It is Hallow'een -- The eve of All Saints.

Truth is being revealed as what is now taking place.

Clipping cedar branches that hang too close to roof. Standing on peak ridge pole looking out over kitchen, barn, cabin, black and white cat and dog. The afternoon is silent. Clip, saw, snap, toss to ground, climb down ladder.

Wind bells are hung on sawn branch outside small window closest to road.

Forty-some years I’ve
Lived in the mountains,
Ignorant of the world’s
Rise and fall.
Warmed at night by a stove
Full of pine needles;
Satisfied at noon by a bowl
Of wild plants;
Sitting on rocks
Watching clouds and empty thoughts;
Patching my robe in sunlight;
Practicing silence
Till someone asks
Why Bodhidharma came east,
And I hang out my wash.
- Shih-wu (1252-1352)

Earlier I ask Saskia walking snow bowl how she is praying these days. She settles on presence. Prayer of presence. That, and gratitude. Thanking everything for their presence.

Joe will be 88 just after new year. He can't walk much these days. I sit with him on way back from dentist. We conclude everything is too expensive. But he's happy. Newspapers on table. He still likes a beer at night. He's in bed by 8pm. I offer to put storm window in back door. He'll tell his wife I was going to do it. That will spur her, he says.

He's glad he grew up Irish catholic.

When the Buddha was asked how the world started, he kept silent. In the religion of Buddhism we don’t have a first cause, instead we have a never ending circle of birth and death. In this world and in all worlds, there are many beginnings and ends. The model of life used in Buddhism has no starting place... It just keeps going and going.

Now having said that... If you’re a Buddhist it’s OK to believe God was the first cause... It really doesn't go against the teachings of the Buddha, his focus was on suffering... It's also OK to believe science has the answer… Like the big bang theory, etc... Some Buddhist’s don’t even care how it all started, and that’s fine too. Knowing how the world started is not going to end your suffering, it’s just going to give you more stuff to think about.

I hope you can see that God is not what Buddhism is about... Suffering is... And if you want to believe in God, as some Buddhists do, I suppose it's OK. But, Buddhist's don't believe God can end suffering. Only the teaching's of the Buddha can help us end suffering through wisdom and the activity of compassion.

In his whole life and in all his teachings the Buddha never said anything about the One God of the desert.
(from "Do Buddhists Believe in God?" -- by Kusala Bhikshu; A talk given at a high school in Los Angeles.)

The One God of the desert has had to learn the ways of men and women of small towns and large cities far from dry sands.

Cesco walks across bridge ascending Ragged Mountain. I trail behind him. He's independent. I catch up by tow line beyond second runway of autumn ski slope. We walk up then cross over to descend. Brown yellow musty leaves cover trail. It is a joy to be alive and walking in the open.

Maybe that's what God is -- "In the Open."

It might help us when we ask where God is -- and why we don't feel God in our life.

Buddhists have nothing to say about God (perhaps) because God is the nothing we have to say about the matter.

Maybe what we call "God" doesn't matter.

Is God truth and love practicing silence in the open?

Is God mattering spirit?

Just because the words "Lord" or "God" or "Yahweh" or "Allah" or even "Brahman" and "Holy Spirit" are used, we have something more to consider. Consider the absence of that which is evoked. If there be absence, we still continue to engage and encounter the reality of our lives as well as the suffering of everyone in the world.

Nothing we say is substitute for kindness and compassion shown our brothers and sisters -- and all sentient beings -- sharing this earth for the time being. Not title, not formula, not incantation intended to make occur the inconceivable to resolve all conflict and animosity. Instead, the fact, act, and mattering spirit of loving-kindness and simple-compassion is the grace of awareness and presence.

We must be the embodied act that takes place in time and space as invitation or response to another's presence. That embodied action is presence -- it is being in the world as we would have love, truth, or spirit be in the world.

No one can do it for us. Not live for us. Not die for us.

Nor is there any substitute for wholeness and incarnation. Our human realization -- a realization of no otherness -- is the intersection where wholeness and fragmentation cross, where embodying act and spiritual intention marry.

If you ask someone if they are married, or why divorce is so rife, they will have to consider the meditation on intersection and embodiment.

No one can do it for us.

But...with us?

When will God appear? When is the Second Coming? When will Manjushri break silence?

Anyone?

Clothespin?

One to one is loving equation. It's where the notion of church meets the notion of the individual human heart. I say "notion" meaning "a general inclusive concept, a whimsical idea."

Thomas Keating eulogized a fellow monk by pointing out how bringing oneself to nothing one will find out who he is. We look for the great grace of diminishment of self. To sacrifice into gradual humiliation and powerlessness, the healing and purification of whatever talents or specialness into the ordinariness of mere human being.

The teaching of the mind ground
Is the basis of Zen study.
The mind ground is
The great awareness
Of being as is.
- Fayan

We are as we are. Whether in health and vigor -- or, in weakness and diminishment -- we are pilgrims on a journey through emptiness and darkness into what we absurdly trust to be the incorporating inclusion of Christ mind and body.

Gratefulness enables us to find peace in all circumstances by freeing us from resentment. As long as we are merely thankful, we give thanks for what we perceive to be beneficial, yet we retain the lurking fear that something harmful may come our way instead. To be grateful is more. It is our courageous trust that life itself – kind or harsh, happy or sad – is good, if only we receive it as gift. The gift is the opportunity either to fully accept or to change what the moment brings.
The moment we trust in this truth, we are at peace. A person at peace will serve as an agent of peace in the world.
Activism for peace is necessary. Yet no matter how sincere and how admirable, it will have no effect unless our own heart is at peace, because gratefulness has made us fearless.
Since fear is at the root of all that is wrong with our world, we start healing the world by overcoming fear through gratefulness.
(-- from gratefulness.org)

Mongers of fear are not grateful people.

We need not listen to them. They frighten because they are frightened. If we know this, we then are able to listen to fear-mongers -- with compassion and forgiveness.

Peace is how fear is forgiven.

There is much to forgive.

Compassion is our way through.

Bob and Tommy drink coffee. Shop door closed. Flag in. Sign turned. Myles upstairs. Dusk comes early.

I explain to you matters
Pertaining to enlightenment,
But don’t try to keep
Your mind on them.
Just turn to the ocean
Of your own essence
And develop practical
Accord with its nature.
- Yangshan

Man with orange hat is looking for Ray McGovern talk in town. We know nothing of it. Chairs and tables are piled onto Tommy's truck. Myles ties down. Bob drives off.

To be – for this he created all;
the world’s created things have health in them,
in them no fatal poison can be found,
and Hades holds no power on earth;
for virtue is undying.
--Wisdom 1:15

Wood stoves in cabin and kitchen warm. Practice will begin. Offload into barn.

Sunday begins in Belfast church. Ends with film Prairie Home Companion.

Muffins and bread from Chase's Daily. Hugs from Kristen.

No wisdom, no trust.

What I point out to you
Is only that
You shouldn’t allow yourselves
To be confused by others.
Act when you need to,
Without further hesitation or doubt.

People today can’t do this
What is their affliction?
Their affliction is in
Their lack of self-confidence.

If you do not spontaneously
Trust yourself sufficiently,
You will be in a frantic state,
Pursuing all sorts of objects
And being changed
By those objects,
Unable to be independent.
- Linji (d.867)

It is a shame that no trust remains for the current government.

Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God.
Luke 6:12

It is the mendacity and misconduct that stuns.

I withdraw.

We really do want to see.

The question clear,
The answer deep,
Each particle,
Each instant a reality.
A bird call shrills
Through the mountain dawn:
Look where the old master sits,
A rock in Zen.
- Sodo (1841-1925)

To see is to root oneself. To see is also to follow.

Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man replied to him, "Master, I want to see." Jesus told him, "Go your way; your faith has saved you." Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.
--Mark 10:51-52

Follow where?

Follow on the way.

Where?

Just now -- where are you?

Go your way...on the way!

Soon, people will be trying to break into prison. The world will be crazy. The sky will fall. Chicken Little will be feted. Ice shelves will melt. Oceanfront properties will begin 2.8 miles inland. Madness will be a desirable fate. Rapture cheerleaders will close their eyes and click their heels three times.

So taken with
The faultless face and radiance
Of an alluring moon,
My mind goes farther, farther
To reach remote regions of the sky.
- Saigyo (1118 - 1190)

Maybe Elmer Fudd had it right -- maybe the cwazy wabbit needed to be run out of town. Who's to say. We've been at war now for too many years. The next war will be against bad thoughts. We already know the enemy's weakness -- his mind.

He it was who formed the mountains, created the wind, reveals his mind to man, makes both dawn and dark, and walks on the top of the heights of the world; the Lord, the God of Hosts, is his name.
Amos 4:13

We still long for a God who will toss in the towel and say, "I choose you -- you are my favorite." The hell, we say, with everyone else. I am worthy. I am saved.

I give up.

Vote for anyone.

I have to go and pack.

My flying saucer must be nearly here.

There is no using God anymore.

"As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect" (p. 284, in The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins )

Thomas Merton said we need a new language of prayer. That prayer will have a difficult time pointing to a God that is not completely, wholly integrated with what is present and who we are.

We explain our existence by a combination of the anthropic principle and Darwin's principle of natural selection. That combination provides a complete and deeply satisfying explanation for everything that we see and know. Not only is the god hypothesis unnecessary. It is spectacularly unparsimonious. Not only do we need no God to explain the universe and life. God stands out in the universe as the most glaring of all superfluous sore thumbs. We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those other fantasies that we can't disprove, we can say that God is very very improbable. -- Dawkins, "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God," in The Huffington Post)

No God? Or, no other God? There's an important distinction. Has biblical theology and sacred scripture been moving toward an understanding of Creator as a constant contemporary within creation's unfolding? Have we been reluctant to enter this creation in the same way that Christ entered creation? Do we hold ourselves apart from existence in ways that our spiritual wisdom reveals that God does not? Is our consciousness finally ready to surrender to the mystery of divine love -- the unveiling sacred consciousness belonging to each thing and every being in union with God Itself? (Here, the "Itself" stands for "God.")

Life is living Itself through us.

What we are, where we are, is not other than what God is, where God is. The question is: Are we ready to face the incarnation? Are we prepared to look out as the creation? Will we soon take to heart the most profound revelation mind presents us with -- mere and utter gift -- namely, sacred promise and presence formulating the words "I am with you always."?

What we call God, the One we long for, the undivided reality proclaiming our unity and non-separate familiarity with one another -- is what is now taking place with gracious and loving interdependence in, with, and as, all that is here.

The old notions of God are dying away.

The real presence, the life force, the loving substance and energy of That Which Is Itself -- is now our inquiry, is now our practice.

We learn this new language.

Moving through.

Word by word.

Attentive act.

"As" prayer.

Fruits.

Breaking fast. Ramadan done. Would you care for some cakes?

Hold to forgiveness, command what is right; but turn away from the ignorant." [Holy Quran 7:199]

We must always hold ignorance forgiven.

Whoever kills another one without justifiable cause, surely he is killing all of humanity. And whoever saves the life of another one, surely he saves the lives of all of humanity. [Sura Al Ma'aidah: Ayah 32]

In our hands, in our sights -- the fate of the whole world.

The cookies, the ice cream, the cake bar -- may all delight in feeding one another!

What is prayer seeking?

What-is!

What is this?

Look!

Word-itself, as is, reveals.

Christ is written as we are read.

All dharmas are like a dream: this is what all the saints have taught. Consequently, deluded thoughts are originally calm and the sense-spheres are originally void. This void and calm is numinous, aware, and never dark. This void and calm mind is precisely the pure mind which was transmitted by our predecessor, Bodhidharma. Whether deluded or awakened, the mind is fundamentally self-aware.
- Chinul 1209

An awakened life is worth, living.

[A]nyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all. For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life... --Mark 10: 44-45

Why use bible as a weapon? Let's be word of love, of truth.

[Paul] did not worry whether his churches were "biblical" or "relevant," but whether they were faithful, showing themselves to be "letters from Christ...written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts" (2 Cor. 3: 1-3).
As French social philosopher Jacques Ellul reminds us, "Faith consists in heeding God's questions and risking ourselves in the answers that we have to give." The Bible should "read" and interpret and question us, for it is we, not the prophets of old, who are in the dark.
Sadly, too many of us either imprison Christ between the pages of our Bibles, bound by the letter (and our favorite modern translation), or we yank him out of God's history altogether by turning him into some image or construction of our own making, exalting and trumpeting our own unique brand of spirituality. In either case, Christ is not Lord and his word cannot speak.
Obscure passages aside, few of us want to be held accountable to any word other than our own. In fact, we want the last word, not because we don't understand, but because we refuse to surrender our autonomous wills and obey. Kierkegaard once wrote, "What is the New Testament? A handbook for those who are to be sacrificed." This is what we don't want to do. We're happy to receive a "biblical insight" but not the sword that cuts and convicts. To quote Kierkegaard again:
Can't we be honest for once! We have become such experts at cunningly shoving one layer after another, one interpretation after another, between the Word and our lives (like a boy putting padding under his pants when he is about to get a spanking). And we then allow this preoccupation to swell to such profundity that we never come to look at our lives in the mirror. All this interpreting and re-interpreting is but a defense against God's Word.
It is all too easy to understand the requirements contained in God's Word ("Give all your goods to the poor." "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the left." "Count it sheer joy when you meet various temptations" etc.). The most ignorant, poor creature cannot honestly deny being able to understand God's requirements. But it is tough on the flesh to will to understand it and to then act accordingly. Herein lies the problem. It is not a question of interpretation, but action.
-- from the Bruderhof Communities - "The Two-Edged Sword" by Charles Moore, http://www.holytrinitynewrochelle.org/yourti86492.html

Not dull, but quick, witted.

Word. Itself. Cuts away that which is separating ego; lets remain that which is alive with quiet joy; suffering what-is-truth-alone dwelling in the name of the one who was, is, still to be.

Each is sign to be read.

Don't fret the bible; embody, word-itself.

If we wish to read, to be read as well, incarnate way.

What is most true has become human.

This...is what prayer seeks.

What is this?

Yes.

What-is this!

Being alone is sacred gift -- if received as such.

Every day priests minutely examine the Dharma
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters
Sent by the wind and rain,
The snow and moon.
- Ikkyu (1394-1491)

I listen to the words spoken.

‘To you my friends I say: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no mere. (Luke 12:5)

Unless word is alive, no sense the creation.

Word alive, life complete.

Human being is where the one we call God shows up as completing consciousness.

Pray the more and less unfolding.

Every day priests minutely examine the Dharma
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters
Sent by the wind and rain,
The snow and moon.

- Ikkyu (1394-1491)

Seven years ago tonight my sister exhaled. Then, she departed.

Empty yet aware, the original light shines spontaneously; tranquil yet responsive, the great function manifests. A wooden horse neighing in the wind does not walk the steps of the present moment; a clay ox emerging from the sea plows the springtime of the eon of emptiness. Understand? Where a jade man beckons, even greater marvel is on the way back.
- Hung-chih

No, I don't understand. Speak plainly.

Let's put it this way: Suppose a woman sees a straw man in a field. Should she bale? Or does she pick out a jacket for him? See! You think yourself so smart.

A shadow crosses everything in our sight.

Lord, what is man, that you should take notice of him?
The son of man, that you should give him respect?
For man is as nothing,
his day is like a shadow that passes.
(from Psalm 144)

Every truth will be unearthed.

That's the last straw.

Without breath the lamb and wolf die.

Don't seek fame or fortune,
Glory or prosperity.
Just pass this life as is,
According to circumstances.
When the breath is gone,
Who is in charge?
After the death of the body,
There is only an empty name.
When your clothes are worn,
Repair them over and over;
When you have no food,
Work to provide.
How long can a phantomlike body last?
Would you increase your ignorance
For the sake of its idle concerns?
- Tung-shan

The letters and sounds fall from my name.

Start off now, but remember, I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
--Luke 10:3

Luke had his way with words.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Try not to think.

My hut isn't quite six feet across
Surrounded by pine, bamboos, and mountains,
An old monk hardly has room for himself
Much less for a visiting cloud.
- Shih-wu (1272-1352)

Instead, just look.

Jesus had just finished speaking when a Pharisee
invited him to dine at his house. He went in and sat down at the table. The Pharisee saw this and was surprised that he had not first washed before the meal. But the Lord said to him, "Oh, you Pharisees! You clean the outside of cup and plate, while inside yourselves you are filled with extortion and wickedness. Fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside too? Instead, give alms from what you have and then indeed everything will be clean for you."
--Luke 11:37 - 41

No inside, no outside.

100% correct relationship with each itself.

Pass the dish detergent, please!

Cesco hikes Ragged. Old dog has heart. Even with many wrong turns over 2 1/2 hours.

The day is quiet.

In the still night by the vacant window,
Wrapped in monk's robe I sit in meditation,
Navel and nostrils lined up straight,
Ears paired to the slope of shoulders.
Window whitens; the moon comes up;
Rain's stopped, but drops go on dripping.
Wonderful,the mood of this moment-
Distant, vast!
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

Mud puddles and trail markers on winding mountainside. Pilgrim's prayer adopted: Lord Jesus Christ, be merciful with us.
"With" -- equivocal invitation.

When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
-Galatians 5:1

Unless we come to appreciate the word "with" we are yet enslaved.

Are you with me?

We are being written.

So often, not feeling fully the scripting line rolling out ourselves in curving cursive, we consider ourselves lost.

I is not the author of life.

I Am authors.

You and I are, at best, lines unfolding from point of contact to emerging placement on page. Sometimes, rising from the page, we are editors and characters in the play.

Our skill is in the willingness to see the manuscript as a whole and not as our possession. Our practice is humility. Our gratitude is in being humbled by the shift from I to Am. Our joy is in the correspondence surrendering and surrounding I Am.

My writing and judgment are not that bad
but an unfit body receives no post
examiners expose me with a jerk
they wash away the dirt and search for my sores.
--Han-shan, 9th cent

A man in prison (call him Joe) considered an event in his life. One night he saved another man from a burning car and possible death. At the time, though, after initial instinct to check to see if man was ok was scorned, he thought his objective was to roll the man, easy pickings, as the man was passed out late at night in a car. Engine raced and smoke poured out from under hood. Circumstances, curiously, dictated another script. The car burst into consuming flame and Joe's immediate response was to surrender to saving behavior. He does. Man is saved. A woman cries calling him hero. When police and firemen arrive there is the requisite indignity of dismissal as local authorities command scene. He is recognized from other pages, but not recognized in this daily script being written. Ambivalence through years when he tells the story -- leaving out (what seemed to be) his intent at the time to rob the man.

What man intends wrong but does good? What man intends good but does wrong?

Prophet Nathan said to King David, "That man is you!"

We are not the author. We are the late realization that we are being written. Yet we are uncertain about what is really going on in the confusing matrix intersecting external reality, internal thought, soulful intent, and physical act. We are the suffering Job and suffering Jesus and suffering every-person dwelling in this existence in-the-world.

Author writes this being through this Being.

I prayed, and understanding was given me;
I entreated, and the spirit of Wisdom came to me.
I esteemed her more than sceptres and thrones;
compared with her, I held riches as nothing.
I reckoned no priceless stone to be her peer,
for compared with her, all gold is a pinch of sand,
and beside her silver ranks as mud.
I loved her more than health or beauty,
preferred her to the light,
since her radiance never sleeps.
In her company all good things came to me,
at her hands riches not to be numbered.
-- Wisdom 7:7 - 11

Joe catches up with something in his past here in his present.

He will be Defender of the Faith.

Faith -- that profound trust rooted at center that what is taking place is grounded in loving acceptance of What-Is, Placing-Itself.

Faith, for Now, is trusting openly What-Is Placing-Itself.

Where are we now? This is our question.

Faith needs no defense.

Write this.

(Ready?)

The author is no-other.

Writing love letters to those who do not love you can be a loving practice.

Know the essence of mind. Its intrinsic essence is pure clarity. It is essentially the same as a Buddha. Know the functions of the mind. Its functions produce the treasure of teachings. When its activity is always silent, myriad illusions become suchness. Constantly be aware, without stopping. When the aware mind is present, it senses the formlessness of things. Constantly see your body as empty and quiet, inside and outside communing sameness. Plunge the body into the realm of reality, where there has never been any obstruction. Keep to unity without shifting. With constant presence, whether active or still, the student can see the Buddha nature clearly.
- Tao-hsin (580-651)

Reality is where we wish to live.

Let's be remarkable.

Let's read and write love letters.

It's good practice.

The beauty of Cape Breton gave itself to us.

To know that the one good is balance and yet not to reach balance, to know all phenomena are mind and yet not to understand mind; this is confusion. To know the matter of birth and death is serious and yet not to realize birthlessness, to know impermanence is swift and yet not to realize there is fundamentally no speed; this is confusion.
- Records of the Lanka

I am often confused.

If you would speak with me, you'd know how confusion gives itself to me.

And yet, I rest in the doubt that only those that love God dare question.

Just ask.

Away a few days.

Becoming a buddha is easy
But ending illusions is hard
So many frosted moonlit nights
I’ve sat and felt the cold before dawn.
- Shih-wu (1272-1352)

Harvest moon.

Respite.

Who was it said something like, "He lived a little distance from his life"?

I've gone there.

Withdraw now from
the invisible pounding and weaving
of your ingrained ideas.
If you want to be rid of this
invisible turmoil, you must just sit
through it and let go of everything.
Attain fulfillment and illuminate thoroughly.
Light and shadow altogether forgotten.
Drop off your own skin,
and the sense-dusts will be fully purified.
The eye then readily discerns the brightness.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091 - 1157)

It's as though there is this train station. Empty. No train coming. Leaves blow between rails.

As they travelled along they met a man on the road who said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go". Jesus answered, "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head". (Luke 9:57ff)

No one is speaking, no words are heard. What is heard with these ears drops to ground.

Much sand in this desert.

Leaves fall to earth.

Sweep-broom unsettles them.

Nothing is seen.

Transitus of Francis of Assisi. The poor one expires. Who will hear the many poor today?

He who shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will himself also cry out and not be heard.
-Proverbs 21:13

Finishing the Ten Oxherding Pictures in Kennedy's book tonight at conversation. Compassionate service returning to the marketplace. I'm still looking for the ox. In fact, I'm so unripe, I don't even suspect that there is an ox and that he is misplaced.

Beware of gnawing the ideogram of nothingness:
Your teeth will crack.
Swallow it whole, and you've a treasure
Beyond the hope of Buddha and the Mind.
The east breeze fondles the horse's ears:
How sweet the smell of plum.
- Karasumaru-Mitsuhiro (1579-1638)

I walk Sand Point to lighthouse then visit the Franciscan hermit in her yurt. We talk of solar panels, Clare painting, and the molecules of God calling her back. The sun is warm. I go to pier to read student's papers.

Earth and sea are quiet under spreading clouds. The gravity of God's love draws us return with awareness.

As the time drew near for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely took the road for Jerusalem and sent messengers ahead of him. These set out, and they went into a Samaritan village to make preparations for him, but the people would not receive him because he was making for Jerusalem. Seeing this, the disciples James and John said, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up?" But he turned and rebuked them, and they went off to another village.
Luke 9:51 - 56

Even then, companions of Jesus ask to punish a village that does not welcome their journey. Jesus is beside himself. They want to burn the place with fire. He chews them out with reprimand -- what mind do they have that immediately wants to destroy?

Francis, too, cannot abide the mind of his generation once he becames what Jesus became -- poor and humble in the world.

Swallow nothingness whole.

How tasty tonight's topfenkuchen!

Transition well -- lovers of Francis, of Christ!

Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad.
Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

Each

One is one.

Baruch Shem Kavod Malchuto LeOlam V’aed,
Blessed is the Name of His Glorious Kingdom for all eternity.

The Lord Alone.

This is a welcome home.

Another is no other.

Yom Kippur urges atonement and return. It is good to call to mind how we step away from God and how we might return.

Without consciousness,
Time and space do not exist;
They appear within Consciousness
But have no reality of their own.
It is like a screen on which
All this is cast as pictures and move
As in a cinema show.
The Absolute Consciousness
Alone is our real nature.
- Ramana Maharshi

Sure its hard to see who we are while wandering away from our true self.

The concept of teshuvah as "return" emphasizes the fundamental spiritual potential of every person. Chassidic thought teaches that within each of us resides a Divine soul, a spark of G-d.[4] This infinite G-dly potential represents the core of our souls, our genuine "I".
From this perspective, sin and evil are superficial elements that can never affect our fundamental nature. Teshuvah means rediscovering our true selves, establishing contact with this G-dly inner potential and making it the dominant influence in our lives. Seen in this light, our motivation to do teshuvah is not an awareness of our inadequacies, but rather a sensitivity to this infinite potential within our souls.
(In "Teshuvah - Return, Not Repentance" by Rabbi Eliyahu Touger)

Tonight I think we are in orbit elliptically around G-d. As we swing far from center we curve and begin to return. We think, perhaps, we have chosen to return. It is a nice thought. My suspicion is that we return as part and parcel of the gravitational connection any created body has with its creator -- a rotation and orbit that happens of itself.

Our task is to remain aware of the return -- of the going out and the coming back. Failure to be aware of the natural invitation and call to return is a shunning ignorance and lack that creates the illusion of separation and distance.

Coming home again is a radical awareness of the attraction we have to and with our profound center -- the divine reality beyond compare.

Defining teshuvah as "return", however, broadens the scope of its application. For if teshuvah involves gaining access to one's true spiritual potential, it applies to all Jews without exception. The same G-dly spark exists within the soul of every Jew from the most alienated to the most righteous. This Divine potential is infinite; no force or power can prevent its emergence and expression. Every Jew, regardless of his level, can therefore do teshuvah. No matter how low he has descended, there is nothing that can prevent him from reversing his conduct and establishing a bond with G-d.
(Rabbi Eliyahu Touger)

G'wan home.

It's getting late.

C'mon home.

Return well.

There is artifice in this American administration.

Kuei-shan asked Yun-yen
"What is the seat of enlightenment?"
Yun-yen said,
"Freedom from artificiality."
- Kuei-shan (771-854)

It is a seat of shadows.

We need to seek atonement.

Teshuvah -- return to sender.

In "Harakiri" (1962), the Japanese film directed by Masaki Kobayashi, there is a quote by Confucius something to the effect, "If you do not know the heart of words, you do not know the heart of man."

Make no mistake about it; if you do not find it now, you will repeat the same routines for myriad eons, a thousand times over again, following and picking up on objects that attract you. We are no different from Shakyamuni Buddha. Today, in your various activities, what do you lack? The spiritual light coursing through your six senses has never been interrupted. If you can see in this way, you will simply be free of burdens all your life.
- Lin Chi (d 867?)

Speaking in prison with a man this afternoon, the insight that no belief is necessary. Only vital openness to revelation of this unfolding moment is. The presentation of the One we call God -- grateful invitation and hospitality of Christ Reality.

Light is within awareness even as darkness surrounds soul.

We visit one another because there is nothing else to do.

Each visit a revelation.

Thanks for stopping.

Bye.

Listening to opinions and judgments of others. Not much helpful.

Listening to wisdom and compassion of others. Very helpful.

After awakening, it is necessary to always observe and examine yourself. When errant thoughts suddenly arise, do not go along with them at all; reduce them, until you reach the point of noncontrivance, which alone is the ultimate end. This is the ox-herding practice carried on by all illuminates after their enlightenment. Even though there is subsequent cultivation, they have already realized sudden enlightenment.
- Master Chinul (1158-1210)

At conversation this evening Jack said: "Forgiveness is letting go of judgment." We began a reading and study of A Course in Miracles.

The phrase "Being defenseless" resonates.

Opinions and judgments do not know what they are saying.

Wisdom and compassion is not-knowing itself.

Not-knowing itself is a realization of sudden forgiveness.

An enlightened person is a forgiving itself.

There is too much certainty in tight formulations in our world today.

We invite poets to open and loosen -- to embody the way through with us.

W.H. Auden said that "Poetry makes nothing happen."

By listening.

Itself forgiving.

Once, it seems, I was not here.

Look into the sphere of birthless mind!
Let dawn the enjoyment of ceaseless play!
When free of hope and fear, thatÂ?s the result.
Why speak of birth and death?
Come to the natural, unmodified state!
- Milarepa

Soon, I suspect, I won't be here.

What has changed?

If you ask me -- nothing.

Years ago at "Maybe Zen, Maybe Not" -- Tuesday Evening Conversation -- Richard asked for a recipe of how to effect change. Tonight he asked for a shopping list. Perhaps in a few years he will ask about prerequisite hunger.

For those who have no mental vigilance,
Though they may hear the teachings,
Ponder them or meditate,
With minds like seeping water
From a leaking jug,
Their learning will not settle in their memories.
- Santideva

To Richard, I'm all wet. He's right. (Maybe correct too!) We have been battling for years. Tonight we draw even; almost. He says he tips scale at one pound lighter than I do. It's a battle of morning digital readouts. We advance lighter. We encourage one another. I tell him his scale is screwy.

The Buddhist challenge to conventional Western notions of spirituality illuminates the way we set flesh and spirit at war with each other. In Buddhism there is no original sin. Although noticing how we express our sexuality can certainly lead to an awareness of right conduct, the flesh is not regarded as representing a corruption or punishment of any kind, nor as an obstacle to the attainment of enlightenment. The root of human suffering is not sin, but our confusion about ego. We suffer because we believe in the existence of an individual self. This belief splits the world into "I" and "other."
--Stephen Butterfield, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol. I, #4

Even if the ego is dismantled there is still the task of seeing one another through.

So it is we practice and converse.

His mother and his brothers came looking for him, but they could not get to him because of the crowd. He was told, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside and want to see you." But he said in answer, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice".
-- Luke 8:19 - 21

We're listening. Trying to resonate "family." So many barriers to let fall!

Diaphanous words demand clear sight.

Tonight, as always, is a good start.

The Constitution of the United States is inconvenient. Some in the current administration would rather not be inconvenienced.

Cesco and I walk Ragged. Early morning and late afternoon. I sit up beyond footbridge by brook reading about structures of consciousness. September curiosity.

Sitting in the Mountains

Rock slab seat
Legs folded
Sitting alone
Not loathing noise
Not savoring silence
The carefree clouds concur.
- Jakushitsu (1290 -- 1367)

Piece by piece day falls away. I fall away. This country falls away. It is autumn. Fall itself gives way.

There's a huge rift occurring. Those who object to the deceit promulgated as patriotic fear-raising are uncertain what to do. Their trust falls away. Their respect for men wielding mendacity falls away. It remains to be seen who will pick up the pieces of this nation once the shredding of Constitution and decency has strewn ground with blood and meaningless slips of discarded principle.

Pieces on the ground. Broken spirit, broken trust.

Poet gives word to us:
"Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in." (from "Anthem" song by Leonard Cohen)

There.

Will light shine through to brighten darkness cast by shadowy men?

Light.

A solitude of strength.

Shine through.

Our broken heart.

Susan performs 21st day ritual of Buddhist prayer for the deceased. Rain falls. Mice hide out. Mist shields Bald. The day is silence under splashing tires passing.

This dharma is such that
It cannot be attained by groping
Or searching about.
In the realm of seeing,
Knowledge perishes.
At the moment of attaining,
Mind is surpassed.
- Dogen

Reading Joan Didion"s piece in New York Review of Books on Cheney. Not much about him to trust. Politics is the swill of the swell.

I stay close to zendo. After sunset. Light fades. Reading about Roshi Robert Kennedy SJ at table.

"There are many different expressions of Catholicism," Kennedy explains slowly, carefully. "One expression that meant a lot to me was the apophatic tradition of the Greek Fathers [contemplative priests of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries]. The apophatic tradition is part of our Catholic tradition, even though it is not often expressed in church on Sunday. It says that God is completely ineffable, beyond all words, beyond all theology. We have domesticated God. Most Catholics need a devotional Catholicism, just as most Buddhists need a devotional Buddhism. Zen is different. Zen is the apophatic way."
(from "God Is In the Zendo" Fall 2005 in Tricycle, By Robert Hirschfield)

The world of power and wealth is a real illusion. The real world is as ineffable as is God as is Zen. The illusory world feels more real than the one that is real. Hence, we are chagrined.

"After Zen, I saw everything in a new light. Up until that time, I was trying to build a relationship with Jesus. Then, there was a shift from relationship to identity. I am Jesus! Right now! With all my limitations! It's such a radical statement within Catholicism because many Catholics follow the analogy of relationship. Not that that's wrong, or in any way inferior to identity. It's just a different approach. For me, it's not a question of knowing Christ, or loving Christ as someone outside myself. 'Who is Christ?' leads me back to the question, 'Who am I?'" With Maezumi Roshi, one of the koans he studied was "Who is the Buddha?" One day, in dokusan [a private interview with a Zen teacher] he said to Maezumi, "You are the Buddha!" Maezumi slapped him hard and said, "You too!"
"Now I wish he'd slapped me more. I'd have seen more."
(Hershfield, Tricycle)

Our identity crisis is our not recognizing our identity.

Relationship is not the answer. We are shouted at by wanting. Bodies are where want resides. Mind keeps track of wants. One task is to see through both.

Who is Christ? Who is Buddha?

Nothing to attain.

Empty yourself.

Birds settle on razer wire. A man's mother breathes her last. Fasting and emptiness unite toward humility. We can use all the help we can get.

In utter purity, the bright light pervades all,
With its shining stillness enfolding the great void.
Worldly things, when closely looked at,
Are but illusions seen in dreams.
- Master Han Shan (1546-1623)

In Jeremiah the change is made, first in word, then, in mind and heart. The law is in mind. Written on heart. Now we know. What shall we do with it?

[33.35] Surely the men who submit and the women who submit, and the believing men and the believing women, and the obeying men and the obeying women, and the truthful men and the truthful women, and the patient men and the patient women and the humble men and the humble women, and the almsgiving men and the almsgiving women, and the fasting men and the fasting women, and the men who guard their private parts and the women who guard, and the men who remember Allah much and the women who remember-- Allah has prepared for them forgiveness and a mighty reward. (The Koran)

There is nothing else if not forgiveness.

Authentic law is forgiveness.

Forgive you, forgive me.

Empty yourself.

Empty myself.

All will know.

Autumn begins just after midnight.

Ramadan begins at first light.

Let there be nothing behind you; leave the future to one side. Do not clutch at what is left in the middle; then you will become a wanderer and calm.
- Sutta Nipata

When everything falls away, is set aside, it is time to dance.

Wandering tune.

Nothing heard.

Ungrasping.

Bookshop disintegrates. That's the feeling tonight.

Hard rain, our gathered firewood scant;
Lamp frozen, glimmers not at night.
In the cave, wind blows stones and mud.
Moss engravings weatherstrip rickety door.

Brooks in torrent untiring;
People’s words more and more rare.
Where schemes calm heart?
Sitting in the lotus,
Wrapped in robes of Zen.
- The Monk Hsu Yun

Last evening, "Emptiness Dancing."

Tonight, music ceases.

Let things be?

A tiny bit of consciousness. So small. It is frightening to glance out. Even if this bit sees something very very large, what would it do with what it sees?

Sleep seems very desirable. To fall into the dream of small within large. This and this and this. From town to region to state to country to continent to world to planet to solar system to galaxy to infinite space to life to being itself to all that is known and unknown to the entirety.

I am He!
Mind, nor intellect, nor ego, feeling;
Sky nor earth nor metals am I.
I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!
No birth, no death, no caste have I;
Father, mother, have I none.
I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!
Beyond the flights of fancy, formless am I,
Permeating the limbs of all life;
Bondage I do not fear; I am free, ever free.
I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!
(Poem by Shankaracharya, India, 8th C. AD)

We do not know what to do with this vision. We don't know how to be in this insight.

The mind is an uncertain thing. This body is uncertain. Together they are impermanent. Together they are a source of suffering. Together they are devoid of self. These, the Buddha pointed out, are neither a being, nor a person, nor a self, nor a soul, nor us, nor they. They are merely elements: earth, water, fire, and wind. Elements only!
When the mind sees this, it will rid itself of attachment which holds that "I" am beautiful, "I" am good, "I" am evil, "I" am suffering, "I" have, "I" this, or "I" that. You will experience a state of unity, for you'll have seen that all of mankind is basically the same. There is no "I". There are only elements.
(- Ajahn Chah: Bodhinyana, (18 June 1918, Thailand - 1992), meditation master, Theravada Buddhism)

None of it makes sense. The bit cannot see whole. The bite is one mouthful. We cannot see around the curve. Time doesn't tell; time is silent.

"Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me." (Jn. 14:11)

Then, later, in John's gospel:
17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
(John 17:17-26 KJV)

The earth turns. It is today. Time trickles. People appear and disappear. I long to disappear. (Which I? The "I" that separates and objectifies? The "I" that defends what it thinks belongs to only "it"?)

My heart says: Look with me; Listen with me; There is nothing else.

"Only one book is worth reading: the heart."
"When sitting in meditation, say, "That's not my business!" with every thought that comes by."
"The heart of the path is quite easy. There's no need to explain anything at length. Let go of love and hate and let things be. That's all that I do in my own practice."
"We practice to learn how to let go, not how to increase our holding on to things. Enlightenment appears when you stop wanting anything."
"If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace."
"You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can't solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important."
(--Venerable Ajahn Chah, monk of the Thai Forest tradition of Theravada)

Here is what I know: If not here, then nowhere; If not now, then never; If not you, then no one.

One is one. One and one is one. One and one and one is one.

Don't be fooled. The people who kill and harm, the people who kill and harm in response to those who kill and harm, are an unbroken circle of one act acting on the selfsame reality. So too are those that love and comfort, heal and nurture -- one selfsame reality. Masters of every age have been trying to tell us about this.

Be made perfect in one?

Let things be.

How?

Speak now!

Angels weep.

We don't know what to make of these times. A president whose two elections are suspect and whose conduct as leader mortifies. A pope whose odd choice of quote inflames Islamic anger. A populace whose awareness is fractioned by wariness and wastefulness.

It is more than any no-self respecting hermit care bear.

Deep on the mountain's an unseen cloister;
Wicker shadows lock in the long bamboos.
Suddenly there's a bell
Ringing now and then,
Empty valley filling with white clouds

Off drawing water, an old monk returns;
Pine-tree dew stains his robe green.
Bell barely murmurs; the cloister gate has closed.
Mountain birds, all by themselves,
Skirmish over roosting spots.
- Ch'en Fou (1240 - 1319)

It's strange to consider being no-self. I don't know what those eastern thinkers are not thinking about. It could be they understand the nature of human foolishness and futility masked as bravado. It could be they weep for our illusion and ignorance.

This morning a row around Curtis island. The rhythm of oar and swell and solitude.

Close to a hundred people at hermitage remembrance yesterday. One of us leaves; one hundred gather. Odd ratio.

About president, pope, and populace -- it is a troubling meditation. Actors in Noh drama. We twirl dance, drama, music and poetry into one highly aesthetic stage art between birth and death. Then we claim there is no birth, and no death. The life between these absences is unsteady.

Only twirl.

Dizzy yet?

Sit awhile.

Note: A Memorial Service in honor of Sylvia Barney

Beginning 1:00pm today, 17Sept2006, at Meetingbrook Hermitage, 64 Barnestown Road, Camden Maine, there will be a Memorial Service in honor of Sylvia Barney.

Park at the Snow Bowl, walk up Barnestown Road to the 3rd driveway on the left.

Sylvia's Memorial coincides with the feastday Hildegard of Bingin.

Music, poetry, food, sunshine, and a Eu-share-logy Circle will take place.

Come by(e)!

..............................................


A Remembrance of Sylvia

Sylvia Jannet Barney
9 February 1946 – 4 September 2006

At Meetingbrook Hermitage, 17Sept2006, on the Feast of Hildegard of Bingin

* harp welcome…cheryl
* violin prelude …janet
* welcome…bill
* introductory celtic prayer…lola
* song “gently down the stream”…janet & john
* poem, "my heart being hungry" by edna st vincent millay
* song, “the farthest field”…tina
* poem, "wild geese" (by mary oliver)
* music, “ashokan farewell”…saskia, sam, janet
* eu-share-logy* (a circle of sharing good words of sylvia’s presence)
* song, “now the green blade riseth “ (titled; “love is come again”)…janet & saskia (then all sing)
* psalm 7,8 (nan merrill version)…saskia
* chant of heart sutra, (part of 49 day buddhist prayer for the deceased)
* metta, (sending loving-kindness)…bill

~ may all beings be happy
~ may all beings be safe
~ may all beings come to dwell in their true home
..................................

“The wonder of the world, the beauty and the power,
The shape of things, their colours, lights and shades,
These I saw. Look ye also while life lasts”
(Words from a north country churchyard quoted by Denys Watkins-Pitchford (1905-1990) of Nothamptonshire)

............................
*("Eu-share-logy" is an intersecting of two words -- Eulogy and Share. A Eusharelogy Circle is the loving practice of speaking well {of Sylvia} in the space between us, in the middle of a shared presence.)

Tell truth, and shut up.

I was born with a divine jewel,
Long since filmed with dust.
This morning, wiped clean, it mirrors
Streams and mountains, without end.
- Ikuzanchu

Lies don't carry anyone home.

Jesus said:
"There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit. For every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles. A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness. For a man's words flow out of what fills his heart."
-Luke 6:43ff

Lies harm everyone. Leave them out.

Spoon River

All of the riverboat gamblers are losing their shirts
All of the brave union soldier boys sleep in the dirt
But you know and I know there never was reason to hurt
When all of our lives were entwined to begin with
Here in Spoon River

All of the calico dresses, the gingham and lace
Are up in the attic with grandfather's derringer case
There's words whispered down in the parlor, a shadowy face
The morning is heavy with one more beginning
Here in Spoon River

Come to the dance Mary Perkins I like you right well
The union's preserved, if you listen you'll hear all the bells
There must be a heaven, God knows I've seen mostly hell
My rig is outside, come and ride through the morning
Here in Spoon River
-- Michael Smith

Entwined to begin with.

Only truth is community.

We might stop accusing one another. Viewing one another with accusation in such a way is outside.

People who really have their minds on the Way do not forget work on the fundamental no matter what they are doing. Yet if they still distinguish this work from ordinary activities even as they do them together, they will naturally be concerned about being distracted by activities and forgetting the meditation work. This is because of viewing things as outside
- Muso

Something more inside is called for.

So Satan, as Girard says, "is the mimetic model and obstacle par excellence.."[9] We can see this particularly clearly in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus has spoken of his suffering, death, and resurrection, and Peter rebukes him for saying he will suffer and die. Jesus in turn rebukes Peter: "Get behind me, Satan! You are a skandalon to me...." (Matt 16:23)--you are a scandal, an obstacle, a hindrance to me. Girard observes that Satan is "deconstructed" here in being equated with the mimetic principle, whereas in other texts he is depicted in a personified supernatural role.[10] In this chapter of Things Hidden, entitled "Beyond Scandal," Girard goes on to argue that the concept of scandal is rooted in the Old Testament and the struggle against idolatry, and that the Cross is the supreme scandal that reveals and exposes scandal and its operation through the scapegoat mechanism.
(from "Rene Girard without the Cross? Religion and the Mimetic Theory " by James G. Williams)

What if there were no obstacle?

What is the Christ-Event destroyed all obstacle?

Would being free be too frightening for us?

Let's put that obstacle behind us.

It doesn't matter what you think.

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)

It doesn't matter what you want.

"...[W]hat matters is for [you] to become an altogether new creature." (Galatians 6:15)

Following transformation, what you think and what you want are no longer primary.

Then there is only that which is -- in itself -- form become emptiness become form become emptiness.

That new creature is what you are.

As with water, flowing.

Life is humbling.

Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond

As for life
I'm humbled,
I'm without words
sufficient to say

how it has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond
both of these
and over and over,

and long pale afternoons besides,
and so many mysteries
beautiful as eggs in a nest,
still unhatched

though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen -
a tree angel, perhaps,
or a ghost of holiness.

Every day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled, then to be reflective.
It suffices, it is all comfort -
along with human love,

dog love, water love, little-serpent love,
sunburst love, or love for that smallest of birds
flying among the scarlet flowers.
There is hardly time to think about

stopping, and lying down at last
to the long afterlife, to the tenderness
yet to come, when
time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever,

and we will pretend to melt away into the leaves.
As for death,
I can't wait to be the hummingbird,
can you?
(Poem: "Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond" by Mary Oliver from Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays. Beacon Press.)

From the beginning of the war, the one thought: How can such foolish and stupid actions be tolerated by intelligent citizens of this country and members of the world community?

Premise Ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life.

Premise Eleven: From the beginning, this culture -- civilization -- has been a culture of occupation.

Premise Twelve: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something -- or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks -- and the poor may not. These "rich" claim they own land, and the "poor" are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world.

Premise Thirteen: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist.
(Premises of Endgame, in Endgame -- Book by Derrick Jensen, c. June 2006
Vol 1: The Problem of Civilization; Vol 2: Resistance )

Black and white cat curls on brown blanket.

No response to my question comes close to satisfying.

I abandon hope. And begin something more useful.

Caring for the particular.

Lola redefines h,o,p,e.

Healing
Open
Presence
Each.

Still unhatched.

An instance of the way things were becomes the way things will be. This is our present.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
(from Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton, poem by T.S. Eliot)

I want to know how you come to be who you are.

And if there is any reason to tell anyone.

So much is disclosed when that into which we step reveals itself as the only step there is.

Take no one's word for it.

Find yourself in this place only.

Confluent home.

So many dead in the United States on 9/11. So many dead in Afghanistan. So many dead in Iraq.

Do you believe in terror? Do you believe in maiming and killing? Do you believe in war?

I don't.

Today's students of the Buddha-Dharma need to look for genuine insight. If you have genuine insight, birth and death will not affect you, and you will be free to come and go. Nor do you need to look for worthiness; it will arise of itself. Followers of the Way, do not let yourselves be deluded by anyone; this is all I teach. If you want to make use of genuine insight, then use it right now without delay or doubt. Students nowadays do not succeed because they suffer from lack of self reliance. Because of this lack, you run busily hither and thither, are driven by circumstance, and kept whirling by the ten thousand things.
- Rinzai ( d.866)

I don't believe in terror, maiming, killing, or war because none of these activities have anything to do with life, love, compassion, and forgiveness.

Power and politics, wealth and willful arrogance, resource plundering, property and proprietary acquisition -- these are the companions of terror, maiming, killing, and war.

I'd rather a different path.

On another Sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees were watching him to see if he would cure a man on the sabbath, hoping to find something to use against him. But he knew their thoughts; and he said to the man with the withered hand, "Stand up! Come out into the middle." And he came out and stood there. Then Jesus said to them, "I put it to you: is it against the law on the sabbath to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to destroy it?" Then he looked round at them all and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand". He did so, and his hand was better. But they were furious, and began to discuss the best way of dealing with Jesus.
(Luke 6:6 - 11)

Of course they were furious. They ultimately dealt with Jesus the way unenlightened people always deal with what they cannot understand or control.

Death, or the manner of our death, might not be the final decision we make.

For the Falling Man

I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized
that people were leaping.
I know who you are, I know
there's more to you than just this image
on the news, this ragdoll plummeting --
I know you were someone's lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then,
before your morning coffee had cooled
you'd come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths
- but we can't help ourselves - how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.
(Poem: "For the Falling Man," by Annie Farnsworth, from Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light.)

The final decision we make might be considering how to answer what Derrick Jensen posed at talk's end in Camden Saturday night.

He said that the essential question is: "What is it like to be you?"

So many alive. So many longing to transcend (but include) birth and death. So many abandoning hope and, instead, weaving communities capable of catching, creatively authoring, and consecrating everyday, ordinary, simply, this -- life.

Itself.

In the world.

Walking across footbridge at mouth of the Passagassawakeag River in Belfast this morning. We meet Alden. We laugh and we cry together. We talk of Sylvia. Lovely September sunshine.

The world? Moonlit
Drops shaken
From the crane's bill.
- Dogen (1200 - 1253)

This was a full day: Mass at St Francis of Assisi, visit across river, mow grass, sit with Susan and Jory at hermitage doing Buddhist ritual for 7th day of 49 for a deceased person, attend lecture at St. Thomas Episcopal on right wing fundamentalist usurpation of Christianity, have Sunday Evening Practice, then attend Compline at St. Thomas' -- the silence of it at end!

Isaiah says:
Courage! Do not be afraid.
Look, your God is coming,
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
the ears of the deaf unsealed,
then the lame shall leap like a deer
and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy;
(from Isaiah 25)

What I remember about 5 years ago is the disbelief that what was happening was happening.

Today it's not about belief. It's about particular people. This person, that person. It's not about ideas or trends, nor is it about movements or explanations of any sort.

Particular people.

One at a time. No numbers. Only smiles. And tears.

No birth. No death.

Forming emptiness.

Emptying form.

Waking here.

Moonlight.

Dripping.

The dead go to ground. The living come to middle ground.

In the mountainside meditation hut,
Just a monk's robes.
And outside windows, no one.
Birds at the stream take flight.
Yellow dusk stretching half-way
Down the mountain road,
I hear cascades in love with
Kingfisher-greens gone dark.
- Meng hao-jan (689-740 C.E.)

What else but death does the wife of 58 years want for herself after her husband dies? That's what she says. She's unconvinced, it seems, by any assuring words.
Elsewhere, in a wheelchair, the husband of a deceased woman no longer feels sad for her. He is deep within his own sorrow. Those remaining alive have as mysterious a journey as do those who die.

After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!"). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
(from Mark 7)

Be opened.

What else is left to consider?

Consider the ground between us.

Opening.

Neil Douglas-Klotz writes that light is not at war with darkness. Darkness is what we yet don't know about divine life. Light is knowing participation.

Make no mistake about it; if you do not find it now, you will repeat the same routines for myriad eons, a thousand times over again, following and picking up on objects that attract you. We are no different from Shakyamuni Buddha. Today, in your various activities, what do you lack? The spiritual light coursing through your six senses has never been interrupted. If you can see in this way, you will simply be free of burdens all your life.
- Lin Chi (d 867?)

In Genesis, God creates light and darkness.

And the light shines through darkness.

Divine mystery being infinite will not be exhausted.

Not being grasped.

Only emptied.

Serving incarnation.

There is no outside. No inside.

Everyone holds a luminous jewel,
All embrace a precious gem;
If you do not turn your attention
Around and look within,
You will wander from home
With a hidden treasure.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

Only gift. Only treasure.

Reflecting itself.

Beautiful moon!

Herb. Sylvia --

Light for you.

Polly tells me Herb has died.

Nicholas tells me Sylvia has died.

Empty and fleeting
My years are gone
And now, quivering and frail,
I must fade away.
--Ryokan

Outside, silence of passing life.

In here --

quieter

still.

"If you want to know something,
go elsewhere.
If you want to un-know everything,
then sit and listen"
- Adyashanti

Passing through, slipping through -- holding nothing.

Standing outside barn looking for string with key for lock securing canoe to rack at Hosmer Pond -- a hissing sound is heard. The sky is grey and darkening. Bald Mountain has patches of fog mist alongside. Across the way it must be rain. I tell Saskia to listen. For a length of time, only the steadily growing hissing. The sound of water on leaves grows louder as finally over barn roof the first drops fall in advance of downpour. Sliding down mountain, jumping road, climbing roofline, rejoicing on green Element -- tumbling rain!

On paths where dragons and stars wander,
Halfway up to peaks, I cross a rocky pass,
Blur into blue cliffs, perpetual confusion,
Adore idleness everywhere in green vines.
Then it's ease in blossoming forests,
Lofty talk facing bamboo islands.
Far from dust, silent, empty:
This Hen's Foot Mountain
Opening that first adept to enlightenment.
- Meng hao-jan (689-740 C.E.)

We sat by Ducktrap River earlier on rocks as water took bend with carols and chants unto itself, undoing itself, letting itself go -- turning below Whitney Retreat this Labor Day. We were re-visiting site where monastic hermitage exists only in imagination -- this piece of land with 5 houses, central conference center with contiguous 7 guest rooms.

We lay on grassy terrace with Cesco watching Lincolnville ferry slow to let schooner Mary Day make way up narrows between Islesboro and mainland.

I am thinking about university course beginning Wednesday -- how consciousness and spirituality are touched by dualism. It always surprises me how antithetic thinking and black/white reasoning dominate our responses. There is always something to oppose, someone to hate, point of view to demonize. Much fear grows when twoness stares at us.

He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to speak to them, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen’. And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips They said, ‘This is Joseph’s son, surely?’
But he replied, ‘No doubt you will quote me the saying, “Physician, heal yourself” and tell me, “We have heard all that happened in Capernaum, do the same here in your own countryside”’. And he went on, ‘I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.
‘There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.’
When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.
(Luke 4:29-30)

Good trick -- slipping through! Had Jesus achieved transparency by that time?

His was unitary vision.

It's work merely being who you are.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
(from Poem: "To be of use" by Marge Piercy from Circles on the Water. Alfred A. Knopf)

In chemistry there's a unitary theory:
Unitary theory (Chem.), the modern theory that the
molecules of all complete compounds are units, whose parts
are bound together in definite structure, with mutual and
reciprocal influence on each other, and are not mere
aggregations of more or less complex groups; --
distinguished from the dualistic theory.
(http://dict.die.net/unitary/)

Real work is the koan: "Who are you?" Go ahead -- open your hands -- and answer. There's no secrets; not in koans.

The Zen master Mu-nan had only one successor. His name was Shoju. After Shoju had completed his study of Zen, Mu-nan called him into his room. "I am getting old," he said, "and as far as I know, Shoju, you are the only one who will carry on this teaching. Here is a book. It has been passed down from master to master for seven generations. I have also added many points according to my understanding. The book is very valuable, and I am giving it to you to represent your successorship."

"If the book is such an important thing, you had better keep it," Shoju replied. "I received your Zen without writing and am satisfied with it as it is."
"I know that," said Mu-nan. "Even so, this work has been carried from master to master for seven generations, so you may keep it as a symbol of having received the teaching. Here."

They happened to be talking before a brazier. The instant Shoju felt the book in his hands he thrust it into the flaming coals. He had no lust for possessions. Mu-nan, who never had been angry before, yelled: "What are you doing!" Shoju shouted back: "What are you saying!"
(Source: Zen Flesh, Zen Bones) From thread: http://www.fightingarts.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=6&Number=15753626&page=7&fpart=2

Later down thread someone wrote: "Let he who is without sin cast the first Koan."
(by oldman, Cartoonist in Residence)

For Christians, as for non-Christians, I suppose the first Koan asks: "If we are real as one, who makes two?"

Don't answer too quickly.

The tires on wet road splash passing.

Slip through.

We don't pass through life. Life passes through us. We must not prevent it.

Things come. Things go. No stopping. No holding

Where there is beauty, there is ugliness.
When something is right,
Something else is wrong.
Knowledge and ignorance
Depend on each other.
It has been like this since the beginning.
How could it be otherwise now?
Wanting to chuck out one
And hold onto the other
Makes for a ridiculous comedy.
You must still deal with everything
Ever-changing,
Even when you say it's wonderful.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

What do you say? Bring it on? Get lost?

We let life pass through. Cry with those that cry. Laugh with them that laugh.

Give no advice unasked. Cheer no one up unrequested. Just listen. Just be there.

But you must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves. (from James 1)

The word of the Still One carries with it silent instruction.

Be still.

Know I Am.

God.

As compassionate presence, remain with life in its wholeness.

The writer said something like: Teach a man to shoot an arrow, and he'll probably use you for a target. (Anthony DeMello)

It is often a curious joy to be mocked by someone for no particular truth. It is a sweet humiliation that has to sit side by side with sweet accomplishment. Accept one, accept other. With equanimity.

Those who are singlemindedly seeking
The mind of enlightenment
Must not weary of this quest;
They must not give up.
Those who have not yet
Attained the mind of enlightenment
Should pray to the Buddhas of former ages,
And should also dedicate their good works
To the quest for the mind of enlightenment.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

Some think I am not a Christian because I am catholic. Some because I sit and talk with Muslims, Buddhists, and Pagans. Some because I mention fish or tree from poems as metaphoric segue to our quest for God. Some think and tell others I am not a Christian because I am not an Evangelical, not a Fundamentalist, not a Rapture person.

They are probably right. At least in their minds. There's no room there for my way of allowing Christ to be Christ.

I visit a man whose brother died today. He thanks me for the visit. Some others in segregation talk through plexiglas about this or that. The incarceration, one said between buildings, makes sunlight a rare and lovely gift. Greg brought flowers for the Communion Service. The simple solemnity and dignity of 50 men gathered in worthy presentation! Across hall in gym a power lift competition. Earlier Nadim related the historical unfolding of Shi'a and Sunni development. I give Tony a commentary on mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum."

Jesus Christ, although he shared God's nature, did not try to seize equality with God for himself; but emptied himself, took on the form of a slave, and became like a man - not in appearance only, for he humbled himself by accepting death - even death on a cross.
For this, God has raised him high, and given him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bend, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue will proclaim "Jesus Christ is Lord", to the glory of God the Father.
--Philippians 2

Deaths, even the ones before final breath-ceasing death, are difficult to weather. I celebrate death of my false impression of myself today. Alongside the memorial of Jesus' final supper and death on cross, we must comport ourselves with the mind of Christ.

Emptying.

Seeking no equality.

Forming service to others.

Bread of heaven; cup of salvation.

Piece by piece we disappear into Christ's emergence.

It doesn't matter anyone's opinion -- only truth is resurrected.

God is power. The kingdom of God, says John, is between us.

Between us! How responsible are we for God?

Whatever people do, whether they remain in the world as artisans, merchants, or officers of the government, let them put their whole heart into the task; let them be diligent and energetic. And if, like the lotus flower, which grows out of muddy water but remains untouched by the mud, they engage in life without cherishing envy or hatred; if they live in the world not a life of self but a life of truth, then surely joy, peace, and bliss will dwell in their minds.
- Buddhacarita

There is power. There is power before and between us. Between us is the sanctuary where truth, love, and light dwells.

LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy hill?
(Psalm 15)

We might.

If we carefully look out. If we see what is there.

If we speak into the power and form words for the benefit of each and all.

This very breath.

Singing to son as he rides bus outside Chicago on night ride home from teaching.

His birthday.

The wind is still, but blossoms fall,
Birds sing in the quiet of the mountain.
This is Kannon's wondrous wisdom:
Ah!
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

This is what we do. We salute each other as time goes by.

Thus it is that my heart rejoices, heart and soul together; while my body rests in calm hope. (From Psalm 16)

How we go on!

Dizzy, I carefully attend the day.

On a trail atop White-Crane's green cliffs,
My recluse friend's home in solitude,
Step and courtyard empty of water and rock,
Forest and creek free of axe and fish trap.
Months and years perfect old pines here.
Wind and frost keep bitter bamboo sparse.
Gazing deep, ancestral ways my own again,
I set out wandering toward my simple hut.
- Meng hao-jan (689-740 C.E.)

Living between -- not this, not that -- is dizzying. The walls withdraw. No brace boundaries.

Beware! Your own foot may soon go unshod,
your own throat may grow dry.
But "Who cares?" you said
"For I am in love with strangers
and they are the ones I follow".
(Jeremiah 2: 24-25)

Who are these strangers? Who are these that fall out of favor? Who is it says: "Who cares?"

Let us care.

A dizzying idea.

Each one's own.

Spatial and spiritual are nearly spelled and curiously related.

Sir John Houghton tells Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason that God dwells in the 5th dimension, the spiritual dimension, and is thus able to move in and out of the first four dimensions.

Why then (we ask) not more or more often?

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)

Agnostics say we just don't know. The One we call God is so far beyond our understanding we can only guess where, and how, and why of this One's comportment.

Fundamentalists prefer to put God in a compartment they alone access. This semblance of God is brought out to punish and judge, to sit in on triumphal acquisition meetings, and to be cited for pronouncements of controlled behavior that the fundamentalists themselves might violate but are forgiven/forget-about-it due to their special relationship having special delivered the compartment dweller.

Word-Itself cannot dwell in compartments.

Word-Itself needs be well seen.

In its aseity it is incarnational. In its eternality it is resurrectional. In its ineffable infinity it is as here and now as we are at this moment in this place wherein we find ourselves.

The word of the Lord was addressed to me asking, "Jeremiah, what do you see?" "I see a branch of the Watchful Tree," I answered. Then the Lord said, "Well seen! I too watch over my word to see it fulfilled."
(from Jeremiah 1)

Who can clearly know when/what Word-Itself will appear/say until that appearance/expression is manifest? One-Being, it might be said, is experienced in the moment where Now and Eternal intersect.

Is the absence of God actually the very sheer reality confirming the no-object, no-other, no-obtaining origin-suffusion of One-Being, Word-Itself, Breathing-Truth we'd come to call Holy-Trinity?

Theoretical physicists sit with theologians and comfort their distress over too many years alienating and separating What-Is from what is seen.

The concept of a fourth dimension is one that is often described in considering its physical implications; that is, we know that in three dimensions, we have dimensions of length (or depth), width, and height. The fourth dimension is orthogonal to the other three spatial dimensions. The cardinal directions in the three known dimensions are called up/down (altitude), north/south (longitude), and east/west (latitude). When speaking of the fourth dimension, an additional pair of terms is needed. Attested terms include ana/kata (sometimes called spissitude or spassitude), vinn/vout (used by Rudy Rucker), and upsilon/delta.
Usually, the fourth dimension is identified with time. In this case, the concept of an additional spatial dimension would be referred to as the fifth dimension.
("Fourth dimension," From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Moyers is surprised when Houghton says he finds no conflict between science and spirituality.

A Harvard physicist is profiled:
Physicists describe our everyday world as having four dimensions. The first three are the familiar width, length, and height. The fourth dimension is time, because something has to have a life span - just as it needs the three dimensions that give it shape - in order to exist.
Arkani-Hamed is investigating fifth, sixth, and higher dimensions to see what they'll tell him about the universe. He's looking for clues to the mysteries of why gravity is so weak compared with other basic forces in the universe. He's also searching for missing pieces in our understanding of the physical laws of nature.
He has theorized that space is not a basic property of these extra dimensions. Space is instead a secondary property created by other more fundamental forces. By constructing theories that remove space from the extra dimensions, he can better study those dimensions' fundamental forces. Without space, those forces can be collapsed theoretically into our own four-dimensional space, making them easier to analyze and understand.
This may seem difficult to visualize after spending a lifetime thinking in the four dimensions we call home. Additional dimensions of space may be present but have gone undetected if they are curled up to small sizes. In one description of a possible fifth dimension, our world is confined to a four-dimensional sheet floating in the fifth dimension. Some forces can be limited to traveling in the familiar four dimensions while others can travel through the extra dimensions.
Such dimension-jumping forces aren't known for sure, but Arkani-Hamed thinks one of them may be one of the most familiar in the universe: gravity.
(HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES, "Deconstructing dimensions to understand the universe: Arkani-Hamed looks to extra dimensions for explanations of nature," By Alvin Powell, Gazette Staff, February 06, 2003)

Imagine One-Being, or what is called God, "curled up to small sizes."

We often ask: Where is God?

Come to earth, a comportment of humility, one's dignified manner, one's affirming conduct, seeking everywhere finding everywhere authentic response.

Outside my windows, wind-chimes sound what is passing by.

Each tolling is telling.

"Where am I not?"

After rain, a lonely trickle of water flows.

At times it's all dream.

The words used, faces moving, thoughts arriving -- seem haphazard montage of arising appearance and disintegrating phantasm. Someone claims certain knowledge. Someone looks chagrined. An intercept of passing spectre with no roots, no destination.

Your mind that each moment
shines with the light
of nondiscrimination
wherever it may be,
is the true Samantabhadra.
Your mind that each moment
frees itself
from its shackles,
everywhere knows emancipation.
- Lin chi (d.867)

The language of 9/11 has not yet been translated into intelligent discourse. Like much of human experience, things fall between twin description of crapshoot and fantasy. Like mystic listening to nothing sounding, the noise of human experience feels whimsical and insubstantial.

It's like what CJ said today about the economy. By refusing to put language to it we're trying to pretend it doesn't exist. But it's something. Even if we don't know what to call it. I just think it's time to start thinking about a language plan for whatever it is we're doing too.
(-- Josh to Amy in episode "Han," 5th Season, West Wing)

Have we a language capable of holding together the splitting energies of violent lie and comforting truth?

In that episode the title word "Han" is a Korean character portraying "sorrow, grief, incur, meet with." It is said to be a sorrow too deep for tears, yet, at end, hope.

In solitude everything holds its mysterious place.

The discourse on sexuality is usually structured on a Judeo-Christian-Muslim foundation where time is linear as is existence. When it comes to romantic love, one is obligated, in this singular vision of existence, to get it "right" within one's lifetime. Yet this is not the only religious basis for conceptualizing human existence. Hinduism and Buddhism view life as cyclical and with each new reincarnation, the possibility of additional chances at getting a compromised romantic love affair "right" can repeat itself many fold. Still, these tales retain a strong heterosexual bias. Kim Dae Sung's film Bungee Jumping on their Own (2001) challenges this heterosexual bias by playing with the possibility of having one of the romantic pair reincarnated within a re-gendered body. Thus, what began as inherently heterosexual abruptly begins anew, but this time as inherently homosexual, while each lover continues to assert his heterosexual identity. If true romance requires a spiritual dimension such that mere lovers become attached "soul mates" destined to be together repeatedly, then does the gendered body become a liability to an otherwise spiritually welcoming event? Within a Korean context, does Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism negate this possibility? How do Luke Kim's indigenous Korean core concepts of jeong (strong feeling of kinship/interpersonal trust), han (suppressed sorrow/anger), and nunchi, (the ability to evaluate people/social situations through implicit cues) turn this into a Korean-specific concern?
(from "En-Gendering Re-Gendered Romance of Multiple Lives: Reincarnation in Bungee Jumping on Their Own," by Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park, University of Notre Dame at Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, April 6-9 2006, San Francisco) http://www.aasianst.org/absts/2006abst/Korea/k-94.htm

Nothing is eternally revealed.

Mystics elocute this.

This and...

Only this.

Rain repeats chant.

It cannot fail but fall.

Rain says, "I water the earth." It is a fine chant.

The myriad differences resolved by sitting,
All doors opened.
In this still place I follow my nature, be what it may.
From the one hundred flowers I wander freely,
The soaring cliff- my hall of meditation
- Reizan (1411)

At Episcopal church, Taize chants tonight. Candles. Harp. Cello.

The words I have spoken to you are spirit
and they are life.
- John 6:64

Jesus was helpful. He said nothing more than who and what he was.

Would we all were so helpful.

Chant continually being.

Like rain.

Falling.

A crusty old-timer told the new guys: "Believe nothing that you hear, half of what you see, and form your own opinions."

A man could learn much from that advice.

Unfettered at last, a traveling monk,
I pass the old Zen barrier.
Mine is a traceless stream-and-cloud life.
Of those mountains, which shall be my home?
- Manan (1591-1654)

My home is in the daily activity of listening, assisting, and learning from each one -- my teachers.

The Lord protects the lives of his consecrated ones: (from Psalm 97)

Whatever names some get attached to, it is a matter of attending to the lives of the "consecrated ones."

We are made holy -- alone and in community -- by the loving presence of the Holy One.

All those wanting to make twos, divisions, and contentious exclusions -- these must recognize the times are changed. We must attend to the consecrated ones now.

Put it down -- the separating mind that seeks explanation and entrenched defenses!

Pick up where the Christ finds each one -- holy, wholly, together -- even in the midst of stumbling questions about ourselves.

Christians don't own Christ or the Christ-Reality -- we all share in it. We need a more humble stance with the Holy One.

Traceless stream-and-cloud life.

I knew his radio voice. He dropped off videos in Belfast. Returned to his car. And died there at the wheel. Not driving off. Just leaving.

The mind cannot seek the mind.
You ignore what is real and hold on to
That which is unreal, then try to find
What it is. You think you are the mind and,
Therefore, ask how it is to be controlled.

If the mind exists,
It can be controlled,
But it does not.
Understand this truth by inquiry;
Seek the real, the Self
- Ramana Maharshi

At conversation tonight we took words and wrote poems, reading them. We are intimate with being. We are poems that are being written.

Having become apostate, agnostic or atheistic (or all of the above) over the years, I try not to believe anything too much regarding the nature of the universe, the ground of being, god, or the great mystery. The nature of ultimate reality transcends our ability to capture or understand it in mere words. It is unknowable at that level.

Consider that in our universe, energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed. All the stuff that's here now has always been here, and the trillions of atoms that are, for the moment doing the dance of Piszcz the writer, have danced to different music at other moments, and will do so again after I'm done. Go figure. So what does that make ME?

When it comes down to it, Insha' Allah, Thy Will Be Done, Buddha smiling with a flower or Tao Te Ching or Brahma's Dream are aspects of one and the same imponderable amazing mystery and there's certainly no reason to fight and kill about our differing and necessarily imperfect interpretations of it. What we believe, no matter how fervently, doesn't necessarily relate to ultimate reality.
(from "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making plans." 2006-06-01, by Dave Piszcz) http://journal.maine.com/op-ed/dpiszcz/20060601000014B.html

He died Monday in Belfast. What voice we hear will be resonance of molecule dancing an auditory spin.

Tonight we spoke of Charlotte at the shop. Her dance spins in and out of our words.

Here's what I think: We don't fear death, not really. You see, death and life are not two things. We are a bit uncertain how to think about life/death -- that maybe we fear life and only think we fear death. Fact is, it's death/life and life/death all the way around the block.

Charlotte and Dave have turned a corner.

We write poems approaching where they were, where they are, and where there is a chat-book unburping. (Robert is responsible for those last few words. He's a poet.)

Dinner's ready.