listening

This time

Four AM

When

Everything

 Is

Poised

To wake

...   ...   ...

There is One Thing,  

which has always been bright and holy; 

It has no beginning and no end,  

and It has neither name nor form. 

  -- Xishan (1520-1604). --DailyZen.com

on back of cross, after 5 hours vigil with J

Numbers 6:24-26New International Version (NIV)

24 “‘“The Lord bless you
    and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace.”’

Ut benedicat tibi Dominus

    et custodiat te;

XXV Dominus vultum suum ad te,

    et misereatur tui

XXVI convertat Dominus vultum suum ad te,

    et det tibi pacem. ''

what is before us

At Sunday Evening Practice we read dharma talk, Hold to the Center!  Zen advice for when things blow up around you, by Wendy Egyoku Nakao Roshi. 

A monk asked Xinghua Cunjiang,“What should one do when things come from every direction?”   

The master said, “Hold to the center.” 

The monk bowed. 

The master then said, “Yesterday, as I was on my way to a dinner in the village, I was caught in a sudden storm with heavy rain and violent wind, so I headed for an old shrine and found shelter.”  

Ying’an Tanhua commented:  “The assembly considered the matter and said, ‘Taking shelter in an old mausoleum refers to the self that precedes the Kalpa of Emptiness, or to the place where Xinghua attained peace of mind and fully realized his original nature.’” 

(–Entangling Vines: A Classic Collection of Zen Koans, trans.  Thomas Yuho Kirchner)

Nakao Roshi writes:

As a member of the Zen Peacemaker Order, I have come to rely on what we refer to as the Three Tenets, which are Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action, as an effective way to hold to the center in any given situation. With regular application, the practice of the Three Tenets can become a way of living from the center at all times. Although the tenets are taken in order when you study them, the practice is not necessarily linear. Each tenet reflects the others; they are seamlessly embedded in each other, flowing as center, circumstance, and action in an ever-unfolding and endlessly varied circle of life. https://tricycle.org/magazine/hold-to-the-center/

 Someone at table spoke of a similar pattern in the 4th step of 12 step process, namely: acceptance, awareness, action.

Earlier Sunday a silver car brought a family who’d attended the Catholic liturgy in town. The gospel text, they said, was the sowing of seeds and the need before us. to be attentive as to where they fell. Matthew 13:3-9

The Parable of the Sower concerns a sower who scatters seed, which falls on four different types of ground. The hard ground “by the way side” prevents the seed from sprouting at all, and the seed becomes nothing more than bird food. The stony ground provides enough soil for the seeds to germinate and begin to grow, but because there is “no deepness of earth,” the plants do not take root and are soon withered in the sun. The thorny ground allows the seed to grow, but the competing thorns choke the life out of the beneficial plants. The good ground receives the seed and produces much fruit. https://www.gotquestions.org/parable-sower.html

We are invited to awareness/not-knowing, bearing witness/acceptance, and entering action. 

Everyone quietly longs to appear and disappear into what is taking place before them.

As I sit with anyone, I long to disappear into the manifesting reality presenting itself before me. 

In that quiet revelation we are transformed and transubstantiated into holy presence, one that is nothing other than what is before us.

What is before us... 

that which God sees now

One becomes formless by being completely within form without attachment to form.

Look out into what appears as form. See it. See into it. See through it.

There is no separate object against which to contend.

There is that which is in sight. “You” are not that which sees. There is only seeing through the sight seen.

Trungpa Rinpoche: "Union with God cannot take place when there is any form of ego. Any whatsoever. In order to be one with God, one has to become formless. Then you will see God."
Arraj, James. Christianity in the Crucible of East-West Dialogue / God, Zen and the Intuition of Being (2 Volumes in 1) (Kindle Locations 821-822). Inner Growth Books and Videos, LLC. Kindle Edition. 

When Trungpa writes “Then you will see God” does “see God” mean that God is a “see God”? (This is not a verb/object grammar, rather a descriptive of what God is -- God is a see God.

Further, is it the desire to see God that eventuates the see God? (E.g. you ‘will’ see God). Is the “see God” brought into appearance because one wills (one desires) to(ward) see God?

We do not have to see God. Not as some object to be seen as separate. But to see God might be to let gaze go as what is seeing, into, and through.

Are we expecting to see God out there as some definable shape?

Or is our looking a looking as, into, and through what is there without making anything seen that which is separate and distinct as “God”?

Is God, therefore, that which is seeing without object -- rather, a “see God” in itself that which is being seen through?

All time collapses into now.

Like the white haired gentleman I shook hands with in his hospice bed last evening, a non-differentiated touch seemingly three weeks spanning a prison room with low fat milk and cake to mashed potatoes and gravy of a summer’s evening sudden recognition in quiet space.

See God

and live through

That which

God sees

Now

for, with, as

In the beginning we do things for others. Our behavior is for an outcome. There's a purpose for our lives.

In the middle we do things with others. Our behavior is with others, in community, relationship, we are part of something.

Toward the now we do things as the things we do. Our behavior is as the other. A non-duality enters our movement which comprehends unity and non-differentiation.

For.

With.

As.

Psychologically and spiritually we move from fixed-other, through relationality, to non-dual intersubjectivity wherein each thing and action is Itself and you are not other than Itself.

One is the other. Everything is in everything. Loving neighbor as yourself is the beginning of wisdom.

In the beginning fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom.

In the middle correct relationship with Christ was the beginning of wisdom.

Now the moment and movement of realized convergent isomorphic union, beyond separative pairing, is the Holy Spirit or spirit of holiness, which is the beginning of wisdom.

Finally and ultimately -- All in one, One in all, As one as all.

she remains herself and infinite.

We don’t know who we are. We talk about it, sometimes, with therapist or confidant. We plumb the psychological corners of awareness. But we don’t know. And that is our sanity.

If we did know, nothing would come of it. And we are not prepared for nothing.

But thought nor word can seize eternal Truth: 

The whole world lives in a lonely ray of her sun. 

In our thinking’s close and narrow lamp-lit house 

The vanity of our shut mortal mind 

Dreams that the chains of thought have made her ours; 

But only we play with our own brilliant bonds;  

Tying her down, it is ourselves we tie. 

In our hypnosis by one luminous point 

We see not what small figure of her we hold; 

We feel not her inspiring boundlessness, 

We share not her immortal liberty. 

Thus is it even with the seer and sage; 

For still the human limits the divine: 

Out of our thoughts we must leap up to sight, 

Breathe her divine illimitable air, 

Her simple vast supremacy confess, 

Dare to surrender to her absolute. 

Then the Unmanifest reflects his form 

In the still mind as in a living glass; 

The timeless Ray descends into our hearts 

And we are rapt into eternity. 

For Truth is wider, greater than her forms. 

A thousand icons they have made of her 

And find her in the idols they adore; 

But she remains herself and infinite.  

(--End of Canto Eleven, Book Two, Savitria Legend and a Symbol, by Sri Aurobindo                                                          http://heartfull.life/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/10/33-34Savitri.pdf

Truth is nothing but itself.

Itself is nothing but what we have called ‘God.’

God is nothing but God.

And nothing else.

When we ’try to find ourselves’ we are on a quest that will (if we are lucky or graced) end up with nothing, maybe nothing special.

And if we are really fortunate we will drink c-boast orange juice mixed with blackberry juice from a Laurie Adams mug on a rainy morning in Maine after learning she died three weeks ago, a candle lighted for her in Wohnküche, with our prayers and our gratitude for her.

concession of no great value

Haiku 

    (for the drenched)

drip drip drip drip drip,

how do we handle these leaks --

after storm, sop up

neither seek nor avoid, take what comes

Someone brings Vivekananda's words visiting hermitage yesterday:

My Master used to say, "All is God; but tiger-God is to be shunned. All water is water; but we avoid dirty water for drinking. 

"The whole sky is the censer of God, and sun and moon are the lamps. What temple is needed? All eyes are Thine, yet Thou hast not an eye; all hands are Thine; yet Thou hast not a hand. 

Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing; do not merely endure, be unattached. Remember the story of the bull. A mosquito sat long on the horn of a certain bull. Then his conscience troubled him, and he said, "Mr. Bull, I have been sitting here a long time, perhaps I annoy you. I am sorry, I will go away." But the bull replied, "Oh no, not at all! Bring your whole family and live on my horn; what can you do to me?" https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_7/Inspired_Talks/Tuesday,_June_25

In olden journals brief stories in China and Japan of hermits visiting one another amid dusty recounting of insects and birds, clouds and tree branches. They leave poems. They carry walking sticks. They watch and gaze and contemplate and meditate their environment with jottings of sounds and appearances.

One such wanderer stops by hermitage yesterday to drop off books and walk the space between buildings, to converse and share what is being learned.

Amidst physics and Upanishads, mind and mythologies is where we travel. Some would want us to think the metaphors that guide us are money and power, gain and manipulation, grab and go.

I prefer the old metaphors. Monastics and mendicants, pilgrims and sadhus, mystics and poets, sunyassins and idiorhythmics -- these resonate the typology of visitor and visitee.

A few minutes spent in chapel/zendo frames the whole day. The final refrains of compline at bedtime surrounds the whole night.

We make salt covenants with each other. 

In Numbers 18:19 2 Chronicles 13:5, a "covenant of salt" is mentioned (compare Mark 9:49). This custom of pledging friendship or confirming a compact by eating food containing salt is still retained among Arabic-speaking people. The Arabic word for "salt" and for a "compact" or "treaty" is the same. Doughty in his travels in Arabia appealed more than once to the superstitious belief of the Arabs in the "salt covenant," to save his life. Once an Arab has received in his tent even his worst enemy and has eaten salt (food) with him, he is bound to protect his guest as long as he remains. http://bibleapps.com/s/salt.htm

We watch each other arrive and depart.

We are dulas and hospice attendees.

We are nascent metaphors awaiting pronouncing.

aspetta e vedrai!

Alive

We move forward

Into God-

Alone

Knows what

1Praise the Lord, my soul.

Lord my God, you are very great;

you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

2The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;

he stretches out the heavens like a tent

3and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot

and rides on the wings of the wind.

4He makes winds his messengers,^a

flames of fire his servants.

(--from Psalm 104)

wait and see! (aspetta e vedrai!)

cheerful proleptic engagement

In the dream I visit Franciscan community and seem to be reconnoitering an old connection with faces and names from 50+ years ago. Some thought I was returning. An exoteric explanation. It was a telling encounter with uncertain intent yielding cheerful narration and heartfelt association. There was a meaningful proleptic quality to the engagement.

I await cantor of nature's cloister to sound invitatory for matins.

At times reboot is rejuvenation. So it is this morning.

I am young man called to seraphic charism. Something deep within responds and like breeze -- ah there she is, mourning Dove, at 4:09am, as also wafts up the acrid smell of either skunk or skunked animal from dooryard. Perhaps the yearly perigrination of old and large mottled animal (is it porcupine or raccoon?) is orbiting through this quadrant of space with comet tail of every stench of accumulated encounter it has had attached.

Such are memories and such are proleptics!

Full choral antiphonal is afoot. Cat on alert vigil at yawning window assays perimeter for the interloping alien. She settles to at-ease haunching down on windowsill.

Patrol through downstairs with flashlight is back in room. Tracking systems go offline. Dawn gives shape to leaf and branch.

At Sunday Evening Practice we read from artist's talk from Connecticut State gallery about connection, integration, and astonishment. William Blake's words are read a few times:

Eternity  

           William Blake, 1757 - 1827 

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise

Each beginning day is its own feast. Nature honors its own. We humans are only audience.

From mountain the yelping of several...what?... coyotes?  They could have been the passing poignancy. From trees through breeze straggling refrains and soloing song haphazard praise in ideorhythmy.

First car passes at 5:02am.

Let David have last word:

19He made the moon to mark the seasons,

and the sun knows when to go down.

20You bring darkness, it becomes night,

and all the beasts of the forest prowl.

21The lions roar for their prey

and seek their food from God.

22The sun rises, and they steal away;

they return and lie down in their dens.

23Then people go out to their work,

to their labor until evening.

(--from Psalm 104)

there is no dream to wake from

I come to understand the antipathy others held toward all things president 44 Obama. It arises with a similar antipathy toward 45, Obama's successor. The current president, every inch an anomalous and antipathetic outlier to traditional presidential expectations, represents, in a blatant manner, himself, his wealth, businesses, his familial nepotism, and characterologically disproportional solipsism.

One is reminded
Of every street bully
And arrogant narcissist
Privilege-dripping bore
Ever met in childhood city
Or in dark dreams

And I've come to understand that he is, actually, the president of these United States. No use in wishing it away.

There is anger.

There is fear.

There is disbelief.

There is governmental impotence. There are useless elected representatives. There is a right wing court emerging. There may likely be military on the streets should opposition find its feet. There is, many say, a very dark time coming under such dark leadership.

Fatigue Performance
       -by Noah Falck 

Tonight the wind is in your voice. 

And the gods are nervous 

about the drinking water. 

Someone hijacks the background 

with three simple dance moves. 

Or maybe the clouds 

paused on the television 

set during a ball game. 

The silence insidethe photograph 

of you eating alone 

in an old yearbook. 

This is going to be over 

before you know it. 

But not before your hands 

become small birdsin celebration 

of the present snow. 

An expressed panic 

attack of harmonics. 

It’s like listening to your heartbeat 

in a club, all the lights off, 

all by yourself. 

(2017 by Noah Falck. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 11, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.)

Suffering is a means to holiness (some say) when not made other, when held as intimate reminder that another's life is not separate from your life. 

This is a suffering time!

finding itself near you

Sit zazen

Chant heart sutra

Read Alice Walker poems

Mow grass

Sit with dying man

Walk field with woman sick from chemo

Eat key lime piece of pie

What's lovely about a Saturday in summer is the way presence finds itself near you

as God is

Presence is God.

Do you believe in God?

If so. Be present.

There's nothing between you.

always for individuals, never for worlds

7.5 billion worlds on earth.

That’s the current (2017) population of planet earth -- counting only humans.

The United States (2017) population is 326,474,013.

Don’t even try to count the number of animals, insects, and plants. There are about 950,000 species of insects and about 1,589,361 species of animal groups.

No one knows for sure how many species of animals exist on Earth. In fact, some 10,000 species of animals are discovered each year, with over one and a half million species already described. Projections for the total number of species on Earth range from 2 million to 50 million. https://www.factmonster.com/science/animals/estimated-number-animal-and-plant-species-earth

Do we think that any two humans, plants, animals, insects see the same world?

Do we think that agreement, unitary vision, harmonious accord, or consensus is easily or remotely possible?

It seems to me the miracle is that the chaos we experience in the world is not absolute and irreversible chaos.

Laws, morality, codes of ethics, vows, contracts, letting the car to your right proceed first upon both of you arriving simultaneously at right angle stop signs -- these are the things that make us marvel at the temporary holding off of complete and irrefutable chaos and disorder.

We don’t live in the same world.

We occupy billions of worlds right here on earth.

And, so-called, off-earth?

Galaxy observations 

It's easier to count stars when they are inside galaxies, since that's where they tend to cluster. To even begin to estimate the number of stars, then you would need to estimate the number of galaxies and come up with some sort of an average. 

Some estimates peg the Milky Way's star mass as having 100 billion "solar masses," or 100 billion times the mass of the sun. Averaging out the types of stars within our galaxy, this would produce an answer of about 100 billion stars in the galaxy. This is subject to change, however, depending on how many stars are bigger and smaller than our own sun. Also, other estimates say the Milky Way could have 200 billion stars or more. 

The number of galaxies is an astonishing number, however, as shown by some imaging experiments performed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Several times over the years, the telescope has pointed a detector at a tiny spot in the sky to count galaxies, performing the work again after the telescope was upgraded by astronauts during the shuttle era. 

A 1995 exposure of a small spot in Ursa Major revealed about 3,000 faint galaxies. In 2003-4, using upgraded instruments, scientists looked at a smaller spot in the constellation Fornax and found 10,000 galaxies. 

An even more detailed investigation in Fornax in 2012, with even better instruments, showed about 5,500 galaxies. Kornreich used a very rough estimate of 10 trillion galaxies in the universe. Multiplying that by the Milky Way's estimated 100 billion stars results in a large number indeed: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, or a "1" with 24 zeros after it. Kornreich emphasized that number is likely a gross underestimation, as more detailed looks at the universe will show even more galaxies.

https://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.html 

 So the question, Are we alone in the universe? is a tricky question.

Yeah, we are alone. Radically and completely, alone.

Because each of us is our own universe. Each is our own world. Each is alien to the other.

What can we say? What can we do?

Poet e.e.cummings dared us to a point of view with these words:

“Better worlds, (I suggest), are born and not made, and their birthdays are the birthdays of individuals. Let us pray always for individuals, never for worlds.”   (e.e. cummings, in nonlecture 2, from “i: six nonlectures” 1953) ...:

We can pray.

For one-an-other.

inmates asked her to write a poem; this is her response

T h e   T e n t

          (By Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952)

When did hordes of sentences start beginning with So?

As if everything were always pending, 

leaning on what came before.

What can you expect? 

Loneliness everywhere, entertained or kept in storage.

So you felt anxious to be alone.

Easier to hear, explore a city, room,

mound of hours, no one walking beside you.

Talking to self endlessly, but mostly listening.

This would not be strange.

It would be the tent you slept in.

Waking calmly inside whatever

you had to do would be freedom.

It would be your country.

The men in front of me had whole acres

in their eyes. I could feel them cross, recross each day.

Memory, stitched.  History, soothed.

What we do or might prefer to do. Have done.

How we got here. Telling ourselves a story

till it’s compact enough to bear. 

Passing the walls, wearing the sky,

the slight bow and rising of trees.

Everything ceaselessly holding us close.

So we are accompanied.

Never cast out without a line of language to reel us back.

That is what happened, how I got here.

So maybe. One way anyway.

A story was sewn, seed sown,

this was what patriotism meant to me—

to be at home inside my own head long enough

to accept its infinite freedom

and move forward anywhere, to mysteries coming.

Even at night in a desert, temperatures plummet,

billowing tent flaps murmur to one other.

corner

Nobody wants to die

Let's not make it difficult

While alive, live

When dying, see the arrival

When there, turn corner

taking up recurrence

4:01am, first call, mourning dove

I wait with beads

Light, new through eastern window screen,

silhouetted leaves, branches

Like lead soloist or conductor

whose job it is to begin, falls into

Stillness, silence as all awakening

ensemble takes up recurrence 

sparkled out

Of course the United States will retrieve its equilibrium. 

We're just at not sure when.

inviting trustworthy, loving, and faithful response.

Yes

We know the translation as “Bidden or Not Bidden, God is Present.” 

In a letter of November 19, 1960, Carl Gustov Jung explains and translates the inscription carved in stone over his front door:

By the way, you seek the enigmatic oracle Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit in vain in Delphi: it is cut in stone over the door of my house in Kusnacht near Zurich and otherwise found in Erasmus's collection of Adagia (XVIth cent.). [Jung had acquired a copy of the 1563 edition of Erasmus's Collectaneas adagiorum, a compilation of analects from classical authors, when he was 19 years old.] It is a Delphic oracle though. It says: yes, the god will be on the spot, but in what form and to what purpose? I have put the inscription there to remind my patients and myself: Timor dei initium sapiente ["The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."] Here another not less important road begins, not the approach to "Christianity" but to God himself and this seems to be the ultimate question. (1975: 611). http://www.jungnewyork.com/photo_vocatus.shtml

 Original life situation  (Sitz I'm Leben)

Continuous arrival

Arriving home

Arriving here

Arriving now

If you ask what freedom means or what independence is, this is my response -- it is the search for and inquiry into previous undiscovered truth{s}.

Perhaps God is our original life situation, the continuous arrival home here now.

Don't ask me if I believe in God. Rather, ask me 'What is this?' Or 'Is it now?' Or, 'What is here?' Or, 'Where is home?'

Finally, ask, 'What is this arriving?'

And 'this' will reveal itself to you, as you are, on the spot, as it is, inviting trustworthy, loving, and faithful response.

Met be that is what God is.

this (was, is, & will be) God

Arriving: is all there is.

Home: is where we dwell.

Here: is revelation and liberation possible.

Now: is the infinite, ineffable, eternal open made movement and moment.

Second Reading
From a homily on the Gospels by Saint Gregory the Great, pope
My Lord and my God 

Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. He was the only disciple absent; on his return he heard what had happened but refused to believe it. The Lord came a second time; he offered his side for the disbelieving disciple to touch, held out his hands, and showing the scars of his wounds, healed the wound of his disbelief.  

    Dearly beloved, what do you see in these events? Do you really believe that it was by chance that this chosen disciple was absent, then came and heard, heard and doubted, doubted and touched, touched and believed? It was not by chance but in God’s providence. In a marvellous way God’s mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master’s body, should heal our wounds of disbelief. The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ’s wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection. 

    Touching Christ, he cried out: My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him: Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed. Paul said: Faith is the guarantee of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. It is clear, then, that faith is the proof of what can not be seen. What is seen gives knowledge, not faith. When Thomas saw and touched, why was he told: You have believed because you have seen me? Because what he saw and what he believed were different things. God cannot be seen by mortal man. Thomas saw a human being, whom he acknowledged to be God, and said: My Lord and my God. Seeing, he believed; looking at one who was true man, he cried out that this was God, the God he could not see. 

    What follows is reason for great joy: Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. There is here a particular reference to ourselves; we hold in our hearts one we have not seen in the flesh. We are included in these words, but only if we follow up our faith with good works. The true believer practises what he believes. But of those who pay only lip service to faith, Paul has this to say: They profess to know God, but they deny him in their works. Therefore James says: Faith without works is dead. 

(--from Office of Readings, feast of Thomas, 3july17)

A human being, 

acknowledged to be God ...

Seeing...

Looking at one...

He cried out

That this

Was God

The God he could

Not see

when moment arrives

No need for illusion

Sadness and grief are companions of illusion

Living in illusion, we need these companions

Until we don't

I don't know what happens when people die  

Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try  

It’s like a song I can hear playing right in my ear  

That I can't sing  

I can’t help listening  

(--from song For a Dancer, by Jackson Browne)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU1rZa8Ur_Q

We wonder about death

We wander near

Look over at it

Sip water

I haven’t said a word since you’ve been gone  

That any liar couldn’t say as well  

I just can’t believe the static coming on  

You were my ground, my safe and sound  

You were my aerial  

(--from song, Treaty, by Leonard Cohen) http://cohencentric.com/official-lyrics-leonard-cohens-want-darker-album/

At times, death is the cessation of illusion

When things open into themselves

No simulacra; no replica; no, (or, yes!) joy

I was never looking for a new religion. I was perfectly satisfied with my old religion."  

Other times, the Zen life wasn't enough. "I was sitting in the meditation hall one afternoon," said Cohen, "and I thought, 'This sucks. This whole scene sucks.' And I moved from that into cataloging the various negative feelings I had for the mother of my children. I found myself descending into a bonfire of hatred, you know – that bitch, what she'd done to me, what she left me with, how she wrecked the whole fucking scene. I was in there, I was in my robes, and the furthest thing from my mind was spiritual advancement. The furthest. I mean, I was consumed with rage."  

That day, Cohen's rage gave way to a moment of unexpected grace, a kind of temporary epiphany. "There was sunlight on the floor of the cabin, where we were waiting to go see Roshi," he said. "There were leaves outside and the shadow of these leaves was on the floor. The wind moved, something moved, and I disappeared into this movement. 

. . .  The whole scene blew up. A dog started barking, and I was barking. And everything that arose was the content of my being. Everything that moved was me. . . .  In certain blessed moments, we experience ourselves as the reality that is manifesting as everything. There's no 'I am one with the universe,' which is the cheapest mystical slogan." Cohen paused. "There is that moment," he continued, "and it decides that life is worth living. I was barking with the dog, but there really was no dog."  

(-from, Leonard Cohen: Remembering the Life and Legacy of the Poet of Brokenness, Rolling Stone, 30Nov2016)  http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/leonard-cohen-life-and-legacy-of-the-poet-of-brokenness-w452790

What fades doesn’t disappear.

What does disappear is hope of retrieval.

What remains is movement of moment.

If the stars were all unpinned 

And a cold and bitter wind 

Swallowed up the world 

Without a trace 

Well that’s where I would be 

What my life would seem to me 

If I couldn’t lift the veil 

And see your face 

(--from song, If I Didn’t Have Your Love, by Leonard Cohen)                                                                                 http://cohencentric.com/official-lyrics-leonard-cohens-want-darker-album/

No one sees the face of God and lives

But I have seen many, many faces

And, yes, I will die; and I will face that, too

At first glance, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face then later tells Him he can’t see His face and live. Yet, the first verse states that he saw God’s face then continued to live. The confusion comes not from God’s face, but from our assumption of the word live.  

In Hebrew, this word translated live in english is “Chayay.” In biblical Hebrew this word is taken from the Chai which means “life.” From other examples throughout Scripture, chayay is sometimes used, not to describe mortality or physical survival, but to be revived, strengthened internally into a full life or even to save a life. In other words, God was not saying that if Moses saw His face he would physically die. So what was He saying?  

The Lord desires that we get our strength from Him. This was the clear message in the desert when He told Israel that “man does not live [chayah] by bread alone, but man lives [chayah] by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD (Deut 8:3). Here again, this was not referring to physical life, but instead it is about being revived or strengthened. Man isn’t revived or strengthened by bread alone, but he is revived and strengthened by God’s word. This is why Jesus quoted this verse to Satan during His 40 day fast. Jesus’ temptation wasn’t about eating physical food, but it was about being distracted by physical things for your strength rather than being “fed” from God. That is a temptation that we all are faced with, whether fasting or not.  

This is what God is communicating here in Exodus. No one can see His face and continue to be revived and strengthened by natural means. No one can look directly at the Creator of Genesis 1 and simply call it a nice experience. Looking into the face of God can change us in such dramatic ways that our previous life is destroyed. But isn’t that what we want; to be dramatically changed? 

(--from,  No Man Can See My Face and Live, Hebrew Word Studies, Teachings / BY DOUG HERSHEY http://firm.org.il/learn/no-man-can-see-face-live/

When movement is recognized

When moment arrives

There’s no need for illusion

Only love can break a heart 

Only love can mend it again 

(--from song by Gene Pitney) https://play.google.com/music/preview/Txzwcuylhvzbxqhdam5vnjjiozy?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics

waiting out the bad weather

Until we have a president of the United States we will have to carry on with wariness and vigilance while the occupant of the White House completes his agenda of petty vulgarity and militant retribution toward anyone not extending fealty.

What time is it?

What time is it now?

And now?

maine afternoon

Fog erases mountain top

As dignity of presidency

Also disappears

out on bail

Everyone is innocent.

Some are not guilty.

Prison is not the answer.

remaining

Twenty one years ago this day we opened Meetingbrook bookshop & bakery at the harbor.

Eight years ago, after thirteen years, we lost our lease and came home to the hermitage.

It was a good time.

Remaining a good recollection.

waving branches summer trees

So many people

Do so many things

With their lives

I read obituaries 

They recommend second opinions

Build b&bs in east boothbay Maine

Become doctors, write poetry

Visit monasteries

Or lose a child to schizophrenia

They are good people

They sit in choir stalls during  mass

And want to be alone

They know people

Bring towels

Truck sand in to front of lodge

Shop with grandkids

Get cancer

And die.

It is a good life that understands

Nothing is outside

And the waving branches of

Summer trees in sunlight

Is all we need to say

This, this, is enough

i think within

Yes

Our culture

Is degenerating

Where find sanity --

In thought God

Below and beyond

Everything

Feels the dismay

Sees the impossibility

And sits in

Silence

Watching

Listening

To What is

I think

Within

Everything

if being is, is non-being not

The young

woman is

afraid

Of

Being

Alone

if God spoke, would anyone listen

Are you afraid

of presence

Real presence

I am

It is so

Intimate

Wanting nothing

Other

Than

Itself

With

No-other (an-other)

Like 

Mourning doves

At 4am

Once

Just once

In perfect

Five note

Harmony

warning shot

Chaos in White House.

And ordinary citizens can't be sure if the occupant is playing with them or is merely unbalanced.

It is hard to turn one's back on such spectacle.

are we not

Of course, 

mind 

realizes no

barriers 

But we 

are out

of our mind

are we

not

postulate

Let’s say that just to wake up is something for which to be grateful.

I woke up this morning.

For which

I am

grateful.