Let us be what is where we are.

Soon, we might learn to say: "This is where I am."

While sitting on daybed in kitchen beside Sando, Saskia says: "We are where and who we are...fully."

"Grace" is that which is...given.

“I believe in a poetry determined by the language of which it is made. I look to words, and nothing else, for my own redemption… I mean the words as opposed to content.”
—Robert Creeley

No doubt about it, nor any external reference point, we are what is where we are.

If the words "Christ consciousness" are said, they are the thing itself flowering -- not imposed from without, not inhabited from within -- but, what is itself flowering, as it is, no other.

Do not speak of God. Reveal, instead, what is the manifestation of Itself. Word the wordless with becoming silence.

As you just might be doing right now.

Words pass in silence. They are heard more clearly in their passing away.

I have not heard of a single Buddha, past or present,
who has been enlightened by sacred prayers
and scriptures.
- Bassui

Sando just showed up at cabin door and was let in. Later came Cesco. They arrived in time for Heart Sutra. After the silence and the chanting they knew there would be dinner.

To destroy dualism means to have an attention that is on the border between presence and absence, between good and evil, between A and not-A. Attention directed solely to Presence, to the higher, is the inner equivalent of blind devotion to an external God. For the Higher or the Innermost is actually external to myself here and now. Those who say they are not seeking the external God of the West, but the Innermost self are in danger of a subtle deception. It is still in essence attachment to the world of holy words, images, visualizations. Attention directed solely to the lower is the inner equivalent of atheism and leads to "suicide" -- cynicism and loneliness.
(pp. 159-160, Fr Sylvan citing St. Simeon the New Theologian in Lost Christianity, A Journey of Rediscovery To The Center of Christian Experience, by Jacob Needleman, c.1980)

Around table at Sunday Evening Practice individuals spoke: of dark rooms while wearing dark glasses; of middle places without compass; of patience arising from suffering; of temporary awareness that "lets" and the "letting" necessary to pass through into extended watchfulness. These fragments of reflection -- the curious incursion through doubt, neurosis, and once fixed but now deteriorating belief about anything -- into what we say is another day.

This attention of the heart, this question within movement is actually another, intimate movement that spontaneously arises in the moment between life and death, when the ego is wounded and God is still distant; this attention is prayer in the sense of the Psalmist who asks, and asks and asks; it is that which watches and waits in the night.
(--Needleman, p.160)

We watch and wait in the night.

Asking again and often: "Let us?"

Occupy.

Our midst.

Sando rests on bed in kitchen after surgery for cancer. Cesco got most of the pizza crusts tonight.

In prison this morning man works on the alphabet. Keeps writing "n" for "s" in "basket." We have plenty of one-to-one time.

In regular Meetingbrook Conversation in afternoon we speak about Husserl and phenomenology. We wonder whether intersubjectivity leaves residue of consciousness on three styrofoam cups.

Twelve years and ten years along in prison for two of the men. One talks about his son, the other his daughter -- how it is time goes by without them.

Just because something is what it is, doesn't mean accepting it that way makes anything easier.

Radical empiricism, or immediate experience, is our life-world. Where we are is where life experiences itself in the world.

Today life tries an experience of awareness.

We must investigate.

It is a great misfortune for those
Engaged in learning to take the
Sayings of the sages as mere
Verbal exercises.
- Xue Xuan (1389-1464)

Investigate how the galaxies came to be. How up and down are relative terms. How fossils of fish are embedded along the top of the Himalayan mountain range.

We need to investigate why the Ten Commandments and the Four Noble Truths have nailed the ways we humans lose our way. Why con artists and fraud bilkers are so successful at separating us from our money. Why we would want to go anywhere when the cost of automobile and travel is so expensive.

And then we might wish to investigate the healing loveliness of stillness. The refreshing simplicity of silence. The lithe poetry of spring leaves in twilight breeze.

Sages say something worth hearing.

Wisdom.

Worth.

Hearing.

Where is truth?

Therefore, Ananda, be as a lamp unto yourselves, be as a refuge to yourselves. Take no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the Truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone besides yourselves.
- The Buddha

Truth is not outside. Truth is not inside. Truth is siding itself. It is the immediate next someone. It is the immediate next something.

Truth is relational.

If we ask -- Where is truth? -- we must be willing to face truth.

Truth is nothing other -- it is our engaged interrelating presence as, with, and through what is called -- Truth.

The Tobacconist's
I am nothing.
I shall always be nothing.
I can only want to be nothing.
Apart from this, I have in me all the dreams in the world.
(-- the first four lines of "The Tobacconist's", Ãlvaro de Campos, Lisbon, 15-1-1928, heteronym of Fernando Pessoa, 1888-1935)

Sometimes, nothing -- is all we can realize.

Between you and me. The immediate next. Interim. Betwixt. Thin Place. Itself "I AM."

Siding immediate -- our engaged interrelation with all that is -- a light unto itself.

Siding ourselves in siding itself -- the absolute nearside -- where truth is.

Shall we meet there?

Lamp unto itself all the world.

Blame is substitute for awareness.

Mostly when we blame someone or something we do so from the hiding place of fear or anger. Blame is duality's first line of attack. If we refuse the invitation to awaken, blame is the rejection notice we send out.

The Brahman Dona saw the Buddha sitting under a tree and was impressed by his peaceful air of alertness and his good demeanor. He asked the Buddha:
"Are you a god?"
"No, Brahman, I am not a god."
"Then an angel?"
"No indeed, Brahman."
"A spirit then?"
"No, I am not a spirit."
"Then what are you?"
"I am awake."
- Anguttara Nikaya

At Friday Evening Interreligious Dialogue Conversation we read footnotes by Sri Aurobindo. This Tuesday morning Saskia stirs dough for chocolate puffs. She remembers Aurobindo's words on quietude and simplicity. They are part of the balance from which action springs. The conversation spoke about egolessness. One person said that as long as we have a body we have an ego.

For a contrarian, the opposite of whatever is shown or said is also seen or heard. Perhaps it is inaccurate to say "egoless." Maybe the word "egoistic" applies. Or, "ego is tic" is a helpful breakout of the word.

A tic is -- "A habitual spasmodic muscular movement or contraction, usually of the face or extremities." Tic is also called habit spasm. (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tic)

We have, and often are, a habit spasm. This habit spasm is in response to stimuli, conditions, or persons. This usually happens when we are unaware and separated from the well of our true being. We are parched and dry, frightened or anxious to please, desperate or blindly grasping at straw. Habit spasm is unawake reaction. Ego is tic twitching the extremities of our body, emotions, or thinking. Mindless action, defensive emotions, or blaming thinking usually follows.

The well of our being -- the wellness of being -- is ignored during egoistic episodes in our daily life. We exhaust ourselves in these episodes. We have fallen asleep.

Buddha said he was awake.

There is no substitute for being awake.

We are blameless.

In this, well.

We honor and pray for all dead and deadened by war.

Are we ready to go? Is it time to end suffering and craving? Do we yet see peace?

18. By the power of that Buddha's Original Vows,
All who hear his Name and desire birth,
Will, without exception, be born in his land
And effortlessly enter the Stage of Non-retrogression.

19. Bodhisattvas, if you make vows
That your lands will be like this,
While aspiring to save all beings everywhere,
Your name will be renowned throughout the ten quarters.

20. In order to serve millions of Tathagatas,
You can assume various forms and fly to those lands;
After worshipping them with joyful hearts,
You will return to the Land of Peace and Provision.'
(from THE LARGER SUTRA ON AMITAYUS: Part 2, Translated from Chinese by Hisao Inagaki}

("Tathagata" means "Thus gone one." It is a term the Buddha used about someone who has brought an end to suffering and has reached nibbana.
"Nibbana" is the highest goal in Buddhism, the third noble truth. It signifies the end of suffering and craving, the attainment of perfect peace. Ultimately, however, it defies description.)

We nearly approach a time when we see war for what it is -- mindless destruction.

We near awareness of an immaculate element wherein we'll see through every illusion -- when mind reveals clear peace, true heart.

Until then, we look into the eyes of the deadened and stand silent at the burial places of the dead -- and weep.

Silence is
Still
Unworded.
(wfh)

Maybe all we can do is learn how to see and say the world.

Like entrusting yourself
To a brave person
When greatly afraid,
By entrusting yourself
To the awakening mind,
You will be swiftly liberated,
Even if you have made appalling errors.
- Majjhima Nikaya

Maybe what some call forgiveness, and others call awareness, is a way worth considering.

Poem is
Being
Written.
(wfh)

Sitting with others during Poetry, Tea, and Literature yesterday, these four word glimpses ask to be spoken. One final one today.

Holiness is
Itself
Revealing
(wfh)

There are a thousand ways up a mountain. Some harder than others. A few, easy. None deny there is a mountain.

Subhuti, does it occur to you that I believe that through me living beings are led to liberation? Never think that way, Subhuti. Why? Because there is no separate being to lead to liberation. If I were to think there was, I would be caught in the notion of a self or person or a life span. Subhuti, what I call a self is essentially not a self in the way that an ordinary person thinks of it. But neither do I think of anyone as an ordinary person. However, knowing the essence, I can use the name, ordinary person.
- Diamond Sutra

I said tonight I am not egoless, but ecoless -- that is, homeless. We were disagreeing about something at conversation. I was cranky. I didn't enjoy hearing observations that excluded others -- either by dint of superiority, or dint of someone's way being the true way.

It seldom cheers me to hear an overt or insinuated inclination to impress or drive in forcibly the prevalence of one belief system over another, or dismissal of a point of view before all efforts to clarify are exhausted. I'm not fond of this when done by Christians or Muslims, Republicans or Democrats, Harvard grads or drug dealers.

The judgmental mind -- the mind constantly reinforcing hierarchical thinking -- is seldom satisfied short of belittling or patronizing a perceived underling.

I'm not fond of the current administration in Washington. Nobody asked, but I'm not fond of those in the shadows who own these politicians and power players. It distresses me that the truth of Pat Tillman's death was manipulated by them. That Terry Schiavo's agony was fodder for their trough. It pains me that family members of men and women killed daily in Iraq begin to feel through their tears a cold suspicion that their lost loved ones paid a steep price for lies and deception, for arrogance and ambition on the part of their command betters.

For those who brush off the tragedy of this belligerent folly by claiming a high road of rhetoric and spirituality, I say -- stop. Stop before the spirit of this nation is tarnished beyond repair by revenge and torture. Stop before the men following very uncertain tendencies lead us into a darkness too enclosed to allow escape.

In prison today some inmates say that they'd like to have a writing circle to hone skills of expression, clarity, and insight.

The crimes for which they serve time are serious. The crimes committed in my name in the Middle East, under orders of doubtful legitimacy claiming to serve my security, are far more serious. It gives me no joy to witness justice so unevenly distributed.

What joy I do experience is with a diverse loosely-knit association of a conversant community -- in prison, or, in town -- willing to face their lives in the open; to say so; to ransom integrity.

This Memorial Day weekend demands an integrity of recollection. The dead buried and the deadened living among us as a result of war deserve our integrity.

You, Lord, are in our midst, and we are called by your name; therefore do not abandon us, Lord, our God. (Jeremiah 14:9, Night Prayer)

On Memorial Day our attentive salute needs to be followed by careful introspection.

It's an old revelation. We've forgotten it. Or we've made it into one of those bridges we burn.

Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam meam in vitam aeternam. Amen. (May the body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep my soul unto life eternal.)

The Irish man said when he dies he wants his body taken to Tibet, hacked into pieces, and given air burial. He's not for cremation. He'll settle for being thrown in a trunk of a car, driven downeast, and dropped in a dug hole in the woods -- fully clothed, if you please, no bother.

The mighty ocean has but one taste,
The taste of salt.
Even so, the true way has
But one savor,
The savor of freedom.
- Majjhima Nikaya

Saying something about the Body of Christ without true faith is like trying to say something about air without breathing. That true faith is an intangible thing. It's not that you believe something -- that's just skin. It's that you affirm an experience incapable of any verification -- that's bone marrow. That experience is every breath we take and each thing seen or sound heard. It is the scent of rain rising from dirt before felt splashing on face.

This fabric of matter, the fact of existence itself, and the empty mind that follows the gaze of eyes falling gently on every passing thing -- this is sinew and willingness to move muscle and yawn with abandon.

I have said to the Lord "“You are my Lord, in you alone is all my good"”.
(From Psalm 16, Compline, Thursday)

Forget the hocus pocus. Remember Christ each time body is realized, each time blood flows through veins, or drips helpless to ground.

Some new understanding waits in empty barn for growing season to come. Fields are wet. Corn will get in late. Bees are scarce. Old grain is rationed. It will not satisfy new hunger.

Tonight I pray for the bodies of men and women, children and nature caught in the terror of war and deception of explanation of war. I pray for the Body of Christ unrecognized in person but adored in ideology. It is the feast of Corpus Christi.

All day I've looked at these hands.

They reveal something unimagined.

See them together, profound bow, greeting God.

When it rains, get wet. When you sleep, rest well. When it is time to awake, do not hesitate.

Every day Ruiyan would call to himself, "Master, Master!"
And every day he would respond, "Yes, yes."
Then he would say, "Be awake! Be alert!"
"Yes!"
"From now on, don't be fooled by anything."
"No, I won't be!"
(Mumonkan Case 12)

There are some who want to fool us. There are swindlers who want to take our money. There are feckless bullies who try to twist everything to their advantage. That's how things are at times. That's where we live in the world. What is to be done?

On That Side, beyond the clouds,
The mountain is blue-green as jade
The white clouds on the mountain
Are whiter than white
From the spring on the mountain,
Drop after drop
Who knows how to see the face
In the white clouds?
Clear skies and rain have their times,
They're like lightening
Who knows how to listen to the
Sound of this spring?
It flows on without stopping
Through thousands
And thousands of turns
The moment before thought is
Already wrong
To try to say anything further
Is embarrassing.
- T'aego (1301-1382)

The brook turns and tumbles down mountain these days of rain. It sings and dances with abandon and delight. It goes where it goes without thought of where it is going. Brook is simply every place it is.

We must be everywhere we are. As who we are. Wherever we find ourselves that is where we are. That's the practice. The practice is not to be fooled. Not to pretend we are what we are not. Not to try for what is not ours to attain. Not to hide what is already in the open.

There are those who live to deceive and be deceived. Don't do that.

There are those who live to love and be kind. Do that.

A time will come when whatever is authentically itself will be free to be authentically Itself.

I like the fact that to be enlightened is to be exactly what one is. Without and within; alone and with others; turning one to another and turning back with no effort, no fear, and no idea but the thing itself.

No fooling.

The woman didn't mean to ridicule it, nor did the retired minister mean to make fun of it, when they pointed out that the thought of bread becoming the Body of Christ was absurd and cannibalistic.

This morning at Eucharist the thought never occurred to me. It was, like any conversation, a moment allowing light to shine through the reality with which Spirit and Matter bowed one to the other, one as the other.

The rain has stopped,
The clouds have drifted away,
And the weather is clear again.
If your heart is pure,
Then all things in your world are pure.
Abandon this fleeting world,
Abandon yourself,
Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the Way.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

It has stopped raining. For now. Days have followed days of rain.

Who knows what takes place when sacred reality interpenetrates what we call ordinary reality? Reality, I submit, is only and always reality, wherever it is.

Does God become human? Does God become word? Does God become bread?

God becomes whatever God is.

The metric theology and mathematical suppositions about the edge of spirit nearing the edge of matter are contemporary versions of angels and pinheads.

It is a matter of out of sight out of mind. We cannot see what we are not conscious of. With consciousness comes seeing. What we consider magical transubstantiation is, in contemporary thought, integral holistic interpenetration. When we come to see, nothing -- nothing -- is impossible to the seeing mind/heart.

And when we do come to see, we see nothing special. Bread is sacred food. Christ is sacred word. Word is sacred moment. Now is sacred Christ. And all of it is simply the reality of being-in-the-world through the manifest enlightenment of What Is Itself.

But, we don't see it. We are not conscious of the gift laid out before us every day. The gift of one another. The gift of bread. The gift of rain, flowers, sunshine, tall grass, panting dog, and complaining cat. Of sunflower seed stuffed in chipmunk mouth. The gift of seeing Itself.

We don't mean to ridicule life in all its glorious manifestation. But we do. We try to make our opinion rise from the corpse of another's opinion. Let's not try that trick. Let's listen to one another. Let's try to see through words and experience to the reality itself.

Be egregious egalitarians.

Honor thyself by forgetting thyself and remembering to wash the dishes, empty the garbage, and say goodnight kindly to all who momentarily leave your sight.

Hold each in your heart.

In your mind.

Lightly.

Wind bends trees. Rain drenches earth. Silence reveals nothing.

There is nothing in front of you;
Nothing, yet everything is as usual.
Do not belabor wisdom to examine it;
Substance itself is empty and obscure.
(--Niutou Farong, 594-657)

There are times words say pseudo-nothing with annoying insistence. Listen to presidential platitudes. Listen to senate monologues. Or corporate executives.

Thoughts arise and pass away,
The preceding no different from the succeeding.
If the succeeding thought does not arise,
The preceding thought cuts itself off.
(--Farong)

We talk too much. Stay too long. Try too hard.

In past, present, and future,
There is nothing;
No mind, no buddha.
Sentient beings are without mind;
Out of no-mind they manifest.
(--Farong)

I suspect learning to think is more valuable than forming opinions or accumulating knowledge.

To think is to see and act in authentic concert with what appears.

Thinking is not thought.

Thinking is ever-nascent presence.

Thinking, like silence, reveals nothing.

A ripe revelation!

Thich Nhat Hanh says Non-self is Interbeing.

A hundred thousand worlds
Are flowers in the sky
A single mind and body
Is moonlight on the water
Once the cunning ends
And information stops
At that moment there
Is no place for thought.
- Han-shan Te-ch'ing (1546-1623)

When we sit, walk, move, or eat in harmony we need not worry about "self." There is only sitting, walking, moving, and eating -- there is no self.

Practice tonight was strong gift of five and three beings among, with, and between one another.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes that mystics and zen masters become more non-dual, less dogmatic or speculative in their talking and writing.

We stumble smoothly into seemless whole as we practice harmony, habitless, with more alertness.

Everyone must practice. Killing and consuming will decrease as screaching selves disappear.

And the Lord descended in the form of a cloud, and Moses stood with him there.
He called on the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, "the Lord, the Lord, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger rich in kindness and faithfulness." And Moses bowed down to the ground at once and worshipped. (Exodus 34: 5ff)

We celebrate the Trinity. Compassion, kindness, and faithfulness!

By any name...possible.

Let us mourn for murdered men and women in Middle East.

Thin Afghani taxi driver
ending harsh interrogation
in American chains
does not know
he is dead
(-wfh)

In our prayer we pray for life.

In sorrow we watch it fade.

Will we awake and end war?

Do you know?

Oriole, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and Red Cardinal fly away when I open door to let cat out.

To practice conversation means to engage what is presented; revealing and engaging a reciprocal presentation with words of one's own.

Cat hunkers below hanging feeder. Rain shower begins. Grass overgrows with sudden spring.

I'd prefer all life to find its way without taking away another's life. In fact, that preference is often my prayer. Sometimes I forget to pray.

Killings in Iraq, in Palestine, in Idaho, and in Maine -- converse with my heart.

As a protective armor around the quiet flame of the heart, prayer is the best defense in the face of such onslaughts. And it is more: it is a life-giving discipline that can bring us to our senses -- back to God -- when we have gone astray. It focuses us and directs us to the source of peace.

Personally I have found the discipline of prayer crucial to maintaining a sense of peace and order in my life. More than anything else it seems that prayer (or the absence of it) can decide the outcome of our day. As Bonhoeffer notes in his Letters and Papers from Prison, time we waste, temptations we yield to, laziness or lethargy in our work -- in general, any lack of discipline in our thoughts or in our interaction with others -- frequently have their root in our neglect of prayer.

Prayer need not be formal. For my wife and me, it is the natural way we begin and end our day together; we pray every morning when we get up, and every evening before we go to bed. Some may pray more often than that, others less. Some people pray on their knees; others use a prayer book. Some speak; some do not use words at all. Pastor Blumhardt was known to open his window each evening in order to say good night to God. As long as our prayer is genuine, and not just an empty rite, it does not matter how we go about it. The important thing is to make room for it, somewhere.
(LIVING ON A PRAYER, an excerpt from Johann Christoph Arnold's book "Seeking Peace")

Whenever I let the cat out I call out in prayer and inform the mountainside to stay alert. Danger is out among us. There is a chasm we have to cross -- prayer alerts us to remain authentic even in the face of threat and danger.

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber says that whenever we pray, we should cry out, imagining ourselves as hanging from a cliff by our hair, with a tempest raging around us so violently that we are sure we have only a few seconds left to be saved. Buber goes on, "And in truth there is no counsel, no refuge, and no peace for anyone save to lift up his eyes and his heart to God and to cry out to him. One should do this at all times, for a man is in great danger in the world." (Arnold)

In the world, and to the world.

I call out from my partially open door.

Stay alert! Please do not kill!

Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you.” (No wonder we prefer rabid religious revenge to the words of Jesus.)

If we are killed, (my prayer continues), let's go straight home!

(Mama Cardinal balances on wire for a pause above the chasm.)

We have to talk.

Whether the intuition of spirituality, or the investigation of intellectual inquiry -- there is need for conversant community to give ground and breath to the eccentric spaciousness of each one of us.

I let mind and body go
And gained a life of freedom
My old age is taking place
Among ten thousand peaks
I don't let white clouds
Leave the valley lightly
I escort the moon as far
As my closed gate.
- Han-shan Te-ch'ing (1546-1623)

Ground gives place to stand. Breath gives shape to inspiration and expiration.

Wisdom brings up her own sons,
and cares for those who seek her.
Whoever loves her loves life,
those who wait on her early will be filled with happiness.
(Ecclesiasticus 4:12ff)

From birth on we are thrown from the center of wherever we are; pushed out from boxes and confines into the open. Often we fear the open into which we emerge at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, or 70 -- causing us to try to re-insert into another box, another confine. If we can't say it, someone has to say it for us -- "No!" No further, no more, no bananas.

We shouldn't be where we shouldn't be. It is too easy to default to the known and familiar. Someone helped me once, saying (in effect) "get lost, drop dead, no way." Gratitude comes slowly.

Sometimes we're only a pause, a comma, in a longer conversation. But that miniscule hiatus contains all of the universe in its purpose.

We are each the getting out and the passing through -- the lapping of water from bowl, the level of it refashioning itself.

It is good to have been born.

Good to be here.

What say?

God is what is God.

Break open
A cherry tree
And there are no flowers,
But the spring breeze
Brings forth a myriad of blossoms!
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)

Splitting mauls cannot do what gentle breath can. Yet, "to serve the Lord" is to trust the opening breath of what is/God no matter where it takes the body.

My son, [my daughter], if you aspire to serve the Lord,
prepare yourself for an ordeal.
Be sincere of heart, be steadfast,
and do not be alarmed when disaster comes.
Cling to him and do not leave him,
so that you may be honoured at the end of your days.
Whatever happens to you, accept it,
and in the uncertainties of your humble state, be patient,
since gold is tested in the fire,
and chosen men [and women] in the furnace of humiliation.
(Ecclesiasticus 2:1-4)

It is easier to be militantly opinionated about forcing God's will externally on others than it is to be quietly present as what is authentically real unfolds within us. I wonder if this difference isn't the one that most divides peoples into two: them that demand and impose, and them that invite and integrate.

The essential for hope is to be found in that critical minority of human beings who insist on being unrealistic, who for some still unknown set of reasons continue to argue that human beings are capable of the possibility of empathy, compassion, love and sensitivity even as cruelty, hostility, insensitivity and rationalized dishonesty now dominate. In the final analysis, only those courageous individuals provide the hope for the ultimate realism that is defined by the capacity of a society to survive rather than be destroyed on the altar of human barbarity .
(-- Kenneth B. Clark)
(Kenneth Clark, the psychologist and educator whose 1950 report showing the destructive effect of school segregation influenced the United States Supreme Court to hold school segregation to be unconstitutional. Clark died Sunday, 1May05. He was 90.)

Human barbarity never ceases to surprise. It excludes, fractures, factionalizes, segregates, quarters, and disembowels in the name of the false real, the cruel necessity, and the self-serving power. So much of the unloving and unkind is predicated on the lie, "I'm doing this for your own good," or, "Trust us, we know better than you what you need, and we'll get it for you."

Rather than attempting to replicate the untrue, the unloving, and the disembodied -- we need to invite, integrate, and embody what is most real. By turning and turning again to the true, loving, and whole -- we practice offering up to higher and wiser compassion what current human capacity is not willing or able to reach.

To give ourselves over to what is real is to rise above mere opinion or diminutive thought and ideology to a more difficult yet spacious realm. That realm is where we have attributed "God" -- the realm where humankind, in its best moments, longs to be. Without fear. Without greed. Without domination or suppression.

I do not yet concede as real that which pretends and postures as real in this world. The posturing pretence of politics, economic and military battles over resources, and petty grabs for power and control over others -- these "realities" of life in the world today strike me as closer to delusion and illusion than to what is real.

When Ecclesiasticus says, "prepare yourself for an ordeal. Be sincere of heart, be steadfast, and do not be alarmed when disaster comes," I take note. I resolve to notice what is taking place. I will not venture to know nor try to guess what will take place between this moment and the moment when critical mass arrives. I suspect I will be surprised.

I expect to be surprised by reality. I invite it. I will try to integrate it. I hope to embody it.

After all...

God is what is God.

It's not funny.

I think the time for joking is over. It feels more that it is time to really worry. The prospect doesn't cheer me. Things are unraveling.

The Rycroft Memo; the torture and abuse of Muslims; the chaos of the war against Iraq; the fundamentalist Christian bias against any other belief or thought; the secrecy; the deceptions; the utter disdain for countervailing views.

It is growing more and more absurd to think that the behavior and ideology of this administration is some simplistic Republican/Democratic or conservative/liberal politics-as-usual. It begins to feel far more dangerous. More and more people in this country as well as abroad realize something is wrong.

Intellectuals -- genuine thinkers, not shills and spinners -- are ready to come out of the closet.

"There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be 'the man in the street.' Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology." (--Joseph Goebbels)

Joe six-pack is putting down the beer and asking questions.

"The aide said that guys like me [i.e., reporters and commentators] were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"(--An unnamed "senior advisor" to President Bush made to a New York Times Magazine reporter last fall, 2004)

Nascar fans are wondering how they let themselves be used.

"Fool me once, shame on you ... fool me twice ...uhhh... you can’t get fooled again." (President Bush)

Even the president doesn't want to -- but is closer to saying, "Shame on me."

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas. (Governing Magazine 7/98)

"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush joked. (-- CNN.com, December 18, 2000)

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it, " [Bush] said. (-- Business Week, July 30, 2001)

The attempt at humor, to down-home and downplay, upon further reflection, is no longer remotely funny.

The mountains stand unmoving
Just the way they are
All day they let the clouds
Roll out and roll back in
Even though red dust is
Countless layers deep
Not a single speck reaches
My thatched hut.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)

The specks of ambition, arrogance, and false words do reach us. There is no immunity. We will have to answer.

The wise man sees ahead,
the fool walks in the dark.
(from Ecclesiastes 2)

How much trouble are we in?

What do we see ahead?

I'm glad it's Pentecost. The mere remembrance of it helps. It helps recall a time when spirit and truth were celebrated. These recollected gifts of the Holy Spirit are sorely missed today. A president who claims to follow his favorite philosopher, Jesus Christ, doesn't seem to have heard of spirit and truth. Maybe Jesus' philosophical lecture wasn't clear enough. Maybe authentic advocacy is an elective course for this president.

I prefer to let this president run his course then disappear into impermanence and irrelevance. There's no use standing under a collapsing building hoping to hold it up. This president has blown the explosives against pivotal pillars of stability and the collapse is spewing unbreathable dust and stench in every direction. Better to comfort the broken-hearted, bury the dead, and sweep clean the debris. Better to cultivate spirit and truth than try to eliminate lies and deceit.

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,
vouchsafe within our souls to rest;
come with thy grace and heavenly aid,
and fill the hearts which thou hast made.
(Words trans­lat­ed from La­tin to Eng­lish by Ri­chard Mant, An­cient Hymns, 1837.)

Pentecost -- the celebration of Spirit and Truth arriving to guide and console those willing to engage the Christ Reality in this existence -- is more than a propriatory possession of the Church. It is a birthday celebration of Original Awareness come to be with everyone and everything open to receive and engage its presence. We've called Original Awareness, "God." The difficulty for us is that we've used the word "God" as a cudgel so long we've forgotten the reality behind the name.

No use fretting over gold, beauty or fame;
Nurturing these, how can we calm
Our fluttering heart?
Non attachment brings deep truth,
And a truthful nature brings immortality.
Empty your heart,
Sit quietly on a mat.
In meditation we become one with All;
Tao billows like the vapors
In a mountain valley,
And its supernatural power wafts into our soul.
- Loy Ching-Yuen (1873-1960)

Lately, a woman attending evening conversations has taken to saying over and over the word "meditation" as her encouraging suggestion for anyone longing to get beyond the surface inanity and daily insanity put forward by dreadful people trying to further numb and dumb the lot of us. Meditation, I suspect, for her, leads to a more profound seeing -- and, thereby, a less likely mindless, hopeless collapse.

Your interests, however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit of God has made his home in you. In fact, unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him. (from Romans 8)

Belonging to Christ is a theme worth meditation.

Avoid the users and abusers of Christ -- they are legion in these times. Instead, investigate Christ with whole mind and whole heart. Investigate what "neighbor" means. With this investigation, accompanied by quiet, even silent, meditation -- there is a possibility we may see.

Celebrate this birth.

Watch ardently.

Speak carefully.

Embody Christ.

Go your way.