A hard heart doesn't hear the voice of God. Not in silence, not in the conversations that intersect our thinking. "If today you hear God's voice..." Psalm 95 says, "harden not your heart."
Do not accept anything simply
Because it has been said
By your teacher,
Or because it has been written
In your sacred books,
Or because it has been
Believed by many,
Or because it has been
Handed down by your
Ancestors.
Accept and live only
According to what will enable
You to see truth face to face.
- Buddha
Seeing God face to face is death -- death to ego, death to separate self, death to the powerful illusion we are alone. The voice of God sounds through everything and every sentient being. Seeing God face to face is a heart that is broken with compassion.
In the parking lot outside the restaurant there are screams. A young (man/woman?) was punching themself in the face and nose. Blood smeared. An older man and woman were in attendance. He tried to hold the hands. The person began banging their face on the car, Finally they agreed to get into the front seat, to have the seat belt buckled, to be driven away. This scene, autistic sorrow, covered the afternoon. The few in the shop spoke softly about the sorrow of autism.
One need not be supernaturally inclined to hear the voice of God. God screamed in the parking lot today. Our hearts sorrowed, softened, and stood ready to assist with helpless attention.
To enter God's rest is to pray -- that is, to open heart and mind to the sound of what is being said, the sight of what is taking place. Open mind, open heart, and open eyes -- without judgment, without separating oneself from the whole that is there -- this is how we learn to pray.
I pray for those three in the parking lot today. I pray for those hearing, seeing, and sorrowing the encounter.
I almost forget: he’d do anything for you. Love him
for what you might have become
and love him for what you are, not that far
from him. We are never that far. Love
everyone you can. The list gets longer and shorter.
We’re seldom better than weather. We’re nearly as good
as a woman we met in passing once at Invergarry.
Don’t be sorry, for him or for self. Love the last star
broken by storm. And love you. You hold it together.
( -- from poem Villager by Richard Hugo, in The Right Madness on Skye)
Friday, November 29, 2002
Bookshop/Bakery closed today. No open poetry reading there this afternoon.
.............................
White pail fell back down cliff from the spot alongside icy path we climbed up from rocky shore. I watched it bounce. It wanted to stay where I'd found it this morning.
Silent Illumination
Silently and serenely, one forgets all words,
Clearly and vividly, it appears before you.
When one realizes it, time has no limits.
When experienced, your surroundings come to life.
Singularly illuminating is this bright awareness,
Full of wonder is the pure illumination.
- Hung Chih Cheng Chueh (1092-1157)(dailyzen)
Take nothing for the journey, bring nothing back.
Poetry is one of the forms of joy, the most articulate, the most expanding, and, therefore, the most fulfilling form. It is no separation from the world; it is the mankind of the world, the most human language of man's uncertain romance with the universe. -- John Ciardi
Mu-ge finds crevice between table leg and file cabinet, hunkers down on spilt-over paper behind wires suckling electricity from strip plug, and watches me.
Poetry returns what is in words to itself.
.............................
White pail fell back down cliff from the spot alongside icy path we climbed up from rocky shore. I watched it bounce. It wanted to stay where I'd found it this morning.
Silent Illumination
Silently and serenely, one forgets all words,
Clearly and vividly, it appears before you.
When one realizes it, time has no limits.
When experienced, your surroundings come to life.
Singularly illuminating is this bright awareness,
Full of wonder is the pure illumination.
- Hung Chih Cheng Chueh (1092-1157)(dailyzen)
Take nothing for the journey, bring nothing back.
Poetry is one of the forms of joy, the most articulate, the most expanding, and, therefore, the most fulfilling form. It is no separation from the world; it is the mankind of the world, the most human language of man's uncertain romance with the universe. -- John Ciardi
Mu-ge finds crevice between table leg and file cabinet, hunkers down on spilt-over paper behind wires suckling electricity from strip plug, and watches me.
Poetry returns what is in words to itself.
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
In America it is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a heavy travel day. Saskia yesterday, Jon today, off to places south and west. Sando, Cesco, and Mu-ge travel around the house, Ragged, and bookshop. Dredging of harbor continues. Emptying out and filling up is the rhythm of the day.
Better than a thousand hollow words
is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand hollow verses
is one verse that brings peace.
It is better to conquer yourself
than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
- Buddha in the Dhammapada (dailyzen)
We are stragglers and strangers wandering home. Just as there is no way to peace -- peace is the way itself; so too there is no way to get back home again -- home is where we are. Turtles, we traverse here to there, coming and going, dwelling and carrying our very home within and without.
Death reminds us of the illusion of fixed addresses. Certain addresses provide warmth, food, companionship, and a place to receive mail. But there is no longer any address that satisfies the psychological & spiritual need for home. Home is right where we are.
The eggshells of family visits temper the longing for home, for grandma’s house, during holidays. So much to reconcile from years and unfinished business gone by, so compact and charged a space of time to face it. We are nomads who feel every place and each relative we know owes us something we define as something we deserve but has somehow been denied us.
Beneath and beyond the opinions we cultivate and scores needing to be evened, we carry also the forgotten reality that is our very being. By forgetting Being we busy ourselves with tasks and appointments, people as resources and roles as defining identities. By forgetting Being we forget God.
Peace is remembering who, what, and where we are. Peace is who, what, and where we are. Ask those who radiate peace. Pray in their presence, whether they are alive and visible, or dead and invisible – either way, they are there. Ask Jesus. Ask Buddha. Ask saints and bodhisattvas. Ask the ordinary person sitting right next to you, or walking across the street from you, or passing on a bus, car, train, or plane.
Ask them, not necessarily with words or voice. Ask them with your eyes. Ask them with your heart. Ask them with your attention. Look at each one with silence and acceptance, and let your loving watchfulness be what you ask. You are asking them to consider where they are. Doing so you prayerfully and mindfully invite them to be at home. Stay a while at home. Dwell in peace.
May each dwell grateful as snow falling where it falls, finding where it is, home.
Better than a thousand hollow words
is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand hollow verses
is one verse that brings peace.
It is better to conquer yourself
than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
- Buddha in the Dhammapada (dailyzen)
We are stragglers and strangers wandering home. Just as there is no way to peace -- peace is the way itself; so too there is no way to get back home again -- home is where we are. Turtles, we traverse here to there, coming and going, dwelling and carrying our very home within and without.
Death reminds us of the illusion of fixed addresses. Certain addresses provide warmth, food, companionship, and a place to receive mail. But there is no longer any address that satisfies the psychological & spiritual need for home. Home is right where we are.
The eggshells of family visits temper the longing for home, for grandma’s house, during holidays. So much to reconcile from years and unfinished business gone by, so compact and charged a space of time to face it. We are nomads who feel every place and each relative we know owes us something we define as something we deserve but has somehow been denied us.
Beneath and beyond the opinions we cultivate and scores needing to be evened, we carry also the forgotten reality that is our very being. By forgetting Being we busy ourselves with tasks and appointments, people as resources and roles as defining identities. By forgetting Being we forget God.
Peace is remembering who, what, and where we are. Peace is who, what, and where we are. Ask those who radiate peace. Pray in their presence, whether they are alive and visible, or dead and invisible – either way, they are there. Ask Jesus. Ask Buddha. Ask saints and bodhisattvas. Ask the ordinary person sitting right next to you, or walking across the street from you, or passing on a bus, car, train, or plane.
Ask them, not necessarily with words or voice. Ask them with your eyes. Ask them with your heart. Ask them with your attention. Look at each one with silence and acceptance, and let your loving watchfulness be what you ask. You are asking them to consider where they are. Doing so you prayerfully and mindfully invite them to be at home. Stay a while at home. Dwell in peace.
May each dwell grateful as snow falling where it falls, finding where it is, home.
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Worry, worry. It's not as though everything will not fall down around us. Leaves have. Deaths in Nigeria, Palestine, and everywhere else. Political parties pick up the pieces after wins and loses. Economy sags. War strains at its leash. Finally, this morning, some sunlight over new rows of wood Jon, Saskia, and I stacked Sunday.
To look at life is like being in a dream;
It is really noisy being in the dream.
Everything stops when the dreamer suddenly awakens,
And in the same way as a dreamer awakes,
The wise understand how to wake from the dream.
The deluded believe in the dream and are disturbed
That understanding and dreaming
Seem to be two aspects.
When once the truth is comprehended,
There is no other comprehension.
- Master Pen Ching (dailyzen)
Stepping through this dream -- what courage.
Francis M. Cornford in his translation and running commentary of Plato's Sophist, says, "The Stranger begins by pointing out that 'all discourse depends on the weaving together of Forms'."
259D.
Stranger. Yes, my friend, and the attempt to separate everything from every other thing not only strikes a discordant note but amounts to a crude defiance of the philosophic Muse
Theaetetus. Why?
Stranger. This isolation of everything from everything else means a complete abolition of all discourse; for any discourse we can have owes its existence to the weaving together of Forms.
Theaetetus. True.
The weaving together of Forms allows conversation. We experience it four evenings during the week around the fire in the bookshop and one evening around the Rhodes table at hermitage. No lecture, no performance, no sermons or reports -- just conversation weaving together the forms that have appeared.
When we as dreamer awake, we begin to experience comprehension of a truth well beyond distraction and inattention. The energy of awareness with its potential for sharing this teaching and practice with another -- is what Buddhists call faith. It is what Val used to call "holding as true." Our era, writes Thich Nhat Hanh, is a time of lost faith.
When we hold something as true we really don't "know" it to be true. There is room for doubt, for a change of form, for new insight. Faith allows us a temporary resting place for time to change hands.
There's no need to worry. What is going to happen will happen. What will not happen is what is not going to happen. In the meantime we must remember everything and forget everything at the same time. Worry is worthless. What is worthwhile is weaving together forms in conversation with each other and every one. This conversation is the origin of present moment. This conversation is the completion of dream and awakening of what we hold as true with each other.
Tonight ends the four-year volunteer facilitation by Susan Smith-Hudson of the Tuesday Evening Buddhist Meditation Studies. Her faithful service, choice of poems, and unwavering counsel to "breathe three times before speaking" and "no cross talk" will be the source of respect and ribbing for many years to come. We are grateful to Susan.
To look at life is like being in a dream;
It is really noisy being in the dream.
Everything stops when the dreamer suddenly awakens,
And in the same way as a dreamer awakes,
The wise understand how to wake from the dream.
The deluded believe in the dream and are disturbed
That understanding and dreaming
Seem to be two aspects.
When once the truth is comprehended,
There is no other comprehension.
- Master Pen Ching (dailyzen)
Stepping through this dream -- what courage.
Francis M. Cornford in his translation and running commentary of Plato's Sophist, says, "The Stranger begins by pointing out that 'all discourse depends on the weaving together of Forms'."
259D.
Stranger. Yes, my friend, and the attempt to separate everything from every other thing not only strikes a discordant note but amounts to a crude defiance of the philosophic Muse
Theaetetus. Why?
Stranger. This isolation of everything from everything else means a complete abolition of all discourse; for any discourse we can have owes its existence to the weaving together of Forms.
Theaetetus. True.
The weaving together of Forms allows conversation. We experience it four evenings during the week around the fire in the bookshop and one evening around the Rhodes table at hermitage. No lecture, no performance, no sermons or reports -- just conversation weaving together the forms that have appeared.
When we as dreamer awake, we begin to experience comprehension of a truth well beyond distraction and inattention. The energy of awareness with its potential for sharing this teaching and practice with another -- is what Buddhists call faith. It is what Val used to call "holding as true." Our era, writes Thich Nhat Hanh, is a time of lost faith.
When we hold something as true we really don't "know" it to be true. There is room for doubt, for a change of form, for new insight. Faith allows us a temporary resting place for time to change hands.
There's no need to worry. What is going to happen will happen. What will not happen is what is not going to happen. In the meantime we must remember everything and forget everything at the same time. Worry is worthless. What is worthwhile is weaving together forms in conversation with each other and every one. This conversation is the origin of present moment. This conversation is the completion of dream and awakening of what we hold as true with each other.
Tonight ends the four-year volunteer facilitation by Susan Smith-Hudson of the Tuesday Evening Buddhist Meditation Studies. Her faithful service, choice of poems, and unwavering counsel to "breathe three times before speaking" and "no cross talk" will be the source of respect and ribbing for many years to come. We are grateful to Susan.
Monday, November 25, 2002
John Cassian conference read at Sunday Evening Practice. Is it possible that any act is in itself indifferent? That we receive it and impose on it the designation "good" or "evil?" And if our minds are open and unjudging? No matter what the intent of the one acting the act in our direction? Can it be that only good be received no matter how wrong the act appears to be?
It is quite the power of transformation to be able to receive all in the light of God. No slight, no hurt, no malicious intent need darken our minds/hearts/spirits. Yes, there will be sorrow. Yes, there will be delight. But the steady state of receptivity to all as the appearance of God -- and the freedom to accept whatever comes as the transformative grace of re-creation of the world -- is this in our everyday capability as public worship inviting divine transcendence with inner presence?
There is not much the world can do to touch our inner presence. Once God has disappeared into God's creation -- permeating inner and outer so that there is no absence of God's awareness -- then all can be received through us into God. Nothing can separate us from the awareness of God loving us within and throughout.
But, of course, our unawareness. It cannot separate us, but our unawareness will create the illusion that an absence of God prevails. While it is only illusion, it nevertheless overwhelms us with despondency, depression, and distraction. It is up to our willingness to surrender to the radical reality suffusing our uncertain reality -- surrendering to the ground of being waiting to be seen in each and every thing, person, or act. Even the acts that give every impression as being devoid of God.
Francis of Assisi called it perfect joy. Jesus called it forgiveness without fear. It is the radical acceptance of what is taking place. It is transformative reception of what is there. It is grace and gratefulness. It is gift to trust we are not lost in our falling but will be found safe in the open hands of a God beyond whom we cannot fall.
There is no place to go that is not the presence of God. Not a notion of a God that causes harm and wrong, but a reality of God who appears within the experience to see us through.
Love sees us through. We are seen through, and in that transparent gift of freedom, love sees us through.
This is an innerstanding, (Shunyata's word), with which I can only watch and pray while dwelling in silence, stillness, and stark surrender. It is most often an empty wait. So, don't wait. Rather watch and pray with what is within us and throughout all already. This is a gift one can live and die with.
One, with which, I am grateful.
It is quite the power of transformation to be able to receive all in the light of God. No slight, no hurt, no malicious intent need darken our minds/hearts/spirits. Yes, there will be sorrow. Yes, there will be delight. But the steady state of receptivity to all as the appearance of God -- and the freedom to accept whatever comes as the transformative grace of re-creation of the world -- is this in our everyday capability as public worship inviting divine transcendence with inner presence?
There is not much the world can do to touch our inner presence. Once God has disappeared into God's creation -- permeating inner and outer so that there is no absence of God's awareness -- then all can be received through us into God. Nothing can separate us from the awareness of God loving us within and throughout.
But, of course, our unawareness. It cannot separate us, but our unawareness will create the illusion that an absence of God prevails. While it is only illusion, it nevertheless overwhelms us with despondency, depression, and distraction. It is up to our willingness to surrender to the radical reality suffusing our uncertain reality -- surrendering to the ground of being waiting to be seen in each and every thing, person, or act. Even the acts that give every impression as being devoid of God.
Francis of Assisi called it perfect joy. Jesus called it forgiveness without fear. It is the radical acceptance of what is taking place. It is transformative reception of what is there. It is grace and gratefulness. It is gift to trust we are not lost in our falling but will be found safe in the open hands of a God beyond whom we cannot fall.
There is no place to go that is not the presence of God. Not a notion of a God that causes harm and wrong, but a reality of God who appears within the experience to see us through.
Love sees us through. We are seen through, and in that transparent gift of freedom, love sees us through.
This is an innerstanding, (Shunyata's word), with which I can only watch and pray while dwelling in silence, stillness, and stark surrender. It is most often an empty wait. So, don't wait. Rather watch and pray with what is within us and throughout all already. This is a gift one can live and die with.
One, with which, I am grateful.
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Are we going to wake up? Michael Thoms poses the question on New Dimensions this Sunday morning.
Terrorism is how our lives become devastated. It finally became "our" problem, after long plaguing other countries. Thoms' guest wonders whether our current response is just an attempt to strengthen the illusion that we are in control.
It's not only terrorism that threatens the illusion of control we cultivate. Everyday living and dying, everyday accidents, everyday surprises -- these too threaten the illusion.
Taking care of you is not a selfish thing. Taking care of others is not a selfless thing. There is a middle place. That place might be called leaving care. In that place is leaving care its own. Leaving care is abandoning both the selfish and selfless. Leaving care is allowing things to follow their own course -- with an exception. That exception is our watchfulness, our engaged, participatory watchfulness.
This notion of leaving care is out of our control. Life is living itself within, through, and alongside our presence. We cannot control anything for the long haul. It is our illusion to believe the brief spurts of balance (that we mistakenly call control) can be manipulated and extended throughout our lives, the life of our country and the life of our planet.
God is caring-itself. When we are involved in true care it is caring-itself lighting through us. Leaving care is allowing caring-itself freedom to enter the world in its own light.
Only gratefulness, for each thing and for everything, allows us to see within the light of God.
Terrorism is how our lives become devastated. It finally became "our" problem, after long plaguing other countries. Thoms' guest wonders whether our current response is just an attempt to strengthen the illusion that we are in control.
It's not only terrorism that threatens the illusion of control we cultivate. Everyday living and dying, everyday accidents, everyday surprises -- these too threaten the illusion.
Taking care of you is not a selfish thing. Taking care of others is not a selfless thing. There is a middle place. That place might be called leaving care. In that place is leaving care its own. Leaving care is abandoning both the selfish and selfless. Leaving care is allowing things to follow their own course -- with an exception. That exception is our watchfulness, our engaged, participatory watchfulness.
This notion of leaving care is out of our control. Life is living itself within, through, and alongside our presence. We cannot control anything for the long haul. It is our illusion to believe the brief spurts of balance (that we mistakenly call control) can be manipulated and extended throughout our lives, the life of our country and the life of our planet.
God is caring-itself. When we are involved in true care it is caring-itself lighting through us. Leaving care is allowing caring-itself freedom to enter the world in its own light.
Only gratefulness, for each thing and for everything, allows us to see within the light of God.
Monday, November 18, 2002
Snow grows wet and slush hardens Ragged mountainside. Ji-Ji-Mu-Ge settles into hermitage. Jumps to table during Sunday Evening Practice knocks over two candles. Spends rest of conversation about the philosophy suggested by his name in the bathroom meowing his views.
Cesco perfumes himself on the mountain with some fragrance that is washed out of him in bathtub. He is cooperative and unfragrant again. Both Sando and Cesco stopped short on the path overlooking Hosmer Pond when a moving lump that turned out to be a porcupine ambled across our trek. We turned back.
Mu-ge and the two dogs circle for agreeable boundaries in the house. These wary obstacles of particularity -- spatial negotiations -- narrow and tighten and perhaps, in time, will disappear. So too with us. We move from the unboundaried to vague then clear boundaries, through permeable boundaries to no boundaries -- someday. So much of life seems to be the establishing then dismantling of boundaries. In the spiritual life the process is mandatory. In national and security matters the process freezes with establishing and protecting clear boundaries. Unless, of course, the will of the state demands more and more and more for itself.
We are grateful to be spared the responsibility for securing the state, the nation, and interests therein. It is a special service some take on for the rest of us -- to protect and preserve. Both church and state assume that task. The rest of us are free to let go and let God emerge where church and state do not control. That place is within. That place is no-place.
In prison Friday Andre's poem asked us to consider the word "capture." It is well worth contemplating. To capture = to take. (In contrast, to leave = to fail to take or refrain from taking.) To be captured by the sun after a storm is to be taken by the warmth and brightness, relief following danger. (To leave or to let go, to suffer, permit, or allow is to free and be freed from that which catches or gains control by force, stratagem, or guile.)
Likewise, Harold follows up his personal autobiographical inquiry with an investigator's efforts to interview those who knew him before his crime 25 years ago. The investigator writes he might not spell so well, but he'll ask the right questions.)
So too Shane is asking himself whether to continue here where he is or (in some way) depart. Maybe a new citizenship in another country. (Maybe in a way of thinking that is not so punishing.) It is a privileged education we experience visiting for conversation inside the walls of prison. We read Andre Cadrescu's essay on John Cage's Silence, and Shunyata's (Emmanuel Sorensen's) two chapters in Dancing With The Void and a New York Time's Science article on the Cosmological theory of an Inflating Multiverse and Limitless Space.
We're just conversing with each other.
Perhaps there is no boundary. I am in prison. I am in hermitage. I am poem being written. I am universe expanding beyond itself. I am inmate sitting at round table. I am guard looking in through glass window. I am Cesco snoozing on bed after bath washing away pungent smell. I am water draining into septic. I am kneeler in front room waiting for weight to posture itself in front of crucifix. I am wind chime hanging from cedar tree in strong wind. I am crusted snow with fallen oak leaves stretched along expanse. I am porcupine burrowing into hollow trunk on darkened hill. I am letters throwing themselves together into words that settle for now into narrative. I am silence and emptiness following final period ending this word.
Cesco perfumes himself on the mountain with some fragrance that is washed out of him in bathtub. He is cooperative and unfragrant again. Both Sando and Cesco stopped short on the path overlooking Hosmer Pond when a moving lump that turned out to be a porcupine ambled across our trek. We turned back.
Mu-ge and the two dogs circle for agreeable boundaries in the house. These wary obstacles of particularity -- spatial negotiations -- narrow and tighten and perhaps, in time, will disappear. So too with us. We move from the unboundaried to vague then clear boundaries, through permeable boundaries to no boundaries -- someday. So much of life seems to be the establishing then dismantling of boundaries. In the spiritual life the process is mandatory. In national and security matters the process freezes with establishing and protecting clear boundaries. Unless, of course, the will of the state demands more and more and more for itself.
We are grateful to be spared the responsibility for securing the state, the nation, and interests therein. It is a special service some take on for the rest of us -- to protect and preserve. Both church and state assume that task. The rest of us are free to let go and let God emerge where church and state do not control. That place is within. That place is no-place.
In prison Friday Andre's poem asked us to consider the word "capture." It is well worth contemplating. To capture = to take. (In contrast, to leave = to fail to take or refrain from taking.) To be captured by the sun after a storm is to be taken by the warmth and brightness, relief following danger. (To leave or to let go, to suffer, permit, or allow is to free and be freed from that which catches or gains control by force, stratagem, or guile.)
Likewise, Harold follows up his personal autobiographical inquiry with an investigator's efforts to interview those who knew him before his crime 25 years ago. The investigator writes he might not spell so well, but he'll ask the right questions.)
So too Shane is asking himself whether to continue here where he is or (in some way) depart. Maybe a new citizenship in another country. (Maybe in a way of thinking that is not so punishing.) It is a privileged education we experience visiting for conversation inside the walls of prison. We read Andre Cadrescu's essay on John Cage's Silence, and Shunyata's (Emmanuel Sorensen's) two chapters in Dancing With The Void and a New York Time's Science article on the Cosmological theory of an Inflating Multiverse and Limitless Space.
We're just conversing with each other.
Perhaps there is no boundary. I am in prison. I am in hermitage. I am poem being written. I am universe expanding beyond itself. I am inmate sitting at round table. I am guard looking in through glass window. I am Cesco snoozing on bed after bath washing away pungent smell. I am water draining into septic. I am kneeler in front room waiting for weight to posture itself in front of crucifix. I am wind chime hanging from cedar tree in strong wind. I am crusted snow with fallen oak leaves stretched along expanse. I am porcupine burrowing into hollow trunk on darkened hill. I am letters throwing themselves together into words that settle for now into narrative. I am silence and emptiness following final period ending this word.
Saturday, November 16, 2002
At shop Jeff strings stick. Hugh and Sam have been talking about starting a fire from scratch. Virginia and Susan watch on. They are intent on the experiment. It goes nowhere.
Muge arrived last night from local shelter. His full name is ji ji muge (or, harmony within diversity). More literally ji ji muge means between one thing/event/happening (ji) and another thing/event/happening (ji) there is no (mu) barrier/separation (ge).
He seems a sweet 4-month-old kitten. Some coon cat in him.
Cesco tracks him. Muge swats Cesco. Sando raises her head, glances over, and lowers head.
Ji ji muge -- welcome to this generous new arrival!
Muge arrived last night from local shelter. His full name is ji ji muge (or, harmony within diversity). More literally ji ji muge means between one thing/event/happening (ji) and another thing/event/happening (ji) there is no (mu) barrier/separation (ge).
He seems a sweet 4-month-old kitten. Some coon cat in him.
Cesco tracks him. Muge swats Cesco. Sando raises her head, glances over, and lowers head.
Ji ji muge -- welcome to this generous new arrival!
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Accomplishing Peace
November is emptying. The leaves of two prior months' turning have fallen. Rain and snow begin to saturate earth again.
We know this without going outdoors. The basement is under 13 inches of water today. Sump pump from last winter is ground down and muttering but not working. I sit and stare from broken wooden steps at floating debris. Saskia comes home from Rankin’s with new pump. Water flows over rims of green boots and freezes my feet while I twist hose and submerge plastic pail riven with holes containing new Flotec.
In the ocean of the holy dharma
There is neither movement nor stillness.
The essence of the wave is like a mirror;
When something comes, the reflection appears.
When there is nothing in the mind,
Wind and waves are both forgotten.
( - Gido )
Autumn is end-season. Piece by piece earth in New England reclaims what it gave. Nothingness of first season, winter. Seed and sprig of spring. Summer’s resplendent glorious fullness. Now autumn receives back emptiness, especially November.
Hosmer Pond can be seen through bare branches. So too the neighbor’s house. The chapel/zendo is prominent stark. It stands four square behind Loon IV and dinghy Immer Call back from salt-water heel and bounce to mountain stillness.
Elections are over. We will most likely enter another war. This one with Iraq. The war on drugs against American ghetto poor and anti-drug fumigations in Colombia continues. The war on terrorism home and abroad continues. The war on poverty was lost without a truce. The war against the middle class and lower class by the corporate class and wealthy class is raging in a seemly quiet. Whenever the administration in Washington wishes its way on any contemporary issue they simply call their opponents unpatriotic and liberal rhetorical sympathizers with the enemy. So many enemies, so little room for dissent, so complex a metaphor -- that of war.
It is the empty time between secular celebrations. Stores shelve their Halloween costumes and ready for pre-Christmas merchandise sales. Thanksgiving will show up as time to remember we ought to be grateful for something to do with fruitful fields, new occupancy, freedom of expression, and a sense we are blessed. It is a regional holiday, decidedly American.
It is an empty time between religious celebrations. Ramadan nears end, Christ prays an Advent of new consciousness, Buddha pauses before enlightenment the same day Mary readies to be conceived with no barrier to God, and Chanukah menorahs prepare to extend a hedge hope against lowering candles.
Darkness tiptoes across the middle of this hunter’s month. We, like frightened deer in wooded glen, listen for breaking twig and bolting metal in pre-dawn stillness. Death loads, takes sighting, and pauses. We’re unsure the light to come is flash of ordinance signaling our end, or nova spirit of life burning through our ignorance with news of liberation for human consciousness.
97 Jesus said,
The [Father's] imperial rule is like a woman who was carrying a [jar] full of meal. 2While she was walking along [a] distant road, the handle of the jar broke and the meal spilled behind her [along] the road. 3She didn't know it; she hadn't noticed a problem. 4When she reached her house, she put the jar down and discovered that it was empty.
(-- from the Gospel of Thomas from the Scholars Version translation published in The Complete Gospels)
It is a curious proposition that the Father’s accomplishment is emptying out. Emptying out, not noticing a problem as it occurs, not knowing that it is happening as it is happening.
There’s no joy in war. It is November. We are emptying. A nova nada, a new nothingness, perhaps, will release us within. We must find out who we are. We have to come to see who we are in each other’s lives. There is no opposite to war. There is only war, and those who live through war with peace in sacred emptiness. God alone knows how this is accomplished.
May each be accomplished.
November is emptying. The leaves of two prior months' turning have fallen. Rain and snow begin to saturate earth again.
We know this without going outdoors. The basement is under 13 inches of water today. Sump pump from last winter is ground down and muttering but not working. I sit and stare from broken wooden steps at floating debris. Saskia comes home from Rankin’s with new pump. Water flows over rims of green boots and freezes my feet while I twist hose and submerge plastic pail riven with holes containing new Flotec.
In the ocean of the holy dharma
There is neither movement nor stillness.
The essence of the wave is like a mirror;
When something comes, the reflection appears.
When there is nothing in the mind,
Wind and waves are both forgotten.
( - Gido )
Autumn is end-season. Piece by piece earth in New England reclaims what it gave. Nothingness of first season, winter. Seed and sprig of spring. Summer’s resplendent glorious fullness. Now autumn receives back emptiness, especially November.
Hosmer Pond can be seen through bare branches. So too the neighbor’s house. The chapel/zendo is prominent stark. It stands four square behind Loon IV and dinghy Immer Call back from salt-water heel and bounce to mountain stillness.
Elections are over. We will most likely enter another war. This one with Iraq. The war on drugs against American ghetto poor and anti-drug fumigations in Colombia continues. The war on terrorism home and abroad continues. The war on poverty was lost without a truce. The war against the middle class and lower class by the corporate class and wealthy class is raging in a seemly quiet. Whenever the administration in Washington wishes its way on any contemporary issue they simply call their opponents unpatriotic and liberal rhetorical sympathizers with the enemy. So many enemies, so little room for dissent, so complex a metaphor -- that of war.
It is the empty time between secular celebrations. Stores shelve their Halloween costumes and ready for pre-Christmas merchandise sales. Thanksgiving will show up as time to remember we ought to be grateful for something to do with fruitful fields, new occupancy, freedom of expression, and a sense we are blessed. It is a regional holiday, decidedly American.
It is an empty time between religious celebrations. Ramadan nears end, Christ prays an Advent of new consciousness, Buddha pauses before enlightenment the same day Mary readies to be conceived with no barrier to God, and Chanukah menorahs prepare to extend a hedge hope against lowering candles.
Darkness tiptoes across the middle of this hunter’s month. We, like frightened deer in wooded glen, listen for breaking twig and bolting metal in pre-dawn stillness. Death loads, takes sighting, and pauses. We’re unsure the light to come is flash of ordinance signaling our end, or nova spirit of life burning through our ignorance with news of liberation for human consciousness.
97 Jesus said,
The [Father's] imperial rule is like a woman who was carrying a [jar] full of meal. 2While she was walking along [a] distant road, the handle of the jar broke and the meal spilled behind her [along] the road. 3She didn't know it; she hadn't noticed a problem. 4When she reached her house, she put the jar down and discovered that it was empty.
(-- from the Gospel of Thomas from the Scholars Version translation published in The Complete Gospels)
It is a curious proposition that the Father’s accomplishment is emptying out. Emptying out, not noticing a problem as it occurs, not knowing that it is happening as it is happening.
There’s no joy in war. It is November. We are emptying. A nova nada, a new nothingness, perhaps, will release us within. We must find out who we are. We have to come to see who we are in each other’s lives. There is no opposite to war. There is only war, and those who live through war with peace in sacred emptiness. God alone knows how this is accomplished.
May each be accomplished.
Thursday, October 31, 2002
Without Knowing Why
A Hallowed Eve arrives. We'll ready the chapel/zendo wood stove for sitting and psalms. We will try not to be veils between each other.
The spiritual light shines alone,
far transcending the senses
and their fields;
the essential substance is
exposed, real and eternal.
It is not contained in written words.
The nature of mind has no defilement;
it is basically perfect and complete in itself.
Just get rid of delusive attachments,
and merge with realization of thusness.
- Pai-chang (720–814)
Veils are willing to dissolve when we are willing to look through them. Veils exist to protect us from seeing too clearly what is there to be seen. Veils are thinnest this eve of All Souls, Celtic New Year's Eve, and Eve of Day of the Dead.
Some in spirituality speak of the death of the ego. It is when there is no longer any supportive energy for veils. The held belief we are isolated separated beings crumbles and dissolves. We are left bereft of what we once thought we were. This dissolving of the veil is a shocking invitation into a new way of being. A new energy is released.
Opening Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's book The Future of Man page 210 presents itself with these words:
After a short period of untroubled proprietorship every new source of energy, as we know by experience, gives rise to two related problems, that of the limitations to be imposed on it and that of its preservation. The new force must not be allowed to get out of hand or to exhaust itself. The same applies (although we have thought less about it) to the source of energy abruptly released by Nature through Man which I have called the 'force of purposive thinking.'
What are we to think when the veil thins? Are we, of necessity, compelled to both put limitations on, and try to preserve, what is revealed? How far are we from understanding Meister Eckhart's phrase "leben ohne warum" (life without the question why)? What is the alternative to our dependence on the question 'Why?'
If today you hear God's voice,
harden not your heart.
--Psalm 95
Will we always ask "Why?" when (or if) we hear the voice of God? Do we need to search and find the right wavelength, the right station on the dial, in order to hear God's voice? Or, is God's voice the permeating sound and silence resonating at heart of each and every being, each and every thing, each and every event and occurrence in existence? In life itself?
Tonight the veil thins. Something dissolves. Without limitation or preservation. Arrives. Softens.
Our hearts?
Now?
A Hallowed Eve arrives. We'll ready the chapel/zendo wood stove for sitting and psalms. We will try not to be veils between each other.
The spiritual light shines alone,
far transcending the senses
and their fields;
the essential substance is
exposed, real and eternal.
It is not contained in written words.
The nature of mind has no defilement;
it is basically perfect and complete in itself.
Just get rid of delusive attachments,
and merge with realization of thusness.
- Pai-chang (720–814)
Veils are willing to dissolve when we are willing to look through them. Veils exist to protect us from seeing too clearly what is there to be seen. Veils are thinnest this eve of All Souls, Celtic New Year's Eve, and Eve of Day of the Dead.
Some in spirituality speak of the death of the ego. It is when there is no longer any supportive energy for veils. The held belief we are isolated separated beings crumbles and dissolves. We are left bereft of what we once thought we were. This dissolving of the veil is a shocking invitation into a new way of being. A new energy is released.
Opening Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's book The Future of Man page 210 presents itself with these words:
After a short period of untroubled proprietorship every new source of energy, as we know by experience, gives rise to two related problems, that of the limitations to be imposed on it and that of its preservation. The new force must not be allowed to get out of hand or to exhaust itself. The same applies (although we have thought less about it) to the source of energy abruptly released by Nature through Man which I have called the 'force of purposive thinking.'
What are we to think when the veil thins? Are we, of necessity, compelled to both put limitations on, and try to preserve, what is revealed? How far are we from understanding Meister Eckhart's phrase "leben ohne warum" (life without the question why)? What is the alternative to our dependence on the question 'Why?'
If today you hear God's voice,
harden not your heart.
--Psalm 95
Will we always ask "Why?" when (or if) we hear the voice of God? Do we need to search and find the right wavelength, the right station on the dial, in order to hear God's voice? Or, is God's voice the permeating sound and silence resonating at heart of each and every being, each and every thing, each and every event and occurrence in existence? In life itself?
Tonight the veil thins. Something dissolves. Without limitation or preservation. Arrives. Softens.
Our hearts?
Now?
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Cesco at foot of chair. Sando by door. Today quiet. Trees field chill air. If limbs bare, my spirit bares. Cold stillness. Some days it takes all one can to simply breathe. Thin air. Thin membrane between worlds. The thin place opens. No speaking there. Only stark learning silence.
After Jesus said, "This is my body, this is my blood," was he at that place? Where does one go once coming to earth and returning to earth?
Today, walking 4 road miles to town, I thought about each granule of soil. I thought about all I don't know.
After Jesus said, "This is my body, this is my blood," was he at that place? Where does one go once coming to earth and returning to earth?
Today, walking 4 road miles to town, I thought about each granule of soil. I thought about all I don't know.
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
Heart of Peace; Heart of God?
What is the cost of peace?
We know the cost of war -- dead bodies, enormous economic expense, consolidation of power in the hands of a few military or administration officials. But what is the cost of peace?
We'd have to consider justice -- equal treatment under the law. This equal treatment is at times more abused than held in honor. I frequent a prison. I know who is there and not there. Not many millionaires. Not those Wall Street or corporate activists drinking Black Label or sniffling white powder who've stolen from thousands of people and are protected by the weapons of lawyers. Rather, mostly poor kids. Those whose back street activities after beer and marijuana or heroin rip off two or three people brandishing extra bags to sell and a firearm for protection.
Peace costs less than war. But the cost hits us and our culture right where we hurt the most -- in the comfortable habits of our American life style. Peace would ask us to change our way of living. We in America are very wealthy. We are criticized that our way of life is decadent. Our way of life depends on others' living far below our standard. Would peace, real peace, ask of us to have less, consume less, demand less from others?
Christianity is loosely based on the life of Jesus, called by some Christ. The Ground of Being and Ground of Christ is the very Ground of Each One of Us. It occurs to me that to turn or return to that Ground or Christ would mean living the life of Christ. What is the life of Christ?
Here is where many part paths. It occurs to me that Christ is peace. Not security, not protection at any cost. Not deterrence. Not primacy in munitions or deployment of armed forces. Not detente. Not first strike ability. Not patsy. Not victim. Not martyr. Not savior of the world.
To say Christ is peace is to consider saying we are not other than Christ. We realize Christ realizing what Jesus realized. Jesus realized that to live God is to abandon the self that acts and operates in place of God. To find oneself dwelling God is to live what God is. What is God living?
Here is where many more paths part. To live God is to embody peace. Peace is the radical acceptance of the poverty of God. Emptiness is God’s dwelling.
God owns nothing. Thus, everything is of God.
God withholds nothing. Thus, everything is gift.
God sees everything as it is. Thus, we are transparent to God; there is nothing to hide.
God loves what is real. Thus, to be real is primary.
Peace is the dwelling of God. No economic wealth, no military strength, no ideas of hierarchical "we are the best" applies in the dwelling of God.
What does peace cost? And why can't we afford peace?
Peace costs nothing. And we, it seems, are unwilling to, or cannot, afford the nothing it takes to dwell there.
We understand war, killing, spoils of conquest, and exploiting fears.
What we don't understand is someone emptying himself or herself, taking on the form of one who serves others, and dwelling there with and as God. As God's dwelling in this existence on this earth.
Unless, of course, it isn't a matter of understanding. But a matter of simplicity, love, and life. Unless it is a matter of courage. Of heart.
Which brings us into the question; do we have the heart for peace?
What is the cost of peace?
We know the cost of war -- dead bodies, enormous economic expense, consolidation of power in the hands of a few military or administration officials. But what is the cost of peace?
We'd have to consider justice -- equal treatment under the law. This equal treatment is at times more abused than held in honor. I frequent a prison. I know who is there and not there. Not many millionaires. Not those Wall Street or corporate activists drinking Black Label or sniffling white powder who've stolen from thousands of people and are protected by the weapons of lawyers. Rather, mostly poor kids. Those whose back street activities after beer and marijuana or heroin rip off two or three people brandishing extra bags to sell and a firearm for protection.
Peace costs less than war. But the cost hits us and our culture right where we hurt the most -- in the comfortable habits of our American life style. Peace would ask us to change our way of living. We in America are very wealthy. We are criticized that our way of life is decadent. Our way of life depends on others' living far below our standard. Would peace, real peace, ask of us to have less, consume less, demand less from others?
Christianity is loosely based on the life of Jesus, called by some Christ. The Ground of Being and Ground of Christ is the very Ground of Each One of Us. It occurs to me that to turn or return to that Ground or Christ would mean living the life of Christ. What is the life of Christ?
Here is where many part paths. It occurs to me that Christ is peace. Not security, not protection at any cost. Not deterrence. Not primacy in munitions or deployment of armed forces. Not detente. Not first strike ability. Not patsy. Not victim. Not martyr. Not savior of the world.
To say Christ is peace is to consider saying we are not other than Christ. We realize Christ realizing what Jesus realized. Jesus realized that to live God is to abandon the self that acts and operates in place of God. To find oneself dwelling God is to live what God is. What is God living?
Here is where many more paths part. To live God is to embody peace. Peace is the radical acceptance of the poverty of God. Emptiness is God’s dwelling.
God owns nothing. Thus, everything is of God.
God withholds nothing. Thus, everything is gift.
God sees everything as it is. Thus, we are transparent to God; there is nothing to hide.
God loves what is real. Thus, to be real is primary.
Peace is the dwelling of God. No economic wealth, no military strength, no ideas of hierarchical "we are the best" applies in the dwelling of God.
What does peace cost? And why can't we afford peace?
Peace costs nothing. And we, it seems, are unwilling to, or cannot, afford the nothing it takes to dwell there.
We understand war, killing, spoils of conquest, and exploiting fears.
What we don't understand is someone emptying himself or herself, taking on the form of one who serves others, and dwelling there with and as God. As God's dwelling in this existence on this earth.
Unless, of course, it isn't a matter of understanding. But a matter of simplicity, love, and life. Unless it is a matter of courage. Of heart.
Which brings us into the question; do we have the heart for peace?
Saturday, October 26, 2002
In Augusta Maine and Washington DC people gather to say "No" to President Bush's intended war with Iraq. In Minnesota a state mourns at the death of Senator Paul Wellstone, family members, workers, and pilots in plane crash yesterday as investigators prepare to sift through the site for clues as to how and why it happened. The weather turns raw and wet along the coast, a bleak statement corresponding to antipathy toward war and sorrow at death.
Before I was forty I quit my job
and came to tread the way
of saints and sages.
If I come out, it’s just
because I love the hills
and streams.
My ears are clean,
my vision’s ample.
When you ponder it,
this is true happiness.
The golden girdle girds calamity;
purple robes, pain.
Are they better than my briar
cane and cap of straw?
- Chang Yang-Hao
Who are these men and woman who give up briar cane and straw cap for purple robes of governance and power? And how can they, and we, sort through the temptations to ignorance so rife in human rational ego? How do we come to serve rather than be served? How transform the inclination to rule with benefit to some few and begin to serve with benefit to everyone?
Workers from Prock Marine are tearing out the deck pilings outside the shop. Sawn tired debris of 40 years lay on side. New full replacements stand fresh and green from mid-tide under dock. There is, always, much to replace, much to reform.
To transform is to allow what is occurring or being said by another to pass through our very form there present with another. Transformation is more difficult than replacement or reformation.
It is a day to pray for those attempting peace. It is a day to pray for those attempting to rule. For wisdom, compassion, understanding, and service.
It is a day to pray for those dying, and those who have died.
Friday, October 25, 2002
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Practice is practice
At Tuesday Evening Conversation on Buddhist Studies John C. and Saskia collaborate unknowingly on a wording of practice that fits: "Naturally -- it's not hard, and doesn't hurt -- practice."
Earlier a woman spoke of playing piano years ago. She seemed wistful when asked if she kept her hand in. "If you don't practice, you forget." (Susan F.) With prompting she realized what she'd said. Her words apply to any practice, particularly that of zazen and mindfulness.
We practice to remember -- to remember who we really are and what is the ground of our being. There is no future goal -- no goal of enlightenment or heaven. We practice sitting meditation and mindfulness to remember our ground.
When sitting there is no technique, word, breath regulation, mantra, image, or guided formula we follow. There is only sitting. There is no "subject" concentrating on some "object." There is just sitting.
Remember -- earth is earth. We arise from earth and return to earth. While sitting we sit with earth as earth.
Remember -- God is God. We are within God and return to God. While sitting we sit in this creation with this creating God.
Remember -- each one of us is each one of us. We present ourselves within the presence of each being. While sitting we sit with each presence as it is in itself.
This is what we practice, this remembrance.
If we don't practice, we forget.
Naturally, it's not hard and doesn't hurt, practice.
At Tuesday Evening Conversation on Buddhist Studies John C. and Saskia collaborate unknowingly on a wording of practice that fits: "Naturally -- it's not hard, and doesn't hurt -- practice."
Earlier a woman spoke of playing piano years ago. She seemed wistful when asked if she kept her hand in. "If you don't practice, you forget." (Susan F.) With prompting she realized what she'd said. Her words apply to any practice, particularly that of zazen and mindfulness.
We practice to remember -- to remember who we really are and what is the ground of our being. There is no future goal -- no goal of enlightenment or heaven. We practice sitting meditation and mindfulness to remember our ground.
When sitting there is no technique, word, breath regulation, mantra, image, or guided formula we follow. There is only sitting. There is no "subject" concentrating on some "object." There is just sitting.
Remember -- earth is earth. We arise from earth and return to earth. While sitting we sit with earth as earth.
Remember -- God is God. We are within God and return to God. While sitting we sit in this creation with this creating God.
Remember -- each one of us is each one of us. We present ourselves within the presence of each being. While sitting we sit with each presence as it is in itself.
This is what we practice, this remembrance.
If we don't practice, we forget.
Naturally, it's not hard and doesn't hurt, practice.
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