Mythos, from muthos, "tale," has as much to do with silence as it does with telling.

Even if "You Have to Say Something," as Dainin Katagiri Roshi's book is titled, we sometimes have to look beyond the usual choices for a response.

Robert Pirsig suggests a way to think outside ordinary duality:
Yes and no ... this or that ... one or zero. On the basis of this elementary two-term discrimination, all human knowledge is built up. The demonstration of this is computer memory which stores all its knowledge in the form of binary information. It contains ones and zeros, that's all.

Because we're unaccustomed to it, we don't usually see that there's a third possible logical term equal to yes and no which is capable of expanding our understanding in an unrecognized direction. We don't even have a term for it, so I'll have to use the Japanese mu.

Mu means "no thing.'' Like "Quality'' it points outside the process of dualistic discrimination. Mu simply says, "No class; not one, not zero, not yes, not no.'' It states that the context of the question is such that a yes or no answer is in error and should not be given. "Unask the question'' is what it says.

Mu becomes appropriate when the context of the question becomes too small for the truth of the answer. When the Zen monk Joshu was asked whether a dog had a Buddha nature he said "Mu,'' meaning that if he answered either way he was answering incorrectly. The Buddha nature cannot be captured by yes or no questions.

That mu exists in the natural world investigated by science is evident. It's just that, as usual, we're trained not to see it by our heritage.
(- p.320, Robert Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

If Pirsig suggests 'heritage' trains us 'not to see' -- perhaps 'hermitage' invites us to see.

This hermitage was here first
Only then, the world.
When the world crumbles,
This hermitage will not be destroyed.
The host inside the hermitage
Is present everywhere.
The moon shines on the eternal void;
The wind whistles through
Ten thousand openings.
- Shiwu (1347)

Hermitage, for this view, might be seeing what is core and care of what is. That anything is at all, is itself invitation to look into it. It is the inner view that helps develop vision for how to respond to outer necessities -- like food, clothing, shelter, human interaction with one another, with created matter, and with the unknown which surrounds and interpenetrates this existence.

Hermitage is practicing seeing, saying, and serving. This in a silence that permeates both wordless and wording presence.

Jesus found he had to say something.
And he said, "Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went away. (from Luke 4:21-30)

There's something both musical and mythical about "passing through the midst of them" and disappearing.

The best place to find and lose oneself is in the midst of where we are. To be there, wherever we are, is to learn telling silence.

We are only passing visitors here.

This hermitage was here first.

As each with each in silence.

This is the nature of conversation.

"The tension between solitude and communion has existed at nearly every stage of the history of spirituality." (p.43, in article "Mending Broken Connections: A Process Spirituality," by Kathleen R. Fischer, in Chicago Studies, April 1987).

This morning at prison Joe comes in half way through the conversation. In one hand crumpled paper, stapler in the other. He sits down. After 5 minutes he nods, says "That's what I needed, to calm in this environment. I just put 40 staples into one paper while putting up with annoying interruptions." There's laughter. He's smiling as he leaves.

We talked of the Latin "Hoc" in the Christian rite of consecration. Ryan asked at end, "You know what the answer is?" Then he answered, "Faith in this."

One who gives rise to the awakened mind should know that what is called a self or person, a living being or a life span, is not so in essence but only in concept. That names self, person, living being, or life span are names only. Subhuti, you should know that all things of the world are like this, and you should have confidence in their essence without names.
- Diamond Sutra

Around fireplace Peter, Tommy, and Gale are trying to decide whether female energy would change the imbalance of power and violence in today's militaristic approach to problems. Their words approach stalemate.

When any part of the whole appropriates to itself what belongs to the whole, that's when trouble shows its face, that's when difficulty arises. Whether male/female, patriarchal/matriarchal, liberal/conservative, left/right, right/wrong -- or any myriad either/or opinion -- when we fragment the whole for purposes of determining superiority/inferiority, we lose the sense of whatever grace resides at origin.

"Religion is only man telling God what God ought to be," says Tommy before he launches into his song "Treebird" accompanying himself on small acoustical guitar that hangs out by the dog's water bowl. He sings, "The bird may find that flying is a good thing to know." (The bird didn't want to fly, he explains.)

We sit for Friday Evening Interreligious Dialogue with Nasr's book on the Heart of Islam.

Saskia says the piece about Islam's encompassing and taking in all the other religions -- is something for her to think about. Gale, Tommy, Lloyd, Patricia, Dick, Saskia and I encircled the text with open listening. We wondered what is actually asked of us by surrender?

After everyone leaves and departure nears, Saskia rubs lotion on her hands. Bakery is closed. Lights all out but for remaining one over refrigerator. Car warms in frigid parking lot.

She says when asked, "The nature of conversation is listening deeply and speaking from one's heart."

This practice of conversation is a lovely one.

This (Hoc) is the body we recognize in the pronouncing words celebrating the solitude and communion of gratefulness. No matter how it is ritualized, one thing does not become something else -- rather, each thing or person is recognized as itself.

"This," Nancy said as we drove from prison, "is Meetingbrook's presenting practice."

This is the nature of conversation.

Sometimes we each feel like an orphan.

Susan liked what Will said. The connection between matter and mater (L. 'mother'). We wondered whether 'mother consciousness' would make our attention to matter more loving and caring.

Subhuti, do not think that when one gives rise to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened mind one needs to see all objects of mind as nonexistent, cut off from life. Please do not think in that way. One who gives rise to the awakened mind does not deny objects or say that they are nonexistent.
- Diamond Sutra

It is more the task of losing the limiting liabilities of matter -- not eliminating matter itself. Many have held that a descent into matter is a degradation of spirit. Many long only for spirit, to be rid of body, to step away from matter with the accompanying belief in its inferiority, sinfulness, and crass barriers and boundaries.

Redeeming creation is not shunting away what is created. It is more about returning creation and matter to original state -- that which it is at origin -- its center fullness. The original 'what-is-ness' of matter resides within everything in creation.

Perhaps to redeem is to remind a thing of its original wholeness.

Will spoke of Integral Yoga, Sri Aurabindo, as his path. He spoke of the path of knowing (jnana), of devotion (bhatki), and of works (karma) -- each of which flows into the other as they find fullness.

What did the words of that song say? -- "When we awake we will remember everything."

We think we are what is holding together all that is. But if we let go, 'what-is itself' will hold us all together in divine embrace upholding.

Mother of God -- mothering God!

No orphan.

Maybe it isn't.

Is each fact true? Each fact is itself alongside others. Yet, one thing is not the other. Or is it?

Cream of Wheat with banana, blueberries, and vanilla Stonyfield yogurt.

Arvo Part's 'Magnificat' plays. It serves this morning as a prelude to surrendering interest in politics, presidential race, and postscripts to deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as report issued in England following investigation of former arms inspector's suicide last year. Each fact stands alone.

Jen said last evening it is best to let the low level, dark resonances of others' negative thoughts pass by noting, 'these are not mine.' Richard retells story of rescuing dog while thin ice held him aloft. Shunryu Suzuki's Not Always So suggests when breathing and activity are in harmony, when mind and body are clear and still together -- we are free, liberated, to engage everything and everyone without fear. Lloyd, John, and Saskia bravely step over threshold engaging question of inseparable experience.

Purifying our self direction,
Our emotions, and behaviors
In all endeavors, one grows
In understanding of the Way.
But our individual abilities vary
And the exalted Way has many
Different rules.
To students of Tao,
This sincere forewarning:
Only with a clear, honest spirit
Can we begin meaningful learning.
With an unsullied heart we may
Even move the immortals.
Debasing the Way,
Not even a heaven forgives us.
- Loy Ching-Yuen (1873-1960)

The Way opens before us. Each true step -- and we traverse infinite time and space in each instant and inch of geography. Each false step -- and we fall into the morass of deception imprisoned in the very space encircling us. Who can tell which step we have just taken? Who foretells the next step we take?

Sitting in cabin just before sunrise this morning, glancing out along fallen stone wall below floor level windows, gray squirrel steps across stones, right to left, on way to ground seed under bird feeders near overturned dinghy.

Chanting through expanding billows of worded breath, we 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. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Ah-ah-ah-amen.

If we want truth, a Zen Master said, only drop opinions.

Even Thomas Aquinas found straw the equivalent to his Summa Theologica. It was his final opinion on his life's work.

Practicing no opinion -- Wednesday opens.

Standing alone.

Maybe it is.

Coast Guard cutter Tackle breaks harbor ice. Floes, 8 to 10 inches thick and yards long, drift with outgoing tide down channels.

Priscilla said her husband seemed to be able to hear an individual's spirit speaking when he talked with that person. He'd write a poem or story. She brings in his writings and some of her artwork. Do we ever understand what we are seeing or saying? These writings will visit to see if they find their own context, even context in another's view.

Isn't that our prayer?

Prayer
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that
(Poem: "Prayer," by Galway Kinnell, from A New Selected Poems, c.2001)

A woman from France and man with either Middle Eastern or Middle European accent speak by fireplace over lemon tea bread, apfel kuchen, and pain chocolat.

Today -- longing for a hermit's solitude.

The shade of noble trees
Spreads in all directions
Below the trees a tiny
Hut is perfectly secluded
Beyond the sound of cart
Or horse or sign of human tracks
All day behind my door
I sit alone cross-legged.
- Han-shan Te-ch'ing (1546-1623)

Talk of Turkey, India, Greece, France, and England.

Ice is gone to open bay. I am gone to the sound intersecting mute origination and silent attentiveness.

Whatever 'what is' is, only and but, that.

Light at end of day climbs over Wayfarer roof. Remaining large floes inch slowly through water as stillness ebbs. The man's healing shoulder and wrapped arm rests under red sweater.

...This is, I think,
what holiness is:
the natural world,
where every moment is full

of the passion to keep moving.
Inside every mind
there's a hermit's cave
full of light,

full of snow,
full of concentration.
I've knelt there,
and so have you,

Hanging on
to what you love,
to what is lovely. ...
-- (from poem, "At the Lake," by Mary Oliver)

Prayer drifts alongside whatever happens.

Dawn light creates silhouette limbs in dooryard east.

Living alone
In the shade
Of a remote mountain,
I have you for my companion
Now the storm has passed,
Moon of the winter night.
- Saigyo

Stitching cuffs on flannel pants as water steams under frost-lined kitchen window.

Joy in waking in darkness watching daybreak yawn through below zero temperature.

Bald and Ragged Mountains hold themselves still and inseparate from cold.

We will bow to their fidelity, turning onto Barnestown, driving Downeast.

Grateful to be doing so.

What is it humans fear?

"This is what the prophets discovered. History is a nightmare. There are more scandals, more acts of corruption, than are dreamed of in philosophy." (p.181, Heschel.)

Is it form we fear? Or emptiness?
Don't make two, don't make one. That's that.

And when That is seen in its
Immanence and transcendence
Then the ties that have bound the
Heart are loosened, the doubts
Of the mind vanish, and the law
Of karma works no more.
- Mundaka Upanishad

Then there is three.

For Hegel, it was not a mere fancy or a game with the number three when his circling thought advanced in both small things and great in triplesteps (or a triangular movement). Behind it lay the basic insight -- which has never been forgotten since that time -- that I cannot state the truth absolutely clearly and distinctly merely in one sentence, but really need three, dialectically affirming, denying, surpassing: this is how it is, and yet not so, in fact there is more to it. And so on. In this sense truth lies in the totality, not in the individual steps, theses, propositions or elements of which it is made up. (pp.30-31, in Does God Exist? An Answer for today, by Hans Kung, c.1978)

Not one country, not one religion -- is truer or better than another. Forms fall apart. And out of emptiness emerge new ways of seeing.

At Sunday Evening Practice, reading from The Prophets An Invitation, by Abraham Heschel. He ends chapter nine saying, "The enmity between the nations will turn to friendship. They will live together when they worship together."

Jory said when we sit in the cold zendo and walk on the cold floor we are following the vision of the prophets.
We worship in spirit and truth. Each one, and the other, and the whole of us.

This is how it is. And yet, not so. In fact there is more to it.

There is no need to fear. We have only to engage, transform, and re-emerge through each event as who we are in the presence of one another.

Each is what is true. In that spirit, the best of life goes on.

Worshipful.

A poem, short story, or essay -- the good ones -- put you there. They serve self-remembering.

At end it can be said, "O, I didn't know that about myself. Thanks for showing me."

The fundamental teaching of Buddhism is nothing but the doctrine of One Mind. This Mind is originally perfect and vastly illuminating. It is clear and pure, containing nothing, not even a fine dust. There is neither delusion nor enlightenment, neither birth nor death, neither saints nor sinners. Sentient beings and Buddhas are of the same fundamental nature. There are no two natures to distinguish them. This is why Bodhidharma came from the west to teach the Ch'an method of "direct pointing" to the original true Mind.
- Han-Shan Te-Ch'ing (1586)

Reading this afternoon from False Papers by Andre Aciman, The keeper of sheep, by Fernando Pessoa, Fire in the Earth by David Whyte, Self-Remembering by Robert Earl Burton, some Rumi, and poems self published by an insurance man named Paul M. from the Hartford area. Lloyd said some things about the 4th Way and seeing the connections, beginning to understand, to feel.

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honourable we invest with the greater honour, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
(from 1 Corinthians 12)

When we look at each other, when we listen to each other, we are ready to say, "O, yes, I didn't know that about my self. Thank you for showing me."

All this so that the members may have the same care for one another.

Tommy comes in at end. Two women afterwards -- buy jams -- remembering her father worked with and helped build the chapel with Trappists from which the jams.

She is moved by this self remembering.

As each is.

An Irish visitor thinks we've not even begun to comprehend the incomprehensibility of God.

"Think of DNA," he says, "the squiggly structure of life itself, as insight into the original fire-burst of God in this existence."

We sit in cold shop, pre-fire, while in next town hundreds gather for memorial service. Our conversation is a different service -- words for others who've died in far away places in the unceasing war humanity has with itself.

God, some say, is saying life differently than our words. God, they say, is the impulse not-to-speak that sets in center of each and every being that exists along our way.

Not-to-speak, but given-to-love.

I will place my laws in their minds
and I will write them upon their hearts;
I will be their God
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach their fellow citizens
or their brothers, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
for all shall know me, from least to greatest.
I will forgive their evildoing,
and their sins I will remember no more.
(from Jeremiah 31)

A God who forgives and forgets -- no wonder we can't find that God!

Religions with scriptures about a silent God, a Word made Flesh who remains silent when asked, "What is truth?"

The rest of us talk and talk, wording everything we can, explain, argue, defend, rationalize, attempt to convey feelings, try to present thought in a communicable manner. And like the pop song we shrug and protest, "It's only words, but words are all I have, to take your heart away." (The BeeGees)

Good friends, my teaching
Of the Dharma takes
Meditation and wisdom
As its basis.
Never under any
Circumstances say that
Meditation and wisdom
Are different;
They are one unity,
Not two things.
Meditation itself is the
Substance of wisdom;
Wisdom itself is the
Function of meditation
- Hui-neng

So much of meditation is silent. As is wisdom. The substance and function of wisdom and meditation are not two things.

And when we speak, when we dare open heart, mind, and mouth to say something to another, we risk everything precious. Still, we must open our mouths, we must say something.

The heart, one author said, is a lonely hunter.

I call you my friends, says the Lord,
for I have made known to you all that the Father has told me.
(John 15:15)

It seems we have been made known. If we have been made known, all that is needed to be known, how is it we do not seem to know one another?

Is our barrier that we remember sin? Is our boundary that we retain tightly the evil we do one to another?

Let go! Forget about it! Find freedom in the close relatedness each hunts for -- by seeing in, through, and with God's sight.

Let our hearts be broken and taken away. Whether in joy or sorrow, let hearts flash open, as the heart of God is openness. Let pour out everything held there -- until empty -- and sacred. God's way and our way -- are not two ways. God's heart and our heart -- are not two things.

When all is revealed in sacred opening -- all know.

As we move in this meditation, through this wisdom -- in quiet -- we learn how to speak with each other.

Here is where the incomprehensible, forgiving and forgetting, comes to know and love itself -- in, and through, and with.

Daylight.

If extinguished candles are fragrant flowers colored by each one's loving prayer, a wonderland of seeding ground awaits eyes of passersby there.

Fields we saw
Blooming with
So many different flowers,
Frost-withered now
To a single hue.
- Saigyo

Sprinkling overnight snow -- this muted chiaroscuro-- at service to memorial this Thursday.

Even the young gone beyond leave children of their elders, who play in snowy drift of memory when daylight bows to passing night.

Around this Mandala, this sacred spot,
May the flames that transmute Samsara into Nirvana arise.
(from Dedication Puja, Ven. Sangharashita)

Christ-light -- hard working wisdom!

Hosmer Pond, thick with solid ice, was epiclesis tonight.

When the inward and the outward are illumined, and all is clear, you are one with the light of the sun and moon. When developed to its ultimate state, this is a round luminosity which nothing can deceive, the subtle body of a unified spirit, pervading the whole universe. Then you have the same function as the sun and moon.
- Liu I-Ming

A wide round circle of luminaries, candles in sand inside bags, on snowy ice under new moon white sharp stars. Inside the enormous circle of over 205 luminaries, an inner figure -- a heart of 35 luminaries -- lay within the still and silent cold of Wednesday night.

Car lights turn off. No one on pond. No one there when two people walk out to edge of circle lights. Stand and look. Wonder. Walk without words the edge of circle all around. Turn and bow in direction of house high on hill overlooking pond. Turn and bow to heart inside circle. Wander back off ice to car; drive off.

The word "epiclesis" is Greek for "invocation" in the sense of calling upon or naming a person. The implication of such naming is, of course, that the person called upon become actively involved in or present to the person or thing upon which he [or she] was invoked. It is not surprising, then, that long before the term was ever employed to refer to a specific part of the anaphora, epiclesis referred to the entire prayer. In time, however, epiclesis came to refer to that petition to the Father to send the Holy Spirit which usually follows the anamnesis.
(http://www.saintstephens.on.ca/Essay/KF/The%20Epiclesis.htm)

Anamnesis, (an'-am-nee'-sis) from ana, again; and mimneeskein, to put in mind; recollectio, recordatio, remembrance.
Plato called anamnesis, 'soul-memory.'

The stark emptiness of the ice and candles. The vacancy of the visit. The fullness of the experience of love set for her in glowing memory.

Whoever created the testimony had gone. The invocation, the putting in mind of the young woman whose dwelling has changed from hilltop to beyond our telling, was laid out with exquisite juxtaposition: form was emptiness, emptiness form in beautifully frozen heart-light within circle-wholeness.

Anaphora, Late Latin, from Greek, from anapherein, to bring back: ana-, ana- + pherein, to carry; a-naph-o-ra: The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs.

We invoke light of 'hard working wisdom' -- Amilia Sophia.
We recollect sterling stillness of ice pond memorial.
We carry back silence of pristine star eyes from distances beyond thought.

It is all we can do to pause, walk about, watch attentively, and pray her on her way.

This is -- indeed -- a round luminosity which nothing can deceive, the subtle body of a unified spirit, pervading the whole universe.

Someone, earlier in evening conversation, said, "Love is always counterbalance to whatever weight is borne."

Do questions and answers travel in pairs?

Suicide bomb in Iraq kills twenty. American ordinance in Afghanistan kills eleven villagers, four children. Car accident at routes 1 and 52 kills high school student. Throughout world men vie for positions of power -- for who will decide what bombs go where, and who will die, and who will profit from death.

Reflecting on another death, a friend writes:
Perhaps we must surrender (and I don't say submit--that seems different somehow, cowering) to what is, to I Am, and say, "I don't know why, Lord--and I don't need to know."

So many tragedies, so many questions! Do answers accompany questions? Or are we orphans and parents of orphans because 'answer' refuses to reveal itself?

No, tragedies do not cancel each other out as they succeed one another. On the contrary, they multiply and accumulate, becoming more unjust with every blow. True, every man [and woman] suffers alone -- yet his suffering is never limited to himself. Suffering begets suffering ever sharper, deeper and more harrowing. In other words, Job's anguish, however similar to Abraham's, however reminiscent of Abraham's, cannot be explained by it. The fact that Job's torments had a precedent does not imply that they have a meaning. In this respect, Jewish tradition differs from the Buddhist concept: to insert individual anguish into cosmic anguish does not resolve, but on the contrary, aggravates the problem. Therein lies its universality. Every individual is both beginning and end; that is why he deserves an answer, not a consolation, unless the consolation itself becomes an answer. (pp. 235-236, Wiesel)

In Warsaw Ghetto, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the emotional desert of contemporary consciousness -- 'answer' hides and seeks shelter from ravages of inane bombardment from occupying forces wanting to take control of what is not theirs.

In Wiesel's portrait of Job he writes: I prefer to think that the Book's true ending was lost. That Job died without having repented, without having humiliated himself; that he succumbed to his grief an uncompromising and whole man. It seems rather odd that the Midrash, so prodigal in legends at the beginning of the drama, becomes so sparing in its epilogue; it probably troubled the rabbinical storytellers. The third act of a play is usually a kind of apotheosis; this one is pale, disappointing. The fighter has turned into a lamb. A sad metamorphosis, inexplicable in literary terms. (p.247)

Wiesel wonders if God's true victory lay in forcing Job to welcome happiness -- to agree to go back to living as before.

Do we? Go on living? Doing the next thing asked of us? Not forgetting, no, but carrying on -- even without understanding, acceptance, or surrender? And doesn't that -- temporary solution -- tire soon enough? And do we not, tired and defeated, rise day after day -- as if in celebration of the unknown presence life constantly asks us to engage?

At the end of his struggle, which Job recognized as being lost in advance -- for how can man hope to defeat God? -- Job discovered a novel method to persevere in his resistance: he pretended to abdicate before he even engaged his battle.

Had he remained firm, had he discussed the divine arguments point by point, one would conclude that he had to concede defeat in the face of his interlocutor's rhetorical superiority. But he said yes to God, immediately. He did not hesitate or procrastinate, nor did he point out the slightest contradiction. Therefore we know that in spite or perhaps because of appearances, Job continued to interrogate God. By repenting sins he did not commit, by justifying a sorrow he did not deserve, he communicates to us that he did not believe in his own confessions; they were nothing but decoys. Job personified man's eternal quest for justice and truth -- he did not choose resignation. This he did not suffer in vain; thanks to him, we know that it is given to man to transform divine injustice into human justice and compassion.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a legendary man, a just and generous man who, in his solitude and despair, found the courage to stand up to God. And to force Him to look at His creation. And to speak to those men who sometimes succeed, in spite of Him and of themselves, in achieving triumphs over Him, triumphs that are grave and disquieting.

What remains of Job? A fable? A shadow? Not even the shadow of a shadow. An example, perhaps.
(pp. 248-249, chapter titled, "Job: Our Contemporary," in Messengers Of God,, Biblical Portraits and Legends, by Elie Wiesel, c. 1976)

Are we ever, really, completely defeated by the troubling and sorrowful things occurring in our way?

Is there a partnering answer to this question?

Luke said last night -- "Suicide disturbs, sends shocks and ripples to those left behind."

Wondering if it's a winter shower,
I wake in my bed
And hear them:
The leaves that
Couldn't withstand the storm.
- Saigyo

A young person, recent high school graduate from town, died. The word 'suicide' is spoken. A leaf that couldn't withstand the storm.

...India's spiritual traditions are all in agreement that the human being, though unable to intellectually know Reality in its nakedness, can become it in its different dimensions of totality. (Feuerstein, p.191)

There is a longing to change form. There is a longing to step out of the 'motions' we go through. When 'e-motions' are disturbed, it is a longing to move out of the motions that seem so containing. Whether school, church, family, relationship, or cultural box -- there is a longing to be out of the form, out of the motions.

For each of us suffering the fear of form, the disturbance of motions, there is a deeper longing we feel, a deeper way of supporting each other through these difficulties. Learning liberation, what it is, and how it serves -- is one way to begin. .

Liberation is a simple switch of identity. Prior to liberation -- from the unenlightened perspective -- there is the thought of being a human being. Upon liberation, or enlightenment, this thought ceases. The Self knows itself to be the eternal Self, not a specific individual inhabiting a particular point in space and time. (p.193, in Wholeness or Transcendence? - Ancient Lessons For The Emerging Global Civilization, by Georg Feuerstein, c. 1992)

Our hearts break, hearing of the loss and sorrow, the individual and family.

There is a need to re-learn our wholeness.

We pray the leaf finds itself in the heart of serene seed poising itself to enter new ground supported by whole trees in whole forests wandered through by whole-hearted individuals who see, hear, touch, and delight in the new creation unfolding in our midst. The fact is we are whole -- however felt the brokenness and fractured places we call our self -- we are no-other than the whole.

Suicide is painful. It calls the whole into question. Still, we are all there -- the one who has entered death ahead of us, and we, who now grieve and continue in motion down river until our own flowing out and falling into the Whole.

Our faith is in the liberation, given with grace, to each one fallen.

We long to wake, wake in our beds, to the sounds of water tumbling with joy, to the budding leafy presence of one and all.

What is this?

This is work that is alive,
Effervescent, free, liberated,
Gloriously enlightened,
True, and great.
Do you think it can be attained
By people who shut the door
And sit quietly with blank minds?
- Liu I-Ming

No.

Still, today we sit quietly with blank minds. (Maybe not so.)

Still, today we sit watching mind empty itself into quiet.

This -- this practice of sitting walking sitting, this work remembering what is alive within and surrounding us -- this is our 3rd Saturday Mindfulness Retreat.

At 1st Interreligious Dialogue Friday Evening Conversation, Nancy, Patricia, Saskia, and I read opening words of The Heart of Islam, Enduring values for Humanity, by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Imagine, surrendering into God, greeting God, facing God each way we turn!

At Prison Conversation earlier Charlie, Ryan, Saskia, and I read from A Passion for Truth by Abraham Heschel, then laugh and puzzle at the Irish folktale "The Man Who Had No Story."

The joy is conversation. With each other. Alone in silence.

Turning with one another.

Facing God.

Dangerously cold. All life seeks inner shelter.

Jesus told each one not to tell anyone what had happened. Some saw. Some walked. Some were healed of various infirmities.

Why not tell?

Because they didn't understand what had occurred?

John said at the shop at Laura Conversation he was troubled by miracles. The fire was dying and the room getting cold. Temperature was well below zero outside. And the wind.

They didn't understand that the miracle did not come from outside them. Nor did it come from inside them. And they certainly didn't understand who Jesus was as he was with them.

Robert said the real miracle was chocolate icing. Or maybe flour. Saskia suggested the whole cake. Dirk was opting for the course miracles take. Su Sane thought the real miracle might be or not be a miracle.

If you ask into something with prayer, you enter the question. Su Sane said questions and answers traveled in pairs.

There we are. In frozen temperatures inhospitable to human flesh, the matter is settled.

It is not a matter of perspective nor perception. The view itself -- the view is God. All is ordinary, all is miracle.

Awareness of what is seeing itself is question entered, answer lived.

Jesus needed no belief -- not his own, not anyone else's.

True faith is one's own being lived graciously and gratefully. This is thank you, you're welcome, even for the little nephew in Charlotte's story who prayed to catch a fish, didn't, and remembered to say thank you.

It's eleven below zero. Without wind.

Barge towed by tug heads out bay. Tide high. The dredging is done.

Do not remain in the dualistic state;
Avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace
Of this and that, right and wrong,
The Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
Do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
Nothing in the world can offend,
And when a thing can no longer offend,
It ceases to exist in the old way.
- Seng Ts?an (d. 606)

Paul Krugman in Commonwealth Club talk and New York Times column today ("The Awful Truth") wonders, "Are people finally willing to admit the obvious?"

It's coldest tonight, they say, than has been in ten years.

Those who wonder about such things wonder whether what is happening in our country is more dangerous than they can remember.

"Listen, all people, and I shall speak;
I will bear witness against you,
O nations:
As Divine Presence, Eternal Flame of Love,

Shall I not find fault with what
you call holy,
these offerings of greed and war
that are before me always?

Your lies and deceitful ways,
your greed for power and wealth
are spawned by darkness;

Have you forgotten that we are to be
One in Love and Truth,
that all of life is Sacred Gift?

I know every creature, every plant,
every mineral;

I know you -- your every need
and your fears;

The Earth and all that is in it
belongs to the Whole, to be
tended by all in co-operation
with Love.

Shall I accept your proud and
boasting hearts,
the oppression, the injustices
brought about
through your fearful deeds?

Never shall I accept such burnt offerings!

Rather, offer to the Beloved a gift
of thanksgiving
with grateful hearts;

For what other return can you make
for all that Love offers to you?

My friends, search for the still voice
that dwells in the Silence.
(Psalm 50, pp. 97-98, in Psalms For Praying, An Invitation to Wholeness, c.1996 by Nan C. Merrill)

What's worth their wonder is the worry something is irreparably changing.

Are we forgetting a grateful heart?

Is it hidden away in the silence?

That all of life is Sacred Gift?

The thought cheers -- to remember grateful heart in silence as sacred gift.

Joanie is pale in muted light of hospital room. She fell down her stairs.

Evening mountains veiled in somber mist,
One path entering the wooded hill:
The monk has gone off, locking his pine door.
From a bamboo pipe a lonely trickle of water flows.
- Ishikawa Jozan (1583-1672)

Two Tibetan monks stop in shop for hot chocolate. Dawa bows, leaves Kata over joined hands, prayer flags, and incense. Holly and Charlotte sit by fire with them. These monks, their bare arms not far from bitter cold. "Buddha was wrong," says Wang Chen, laughing as he points showing Karl his bare left arm, "he didn't know Maine cold."

In her hospital room there is a small buildup of ice inside the window. The room is quite warm. She is tired and weary. I say goodnight.

In workroom of bookshop a trickle of water runs inside tank of toilet so that below zero cold will not freeze pipe coming up from shallow travel below parking lot.

At his baptism with John, Jesus felt water trickle down head to shoulders and arms. God was water caressing offspring.

"Listen to him," water said. Just then, right there, water found sound refreshing and gentle, and began to flow on with restored resolve.

Our Savior came to be baptized, so that through the cleansing waters of baptism he might restore the old man to new life, heal our sinful nature, and clothe us with unfailing holiness. (Antiphon, Canticle of Mary, Evening Prayer I, Baptism Of The Lord, in Christian Prayer)

If our nature is sinful, that is, torn and frayed from its original wholeness, old man water was healing, and being healed by, new life revealed in the river.

John's words were heard and hands touched this new life -- many heard and felt the open mind, heart, and heavens -- as water found its way.

Jesus went on from that day.

A lonely trickle of water flows.

Note: Meetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery will re-open Saturday, 10Jan04 for 9:30am conversation on The Many Faces of Death.

.....

Sea smoke rises from Penobscot Bay.

What if it were true that the very air we look through is the spirit of God? The air we breath?

Would our perspective change?

Acts at random,
In ignorance of
The constant, bode ill.
Knowing the constant
Gives perspective;
This perspective is impartial.
Impartiality is the highest nobility;
The highest nobility is divine,
And the divine is the Way.
This Way is everlasting,
Not endangered by physical death.
- Tao-te Ching

What is constant?
In the question is the answer -- 'What Is!'

Do we look for God in vain because God is what is looking through, God is what is looked through?

The Way is constant. We either enter it and disappear; or we run around it, exhaust ourselves, and fall bitter, defeated, and seemingly wayless.

Seemingly -- because there is only the Way. What falls defeated is the false self whose belief posits itself outside and away from what is alone truth.

What is alone truth is this.

This is where we are -- each and every one of us.

We are each alone truth -- non-separate, intimate, sacred, and ordinary.

Some ask, "Where is God?"

Look around. Look through what is between the one looking and that which is seen. Now, forget who we think is looking and what we think is the object we look at.

In the looking itself, what is seen through, is what is itself seen.

The ego, what we think we are, cannot see God and live.

We live in seeing what God is seeing.

Note: Meetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery will be closed a few days, Friday 2Jan04 through 9Jan04. We will re-open Saturday, 10Jan04 for 9am conversation on death and dying.

.....

Very cold night in Maine.

Right at the moment of dropping off,
Deliberation and discussion
Are one thousand or
Ten thousand miles away.
- Hongzhi (1091-1157)

Snow-making machines at Snow Bowl. Wind rattles rusting chime outside room.

Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.
When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified.
Immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.
(Mark 6: 45-52, New International Version (NIV))

What's there to understand? Bread stretched itself to 5 thousand mouths. Water buoyed itself under human feet. He was alone on land.

It's not that miracles are incomprehensible. It's more that for some reason we believe that everything isn't possible.

Everything is possible.

Machines make snow. Rusting iron ore makes music for the wind. Filament holds fragile fingers together and light glows in that touch.

Soon we'll remember a time when not everyone told the truth. Lies will be preserved in museums, many in presidential libraries, others in bait and tackle backrooms in fishing towns in Atlantic Provinces.

It's just me, Jesus says, lighten up.

Anybody got coffee on the fire?

Note: Meetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery will be closed a few days, Friday 2Jan04 through 9Jan04. We will re-open Saturday, 10Jan04 for 9am conversation on death and dying.

.....

Blessings of Epiphany!

Shining through.

After sitting through unheated cabin cold, we chant Lauds. This morning prayer of Epiphany is punctuated by sun coming over clouds, through windows, to where we sit on zabutons, breath visible in every syllable:

Father of light, unchanging God,
today you reveal to men [and women] of faith
the resplendent fact of the Word made flesh.
Your light is strong,
your love is near;
draw us beyond the limits which the world imposes,
to the life where your Spirit makes all life complete.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
(Alternative Prayer, Morning Prayer, Solemnity of Epiphany, in Christian Prayer, Liturgy of the Hours)

It is the 'Alternative Prayer' and it captures something important for us this feast. The words -- draw us beyond the limits which the world imposes,
to the life where your Spirit makes all life complete. -- tell us the emphasis we look for in this new year.

We will begin a new Friday Evening Conversation entitled, Interreligious Dialogue: Unveiling and Practicing Peace Between Ways. The hour-long conversation, along with regular audio-video resource presentations, will focus on Hinduism (and other India-based spiritual belief systems), Judaism, Islam, Far East, Native, Pagan, and various contemplative and meditative forms attempting to express what the heart longs for in open forum.

Caroline's "story stick" leans against a cabin wall. On it are inscribed symbols of the various world religions. It resides in the chapel/zendo to remind how varied, diverse, and pluralistic is the thinking and prayer of humankind.

If we are ever to embody the kindness and peace longed for in our world, we'll have to learn how to unveil and practice peace between ways of seeing and living life.

A joyfulness comes with sunlight across cabin floor. Joy accompanies this inchoate, and now newly worded, theme of Meetingbrook.

Parents, angels, shepherds, wise men and women, kings, and the rest of us -- all -- are in the presence of 'the resplendent fact of the Word made flesh.'

Epiphany, appearance and recognition, is crucial for heart-peace and world-peace.

Draw us, indeed, beyond the limits which this world imposes, to the life where your [and our] Spirit makes all life complete!

This is the bond between us -- to move through this Word and world -- finding all life whole.

Then going home an alternative way.