practicing under sound of rain

At morning practice yesterday, looking out window, I notice leaves, branches, uphill rising of mountain, scattered red cedar sticks. I realize these things have no opinion, no intention to dominate, put others in their place, get back at anyone, make others pay for acts done, no interest in treachery, greed, anger, delusion, or excommunication, no desire to control, assassinate, invade, exterminate or keep refugees from finding safe respite.

When rain falls, only rain falling.

When sitting on cushion, only breathing in breathing out, as quiet and still as rain is, falling through itself.

[Marcus] Aurelius, translated here by Gregory Hays, considers how befriending this eternal interplay of life and death can inform and ennoble our existential priorities: 

Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter. 

Cold or warm.
Tired or well-rested.
Despised or honored.
Dying … or busy with other assignments.
Because dying, too, is one of our assignments in life. There as well: “to do what needs doing.” 

In another meditation, he revisits the question of our inescapable impermanence: 

Some things are rushing into existence, others out of it. Some of what now exists is already gone. Change and flux constantly remake the world, just as the incessant progression of time remakes eternity. 

We find ourselves in a river. Which of the things around us should we value when none of them can offer a firm foothold? 

Like an attachment to a sparrow: we glimpse it and it’s gone. 

And life itself: like the decoction of blood, the drawing in of air. We expel the power of breathing we drew in at birth (just yesterday or the day before), breathing it out like the air we exhale at each moment.

The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.  

(--from Brainpickings, by  Maria Popova)  http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward/show?u=13eb080d8a315477042e0d5b1&id=3cb38aa6f1

At evening practice last night, two women, distinctly, at table, cried. They smiled, strangers, a shared response over mushroom soup and burning candles.

They felt, they say, a homecoming gratitude, flowing tears, an embrace of intimacy and safe respite.

So, we practice, with nothing in mind but practicing.

Under sound of rain on roof.

sandlot

In the dream I am playing third base. No glove. I can barely get throws off. What am I doing there? A practice grounder goes through my legs. The shortstop is agile, smooth, and makes strong throws.

And yet I word this dream. As if some revelation were at hand.

Some saving grace.

None arrives.

A weariness.

Everything from Nothing

Science is unable to tell us what or who caused the universe to begin. But some believe it clearly points to a Creator. “British theorist, Edward Milne, wrote a mathematical treatise on relativity which concluded by saying, ‘As to the first cause of the Universe, in the context of expansion, that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is incomplete without Him.’” [6]

Another British scientist, Edmund Whittaker attributed the beginning of our universe to “Divine will constituting Nature from nothingness.” [7]

Many scientists were struck by the parallel of a one-time creation event from nothing with the biblical creation account in Genesis 1:1. [8] Prior to this discovery, many scientists regarded the biblical account of creation from nothing as unscientific.

Although he called himself an agnostic, Jastrow was compelled by the evidence to admit, “Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world.” [9]

Another agnostic, George Smoot, the Nobel Prize winning scientist in charge of the COBE experiment, also admits to the parallel. “There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing.”[10]

Scientists who used to scoff at the Bible as a book of fairy tales, are now admitting that the biblical concept of creation from nothing has been right all along.

Cosmologists, who specialize in the study of the universe and its origins, soon realized that a chance cosmic explosion could never bring about life any more than a nuclear bomb would—unless it was precisely engineered to do so. And that meant a designer must have planned it. They began using words like, “Super-intellect,” “Creator,” and even “Supreme Being” to describe this designer. http://y-jesus.com/more/scc-science-christianity-compatible/3/

in prison Friday Doug said  the creator, out of nothingness, brought about two, who, unsatisfied with the play of nothing decided to make things their own way. So they created nothing, their own nothing. Theirs became the illusion of nothing, as they were unable to return to the uncompromised creatio ex nihilo which, in itself, comprises all which is as that which is not.

The new fellow from Alabama looked at Doug and said, "Earlier I thought you were crazy. Now I sees you are brilliant."

It's not true that nothing belongs to us, that we own it as one might own a fountain pen and fashion words and thoughts with it (as the illusion goes). No, it is truer to say that we are nothing. And the fountain pen belongs to itself. That what comes from it is the singing of emptiness a love song to paper stretching out across worm-ground and root-wood like next season's drop across from barn waiting to be stacked in some kind of order so that a glance might yield the thought, "nice job."

Me? I was on third base, where I'd been since I was a kid. The scout in the stands calling out, " hey, Halpin, back up a few steps, let's see your arm." I knew I was dead, or, at least, not as good as someone once thought.

A Great Dualism

Our minds are never what we want them to be. That’s part of why we sit in the first place. We are uncomfortable with ourselves as we are. The greatest dualism we face is the split between who we are and who we think we ought to be.

—Barry Magid, "Five Practices to Change Your Mind", Tricycle, Daily Dharma, 22nov2015

together mind

There's not much interest in Christ as "King."

What if we ended the liturgical year with Christ Samadhi?

white stars in blue-black sky; walking to bookshed, starting zendo heatstove fire

From Tricycle:

The Theater of Reflection

A Tibetan lama invites us to the theater of emptiness.

Dzigar Kongtrül Rinpoche

When we’re watching a movie in the theatre, we can relax and enjoy the show because we know it’s an illusion. This magical display that we’re watching is the result of a projector, film, light, screen, and our own perceptions coming together. In separate momentary flashes of color, shapes, and sound, they create an illusion of continuity, which we perceive as characters, scenery, movement, and language. What we call “reality” works much the same way. Our ability to know, our sense perceptions, the seeds of our past karma, and the phenomenal world all come together to create life’s “show.” All of these elements share a dynamic relationship, which keeps things moving and interesting. This is known as interdependence.

When we look around us, we can see that nothing exists in isolation, which is another way of saying that everything is interdependent. Everything depends upon an infinite number of causes and conditions to come into being, arise, and fall away moment by moment. Because they are interdependent, things don’t possess a true existence of their own. For instance, how could we separate a flower from the many causes and conditions that produce it—water, soil, sun, air, seed, and so forth? Can we find a flower that exists independently from these causes and conditions? Everything is so intricately connected, it is hard to point to where one thing starts and another ends. This is what is meant by the illusory or empty nature of phenomena.

The outer world in all its variety and our inner world of thoughts and emotions are not as they seem. All phenomena appear to exist objectively, but their true mode of existence is like a dream: apparent yet insubstantial. The experience of emptiness is not found outside of the world of ordinary appearance, as many people mistakenly assume. In truth, we experience emptiness when the mind is free of grasping at appearance.

Seeing the emptiness of the phenomenal world relieves us of the heavy notion of things being solid or intrinsic. When we understand that nothing exists independently, everything that does arise seems more dreamlike and less threatening. This brings a deep sense of relaxation, and we feel less need to control our mind and circumstances. Because the nature of everything is emptiness, it is possible to view our life the way we would view a movie. We can relax and enjoy the show.

From It’s Up to You, © 2005 by Dzigar Kongtrül Rinpoche. Reprinted with permission of Shambhala Publications, Inc. http://www.tricycle.com/insights/theater-reflection

...

Someone asks question. In early morning, this response:

Worthy question: "Where is the moral compass of emptiness?"

Someone is shot -- attend their wound. Someone dies -- grieve the loss. Compass needle points to engaging presence. Points away from judging emotion and absenting concepts formulating separative isolation.

We sorrow together the acts of vengeful delusion and ideological scalpels.

Nunc, altare cosmos

introibo ad altare Dei

ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam

Real spirituality is suffering

No beginning-- only origin.

No end -- just return to origin.

a pause

Between Going And Coming 

                             - Poem by Octavio Paz

Between going and staying
the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause. 

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/between-going-and-coming/

Out of shadows

In prison a stoic cried when he presented his paper on prisoners in Plato's cave.

It surprised him.

And everyone else at the academic symposium.

The majorly of whom also cried with him.

It was that kind of intelligent gathering. 

Deans cried.

A university president cried.

Some profound learning took place.

Sound sight

Quote:

Dalai Lama: Humans Created Terrorism, So Stop Praying To God For A Solution,  

   This is a problem created by mankind, the Dalai Lama said, and God's not going to fix it,    by Michael McLaughlin,  Reporter, The Huffington Post

Prayer alone will not be enough to stem terrorist attacks like the shootings and bombings last week that devastated Paris and shocked the world, the Dalai Lama said. 

The Buddhist spiritual leader from Tibet said in an interview with German media outlet Deutsche Welle on Monday that terrorism is a problem caused by humans and, thus, must be fixed by mankind without God's intervention. 

"People want to lead peaceful lives. The terrorists are short-sighted, and this is one of the causes of rampant suicide bombings. We cannot solve this problem only through prayers," the Dalai Lama said as part of a response to a question about how he viewed the attacks. 

"I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it," the Nobel Peace Prize winner said. "It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place."http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dalai-lama-terrorism_564b8975e4b045bf3df16e75?cps=gravity_5059_-1421997628689322297

war and veterans

“...there are thousands of US vets that are homeless displaced and can't find a job due to the struggles of coming back,"(MB)

...

It is often pointed out that it takes a very, very, long time for some veterans to “come back." 

They have gone to, and become. a different world.

--bh

summary

All is well. 

Even when it isn’t.

It is.

November divertissement

Radical love?

Radical love is letting go and falling through wholeness with profound trust.

Letting go of ego partiality.

Falling and falling through wholeness.

Trusting there is nowhere to hit in this formless falling from opinion and preference, through and through, spirit-ready and mind-free, affirming that All is Well, not-knowing, only trusting,

The excruciating transformation of the temporary you into what has always been you.

Est-ce que tu ne vois pas que tout ce que tu fais, tout ce que tu penses, les autres le copient.

S'il vous plait, respondez aussi precisement que possible: solitaire ou solidaire?

Camus nous inviter à penser.

Do you love me?

Ok.

Ok?

(Comes light through eastern window. No other words find way through this.)

No other way finds words through this.

prolegomenon to moral agency

Do what's right.

What's that?

You know.

Do I?

Yea, you do.

I do?

Yep.

feeling forming itself

Yes.

Some will look for causes and conditions. They will find them.

Some will claim the righteous punishment by God. They will condemn sinners.

Some will explain nihilistic fate and existential dread. They will find justification.

Some will find solace that class warfare and militant jihad are rife. They, too, nod and shrug.

Some will hear the news and look out window where twilight begins to silhouette bare November limbs against sliver of eastern light. They will silently say that if they could pray they would.

And they do pray.

For what do they pray? They're unsure. Intentions and directions seem an odd wish for control.

They pray, yes, for themselves. That they do not mow down and murder others. That they treat everyone with respect and kindness -- not torturing nor invading, not stealing their land and resources nor assassinating those who reject your way of thinking.

That prayer might effectuate a more profound awareness we are but one breath, one breath shared by billions, one breath entering and leaving the particular forms shaped in particular geographies, forms that walk and sit and work and share their forming creations with one another in an ordinariness of arriving dawns over and over.

Some will obviate prayer. They will buy more guns and bullets, drill and strategize how to identify and prevent "bad" guys from drilling and strategizing against "good" people. These leaders of the "free" world will lockdown and surveille and scrutinize every communication, person, and statement so as to root out any threat, dissidence, or appearance of off-kilter movement.

The sky arises above tree line.

Zabutons in bookshed remain still and empty.

Flame in gas heating blue stove flickers across room.

Some will sit in silence at Saturday Morning Practice. Chant Heart Sutra to steady beat on wooden fish. Read transmission story from one living Buddha to another living Buddha.

Then, from a quiet place of acceptance and surrender, will one by one say words that attempt to reveal what makes us real.

And what is it that makes us real?

I'll have to wait until that time at practice when that single breath sounds itself into that space amid those particular forms following the resonances crisscrossing the room, the planet, the cosmos, the unknown uncreated profundity of Being Itself evolving in this place at this moment writhing these forms as feeling creatures feeling their fellow creatures suffering.

Andiamo.

Prosit.

. . . svāhā!

maintenant et

Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâce, Le Seigneur est avec vous.
Vous êtes bénie entre toutes les femmes,
et Jésus, le fruit de vos entrailles, est béni.
Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu,
priez pour nous, pauvres pécheurs,
maintenant et à l'heure de notre mort.

Amen.

comes morning, reading -- Praying to an Absent God: The Poetic Revealing of Simone Weil

And with morning, a lengthy quote from:

Title	Praying to an Absent God: The Poetic Revealing of Simone Weil
Publication Type	Journal Article
Year of Publication	2006
Authors	Baker, TC
Journal	Culture, Theory & Critique
Volume	47
Pages	133-147
Date Published	October
Number	2
Publisher	Routledge
Language	English
Keywords

The poetic adoption of Weil stems, perhaps, from Wallace Stevens’s use of her philosophy of decreation to explain how it is that ‘the theory of poetry […] often seems to become in time a mystical theology’ (Stevens 1951: 173). In Stevens’s extrapolation, Weil:

    says that decreation is making pass from the created to the uncreated,
    but that destruction is making pass from the created to nothingness.
    Modern reality is a reality of decreation, in which our
    revelations are not the revelations of belief, but the precious portents
    of our own powers. The greatest truth we could hope to discover, in
    whatever field we discovered it, is that man’s truth is the final resolution
    of everything. (1951: 174–75)

Weil thus provides a way to see the human imagination, both individual and collective, at the centre of modern ways of being. Decreation provides a path from the world of belief to the world of the individual; when a system of thought predicated on creation fails, what remains is the truth of the imaginative endeavour. This move does not negate the existence of the world: in fact, the entire notion of decreation is predicated on the pre-existence of a broader creation from which all knowledge and being comes. Yet creation itself does not provide a way for its own understanding; the process of uncreating allows the individual to examine her role in relation to creation through the act of self-negation. As Simon Critchley summarises Stevens’s thesis: ‘God is dead, therefore I am. The problem is that it is not at all clear who I am’ (Critchley 2005: 43). Or as J. Hillis Miller expresses it: ‘God is dead, therefore I am. But I am nothing. I am nothing because I have nothing, nothing but awareness of the barrenness within and without’ (1990: 35).

    It is only in the death of God that the rest of the world is now revealed as unknowable and thus it is only when God is nothing that ‘man’ too may be revealed as nothing. As Jean-Luc Nancy writes: ‘“God”, the motif or theme of God, the question of God, no longer means anything to us. Or else – as is all too obvious to an unbiased eye – what the theme of God might mean to us has already moved or been carried entirely outside of him’ (1991: 112). God has been replaced in the human imagination by the larger created world, but without God the creation of the world is a mystery, and the stance of the individual in relation to that world is even more elusive. The problem, as Stevens phrases it in ‘Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction’, is that we are caught between a world revealed and understood through individual sight and the fear that this world is something which precedes us: ‘we live in a place / That is not our own and, much more, not ourselves’ (Stevens 1976: 102). Decreation is ‘a seeing and unseeing in the eye’ (Stevens 1976: 104); it is what allows the poet not to make the world, but to discover it:

[…] to impose is not
To discover. To discover an order as of
A season, to discover summer and know it,

To discover winter and know it well, to find,
Not to impose, not to have reasoned at all,
Out of nothing to have come on major weather,

It is possible, possible, possible. It must
Be possible. (Stevens 1976: 125)

The task of decreative art, for Stevens, is to discover the world without imposing on it, to encounter the world as it is created and, knowing the impossibility of creation, still see the world to be what it is. Poetry is no longer, in the words of mid-period Martin Heidegger, ‘the act of establishing by the word and in the word’ (1949: 304). Poetry cannot impose or establish. It is instead the act of revealing what has been uncreated: it sets out to discover, in a world in which godly creation seems impossible, what it is that remains.

(--from,    Culture, Theory, & Critique, Volume 47, Issue 2, p.133-147 (2006) http://www.joriegraham.com/baker_2006)

de-creating, an invisible love

Creation creations.

Dog dogs.

Time times.

Each thing, each reality does itself.

At conversation, Cathy says: "Do me, God."

Cliff, looking at the whole picture from the circle, says, "This thing's big!"

Night nights.

Fire fires.

We do nothing; everything does itself.

God allows this.

God has withdrawn and left room for everything.

It's what you might expect from nothing else.

Why there are wars

War, they say, is necessary.

remembrance

RE: Veterans Day

COLLAPSE

"Not everyone agrees with war and I can respect that, but do not understand how people can disrespect the men and women who provide their freedom.  So when I meet or see a veteran  I always take time to thank them."(JS)

...

This is well-stated. And I agree.

The issue has been a difficult one over the years. The question has been asked how to navigate the seemingly schizophrenic divide between honoring the men and women who serve and fight in our names and opposing the very military engagement wherein they are called to serve and sacrifice. 

One's heart goes out to such wounded combat veterans as the young man you mention, Travis Mills. That he has taught resolve and courage in the face of hard recovery is an inspiring fact. 

For the past 50 years, from the time of Vietnam to the continuing Afghanistan/Iraq deployments, there has been a mental split between one issue: questioning the intentions, morality, and legality of those ordering men and women into harm's way; and the other issue: wholehearted support to the men and women sent to do the devastating work of fighting and killing, being wounded and being killed in these battle zones. 

On such a commerative day such as today, the ideological divide is best laid aside for the time being. It is the men and women who have put themselves in harm's way we remember.  

Let our hearts and minds remain troubled by the cruelty and destruction of war. 

But -- and this could be a philosophical prayer -- may we begin again and continue with integrity the profound respect and honor deserved by each of our brothers and sisters (who've) engaged in the fight to assist justice and peace worldwide,  and the effort to desist wrongful suppression of freedom and dignity worldwide! 

--bh

Before you say anything, consider everything

To be centered is to be at a still point.

To be off-centered is to wander in erratic movement.

By sitting still we settle into center.

By walking awarely we make each step its own.

There is only one peaceful spot in existence.

Do you know where it is?

limitless and lackless

Faint twilight follows white dog jumping on bed. Sliver moon and morning star dance ahead of day’s innuendo coming ‘round from our eastern rotation.

Richard Rohr writes.

The Great Turning  Monday, November 9, 2015  I have set before you life and death, therefore choose life.  --Deuteronomy 30:19 Eco-philosopher, Earth elder, friend, and spiritual activist Joanna Macy, now in her eighties, has been promoting a transition from the Industrial Growth Society to a Life-sustaining Society for most of her life. She calls it the Great Turning, a revolution of great urgency: "While the agricultural revolution took centuries, and the industrial revolution took generations, this ecological revolution has to happen within a matter of a few years." She is hopeful as she sees individuals and groups participating in "1) actions to slow the damage to Earth and its beings; 2) analysis of structural causes and creation of structural alternatives; and 3) a fundamental shift in worldview and values." [1, emphasis mine] Macy understands that the third type of action--essentially, a new way of seeing--is "the most basic dimension of the Great Turning." Macy goes on to describe how this different consciousness is a wheel hub at the very core of the shift that is taking place. How do these transformative insights and experiences come about? Macy explains: They arise as grief for our world, giving the lie to old paradigm notions of the essential separateness of the isolated, competitive ego.  Or they may arise from our glad response to breakthroughs in scientific thought, to the new lens on reality provided by quantum theory, astrophysics, and general living systems theory--as we see, with a sigh of relief, that the reductionism and materialism which shaped the worldview of the Industrial Growth Society are about as useful as the abacus in understanding the nature of the universe.  Or we may find ourselves moved by the wisdom traditions of native peoples and mystical voices in our own religions, hearkening to their teachings as to some half-forgotten song that reminds us again that our world is a sacred whole in which we have a sacred mission. [2] Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), a Germanic Renaissance woman, was doing this 800 years ago. In her book Scivias she writes, "You understand so little of what is around you because you do not use what is within you." Somehow she already understood what science has found: "The macrocosm is mirrored in the microcosm." [3] Science is finding that the world is an integrated whole rather than separated parts. We are all holons, which are simultaneously a whole and yet a part of a larger whole. This is moving us from a medieval, mechanistic, Newtonian view of the universe to a holistic/ecological view. [4] Nothing is static, and if you try to construct an unchangeable or independent universe for yourself, you will be moving against the now obvious divine plan and direction. Gateway to Silence Co-creating wholeness  References: [1] Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown, Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World (New Society Publishers: 1998), 17. [2] Ibid., 21. [3] Adapted from Richard Rohr, unpublished "Rhine" talks (2015). [4] Ilia Delio explored this concept at CAC’s CONSPIRE 2014 conference ...   ...   ...   ...

Seems perfect to have Capuchin Friar wandering around before early departure.

So, I grind coffee beans from Oso Negro, step onto chilly sunless porch, and begin the monastic observances of awe at beginnings, surrender at endings, and groundless (limitless and lackless, {thank you Rupert Spira}) awareness at each revelation passing through us.

no subsiding

I was reminded today of the Bush fiasco of Cheney and Rumsfeld and their fiasco of invading Iraq and the sorrowful results that followed.

It seems a sin that they were never indicted for what they did.

No matter what  

We train our minds by looking into them. We just look in, not allowing ourselves to be carried away by our perceptions; we just look into what is going on, and ask, “Where does this come from?” We are training ourselves in the practice and study of Buddhism so that our thoughts and emotions do not disturb our true-nature mind, so that we can sit imperturbably no matter what. 

—Maurine Stewart, “Our One and Only Commandment" 

I can sit that way. I can also long for justice with a longing that does not subside.

not presenting themselves aloud at roll call

Good men good women die in war.

War sucks.

Still, and beyond all, we are humbled by their sacrifice.

One cannot but be moved.

(After 2014 documentary film, “The Hornet’s Nest.”)
https://www.amazon.com/Hornets-Nest-Mike-Boettcher/dp/B00NGXPEFY/ref=aiv_vf_p2_al_1_doc_all_46_p

let's look at this; let's see through silent gaze

Re. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/opinion/winds-blowing-through-the-catholic-church.html?ref=opinion&_r=0&referer=http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=TopBar&module=HPMiniNav&contentCollection=Opinion&WT.nav=page&nytmobile=0

Jesus, Catholics often forget, was Jewish. He was not a Catholic. He was not Christian. Hence he was not a conservative Catholic nor a fundamentalist Christian. 

Capisce?

I'll find my own name for the interest I have toward this interesting man. 

My interest in Yeshua bar Yosef comes from a hermeneutics of non-theological ordinariness.

I am a zen-poetics nomadic mendicant of mere gaze.

No institution owns Jesus. He stands alone.

Look at him. Not through creeds, doctrines, or self-justifying cant.

Just...look at the man.

He is free and clear.

I look there.

I look here.

In silence.

disappearing into one another

We call it silent sitting. Elsewhere it is known as zazen. Specifically, shikantaza. Themeless sitting meditation.

Why?

Rumi asks in one of his poems, 'What is my self? I can't stop asking.'

My self is what is. Asking has no end.

In prison this morning, only the unimprisoned.

Look, I am doing something new

We move 

through the complete 

completing itself

Cosmic purpose

What would drive you insane? Would seeing truth abused and pained? We are creatures made with creativity for creativity-Itself.

We'd best learn to think back so to think toward a new expression of the holy reality surrounding our environs. Without which, madness.

Though it overlaps with many aspects of non-Christian mysticism--such as nature mysticism, Islamic Sufi mysticism (ecstasy and joy), Hindu mysticism (unitive consciousness and asceticism), Buddhism (non-violence and simplicity), and Jewish prophetic oracles--Franciscan mysticism is both deeply personal and cosmic/historical at the same time. [1] We must know that Franciscanism is not primarily about Francis of Assisi. It is about God, and the utter incarnate availability of God. In fact, when some fixate on Francis and Clare too long their spirituality invariably becomes sentimental, cheap, and harmless. Franciscan mysticism is about an intuition of Jesus as both the Incarnate Human One and the Eternal Cosmic Christ at the same time. (For a deeper exploration of the Cosmic Christ, see my meditations from earlier this year.) [1]  The first and cosmic incarnation of the Eternal Christ, the perfect co-inherence of matter and Spirit (Ephesians 1:3-11), happened at the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the human incarnation of that same Mystery a mere 2,000 years ago, when we were perhaps ready for this revelation. Christ is not Jesus' last .name, but the title of his historical and cosmic purpose. Jesus presents himself as the "Anointed" or Christened One who was human and divine united in one human body--as our model and exemplar. Peter seems to get this, at least once (Matthew 16:16), but like most of the church, he also seems to regress. Christ is our shortcut word for "The Body of God" or "God materialized." [2] This Christ is much bigger and older than either Jesus of Nazareth or the Christian religion, because the Christ is whenever the material and the divine co-exist--which is always and everywhere.  

(--from, The Cosmic Christ, Thursday, November 5, 2015, a meditation by Richard Rohr)

Heidegger thought that we are still not thinking.

Camus didn't like driving in cars.

Nietzsche was troubled that God was dead, and that we killed God by not allowing the emergence of God from former concepts to occur.

We forget.

And in our forgetting, enter inconsolable anguish at creativity squandered and beaten in the street by thoughtless driver.

says it

“All that stays is dying all that lives is getting out”
(--from Urge for Going, sung by Tom Rush, lyrics by Joni Mitchell) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKfYw2JIvgE

The revelation of this

This is not about anything else.

This is everything else.

Univocity.

andiamo, da nessuna parte

It’s a question that interests, namely, What happens ‘after’ what you thought was so is no longer so?

Where does light go when it goes out?

After something is lost, what is found?

What do you identify as distinctive?  

I identify four primary themes: the principle of conditionality; the practice of the fourfold tasks; the perspective of mindful awareness; and the power of self-reliance. I call them the four P’s. The book teases out of these four themes what hopefully is a comprehensive account both of the dharma and of the Buddha’s life. 

The language you use for fundamental Buddhist terms and concepts is often a radical departure from convention. The four noble truths become “the four tasks”; nirvana becomes “a nonreactive ethical space”; dukkha, typically translated as “suffering,” simply becomes “life.” And tanha—craving—becomes “reactivity.” In many cases, your translations are more interpretive than literal.  

As the cliché goes: translation is always interpretation. The meaning of words, as Wittgenstein pointed out, has to do with how they are used more than how the dictionary defines them. I may choose a term that might not be literally so close to the original but could actually shed more light on how that term operates within the framework of the discourses. 

In the case of the four noble truths—what you call the four tasks—the departure is especially jarring. Can you explain?  

If you open any book that purports to explain Buddhism, within two or three pages you’re onto the four noble truths. So to start questioning them is clearly controversial— even audacious. But on the basis of philological analysis, earlier translators—F. L. Woodward, for example, then people like Kenneth R. Norman—have spotted troubling incongruities in the way the expression “noble truth” is used. For instance, the Buddha’s first discourse literally says, “The second noble truth is to be abandoned.” Now that doesn’t make any sense. You don’t abandon the second noble truth; you abandon craving. It’s equally problematic to say, “The fourth noble truth is to be cultivated.” How do you cultivate a noble truth? Would that make it more true? Or more noble? Or both? It seems that at a later date the expression “noble truth” was rather clumsily introduced into the text. Now, that comes as a bit of a revelation, frankly, and a rather disturbing one. Norman concludes his analysis by saying: “The earliest form of [the Buddha’s first] discourse did not include the words ‘noble truth.’” That’s equivalent to saying: “In the original teaching the doctrine that people associate most fundamentally with Buddhism simply wasn’t there.” 

Another example is the use of the word “truth” itself. I’m not suggesting the Buddha didn’t use the word. He did. But apart from in the expression “four noble truths,” the word “truth” in most cases refers to the virtue of speaking truthfully, being honest, having integrity in one’s life. We find this usage in the Ashokan edicts as well as in the Theravada doctrine of the perfections, one of which is sacca-parami: the perfection of truth. Here the word “truth” doesn’t refer to truth as a synonym for “reality,” it refers to truth as a virtue of speech. This supports my hypothesis that Buddhism did not start out as a truth-based metaphysics. In other words, to be awakened does not mean to understand the truth or nature of reality, which then frees you from ignorance, leaving you awakened. It may be more accurate to think of truth as truthfulness, or living a truthful life. It means to live in a certain way rather than to gain access to a privileged knowledge. So “four tasks,” as opposed to “four truths,” seem to me more appropriate. Truth is an act to be performed, not a fact to be known. 

• (--Interview, After Buddhism, An interview with Stephen Batchelor, Tricycle, Winter 2015) 

http://www.tricycle.com/magazine/magazine-departments/interview

I finish another small notebook of brief jottings. Petits riens sans sens.

Retiring to retiro, I am alone with no-one-near.

The sound of it!

Madama Butterfly (1986 Remastered Version), Act I: Gran ventura (Butterfly/Coro/Pinkerton/Sharpless/Goro) 3:49 Renata Scotto, Rolando Panerai, Coro del Teatro dell'Opera, Roma, Coro del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera, Roma, Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Gianni Lazzari, Sir John Barbirolli, Carlo Bergonzi & Piero de Palma Puccini: Madam Butterfly Classical

I listen to and read about Renata Scotto,

Scotto’s achievement was, in large part, her own. 

“I prefer my way,” she said, “because you have a chance to learn, a chance to look. John Dexter, though, for me he was the greatest because he was looking for movement. If I would move a hand with no reason he would say, ‘Why did you move that hand? There’s no reason. Give me a reason, then I’ll let you move your hand.’” http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/culture/2011/02/1436893/afterlife-diva-renata-scotto-aging-talent-tradition-and-why-she-quit ,  

Why do we move? 

After sitting

Settling into cabin porch with Hadot.

                       

                    

                    

maybe; is that so?

 There might not be either birth or death.

But, still, we have cigars, we have hospice.

Joy.

And sorrow.

There is much to worry and wonder about.

Much to hold dear.

it is november; soul alone, coming home

camden outer harbor, 1nov15, emptiness

Someone asked for a profile:

Practicing what now is (playfully) called “coificit ease” -- namely: Contemplative origins -- inter-faith, inter-culture, inter-tradition; engagement, action, service, experience 

First encountered Asian Philosophy in 1965 reading John Wu and Thomas Merton.
Sat first sesshin in 1975 and gone downhill since. Found hermitage that is far too lax in solitude, silence, and service. 

So, we practice contemplation, conversation, and correspondence. Zen Buddhism and Contemplative Christianity host their parent religions and scattered cousins in ongoing circle holy chutzpah,  dharma combat and spiritual warrior-ship over coffee, tea, toast, biscuits, and oatmeal raisin cookies. 

We look, we listen, we don’t know. 

As monastics of no other (mono),  “we are poor passing facts, / warned by that to give / each figure in the photograph / his living name.” (Robert Lowell, from poem “Epilogue”)

tout seul âme, vient a la maison

Uncarved stone

Zazen.

Shikantaza.

Samadhi.

Everydayness.

There is much to reconcile

The pattern:

Looking and seeing

Listening and hearing

Process and product

Trainings and perfection

Practice and enlightenment

One might lead to another, or rather, one and the other are extensions of one another.

Dharma combat in prison today.

Symposium, retrieving notes, theology and philosophy during oil change visit

[Preface: Contemplating . . . the thought of God.]

God is the invitation to respond with good will and compassionate heart to whatever presents itself in our lives for continuing movement through and through, cultivating love which burns up whatever need not exist in the first place which is ever-present origination continually manifesting Itself.

Jesus' [act was] to die to everything else, sacrificing everything in the name of love.

Like Buddhist monks immolating themselves in the 60's -- not suicides -- but acts of love calling attention to the need to move from sin and evil to wholeness and love.  

                         

Turn, and God is "right there." (This is not personifying God.) 

God is "right here, right there."  This means, presence without exception, no exceptions, no exclusions, no exemptions.

It is a recalculation of life, a re-contemplation of bare empty effortless action.

Understanding is not predicated on explanation. It is the result of listening.
No explanation suffices. No rationalizing , no excuses -- ever suffices.
What suffices is suffusion -- welling up to surface, pouring into appearance the depth profundity finds at origin.
                                                  [--sh, cb, bh, 29oct15, augusta maine]

long story short

Page 1 of Symposium during Oil Change, Augusta, Maine:

[God needs be

listened

into existence]

Rain

Is

Not yet

Snow

no, don't overthrow

Heard Representative Tulsi Gabbard (d. Hawaii) speak about Syria and the US misguided policy.

Good words. Interesting voice speaking to the rarely spoken.

We cannot kill every annoyance.

Somewhere, sanity steps out of the darkness.

Give me a minute

What do you want from me or anyone before you die?

Take your time.

No exercise

There's no teaching people about listening.

Either you have to listen, or you don't.

If you don't have to, no need bothering.

If you have to, you listen.

You listening?