hmmm...so much to be reminded of

Could be I needed a reminder of my first name.

Or that I lived in DC as an undergraduate at the Catholic University of America.

But that was long ago.

Perhaps I wish to be reminded of Shaddai. Of the Shema.

Hebrew Shin / SinEdit

Orthographic variants

Various print fonts			CursiveHebrew	Rashiscript
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
ש	ש	ש

Hebrew spelling: שִׁיןThe Hebrew /s/ version according to the reconstruction shown above is descended from Proto-Semitic *ś, a phoneme thought to correspond to a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative  /ɬ/, similar to Welsh Ll in "Llandudno".

In JudaismEdit

Shin also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan hand salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek.^[7][8]The letter Shin is often inscribed on the case containing a mezuzah, a scroll of parchment with Biblical text written on it. The text contained in the mezuzah is the Shema Yisraelprayer, which calls the Israelites to love their God with all their heart, soul and strength. The mezuzah is situated upon all the doorframes in a home or establishment. Sometimes the whole word Shaddai will be written.
The Shema Yisrael prayer also commands the Israelites to write God's commandments on their hearts (Deut. 6:6); the shape of the letter Shin mimics the structure of the human heart: the lower, larger left ventricle (which supplies the full body) and the smaller right ventricle (which supplies the lungs) are positioned like the lines of the letter Shin.
A religious significance has been applied to the fact that there are three valleys that comprise the city of Jerusalem's geography: the Valley of Ben Hinnom, Tyropoeon Valley, and Kidron Valley, and that these valleys converge to also form the shape of the letter shin, and that the Temple in Jerusalem is located where the dagesh (horizontal line) is. This is seen as a fulfillment of passages such as Deuteronomy 16:2 that instructs Jews to celebrate the Pasach at "the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name" (NIV).
In the Sefer Yetzirah the letter Shin is King over Fire, Formed Heaven in the Universe, Hot in the Year, and the Head in the Soul.
The 13th-century Kabbalistic text Sefer HaTemunah, holds that a single letter of unknown pronunciation, held by some to be the four-pronged shin on one side of the teffilin box, is missing from the current alphabet. The world's flaws, the book teaches, are related to the absence of this letter, the eventual revelation of which will repair the universe.

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_(letter)

cf. Vulcan Salute, “live long and prosper”  

Let us repair

(to)

An inner / outer

W
   holeness

poem, september 27, 1971, by daniel berrigan

September 27, 1971

.

A Chinese ideogram

shows someone

standing

by his word.

Fidelity. Freedom

consequent

on the accepted

necessity of

walking where

one’s word

leads.

Wherever.

Hebrew prophets and

singers also

struck the theme;

bodies belong

where words

lead

though the com-

mon run of exper-

ience be

that stature

shrinks as

the word

inflates.

The synthesis;

no matter what (or

better) never                                                                                    

the less.  

    (--Daniel Berrigan in, And the Risen Bread: Selected Poems, 1957-1997)

madre mía

Are the Tibetans right? Has every sentient being been my mother in one of millions of prior incarnations? How do I begin to think of such a thing?

There’s a saying in Tibetan Buddhism that while we might start off with a personal teacher, at some point the entire phenomenal world becomes our guru. 

This adage expresses the idea that all internal and external phenomena can be a catalyst for awakening. But it’s also true that nature, in particular, is a great teacher. The natural world continually arises as a vivid and ephemeral display. By tuning in to it through our sense perceptions—by hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling the natural world fully—we discover a connection with a deeper and more awake dimension of our being, one that is free from the usual overlay of our conceptual thoughts. As guru, the natural world reveals that being present with things as they are can be a transformative experience.
(—In Lion’s Rohr, The Natural World as a Powerful Teacher, BY ELIZABETH MONSON| OCTOBER 29, 2019)

Thank you mom, and mom, and mom! 

standing by one’s word, fidelity

All in all, I have nothing to say.

God is the origin of expression.

Let it be so...

what you are

We think — the mind cannot grasp such enormity.

There are 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, each containing billions of stars. (Phys.org)

More likely, the mind is that enormity.

There is nothing to grasp.

That which is looking is that which is being looked through by that which is, itself, that which sees no-other.

Pray for one another.

Look alive!

One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is that of just how many galaxies the Universe contains. The Hubble Deep Field images, captured in the mid 1990s, gave the first real insight into this. Myriad faint galaxies were revealed, and it was estimated that the observable Universe contains about 100 billion galaxies. Now, an international team, led by Christopher Conselice from the University of Nottingham, UK, have shown that this figure is at least ten times too low.  
https://phys.org/news/2016-10-universe-ten-galaxies-previously-thought.html

Take the next step.

See the surround.

Love what you are.

nothing else seems to make sense

Prayer today.

Prayer tomorrow.

For one another.

a poem is being written

The rest of the article will wait upon Cardinal’s line.

“Creation is a poem.” (—Ernesto Cardinal, Cosmic Canticle)

Lead quote in Richard  Kearney’s God making, An essay in theopoetic imagination

ich kann dich hören

Watched "American Son" in solitude of a Friday Evening while, downstairs, conversation goes on in Wohnküche.

Dem ist nichts mehr hinzuzufügen.

one human sadness

Thank you to all who are, or have been, saints!

“To be a saint is to will the one thing.” Soren Kierkegaard

“Ultimately there is only one human sadness: that of not being a saint.” Leon Bloy (French philosopher who helped bring Jacques and Raissa Maritain to the faith)

“The saints are the only really happy people on earth.” Fr. John Hardon, S.J.

“My key to heaven is that I loved Jesus in the night." Mother Teresa

“The great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts.” St. Francis of Assisi

meditation beads

On street of Camden Maine, between Congo church and Walgreens, I stop Tibetan monk, ask him to bless string of green 108 beads just acquired from sales table where sand mandala is near completion.

He takes them in his hands and chants over them for four minutes. Gives them back. I thank him. We walk on.

The Geshe tells Saskia to pray for her recently departed dog after talk on impermanence at shambhala center in Rockland.

I think president trump is angling for deep violent divisions in the country.

I’ll need the beads.

disclosure

‎I know the name of the whistleblower. I  encourage Republicans  to out him. His name is Emeth (אֶמֶת) Alétheia (ἀλήθεια), aka, truth truth. It will be for them a risky and dangerous precedent bringing him to light.

sprechen sie wohl

We are what we say.

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.
(--Martin Heidegger)

What are you being said?

that's it

Washington Nationals

win

World Series...

(time to sleep)

sit down, take a load off

And on the eighth day, after all the preliminary creations were in place and considered very good, God created the pièce de résistance — game day of game 7 of the World Series!

O holy preparations!

someone I loved to listen facilitate the law

Quote:

What they have now is different, and some would say poorer, but to Pam it is in some ways purer. Everything superfluous has gone away — all posturing and ego; the petty resentments common to all marriages, leaving a connection deeper and truer than language.

“It feels like I love him more now,” she said one day this fall.

In the park, the wind was rising, the silvery sun no longer burning through the clouds. Sirens passed, above the chirp of crickets, as Pam asked Charles if it was time to go and find the car. No, came his unspoken answer, as he kept on walking; he was not ready yet to stop.

They turned back into the park together. She put her arm in his as they headed uphill.

As his Alzheimer’s looms, Charles and Pam Ogletree take one last walk in love, By Jenna Russell Boston Globe Staff,Updated October 27, 2019, 2:01 a.m.

this poem by robert creeley

A Full Cup

  Age knows little other than its own complaints.

Times past are not to be recovered ever.

The old man and woman are left to themselves.

  When I was young, there seemed little time.

I hurried from day to day as if pursued.

Each thing I discovered, another came to possess me.

  Love I could ask no questions of, it was nothing

I ever anticipated, ever thought would be mine.

Even now I wonder if it will escape me.

  What I did, I did finally because I had to,

whether from need of my own or that of others.

It is finally impossible to live and work only for pay.

  I do not know where I’ve come from or where I am going.

Life is like a river, a river without beginning or end.

It’s been my company all my life, its wetness, its insistent movement.

The only wisdom I have is what someone must have told me,

neither to take nor to give more than can be simply managed.

A full cup carried from the well.



(—from: "The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1975–2005" by Robert Creeley. Scribd)

no sunday evening practice tonight

Stay home.

Sit well.

Pray for one another.

Good health!

...

Then, of course, there’s this:

The idea that language and thought are intertwined is ancient. Plato argued against sophist thinkers such as Gorgias of Leontini, who held that the physical world cannot be experienced except through language; this made the question of truth dependent on aesthetic preferences or functional consequences. Plato held instead that the world consisted of eternal ideas and that language should reflect these ideas as accurately as possible.[10] Following Plato, St. Augustine, for example, held the view that language was merely labels applied to already existing concepts. This view remained prevalent throughout the Middle Ages.[11] Roger Bacon held the opinion that language was but a veil covering up eternal truths, hiding them from human experience. For Immanuel Kant, language was but one of several tools used by humans to experience the world. (—from, Linguistic Relativity, Wikipedia) 

what has happened will, what will happen has

time goes nowhere

looking both ways, it steps

into itself at once

coughing before sleep

There’s nothing wrong with being awake middle-night.

Hot tea with honey. The woman fears pneumonia.

For me, it doesn’t matter. Astros beat Nationals in game three. Game 4 later in D.C.

The Honorable Elijah Cummings was lauded and prayed for in Baltimore funeral service Friday. A reminder to us.

Time narrows for antithetical dishonorable obliquely referenced in passing.

I no longer care if I live or die. Pressing hands together, eye to eye.

Gassho

Coming and going

Gassho

nomine domini

Not yet.

Not yet.

Nōn nōbīs, Domine, nōn nōbīs, sed nōminī tuō dā glōriam (KJV: ps 115)

paradox and confusion guard truth

“The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see.” (Huang Po, d.850)

The thing about being sick is the expectation that it will break.

Just like that.

It will come.

Haiku

    (In praise of learning)

if water takes shape

whatever carries it holds

each drop as itself

d’accord

Il pluie

La nuit

L’eau

Simplement

when am I done

What does it mean to say I love God?

lo amo Dio
         (a haiku) 

when all  

is said 

and done -- 

you finish me

Perhaps it is that time when nothing else remains. 

this poem

Conversations in Future Time

You see, darling, 
The biggest problem was that they

Could not seem to agree
On whether they all were the same animal

Nor could they agree, therefore,
On whether they all had equal value. Value

They measured, not merely by the fact of breath,

Rendering value obsolete

As a matter of course, but by paper

Dyed into various colors. (They could not agree

On a single color, colors were very
Hard for them, darling.) And that paper 

That was dyed and used to measure
Value, passing from hand

To hand, from lover to lover
And so on and so forth,

Came, of all things,

From their trees, when their trees

Created the very air they breathed

Which, though of life, was, to them,

Not of value. And so we know

They had gifts great enough to see

Into and out of their condition: the voices

They sang with, the music and poems

And toward the end, before the fire rain
Came and the oceans lifted and merged into one,

Even the structures they lived within

Which healed them as they slept. And though 

The minds of many were truly formidable, truly
Formidable, the hearts of some

Alert and alive, they were so detached

From one another, even from those they chose

To birth or raise or walk beside, often existing
Entirely in their bodies, or not at all,

They required something they called a self

Which I think, darling, 

Meant they would have believed that

You were not I—

Not ever—

Which, to us, now, would seem silly, wouldn’t it?

(—Poem by Charif Shanahan, in American Poetry Review, vol.48 no. 5)

sit here

Sometimes

In the morning

Nothing other

St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada 

if that's all there is

I asked someone what they thought about the story we read

They said it was one point of view, as though done

Nothing about implications, import,

nothing about content, or feel

Thinking has disappeared

into personal opinion

dooming us to

who cares --

I declare

I do

yes

for sweet compassion and kindness

Someone, when we'd just arrived at 2:35am, Saturday morning, no names need mentioning, had unplugged, unbeknownst, the internet to plug in a lamp at this lovely Cape Breton farm house overlooking sloping meadow to Bras d'Or Lake in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. We finished apple pie and ice cream just after 3:20am. Discovered the severed connection of this Sunday Morning. Hence, two days respite from internet and associated viewpoints.

Naturally I went to New York Times Editorial Board Opinion Making America Worse, 12oct19, writing my response:

Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" said it clearly and pointedly, and it resonates regarding Mr. Trump:    "What's that smell in this room? Didn't you notice it Brick? Didn't you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?...There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity...You can smell it. It smells like death."
One can only trust, with joyful anticipation, that the prevailing smell will disappear soon and the White House will throw open the windows to aerate the office, to return the fresh air of truth and authentic governance.

Even escaping to beautiful Celtic Colours music does not take me far enough away from my desultory opinions.

On a cheerier note,  you’ll never guess whose event-ticket name was picked at intermission to win the signed-by-performers wood plaque at the concert we attended, https://celtic-colours.com/shows/pjilasi-a-wagmatcook-welcome/

Truth be told, I had a notion I’d win. So, I’d showered and practiced my walk (with applause) to the winner’s table. Part of my acceptance speech acknowledged my gratitude to all who love poetry and music, for their youthful exuberance for the festival and for sweet compassion and kindness. Not a dry eye in the venue.

her son is a state trooper

May the deer

crossing rt 46

colliding with

 car

be not hurt

and go on



As for the car

towed away

it will stay

in Brewer

for a long

while



The woman

volunteering to

drive two of four

to motel

was an angel

named Betsy



Two others

in wrecker

make their way

to body shop

then taxi

to Vacationland inn



so

it

is

for

now

as it is

by ceasing the activity of reification

Looking at dependent co-origination:

The way things are here and now, according to Buddhism, is neither existence nor non-existence, but rather the middle way of dependent co-origination. When this dynamic process of interconnected becoming is radically thought through, according to Nagarjuna, there is no (substantial) “thing” that comes into and goes out of existence. And this means that each and every phenomenal event is marked by—in the words of his famous eightfold negation—“non-origination, non-extinction; non-destruction, non-permanence; non-identity, non-differentiation; non-coming (into being), non-going (out of being).”28 The “uncompounded” is thus not someplace else, but is this world of non-substantial becoming seen aright. According to Nagarjuna, the root of samsaric existence is the activity or disposition (Sk. samskâra) that compounds phenomena into reified forms, forms that we attach ourselves to and then suffer the loss (of control) of. The “wise one” who sees into this vicious circle, therefore, ceases to “act” in the sense of “to create compounds.” But this cessation is presumably not a cessation of all “activity” as such; indeed, as Garfield puts it, by ceasing the activity of reification “we can achieve. . . a nirvana not found in an escape from the world but in an enlightened and awakened engagement with it.”29 The right effort to attain nirvana is thus not a will to nothingness, but leads rather to the realization that there is nothing to “attain.”30 Thus asamskrta refers not to an eternal realm outside the conditioned world of becoming, but to a more originary way of perceiving and dwelling in the world of dependent co-origination. 

(—in, Zen After Zarathustra: The Problem of the Will in the Confrontation Between Nietzsche and Buddhism, by Bret W. Davis, Project Muse, kindle)

 An enlightened and awakened engagement with the world.

...   ...   ...

Definition^[1]

：

asaṃskṛta (Sanskrit). The ‘unconditioned’, a term referring to anything that transcends conditioned (saṃskṛta) existence in the state of saṃsāra. The number of items deemed to be unconditioned varied according to the Abhidharmas of different schools of Buddhism. Most commonly, three items were counted: the cessation (or liberation) arising through insight (pratisaṃkhyā-nirodha), the cessation not arising through insight (apratisaṃkhyā-nirodha), and space (ākāśa).

Source

：

A Dictionary of Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 2003, 2004 (which is available in electronic version from answer.com)

גמר חתימה טובה

g’mar chatima tovah 

May you be inscribed for good [in the Book of Life]

This Yom Kippur.

כָּל נִדְרֵי

This, tonight:

Kol Nidre /ˈkɔːl nɪˈdreɪ/ (also known as Kol Nidrey or Kol Nidrei^[1]) (Aramaic: כָּל נִדְרֵי) is an Aramaic declaration recited in the synagoguebefore the beginning of the evening service on every Yom Kippur. Strictly speaking, it is not a prayer, although commonly spoken of as if it were. This dry legal formula and its ceremonial accompaniment have been charged with emotional undertones since the medieval period, creating a dramatic introduction to Yom Kippur on what is often dubbed "Kol Nidrei night".^[2] It is written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. Its name is taken from the opening words, meaning all vows. The formula proactively annuls any personal or religious oaths or prohibitions made upon oneself to God for the next year, so as to preemptively avoid the sin of breaking vows made to God which cannot be or are not upheld.Kol Nidrei has had an eventful history, both in itself and in its influence on the legal status of the Jews. Introduced into the liturgy despite the opposition of some rabbinic authorities, it was attacked in the course of time by some rabbis and in the 19th century expunged from the prayer book by many communities of western Europe.^[3]The term Kol Nidrei refers not only to the actual declaration, but is also popularly used as a name for the entire Yom Kippur evening service.^[4]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kol_Nidre 

Amends follow.

making way

More about Sandokai:

The Sandokai is the work of Master Sekito Kisen (in Chinese: Shítóu Xīqiān) who was born in in southern China in 700 AD and died in 790 AD. This was an era in which Zen grew in popularity and began to emerge as a distinct school with many strong, dynamic personalities like Bodhidharma and Eno. However there were also disputes especially between the Northern school of Zen which emphasised a step by step, contemplative practice, and the Southern school which taught sudden awakening. 

Few facts are known about Sekito’s life. It is said that at the age of sixteen he was ordained as a monk by the sixth patriarch, Eno. Eno had numerous disciples of which the most important were Seigen and Nangaku. From these two evolved the two schools, Soto and Rinzai. Sekito eventually studied with Seigen and it was from him that he received dharma transmission. 

The name Sekito means “stone head” and derives from his doing zazen on a rocky ledge where he practised continuously day and night with great determination. 

What does Sandokai mean? 

San: the idea of difference, duality,phenomena, existences
– shiki (thesis). eg. Mountains and rivers, parents and children, satori and illusions, life and death, existence and non-existence. 

Do: the idea of identity, origin, the void, essence – ku (antithesis). 

Kai: mixture, fusion, interpenetration, harmony in a broad deep sense –
(synthesis) 

San and Do are both necessary for equilibrium, harmony. Intimately blended they realise the Middle Way. San enters Do, Do enters San: that is Kai. So, Sandokai means the harmony of phenomena and essence. 

Why did Sekito write it? It alludes to the split between the Northern and Southern schools as well as other dichotomies eg. one and many, light and dark, sameness and difference. It was also customary for a zen master as he neared the end of his life to sum up his life’s teaching in a testamentary poem. 

The Sandokai is very important in the Soto Zen tradition. It is chanted every day in Soto Zen temples throughout the world.  

https://www.izauk.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/sandokai-winter2011.pdf

Triadic.

Trinitarian.

Hegelian dialectic.

Additional name for healing respite sails vessel — Sandōkai-Edelweiss

what is...(so great)...about silence

Bruno, seeking silence and solitude, founded a place for both. 

A place for hermits, dedicated to learning and practicing the holy, long loving looking, active contemplative listening, open to the revelation of what is true. 

He died a Carthusian on this date in 1101 in Calabria.

• Into Great Silence / Die Große Stille [HD US Trailer] 2007
• Carthusians Grande Chartreuse, 1964