The absurdity is that we load a gun, point it at another's head, pull the trigger, are startled by loud blast, and then -- as if in a dream in someone else's sleep -- we find fault in the laxity of enforcement of laws prohibiting excessive noise.

This war is our nation's great shame.

Stop Pretending
The great teachings unanimously emphasize that all the peace, wisdom, and joy in the universe are already within us; we don't have to gain, develop, or attain them. Like a child standing in a beautiful park with his eyes shut tight, there's no need to imagine trees, flowers, deer, birds and sky; we merely need to open our eyes and realize what is already here, who we already are--as soon as we stop pretending we're small or unholy. I could characterize nearly any spiritual practice as simply being: identify and stop, identify and stop, identify and stop. Identify the myriad forms of delusion we place upon ourselves, and must the courage to stop each one. Little by little deep inside us, he diamond shines, the eyes open, the dawn rises, we become what we already are. Tat Twam Asi (Thou Art That).
(--Bo Lozoff, from 365 Nirvana, Here and Now by Josh Baran)

Somehow, we pretend we are not responsible for what our government is doing. We believe the hand is exonerated from the shame of what the fingers do. Blood is splattered on everything. Respectable men and women are pretending there is no blood on their faces and sleeves.

A time approaches when blood will dry. The murderers will have disappeared. Weeping will suddenly cease. Lies will drown in deep waters of silence.

Promise Of Peace

The heads of strong old age are beautiful
Beyond all grace of youth. They have strange quiet,
Integrity, health, soundness, to the full
They've dealt with life and been tempered by it.
A young man must not sleep; his years are war,
Civil and foreign but the former's worse;
But the old can breathe in safety now that they are
Forgetting what youth meant, the being perverse,
Running the fool's gauntlet and being cut
By the whips of the five senses. As for me,
If I should wish to live long it were but
To trade those fevers for tranquillity,
Thinking though that's entire and sweet in the grave
How shall the dead taste the deep treasure they have?
(--Poem by Robinson Jeffers)

It's not enough to say you love your country and your president. It no longer suffices to bluster and badger as if such crude primping were a badge of distinction worn by rude schoolyard bullies high on smack-down.

Someone, somewhere, must be sane.

Not here.

Not me.

I'm.

For.

Gone.

We are as we find out together we are what we are.

2. "Existence Precedes Essence"

Sartre's slogan — "existence precedes essence" — may serve to introduce what is most distinctive of existentialism, namely, the idea that no general, non-formal account of what it means to be human can be given, since that meaning is decided in and through existing itself. Existence is "self-making-in-a-situation" (Fackenheim 1961:37). In contrast to other entities, whose essential properties are fixed by the kind of entities they are, what is essential to a human being — what makes her who she is — is not fixed by her type but by what she makes of herself, who she becomes.[4] The fundamental contribution of existential thought lies in the idea that one's identity is constituted neither by nature nor by culture, since to "exist" is precisely to constitute such an identity. It is in light of this idea that key existential notions such as facticity, transcendence (project), alienation, and authenticity must be understood.

At first, it seems hard to understand how one can say much about existence as such. Traditionally, philosophers have connected the concept of existence with that of essence in such a way that the former signifies merely the instantiation of the latter. If "essence" designates what a thing is and "existence" that it is, it follows that what is intelligible about any given thing, what can be thought about it, will belong to its essence. It is from essence in this sense — say, human being as rational animal or imago Dei — that ancient philosophy drew its prescriptions for an individual's way of life, its estimation of the meaning and value of existence. Having an essence meant that human beings could be placed within a larger whole, a kosmos, that provided the standard for human flourishing. Modern philosophy retained this framework even as it abandoned the idea of a "natural place" for man in the face of the scientific picture of an infinite, labyrinthine universe. In what looks like a proto-existential move, Descartes rejected the traditional essential definitions of man in favor of a radical, first-person reflection on his own existence, the "I am." Nevertheless, he quickly reinstated the old model by characterizing his existence as that of a substance determined by an essential property, "thinking." In contrast, Heidegger proposes that "I" am "an entity whose what [essence] is precisely to be and nothing but to be" (Heidegger 1985:110; 1962:67). Such an entity's existing cannot, therefore, be thought as the instantiation of an essence, and consequently what it means to be such an entity cannot be determined by appeal to pre-given frameworks or systems — whether scientific, historical, or philosophical.
(from Existentialism, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy First published Mon 23 Aug, 2004, by Steven Crowell, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/)

What are we finding out? What do we understand by saying we are: "precisely to be and nothing but to be"?

Nothing but to be.

Authenticity.

Within.

Relationality.

Two seagulls sat each on a piling just off the patio. Nothing was tossed to them from balcony. The former tosser has found another residing place. The seagulls went their way.

The damp dusk chilled to bone.

To My Mother

I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of me, the way home,
or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
foresaw the worst that I might do,

and forgave before I could act,
causing me to smile now, looking back,
to see how paltry was my worst,
compared to your forgiveness of it

already given. And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven of which
we have heard, where those who love
each other have forgiven each other,

where, for that, the leaves are green,
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.
(Poem by Wendell Berry)

So much doesn't matter. We fret, we fuss, we escalate the smallest things. But, truth is, it doesn't matter.

What does matter is that however absurd we are, there are others who top our absurdity.

"Tolstoy died poor. " That's what Annie said tonight, after Lloyd read from one of Tolstoy's letters.

"In historical events great men - so-called - are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity."
(Leo Tolstoy, from War and Peace)

Free?

Maybe.

Unentangled.

Undismayed.

Is it.

Listening to the sound of what is taking place; looking at the sight of what is taking place. Engaging what is taking place with lovingkindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity -- we enter the vitality of May.

May I?

A woman remembers receiving chemo in a room with other women. She recalls feeling the love and care involved in the setting up and dispensing of the chemo. Sitting at Thursday Evening Conversation on lesson 123 of the Course in Miracles ( "I thank my Father for His gifts to me" ), she brings that experience to the circle in the bookstore.

We are looking at, perhaps even seeing, what is taking place.

As for me, I delight
in the everyday Way,
among mist-wrapped
vines and rocky caves.
Here in the wilderness
I am completely free,
with my friends,
the white clouds, idling forever.
There are roads,
but they do not reach the world;
since I am mindless,
who can rouse my thoughts?
On a bed of stone
I sit, alone in the night,
while the round moon
climbs up Cold Mountain.
- Han Shan

There's a variation of the Golden Rule taking place in her telling. It goes like this: Whatever is done to others is done to me.

There's both a chilling and heart-warming insight that comes with contemplation of interconnectiveness. It is this: We feel what we do to others; others feel what is done to us. It is all shared feeling, participatory experience. Such a communion of received reality seems, at first blush, wonderful. Then, frightening. Maybe, finally, just so.

The difficulty we experience in "receiving communion" is our unawareness of what is taking place.

We have grown used to thinking, analyzing, and interpreting. We have, correspondingly, forgotten much about feeling, presencing, and allowing/forgiving what is taking place.

The poet e.e.cummings wrote, "not to completely feel is thinking." We've grown so confused about matters of war, inequality, political deceit, and unkindness that we no longer know what to think. The configurations and complexities of contemporary economic, political, and moral considerations are making us numb. Not only do we not know what to think, we no longer feel what we feel. Our feelings about the chaos surrounding us have been referred to thinking, which has collapsed under the strain of absurdity, impotence, and fatalism.

Rest In Being --
Sitting quietly, feel what sits there. Explore the body you sit in. Observe the scintillating field of sensation we call the body.
Notice sensation's wordless quality.
Its sense of simply being humming through the body.
Go within sensation to that subtle presence by which the sensation is known. Feel the sensation within sensation.
Settle into that sense of being, of aliveness vibrating in each cell. Rest in being.
Just sit quietly and know. Let awareness sink into yourself. Know what knows. Experience directly that sense by which you imagine you exist. Enter it wholeheartedly. Sit in the center of that hum. Does it have a beginning? Does it have an ending? Or is there just a sense of endless being, unborn and undying? Don't ask the mind, which always limits itself with definitions, ask the heart, which cannot name it but always is it.
Rest in being.
(--Stephen Levine, from 365 Nirvana, Here and Now by Josh Baran)

This is how one/an/other is cured. Maybe there is no cure for cancer. Maybe there soon will be one. But in the meantime, instead of focusing attention on the disease of cancer, we might instead give our attention to the health of the individual person who perhaps is suffering the disease. We can help cure one another. With lovingkindness. With compassion. With appreciative or sympathetic joy. And with equanimity and balance.

What we give out, returns. What we receive, is given. We are an infinite going out and returning in -- a figure "8" of wandering away from center, then returning through center core enroute out around and back again.

If we feel the sound and feel the sight of what is taking place -- we have become what God longs to be -- presence, loving and simple presence.

since feeling is first

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis
(--poem by e.e. cummings)

Birds eat. Sun shines. Dog snoozes.

It is May!

The koan is simple. It takes the form of a statement: "Listen to the sound of what is being said."

The monk asked, "What is Buddha?" The master said, "Who are you?"
(--Joshu, quoted in 365 Nirvana, Here and Now)

A wonderful question.

Responding.

What is.

Being.

Said.

Full moon. Who would mistake the full moon for a hole in the night sky?

The Lost Necklace
...No special effort is necessary to realize the Self. All efforts are for eliminating the present obscuration of the Truth. A lady is wearing a necklace around her neck. She forgets it, imagines it to be lost and impulsively looks for it here, there and everywhere. Not finding it, she asks her friends if they found it anywhere, until one kind friend points to her neck and tells her to feel the necklace around her neck. The seeker does so and feels happy that the necklace is found. Again, when she meets other friends, they ask her if her lost necklace was found. She says, "yes" to them, as if it were lost and later recovered. Her happiness at re-discovering it round her neck is the same as if some lost property was recovered. In fact, she never lost it nor recovered it. And yet she was once miserable and now she is happy. So also with the Realization of the Self.
--Ramana Maharshi, 365 Nirvana, Here and Now

Do not seek, and you will not be found.

Anyone around my base is it.

Ready or not, there I go.

Home free!

We light candle and burn incense for Joseph this 1st of May.

St Joseph the Worker
The feast of Saint Joseph the Worker is not a mere Catholic copying of the Communist First of May – any more than Christmas is a mere copy of the pagan feast of Saturnalia.
The Christian view of work is diametrically opposed to the materialist view. A worker such as St Joseph is not a mere lump of labour – “1.00 human work units”. He is a person. He is created in God’s own image, and just as creation is an activity of God, so creation is an activity of the worker. The work we do echoes the glorious work that God has done. It may not be wasted; or abused; or improperly paid; or directed to wrong or pointless ends. To do any of these things is not oppression, it is sacrilege. The glory of the present economic system is when it gives so many, of whatever class, the chance to build and create something worthwhile, whether from their own resources, or in collaboration with others, or by attracting investment from others. But its shame is when that does not happen: when people are coerced, by greed or by poverty, into being “lumps of labour”. Whether the labour is arduous or not makes no difference; whether it is richly paid or not makes no difference.
(--http://www.universalis.com/)

We work because we are alive. When hands get dirty, we wash them. When someone asks for something, we attempt to serve.

Daily activity is nothing
Other than harmony within.
When each thing I do is
Without taking or rejecting,
There is no contradiction anywhere.
For whom is the majesty
Of red and purple robes?
The summit of the inner being
Has never been defiled by the dust of the world.
- P’ang Yun

Cesco still enjoys walking the mountain -- although, the circle we take grows shorter. A Border Collie, he's always working. We're merely his co-workers.

What a delight to be within his supervision.

Work well.

Sweet.

Sweat.

Nap.

The woman in the Bagel Shop said she was a non-participating member of a local small Christian church.

She was, however, interested in the cultivation of the Brahma Viharas, i.e., lovingkindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity.

The Brahma Viharas (Divine Abiding practices) are concentration practices that soften the heart and strengthen the mind. If we view the Buddha as a Doctor, the cultivations of metta (lovingkindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (appreciative joy), and upekkha (equanimity) were prescribed as medicines for that which ails us. We, who follow these wise directions, are the nurses administering the antidotes to suffering. With this perspective in mind:

Metta is the antidote to the poison of ill will.
Karuna counteracts symptoms associated with cruelty; the lack of mercy.
Mudita is the medicine for the pernicious symptoms of jealousy and envy.
Upekkha promotes homeostasis as it neutralizes clinging and craving and the insidious quality of indifference.
(--from the Brahma Vihara Foundation)

The coffee and conversation were helpful toward clarifying the Monday issues needing clearing conversation. Several people say hello and stop to settle lesser matters. The three of us are engaged in Spiritual Friendship Conversation in the public arena of coffee and bagels this rainy day.

It is pitiful that we are
living in a treasure mountain
but cannot see it.
If we develop an
enlightenment seeking mind,
everything becomes the
practice of enlightenment,
even if we are in the midst
of the various worlds of samsara.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

It is tempting to say: 'Life is not difficult, people are difficult.' Fact is, life is neither difficult nor easy. Life is unceasing surprise and incalculable grace placed before us. With our habits and conditioning, we, at times, behave in ways that are unskillful and troublesome. Hurts and disappointments result. So it is.

Life is life. I have no desire to make it other than what it is. I long only for what is source and sustenance of life. Prayer and meditation are doorway and window through which to look and pass into source and sustenance.

The Gardeners

In the spring she
drops the seeds, he
covers them. He
digs up the weeds.
She cuts the flowers.
She takes the blooms
and puts them in
every room. They soar
red from the tables, sprout
yellow from the shelves,
hang purple from
the ceiling, blue
from the edges of
lampshades. Clusters
of flowers sit in
tiny pots on every
windowsill, in open
cupboards, behind
the sink. He stands
beside her as she tosses
all the wilted leaves
into a rusty bucket.
This house is heaven's
door, the air gathering
the bashful smells of
blossoms, roots, cut
stems, wet dirt, new
and rotting leaves.
(--Poem, "The Gardeners" by Jack Ridl, from Broken Symmetry.)

It seems proportionate to say of ourselves (as of life) that we are "new / and rotting leaves."

This is as it is on hill behind feeder under fog through which rain falls where these eyes look on old brown leafy cloak on ground and light copper birthing bud on beech.

Air gathering.

Bored with war, America turns to baseball. Multimillionaire athletes take the field and calculate how many tens of thousands they are making just standing in the outfield for one inning. At home millions of fans watch and cheer the pitcher and hitter going through paces unfolding the drama of battle and wit, strength and good fortune.

The former Giants center-fielder summed it up with simplicity:

They throw the ball, I hit it.
They hit the ball, I catch it.
— Willie Mays

Everything else is propaganda.

Propaganda is "The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause."
Propagandist messages aim at influencing the opinions or behavior of people.

I look forward to a time when everything stands on its own and needs no propaganda, advertisement, explanation, or cheer-leading. Light will be what it is -- its own indication something is dwelling within. Something is, or will be, at home.

The Buddha's Last Instruction

"Make of yourself a light"
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal-a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.

And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I'm not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
(--Poem by Mary Oliver)

We get frightened when we do not feel illumined by someone else's light. Our light within seems insufficient to us. But, truth is, all light is one light -- and that light is divine light. If we believe ourselves separate, we fall under the belief-cloak of shadow even while light-within radiates outward no shadow.

Reliving History

This must have been what it was like
the summer before the Great War,
quiet towns just like this, men and women
riding their bicycles through the streets
after dinner, no sound except their pedaling
and the squeaking of their seats under them,

the wet metal sound of grass being cut
always behind houses, out of sight,
all human voices murmuring or far away,
the pink and red zinnias blazing out at them
in that moment before dark,
the mix of the first woodsmoke
and the last apples so sharp
and sweet you could weep.
(--Poem: "Reliving History" by Francette Cerulli, from The Sprits Need to Eat.

No matter how absurd the salaries and brouhaha , I prefer baseball to war. I prefer a good backhand scoop by an agile third-baseman to the firing of semi-automatic and screaming obscenities of fear riddled with explosions thrown at those considered enemy in war zones throughout world.

Root for your team. Cheer a good play. Smile at a fan of the opposing team.

Pray for end of war. Work for an ending of any and all wars. Learn the terrifying demands of peace.

Love the game. It's life, and life is short -- no matter what anyone's opinion about what happens after death, it comes. As the narrative opening to "The Tibetan Book of the Dead -- A Way of Life" says:

Death is real. It comes without warning. And it cannot be escaped.

Play well.

Keep your head down for grounders. Don't rush your throw. Use the cut-off player.

Slide only when necessary.

Stretch.

Deeply skeptical/Profoundly trusting.

This morning these four words suggest an attitude of mind helpful toward maintaining balance and equipoise. When sitting in conversation, whether in open public or in enclosed prison environment, it is useful practice to maintain a mind that is balanced -- deeply skeptical/profoundly trusting.

Skepticism calls into question. Questioning is vital. The opposite of questioning is arrogance -- not questioning.

Trusting means firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing. The opposite of trusting is not caring, not investing any interest in contemplating wholeness.

Those who attain the Tao
Are masters of themselves.
The universe is
Dissolved for them.
Throw them in the company
Of the noisy and the dirty,
And they will be like a lotus flower:
Growing from muddy water,
Touched by it, yet unstained.
- Lao Tzu

Most friends and loved-ones would not understand saying to them you are 'deeply skeptical' of what they are saying or doing. They'd probably appreciate the 'profoundly trusting' phrase. Nevertheless, the slash between (/) is the solidifying presence of equipoise and balance that roots us in core center reality.

We are always to be questioned; always to be trusted. We are beings belonging to what is whole. At the same time we are creatures continually forgetting who we are, engaging in behavior often hurting oneself and others. It might be considered a useful gift to present to one another a presence suffused with deep skepticism/profound trust.

Never Forget:

Never forget:
we walk on hell,
gazing at flowers.
(--Poem by Kobayashi Issa, 1763 - 1828, from Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, Translated by Lucien Stryk / Translated by Takashi Ikemoto)

If we would wish not to die in war, and wish to live in peace, we will have to learn a new way of seeing and being-with that is equanimous, harmonious, and rooted in keen-eyed awareness.

Daffodils under tube-chimes will open tomorrow.

Living soundly with one/an/other.

In middle place.

Good news!

Landlord sends letter with renewed lease for harbour bookshop/bakery, including upstairs harbour room used for visitor's retreats, meetings, respite stays, one-and-one conversations, and (of course) cooking. We're delighted for the opportunity to continue in the marketplace.

Each night, I gaze upon a pond,
A Zen body sitting beside a moon.
Nothing is really there, and yet
It is all so clear and bright.
I cannot describe it.
If you would know the empty mind,
Your own mind must be as clear and bright
As this full moon upon the water.
- Chiao Jan (785-895)

Cars are serviced yesterday, new phone service chosen, lots of food from outlet, and terrific interchange at Thursday Evening Conversation where we currently welcome a lively group exploring the Course in Miracles. Nancy, Dee, Kali, Irene, Lucy, Ananur, Saskia and I (in the spirit of absent conveners Jack and Kathy) laughed and investigated, listened and spoke about the invisible root acceptance of 'love' as a given -- with no need to add nor subtract, make special nor hold oneself back from the core root given reality. So much laughter at the gyrations and tumblesaults we each engage in to absent ourselves at the same time demanding 'specialness.'

875

I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch—
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.
(--Poem: "875" by Emily Dickinson.)

It is true most of us most the time want to experience what is there.

And yet, what of another way of 'seeing' what is there? By 'seeing' or 'knowing' that the core root reality is 'the love of what is' -- are we able to relax, lighten up, and let go of the demands someone 'prove' their love, give evidence, demonstrate it, and meet our evaluative approval that, yes (maybe) their love is good enough in our eyes? If love is the core root reality of each one's life, perhaps our attention might equally be given to the appreciation of one's life.

"What is' -- (or, that which we call God) -- is the core root reality of what we are and where we dwell in what we name 'this existence, this reality.' And yet, we are just a bit blind to what is foundational beneath, surrounding, and beyond us. So we lash out at, berate, implore, deny, use (and abuse), idealize, push away, blame and adore 'God' -- very often doing all these things at the same time.

And God Said "No"
Author: Claudia Minden Welsz

I asked God to take away my pain.
God said, No.
It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up.

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
God said, No.
Her spirit was whole, her body was only temporary.

I asked God to grant me patience.
God said, No.
Patience is a by-product of tribulations; it isn't granted, it is earned.

I asked God to give me happiness.
God said, No.
I give you blessings. Happiness is up to you.

I asked God to spare me pain.
God said, No.
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me.

I asked God to make my spirit grow.
God said, No.
You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
God said, No.
I will give you life so that you may enjoy all things.

I ask God to help me LOVE others, as much as he loves me.
God said... Ahhhh, finally you have the idea.

The word 'idea' is from Greek, from idein, meaning 'to see.'

We practice seeing by practicing attention, often, in silence and stillness. Chickadee and cardinal, blue jay and red wing blackbird, white-throated sparrow and finch, junco and nuthatch -- all are seen at back feeder this rainy Friday in April.

Earlier the old dog and young cat walked me along mountain as drizzle began. It was a sight to see -- dog, cat, and walking stick ascending and weaving the clearing, then descending and herding the divergent wandering away of one of us with diminished mind (versus the unmindful and crazed-mind of the other two.)

We live to see -- within and without -- one/an/other in everyday life.

Joy of rain. Delight of coffee. Stillness of expectation. Emptying the special into the ordinary and dancing solitary hands-together bowing deeply (if only with eyes) at what is there, what is near, what is seen, what has been, what is true, what is you.

The tepid rain falls
On the bare thorn.
(--Haiku by Shiki Masaoka, 1867 ~ 1902)

As does drip faucet drop into last night's saucepan.

Greet one in all!

epitaph, of ten

i have found
there
(is
nothing else)
i want

{just now, --wfh, 27apr07}

Two Chickadee work hard on slender branches to keep creation ripe for the word of continuity chirping through neighbor's dog barking.

The word of continuity -- (now the second dog barks contretemps to first) -- is suffusing awareness. We are the vibrating appearance of that word of continuity in everyday phenomenological moving from emptiness to form and back again. It is this betweenness writers about Jesus found so intriguing: He's there; he's gone; oh, there he is; where'd he go? Jesus would slip through silence/stillness the way a slash (/) inserts itself between words/things to hold them together while distinguishing distinctiveness.

With Jesus, as with all properly understood and authentically apprehended slashes (/), there is a falling away, a falling through. With this birth/death, human/divine, resurrection/ascension motif -- wherein both sides (seeming to be 'two') fall off and disappear -- we are left with only the slash (/). This is the concretion. This is the between.

This betweenness is a concretion. 'Concretion,' i.e. "to make actual or real: cause to take on the qualities of reality" --#2, in Merriam-Webster's). This concretion/between then itself slips from view (having nothing to hold fast) and itself enters the dwelling-place of what-exists-between-us-but-is-not-seen-nor-felt until we practice interconnectivity.

This is the usual dwelling place of what we call 'God' -- (when and if we indeed ever do call God). This calling, by whatever resonating vibration formulating sound/name in human speech or by any other sentient being's utterance, is our aspiration with every prayer, any mantra, each and every soulful murmur heard.) Everyone and everything is calling out God -- is calling out to God, is the voice of God calling us to ourselves, is what-is-calling-itself. This calling (Do you have a calling?) is the resonance of a continuity of word. Entre nous, entre les etoiles!

Between us/between the stars is a consolidating continuity of word -- an expression of what-is invisible.

Magnanimous Mind
Is like a mountain,
Stable and impartial;
Exemplifying the ocean, it
Reflects the broadest perspective.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

(The first phrase of a well-known anthem asks the most compelling question: "O say, can you see?")

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation.
(--Mark 16:15)

Belief is like ice. If I had any beliefs, I would melt them down, pour them into the earth, and allow April to breath its transcending breath on them until they disappear into a deeper, more profound presence dwelling between one and the other -- becoming a concretion of one/an/other doing joyful circle-abouts on mornings when monks (chickadee, robin, junco, brook, branch, fallen limbs and leaves, bare trees, sunshine, cool air, curling incense, woman passing cabin window, boots unsheathed, candles lighted, cat at rest, and, finally, God Itself) -- all pass between what, in this sorrowful human world, -- (which thinks thoughts of separation, cultivating loneliness, domination, security, backbiting, exclusion, dismissing, king-of-the-hill, screw you, I'm the best, you're no good, my mother bakes better than yours, we're the only superpower, let's get 'them', you owe us these many dollars, I want your wife, just one more drink, you're not welcome here) -- has come to be called (mistakenly) "the real world."

We Are All Connected
The universe that we inhabit and our shared perception of it are the results of a common karma. Likewise, the places that we will experience in future rebirths will be the outcome of the karma that we share with the other beings living there. The actions of each of us, human or nonhuman, have contributed to the world in which we live. We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it.
(--The Dalai Lama, A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night)

Love yourself.

Disappear between everything.

Find what is silent/still.

Don't say a word.

Be what word is.

Between everything.

The 82 year old Buddhist from Nova Scotia sipped coffee at the shop. His hand shook when lifting cup. He said he had intentional familial tremors.

Intention tremor

A rhythmic purposeless shaking of the muscles that begins with purposeful (voluntary) movement. This tremor does not affect muscles that are resting. (--from Health AtoZ)

He says zazen helps. So does Jameson Irish Whiskey.

He said he'll send a postcard when he returns to the Highlands tomorrow.

He hopes to remain a happy agnostic until he dies.

"I don't know," I said.

He liked that.

Earth is home.

In Greek, "oikos," home, dwelling place. Morning -- walking Ragged, sitting on porch, then in loft of meditation cabin -- sound of chattering squirrel, chirping chickadee, and cascading brook. A solitary fly crawls across screen. Bare trees note warming April sun this Maine slow walk to spring.

Service to the Earth is divine service, just as the love of God is human love. All that remains is for us to spell it out in our own lives.
(p.152, in The Cosmostheandric Experience: Emerging Religious Consciousness, Orbis Books, 1993)

Reading Office of Readings, Book of Revelation. Some days the words fall off page and crumple like old leaves with no life in them. Only on some days. This is one of them. None of the ideas, beliefs, and concepts reach me -- like the frantic chattering of red squirrel reluctant to climb on green plastic mesh above feeder. (A second fly appears.)

It doesn't bother me that sometimes scriptures are dead, or that I am dead to them. Last night while chanting the Heart Sutra at end of sitting practice, the collective pitch and tone of the group reached funereal disarray. Sometimes something is lost. It happens often.

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
(--Poem by David Wagoner, from the book Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems, University of Illinois Press, 1999)

I no longer see home as a fixed place. It becomes breath. Sometimes I'm at home. At times I'm away. A day will come when breath will take itself and leave me. I don't know what will take place that day. (The two-note of sparrow tells me its version. I'm grateful.)

Poet Thomas Berry in The Great Work invites entrance into "...the awareness that the universe is a community of subjects to be communed with, not a collection of objects to be exploited."

This morning -- meow of cat, song of sparrow.

I leave scriptures today to all my angry brothers and sisters, to all those convinced only they have access to the one and only way. I leave God to those who jockey for positions of power or right hand, who mount pulpits of pronouncement or proclamation, occupy offices of control and security. I have wandered out into the open where soles of shoes and expanse of vision hold me balancing aloft for the time being. Enclosed rooms where proper procedure and rules of worship prevail are not for me this morning. White-throated sparrow is chanting the choral line, blue-jay lends antiphonal response.

Each tree sits perfectly in its own meditation. The large pine on its side at edge of hill, snapped twenty feet up, beyond brook near clearing, reclines broken on mountain after last storm.

Today I might die. I consider such unknowing prospect gift. A car passes up Barnestown Road.
Another, down.

It doesn't interest me whether there is any other place, any other dimension, any other realm of being. I entertain no hoops to jump through, no formula to recite, nor any fear worth attention.

I am here now.

On earth.

If you ask me about God, I will say "God is not only...". (There's no need for any further predicate).

Silence and stillness reveal all that is needed to know here for now.

Earth is home.

(Dishes are washed. Windows opened. Second cup of coffee.)

Untie that line.

The Boat and Shore
When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.
--Zen Master Dogen, Moon in a Dewdrop, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi

Drift off.

Don't row.

Change!

At prison a few days ago we wrestled with the Trappist monk's koan: "Cheer up (Bill), things are only going to get worse."

It's a gift.

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

It doesn't matter what is going on around you -- not in the sense that it determines your inner disposition.

If someone tears down your stone wall, build it up again. If they knock it down again, the next morning place one stone on another and see it stand again. No need for judgment or harsh resentment. Just the fact of what happens and your willingness to cultivate a mind that practices what needs to take place.

So much doesn't seem right.

"What's wrong," said Richard Hugo, "will always be wrong."

It would be wrong not to note what is wrong, but it would be equally wrong to drown in the wrongness of life -- its unfairness, injustices, and hurtful moments.

04.20.2007, The Unseen Dead: Virginia Tech and Health Policy, by RJ Eskow.

My heart breaks for the 33 people who died Monday. It also breaks for the estimated 50 Americans who died on the same day as a result of inadequate health coverage. Most of them had families who loved them, too. Where is their candlelight vigil? Where are their Presidential eulogies, or their exhaustive television coverage?

Instead of receiving their moment of silence, these invisible dead face an eternity of silence.

Lack of health insurance results in the deaths of 18,000 Americans each year, according to studies compiled by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine. That equates to 49 or 50 deaths every day. As the Institute has documented, deaths result from late identification of curable cancer and other conditions, and from inadequate treatment for a range of illnesses that include renal disease and other chronic conditions. (--in The Huffington Post)

It is not as interesting to consider deaths from lack of care -- not when the stunning news of another type of death flashes suddenly before us. The facts of both events are brought to us.

The practice of compassion follows a long hard look at the reality presented to us, and then enters that reality with the ease of acceptance -- maybe even forgiveness -- needed to transform the reality within us. Maybe nothing changes outside us. Maybe it does.

The kitten
holds down the leaf,
for a moment.
(Haiku by Issa, 1763-1827)

For this moment, this kitten, and this leaf.

And then? Ok...And then?

It matters.

It doesn't matter.

What gift is this?

A spring day.

Brook runs. Cat rubs. Dog sleeps. Saskia visits prison. Mice hide in cabin. Birds feed. Squirrels hoard. Ground loosens. Water seeps to surface. Sky is blue. Mountain inhales. I pause. Then, exhale.

Those who are known
As Real People
Are united in essence
With the Way,
So they have endowments yet
Appear to have none;
They are full yet
Appear to be empty.
They govern the inside,
Not the outside.
Clear and pure, utterly plain,
They do not contrive
Artificialities but return
To simplicity.
- Lao tzu

“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.” (-Francis of Assisi)
It's good advice. I'll try to be careful.

Searching for source of St. Francis of Assisi quote: "What we are looking for is what is looking." Still looking. Could be truest words yet.

First sun in many days. Finally, April.

Some Days

Your handwriting stands
like a small forest on the page
You could enter it anywhere

Your rooms look new to you
maybe you moved a lamp
stretched a swatch of white gauze
across a window

Single stick of incense
waiting

Remember when you wrote:
I devote myself to short sentences

Air answers
Breath remembers

A streak of light
signs the floor

You missed it

Do you know its name yet?
(--Poem by Naomi Shihab Nye)

Bamboo wind-chimes dance. Breeze surveys brown leaves flat against earth.

Inside Out

I have no-
where found
what here-
in dwells
with grace-
full silence
(-- Friday Haiku, wfh, now)

Squirrel complains that someone tossed a twig, interrupting his seedy quest!

What am I missing?

I'll look into it.

"To understand everything is to forgive everything" (- Buddha)

Temporarily, mostly without understanding, we still attempt to practice forgiveness as a worthwhile spiritual undertaking.

Mark Buehrle of the Chicage White Sox throws a no-hitter against the Texas Rangers. It's not important news. It's just the way life goes on.

Outside kitchen window, dawning light Up hill, gently swaying top of tree. Those who wake, wake from night's rest. Those who grieve, grieve even in their sleep. First sparrow arrives at feeder at 5:34am.

Sages lean on a pillar
That is never shaken,
Travel a road that is
Never blocked, are
Endowed from a
Resource that is never
Exhausted, and learn
From a teacher that
Never dies.
They are successful
In whatever they undertake,
And arrive wherever they go.
Whatever they do, they
Embrace destiny and go along
Without confusion.
- Wen-tzu

Tommy, in his stuffed chair, keeps statistics and box score of baseball games he watches. It passes the time. It's a log of movement and event. Who grounded to third? Who walked with a man on? Who was thrown out at second?

We are glad to have facts. They stand by themselves. At times, someone interprets facts, drawing wider or deeper meaning from them. At other times, facts are just there -- nothing added, nothing subtracted.

...one of the beauties of baseball is that you never know what you'll get to see on any particular day. On this one, Buehrle looked like his old, stellar self, working quickly, throwing strikes, and dominating hitters. The end result was a gem, and the White Sox' first no-hitter since 1991, and their first at home in 40 years. In fact, it was the first time the Rangers had been held hitless in more than two decades.
(--'Buehle quick to quiet Rangers,' By Mark Simon, ESPN Research)

We need quieting. Sparrow cracks seed. On tree some 15 yards behind feeder a red squirrel leaps from trunk to trunk arriving at feeder like Nureyev at center stage. The pas de deux between window and green feeder begins. For whom, exactly, are the seeds meant -- bird or squirrel? I am only a sometime arbiter.

Sometimes -- no, often -- 'intention' collapses and a 'lawless' event takes place. Almost always there is a rushing in of interpretation, attempts to assign 'meaning' or 'blame' -- to make sense of an event that teeters on the meaningless, the senseless. Just like on a college campus, after one man shoots, killing and wounding dozens of ordinary people on a Monday morning, there arrives on campus hundreds of guns and semi-automatic weapons drawn with safety off, to secure the event once it has transpired. Anyone, to those guns, is the intruder. Anyone might be targeted.

There is a danger someone might consider it possible that no such event will ever take place again. Loaded guns in the right hands will take on the task of anticipating and nullifying-at-inception any breach of the intention to secure and ensure safety. The idea of safety is a good one. It is a tight idea. It could be seamless. We are tempted toward an unbroken ideal of safety and security. Who wouldn't be?

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
(Poem, Lyics of 'Anthem' by Leonard Cohen)

Every pitch in every game is thrown with the intent of retiring the hitter, of allowing no-hit. Seldom does that intent complete itself successfully. But, once in a while, it comes close.

Buehrle delighted a cold but enthusiastic crowd of 25,390 at U.S. Cellular Field, who watched him throw the first no-hitter at the ballpark. Only one Rangers batter reached base—Sammy Sosa on a fifth-inning walk—and Buehrle promptly picked him off first base.
(--Chicago Tribune)

Families mourn and attend the unhappy task of burying their dead. We face this fact with quiet respect. Life, some would say, is not a game. It's not. Life is a mystery we face daily. Part of that mystery is the breaking of life, the seeming cessation, suddenly and unexpectedly, of the clear sound and sight of life -- especially the sound and sight of those we love. It happens every day.

As we go on.

We revel at times. At other times we merely, silently, gaze.

Sometimes, rarely, a no-hitter occurs.

The very fact of it.

In understanding.

You.

Forgive me.

And I.

You.

Sorrow is sorrow. It cannot be parceled. If we are going to be sorrowful, let's be sorrowful wherever sorrow exists -- not just our version of sorrow, but the whole of it.

Outwardly go along
With the flow,
While inwardly keeping
Your true nature.
Then your eyes and ears
Will not be dazzled,
Your thoughts will not
Be confused,
While the spirit within you
Will expand greatly to roam
In the realm of absolute purity.
- Huai-nan-tzu

In prison today an inmate asked me to relay his grief to the larger community about what happened in Virginia. I said I would; here I do so.

April 16, 2007: CBC News
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.

In the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history, at least 33 people were killed and several others wounded after a gunman opened fire at Virginia Tech. There are two separate shootings about two hours apart at opposite ends of the campus of 26,000 students, the first at 7:15 a.m. ET at a residence housing more than 800 students and the second at an engineering building. The suspected gunman is among the dead.

We did a class on Spirituality and Lifetime Recovery using poems by Mary Oliver, Derek Walcott, Theodore Roethke, Richard Hugo, Cheslaw Milosz, Jane Kenyon, David Wagoner, Vaclav Havel, and Hafez-e Shirazi.

We are not lost. We are actually happy. No two hurts are the same. We don't have to be good.

4 Blasts in Baghdad Kill at Least 183; STEVEN R. HURST and LAUREN FRAYER | AP | April 18, 2007 07:39 PM EST

BAGHDAD — Suspected Sunni insurgents penetrated the Baghdad security net Wednesday, hitting Shiite targets with four bomb attacks that killed 183 people _ the bloodiest day since the U.S. troop increase began nine weeks ago.

The most devastating blast struck the Sadriyah market as workers were leaving for the day, charring a lineup of minibuses that came to pick them up. At least 127 people were killed and 148 wounded, including men who were rebuilding the market after a Feb. 3 bombing left 137 dead.

Still, there's this death and absurd killing continuing every day in Iraq.

I sorrow for the Virginia Tech students and families.

I sorrow for the Iraqi men, women, and children.

I sorrow for our soul.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.
(from Ars Poetica?, Poem by Czeslaw Milosz )

It is difficult.

Isn't it?

Relentless rain soaks sodden earth in mid-coast Maine.

Sages send their spirit
To the storehouse of awareness
And return to the beginning
Of myriad things.
They look at the formless,
Listen to the soundless.
In the midst of profound
Darkness,
They alone see light;
In the midst of silent vastness,
They alone have
Illumination.
- Huai-nan-

Elsewhere, in Iraq, continual horror.

Elsewhere, in Virginia, something like Iraq -- only closer to home.

In both cases someone thinks it passable that others should be shot dead.

As the president and his wife travel the 272 miles from Washington D.C. to attend a memorial convocation ceremony in Blacksburg, Virginia, I join with them in their public concern and sorrow for all innocents killed, here and there.

I join the pilgrimage. I wish to end the hostilities in Iraq. I wish to end the hostilities in Virginia.

It's all I have to bring today (26)

It's all I have to bring today—
This, and my heart beside—
This, and my heart, and all the fields—
And all the meadows wide—
Be sure you count—should I forget—
Some one the sum could tell—
This, and my heart, and all the Bee
Which in the Clover dwell.
(Poem: "It's all I have to bring today (26)" by Emily Dickinson.)

It's a beginning. Public display of consolation and contrition are significant first steps.

I'll start: I'm sorry for what I've done and not done in Iraq. I'm sorry for what I've done and not done in Virginia.

Forgiveness is all I have to begin with. It may be all there is left to us.

It might not be much. But...

It's a beginning.

A yielding.

Like rain.

Rain.

What sages learn
Is to return their nature
To the beginning
And let their minds
Travel freely in
Openness.
What developed people
Learn is to link their nature
To vast emptiness and
Become aware of the
Silent infinite.
- Huai-nan-tzu

Everywhere, over and under everything, rain.

Toward Ultimate Things
Only the walker who sets out toward ultimate things is a pilgrim. ...The pilgrim resolves that the one who returns will not be the same person as the one who set out. Pilgrimage is a passage for the reckless and subtle. The pilgrim--and the metaphor comes to us from distant times--must be prepared to shed the husk of personality or even the body like a worn out coat. A Buddhist dictum has it that "the Way exists but not the traveler on it." For the pilgrim the road is home; reaching your destination seems nearly inconsequential.
--Andrew Schelling, Meeting the Buddha, edited by Molly Emma Aitken

Wind lashes chime with wet striker; night bows head to unknown mystery with no name.

Single candle lights.

Light is prayer; see well.

Dark is prayer; unseen guest.

Extinguish the flame, gust knocks on window frame.

A hundred million drops find sound arriving with earth.

Still. Listening. Rain.

This bare road.

The wandering zen poet monk, Taneda Santoka (1882-1940) -- a haiku nonconformist, an ordained Zen priest -- spent most of his life wandering all over the country of Japan as a begging monk. He wrote today's weather forecast as well as today's soul- & psyche-cast many years ago.

Here in the stillness of snow falling on snow
(--Haiku by Taneda Santoka)

Nothing moves outside window. Across road is Bald Mountain. All is still as death. They say a storm approaches. A wet and wild hurricane-strength wind, they say, gathers its strength to slam New England tonight. Maine will flood. But right now, everything sits zazen. For now, the tomb appears empty, and no matter how often someone peeks in, nothing is seen, nothing moves, and nothing makes sense according to our dim and diminishing lights.

Attain the center of emptiness,
Preserve the utmost quiet;
As myriad things act in concert,
I thereby observe the return.
Things flourish,
Then each returns to its root.
Returning to the root
Is called stillness:
Stillness is called return to Life,
Return to Life is called the constant;
Knowing the constant is called enlightenment.
- Tao-te Ching

There's a great profundity in what we do not know. You would think we'd be enthused over such a prospect -- what we don't know is magnificent, we're nearly there, just drop over the line, fall through floor of pretended savvy, recant and renounce anything pronounced by us as "the way it will be," "'the' truth," and, "do it my way, the only right way."

Choice of Diseases

Now that I'm sick & have
all this time to contemplate
the meaning of the universe,
Father said, I understand why
I never did it before. Nothing
looks good from a prone position.
You have to walk around to appreciate
things. Once I get better I don't
intend to get sick for a while. But
if I do I hope I get one of those diseases
you can walk around with.
(Poem: "Choice of Diseases" by Hal Sirowitz, from Father Said. Soft Skull Press.)

I've always been prone to doubt and despair. Now I like to stand, walk around them, and come to some perspective on them that nods head, mutters "hmmm," and looks off into the distance, rubbing whiskers, coming to see the unmoving tops of trees backed by white snow on mountain side out top frame of bedroom window. What's this side of the mountain got to do with the other side?

Mountain Guides
A good spiritual friend who will help us to stay on the path, with whom we can discuss our differences frankly, sure of a compassionate response, provides an important support system which is often lacking. Although people live and practice together, one-upmanship often comes between them. A really good friend is like a mountain guide. The spiritual path is like climbing a mountain: we don't really know what we will find at the summit. We have only heard that it is beautiful, everybody is happy there, the view is magnificent and the air unpolluted. If we have a guide who has already climbed the mountain, he can help us avoid falling into a crevasse, or slipping on loose stones, or getting off the path. The one common antidote for all our hindrances is noble friends and noble conversations, which are health food for the mind.
(--Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies)

This morning the noble friend is mountain itself. The conversation -- between silence and stillness.

Nothing transpires beyond this mere, empty, and lovely realization: I am what you are and it is...as it is...true.

The mere fact -- of being.

The empty gaze -- of life.

The lovely gift -- of it all.

Morning sparrows, their voices say the snow’s
arrived in the distant mountains
(--Santoka Taneda)

And, at last:

The shrike's crying -
For discarding my body,
There is no place.
(--Santoka Taneda)

* Although Santoka may not have been referring to it, there is a famous story about Kuya, a priest who taught the chanting of Buddha's name in the Kyoto area in the tenth century: when Kuya was living amongst the beggars in Kyoto a high-ranked priest named Senkan recognized him at the river side near Shijo Street (nowadays downtown Kyoto), Senkan asked Kuya, "How can I be saved after death?" Kuya answered, "How strange. I rather, should ask you such a question. I'm just a vagrant person who wanders around confusedly. I've never thought of such a thing." Senkan didn't give up, and very respectfully asked him again. Kuya said, "Just discard your body anywhere", and hurried off.
(--Terebess Asia Online {TAO}, Taneda Santoka's Haiku,
http://www.terebess.hu/english/haiku/taneda.html)

No hurry.

Sparrow.

Flies.

Away.

Once we were found. But now we're lost. Once saw. But now are blind.

Our amazing disgrace in Iraq and Afghanistan must be placed where it belongs. On me.

The whole universe,
The whole world, is you;
Do you think
There is any other?
This is why the ancients say,
“People lose themselves,
Pursuing things;
If they could turn things around,
They would be the same as Buddha.”
- Hsueh-feng (822-908)

I did it. Yes -- I did have help from Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, Tenet and Perle, Rice and Powell, narrow ideology and puffed-up sense of importance -- but I am the one responsible. I dropped the bombs, set the mortars, fired automatic rifles, screamed at innocent people to drop or be shot, and smiled for the cameras while smugly calling into question the patriotism of anyone whose opinion of our unitary superpower status and privilege differed from mine.

I know men and women who believe that by thinking about the war I am drawing attention and attraction to "negative vibrations" that will only cause me not to get what I want from the universe. I do not live on the same earth as those people.

April 15, 2007
Marines’ Actions in Afghanistan Called Excessive
By CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan, April 14 — American marines reacted to a bomb ambush with excessive force in eastern Afghanistan last month, hitting groups of bystanders and vehicles with machine-gun fire in a series of attacks that covered 10 miles of highway and left 12 civilians dead, including an infant and three elderly men, according to a report published by an Afghan human rights commission on Saturday.

Families of the victims described in interviews this week the painful toll of the attacks, which took place on March 4 in Nangarhar Province. One victim, a 16-year-old newly married girl, was cut down while she was carrying a bundle of grass to her family’s farmhouse, according to her family and the report. A 75-year-old man walking to his shop was hit by so many bullets that his son said he did not recognize the body when he came to the scene.
(--The New York Times)

I lie on the street, my body torn in two from retaliatory gunfire, my life snuffed out because (some say, stupid and arrogant) men and women want to kill and revenge killing.

I've had enough of war. I'll fire my gun until everyone is dead. I'll return to America, collect a medal, then begin to dismantle my church, my community, and my government. I am a hero. I am the sleeping bad dream of a nation that sacrifices nothing while their military service people sacrifice everything. I love this country that uses me, laughs behind my back, and says "Atta boy!" to my face.

I am the president. I no longer believe in my ability to care.

That won't stop me.

I am you.

No?

Watching After Innocence (about exonerees) upstairs over shop. A community prison-related event with pizza and mint chocolate ice cream.

no path but this one —
I walk alone
(poem by Santoka Taneda)

I simply don't know. Tossing.

Two crusts to the sea.

Envy is defined as "painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage." (Merriam-Webster)

If you pass your
Whole life half asleep,
What can you rely on?
- Kuei-shan Ling-yu (771-854)

To be jealous is to be "hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage."

Let no one imagine that baptism consists only in the forgiveness of sins and in the grace of adoption. Our baptism is not like the baptism of John, which conferred only the forgiveness of sins. We know perfectly well that baptism, besides washing away our sins and bringing us the gift of the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of the sufferings of Christ. This is why Paul exclaims: "Do you not know that when we were baptised into Christ Jesus we were, by that very action, sharing in his death? By baptism we went with him into the tomb."
(--From the Jerusalem Catecheses)

In the film "The Razor's Edge," Larry says to Isabel: "It doesn't matter." And: "There is no payoff."

It is ego's delusion to want to hold on to what is not ours -- just as it is ego's illusion to attempt to disown what is our very being.

Is it possible to live with no purpose? With no meaning?

If everything is itself and belongs to itself, no exterior meaning or purpose is necessary. When something is what it is, nothing else is needed.

What is true is what is doing itself.

Truth is what is showing itself.

We are all old-timers,
each of us holds a locked razor.
(from poem "Waking in the Blue," by Robert Lowell)

The razor's edge, salvation, is literally -- a greeting, a healing, and a safe passage.

Hello. Can I help? Where is home for you?

Easter Wednesday in Maine is sunny and warm at 43 degrees. The foot of snow from 7 days ago is melting. Patches of hill show. There will be more snow, or rain, tomorrow.

If you wish to cast aside the false
And return to true,
Concentrate and settle your
Mind in wall gazing.
Self and other,
The unenlightened
And the saintly,
Are all as one.
- Bodhidharma

Perhaps what Bodhidharma refers to as wall-gazing is looking at what is there as what is there.

I practiced a kind of "wall gazing" while on retreat. I watched. Without embellishing nor disparaging, keeping eye on what presented itself. By and large, what else is there but what presents itself? We so often create images of what we'd like to call the divine or the holy -- reminders of past figures, events, stories, or experiences.

Looking at what is there as what is there is zen practice. As we become skillful, we come to see, and say what is there in such a way that we are here with what is here. (I have to deepen my practice.)

Holding It All In
I think a lot about the fact that the Buddha made a separate category for Right Speech. He could have been more efficient and included it in Right Action, since speaking is a form of action. For a while I thought it was separate because we speak so much. But then I changed my mind--some people don't speak a lot. Now, I think it's a separate category because speech is so potent. During the 1960s, when the social ethos was "letting it all hang out," I had recurrent fantasies about writing a book called Holding It All In. I think I was alarmed that people had overlooked how vulnerable each of us is. In recent years, I've revised my book title to Holding It All In Until We've Figured Out How to Say It in a Useful Way. I believe we are obliged to tell the truth. Telling the truth is a way we take care of people. The Buddha taught complete honesty, with the extra instruction that everything a person says should be truthful and helpful.
(--Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think)

I am grateful for all the helpful people who have practiced right speech on me.
For all who've shared bread, themselves, and looking, with me.

Then they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread.
(--Luke 24:35)

Seeing what is there (as what is there) is seeing you, as you are, seeing itself.

Retreat Log

St Joseph's Abbey, Spencer MA,

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Good Friday

I cannot grasp the notion of "being washed in Jesus' blood.” Maybe I will. (Maybe I won't.) Traveling by way of the cross is a deeply physical as well as metaphorical journey. I've not been satisfied with explanations of sacrifice, whether animal or human blood, in order to settle or attain something. The fact that we die, the fact that Jesus died, are facts to acknowledge. But I'm not yet moved by the notion that animal-killing, blood-feuds, war-slaughter, or even son/daughter killing-sacrifice has anything to do with, nor is associated with, what is in fact the sacred.

I note the suffering and death of Jesus. I'm unconvinced of the subsequent explanation of the purpose and divine order of execution so prevalent in the theology and spirituality of our heritage. Whether the case is Abraham (ready to cut Isaac's throat), Angels (smearing lamb's blood on lintels to facilitate the killing of the right first born), or Adonai (willing/allowing the death of his son as expiation for sin) -- I am reluctant to hold such stories in divine light. I grieve for the first-born that are killed -- whether in ancient Judaic lore, or in contemporary Iraq lawless war.

If the human psyche glorifies slaughter as divine will and historic wish, then (heaven help us!) there is no better way to honor the divine than by participating in the slaughter and murder of the first-born. If the so-called "good guys" as well as "bad guys" utilize the method of killing innocents in the erstwhile liberation/salvation stories of the Ancient Near East, and such telling is celebrated annually as desired rendition, I can't help but feel we are a people with a lost and devastated heart/mind.

///

As night passes, I dream about Slavic cabdriver taking me around New York City. Then I meet a nemesis and we talk a brief while. He says he was hurt by me.

After Vigils at 4:30am, I sit in silence for 30 minutes. One other person in chapel. Woman in first pew is a Sister, a friend of monk Robert.

I am thinking about the prison. I can only face what is.

“What is” is I am not chaplain. My choice was not to be an employee. I am as befuddled by the choice to be offered and accept the position for 6 months as I am delighted by choosing not to continue it. The joy I experienced working with the population of over 900 men -- all religions (and none), all levels of faith understanding (and none) -- was remarkable. Sitting with Buddhists, Christians, Jewish, Muslim, Native, Pagan, AA, and none-of-the-above, whether at their cell doors or in small groups -- was a lesson in learning and service.

Meetingbrook's prison conversations will continue. I'll change status and return to volunteering. :

• Offer to teach independent studies for university credit for those who wish.

• For those not interested in college courses, do time-specific ordinary studies -- (Individual Tutorial Studies) for inmates so interested. (Perhaps 3 ITS's at any given span.) Any topic, any focus -- individualized time and interaction to increase learning.

• Perhaps, through Education Dept., a program in Protective Custody Pod -- or even in SMU (Special Management Unit, the old “Super-Max.”)

• Meet with individual men for purpose of human hospitality and engaging inquiry.

• Begin in outside community prison-related discussion groups, e.g. Restorative Justice, or Prison Fellowship, or Innocence Project.
  
  

  ///

Afternoon, Holy Saturday

The monk Robert says -- “Cheer up! Things will get worse.” He refers to Jesus', “Now is the Son of Man glorified.” He is on the cross. All hurts, humiliations, depressions, pains, snubs, diminishing comments, injustices, doubts, and delusions hang there. And this is the death and reconciliation of the limited and the unlimited -- this being, this man, drawing all to himself, turns the world upside down. It is the weak, the poor, those ill, those without security or means, the broken and the heart-broken -- to these belong the kingdom of heaven.

I walk the woods. Three deer, two ducks, and a tail-slapping beaver later I climb the hill back to retreat house.

I went to see Robert after his conference to talk about recent experience at the prison. He says it was a gift, a grace to be so angry, frustrated, and humiliated. Thomas Aquinas in his ethical teachings claimed virtue existed in the middle between the opposite of the vice and the defining virtue -- but that anger had no opposite. Only the suffering of it. (Maybe “no-anger” -- but that's the absence, not the opposite.)

“Cheer up; things will get worse,” he says, cheerfully.

The way he says it, the prospect isn't unattractive.

The experiential undergoing of injustice deepens the intense longing for justice. The single candle in the dark longs to give way to the bright sun.

///

Final Hours of Holy Saturday

Icon-painting monk asks me if I am a hermit.I say yes. I am, (I think to myself), most likely lying. But I'm not. This hermit is not in seclusion. This hermit dwells within solitude.

There's a difference. This hermit, 90% of the time, arrives late and stays in the rear. (Except visiting the monastery - I arrive on time and stay in the rear.)

Then there's the issues of being active in the bookshop/bakery, at conversations, teaching a course at the university, and the regular visits to prison. Hardly a hermit in any classical sense. More the template of hermit in the open. My cloister is the inter-related solitude of the human heart, one to one, inquiring into “Who am I?” Yet, still a hermit: one dwelling alone with the Alone or Another.

The realms of what some call the relative and absolute dissolve into what I might call the interrelating whole. Jesus tried to teach he and the father were one as we are one with him and the father. We dwell in the interrelating whole. Sometimes we forget this. We then remember. At either times of forgetting or remembering we are prone to hurting one another. Thus the notion of “hurting God” as we hurt one another -- because God is not other than any one or two of us.

We are not equal to God. Equality is a relative term. We are co-responding and co-relating with God. This is not the same kind of relativity or responsibility as the terms seem. To be co-responsive is to share the wording-of-act, and acting-of-word with God. To be co-relating is to be with God in each act. Whether we are conscious of it or not impacts the response we make after the co-responding takes place, Whether we intend our presence or not influences the mind we have after co-relating takes place.

When people ask: How could God allow suffering in the world? We might respond: How can I be of assistance to the one suffering? We, perhaps in a fit of forgetfulness, might have caused the suffering. It always seems reasonable to have someone ask: How could God allow such and such to happen? And yet, mostly, we forget our co-responding and co-relating existential and ontological true nature vis-a-vis God. (Does God forget when we forget?)

The ancient hymn says: “Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not reach out his hand to make himself equal to God. Instead, he emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave.” (Philippians)

Might we say: One form, many examples of emptiness? Or: One emptiness, many forms of it?

However we try to word what is beyond words, the Name of God bends us with humility. The profound co-relative and inter-responding entirety of the sacred presence is the meditation and contemplation of our heart/mind as mendicants wandering a strange land.

The Ancient Homily at Vigils says: “Something strange is happening--there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness.”

The homily concludes: “The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.” Which brings us back to birth. Incarnation. Life.

So: Come alive! Someone once said: “The Glory of God is man fully alive.” (Irenaeus)

Adyashanti says: “The awakeness of this moment is the unconditioned being.”

///

Easter Darkness, 2:02am

Adyashanti says: “It's not about embracing, it's about letting go of not pushing away. That's all.”

///

Easter Morning, 9:42am

The stained-glass metaphor used by Adyashanti works well. The source of light is beyond the red, green, and blue of the glass. The colored glass is our conditioned mind. It sorts light into variety of colors. The result is aesthetically pleasing and soothing.

The unconditioned, unborn, and undivided is the source. If we get a glimpse into that reality, all remains beautiful and undifferentiated. But we often contend one color against another, worship one, demand our color is 'the' color -- thus making warfare and dissension.

Jesus has risen. Indeed, he has truly risen!

So it is we attend the truth of this Christian mystery. Unity consciousness, 'coincidentia oppositorum,' undifferentiated suchness -- Christ Consciousness -- rises following the death of the servant of God.

Whoever serves God undergoes this death. (There are so many willing to assist and expedite this death -- if not, as preface, the suffering leading thereto.)

To be born is to die. To enter the unborn is to practice resurrection.

///

Easter Haiku, 9:29am

to be born is to

die; to enter the unborn

is to practice re-

surrection

(wfh, 8april2007)

[note: the traditional 17 syllable count for haiku is here exceeded by 3 unaccountable syllables.]

+++

haiku 6:14pm

crucifixion ends

abbot lifts host -- we are to

be vault, ground repose

(wfh, 6apr2007)

+++

haiku 8:51am

he was one of us

when we accused him, broken

into two, came death

(wfh, 7apr07)

+++

haiku 8:56am

innocence -- no one

is free from accusation --

there we are, entombed

(wfh, 7apr07)