Peter brought in David Hawkins' Power vs Force and said some things about kinesiology. Joseph brought in the book he was reading, The First Circle, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Patrick talked about the Abnormal Psychology course he was taking and the notions of deviance, distress, dysfunction, and danger. Joe spoke about ekpyrosis (but he inferred palingenisis). Ryan referenced Therese Huston's Teaching What You Don't Know and felt that perseverance was the hallmark of a good teacher, not necessarily insight or dazzling skill.

It was a good morning in prison. The conversation was afire with chapter 29 of the Tao Te Ching, the noble and eightfold teachings of the Buddha, and, finally, Merwin's poem, "Thanks." We managed to laugh and learn by respectful deliberation.

Believe nothing because a wise man said it.
Believe nothing because it is generally held.
Believe nothing because it is written.
Believe nothing because it is said to be divine
Believe nothing because someone else believes it.
But believe only what you yourself judge to be true.
- The Buddha

We're surrounded by our source and we surround our origin.

We read Dale's aunt's poem "I Remember" about the horse sled with bells taking uncle away for winter then bringing him back from logging camp for spring. Ricky joined us between sit-ups and running the treadmill.

Prison was a kindly place today.

There is no match for the longing of minds to see through their lives.

No bugs yet. Morning walks along trails on Ragged Mountain with Rokpa are kindly and tiring. Trees listen. Mud constricts with sodden leaves.

In seven and a half hours hiking over the last four days I have met no one and passed no one. Where have I been?

Who isn't happy when it rains during drought?
Everyone washes off the dirt.
Every leaf of grass opens its eyes and dances,
Every flower drinks and is refreshed.
Farmers in raincoats are busy in the fields,
Herb-gatherers have no time to rest.
Watching this natural course of events,
I marvel at the innocence of the universe.
- Naong Haegun (1320-1376)

I have gone missing.

The innocence of the universe -- its not knowing -- seems truer each time I look. There is only walking. There is only dog running. There is only mountain.

In class last night someone asked why I watch things like the 2007 strafing killing in New Baghdad if such sights are so upsetting.

No reason. Only feeling.

Not to allow this horror to be seen is to pretend the world is a disjointed and fragmentary compilation of dissociated and unrelated shards of something broken that we cannot remember whole.

Much like our individual lives in this world.

We don't like suffering. Why should we? This is not about choosing suffering over non-suffering. This witnessing is about choosing not to live in an illusory egoic world where what happens does not happen and what does not happen does. I part company (for now) with those who insist that if you don't think about it, it does not exist -- not in itself and not in you.

THANKS

by W.S Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions.

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
looking up from tables we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving

dark though it is

The world is given. As attractive as it might be to ponder, I have not made the world. As terrifying as it might be to consider, you alone can retrieve the word that restates the world.

It's not that the world is what you say it is. Rather, the world is re-created with the word or words coming forth into it from and through you.

It's why we pray. Prayer is not "spin" trying to refashion a story so as to get the best interpretation from it. Prayer is the origin of reality reaching through silence and words to reveal its true nature to the seeker longing to see what is truly the core of this existence.

We pray to be the origin of the world -- not to correct the wrongs, but to be what is right as it passes through us from the invisible to the visible.

The life of prayer is listening for the intonation of the soundless. The life of prayer is looking for the materialization of the mere-breath. The life of prayer is stopping -- it is the radical cessation of all attempts to construct an alternative to what is disturbing, and an allowing of stillness to shape the contours and parameters of compassionate being with oneself and others.

Like railroad track crossings at countryside roads the imperative to stop, look, and listen suggests that something might be coming, that it's been there, and the rails are both remnant and promise. Ours is to act on the evidence. Ours, to cross over to the other side.

What is on the other side?

What is on this side?

What is anything I do?

Perhaps it is what is longing to be authentically encountered, engaged, and energized with what is itself Encounter, Engagement, and Energy.

Once, we called this 'God.'

Now?

We call it to and through itself to be what it is within and through us. And the world. And each person, place, living-thing, and being-presence.

Each tree teaches me this. Each stone teaches me this. Each parasite and virus. Each animal. Each person. Each and every manifestation of the One-we-call-God teaches me this.

We know this.

If we become what we know...

If we actually were to be what we are...

If we find the origin of the world and dwell as this origin...

Long walks on mountain.

White Border Collie with black spots runs alongside and ahead.

Deep solitude. Expanded silence. A gliding stillness.

Illusory Hermitage

My body is like an illusory flower:
No way to touch it;
The window and the moon of its six windows
Contain clear emptiness.
It looks like something
In the midst of nothingness,
But its four walls are beautiful,
I stay there for a moment.
- Naong Haegun (1320-1376)

Piece by piece the illusory life crumbles.

Hard to say what reality will endure.

Only the mountain.

Only the mountain walking.

Only the mountain walking feels like prayer.

Making zazen before Pascal candle and Tibetan incense a quiet mediation meditation.

Watching video from 2007 during Iraq war, 30mm cannon fire killing between 12 and 18 people, is not the Easter Monday activity I would prefer to write about. The 17 minutes sicken.

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
(Collateral Murder. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-exposes-video-o_n_525569.html)

I would rather write about light and hope and emancipation and unity and consciousness of what is beyond the veil of ignorance.

The nature of the one Reality must be known by one's own clear spiritual perception; it cannot be known through a learned person. Similarly, the form of the moon can only be known through one's own eyes. How can it be known through others?
- Shankara

But war with its ugliness was inserted into the mix. I stopped to look. I saw the arrogance of fear and exuberance for destruction firing death and suffering into the bodies of men and children.

Christ rises. Citizens are murdered. Cruelty is what war is.

Through the bottomless mercy of our God,
one born on high will visit us
to give light to those who walk in darkness,
who live in the shadow of death;
to lead our feet in the path of peace.
(--from Benedictus, morning prayer)

Don't watch the video.

If you do, you'll be changed.

Don't think about Resurrection.

If you do, you'll change the world.

Christ is Risen!

Ego doesn't stand a chance.

Easter morning, Meetingbrook Hermitage:

"Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

(from Isaiah 55)

As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

(from Isaiah 55)

That the yielding
Conquers the resistant
And the soft
Conquers the hard
Is a fact known by all people,
Yet utilized by none.

-Lao tzu

You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands.

(from Isaiah 55)

We begin in the dark.

Slowly, comes dawn.

Awaking birds.

Awakening earth.

Finally, sunrise.

Now, Resurrection!

We wish all the joy and liberation of a new beginning!

"...[B]ut see, I who am life itself am now one with you."

Reading From an ancient homily for Holy Saturday
(The Lord's descent into the underworld)

Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.
See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.
I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.
Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.
(--from Office of Readings, Holy Saturday)

Let's enter completely this place. Then, let's leave this place. For where? I can't say...not today. Today is emptiness itself. The silence and stillness bid me mute.

The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack but by transcendence. For Christ does rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and His Kingdom.
Would you join in the resurrection or the crucifixion? Would you condemn your brothers or free them? Would you transcend your prison and ascend to the Father?
(--fromA Course in Miracles/Text/Chapter 11,Section VII, Waking to Redemption, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Course_in_Miracles/Text/Chapter_11)

But see.

I who am.

Life itself.

Am now.

One.

With.

You.

Emptiness...

Is it me?

Yes it is.

Still, taste.

And see.

Reasonable dialogue.

The Tao is as deep as can be. Who is willing to pursue it closely? If you don't go into the tiger's lair, how can you catch its cub? If you don't wash out the stone and sand, how can you pick out the gold? Carefully seek the heart of heaven and earth with firm determination. Suddenly you will see the original thing; everywhere you meet the source, all is a forest of jewels.
- Liu I-Ming

Don't look left. Don't look right.

Look through the unnecessary divisions and distractions.

Look carefully.

There.

You are.

HaShem is the Name.

We pause at bridge over brook and sing: "Blessed be the Name of the Lord from this day hence and forever. From the rising of the sun to its setting the Name of the Lord is to be praised."

The Name, says Saskia last week, is all this.

Meditation is not about getting away from it all, numbing out, or stopping thoughts. Without trying to be rid of pesky thoughts and feelings, we learn how to practice being aware of them in the fleeting immediacy of the very moment in which they present themselves. We can cultivate awareness of any object: sounds, smells, physical sensations, perceptions, and so forth. Everything is grist for the mill - even those things we find terribly unpleasant. As the Tibetan Dragon Master Gyalwang Drukpa says, “Everything must be meditated!”
- Lama Surya Das, "The Heart of Buddhist Meditation," (Tricycle, Winter 2007)

With spade in hand I contour rivulets and torrents coming down mountain into agreeable flows to lower places free from obstruction of leaves and silt and away from places where harm could be done.

Maine's rivers are flooding tonight.

Like a mind swelling with resentment over the success of another, we fabricate grievances. In politics the Republicans grieve health reform even though many of their ideas were incorporated in it. Theirs is a political choice: defeat their political private enemy; let the people be enslaved during the pique of partisan battle.

Give up grievances. It is exhausting finding fault in everything. Find something more inchoate.

Never in this world does hatred
Cease by hatred;
Hatred ceases by love,
And this according to a law
Which has existed forever.
- Buddha

The time of Passover reminds that in the worst of slavery there is a way through and out. However impossible things seem, we are shown the way though, we are surprised by finding out.

For the righteous, the little they have is better
than the abundant wealth of the wicked.
The limbs of the wicked will be broken
while the Lord gives his strength to the just.

The Lord knows when the day of the perfect will come;
and their inheritance will be eternal.
They will not be troubled in evil times,
and in times of famine they will have more than enough.
(from Psalm 36)

What is your name?

Blessed be that.

We have enough.

We are enough.

L'Chaim!

To Life!

Rainy Week. Contemporary alternative to Holy Week. Maine is getting soaked.

It is the hermitage this season. The alternative doesn't present itself this year. We'll stay at the mountain, so to speak, on our own.

Therefore, 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

The Catholic Church is on the ropes. An aging pug with little spring left in legs it is pounded by its own inability to practice what it preaches. Molesters and cover ups have taken the church out drinking and carousing the night before the fight and lied about its whereabouts in the morning.

A beat reporter has her take on the sorry condition of the heavyweight:

If the church could throw open its stained glass windows and let in some air, invite women to be priests, nuns to be more emancipated and priests to marry, if it could banish criminal priests and end the sordid culture of men protecting men who attack children, it might survive. It could be an encouraging sign of humility and repentance, a surrender of arrogance, both moving and meaningful.
...American bishops have gotten politically militant in recent years, opposing the health care bill because its language on abortion wasn’t vehement enough, and punishing Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights and stem cell research. They should spend as much time guarding the kids already under their care as they do championing the rights of those who aren’t yet born.
(--from OP-ED, A Nope for Pope, By MAUREEN DOWD, Published: March 27, 2010, NY Times)

The people once in pews are moving out into the countryside. The symbols and rituals survive the transition but transfigure and transform into more ordinary expressions of humanity, cosmos, and divinity all rolled into one.

Even in the traditional narrative there was a new appearance of the man disfigured in the power lust thrown against him by both religious and political addicts. He was not recognized in his new manifestation transcending their obscenely perverse and pettifogging pretenses to patronize the populace.

We're meant to come through differently. The story of this week is our transmogrification.

It happens of itself.

When we allow.

Itself.

To be.

Each.

One.

Of us.

Today we do nothing out of the ordinary.

Yo Hermitage



Within its boundaries - no people, no birds. 


Falling petals gather on the moss.


An old monk has nothing to do


But gaze at the moon in the pine tree


And smile at the passing clouds. 




- Taego Bowoo (1301-1382)

In chapel-zendo, as wood stove warmth dissolves, a solitary candle holds silence following practice.

Everyone is welcome here.

I light the fire at 5:30AM in anticipation of morning practice in the chapel/zendo. Rumi's story of the string of longing was a good beginning to the day following silent sitting.

The story of Christianity is changing.

A once blood-demanding God is becoming a soother of victims. Has God changed -- or are we changing?

Bamboo Hermitage

Empty inside; it's always clean.
No one will peek into its inner garden.
Only a dragon's whistle
And a phoenix's whisper break
The Zen Mind.
The bright moon on a fishing pole
Fills the river around the castle.
(--Taego Bowoo, 1301-1382, DailyZen)

I'm told there is a style of Christianity that believes only Christians will be able to enter heaven -- no other religion, no one who hasn't accepted Christ as their personal savior.

The change is timely.

It strikes me that we are in heaven -- except for those who create hellish unkindness and violent intolerance. Heaven is the acceptance of God in all God's mystery. Those who claim non-christians cannot go to heaven are speaking this from an unawareness so profound as to contribute to the creation of non-heaven.

I opt for God, heaven, Jesus, Buddha, et al -- and all who dwell therein -- along with all my brothers and sisters who, with a changing, growing awareness, allow themselves into such an open and compassionate realm of love and acceptance we've called heaven.

Of course the dogs are in heaven.

They're waiting for us to arrive there.

They want us to know that there is here with attentive presence.

Seven first-time visitors arrived for Thursday Evening Conversation. Four men from New Brunswick, Canada. You never know.

The water in the stream
Looks as if it was dyed with indigo;
The green mountain outside the door
Is never painted.
The colors of the mountain
And the sound of the water
Betray the whole,
But who will be enlightened
To No-reality here?
- Baekoon Kyunghan (1299-1375)

Snow and ice this morning. Saskia finishes her deadlines. I build palate porch at main door to bookshed. Rick finishes his cedar shingling, leaving (as we requested) the southeast wall for us to complete. Jay has one more soffit. Then the building work is done and the landscaping, book transferring, and final touches, remain.

It is a lovely building. Jay did well.

Just one thing matters. When that is seen, all is well. Until then, all is nonetheless well.

It is the Solemnity of The Annunciation.

Would I say 'yes' if asked to embody the presence of the great creative reality of love and wisdom?

I would have to live and die in and with justice, compassion, kindness, healing, acceptance and forgiveness.

Tall order.

Can I think about it?

How long?

I'll get back to you.

"Beep..."

Words matter. The rhetoric used in politics turns violent. It's not right. It's not right for the right to be so wrong.

If a fleeting thought conjures the whole,
How can I describe Reality in figures?
While empty moonlight
On the water shows everything,
The mirror of No Mind reflects
Only Nothingness.
- Baekoon Kyunghan (1299-1375)

The health care bill is now law.

Congressional leadership must help change the rhetoric and ease up dangerous opposition to everything. There are citizens in this country who do not understand the posturing and game playing on the part of elected political leaders, strategists, and pundits -- these citizens mistakenly think the orators believe the inciting rhetoric they issue. They don't. Not really.

It's a partisan game being played for fear-based financial gain. But the citizenry might come to think violent action needs to be taken to protect the country. Let's not become confused. Let's remember kindness.

Democracy understands that after argument and debate a decision is made based on votes and tallies. True, the rules of the process are arcane and dizzying, but the invitation is there to participate positively. It is odd behavior to be invited to the party and then to bitterly complain that you chose not to attend. Your rage and frustration rants that someone should rid us of those troublesome people responsible for holding an opinion different than ours. Then, and very frighteningly, comes heteronomous wickedness -- where after violence or criminal behavior someone claims they were only following the instructions or suggestions of others.

Non-negotiating ideology attempts to overtake and overrule democracy. When that attempt is made someone is bound to get hurt. Violence has a way of changing the subject. It becomes no longer about laws and debate, but egos, pain, and revenge. Afterwards, conciliatory comments and apologies are made. It helps if they are sincere. It's a fragile time.

Still it is hard to understand why any individual would not want what is best for all individuals. But that attitude, some will contend, is itself an ideology. Just because it appears to some to be the compassionate and caring way to behave toward all people, others might differ in their perception and sensitivities.

We can hope and work for equality. If we don't, things will either get worse or they will continue in a holding pattern. Fearful pronouncements, warning innuendo, and not so subtle invitations to inflict damage or pain do not make for a trusting, collaborative citizenry.

"A man who has been in danger,
When he comes out of it forgets his fears,
And sometimes he forgets his promises."
---- Euripides - Iphigenia in Tauris (414-12 BC)

The promise of democracy for this country was and is nice. It still could become a reality. It is based on equality, life, liberty, and (might I suggest) a communion of common longing for our deepest nature.

I'd like to see its promise replace the fear currently being sold to a lathered citizenry.

Spring rain drenches.

Mountain out back and across way run with water.

A wide icy river floats to far uncertainty.
The autumn rain is eternal in the mist.
You ask me about Deep South Mountain.
My heart knows it is beyond white clouds.
- Wang Wei (699-759)

I once thought it mattered what you did in life. Job. Family. Accomplishments. Recognition.

No longer.

It's how, not what.
I'd rather fill for a second the space between two raindrops as they touch earth.

Splash!

Giggling joy.

Then, no more.

Such sweet uncertainty!

Hundreds of quahogs beached by storm, broken open by seagulls, abandoned shells strewing the sand on Old Orchard Beach.

One snail, large and still at home, is tossed back into the swells.

There's no explaining who continues who departs and who wonders at the difference.

Feel healthier?

Take a walk. Drink water. Eat a banana. Turn your mind with authentic and transcending prayer. Look carefully within everything.

Here's the point: we are not other than it, than any or all of it.

I'll still die, sometime. Still, with it all, aren't we healthier?

A vote, soon.

Tomorrow the sun will appear in its rotation around the earth. (Maybe I, like the bill's opposition, have it wrong.)

Either way, even if it rains and the earth revolves around the sun, even through rain, daylight.