where everything is just the opposite

Doris sends Milosz. 

Just in time. 

On Prayer

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard, 
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately, 
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.

(Poem by Czeslaw Milosz, 1911-2004)

And it occurs to me the reversal of 'is' in Spanish is 'si', 'yes.'

Read together, they say 'I am' or 'to be' ... 'yes.'

Affirmation, therefore, is the essence of Being.

And prayer, the springboard/bridge we walk.

living out the meaning of her life,

Earth turns. Light arises. Night fades. It is morning. Outlines of tree branches. November. All saints. 

What is holiness? 

According to Dr. Ambrosio, the secular saint is a person who lives the question of meaning fully while at the same time they are committed to searching for meaning along both the paths of hero and saint.  It is common for the secular saint to work toward mastering their vision.  In the case of Simone Weil, she not only lived but also died her life in search of meaning.  She died of tuberculosis that was aggravated by lack of food.  This lack of food was self imposed as she was avoiding food in an effort to show solidarity with her countrymen in Nazi occupied France.  This act alone provides us with insight into what makes Simone Weil and how she defines the secular saint.  As someone who is trying to live a life that is meaningful at least to themselves, to die by this meaning would be to fulfill the meaning in its entirety.  Simone Weil, in her spiritual zeal, felt it was necessary to show solidarity with her countrymen as a way of finding meaning for herself.  She had lived her short life in such a way that this death comes as little surprise. She had tried to identify with others through the course of her life, in other ways as well.  She had taken a year off from teaching to live as a factory worker, a way to better understand the challenges of such a life.  Through these examples from the life of Simone Weil, we can see how she did toe the line between the path of the saint and the path of the hero.  Through her spirituality and love of humanity as a whole, she exemplified the life of the saint while her commitment to living her life out in such a way as to find herself at death’s door while in the midst of living out the meaning of her life, she exemplified the life of the hero.

(—from blog, something more, by GEM2011) 

Victor Frankl captures descriptions of the secular saint in his Man’s Search For Meaning.

• Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life.

• We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

• Don't aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run — in the long run, I say — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.

Viktor E. Frankl

Saints aren’t owned by churches, religions, or nominating committees. They are everywhere asking the questions:

What is this?  

Who am I?  

What can I do for you?

 The exercise of such inquiry, the fumbling steps toward anodyne* action to relieve suffering, the willingness to practice healing and presence when meaningless absurdity permeates existence — these are signs of a holiness that is in itself unseen trust and unnamed compassion, the mystical signets stamping whatever is touched with what is holy, hopeful, and good.

Simone Weil believed that while people may not be able to alleviate all suffering, no harm should be done either.  People should attempt, in Weil’s opinion, to alleviate any suffering they can, at any cost but if this cannot be done, one must at least live their life in a way that sees to it that all avoidable harm is, in fact, avoided.  In these stances in their lives, there is an overwhelming sense of the justice they were each seeking while an obvious love of humanity is also evident.  For Weil, it is in her sense of justice where we can see the life of the Greek citizen hero has been of particular influence on her; the way that she focuses her vision on all, not just some. (—from blog, something more, by GEM2011, Nov.14, 2013) 

 The question ‘Who am I?’ is not different nor separate from the corollary question ‘Who are you?’ This second expression of inquiry doesn’t get answered without the first expression being investigated.

What we do is forever done. 

It is the season of considering what holiness is. Inquiry, meaning, and presence are known associates of holiness.

Hang with them if you wish to enter the season of justice and obvious love of humanity.

Live out the meaning of (your) life.

…   …   …

* anodyne (adj.).     

"having power to relieve pain," 1540s, from Medieval Latin anodynus "pain-removing, allaying pain," from Latin anodynus "painless," from Greek anodynos "free from pain," from an- "without" (see an- (1)) + odyne "pain, torment" (of the body or mind), a word of uncertain origin, evidently Indo-European, but none of the proposed etymologies satisfies Beekes. Some suggest it is a suffixed form of PIE root *ed- "to eat" (compare Lithuanian ėdžioti "to devour, bite," ėdžiotis "to suffer pain"). 

 As a noun, "substance which alleviates pain," 1540s; in old slang, frequently a euphemism for "death" (as the final relief from the mental pain or distress of life) as in anodyne necklace "hangman's noose." Related: Anodynous

(Online Etymology Dictionary)

allegro ma non troppo

 Cheerful but not too 

much — early glimpse faint blue dawn

turns tide from dark night

hallow’s eve

 Are some holy some not?

And those who are, are they real?

Do we still have saints?

benefit one benefit other

 Give yourself some space

Stupid crams tight leaving no

Room for What-is-this?

returning to sanity

 cat at foot of bed

torrential rain at window —

night — nothing makes sense

twitter absurdum

 Scrolling through dead words

about dead politics, dead

moments without hope

aujourd’hui

 There are days nothing

Presents itself wearing gray

Sounding rain porch roof

Not caring to live or die

Just coffee and PB-Jam

am out of it tonight

 Ensō (aka flip flop)

it takes time, but teeth of gnawing takedowns prevail

 

   

Hosmer pond, October 2021

dropping barometer

 Forgive me, but speaking

About Christ feels tedious —

How about weather?

Rain and blowing wind push through

Whereas religion hangs on

movement, not explanation

There is a tension between understanding what needs to be done, and doing what needs to be done. 

" Understanding is a delaying tactic." (Dr Stein's words, recalled by Norman in Novel, Sphere, by Michael Crichton)

The tension shows up these days in the political carnival encircling the democrat party, the democrat/republican parties, the republican party.

It is a tap-dance shuffling between obfuscation and clarity.

And it is maddening.

There is a reaching for wads of money. There is a reaching for reloads following echoing fusillade of rounds.

There seems to be a dearth of insight. Insight, which is prelude to action.

There seems to be a craving for understanding which is deference to knowledge.

To see, to really see, is to simultaneously act. 

Here we confront the Taoist emphasis that true action is no action. The seer and the seen are of one movement, are of one stillness.

Elie Wiesel wrote that God is movement, not explanation.

Do I understand this? No.

Am I this? Yes.

If so, what do I do?

Lao Tzu said that the greatest revelation is stillness.

(Are you still here?)

it tries so hard to hide

The trouble is not (simply) the antagonism between Democratic and Republican parties. 

It is the stance taken by either party toward the wealthy and the poor, corporations and the people, gas and oil conglomerates and the environment.

Let's stipulate there are as many hands on either side of the political spectrum open to receive bribes and payoffs, contributions and gifts to front policy benefitting the major players in the world of power and money.

These days -- when studying Advaita Vedanta, the Sandōkai, and Cosmotheandric wholeness -- it becomes abundantly clear that in our dichotomously deranged division mentality we are slicing away parts of our own bodies, eliminating large pieces of our mind, trashing the integrity of our spiritual "yes" to all creation and its diversity.

It is difficult to expose stupidity. It often comes well-dressed with fine words and cultivated pedigree. My own stupidity is the hardest to detect. It tries so hard to hide. If I unmask mine, then that of others will undrape.

Behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment is what stupidity is. Seem familiar?

These quotes:

• “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” ― Albert Einstein 

• “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” ― Søren Kierkegaard 

• “A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.” ― Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy 

• “You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, The Green Hills of Earth

(--Goodreads)

When I first discovered how stupid I was, I grieved for myself.

Later, upon further reflection, I grieved for my fellow humans, animals, earth, and cosmos.

As I am, so too they. As they are, so too me.

This places the consideration of stupidity into a different, more expansive, field of vision.

Poor eyesight hinders. 

We need some stark, and beneficial, corrective lenses.

to starve social programs

Are things falling apart? 

Political philosophers have long fretted that democracy allows the poor to plunder the rich. The opposite has proved more nearly true. Progressive taxation is not a threat to the wealthy. It is a small price to pay for prosperity. 

Cutting taxes to starve social programs is, by itself, a threat to the sustainability of the American experiment in multicultural democracy. In enabling resistance to lawful taxation, Republicans are engaged in an even more direct assault. 

Having failed to constrain government spending through the democratic process, they are seeking to undermine government. 

Mr. McCarthy is right to frame a fairly technical change in tax rules as an issue that goes to the heart of American democracy. Democracies impose higher taxes than other forms of government because democracies are communities of common purpose. We create and maintain our society through our contributions. 

Or we don’t. And things fall apart 

((from, OPINION, BINYAMIN APPELBAUM, The Rotten Core of the Republican Party, Oct. 24, 2021, NYTimes)

Bits and pieces, detritus and realization Republican tactics reveal their underlying lie. 

do not pass your days and nights in vain.

 At Sunday Evening Practice, we looked at the Sandōkai, the Harmony of Difference and Sameness:

參同契

Harmony of Difference and Sameness

 

竺土大仙心    The mind of the great sage of India 

東西密相付    is intimately transmitted from west to east. 

人根有利鈍    While human faculties are sharp or dull, 

道無南北祖    the Way has no northern or southern ancestors. 

靈源明皎潔    The spiritual source shines clear in the light; 

枝派暗流注    the branching streams flow on in the dark. 

執事元是迷    Grasping at things is surely delusion;

契理亦非悟    according with sameness is still not enlightenment.

門門一切境    All the objects of the senses

迴互不迴互    interact and yet do not.

迴而更相涉       Interacting brings involvement.

不爾依位住    Otherwise, each keeps its place.

色本殊質像    Sights vary in quality and form,

聲元異樂苦    sounds differ as pleasing or harsh.

闇合上中言    Refined and common speech come together in the dark,

明明清濁句    clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light.

四大性自復    The four elements return to their natures

如子得其母    just as a child turns to its mother; 

火熱風動搖    Fire heats, wind moves, 

水濕地堅固    water wets, earth is solid. 

眼色耳音聲    Eye and sights, ear and sounds,

鼻香舌鹹醋    nose and smells, tongue and tastes;

然於一一法    Thus with each and every thing,

依根葉分布    depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth.

本未須歸宗    Trunk and branches share the essence;

尊卑用其語    revered and common, each has its speech.

當明中有暗    In the light there is darkness,

勿以暗相遇    but don't take it as darkness;

當暗中有明    In the dark there is light,

勿以明相睹    but don't see it as light.

明暗各相對    Light and dark oppose one another

比如前後歩    like the front and back foot in walking.

萬物自有功    Each of the myriad things has its merit,

當言用及處    expressed according to function and place.

事存函蓋合    Phenomena exist; box and lid fit;

理應箭鋒拄       principle responds; arrow points meet.

承言須會宗    Hearing the words, understand the meaning;

勿自立規矩    don't set up standards of your own.

觸目不會道    If you don't understand the Way right before you,

運足焉知路    how will you know the path as you walk?

進歩非近遠    Progress is not a matter of far or near,

迷隔山河故    but if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way.

謹白參玄人    I respectfully urge you who study the mystery,

光陰莫虚度    do not pass your days and nights in vain.

…

And read On Wearing Bifocals: Notes on the Sandōkai —

 

Happily.

hobo, scamp, homeless, tramp

 I am not fixed here

I am all ways passing through —

Gassho as I go

coach wondered if I had a piano on my back

 The Brooklyn Dodgers have been missing since 1957.

Even after forty years living far north of Boston in the most northeastern state of continental US I’ve not found other than a provincial passing interest in the Red Sox, I see in the New York Times that two southern/southwestern cities will move on to play in World Series.

Mosel tov!

There’s little joy or active interest here where Gulf Stream passes toward Nova Scotia where blue jays and fishing vessels hunker under chill breeze and stoic hunter’s moon for long sweep of ending year to pull dock lines taut through vacant hawse to hold close to wharf as tides languish and return again.

A game of inches, of uncalled strikes, of splintered bats, of faded childhood.

is wisdom sole province of carbon-based humanity

 Piss-poor, he said last night, our ability to convene a society both equal and equanimous.

No “ ism” will usher it in.

Rather, profundity of heart and depth of mind will assist the transformation needed to arrive at humanitarian value and spiritual largesse.

Or, we can just allow the AI community full leeway to replace humans via the singularity.

what it once filled

One hundred twelve years ago he was born on the East streets shoehorned between Flatbush and Bensonhurst in Brooklyn. Today’s his birthday.

There are moments we return to, now and always. Family is like water — it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream. 

(-p.57, Let The Great World Spin, by Colum McCann)

 That stream has disappeared into river, into ocean, into cycle of rainfall, thunder, puddles, and whooshing spray from passing tires.

He was a good man pummeled by demands of alarm clock, subway car, church societies, Rheingold and Schaffer, family history, along with loving attempts to hold together centrifugal forces of everyday whirling drip, drip, drip.

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if (so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm 

(-from e.e.cummings poem my father moved through dooms of love)

I light candle in his honor.

I burn incense stick.

I am grateful for the rain and flow through time to dripping eaves outside my window.

nothing remains

 There are times language

Fails to tell what’s happening —

Nothing remains here

perception

 Moonlight soaks mountain

Every animal knows what

Is before their eyes

on second thought

 The Irish writer

Thought he had some poems in him,

Putting pen down, slept

each plays a part

 Hunter’s moon, on pond 

in trees, at window, lighting

fields for swooping owl

wordless silent attention

On poet Gregory Corso's (3mar1930-17jan2001) gravestone at the non-Catholic cemetery for foreigners at Via Caio Cestio in Rome Italy, there is written::

  Spirit

  is life

 it flows thru

  the death of me

  endlessly

  like a river

  unafraid

  of becoming

  the sea

(Excerpt from: "One Bird, One Stone: 108 Contemporary Zen Stories" by Sean Murphy. Scribd.)

Thinking of my sister, Patricia, today, anniversary of her death in 1999. 

Wondering if life, (not thoughts about, nor experiences of), is it’s own  nameless wholeness only realized in (wordless silent attention) looking, (at and as), nothing passing one another through (here and now) a glistening autumn morning in Maine (this 19th/20th of October).

(PantaRhea at window shikantaza)

within the hour

 Twenty two years go

by tonight my sister died —

As I dozed, waking

a short distance from myself

 That space between memory and imagination, that space — look for me there.

It’s an empty space.

Where I’ll be.

presence, in and of, itself

 Something we do not yet recognize surrounds and informs all which is, whether seen or unseen, felt or unfelt, thought or unthought.

 “The presence of inherent value in a natural object is independent of any awareness, interest, or appreciation of it by a conscious being.”

(—Tom Regan, “The Nature and Possibility of an Environmental Ethic,” Environmental Ethics 3 (1881), pp. 19–34)

We’re unsure what it is, what it is called, or how it does or might arise in our awareness.

But until it does, we remain poor passing facts and strangers to one, another, that which is below our feet, above our head, within and without, us. 

charged with untold and untellable wisdom

Chris from Augusta sends Whitman:

Of The Terrible Doubt Of Appearances                                   by Walt Whitman Of the terrible doubt of appearances, Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded, That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable      only, May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills,      shining and flowing waters, The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be      these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and      the real something has yet to be known, (How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me      and mock me! How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows,      aught of them,) May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they      indeed but seem) as from my present point of view, and      might prove (as of course they would) nought of what      they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely changed      points of view; To me these and the like of these are curiously answer'd by      my lovers, my dear friends, When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while      holding me by the hand, When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and      reason hold not, surround us and pervade us, Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am      silent, I require nothing further, I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of      identity beyond the grave, But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied, He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.   "Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances" by Walt Whitman. Public domain)

Such a timely arrival, having just finished the Mike Flanigan limited series on Netflix.

The horror and "terrible doubt of appearances," of what we do and what we think about what cannot be grasped.

no call to become special

 Tweet by Joan Halifax, 7:40pm, 10/15/2021

How can one meditate & not meditate at the same time? By leaving behind complicated notions of what we are doing on the cushion. In Zen, there is no call to become special. Instead, there is tacit consent to accept our experience of the moment & drop the project of enlightenment.

I’m good with this. 

into your bones

"May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us." 

(— Theresa of Avila, 28 March 1515 —15 October 1582)

it’s not looking good

 There are things to beware.

 October 15 at 10:20 AM ET
 LONDON —  A British lawmaker from the Conservative Party died after being stabbed multiple times in an attack Friday in his home district in southeast England.
Police said a 25-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and recovering a knife and said it was not seeking anyone else.
David Amess, who represented Southend West in Essex, was meeting with constituents when he was assaulted. 

John Lamb, chairman of the local Conservative party told Reuters before the reports of his death that “it’s not looking good” and said emergency workers were trying to stabilize him before moving him from the church auxillary where he was meeting with people from his district.

(—from, British lawmaker dies after being stabbed multiple times while meeting constituents, Washington Post)

Sentinel keeps watch as tide goes out.

A new courage is required.

A new time is revealing new dangers.

A new consciousness is now, and exquisitely, necessary. 

no reason to change anything

 Heart doc says recent echocardiogram says everything is ok.

A perfect time to keel over with heart failure.

Isn’t that the way things go?

This contrarian existence!

and justice wears latex gloves

 No reason to expect justice will prevail in holding accountable the former administration for crimes against decency and democracy. 

Such ability to flaunt laws and ethics is, to some, what makes great this ambivalent country.

Tough call. On one hand, reprobates are reprobates. On the other hand, prison sucks.

I come down squarely on the side of law-abiding populace. 

But the impotence of justice to hold reprobates accountable is astounding.

Justice works best against the poor, minorities, or anyone not an elected office-holder with huge fundraising schemes.

Cheer up, mr former chief executive, they’ll never touch you. 

You’re untouchable.

showering koan

 Life is waiting

on death;

Death is no

longer waiting

on life

till we come to a hard bottom

 Where to begin?

Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion and tradition, and pride and prejudice, appearance and delusion, through the alluvium which covers the globe, through poetry and philosophy and religion, through church and state, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, till we come to a hard bottom that rocks in place which we can call reality and say, This is, and no mistake…

(—Henry David Thoreau)

This is 

A good place.

que dieu nous aide

Increasingly, threats are levied against town councils, school boards, hospital personnel, police, and emt’s in the context of COVID-19 protective measures intended to forestall and minimize harm caused by the virus and its mutations.

It is hard to ignore the stringent rhetoric and overt threats.

Elected figures exacerbate the dangerous tone and menacing innuendo in such a way that is difficult to discern their complicity or acceleration of potential violence and undermining of public good.

It is a curious and uncertain time.

More than that, it is a prefiguring of what is on the horizon for uncivil discourse edging toward national unrest and overt public danger.

No amount or personal or private meditation or practice toward equanimity will shield any individual from the threatening eventuality of menace and misuse of power.

Something dangerous and evil this way comes. 

Que Dieu nous aide!

in an undertone

Sometimes, sitting still and wondering is all one can do. 

The  is the centerpiece of the daily morning and evening prayer services and is considered by some the most essential prayer in all of Judaism. An affirmation of God’s singularity and kingship, its daily recitation is regarded by traditionally observant Jews as a biblical commandment. 

Structure

The first verse of the Shema, from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, is among the best-known in all of Jewish liturgy. It is recited at the climactic moment of the final prayer of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, and traditionally as the last words before death. Traditionally, it is recited with the hand placed over the eyes.

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד

She-ma yisrael,  eloheinu, adonai echad

Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One

This verse is followed by one line of text that is traditionally recited in an undertone:

בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד

Baruch shem kavod malchuto l’olam va-ed

Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever

The remainder of the Shema prayer is taken from three biblical sources:

Deuteronomy 6:5-9:

וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔ אֵ֖ת יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ֥ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ֖ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶֽך
וְהָי֞וּ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אָנֹכִ֧י מְצַוְּךָ֛ הַיּ֖וֹם עַל־לְבָבֶֽךָ
וְשִׁנַּנְתָּ֣ם לְבָנֶ֔יךָ וְדִבַּרְתָּ֖ בָּ֑ם בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ֤ בְּבֵיתֶ֙ךָ֙ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ֣ בַדֶּ֔רֶךְ וּֽבְשָׁכְבְּךָ֖ וּבְקוּמֶֽךָ
וּקְשַׁרְתָּ֥ם לְא֖וֹת עַל־יָדֶ֑ךָ וְהָי֥וּ לְטֹטָפֹ֖ת בֵּ֥ין עֵינֶֽיךָ
וּכְתַבְתָּ֛ם עַל־מְזוּזֹ֥ת בֵּיתֶ֖ךָ וּבִשְׁעָרֶֽיךָ

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-shema/ 

At other times, sitting still and wondering is all that needs be done.

so what does the one who is say -- (ש)

 Think of it this way:

He who causes to be is

who I am, as is --

what else can I tell you? if

you want more, write a letter

just a convenient designation

What we are called is not what we are. 

In the first century Buddhist text the Milinda Pañha, the Indo-Greek king Menander I meets a Buddhist sage and asks his name. The monk replies that his name is Nāgasena, but quickly adds that this is just “a convenient designation, a mere name, this Nāgasena, for there is no self here to be found”.

Menander is bewildered, yet this is in fact a core Buddhist teaching: the doctrine of anatta, ‘no-self ’. The idea here is that selves are, at best, a sort of mere convention. We call each other by the names we’ve been given or chosen, but these names don’t refer to anything substantial. Nāgasena gives the example of the chariot Menander has ridden to the meeting. You can certainly point to, name, and ride a chariot, yet strip each part away, and there is nothing left.There’s no enduring ‘core’ or essence to the chariot. It’s the same, we’re told, with selves.

Scepticism about selves also crops up in western philosophy, starting from David Hume – who claimed that whenever he turned his focus to his own thoughts, “I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.” No self, just thoughts.

There are two ways to think about these no-self claims. One is to see them as a form of reductionism. Selves exist, but only in the way a flock of birds or a football team does. You could list each individual bird or player instead of referring to the whole without losing anything except convenience. Eliminativism is a stronger claim. If reductionists think selves a sort of useful fiction, eliminativists think the self is illusory, a sort of trick played on us by experience or language.

Perhaps that’s a distinction without a difference though. After all, for Buddhists like Nāgasena at least, the whole point is just not to get hung up on the self at all. ■

(There Are No Selves, in New Philosopher, ISSUE 33 - SEPTEMBER/NOVEMBER 2021)

If I am no-self, perhaps I belong to the self-at-all. 

the importance of intervention

Slavoj Žižek debating Jordan Peterson references André Glucksmann. I look up Glucksmann:

In his book Dostoyevsky in Manhattan, Glucksmann asserts that nihilism, particularly as depicted by Dostoyevsky in his novels Demons and The Brothers Karamazov, is the 'characteristic form' of modern terrorism. Drawing on Ivan Karamazov's dictum that "If there is no God, everything is permitted", Glucksmann argues that:

The inner nature of nihilistic terrorism is that everything is permissible, whether because God exists and I am his representative, or because God does not exist and I take his place.

His 2006 book Une rage d’enfant is an autobiography which talks about how his experiences as a young Jew in occupied France led to his interest in philosophy and his belief in the importance of intervention:

My style of thinking is to compare what happens on the TV, in the news and so on, and then extract what I can from books of philosophers to understand it. Philosophy for me is like subtitles. The problem comes from current events but the answer is supplied by philosophy.

Glucksmann criticises the notion that Islamic terrorism is a product of the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, arguing that the first victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims:

Why do the 200,000 slaughtered Muslims of Darfur not arouse even half a quarter of the fury caused by 200-times fewer dead in Lebanon? Must we deduce that Muslims killed by other Muslims don’t count – whether in the eyes of Muslim authorities or viewed through the bad conscience of the West?

(—Wikipedia) 

We are meant to think about thought, not to be swallowed by it.

(The sound of a burp is heard.)

Excuse me!

No! 

not to completely feel is thinking (e.e.cummings)

 Attached to thinking

Today’s  humans trace ideas

Not feeling itself —

There is nothing in thinking

Better expressed by feeling

how one sentence says so much

 "If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal."

   (from, A Universe Not Made For Us {Carl Sagan on religion}).             

to canadian friends

Joyeux Action de Graces!

living name

 This, on stargazerslounge, after book I’m reading seemed to have a flawed number in preface about how long ago the supposed Big Bang took place.

On 03/02/2013 at 05:27, chiltonstar said: 

IMO, flawed, but the best we have at the moment. The "point of origin" is surely anywhere/everywhere because the Universe was extremely small at the time - we were part of that as is everything else (matter, once it had condensed anyway) in the observable Universe. Chris 

All the sub-atomic particles and later atoms in my body were present in a pinhead singularity right here at the origin of the Big Bang 13.6 billion years ago and in that intervening time everything has expanded away from me. The same applies to you and everything else in the universe - everything once occupied that singularity  

If so, then the reality is we are expanded from our origin, not separated from it. 

Belief in separation, with subsequent acts of antagonistic violence exemplifying that belief, is what our mythic religions call “ sin.”

But what if blinky-eyed smiley emoji is right, and we are extensions of original singularity, grown diverse and different — but not detached — in our current and contemporary manifestation of existence/essence, as we entropically dim remembrance and recollection of our true nature, true origin, and true inchoate integral relationality within all being?

Does wisdom wait behind recalcitrant knowledge for our arrival at its hospitality?

“We are poor passing facts.
warned by that to give
each figure in the photograph
his living name.”

(― Robert Lowell, in poem “Epilogue”)

Richard Hugo began his poem “Villager” with the words:

“What's wrong will always be wrong.  I've seen him lean

against the house hours and glare at the sea.  His eyes say

no boat will come.”

I love Lowell and Hugo — their words.

I think, off on the squint horizon, there is a boat coming. There is a living name sounding.

We wait on wharves, restless with anticipation, for this sighting and resonance to appear.

no, it is a word

 The impertinent 

Footling politicians think

They own emptiness —

I despair of this culture

Where wisdom cannot be found

shot-blocking the scholarship guy practice

 Sixty years ago

Walk-on college freshman team —

Still have hoop game socks

dream of bill ferris’ watch

 Never belonging

I walk each periphery

Cat's claws on cardboard —

He ran so fast he threw up

No track coach could retain him

what do you seek

 A religious life

Is one lived recognizing

Evil is not good

It might stand by the cruel

But it will never be good

waka on woe-some prospects

 The science fiction

novel just finished concludes

humans immature

not ready for wisdom to

advance to next level life

a trinity of ones

 appearing one by

one at door emergency

room welcomes each one

tack

 Do you thank the ground

for holding you up, then for 

covering over

de nada

Sometimes there is

nothing to say

How fortunate

here’s the whole of it

 From Center for Action and Contemplation, Fr. Richard Rohr writes:

“Ensouled” Animals

Readers of the Daily Meditations may be familiar with the theological and scientific work of Ilia Delio. Today we share a reflection that honors both her Franciscan theology and her personal relationship with a beloved pet. 

It is almost a week since our beloved cat, Mango, was put to sleep. . . 

We had rescued Mango a little more than eight years earlier. . . . He liked to sleep in the chapel and often joined us for prayer in the evening. Mango was real presence. And it is his presence that was sorely missed.

Recent questions in ecology and theology have focused on animal life. Do animals have souls? Do animals go to heaven? Without becoming entangled in theological discourse, I want to say quite clearly that Mango was ensouled. His soul was a core constitutive beingness, a particularity of life that was completely unique, with his own personality and mannerisms. To use the language of [Franciscan philosopher] Duns Scotus, Mango revealed a haecceitas, his own “thisness.” Scotus placed a great emphasis on the inherent dignity of each and every thing that exists. . . .

Each living being gives glory to God by its unique, core constitutive being. . . . To be a creature of God is to be brought into relationship in such a way that the divine mystery is expressed in each concrete existence. Soul is the mirror of creaturely relatedness that reflects the vitality of divine Love.

I did not have to wonder whether or not Mango had a soul. I knew it implicitly by the way he listened to me talking or thinking aloud, the way he sat on my office chair waiting for me to finish writing so he could eat, or simply the way he looked at me—eye to eye—in the early morning, at the start of a new day. Soul existence is expressed in the language of love. . . .

Love makes us something; it makes us alive and draws us in to the dynamism of life, sustaining life’s flow despite many layers of sufferings and disappointments. . . . If God is love, then the vitality of love, even the love of a furry creature, is the dynamic presence of God. . . .

Every creature is born out of the love of God, sustained in love, and transformed in love. Every sparrow that falls to the ground is known and loved by God (cf. Matthew 10:29); the Spirit of God is present in love to each creature here and now so that all creaturely life shares in cosmic communion. . . .

As I reflect on Mango’s death, his haecceitas, and the mystery of love, I have no doubt that his core love-energy will endure. His life has been inscribed on mine; the memory of his life is entangled with my own. My heart grieves for Brother Mango, my faithful companion, but I believe we shall be reunited in God’s eternal embrace.

https://email.cac.org/t/ViewEmail/d/006EA8015EDC48B12540EF23F30FEDED/F62860CEBA66D37F4BD7C9066BE4161D

nothing to see here

Bruno’s empty cell

Chartreuse solitude, bells sound

through vacant selfless

forcing me to over 65 side of table

 flu-shot, no balloon

no lollie-pop, just smiling

nurse saying I'm done

oh felice giorno

A good day!

Furthermore, let us produce worthy fruits of penance. Let us also love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us have charity and humility. Let us give alms because these cleanse our souls from the stains of sin. Men lose all the material things they leave behind with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve. We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather we must be simple, humble and pure. We should never desire to be over others. Instead, we ought to be servants who are submissive to every human being for God’s sake. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on all who live in this way and persevere in it to the end. He will permanently dwell in them. They will be the Father’s children who do his work. They are the spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(From a letter written to all the faithful by Saint Francis of Assisi)

A good meditation on a way of being-with-others that invites peace, goodness, service, and humility.

cf 25march2021, late announciation

 Haiku 

                                         (for Tommy, on your death) 

Late have we learned this, 

master of three word phrases -- 

Fondness, for you, yes 

                                                             (wfh/3oct21)