nobody realizes this: there is nothing to see here

Of course. It is the fourth of March.

Something I wrote fifty years ago still tries to reveal itself to me.

Find your soul, musician
And you will be
What your hands’ eyes
Playfully see 

Tiring of the dreadful pornography of political soul-killing unceasing breaking news, I take refuge in sanctuary of paradoxical cloistered openness falling into interior boundless infinity.

Lone voice chants Salve Regina:

Latin		English
Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae: Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve. Ad te clamamus, exsules, filii Hevae. Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes In hac lacrimarum valle. Eia ergo, Advocata nostra, Illos tuos misericordes oculos Ad nos converte. Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis, post hoc exsilium ostende. O clemens! O pia! O dulcis Virgo Maria!		Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy, Our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, Mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, O most gracious Advocate, Thine eyes of mercy towards us. And after this, our exile, Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Bells ring. Tibetan clangs and tinkles suffuse sonorous drone of voice.

Cat kneads temporary resting space on legs. Dog requires body rub.

It is Sunday morning. Nothing requires its requisite stillness and quiet. World is going to end once these receptors called my human form gives up into what cannot be known.

Evagrius vistas, again.

Following Plato[14] and the later Aristotelian tradition,[15] Evagrius considers the soul to be tripartite, ruled (when all goes well) by the λογιστικόν or reasoning faculty,[16] which is chiefly responsible for developing the virtues of prudence, understanding and wisdom.[17] It rules over the παθητικόν, the portion of the soul subject to passion and the source of the ‘helpers’ of desire and indignation.[18] In this passage Evagrius depicts the energy of epithumia in its ideal state, ‘lovingly tending the sheep’. When exercised ‘according to nature’ the ἐπιθυμητικόν contributes the virtues of temperance, love, and continence.[19] Evagrius portrays thumos as protecting the sheep by driving away ‘wolf-like’ concepts: thus the θυμικόν should be the source of courage and patient endurance.[20]      Although Evagrius frequently employs the term ‘soul’ (ψυχή) as a synonym for ‘individual person’ or ‘inner self’, this term does not properly describe the deepest level of human personality. The true center and deepest level of human personality is the νοῦς or intellect, created in the image of God and capable of union with God.  http://www.ldysinger.stjohnsem.edu/@books/Dysinger/2005_bk_ps-pr-ev_1-3.htm

Is that coffee hidden in beans in bag in kitchen waiting to unveil its scent?

Nobody realizes this!

And, for this realization, one is grateful. 

Evagrius for Saturday morning practice

As it was, it just seemed time to read some Evagrius Ponticus (345 - 399) after zazen.

Indeed, I urge you to welcome exile. It frees you from all the entanglements of your own locality, and allows you to enjoy the blessings of stillness undistracted. Do not stay in a town, but persevere in the wilderness. ‘Lo,' says the Psalm, 'then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness' (Ps. 55:7). If possible, do not visit a town at all. For you will find there nothing of benefit, nothing useful, nothing profitable for your way of life. To quote the Psalm again, 'I have seen violence and strife in the city' (Ps. 55:9). So seek out places that are free from distraction, and solitary. Do not be afraid of the noises you may hear. Even if you should see some demonic fantasy, do not be terrified or flee from the training ground so apt for your progress. Endure fearlessly, and you will see the great things of God, His help. His care, and all the other assurances of salvation. For as the Psalm says, 'I waited for Him who delivers me from distress of spirit and the tempest' (Ps. 55:8. LXX). 

 (Excerpts from The Philokalia, Evagrios the Solitary, (345/6-399), VOLUME 1: Page 31. Outline Teaching on Asceticism and Stillness in the Solitary Life) http://desertfathers.blogspot.com/2011/06/evagrius-ponticuson-asceticism-and.html

 Theres this:

Introduction    Evagrius Ponticus (b. 345 in Ibora; d. 399 in Egypt), a monastic theologian, was one of the most talented intellects of the fourth century. Circulating in elite ecclesiastical circles of Cappadocia and Asia Minor, he began his career under Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus, serving with the latter in Constantinople through a stormy tenure that culminated in the Second Ecumenical Council (381). Known then as a brilliant heresiologist, Evagrius seemed destined for a successful ecclesiastical career. He chose a different course, and fled to Jerusalem, where he took vows in the monastic communities of Rufinus and Melania. From there he traveled to Egypt and lived in monasteries in Nitria and Kellia. In Egypt he wrote extensively in a variety of genres—letters, proverbs, brief sayings (chapters), and treatises—nearly all geared toward explaining and analyzing vice and virtue, demons and angels, psychological and psychosomatic phenomena—in sum, the life of the ascetic. His accounts are set, sometimes explicitly, oftentimes pensively, within a well-developed metaphysical system that responded to both classical philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism) and the theology of some of the most accomplished Christian intellectuals (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus). http://evagriusponticus.net/

 Then this:

Evagrius’ understanding of the spiritual life has been succinctly summarized as ‘the mind’s long journey to the Holy Trinity’.[1] This journey can be envisioned as a helix, a geometrical form which combines both linear direction and circular movement.[2] The linear motion consists of ‘progress’ (προκοπή) or ‘ascent’ (anabasis /ἀνάβασις) towards God which is at the same time characterized by a ‘circular’ movement between the poles of praktiké (ἡ πρακτική) and theoretiké (ἡ θεωρητική): that is, between the ascetical (‘ethical’ or ‘practical’) life and the contemplative life. Fundamental to Evagrius’ model of spiritual progress is his conviction that the Christian praktikos πρακτικός or ascetic should mature into a γνωστικός, a ‘knower’ or ‘sage’ skilled in contemplation and capable of imparting spiritual knowledge. He describes sequential levels or stages of spiritual progress, but he does not thereby imply that it is possible to completely rise above the praktiké and ‘graduate’ from the quest for virtue. As the praktikos makes progress he learns to perceive the work of asceticism from an increasingly contemplative perspective.[3] And since the struggle against certain passions continues until the very moment of death,[4] even the mature gnostikos must continually advance in virtue, practicing ascetical vigilance.[5] Thus the journey towards God is not a simply a movement beyond praktiké into theoretiké: spiritual progress includes a gentle oscillation between these two poles in such a way that continuing attention to the changing demands of praktiké yields ever greater contemplative refreshment. http://www.ldysinger.stjohnsem.edu/@books/Dysinger/2005_bk_ps-pr-ev_1-3.htm

There’s a lot to sort through for spirituality to drown you in its depth. 

Thread: I’ll start. I wrote this after a Friday morning conversation with several inmates at maine state prison, and a final conversation with a co-monastic (with gratitude to them and to the student who sparked the conversation)

After a student said “there will always be evil”

Perhaps we’d have to ask “What is evil?”

Without objectifying evil into a demonic being, or relying on ancient mythological stories, what can we say about evil that describes evil in our experience?

Let’s try this:

Evil is the cold, fearful, separation of oneself from others, from the authentic reality of interrelationality, and opting for objectifying, reactive, angry, harmful, and unfeeling behavior toward the other or others.

If evil were to be countered and possibly overcome, it would be by means of compassionate, involved, relational, intersubjective, kind and caring response to each person and persons within the circumstance and surround of immediate and distant experience.

If, at root, every sentient being longs to avoid suffering and experience aware happiness (in whatever form within which it comes) then, no one consciously would seek to harm or hurt another in ways that we would call evil.

This would entail becoming conscious, deepening and expanding that consciousness, until nothing is left out of our identifying surround, that which we might call kin, family, neighbor, community, divinity, cosmos, humanity — the  circumincessional interpenetration* and the dancing interconnectivity of cosmotheandric** reality.

We are exploring here a new ethic and spirituality of being present in existence — and beyond — with one-another.

With this awareness and ongoing intelligent inquiry, we very likely could arrive at a condition of heart and mind which would be happy to help one-another to experience happiness and dwell compassionately in the midst of others, or no-others, surrounding.

What we call evil begins to disappear when any individual chooses to enter a compassionate and thoughtful interaction with any one individual within the sphere of their presence.

...

*  http://www.purifymind.com/Circuminsessional.htm

**  http://www.raimon-panikkar.org/english/gloss-cosmotheandric.html

interrogatory

Q: If you had the opportunity, would you join the current administration in the White House?

A: No!

Q: I have no further questions.

there, there

Where

is yesterday

Today

is here

shema

Χριστός-Μεσσίας is the nature of the universe.

No church, no temple, no mosque, no scripture contains this nature.

Each breath is the liturgy of the cosmos.

first thing this morning, Richard Rohr’s daily meditation

https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/

Evolution

An Unfolding Future
Tuesday, February 27, 2018

To fight the concept of evolution is to fight the core meaning of biblical faith, which is a generous balancing act between knowing and not knowing. Unbelief is to insist on total knowing now—by myself! As people of faith, we believe that God is guiding this mysterious universe, although much is hidden from us, both in the past and the future. “Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and the human heart has not conceived, what God has prepared for those who love God” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Judeo-Christian believers, in particular, should have been the first to understand and promote a philosophy of progress because they had an Absolute Source and Goal to ground the trajectory.

In 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) published his findings that revealed the universe was expanding. Many began to imagine that if the biggest frame of reference—the cosmos—was still unfolding, then maybe that is the pattern of everything. The latest evidence shows that this expansion is even happening at an ever-increasing rate! It seems to mirror the increasing rate of change with each new technological and scientific breakthrough. This rapid change is scary and unsettling. I can see why people are panicking and trying to find some solid ground, a fixed point to the turning world. 

Fundamentalist religion and identity politics seem to be running the show now, and I can even understand that. But God has never “circled the wagons” to regain control and stability. God only moves in every larger spheres and orbits, which is what we mean by calling God infinite, eternal, or almighty.

I have no knowledge of where the universe story might be fully or finally heading, but I can see what it has already revealed with great clarity—that knowledge builds on itself, is cumulative, and is always moving outward toward ever-greater discovery. People who cling to the past and resist change have a hard time participating in God’s and their own future. Perhaps this is an appropriate application of Jesus’ somewhat problematic words, “Anyone who has will be given more . . . but anyone who has not, will lose what little he has” (see Matthew 25:29). This is only true in the realm of spirit and wisdom which increase and evolve with use. Material reality decreases with usage, which is why our consumer worldview is unsustainable.

In the words of Thomas Keating,

There seems to be an intent or a plan in creation to bring into manifestations revelations of the Unknowable One that awaken in us the greater and greater capacity to love. . . . Evolutionary consciousness is extremely important . . . and science has vastly increased the understanding of how the immensity of the universe continues to expand and how its infinitesimal quality continues to unfold.God is more and more trying to move the human race to the next stage of consciousness beyond the rational, technological, dominating worldview . . . recognizing the truth that there is only one self ultimately and this is God manifesting in us. [1]

Gateway to Presence:

If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.

[1] Thomas Keating with Carl J. Arico, God Is Love: The Heart of All Creation Guidebook (Contemplative Outreach: 2016), 22, https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/product/god-love-%E2%80%93-heart-all-creation-guidebook.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Evolution Is Another Name for Growth,” “Evolutionary Thinking,” Oneing, vol. 4, no. 2 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2016), 111-112.

god skips church

The dream and fantasy

called life in this world carries on.

Things feel less and less solid.

A disappearing night.

Everything is prayer.

Earth as zafu, zabuton.

Hands poised

together

asperges

The video asked whether Jesus was a Buddhist.

Where was he from age 14 to 30?

And did he go to Kashmir after the crucifixion event and subsequent recovery?

Plausible? Or mere fancy?

Last night I sat with someone’s grandmother for an hour in a hospice room. A vase of flowers and two small carafes of water and juice on table traversing bed.

She was there. I was there. Granddaughter and friend arrived and stayed a while.

From adjacent room guitar and voices played and sang.

Listening in letting inside.

Grandmother and I had our quiet listen to the brief concert. A bass voice, some harmony, then laughter, returning to silence.

Who was it once spoke about the “real realization of reality”? A new 3r’s for pedagogy.

A rooting and recollecting responsivity.

Where rest and return to restorative emptiness is the sole scripture capable of being read with no sound, no interruption, no-other awareness.

Mere mother, grandmother, there, going no-where, the unborn and undying, here.

Our unarticulated, nameless movement, through and through.

Water brothers, water sisters, wending way, together.

Asperges me, Domine, Hyssopo, et mundabor: Lavabis me, Et super nivem dealbabor. Miserere mei, Deus, Secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.

Cleanse me, O Lord, With hyssop, and I shall be made clean: Wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. Have mercy on me, O God, According to Your great mercy.

mostly, I don’t get what people mean by prayer

So, the asking: What is prayer?

Prayer is what is.

(Watching and listening.)

Seen and heard.

With feeling and thought.

Inside and inside and inside.

Everything.

no, doesn’t make anyone proud to know them

Crabby people against compassion

I see that cpac is meeting again and flaunting their brand.

salute smartly, and leave

There’s a suggested plan to arm teachers to carry guns in classrooms.

Ok, sir.

Next?

disappearing

don’t
mind
me

spirit deepens as

Body de-
teriorates

eh? ayuh!

Fort Kent freezing rain —

mile zero, bridge to Canada

drenched with forgotten passport

so too with the one we call god

Those that judge you don’t love you.

Those that love you don’t judge you.

Compassion neither judges nor loves —

Only cries with the sorrowful

Only delights with the pure hearted

forgive me brothers and sisters

For I have not practiced root intimate interconnection.

we observe presidents' day

But we have no president.

companeros com flores

Our children in Florida -- May they rest in peace!

nothing is like it

Root intimate interrelationality.

That’s what pregnancy is.

What abortion is — is not so much what conservatives want to call murder — is the interruption of root intimate interrelationality.

It is this rupture that causes grief and unaccountable loneliness afterward.

We are meant to embody root intimate interrelationality — all of us, male or female, animal or human, divinity or species of plant, insect, mineral, proton or neutron.

It is what we are made of and made for.

We long for it.

It is true.

a dialogue

RE: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain

COLLAPSE

“A life depended on what the doctors answer was. Maybe he really didn't know whether his patient would live or die. But in any case, he could not have been one hundred percent positive. Which meant that he chose to play God. Was he right to do so?”(JB)

...

Your words make me think of words and the power they have. 

If the 2nd commandment, as you point out in the Catholic tradition, is “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” ... then, how does that apply to Dekalog 2?

A rabbi who studies Semitic languages pointed out that, in the Hebrew Scriptures  when the name of the giver of the 10 commandments was asked for, the response was recorded and reduced to four consonants “YHWH”. Vowels were to be added by those who knew what to add. He said that the pronunciation of the letters, which were simply an inbreath and outbreath, required no movement of either lips or tongue, and sounded like mere breath coming in and going out.

What could this mean? Is the name of God the practice and sound of breath? And does the vibration of sound, the pronunciation of words, have something to do with the vibration of God in the world?

When the doctor spoke, finally, in response to Dorota, and said not to have the abortion, that her husband surely would not live — was he “playing God” by attempting to persuade her to have the child? We’re unsure if he knew whether or not the husband would die — nor do we know whether his prime motivation was to attempt to retrieve in some way the lives of his own children killed in the war some 40 years earlier.

Such considerations revive, for me, the question of the name of God as it might apply to our ethical understanding of the world. Are we to consider that the name of God is the breathing of life? That we should not waste our breath on that which is not in the service of life, that is, anything that diminishes or denigrates life, that diminishes or denigrates people or other beings in life, any words or actions that are contrary to the caring compassion needed to assist life to thrive in the world? 

Is Kieslowski pushing us to think in a new way? And what of the feeling we might have that any interference into our ordinary (either/or) thinking is undesirable?

In other words, we ought not to take the name of (that which is) life in vain.

On another level, breath and words can and do bring things into being, and breath and words can and do remove things from being.

Do you think it is possible we do not (yet) comprehend and appreciate what the real value and function of words are?

(And perhaps the fact that the above words are being written as I sit in the parlor area of a hospice house on Saturday evening is influencing what I am writing.)

Thanks, JB, for the prompt!

—bh

meetingbrook described -- cosmotheandric campers

At morning practice, this arose, should anyone ask:

 Q: How do you describe meetingbrook hermitage?

A: We are Cosmotheandric Campers

Q: How's that?

A: Cosmotheandric* is a Raimon Panikkar term combining Cosmos, Theos, and Andros (universe/nature, divinity/God, beings/humanity). By an unseparated combining Panikkar is pointing to the new template of thought that must take into consideration all three aspects of the one reality permeating this existence. Undo focus on any one to the diminishment of either of the remaining two will result in continuation of fragmented, divided, deficient perpetuation of separation and discord.

Q: How does this apply to meetingbrook?

A: We wish to focus on visible cosmos, invisible divinity, and coming-to-see humankind.

Q: And "Campers"?

A: Campers stands for

contemplative 

and 

meditative 

practitioners -- 

engaging, 

recollecting, 

silenting.   

Q: Silenting?

A: As in quieting, stilling, and cultivating silence. (Not in the sense of silencing anyone -- but in the sense of creating an environment for listening and hearing the sound of what is, being, said.)

Q: Anything else?

 A: As cosmotheandric campers we wish to free, transform, perceive, and embody all that we find in creation, illusion, reality, and awakening (essentially the Bodhisattva Vows) and the two Great Commandments (inviting into love of God, wholeness, and neighbor).

We also note the character of such a worded designation as pointing to movement, impermanence, practice, ephemerality, diaphaneity, and peaceful presence -- qualities that allow a way through time and place encountered by everyone sharing this existence.

Q: Thanks...?

A: Yes, gratefulness, appreciation, and acceptance -- thanks, indeed!

...

* Cosmotheandric or theo-anthropo-cosmic (dimension)

“The cosmotheandric intuition is the totally integrated vision of the seamless fabric of the entire reality… the undivided consciousness of the totality” (The Cosmotheandric Experoence). 

“There are not three realities: God, Man, and the World; but neither is there one, whether God, Man or World. Reality is cosmotheandric. It is our way of looking that makes reality appear to us at times under one aspect, at times under another. God, Man, and World are, so to speak, in an intimate and constitutive collaboration to construct Reality, to make history advance, to continue creation: (The Triniity and the Religious Experience of man, London and New York 1975).  

 The cosmotheandric intuition expresses the all embracing indissoluble union, that constitutes all of Reality: the triple dimension of reality as a whole: cosmic-divine-human. The cosmotheandric intuition is the undivided awareness of the totality." What Panikkar proposes is to live so open to this triple dimension of reality, open to others, to the world, and to God that we might achieve harmonious communion with the all: the cosmotheandric reconciliation. It is a matter of an experience more mystical and ineffable than philosophic in the traditional sense, but it breaks the customary philosophico-theological molds. 

http://www.raimon-panikkar.org/english/gloss-cosmotheandric.html

haiku

it is about guns

it is, about, guns -- you see

they mostly kill, guns

goodbye country, hello neighbor

There must be a belief there are too many young students in the United States.

It’s open season on them. AR-15s are for sale, weapon of war, to be owned and used by Americans who belief their freedom to shoot whomever and wherever they wish.

It is curious, isn’t it?

Some say it is our unique quest to discern what is right and what is wrong and act on our findings in each situation..

There is a moment when deliberation gives way to speech about our findings, when speech gives way to action, when actions intimately entwine our life with others’ lives.

Is it really about guns?

Or is it about who we are and what we wish to be with one another?

close the schools with your feet

Perhaps it is

time for

all parents

to stop sending

their children

to school

until sane

and responsible

gun legislation

is enacted.

unnouncing

no

words

reveal everything

unnouncing

nothing

near-

by

until I’m not

Sometimes depression and sadness is the only response.

And when we get tired of that response, we will overthrow the stupidity of automatic assault rifles encouraged and sold cheerfully by hucksters.

Until then, it’s depression.

And sorrow.

Let the official condolence politicos offer their prayers and somber statements about the aberration of mass school shootings.

About mental health.

About domestic terrorism.

About the better place that innocent children and youth go to be with their dead loved ones and welcoming deities.

I’ll just sit.

In silence.

Depressed.

And sorrowing.

Until I’m not.

all I need is the air that I breathe

How do I pray?

You don’t.

Waddya mean?

You don’t pray. Prayer prays you.

Air is breath. Breath is God.

Each breath is God’s name in

and out of you.

on phone with Maryland

Faith is going on through the unknown.

Trust in God is the willingness to affirm reality as being what is here.

Each, an acceptance with compassion.

a gift of god riding bike in cemetary

Once it was the Bible

Then one who would be Christ

Who was locked inside a church

Until a monk remembered scripture


Today it is the cosmos

It is mind that looks through it

Existence asks for nothing

Some bow to empty air


Some say we have no myth

To narratize under our feet

I sit with woman in hospital room

Telling stories of mountain street


There is no meaning to life going

Forward— only a bit of soil

Underfoot as turning body

Asks after someone, is hit, and dies

and where it stops, no one knows

Love

makes the

world

go

          r          

 o                d

     u         n

      

they say they didn’t do it

men needing women

punching bags get white

house refuge apologist —

no apology 

champion-slips ragged mtn

rain on snow

tobogganers drip

saturday slide

showing up

In prison today

someone said “I love you”

meditation with bells

origination, depend on it

This is because that is.

that’s not the answer

If I told you the story of the red stocking, would you have it?  (A koan my father asked repeatedly in a house on a Brooklyn street mid-century ago.)

of it

She wanted to know

what I believed

Nothing, I said

Nothing? Really — is that

what you believe?

No, I said.

I don’t believe

Nothing as well as

Anything

Think of it this

way —

Without belief

everything is exactly

what it is

as it is.

Ok, she said

I believe you

And nothing

came of it

more feeling less reason

The felt fact

of the experience

is always more

compelling than

the proposed

reason

for the fact.

day after

I’ve lived in Philadelphia

I’ve never lived in Boston or Massachusetts

Well, that’s over with

about the game

I’m rooting for New England’s Maine to become part of Atlantic Canada’s time zone.

Let’s touch down in a kinder more civil field with much less bullying or roughing.

let’s meet for coffee and talk about this

How democracies die, explained. The problems in American democracy run far deeper than Trump, by Ezra Klein, 2Feb2018, Vox

worth...keeping

Buddhism and Christianity meet in the realization of two words: whole, and, self.

Matthew 22:34-40 “But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great Commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, You shall love your neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang ALL the law and the prophets.”

Whole heart.
Whole soul.
Whole mind.

Neighbor is yourself.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[b] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

And:

 17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:17-18)

Whole Self.

What is the One that is called G-d?

Wholeness without division or separation.

Self/neighbor — no barrier, no other.

Until we realize the true nature of reality there is no self, no G-d.

When we realize the true nature of reality, there is no self, no G-d.

Between the two, there is only love (only Lord). And when there is love (only Lord), there is no two, no one.

Only this realization loving one and all. One is all. All is one.

These are good commandments.

Worth...keeping!

and that is

Let me be

                      What

I am

carrying on

The breathing flowers

in front of Buddha’s hands

next to Madonna and child

photo of Thich Nhat Hanh

practice walking with monks

counter top broken incense

few remaining tea candles

waiting for new breath

wood matches at ready —

Once when breath carried

her body there were troubles

with divided mind at odds

with itself, so it seemed.

Now, no body, no mind apart

her breath drifts floral scent

over zafu and zabuton, along

shelves of books at meetingbrook

electric radiator and gas stove

glowing welcome for visitors

this cold morning; silence

breathing free of division

free to wander open door

to commingle all breathing

beings sound mind and sounding

body turning with recognition

midst all her familiars

for as long as there is breathing

we carry one another on

future tense

I can imagine a time to come when bullets will fly between trumpian loyalists and those angered by him.

Is what is wanted dissolution of government in favor of private wealth and business?

It will be a difficult time.

consequential segue

Candlemas, also known as the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus and the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Christian Holy Day commemorating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Wikipedia

Candlemas. “Candlemas commemorates the ritual purification of Mary, 40 days after the birth of her son Jesus. This day also marks the ritual presentation of the baby Jesus to God in the Temple at Jerusalem. ... The festival is called Candlemas beacuse this was the day that all the Church's candles for the year were blessed.”

Imbolc or Imbolg (/ɪˈmɒlɡ/ i-MOLG), also called (Saint) Brigid's Day (Irish: Lá Fhéile Bríde, Scottish Gaelic: Là Fhèill Brìghde, Manx: Laa'l Breeshey), is a Gaelic traditional festival marking the beginning of spring. ... For Christians, especially in Ireland, it is the feast day of Saint Brigid.
(Wikipedia)

In maine today we celebrate rain and smoosh and snow and wind. Gray dripping February drear. Even the
Prison says stay away; they are overrun with flu. It will be memo-day in DC when republicans will attempt to bring down the fbi and Justice dept so as to raise up the current president from wallow of illegality.

Time, they say, is running out.

What will follow once time has gone?

All in one place.

Without time everything aggregates in a single spot.

It is a contracting without extension, an inseparate aggregate without wholeness.

I cannot see around this trumpian perfection— all is him, and only him, as if some grotesque revelation were at hand.

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

This by William Stafford:

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

BY WILLIAM E. STAFFORD

If you don't know the kind of person I am 

and I don't know the kind of person you are 

a pattern that others made may prevail in the

           world 

and following the wrong god home we may miss

           our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, 

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break 

sending with shouts the horrible errors of

          childhood 

storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each

          elephant's tail, 

but if one wanders the circus won't find the

          park, 

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty 

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something

         shadowy, 

a remote important region in all who talk: 

though we could fool each other, we should

         consider—

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the

dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to

          sleep; 

the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford, "A Ritual to Read to Each Other" from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1998 by William Stafford.  

howling bitter air

A hundred plus miles through whiteout snow storm.

Then blueberry pie.

Machias reward.

we don’t put an end to anything

“Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to transform them.” (One of four bodhisattva vows, per Upaya Zen Center)

At table Sunday Evening Practice someone wanted to think about that wording.

So, it seems, did Roshi Joan Halifax.

Here’s what she wrote.

The second vow begins “Delusions are inexhaustible”. I changed the second part of the vow. Originally it was “I vow to put an end to them”, but my experience as a woman and a Buddhist is that we don’t put an end to anything. When we work with our delusions, what does happen is that we transform them. We even discover wisdom in their corners. This wisdom is the hidden treasure that rewards our most fearless and diligent examination of our own delusions. Now we chant, “Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to transform them.”
https://www.upaya.org/dox/You.pdf

Wisdom in the corners of delusions?

I vow to transform the corners of the seemingly delusional person in executive position of highest office of this increasingly sad country.

being breathed

The breath.

When breathing stops,

does the breath go out and away?

Or does it go deep and hidden within?

Breath, the name of The unpronounceable One!

everyone you knew from back then is a success

Satchel Paige said

“Don’t look back” —

Good advice

(There’s nothing there).

He said:

“You win a few,

you lose a few.

Some get rained out.

But you got to dress

for all of them.” (SP)

Where’s my

Beret and

Walking stick

Allons

Marchez

Vers l’avant

There are

Elephants

Crossing a

Bridge of

Dreams

fleet foxes, white winter hymnal

Why not?
https://youtu.be/DrQRS40OKNE

collating suffering

Two responses, two students:

1.

“Just because one person is suffering doesn't mean two people have to suffer.” (CZ)

...

This is a good line. I agree with it. The sense I reflect on is that no one should have suffering forced on them by another. it is something we seem to do, namely, use our suffering to clobber others. Intentionally or unintentionally.

It makes me further reflect that — in ways I do not fully grasp — whenever anyone suffers, I too am part of their suffering, even if I am not being clobbered by it. It is this natural collation, one life shuffling through another's,  that fascinates me and keeps me wondering.

2.

“ I truly believe I am 'self defined' by how I reflect the world around me.” (EC)

...

Yeah, I do too. 

In some ways it’s like a hall of mirrors —everywhere you look, there you are. 

When Flip Wilson’s Geraldine would say, “What you see is what you get!”— it seemed a simple statement. Reading your above line, it now seems to take on a different meaning, namely, what we see in the world, the way we see it, the way we allow ourselves to be tutored by what we see, then, that is what we become.

No longer is it a matter of “This is what I get to possess,” but rather, “This is what I will become.” The world we see is the world that we will live in. So, my consciousness is asking me, “What do you see?”

an ugliness looms

If Robert Mueller continues to be trashed by Trump and republicans in Congress, and a series of firings and pardons follow, what then?

Then, I suspect, a people’s court will convene and move on those who have attempted to overthrow our democratic representative republic and, in a series of state and regional jurisdictions predicated on the US constitution, decisions will be made to activate local juridical authority and mobilize local national guard to stand by to stand up to those intent on destroying the laws and values of the land.

There is, beyond the drama of a lawless executive and complicit sycophants, an antidote.

The people, by and large, are decent. They know right and wrong. They will not, ultimately, permit criminal lawless self centered looters to run roughshod over the land and the citizens.

Justice will prevail.

If those responsible for protecting the country fail, the people of the country will, on their own, rise up and demand fairness, decency, justice and removal of those violating the constitution.

In this regard, I am optimistic.

The Trumps and irresponsible minions surrounding him will be taken down and replaced by law abiding leadership intent on serving and protecting our country from all threats, foreign or domestic.

This eventuality requires a new alertness.

Awareness demands attention.

For which, we must pay.

And pray for justice.

And mercy.

God help us!

An ugliness looms.

still?

Still!