- (from poem, "At the Lake," by Mary Oliver)

Prayer drifts alongside whatever happens.

Dawn light creates silhouette limbs in dooryard east.

Living alone
In the shade
Of a remote mountain,
I have you for my companion
Now the storm has passed,
Moon of the winter night.
- Saigyo

Stitching cuffs on flannel pants as water steams under frost-lined kitchen window.

Joy in waking in darkness watching daybreak yawn through below zero temperature.

Bald and Ragged Mountains hold themselves still and inseparate from cold.

We will bow to their fidelity, turning onto Barnestown, driving Downeast.

Grateful to be doing so.

What is it humans fear?

"This is what the prophets discovered. History is a nightmare. There are more scandals, more acts of corruption, than are dreamed of in philosophy." (p.181, Heschel.)

Is it form we fear? Or emptiness?
Don't make two, don't make one. That's that.

And when That is seen in its
Immanence and transcendence
Then the ties that have bound the
Heart are loosened, the doubts
Of the mind vanish, and the law
Of karma works no more.
- Mundaka Upanishad

Then there is three.

For Hegel, it was not a mere fancy or a game with the number three when his circling thought advanced in both small things and great in triplesteps (or a triangular movement). Behind it lay the basic insight -- which has never been forgotten since that time -- that I cannot state the truth absolutely clearly and distinctly merely in one sentence, but really need three, dialectically affirming, denying, surpassing: this is how it is, and yet not so, in fact there is more to it. And so on. In this sense truth lies in the totality, not in the individual steps, theses, propositions or elements of which it is made up. (pp.30-31, in Does God Exist? An Answer for today, by Hans Kung, c.1978)

Not one country, not one religion -- is truer or better than another. Forms fall apart. And out of emptiness emerge new ways of seeing.

At Sunday Evening Practice, reading from The Prophets An Invitation, by Abraham Heschel. He ends chapter nine saying, "The enmity between the nations will turn to friendship. They will live together when they worship together."

Jory said when we sit in the cold zendo and walk on the cold floor we are following the vision of the prophets.
We worship in spirit and truth. Each one, and the other, and the whole of us.

This is how it is. And yet, not so. In fact there is more to it.

There is no need to fear. We have only to engage, transform, and re-emerge through each event as who we are in the presence of one another.

Each is what is true. In that spirit, the best of life goes on.

Worshipful.

A poem, short story, or essay -- the good ones -- put you there. They serve self-remembering.

At end it can be said, "O, I didn't know that about myself. Thanks for showing me."

The fundamental teaching of Buddhism is nothing but the doctrine of One Mind. This Mind is originally perfect and vastly illuminating. It is clear and pure, containing nothing, not even a fine dust. There is neither delusion nor enlightenment, neither birth nor death, neither saints nor sinners. Sentient beings and Buddhas are of the same fundamental nature. There are no two natures to distinguish them. This is why Bodhidharma came from the west to teach the Ch'an method of "direct pointing" to the original true Mind.
- Han-Shan Te-Ch'ing (1586)

Reading this afternoon from False Papers by Andre Aciman, The keeper of sheep, by Fernando Pessoa, Fire in the Earth by David Whyte, Self-Remembering by Robert Earl Burton, some Rumi, and poems self published by an insurance man named Paul M. from the Hartford area. Lloyd said some things about the 4th Way and seeing the connections, beginning to understand, to feel.

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honourable we invest with the greater honour, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
(from 1 Corinthians 12)

When we look at each other, when we listen to each other, we are ready to say, "O, yes, I didn't know that about my self. Thank you for showing me."

All this so that the members may have the same care for one another.

Tommy comes in at end. Two women afterwards -- buy jams -- remembering her father worked with and helped build the chapel with Trappists from which the jams.

She is moved by this self remembering.

As each is.

An Irish visitor thinks we've not even begun to comprehend the incomprehensibility of God.

"Think of DNA," he says, "the squiggly structure of life itself, as insight into the original fire-burst of God in this existence."

We sit in cold shop, pre-fire, while in next town hundreds gather for memorial service. Our conversation is a different service -- words for others who've died in far away places in the unceasing war humanity has with itself.

God, some say, is saying life differently than our words. God, they say, is the impulse not-to-speak that sets in center of each and every being that exists along our way.

Not-to-speak, but given-to-love.

I will place my laws in their minds
and I will write them upon their hearts;
I will be their God
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach their fellow citizens
or their brothers, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
for all shall know me, from least to greatest.
I will forgive their evildoing,
and their sins I will remember no more.
(from Jeremiah 31)

A God who forgives and forgets -- no wonder we can't find that God!

Religions with scriptures about a silent God, a Word made Flesh who remains silent when asked, "What is truth?"

The rest of us talk and talk, wording everything we can, explain, argue, defend, rationalize, attempt to convey feelings, try to present thought in a communicable manner. And like the pop song we shrug and protest, "It's only words, but words are all I have, to take your heart away." (The BeeGees)

Good friends, my teaching
Of the Dharma takes
Meditation and wisdom
As its basis.
Never under any
Circumstances say that
Meditation and wisdom
Are different;
They are one unity,
Not two things.
Meditation itself is the
Substance of wisdom;
Wisdom itself is the
Function of meditation
- Hui-neng

So much of meditation is silent. As is wisdom. The substance and function of wisdom and meditation are not two things.

And when we speak, when we dare open heart, mind, and mouth to say something to another, we risk everything precious. Still, we must open our mouths, we must say something.

The heart, one author said, is a lonely hunter.

I call you my friends, says the Lord,
for I have made known to you all that the Father has told me.
(John 15:15)

It seems we have been made known. If we have been made known, all that is needed to be known, how is it we do not seem to know one another?

Is our barrier that we remember sin? Is our boundary that we retain tightly the evil we do one to another?

Let go! Forget about it! Find freedom in the close relatedness each hunts for -- by seeing in, through, and with God's sight.

Let our hearts be broken and taken away. Whether in joy or sorrow, let hearts flash open, as the heart of God is openness. Let pour out everything held there -- until empty -- and sacred. God's way and our way -- are not two ways. God's heart and our heart -- are not two things.

When all is revealed in sacred opening -- all know.

As we move in this meditation, through this wisdom -- in quiet -- we learn how to speak with each other.

Here is where the incomprehensible, forgiving and forgetting, comes to know and love itself -- in, and through, and with.

Daylight.

If extinguished candles are fragrant flowers colored by each one's loving prayer, a wonderland of seeding ground awaits eyes of passersby there.

Fields we saw
Blooming with
So many different flowers,
Frost-withered now
To a single hue.
- Saigyo

Sprinkling overnight snow -- this muted chiaroscuro-- at service to memorial this Thursday.

Even the young gone beyond leave children of their elders, who play in snowy drift of memory when daylight bows to passing night.

Around this Mandala, this sacred spot,
May the flames that transmute Samsara into Nirvana arise.
(from Dedication Puja, Ven. Sangharashita)

Christ-light -- hard working wisdom!

Hosmer Pond, thick with solid ice, was epiclesis tonight.

When the inward and the outward are illumined, and all is clear, you are one with the light of the sun and moon. When developed to its ultimate state, this is a round luminosity which nothing can deceive, the subtle body of a unified spirit, pervading the whole universe. Then you have the same function as the sun and moon.
- Liu I-Ming

A wide round circle of luminaries, candles in sand inside bags, on snowy ice under new moon white sharp stars. Inside the enormous circle of over 205 luminaries, an inner figure -- a heart of 35 luminaries -- lay within the still and silent cold of Wednesday night.

Car lights turn off. No one on pond. No one there when two people walk out to edge of circle lights. Stand and look. Wonder. Walk without words the edge of circle all around. Turn and bow in direction of house high on hill overlooking pond. Turn and bow to heart inside circle. Wander back off ice to car; drive off.

The word "epiclesis" is Greek for "invocation" in the sense of calling upon or naming a person. The implication of such naming is, of course, that the person called upon become actively involved in or present to the person or thing upon which he [or she] was invoked. It is not surprising, then, that long before the term was ever employed to refer to a specific part of the anaphora, epiclesis referred to the entire prayer. In time, however, epiclesis came to refer to that petition to the Father to send the Holy Spirit which usually follows the anamnesis.
(http://www.saintstephens.on.ca/Essay/KF/The%20Epiclesis.htm)

Anamnesis, (an'-am-nee'-sis) from ana, again; and mimneeskein, to put in mind; recollectio, recordatio, remembrance.
Plato called anamnesis, 'soul-memory.'

The stark emptiness of the ice and candles. The vacancy of the visit. The fullness of the experience of love set for her in glowing memory.

Whoever created the testimony had gone. The invocation, the putting in mind of the young woman whose dwelling has changed from hilltop to beyond our telling, was laid out with exquisite juxtaposition: form was emptiness, emptiness form in beautifully frozen heart-light within circle-wholeness.

Anaphora, Late Latin, from Greek, from anapherein, to bring back: ana-, ana- + pherein, to carry; a-naph-o-ra: The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs.

We invoke light of 'hard working wisdom' -- Amilia Sophia.
We recollect sterling stillness of ice pond memorial.
We carry back silence of pristine star eyes from distances beyond thought.

It is all we can do to pause, walk about, watch attentively, and pray her on her way.

This is -- indeed -- a round luminosity which nothing can deceive, the subtle body of a unified spirit, pervading the whole universe.

Someone, earlier in evening conversation, said, "Love is always counterbalance to whatever weight is borne."

Do questions and answers travel in pairs?

Suicide bomb in Iraq kills twenty. American ordinance in Afghanistan kills eleven villagers, four children. Car accident at routes 1 and 52 kills high school student. Throughout world men vie for positions of power -- for who will decide what bombs go where, and who will die, and who will profit from death.

Reflecting on another death, a friend writes:
Perhaps we must surrender (and I don't say submit--that seems different somehow, cowering) to what is, to I Am, and say, "I don't know why, Lord--and I don't need to know."

So many tragedies, so many questions! Do answers accompany questions? Or are we orphans and parents of orphans because 'answer' refuses to reveal itself?

No, tragedies do not cancel each other out as they succeed one another. On the contrary, they multiply and accumulate, becoming more unjust with every blow. True, every man [and woman] suffers alone -- yet his suffering is never limited to himself. Suffering begets suffering ever sharper, deeper and more harrowing. In other words, Job's anguish, however similar to Abraham's, however reminiscent of Abraham's, cannot be explained by it. The fact that Job's torments had a precedent does not imply that they have a meaning. In this respect, Jewish tradition differs from the Buddhist concept: to insert individual anguish into cosmic anguish does not resolve, but on the contrary, aggravates the problem. Therein lies its universality. Every individual is both beginning and end; that is why he deserves an answer, not a consolation, unless the consolation itself becomes an answer. (pp. 235-236, Wiesel)

In Warsaw Ghetto, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the emotional desert of contemporary consciousness -- 'answer' hides and seeks shelter from ravages of inane bombardment from occupying forces wanting to take control of what is not theirs.

In Wiesel's portrait of Job he writes: I prefer to think that the Book's true ending was lost. That Job died without having repented, without having humiliated himself; that he succumbed to his grief an uncompromising and whole man. It seems rather odd that the Midrash, so prodigal in legends at the beginning of the drama, becomes so sparing in its epilogue; it probably troubled the rabbinical storytellers. The third act of a play is usually a kind of apotheosis; this one is pale, disappointing. The fighter has turned into a lamb. A sad metamorphosis, inexplicable in literary terms. (p.247)

Wiesel wonders if God's true victory lay in forcing Job to welcome happiness -- to agree to go back to living as before.

Do we? Go on living? Doing the next thing asked of us? Not forgetting, no, but carrying on -- even without understanding, acceptance, or surrender? And doesn't that -- temporary solution -- tire soon enough? And do we not, tired and defeated, rise day after day -- as if in celebration of the unknown presence life constantly asks us to engage?

At the end of his struggle, which Job recognized as being lost in advance -- for how can man hope to defeat God? -- Job discovered a novel method to persevere in his resistance: he pretended to abdicate before he even engaged his battle.

Had he remained firm, had he discussed the divine arguments point by point, one would conclude that he had to concede defeat in the face of his interlocutor's rhetorical superiority. But he said yes to God, immediately. He did not hesitate or procrastinate, nor did he point out the slightest contradiction. Therefore we know that in spite or perhaps because of appearances, Job continued to interrogate God. By repenting sins he did not commit, by justifying a sorrow he did not deserve, he communicates to us that he did not believe in his own confessions; they were nothing but decoys. Job personified man's eternal quest for justice and truth -- he did not choose resignation. This he did not suffer in vain; thanks to him, we know that it is given to man to transform divine injustice into human justice and compassion.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a legendary man, a just and generous man who, in his solitude and despair, found the courage to stand up to God. And to force Him to look at His creation. And to speak to those men who sometimes succeed, in spite of Him and of themselves, in achieving triumphs over Him, triumphs that are grave and disquieting.

What remains of Job? A fable? A shadow? Not even the shadow of a shadow. An example, perhaps.
(pp. 248-249, chapter titled, "Job: Our Contemporary," in Messengers Of God,, Biblical Portraits and Legends, by Elie Wiesel, c. 1976)

Are we ever, really, completely defeated by the troubling and sorrowful things occurring in our way?

Is there a partnering answer to this question?

Luke said last night -- "Suicide disturbs, sends shocks and ripples to those left behind."

Wondering if it's a winter shower,
I wake in my bed
And hear them:
The leaves that
Couldn't withstand the storm.
- Saigyo

A young person, recent high school graduate from town, died. The word 'suicide' is spoken. A leaf that couldn't withstand the storm.

...India's spiritual traditions are all in agreement that the human being, though unable to intellectually know Reality in its nakedness, can become it in its different dimensions of totality. (Feuerstein, p.191)

There is a longing to change form. There is a longing to step out of the 'motions' we go through. When 'e-motions' are disturbed, it is a longing to move out of the motions that seem so containing. Whether school, church, family, relationship, or cultural box -- there is a longing to be out of the form, out of the motions.

For each of us suffering the fear of form, the disturbance of motions, there is a deeper longing we feel, a deeper way of supporting each other through these difficulties. Learning liberation, what it is, and how it serves -- is one way to begin. .

Liberation is a simple switch of identity. Prior to liberation -- from the unenlightened perspective -- there is the thought of being a human being. Upon liberation, or enlightenment, this thought ceases. The Self knows itself to be the eternal Self, not a specific individual inhabiting a particular point in space and time. (p.193, in Wholeness or Transcendence? - Ancient Lessons For The Emerging Global Civilization, by Georg Feuerstein, c. 1992)

Our hearts break, hearing of the loss and sorrow, the individual and family.

There is a need to re-learn our wholeness.

We pray the leaf finds itself in the heart of serene seed poising itself to enter new ground supported by whole trees in whole forests wandered through by whole-hearted individuals who see, hear, touch, and delight in the new creation unfolding in our midst. The fact is we are whole -- however felt the brokenness and fractured places we call our self -- we are no-other than the whole.

Suicide is painful. It calls the whole into question. Still, we are all there -- the one who has entered death ahead of us, and we, who now grieve and continue in motion down river until our own flowing out and falling into the Whole.

Our faith is in the liberation, given with grace, to each one fallen.

We long to wake, wake in our beds, to the sounds of water tumbling with joy, to the budding leafy presence of one and all.

What is this?

This is work that is alive,
Effervescent, free, liberated,
Gloriously enlightened,
True, and great.
Do you think it can be attained
By people who shut the door
And sit quietly with blank minds?
- Liu I-Ming

No.

Still, today we sit quietly with blank minds. (Maybe not so.)

Still, today we sit watching mind empty itself into quiet.

This -- this practice of sitting walking sitting, this work remembering what is alive within and surrounding us -- this is our 3rd Saturday Mindfulness Retreat.

At 1st Interreligious Dialogue Friday Evening Conversation, Nancy, Patricia, Saskia, and I read opening words of The Heart of Islam, Enduring values for Humanity, by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Imagine, surrendering into God, greeting God, facing God each way we turn!

At Prison Conversation earlier Charlie, Ryan, Saskia, and I read from A Passion for Truth by Abraham Heschel, then laugh and puzzle at the Irish folktale "The Man Who Had No Story."

The joy is conversation. With each other. Alone in silence.

Turning with one another.

Facing God.

Dangerously cold. All life seeks inner shelter.

Jesus told each one not to tell anyone what had happened. Some saw. Some walked. Some were healed of various infirmities.

Why not tell?

Because they didn't understand what had occurred?

John said at the shop at Laura Conversation he was troubled by miracles. The fire was dying and the room getting cold. Temperature was well below zero outside. And the wind.

They didn't understand that the miracle did not come from outside them. Nor did it come from inside them. And they certainly didn't understand who Jesus was as he was with them.

Robert said the real miracle was chocolate icing. Or maybe flour. Saskia suggested the whole cake. Dirk was opting for the course miracles take. Su Sane thought the real miracle might be or not be a miracle.

If you ask into something with prayer, you enter the question. Su Sane said questions and answers traveled in pairs.

There we are. In frozen temperatures inhospitable to human flesh, the matter is settled.

It is not a matter of perspective nor perception. The view itself -- the view is God. All is ordinary, all is miracle.

Awareness of what is seeing itself is question entered, answer lived.

Jesus needed no belief -- not his own, not anyone else's.

True faith is one's own being lived graciously and gratefully. This is thank you, you're welcome, even for the little nephew in Charlotte's story who prayed to catch a fish, didn't, and remembered to say thank you.

It's eleven below zero. Without wind.

Barge towed by tug heads out bay. Tide high. The dredging is done.

Do not remain in the dualistic state;
Avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace
Of this and that, right and wrong,
The Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
Do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
Nothing in the world can offend,
And when a thing can no longer offend,
It ceases to exist in the old way.
- Seng Ts?an (d. 606)

Paul Krugman in Commonwealth Club talk and New York Times column today ("The Awful Truth") wonders, "Are people finally willing to admit the obvious?"

It's coldest tonight, they say, than has been in ten years.

Those who wonder about such things wonder whether what is happening in our country is more dangerous than they can remember.

"Listen, all people, and I shall speak;
I will bear witness against you,
O nations:
As Divine Presence, Eternal Flame of Love,

Shall I not find fault with what
you call holy,
these offerings of greed and war
that are before me always?

Your lies and deceitful ways,
your greed for power and wealth
are spawned by darkness;

Have you forgotten that we are to be
One in Love and Truth,
that all of life is Sacred Gift?

I know every creature, every plant,
every mineral;

I know you -- your every need
and your fears;

The Earth and all that is in it
belongs to the Whole, to be
tended by all in co-operation
with Love.

Shall I accept your proud and
boasting hearts,
the oppression, the injustices
brought about
through your fearful deeds?

Never shall I accept such burnt offerings!

Rather, offer to the Beloved a gift
of thanksgiving
with grateful hearts;

For what other return can you make
for all that Love offers to you?

My friends, search for the still voice
that dwells in the Silence.
(Psalm 50, pp. 97-98, in Psalms For Praying, An Invitation to Wholeness, c.1996 by Nan C. Merrill)

What's worth their wonder is the worry something is irreparably changing.

Are we forgetting a grateful heart?

Is it hidden away in the silence?

That all of life is Sacred Gift?

The thought cheers -- to remember grateful heart in silence as sacred gift.

Joanie is pale in muted light of hospital room. She fell down her stairs.

Evening mountains veiled in somber mist,
One path entering the wooded hill:
The monk has gone off, locking his pine door.
From a bamboo pipe a lonely trickle of water flows.
- Ishikawa Jozan (1583-1672)

Two Tibetan monks stop in shop for hot chocolate. Dawa bows, leaves Kata over joined hands, prayer flags, and incense. Holly and Charlotte sit by fire with them. These monks, their bare arms not far from bitter cold. "Buddha was wrong," says Wang Chen, laughing as he points showing Karl his bare left arm, "he didn't know Maine cold."

In her hospital room there is a small buildup of ice inside the window. The room is quite warm. She is tired and weary. I say goodnight.

In workroom of bookshop a trickle of water runs inside tank of toilet so that below zero cold will not freeze pipe coming up from shallow travel below parking lot.

At his baptism with John, Jesus felt water trickle down head to shoulders and arms. God was water caressing offspring.

"Listen to him," water said. Just then, right there, water found sound refreshing and gentle, and began to flow on with restored resolve.

Our Savior came to be baptized, so that through the cleansing waters of baptism he might restore the old man to new life, heal our sinful nature, and clothe us with unfailing holiness. (Antiphon, Canticle of Mary, Evening Prayer I, Baptism Of The Lord, in Christian Prayer)

If our nature is sinful, that is, torn and frayed from its original wholeness, old man water was healing, and being healed by, new life revealed in the river.

John's words were heard and hands touched this new life -- many heard and felt the open mind, heart, and heavens -- as water found its way.

Jesus went on from that day.

A lonely trickle of water flows.

Note: Meetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery will re-open Saturday, 10Jan04 for 9:30am conversation on The Many Faces of Death.

.....

Sea smoke rises from Penobscot Bay.

What if it were true that the very air we look through is the spirit of God? The air we breath?

Would our perspective change?

Acts at random,
In ignorance of
The constant, bode ill.
Knowing the constant
Gives perspective;
This perspective is impartial.
Impartiality is the highest nobility;
The highest nobility is divine,
And the divine is the Way.
This Way is everlasting,
Not endangered by physical death.
- Tao-te Ching

What is constant?
In the question is the answer -- 'What Is!'

Do we look for God in vain because God is what is looking through, God is what is looked through?

The Way is constant. We either enter it and disappear; or we run around it, exhaust ourselves, and fall bitter, defeated, and seemingly wayless.

Seemingly -- because there is only the Way. What falls defeated is the false self whose belief posits itself outside and away from what is alone truth.

What is alone truth is this.

This is where we are -- each and every one of us.

We are each alone truth -- non-separate, intimate, sacred, and ordinary.

Some ask, "Where is God?"

Look around. Look through what is between the one looking and that which is seen. Now, forget who we think is looking and what we think is the object we look at.

In the looking itself, what is seen through, is what is itself seen.

The ego, what we think we are, cannot see God and live.

We live in seeing what God is seeing.

Note: Meetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery will be closed a few days, Friday 2Jan04 through 9Jan04. We will re-open Saturday, 10Jan04 for 9am conversation on death and dying.

.....

Very cold night in Maine.

Right at the moment of dropping off,
Deliberation and discussion
Are one thousand or
Ten thousand miles away.
- Hongzhi (1091-1157)

Snow-making machines at Snow Bowl. Wind rattles rusting chime outside room.

Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.
When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified.
Immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.
(Mark 6: 45-52, New International Version (NIV))

What's there to understand? Bread stretched itself to 5 thousand mouths. Water buoyed itself under human feet. He was alone on land.

It's not that miracles are incomprehensible. It's more that for some reason we believe that everything isn't possible.

Everything is possible.

Machines make snow. Rusting iron ore makes music for the wind. Filament holds fragile fingers together and light glows in that touch.

Soon we'll remember a time when not everyone told the truth. Lies will be preserved in museums, many in presidential libraries, others in bait and tackle backrooms in fishing towns in Atlantic Provinces.

It's just me, Jesus says, lighten up.

Anybody got coffee on the fire?

Note: Meetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery will be closed a few days, Friday 2Jan04 through 9Jan04. We will re-open Saturday, 10Jan04 for 9am conversation on death and dying.

.....

Blessings of Epiphany!

Shining through.

After sitting through unheated cabin cold, we chant Lauds. This morning prayer of Epiphany is punctuated by sun coming over clouds, through windows, to where we sit on zabutons, breath visible in every syllable:

Father of light, unchanging God,
today you reveal to men [and women] of faith
the resplendent fact of the Word made flesh.
Your light is strong,
your love is near;
draw us beyond the limits which the world imposes,
to the life where your Spirit makes all life complete.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
(Alternative Prayer, Morning Prayer, Solemnity of Epiphany, in Christian Prayer, Liturgy of the Hours)

It is the 'Alternative Prayer' and it captures something important for us this feast. The words -- draw us beyond the limits which the world imposes,
to the life where your Spirit makes all life complete. -- tell us the emphasis we look for in this new year.

We will begin a new Friday Evening Conversation entitled, Interreligious Dialogue: Unveiling and Practicing Peace Between Ways. The hour-long conversation, along with regular audio-video resource presentations, will focus on Hinduism (and other India-based spiritual belief systems), Judaism, Islam, Far East, Native, Pagan, and various contemplative and meditative forms attempting to express what the heart longs for in open forum.

Caroline's "story stick" leans against a cabin wall. On it are inscribed symbols of the various world religions. It resides in the chapel/zendo to remind how varied, diverse, and pluralistic is the thinking and prayer of humankind.

If we are ever to embody the kindness and peace longed for in our world, we'll have to learn how to unveil and practice peace between ways of seeing and living life.

A joyfulness comes with sunlight across cabin floor. Joy accompanies this inchoate, and now newly worded, theme of Meetingbrook.

Parents, angels, shepherds, wise men and women, kings, and the rest of us -- all -- are in the presence of 'the resplendent fact of the Word made flesh.'

Epiphany, appearance and recognition, is crucial for heart-peace and world-peace.

Draw us, indeed, beyond the limits which this world imposes, to the life where your [and our] Spirit makes all life complete!

This is the bond between us -- to move through this Word and world -- finding all life whole.

Then going home an alternative way.

Note: Meetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery will be closed a few days, Friday 2Jan04 through Epiphany, 6Jan04. We will re-open Wednesday, 7Jan04. (Will inform if closed additional days.)
.....

Tibetan prayer flags wave on cabin porch.

Snow besieges my plank door
I crowd the stove at night.
Although this form exists
It seems as if it doesn’t.
I have no idea where the
Months have gone
Every time I turn around
Another year on earth is over.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)

Mu-ge, Sando, and Cesco snooze in kitchen.

When we walk the earth, each step is prayer. When wind crosses Sally's to Sue's, prayer floats the distance. When seated in silence, prayer settles into form of stillness.

Prayer is holiness longing for itself -- no exceptions.