Our barn roof leaks.
Extension rains drenched coast of Maine yesterday through morning. Hurricane Juan washed ashore at Halifax Nova Scotia and passed through PEI.
In my house there is a cave
In the cave, there’s nothing at all
Pure emptiness, really wonderful
Glorious and splendid, bright as the sun
- Han Shan (c. 730)
Sitting in cabin last night with rain along roof, three times 20 minute bell struck. No movement save the moth immolating itself in candle sending waves of extinguished light to vacant and occupied cushions and mats.
Angels today -- Gabriel, Michael, Raphael -- a feasting.
Alone, we are never...alone.
Is that a message? That we are never alone when we are alone?
Is this what the hermit experiences? We are more alone when with others?
Paradox? If solitude is gift, no one can give it to you. It is something taken away.
Solitude is the realization we are alone with others when we are fully with them.
Fully with is beyond the need to make oneself understood.
It is silence that makes gift of solitude when alone with others.
Archangels with us. Emptying.
They say, "The Lord is with you."
Mary said, "Let it be so!"
We say, "Ah, yes, may it be, so."
A dissolving emptiness.
Then, solitude.
The beauty of your house, Lord, the place your glory dwells.
Home.
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Bookshop/Bakery closed today.
In honor of Rosh Hashana, Sunday day of rest, Hurricane Juan bearing toward Nova Scotia, Saskia visiting family, and some silence, some solitude.
Cesco on rug, Mu-ge in basket on kitchen daybed. Rain light, then torrential, then pausing, and then again falling steady between mountains.
Living alone where none other dwells,
Shrine among the pines where mountain tints encroach,
Old man’s been ninety years a monk:
Heart beyond the clouds a lifetime long.
White hair hangs down, his head’s unshaven:
Clear black pupils smile deep mysteries.
He can still point to the orphan moon
For me alone, relaxes his discipline, this moment.
- Kuan Hsiu (832– 912)
There's joy, Emily D. says, in being nobody.
The same joy, one might say, in greeting everybody... as God... greeting.
This moment.
For giving.
A way.
Near.
In honor of Rosh Hashana, Sunday day of rest, Hurricane Juan bearing toward Nova Scotia, Saskia visiting family, and some silence, some solitude.
Cesco on rug, Mu-ge in basket on kitchen daybed. Rain light, then torrential, then pausing, and then again falling steady between mountains.
Living alone where none other dwells,
Shrine among the pines where mountain tints encroach,
Old man’s been ninety years a monk:
Heart beyond the clouds a lifetime long.
White hair hangs down, his head’s unshaven:
Clear black pupils smile deep mysteries.
He can still point to the orphan moon
For me alone, relaxes his discipline, this moment.
- Kuan Hsiu (832– 912)
There's joy, Emily D. says, in being nobody.
The same joy, one might say, in greeting everybody... as God... greeting.
This moment.
For giving.
A way.
Near.
Friday, September 26, 2003
We bring Tolle, McPhee, Ingram, D.T.Suzuki into prison and meet Fulghum, Richie, Ryan, Bob, and Joe in there.
A steady wind scours the autumn moon
From a stagnant pool,
From the crystal spring every place pure now
Just as it is.
Why, then, does karma yet coil and bind?
- Miao Yin (376–380)
If we think we stray from the central axis of our life, the longing, the pull, (some once only said 'guilt') draws us back to the reality beyond thinking, the center point, the axis itself.
Some say, to God. Some say, to the awareness of God.
Forgiveness asks into our midst this time, Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur. Bob asks how to deal with the past.
Now. With acceptance and surrender.
We forgive. Are forgiven.
Until we become aware, there is nothing to forgive.
We are, we become, forgiveness itself.
A steady wind scours the autumn moon
From a stagnant pool,
From the crystal spring every place pure now
Just as it is.
Why, then, does karma yet coil and bind?
- Miao Yin (376–380)
If we think we stray from the central axis of our life, the longing, the pull, (some once only said 'guilt') draws us back to the reality beyond thinking, the center point, the axis itself.
Some say, to God. Some say, to the awareness of God.
Forgiveness asks into our midst this time, Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur. Bob asks how to deal with the past.
Now. With acceptance and surrender.
We forgive. Are forgiven.
Until we become aware, there is nothing to forgive.
We are, we become, forgiveness itself.
Monday, September 22, 2003
Note: The bookshop/bakery will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll be back Thursday. There will be no scheduled conversations until Thursday Evening.
.........
Suzuki Roshi said that there realy are no enlightened beings, there is only enlightened activity.
It seems a flower, but not a flower;
It seems a mist, but not a mist.
It comes at midnight,
It goes away in the morning.
Its coming is like a spring dream
That does not last long.
And its going is like the morning cloud.
You will find it nowhere.
- Bai Juyi
Even going for a drive is nothing special.
So, we go for a drive.
.........
Suzuki Roshi said that there realy are no enlightened beings, there is only enlightened activity.
It seems a flower, but not a flower;
It seems a mist, but not a mist.
It comes at midnight,
It goes away in the morning.
Its coming is like a spring dream
That does not last long.
And its going is like the morning cloud.
You will find it nowhere.
- Bai Juyi
Even going for a drive is nothing special.
So, we go for a drive.
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Local Buddhist Meditation Group pulls into driveway. Their regular place must be locked this morning. The cabin is here, unlockable, and open.
There's no need to go anywhere. If we wish to pray, pray where we are. If we wish to meditate, meditate right here. If we wish to enter the liturgy of transformation and transfiguration, remember the word and ground of being itself.
You can’t try to do the cut,
But you can intend to be that person
That the cut is expressed through.
Staying close to the point of emergence
Is your benchmark.
- Ji Aoi Isshi
The point of emergence -- one's body, one's mind -- nature itself.
Mu-ge heals well and returns to samurai-cat attacking anything that moves and the walls themselves in their stillness.
Sando looks more and more like an aging dog decided to become a dust mop.
Cesco is the busy boy, whose personal space radius expands with every foot nearing his black and white Border collie perimeter, barks and furrows forehead in complaint.
Across road neighbor worships at lawnmower.
The temple, monastery, zendo, church, mosque, and meeting hall are all in our presence.
This morning, may our presence be with us...and with all nearing their presence.
Fresh cut grass!
The scent of transformation!
There's no need to go anywhere. If we wish to pray, pray where we are. If we wish to meditate, meditate right here. If we wish to enter the liturgy of transformation and transfiguration, remember the word and ground of being itself.
You can’t try to do the cut,
But you can intend to be that person
That the cut is expressed through.
Staying close to the point of emergence
Is your benchmark.
- Ji Aoi Isshi
The point of emergence -- one's body, one's mind -- nature itself.
Mu-ge heals well and returns to samurai-cat attacking anything that moves and the walls themselves in their stillness.
Sando looks more and more like an aging dog decided to become a dust mop.
Cesco is the busy boy, whose personal space radius expands with every foot nearing his black and white Border collie perimeter, barks and furrows forehead in complaint.
Across road neighbor worships at lawnmower.
The temple, monastery, zendo, church, mosque, and meeting hall are all in our presence.
This morning, may our presence be with us...and with all nearing their presence.
Fresh cut grass!
The scent of transformation!
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Bursting. From encircled enclosure to expansive exclosure.
No longer separate. No longer equal. No mental distinction that juxtaposes “separate/equal.” Just, itself. Each and every thing, each and every being: itself.
Some dislike evolution. The difficulty with evolution is the extension of it. Where will it stop? Nowhere?
Nowhere! Everything that is will be itself turning and turning throughout unending length of beyond and completely beyond.
Do not try to seek the Truth
Just don’t cling to opinion
And you won’t linger in dualism.
Let go, leave things as they are
Obey the true nature of things
And you’re in harmony with the Way.
- T’sen T’sang
I write Jim after learning of his sister Paulette’s death, holding them in prayer.
Another Jim and I have coffee in hermitage kitchen this morning. We remember Karen who, before her death, traveled to Cape Breton’s Gampo Abbey several times to sit in retreat and listen to silence, the ocean, and Pema Chodron’s words. Cancer has a way of focusing. Death, a way of minuting joys.
September Twelfth, 2001
Two caught on film who hurtle
from the eighty-second floor,
choosing between a fireball
and to jump holding hands,
aren't us. I wake beside you,
stretch, scratch, taste the air,
the incredible joy of coffee
and the morning light.
Alive, we open eyelids
on our pitiful share of time,
we bubbles rising and bursting
in a boiling pot.
[Poem: "September Twelfth, 2001," by X.J. Kennedy, from The Lords of Misrule (Johns Hopkins University Press). (The Writer's Almanac)]
When I read Kennedy’s poem to Karl the other day he nodded. “For the past year every day has been September 12th for Cathy and me.” Their focus, like shaved head, grows out.
We support each other when we slowly forget the differences our minds create between us. We come to resemble what and whom we love.
Mary’s voice is heard. She visits chapel/zendo. Passes place her and Ben’s St Francis bird feeder stood for a year.
Rain rushes down, pushes September air through windows, darkening dooryard.
“Out from bread, on the one hand” -- (a very loose translation) – might be what “expansive” means, rendered from Latin (ex-pan-sive). Expansive Francis. Expansive community. Expansive death. Expansive seeing beyond what we couldn’t see beyond before.
As Catholic Christian liturgy celebrates, we are the elements of bread consecrated into the reality of Christ, extended each to all in ever widening expansive offering, in the name of love.
“…we bubbles rising and bursting…”
“…the true nature of things…”
One for the other.
One another.
No other.
No longer separate. No longer equal. No mental distinction that juxtaposes “separate/equal.” Just, itself. Each and every thing, each and every being: itself.
Some dislike evolution. The difficulty with evolution is the extension of it. Where will it stop? Nowhere?
Nowhere! Everything that is will be itself turning and turning throughout unending length of beyond and completely beyond.
Do not try to seek the Truth
Just don’t cling to opinion
And you won’t linger in dualism.
Let go, leave things as they are
Obey the true nature of things
And you’re in harmony with the Way.
- T’sen T’sang
I write Jim after learning of his sister Paulette’s death, holding them in prayer.
Another Jim and I have coffee in hermitage kitchen this morning. We remember Karen who, before her death, traveled to Cape Breton’s Gampo Abbey several times to sit in retreat and listen to silence, the ocean, and Pema Chodron’s words. Cancer has a way of focusing. Death, a way of minuting joys.
September Twelfth, 2001
Two caught on film who hurtle
from the eighty-second floor,
choosing between a fireball
and to jump holding hands,
aren't us. I wake beside you,
stretch, scratch, taste the air,
the incredible joy of coffee
and the morning light.
Alive, we open eyelids
on our pitiful share of time,
we bubbles rising and bursting
in a boiling pot.
[Poem: "September Twelfth, 2001," by X.J. Kennedy, from The Lords of Misrule (Johns Hopkins University Press). (The Writer's Almanac)]
When I read Kennedy’s poem to Karl the other day he nodded. “For the past year every day has been September 12th for Cathy and me.” Their focus, like shaved head, grows out.
We support each other when we slowly forget the differences our minds create between us. We come to resemble what and whom we love.
Mary’s voice is heard. She visits chapel/zendo. Passes place her and Ben’s St Francis bird feeder stood for a year.
Rain rushes down, pushes September air through windows, darkening dooryard.
“Out from bread, on the one hand” -- (a very loose translation) – might be what “expansive” means, rendered from Latin (ex-pan-sive). Expansive Francis. Expansive community. Expansive death. Expansive seeing beyond what we couldn’t see beyond before.
As Catholic Christian liturgy celebrates, we are the elements of bread consecrated into the reality of Christ, extended each to all in ever widening expansive offering, in the name of love.
“…we bubbles rising and bursting…”
“…the true nature of things…”
One for the other.
One another.
No other.
Monday, September 15, 2003
How approach Being?
Morning cabin sunlight. Tibetan incense silently scents rough wood interior. Cesco stretches on floor. On cushion with lower back discomfort, stillness.
Sitting quietly alone
meditating is not hard.
What is hard is living
on a broad scale and
responding to the world at large.
- Wu Yubi (1391-1469)
Simeon knew.
Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother: "This child is destined to be the downfall and the rise of many in Israel, a sign that will be opposed -- and you yourself shall be pierced with a sword -- so that the thoughts of many hearts may be laid bare." (Luke 2: 33-35)
Our Lady of Sorrows today. Holy Cross yesterday. Christians practice to learn how these vignettes inform their perceptions of this day.
If an end time approaches, it has all the effort of Israel, Palestine, United States and Great Britain. Arab frowning watches fawning foreign corporations cut up for themselves what Middle East once considered theirs.
Sando slows in shaggy sweetness. Mu-ge survives urinary blockage. His food is changed. He's complaining.
I don't know what it is like to have men with automatic weapons patrolling streets outside dooryard and likely to fire at any threatening movement according to their scale measurement of what is dangerous.
I lament their fate in Iraq and Middle East. I lament the fate of combatants and noncombatants. I lament the fate of the world shuffling toward destruction with simple-minded notions of ownership and justice.
Mu-ge lies on table. He swats at pen and envelope Saskia's been keeping track of tasks for day. Pen goes down. Followed by envelope. He goes to Cesco's food bowl. A spray of additional envelopes gets thrown in that direction. Meows away.
Last night at Sunday Evening Practice reading "True Forgiveness" in Sun Magazine, article from Richard Smoley's Inner Christianity. His thought-provoking last lines:
Does God have an ego to be offended by our petty failings? Obviously not. Can we really say what is in the heart of others? We know we cannot. But Christians past and present persist in accusing others of heresy, blasphemy, and other such offenses in the pathetic belief that they are defending God. Of course, we can do not such thing. What we are defending here is the ego's last resort -- itself reified into an image of God. And this is the last and perhaps most difficult lesson to learn: the surrender of one's own cherished image of God, nurtured and fostered, perhaps, by years of religious education. This sacrifice is typified by the last words of Christ on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) The ultimate sacrifice we have to make is that of my God.
(p.16, The Sun, September 2003)
It seems radical, confusing for us, that even Jesus had to relinquish the notion of "my" God.
God is God. God is not portioned or partialed. The Itself belongs to Itself. So too, each of us belongs to each of us.
It is not that we don't owe each other anything. More that no one owes "me" anything.
Owe and own are reckless partners.
There is only I-Thou. No "I" exists without "Thou." Only in the mind -- the mind deluded and separated from the play of reality itself -- is there an "I" separate from the "Thou."
Core reality is the play of I-Thou throughout each and every being -- tumbling into, out of, and through existence -- in this mysterious creation suffused with life.
If we see this, if we hear this, we have taken up the cross and sorrow of awareness. The experience startles. This cross and sorrow transmutes into infinite extension and joyful illumination.
Where does this extension lead? What does this illumination reveal?
The only thing death teaches anyone who dies is that there is no death.
Can this really be?
"War is necrophilia." That's what Chris Hedges said in his talk on War as Addiction.
Like all addictions, like all illusions, like all idols and false gods, war loves what is not there.
Morning cabin sunlight. Stillness. A silence stretching across borders. Sanctuary suffusing itself in and through whatever passes, whatever slows, and whatever stops.
Haiku Re-sounding Air
Morning prayer -- repair!
Let go of fear; Love what is
Here. Open with care.
(wfh)
"...so that the thoughts of many hearts may be laid bare."
"...responding to the world at large."
Really be.
Morning cabin sunlight. Tibetan incense silently scents rough wood interior. Cesco stretches on floor. On cushion with lower back discomfort, stillness.
Sitting quietly alone
meditating is not hard.
What is hard is living
on a broad scale and
responding to the world at large.
- Wu Yubi (1391-1469)
Simeon knew.
Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother: "This child is destined to be the downfall and the rise of many in Israel, a sign that will be opposed -- and you yourself shall be pierced with a sword -- so that the thoughts of many hearts may be laid bare." (Luke 2: 33-35)
Our Lady of Sorrows today. Holy Cross yesterday. Christians practice to learn how these vignettes inform their perceptions of this day.
If an end time approaches, it has all the effort of Israel, Palestine, United States and Great Britain. Arab frowning watches fawning foreign corporations cut up for themselves what Middle East once considered theirs.
Sando slows in shaggy sweetness. Mu-ge survives urinary blockage. His food is changed. He's complaining.
I don't know what it is like to have men with automatic weapons patrolling streets outside dooryard and likely to fire at any threatening movement according to their scale measurement of what is dangerous.
I lament their fate in Iraq and Middle East. I lament the fate of combatants and noncombatants. I lament the fate of the world shuffling toward destruction with simple-minded notions of ownership and justice.
Mu-ge lies on table. He swats at pen and envelope Saskia's been keeping track of tasks for day. Pen goes down. Followed by envelope. He goes to Cesco's food bowl. A spray of additional envelopes gets thrown in that direction. Meows away.
Last night at Sunday Evening Practice reading "True Forgiveness" in Sun Magazine, article from Richard Smoley's Inner Christianity. His thought-provoking last lines:
Does God have an ego to be offended by our petty failings? Obviously not. Can we really say what is in the heart of others? We know we cannot. But Christians past and present persist in accusing others of heresy, blasphemy, and other such offenses in the pathetic belief that they are defending God. Of course, we can do not such thing. What we are defending here is the ego's last resort -- itself reified into an image of God. And this is the last and perhaps most difficult lesson to learn: the surrender of one's own cherished image of God, nurtured and fostered, perhaps, by years of religious education. This sacrifice is typified by the last words of Christ on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) The ultimate sacrifice we have to make is that of my God.
(p.16, The Sun, September 2003)
It seems radical, confusing for us, that even Jesus had to relinquish the notion of "my" God.
God is God. God is not portioned or partialed. The Itself belongs to Itself. So too, each of us belongs to each of us.
It is not that we don't owe each other anything. More that no one owes "me" anything.
Owe and own are reckless partners.
There is only I-Thou. No "I" exists without "Thou." Only in the mind -- the mind deluded and separated from the play of reality itself -- is there an "I" separate from the "Thou."
Core reality is the play of I-Thou throughout each and every being -- tumbling into, out of, and through existence -- in this mysterious creation suffused with life.
If we see this, if we hear this, we have taken up the cross and sorrow of awareness. The experience startles. This cross and sorrow transmutes into infinite extension and joyful illumination.
Where does this extension lead? What does this illumination reveal?
The only thing death teaches anyone who dies is that there is no death.
Can this really be?
"War is necrophilia." That's what Chris Hedges said in his talk on War as Addiction.
Like all addictions, like all illusions, like all idols and false gods, war loves what is not there.
Morning cabin sunlight. Stillness. A silence stretching across borders. Sanctuary suffusing itself in and through whatever passes, whatever slows, and whatever stops.
Haiku Re-sounding Air
Morning prayer -- repair!
Let go of fear; Love what is
Here. Open with care.
(wfh)
"...so that the thoughts of many hearts may be laid bare."
"...responding to the world at large."
Really be.
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Sluice runs between Bald and Ragged Mountains. Barnestown Road carries enclosed pods of passage up and down its length. Everyone going somewhere. I have nowhere.
Mountain air is different from the world of people,
Always with a feeling of ancient times:
Cloudy trees put on a hue for each of the four seasons,
But the voice of the valley spring has only one tune.
Rain makes the warbler’s robe heavy with dampness;
Warm breezes lighten the butterfly’s sleeve.
Though I’ve written poetry till I’m an old man,
I have yet to astonish the spirits and gods.
- Ishikawa Jozan (1583-1672)
Mr. Bush claimed Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher. I hope other students of philosophers learn more from their teachers than he seems to have learned from his. Martin Heidegger said the role of the teacher is "lernen lassen," to let learning happen. What Mr. Bush seems to be teaching the world is not learning, but frightening vengeance. Mr. Bush, I begin to fear, is as ill suited a teacher as he was a student.
A contrast between one and the other:
1. Gospel Luke 6:27 - 38
Jesus said, “But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to every one who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back”.
2. President Urging Wider U.S. Powers in Terrorism Law, By DAVID E. SANGER
QUANTICO, Va., Sept. 10 — President Bush called today for a significant expansion of law enforcement powers under the USA Patriot Act, using the eve of the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist acts to say that his administration was winning the war on terrorism but that "unreasonable obstacles" in the law impeded the pursuit of terror suspects.
With his speech here today at the F.B.I. training academy, where he spoke to a cheering crowd of federal investigators and troops from the nearby Marine training base, Mr. Bush plunged directly into the debate over whether the Patriot Act's provisions were too far reaching. He argued that they did not reach far enough and promised, "We will never forget the servants of evil who plotted the attacks, and we will never forget those who rejoiced at our grief."
Mr. Bush proposed letting federal law enforcement agencies issue "administrative subpoenas" in terrorism cases without obtaining approvals from judges or grand juries, expanding the federal death penalty statutes to cover more terrorism-related crimes and making it harder for people suspected in terrorism-related cases to be released on bail. (New York Times, Sept.11, 2003)
Perhaps poets make better sense of our experience than presidents.
To a Terrorist
For the historical ache, the ache passed down
which finds its circumstance and becomes
the present ache, I offer this poem
without hope, knowing there's nothing,
not even revenge, which alleviates
a life like yours. I offer it as one
might offer his father's ashes
to the wind, a gesture
when there's nothing else to do.
Still, I must say to you:
I hate your good reasons.
I hate the hatefulness that makes you fall
in love with death, your own included.
Perhaps you're hating me now,
I who own my own house
and live in a country so muscular,
so smug, it thinks its terror is meant
only to mean well, and to protect.
Christ turned his singular cheek,
one man's holiness another's absurdity.
Like you, the rest of us obey the sting,
the surge. I'm just speaking out loud
to cancel my silence. Consider it an old impulse,
doomed to become mere words.
The first poet probably spoke to thunder
and, for a while, believed
thunder had an ear and a choice.
(Poem: "To a Terrorist," by Stephen Dunn, from Between Angels (Norton).)
[Note: this poem was written prior to 9/11/01)
Garrison Keillor's touch is light and true for our reflections two years later.
On this day in 2001, it was a clear, crisp, sunny morning in New York City. Students were in their second week of school. People were getting to work in cars, buses, and trains. Alessandra Fremura had planned on leaving for work at 8:00, but her babysitter was 20 minutes late. Virginia DiChiara couldn't get her golden retrievers to come in from the backyard, so she decided to have another cup of coffee. Kenneth Merlo was supposed to go in the office, but he decided to spend the morning helping a friend hook up her computer instead of going to his office. Michael Lomonaco stopped in the lobby of the World Trade Center to order some reading glasses from the one-hour eyeglass store. Michael Jacobs was running late when he reached the Trade Center lobby. He rushed to make the elevator, but the doors slid shut in his face. A musician named Michelle Wiley was at home in her apartment. She sat down at her piano in her nightgown and shower shoes, and stared out her window at the Twin Towers before beginning to play.
We might closer note our distractions and delays.
Today, Jesus, Stephen, Garrison, and Ishikawa are far more enlightening and inspiring than George, Dick, Donald, and Paul. It is good we have philosophers, poets, raconteurs, and mountain monks to ease us through the pathways and jagged sluices of our lives.
Wherever I am to be today, I have nowhere to go.
I take bread in silence this morning.
One bread. One body.
Sacrament of unity.
With all.
Mountain air is different from the world of people,
Always with a feeling of ancient times:
Cloudy trees put on a hue for each of the four seasons,
But the voice of the valley spring has only one tune.
Rain makes the warbler’s robe heavy with dampness;
Warm breezes lighten the butterfly’s sleeve.
Though I’ve written poetry till I’m an old man,
I have yet to astonish the spirits and gods.
- Ishikawa Jozan (1583-1672)
Mr. Bush claimed Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher. I hope other students of philosophers learn more from their teachers than he seems to have learned from his. Martin Heidegger said the role of the teacher is "lernen lassen," to let learning happen. What Mr. Bush seems to be teaching the world is not learning, but frightening vengeance. Mr. Bush, I begin to fear, is as ill suited a teacher as he was a student.
A contrast between one and the other:
1. Gospel Luke 6:27 - 38
Jesus said, “But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to every one who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back”.
2. President Urging Wider U.S. Powers in Terrorism Law, By DAVID E. SANGER
QUANTICO, Va., Sept. 10 — President Bush called today for a significant expansion of law enforcement powers under the USA Patriot Act, using the eve of the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist acts to say that his administration was winning the war on terrorism but that "unreasonable obstacles" in the law impeded the pursuit of terror suspects.
With his speech here today at the F.B.I. training academy, where he spoke to a cheering crowd of federal investigators and troops from the nearby Marine training base, Mr. Bush plunged directly into the debate over whether the Patriot Act's provisions were too far reaching. He argued that they did not reach far enough and promised, "We will never forget the servants of evil who plotted the attacks, and we will never forget those who rejoiced at our grief."
Mr. Bush proposed letting federal law enforcement agencies issue "administrative subpoenas" in terrorism cases without obtaining approvals from judges or grand juries, expanding the federal death penalty statutes to cover more terrorism-related crimes and making it harder for people suspected in terrorism-related cases to be released on bail. (New York Times, Sept.11, 2003)
Perhaps poets make better sense of our experience than presidents.
To a Terrorist
For the historical ache, the ache passed down
which finds its circumstance and becomes
the present ache, I offer this poem
without hope, knowing there's nothing,
not even revenge, which alleviates
a life like yours. I offer it as one
might offer his father's ashes
to the wind, a gesture
when there's nothing else to do.
Still, I must say to you:
I hate your good reasons.
I hate the hatefulness that makes you fall
in love with death, your own included.
Perhaps you're hating me now,
I who own my own house
and live in a country so muscular,
so smug, it thinks its terror is meant
only to mean well, and to protect.
Christ turned his singular cheek,
one man's holiness another's absurdity.
Like you, the rest of us obey the sting,
the surge. I'm just speaking out loud
to cancel my silence. Consider it an old impulse,
doomed to become mere words.
The first poet probably spoke to thunder
and, for a while, believed
thunder had an ear and a choice.
(Poem: "To a Terrorist," by Stephen Dunn, from Between Angels (Norton).)
[Note: this poem was written prior to 9/11/01)
Garrison Keillor's touch is light and true for our reflections two years later.
On this day in 2001, it was a clear, crisp, sunny morning in New York City. Students were in their second week of school. People were getting to work in cars, buses, and trains. Alessandra Fremura had planned on leaving for work at 8:00, but her babysitter was 20 minutes late. Virginia DiChiara couldn't get her golden retrievers to come in from the backyard, so she decided to have another cup of coffee. Kenneth Merlo was supposed to go in the office, but he decided to spend the morning helping a friend hook up her computer instead of going to his office. Michael Lomonaco stopped in the lobby of the World Trade Center to order some reading glasses from the one-hour eyeglass store. Michael Jacobs was running late when he reached the Trade Center lobby. He rushed to make the elevator, but the doors slid shut in his face. A musician named Michelle Wiley was at home in her apartment. She sat down at her piano in her nightgown and shower shoes, and stared out her window at the Twin Towers before beginning to play.
We might closer note our distractions and delays.
Today, Jesus, Stephen, Garrison, and Ishikawa are far more enlightening and inspiring than George, Dick, Donald, and Paul. It is good we have philosophers, poets, raconteurs, and mountain monks to ease us through the pathways and jagged sluices of our lives.
Wherever I am to be today, I have nowhere to go.
I take bread in silence this morning.
One bread. One body.
Sacrament of unity.
With all.
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
We are not thinking as God does.
No difference? No other?
Once you suddenly smash through,
and go on to make the leap beyond,
you will find that everything
around you and all that you do,
whether active or at rest,
is the scenery of the
fundamental ground,
the original Mind.
There will be not a hairsbreadth
of difference between you
and other things;
there will be no other thing.
- Daito (1282-1334)
A friend sent this haiku:
Morning Prayer: Thanksgiving
Eyes drink light-filled bay,
Lungs breathe, heart beats, feet tread dew'd field
Life, not death, is Now.
(DK)
"Peace always," she writes.
Even in the draft of a hard disintegration, in the falling of cherished hope. Even with the realization things are seldom as they seem to be, in the presence of the one we look for, look at, seeing them as they are. Even when we begin to open our mouth, when we're nearly certain the truth is about to be pronounced. Even when our mind attempts to rest awhile in that place which turns out to be no-place.
Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
Along the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" They
said in reply, "John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the
prophets." And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter said
to him in reply, "You are the Christ." Then he warned them not to tell
anyone about him. He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer
greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around
and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me,
Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." He
summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "Whoever wishes to
come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For
whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life
for my sake and that of the gospel will save it." (Mark 8:27-35)
He warned them not to tell anyone about him.
We are not thinking as God does.
Dissolve self. Appears God.
Love, not death.
Safe and sound.
Groundless and silent.
No difference? No other?
Once you suddenly smash through,
and go on to make the leap beyond,
you will find that everything
around you and all that you do,
whether active or at rest,
is the scenery of the
fundamental ground,
the original Mind.
There will be not a hairsbreadth
of difference between you
and other things;
there will be no other thing.
- Daito (1282-1334)
A friend sent this haiku:
Morning Prayer: Thanksgiving
Eyes drink light-filled bay,
Lungs breathe, heart beats, feet tread dew'd field
Life, not death, is Now.
(DK)
"Peace always," she writes.
Even in the draft of a hard disintegration, in the falling of cherished hope. Even with the realization things are seldom as they seem to be, in the presence of the one we look for, look at, seeing them as they are. Even when we begin to open our mouth, when we're nearly certain the truth is about to be pronounced. Even when our mind attempts to rest awhile in that place which turns out to be no-place.
Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
Along the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" They
said in reply, "John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the
prophets." And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter said
to him in reply, "You are the Christ." Then he warned them not to tell
anyone about him. He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer
greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around
and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me,
Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." He
summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "Whoever wishes to
come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For
whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life
for my sake and that of the gospel will save it." (Mark 8:27-35)
He warned them not to tell anyone about him.
We are not thinking as God does.
Dissolve self. Appears God.
Love, not death.
Safe and sound.
Groundless and silent.
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Monday, September 08, 2003
Lost our way?
Last night at Sunday Evening Practice we read of Mary of Bethany and her perfume. "Let her have her way," was what Jesus supposedly said when the men groused about her display of love and respect.
When Jesus said elsewhere, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," he invited anyone interested in their way, the truth they seek, and the life they live to pass through the Christ that Jesus was passing through.
For the set and satisfied believers in Jesus it is sufficient to state that Jesus was the Christ, and that's the truth, you're not, and we'd better change our lives to follow Jesus. While there is merit to this formulation, it doesn't satisfy all of us.
"Let her have her way," might be a colloquial version of "G'wan, lighten' up." But something about the context and texture suggests he meant what he said, he was observing and approving her way as her way.
Today has been curiously quiet at the hermitage. Morning Eucharist at OLGH, the book order behind 'closed' sign, donuts and juice at Rockport Harbor, hurting back and nap, sitting in cabin, reading about Iraq and Bush, corn, quiche and cookies with well-water.
Calendar celebrates Nativity of Mary, Jesus’ mother, this 8th of September. Two women said rosary after service. Man watered flowers. Hiker Bill left quietly as I sat with silence a while.
It could be the 11th nears. A quiet drapes as it does when too much is heard. As if overhearing a conversation or solo lament unaware you are privy to secret utterance. The space around you becomes very still. You want to back away. Every breath is too loud. Surely you will be found out as having lost innocence.
Innocence is lost. Long lost. We have heard the braying and bantering. The behind the drapes conspiratorial plotting emerges to front step soapbox. Theses are nailed to doors of perception. Uncleansed, our sight sees only the finite details of doubtful doublespeak.
William Blake understands absence of innocence – and we live with the absence of infinity trying to see through snarling greasy panes of ass’s views about the world they desiccate and desecrate every day.
Weariness insinuates and mutes mind. It cries, ‘Away, away,’ turning this way and that to catch glimpse of finger pointing the way away. None. Just noiseless open eyes registering nothing while confronted with what is there?
War, this war, has darkened my perception. I am left prayer. So I pray: for the woman who directed adult education Midcoast; for the man who chaired St. Bonaventure University’s trustees; for thousands of Americans and thousand of Iraqis murdered, for those in Chile, Nicaragua, Palestine, Israel, Liberia, India, El Salvador, and all the myriad places chosen to be killing grounds for killers.
Thomas Keating writing in The Mystery of Christ speaks of all being, everything in the cosmos, now the residing place of Christ-Reality.
It’s not that everyone should embrace the Christian faith, not at all. It’s just that those who claim to do so should at least try to comprehend what being Christian means. Not the stupid finite fallacies of personal agenda and myopic greed -- but a cleansed view that sees through each action and thought into infinite presence suffused with what we long for most, ordinary love.
Don’t let those miserable know-it-alls divert you, Mary. Break that alabaster jar. Make a lovely stink.
Have your way.
Each our way.
Christ.
Last night at Sunday Evening Practice we read of Mary of Bethany and her perfume. "Let her have her way," was what Jesus supposedly said when the men groused about her display of love and respect.
When Jesus said elsewhere, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," he invited anyone interested in their way, the truth they seek, and the life they live to pass through the Christ that Jesus was passing through.
For the set and satisfied believers in Jesus it is sufficient to state that Jesus was the Christ, and that's the truth, you're not, and we'd better change our lives to follow Jesus. While there is merit to this formulation, it doesn't satisfy all of us.
"Let her have her way," might be a colloquial version of "G'wan, lighten' up." But something about the context and texture suggests he meant what he said, he was observing and approving her way as her way.
Today has been curiously quiet at the hermitage. Morning Eucharist at OLGH, the book order behind 'closed' sign, donuts and juice at Rockport Harbor, hurting back and nap, sitting in cabin, reading about Iraq and Bush, corn, quiche and cookies with well-water.
Calendar celebrates Nativity of Mary, Jesus’ mother, this 8th of September. Two women said rosary after service. Man watered flowers. Hiker Bill left quietly as I sat with silence a while.
It could be the 11th nears. A quiet drapes as it does when too much is heard. As if overhearing a conversation or solo lament unaware you are privy to secret utterance. The space around you becomes very still. You want to back away. Every breath is too loud. Surely you will be found out as having lost innocence.
Innocence is lost. Long lost. We have heard the braying and bantering. The behind the drapes conspiratorial plotting emerges to front step soapbox. Theses are nailed to doors of perception. Uncleansed, our sight sees only the finite details of doubtful doublespeak.
William Blake understands absence of innocence – and we live with the absence of infinity trying to see through snarling greasy panes of ass’s views about the world they desiccate and desecrate every day.
Weariness insinuates and mutes mind. It cries, ‘Away, away,’ turning this way and that to catch glimpse of finger pointing the way away. None. Just noiseless open eyes registering nothing while confronted with what is there?
War, this war, has darkened my perception. I am left prayer. So I pray: for the woman who directed adult education Midcoast; for the man who chaired St. Bonaventure University’s trustees; for thousands of Americans and thousand of Iraqis murdered, for those in Chile, Nicaragua, Palestine, Israel, Liberia, India, El Salvador, and all the myriad places chosen to be killing grounds for killers.
Thomas Keating writing in The Mystery of Christ speaks of all being, everything in the cosmos, now the residing place of Christ-Reality.
It’s not that everyone should embrace the Christian faith, not at all. It’s just that those who claim to do so should at least try to comprehend what being Christian means. Not the stupid finite fallacies of personal agenda and myopic greed -- but a cleansed view that sees through each action and thought into infinite presence suffused with what we long for most, ordinary love.
Don’t let those miserable know-it-alls divert you, Mary. Break that alabaster jar. Make a lovely stink.
Have your way.
Each our way.
Christ.
Friday, September 05, 2003
Meetingbrook Dogen & Francis Hermitage
Update, September 2003
Theme: And there was a new voice
To think and to let learn is the greatest teaching.
I
I've been thinking about metaphor.
What does it mean to tell? To think?
In Martin Heidegger’s What is Called Thinking (translated by J. Glenn Gray, c.1968), he writes:
For Holderlin uses the Greek word “Mnemosyne” as the name of a Titaness. According to the myth, she is the daughter of Heaven and Earth. Myth means the telling word. For the Greeks, to tell is to lay bare and make appear – both the appearance and that which has its essence in the appearance, its epiphany. “Mythos” is what has its essence in its telling – what is apparent in the unconcealedness of its appeal. The “mythos” is that appeal of foremost and radical concern to all human beings which makes man think of what appears, what is in being. (Heidegger, p.10)
Thinking, for Heidegger, is our response to the call that issues from the nature of things, from Being itself.
Memory is the gathering of thought. Thought of what? Thought of what holds us, in that we give it thought precisely because It matters what must be thought about. Thought has the gift of thinking back, a gift given because we incline toward it. Only when we are so inclined toward what in itself is to be thought about, only then are we capable of thinking.
In order to be capable of thinking, we need to learn it first. What is learning? Man learns when he disposes everything he does so that it answers to whatever essentials are addressed to him at any given moment. We learn to think by giving our mind to what is there to think about.(Heidegger, pp.3-4)
“Most thought-provoking,” to Heidegger, “is that we are still not thinking...”
II
How do we think of What-Is-Called-God?
"Christ is What Is...Being...Created." That's what was said last night in the circle. It was said, perhaps, without the ellipses or the capitalization. (Still, authorship, like parenting, only brings the issue into our midst; what occurs following initial arrival is open, and beyond our control.)
We are reading Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ by Andrew Harvey at Thursday Evening Conversation. Harvey is passionate and his words take long turns in dance hall length sentences.
The central benefit of Zen,
in the context of ordinary
ups and downs of life,
is not in preventing the minus
and promoting the plus,
but in directing people
to the fundamental reality
that is not under the sway of ups and downs.
- Muso Kokushi (1275-1351)
This fundamental reality is what some call God. For some there is no call to name or to assent. And for others, there is a gathering of thought that longs to remember something very basic and original, but mostly forgotten and ignored.
From a Trinitarian metaphor, if Christ is being created, (or Being Created), then the Supreme Being (often called 'Father'or 'Father/Mother') is Being Itself, and the third aspect of the Trinity (or that which transcends notions of 'one' and 'two') is Suffusing Truth Breathing Through Each and Every Being.
Too complex?
Let's say: Being Itself, Creating, Inspiriting.
Or: Being Source, Being Born, and Being Breathing Through.
Heidegger says we have forgotten Being.
III
"Logic is a very elegant tool," he [Gregory Bateson] said, "and we've got a lot of mileage out of it for two thousand years or so. The trouble is, you know, when you apply it to crabs and porpoises, and butterflies and habit formation" -- his voice trailed off, and he added after a pause, looking out over the ocean -- "you know, to all those pretty things" -- and now, looking straight at me [Capra] -- "logic won't quite do ... because that whole fabric of living things is not put together by logic. You see when you get circular trains of causation, as you always do in the living world, the use of logic will make you walk into paradoxes." ...
He stopped again, and at that moment I suddenly had an insight, making a connection to something I had been interested in for a long time. I got very excited and said with a provocative smile: "Heraclitus knew that! ... And so did Lao Tzu."
"Yes, indeed; and so do the trees over there. Logic won't do for them."
"So what do they use instead?"
"Metaphor."
"Metaphor?"
"Yes, metaphor. That's how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive."
(From Fritjof Capra, Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with remarkable people (1988) Bantam, New York [page 76-77])
I’ve been trying to remember a quote heard once about metaphor and attributed, I think, to Allie Light, the Filmmaker and Director of Dialogues with Madwomen. Something to do with everything being itself and more than itself, and that we'd better learn about metaphors, or go mad.
"The logic of the emotional mind is associative; it takes elements that symbolize a reality, or trigger a memory of it, to be the same as that reality. That is why similes, metaphors and images speak directly to the emotional mind. ... If the emotional mind follows this logic and it's rules, with one element standing for another, things need not necessarily be defined by their objective identity: what matters is how they are perceived; things are as they seem. ... Indeed, in emotional life, identities can be like a hologram in the sense that a single part evokes a whole. "
(From Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (1996) Bloomsbury, London [p. 294])
IV
Two years ago men flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon building. Last year and this year men sent bombers and military combat troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill and maim thousands named by them ‘enemy’ and ‘terrorist.’ So many young people broken and buried by violence and destruction. It is hard to think of these actions. They lack a clear call, or, the call they send forth has not been heard nor reflected upon with awareness and responsibility.
Reaction, yes: thought, no.
Ideology, yes: responsive action, no.
What is most thought provoking about the current bellicose state of the world is that we, the great majority of us, are not yet thinking.
V
"Each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny. As the force of fate, this image acts as a personal daimon, an accompanying guide who remembers your calling.
The daimon motivates. It protects. It invents and persists with stubborn fidelity. It resists compromising reasonableness and often forces deviance and oddity upon its keeper, especially when neglected or opposed. It offers comfort and can pull you into its shell, but it cannot abide innocence. It can make the body ill. It is out of step with time, finding all sorts of faults, gaps, and knots in the flow of life - and it prefers them. It has affinities with myth, since it is itself a mythical being and thinks in mythical patterns.
It has much to do with feelings of uniqueness, of grandeur and with the restlessness of the heart, its impatience, its dissatisfaction, its yearning. It needs its share of beauty. It wants to be seen, witnessed, accorded recognition, particularly by the person who is its caretaker. Metaphoric images are its first unlearned language, which provides the poetic basis of mind, making possible communication between all people and all things by means of metaphors. " (From James Hillman, The Soul's Code (1996) Random House [pages 39-40])
We need new teachers. We need teachers who will let us learn from the call that sounds from each event, person, and thing. We need to dismiss those who claim to know better than us, who decide for us, and who pursue their own fixed ideas with our resources,
The trees are not being heard. Soldiers and citizens of this and other countries are dying in hostile encounters. The metaphors of war, terrorism, payback, and self-preservation at any price no longer speak to us. They no longer speak to those in the world listening for the sounds of sanity and sensibility to reveal themselves through thinking men and women.
VI
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin thought about complexity and consciousness.
Teilhard felt that the spark of divine life he experienced in the Egyptian desert was a force present throughout the evolutionary process, guiding and shaping it every bit as much as the material forces described by physical science. Teilhard would later codify this force into two distinct, fundamental types of energy - "radial" and "tangential." Radial energy was the energy of Newtonian physics. This energy obeyed mechanistic laws, such as cause and effect, and could be quantified. Teilhard called radial energy the energy of "without." Tangential energy, on the other hand, was the energy of "within," in other words, the divine spark.
Teilhard described three types of tangential energy. In inanimate objects, he called it "pre-life." In beings that are not self-reflective, he called it "life." And in humans, he called it "consciousness." As Teilhard began to observe the world described by science, he noticed that in certain things, such as rocks, the radial energy was dominant, while the tangential energy was barely visible. Rocks, therefore, are best described by the laws that rule radial energy - physics. But in animals, in which tangential energy, or life, is present, the laws of physics are only a partial explanation. Teilhard concluded that where radial energy was dominant, the evolutionary process would be characterized by the traditional scientific laws of necessity and chance. But in those organisms in which the tangential energy was significant, the forces of life and consciousness would lead the laws of chance and natural selection.
Teilhard then moved this insight forward. As the balance of tangential energy in any given entity grew larger, he noticed that it developed naturally in the direction of consciousness. An increase in consciousness was accompanied by an increase in the overall complexity of the organism. Teilhard called this the "law of complexity consciousness," which stated that increasing complexity is accompanied by increased consciousness.
Teilhard wrote, "The living world is constituted by consciousness clothed in flesh and bone." He argued that the primary vehicle for increasing complexity consciousness among living organisms was the nervous system. The informational wiring of a being, he argued - whether of neurons or electronics - gives birth to consciousness. As the diversification of nervous connections increases, evolution is led toward greater consciousness.
As Abraham points out, Teilhard's complexity-consciousness law is the same as what we now think of as the neural net. "We now know from neural-net technology that when there are more connections between points in a system, and there is greater strength between these connections, there will be sudden leaps in intelligence, where intelligence is defined as success rate in performing a task." If one accepts this power of connections, then the planetary neural-network of the Internet is fertile soil for the emergence of a global intelligence.
Teilhard went on to argue that there have been three major phases in the evolutionary process. The first significant phase started when life was born from the development of the biosphere. The second began at the end of the Tertiary period, when humans emerged along with self-reflective thinking. And once thinking humans began communicating around the world, along came the third phase. This was Teilhard's "thinking layer" of the biosphere, called the noosphere (from the Greek noo, for mind). Though small and scattered at first, the noosphere has continued to grow over time, particularly during the age of electronics. Teilhard described the noosphere on Earth as a crystallization: "A glow rippled outward from the first spark of conscious reflection. The point of ignition grows larger. The fire spreads in ever-widening circles, he wrote, "till finally the whole planet is covered with incandescence."
His picture of the noosphere as a thinking membrane covering the planet was almost biological - it was a globe clothing itself with a brain. Teilhard wrote that the noosphere "results from the combined action of two curvatures - the roundness of the earth and the cosmic convergence of the mind." (from "A Globe, Clothing Itself with a Brain," by Jennifer Cobb Kreisberg, Wired Magazine Jun 1995, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/teilhard.html?topic=&topic_set=)
VII
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
- Mary Oliver
VIII
So much depends on felt thought, that which embraces or at least recognizes the movement toward what is whole.
Perhaps it comes time to abandon the teachings of those whose minds have shriveled to the size of “I” and “mine” and “me.”
Perhaps it is now our job to let learning happen of itself.
To now remember being. To now enter creation. To now breathe in and out the inspiration of truth suffusing each and every being, everything that is.
I will think about this now new trinity of simplicity/complexity, silence/sound, and service/transparency.
There is no end to love. We need only learn to let it be -- to begin, be heard, and then be seen.
We need to learn to think.
To let learning create.
One another.
Update, September 2003
Theme: And there was a new voice
To think and to let learn is the greatest teaching.
I
I've been thinking about metaphor.
What does it mean to tell? To think?
In Martin Heidegger’s What is Called Thinking (translated by J. Glenn Gray, c.1968), he writes:
For Holderlin uses the Greek word “Mnemosyne” as the name of a Titaness. According to the myth, she is the daughter of Heaven and Earth. Myth means the telling word. For the Greeks, to tell is to lay bare and make appear – both the appearance and that which has its essence in the appearance, its epiphany. “Mythos” is what has its essence in its telling – what is apparent in the unconcealedness of its appeal. The “mythos” is that appeal of foremost and radical concern to all human beings which makes man think of what appears, what is in being. (Heidegger, p.10)
Thinking, for Heidegger, is our response to the call that issues from the nature of things, from Being itself.
Memory is the gathering of thought. Thought of what? Thought of what holds us, in that we give it thought precisely because It matters what must be thought about. Thought has the gift of thinking back, a gift given because we incline toward it. Only when we are so inclined toward what in itself is to be thought about, only then are we capable of thinking.
In order to be capable of thinking, we need to learn it first. What is learning? Man learns when he disposes everything he does so that it answers to whatever essentials are addressed to him at any given moment. We learn to think by giving our mind to what is there to think about.(Heidegger, pp.3-4)
“Most thought-provoking,” to Heidegger, “is that we are still not thinking...”
II
How do we think of What-Is-Called-God?
"Christ is What Is...Being...Created." That's what was said last night in the circle. It was said, perhaps, without the ellipses or the capitalization. (Still, authorship, like parenting, only brings the issue into our midst; what occurs following initial arrival is open, and beyond our control.)
We are reading Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ by Andrew Harvey at Thursday Evening Conversation. Harvey is passionate and his words take long turns in dance hall length sentences.
The central benefit of Zen,
in the context of ordinary
ups and downs of life,
is not in preventing the minus
and promoting the plus,
but in directing people
to the fundamental reality
that is not under the sway of ups and downs.
- Muso Kokushi (1275-1351)
This fundamental reality is what some call God. For some there is no call to name or to assent. And for others, there is a gathering of thought that longs to remember something very basic and original, but mostly forgotten and ignored.
From a Trinitarian metaphor, if Christ is being created, (or Being Created), then the Supreme Being (often called 'Father'or 'Father/Mother') is Being Itself, and the third aspect of the Trinity (or that which transcends notions of 'one' and 'two') is Suffusing Truth Breathing Through Each and Every Being.
Too complex?
Let's say: Being Itself, Creating, Inspiriting.
Or: Being Source, Being Born, and Being Breathing Through.
Heidegger says we have forgotten Being.
III
"Logic is a very elegant tool," he [Gregory Bateson] said, "and we've got a lot of mileage out of it for two thousand years or so. The trouble is, you know, when you apply it to crabs and porpoises, and butterflies and habit formation" -- his voice trailed off, and he added after a pause, looking out over the ocean -- "you know, to all those pretty things" -- and now, looking straight at me [Capra] -- "logic won't quite do ... because that whole fabric of living things is not put together by logic. You see when you get circular trains of causation, as you always do in the living world, the use of logic will make you walk into paradoxes." ...
He stopped again, and at that moment I suddenly had an insight, making a connection to something I had been interested in for a long time. I got very excited and said with a provocative smile: "Heraclitus knew that! ... And so did Lao Tzu."
"Yes, indeed; and so do the trees over there. Logic won't do for them."
"So what do they use instead?"
"Metaphor."
"Metaphor?"
"Yes, metaphor. That's how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive."
(From Fritjof Capra, Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with remarkable people (1988) Bantam, New York [page 76-77])
I’ve been trying to remember a quote heard once about metaphor and attributed, I think, to Allie Light, the Filmmaker and Director of Dialogues with Madwomen. Something to do with everything being itself and more than itself, and that we'd better learn about metaphors, or go mad.
"The logic of the emotional mind is associative; it takes elements that symbolize a reality, or trigger a memory of it, to be the same as that reality. That is why similes, metaphors and images speak directly to the emotional mind. ... If the emotional mind follows this logic and it's rules, with one element standing for another, things need not necessarily be defined by their objective identity: what matters is how they are perceived; things are as they seem. ... Indeed, in emotional life, identities can be like a hologram in the sense that a single part evokes a whole. "
(From Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (1996) Bloomsbury, London [p. 294])
IV
Two years ago men flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon building. Last year and this year men sent bombers and military combat troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill and maim thousands named by them ‘enemy’ and ‘terrorist.’ So many young people broken and buried by violence and destruction. It is hard to think of these actions. They lack a clear call, or, the call they send forth has not been heard nor reflected upon with awareness and responsibility.
Reaction, yes: thought, no.
Ideology, yes: responsive action, no.
What is most thought provoking about the current bellicose state of the world is that we, the great majority of us, are not yet thinking.
V
"Each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny. As the force of fate, this image acts as a personal daimon, an accompanying guide who remembers your calling.
The daimon motivates. It protects. It invents and persists with stubborn fidelity. It resists compromising reasonableness and often forces deviance and oddity upon its keeper, especially when neglected or opposed. It offers comfort and can pull you into its shell, but it cannot abide innocence. It can make the body ill. It is out of step with time, finding all sorts of faults, gaps, and knots in the flow of life - and it prefers them. It has affinities with myth, since it is itself a mythical being and thinks in mythical patterns.
It has much to do with feelings of uniqueness, of grandeur and with the restlessness of the heart, its impatience, its dissatisfaction, its yearning. It needs its share of beauty. It wants to be seen, witnessed, accorded recognition, particularly by the person who is its caretaker. Metaphoric images are its first unlearned language, which provides the poetic basis of mind, making possible communication between all people and all things by means of metaphors. " (From James Hillman, The Soul's Code (1996) Random House [pages 39-40])
We need new teachers. We need teachers who will let us learn from the call that sounds from each event, person, and thing. We need to dismiss those who claim to know better than us, who decide for us, and who pursue their own fixed ideas with our resources,
The trees are not being heard. Soldiers and citizens of this and other countries are dying in hostile encounters. The metaphors of war, terrorism, payback, and self-preservation at any price no longer speak to us. They no longer speak to those in the world listening for the sounds of sanity and sensibility to reveal themselves through thinking men and women.
VI
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin thought about complexity and consciousness.
Teilhard felt that the spark of divine life he experienced in the Egyptian desert was a force present throughout the evolutionary process, guiding and shaping it every bit as much as the material forces described by physical science. Teilhard would later codify this force into two distinct, fundamental types of energy - "radial" and "tangential." Radial energy was the energy of Newtonian physics. This energy obeyed mechanistic laws, such as cause and effect, and could be quantified. Teilhard called radial energy the energy of "without." Tangential energy, on the other hand, was the energy of "within," in other words, the divine spark.
Teilhard described three types of tangential energy. In inanimate objects, he called it "pre-life." In beings that are not self-reflective, he called it "life." And in humans, he called it "consciousness." As Teilhard began to observe the world described by science, he noticed that in certain things, such as rocks, the radial energy was dominant, while the tangential energy was barely visible. Rocks, therefore, are best described by the laws that rule radial energy - physics. But in animals, in which tangential energy, or life, is present, the laws of physics are only a partial explanation. Teilhard concluded that where radial energy was dominant, the evolutionary process would be characterized by the traditional scientific laws of necessity and chance. But in those organisms in which the tangential energy was significant, the forces of life and consciousness would lead the laws of chance and natural selection.
Teilhard then moved this insight forward. As the balance of tangential energy in any given entity grew larger, he noticed that it developed naturally in the direction of consciousness. An increase in consciousness was accompanied by an increase in the overall complexity of the organism. Teilhard called this the "law of complexity consciousness," which stated that increasing complexity is accompanied by increased consciousness.
Teilhard wrote, "The living world is constituted by consciousness clothed in flesh and bone." He argued that the primary vehicle for increasing complexity consciousness among living organisms was the nervous system. The informational wiring of a being, he argued - whether of neurons or electronics - gives birth to consciousness. As the diversification of nervous connections increases, evolution is led toward greater consciousness.
As Abraham points out, Teilhard's complexity-consciousness law is the same as what we now think of as the neural net. "We now know from neural-net technology that when there are more connections between points in a system, and there is greater strength between these connections, there will be sudden leaps in intelligence, where intelligence is defined as success rate in performing a task." If one accepts this power of connections, then the planetary neural-network of the Internet is fertile soil for the emergence of a global intelligence.
Teilhard went on to argue that there have been three major phases in the evolutionary process. The first significant phase started when life was born from the development of the biosphere. The second began at the end of the Tertiary period, when humans emerged along with self-reflective thinking. And once thinking humans began communicating around the world, along came the third phase. This was Teilhard's "thinking layer" of the biosphere, called the noosphere (from the Greek noo, for mind). Though small and scattered at first, the noosphere has continued to grow over time, particularly during the age of electronics. Teilhard described the noosphere on Earth as a crystallization: "A glow rippled outward from the first spark of conscious reflection. The point of ignition grows larger. The fire spreads in ever-widening circles, he wrote, "till finally the whole planet is covered with incandescence."
His picture of the noosphere as a thinking membrane covering the planet was almost biological - it was a globe clothing itself with a brain. Teilhard wrote that the noosphere "results from the combined action of two curvatures - the roundness of the earth and the cosmic convergence of the mind." (from "A Globe, Clothing Itself with a Brain," by Jennifer Cobb Kreisberg, Wired Magazine Jun 1995, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/teilhard.html?topic=&topic_set=)
VII
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
- Mary Oliver
VIII
So much depends on felt thought, that which embraces or at least recognizes the movement toward what is whole.
Perhaps it comes time to abandon the teachings of those whose minds have shriveled to the size of “I” and “mine” and “me.”
Perhaps it is now our job to let learning happen of itself.
To now remember being. To now enter creation. To now breathe in and out the inspiration of truth suffusing each and every being, everything that is.
I will think about this now new trinity of simplicity/complexity, silence/sound, and service/transparency.
There is no end to love. We need only learn to let it be -- to begin, be heard, and then be seen.
We need to learn to think.
To let learning create.
One another.
Sunday, August 31, 2003
Thirty one years later he eats breakfast burrito in Union cafe. Coffee good. Waiter a gem.
Tonight 2nd installment of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue.
We hug, say goodnight. A kiss on stubbled cheek. I'm glad he was born.
Magnificat Anima Mea Dominum.
Mu-ge scratches something under rug.
Met Waldoboro hermit.
There are many joys!
Tonight 2nd installment of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue.
We hug, say goodnight. A kiss on stubbled cheek. I'm glad he was born.
Magnificat Anima Mea Dominum.
Mu-ge scratches something under rug.
Met Waldoboro hermit.
There are many joys!
Saturday, August 30, 2003
Becoming oneself, one forgets self.
57.
A realm is governed by ordinary acts,
A battle is governed by extraordinary acts;
The world is governed by no acts at all.
And how do I know/
Act after act prohibits
Everything but poverty,
Weapon after weapon conquers
Everything but chaos,
Business after business provides
A craze of waste,
Law after law breeds
A multitude of thieves.
Therefore a sensible man says:
If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves,
If I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves,
If I keep from preaching at people, they improve themselves,
If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves.
(from The Way of Life according to LaoTzu, Translated by Witter Bynner)
If you were asked to prove you were human, what would you do? If asked to present your credentials as a member of a particular denomination, church, religion, or belief system – how would you display your integrity with that reality, without trying to convince someone you are indeed that reality? If someone stood in front of you asking you if you actually exist, if you were there as who you are, what might you possibly respond that would be of any worth to the questioner and the questioned?
It is most urgent that you seek real, true perception,
So you can be free in the world
And not confused by ordinary practitioners.
It is best to have no obsessions.
Just don’t be contrived.
Simply be normal.
You impulsively seek elsewhere,
Looking to others for your own hands and feet.
This is already mistaken.
- Linji (d. 867)
Recently someone wondered if my credentials to be who I am were good enough.
I wrote something in response that becomes for me a meditation.
In the Zen tradition there's a tricky phrase that goes, "Don't make two;
don't make one." The instant we think something is outside something else,
we make two. And when we try to fit it back in, we make one. So, the saying
"Don't make two; don't make one" suggests the suffering we create and
contribute to when, in our minds, we fail to grasp the original reality.
What is the original reality? And why is it that nothing can separate us
from it?
In our Christian tradition, the original reality is that nothing exists
apart from God, who/which, we say, is Love Itself. We say: God created the
world, and everything that is exists because of creation. Further, as
Catholic Christians, we hold the idea of the Trinity. The Trinity suggests
that the creator, creation itself, and the life-energy inspiring and
sustaining everything (what we call the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit) are distinct, involved, and inseparable from one-another.
In other words: God is love. We are in God. God is in us. And the Spirit of
Truth suffuses us, even if we think otherwise.
Many of us as Catholics look at the mystery of creation, incarnation, and
resurrection with a pious devotion that veils a cautious and skeptical mind.
The mystery involving Jesus’ saying, “I and the Father are one,” and then,
holding bread and wine, saying, “Take and eat, this is my body, this is my
blood,” is often far, far beyond our imagination and/or comprehension. The
Holy Spirit is, for many Catholics, something to do with charismatic and
evangelical expressions of prayer, or the episcopate’s kindly slap at
Confirmation, and less to do with the Spirit of Truth undergirding the very
ground of being.
Francis, I suspect, grasped the unity without trying to make it one. It is
my suspicion Francis saw everything and everyone in its original reality,
that is, in the light of God. Thus, when the crucifix at San Damiano was
experienced as saying, “Repair my church,” Francis grasped without thinking
the full spectrum of the experience.
Stone by stone, person by person, Christian by Muslim, Francis saw the light
of God illuminating each being. This “church,” this expression of love --
unconditional and nonjudgmental – needed again to be prepared (L.‘re-parare').
As John the Baptist, and Isaiah before him, cried out to us, “Prepare
the way of the Lord, Prepare the way for the Lord!”
Francis was not distracted by names, or categories, stipulations, or
anything suggesting that God was not in the particular being encountered in
his or our daily life. Open-minded Buddhists bow with reverence to Francis’
love, respect, and reverence for all beings, sentient or not. Perhaps this
is how we are to care for this world.
Everybody likes the stories of the wolf, the leper, and brother sun sister
moon. And yet, the ground of being that is the inspiration and sustenance of
those stories, the insight and stewardship that interpenetrate daily
responsive behavior following from dwelling in, and indwelling of, the
reality of God – -- is a story hard to hear, and harder yet to embody.
Thanks be that Jesus embodied so wonderfully the story. Thanks be that
Francis mirrored that embodiment so remarkably. As for the rest of us, it is
a joy that we have the story repeated so often to us. Again. And again.
Perhaps, soon, we’ll hear it, and hear it whole, and thereby embody it with
graceful and gracious humility. In a process of sacred realization, we’ll be
Franciscan, we’ll be Christian, and we’ll be “en famille Dieu.”
(from letter to D.L. from Camden, 28aug03)
It is the joy of questions to find their own answers.
57.
A realm is governed by ordinary acts,
A battle is governed by extraordinary acts;
The world is governed by no acts at all.
And how do I know/
Act after act prohibits
Everything but poverty,
Weapon after weapon conquers
Everything but chaos,
Business after business provides
A craze of waste,
Law after law breeds
A multitude of thieves.
Therefore a sensible man says:
If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves,
If I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves,
If I keep from preaching at people, they improve themselves,
If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves.
(from The Way of Life according to LaoTzu, Translated by Witter Bynner)
If you were asked to prove you were human, what would you do? If asked to present your credentials as a member of a particular denomination, church, religion, or belief system – how would you display your integrity with that reality, without trying to convince someone you are indeed that reality? If someone stood in front of you asking you if you actually exist, if you were there as who you are, what might you possibly respond that would be of any worth to the questioner and the questioned?
It is most urgent that you seek real, true perception,
So you can be free in the world
And not confused by ordinary practitioners.
It is best to have no obsessions.
Just don’t be contrived.
Simply be normal.
You impulsively seek elsewhere,
Looking to others for your own hands and feet.
This is already mistaken.
- Linji (d. 867)
Recently someone wondered if my credentials to be who I am were good enough.
I wrote something in response that becomes for me a meditation.
In the Zen tradition there's a tricky phrase that goes, "Don't make two;
don't make one." The instant we think something is outside something else,
we make two. And when we try to fit it back in, we make one. So, the saying
"Don't make two; don't make one" suggests the suffering we create and
contribute to when, in our minds, we fail to grasp the original reality.
What is the original reality? And why is it that nothing can separate us
from it?
In our Christian tradition, the original reality is that nothing exists
apart from God, who/which, we say, is Love Itself. We say: God created the
world, and everything that is exists because of creation. Further, as
Catholic Christians, we hold the idea of the Trinity. The Trinity suggests
that the creator, creation itself, and the life-energy inspiring and
sustaining everything (what we call the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit) are distinct, involved, and inseparable from one-another.
In other words: God is love. We are in God. God is in us. And the Spirit of
Truth suffuses us, even if we think otherwise.
Many of us as Catholics look at the mystery of creation, incarnation, and
resurrection with a pious devotion that veils a cautious and skeptical mind.
The mystery involving Jesus’ saying, “I and the Father are one,” and then,
holding bread and wine, saying, “Take and eat, this is my body, this is my
blood,” is often far, far beyond our imagination and/or comprehension. The
Holy Spirit is, for many Catholics, something to do with charismatic and
evangelical expressions of prayer, or the episcopate’s kindly slap at
Confirmation, and less to do with the Spirit of Truth undergirding the very
ground of being.
Francis, I suspect, grasped the unity without trying to make it one. It is
my suspicion Francis saw everything and everyone in its original reality,
that is, in the light of God. Thus, when the crucifix at San Damiano was
experienced as saying, “Repair my church,” Francis grasped without thinking
the full spectrum of the experience.
Stone by stone, person by person, Christian by Muslim, Francis saw the light
of God illuminating each being. This “church,” this expression of love --
unconditional and nonjudgmental – needed again to be prepared (L.‘re-parare').
As John the Baptist, and Isaiah before him, cried out to us, “Prepare
the way of the Lord, Prepare the way for the Lord!”
Francis was not distracted by names, or categories, stipulations, or
anything suggesting that God was not in the particular being encountered in
his or our daily life. Open-minded Buddhists bow with reverence to Francis’
love, respect, and reverence for all beings, sentient or not. Perhaps this
is how we are to care for this world.
Everybody likes the stories of the wolf, the leper, and brother sun sister
moon. And yet, the ground of being that is the inspiration and sustenance of
those stories, the insight and stewardship that interpenetrate daily
responsive behavior following from dwelling in, and indwelling of, the
reality of God – -- is a story hard to hear, and harder yet to embody.
Thanks be that Jesus embodied so wonderfully the story. Thanks be that
Francis mirrored that embodiment so remarkably. As for the rest of us, it is
a joy that we have the story repeated so often to us. Again. And again.
Perhaps, soon, we’ll hear it, and hear it whole, and thereby embody it with
graceful and gracious humility. In a process of sacred realization, we’ll be
Franciscan, we’ll be Christian, and we’ll be “en famille Dieu.”
(from letter to D.L. from Camden, 28aug03)
It is the joy of questions to find their own answers.
Friday, August 29, 2003
"It's prison."
That's how he summed it up this morning. He lives there. I just visit for conversation.
The worthies of old all had
means of emancipating people.
What I teach people just requires
you not to take on the confusion of others.
If you need to act, then act,
without any further hesitation or doubt.
- Lin Chi (d 867?)
It was one of those situations where there were punches, then a hitting with blunt object, blood, teeth knocked out, the impulse to destroy the other, then -- by mutual convenience -- a tacit understanding to let it be, no charges or counter-charges. "Least said, soonest mended."
Prison.
We read Eckhart Tolle's first chapter in Stillness Speaks. It begins:
When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.
Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form.
Justin and Paco, Sonny and Joe, Jeremy and myself shared stillness in prison this morning.
Even with no escape, freedom is speaking with stillness.
At Camden Harbor tonight, Windjammer Weekend fireworks begin at 9pm.
Brad's here, Miles too, Sam, Sheila, Dori, Theresa, and the Victory Chimes three-master gather dockside with larger numbers milling near -- this array of celebration.
Pizza arrives.
That's how he summed it up this morning. He lives there. I just visit for conversation.
The worthies of old all had
means of emancipating people.
What I teach people just requires
you not to take on the confusion of others.
If you need to act, then act,
without any further hesitation or doubt.
- Lin Chi (d 867?)
It was one of those situations where there were punches, then a hitting with blunt object, blood, teeth knocked out, the impulse to destroy the other, then -- by mutual convenience -- a tacit understanding to let it be, no charges or counter-charges. "Least said, soonest mended."
Prison.
We read Eckhart Tolle's first chapter in Stillness Speaks. It begins:
When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.
Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form.
Justin and Paco, Sonny and Joe, Jeremy and myself shared stillness in prison this morning.
Even with no escape, freedom is speaking with stillness.
At Camden Harbor tonight, Windjammer Weekend fireworks begin at 9pm.
Brad's here, Miles too, Sam, Sheila, Dori, Theresa, and the Victory Chimes three-master gather dockside with larger numbers milling near -- this array of celebration.
Pizza arrives.
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Monica yesterday. Augustine today.
Last night Trungpa's comments about the "sore spot," the open vulnerability that allows in the germ of compassion.
Over the ages you have followed objects,
Never once turning back to look within.
Time slips away;
Months and years are wasted.
- Kuei-Shan (771-854)
Alaya is the abode of home, before "I" and "other" became separated in our minds.
My homeless spirit is months and years wandering town to town. Like avowed Indian in the words of The Sanyasin's First Day (a children's book by Ned Shank, 1999):
"It was the sanyasin's first day. He sat in the shade of a tree beside the busy road with his walking-stick, dressed in his brand new orange cloth. He had given away everything he owned to lead the holy life of a sanyasin, to do nothing but pray, and walk from town to town, begging for just enough rice to fill his bowl."
My courage is not so specific. I often ignore my heart. Thus, as Augustine said, it is restless. And remains restless until it rests in what is supreme, utmost, clear light reality, God.
Jesus said, “Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Gospel Matthew 24:42 - 51)
Thieves have taken from me everything I thought important -- dreams, hopes, plans, and understanding.
1, Thus says the LORD: The heavens are my throne, the earth is my footstool. What kind of house can you build for me; what is to be my resting place?
2, My hand made all these things when all of them came to be, says the LORD. This is the one whom I approve: the lowly and afflicted man who trembles at my word. (Isaiah, Chapter 66)
Mostly I shudder. Or is it shrug? What kind of house is this empty place where what I thought I was moves out and the space widens with unknowing?
The ground before I and other?
Holy ground?
Creation itself...
Last night Trungpa's comments about the "sore spot," the open vulnerability that allows in the germ of compassion.
Over the ages you have followed objects,
Never once turning back to look within.
Time slips away;
Months and years are wasted.
- Kuei-Shan (771-854)
Alaya is the abode of home, before "I" and "other" became separated in our minds.
My homeless spirit is months and years wandering town to town. Like avowed Indian in the words of The Sanyasin's First Day (a children's book by Ned Shank, 1999):
"It was the sanyasin's first day. He sat in the shade of a tree beside the busy road with his walking-stick, dressed in his brand new orange cloth. He had given away everything he owned to lead the holy life of a sanyasin, to do nothing but pray, and walk from town to town, begging for just enough rice to fill his bowl."
My courage is not so specific. I often ignore my heart. Thus, as Augustine said, it is restless. And remains restless until it rests in what is supreme, utmost, clear light reality, God.
Jesus said, “Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Gospel Matthew 24:42 - 51)
Thieves have taken from me everything I thought important -- dreams, hopes, plans, and understanding.
1, Thus says the LORD: The heavens are my throne, the earth is my footstool. What kind of house can you build for me; what is to be my resting place?
2, My hand made all these things when all of them came to be, says the LORD. This is the one whom I approve: the lowly and afflicted man who trembles at my word. (Isaiah, Chapter 66)
Mostly I shudder. Or is it shrug? What kind of house is this empty place where what I thought I was moves out and the space widens with unknowing?
The ground before I and other?
Holy ground?
Creation itself...
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
May all beings come to dwell in their true home!
Alaya is a Sanskrit word meaning "abode," or "basis," or "home," or "ground."
Every day priests minutely examine the Dharma
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters
Sent by the wind and rain,
The snow and moon.
- Ikkyu (1394-1491)
'Himalaya,' means abode of snow.
The love letters sent to us, the love letters we sent to others, these are cricket song, breeze through leaves, and sun on windowsill.
We are at home when nothing comes between us and what is the ground of our being.
Where is home to you and me?
What is home…
Alaya is a Sanskrit word meaning "abode," or "basis," or "home," or "ground."
Every day priests minutely examine the Dharma
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters
Sent by the wind and rain,
The snow and moon.
- Ikkyu (1394-1491)
'Himalaya,' means abode of snow.
The love letters sent to us, the love letters we sent to others, these are cricket song, breeze through leaves, and sun on windowsill.
We are at home when nothing comes between us and what is the ground of our being.
Where is home to you and me?
What is home…
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
The bookshop/bakery is closed today.
Though we’ve been dwelling together,
I don’t know his name:
Going along accepting the flow,
Just being thus,
Even the eminent sages since antiquity
Don’t know him.
How could the hasty ordinary type
Presume to understand?
- Shitou
He is solitude; she is silence. Today they separately obey the command of sanctuary.
If there is to be a sane world full of sane people, it must begin with cricket sound in August's exhalation.
When friends these days wonder whether we are disappearing, I can only listen to hear how far I am from cricket sound.
Today I am far away. Today I am at the outer echo of morning chant crickets sing in praise of outer edges.
Far off. Going adrift. Unable to recognize the faces and voices of the country once my home.
Ordinary.
Aslant.
Though we’ve been dwelling together,
I don’t know his name:
Going along accepting the flow,
Just being thus,
Even the eminent sages since antiquity
Don’t know him.
How could the hasty ordinary type
Presume to understand?
- Shitou
He is solitude; she is silence. Today they separately obey the command of sanctuary.
If there is to be a sane world full of sane people, it must begin with cricket sound in August's exhalation.
When friends these days wonder whether we are disappearing, I can only listen to hear how far I am from cricket sound.
Today I am far away. Today I am at the outer echo of morning chant crickets sing in praise of outer edges.
Far off. Going adrift. Unable to recognize the faces and voices of the country once my home.
Ordinary.
Aslant.
Monday, August 25, 2003
Who can hear such silence?
The wholeness of life has, from of old,
Been made manifest in its parts;
Clarity has been made manifest in heaven,
Firmness in earth,
Purity in the spirit,
If rim and spoke and hub were not,
Where would be the chariot?
Who will prefer the jingle of jade pendants
If they once have heard the stone
Growing in a cliff?
- Lao Tzu
When desperate, eye sees and ear hears.
When distracted, jingle diverts attention.
I have forgotten so much for so long.
Breath prays looking without hope.
Crickets!
The wholeness of life has, from of old,
Been made manifest in its parts;
Clarity has been made manifest in heaven,
Firmness in earth,
Purity in the spirit,
If rim and spoke and hub were not,
Where would be the chariot?
Who will prefer the jingle of jade pendants
If they once have heard the stone
Growing in a cliff?
- Lao Tzu
When desperate, eye sees and ear hears.
When distracted, jingle diverts attention.
I have forgotten so much for so long.
Breath prays looking without hope.
Crickets!
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Some days, just looking at trees, or roots along hilly path, is all you can do.
I have come to profoundly dislike the path America's leaders walk.
It is time for change.
The heart and the cross in chapel/zendo are silent signs of this contemplative time.
Some days a heart broken by lies and deception, along with a cross on which hangs suffering worldwide community -- is a sight too hard to look at.
Some friends persist in senseless arrogance grousing slogans about freedom and patriotism.
Some friends bleed out and expire hope that some dark conspiracy has not numbed a naive country, a conspiracy of proportions unimagined seeping from what once was known as the People's House.
As for me, today, I can only look at trees. I look at roots along hilly path.
I disbelieve.
I have come to profoundly dislike the path America's leaders walk.
It is time for change.
The heart and the cross in chapel/zendo are silent signs of this contemplative time.
Some days a heart broken by lies and deception, along with a cross on which hangs suffering worldwide community -- is a sight too hard to look at.
Some friends persist in senseless arrogance grousing slogans about freedom and patriotism.
Some friends bleed out and expire hope that some dark conspiracy has not numbed a naive country, a conspiracy of proportions unimagined seeping from what once was known as the People's House.
As for me, today, I can only look at trees. I look at roots along hilly path.
I disbelieve.
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