It makes a good story. Suddenly, the wind blows. Who knows from where? Who knows where to?

It comes. It goes. Look and look and look -- ghostly arrival, ghostly departure -- you see nothing.

Some of those it touches in passing, wake up.

All of them look to you
to give them their food when they need it.
You give it to them, and they gather;
you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
But turn away, and they are dismayed;
take away their breath, and they die,
once more they will turn into dust.
You will send forth your breath, they will come to life;
you will renew the face of the earth.
(--from Psalm 104)

The face of the earth is being created.

Take a look.

Do you see your face?

God help you!

There's nothing... now... you can do.

The poet Richard Hugo is right, "We're seldom better than weather."

None of the words have anything to say to him. He's losing his balance. That attracts his attention. He falls. No words stop that. He and his wife know something is happening. It doesn't make them happy.

You should not consider the mind to be that which reflects upon
visual forms, sounds, tastes, and tactile sensations. Many people think
that the mind is simply that which reflects upon what is seen and heard
and is able to distinguish between good, bad, and so forth. Thus they
regard the sixth sense, the intellect, to be the mind. But such views
are just delusive thinking. Before seeing, before feeling, and before
thinking: what is the mind? This alone is what you have to search for
and awaken to.
–Kusan Sunim, translated by Martine Batchelor, from The Way of Korean Zen (Weatherhill)

Sixteen of us sat in circle around wood burning stove this evening.

One dog and one cat makes eighteen.

We are more articulate when in community.

Holy, they say.

Spirit emerges.

Through word.

There's such a desperate desire to rid our world of mistakes. To eliminate disease. End suffering. Right wrongs.

Surely, we think, there's a pill. Or a program. Maybe torture. Or religion.

It is sometimes difficult to see and understand that changing conditions are not mistakes. They feel that way because we sometimes think that if we were only smart enough or careful enough, we could avoid all unpleasantness—that we wouldn’t fall ill or have misfortune. In fact, we usually haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just what happens. The Buddha talked of the eight great vicissitudes of life: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, and fame and disrepute. These changes happen to everyone. It’s just what happens. One of the great laws of the Dharma that I find myself often rediscovering is, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
–Joseph Goldstein, from "One Dharma", (HarperSanFrancisco)

When we come to the end of a story, thank the storyteller. When the film ends, leave your seat. When the meditation bell rings, enter the dharma space. Be silent. Stay present.

The world might never be rid of wrong.

But what's right will be recognized with love.

Do that.

Ryan's paper evokes the thought that no matter what we choose to be or do, we are merely creating our notion of God. God will be what God will be. And we are the creators of what will be for us.

We are in
the process
of what is
being created
as is
God
(--wfh)

These days of sitting through, of moving across this place, are the stuff of transition.

In prison, fear is norm. Mistrust is the only constant. How, when, and why to even consider trust is cloaked in wariness.

I don't go out to wander around
I stay at home here in Miura
While time flows on through
The unbounded world
In the awakened eye
Mountains and rivers completely
Disappear.
The eye of delusion looks out upon
Deep fog and clouds.
- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)

I read final papers slowly. It's not like regular end of semester grading. These papers reveal a more profound search and hide, reveal and watch cautiously the reply. Some of these men have another 10, 20, 30, 40 years behind prison walls. More than a grade is at issue here. So I read slowly and with care the words and thoughts and experiences they share.

A Tendency To Shine
by Adyashanti

If you prefer smoke over fire
then get up now and leave.
For I do not intend to perfume
your mind's clothing
with more sooty knowledge.

No, I have something else in mind.
Today I hold a flame in my left hand
and a sword in my right.
There will be no damage control today.

For God is in a mood
to plunder your riches and
fling you nakedly
into such breathtaking poverty
that all that will be left of you
will be a tendency to shine.

So don't just sit around this flame
choking on your mind.
For this is no campfire song
to mindlessly mantra yourself to sleep with.

Jump now into the space
between thoughts
and exit this dream
before I burn the damn place down.
(--Poem, A Tendency To Shine, by Adyashanti, b.1962-)

Sometimes in their papers there's more than I'd want to know; sometimes more I'd like to know. Mostly it is the Heideggerian revealing and concealing function of the same phrase in the same sentence. Language might speak, but words conceal as much as they reveal.

There's a way of praying that does not use words. Only ears. Only eyes.

This is my prayer with these my fellow learners.

We arrive at Mountain Street as the Lincolnville Town Band on flatbed truck played passing us. The Memorial Day parade was arriving at its end.

I think of sandlot schoolyard boyhood friend Vinnie today as Taps played at Mountain View Cemetery. He died in Vietnam in 1968. We cannot escape from the truth of impermanence.

We visit Tommy. He says Gene is doing poorly. We see Sam and Susan at Camden town landing as they install cleat beside ramp near new restaurant on wharf.

In Rockport we tie new seat to frame of ceder strip canoe at harbor. We'd come back from walking far side of harbor with Rokie. We are grateful for being alive in Maine by the water this beautiful day. We paddle into the swirling wind hugging the coast in gusting embrace.

Ananda wept saying he was only a beginner as the Buddha was dying. Separation is the law of life. "Keep trying," the Buddha said to Ananda.

We come back to the hermitage. Someone had been here and left us cut apple tree branches. We don't need a special teacher. We're given everything that we need. Joan Halifax is telling the story of the Buddha's death. I'm listening.

So many die in war. Some of these wars are waged in the quiet fields of our human hearts. So many die away from home. So many think it is not the right time to die. Still, everyone dies. Everybody is somebody. In my myth I am nobody. This myth is right and not right at the same time. In Buddhist emptiness I am part of the inseparate whole. (These are not Joan's words. They're the wind blowing through this hermitage window.) Rather, Roshi Joan Halifax reads a Milosz poem:

Late Ripeness

by Czeslaw Milosz

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
Like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget -- I kept saying -- that we are all children of
the King.

For where we come from there is no division
Into Yes and No, into is, was, and it will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago --
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef -- they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

The earth is quiet underfoot. Ragged Mountain takes sun behind her to the west. So many birds!

In the silence, the wind. Gusts of sound. The gate is closed. The dog is safe from the speeding cars coming down long mountain pass from Hope.

When his young daughter died, the Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) wrote the following poem:

Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara

The world of dew --

A world of dew it is indeed,

And yet, and yet . . .

Remembering those dead and deadened, today by war...each of us on one of these days.

We grieve.

Some tears.

One by one disappearing.

And yet...

Until we are able to update our primary website, here's the Hermitage Update and Events at Meetingbrook placed on Google site: 

http://sites.google.com/site/meetingbrookhermitage/hermitage-upate

How can you see what is not there?

No one has ever seen God;
but as long as we love one another
God will live in us
and his love will be complete in us.
(--from 1John 4:11-16)

Be here.

God is not there.

God is where you are.

With God, nobody knows what they are talking about.

Be with God.

Dale and David in Protective Custody think it might better read:

From Thee
through me
to we

or:

Through Thee
from me
to we

This is the cost and benefit of community. Theology demands communal kerygma. Dale says it was the crucifixion that rivets Christianity. I suspect the suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming of the Spirit are of a piece -- one event that we apportion to particular distinctive multi-events so as to allow the mind a contemplative sequence. And yet, if the sequencing were true, these 10 days between Ascension and Pentecost are the bereft days. Jesus is gone. There remains only the experience and the teachings -- but no insight, no inspiration, no awakened mind and heart of those left bereft.

If you wish to bring the two matters of birth and death to conclusion, and pass directly beyond the Triple-world, you must penetrate the koan “This very mind is Buddha." Tell me: What is its principle? How is it that this very mind is Buddha? And "this very mind" just what is it like? Investigate it coming. Investigate it going. Investigate it thoroughly and exhaustively. All you have to do is keep this koan constantly in your thoughts.
- Daito (1282-1334)

The "triple world" (triloka) is a common Buddhist term for "universe." The three worlds are "the world of desire"--(kâmaloka), "the world of bodily form" (rûpaloka), and "the immaterial world" (arûpaloka).
(--from Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot, [Zen For Americans], by Soyen Shaku, translated by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, 1906)

A variant might read: "This very mind is Christ." This, then, is a time of investigation. What happened? Who was he? What am I?

Not until I exhaust myself investigating do I let go, bereaving and bereft, into what is wholly-there beyond me. "From me."

That which is Wholly-there is the complete-Reality, which we have named "I Am Here and There, Where and When." This Holistic Inseparability, nicknamed "God", is what we must pass through, is what we are passing through, once we let go of our fragmented separative notion of small, isolated, disconnected self. "Through Thee."

This penetrative, permeative presencing of each in each, all in each, and each in all -- this integrative investigation and indwelling incarnative awakening -- this descent/ascent of the Spirit of Wholeness/Holiness -- is our arrival at the costly beneficial advent of community. Of sangha. Of church. Of circle. Of who and what we truly are --One/Another. No other.

Each as each. Each as all. All as each. All as all.

"To we."

Dale and David and Saskia and I, in that prison pod yesterday morning, investigating this mind beyond the triple worlds, enter a moment of peace.

We read Wendell Berry:

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
(— Poem by Wendell Berry)

We remember times canoeing rivers in turns that become still waters.

We remember these times. Their quiet. Their peace. Their grace. 

An ascension to what we are.

To what each "I Am" is.

We.

Alone/Together.

Free.

"In your compassion," the psalm says, "blot out my offenses."

There's something new occurring. Christ, the essence of creation, has entered, sown through life and death, and ascending (as, with, and through) us, crosses the bridge from time to eternity, there to dwell in proleptic prescient presence with who we really are in the Eternal Now as we, until and always, dwell in this open wholeness with him, them, one another, we, ourselves, no other.

Ascension Friday

From me
Through Thee
To we
(--wfh)

Birds with early light sing this song. Horse from Draper's stable neighs in affirmation. Cars down Barnestown Road pass east to where water rises and falls in dawning dance.

Nobody in sight on the empty mountain
but human voices are heard far off.
Low sun slips deep in the forest
and lights the green hanging moss.
- Wang Wei (699-759)

It is Friday morning. Off to prison.

Warm coffee, a continuation, retasting last evening's conversation.

This weekend we remember all those dead and deadened by war.

Delia Mae walked sidewalk of Court Street with vases of flowers in both hands. Her flowered skirt. Her processional gate for Ascension Thursday. With quintessential devotion she stops to join three hermits in front of St Francis Church in Belfast Maine. They collate and converse about the day, the hard winter, their tiredness, and the feast.

She reads from book taken from shoulder bag. She said the Bodhisattva returned from the Radiant Realm and from mid-air said:

"With conscious, with unconscious, too,

Dwell, sorrow. Either ill eschew.

Pure bliss, from all corruption free

Springs but from Insight's ecstasy."

(from As The Sun Moves Northward, by Mabel Collins)

As quilters arrive and pass them by, the glow of sprig-green sunshines through trees astride shifting feet. What grounded witnesses they were! What did they see? Were they finished with looking up? Is there a new spirituality of shy hermits encircling the scurrying ants near curb?

In becoming a person of merit,
Though you perform no lofty deeds
If you are able to shake off worldly mindedness,
You will become one of the
Renowned for that alone.
In pursuing studies,
Though you make no increase in ingenuity,
If you are able to decrease
The externals that afflict the heart,
You will cross over to the land
Of the sages for that alone. - Hung Ying-ming

If God became human so that humanity become divine, why the fear? If Jesus died, rose, and ascended into the divine realm of not-other, why will we not follow? If the Spirit of Holiness permeates and inspires all who would be open to this new reality, why remain in hiding citing fears one by one?

As he said this he was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him from their sight. They were still staring into the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them and they said, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky? Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there.’
(from Acts 1:1-11)

(See that last enumeration: Acts one, one - oneone).

In prison yesterday, on the writing board: "If I am here, where are you?"

We decide we are peripatetic itinerant mendicants stopping on a sidewalk speaking of Ascension and looking at and through one another.

The weaving hermit heads back to her yurt. The processional hermit continues her pilgrimage. The hermits from Ragged/Bald wandering in the open drive off to hug Kristen at Chases Daily who serves them coffee and tea, and selects the muffins for their boatyard consumption.

It is a solemn day with solemn acts -- each one of us.

The Ascension says: I am here, you are here! There is a new here and a new we.

No mere heaven and earth, no mere human and divine, no mere nature and spirit, no mere mind and matter.

No.

Merely us. Only we here -- with no exception, no exclusion, no excuse.

No wonder the Ascension is such a small, unnoticed, yet glorious feast!

We are gathered.

"We" gathers.

Where are we not?

Candle blown out. Compline ends.

Cut in thirds, split in half,
How can truth be expressed?
Can one see beyond white clouds
With the naked eye?
The monks still have not come
Back from Mt. Kukkuapada.
The leaves of the sutra
Merely stir a sad wind.
- Daito (1282-1334)

Bell sounds three times.

Truth itself.

Retires.

Brandon chose not to answer question four. It asked that the student develop his own theory of aesthetics. He did however tell me what it would have been. "Awareness."

Mountain home sleeping
No dreams of dust.
Three robes are plenty;
Who says I'm poor?
One for my pillow,
One to serve as a mat,
And at the thunder of my snoring
Heaven and Earth disappear.
- Gensei (1623-1668)

No awareness, no beauty.

With awareness, everything is beautiful. Even the ugly. Even the truth.

In prison, Peter said, everyone is a scared little boy.

Eight more conferences tomorrow.

On another matter, I sent the following to the Beloit Poetry Journal family at the death of Marion Stocking:

Final Submission
"She had a strong desire to get back to the woods," Fred Stocking said.

She took
no words
with her

where
we watch
this breath

only
parsing passing
silence

I'm aware how a poet dies.

Moving rocks with handcart around new garden sitting area between barn and kitchen. The small attempt to fashion a little place for intimacy. Words are shared. We carry each other by listening.

O Lord of Love, may I enter into you, And may you reveal yourself unto me, The pure One masquerading as many. You are the refuge of all devotees. I am your devotee. Make me your own.
--Taittiriya Upanishad

I write Governor of Utah named to be Ambassador to China asking him to do his best to help China release its stronghold on Tibet.

If how we are to one another is measure of our spiritual maturity, there is much in this world to pray for.

Here's my plan: Today I will pray for everyone who needs strength and courage to be the true person without and within. Tomorrow I'll pray for all those who are already true and loving and needing no prayer.

The next day, I will rest.

I wonder what will need to be done the fourth day!

Make me your own!

Until we are able to update our primary website, here's the Hermitage Update and Events at Meetingbrook placed on Google site: 

http://sites.google.com/site/meetingbrookhermitage/hermitage-upate

The way you feel is your meditation. Shitty feeling, shitty meditation. Joyful feeling, joyful meditation. Nothing other than what is there -- is our meditation.

Nature isn’t dualistic. It isn’t merely a collection of separate parts. It doesn’t throw anything away. It recycles everything. And it doesn’t operate out of a desire to improve things. While we fixate on the parts, nature acts out of the Whole.

We need to start recognizing that the world itself is not dualistic. We need to appreciate that our dualistic thinking doesn’t match Reality and that we pay a heavy and painful price for this discrepancy. Only then can we learn to live on this Earth without making a mess of it.

It’s not that we have to keep our hands off everything. We can’t do that, anyway; after all, we’re part and parcel of it. But we can learn to act in accord with Reality.
–Steve Hagen, from Buddhism: It’s Not What You Think (HarperSanFrancisco)

Everyone and everything is welcome at table and welcome on the cushion.

Working with what is there. Working through what is there.

It was nice to begin Sunday Hospitality at hermitage.

And the dogs somehow missed the cars in their crazed run at neighbor's dog at end of dooryard across road as gate was being worked on.

Some kindness revealed itself.

It is maddening that Sudan and Darfur continue to insult human decency. It is obscene that the former administration of the United States felt comfortable torturing other human beings to cover what appears certain to be their lies about starting an elective war. It is discouraging that our banks and credit card companies think that to trick and trap people in a scheme to punish and steal money from them is what America and capitalism do best.

Mountain home walking,
You don't step on dust,
Seldom meet anyone;
Who's ashamed to be poor?
Tired? Then rest.
What do you need a mat for?
Forget about the form
And the shadow will disappear.
- Gensei (1623-1668)

I call for a complete investigation of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their cohorts' conduct in creating cruel and unnecessary suffering and death. I call for a worldwide outcry and desisting of the carnage and genocide in African countries. I call for a dismantling of an unkind and devious financial system that chokes people for their money.

If you belonged to the world,
the world would love you as its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
because my choice withdrew you from the world,
therefore the world hates you.
(--from John 15: 18-21)

The mountain calls -- come away. The solitude of sorrow for the ways we are with one another is too deep for tears. Cruelty and cynicism towards the people of this existence is far beyond comprehension.

I stop.

Say.

No.

More.

Yes?

Until we update our primary website, here's the update placed on Google: 

http://sites.google.com/site/meetingbrookhermitage/hermitage-upate

In the film the lead character in voiceover says that each time you look at the future it changes. The same can be said of the past. It's a mystery why we don't look more often.

The lone tip of Wonder Peak is
Beyond any climber's reach.
One can only see white clouds
Drifting this way and that.
Thick pine and cypress forests
How old could they be?
Still, in rare moments birds
Along the steep cliffs sing.
- Daito (1282-1334)

What happens, happens. Just like that. Fact.

But what we tell about what happens, the story we create, narrate, and hold as gospel truth -- that is the myth mind fashions.

Can we live without story? That's not the question. The question is whether we see that the story we tell is just the story we tell.

To see story as story is not to confuse reality with what is said about it.

There's joy in story. There's sadness too. So -- we laugh, and we cry. It's the human way of being.

Also human is to be what is taking place without adding or subtracting anything.

Rare the moment!

I've been thinking about former Vice President Richard Cheney.

Not much.

Green mountains have turned yellow
So many times the troubles
And worries of the world of things
No longer bother me.
One grain of dust in the eye
Will render the Three Worlds
Too small to see
When the mind is still
The floor where I sit
Is endless space.
- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)

He readies the country for another attack.

Knows exactly where to put the blame.

Suffering will be apportioned fairly.

He will be the one shining light in the darkness.

There's much to sorrow. He's one.

I see what he says.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.
(Poem by William Carlos Williams, sometimes entitled The Red Wheelbarrow)

Why 'sometimes?'

It depends.

No need to worry.

Whatever happens, all is and will be alright.

Simmering Tea on Mount Hui

In an earthen jar at break of day
I dip clean cold water,
Shift it to the stone kettle,
Boil it on a broken slab.
Pine winds from ten thousand peaks
I offer in one sip,
Then gather my sleeves together,
Walk by the waterside.
- Chieh-shih Chih-p’eng (13th c)

Silence is the only teacher.

Not not speaking.

But silence.

Off to visit and pick up Saskia's mom for return trip to Maine. Cody, her new sweet German Shepherd, will visit hermitage for first time. Back Tuesday.

It has been lovely being home and working the place this past week. Aside from an exhaustion that will not quit, all is well.

To love is to mother

To love is

Being

True nature
(--Saskia, in Cabin Words, Welcome book in chapel zendo 10May09)

It is time for the revelation of earth. Rebirth. Resurrection. New beginnings. Anyone interested in using the meditation cabin for quiet presencing -- it is ready!

We have no choice but to start where we are...

We each have no choice but to start where we are with what we have.
This is our challenge, our life, our practice. Each obstacle, problem,
handicap is part of the practice. Every advantage, every success helps
to clarify our practice.
–Marc Lesser, from Z.B.A.: Zen of Business Administration (New World Library)

Wind blows. Sun slants. Storm clouds drift beyond Hosmer Pond.

To my mother.

To all my mothers.

I greet you with this new earth!

This place for the learning and practice of presence.

May itself!

Nobody is losing faith.

They've just stopped looking where others have told them to look.

On this frosty day, clouds and mist congeal,
On the mountain moon, the icy chill grows.
At night I receive a letter from my home,
At dawn I leave without anyone knowing.
- Fahai

I've been thinking about leaviing.

Without anybody.

Knowing.

Why.

We watch Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth for Friday Evening Conversation. We are confronted with the possibility that much we believe is clothing easily discardable. Real faith is the direct experience of the individual. It doesn't matter what we think, nor what we believe.

Faith is an experience of the individual. The individual is that which is undivided.

Rain clears from the distant peaks
Dew glistens frostily.
Moonlight glazes the front of
My ivied hut among the pines.
How can I tell you how I am,
Right now?
A swollen brook gushes in the valley
Darkened by clouds.
- Daito (1282-1334)

These days we are tired.

We are here.

And tired.

In prison this morning we spoke about torture. Torture is a betrayal of language, language meant to actually convey the dignity of wholeness through expressive word. Torture is primarily a lie. It is a lie that asks for and receives lies in return.

It is so good to see the sun!

Rainy silence.

Rosy Breasted Grosbeak makes first appearance at feeder.

Subject and object from the start
Are no different,
The myriad things nothing
But images in the mirror.
Bright and resplendent,
Transcending both guest and host,
Complete and realized,
All is permeated by the absolute.
A single form encompasses
The multitude of dharmas,
All of which are interconnected
Within the net of Indra.
Layer after layer there is no
Point at which it all ends,
Whether in motion or still,
All is fully interpenetrating.
- Zhitong (d.1124)

Final class of Mythology last evening at University College at Rockland. Campbell spoke of Indra's Net with suggestion that each reflecting each posits no blame. Everything arises and occurs as it does. Everything dissolves and vanishes as it is. Who is there to take the blame for what has gone awry? Who is there to take credit for what is going fine?

Each raindrop falls from clouds in sky upon the earth beneath. A little dance of arrival at mud puddle. White dog stretches then returns to stillness on daybed.

I rearrange altar in front room. Between statue of seated Buddha and cross suspending Jesus is section of split firewood with empty knothole in middle. A space perfect in emptiness. For all three. In betweenness. Circularity seeing through. A morning's meditation!

For now, the serenade of silence soothes as rain on roof and skylight -- as glorious as any chant in any monastery in any part of the world.

For this sound, deep appreciation.

Twenty five years ago today Saskia and I first lay eyes on one another. In Portland. On Exchange Street. The beginning of 15.5 hours of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film Berlin Alexanderplatz over 5 nights.

I don't remember if it is raining that first viewing.

“To listen to this, and to meditate on it, will be of benefit to many who, like Franz Biberkopf, live in a human skin, and, like this Franz Biberkopf, ask more of life than a piece of bread and butter.” ( —Alfred Döblin, from the preface to his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz)

Yesterday Saskia accompanies me to penultimate college class on Aesthetics for the college program at Maine State Prison. We watch Rouge (Red) by Krzysztof Kieslowski, the 3rd film in his trilogy Three Colors. Tomorrow we'll return for regular Friday Morning Meetingbrook Conversations at the prison.

Here in the beginning, Franz Biberkopf leaves Tegel Prison into which a former foolish life had led him. It is difficult to gain a foothold in Berlin again, but he finally does. This makes him happy, and now he vows to lead a decent life.
(--Opening words, First Book, Berlin Alexanderplatz, by Alfred Döblin)

In prison classroom, Greg, one of the inmates, offers and brings Saskia a cup of water.

In the final scene of film, the man whose life seems to be undergoing a quiet, joyous renaissance, looks out his window as if at his life retrouver, finding something lost, his life again.

From curious beginnings, curious continuation.

Penses-tu? (You think?)

Je pense que oui! (I think so.)

Alors allons-y! (So let's go!)

They're called parallel universes.

With compassionate hands Buddha and
Bodhisattvas constantly save those who are lost. 
Is there anything better than to stay
At the foot of this misty cliff
Watching in meditation 
The calm clouds on their way home to the cave?
- Muso Soseki (1275-1351)

When I get back, I'll say more.

First Tuesday Evening Practice at hermitage. Sitting on cushion. Then beginning of Emptiness, A Study in Religious Meaning, on Nagarjuna, by Frederick J. Streng. With green tea. Then walk to pond.

The fine mist of dusk precipitation.

Digesting Mindfulness
Cultivating mindfulness is not unlike the process of eating. It would be absurd to propose that someone else eat for you. And when you go to a restaurant, you don’t eat the menu, mistaking it for the meal, nor are you nourished by listening to the waiter describe the food. You have to actually eat the food for it to nourish you. In the same way, you have to actually practice mindfulness in order to reap its benefits and come to understand why it is so valuable.
–John Kabat-Zinn, from Letting Everything Become Your Teacher

We actually practice because we actually have to practice.

Twenty eight years ago today Katherine died. I bow to her. Light incense. Light candle.

What time has gone by in eternity?

None.

None at all.

Hence we practice.

Hence we pray.

What would it be like to live Christ life and Zen life without doubt or disagreeableness? I'm uncertain. And it seems a silly idea. That's why I ask the question.

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

There's a bookmobile in Illinois that would make an unusual bookshop and bakery. The lobby officer at the prison thinks we should get it and name it "The Road Taken." He likes poetry.

Finding Happiness Outside the Box

Our notions about happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form.
–Thich Nhat Hanh, from Teachings on Love, Parallax Press

Right now, I'm happy.

We'll stay with this for a while.

I'd be pleased to say the same phrase again and again if I had to.

Right now.

I am.

Happy.

Living Christ life, Zen life.

Of course we can change the past. It's right here. Quietly watch the mind. Accept, forgive, compassionately -- there. These acts of wisdom are the appearing aspects of understanding which is beyond being seen.

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

Beyond being seen is a very rare event. It changes everything.

Standing in the in-between of religions offers us today a most fruitful form of spirituality. One theologian talks of 'passing over' and coming back. Passing over, pascha, into another religious tradition and spirituality and then coming back to one's own, transformed and reformed. In passing over mind and heart into another one, one dies to one's own particular, self-enclosed religion; in coming back, one is born in spirit and truth. When we are identified totally with one religion, we lose our souls. Passing over and coming back, or better standing in-between, the spirit becomes freed and we come into our goodness and compassionate humanity. Standing in-between, the self stands nowhere and yet embraces all. The self is open to the infinite, yet its home is in the particular and the concrete, in the Here and the Now. It has no boundaries and no limits, yet it is through the door of the ethical life that it comes into life and reality.               (Zen Christ: A Monastic Teisho, From Zen Heart, Zen Mind: The Teachings of Zen Master AMA Samy , 2002 Cre-A Thiruvanmiyum India, If Not Now, When)

Dean said to leave is not to quit. It's stepping outside to get perspective. 

Carol liked Hillel:

If you are not friends with yourself,
Who will be?
If you are only that, what are you?
If not now, when?

Saskia liked the betweening.

Jory quoted Hafiz about throwing sticks at the soft part of yourself is throwing sticks at God.

Go on, let change come between you and it all.

Where do we live?

We live between one another.

I'm silenced.

There is nothing.

Else.

I can say.

I gave the invocation, the president of the university gave the address, Tina gave a poem, and a skiff-rowing nursing student gave her story; the graduates got a packet and a handshake, then got a hug from Beverly. It was over by post time in Churchill Downs.  What I point out to you is only that You shouldn't allow yourselves  To be confused by others. Act when you need to, Without further hesitation or doubt. People today can't do this. What is their affliction? Their affliction is in their  Lack of self-confidence. If you do not spontaneously  Trust yourself sufficiently, You will be in a frantic state, Pursuing all sorts of objects  And being changed by those objects,  Unable to be independent.  - Linji (d.867) By and large we study not so much for credentials to get better pay. We study to remember what we've forgotten. We've forgotten some things important. Our names. Our manners. Where we live. The cabinet where tuna cans are kept.  Later, delivering bakery case to young man, an artist, we watch a woman stop her car, walk up driveway, say she wants to buy house for sale overlooking Rockport Harbor, then go inside for tour. She's from Sausalito with Texas twang. Says she wants a house here in Maine. She'll grab that one. She can. She can if she wants to. Remember your name. Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story. Then five lines later: When you come back, return the way you came. Favors will be returned, debts will be repaid. Do not forget your manners. Do not look back.When you reach the little house, the place your journey started, you will recognize it, although it will seem much smaller than you remember. Walk up the path, and through the garden gate you never saw before but once. And then go home. Or make a home. And rest.                                                                                                                                                (Ending of poem Instructions, by Neil Gaimon, on the occasion you find yourself living in a Fairy Tale)  Sadie and Rokie ran like crazy-heads all day as we prepared Linda's truck for dump run.  Somebody had tossed my water-stained copy of poems bought in 1970 in NYC. It was Hayden Carruth's editing of The Voice That Is Great Within Us, American Poetry of the Twentieth Century. There it is -- I find it in a box as we sort cardboard at recycling bins. It is all brown-edged and tape-shrouded -- calmly comported, it seems, at guillotine, holding its words within. I lift it out, take it back. It rides with me on front seat to Rockland like Euridice making transient return with Hermes. I'm not that far gone yet that poetry can be disposed of. Even if not dispensed. Never displaced.  William Carlos Williams is still looking Between Walls. Later, in The Act, pleading for roses in the rain not to be cut:  Agh, we were all beautiful once, she              said,  and cut then and gave them to me              in my hand. The woman fetching mail at curbside in bathrobe does not live in this book.

It is late. 

It is time.

To rest.

At 1:55AM, room empty, final truck load tied down for transfer station, we complete the circle of 13 years by sitting against opposite walls in diffuse light with silence.

In middle of this swept room, in jar with water, 3 daffodils lean akimbo and gather the years, faces, names, and prayers unto themselves. In our stillness reflecting the stillness of an ending, we honor the memories, faces, names, and prayers making presence with us.

We chant Nunc Dimittis (Now you may dismiss us) and bow the several directions to all our brothers and sisters, in gratitude

The note placed under jar of flowers read:

Fred,

 We wish you well.

Bill & Saskia 

Outside, in the green Element with "Now" tags, amid the yellow garbage bags filled with time, Rokie is asleep after 17 hours of playing with all the help.

We lock the doors, touch the side of the building, look over railing at rolling tide against floats, kiss, get in truck and car, and inch away toward hermitage.

Cookies and Kefir, Bishop's Bread and water, and to bed at 3AM.

Three hours sleep later, we begin again, a new day, driving  to Maine State Prison for Meetingbrook Conversations. 

The poem we read in 1st pod is "Instructions" by Neil Gaimond for those who find themselves living in a Fairy Tale.

We need them. 

Because we have been.

And are.

Living in one.

Here.

In 2nd conversation in Tony's tutoring room in Education wing, we read Stephen Mitchell's translation of #22 in Tao Te Ching:

22 
If you want to become whole, 
let yourself be partial. 
If you want to become straight, 
let yourself be crooked. 
If you want to become full, 
let yourself be empty. 
If you want to be reborn, 
let yourself die. 
If you want to be given everything, 
give everything up. The Master, by residing in the Tao, 
sets an example for all beings. 
Because he doesn't display himself, 
people can see his light. 
Because he has nothing to prove, 
people can trust his words. 
Because he doesn't know who he is, 
people recognize themselves in him. 
Because he has no goal in mind, 
everything he does succeeds. When the ancient Masters said, 
"If you want to be given everything, give everything up," 
they weren't using empty phrases. 
Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself. 

One last thing. Before we left the space where Meetingbrook Bookshop and Bakery dwelled these last 13 years, we toll the bell from Tibet our dear departed friend Richard had given us, take down and read the sign our Friend Diane calligraphed for us twelve days after we opened the doors in 1996  -- "God spoken here" -- and that was that.

We treasure these things.

Because we have been.

And are.

En route.

Here.  

Dawns final day at 50 Bayview by the harbor. Saskia has been manager and managed the move with grace and kindness. Many have come to help -- sorting, packing boxes, dismantling shelves, the dust, the grime, the cleaning, tossing catalogues and papers, taking down paintings and posters, lugging to pick-up trucks, unloading at barn, assembling shelving, labeling boxes, finding an inch here, a stacking balance there, banging fingers, aching backs, mind and memory attentive to what is passing through.

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

A final circle silence and words amid strewn remains last evening at final abbreviated standup version of Wednesday Evening Conversation, We remember fondly the delights and difficulties, blessings and annoyances of the 13 years -- those who've come and gone, come and stayed, come and gone beyond into the extended community of the living and the dead.

Earlier, the new owner, whose own preferences toss us out, stops by to bemoan the difficulties of those with means, not unlike himself, practicing a Nietzschean will to power. Saskia listens. For a brief intake of breath. Even there -- the promise is tried. Our accommodation of poverty... is... trying.

Over the Edge
Through the disciplined precision of our efforts, we’ll come again and again to our edge—the difficult places beyond which we’ve previously been unable to move. Through the willingness to soften and surrender to what is, we learn that we can gradually move beyond that edge. It is only through this interplay of hard and soft, of effort and letting be, of will and willingness, that we learn to our amazement that we can emerge from the lifelong tunnel of fear that constitutes our substitute life into the nitty-gritty reality of our genuine one. (–Ezra Bayda, from Being Zen: Bringing Meditation to Life, Shambhala)

These last weeks, the many hours and hands of O'a, Jayen, Rosie, Linda, Patricia, Sam, Susan, Jay, Tommy, Dirk, Tom, Justin, Michael, John, Myles, Annie, Dean, Nathan, Robert, Su-Sane, Cheryl, Nancy, Jory, Silvia, Billy, Maggie, Jeff, and Leslie, the in and out others, have lent their time and skills to us, and even those offers of help, or thoughts, or prayers -- even those who mourn or rejoice unseen and unheard near and away.

The final sign we will take down as we exit tonight is Diane's calligraphy: God spoken here.

Sunrise slants in Wohnkuche windows. I light candle and incense in both winter quiet room and out in chapel zendo. We'll be moving our meditation times back to cabin tomorrow, 1 May. Brook still runs strong. The recent deluges and flood torrents have changed the volume flow from one branch of the brook to the other -- the smaller taking the new run-off, the two planks of bridge nearly swept away, but holding fast, a bit skewed -- and we note the change.

We are not the change.

Change is naming us.

So we attend.

And move.

With gratitude.

   Meetingbrook        Dogen & Francis           Hermitage

Between Ragged and Bald Mountains; Between Buddhist and Christian Traditions   

               V  I  S  I  T         M  E  E  T  I  N  G  B  R  O  O  K         H  E  R  M  I  T  A  G  E                    

                                                   

Background:     

On 1May2009 Meeetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery returns to origin and source at Meetingbrook Hermitage on Barnestown Road at Ragged Mountain. From 29June1996 to 30April2009 Meetingbrook had a market face to its hermitage vocation. The bookshop and bakery existed as a place of hospitality and conversation at the harbor in Camden. The building we were leasing was sold in Spring 2009, we lost our lease, and have folded back home. 

We need new forms of being-with one another, a cosmotheandric spirituality, one that celebrates union with God & unity with Earth, Nature, & all Sentient Beings.

Meetingbrook Hermitage is a contemporary lay monastic practice & place of collation & recollection.  A  monastic is someone who longs for a simple and inclusive communion with life, love, and wisdom. We invite visitors to attend the times of these practices of conversation, meditation, and hospitality.  These 3 practices, often interchangeable, inspire radical originality. 

Blend and comprehend what, scattered, aches for wholeness.

To listen, to speak, & to be aware of the silence and stillness which are the ground of our presence in the practice of conversation, meditation and hospitality -- this is how we practice. We continue hospitality and conversation along with mindfulness practice in our newly transformed ‘Wohnkuche” (living-in kitchen). The Waterford wood stove is encircled by comfortable chairs and seating for at least 14 people with room for more. There will be coffee, a kettle for tea and hot chocolate, along with offerings of Saskia’s baked goods accompanying the gatherings.

Here is One - 

Another Itself.

With our chapel/zendo cabin just up from the barn, quiet meditation room in the house, and soon to-be retreat cabins, we continue our practice inviting the larger community to stop by and join in as you wish. Books & gifts are available from our online collection to purchase, as well as a large lending library. Baking goods waft the grounds. Bakery orders are taken. Stop by, sample.        

May all words and every silence engage us in deep listening and loving speech!

Foreground:

 Meetingbrook Conversation Practice: these are an hour long each evening, & comprise of      

  three parts: a time of reading around or sharing experience of personal journeying;  a brief  

             silence; an open time of conversation followed by a concluding final circle.  

 Meetingbrook Meditation Practice: these comprise of three parts: silent sitting; walking, 

reading, chanting;  collation and conversation.

 Wednesday Morning Open Hospitality: 8:00am-10:30am. Come by for breakfast. 

 Sunday Noon Open Hospitality:12:30pm to 3:30pm. Come by for brunch or just coffee   `       

             and tea. Catch up with neighbors, friends, or strangers. 

All events at Meetingbrook are, free, open, and informal.

 Quarterly Retreat Days: All day mindfulness retreat practicing looking, listening, & silence 

 Quarterly Festivals of Art, Music, Poetry, and Eco-spirituality: Gathering celebrating the seasons.

 Here’s the schedule for conversations and meditations. Conversations are 5:30pm-6:30pm

 Tuesday Evening Conversation: Theme: Buddhist: thought, meditation, and practice.

 Wednesday Evening Conversation: Theme: Personal: paths/practices, delights/ difficulties,

 Thursday Evening Conversation: Theme: Christian: thought, contemplation, & practice.

 Friday Evening Conversation: Theme: Creativity & Peace: the ways of art, spirituality, 

music, peace-making, poetry, and nature. Also a night for films and performances.

Meetingbrook’s promises are contemporary versions of the traditional counsels of poverty, chastity, & obedience. Ours are called contemplation, conversation, & correspondence. They encourage us to look, to listen, and to respond with oneself.

 Saturday Morning Practice: 7:00am - 8:30am  Involves: silent sitting; reading from different scripture or sacred text Lectio style; speaking to what is heard; collation at table.

 Sunday Evening Practice: 6:00pm - 8:00pm  Involves: silent sitting; walking meditation; 

chanting; table reading; mindful eating in silence soup, bread, and dessert; conversation.  

Collation is literally “to bring together”; an offering of  light fare to eat & drink.

 Recollection is a tranquil recalling to mind -- remembering who we really are. 

Ground:

Our personal practice focus involves the Buddhist Meditative, the Christian Contemplative, and the Engaged Service flowing from both. Our wider interest is keen and open,  inviting all interreligious or nonreligious exploration and inquiry into wonder & wholeness,

Love one an-other;   for, when we do,   there is no-other.

Visit the hermitage anytime to converse, be silent, laugh or cry, be mindful or explore no-mind.. Let’s  learn with one another in a spirit of profound humility. We look forward to engaging such community of being-with-care that is ordinary, accepting, & forgiving. 

May the heart/mind of the Christ & the Bodhisattva deepen our lives & ground us in service that is diverse, practical, diffuse, & real, 

 Donations to Meetingbrook are always gratefully accepted & happily received.  

Hermitage is 4 miles from town center: Mechanic St into Hosmer Pond Rd into Barnestown Rd. 

We’re 3rd driveway on left past Snow Bowl. You’ll see barn gate (open it), oar, & “M” on post. 

We encourage you in your practice and prayer. Let us be with one another in heart and mind ...now.

See you soon,            

Saskia and Bill,  m.o.n.o.  (“monastics of no other.” )

Embodying the dwelling place of the Alone; Stepping aside to make room for Another

64 Barnestown Road, Camden Maine 04843

    www.meetingbrook.org    207-236-6808   mono@meetingbrook.org

Until we can edit again on this website, for Hermitage Update and Events at Meetingbrook go to

http://sites.google.com/site/meetingbrookhermitage/Home

This is what is there now:

April 2009, Meetingbrook Dogen & Francis Hermitage Update

Theme: Not Something To Be Grasped

We strike the set.

Of one thing it is said
"that is bad"
and of another it is said
"that is good."
But there is nothing
inherent in things
that make them good
or bad, for each thing's
self is empty of
independent existence.
(- Samantabhadra-Bodhisattva-sutra)

Props, costumes, and backstage scenery are tossed out to proscenium.

When the loons cry,
the night seems blacker,
The water deeper.
(Opening lines of poem New Hampshire, by Howard Moss)

The woman to my left reacted to her own words when contextualized as, "God is everywhere you are not."

The view of you, she said, is too small. I agreed, I said. Even though I didn't.

"God is everywhere you are not," I say again. To no one not here.

It is all so beautiful!

As you are.

Here.

No curtain.