Church this morning was serene and lovely. The tone has changed in the small building on Union Street. Fanny spoke the words praying us through liturgy of Word and Eucharist. I held in light of prayer my mother and father -- as well as sister, grandparents, aunt, uncle and all family contributing to birth and growth. If there were to be no more days for me, there is today. Born today, die today. Grace unites.

He was a man of great equanimity, except when moved to compassion and mercy. And since a joyful heart animates the face, he displayed the peaceful composure of a spiritual man in the kindness he manifested outwardly and by the cheerfulness of his countenance.
-From various writings on the history of the Order of Preachers."He spoke with God or about God" -- about St. Dominic, feast day 8August)

Bill and Dayle stayed for Wednesday Evening Conversation on final chapter of Eckhart Tolle's Practicing the Power of Now, and through the night overlooking harbor. He came for blueberry muffin and didn't want to leave the spot he found peaceful. They'll head back to Tennessee, leaving a pewter candleholder behind as gift. Angel's visiting light!

Marie and Tom travel from Boothbay for Klotz book conversation. Adele stays over. Jon calls, so too Lori. Saskia floats three balloons with blessing sign from rack in shop.

In everyone it towers like
A mile high wall,
Flashing a great precious light
In everyone’s presence.
One thought ten thousand years,
Ten thousand years one thought,
Eating when hungry,
Sleeping when tired,
Who worries about the alternation
Of light and dark,
The change of the seasons?
- Daio (1235-1309)

The month of August now slides toward September. Prison in morning.

I don't think we ever really know what's right or wrong. Perhaps we might intuit what's best to do and what to avoid. When I write the President a love letter I don't pretend to know what he or the country should do or not do. I will, however, be accountable for my own contribution to or withholding from the conversation necessary for us to partner health of nation and world community. We are merely words in a larger conversation – one begun before us and lasting long after.

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
(-poem by Wallace Stevens)

Geoffrey read us that poem in 1966 the first year studying philosophy. It didn't make sense then. I barely take it in now.

Nothing else.

----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Halpin
To: president@whitehouse.gov
Cc: vice.president@whitehouse.gov ; Senator Collins; Senator Snowe.
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 2:20 PM
Subject: Concern and prayer


Dear Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney,

This is what one gentle man from a people we once called our enemy would call an attempted love letter.

It is with a certain amount of worry that I write. I have become saddened by your and Mr. Cheney's bellicose posture toward Iraq, as well as what appears to be a cynical posture toward corporate responsibility.

While I respect the good and noble offices of the executive branch, president and vice president, I worry your personal difficulties with Harken and Halliburton Co. render you both, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, uncertain models of leadership for purposes of righting what many of us in Maine consider wrong financial behavior for personal gain and international action for doubtful intention.

I also fear a deterioration of the good offices you occupy. While we Americans have always acknowledged a degree of tolerance for pettiness and arrogance that seems self-serving in our leaders, it is becoming more evident that the two of you are over-stepping by threatening to murder the Iraqi president and invade that country. In addition, the appearance of skewed favoritism to your parent interests in oil and energy threaten to drive the good faith of the country into abject mistrust.

Assassination threats beget assassination threats -- and my generation in the 60's knew the sorrow and frightening ambiguity of responsibility for the deaths at home and abroad during that time. Murder is murder -- and wrong -- whether of officials here or there, religious leaders, foreign civilians, or civilians at home. It's not worth it to always doubt the complicity of friends and neighbors, leaders and scoundrels. Christians or Muslims who kill in the name of Christ or Allah are equally pitiful and equally terrorists.

This is not the American way. It's bad enough to have had to endure the covert operations that would assassinate significant personnel in different countries, or to malign and punish the messengers of corporate misdeeds -- but to publicly proclaim a policy of deadly assassination and diminished whistle-blower protection with bland reference to patriotism, freedom, and the American way -- this seems like some third rate bungling of our constitutional and traditional posture as freedom and justice loving people.

On this date, August 8th in 1974, Mr. Nixon announced his resignation over a third rate burglary. It is hard to refer back to him and his first vice president as sources of pride and honor upholding the offices of president and vice president. I worry the two of you might be choosing -- or already chosen -- to earn a similar recollection after your tenure.

I pray for you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney -- for your families, and for our country. You hold power. Be careful with it. The former president was called a liar and a cheat -- by people close to you both. Please do not let those two words be fixed to your names, nor to the name of the United States.

I am sending this letter to my U.S. senators from Maine, Snowe and Collins, in hopes they will watch and temper the excesses of power so tempting to your office. Too many people who wander in and out the doors of my bookshop and hermitage profess an irreparable cynicism and stuttering disbelief that you take the course you do in world affairs and domestic and environmental matters. It is a hard listening to hear their sense of outrage and impotence. And we are a town that is well to do, a nesting ground for former state, military intelligence, CIA, and FBI personnel. Their restraint and diplomatic responses to their peers as well as the younger visitors in the course of many conversations over coffee, is faint balm to the pain many display trying to moderate their assessment and opinion of the leadership in Washington D.C., and the offices occupied by you both.

I own a small business, a bookshop and bakery on Camden Harbor. If we can remain open during these uncertain economic times, please accept an invitation -- to each of you -- Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Ms. Snowe, Ms. Collins -- to stop by for a visit. The coffee and tea are always on the house. Perhaps after talking about the weather for a spell, the conversation that follows (like day the night) might help understanding and compassion to emerge. Open conversation is really the only specialty we can all afford -- financially and spiritually. We cannot afford the absence or opposite of open conversation in our lives, in our epoch. Now, that is an indicator worth watching every day!

The Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh has said it is very difficult to write a love letter to your enemy. While you Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, are not my enemies -- I hope this letter nears what might be called a love letter to you. I invite you to send one to the American people, to the Iraqi people, to Saddam Hussein, and to your very families. We are all worried sick. Please help heal the illness hatred and unskillful actions incur.

Sincerely,

Bill Halpin
Meetingbrook
64 Barnestown Rd.
Camden, Maine 04843

When we do what we are doing, all is well.

When we think about what we are doing, both delight and disturbance arise.
When we wonder whether or not we can afford continuing to do what we are doing, a darkness bordering on downright doom descends us. The experience versus thought of Meetingbrook offers Zen instruction to us.

The transitory nature of all existence can suddenly and unexpectedly shatter all your speculations. That’s why I advise you: It’s best not to cultivate any intentions. Anything you’ve ever begun is an activity with some objective, yet in the face of death it has no value whatsoever.
(-from Zen Beyond All Words, A Western Zen Master’s Instructions, by Wolfgang Kopp)

I told two folks we visited at their lovely sanctuary property in Nova Scotia my favorite two phrases have become – “shut up,” and “go home.” Perhaps these words of instruction are aspiration and mantra for me – an invocation of silence and invitation to look under my feet.

Zen is beyond all words.
Away with all thinking and explaining.
There is only mysterious silent understanding
and no more.
(- Zen Master Huang-po)

Home, often said, is where the heart is.
At the shop I get to ask people where home is.

· Yesterday, two Secular Carmelites from Kentucky -- they travel all about in their 26’ motor home. “Two by two,” Mary said smiling, “we’re on the road.”

· A woman with blond hair, white teeth, and deep tan said her home is half the year in Maine, half in Virgin Islands. We spoke of transparency – whether freedom from habit disguises, or, not pretending to talk to or through them. By presenting oneself with no barriers we near simplicity. This simplicity -- of seeing, being, and speaking from a transparent place -- is home.

· Dan, Steph and young Emmet -- friends of my son -- stayed over at the Harbor Room two days. They’re just about to publish a book entitled In The Shadow of the Towers. They live two blocks from the World Trade Center, then and now, and have gathered essays, paintings, and poems from those who live and work in that shadow, then and now. Home has been shaken hard for them. (We'll help distribute the book.)

· The women in Nova Scotia will return home to Manitoba after 25 years. “It’s time,” they said.

Where is home for any of us? Where is home for Meetingbrook?
My heart loves Silence, Here, and Now.

There is a reality even prior to heaven and earth;
Indeed, it has no form, much less a name;
Eyes fail to see it;
It has no voice for ears to detect;
For it then becomes like a visionary flower in the air;
It is not Mind, nor Buddha;
Absolutely quiet, and yet
Illuminating in a mysterious way,
It allows itself to be perceived only by the clear-eyed.
It is Dharma truly beyond form and sound;
It is Tao having nothing to do with words.
( - Dai-o Kokushi)

To have nothing to do -- with or without words -- is the play of God with existence.

Humankind's desire throughout history seems to have been to name, locate, and control God. Is that because the play of God is not one we wish to engage? Because if we were to play with God we would cease to be other than God's playfulness? We do not understand, nor do we, play very well. Play loses oneself in the activity. We disappear into the act. This is difficult for us. Hence, our culture has been willing to abuse and ignore God -- wishing to play God -- but not willing to enter and disappear into the play of God.

Still.
Engaging experience, watching thought,
we enter the play of this world --
grateful instruction --
each passing face presents us.
Still –
here, with silence, now.
(- poem by wfh)

There is no place to go. How understand where or what is home?

Are you here?

Thank God!

What are we looking at? Ever?

Returning late from Nova Scotia by Cat last night, driving wet roads Mount Desert Island to Camden, stars watched us and we them beyond tops of trees in dooryard at 1am.

Transfiguration is seeing what is real. Presentiation is annunciation -- that's what occurs to me. No need to announce anything other than one's presence. Being there in silence is enough. If words come to that shared presence occurring in the awareness of another nearby, then those words belong to both silence and relational presence. Nothing need be fashioned; nothing need be fabricated.

Those who awaken never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise and leave the lake.
On the air they rise and fly an invisible course.
Their food is knowledge.
They live on emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.
Who can follow them?
- Buddha in the Dhammapada

Therefore, since each of us possesses God in his heart and is being transformed into his divine image, we also should cry out with joy: It is good for us to be here - here where all things shine with divine radiance, where there is joy and gladness and exultation; where there is nothing in our hearts but peace, serenity and stillness; where God is seen. For here, in our hearts, Christ takes up his abode together with the Father, saying as he enters: Today salvation has come to this house. With Christ, our hearts receive all the wealth of his eternal blessings, and there where they are stored up for us in him, we see reflected as in a mirror both the first fruits and the whole of the world to come. (From a sermon on the transfiguration of the Lord by Anastasius of Sinai, bishop, "It is good for us to be here." )

When Peter, James, and John entered into the presentiation of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah -- all are graced by what is revealed.

When you and I enter into the presentiation of the other -- when the no-other is engaged -- "we see reflected as in a mirror both the first fruits and the whole of the world to come."

To all suffering the radiance of man's devastating explosion for the first time at Hiroshima -- we bow with sorrow and compassion.

To all awaiting the radiance of Christ's revealing presence for the first time and forever at each person's Mount Tabor -- we bow with prayer and gratitude.

What are we looking at? Ever?
Now?

MINI

We hold hand and paw together
Holding our love
Gratefulness
In this journey together

With several other dogs
Of this family she is
Now joined
Her black and white beauty
Filled with Gods light
She would twitch her tail
At sound of her name
Called

What mystery this holding this time
Passing watching
Her last meow called me
Down
Her paw reaching out
for touch and hold
forever entwined
We lay curled together
Thank you Minoosh
Your love, your purrrrrrrrr and meow
Are always with me

Geh mit Gott
Du treuer Knecht.
Du liebes treues Katzenkind

(August 2, 2002, poem by Saskia Huising.)

Mini dies

Through night, on bed,
under Madonna with child,
her last breath come and gone,
on brown and tan blanket --
This lovely
black and white cat --
Mini leaves time for now.
(wfh2aug02)

We are left with our lives. Sando licks my hand when I touch her. Cisco laying craggy sore from solo jaunt up the mountain yesterday. Saskia baking, sniffling readying our sitting and psalms with this friend cat companion of baker's dozen years. And I, with ways and words that wander through uncut undergrowth, step slowly with each. We move our awkward way as does the nameless sage passing by this place, transparent and transfusing every open heart willing her grace, every open mind willing his wisdom, every open hope willing its blessing.

As to the roaming of sages,
They move in utter emptiness,
Let their minds meander in the great nothingness;
They run beyond convention
And go through where there is no gateway.
They listen to the soundless
And look at the formless,
They are not constrained by society
And not bound to its customs.
- Lao-tze

Here is where we are. Every here every one of us finds ourselves passing through.

Sylvia, yesterday, after Thursday Evening Conversation showed us the book Hope's Edge. Its epigraph:

Hope cannot be said to exist,
nor can it be said not to exist,
It is just like the roads across the earth.
For actually there were no roads to begin with,
but when many people pass one way
a road is made.
(- Lu Hsun)

Mini was a road through our lives. Grateful, we sit with her passing. The earth calls to her. We become hands and shovels.

We are each a road longing to be made for one another, or many others, to pass their way with hope.

At Wednesday Evening Conversation Dirk reminded the circle of the Native American words -- 'This is my story; this is my medicine.'

Sylvia B., following a thread, pulled a row from Meetingbrook's fabric, to unravel the Bookshop vs. Laura deliberations. We take this August1st off to unravel with Mini her life. We sit with her on grass under cedar tree outside house at Ragged as cars accelerate up Barnestown. It is very unusual to sit at the house and feel the quiet amidst passing conveyers.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. (--Epictetus )

What would life be like without bookshop and bakery, if hermitage were it? If our service and our employment were spokes from where we live? What do we have?

Prayer, practice, study, -- and an engaged presence flowing from deepening simplicity, silence, and service – would this be the way to pass?

All the objects of the senses
Interact and yet do not.
Interacting brings involvement.
Otherwise, each keeps its place.
Eye and sights, ear and sounds,
Nose and smells, tongue and tastes;
Thus with each and every thing,
Depending on these roots,
The leaves spread forth.
- Shitou Xiqian (700–790)

The leaves shade Mini flat against grass. She is rooted with the four of us -- Saskia, Sando, Cisco, and I -- at the place she prepares to die. One by one cars pass up hill, down hill. She breathes shallow and slow. The passing people do not know what is taking place near to where they pass. Any of us seldom know. I pray for them as they pass. I don't know what is taking place in their lives. Who can but surmise from a list of common human concerns and joys?

THE THREE ODDEST WORDS

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.
(-Poem by Wieslawa Szymborska )

Who can hold what does not exist? Who is free from delusions and illusions arising with phenomena and actions? Still, we can find our way through all of this -- delights and difficulties alike -- with a peaceful joy that transfuses and transforms what is passing and what is passed.

There are many odd words. Words like, 'shut up,' 'go home.' This is our story. This is our medicine.

We only pass this way forever.

As an end approaches, only silence suffices.

Withdraw now from
the invisible pounding and weaving
of your ingrained ideas.
If you want to be rid of this
invisible turmoil, you must just sit
through it and let go of everything.
Attain fulfillment and illuminate thoroughly.
Light and shadow altogether forgotten.
Drop off your own skin,
and the sense-dusts will be fully purified.
The eye then readily discerns the brightness.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)

As silence aproaches, only our end suffices.

You will be holy with the holy, kind with the kind, with the chosen you will be chosen, but with the crooked you will show your cunning. (Psalm 18)

So we pray.

Mini is weakening. She lay in window looking out at dooryard. Saskia places food and water near her wherever she hunches down. Her meow is faint. Her movements slow. Drip of water is injected in her for absorption by Saskia. She has not much time. She watches. We watch her. The dogs watch with respectful distance. We are all watched by the watching we do in and with the sight of God.

II. Early Morning. The Hour of Prime.

O blessed, silent one, who speaks everywhere!

We do not hear the soft voice, the gentle voice, the
merciful and feminine.

We do not hear mercy, or yielding love, or non-resistance,
or non-reprisal. In her there are no reasons and no answers.
Yet she is the candor of God's light, the expression of His
simplicity.

We do not hear the uncomplaining pardon that bows
down the innocent visages of flowers to the dewy
earth. We do not see the Child who is prisoner in all
the people, and who says nothing. She smiles, for
though they have bound her, she cannot be a prisoner.
Not that she is strong, or clever, but simply that
she does not understand imprisonment.

The helpless one, abandoned to sweet sleep, him the
gentle one will awake: Sophia.

All that is sweet in her tenderness will speak to him
on all sides in everything, without ceasing, and he
will never be the same again. He will have awakened
not to conquest and dark pleasure but to the impeccable
pure simplicity of One consciousness in all and through all:
one Wisdom, one Child, one Meaning, one Sister.

The stars rejoice in their setting, and in the rising of
the Sun. The heavenly lights rejoice in the going
forth of one man to make a new world in the morning,
because he has come out of the confused primordial dark
night into consciousness. He has expressed the clear silence
of Sophia in his own heart. He has become eternal.
(- from poem Hagia Sophia - Written in 1963, by Thomas Merton)

Going in and out the prison these 17 years has brought a subtle realization about imprisonment. It is the imprisonment of understanding that secludes most of us from grace; the imprisonment of understanding excludes us from radical freedom.

Whenever a thought occurs,
Be aware of it,
As soon as you are aware of it,
It will vanish.
If you remain for a long period
Forgetful of objects,
You will naturally become unified.
This is the essential art of zazen.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

Becoming aware of thoughts and how they tend to control our minds and actions is a first step from exclusion and seclusion. Most thoughts are comparative. They categorize, judge, evaluate, and suggest equalizing actions of revenge, progress, getting even, or running away. Thoughts about a thing or a person are not the thing itself, not the person herself. Thoughts are, most often, veils obscuring things, persons, oneself.

It becomes tricky to try to unravel thoughts, to arrive at the thing itself, the person himself. If we could learn to practice with thoughts what we naturally do with breath -- namely, let breath come, let it go, in, out, arrival, and departure. So too with thoughts -- let them come, let them go, in, out, arrival, departure. We do not try to hold our breath for much longer than a few seconds. We might try the same template with thoughts -- don't hold them, let them exit, let them pass on.

Remaining a virgin (i.e. chaste, fresh, unspoiled) is not as difficult as becoming a virgin. Each breath enters, and then leaves. Each thought might do the same -- enter, then leave -- if we allow that natural process to work. What we do, instead, is grab, hold, chew, and ruminate different thoughts until they are broken down, sliced and diced, fermented in gastric juices, then translated into behavior that is very often not chaste, fresh, or unspoiled.

To think, that is, look into or see, is one thing. To have a thought, that is, to mull or turn over and over a captured impression, is making something other.
By allowing perception and impression to flow in and out of us is to invite intuition to take place. Intuition is allowing one to see into one passing through. It is a glimpse and free action, like catch and release fishing.

Perhaps only a virgin -- not necessarily a historical or biological virgin, but a spiritual virgin -- can see Christ-life passing through.

Reading From a sermon by Saint Peter Chrysologus, bishop
"The sacrament of Christ's incarnation"
A virgin conceived, bore a son, and yet remained a virgin. This is no common occurrence, but a sign; no reason here, but God’s power, for he is the cause, and not nature. It is a special event, not shared by others; it is divine, not human. Christ’s birth was not necessity, but an expression of omnipotence, a sacrament of piety for the redemption of men. He who made man without generation from pure clay made man again and was born from a pure body. The hand that assumed clay to make our flesh deigned to assume a body for our salvation. That the Creator is in his creature and God is in the flesh brings dignity to man without dishonour to him who made him.
Why then, man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God? Why render yourself such dishonour when you are honoured by him? Why do you ask how you were created and do not seek to know why you were made? Was not this entire visible universe made for your dwelling? It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom; for your sake was the night regulated and the day measured, and for you were the heavens embellished with the varying brilliance of the sun, the moon and the stars. The earth was adorned with flowers, groves and fruit; and the constant marvellous variety of lovely living things was created in the air, the fields, and the seas for you, lest sad solitude destroy the joy of God’s new creation. And the Creator still works to devise things that can add to your glory. He has made you in his image that you might in your person make the invisible Creator present on earth; he has made you his legate, so that the vast empire of the world might have the Lord’s representative. Then in his mercy God assumed what he made in you; he wanted now to be truly manifest in man, just as he had wished to be revealed in man as in an image. Now he would be in reality what he had submitted to be in symbol.
And so Christ is born that by his birth he might restore our nature. He became a child, was fed, and grew that he might inaugurate the one perfect age to remain for ever as he had created it. He supports man that man might no longer fall. And the creature he had formed of earth he now makes heavenly;
and what he had endowed with a human soul he now vivifies to become a heavenly spirit. In this way he fully raised man to God, and left in him neither sin, nor death, nor travail, nor pain, nor anything earthly, with the grace of our Lord Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, for all the ages of eternity. Amen. http://www.universalis.com/cgi-bin/display/USA/-400/readings.htm

"To restore our nature" -- that is, chaste, fresh, unspoiled, -- is what is meant by saving the life and soul of someone or something. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh invited his friend Jim to save the life of the orange he was eating -- which he was not paying attention to as he ate it. By tasting it, smelling it, and carefully attending to it -- Jim would save its life. Things get old, sour, or spoiled when we ignore, dismiss, or withdraw our loving attention from them.

Someone or something loved never dies. They pass, yes. But never die. Love and prayer transfuse time and biological ends. To transfuse -- that is, to cause to pass from one to another -- is how we remain connected. Something or someone prayed for continually nears completion. It might not arrive in the time we designate, but prayer causes one's longing to enter the sight of God, and God is beyond time. The eternal is out of time. Prayer goes there. So does love. They transfuse us with what is loved and prayed for to that which is chaste, fresh, and unspoiled.

This trinity of being is grace, unity, and realized love. This is prime.

At this Hour of Prime, we pray for all who are dying, and for ourselves -- now, and at the hour of our death.

The wooden barrel in my room overflows with refuse. It needs emptying, This Monday we stay away from harbor shop, retaining one day off. The joke about Maine’s two seasons – winter and the 4th of July – gets played out with us. We opened one Monday a few days after the 4th, and then decided that was it.

Saint Francis And The Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath
them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.
(- by Galway Kinnell )

At Sunday Evening Practice we wondered exactly why it was the vast majority of us do not understand the intimate relatedness each has with each in this existence. Who has gone out of their way to teach us we are alien strangers to each other and God? Who has thrown doubt on our loveliness, enticing us to unlearn and forget our jewel-like magnificence as part of God?

Be like children, Jesus counsels. What does that mean? Does that suggest we return to a trusting attitude, a reliance without question, a refuge-taking openness to the protecting presence of God, saints, angels, as well as seen and unseen spiritual guardians who wander nameless through this existence?

"Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
(Luke 10:38-42, New Revised Standard Version)

Martha tries to incite her sister Mary to help her make things right. If only we were to fix the place, tidy up, organize our environment, be perfect hosts and hostesses – all will be well. The text makes us curious. What is the better part Jesus is referring to?

I don’t know.

Was he saying that all is well? That it is already all right? That all of it, the light/dark, good/bad, the collapsing/restoration, the dying/living, and the resting/busying – all these tensions are just fine? That there is no need to place one higher than the other, no need to sort it out now? That now is the time to attend with alertness and compassion to the sound of Christ, the sound of wisdom and compassion laying foundation to the longings of the human heart?

When we sit in silence we’re not really trying to clarify these questions and search for answers. When we sit we just sit. When we walk we just walk. When we watch the breeze flutter leaves we just watch the breeze fluttering leaves. The practice of doing just what we are doing, the practice of seeing just what we are seeing -- this is enough.

Our minds and hearts are restless, always wanting things to be other than they are -- better, different, cleaner, more profitable, clearer, wiser, kinder, and so forth. We so seldom see things just as they are, thereby not seeing things with all their mystery and majesty, not seeing things in all their squalor and misery. If we don’t see things as they are, how can we possibly engage them with integrity -- we are only seeing part – and therefore we are only seeing as partial beings, not as what we long to be, whole and familial, with God, neighbor, creation itself.

What is that “one thing” Jesus words?

Like his words about the wheat and the weeds Jesus seems to be reminding us we can’t have one without the other. That if we attempt to cut away the other, we might also be cutting away the one.

Our discriminating thinking and judging minds have come to believe we are capable of ridding from our lives what is bad, evil, ugly, graceless, wrong, and negative. These manifestations with their attendant behaviors are indeed undesirable and worrisome. But are we really able to eliminate these things from this existence?

If you think that you have
cut off illusory mind,
instead of simply clarifying
how illusory mind melts,
illusory mind will come up again,
as though you had cut
the stem of a blade of grass
and left the root alive.
- Menzen Zuiho (1682 –1769)

Cutting off something usually reintroduces it in another form. What then are we to do? Suffer what we consider wrong, ugly, or hateful?

Menzen Zuiho nears what Jesus is saying. Our illusory mind must be watched, watched until it dissolves. Perhaps the way to find the “one thing” of Jesus is to see what is one – all of it.

Kinnell, in his poem, said:
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

What will we see if we see from within?
What will we see when we see from within what is seen?
What will we be seen as, when we are seen within what is seeing?

How understand Christ's mind?
In the celebration of the Eucharist, in the Roman Missal found at a library sale, the Doxology ends in Latin: Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria. Per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen. (Through him, and with him and in him, is to you, God the Father almighty, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory. For ever and ever. Amen.)

How understand Christ-mind?
May the Gracious Sight of God be through, and with, and in us -- in unity with the Spirit of Holiness Itself -- all honor and glory with the Source and Sustainer of All Being! May it be so!

Martha? Mary? Jesus? --- Is this our tripartite wholeness “which will not be taken away from” us?

And is “the long, perfect loveliness of sow” no other than the long, perfect loveliness of now?

Nancy from Portland spoke by phone yesterday. She wondered about community. It set me thinking about why anyone does or does not long for a spiritual life shared (near or far) with others called sangha or community.

One of the reasons that there are less and less religious communities today is that no one wants to live with anyone else. There is a huge movement towards individualism. The monk asks himself: Why should I have to live with such a cranky and unhealthy person? And the answer from Saint Benedict is this: Christ is present in each brother and I must find that presence, particularly in those brothers who are most difficult for me to accept. (- Abbot Philip, OSB, Monastery of Christ in the Desert)

There is a song in the musical Man of La Mancha that is entitled "What Do You Want of Me?" Lyrics by Joe Darion. Aldonza sings this song, as she attempts to come to an understanding of this "knight" who has entered her life and begun to melt her heart by opening her eyes to a better life beyond her current state of despair.

Why do you do the things you do?
Why do you do these things?
Why do you march through that dream that you're in --
Covered in glory and rusty old tin --
Why try to be what nobody can be
And what do you want of me?
What do you want of me?

Why do you do the things you do?
Why do you do these things?
Why do you rush at the world all alone --
Fighting mad battles that aren't your own --
Why do you live in a world that can't be
And what do you want of me?
What do you want of me?

Why don't you know that you're laughed, at wherever you go?
But I ... cannot laugh with the rest ... and why, I don't know ...

Why do you do the things you do?
Why do you do these things?
Why do you batter at wall that won't break?
And why do you give when it's natural to take --
Where do you see all the good that you see --
And what do you want of me?
What do you want of me?

(- from website http://homepages.together.net/~donutrun/quix.htm#Whatdo, by Donutrun Presents )

When one enters the awareness of Christ-Life what is seen is a glimpse of honor, duty, fellowship, love, and sacrifice. When one enters the awareness of Buddha-Life what is seen is a glimpse of suchness, thusness, compassion, service, and sacrifice. With both forms of God's Life here with us, there is a glimpse of who we are, and who we are in each other's life. There is perhaps only a glimpse -- but that's enough for now. What Christians call their gathering --"One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic" -- is not far from what Buddhists call "This One," -- that which is our common life with all that is.

To know that you are God is another way of saying that you feel completely with this universe. You feel profoundly rooted in it and connected with it. You feel, in other words, that the whole energy which expresses itself in the galaxies is intimate. It is not something to which you are a stranger, but it is that with which you, whatever that is, are intimately bound up. That in your seeing, your hearing, your talking, your thinking, your moving, you express that which it is which moves the sun and other stars. If you don't know that, if you don't feel that, well naturally you feel alien. You feel a stranger in the world. And if you feel a stranger you feel hostile. And therefore you start to bulldoze things about, to beat it up, and to try to make the world submit to your will. And you become a real trouble maker. (-web audio snippet, Alan Watts)

Someone in a shop conversation the other day said what sounded like "You have to guru up" to make a point about the spiritual life. What he actually said was, "You have to grow up." There was laughter -- and, an important point. In America we are hesitant to give our lives over to anyone. It's not in our ethos to abandon ourselves to another. There are dangers in doing so -- accepting teachings that are merely given to us, to accept without questioning, to blindly follow. It used to be easier to do so -- with attendant abuses. Now, we are more cautious, circumspect. (It is also curious that this reluctance has affected institutions as varied as religious life, marriage, corporate life, and other forums where belonging calls for self-donation.)

Just don’t seek from others,
Or you’ll be far estranged from Self.
I now go on alone;
Everywhere I meet It:
It now is me; I now am It.
One must understand in this way
To merge with thusness.
- Dongshan Liangjie (807–869)

Solomon asked God for something unusual. God responded: I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you." (-1Kings3)

"Up to now," is a lovely phrase. And "Now?" Can we become "no one?" And by being "no one" do we find what equals us? This is a tricky glimpse. It is centered on real humility, not on degradation of person.

Jesus forwarded a tricky glimpse when he said: “Have you understood all this?” They said to him, “Yes”. And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old”. (-Matthew 13:52)

"What is old and what is new" is a good description of the householder treasure profoundly within each one of us. This "kingdom of heaven" - as recently read in a Bishop's posting, The Kingdom offers ongoing joy for those who find themselves within...is there for those who find themselves within.

Alan Watts' lectures are full of tricky glimpses.
The word _tathata_, which is translated from the Sanskrit as 'suchness' or 'thusness' or something like that, really means something more like 'dadada,' based on the word _tat_, which in Sanskrit means 'that,' and so in Sanskrit it is said _tat lum asi_, 'that thou art,' or in modern America, 'you're it.' But 'da, da'--that's the first sound a baby makes when it comes into the world, because the baby looks around and says 'da, da, da, da' and fathers flatter themselves and think it's saying 'DaDa,' which means 'Daddy,' but according to Buddhist philosophy, all this universe is one 'dadada.' That means 'ten thousand functions, ten thousand things, one suchness,' and we're all one suchness. And that means that suchness comes and goes like anything else because this whole world is an on-and-off system. As the Chinese say, it's the _yang_ and the _yin_, and therefore it consists of 'now you see it, now you don't, here you are, here you aren't, here you are,' because that the nature of energy, to be like waves, and waves have crests and troughs, only we, being under a kind of sleepiness or illusion, imagine that the trough is going to overcome the wave or the crest, the _yin_, or the dark principle, is going to overcome the _yang_, or the light principle, and that 'off' is going to finally triumph over 'on.' And we, shall I say, bug ourselves by indulging in that illusion. 'Hey, supposing darkness did win out, wouldn't that be terrible!' And so we're constantly trembling and thinking that it may, because after all, isn't it odd that anything exists? It's most peculiar, it requires effort, it requires energy, and it would have been so much easier for there to have been nothing at all. Therefore, we think 'well, since being, since the 'is' side of things is so much effort' you always give up after a while and you sink back into death. But death is just the other face of energy, and it's the rest, the not being anything around, that produces something around, just in the same way that you can't have 'solid' without 'space,' or 'space' without 'solid.' When you wake up to this, and realize that the more it changes the more it's the same thing, as the French say, that you are really a train of this one energy, and there is nothing else but that that is you, but that for you to be always you would be an insufferable bore, and therefore it is arranged that you stop being you after a while and then come back as someone else altogether, and so when you find that out, you become full energy and delight. As Blake said, 'Energy is eternal delight.' (- from Lecture on Zen, by Alan Watts)

I told Nancy we are a loosely knit association of individuals who travel the meditative & contemplative road from dependence to independence to interdependence in our spiritual lives.

We are only voices to each other as we encounter each other right now.
We are voices in each other. We are listening to the voice of God within.

This is an eternal delight.

Whenever we come out from visiting the prison for a conversation we feel visited upon.

Jean sends a piece from Gerald May in Shalem News Online, Summer 2002:
It may also help to read the classical contemplative authors in greater depth. As one gets to know them better, one might realize that their understanding of contemplative presence is not quite the same as limp dish-rag passivity. I want to share just two examples from St. John of the Cross. Both are frequently quoted, and both are from his commentary on the third stanza of his final great poem, The Living Flame of Love.

In the first example John says, "...contemplacion pura consiste en recibir." This is translated as "pure contemplation consists of receiving," or "pure contemplation lies in receiving." On the surface, it sounds like the expected "do unto me" passivity. But the Spanish word recibir connotes something a bit different. Recibir implies a kind of welcoming, even welcoming with open arms, as one might receive a beloved friend into one's house. Might it be more accurate then, to read John's words as "pure contemplation consists of welcoming with open arms?"

The second example is, for me, even more striking. In several places, John uses the phrase "simple, loving awareness" to describe the attitude of the soul moving into contem-plation. Again, the common interpretation is of a tender yet wholly passive awareness. The Spanish John used is "advertencia amorosa, simple y sencilla." Simple and sencilla imply simplicity, directness and straightforwardness, an absence of complication. The key word however, is advertencia. Just as recibir implies more initiative than "receptivity," advertencia implies an attentiveness that goes way beyond "awareness." In fact, advertencia is used in modern Spanish to communicate an alarm, a warning, or to draw attention to a critically important event.

Welcoming -- aware and alert -- what is realizing God.

When we left prison yesterday, Saskia, Cheryl and I realized something given us by Jonathon, Andre, Sonny, Joseph, Josh, Charlie, and Paco. They gave us the gift of poetry, conversation, and no choice. Around a table, all we had to do was receive with awareness and alertness the welcome extended to each one of us to enter into the pure contemplation of each other's presence.

I read the words of Archbishop Prendergast of Halifax Nova Scotia, One needs, instead, to be a person of the Beatitudes, `pure of heart’ (5:8), single-minded. Such are those described by Jesus in two parables, those who found treasure and pearl and gave up all they had to possess the one thing bringing them joy. God's Kingdom, Jesus says, is worth sacrificing all to enter. The Kingdom offers ongoing joy for those who find themselves within.

For those who find themselves within.

With what is...open.

Mothers want the best for their children.

Sometimes what they consider the best is a projection, an interpretation of what they consider best, or is selected from a range of possibilities others have calibrated as choice picks. Mothers suffer both gratitude and scorn from recipients. And given we all 'mother' each moment into being, ours is the same pattern response received from sons and daughters everywhere.

James' mother had an idea when she spoke to Jesus, Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him, with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Command that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom”. But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able”. He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father”. (Matthew 20)

As a boy in Brooklyn I often cringed when my mother spoke on behalf of me. Then, as part of shyness, and now, as part of a chosen sense of contemplative quiet -- a watching silence has risen to a preferred practice. Still shy, often accompanied by combined love and mistrust of words, I find a preference for silence. Through the years I've heard silence referred to as the language of God.


The skies tell the story of the glory of God,
the firmament proclaims the work of his hands;
day pours out the news to day,
night passes to night the knowledge

Not a speech, not a word,
not a voice goes unheard.
Their sound is spread throughout the earth,
their message to all the corners of the world.
(-Psalm 19)

When you come to think on it there's not much need for many words. I've hardly ever been satisfied by explanation, excuse, denial, proposal, apology, analysis, or judgment. What does approach loveliness is an understanding that accompanies silent presence.

If your ears see,
And eyes hear,
Not a doubt you’ll cherish
How naturally the rain drips
From the eaves!
( - Daito Kokushi, dailyzen)

When I appear rude, I am an unfinished listener. If I sound cranky in response to something said, I have not yet learned the wisdom of allowing. Should I seem distant when noise of talk surrounds me, I have gone to a place where another language is spoken without sound.

In the story the woman is referred to as "The mother of Zebedee's sons." They were her sons too, James and John. Her request wasn't so popular with their friends:

And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”.
(Matthew 20:20 - 28)

Jesus says -- No lording over; no exercising authority over.
But -- Serve; free from captivity; free from punishment; free your life; free many; free all!
This is part of a mother's longing for her offspring. It's part of the best.

Sometimes, when things become too much, I say out loud, "I want my mother!"
I can hear both Jesus and a Zen Master ask, "But, who is your mother?"

I'll sit with this...in silence.

A friend wrote, “You're sounding pretty blue in your "Today at Meetingbrook" entries. Anything I can do? I can always use practice at listening!” This is a sweet invitation, one that could be issued quietly over and over to the vast majority of us who are feeling and sounding “blue.”
That’s exactly how I’m feeling. And so, that’s how I’m sounding.

One and the same breeze passes
Over the pines on the mountain
And the oak trees in the valley;
Why do they give different notes?
( - Shinkage-ryu sword school, dailyzen)

The different notes reflect the vibration and shape, timbre and presence of what the “same breeze” passes over. Pine breeze and oak breeze sound distinct in a way similar to our sounding distinct in the face of what passes us.

There are many sounds and many people coming through the doors of Meetingbrook. Some do not hear anything. Some passing through the shop hear the sound of our world with glee that it is a mess and the institutions in it will surely collapse. Some hear the sound of sorrowing disillusionment at blatant deception foisted by clever criminals or profiteering business folk in financial and corporate culture. Some hear the sound of their own lives squeezed between push and pull, like bumpers between sailing craft and harbor dock in a restless tide. Some hear the sound of their families crying out for food, justice, understanding, and forgiveness -- and quietly take action, and quietly pray.

For he knows how we are made,
he remembers we are nothing but dust.
Man – his life is like grass,
he blossoms and withers like flowers of the field.
The wind blows and carries him away:
no trace of him remains.
(- Psalm 102)

Today’s psalm in the Hours reflects how the breeze crosses my face. Dust and grass, blossom and withering, blown and carried away – no trace remaining.

So many ways to hear this:
1. To live a life hidden with Christ;
2. To contemplatively dwell unseen and unheard;
3. To see, find, enter the light and enter it leaving no trace.
4. To return to the marketplace after finding, taming, riding the Ox into unity, undifferentiated.
5. To go away, without benefit of any of the above, and live unobserved as one hue in a spectrum.

A woman at the shop suggested the other day she pays no attention to the news in the world. “I don’t care for that energy,” she said.

It’s true and often recommended – not to enter into the upsetting news from the everyday world. And why? Is it because we don’t know how to suffer through the suffering of others to a place of transforming healing and communion? Perhaps this type of prayer and fasting is best left to those grounded in Christic or Buddhist understanding of and engagement with the world.

The Tibetan practice of Tonglen is also a transforming one --
In the sutras it is said, "Remain in the meditative state of loving-kindness," which means that you should train your mind with compassionate awareness and develop your ability to actually illuminate and radiate such friendship. In order for our body and speech to spontaneously appreciate and thus support the training of the mind, we use the traditional mind training practice of Tonglen, or the "sending and receiving" practice. (Khempo Karthar Rinpoche)

Breathing in the suffering of the world, breathing out a transforming healing -- sending and receiving by means of prayerful awareness and engaged compassion. A Catholic priest on Sunday spoke his version when he said, "We should fight evil with good – with prayer and good example." Fight? Some would say so.

I'd prefer another metaphor, namely: self-forgetting -- when we decrease so that Christ might increase; or self-remembering -- when we understand with Bodhisattva awareness that our true self includes everything. These seeds of contemplation are tossed everywhere from diverse sources -- even unrecognized farmers and gardeners of the spirit.

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat there; and the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear”.
(- Matthew 13:1–9)

I listen! What is heard? Outside my window – wind chime, the sound of cedar branch, rustling of driveway bushes, song of birds, rolling of tires, cracking open of sunflower seed. The blue sky is without other color over barn and cabin.

In this blue space, I am listening. What is heard beyond this patch of hearing is incorporated in my patch of ground and sky. This is my prayer. It is a blue prayer – (with abundant green) – and a heart breaking open with the whole of our pains and hopes throughout the world.

To my friend wondering if there is anything she can do, I say: Yes!

Sow well. Listen well. And wherever seeds fall – on fruitful or barren ground -- pray some benefit be found by someone willing to share it well.

Sorrowing tears. Demanding to know. Lost and without presence. Hearing her name. Telling what is seen, what is heard.

It is a hard time for the world. Mary Magdalene knows.

John 20:11-18 tells us, "Mary stood crying outside the tomb. While she was still crying, she bent over and looked in the tomb and saw two angels dressed in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and the other at the feet. 'Woman, why are you crying?' They asked her. She answered, 'They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have put him!' Then she turned around and saw Jesus standing there; but she did not know that it was Jesus. 'Women why are you crying?' Jesus asked her. 'Who is it that you are looking for?' She thought he was the gardener, so she said to him, 'if you took him away, sir, tell me where you have put him and I will go and get him.' Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' She turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rabboni! (this means teacher.) 'Do not hold on to me,' Jesus told her, 'because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and find the brothers and tell them: 'I am ascending to my father and your Father, to my God and your God.' So Mary went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had said these thing to her."

If we long to overcome the world with its untrue promises, we have to attend what is pronounced through sorrows, false demands, noise of naming, and speak & see what is true. Loss and recovery is a fertile ground for Christ-seed re-creation.

Mary Magdalene is icon for us. See through her vision.

Breeze makes laugh green foliage, peals chimes under cedar, keeps air course correcting in swooping bird song this Sunday morning.

It is good to seek shelter in the Lord,
better than to trust in men.
It is good to seek shelter in the Lord,
better than to trust in the leaders of men.
(-Psalm 117)

As God speaks trust and shelter through the appearance of men & women, nature & silence -- ours is to listen carefully.

It is not our work in life to lose oneself in the other. That is called co-dependence.
Rather, it is our joy to disappear into the act. The act of being-with, the act of wordless presence. The act of no-othering. This is called inter-dependence.

Buddhists might call this interdependent co-origination, or, circum-incessional interpenetration.
Christians might call this incarnation, or, Eucharistic co-creation.
Listening with silence is portal and presentiation. It is archaic and original.

The term "archaic" as used here is derived from the Greek 'arce', meaning inception, or origin. Origin (or 'Ursprung,' in the original German) is the source from which all springs, but it is that which springs forth itself. It is the essence which is behind and which underlies consciousness. As Gebser understands the term, "conscious is neither knowledge nor conscience but must be understood for the time being in the broadest sense as wakeful presence." This presence, or being present, excludes two further overpowering by the past (past-orientation) or any future-oriented finality. He writes:

It is our task to presentiate the past in ourselves, not to lose the present to the transient power of the past. This we can achieve by recognizing the balancing power of the latent "future" with its character of the present, which is to say, its potentiality for consciousness.
(from "The Primordial Leap And The Present: The Ever-Present Origin - An Overview Of The Work Of Jean Gebser" book by Jean Gebser, article by Ed Mahood, jr., Synairetic Research)

Today it is time. Now it is eternity.

Eucharist. Friends Meeting. Harbor shop. Appearance and disappearance. Refuge. And the strength of weakness.

To be what we are, we have only what is alone ours -- listening silence.

There’s plenty to ponder.

The stock market is drowning. (I own no stocks). The Middle East is ablaze. Executives in the corporate world tank their companies and escape with hundreds of millions as reward. The President and Vice President try to be scolds, but like parents who use illegal drugs lecturing their children not to, Bush and Cheney must be alternately giggling and looking over their shoulders with nervous paranoia.

AIDS is creeping under every nation’s bedspread. Anger and rage ride in the fast lanes and crowded streets of our urban sprawl. Priests nationwide are either seen as predators or looked at by new squinting eyes to be likely suspects for that type of thing. Even the prior administration’s harshest and purest critics are pausing at the confessional doors uncertain whether their newly uncovered sins of cruelty or the sexual sins of their priests take precedence in the box.

It seems that kind of day -- gray, chilly, without promise.

Each night I gaze upon a pond,
A Zen body sitting beside a moon.
Nothing is really there and yet
It is all so clear and bright
I cannot describe it.
If you would know the empty mind
Your own mind must be as clear and bright
As this full moon upon the water.
- Chiao Jan (785 – 895)

I visit Sr. Bette at her yurt further down east along the coast bringing her two books in which she is profiled. We chat in her damp yurt. Books, flyers, pages from retreats, and all sorts of references to things she’s been doing stack the small opening on table between us where mosquitoes hover and breakfast dishes contend with death notices.

At Hermitage, Paul and Jim screen porch of cabin. Sando and Cisco find tennis balls for mother and son at Snow Bowl where a wedding party is unfolding. Saskia is closing doors of shop. Di opened, Cheryl covered until I got back, and Saskia came in from baking and working with Paul, and I left with the dogs because I was feeling like something the dogs leave on their walks.

Yesterday an accounting type said that after the conversation about a Laura Common (where the thought was expressed that we might want to rely on gift and grace) – it has begun to seem more than he wished to consider – concerning sound financial footing. He thinks, for reasons known and unknown, he might not be able to consider with us any longer.

Nova Scotia feels like a good choice right about now. Sooner than later a contemplative life as hermitage wants to be seed in ground.

Sr. Bette says that everything is meant to teach us something we need to learn. Tommy didn’t believe me yesterday when I told him what a dunce I was in school. “Nah,” he said. “Oh yeah,” I said. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

“Oh, yeah!” That’s what I say about then – and now.

There’s plenty to ponder.

Mini the cat is first to zabuton this morning. She faces hibiscus tree as Saskia lights incense and candle. Sando comes in. Cisco comes in. Bell is sounded.

Light rain, the mountain forest
Is wrapped in mist,
Slowly the fog changes
To clouds and haze.
Along the boundless river bank,
Many crows.
I walk to a hill overlooking the valley
To sit in zazen.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)

Susan arrives to accompany Saskia and Mini to vet in Augusta. Mini may be in renal failure. A homeopathic attention will be explored.

During sitting Cisco sniffs closer to Mini. The Border collie is ever interested in smaller animal. Mini looks over shoulder. She doesn't swat at his curiosity. Either trust or weakness to bother presides.

Bell sounds. Bows. Rubbing and strokes for all. Psalms. Intercessions for all. Final pealing of Angelus bells.

Friday takes shape.

(Later) Saskia calls from road. Vet says her body language says Mini is not ready to go, yet.
So, we stay together as long as we can.

Listening to sounding bell, we continue returning home, a lovely surrounding silence.

In a Laura, the footpath you follow leads back to your own dwelling. If you visit another, it is only to find your way back to yourself. If you visit a central place to converse or practice with others, you return to your pathway home with whatever gifts found with others to take refuge there in your own home ground.

Practice isn't interested in creating something new. Practice invites disappearance. When we completely practice, there is no other way -- there is only the way. We are not the way, the way is us. In prison several months ago Harold said it this way -- "We are not God; God is us."

Tricky business, talking about God. Buddhist’s help other religions by not using a name (God) but describing the reality: “What Is,” or “This One,” or “The Itself.”

There is also the rich question that is itself a practice, “What is this?”

All along the trail of moss,
I followed your wooden shoeprints.
White clouds hung around your little island
Where spring grass hid your unlocked door.
I enjoyed the colors of pines after rain
And reached the river’s source
Along the mountain trail.
Facing the stream and the flowers
I came inside a sense of Zen,
Yet cannot find the words.
- Liu Chang Ching (709–780, dailyzen)

Last night at the Hermitage Harbor Room there was the first of three Wednesday Evening Conversations on the Laura Common. Today Dana sent an email:
(for me) The MOST important thing that the subscription gets the
subscriber is the knowledge that we are supporting something of unique
and intrinsic value to us and others: the continuation of the
Meetingbrook Harbor Site. A gathering place in Camden that is not about
commerce, tourism or money, but about support, growth, and
conversation. For the same reason I give to Habitat for Humanity,
etc...it's not about what's in it for ME. It about what's in it for US.

How's that for "Substance"?
Dana

The word 'coalesce' came up three times. Coalesce, (from co = with, together; and alescere == to grow) means to grow together, to unite into a whole.

We become whole when we realize that wholeness is not other than us. When we experience our lives as broken, incomplete, or separate we might choose to enter a practice that heals, wholes, and unites. Silence with intent to heal helps. Solitude with intent to whole helps. Simplicity with the intent to common unity helps.

Whatever form our spiritual, religious, contemplative, meditative, or interactive practice takes -- when we dedicate it to the well-being of all beings, and we long that the graciousness of love be experienced in everything -- we have entered the Laura trail that visits with God, neighbor, all creation, and our own true self.

The above list is divides one reality with many words. So too, the reality of God is one reality with many expressions. We live in a dualistic experience of one reality. Practice invites us to gracefully live in and through that experience of many. Practice also invites us to live in and through the experience of one. Between us, God willing, we'll realize what is to be done in this existence.

Laura Haiku

Between us – is God
willing -- what is this willing
not… but between us

(wfh18july02)

In the deep recesses, is the snow still deep? Meetingbrook tries to find its way.

Which way
Did you come from,
Following dream paths at night,
While snow is still deep
In this mountain recess?
- Ryokan (1758-1831

MEETINGBROOK LAURA COMMON (A draft proposal for further conversation)


1. FINDING COMMUNITY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE

Q: WHAT IS MEETINGBROOK LAURA COMMON?
A: Meetingbrook Laura Common intends to be a community of individuals engaged in their own practice/prayer/study alone or with others.

Q: WHAT IS A ‘LAURA?’
A: ‘Laura’ is from a Greek word meaning foot trail, lane, or path. It represents the worn trails we travel between dwellings.

Q: WHO CAN BELONG TO THE LAURA?
A: Those identifying themselves as practitioners of a spiritual or religious discipline might wish to be part of a loosely knit association of individuals who intentionally choose to
· 1. Deepen their practice,
· 2. Share the delights & difficulties of their practice with another or others in soul-friend (1x1) conversation and circle (group) conversation,
· 3. Invite an openness of practice/prayer/study in one's own particular tradition or discipline so as to encourage others theirs.

Q: WHY CONSIDER BEING PART OF A LAURA?
A: In an age of many religious traditions and spiritual practices, there is often a lack of exposure to and conversation about the practice individuals actually engage in to deepen their practice/prayer/study.

Q: IS THERE A GOAL?
A: The goal to encourage each other to have a chosen practice, to actually practice, to share the experience of practice, to ask questions that arise from it, to invite others into the experience and questions so as to create a community, a sangha of practice/prayer/study that is available to enrich each other and visitors to the process.

Q: IS THERE A FEE OR COST INVOLVED?
A: No and yes.

Q: NO?
A: All events at Meetingbrook are free, open, and informal.

Q: YES?
A: Meetingbrook Bookshop and Bakery on Camden Harbor is the central clearinghouse and space for gatherings, conversations, information, and study – these things are part of our practice, that is, Bill and Saskia at Dogen & Francis Hermitage.
We are inviting the wider community, if they wish, to become subscribers to Meetingbrook to help pay the costs of rent, utilities, and meeting space.


Q: WHAT DOES THE SUBSCRIPTION GET THE SUBSCRIBER?
A: A forum, a place, a retreat room, an on-line and bi-annual journal, a community of practitioners that is willing to openly support each other in their practice. O yeah, free coffee, tea, summer sails with Saskia, and the (oftentimes) looniest bunch of people your tolerance can take.

Q: DO I HAVE TO GIVE UP MY CURRENT AFFILIATIONS?
A: No. The purpose of the Laura is to be a resource to all people of practice, prayer, and study. The goal is to deepen and share individual journeys. Then, to go back to our individual practices, or religious/spiritual affiliations and deepen one’s life in that setting if that is the call. The Laura Common wishes to be a common space where everyone with an intent to draw closer to their own truest reality – natural, divine, human, -- might find others similarly engaged and practice/pray/study with each other.

Q: WHERE DOES THE ‘LAURA’ NOTION COME FROM?
A: A “Laura” is a series of trails that lead from one's dwelling place to another's dwelling, to a common meeting place, and back again. Historically it is associated with what is called 'a laura of hermits.' These are individuals who have chosen to live an intentional life of solitude and community.
Some might live alone. Some might live alone with another. Some might live alone with others. Those who are part of a Laura are part of a larger community of individuals dedicated to living a life of contemplative, meditative, mindful, engaged, and loving service to self, each other, the world as we find it, and the ground of all being – known to some as True Self, God, Christ, Buddha, or Love Itself.

Q: DO YOU HAVE TO BE CHRISTIAN OR BUDDHIST TO BELONG?
A: No. At Dogen & Francis Hermitage Saskia and I practice in our root Catholic tradition as well as in the tradition of Zen Buddhism – but that is our practice, not the standard for anyone else. Each is meant to bring their root and/or current tradition to the Common and learn deeply there.

2. CHOOSING LAURA MEMBERSHIP

Membership suggests responsibilities and benefits.

Responsibilities include:

1) Daily Practice: Maintaining a (daily) practice/prayer/study engaged alone or with others.
2) Weekly Recording: Journal, letter-write, voice/video tape an entry concerning some delight or difficulty of your practice/prayer/study. This is for your own use.
3) Monthly Soul-friend 1x1 conversation: Willingness to regularly (monthly) speak with another person about matters of practice/prayer/study.
4) Monthly Community Conversation: Attend (monthly) a conversation conducted by another on some aspect of their practice/prayer/study.
5) Quarterly Invitation to Practice: 4 times a year extend an invitation to others to visit your practice in your own dwelling or in a common location.
6) Bi-annual Convening of Conversation: Twice a year convenes a conversation open to other Laura members and/or public on any chosen aspect of your practice/prayer/study.
7) Annual Retreat: Attend (yearly) a retreat of several days, or week in a setting honoring the simplicity, silence, and service in the tradition of your practice/prayer/study.

Benefits include:

1) Participate in an intentional community of practitioners where your particular expression of practice/prayer/study is respected and deepened.
2) Have abundant opportunities to share your personal practice/prayer/study with others.
3) Have forum to experience a variety of spiritual and intellectual traditions and disciplines and the personal encounters of others in that forum.
4) Utilize a network of individuals willing to practice non-judgmental and open loving speech and deep listening.
5) Have an ongoing online and bi-annual printed journal to read and contribute one's reflections and observations about their practice/prayer/study.
6) Utilize retreat resources for quiet and solitude. There is a meditation cabin at Ragged Mountain and a Harbor Room at Meetingbrook's two locations. Other retreat rooms might be available at other Laura member's dwellings.
7) Participate in volunteer service to the greater community where you live, or in the mid-coast area. There are prison conversations, community bakery visits to homebound and nursing facilities for recipe and hospitality purposes, and opportunities to be a resource for respite retreat and support for those experiencing the need to have a time-out because of life situations.

3. LAURA SUPPORT
Meetingbrook invites a subscription membership to help pay rent and keep going the programs begun there. While there is no fee to be part of Meetingbrook's Laura Common, donations and gifts for the ongoing costs and support of Meetingbrook are both welcome and needed.

4. BECOMING A SUBSCRIBER/MEMBER OF MEETINGBROOK
There is a yearly overhead of $18,000 to lease and maintain the cape on the harbor currently housing the bookshop/bakery and hermitage harbor room. This building is used for conversations, study groups, meditation practice, and retreat stays. It too will become part of the Hermitage non-profit organization so that all donations will support the practice/prayer/study that takes place there as well as the volunteer programs centralized there.
We’re thinking of 36 donors @$ 500 each to begin the first year. Nevertheless, all and any donation will be gratefully received.


Meditating deeply
Reach the depth of the source.
Branching streams cannot
Compare to this source!
Sitting alone in a great silence
Even though the heavens
Turn and the earth is upset,
You will not even wink.
- Nyogen Senzaki (1876-1958)

5. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: WHAT IS THIS?

To the question, "What Is This?" -- the Laura Common might wish to respond, "This is our practice, prayer, and study -- to present with simplicity & attention, integrity & silence, faithful engagement & transparent service -- who we are and what we do in each moment and situation we encounter."

At a recent Sunday Evening Practice someone pointed out there are three aspects of practice to consider for the Laura Common:
1) Personal Practice - that which an individual routinely engages in for his or her own practice, prayer, study.
2) Household Practice -- that which a household, (where two or more persons dwell together), regularly sets as a time to practice, pray, study together.
3) Community Practice -- that form wherein many people gather together outside the home (whether church, sangha, or other community) to practice, pray, or study.

These three forms connect with a larger understanding of the balance we try to maintain between solitude, intimate sharing, and broader community. The Laura Common intends to be just one of many other vehicles to encourage contemplation, conversation, and correspondence. This, and the engaged service of mindful compassion and awareness, is what practitioners offer to each and all. As individuals with a practice we choose to inform each other of what it is we do, keep all beings in mind and heart as we do our practice, and invite anyone who wishes -- whether new beginner or old beginner -- to be part of a wide and varied community of practice.

May all beings be happy! May all beings be safe! May all beings come to dwell in their true home -- with wisdom and compassion. And may the love of God, This One, help us 'reach the depth of the source!'

We'll have 3 weeks of Wednesday Evening Conversation (17, 24, 31July, 5:30-6:30pm) about the Laura.

[wfh/11July2002, Feast of St. Benedict]