haiku

it is about guns

it is, about, guns -- you see

they mostly kill, guns

goodbye country, hello neighbor

There must be a belief there are too many young students in the United States.

It’s open season on them. AR-15s are for sale, weapon of war, to be owned and used by Americans who belief their freedom to shoot whomever and wherever they wish.

It is curious, isn’t it?

Some say it is our unique quest to discern what is right and what is wrong and act on our findings in each situation..

There is a moment when deliberation gives way to speech about our findings, when speech gives way to action, when actions intimately entwine our life with others’ lives.

Is it really about guns?

Or is it about who we are and what we wish to be with one another?

close the schools with your feet

Perhaps it is

time for

all parents

to stop sending

their children

to school

until sane

and responsible

gun legislation

is enacted.

unnouncing

no

words

reveal everything

unnouncing

nothing

near-

by

until I’m not

Sometimes depression and sadness is the only response.

And when we get tired of that response, we will overthrow the stupidity of automatic assault rifles encouraged and sold cheerfully by hucksters.

Until then, it’s depression.

And sorrow.

Let the official condolence politicos offer their prayers and somber statements about the aberration of mass school shootings.

About mental health.

About domestic terrorism.

About the better place that innocent children and youth go to be with their dead loved ones and welcoming deities.

I’ll just sit.

In silence.

Depressed.

And sorrowing.

Until I’m not.

all I need is the air that I breathe

How do I pray?

You don’t.

Waddya mean?

You don’t pray. Prayer prays you.

Air is breath. Breath is God.

Each breath is God’s name in

and out of you.

on phone with Maryland

Faith is going on through the unknown.

Trust in God is the willingness to affirm reality as being what is here.

Each, an acceptance with compassion.

a gift of god riding bike in cemetary

Once it was the Bible

Then one who would be Christ

Who was locked inside a church

Until a monk remembered scripture


Today it is the cosmos

It is mind that looks through it

Existence asks for nothing

Some bow to empty air


Some say we have no myth

To narratize under our feet

I sit with woman in hospital room

Telling stories of mountain street


There is no meaning to life going

Forward— only a bit of soil

Underfoot as turning body

Asks after someone, is hit, and dies

and where it stops, no one knows

Love

makes the

world

go

          r          

 o                d

     u         n

      

they say they didn’t do it

men needing women

punching bags get white

house refuge apologist —

no apology 

champion-slips ragged mtn

rain on snow

tobogganers drip

saturday slide

showing up

In prison today

someone said “I love you”

meditation with bells

origination, depend on it

This is because that is.

that’s not the answer

If I told you the story of the red stocking, would you have it?  (A koan my father asked repeatedly in a house on a Brooklyn street mid-century ago.)

of it

She wanted to know

what I believed

Nothing, I said

Nothing? Really — is that

what you believe?

No, I said.

I don’t believe

Nothing as well as

Anything

Think of it this

way —

Without belief

everything is exactly

what it is

as it is.

Ok, she said

I believe you

And nothing

came of it

more feeling less reason

The felt fact

of the experience

is always more

compelling than

the proposed

reason

for the fact.

day after

I’ve lived in Philadelphia

I’ve never lived in Boston or Massachusetts

Well, that’s over with

about the game

I’m rooting for New England’s Maine to become part of Atlantic Canada’s time zone.

Let’s touch down in a kinder more civil field with much less bullying or roughing.

let’s meet for coffee and talk about this

How democracies die, explained. The problems in American democracy run far deeper than Trump, by Ezra Klein, 2Feb2018, Vox

worth...keeping

Buddhism and Christianity meet in the realization of two words: whole, and, self.

Matthew 22:34-40 “But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great Commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, You shall love your neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang ALL the law and the prophets.”

Whole heart.
Whole soul.
Whole mind.

Neighbor is yourself.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[b] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

And:

 17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:17-18)

Whole Self.

What is the One that is called G-d?

Wholeness without division or separation.

Self/neighbor — no barrier, no other.

Until we realize the true nature of reality there is no self, no G-d.

When we realize the true nature of reality, there is no self, no G-d.

Between the two, there is only love (only Lord). And when there is love (only Lord), there is no two, no one.

Only this realization loving one and all. One is all. All is one.

These are good commandments.

Worth...keeping!