I've never liked tests. Nor am I fond of trials. I do, however, enjoy prepositions, articles, pronouns, and conjunctions..

Someone asked,
What do you mean by the true Buddha, the true Dharma and the true Way? Would you be good enough to explain to us?
The Master said,
The Buddha- this is the cleanness and purity of the mind.
The Dharma- this is the shining brightness of the mind.
The Way- this is the pure light that is never obstructed anywhere. The three are in fact one. All are empty names and have no true reality.
- Lin-chi (d.867)

I'm also taken by the notion of emptiness, as in, 'empty names.'

I woke up this morning with the traditional rendering of the words of the Lord's Prayer, or, Our Father. In the vague transition from sleep to wakefulness I was taken by the small words.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

"In... as it.. in...this
-- who --
into... from... for."

Like some SETI transmission (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), I find surprising comfort in the nine extracted words, as if now waiting for some scriptural linguist scholar to confirm the breakthrough in this Rosetta Stone with hieroglyphic and demotic scripts finally revealing underlying template of translation.

Is the Source of All Being possibly: "In as it in this, who, into from for"?

Two scriptural citings below. First Luke:

1
He was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples."
2
He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
3
Give us each day our daily bread
4
and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test."
(--from Luke, Chapter 11)

Then Matthew:

9
"This is how you are to pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
10
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
11
Give us today our daily bread;
12
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
13
and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.
14
If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
15
But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.
(-- from Matthew, Chapter 6, New American Bible)

Some say life is a classroom for particular learning. (Mark did, last evening.) He might be right. Still, I don't have the same confidence in tests as some educators do.

What is beyond test or trial?

Consider the following: "In as it in this, who, into from for."
I think we're in this reality, as it. By our being in this, we are who is: into, from, and for this Source Reality.

Some say "Father." Some, "Source." And some, "Lord" or "Ultimate One."

Heather's dad died on 15 August. At table in restaurant, he lowered his head and appeared asleep, and was not disturbed for a spell. Two days later the respirator breathing for him was let go, and he returned to the Source from whence he came.

And there he is. In the telling of the story to us. At the gathered table with noodles, rice, fish, poultry, and vegetables -- sitting late of an evening speaking with friends by the harbor -- all our fathers there in the telling.

Our trial, if there is one, is allowing presence to dwell in our midst, between us, quietly and graciously.

Our test, if there is one, is to say what we see with our souls unburdened by too much analysis but easily laden with love.

This morning, in meditation cabin, a candle and stick of incense is left burning for Richard Lewis Meyer.

We'll have bagels, cream cheese, and lox on the balcony and celebrate one another along with our ancestors and the volunteer sunflowers by birch tree at water's edge.

Ok?

Ok!

All our ancestors sit with us at meal together. We honor them with our eating. Hmmm, hmmm -- good rice, good noodles. More water? Please!

I found my way up
Yoshino’s precipice-hung
Path and into its
Past, seeing there the blossoms
I sought that spring ages ago.
- Saigyo (1118 – 1190)

Always the meditation that when we transform mind now, everything is transformed -- past and future as well as present.

Full moon on quiet water in harbour. Friends leave, friends arrive. We mourn a father's death -- yet there is no being born nor, then, any opposite.

While all of you here are turned toward me, intent only on hearing my sermon and wondering "What's Bankai going to say?" you aren't trying either to hear or not hear the cawing of the crows and the chirping of the sparrows out in back. But even so, once they start to chirp and caw, you recognize and distinguish the crow's "CAW CAW" and the sparrow's "CHIOU CHIOU," and it's not only for crows and sparrows.

Everything here, when you perceive it with the unborn will be simultaneously distinguished, and you won't overlook even one thing in one hundred or one thousand. Your distinguishing everything you see and hear like this, without producing a single thought, is the marvelously illuminating dynamic function of the Buddha mind that is unborn.
(--Bankai, 17th century Zen Master)

New sail flag on balcony weather vane.

Given -- wholeness as source.

What is it we think we withdraw?

There's a creature living in wall behind my pillow.

I saw it come over Hosmer Pond. Fruit Moon or Green Corn Moon tonight. Cat rushed kibbles to get out for full moon hunting. Me, I return to solitude after visit and meeting at new university center in Rockland.

I grow more and more reclusive.

If your mind is fixed on a certain spot,
It will be seized by that spot and
No activities can be performed efficiently.
Not to fix your mind anywhere is essential.
Not fixed anywhere,
The mind is everywhere.
The Original Mind is like water which flows freely
Whereas the deluded mind is like ice
There is a passage in the Diamond Sutra that says:
“The mind should operate without abiding anywhere.”
- Takuan (1573-1645)

I like Takuan's words. I've met icy mind. It is hard and cold.

Mid-morning reading (Terce) Romans 13:8 - 10
Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your fellow men you have carried out your obligations. Love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour; that is why it is the answer to every one of the commandments.
Noon reading (Sext) James 1:19 - 26
Be quick to listen but slow to speak and slow to rouse your temper; God’s righteousness is never served by man’s anger. Nobody must imagine that he is religious while he still goes on deceiving himself and not keeping control over his tongue; anyone who does this has the wrong idea of religion.
Afternoon reading (None) 1 Peter 1:17 - 19
You must be scrupulously careful as long as you are living away from your home. Remember, the ransom that was paid to free you was not paid in anything corruptible, neither in silver nor gold, but in the precious blood of a lamb without spot or stain, namely Christ.
(--on feast of St. Monica, readings for the small hours) http://www.universalis.com/-400/today.htm)

I'm not fond of those wanting ransom. Whether human beings held for ransom, or necessities of life held ransom by those who can afford to hoard and charge high freight.

There'll be a lunar eclipse early in the morning.

Awareness is a treasure available to us.

Awareness cannot be practiced. There has been some confusion between awareness and mindfulness. They are related, but distinct. Sati, or mindfulness, implies there is action of the mind. We purposely set ourselves to pay attention to our minds. We exert effort. Awareness is different. Awareness is devoid of any action. The mind simply "awares." There is no action here, only a collected and spontaneous awareness that just "sees." Here, mindfulness is the cause, and awareness is the effect. You cannot practice or train the effect. You can only practice something that will cause it. We have to start with mindfulness so that awareness may arise in us.
(-- Thynn Thynn, in Living Meditation, Living Insight, from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book)

Crickets and cicadas this august solitude.

It doesn't matter what I think.

Love is the answer.

I've stopped.

Asking.

Arise.

Maybe it is illusion and delusion makes up human society. Paco thinks, for America, it is competitiveness and 'can't lose' attitudes.

Maybe we could forget competitiveness. Learn from loss. Redefine what being human actually is.

A difficult and dark time overshadows us. To pretend otherwise is a particular derangement.

Everybody acts surprised that Mother Teresa knew darkness, emptiness, and unbelief.

Why?

When did lightness, fullness, and certitude become they only recognizable and acceptable expression of human experience, and the only commodity for sale in this world?

Mind set free in the Dharma-realm,
I sit at the moon-filled window
Watching the mountains with my ears,
Hearing the stream with open eyes.
Each molecule preaches perfect law,
Each moment chants true sutra:
The most fleeting thought is timeless,
A single hair’s enough to stir the sea.
- Shutaku (14th century)

It becomes impossible to figure out who is fighting whom in the theater of war -- war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terror, war on immigrants, war on democracy.

It is time to regroup. Time to sink deeper into a different narrative. The yarn being spun is unrecognizable. The terrorists have won -- they co-own the narrative with the "war-on" folks.

The rest of us are irrelevant. Critics become security risks. Those who try to rectify faulty acts and spurious tales about what goes on in the narrow mind of power and profit are the enemy. They were once good neighbors. Now they are dangerous and must be made outcasts.

I am coming to gather the nations of every language.
(--Isaiah 66:18)

Isaiah seems like faint hope these days.

‘Yes, there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.’
(--Luke 13:30)

Luke sounds like wishful thinking.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
--Mother Teresa

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
--Mother Teresa

The Albanian religious sister who knew desolation gives us something to contemplate.

Think timelessly.

Stir the sea.

A brief time in silence.

Nothing more.

Although the marvelous
Lines are difficult to trace,
Still I can make out
Several layers of mountains,
A jumble of peaks,
Like shell-spiraled locks of hair.
Faraway streams and mountains,
Peaks swathed in clouds,
Just like a painting,
Have captured the essence.
Gazing into emptiness,
I long to ask the monk about it.
If I don’t learn the meaning
Of the reclusive life,
I can but sigh with regret until the day I die!
- - Su Shih 1073

Merely without words.

Nothing less.

Enough of damnation and judgment.

Open the prison gates of self and free everyone.

It is inconceivable that the God who gives Himself in His Son to save us, should have created some people ordained to evil and damnation. There can only be one predestination to salvation. In and through Jesus Christ all people are predestined to be saved.
Our free choice is ruled out in this regard. God wants free people, except in relation to this last and definitive decision. We are not free to decide and choose to be damned." "Being saved or lost does not depend on our own free decision. An explicit confession of Jesus Christ is not the condition for salvation. Salvation is always for everyone, by grace. All people are included in the grace of God. A theology of grace implies universal salvation."
(-- on Universal Salvation, by JACQUES ELLUL, 1912-1994)

Whatever time remains, let's see it through.

Once seen through, greet one another -- for God's sake.

Or don't. But, no more lies.

Michael quoted the Sword of Zorro. Anything outside the circle is not our business. I argued. What could possibly be outside our circle? It's all our business.

If one has realized
Oneness which alone is
And which alone has always been,
It cannot be described in words.
One can be That.
We loosely call it
Self-realization
For want of a better term.
- Ramana Maharshi (d. 1950)

What is not my "self"?

Perhaps illusion is fragmentary perception. We make a mistake when we think illusions aren't real. They are. But they are only partial sight. Like the illusionist's trick of drawing our attention to a particular spot of attention while outside our focus he is readying the manifestation of that of which we've been unaware.

The character in the novel remembers her father telling her: "Paint the picture you want him to see." (in Outsourced, novel by R.J. Hillhouse)

In the Course in Miracles tonight there was the following:

Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them go quietly go down to dust.
(--from Part II, 2. What is Salvation?, p.407)

In Peru four hundred years ago a young woman tried to let fall everything that was not God to her.

Her days were filled with acts of charity and industry, her exquisite lace and embroidery helping to support her home, while her nights were devoted to prayer and penance. When her work permitted, she retired to a little grotto which she had built, with her brother's aid, in their small garden, and there passed her nights in solitude and prayer. Overcoming the opposition of her parents, and with the consent of her confessor, she was allowed later to become practically a recluse in this cell, save for her visits to the Blessed Sacrament.
( --about St. Rose of Lima, Virgin, patroness of America, born at Lima, Peru 20 April, 1586; died there 30 August, 1617. Feast celebrated today) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13192c.htm)

The earth turns. The earth trembles. Damage and grief accompany.

The 8.0 magnitude quake that struck the coast of Peru on August 15 killed at least 500 people and left tens of thousands homeless. In a vast disaster area surrounding the cities of Pisco and Ica, the survivors, many of them living on the streets, are now desperately waiting for help. Over 34,000 houses were destroyed by the quake and several powerful aftershocks. The damage to the infrastructure is so severe that many relief efforts are hampered and remote mountain communities are cut off from assistance.
(--from International Medical Corps, Help the Survivors of Peru’s Earthquake! August 20, 2007)

There is no outside to the circle of life.

Here we are.

Calling on.

One.

Another.

Let's call every American soldier, killed or still alive, 'Jack.' We'll call every Iraqi 'Karim.' We won't give names to mercenaries killed -- they're on their own, aren't they?

Earl

In Sitka, because they are fond of them,
People have named the seals. Every seal
is named Earl because they are killed one
after another by the orca, the killer
whale; seal bodies tossed left and right
into the air. "At least he didn't get
Earl," someone says. And sure enough,
after a time, that same friendly,
bewhiskered face bobs to the surface.
It's Earl again. Well, how else are you
to live except by denial, by some
palatable fiction, some little song to
sing while the inevitable, the black and
white blindsiding fact, comes hurtling
toward you out of the deep?
(Poem:"Earl" by Louis Jenkins, from North of the Cities. Will o' the Wisp Books, 2007.)

Jack, be nimble.

Karim, be quick.

At least they didn't get Jack. And Karim can still smile.

We'll ignore, a while, those blindsiding facts.

Where is an immaculate heart when one is needed?

A friend and I sat in the sun side of the shop late this afternoon. He said something about Iraq. I mentioned I thought the point of view praising US accomplishment there was nonsense.

One week after a series of truck bombs hit two poor villages near the Syrian border, the known casualty toll has soared to more than 500 dead and 1,500 wounded, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, making them by far the worst coordinated attacks since the American-led invasion.

Dr. Said Hakki, director of the society, said Tuesday that local Red Crescent workers registering families for aid after the explosions in Qahtaniya and Jazeera had compiled the new numbers, which dwarf the earlier estimates that at least 250 people were killed.
(--from, Toll in Iraq Bombings Is Raised to More Than 500, By DAMIEN CAVE and JAMES GLANZ, New York Times, Published: August 22, 2007)

At Buddhist conversation we read Shantideva with commentary by Pema Chodron.

We talked about anger. Teresa quoted Nin:

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
(--by Anais Nin )

To eliminate any one feeling jeopardizes them all. We're meant to feel all of it -- even if the world doesn't notice.

Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
(--Poem by W.H. Auden, 1940 )

Anyone else's suffering isn't spectacular to anyone else. Not for long, if it is.

Unless, of course, you care.

And if you care, it's yours.

Shared.

And.

Transformed.

I'm not interested in the idea of God.

Either God is or God is not. No amount of explanation or defense, rhetoric or apologetic satisfies. If God is; fine. If God is not; also fine.

Determining the shape of human society -- who's worthy and who's not, or what form of government is best reflective of the will of God -- has been an iffy, if not miserable, effort.

Another thing -- whether using God talk or in political analysis, puppet-metaphors and explanations based on puppetry, strings, or manipulation -- these modes fail to satisfy. I cannot comprehend the religious tension promulgated through history based on the question whether proper human action is dictated by God, or, human action is best determined by acuity of reason.

It seems God, church, believers, or state -- in their attempt to determine and control how human behavior should be in the face of the notion of God's revelation as to how human behavior should be -- have caused mischief and suffering, war and hatred in their haste to posit the source of salvation outside the person, place, or thing we know as the 'individual', or, the undivided.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes tried to find a way out of this labyrinth. Traditionally, political theology had interpreted a set of revealed divine commands and applied them to social life. In his great treatise “Leviathan” (1651), Hobbes simply ignored the substance of those commands and talked instead about how and why human beings believed God revealed them. He did the most revolutionary thing a thinker can ever do — he changed the subject, from God and his commands to man and his beliefs. If we do that, Hobbes reasoned, we can begin to understand why religious convictions so often lead to political conflicts and then perhaps find a way to contain the potential for violence.

...

Rousseau spoke of religion in terms of human needs, not divine truths, and had his Savoyard vicar declare, “I believe all particular religions are good when one serves God usefully in them.” For that, he was hounded by pious Christians.

...

...Hobbes’s iron law: Messianic theology eventually breeds messianic politics. The idea of redemption is among the most powerful forces shaping human existence in all those societies touched by the biblical tradition.
(--from The Politics of God, New York Times Magazine, Published: August 19, 2007. Mark Lilla is professor of the humanities at Columbia University. This essay is adapted from his book “The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West.”)

Here's what I hold as true:

• silence is lovely.
• breakfast is gift.
• water is life.
• companionship is best when free of cant. (main entry 6, noun, in Merriam-Webster online)
• walks and naps are de rigueur.
  

We need to spare one another from religious or spiritual encumbrance. Also political claptrap invoking deity and specialized moral imperative.

I opt for clear thinking and inclusive consideration of each being's well being.

Devote yourself to Absolute Emptiness;
Contemplate earnestly in Quiescence.
All things are together in Action,
But I look into their Non-action,
For things are continuously moving, restless,
Yet each is proceeding back to its origin.
Proceeding back to the origin means Quiescence.
To be in Quiescence is to see Being-for-itself.
- Lao tzu

If I shut up now...

Will you?

If I open up now...

Will we?

William Carlos Williams summarized his poetic method in the phrase "No ideas but in things" (from his 1944 poem "A Sort of a Song").

A Sort of a Song

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
-- through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.
(--Poem by William Carlos Williams)

Particulars, he said. A poetry of particulars.

His familiar, repeated tag phrase 'no ideas but in things' means that statements grow from, and report back to, local particulars. 'The Poet and His Poems' (1939) strings together several slogans until it arrives at this:

It should
be a song - made of
particulars, wasps,
a gentian - something
immediate, open
scissors, a lady's
eyes - the particulars
of a song waking
upon a bed of sound.

Surprise, specificity, ordinariness, new aural shapes, a bit of household detritus: such a verse-manifesto portrays much of what Williams tried to do. It attempts, too, to show order emerging from a neglected realm - the emergence, not the final synthesis.
(--from London Review of Books, Vol. 24 No. 5,dated 7 March 2002 , "Chicory and Daisies," by Stephen Burt)

Let's be particular about one another.

Let's be particular about God.

Compose this way.

Each day.

A way.

Of life.

I'm thinking about death.

Girder

The simplest of bridges, a promise
that you will go forward,

that you can come back.
So you cross over.

It says you can come back.
So you go forward.

But even if you come back
then you must go forward.

I am always either going back
or coming forward. There is always

something I have to carry,
something I leave behind.

I am a figure in a logic problem,
standing on one shore

with the things I cannot leave,
looking across at what I cannot have.
(--Poem: "Girder" by Nan Cohen, from Rope Bridge. Cherry Grove Collection. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/)

There's not much else to say about death.

Except, like the comic, I hope not to be there when it happens.

Not being there -- that's another way of saying self diminishes.

I don't quite feel anywhere.

Am I dead yet?

Saturday afternoon trips to the dump. Renamed 'transfer station' -- nothing gets dumped, it just gets transferred. Getting there just at two minutes to four. It closes at four. The perennial dread that stinky bags will have to be returned for three days longer.The joy of arriving before too late. Not early, not on time -- but before too late.

Rivers in the east flow eastward,
Rivers in the west flow westward,
And they all enter the sea.
From sea to sea they pass,
The clouds lift them to the sky
As vapor and send them down as rain.
And as these rivers,
When they are united with the sea,
Do not know whether they
Are this river or that,
Likewise all creatures do not know
From whence they came.
- Chandogya Upanishad

Before too late we might arrive at not knowing from whence we came, whither we go, and how this unmistakeably present moment is isomorphically intimate with all time and its mother eternity.

From a sermon on Baptism by St. Pacian, bishop:
Who, O God, is like you? you take away guilt
As we have borne the image of the earthly man, so we shall bear the image of him who is from heaven; since the first man who came from the earth, is earthly, but the second man who came from heaven, is heavenly’. And so, dearly beloved, we shall not die anymore. Even if we fall asleep in this body, we shall live in Christ, as he said: Whoever believes in me, even if he die, shall live.
(--From Office of Readings, Saturday of week 19 of the year)

Talking to an enthusiastic and intelligent young man about theology last evening. We wonder what the future of the Roman church holds. So few priests. Religious men and women grow old. Their communities threaten to fold in around them -- so few recruits following behind them. The institution weakened by sex abuse scandals. Authority, at least moral authority, weakened.

What would happen if the rift between East and West were healed? Would Peter's Chair become a long bench? Would it become a folding chair? Would everyone have to take off their heavy vestments and paraphernalia and sit on the grass where fingers could easily pick at the brown clay and earth?

There's no need to dump the church. There could be a transfer of sensibility so as to welcome women into the realization of Christ's priesthood. (The young man rolled his eyes at this thought.) No more hocus pocus. Rather, priestly speaking into the inner reality of matter itself, inviting core truth to fill the edges of what is. "This" is the body of Christ. It is given up for us. Not held on to. Not withheld. Not the possession of a few.

Silentium tibi laus. 'Let silence be your praise!'

As blood flows silently through living beings, living being itself is loving silent gaze. Words are accoutrement. They are not essential garb.

The young man will go to study for priesthood in the Roman tradition.

I look out window. Blue sky. Blue water. Flags blowing in breeze. Children's voices rise.

From whence?

Does this?

Come.

Not.

Too.

Late.

Belief knows; faith toes forward.

I tell a young man who will enter Catholic seminary that I expect heaven to be a surprise to everyone.

The clouds emerge from the Mountain of Chung
And then return to the Mountain of Chung.
I would like to ask the dweller in this mountain,
Where are the clouds now?

Clouds emerge from No mind
And then return to No mind.
No mind is nowhere to be found.
We need not seek the home of No mind.
- Wang An-shih (1068-1076)

In prison today reading Anthony De Mello and Nicolai Machiavelli.

That, and we talked about subtleties between faith and belief, Jeffersonian bloody revolution and the need for a spiritual revolution of consciousness as antidote to irresponsibility and cynicism.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
(--Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William Stephens, November 13, 1787)

In the Buddhist group we chanted the Heart Sutra -- gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond; awake!

(And then.)

Rejoice!

(All in a day's word.)

Where are we?

Loon approached where I stood on small wooden dock at Hosmer Pond. It swam directly and stopped ten yards from the float. From behind me the sounds of a visiting dog. The loon turned, flapped, began water-sprint, and flew long and low down toward island on small pond.

A Democracy of Being
Shakyamuni Buddha's revolution was without warfare; without provoking violent opposition, he defied prevalent Brahmanic conventions to teach not only rulers and wealthy merchants but outcasts, the disinherited, street punks, even--eventually--women. He then went on to guide his diverse followers on the path of liberation. In the Buddha's teachings, the source of absolute liberation is internal, a state of mind that is not dependent on external circumstances--not on race, class, or gender. In dharma, democracy is the birthright of our own Buddha-nature, the democracy of being that goes beyond all culture, all concepts.
(--Helen Tworkov, Tricyle: The Buddhist Review, Fall 1994)

Life on a pond or life in a city is fraught with difficulties looming just behind every appearance. As impossible as it seems to make things appear or make them go away in the external world, there is a chance that we can enliven the inner life in such a way that, no matter what happens out there, there resides within us an ability to be present, caring, and attentive.

We have an inner freedom that allows us to face the outer restrictions with equanimity and authenticity.

What is Meditation?
Meditation is a way to make the mind more stable and clear. From this point of view, meditation is not purely a Buddhist practice; it's a practice that anyone can do. It doesn't tie in with a particular spiritual tradition. If we want to undo confusion, we're going to have to be responsible for learning what our own mind is and how it works, no matter what beliefs we hold.

The word for meditation in Sanskrit is "shamatha" in Sanskrit (Tibetan: shi-ne), which means "peacefully abiding." Peacefully abiding describes the mind as it naturally is. The word "peace" tells the whole story. The human mind is by nature joyous, calm and very clear. In shamatha meditation we aren't creating a peaceful state——we're letting our mind be as it is to begin with. This doesn't mean that we're peacefully ignoring things. It means that the mind is able to be present, without constantly leaving.

In meditation, what we're doing is looking at our experience and at the world intelligently. The Buddha said that this is how we learn to look at any situation and understand its truth. This is what a Buddha does—and we are all capable of being Buddhas, whether or not we are Buddhists. We all have the ability to realize our naturally peaceful minds where there is no confusion. We can use the natural clarity of our mind to focus on anything we want. But first we have to tame our minds through shamatha meditation.
(--from a talk by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, http://www.shambhala.org/meditation/faqs.php#whatismeditation)

To look at things intelligently means taking the time to look. It means looking and thinking are of a piece. Thinking is different from the bombardment of thoughts that barrage our minds all day. Thinking is careful looking at what is there outside as well as inside. To look, to think, is careful attention. It is the invitation to what is seen to reveal itself -- with its demands or needs -- right here, right now.

Careful attention easily becomes caring intention.

When we tend to something, we are doing what the word 'belief' conveys.

We must be clear about the function of concepts in theology and about dogmatic formulae. Thomas, like Albert the Great or Bonaventure, used this definition of the article of faith: Perceptio diviniae veritatis tendens in ipsam, 'a glimpse of the divine Truth tending towards that truth'. We possess no adequate concept of God and apply created concepts to him which allow us to tend towards his truth, without being able to grasp it conceptually. The most important word in Thomas' text is in, a word that is also found in the creed: Credo in Deum...et in Jesum Christum, 'I believe in God...and in Jesus Christ'. We do not, it should be noted, say: 'I believe that Jesus Christ is the only Son', but make use of a statement which says exactly what or who is in question, to express a movement or thrust of faith by which we are taken up. Augustine wrote his famous commentaries on credere in Deum, 'believing in God'.
(--from p.5, in The Word and the Spirit, by Yves Congar, c.1984)

To believe, then, is to tend toward. We acknowledge what is within, the interiority of being, that which we are within.

Thus, belief might be considered the recognition or realization of that within which we are.

If we believe in anything, we tend toward what we are. If we are in everything, that is, not other than, then the recognition and realization of who and what we are, where and how we are -- is a tending toward the truth of being and Truth of Being.

My Inner Peace

My inner peace
Does not select anybody,
Does not reject anybody.
My inner peace
Always self-givingly projects itself.
(--Poem by Sri Chinmoy)

There we are!

The Dormition, or Falling Asleep of the Theotokos, is what the Feast of the Assumption of Mary is called in the East.

This great Feast of the Church and the icon celebrates a fundamental teaching of our faith—the Resurrection of the body. In the case of the Theotokos, this has been accomplished by the divine will of God. Thus, this Feast is a feast of hope, hope in Resurrection and life eternal. Like those who gathered around the body of the Virgin Mary, we gather around our departed loved ones and commend their souls into the hands of Christ. As we remember those who have reposed in the faith before us and have passed on into the communion of the Saints, we prepare ourselves to one day be received into the new life of the age to come.

We also affirm through this Feast as we journey toward our heavenly abode that the Mother of God intercedes for us. Through Christ she has become the mother of all of the children of God, embracing us with divine love.
(--from Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, http://www.goarch.org/en/special/listen_learn_share/dormition/learn/)

The body of a friend, 40 years ago, stepped into her own Assumption in a small town in French Canada. There's a picture somewhere of the day. History has tucked it away.
She has been transformed these later years into wife of a good heart. Each vocation is, of itself, a true vocation. She is the gift. Her call is continuing resonance. I think of her, yearly, on this day.

My nature has no liking
For life in the cities.
To be free from the noise,
I built a little thatched cottage
Far away in the depth of the mountains.
Wandering here and there,
I carry no thought.
When spring comes
I watch the birds;
In summer I bathe
In the running stream.
In autumn I climb
The highest peaks;
During the winter I am
Warming up in the sun.
Thus I enjoy the real flavor of the seasons.
Let the sun and the moon
Revolve by themselves!
When I have time, I read the sutras,
When I am tired, I sleep on my straw bed.
- Shih t’ao (1641–1717)

A hermitage is retreat and respite. No longer a matter of running away or running to -- hermitage is enclosure in the unknown. Hermits are often never seen. More likely, they wander in our midst, a corpus of unknowing.

What good is meditating on patience
If you will not tolerate insult?
What use are sacrifices
If you do not overcome attachment and revulsion?
What good is giving alms
If you do not root out selfishness?
What good is governing a great monastery
If you do not regard all beings as your beloved parents?
(--from The Life of Milarepa, trans. by Lobsang P. Lhalunga)

It is a simple yet profound step from not knowing one's parents to unknowing acceptance of all beings as one's parents.

I light incense to my parents, every one of them -- all of them -- and bow to their ever-presence everywhere.

Mary, Theotokos, is so honored.

Where is not, with awareness, Theotokos, God-bearer, the one who gives birth to God?

May we awaken in this Falling Asleep!

May this grace be so offered!

And so received!

This.

Day.

I'm trying to notice silence.

After his paean to chaos, madness and war -- "I love the the smell of napalm in the morning," -- the character, Lt. Col. Kilgore, played by Robert Duval, stands up and says "Someday this war's gonna end." (--from Apocalypse Now, 1979.)

Most wars end. Even the current chaos, madness, and war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the American psyche -- will end.

We are told to realize that
Not a single thing exists.
In this field birth and death
Do not appear.
The deep source,
Transparent down to the bottom,
Can radiantly shine and respond
Unencumbered by each speck of dust
Without becoming its partner.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)

And when it ends, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers will complete the burying of the dead. Flowers, inscriptions, foodstuff, and tears will be left alongside dirt, sand, and grass. Even those whose belief ascribes there is no death -- they too experience that something clearly has changed in the world of appearances.

Prayer for Peace

Adorable Presence!
Thou who art within and without,
above and below and all around;
Thou who art interpenetrating
the very cells of our being-
Thou who art the Eye of our eyes,
the Ear of our ears,
the Heart of our hearts,
the Mind of our minds,
the Breath of our breaths,
the Life of our lives,
and the Soul of our souls.

Bless us Dear God,
to be aware of Thy Presence
Now and Here.
This is all that we ask of Thee;
May all be aware of Thy Presence in
the East and the West,
and the North and the South.
May Peace and Goodwill abide
among individuals as well as among
communities and nations.

This is our Earnest Prayer.
May Peace be unto All
Om Shanti! Peace! Shalom!
(--Prayer attributed to Swami Omkar. This was a special peace prayer offered by The Mission of Peace- Shanti Ashram, India, for The 1993 Parliament Of The World's Religions, India)

There is not much we can do as ordinary civilians to end war. It takes forces and strength beyond mere wishing. We can, nevertheless, pray.

Prayer is an inner intimacy with silence. Some say silence is where God dwells. What-is-called God -- whether a being whole-in-itself, or the wholeness-itself -- is that to which (to whom) we intend our prayer.

I need silence. So many of the writings and signing statements passing my eyes make no sense.

The Signatures of Time

binding signatures of time are fading footprints
tracking across wind-blown desert floors,

newspapers whipping down cold, empty streets,
split apart, become wings sailing like stingrays
swimming through wash of an emerald sea,

history is moments gleaned from unsorted stacks
holding facts, voices steamed clean as mussels
on a plate, disintegrating on worn tapes,
splintering on spools in old tape recorders,

like photos fading out in yellowing newspapers
(Poem by Quincy Troupe)

History is sometimes seen as "the branch of knowledge that records and analyzes past events."

"History" -- Middle English histoire, from Old French, from Latin historia, from Greek historia, from historein, to inquire, from histor, learned man
(--from Answers.com)

We are said to leave things present to the judgment of history. As if history were a wise academic readying to scrutinize the acts of a bygone era so as to tutor us in the present. It consoles some men to leave their legacy to history. It is a delaying tactic. A recent ambiguous and eerie response was given by one of the delaying people:

George W. Bush, when asked by Bob Woodward "how is history likely to judge your Iraq war?" replied, "History, we don't know. We'll all be dead." (Woodward Shares War Secrets, CBS News, 60 Minutes, April 18, 2004).

History asks for learned men and women. It is hoped the learned will reveal to us past follies so that contemporary learned men and women will avoid folly and move toward wisdom. Our success thus far is quite unconvincing.

Barbara Tuchman examined the irrationalities of governments through four crises of history: 1. The Trojan Horse and the fall of Troy; 2. The Protestant Secession and the Renaissance papacy's provocation of the Protestant Reformation; 3. The American Revolution and Britain's loss of the American colonies; and, 4. The American War in Vietnam. Were she writing today, Iraq would be the fifth.

"A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?"

"Wooden-headedness, the source of self deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts. No experience of failure shakes belief in its essential excellence."

"Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves."

"Leaders of government do not learn beyond the convictions they bring with them; these are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they are in office. Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced."

"In its first stage, mental standstill fixes the principles and boundaries governing a political problem. In the second stage, when dissonances and ailing function begin to appear, the initial principles rigidify. This is the period when, if wisdom were operative, re-examination and re-thinking and a change of course are possible, but they are as rare as rubies in a backyard. Rigidifying leads to increase of investment and the need to protect egos; policy founded upon error, multiplies, never retreats. The greater the investment and the more involved in it the sponsor's ego, the more unacceptable is disengagement."

"Persistence in error is the problem. Practitioners of government continue down the wrong road as if in thrall to some magic power which directs their steps. To recognize error, to cut losses, to alter course is the most repugnant option in government."
(--from The March of Folly, by Barbara Tuchman, From Troy to Vietnam, 1984)

I've been looking at my own history. Folly there, too. This self I have tried to costume seems ridiculous. Absurd, too, the attempt to make sense of the opinions, posturing, non-necessities and illusions accumulating alongside my steps. The explanation of 'former life' or projection of 'next life' does not satisfy. Something that is unexplained or missing ought to be able to be retrieved in the present moment.

Whether the Buddha gave credence to the notion of karmic rebirth or not, it’s nonetheless a mischievous and silly theory.

What isn’t silly is the acknowledgment of consequence and the realization that what I choose to do matters. I don’t have to look to past or future lives to observe the consequence of my actions or to feel their effects. It’s easily discoverable among those living in my very own household. Here I can witness the immediate effects of my choices and the transmission of my behavior to future generations. And I don’t have to wait for the pay off. If I bother to notice, I’ll discover that my suffering or reward commences in the very instant of wrongdoing or good. If I reduce the harm I cause others, I will reduce the harm to myself. The effect of how I live my life will be my legacy to those who come after. If I’ve been self-seeking and greedy I will perpetuate that behavior. If I’ve been selfless and generous I will bequeath that to unknown heirs in some future time.

The inherent ethical wisdom of the Buddhist “law of karma” lies in its teaching on the consequence of actions. As a moral law, karma has to do with volitional actions, that is, actions intentionally chosen and acted upon. This moral aspect points to the rather obvious observation that an individual is held accountable for what he chooses to do. An additional aspect of the traditional ethics of the law of karma states that actions perpetuate their own kind. Literally, greed leads to more greed, hate to more hate, kindness to kindness, love to love, and so forth. I can’t argue with the likelihood of an action initiating its own kind, but it’s important to never forget that the moral implication of action resides in the exercise of choice and that one can choose not to perpetuate a particular action. If you treat me unkindly, I can choose not to respond in kind and thereby turn the karmic wheel back toward a more harmonious result. If I couldn't do so, then the whole rationale upon which the moral aspect of karma rests would no longer apply. If I’m to be held responsible for the consequences of my actions, I must be free to choose between alternatives.

On the whole, the great significance of the teachings of karma is to remind me that if I crank at the checkout clerk at S & S Produce, she’s more likely to crank at someone else than she would had I treated her with consideration and respect. Karma as a simple law of consequence alerts me to the effect of my actions upon others. It also urges attention to the effect of my actions upon myself. If I indulge minor irritations, I perpetuate my own irritability and feel much worse than need be. But when my worry over the likelihood of my own actions rebounding on myself is brought to bear more or less exclusively on the effort to accumulate merit toward a favorable rebirth, the whole procedure becomes a selfish activity. And if it’s true that actions perpetuate their own kind, then the consequence of my quest for personal reward will result in little more than the perpetuation of self-interest.

If there is such a thing as a Law of Karma its execution rests not on relative merit and potential reward but rather on the willingness to notice, here and now, my effect upon others. It’s a matter of simple kindness and consideration. I can only try to choose well.
(-- from Web Exclusive, August 8, 2007, "Choice" By Lin Jensen, Tricycle Magazine)

I need silence to notice.

Notice well.

Learn well.

Choose well.

Sometimes words shape a man and a nation. Sometimes only acts count. And then there are those who are made of misleading words and dishonorable acts.

But we can't be too terribly harsh with mendacity -- we hardly hear ourselves, and barely have any acquaintance with who we really, or even superficially, are.

Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity--but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography," our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards. . . It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?
Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn't that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own?
--Sogyal Rinpoche

We'd begun to think of ourselves as a nation of laws. Then we experienced men who believed that to be in control of power was a more elevated notion than laws. So, they took over the function of law and became a word-spinning power-playing feinting-facsimile of what we thought was a fool-proof form of government and continuation of inspiration hard-wrought by country's founders.

Religions, too, have their difficulties. Siddhartha Gautama left the smile attached to a flower as trusted transmission. Jesus had an equally iffy methodology. As "Word" he gave the conveying continuity of his inspiration to the conversing ability of human ears and mouths.

"Jesus had chosen to entrust his message to the living voice of the apostles." (--p.108 in George Tyrrell and the Catholic Tradition, by Ellen Leonard, C.S.J. c.1982)

Whatever direction it took from there -- institution, dogma, law, the foibles of men -- at root there remains a ground reality of sound, smile, and spirit.

Current secular rule, especially in America, went quickly these past several years from written law to stuttering say-so predicated on petty personal political power-drunkenness.

"Mr. Rove was not only the chief architect of Mr. Bush’s political campaigns but also the midwife of the president’s political persona itself." (--in Karl Rove, Top Strategist, Is Leaving the White House, New York Times, by By JIM RUTENBERG and STEVEN LEE MYERS, Published: August 13, 2007.)

What has been given face and voice these six years? The persona has sounded through a teeth-grinding, nail scrapping on chalkboard antiphony resembling school bathroom bullying vying with the hanged man's death gurgle. And it has not been called what it is -- disgrace.

Whatever names they gave it -- usually spun misnomers diametrically opposite what the words said -- the actions of these men in Washington were counter to what decent, caring men would do carrying out the honor of their responsibilities.

"Men knew that words were just words and only action counted -- period." (--p.6, in The Sweet Forever, by George P. Pelecanos, c.1998)

These are not "men" in the current hoped-for connotation of the word -- namely, humanity motivated by a love and respect for fellow creatures, acting with all their abilities to serve, protect, and ensure a meaningful template of just and honorable continuity for all peoples, all creatures, the earth itself, and the mystery of being.

It was a tremendous gamble Jesus made. Can men be trusted to continue forward the inspiration of kindness and compassion? Are men capable of selfless toil, responsible actions, and authentic words reaching for truth?

What do we hear? What do we say? What do we do?

It remains a tremendous task replete with unknowable outcome -- to tend toward trustworthy actions integral with living, bodily words.

Can we meet the stranger, welcome the stranger, and sit in refreshing silence together?

Yes.

Can body and word reintegrate?

We must.

And shall be.

Let the dream be community. Let the dream be hospitality.

As we treat the earth, so we treat one another. How're we doing?

Every Single Day
The Buddha recommended that every person should remember every single day that we are not here for ever. It is a guest performance, which can be finished any time. We don't know when; we have no idea. We always think that we may have seventy-five or eighty years, but who knows? If we remember our vulnerability every single day, our lives will be imbued with the understanding that each moment counts and we will not be so concerned with the future. Now is the time to grow on the spiritual path. If we remember that, we will also have a different relationship to the people around us. They too can die at any moment, and we certainly wouldn't like that to happen at a time when we are not loving towards them. When we remember that, our practice connects to this moment and meditation improves because there is urgency behind it. We need to act now. We can only watch this one breath, not the next one.
--Ayya Khema

Saskia said that the four women sailing Penobscot Bay yesterday were contagiously happy. The air, the sea, the seals, the porpoises -- the company of one another.

When we look back over our own lives, we realize that whatever of significance we have achieved in our own personal lives and in the larger cultural domain has been the fulfillment of thoughts and dreams that we had early in our lives, dreams that sustained us when we encountered difficulties through the years.

Beyond the dreams of our personal future, there are the shared dreams that give shape and form to each of our cultural traditions. Because this other world cannot be explained by any technical or scientific language, we present it by analogy and myth and story. Even beyond childhood, this is the world of the human mind.

So tonight, as we look up at the evening sky with the stars emerging faintly against the fading background of the sunset, we think of the mythic foundations of our future. We need to engage in a shared dream experience.

The experiences that we have spoken of as we look up at the starry sky at night and in the morning see the landscape revealed as the sun dawns over the Earth — these reveal a physical world but also a more profound world that cannot be bought with money, cannot be manufactured with technology, cannot be listed on the stock market, cannot be made in the chemical laboratory, cannot be reproduced with all our genetic engineering, cannot be sent by e-mail. These experiences require only that we follow the deepest feelings of the human soul.

What we look for is no longer the Pax Romana, the peace of imperial Rome, nor is it simply the Pax Humana, the peace among humans, but the Pax Gaia, the peace of earth and every being on the Earth. This is the original and the final peace, the peace granted by whatever power it is that brings our world into being. Within the universe, the planet Earth with all its wonder is the place for the meeting of the divine and the human.
(--from The Great Community of the Earth, by Thomas Berry, http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=385)

Dear divine: Please be hospitable to humans!

Dear human: Please be welcoming to divinity!

Together we form one community, one dream, and one intimate entirety.

Tell me your stories, your dreams -- and I'll tell you mine.

Sit a while.

Whether with words or with silence.

We reveal sacred unity.

Well worth our lives.

It is the feast of Clare of Assisi on August 11th. To her, for Poor Clares, and friends of Francis, and all beings longing to belong in spiritual poverty -- our gratitude and prayer!

"Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me. "
(--Saint Clare of Assisi)

What you hold, may you always hold.
What you do, may you do and never abandon.
But with swift pace, light step,
unswerving feet,
so that even your steps stir no dust,
go forward
securely, joyfully, and swiftly,
on the path of prudent happiness,
believing nothing
agreeing with nothing
which would dissuade you from this resolution
or which would place a stumbling block for you on the way,
so that you may offer your vows to the Most High
in the pursuit of that perfection
to which the Spirit of the Lord has called you.

(--St Clare of Assisi)

Hummingbird, on rounds, pauses out back kitchen window, buttercup to buttercup. It gladdens this house.

There are flaws and cracks in my house. Some pains are felt in joining places, distress in bearing loads. Unpainted wood swells and softens. My soul carries tired sighs to landfill which never is filled, never closed.

Our Real Home
Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught that that sort of home is not our real home, it's only nominally ours. It's a home in the world and it follows the ways of the world. Our real home is inner peace. An external material home may well be pretty but it is not very peaceful. There's this worry and then that, this anxiety and then that. So we say it's not our real home, it's external to us, sooner or later we'll have to give it up. It's not a place we can live in permanently because it doesn't truly belong to us, it's part of the world. Our body is the same, we take it to be self, to be "me" and "mine," but in fact it's not really so at all, it's another worldly home.
--Ajahn Chah

Presence is sometimes symbol. Someone shows up, less to be there, more to call to mind that a greater Presence dwells in the middle of us. However unattended, ignored, or passingly acknowledged -- this Presence is there -- the silent and unspeakable wholeness pre-utterance each of us seeks to hear, see, or feel.

Each, we hold, as if with imaginative hands of gossamer faith, is real. Yet, each is also symbol of incomprehensible connectivity -- the whole as refracted in particulars of undivided affirmation.
I am you. You are me. Neighbor is oneself. God is not-other. Light is shining through one and all.

A symbol is the place where and the means by which we can apprehend realities which the concept fragments in its attempt to reproduce them exactly. It is also apt to indicate the transcendence of revealed spiritual realities.
(--p.4, The Word And The Spirit, by Yves Congar, c.1984)

Summer has a way of of tiring. Long hours at shop. Surfeit of words. Too many cookies. Cesco's slow weakening.

Still, in all, the beauty.

Yahweh, I love the beauty of your house, and the place where your glory dwells.
(--Ps 26:6, Jer)

Sitting at conversation table in protective custody unit with "Riding With Bobbie" in Ode Magazine. We talk about breaking patterns, going beyond words, contact and letting go.

Sitting with Buddhist Group in prison activities building, a zazen with low background chant "Amita," then talking about Lozoff's visit, about the onus on us to cultivate compassionate listening when some inmate or religious fellow intends to convince you you're not a "true believer", at least not according to their lock box sanctity you'll never fathom or even want to.

Sitting with regular Meetingbrook Conversation group with four men, two of whom could not safely or comfortably sit in the same room over the years, with another man returning after some three years staying away (who wants to study Kierkegaard and Sartre), and the fourth who brings the questions to us of whether forgetting slave history renders us amnesiac or transcending.

Take Care

"When a man dies, it's not only of his disease;
he dies of his whole life." -Charles Péguy

Our neighbor Laura Foley used to love
to tell us, every spring when we returned
from work in richer provinces, the season's
roster of disease, bereavement, loss. And all
her stars were ill, and all her ailments worth
detailing. We were young, and getting up
into the world; we feigned a gracious
interest when she spoke, but did
a wicked slew of imitations, out
of earshot. Finally her bitterness drove off
even such listeners as we, and one by one the winters nailed
more cold into her house, until the decade crippled her,
and she was dead. Her presence had been
tiresome, cheerless, negative, and there was little
range or generosity in anything she said. But now that I

have lost my certainty, and spent my spirit in a waste
of one romance, I think enumerations have their place,
descriptive of what keeps on
keeping on. For dying's nothing
simple, single. And the records of the odd
demises (stone inside an organ, obstacles to brook,
a pump that stops, some cells that won't,
the fevers making mockeries of lust)
are signatures of lively
interest: they presuppose
the life to lose. And if the love of life's
an art, and art is difficult, then we
were less than laymen at it (easy come
is all the layman knows). I mean that maybe
Laura Foley loved life more, who kept
so keen an eye on how it goes.
(--Poem: "Take Care" by Heather McHugh, from Hinge & Sign I Prefer, Wesleyan University Press.)

We've a Foley in our shop. It's all shit and going to shit is his take. Some days he gets a more favorable hearing than others.

There's also a Laura that gathers at the shop -- several times a week. "Laura," the Greek word meaning "trails" or footpaths meandering from distinct hermitages to a central gathering place -- for nourishment, conversation, spiritual support based on listening and being heard. It is a matter of taking care.

What is at issue is the mystery of the uncreated one who is 'Light beyond all light'. How should we speak of this? Silentium tibi laus, 'Silence is thy praise'. All we can do is worship.
(--p.2, Congar)

Light beyond light, for me, today, means there is a source of light that is whole within itself. Our particular light (or lights) are not as itself-sufficient (or self-sufficient). We beg and borrow, (even steal), the light of others to assist us with our own light. But like the vigil tea light candles placed in cabin sanctuary or before Buddha, Francis, Dogen, cross, or icon -- these exhaust themselves, flicker down, and extinguish. But fire itself! Fire itself seems everywhere at once, and at the same time, invisibly present without display.

I'll send Charlie the Kierkegaard I've been reading about in Karl Stern's Flight From Woman. A course in Existentialist thought might arise from their interest.

It doesn't matter. It's only life.

Still, I love the beauty of it.

And what's wrong?

That too.

Needs.

Light.

And.

Care.

Do you mind?

Stripped of reason my mind is blank
Emptied of being my nature is bare
At night my windows often breathe white
The moon and stream come right to the door.
- Shih-wu (1272-1352)

When our minds change, everything changes.

Teilhard, said the man in maximum security, was much misunderstood.

The term "noogenesis" was coined by the Christian mystic, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. It means the growth or development of consciousness--the coming into being of the "noosphere." Noosphere is defined as the sphere or stage of evolutionary development characterized by (the emergence or dominance of) consciousness, the mind, and interpersonal relationships. http://www.noogenesis.com/chardin.html

The moon has gone dark.

Fallow.

Whoever it was wanted to facilitate the development of a collective conscious caring world wide mind, met an interstice. As is the phase of moon tonight.

It's where we are for now.

Until new light returns.

Yes, I mind.

No, I don't mind.

There you have it.

Martin Heidegger asked: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" I ask: Is nothing the core of each and any something?

Even profound concepts are ultimately empty: the Ultimate Path is wordless, and if we speak, we go astray from it. Though we may characterize the fundamental basis as “empty by nature,” there is no “fundamental basis” that can be labeled. Emptiness itself is wordless: it is not a mental construct.
- Records of the Lanka

If emptiness is the fundamental basis of nature, why do we so consistently try to make something of nothing? Isn't that what we do? Rather than reside in love, i.e., in the intimate yes of isness-itself, we try to create something else to place our attention and acts upon, calling that love.

You have been obedient to the truth and purified your souls until you can love like brothers [and sisters], in sincerity; let your love for each other be real and from the heart – your new birth was not from any mortal seed but from the everlasting word of the living and eternal God.

Isness-itself is also named emptiness. Emptiness is each as it is -- nothing adding, nothing taken away -- merely itself as it is.

Now do we wait in quiet. God is here, because we wait together. I am sure that He will speak to you, and you will hear. Accept my confidence, for it is yours. Our minds are joined. We wait with one intent; to hear our Father's answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find His peace, to hear Him speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Himself unto His Son.
(--from Lesson 221, Course in Miracles)

God is here, because we wait together. We do not wait for anything that is coming. Nor do we wait for some other time, some event, or some person.

It is waiting-itself, waiting together, that is God here.

There is no object to waiting.

There's nothing to it, nothing ahead of it, nothing else worth doing.

God is here.

Because.

We wait.

Together.

Isn't that the cat's meow?

No, nothing like that.

I think today of Frank and Kay.

A Simplified Space
Sitting is essentially a simplified space. Our daily life is in constant movement: lots of things going on, lots of people talking, lots of events taking place. In the middle of that, it's very difficult to sense that we are in our life. When we simplify the situation, when we take away the externals and remove ourselves from the ringing phone, the television, the people who visit us, the dog who needs a walk, we get a chance--which is absolutely the most valuable thing there is--to face ourselves. Meditation is not about some state, but about the meditator. It's not about some activity or fixing something. It's about ourselves. If we don't simplify the situation the chance of taking a good look at ourselves is very small--because what we tend to look at isn't ourselves but everything else. If something goes wrong, what do we look at? We look at what's going wrong. We're looking out there all the time, and not at ourselves.
(--Charlotte Joko Beck)

I've grown, this past year, a little less interested in criticism and judgment -- giving or getting.

I've noticed, more and more, the prevalence of criticism and judgment in gossip and rumor. For many of us, no one is good enough. Very few measure up to our righteousness. What is often heard, if we are really listening, is aspersion and diminution of someone else (we think) not there at the time.

Not there -- so we think. We are very slow to appreciate that we are that someone else, and that we are always here. We always hear what is being said about us by us in our own presence. The illusion is that we are not that of whom or which we are speaking. We consider ourselves -- erroneously, I suspect -- separate and detached from one another. The delusion we proffer is some standard of superior state not approachable by others. When I engage in this behavior, I am ignorant. When you do this, I am again and again ignorant.

We need to approach life with more expansive skill.

The Lebanese poet Gibran wrote:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
(--from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran)

Life longs for itself. God longs for God. We long for what we are. (We, unfortunately for ourselves and others, usually forget what we truly are.)

"How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the delights of trifles. And what at one time I feared to lose, it was now a joy to me to put away." (--Augustine of Hippo)

I think of Frank and Kay today. Happily. To these parents, these ancestors, I bow in homage.

Incense rises.

Eucharist embodies.

Their love.

To me.

Set.

Free.

Morning sea sunlight at edge of fog holds sounds of children, dog barking, basketball dribbling on court, and woman sunning herself on pier. Dinghies at float and boats on moorings -- it is Bayside still-life with coffee.

Natural Response of an Open Heart
Wisdom replaces ignorance in our minds when we realize that happiness does not lie in the accumulation of more and more pleasant feelings, that gratifying craving does not bring us a feeling of wholeness or completeness. It simply leads to more craving and more aversion. When we realize in our own experience that happiness comes not from reaching out but from letting go, not from seeking pleasurable experience, but from opening in the moment to what is true, this transformation of understanding then frees the energy of compassion within us. Our minds are no longer bound up in pushing away pain or holding on to pleasure. Compassion becomes the natural response of an open heart.
(--Joseph Goldstein)

What about letting go of happiness?

What about stop looking for meaning?

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
(--Albert Camus, The fool, in "Intuitions" published in Youthful Writings )

Each second ticks on a clock without hands.

Why do we continually check to see what time it is?

Pema Chodron's book title has it: There's No Time To Lose.

Without thinking, with open heart, say what is true!

Once, the story goes, Jesus was transfigured.

James and John, they say, were there. It is said they saw Moses and Elijah appearing in glory beside Jesus. This is a good story. A voice, Luke says, is heard saying,

‘This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.’ And after the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. The disciples kept silence and, at that time, told no one what they had seen. (Luke 9:35-36)

What is there to tell?

Wherever and whenever
The mind is found
Attached to anything,
Make haste to detach
Yourself from it.
When you tarry for
Any length of time
It will turn again into
Your old home town.
- Daito Kokushi (1282-1334)

We seldom leave our old hometown. Whether it is my street in Brooklyn, (or now my road in Camden), or the patterns of thought and behavior that remain with me -- we're always returning to our old hometown -- especially when stress or despondency alight, coming by chance when we're not looking.

Doing prostrations in cabin earlier, arrived a hummingbird at window box flowers. I delighted as I slowly stretched through threefold honoring of seeing, saying, and silence -- mind, mouth, and heart. Stretched wide and open, folded tight and closed -- the inhalation and exhalation -- remembering our human repetition, the eternal recurrence of catch and release. Like Cesco these days trying to stand still to eat from bowl, we cannot remain straight and still for long. I always worry about the attempts of missionaries and assorted know-it-alls to straighten us out once and for all. They are without wit, more like unwitting undertakers dealing with their own private corpses.

A Parable

I think that almost all Americans know about the story of Sun and Wind. They tried to take the coat
off from the traveler. First, the north wind blew very hard. But the traveler kept his coat really
hard. Next, the sun shine and made him warm. Then, the traveler easily took his coat off.
Even kids know this theory. I wonder why the Americans keep being the north wind.
(- from Mutsumi, Osaka, Japan, http://www.traprockpeace.org/Hiroshimapoems.html)

It never ceases to despond that America (up until now) has been the only one to use nuclear weapons against civilians -- twice. That, and the fact that the Christian feast of The Transfiguration of the Lord share the same date. I can think of little else more antithetical or non-Christ than incinerating human beings in the name of self-interest.

Christ gives his own body. Men and women who have become Christ give their own bodies to serve the needs of the whole-Christ.

Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
(--1 John 3:2, New American Bible)

I can't say I see him "as he is." I'm not that clear and empty. This morning, after mass, I walked the stations of the cross in the Catholic church in Rockland. Even as I began with the first station the thought came, "We are condemned to die." It occurred to me that the 14 stations were the story of human life -- individually and collectively.

We fall, we are helped, we meet our mothers, we leave our impression on those touching us, we lament for the suffering of others, we are stripped of our illusions and identity, we're nailed to someone's obsession for perfection and order and saving the people from their own peculiar presence, we die, we are taken down as pity and sorrow are muted, then, finally, we are placed in a tomb. There the stations end. No 15th station, no fantastical exuberance with light and music celebrating some ambiguous resurrection.

In St Bernard's church the morning of Hiroshima and Transfiguration, I am deposited by the statue of Joseph alongside the tabernacle. The silence of both!

This afternoon it rains. Wonderfully and strongly, it rains.

The story contained in the stations of the cross, being mine (or ours), is a thoughtful one. We are pilgrims on a long path walked by millions and wondered about by equal number. We do what we can to honor our mothers and fathers. We try not to kill, steal, or attach to desire. We try not to cover truth and holiness, try not to tear down -- but rather, affirm what is there to affirm, avoid what is not there, yet deluding, and, by and large, attempt to practice living with dignity and respect -- for one and for all. Sometimes we forget. Sometimes we need reminding. Rituals help. So does a periodic dose of silence.

Word belongs between mind and silence.

Say that word.

Or don't.

Be that word.

Or act it through.

Healing.

And.

Healing.

Each -- here and beyonding -- form.

Be found alone!

Life before language, and life during language, is what silence is...
revealing.

Utter emptiness has no image,
Upright independence does not rely on anything.
Just expand and illuminate the original truth
Unconcerned by external conditions.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)

Charles Simic is current Poet Laureate in US. Poetry helps. Poetry is leaf-shadow on breezy Sunday afternoon. On porch of meditation cabin. "Stone" is one of his poems.

STONE

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill--
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.
(--Poem by Charles Simic)

The man and woman on New Dimensions Radio this morning were talking about how, evolutionarily, we are stardust. They refer to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry -- The universe travels on through us. We are its knowing. We are the universe knowing itself. We are meant to celebrate what we are.

This is who we are. We grow from the earth as the earth with all that we discover to be of the earth. Even Jesus, as the Christ, as we say, came through woman to dwell on earth as earth and for the earth. Everything, says Teilhard, is redeemed and saved from exclusion and bitter separation. Not even what many call "G-d" or God is excluded. What we call "God" might be the entirety of what is, the wholeness without exception, or, the Pleroma -- Alpha and Omega -- beyond which there is no further beyond.

Cesco stretches beside cabin. If I've claimed repair and not opened the shop, (he exudes), then a long (slow) walk is the order of the day. We will, (he exhibits in abundance), celebrate the earth by traversing its wondrous trails along mountainside. For, (he continues), soon I will die and walk no more the earth. Rather, I will become the earth in a different, more intimate, inseparate yet unmoving-as-other, way.

Humidity has broken. What is broken in me undergoes repair. Silence knits itself through every cell and atom. We are saved from hostile negative by balancing loving affirmative.

I shall pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed; I shall cleanse you of all your defilement and all your idols. I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and sincerely respect my observances.
(--Ezekiel 36:25 - 27, Reading in Lauds {Morning Prayer})

In 1977, in a house in the Village of Suffern shared by friends, I first read these stanzas from Simic's poem "Breasts."

I insist that a girl
Stripped to the waist
Is the first and last miracle,

That the old janitor on his deathbed
who demands to see the breasts of his wife
For one last time
Is the greatest poet who ever lived.

I'm glad he wrote that. I'm glad he is poet laureate. I'm glad he made the acquaintance of silence.

In the interview with the literary journal Crazy Horse, which took place in the summer of 1972, five years after he published his first book of poetry, What the Grass Says (1976), Charles Simic describes poetry as an "orphan of silence" (The Uncertain Certainty: Interviews, Essays, and Notes on Poetry, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1985. UC 5).
Silence, solitude, what is more essential to the human condition? ‘Maternal silence’ is what I like to call it. Life before the coming of language. That place where we begin to hear the voice of the inanimate. Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them. (UC 5-6)
(-- from Orphan of Silence: The Poetry of Charles Simic, By Goran Mijuk, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Fribourg, February 1, 2002, at http://ethesis.unifr.ch/theses/downloads.php?file=MijukG.pdf)

What is life before the coming of language? It is always now. It is always the source resounding noiselessly within you and me, within everything.

I'm also glad things are falling to earth. The run of divine awayness is coming to its end. The esteemed actors and authors who proclaimed a vague, otherly, and unreachable temple and template of heavenly abstruseness are exiting the theater, retiring to off, off, off the narrow-way. The broad-way, the fantastically open, transfigures our minds and imagination. Something new is in-deed happening.

"Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them."
(--Isaiah 42:9)

Words are abandoning former enslaving owners and have taken to the open road, disrobing the uniforms forced upon them, and shaking loose from formulas and oaths recited under duress and drugs. Words are taking bodies beyond themselves, shucking false selves, shunting to a span of tracks disappearing into infinity where no tracks proscribe their direction.

Poets know this.

Lovers of words and silence feel this.

"Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat," Charles Simic writes in his memoir, A Fly In The Soup. Or here is Fernando Pessoa in a journal entry:" I enjoy wording. Words for me are tangible bodies, visible sirens, incarnate sensualities." Roland Barthes describes this same erotics of language in A Lover's Discourse: "Language is a skin:I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tips of my words. My language trembles with desire. The emotion derives from a double contact:on the one hand, a whole activity of discourse discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified, which is 'I desire you,' and releases, nourishes, ramifies it to the point of explosion (language experiences orgasm upon touching itself); on the other hand I enwrap the other in my words, I caress, brush up against, talk up this contact, I extend myself to make the commentary to which I submit the relation endure." Language moves from the skin to all that is beyond it. Gaston Bachelard says in The Poetics of Space :"the reader of poems is asked to consider an image not as an object and even less as a substitute for an object, but to seize its specific reality." That is, the reality of words themselves. For him, this is an area where the "margin" of unreality enters and perturbs us, wakens us--our words suddenly sound strange, like a word we repeat to ourselves over and over again will sound strange, as if it had a life of its own. He says in The Poetics of Reverie : "I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. The words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young." It's language, after all, which allows us to presence the absent. For Bachelard, everything is at stake, possibly, in every word. It creates an effect he calls "intimate immensity," a sense of everything in every little thing, Blake's "infinity in a grain of sand," or "eternity in an hour." The erotics of language, in paying so much attention to the skin, the border between word and thing, poem and world, extends outwards and creates its own world. The poet becomes like both the lover and the beloved in Song Of Songs where the intensely erotic language not only expresses desire but creates a world for that desire to flourish within:when the beloved's neck is described as a tower, or her cheek like half of a pomegranate, the poet starts to bring in countryside and city, and then fills that out with references to cedars, cypresses, various spices, jewels, hillsides, sheep, palm trees, flowers of various sorts and so on. In the dialogue of the poem the call of one to the other is also a call of city to country and country to city, an attempt by each to capture the other in the song itself which becomes the very world, the vineyard itself.
(-- from EROS AND THE EROTICS OF WRITING, AWP Meeting, April, 2001, by Richard Jackson, at http://www.utc.edu/Academic/English/pm/eros.html)

Cesco still waits. He has, no doubt, dozed off again. He is doze and deze. He walks when walking occurs, eats when eating occurs, sleeps when sleeping occurs. For those of us his students, we have to mindfully practice these teachings.

Life before, during, and without language is our practice hall.

Cesco no longer bow-wows, but I bow deeply to him.

We are orphans and children of orphans.

A...

Silencing.

Within.

Itself.