[Earlier]

Zazen is walking to or away awareness. It is sitting with each activity, as it is, passing.

Cesco gets up, stiffly. Mu-ge had stretched and hit his nose. Cesco barks once. Cat runs from room. Dog limps out of room. I see this from where I sit on sofa in front room. My dream before coming down to meditation room was about something and someone in the past. But if the dream was at 4am this cold night, it must be now. Therefore I dream of something now that is complete, though not yet satisfactory. This is the nature of suffering -- the not yet satisfactory. If I attach to it and churn in its unresolved state, I perpetuate discomfort. If I look at it and see it as what it is -- unresolved and not satisfactory -- it is merely what it is.

And me? I am in the churning. I am making my way through this mental and emotional dissatisfaction as a small boat makes its way through choppy seas. One cannot control the tempest of the sea -- one can merely pass through the churning waters by steady and alert attention, bailing what has filled the bilge, and telling tale about the event that needs telling once calmer waters return. The hardest part of any turmoil is not telling tales that need not be told but nevertheless itch to be scratched. It is where art wrestles with loquacity, where poetry is confronted by reticence, where paucity walks off with taciturnity as light fades to credits. It is the three characters looking out from chairs side by side at end of film The Station Agent where they sit to this day in final frames of story.

For penetrating to the depths
Of one’s own true self-nature,
And for attaining a vitality
Valid on all occasions,
Nothing can surpass
Meditation in the midst of activity.
- Hakuin (1686-1769)

This is what I am right now. Cat, nose, breath, bark, exit, return, exit, absence, fullness, silence. The absolute nearness of emptiness within each coming and going.

Mr. Cogito and the Imagination

Mr. Cogito never trusted
tricks of the imagination

the piano at the top of the Alps
played false concerts for him

he didn't appreciate labyrinths
the Sphinx filled him with loathing

he lived in a house with no basement
without mirrors of dialectics

jungles of tangled images
were not his home

he would rarely soar
on the wings of metaphor
and then he fell like Icarus
into the embrace of the Great Mother

he adored tautologies
explanations
idem per idem

that a bird is a bird
slavery means slavery
a knife is a knife
death remains death

he loved
the flat horizon
a straight line
the gravity of the earth
(Poem by Zbigniew Herbert)

Zazen isn't difficult -- only sometimes impossible, that is, not capable of being accomplished. But it is also gently passible, that is, capable of feeling or suffering; sensitive. The two words -- "impossible" and "passible" -- encircle zazen. Then, like water finding opening for its passage, these words swirl within and continue on and through practitioner.

Let Him See Each Presently Arisen State
Let not a person revive the past or on the future build his hopes; for the past has been left behind and the future has not been reached. Instead with insight let him see each presently arisen state; let him know that and be sure of it, invincibly, unshakeably. Today the effort must be made; tomorrow Death may come, who knows? No bargain with Mortality can keep him and his hordes away. But one who dwells thus ardently, relentlessly, by day, by night--it is he, the Peaceful Sage has said, who has one fortunate attachment.
--Lomasakangiyabhaddekaratta Sutta, in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, trans. by Bhikkhu Bodhi; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

I am going to die. Right now I continue to breathe. Who knows what happens after death. Right now I am trying to be alert to what is happening right now.

In a dharma talk entitled "The Happiness of Non-Clinging," Tejadhammo Bikkhu writes:

So in this beautiful verse, the Buddha says, Don’t cling to the past, don’t keep hoping for the future, because the past is gone, the future hasn’t yet arisen. He said, instead, with insight, by gathering our mindfulness together, our awareness together, let yourself see each presently arisen state. Each thing that arises within the heart and mind, each thing that comes into our awareness, let us see that. Know it and be sure of it, be clear about what it is, invincibly and unshakeably. There’s no room for uncertainty. You can see clearly what it is. Today you must make the effort, because tomorrow death may come. Who knows when death may come. He says this, the person who can dwell in this way has one fortunate attachment, one blessed clinging One blessed attachment is to remain in the present mindfully, with great awareness, with great satthi. This is the one fortunate attachment. Why? Because it will give rise to great pann± or prajna or wisdom and great compassion. If we can stay in that moment watching what is arising. The Buddha then goes on with his teaching. “How does a person revive the past”? How does a person do this? Well, he says “ He thinks to himself, I had such a material form in the past and he takes delight in that. He says I had such a feeling in the past and he takes delight in that. I had such a perception in the past and he takes delight in that and so on.” So you can see what the Buddha is saying.

Further on, continues:

So as we make an effort, as disciples of the Buddha, to cultivate non-clinging, getting rid of upadana, instead of being swept up and caught up in things we can take heart and strength and courage from the teachings of the Buddha. We can make an effort to see things in the seen merely what is seen, just what is there. In the heard, merely what is heard. We can be clear that form is not Me, is not I, is not Mine. Feeling is not I, is not Me, is not Mine. And we can try to follow the teaching of the heart sutra and realize for ourselves, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form. We can try to practice as the Buddha says, one fortunate attachment, that is the attachment to stay in the present moment in great awareness, knowing clearly what is arising, what is passing away. So if we can do this, then this is the end of dukha, this is the end of suffering and the arising of real happiness, real sukha.
I hope that everyone in this room tonight can have that experience. Of course we can all have it just for a moment. If we can practice for one little moment, and then one little moment, and one little moment and we can bring these one little moments together so that we can have longer moments of freedom from clinging. Every act of generosity, every act of dana, whether it’s dana in terms of goods, material things, money or objects, to another person, to another human being is an act of non-clinging if it is done purely with good intention Every act of dana that involves giving my time to somebody else is an act of non-clinging. So when you help someone, when you help them to do something very simple, this is non-clinging, if it’s done out of a pure heart. It doesn’t have to be a big thing.
(http://www.thanhsiang.org/eng/ezine/html/dharma/2004/The%20Happiness%20of%20Non-Clinging.pdf)

Mu-ge goes out through barn. Cesco stretches along Patriots mat in middle room. (Patriots and Colts play tonight in Indianapolis. Cesco warms the team insignia with his sleeping aging body. Not even Richard or Jonathan have such devotion to the preparation and well-being of the team!)

Dawn has broken through as I complete this writing at 6:42am, two hours after beginning. The cold, windy night gives way to cold, windy light. What changes is the seeing.

For now, this is sufficient. Possibly and impassibly, satisfactory.

Need a revolution? Today is teacher.

Look out. Look in. Look around. See the wind rushing through branches. See the questions mind holds up for you. See the man and woman pointing to something passing, the dream before waking this morning, the footsteps going up to post office, coffee shop, and corner bank. It is today. It has much to say.

Beyond the Self
The way we define and delimit the self is arbitrary. We can place it between our ears and have it looking out from our eyes, or we can widen it to include the air we breathe, or at other moments we can cast its boundaries farther to include the oxygen-giving trees and plankton, our external lungs, and beyond them the web of life in which they are sustained.
--Joanna Macy, World As Lover, World As Self

We've become accustomed to guru and preacher, professor and pundit -- all manner of expert and wannabe savants -- telling us the way it is, has been, will become. They are kind and generous souls. They intend to help. We listen to them with respect and necessary skepticism. Respect and skepticism are healthy friends.

In addition to time spent listening to these performers and entertainers, readers of news and spinners of meaning -- we also spend time attending to wordless revelation and soundless movements brushing across landscape of horizon and imagination. The world has often been described as product of mind, an idea held in common -- even though the vast majority of us are not aware that we are holding in common the idea of the world we hold. We need a new idea. The one we currently hold is not full of requisite respect and skepticism.

He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
--from Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Luke quotes Jesus quoting Isaiah. The living word must be embodied each day by each person hearing truly the dizzying sound of spaciousness swirling in and through and out from one's own being-in-the-world.

So many in the world honor Jesus. They hold an idea of Jesus. This idea, also, needs greater respect and skepticism.

Jesus said: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” I think Jesus meant what he said. "Today" and "this" is "fulfilled in your hearing.” His was a concrete and immediate vision. It is not about him as one set apart, not about him out-of-time as judge and jury, nor is it about him as object of worship and frantic ideological militancy intent on narrow fit for limited number of worthies.

Salvation in Hebrew had to do with spaciousness.
In the Hebrew roots, the word means literally, "to be roomy." Salvation is spaciousness. And it is out of that sense of spaciousness that we find the related meanings of freedom and deliverance. The classic story for this sense of salvation is, of course, the exodus. The Israelites were saved from the oppression of Egypt and were brought into a new land -- a "broad" land; one where they would have the space to live in freedom. (--from "Saved From What?" Rev. Laura J. Collins, http://www.takomaparkpc.org/Sermon2003March9.html#back1, March 9, 2003, referencing (1) Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985). pp. 1132ff.)

Today is spacious. So too is the Christ Reality spacious. Jesus pointed to both.

Christ. Today.

There's a revolution brewing in such understanding. This revolution would overthrow intentional ignorance and affectation of religiosity proffered as faith and loyalty. The revolution would let lay bare all that we have held as substitute and firewall to the constantly emerging reality of Christ today. So many for so long have boxed this living reality in lock-away vaults -- untouchable, ancient, and literal preservation -- fearing that if the original fire of sacred truth were to be felt by us, nothing would stand that was not the constant blaze of renewing, enlightening, realization of sacred spirit with us.

We'll have to carefully look to see what today this spirit longs to reveal.

“When we speak of education, we are proclaiming a revolution, one in which everything we know today will be transformed. I think of this revolution as the final revolution; not a revolution of violence but one from which violence is wholly excluded.” -- Dr. Maria Montessori

We need a revolution.

Dare we open to it?

We'll see.

We long for the original.

Great Art and Great Dharma
The artist's dilemma and the meditator's are, in a deep sense, equivalent. Both are repeatedly willing to confront an unknown and to risk a response that they cannot predict or control. Both are disciplined in skills that allow them to remain focused on their task and to express their response in a way that will illuminate the dilemma they share with others.
And both are liable to similar outcomes. The artist's work is prone to be derivative, a variation on the style of a great master or established school. The meditator's response might tend to be dogmatic, a variation on the words of a hallowed tradition or revered teacher. There is nothing wrong with such responses. But we recognize their secondary nature, their failure to reach the peaks of primary imaginative creation. Great Art and Great Dharma both give rise to something that has never quite been imagined before. Artist and meditator alike ultimately aspire to an original act.
--Stephen Batchelor, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol. IV, #2

There are so many paths away from the original, away from primary creation.

Contemplate the mind;
This king of emptiness
Is subtle and abstruse.
Without shape or form,
It has great spiritual power.
It can eliminate all calamities
And accomplish all merits.
Though its essence is empty,
It is the measure of dharmas.
- Master Fu (497-569)

The way of the original is empty stillness journey.

Where to?

Breeze blows.

Brook flows.

Wanting wants Itself.

An old friend stopped by last week "I'm looking for number five," he said while sipping coffee at bakery case. "Or maybe I'll join a monastery." I looked out window to harbour. He didn't tell me what he was looking for in a wife or a marriage. Nor did he say what a monastery would provide. This morning I speculate it doesn't really matter what we think we want. Wanting wants itself, and we don't know how that pericope fares under hermeneutic scrutiny.

Magnificent Peak

By its own nature
It towers above
The tangle of rivers
Don’t say it’s a lot of dirt
Piled high
Without end the mists of dawn,
The evening clouds
Draw their shadows across it
From the four directions
You can look up and see it
Green and steep and wild.
- Muso (1275-1351)

Itself, (née "Brahman" or "Lord" or "Adonai" or "God"), is green and steep and wild. This is why crazed men and women throughout the history of time have abandoned conventional sanity and surrendered to the profound longing maddening them. Some have gone to geographic wilderness, mountains and deserts. Some have given themselves to bodily ecstasies, sex and intoxicants of all manner. Some have enclosed themselves in ascetic inquiry, self-denial and mortification. Some prefer the emptying route of silence and mere gaze. And some have claimed "who gives a shit" and opted for power, wealth, and worldly rewards of their choices.

Wanting wants itself. We just don't know what-is-itself. That makes us endearing creatures intent on finding what Itself wants. [Writer's note: "Itself" with a capital "I" and "itself" with lower-case "i" both refer to unimaginable aseity within which we live and move and have our being. It is not only what we are but it is what "Is-Itself" is. Try not to fall into distinction here -- our true home is undifferentiated suchness. Keep up here.]

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.
--Poem by Taigu Ryokan (1758-1831) (nicknamed Great Fool)

Tired wisps of morning snow, long fall inches from completion, pass window outside silent stillness of room.

It is a joy not-knowing what itself wants. So ignorant, each morning I greet Cesco, Mu-ge, and Saskia as each moves through the practice of ordinary tasks. Just now, coffee must be brewed. Just now, yogurt and Trappist Preserves dished into wheatina near kitchen wood stove. Just now, doing what is itself being done among us.

This -- if not anything else -- is morning prayer, morning practice, morning joy!

Monastics celebrate St Antony of the Desert. He is annoying. So was Jesus. Monastics are annoyed by Antony and Jesus.

St Antony, Abbot (251 - 356)
St Antony is the originator of the monastic life. He was born in Egypt: when his parents died, he listened to the words of the Gospel and gave all his belongings to the poor. He went out into the wilderness to begin a life of penitence, living in absolute poverty, praying, meditating, and supporting himself by manual work. He suffered many temptations, both physical and spiritual, but he overcame them. Disciples gathered round him, attracted by his wisdom, moderation, and holiness. He gave support to the victims of the persecutions of Diocletian, and helping St Athanasius in his fight against the Arians. He lived to be over a hundred years old, and died in 356.
The Gospels are full of wise sayings of Jesus that seem to be ignored, and one of the most poignant of these was in his meeting with that young man who asked over and over again, insistently, “What must I do to have eternal life?”. When, in the end, Jesus told him that if he wanted to be perfect he would have to sell all that he had and give the money to the poor, the young man went away, sorrowing; because he was very rich. What could be more of a waste than that? You tell someone what he has to do, and he is afraid to do it. And yet... 250 years later, St Antony hears the story, and does give away all that he has, and becomes the founder of monasticism. And then again, over 1,000 years later, St Francis of Assisi hears the story, and gives away his possessions (and some of his father’s) and revolutionises Christianity again.
Not all the words that we speak are forgotten, even though we cannot see their effects ourselves. Let us pray that those unknown effects may always be good ones.
http://www.universalis.com/

Monks and hermits, some say, should concentrate on prayer and God-related matters. It is felt by many that monastics should stay away from what goes on in the world -- especially in the halls of power, politics, and privilege. This point of view is a curious one, especially in the Buddhist and Christian traditions. Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, was human. Siddhartha Gautama was human.

Spirituality is incarnational. Spirituality matters in this existence. However else our existence might be explained, we are the intermarriage of what we call matter and spirit, substance and energy, body and mind. It worries me when there is a tendency to surgically separate one from the other.

Whether you are going or staying
Sitting or lying down,
The whole world is your own self.
You must find out
Whether the mountains,
Rivers, grass, and forests
Exist in your own mind
Or exist outside it.
Analyze the ten thousand things,
And when you take
This to the limit,
You will come to the limitless;
When you search into it,
You come to the end of search,
Where thinking goes no
Further and distinctions vanish.
When you smash the citadel of doubt,
Then the Buddha is simply yourself.
- Daikaku (1213-1279)

And then:

And there was a man who came to him and asked, ‘Master, what good deed must I do to possess eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is one alone who is good. But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ He said, ‘Which?’ ‘These:’ Jesus replied ‘You must not kill. You must not commit adultery. You must not bring false witness. Honour your father and mother, and: you must love your neighbour as yourself.’ The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these. What more do I need to do?’ Jesus said, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me’. But when the young man heard these words he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you solemnly, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Yes, I tell you again, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ When the disciples heard this they were astonished. ‘Who can be saved, then?’ they said. Jesus gazed at them. ‘For men’ he told them ‘this is impossible; for God everything is possible.’ --Matthew 19:16 - 26

How did Jesus present God? John 10:30 says: "I and the Father are one." Jesus presented God by being exactly who he was. Realizing our true nature presents whole the true nature of Being Itself. Jesus presented the kingdom of heaven with his very being. Nor are we separate from this presentation.

What's in My Journal

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.
(Poem: "What's in My Journal" by William Stafford, from Crossing Unmarked Snow.)

Jesus, Antony, Francis, you, and me. What is it being revealed here?

I despair the men and women who try to remake the planet in their image of power, politics, and privilege. Today and throughout history they make suffering their most important product. What is it they do not see nor understand?

No more new graves.

Open the earth.

See God in one another.

Stop praying to an illusion of thought.

(Odium is where we stop and turn to see where we've arrived that is not truly home. Jesus turned. We are so invited. If we're not turning home and returning home to the exact singular reality of Sacred Wholeness, we are lost in the world of preference and patronizing partitions.)

Give it all away. Come here, now, and follow what is under your feet!

Antony, pray with us!

Comes cold.

It will fall to zero tonight. Footsteps in snow will resound. We walk in and on, with and through our self.

God would not be so unjust as to forget all you have done, the love that you have for his name or the services you have done, and are still doing, for the saints. Our one desire is that every one of you should go on showing the same earnestness to the end, to the perfect fulfilment of our hopes, never growing careless, but imitating those who have the faith and the perseverance to inherit the promises.
When God made the promise to Abraham, he swore by his own self, since it was impossible for him to swear by anyone greater: 'I will shower blessings on you and give you many descendants.' (--Hebrews 6:10 - 20)

Those who favor quantification, who study theory of "tipping point" and "critical mass," busily prosyletize those of other opinions, wanting to increase numbers holding their opinions. Those who do not, do not.

What is the 'grace of the teacher' (Guru-kripa)?

• Questioner. What is Guru-kripa ? How does it lead to Self-realization?

• Maharshi: Guru is the Self.... Sometimes in his life a man becomes dissatisfied with it, and, not content with what he has, he seeks the satisfaction of his desires, through prayer to God etc. His mind is gradually purified until he longs to know God, more to obtain His Grace than to satisfy his worldly desires. Then, God's Grace begins to manifest. God takes the form of a Guru and appears to the devotee, teaches him the Truth and, moreover, purifies his mind by association. The devotee's mind gains strength and is then able to turn inward. By meditation it is further purified and it remains still without the least ripple. That calm Expanse is the Self.The Guru is both 'external' and 'internal'. From the 'exterior' He gives a push to the mind to turn inward; from the 'interior' He pulls the mind towards the Self and helps in the quieting of the mind. That is Guru-kripa. There is no difference between God, Guru and the Self.
(Excerpt from "The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi" http://www.plotinus.com/advaita_questions.htm)

Cesco is tired from his years -- so says woman Saskia asks. She recommends herbal remedy for his aches and journey. He is an old soul. Yesterday, crossing second brook, he leaps halfway across onto boulder covered with snow. He struggles to get footing back and completes walk to pond as though nothing unusual took place. Today we'll drag new beams up for safer bridge.

• Q. Are you conscious of a Brotherhood of invisible Rishis ?
• M. If invisible, how can you see them ?
• Q. In consciousness.
• M. There is nothing external in Consciousness.
• Q. Can I realize them ?
• M. If you realize your own Reality, then that of the Rishis and Masters will become clear to you. There is only one Master, and that is the Self.
• Q. Is reincarnation true ?
• M. Reincarnation exists only so long as there is ignorance. There is really no reincarnation at all, either now or before. Nor will there be any hereafter. This is the truth.
• Q. Can a Yogi know his past lives ?
• M. Do you know the present life that you wish to know the past? Find the present, then the rest will follow. Even with our present limited knowledge, you suffer so much; why should you burden yourself with more knowledge? Is it to suffer more?
• Q Does Bhagavan use occult powers to make others realize the Self, or is the mere fact of Bhagavan's Realization enough for that?
• M. The Spiritual force of Self-realization is far more powerful than the use of all the occult powers. Inasmuch as there is no ego in the Sage, there are no 'others' for Him. What is the highest benefit that can be conferred on you? It is Happiness, and Happiness is born of Peace. Peace can reign only where there is no disturbance, and disturbance is due to thoughts that arise in the mind. When the mind itself is absent, there will be perfect Peace. Unless a person has annihilated the mind, he cannot gain Peace and be Happy. And unless he himself be Happy, he cannot bestow Happiness on 'others'. Since however there are no 'others' for the Sage who has no mind, the mere fact of His Self-realization is itself enough to make the 'others' Happy. (--Ramana Maharshi)

Chickadee hops branches in cedar tree. Red squirrel tilts feeder outside kitchen. Mu-ge's paw-prints make arc in snow out front door. Winter comes to Maine.

Elsewhere, in Sikh tradition, these words:

"The Palace of the Lord God is so beautiful. Within it, there are gems, rubies, pearls and flawless diamonds. A fortress of gold surrounds this Source of Nectar. How can I climb up to the Fortress without a ladder? By meditating on the Lord, through the Guru, I am blessed and exalted. The Guru is the Ladder, the Guru is the Boat, and the Guru is the Raft to take me to the Lord's Name. The Guru is the Boat to carry me across the world-ocean; the Guru is the Sacred Shrine of Pilgrimage, the Guru is the Holy River. If it pleases Him, I bathe in the Pool of Truth, and become radiant and pure."(Guru Nanak, Sri Rag, pg. 17)
The word "Guru" is a Sanskrit word meaning teacher, honoured person, religious person or saint. Sikhism though has a very specific definition of the word Guru. It means the descent of divine guidance to mankind provided through ten Enlightened Masters. This honour of being called a Sikh Guru applies only to the ten Gurus who founded the religion starting with Guru Nanak in 1469 and ending with Guru Gobind Singh in 1708; thereafter it refers to the Sikh Holy Scriptures the Guru Granth Sahib. The divine spirit was passed from one Guru to the next as "The light of a lamp which lights another does not abate. Similarly a spiritual leader and his disciple become equal, Nanak says the truth."
"They distinguish and separate one Guru from the other. And rare is the one who knows that they, indeed, were one. They who realised this in their hearts, attained Realisation of God." (Guru Gobind Singh, Dohira, Vachitra Natak)
--The Sikh Gurus, http://www.sikhs.org/10gurus.htm

So, we look for light in one another. Perhaps there's no need to do anything other than look and see light. Maybe our looking -- (with, in, and through one another) -- is the practice of God. (The light-practice of God!)

Perhaps realization of God is unknowing presentation of light.

(Go on...)

Perhaps God is a joy that cannot be conveyed -- but conveys itself.

Be still. Taste and see.

The I Am.

Itself.

(Warmth.)

There is silence. I remember silence. I have no experience of God. Still, there is silence.

Silence tells me nothing about God.

Do not search for the truth;
Only cease to cherish opinions.
If there is even a trace
Of this and that,
Of right and wrong,
The mind will be lost
In confusion.
Although all dualities
Come from the One
- Seng-Tsan (d.606)

Silence tells me nothing about God.

Nothing is Lost

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.
(Poem: "Nothing is Lost" by Noel Coward)

Silence tells me nothing about God.

When young I would sit in silence. I would sit in churches. I'd sit along riverfronts in city where ocean opened. Sit on grassy hilltops where cloistered walls held silence within -- an urgent listening sitting with me. Listening. To, or with, what?

Silence tells me nothing about God.

At night, when sleep wandered halls where monks relinquish analysis and thought, silence found its way through room door. When visiting woman whose eyes belonged to silence at juncture times, silence went out from her eyes until empty coffee cups, untouched, cool, marked departures quietly.

Today, silence is snow. Cedar branches outside window behind altar hold white on green. Colored lights from season ended will stay through winter cold. A monastery of ordinariness does not distinguish that which ends from what begins with any certainty. This open cloister -- these watching eyes -- reveal no-time.

Today we remember Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."
~ (as quoted by Martin Luther King Jr., in "Beyond Vietnam" Address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church, 4 April 1967 New York City,)

Time seems to have dissolved between Vietnam and Iraq.

Wind rustles. Thin branch edges waver with direction while roots know movement has no destination. Duration entices; timelessness will not be tempted.

Silence tells me nothing about God.

I read scriptures with prophetic words. They promise terrible time followed by wonderful time, but only for those who are saved, who belong to phrases pronounced as the right phrases -- these will be brought in. There are so many left out in cold by believers.

I hear echoes of sounds from preachers that have been pronounced. Those that say: We speak for God; God speaks through us; Harken these words or be damned; These are the creeds that you must believe; Those are the tenets that will save you.

The echoes fade away. In the purring of the coon-cat no trace remains.

Silence tells me nothing about God.

Do you want to hear my opinion? I have none. Each one I've held sneaks out barn door and wanders up mountain to die.
Their graves are unmarked. I walk trails past where they must have gone to earth to burrow and be buried every day. One step. Another. One death. Another.

Each pilgrimage through these departures is gift. Gifts under trees. Seasonal Christmas trees brought indoors -- lives cut and dressed up -- have no such gifts under them. Outside, cedar tree holds silence touched with snow.

Silence tells me nothing about God.

Of which I cannot speak.

Snow and sleet.

To return to the root
Is to find the meaning,
To pursue appearances
Is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
There is a going beyond
Appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear
To occur in the empty world
We call real only
Because of our ignorance.
- Seng-Ts’an (d.606)

Don't know; meet.

If God is movement and not explanation (as Elie Wiesel suggests), then God is moving through me in ways and intention I no longer try to understand. I merely accept the passage through. I am through with it.

I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
(--from poem Hound Of Heaven, by Francis Thompson, 1859 - 1907)

If there was a mirror I would not recognize the reflection of what once was me looking back from an absurd looking absence. God has moved beyond me. What is left is no longer there.

We move shelves in bookshop. We open space. Last evening we read from Anam Cara by John O'Donohue. One to one, one at a time, the practice of presence, an act of wholeness.

The mind that is not always
caught up in details
is your only treasure.
Stop chasing details and become
still to feel it.
The mind that sees details clearly,
but is not caught up by them
is like a vast borderless mirror.
- Ji Aoi Isshi

Zen is borderless. Contemplation is boundaryless. Enter one to go beyond other.

Just because we love what we call God -- that doesn't mean anything. It is only what it is. In bare unconsoling experience, stark silence brings nothing with it.

Although she is alone, Wisdom can accomplish everything. She deploys her strength from one end of the earth to the other, ordering all things for good.
(--Wisdom 7:27 - 8:1)

We come here to be alone.

Pity Me Not

Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by.
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Or that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Or that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I always known: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales.
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
(Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay)

When someone loves you they participate in making you lonely for God. Likewise, they contribute sculpting your appearance lovely for God. The clay bits curling to floor from shaping knife rejoice being made extraneous to what is being sculpted itself being readied for God.

Absence is what remains when we are loved and loving one another as God is.

(We typically think presence is the antidote to or opposite of absence -- but it's not. Absence is the fullness of no-other. We only prefer 'fullness of no-other' be called 'presence', which is what it is. The problem we experience with this preference is that we do not know how to navigate the experience of absence or emptiness when it comes -- and it indeed comes. We do not want the fullness named absence. We prefer the fullness named presence. And so, despondence, depression, and despair overcome us. It is useful to begin to consider the implications of dissecting wholeness. We might include in that consideration the wording: Embodying the dwelling-place of the Alone; Stepping aside to make room for Another. We might happily face the question: What remains when who we thought we were goes away? And happily consider as response: Who's asking?)

We face a trinity of unexplainable activity: move away; move into; move through. Without any relative notation, we are invited to be the original work, suffused with fingerprint of creating. We are at origin. Nothing there but this and only this one appearing before you. Attend this revelation, this sacrifice, this holy and unbegotten being with your name.

This is the blank mirror.

Look carefully. Emptying.

Be seen nowhere.

Shut up. Go home.

Silence.

Salvus.

Nothing.

As it is.

Now.

I see.

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

Jack led Thursday Evening Conversation on A Course in Miracles. In it -- Workbook Lesson 9: "I see nothing as it is now."

I love the intuition that words are not servants of thought. Words are themselves windows through which sheer reality looks. Words want to be seen through.

Do we?

1129

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
(Poem by Emily Dickinson)

"Here" is what has happened with language: war (and) love.

Between war and love is a window of words waiting for transparent viewing. Contrary to common opinion, seeing is not believing. Seeing is (merely, only, and wonderfully) seeing alone.

the great advantage of being alive
(instead of undying)is not so much
that mind no more can disprove than prove
what heart may feel and soul may touch
—the great(my darling)happens to be
that love are in we,that love are in we
(1st stanza of e.e.cummings poem, The Great Advantage Of Being Alive)

One of the great joys of being alive instead of undead, is poetry.

"...as far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art is and was and forever will be strictly and distinctively a question of individuality. If poetry were anything-like dropping an atom bomb-which anyone did, anyone could become a poet just by doing the necessary anything; whatever that necessary anything might or might not entail. But (as it happens) poetry is being, not doing. If you wish to follow, even at a distance, the poet's calling (and here, as always, I speak from my own totally biased and entirely personal point of view), you've got to come out of the measurable doing universe into the immeasurable house of being. I am quite aware that, wherever our so-called civilization has slithered, there's every reward and no punishment for unbeing. But if poetry is your goal, you've got to forget all about punishments and all about rewards and all about self-styled obligations and duties and responsibilities etcetera ad infinitum and remember one thing only: that it's you-nobody else-who determine your destiny and decide your fate. Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else. Toms can be Dicks and Dicks can be Harrys, but none of them can ever be you. There's the artist's responsibility; and the most awful responsibility on earth. If you can take it, take it -and be. If you can't, cheer up and go about other peoples business and do (or undo) till you drop."
(--e.e.cummings, i: SIX NONLECTURES (1953), "i & their son: NONLECTURE TWO")

If poetry is being, written -- what dare we say about seeing (as it is)?

[l(a]

l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness
(--Poem by e.e.cummings)

As alone as this leaf, a January path in frozen woods, the silence.

a total stranger one black day

a total stranger one black day
knocked living the hell out of me--

who found forgiveness hard because
my(as it happened)self he was

-but now that fiend and i are such
immortal friends the other's each
(--Poem by e.e.cummings)

When we learn to live with what-is-self, all our other selves, (the ones we like to call not-really-me, or enemy) dissolve and disappear. We accomplish nothing more than the destruction of a fundamental illusion. Each sip from that cup of Chai tea makes of the other what is oneself. Sip coffee. Sip milk. Sip water. Sip juice. Sip the sound of another's voice. Sip the sight of another's presence. Sip and be saved from delusion by what is taken into one's self -- we are not anything other than the sipping. Sip away and slip away from whatever you think you are. You are not what you think you are. You are -- (emphatically, transparently, parenthetically) -- what you (alone) only are.

As the words reveal:

I see.

Now.

As it is.

Nothing.

This
(Alone) --
is our real nature --
with One
Another

(!) or is it (?)

(There is no-choice, so
choose now)
(Poem by w.f.halpin)

A day with dust discarding accumulated debris, liberating windows for daylight, and moving things about in our small space by harbor. It is disconcerting what we hold onto; discouraging why we do so. It is time to practice seeing through.

The true person is
Not anyone in particular;
But like the deep blue color
Of the limitless sky,
It is everyone,
Everywhere in the world.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

Reading Wayne Teasdale at Wednesday Laura Soul Friend Conversation at bookshop. A realm of quiet wandered between words and thoughts. Awareness, he wrote, is eternal, cosmic, and divine sensitivity. Patricia said that, when told by someone they thought they were too sensitive, she says,: Yes, exquisitely sensitive!
ex·qui·site Pronunciation (kskw-zt, k-skwzt)adj.
1. Characterized by intricate and beautiful design or execution: an exquisite chalice.
2. Of such beauty or delicacy as to arouse intense delight: an exquisite sunset. See Synonyms at delicate.
3. Excellent; flawless: plays the piano with exquisite technique.
4. Acutely perceptive or discriminating: "Blind dolphins have been known to survive in the wild, guided by exquisite acoustic images of their prey" Kenneth Browser.
5. Intense; keen: suffered exquisite pain.
6. Obsolete Ingeniously devised or thought out.
[Middle English exquisit, carefully chosen, from Latin exqustus, past participle of exqurere, to search out : ex-, ex- + quaerere, to seek.]
(The Free Dictionary)

Before dawn the waning moon, even in diminished curve of cycle, illuminates barnyard and kitchen roof. I don't doubt the presence of the Holy One -- it's just, at this time of personal spiritual darkness -- I see, feel, and think nothing of that presence. It is a time of one foot in front of another along a Via Negativa.

How desirable are all his works,
how dazzling to the eye!
They all live and last for ever,
whatever the circumstances all obey him.
All things go in pairs, by opposites,
and he has made nothing defective;
the one consolidates the excellence of the other,
who could ever be sated with gazing at his glory?

Pride of the heights, shining vault,
so, in a glorious spectacle, the sky appears.
The sun, as he emerges, proclaims at his rising,
‘A thing of wonder is the work of the Most High!’
At his zenith he parches the land,
who can withstand his blaze?
A man must blow a furnace to produce any heat,
the sun burns the mountains three times as much;
breathing out blasts of fire,
flashing his rays he dazzles the eyes.
Great is the Lord who made him,
and whose word speeds him on his course.

And then the moon, always punctual,
to mark the months and make division of time:
the moon it is that signals the feasts,
a luminary that wanes after her full.
The month derives its name from hers,
she waxes wonderfully in her phases,
banner of the hosts on high,
shining in the vault of heaven.
(--from Ecclesiasticus 42:15 - 43:13)

If even one person comes to see what no one else sees, there is opening for everyone. We must practice this understanding. What you see I am also given to see, whether I am yet ready to see it. Each journey into the realm of truth is gift for every person. We are not alone. We are profoundly connected and interconnected with one another. "Christ" is this shared revelation. So we live, now not "I," but Christ lives with/in us.

"Every one of us is a mystic. We may or may not realize it, we may not even like it. But whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery. We have been given the gift of life in this perplexing world to become who we ultimately are: creatures of boundless love, caring compassion, and wisdom. Existence is a summons to the eternal journey of the sage - the sage we all are, if only we could see."
(--Brother Wayne Teasdale, in The Mystic Heart)

Have we been looking for God in all the substitute places instead of where the Divine One dwells?

The one Divine Presence is behind it all, in every age. This insight has significance for peace-making in Asia, the Pacific, really indeed everywhere, and it is very meaningful as a major resource for transformation as we embrace the monumental task of reshaping our global political and economic culture.

The elements of a universal spirituality, or mysticism include: (1) actualized moral capacity, (2) solidarity with the earth and all beings, (3) deep nonviolence, (4) humility of heart, (5) spiritual practice, (6) mature self-knowledge, (7) simplicity of life and lifestyle, (8) love in action--compassionate service, and (9) prophetic voice and action. All these aspects work together, and are essential to a fully formed and operative spiritual life in any part of the world.

[...A]n awakened contemplative, mystic, saint, or anyone aspiring to be so, understands the intrinsic interdependence of all beings, all sentient beings, and certainly all human persons. Such a one grasps inwardly, existentially, this ontological truth of the interconnectivity of all life. It leads one to a deep sense of solidarity with all beings, and especially with the earth itself, our mother, and the basis of our material, aesthetic, and even our spiritual life here in this world. This interdependence is the ontological condition of humankind, and further, the social, economic, and political interdependence exist because of the deeper interconnection of all beings. Each of the great world religions attests to the essential, ontological interdependence of all being. Hinduism speaks of non-duality, Buddhism of dependent arising, Christianity of the Mystical Body of Christ, all of which indicate a unitive holding of reality together. It is out of this ontological condition that the sense of solidarity emerges in the mystic’s vision of how he or she is related to everyone else.
(--from Spirituality as a Primary Resource in Promoting Peace, Unpublished manuscript by Wayne Teasdale), http://home.comcast.net/%7Ebrotherwayne/korea.htm

Patricia's Black Lab (Rumi) slobbered knees and wrists as usual as conversation went on at the shop. His tail thumped counter and bakery case as words "spirit" and "word" and "presence" settled like warm touches on his gentle back.

“The real revolution, the definitive revolution, is the spiritual awakening of humanity. The real revolution is one that goes to the radical core of human limitation and raises that up to transformation, to development. Unless that happens, the seeds of corruption are still going to be there — and the seeds of inequity, of exploitation, and of a selfish, greedy existence that neglects the welfare of the masses and of the planet.”
(—Brother Wayne Teasdale, in Transforming the Seeds of Corruption)

It is by the fruits of a person or a nation that we know them. Not by ideology; not by wealth or power; not by protestations of error or proclamation of any type. But by fruits. What are we actually doing to serve a suffering people in a troubling time?

We have to become what we really are. Become true. Become a person. See ourselves through and through. As One...Another!

"The true person is...everyone, everywhere in the world." Dogen reminds us to practice what is true to be enlightened by who and what we are. This is the revolution.

See this through.

We must not lose our ability to see, feel, and think.

A conservative friend cautioned against "hate, criticism, and condemnation." He's right about the warning. In today's environment of fear and delusion any statement telling what you see, feel, or think might easily be spun into threat or danger to those in power intent only on security of the nation and its interests.

It is now dangerous to see, feel, or think.

If you want to be free, get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance, no root,
No basis, no abode, but is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility, but its function
Cannot be located; when you look for it you become
Further from it. When you seek it
You turn away from it all the more.
- Rinzai ( d.867?)

There have always been times disagreement was necessary and argument vital. They are good activities of mind, heart, and soul. We need not fear such exchange. But if fear is the desired effect, then demonize dissent, mock intellectual evaluation, and punish differing perspectives. This is how people become disheartened and nations deteriorate as they slip into disintegration.

The waves of death flooded round me, the torrents of Belial tossed me about,
the cords of the underworld wound round me, death’s traps opened before me.
(--from Psalm 18)

It is an odd time of civilization. Fear flows from every direction: terrorists want to kill anybody interfering in their ideology; democracies want to kill anyone interfering with that notion of political rule; criminals want to kill those interfering with their crimes; capitalists want to kill (metaphorically and economically) their competitors; and powerful people want to kill any restrictions to their increasing power. We seem enamored with the idea and practice of killing.

Contemplation Of The Sword

Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assasin and poisoner.

The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible
baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,
mass-tourture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man's forhead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for
happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.

Dear God, who are the whole splendor of things and the sacred
stars, but also the cruelty and greed, the treacheries
And vileness, insanities and filth and anguish: now that this
thing comes near us again I am finding it hard
To praise you with a whole heart.
I know what pain is, but pain can shine. I know what death is,
I have sometimes
Longed for it. But cruelty and slavery and degredation,
pestilence, filth, the pitifulness
Of men like hurt little birds and animals . . . if you were
only
Waves beating rock, the wind and the iron-cored earth,
With what a heart I could praise your beauty.
You will not repent, nor cancel life, nor free man from anguish
For many ages to come. You are the one that tortures himself to
discover himself: I am
One that watches you and discovers you, and praises you in little
parables, idyl or tragedy, beautiful
Intolerable God.
The sword: that is:
I have two sons whom I love. They are twins, they were born
in nineteen sixteen, which seemed to us a dark year
Of a great war, and they are now of the age
That war prefers. The first-born is like his mother, he is so
beautiful
That persons I hardly know have stopped me on the street to
speak of the grave beauty of the boy's face.
The second-born has strength for his beauty; when he strips
for swimming the hero shoulders and wrestler loins
Make him seem clothed. The sword: that is: loathsome disfigurements,
blindness, mutilation, locked lips of boys
Too proud to scream.
Reason will not decide at last: the sword will decide.
(Poem, Contemplation Of The Sword, by Robinson Jeffers)

We become desperate. Hopelessness, however, need not be destination -- it can be a place from which to begin new journey.

Perhaps we see peace where our leaders only see war.
Maybe we feel compassion and love where our leaders can only feel arrogant vengeance.
It's possible to think more intuitively about paths for humans dwelling together in this world, rather than think about strategies to dominate and subjugate those differing from us.

Let this be today's practice -- to see, feel, and think -- in the open.

"Don't do it!" some say, "Don't look, feel, or think -- it's too dangerous."

John O'Donohue said it clearly in Anam Cara: "Time is eternity living dangerously."

What we call "Christ" is template for this life.

What we call "Buddha" is awakening this journey.

See truth. Feel courage. Think lively.

It is a trek with lovely view, authentic feeling, and inspiring thought.

The annoying thing about zen is not knowing whether you want to smack the know-it-all in the head, or, whether the don't-know-at-all will be smacking you in the head. Either way is a headache.

The wisdom of Enlightenment is
Inherent in every one of us.
It is because of the delusion
Under which our mind works
That we fail to realize it ourselves,
And that we have to seek
The advice and the guidance of Enlightened ones.
- Hui-neng (638-713)

I prefer no-smacking. We, of course, should go out of our way to tumble one another with words and acrobatics along the lines of Tom Stoppard's "Rosencranz & Guildenstern are Dead" -- surprising and being surprised by the ability to say "yes" or "no" when saying so does so at the right time for so doing.

Often we take to our lives with shaking hands.

After Dinner

She's eaten dinner talking
back to the television, she's
had coffee and brandy, done
the dishes and drifted into
and out of sleep over a book
she found beside the couch. It's
time for bed, but she goes
instead to the front door, unlocks
it, and steps onto the porch.
Behind her she can hear only
the silence of the house. The lights
throw her shadow down the stairs
and onto the lawn, and she walks
carefully to meet it. Now she's
standing in the huge, whispering
arena of night, hearing her
own breath tearing out of her
like the cries of an animal.
She could keep going into
whatever the darkness brings,
she could find a presence there
her shaking hands could hold
instead of each other.
(Poem: "After Dinner" by Philip Levine, from A Walk With Thomas Jefferson.)

My prayer remains with individuals. Like the woman in the poem, like many men and women in the world, the longing to find presence in the dark arena of night is a longing we all know.

Better worlds (I suggest) are born, not made: and their birthdays are the birthdays of individuals. Let us pray always
for individuals; never for worlds.
--e.e. cummings

Let there be born to us individuals who better this world, this existence, this night moving to new light.

Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow;
They toil not, neither do they spin;
And yet I say unto you,
that even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.
(--Christ's words, Matt 6: 28-30)

No toil. No spin.

Just this.

Zen.

Here at the hermitage chilly rain falls. At practice last evening sky was clear. Krishnamurti was quoted as saying: "I don't mind what happens."

It was nice to have his words visit. When no thought intrudes between what is there and our inner illumined realization of it -- then, we know "what happens." We don't "mind" it, we become what is happening. We embody the kindness of profound reality. We know it -- not from any outside point of view -- but we know it with and as our whole being.

In Soto Zen, the practice is just realizing; we meditate as earnestly as the Buddha himself did, and it is not a question of waiting for satori. We understand that the value of this practice of earnest sitting in meditation is how the Buddha light is brought out into our world. If it is done, then naturally through the Buddha heart our human nature is elevated. There is no distinction here of sharp or dull or clever or stupid. It is a fact that anyone who devotes themselves wholeheartedly to spiritual meditation without wavering reaches the supreme state.
--Takashina Rosen (1876-1968) Excerpted from A First Zen Reader

Christmas season liturgically ends. Magi return wondering about the "uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor" (Yeats). Baptism is held and John is surprised to learn the man he pours water on is who he actually is. In neighborhoods and households many take down decorations and box away lights and tinsel. They wonder from time to time if they are actually who they are.

A feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to think that John might be the Christ, so John declared before them all, ‘I baptise you with water, but someone is coming, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
--Luke 3:15 - 22

John could have been the Christ. As far as he knew he might have been a madman lost in the desert. He opened his mouth and spoke fiery words filled with spirit recalling other desert prophets who themselves probably suspected they were madmen. The desert is where madmen go to find their God. And God is where the desert becomes the human heart longing for water and spirit.

The Death of a Soldier

Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.

He does not become a three-days personage,
Imposing his separation,
Calling for pomp.

Death is absolute and without memorial,
As in a season of autumn,
When the wind stops,

When the wind stops and, over the heavens,
The clouds go, nevertheless,
In their direction.

(Poem: "The Death of a Soldier" by Wallace Stevens from Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. Alfred A Knopf.)

The American president plans to send more American troops to the nation he invaded. This is something he can do. He is president of a country that can bomb and invade anywhere it wants. Some say it is God's favored country. You have to embrace a particular theology to balance the will of God with the will of the American president.

I fill bird feeder. The coffee is "Oso Negro" from British Columbia Canada. Heather's brother sends it to us at her request. We are grateful. The theology feels right: friendship plus coffee with conversation and respect equals planetary-divine-human spirituality sprinkled with kindness.

Maybe kindness is what John baptized Jesus with. Maybe Jesus thought: "Wow! This is really sacred stuff!" Maybe the Dalai Lama is the only Christian. (We'd have to include Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi of Porbandar, Gujarat, India, Mother Teresa of Albania and Calcutta, and Josh of Warren). This 14th Dalai Lama -- Tenzin Gyatso -- is the head of state and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. Born Lhamo Dhondrub on 6 July 1935, in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet, he is widely quoted of late as saying: "My religion is simple. My religion is kindness!".

The religion of kindness might have been what called out over the Jordan River that day John doused Jesus. The sound heard was: "This is my child -- this pleases me -- listen to this one!" German theologians and philosophers lead the way through hermeneutics and phenomenological studies because they know that "kindness" and the German word for "child" ("kind") are mysteriously revelatory of Profound Reality.

This Profound Reality does not sanction the killing of children. It does not allow the murder of parents, brothers, sisters, or relatives of children. In fact, this Profound Reality takes a very dim view of individuals who engage in such behavior. Which is why something expedient needs be done to distract those who would send children to kill and be killed in foreign lands. What to do?

Maybe we can practice kindness. Kindness in speech, thought, actions, and prayer.

Kindness might also mean martyrdom. ("Oh God," you think, "there's that word again!")

The word martyr means witness. We can be witness for one another. We might practice seeing and hearing what is taking place with our brothers and sisters -- and present ourselves as would Profound Reality near or within their reality. [mar·tyr Pronunciation (märtr), n. 1. One who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce religious principles. 2. One who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause, or principle.] (Free Dictionary)

Of course we have principles left. They're not all sacrificed to security and political expediency. Our principle is kindness. Kindness and presence call forth heaven and earth into sacred being.

Kind is natural.

The Free Dictionary elaborates: kind 1 Pronunciation (knd)
adj. kind·er, kind·est
1. Of a friendly, generous, or warm-hearted nature.
2. Showing sympathy or understanding; charitable: a kind word.
3. Humane; considerate: kind to animals.
4. Forbearing; tolerant: Our neighbor was very kind about the window we broke.
5. Generous; liberal: kind words of praise.
6. Agreeable; beneficial: a dry climate kind to asthmatics.
[Middle English, natural, kind, from Old English gecynde, natural; see gen- in Indo-European roots.]

All other religions must consider folding into the religion of natural kindness. In fact, there are no "other" religions. There is no other in kindness. Each is treated and seen as themselves, oneself, itself -- each as it is -- a sacred appearance of profound reality.

But there is a catch with these appearances -- namely, each appearing being takes on the attributes of its mother and father. Those of us who look upon one another are mother and father to one another. We who listen to one another are parent to one another. And if we do not see nor hear one another, if we intentionally or unmindfully ignore one another, we make orphans and abused and neglected and feral one another.

Outside window, chilly rain continues to fall.

Mound of seed placed on top feeder is gone.

My family is practicing their religion.

Heed one another.

Feed one another.

Be kind.

At a meeting with dog, cat, mice, squirrel, and owl I plan to announce withdrawal of support for the American war with Iraq. I suppose I'll have to provide food to feed them at the meeting lest they begin to eat each other.

Deep green needles glow
Against a cobalt sky;
They radiate something
Only a few can sense.
Snow white peaks,
Summits shrouded in clouds,
Shine and echo,
Shine and echo
Through both sides
Of the skin line.
Oh, in all this lies
Some deep implication,
Yet when I try to say more,
I become silent, mute.
- Ji Aoi Isshi

The implication of support for the war will revive the ancient American metaphysical question (a question more difficult to comprehend than Fibonacci numbers and their sequence) whether it is possible to not support the war and yet still support the troops. The commander in chief of American forces will decide the matter with a signing statement on legislation intent on condemning the ongoing war by consigning the troops with condemnation and vengeance that "are fine, saith the sword." (It takes a rare grasp of etymology to insinuate multiple Freudian slips of such biblical proportions.)

Guys Like That

Drive very nice cars, and from
where you sit in your dented
last-century version of the
most ordinary car in America, they

look dark-suited and neat and fast.
Guys like that look as if they are thinking
about wine and marble floors, but
really they are thinking about TiVo

and ESPN. Women think that guys
like that are different from the guys
driving the trucks that bring cattle
to slaughter, but guys like that are

planning worse things than the death
of a cow. Guys who look like that —
so clean and cool — are quietly moving
money across the border, cooking books,

making deals that leave some people
rich and some people poorer
than they were before guys like that
robbed them at the pump and on

their electricity bills, and even
now, guys like that are planning how
to divide up that little farm they just
passed, the one you used to call home.

(Poem: "Guys Like That" by Joyce Sutphen.)

Dog, cat, mice, squirrel, and owl will, no doubt, not care what happens in Washington DC, Baghdad, Iraq or even Heavenly Realms, Mind of God. They'll just want the meeting over. They'll want to get back to their daily schedule of walk and snooze, pounce and snooze, gnaw and snooze, filch nuts and snooze, and lastly, hoot and snooze. I'll tell them: "Watch the news!" But they won't, being averse to the embarrassment of human reruns.

‘Console my people, console them’
says your God.
‘Speak to the heart of Jerusalem
and call to her
that her time of service is ended,
that her sin is atoned for,
that she has received from the hand of the Lord
double punishment for all her crimes.’
(from Isaiah 40: 1-ff)

Our double punishment is the lie we both tell and suffer. Truth is you can't support the war nor can you support the troops. It's a false choice, a false dualism.

The troops are out in a wasteland. They are dying and have no hope. The war is that wasteland. It kills and maims and its very name is hopelessness.

Back in the United States, Christians celebrate the feast of Epiphany -- the revelation of sacred truth in our midst, the fulfillment of ancient hopes in the being of a child who comes as embodiment of divine love and compassion. It is a wonderful narrative. It is a lovely story.

Tell me again this story of hope.

What shone through? Was it true back then?

Was there once a fusion and conjoining -- a meeting revelation of wholeness and union? If so, where did it go?

Is the meeting adjourned?

Who is wise? Who are Magi? What magic is sought? Why ask?

Above all, don’t wish to become a future Buddha;
Your only concern should be,
As thought follows thought,
To avoid clinging to any of them.
- Dogen (1200 – 1253)

I ask because I no longer wish to cling to any thought. I wish no longer to be tied to belief. What remains?

What remains is inquiry. We ask in order to enter the question, not to find answer. To be called into question is great reprieve from prison of certitude.

I no longer know "why". Still, I am invited into what "why" investigates. We read. We listen. We watch. We ask. Then, as if some magical portal manifests from nowhere, we are invited into the question itself.

The question itself!

The Magi

Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
(poem The Magi, by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

Most explanation is unsatisfactory.

T.S. Eliot contributes:

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death?
There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
(from poem, The Journey of The Magi, by T.S. Elliot )

Death might be the letting go of knowing and entering the question of Being.

For which, there is no answer.

Only (some say) Being Itself. Some say -- God. What do you say?

I don't know what to say, nor why I have nothing to say. But we have to say something.

I say -- Wisdom attends.

There!

And here.

Manifesting.

Each one of us.

"Time is eternity living dangerously." (p.xix, Anam Cara, John O'Donohue)

We live dangerously any time we appear in the world. The world is a dangerous place. That's one of the reasons we so seldom show up as who we really are. Instead, masks and roles, costume and persona cloak and front for us. So many of us become the thing we fear. Do we fear ourselves?

When people of the world
Look for this path amid the clouds,
It vanishes,
Without a trace.
The high peaks
Have many precipices;
On the widest gulleys
Hardly a gleam falls.
Green walls close
Behind and before;
White clouds gather
East and west.
Do you want to know
Where the cloud-path lies?
The cloud-path leads from sky to sky.
- Han Shan

Everything is already and always itself. Itself, understood with clear mind, is nothing other than our true self without fear. What exists without fear?

Love. And love is allowing what-is to be itself with compassionate attention.

Imagine a very poor man living in a decrepit little shanty, the only thing he owns in the world. What he does not know is that just beneath his shanty, but hidden in the dirt, is an inexhaustible vein of gold. As long as he remains ignorant of his hidden wealth, this pauper remains in poverty; but when he attends more closely to his own dwelling, he is bound to discover his own fathomless wealth. Similarly, all we need to do is unveil our own nature, and we will find an inexhaustible source of wisdom, compassion, and power. It is nothing we need to acquire, from anywhere or anything. It has always been there. Seen in this light, the Buddha-nature requires no additions. One does not have to memorize sutras, recite prayers or accumulate virtues to create it. All one needs to do is unveil it.
(--B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up, from Everyday Mind)

I think of some people I've spent time with. They are dangerous. Some are in prison for crimes. Some see their task as keeping them in prison. The thing about prison is that everyone connected with prison is in prison. Even those of us not in prison -- we, too, share the fate of prisoners. This is a troubling fact. It is a difficulty of our time. As Bo Lazoff writes, "We're All Doing Time."

Time, said O'Donohue, is eternity living dangerously. Do you have the time?

My ideas and thoughts about time or about you are mostly illusions. For this I apologize. It is difficult to live a truthful life without illusions.

We must forgive and be forgiven this difficulty and those of us who fail so noticeably at it.

We practice impermanence because impermanence is perfection and practice is enlightenment as is enlightenment practice.

This takes time.

Dangerously.

"Light is the secret presence of the divine. It keeps life awake." (p.25, Anam Cara, John O'Donohue)

A new earth comes with sunrise this morning. A clear light shines luminous from deep emptiness of space.

The demons, he said, will haunt us if we remain afraid. If you cannot be intimidated by those whose power is based on fear, you are not their victim. To live without fear has theological implication. Deity is not fearsome. Deity is natural. One's own mystery revealed in the simplicity step after step of this day.

Eye cannot see It,
Tongue cannot utter It,
Mind cannot grasp It.
There is no way to learn or to teach It.
It is different from the known,
Beyond the unknown.
In this all the ancient masters agree.
- Upanishads

It is possible to drop all belief and still experience that which belief pointed to. Belief is a direction to aim. Reality, especially sacred reality, is unadulterated point and that which is pointing.

The Long Boat

When his boat snapped loose
from its mooring, under
the screaking of the gulls,
he tried at first to wave
to his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.
Too tired even to choose
between jumping and calling,
somehow he felt absolved and free
of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:
conscience, ambition, and all
that caring.
He was content to lie down
with the family ghosts
in the slop of his cradle,
buffeted by the storm,
endlessly drifting.
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way was home;
as if he didn't know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.
(Poem by Stanley Kunitz)

It doesn't matter which way is home. Home is way itself. Enter way with open heart, arrive where you are at origin.

But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him"
(1 Cor 2:9)

Maria will have heart surgery early next week. She and Tom stay after Course in Miracles for Thai food. We hug in parking lot.

Just as the water flows under the ground so those who seek it find it, without thought, without end, its effective power all-pervasive, Buddha Knowledge is also like this, being in all creatures' minds; if any work on it with diligence, they will soon find the light of knowledge.
(--The Flower Ornament Scripture, trans. by Thomas Cleary, from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith,)

This light is the secret presence of the divine.

It's no secret.

Wake and see.

Some feel there is nothing to teach. Still, one must say something.

It is noteworthy... that the story of the Buddha's spiritual journey climaxes with his enlightenment but does not end there. Even as he was savoring the blissful state that followed his awakening, he was approached (in the traditional account) by a delegation of gods, who begged him to give up his private ecstasy so he could share his awakening with those who still suffered. This encounter and its outcome, however legendary, make the point that spiritual maturity includes the ability to actualize transcendent insight in daily life. The Buddha is said to have wandered across northern India for forty years, tirelessly teaching the dharma. His decision to arise from his seat under the Bo tree and go out into the world can be considered the first step of a socially engaged Buddhism. The Buddha's discourses, which had revolutionary force in the society of his time, include countless passages dealing with "this-worldly" topics such as politics, good government, poverty, crime, war, peace, and ecology.
(-Kenneth Kraft, Inner Peace, World Peace, from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith)

There comes a time when someone will talk us through the "in-between state" -- the bardo -- of our passing through this existence into and through another.

If we imagine history running back in time, we inevitably come to the epoch of the "big squeeze" with all the galaxies, stars, atoms and atomic nuclei squeezed, so to speak, to a pulp. During that early stage of evolution, matter must have been dissociated into its elementary components.... We call this primordial mixture ylem.

At this first point in the evolution of the present cycle, according to this first-rank physicist, there existed only the Unbecome, the Unborn, the Unformed. And this, according to astrophysicists, is the way it will end; the silent unity of the Unformed. The Tibetan Buddhists suggest that the uncluttered intellect can experience what astrophysics confirms.
(--from First Bardo: The Period of Ego-Loss or Non-Game Ecstasy (Chikhai Bardo)
Part I: The Primary Clear Light Seen At the Moment of Ego-Loss.Tibetan Book of the Dead)

We must keep going, no matter what the sense of loss or emptiness, uncertainty or disillusionment.

Luke Chapter 9
1
He summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases,
2
and he sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal (the sick).
3
He said to them, "Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic.
4
Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there.
5
And as for those who do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them."

That "nothing" we are told to take, that empty handed openness we are asked to traverse with humility and courage -- that too must be left, that too is to be dropped.

If there is anything to say, then say it.

May it be one clear, authentic, word.

Stay.

Or leave.

With.

This.

Word.

Zendo mates make noise. Mu-ge takes break from on-guard station by cellar door to lay on back by brown chair leg, stretching against it. Cesco, head on bell-striker alongside wheat hull zafu, gurgles like a pipe moving uncertain contents reluctantly elsewhere. I find my breath. Where has it been? We are sitting just before 3am. It is, otherwise, quiet.

Calming the Mind

Too much knowledge
Leads to overactivity;
Better to calm the mind.
The more you consider,
The greater the loss;
Better to unify the mind.
- Shih Wang Ming (6th century)

I no longer understand the fuss about night and day. I read about Basil and Gregory.Their fete is today.

The Emperor Valens (364-­378), who unsparingly dispatched bishops displeasing to him into exile, was a resolute supporter of the Arians. He planted Arianism in other provinces in Asia Minor and came to Cappadocia with the same aim. He sent the Prefect Modestus to Basil in order to convince the hierarch to join the Arians. Modestus threatened him with ruin, exile, tortures and even death. St. Gregory tells of Basil the Great's response: "Thou threatenest me with the confiscation of property, but it means nothing for the man who possesses nothing, unless thou desirest to receive this modest clothing and a few books which make up all my estate. Exile? - but I do not know it, since I am not limited by space. If this ground on which I stand right now does not belong to me, then the whole earth belongs to God, Whose temporary guest I am. Torments? - but they do not have power over one not having flesh, except perhaps for the first blow, which thou art free to make. Death? - but it will be deliverance for me, since it will quickly bring me to God, for Whom I live and to a greater extent have died, and to Whom I hasten to come...Tell the Emperor that neither violence nor persuasion will force me to accept a wrong teaching." Modestus was struck by these words. (http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/saints/basil_great.htm)

Words embody us. They make us solid and present. Basil appeared in his word. So do we. This is why it is frightening to use words. They cause us to appear. Some of us use silence to remain invisible. That could be a wonderful way of being. Then again, others of us use silence to render unreal someone for whom words would confirm their being. The power of words has never detached from magical consciousness. Say...and see. It worked for the Eternal Creating Being. It still works. We make someone appear or disappear with words. Saying: "I love you," births being and beings. Saying: "Be dead, hang, depart from me, I hate you," erases being and beings.

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
(-Matthew 23:8-12)

Humility is coming to earth. There are other words that send us into realms of power, security, control, dominance, fear, selfishness, or arrogance. But it is wording and embodying humility that brings us to earth -- deposits us feet first squarely in concert with the elements of this creation, this Gaia, this planet, this soil, this land, this breathing vision of integral incarnation with all living being and beings

Before the Sky Darkens

Sunsets, incipient storms, the tableaus
of melancholy—maybe these are
the Saturday night-events
to take your best girl to. At least then
there might be moments of vanishing beauty
before the sky darkens,
and the expectation of happiness
would hardly exist
and therefore might be possible.

More and more you learn to live
with the unacceptable.
You sense the ever-hidden God
retreating even farther,
terrified or embarrassed.
You might as well be a clown,
big silly clothes, no evidence of desire.

That's how you feel, say, on a Tuesday.
Then out of the daily wreckage
comes an invitation
with your name on it. Or more likely,
that best girl of yours offers you,
once again, a small local kindness.

You open your windows to good air
blowing in from who knows where,
which you gulp and deeply inhale
as if you have a death sentence. You have.
All your life, it seems, you've been appealing it.
Night sweats and useless stratagem. Reprieves.
(Poem by Stephen Dunn)

Given a reprieve, a man will stare into the deep of night and no longer crave the dawn. We learn to live with the unacceptable. We look under our feet. We are standing on the earth. Above our heads, at a distance beyond roof of barn, white specks of star sign darkness with signature presence silent earth wordlessly absorbs.

All is.

Well.

This.

Morning practice.

"Mother?"

I can barely see you.

Icy rain. Cat licks. Dog's head under couch. Fog at Bald. Creaks from upstairs hallway enter winter zendo. Everything sits meditation.

Time for clearer view of one's life presents itself.

There is a simple way to become a buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome action, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else.
--Zen Master Dogen, Moon in a Dewdrop, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi

Saddam has fallen through trap and is back under ground. Bush imagines the number 3000, divides it by 2006 over 2007, subtracts 24 months remaining to his office -- and worries what answer will compute.

The observant today think Theotokos and celebrate Mary's Solemnity and consider what it means to say she is the God-bearer, the one who gives birth to God, Mother of God Incarnate -- Mary as Mother of God.

If earth, then Mary. If God, then earth. If January 1st, then fire in wood stove, coffee on stove, and lute on radio.

Some say that everything happens for a reason. I'm uncertain of that belief. I think that everything happens because it happens. This belief is the mother of such children as "Shit Happens" as well as "Kindness Happens." We have a large family, as it happens. Some of our brothers and sisters, though hard to take, are still family.

What was born of Mary was therefore human by nature, in accordance with the inspired Scriptures, and the body of the Lord was a true body: It was a true body because it was the same as ours. Mary, you see, is our sister, for we are all born from Adam.
The words of St John, the Word was made flesh, bear the same meaning, as we may see from a similar turn of phrase in St Paul: Christ was made a curse for our sake. Man’s body has acquired something great through its communion and union with the Word. From being mortal it has been made immortal; though it was a living body it has become a spiritual one; though it was made from the earth it has passed through the gates of heaven.
Even when the Word takes a body from Mary, the Trinity remains a Trinity, with neither increase nor decrease. It is for ever perfect. In the Trinity we acknowledge one Godhead, and thus one God, the Father of the Word, is proclaimed in the Church.
(from A letter of St Athanasius, Office of Readings)

There will be a new understanding of what "church" is and is to become. It is time for a transformed consciousness that steps beyond into the open. What we've believed too long is that "God" fits within the box of our thoughts and concepts, that we own God, or, at least, we do God's bidding and therefore, by extension, are soldiers in his army carrying out his commands and wielding his power for him. It is a metaphor and belief that has been God-awful.

The Kernal of Free Inquiry
(It is said that Siddhartha Gautama, while with the Kalama people, was asked how to discern Truth. His words are reported as follows.)

"It is essential to doubt, to question all things deeply, to inquire, examine, inspect and experiment.”

“Do not rely on what another says, be they a friend, a monk, a respected teacher or even a sage.”

“Do not rely on what tradition implies, mainstream culture dictates or what scripture may state.”

“Do not rely on comforting beliefs born of favorable ideas, traditional views, logical reflection, careful analysis or deep pondering.”

“Only when you know directly - having put them to the practical test of free and active inquiry, of living, dynamic embodiment and experience - 'these things are destructive; when enacted they lead to harm', then abandon them. And - 'these things are liberating; when enacted they lead to emancipation', then abide in them.

“Come to know directly - through the crucible of your own individual life - the truth that certain actions, thoughts and feelings lead to suffering - your own and that of other beings - then your vision will become clear.“

“Awakened Beings, with purified minds and harmonious of thought, word and deed, are those through whom boundless, panoramic dynamic peace is manifest in every event, in every moment and in every place.”

“Awakened Beings are complete, in need of no hereafter, and their Awakening precipitates the Awakening of sentient beings all around them.”
(--from The Engaged Zen Foundation, http://www.engaged-zen.org/Liturgy/Kernel.html

The path to freedom is paved with bare attention.

The Sudden Light And The Trees

My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog
and wife beater.
In bad dreams I killed him

and once, in the consequential light of day,
I called the Humane Society
about Blue, his dog. They took her away

and I readied myself, a baseball bat
inside my door.
That night I hear his wife scream

and I couldn't help it, that pathetic
relief; her again, not me.
It would be years before I'd understand

why victims cling and forgive. I plugged in
the Sleep-Sound and it crashed
like the ocean all the way to sleep.

One afternoon I found him
on the stoop,
a pistol in his hand, waiting,

he said, for me. A sparrow had gotten in
to our common basement.
Could he have permission

to shoot it? The bullets, he explained,
might go through the floor.
I said I'd catch it, wait, give me

a few minutes and, clear-eyed, brilliantly
afraid, I trapped it
with a pillow. I remember how it felt

when I got my hand, and how it burst
that hand open
when I took it outside, a strength

that must have come out of hopelessness
and the sudden light
and the trees. And I remember

the way he slapped the gun against
his open palm,
kept slapping it, and wouldn't speak.

(-- Poem by Stephen Dunn)

Let's not shoot sparrows. Let's be wary of those with guns wanting to shoot sparrows -- they are really after us. They are afraid we will denude controlling anger and deposit them in an open vulnerability where violence cannot, nor will not, go.

Maybe that's another way of understanding "mother." Like the French word "mere" (for "mother"), there is the English word "mere"-- (adj 1: being nothing more than specified; "a mere child" 2: apart from anything else; without additions or modifications; "only the bare facts".)

We practice mere gaze when we practice meditation. "Mere gaze" can be envisioned as "mothering gaze" and/or "bare gaze." A bare gaze is one that looks without making additions or modifications. This would be akin to looking at one another without judgment or evaluative motives, but resting in the reality as it presents itself.

Mere gaze -- is mothering. Mere gaze -- is bare attention.

This is how we assist one another in times of icy rain and hopelessness. This is how we support one another through times of motherless isolation and nonspeaking abandonment. We present ourselves as nothing other than merely who and what we are -- attentive, listening, and engaging what is presenting itself before us.

This is how we mother God.

We present ourselves as nothing other than merely who and what we are -- attentive, listening, and engaging what is presenting itself before us.

We're meditating with that line. It can become, this new year of 2007, sudden light and trees.

We recall the words of Siddhartha Gautama:
"And 'these things are liberating; when enacted they lead to emancipation', then abide in them.
“Come to know directly - through the crucible of your own individual life."

Bearers of God, Mothers of God -- each and every one of you -- thank you for your crucial presence!

In this crucible, in this hollow place, we receive the melting form of our experience, and hold it with mere attention.

Happy New Year!