Arriving.
The young man nornally setting up the small room for his tutoring is not in his classroom where he helps prep GED with other inmates. Diane winces when asked, saying only he'll be in the supermax for a time -- a lengthy one. She doesn't say why and I don't ask -- simply the fact of his absence and the reorganization of the room we use for the day's conversation.
It is over four years we've been going into Maine State Prison, first in Thomaston, now in Warren, for Meetingbrook Conversations: The Practice of Listening and Thinking With Others. It's been seventeen years I've been in and out since first teaching a college course in the old prison in 1987/88.
Every other Friday, from 8:30am-10:45am three of us enter the maximum security prison in Warren, thread our way through metal detectors, long corridors, sliding steel heavily bolted doors, past guards and prisoners walking to visits or jobs. We traverse outdoor crossroads between minimum, maximum, & supermax housing units, past flagpole and up walkway to large building that quarters recreation, education, chaplainry, & substance abuse services. A few more secure doors are opened and we enter the place where conversations are held. Yesterday we landed in a rearranged classroom absent our sometime attendee -- the floor of the larger room with a few computers has just been mopped and is wet.
Silent Illumination
Silently and serenely,
One forgets all words;
Clearly and vividly,
It appears before you.
When one realizes it,
Time has no limits.
When experienced,
Your surroundings come to life.
Full of wonder is the pure illumination.
- Hung Chih Cheng Chueh (1092-1157)
Even in prison -- some would say, because of prison -- illumination comes to life. Years ago we speculated the connection between monastic life and prison life. Time, routine, alertness, and subtle fear pervade both. (Monks used to consider the 'fear of the Lord' as beginning wisdom; inmates experience fear more proximate and equally unexplainable.)
Sonny looked at his life over three years in independent classes for college credit and saw things out loud that had been hidden below silent anger. As least three of the contemporary participants tell of autobiographical writing they do -- as well as poetry, philosophical meditation, and correspondence that surpasses the "Hi, I'm fine, I need..." variety. Prison is no mere metaphor. Every time I exit prison I am aware what a gift it is to be able to visit and converse, and not to have to reside there.
We engage in Meetingbrook Conversations in Prison to broaden community. The conversations at shop and prison are a transmission of felt relationality between two aspects of one community -- whether we call it Meetingbrook community or Human community. Each person is where and who they are right now. Our longing is to engage in conversations that invite each participant, in or out, to listen and think with others -- to practice presence -- a practice that transcends our understanding of it.
Charlie, Ryan, Chris, Nancy, Saskia, Joe, and myself sat around the table Friday. We read from Lewis Thomas' Lives of a Cell, a weblog of mine, a reflection of Ryan's, William Barrett's Irrational Man, excerpts from a biker-writer from Maine, and selections from G.I. Gurdjieff's Views from the Real World, and Meetings with Remarkable Men.
Nancy said the Buddha emphasized "direct experience."
Direct experience of what?
Saskia said, "In nature there are no words, just to be with what is there."
Ryan spoke of the way some individuals experience trauma in their lives -- the feeling of being "Shot into the landscape across the wilderness, stretched out, followed by the need to draw their spirit back into its residing reality -- the here and now they are familiar with in place and time."
"When I look, what I see is..." -- said Chris wrestling with the question whether we are capable of seeing things in and of themselves, or only through our conditioning and conceptual categories. (Yet, his words suggest a more primal grasp, namely, "When I look, what I see...is.")
So, too, Ryan's words in a written piece he brought, "...only if my intention is, as is 'said,' 'right.'"
(His words are heard, "Only if my intention...is...'as is'-'said'... --right?")
The notion of unveiling "as-is, said" intrigues. Is it possible to experience things-as-they-are without the infiltrating conditioning of experience and idea determining the "as-is, said" to be other than what is said of itself?
There is a way, I think,
that it allows me to listen --
it's so different from the
way that old mind of mine
copes (and "makes up" things...)
It says not to pray like
I have... it's almost like
a 'freedom walk of prayer'
that creates and energizes itself...
little is the desire in
me to mess with this
beauty-goodness
yet the other thing --
the other half --
remains --
but it is -- well,
something else?
forget these notes
(--Ryan's reflection, "I would be remiss not to attempt notes --", 3/20/04)
We say goodbye. Shake hands. Depart one way and the other. Walk long portico. Pass through heavy doors. Collect driver's licenses and car keys. Step out to curved drive past sign "No weapons." The morning is exactly as it is.
I say to Nancy I had an insight into her "direct experience" comment.
"Tell me," she says.
I say direct experience is, "Bearing out through two rights one's reality." Later it seems a simpler looking at the meaning of the phrase might yield -- "Undergoing opening."
We let the dogs out of green car. They yawn, pee, meander, and return.
At end of curved entry-road we turn left.
Departing.
Friday, March 26, 2004
Note: Conversation in Prison this morning. Bookshop/Bakery closed today. No conversation this evening. Re-opening Saturday morning for 9:30am "The Many Faces of Death" conversation.
............
Thirty-two minutes walking entry road to Snow Bowl. Dogs carry then drop sticks, relieve themselves, figure the pattern of my back-and-forth clips road-to-parking-lot, and lay in wait for return.
Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
-- W. B. Yeats (quoted in Irrational Man, A Study in Existential Philosophy, by William Barrett)
Melting and mud -- the status of early spring morning under drizzle-sky hovering fog -- as if an unheard command is given that "Everything shall be wet and softening this watch!"
Shall we also rummage the heart today? To find -- what?
What work is common to us, however tucked away and undetected? Where do we start -- especially since the majority of us believe we are well-along (thank you) the path of our lives? Is it possible, even true, that we are ever and always at the beginning -- just at start -- of our lives?
"Stigmergy" is a new word, invented recently by Grasse to explain the nest-building behavior of termites, perhaps generalizable to other complex activities of social animals. The word is made of Greek roots meaning "to incite to work," and Grasse's intention was to indicate that it is the product of work itself that provides both the stimulus and instructions for further work.
Grasse needed his word in order to account for the ability of such tiny, blind, and relatively brainless animals to erect structures [the termite nests, which excepting perhaps a man-made city are the most formidable edifices in nature] of such vast size and internal complexity. Does each termite possess a fragment of blueprint, or is the whole design, arch by arch, encoded in his DNA? Or does the whole colony have, by virtue of the interconnections of so many small brains, the collective intellectual power of a huge contractor?
(pp.156-7, chapter "Living Language", in The Lives of a Cell, Notes of a Biology Watcher, by Lewis Thomas, c.1974)
Fragments? Or collective?
What is the configuration of power and creativity running through us as individual fragments or collective intelligence? And how do we interpose ourselves to inquire and share benefits of our inquiry and resources?
So many threads! So many faces, minds, hands, and hearts! How do we proceed? Where start?
It is easy to lose the thread (from ter, to rub, twist -- possibly also the root of termite). Are you there? (p.164, Thomas)
Am I?
Are you?
Can we be?
A start.
............
Thirty-two minutes walking entry road to Snow Bowl. Dogs carry then drop sticks, relieve themselves, figure the pattern of my back-and-forth clips road-to-parking-lot, and lay in wait for return.
Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
-- W. B. Yeats (quoted in Irrational Man, A Study in Existential Philosophy, by William Barrett)
Melting and mud -- the status of early spring morning under drizzle-sky hovering fog -- as if an unheard command is given that "Everything shall be wet and softening this watch!"
Shall we also rummage the heart today? To find -- what?
What work is common to us, however tucked away and undetected? Where do we start -- especially since the majority of us believe we are well-along (thank you) the path of our lives? Is it possible, even true, that we are ever and always at the beginning -- just at start -- of our lives?
"Stigmergy" is a new word, invented recently by Grasse to explain the nest-building behavior of termites, perhaps generalizable to other complex activities of social animals. The word is made of Greek roots meaning "to incite to work," and Grasse's intention was to indicate that it is the product of work itself that provides both the stimulus and instructions for further work.
Grasse needed his word in order to account for the ability of such tiny, blind, and relatively brainless animals to erect structures [the termite nests, which excepting perhaps a man-made city are the most formidable edifices in nature] of such vast size and internal complexity. Does each termite possess a fragment of blueprint, or is the whole design, arch by arch, encoded in his DNA? Or does the whole colony have, by virtue of the interconnections of so many small brains, the collective intellectual power of a huge contractor?
(pp.156-7, chapter "Living Language", in The Lives of a Cell, Notes of a Biology Watcher, by Lewis Thomas, c.1974)
Fragments? Or collective?
What is the configuration of power and creativity running through us as individual fragments or collective intelligence? And how do we interpose ourselves to inquire and share benefits of our inquiry and resources?
So many threads! So many faces, minds, hands, and hearts! How do we proceed? Where start?
It is easy to lose the thread (from ter, to rub, twist -- possibly also the root of termite). Are you there? (p.164, Thomas)
Am I?
Are you?
Can we be?
A start.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Note: We are closed today, Thursday. No conversation this evening.
....................
Muted morning.
Hillside is unmoving carpet of tired brown with patches of withdrawing white snow. Sky says rain soon in grey mutter cloud cover.
My mind is inclined to quiet;
Outside of things,
I lodge in the brush.
The sense of the mountains is best
When you reach their depths;
The source of the valley stream, distant,
Is naturally purified.
For the rest of my life,
All that's missing is death;
All thoughts and worries
Are settled already.
Recluses should leave no tracks;
People stop asking their names.
- Wen-siang (1210-1280)
We leave no tracks when we remain where we are and simply be what we are.
Stillness doesn't mean no-motion. Stillness is movement within itself. It is not interested with articulated contrasts between where once we were and where now we are -- rather, mere presentation of one's reality without comment is sufficient for the moment. The 'moment' is its own revelation. Nothing need be added or articulated. The brown leaves on ascending Ragged Mountain are speaking -- they announce to the mountain and inhabitants the very reality of the moment.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!"
(Luke 1:26 - 28 )
Today is the Feast of the Annunciation. Gabriel tells Mary she is the mother of God. (Not 'she will become' the mother, but that she is.) Mary says, "Let it be." And the Word that creates everything is itself in creation.
Itself in creation! The phrase could be the response made by every being to the question "Who or what are you?"
"Itself in creation!" -- is who I am, is what I am."
Brown leaves remain still moving within themselves outside kitchen window.
"Let it be," in today's idiom, means, "Drop it!" A leaf understands this, and responds faithfully to it.
Mary was who she was, as was Gabriel, as was Jesus.
(Janet says it is John's birthday today. We break fast into their presence.)
We greet John, full of grace, and see all-he-is with him.
Remarkable.
....................
Muted morning.
Hillside is unmoving carpet of tired brown with patches of withdrawing white snow. Sky says rain soon in grey mutter cloud cover.
My mind is inclined to quiet;
Outside of things,
I lodge in the brush.
The sense of the mountains is best
When you reach their depths;
The source of the valley stream, distant,
Is naturally purified.
For the rest of my life,
All that's missing is death;
All thoughts and worries
Are settled already.
Recluses should leave no tracks;
People stop asking their names.
- Wen-siang (1210-1280)
We leave no tracks when we remain where we are and simply be what we are.
Stillness doesn't mean no-motion. Stillness is movement within itself. It is not interested with articulated contrasts between where once we were and where now we are -- rather, mere presentation of one's reality without comment is sufficient for the moment. The 'moment' is its own revelation. Nothing need be added or articulated. The brown leaves on ascending Ragged Mountain are speaking -- they announce to the mountain and inhabitants the very reality of the moment.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!"
(Luke 1:26 - 28 )
Today is the Feast of the Annunciation. Gabriel tells Mary she is the mother of God. (Not 'she will become' the mother, but that she is.) Mary says, "Let it be." And the Word that creates everything is itself in creation.
Itself in creation! The phrase could be the response made by every being to the question "Who or what are you?"
"Itself in creation!" -- is who I am, is what I am."
Brown leaves remain still moving within themselves outside kitchen window.
"Let it be," in today's idiom, means, "Drop it!" A leaf understands this, and responds faithfully to it.
Mary was who she was, as was Gabriel, as was Jesus.
(Janet says it is John's birthday today. We break fast into their presence.)
We greet John, full of grace, and see all-he-is with him.
Remarkable.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Note: We are closed today, Wednesday. No Evening Conversation.
....................
Zen Catholic.
Susan's dog, Rougie, died a few weeks ago. We met her and Lucky, her Great White Pyrenees, at their van in parking lot of Grave's Market. Robert, Su.Sane, and Sandra arrive and join the sunny circle. Talk of birds and this and that. Cars arrive and depart as we talk. Elly waves hello. The sun is warm.
Mountain of Samadhi
This mountain has neither
ugly rocks nor clumsy trees.
It raises itself ten thousand feet
towards the cold heaven.
Even a stray cloud does not
cling around the mountain.
Only the moon showers its
pale light abundantly over the summit.
- Jakushitsu (1290–1368)
The mountain raises itself.
Bananas, yogurt, two half gallons of orange juice, two Cadbury chocolate bars, frozen pizza, some bakery goods, and Bangor Daily News. These came before parking lot conference and earlier Mass at Our Lady of Good Hope.
If God is, and God is the creator and inspiration of all life, we begin there. If God, alongside being the inner core sustaining breath of each thing in existence, is the origin and seed of God (or the Itself) realizing Itself in humankind, there is the belief of many that Jesus enjoyed a distinct and unique realization of what-is-in-Itself, namely, the reality of God as Itself.
At Mass this morning the thought that God, suffusing everything, emerges specifically and fully in the person of Jesus, is as feasible an understanding as the belief that Jesus, in his awakened understanding, saw that everything shared in the reality he shared.
Reception and sharing of bread and wine, the cleansing and sustaining function of water, the soothing and healing properties of anointing with oil, deep listening, loving community, dedication to holiness and service, the pervasive flowing through of the Sacred Spirit -- these enacting behaviors are universal and worthy of reflection.
In the Catholic tradition, the one most familiar to me, these elements are also known as: Eucharist, Baptism, Extreme Unction (or Sacrament of the Sick), Reconciliation (or Confession), Matrimony, Holy Orders, Confirmation.
Jesus, who has come to be called 'the Christ', is looked on by those calling themselves Christian as the focal point for beliefs encompassing the divinization of humankind and all creation, and the humanization of the divine mystery and source of all being. If, indeed, there were a being or reality (sometimes named 'what-is-called-God'), that being/reality would not (I would think) be separate from the being/reality of each and every one of us.
The breath, or voice, of God is that which creates, embodies, and sustains each and every particle, thing, and being (as far as we are capable of knowing) in existence.
Is there any end to this?
“Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.
“I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me”.
(John 5:17 - 30)
Having life in himself, or, life-in-itself, is (we might say) the gift of creation. The references to 'resurrection of life' and 'resurrection of judgment' have in common 'resurrection.'
To 'judge' -- (from 'jus' = right or law; and 'dicere' = decide or say) -- means, "to determine or pronounce after inquiry and deliberation" (per Webster’s 7th). Thus to judge is to think, to form an estimate of something.
It is an interesting consideration that is made in contemporary environments emphasizing meditation, contemplation, and consciousness -- namely, that 'life' and 'judgment' might be seen as two ways of experiencing our being. More precisely, to live life as a whole as an experience in itself is remarkably different than evaluating and analyzing fragments and situations that compartmentalize behavior and opinion.
What is the will of God? Some say love. Perhaps it is the longing to express and experience oneself -- the "itself" -- as ground and source of what is in existence. It is an interesting consideration to reflect on -- that "the will of him who sent me" means there is no separation of will, no fragmentation dividing 'my' will from 'the Father's' will. That what we call 'my' will as perceived separate from God's will is, in fact, a delusion -- albeit an expedient delusion. How we contemplate or even deliberate this inseparate possibility tells us a great deal about who we think we are in each other's life, how we go about living life, and (more emphatically), the manner with which we encounter or respond to conflict and hostility in the world.
On the radio, officials interview each other trying to piece together what is known and what is hidden about 9/11. If these men and women are not solely attempting to place blame on each other, then they are hoping to find a way to relieve the world of terrorism, and perhaps to find a way to relieve the world of narrow rule by the militarily powerful and financially wealthy to the exclusion, in breath and voice, of the weak and poor.
Zen, at root, means 'seeing.' Catholic, at root, means 'universal, whole.'
Seeing the whole.
Inestimable.
One's life.
....................
Zen Catholic.
Susan's dog, Rougie, died a few weeks ago. We met her and Lucky, her Great White Pyrenees, at their van in parking lot of Grave's Market. Robert, Su.Sane, and Sandra arrive and join the sunny circle. Talk of birds and this and that. Cars arrive and depart as we talk. Elly waves hello. The sun is warm.
Mountain of Samadhi
This mountain has neither
ugly rocks nor clumsy trees.
It raises itself ten thousand feet
towards the cold heaven.
Even a stray cloud does not
cling around the mountain.
Only the moon showers its
pale light abundantly over the summit.
- Jakushitsu (1290–1368)
The mountain raises itself.
Bananas, yogurt, two half gallons of orange juice, two Cadbury chocolate bars, frozen pizza, some bakery goods, and Bangor Daily News. These came before parking lot conference and earlier Mass at Our Lady of Good Hope.
If God is, and God is the creator and inspiration of all life, we begin there. If God, alongside being the inner core sustaining breath of each thing in existence, is the origin and seed of God (or the Itself) realizing Itself in humankind, there is the belief of many that Jesus enjoyed a distinct and unique realization of what-is-in-Itself, namely, the reality of God as Itself.
At Mass this morning the thought that God, suffusing everything, emerges specifically and fully in the person of Jesus, is as feasible an understanding as the belief that Jesus, in his awakened understanding, saw that everything shared in the reality he shared.
Reception and sharing of bread and wine, the cleansing and sustaining function of water, the soothing and healing properties of anointing with oil, deep listening, loving community, dedication to holiness and service, the pervasive flowing through of the Sacred Spirit -- these enacting behaviors are universal and worthy of reflection.
In the Catholic tradition, the one most familiar to me, these elements are also known as: Eucharist, Baptism, Extreme Unction (or Sacrament of the Sick), Reconciliation (or Confession), Matrimony, Holy Orders, Confirmation.
Jesus, who has come to be called 'the Christ', is looked on by those calling themselves Christian as the focal point for beliefs encompassing the divinization of humankind and all creation, and the humanization of the divine mystery and source of all being. If, indeed, there were a being or reality (sometimes named 'what-is-called-God'), that being/reality would not (I would think) be separate from the being/reality of each and every one of us.
The breath, or voice, of God is that which creates, embodies, and sustains each and every particle, thing, and being (as far as we are capable of knowing) in existence.
Is there any end to this?
“Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.
“I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me”.
(John 5:17 - 30)
Having life in himself, or, life-in-itself, is (we might say) the gift of creation. The references to 'resurrection of life' and 'resurrection of judgment' have in common 'resurrection.'
To 'judge' -- (from 'jus' = right or law; and 'dicere' = decide or say) -- means, "to determine or pronounce after inquiry and deliberation" (per Webster’s 7th). Thus to judge is to think, to form an estimate of something.
It is an interesting consideration that is made in contemporary environments emphasizing meditation, contemplation, and consciousness -- namely, that 'life' and 'judgment' might be seen as two ways of experiencing our being. More precisely, to live life as a whole as an experience in itself is remarkably different than evaluating and analyzing fragments and situations that compartmentalize behavior and opinion.
What is the will of God? Some say love. Perhaps it is the longing to express and experience oneself -- the "itself" -- as ground and source of what is in existence. It is an interesting consideration to reflect on -- that "the will of him who sent me" means there is no separation of will, no fragmentation dividing 'my' will from 'the Father's' will. That what we call 'my' will as perceived separate from God's will is, in fact, a delusion -- albeit an expedient delusion. How we contemplate or even deliberate this inseparate possibility tells us a great deal about who we think we are in each other's life, how we go about living life, and (more emphatically), the manner with which we encounter or respond to conflict and hostility in the world.
On the radio, officials interview each other trying to piece together what is known and what is hidden about 9/11. If these men and women are not solely attempting to place blame on each other, then they are hoping to find a way to relieve the world of terrorism, and perhaps to find a way to relieve the world of narrow rule by the militarily powerful and financially wealthy to the exclusion, in breath and voice, of the weak and poor.
Zen, at root, means 'seeing.' Catholic, at root, means 'universal, whole.'
Seeing the whole.
Inestimable.
One's life.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Monday, March 22, 2004
Deep cold night.
Remembering walking dirt road alongside water and woods at Rockport harbor early morning. Deb is with her Golden up from golf course. We park in Vesper Hill space piled with recent snow. The dogs are happy to run. We are happy to walk.
Trampling the grass has made three paths.
Looking up at the clouds makes
Neighbors in the four directions;
There are birds to help with the
Sound of the singing, but there
Isn't anyone to ask about the
Words of the Dharma.
Today among these withered trees,
How many years make one spring?
- Han Shan (c 730)
Three paths criss-cross each other trying to catch scent. The four directions turn suddenly and ask us for a match. After week of weakness enclosed in mulling quiet we make way to Corner Shop for breakfast after long walk. An old and worn hull floats in cove at mooring sealing planks swell with salt wet.
One path is mountain solitude. Second is marketplace immersion. Third is amalgamating one place or the other -- to merge into a single body.
The name Han Shan means: Cold Cliff, Cold Mountain, or Cold Peak. Han Shan is known in Japan as "Kanzan." Han Shan was considered, when older, to be an eccentric Taoist, crazy saint, mountain ascetic mystic, and wise fool. He went many ways and back again the way fools do. There is no counting on a fool to show us the way -- there are too many variables for fools to be satisfied with only one.
At that time, Imperial Counselor Zhou Hai Men was lecturing on Yan Ming metaphysics. When he heard of my arrival, he called on me bringing a few dozen of his followers along. He began a discussion by referring to the saying: “One cannot realize the truth until one understands the condition of day and night.”
A Daoist elder who was sitting among them responded. “The condition is consciousness,” he said. “And day and night are waking and sleeping. The same consciousness that functions during our daylight actions, functions during the night in our dream actions.” The audience showed its approval.
Counselor Zhou then turned to me. “Venerable old Chan Master,” he said, “though everyone else seems to be satisfied with this interpretation, I am not. Please give us your opinion.”
“What is the source of the quotation?” I asked
“It is from The Book of Changes,” be answered, reciting a few additional sentences.
“These words are a wise man’s advice to men that they should transcend Samsara and get beyond birth and death,” I said.
The Counselor applauded. “Only this old master’s interpretation accords with the text. The meaning is now clear.” But his followers didn’t understand and asked for further explanation.
“Day and night are the illusion called birth and death,” the counselor explained. “Not until one is delivered from the conditions of this illusion, can one experience reality.”
(-- from "Purify Your Mind" -- The Fifty-first Year {1596-7}, by Han Shan)
Last evening Jory spoke the phrase "expedient delusion" and we smiled in recognition. We have ours. Each day.
The night is cold. Wood snuggles in woodstove
Purify Your Mind
Your True Nature is deep, like still, clear water in a lake.
If you allow the bottom to be stirred by love and hate,
Waves of passion will arise. What was clear will become murky.
With your vision obstructed, you will not notice
How your troubles are increasing.
If you look with desire upon people or things,
You throw mud into the clear water.
If you allow yourself to become another’s desire.
You are like oil poured on passion’s fire.
When the clamoring ego sinks to silence,
Burning hells will turn to ice.
Let your ego slip gently towards a muted death.
When the ego’s eyes are closed, in vain does harm appear.
This death does not come easy. Be on guard against old habits
That, haunting, come to quicken it. Be steadfast and endure.
Alertness brings awareness and awareness is a light that in a
Searing flash obliterates all traces of the ghost.
Let your True Nature shine forth in perfect clarity.
Rest easy in the pure, serene stillness of the One.
Alone, you are a sovereign. Yourself, a precious kingdom.
Reign with peace and harmony!
What external force can possibly invade?
(poem by Han Shan)
Those words 'steadfast,' 'endure,' and 'alertness' feel like crumpled wrappers from once enjoyed delicacies. Never finally discarded, these fallen-to-floor scrunched balls of mispronounced words become playthings of black and white cat ever trying to push them under rug away from sight.
Who to ask about the "Words of the Dharma" the crazy saint questions?
Ghost disrobing failure is not yet obliterated.
Midnight.
Remembering walking dirt road alongside water and woods at Rockport harbor early morning. Deb is with her Golden up from golf course. We park in Vesper Hill space piled with recent snow. The dogs are happy to run. We are happy to walk.
Trampling the grass has made three paths.
Looking up at the clouds makes
Neighbors in the four directions;
There are birds to help with the
Sound of the singing, but there
Isn't anyone to ask about the
Words of the Dharma.
Today among these withered trees,
How many years make one spring?
- Han Shan (c 730)
Three paths criss-cross each other trying to catch scent. The four directions turn suddenly and ask us for a match. After week of weakness enclosed in mulling quiet we make way to Corner Shop for breakfast after long walk. An old and worn hull floats in cove at mooring sealing planks swell with salt wet.
One path is mountain solitude. Second is marketplace immersion. Third is amalgamating one place or the other -- to merge into a single body.
The name Han Shan means: Cold Cliff, Cold Mountain, or Cold Peak. Han Shan is known in Japan as "Kanzan." Han Shan was considered, when older, to be an eccentric Taoist, crazy saint, mountain ascetic mystic, and wise fool. He went many ways and back again the way fools do. There is no counting on a fool to show us the way -- there are too many variables for fools to be satisfied with only one.
At that time, Imperial Counselor Zhou Hai Men was lecturing on Yan Ming metaphysics. When he heard of my arrival, he called on me bringing a few dozen of his followers along. He began a discussion by referring to the saying: “One cannot realize the truth until one understands the condition of day and night.”
A Daoist elder who was sitting among them responded. “The condition is consciousness,” he said. “And day and night are waking and sleeping. The same consciousness that functions during our daylight actions, functions during the night in our dream actions.” The audience showed its approval.
Counselor Zhou then turned to me. “Venerable old Chan Master,” he said, “though everyone else seems to be satisfied with this interpretation, I am not. Please give us your opinion.”
“What is the source of the quotation?” I asked
“It is from The Book of Changes,” be answered, reciting a few additional sentences.
“These words are a wise man’s advice to men that they should transcend Samsara and get beyond birth and death,” I said.
The Counselor applauded. “Only this old master’s interpretation accords with the text. The meaning is now clear.” But his followers didn’t understand and asked for further explanation.
“Day and night are the illusion called birth and death,” the counselor explained. “Not until one is delivered from the conditions of this illusion, can one experience reality.”
(-- from "Purify Your Mind" -- The Fifty-first Year {1596-7}, by Han Shan)
Last evening Jory spoke the phrase "expedient delusion" and we smiled in recognition. We have ours. Each day.
The night is cold. Wood snuggles in woodstove
Purify Your Mind
Your True Nature is deep, like still, clear water in a lake.
If you allow the bottom to be stirred by love and hate,
Waves of passion will arise. What was clear will become murky.
With your vision obstructed, you will not notice
How your troubles are increasing.
If you look with desire upon people or things,
You throw mud into the clear water.
If you allow yourself to become another’s desire.
You are like oil poured on passion’s fire.
When the clamoring ego sinks to silence,
Burning hells will turn to ice.
Let your ego slip gently towards a muted death.
When the ego’s eyes are closed, in vain does harm appear.
This death does not come easy. Be on guard against old habits
That, haunting, come to quicken it. Be steadfast and endure.
Alertness brings awareness and awareness is a light that in a
Searing flash obliterates all traces of the ghost.
Let your True Nature shine forth in perfect clarity.
Rest easy in the pure, serene stillness of the One.
Alone, you are a sovereign. Yourself, a precious kingdom.
Reign with peace and harmony!
What external force can possibly invade?
(poem by Han Shan)
Those words 'steadfast,' 'endure,' and 'alertness' feel like crumpled wrappers from once enjoyed delicacies. Never finally discarded, these fallen-to-floor scrunched balls of mispronounced words become playthings of black and white cat ever trying to push them under rug away from sight.
Who to ask about the "Words of the Dharma" the crazy saint questions?
Ghost disrobing failure is not yet obliterated.
Midnight.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Note: We are closed today, Sunday.
.................
A few inches of new wet snow.
Gate after gate
Adorned with festal pine
Spring has come
To each and every house,
Garnishing all with new green.
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
Green? Not in Maine today. White.
Sun shines through.
Church, this Sunday, our warm kitchen. Michael Thoms speaks with Leonard Shlain in a New Dimensions radio interview on WERU broadcast from Orland Maine..
Women formulated the concept of a month, which in turn allowed them to make the connection between sex and pregnancy. Upon learning the majestic secret of time these ancestral females then gained the power to refuse sex when they were ovulating. Men were forced to confront women who possessed a mind of their own.
Women taught men about time and the men used this knowledge to become the planet’s most fearsome predator. Unfortunately, they also discovered that they were mortal. Men, then invented religions to soften the certainty of death. Subsequently, they belatedly grasped the function of sex. The possibility of achieving a kind of immortality through heirs drove men to construct patriarchal cultures whose purpose was to control women’s reproductive choices.
(Leonard Schlain, in Sex, Time, & Power)
We can now pass on information that is not contained in DNA. Hydrogen and oxygen combine to make water. Who would have imagined?
Who could have imagined God?
Let there always be quiet, dark churches in which people can take refuge....Houses of God filled with his silent presence. There, even when they do not know how to pray, at least they can be still and breathe easily.
(in New Seeds of Contemplation, by Thomas Merton)
Being still and breathing easy -- refuge. Whether it is snowflake, sunlight, silence, or what-is-called-God -- we stretch through symbols of the felt-relational and poise at the empty center -- the heart of prayer.
In dealing with symbolism one enters an area where reflection, synthesis, and contemplation are more important than investigation, analysis, and science. One cannot comprehend a symbol unless one is able to awaken, in one's own being, the spiritual resonances which respond to the symbol not only as sign but as 'sacrament' and 'presence'...The true symbol does not merely point to some hidden object. It contains in itself a structure which in some way makes us aware of the inner meaning of life and of reality itself...A true symbol points to the very heart of all being, not to an incident in the flow of becoming.
(in, Life and Loving, Merton)
Mu-ge comes in from barn. Eggs with sausage and cheese in pan on stove. Two tulips, one open one not yet, on table-desk under photograph of man praying grace over bread, soup, and book.
Every place, every day, is full of worship.
All is in God as God is in all.
Bancha tea!
.................
A few inches of new wet snow.
Gate after gate
Adorned with festal pine
Spring has come
To each and every house,
Garnishing all with new green.
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
Green? Not in Maine today. White.
Sun shines through.
Church, this Sunday, our warm kitchen. Michael Thoms speaks with Leonard Shlain in a New Dimensions radio interview on WERU broadcast from Orland Maine..
Women formulated the concept of a month, which in turn allowed them to make the connection between sex and pregnancy. Upon learning the majestic secret of time these ancestral females then gained the power to refuse sex when they were ovulating. Men were forced to confront women who possessed a mind of their own.
Women taught men about time and the men used this knowledge to become the planet’s most fearsome predator. Unfortunately, they also discovered that they were mortal. Men, then invented religions to soften the certainty of death. Subsequently, they belatedly grasped the function of sex. The possibility of achieving a kind of immortality through heirs drove men to construct patriarchal cultures whose purpose was to control women’s reproductive choices.
(Leonard Schlain, in Sex, Time, & Power)
We can now pass on information that is not contained in DNA. Hydrogen and oxygen combine to make water. Who would have imagined?
Who could have imagined God?
Let there always be quiet, dark churches in which people can take refuge....Houses of God filled with his silent presence. There, even when they do not know how to pray, at least they can be still and breathe easily.
(in New Seeds of Contemplation, by Thomas Merton)
Being still and breathing easy -- refuge. Whether it is snowflake, sunlight, silence, or what-is-called-God -- we stretch through symbols of the felt-relational and poise at the empty center -- the heart of prayer.
In dealing with symbolism one enters an area where reflection, synthesis, and contemplation are more important than investigation, analysis, and science. One cannot comprehend a symbol unless one is able to awaken, in one's own being, the spiritual resonances which respond to the symbol not only as sign but as 'sacrament' and 'presence'...The true symbol does not merely point to some hidden object. It contains in itself a structure which in some way makes us aware of the inner meaning of life and of reality itself...A true symbol points to the very heart of all being, not to an incident in the flow of becoming.
(in, Life and Loving, Merton)
Mu-ge comes in from barn. Eggs with sausage and cheese in pan on stove. Two tulips, one open one not yet, on table-desk under photograph of man praying grace over bread, soup, and book.
Every place, every day, is full of worship.
All is in God as God is in all.
Bancha tea!
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Note: We are closed today, Saturday. No conversations at shop.
.....................
The older brother is distraught.
He is agitated with doubt or mental conflict. If one has never left home, and is not certain they are at home, it is not easy to convince them they are truly welcome, or they'd be welcome back if they wandered away.
Deep green needles glow
against a cobalt sky.
They radiate something only
a few can sense.
Snow white peaks,
summits shrouded in clouds,
shine and echo...
shine and echo
through both sides of the skin line.
In all this lies some deep
implication, yet when I try to
say more, I become silent, mute.
- Ji Aoi Isshi
Morning sun melts dooryard snow into brown earth. Smoke from cabin chimney. The women and dogs sit. Wisp of smoke from kitchen chimney, like quiet murmur of aspiration, faintly acknowledged prayer muttered in mind at far edge of belief unsure it goes anywhere.
Brothers and sisters: Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old
things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is
from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the
ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to
himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and
entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for
Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of
Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who did
not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
(2 Corinthians 5:17-21)
We go about the morning, each their own way. I am irresolute. Like smoke urged by breeze north-northwest, once its breath emerges up length out from generative origin -- no longer knowing anything but dispersion, the scattering of values of a frequency distribution from an average -- I find this morning I am wood-smoke meeting sun-breeze proximate to bird-song. Showing itself, morning practice disorganizes -- breaks up, moves and scatters in different directions.
"As if God were appealing through us." As if God were making an earnest plea. As if we feel emitted the power of arousing a sympathetic response. As if an attraction arises for rehearing. As if something might be sensed through soundless sunlight, something not uttered aloud -- seeking to be worded and enfleshed again.
"My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and
has come to life again; he was lost and has been found."
(Luke 15:31-32)
The older brother's confusion is understandable. The father has not told him everything. The father has not explained water and fire, air and earth -- nor has he revealed at length what home is, nor the notions of here and there, arrive and depart, lost and found. There is a gap between this and that no amount of glue nor reassurance solidifies. Into that empty holding place we fall.
Scholars of symbol and consciousness say the going away is the coming back, the falling down is the lifting up, being born is dying, death is new life.
Today is the first day of spring. In morning stillness my solitude seeks no relief.
I glance at what Paul offers into view:
"Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old
things have passed away;
behold, new things have come.
And all this is from God...".
Shine and echo.
All this.
Is that.
.....................
The older brother is distraught.
He is agitated with doubt or mental conflict. If one has never left home, and is not certain they are at home, it is not easy to convince them they are truly welcome, or they'd be welcome back if they wandered away.
Deep green needles glow
against a cobalt sky.
They radiate something only
a few can sense.
Snow white peaks,
summits shrouded in clouds,
shine and echo...
shine and echo
through both sides of the skin line.
In all this lies some deep
implication, yet when I try to
say more, I become silent, mute.
- Ji Aoi Isshi
Morning sun melts dooryard snow into brown earth. Smoke from cabin chimney. The women and dogs sit. Wisp of smoke from kitchen chimney, like quiet murmur of aspiration, faintly acknowledged prayer muttered in mind at far edge of belief unsure it goes anywhere.
Brothers and sisters: Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old
things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is
from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the
ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to
himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and
entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for
Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of
Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who did
not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
(2 Corinthians 5:17-21)
We go about the morning, each their own way. I am irresolute. Like smoke urged by breeze north-northwest, once its breath emerges up length out from generative origin -- no longer knowing anything but dispersion, the scattering of values of a frequency distribution from an average -- I find this morning I am wood-smoke meeting sun-breeze proximate to bird-song. Showing itself, morning practice disorganizes -- breaks up, moves and scatters in different directions.
"As if God were appealing through us." As if God were making an earnest plea. As if we feel emitted the power of arousing a sympathetic response. As if an attraction arises for rehearing. As if something might be sensed through soundless sunlight, something not uttered aloud -- seeking to be worded and enfleshed again.
"My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and
has come to life again; he was lost and has been found."
(Luke 15:31-32)
The older brother's confusion is understandable. The father has not told him everything. The father has not explained water and fire, air and earth -- nor has he revealed at length what home is, nor the notions of here and there, arrive and depart, lost and found. There is a gap between this and that no amount of glue nor reassurance solidifies. Into that empty holding place we fall.
Scholars of symbol and consciousness say the going away is the coming back, the falling down is the lifting up, being born is dying, death is new life.
Today is the first day of spring. In morning stillness my solitude seeks no relief.
I glance at what Paul offers into view:
"Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old
things have passed away;
behold, new things have come.
And all this is from God...".
Shine and echo.
All this.
Is that.
Friday, March 19, 2004
Sawing firewood, I watch sawdust fall on snow.
Log gives itself to half.
Across driveway from kitchen chimney white smoke.
On Freedom Mountain
There are many white clouds
That accompany the moon
On Freedom Mountain
Sometimes pure winds and many
Good things come to report
That another mountain is even
More special.
Mindless, the white clouds
Spread over the great void
Of the sky.
They are like snowflakes on a
Red hot stove
They send rain to the four quarters
Without discriminating between
This or that.
Here all things are happy.
- T'aego (1301-1382)
It is feast of Joseph, saint and husband of Mary. Sister's anniversary of birth. One year since war on Iraq by American administration. We do work with numbers while keeping doors of shop closed. Mass this morning in Rockland. Vespers in cabin this evening.
We pray for all hurt and killed in Iraq. We mourn the destruction and look forward to the reformation of two countries in rekindled hope and replacement of wrong done with what is right.
Joseph, it is said, did what is right.
He rises up in the darkness, a light for the upright,
compassionate, generous, and just.
Happy the man who takes pity and lends, who directs his affairs with wisdom --
he will never be shaken.
-- from Psalm 111 (112)
Joseph, husband of Mary, in Catholic tradition is Protector of the Universal Church and Patron Saint of Fathers, Workers, and the Dying
Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and he will save his people to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.
(- Matthew 1: 16, 18-21, 24a)
When we fail to protect truth, the innocent, or common decency, we fail to allow what is conceived of the Holy Spirit to come into our midst. It is a dangerous time and more dangerous practice to send away truth, innocence, or community wisdom. The consolation of community transcends the arrogance of power. It is a troubling set of revelations Americans are faced with -- misinformation and intentional deception about the war, medical benefits, corporate malfeasance, and matters pertaining to political ideology taking precedence over democratic and constitutional governance.
Hardly the meditation for the Feast of Joseph!
Joseph, rather, was a just man -- that's what Christian scripture said of him. He protected what was of the Holy Spirit, the gift of God through Mary in Jesus.
Joseph quietly prevailed.
Like sawdust mingling with snow on ground, we fall to earth our mother, invited to give ourselves in benefit to all who rise there-from.
Fire in woodstove warms.
Quietly.
Log gives itself to half.
Across driveway from kitchen chimney white smoke.
On Freedom Mountain
There are many white clouds
That accompany the moon
On Freedom Mountain
Sometimes pure winds and many
Good things come to report
That another mountain is even
More special.
Mindless, the white clouds
Spread over the great void
Of the sky.
They are like snowflakes on a
Red hot stove
They send rain to the four quarters
Without discriminating between
This or that.
Here all things are happy.
- T'aego (1301-1382)
It is feast of Joseph, saint and husband of Mary. Sister's anniversary of birth. One year since war on Iraq by American administration. We do work with numbers while keeping doors of shop closed. Mass this morning in Rockland. Vespers in cabin this evening.
We pray for all hurt and killed in Iraq. We mourn the destruction and look forward to the reformation of two countries in rekindled hope and replacement of wrong done with what is right.
Joseph, it is said, did what is right.
He rises up in the darkness, a light for the upright,
compassionate, generous, and just.
Happy the man who takes pity and lends, who directs his affairs with wisdom --
he will never be shaken.
-- from Psalm 111 (112)
Joseph, husband of Mary, in Catholic tradition is Protector of the Universal Church and Patron Saint of Fathers, Workers, and the Dying
Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and he will save his people to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.
(- Matthew 1: 16, 18-21, 24a)
When we fail to protect truth, the innocent, or common decency, we fail to allow what is conceived of the Holy Spirit to come into our midst. It is a dangerous time and more dangerous practice to send away truth, innocence, or community wisdom. The consolation of community transcends the arrogance of power. It is a troubling set of revelations Americans are faced with -- misinformation and intentional deception about the war, medical benefits, corporate malfeasance, and matters pertaining to political ideology taking precedence over democratic and constitutional governance.
Hardly the meditation for the Feast of Joseph!
Joseph, rather, was a just man -- that's what Christian scripture said of him. He protected what was of the Holy Spirit, the gift of God through Mary in Jesus.
Joseph quietly prevailed.
Like sawdust mingling with snow on ground, we fall to earth our mother, invited to give ourselves in benefit to all who rise there-from.
Fire in woodstove warms.
Quietly.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Note: Closed today, Thursday. No evening conversation.
........................
One year ago we went to war. We invaded Iraq. Saddam Hussein is under arrest. We remain at war.
If you memorize slogans,
you are unable to make
subtle adaptations according
to the situation.
It is not that there is no
way to teach insight to learners,
but once you have learned a way,
it is essential that you get
it to work completely.
If you just stick to your
teacher's school and memorize slogans,
this is not enlightenment,
it is a part of intellectual knowledge.
- Fayan
One year later we have heard the slogans of war ad nauseam. These days we hear the slap-and-slight rhetoric, pre-mature election slurs-and-slander that threaten to sicken airwaves the next eight months. When truth is a commodity bought and sold the only voices we hear are salesmen pitching their wares.
Do not trust in princes to save you, they are only sons of men.
One day their breath will leave them, they will return to the ground; on that day perish all their plans.
-- from Psalm 145 (146)
Until we understand what "save" means, we are enslaved ears to men with money telling us what their handlers tell them will sway us to choose their brand of liberation.
Philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote:
To free really means to spare. The sparing itself consists not only in the fact that we do not harm the one whom we spare. Real sparing is something positive and takes place when we leave something beforehand in its own nature, when we return it specifically to its being, when we "free" it in the real sense of the word into a preserve of peace. To dwell, to be set at peace, means to remain at peace within the free sphere that safeguards each thing in its nature. The fundamental character of dwelling is this sparing and preserving. It pervades dwelling in its whole range. That range reveals itself to us as soon as we reflect that human being consists in dwelling and, indeed, dwelling in the sense of the stay of mortals on the earth.
But "on the earth" already means "under the sky." Both of these also mean, "remaining before the divinities" and include a "belonging to men's being with one another." By a primal oneness the four -- earth and sky, divinities and mortals -- belong together in one.
( from "Building Dwelling Thinking," by Martin Heidegger, in Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, Harper Colophon Books, New York, 1971.)
We get lost in war. Fog shrouds rationale, intention, and motivation. War is its own monstrous and devouring act of destruction. Once released, war slaps aside its keepers and takes its own direction. It travels from town to town, continent to continent, and face to face -- and in its travels spreads unleashed hostility and deception on every side.
The sacraments of "save" and "free" are waiting to be administered -- they wait for truthful, wise, and humble hands. We look at our hands. We turn them this way and that. We close them, and we open them. We know they are alive as we are alive. We know they can effect death.
Mortals dwell in that they save the earth -- taking the word in the old sense still known to Lessing. Saving does not only snatch something from a danger. To save really means to set something free into its own presencing. To save the earth is more than to exploit it or even wear it out. Saving the earth does not master the earth and does not subjugate it, which is merely one step from spoliation. (Heidegger)
When we subjugate, we spoil. War spoils, and then takes the spoils of war back home. Spoliation, contact by contact, infects each and every place it reaches -- word-by-word, pretense-by-pretense -- plundering.
We are led to believe there is a choice:
-- Support the war and the troops or condemn both;
-- Love the political policies of current leaders or pursue traitorous dissenting opinions;
-- Live in terrified fear and readiness to retaliate or embrace cowardly appeasement by seeking peaceful resolution.
These are false choices framed by cynical thinking. Spoilt thought creates words to further disturb minds already inebriated and confused by war.
The Lord frees prisoners, he gives light to the blind, he raises the fallen.
The Lord loves the upright, cares for strangers, sustains orphans and widows; but the wicked he sends astray.
--from Psalm 145 (146)
Faith is sorely disheveled. So much has been sent astray. We don't know who or what to believe. Crisis unsettles our spirit.
On this anniversary, hermitage enfolds. Solitude and stillness, muted understanding below attentive listening, brittle prayer with sensitive skepticism -- these uncertainties encircle as silence seeps deeper within.
What the contemplative hermit nun wrote last week echoes, "I have a great distrust of words these days."
In this sad marking of war's year, I wonder -- how set something free into its own presencing?
How dwell this world safe and free?
Completely?
Lord?
........................
One year ago we went to war. We invaded Iraq. Saddam Hussein is under arrest. We remain at war.
If you memorize slogans,
you are unable to make
subtle adaptations according
to the situation.
It is not that there is no
way to teach insight to learners,
but once you have learned a way,
it is essential that you get
it to work completely.
If you just stick to your
teacher's school and memorize slogans,
this is not enlightenment,
it is a part of intellectual knowledge.
- Fayan
One year later we have heard the slogans of war ad nauseam. These days we hear the slap-and-slight rhetoric, pre-mature election slurs-and-slander that threaten to sicken airwaves the next eight months. When truth is a commodity bought and sold the only voices we hear are salesmen pitching their wares.
Do not trust in princes to save you, they are only sons of men.
One day their breath will leave them, they will return to the ground; on that day perish all their plans.
-- from Psalm 145 (146)
Until we understand what "save" means, we are enslaved ears to men with money telling us what their handlers tell them will sway us to choose their brand of liberation.
Philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote:
To free really means to spare. The sparing itself consists not only in the fact that we do not harm the one whom we spare. Real sparing is something positive and takes place when we leave something beforehand in its own nature, when we return it specifically to its being, when we "free" it in the real sense of the word into a preserve of peace. To dwell, to be set at peace, means to remain at peace within the free sphere that safeguards each thing in its nature. The fundamental character of dwelling is this sparing and preserving. It pervades dwelling in its whole range. That range reveals itself to us as soon as we reflect that human being consists in dwelling and, indeed, dwelling in the sense of the stay of mortals on the earth.
But "on the earth" already means "under the sky." Both of these also mean, "remaining before the divinities" and include a "belonging to men's being with one another." By a primal oneness the four -- earth and sky, divinities and mortals -- belong together in one.
( from "Building Dwelling Thinking," by Martin Heidegger, in Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, Harper Colophon Books, New York, 1971.)
We get lost in war. Fog shrouds rationale, intention, and motivation. War is its own monstrous and devouring act of destruction. Once released, war slaps aside its keepers and takes its own direction. It travels from town to town, continent to continent, and face to face -- and in its travels spreads unleashed hostility and deception on every side.
The sacraments of "save" and "free" are waiting to be administered -- they wait for truthful, wise, and humble hands. We look at our hands. We turn them this way and that. We close them, and we open them. We know they are alive as we are alive. We know they can effect death.
Mortals dwell in that they save the earth -- taking the word in the old sense still known to Lessing. Saving does not only snatch something from a danger. To save really means to set something free into its own presencing. To save the earth is more than to exploit it or even wear it out. Saving the earth does not master the earth and does not subjugate it, which is merely one step from spoliation. (Heidegger)
When we subjugate, we spoil. War spoils, and then takes the spoils of war back home. Spoliation, contact by contact, infects each and every place it reaches -- word-by-word, pretense-by-pretense -- plundering.
We are led to believe there is a choice:
-- Support the war and the troops or condemn both;
-- Love the political policies of current leaders or pursue traitorous dissenting opinions;
-- Live in terrified fear and readiness to retaliate or embrace cowardly appeasement by seeking peaceful resolution.
These are false choices framed by cynical thinking. Spoilt thought creates words to further disturb minds already inebriated and confused by war.
The Lord frees prisoners, he gives light to the blind, he raises the fallen.
The Lord loves the upright, cares for strangers, sustains orphans and widows; but the wicked he sends astray.
--from Psalm 145 (146)
Faith is sorely disheveled. So much has been sent astray. We don't know who or what to believe. Crisis unsettles our spirit.
On this anniversary, hermitage enfolds. Solitude and stillness, muted understanding below attentive listening, brittle prayer with sensitive skepticism -- these uncertainties encircle as silence seeps deeper within.
What the contemplative hermit nun wrote last week echoes, "I have a great distrust of words these days."
In this sad marking of war's year, I wonder -- how set something free into its own presencing?
How dwell this world safe and free?
Completely?
Lord?
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Note: Closed today, Wednesday. No evening conversation.
.....
Irish wear green while ground in Maine wears white following snow.
It is less and less desirable to leave home, I am content to listen to the words -- "The greatest revelation is stillness." (Lao-Tzu)
(These words are helpful now that Cesco takes to wrapping himself around rollers of chair under desk. One unmindful move and he will yelp,)
It is no longer a matter of telling about some practice or insight grasped with delight. If one is not it, words become mere list and sightseeing guide in tourist glossy magazine. There is too much of what is not here.
Now and then
You must long for the
Freedom of the deep woods
I, too, cherish
Such thoughts.
- Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831)
What is seen in silence, in deep woods, is the mere sight and nodded greeting of one another passing en route elsewhere.
Moses said to the Lord: "Show me thy glory". The Lord answered: "I will shew thee all good, and I will proclaim in the name of the Lord before thee: and I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please me". And he added: "Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me, and live. Behold there is a place with me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock. And when my glory shall pass, I will set thee in a hole of the rock, and protect thee with my right hand till I pass. I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see me from behind; but my face thou canst not see".
(Exodus 33:7 - 34:35)
Heisenberg, if not Moses, understood -- that which looks cannot see what is not there, but here, and here, and here in the looking. "From behind" seems to be the vantage view of retrospect -- twin ocular conjecture looking through suppose and surmise.
What has been seen -- moving away -- is what we talk about. What is seeing -- undifferentiated presence -- is revealed in silence and stillness.
We speak so much, perhaps too much, because the rush-away impulse to tell where we've been is strong conditioning. Stillness and silence as a way of being in the moment seeing is unusual prayer.
M: The real enables the unreal to appear and causes it to disappear. The succession of transient moments creates the illusion of time, but the timeless reality of pure being is not in movement, for all movement requires a motionless background. It is itself the background. Once you have found it in yourself, you know that you had never lost that independent being, independent of all divisions and separations. But don't look for it in consciousness, you will not find it there. Don't look for it anywhere, for nothing contains it. On the contrary it contains everything and manifests everything. It is like the daylight that makes everything visible while itself remaining invisible.
Q: Sir, of what use to me is your telling me that reality cannot be found in consciousness? Where else am I to look for it? How do you apprehend it?
M: It is quite simple. I ask you what is the taste in your mouth, all you can do is say: It is neither sweet nor bitter, nor sour nor astringent; it is what remains when all these tastes are not. Similarly, when all distinctions and reactions are no more, what remains is reality, simple and solid.
(pp.409-410, in I Am That, Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, c.1973)
What remains when all else is gone?
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God
If you say, "Show me your God", I will say to you, "Show me what kind of person you are, and I will show you my God". Show me then whether the eyes of your mind can see, and the ears of your heart hear.
(From the book addressed to Autolycus by Saint Theophilus of Antioch, bishop) (Universalis.com)
Snow falls again through brighter light.
Two dogs snooze underfoot.
I greet my Irish family and ancestors.
They're gone here.
.....
Irish wear green while ground in Maine wears white following snow.
It is less and less desirable to leave home, I am content to listen to the words -- "The greatest revelation is stillness." (Lao-Tzu)
(These words are helpful now that Cesco takes to wrapping himself around rollers of chair under desk. One unmindful move and he will yelp,)
It is no longer a matter of telling about some practice or insight grasped with delight. If one is not it, words become mere list and sightseeing guide in tourist glossy magazine. There is too much of what is not here.
Now and then
You must long for the
Freedom of the deep woods
I, too, cherish
Such thoughts.
- Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831)
What is seen in silence, in deep woods, is the mere sight and nodded greeting of one another passing en route elsewhere.
Moses said to the Lord: "Show me thy glory". The Lord answered: "I will shew thee all good, and I will proclaim in the name of the Lord before thee: and I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please me". And he added: "Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me, and live. Behold there is a place with me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock. And when my glory shall pass, I will set thee in a hole of the rock, and protect thee with my right hand till I pass. I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see me from behind; but my face thou canst not see".
(Exodus 33:7 - 34:35)
Heisenberg, if not Moses, understood -- that which looks cannot see what is not there, but here, and here, and here in the looking. "From behind" seems to be the vantage view of retrospect -- twin ocular conjecture looking through suppose and surmise.
What has been seen -- moving away -- is what we talk about. What is seeing -- undifferentiated presence -- is revealed in silence and stillness.
We speak so much, perhaps too much, because the rush-away impulse to tell where we've been is strong conditioning. Stillness and silence as a way of being in the moment seeing is unusual prayer.
M: The real enables the unreal to appear and causes it to disappear. The succession of transient moments creates the illusion of time, but the timeless reality of pure being is not in movement, for all movement requires a motionless background. It is itself the background. Once you have found it in yourself, you know that you had never lost that independent being, independent of all divisions and separations. But don't look for it in consciousness, you will not find it there. Don't look for it anywhere, for nothing contains it. On the contrary it contains everything and manifests everything. It is like the daylight that makes everything visible while itself remaining invisible.
Q: Sir, of what use to me is your telling me that reality cannot be found in consciousness? Where else am I to look for it? How do you apprehend it?
M: It is quite simple. I ask you what is the taste in your mouth, all you can do is say: It is neither sweet nor bitter, nor sour nor astringent; it is what remains when all these tastes are not. Similarly, when all distinctions and reactions are no more, what remains is reality, simple and solid.
(pp.409-410, in I Am That, Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, c.1973)
What remains when all else is gone?
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God
If you say, "Show me your God", I will say to you, "Show me what kind of person you are, and I will show you my God". Show me then whether the eyes of your mind can see, and the ears of your heart hear.
(From the book addressed to Autolycus by Saint Theophilus of Antioch, bishop) (Universalis.com)
Snow falls again through brighter light.
Two dogs snooze underfoot.
I greet my Irish family and ancestors.
They're gone here.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Note: Closed Tuesday and Wednesday. No evening conversations
....................
Snow.
Feeders full of seed.
If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it
You turn away from it all the more.
- Linji (d. 867)
Cat dismantles house.
No turning away.
....................
Snow.
Feeders full of seed.
If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it
You turn away from it all the more.
- Linji (d. 867)
Cat dismantles house.
No turning away.
Monday, March 15, 2004
It is a practice seeing.
Two brass candle tops and one glass cap three candles in chapel/zendo cabin. Glass atop single candle lighting MoGLIAD, (Mother and Child icon with words "Mother of God, Light In All Darkness.") Brass on two candles inserted in wrought iron wall mount retrieved from pile for dump across from my sister's house during vigil her final days.
The mute glow!
Following sitting at Sunday Evening Practice we chant Vespers/Evening Prayer. More than the words of psalms, more than the descending chant tones, is the fact of it. Stepping into the stream, becoming prayer tumbling innumerable furrows of faith, we join voices from our solitude longing to praise and ponder the Sacred One welling up from each and all.
Waking me up
To the spring that's come
Water trickles down
The valley, and long crag-bound ice
Now cracks open, slides free.
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
Two of us -- 40 minutes sitting, 7 minutes mindfully walking the small space, then chanting Vespers (a change in routine from Heart Sutra or Compline -- it's only us.) Extinguishing candles following bell-toll at end -- we bow, close door, don shoes, walk path to barn, retrieve lanterns en route, pass through mud room with its faint smell of last week's skunk, and are greeted by two dogs and cat in kitchen where soup simmers.
Holy is his name, and much to be feared.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
To those who fear him comes true understanding,
and his praise endures for ever and ever.
(-- from Vespers, Psalm 110 (111), Universalis.com)
At 4am I step over Cesco and accompany Mu-ge to kitchen. I thought it was 5. Now blue-gray light widens over dusting of snow fallen through night.
Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, to follow in his path.
He committed no sin, in his speech there was no deceit;
when they cursed him, he did not curse them;
when he suffered, he did not threaten retribution, but committed them to the one just judge.
He endured our sins in the sufferings of his body on the tree,
so that we would die to our sins and live for righteousness --
and by his bruises you have been healed.
(Sunday Vespers, Canticle 1 Peter 2)
We must allow all things to speak for themselves -- each thing to speak itself.
God is Itself speaking. We sound what is sounding through.
Breath, instrument and sound are not three things.
Comes dawn -- morning prayer from within everything raises seeing God.
Two brass candle tops and one glass cap three candles in chapel/zendo cabin. Glass atop single candle lighting MoGLIAD, (Mother and Child icon with words "Mother of God, Light In All Darkness.") Brass on two candles inserted in wrought iron wall mount retrieved from pile for dump across from my sister's house during vigil her final days.
The mute glow!
Following sitting at Sunday Evening Practice we chant Vespers/Evening Prayer. More than the words of psalms, more than the descending chant tones, is the fact of it. Stepping into the stream, becoming prayer tumbling innumerable furrows of faith, we join voices from our solitude longing to praise and ponder the Sacred One welling up from each and all.
Waking me up
To the spring that's come
Water trickles down
The valley, and long crag-bound ice
Now cracks open, slides free.
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
Two of us -- 40 minutes sitting, 7 minutes mindfully walking the small space, then chanting Vespers (a change in routine from Heart Sutra or Compline -- it's only us.) Extinguishing candles following bell-toll at end -- we bow, close door, don shoes, walk path to barn, retrieve lanterns en route, pass through mud room with its faint smell of last week's skunk, and are greeted by two dogs and cat in kitchen where soup simmers.
Holy is his name, and much to be feared.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
To those who fear him comes true understanding,
and his praise endures for ever and ever.
(-- from Vespers, Psalm 110 (111), Universalis.com)
At 4am I step over Cesco and accompany Mu-ge to kitchen. I thought it was 5. Now blue-gray light widens over dusting of snow fallen through night.
Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, to follow in his path.
He committed no sin, in his speech there was no deceit;
when they cursed him, he did not curse them;
when he suffered, he did not threaten retribution, but committed them to the one just judge.
He endured our sins in the sufferings of his body on the tree,
so that we would die to our sins and live for righteousness --
and by his bruises you have been healed.
(Sunday Vespers, Canticle 1 Peter 2)
We must allow all things to speak for themselves -- each thing to speak itself.
God is Itself speaking. We sound what is sounding through.
Breath, instrument and sound are not three things.
Comes dawn -- morning prayer from within everything raises seeing God.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Love is itself as no-other is itself.
Awareness makes this so.
When water is pure and sparkling clear
You see straight to the bottom
When your mind holds no concern
No circumstance can turn you
And once your mind doesn't stray
A kalpa has no changes
From such awareness nothing hides.
- Cold Mountain
The notion that "nothing hides" leads me to ask -- "Where does nothing hide?"
Nothing hides at the center of each place we look, each time we look for something. So many times we say when asked what we are looking for, --"Nothing."
Nothing is not something. Nothing is where something leaves off and we are left with merely what is there, with what is itself.
God is what is itself, no other. Love is awareness. Love is itself.
A sleepy-eyed grandam
Encounters herself in an old mirror.
Clearly she sees a face
But it doesn't resemble hers at all.
Too bad, with a muddled head,
She tries to recognize her reflection.
( -- Tozan Ryokai, 807-869)
The implication of Tozan's verse is that the grandlady does see her "self" in God, but the "self" she sees is not the true "Self." And the reason she does not see the true "Self" is that her head (or her mind) is "muddled," that is to say, too preoccupied with many things.
(p. 70, in The Contemplative Experience, erotic love and spiritual union, by Joseph Chu-Cong O.C.S.O.)
What then are we to do? What then are we to be?
In a time when institutions, both church and state, experience fore-shocks of deconstruction, nothing might help. If nations and churches are shaken and collapse, there will be nothing left to ponder.
What is nothing?
We like the word 'spirit.' We're uncomfortable with the word 'nothing.'
If we try not to be attached to words, the underlying reality they only point to remains as it is, not reliant on what it has been called. These words (forms) are also emptiness (no-thing). And emptiness is form. This underpinning experience of 'here/gone' or 'seen/unseen' is common to us.
Do we genuinely love life?
Is each one of us (herself, himself) itself?
Love is itself as no-other is itself.
I'll have to ponder this.
Awareness makes this so.
When water is pure and sparkling clear
You see straight to the bottom
When your mind holds no concern
No circumstance can turn you
And once your mind doesn't stray
A kalpa has no changes
From such awareness nothing hides.
- Cold Mountain
The notion that "nothing hides" leads me to ask -- "Where does nothing hide?"
Nothing hides at the center of each place we look, each time we look for something. So many times we say when asked what we are looking for, --"Nothing."
Nothing is not something. Nothing is where something leaves off and we are left with merely what is there, with what is itself.
God is what is itself, no other. Love is awareness. Love is itself.
A sleepy-eyed grandam
Encounters herself in an old mirror.
Clearly she sees a face
But it doesn't resemble hers at all.
Too bad, with a muddled head,
She tries to recognize her reflection.
( -- Tozan Ryokai, 807-869)
The implication of Tozan's verse is that the grandlady does see her "self" in God, but the "self" she sees is not the true "Self." And the reason she does not see the true "Self" is that her head (or her mind) is "muddled," that is to say, too preoccupied with many things.
(p. 70, in The Contemplative Experience, erotic love and spiritual union, by Joseph Chu-Cong O.C.S.O.)
What then are we to do? What then are we to be?
In a time when institutions, both church and state, experience fore-shocks of deconstruction, nothing might help. If nations and churches are shaken and collapse, there will be nothing left to ponder.
What is nothing?
We like the word 'spirit.' We're uncomfortable with the word 'nothing.'
If we try not to be attached to words, the underlying reality they only point to remains as it is, not reliant on what it has been called. These words (forms) are also emptiness (no-thing). And emptiness is form. This underpinning experience of 'here/gone' or 'seen/unseen' is common to us.
Do we genuinely love life?
Is each one of us (herself, himself) itself?
Love is itself as no-other is itself.
I'll have to ponder this.
Friday, March 12, 2004
Thomas Merton -- undetected.
If John didn't say it, he sparked it.
John said that if we really understood the terms 'eternal life' and 'the kingdom of heaven' we'd come to understand we were talking about the everlasting present moment wherein we dwell within the undifferentiated now.
When John pulls on his black watch-cap and readies to leave, he resembles pictures of Thomas Merton. John and Tommy sat by fire last evening. We talked about what each really believed -- belief, we sensed, that resided just on the edge of belief. We spoke about what we didn't know. Delia, Emanuel, and Lea wandered in and steeped the conversation.
Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.
- Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831)
Earlier Alena and Garrett talked about energy of another person interfusing with our own so as to be indistinguisable and no longer 'other' energy. Alena missed her mentor. He disappeared within her. We only miss what we cannot feel as other, what we think is gone. Garrett suspected this is what was meant by Dogen's 'dropping off mind and body.'
Ann Marie stopped by. She will continue doing sails with people with cancer. She received a grant. The ragged small lamb from back shelf was in her hand. It looked like it wanted to leave with her. I told them to go off and visit with each other for as long as they wished. She thought that was sweet. Besides, who really owns a three inch white stuffed lamb? It goes its own way.
Jim Knight writes about Ed Rice, Robert Lax and himself and their time with Thomas Merton:
The Merton we knew, who is still in the lives of both of us, was a different man, and monk, from the saintly person of pre-fabricated purity that has become his image these days. He was a real person, not a saint; he was a mystic searching for God, but a God that crossed the boundaries of all religions; his was not a purely Christian soul. He developed closer spiritual ties than Church authorities will ever admit to the Eastern religions, Hinduism as well as Buddhism. In fact just before his appalling accidental death in December 1968, he was saying openly that Christianity could be greatly improved by a strong dose of Buddhism and Hinduism into its faith. These are things the record needs.
For us Merton was one of the seminal figures of our time. He was deeply curious about all religions, all areas of thought and philosophy. Rice says: "The Church has not done right by him. In fact, the Church has wronged him, and continues to wrong him, by glossing over, by evading the universality of his thought. The Church wants to obscure his basic human nature, his reaching out to other people in a desire to create a common bond, not necessarily based on religion."
"Sometimes I think there are two Churches," Rice says, "one run by the Vatican and the other by Merton. The one run by the Vatican is exclusionary and cold and based on dogma. The one run by Merton reaches out to the whole world and is based on faith."
(-- from The Thomas Merton We Knew by William James Knight ©TXu838-314-2-2-98)
Saskia returns tired from day's travel and work in Bangor. Sando barks. Cesco lays back by bookshelves. Emanual is saying we should get someone to fundraise for us to keep us open. But it is late.
Just so, this morning it is early. Light wanders in as Mu-ge wanders in this room. I'm trying to find something for Charlie at the prison on the psychological impact of environment on individuals -- but I'm easily distracted.
Rice, who sponsored Merton in his conversion to Catholicism, is at odds with many aspects of today's Thomas Merton cult. "It presents Merton as a plastic saint," Rice says, "a contemporary Little Flower, a sweet, sinless individual who has a direct line to God. But the God some people see Merton communicating with is not the God that I think Merton would have been praying to. I am not comfortable with the plastic saint image of Merton; he was no such thing. I see Merton as an individual in the grand scheme, and it makes no difference whether he is approached as a Roman Catholic monk or a Buddhist lama. He was Merton, and he has his influence as Merton."
In Paradise with Merton, Rice says, are Lao Tse, Isaac the Blind, Ibn el Araby, Confucius, Thomas Aquinas, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Charles de Foucaud the Keeper of the Pass, Teilhard de Chardin, Rabia al Alawiya, the Original Sai Baba, Susanna Flying Feather (his own Susanna), Ahmad al Alawi --"an endless number, hundreds, thousands of saints of all faiths, some with no faith at all."
Such are the people Merton is associating with," Rice says. "He's a world figure. He's a man who fits into the scheme of the universal holy man with an appeal to everybody. His most important characteristic is that he is universal; anybody can approach him, pray with him, denounce him, love him; he is there. He's part of the grand scheme, helping us on the way to that mysterious summit we are all searching for."
So here we are, the two of us at at the age of 82, with nearly all our lives behind us; Rice, with his religion unique but still intact, and I, an active Protestant at a young age, having a long time ago stripped away those beliefs. Thinking of Merton. Hoping Merton doesn't forget, pretty sure he won't.
When the lights go out and the spirit streaks off into the dizzying and frightening darkness, Merton will be there. I'm counting on him to reach out for me; then I'll leave the rest entirely up to him; he'll know where to go and what to do.
I hope you have quick hands, Tom.
And strong wrists.
(-- from Knight's 'Merton') (Note: Robert Lax, poet, died on September 26, 2000. Edward Rice, editor, reporter, photographer, biographer, painter, and friend, died just short of a year later, on August 18, 2001. Jim Knight was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and completed his formal education at Columbia College in New York. He was part of the writer's group at "Jester", Columbia's humor magazine, that included Thomas Merton, Edward Rice, Robert Lax and Robert Gerdy.)http://www.therealmerton.com/bio.html
Ryokan, as stream, turns clear and transparent. He is water. As Merton is water.
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
-- ee cummings
Water catches us up with soft sweet continuance -- decidedly undetected and delightfully playful -- throughout.
Snow melts. Water trickles. Returns to source.
If John didn't say it, he sparked it.
John said that if we really understood the terms 'eternal life' and 'the kingdom of heaven' we'd come to understand we were talking about the everlasting present moment wherein we dwell within the undifferentiated now.
When John pulls on his black watch-cap and readies to leave, he resembles pictures of Thomas Merton. John and Tommy sat by fire last evening. We talked about what each really believed -- belief, we sensed, that resided just on the edge of belief. We spoke about what we didn't know. Delia, Emanuel, and Lea wandered in and steeped the conversation.
Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.
- Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831)
Earlier Alena and Garrett talked about energy of another person interfusing with our own so as to be indistinguisable and no longer 'other' energy. Alena missed her mentor. He disappeared within her. We only miss what we cannot feel as other, what we think is gone. Garrett suspected this is what was meant by Dogen's 'dropping off mind and body.'
Ann Marie stopped by. She will continue doing sails with people with cancer. She received a grant. The ragged small lamb from back shelf was in her hand. It looked like it wanted to leave with her. I told them to go off and visit with each other for as long as they wished. She thought that was sweet. Besides, who really owns a three inch white stuffed lamb? It goes its own way.
Jim Knight writes about Ed Rice, Robert Lax and himself and their time with Thomas Merton:
The Merton we knew, who is still in the lives of both of us, was a different man, and monk, from the saintly person of pre-fabricated purity that has become his image these days. He was a real person, not a saint; he was a mystic searching for God, but a God that crossed the boundaries of all religions; his was not a purely Christian soul. He developed closer spiritual ties than Church authorities will ever admit to the Eastern religions, Hinduism as well as Buddhism. In fact just before his appalling accidental death in December 1968, he was saying openly that Christianity could be greatly improved by a strong dose of Buddhism and Hinduism into its faith. These are things the record needs.
For us Merton was one of the seminal figures of our time. He was deeply curious about all religions, all areas of thought and philosophy. Rice says: "The Church has not done right by him. In fact, the Church has wronged him, and continues to wrong him, by glossing over, by evading the universality of his thought. The Church wants to obscure his basic human nature, his reaching out to other people in a desire to create a common bond, not necessarily based on religion."
"Sometimes I think there are two Churches," Rice says, "one run by the Vatican and the other by Merton. The one run by the Vatican is exclusionary and cold and based on dogma. The one run by Merton reaches out to the whole world and is based on faith."
(-- from The Thomas Merton We Knew by William James Knight ©TXu838-314-2-2-98)
Saskia returns tired from day's travel and work in Bangor. Sando barks. Cesco lays back by bookshelves. Emanual is saying we should get someone to fundraise for us to keep us open. But it is late.
Just so, this morning it is early. Light wanders in as Mu-ge wanders in this room. I'm trying to find something for Charlie at the prison on the psychological impact of environment on individuals -- but I'm easily distracted.
Rice, who sponsored Merton in his conversion to Catholicism, is at odds with many aspects of today's Thomas Merton cult. "It presents Merton as a plastic saint," Rice says, "a contemporary Little Flower, a sweet, sinless individual who has a direct line to God. But the God some people see Merton communicating with is not the God that I think Merton would have been praying to. I am not comfortable with the plastic saint image of Merton; he was no such thing. I see Merton as an individual in the grand scheme, and it makes no difference whether he is approached as a Roman Catholic monk or a Buddhist lama. He was Merton, and he has his influence as Merton."
In Paradise with Merton, Rice says, are Lao Tse, Isaac the Blind, Ibn el Araby, Confucius, Thomas Aquinas, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Charles de Foucaud the Keeper of the Pass, Teilhard de Chardin, Rabia al Alawiya, the Original Sai Baba, Susanna Flying Feather (his own Susanna), Ahmad al Alawi --"an endless number, hundreds, thousands of saints of all faiths, some with no faith at all."
Such are the people Merton is associating with," Rice says. "He's a world figure. He's a man who fits into the scheme of the universal holy man with an appeal to everybody. His most important characteristic is that he is universal; anybody can approach him, pray with him, denounce him, love him; he is there. He's part of the grand scheme, helping us on the way to that mysterious summit we are all searching for."
So here we are, the two of us at at the age of 82, with nearly all our lives behind us; Rice, with his religion unique but still intact, and I, an active Protestant at a young age, having a long time ago stripped away those beliefs. Thinking of Merton. Hoping Merton doesn't forget, pretty sure he won't.
When the lights go out and the spirit streaks off into the dizzying and frightening darkness, Merton will be there. I'm counting on him to reach out for me; then I'll leave the rest entirely up to him; he'll know where to go and what to do.
I hope you have quick hands, Tom.
And strong wrists.
(-- from Knight's 'Merton') (Note: Robert Lax, poet, died on September 26, 2000. Edward Rice, editor, reporter, photographer, biographer, painter, and friend, died just short of a year later, on August 18, 2001. Jim Knight was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and completed his formal education at Columbia College in New York. He was part of the writer's group at "Jester", Columbia's humor magazine, that included Thomas Merton, Edward Rice, Robert Lax and Robert Gerdy.)http://www.therealmerton.com/bio.html
Ryokan, as stream, turns clear and transparent. He is water. As Merton is water.
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
-- ee cummings
Water catches us up with soft sweet continuance -- decidedly undetected and delightfully playful -- throughout.
Snow melts. Water trickles. Returns to source.
Thursday, March 11, 2004
What holds us together? This question began Wednesday Evening Laura Conversation.
.
How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in your relationships. Love does not want or fear anything.
If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion, peace.
The ego doesn't like to hear this, because if it cannot be reactive and righteous anymore, it will lose strength.
(pp.91-92, in Stillness Speaks, by Eckhart Tolle, c.2003)
'Forgiveness' was talked about. Some disliked the memory of judgment associated with forgiveness. Dirk brought up Jesus' saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Susan said Jesus asked for forgiveness for their not knowing, their unawareness; he didn't focus on what they were doing to him.
What sages learn
Is to return their nature
To the beginning
And let their minds
Travel freely in
Openness.
What developed people
Learn is to link their nature
To vast emptiness and
Become aware of the
Silent infinite.
- Huai-nan-tzu
They didn't know that killing a man or a woman, (in this case Jesus), they are killing themselves. This is what is sad -- that we do not yet understand who and what we are. Yet, in this case, Jesus finds forgiveness the longed-for response, not anger, not revenge. It's hard not to equate revenge with justice when wrong is done to us. But then, it's rare to access Christ-consciousness.
For me, the response to the question "What holds us together?" is "Nothing!"
Nothing holds us together because we are not parts of a whole, we are the whole itself. There is no 'holding together,' in that, what is whole is of a piece. A different question is required, namely: 'What can tear us apart?' The response to that question might be disturbing.
It is possible that often what we call 'love' might be 'attachment?' Someone recently said she struggled with the confusion she hears between love and attachment.
The mind, as it usually does, classifies and categorizes what it analyzes into cut pieces resembling puzzle pieces. From there the machine-like process figures what belongs where, what doesn't fit, and whether the picture emerging from the contact is worth our time and energy. We become attached to what belongs, dismiss until again expedient what does not fit, and judge accordingly whether what is emerging will benefit us in the short or long run.
'Attachment' implies something separate there to which one might attach oneself. This is our common understanding. What if there were nothing there to attach -- or, if what is there is not other than the one seeing what is there? (While some contend this is a matter of semantics, and therefore, by implication, false -- it is worthwhile to look at the way we speak and think with some benign skepticism.)
Love is aware of itself as no other is aware of itself.
A woman writes: I think it is called love. It is the only commandment Jesus gave to us. I am a simple and unsophisticated person. I do not know anything about Buddhism and am not inclined to study it. I grow by depth and not by expansion. It is just the way I am. Relationship to the person of Jesus has simply been God's way of approaching me and more and more I have only Him and the depths just keep opening out to me in silence
A young man comes in and tells about a recent drug experience. He says it made him dumb, broke down things into simple pieces he was able to deal with -- a cleansing out of his head, he says. He tells of a bus station in Florida, a Jamaican man who burst into a sermon St. Paul would be proud of, his eyes full of communication he was a believer, not like the Amish man who, when asked if he was a Christian, harrumphed, grumbled, and went to buy a Pepsi from a machine. The young man concludes he must have been CIA in deep coveralls. He leaves, both of us laughing.
Laurie brings in her ink and palette paintings on Haiti, it's hell and hope. The first ones are dark. The middle ones questioning shapes. The last set done while listening to "Orenda" CD (Joanne Shenandoah, Lawrence Laughing) and a CD by Carlos Nakai -- lighter, more expansive.
Religion and relationship have to do with tying together and giving wide expression. [Latin: fero ferre tuli latum = to bear along , move forward, put in motion; latus -a -um = broad, wide, extensive]. Given -- that our mind has difficulty seeing things whole, we create religion to tie together what is already whole, we cultivate relationships to ease the fear of loneliness from a felt separation that is not there at all. So many meetings!
Ultimately, of course, there is no other, and you are always meeting yourself. (p.100, Tolle)
"Dark matter," says Susan looking at ice in harbor, "holds everything together; it's God."
Traveling freely in openness, nature the vast emptiness, becoming aware within the silent infinite!
This invitation of wholeness.
.
How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in your relationships. Love does not want or fear anything.
If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion, peace.
The ego doesn't like to hear this, because if it cannot be reactive and righteous anymore, it will lose strength.
(pp.91-92, in Stillness Speaks, by Eckhart Tolle, c.2003)
'Forgiveness' was talked about. Some disliked the memory of judgment associated with forgiveness. Dirk brought up Jesus' saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Susan said Jesus asked for forgiveness for their not knowing, their unawareness; he didn't focus on what they were doing to him.
What sages learn
Is to return their nature
To the beginning
And let their minds
Travel freely in
Openness.
What developed people
Learn is to link their nature
To vast emptiness and
Become aware of the
Silent infinite.
- Huai-nan-tzu
They didn't know that killing a man or a woman, (in this case Jesus), they are killing themselves. This is what is sad -- that we do not yet understand who and what we are. Yet, in this case, Jesus finds forgiveness the longed-for response, not anger, not revenge. It's hard not to equate revenge with justice when wrong is done to us. But then, it's rare to access Christ-consciousness.
For me, the response to the question "What holds us together?" is "Nothing!"
Nothing holds us together because we are not parts of a whole, we are the whole itself. There is no 'holding together,' in that, what is whole is of a piece. A different question is required, namely: 'What can tear us apart?' The response to that question might be disturbing.
It is possible that often what we call 'love' might be 'attachment?' Someone recently said she struggled with the confusion she hears between love and attachment.
The mind, as it usually does, classifies and categorizes what it analyzes into cut pieces resembling puzzle pieces. From there the machine-like process figures what belongs where, what doesn't fit, and whether the picture emerging from the contact is worth our time and energy. We become attached to what belongs, dismiss until again expedient what does not fit, and judge accordingly whether what is emerging will benefit us in the short or long run.
'Attachment' implies something separate there to which one might attach oneself. This is our common understanding. What if there were nothing there to attach -- or, if what is there is not other than the one seeing what is there? (While some contend this is a matter of semantics, and therefore, by implication, false -- it is worthwhile to look at the way we speak and think with some benign skepticism.)
Love is aware of itself as no other is aware of itself.
A woman writes: I think it is called love. It is the only commandment Jesus gave to us. I am a simple and unsophisticated person. I do not know anything about Buddhism and am not inclined to study it. I grow by depth and not by expansion. It is just the way I am. Relationship to the person of Jesus has simply been God's way of approaching me and more and more I have only Him and the depths just keep opening out to me in silence
A young man comes in and tells about a recent drug experience. He says it made him dumb, broke down things into simple pieces he was able to deal with -- a cleansing out of his head, he says. He tells of a bus station in Florida, a Jamaican man who burst into a sermon St. Paul would be proud of, his eyes full of communication he was a believer, not like the Amish man who, when asked if he was a Christian, harrumphed, grumbled, and went to buy a Pepsi from a machine. The young man concludes he must have been CIA in deep coveralls. He leaves, both of us laughing.
Laurie brings in her ink and palette paintings on Haiti, it's hell and hope. The first ones are dark. The middle ones questioning shapes. The last set done while listening to "Orenda" CD (Joanne Shenandoah, Lawrence Laughing) and a CD by Carlos Nakai -- lighter, more expansive.
Religion and relationship have to do with tying together and giving wide expression. [Latin: fero ferre tuli latum = to bear along , move forward, put in motion; latus -a -um = broad, wide, extensive]. Given -- that our mind has difficulty seeing things whole, we create religion to tie together what is already whole, we cultivate relationships to ease the fear of loneliness from a felt separation that is not there at all. So many meetings!
Ultimately, of course, there is no other, and you are always meeting yourself. (p.100, Tolle)
"Dark matter," says Susan looking at ice in harbor, "holds everything together; it's God."
Traveling freely in openness, nature the vast emptiness, becoming aware within the silent infinite!
This invitation of wholeness.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Jory wondered how it is we receive obvious sustenance from Christian contemplative practice.
If you can get through
The world by following
The Way and embracing
Virtue to the end of your years,
It can be said that you are able
To embody the Tao.
- Huai-nan-tzu
Christianity is not the religion we think it is. Not dogma, not creed, not history, not authority, and not static scripture. These things might have come to surround, and even contain, Christianity -- but they are not the soul of the Way.
The Way is person. Throughout time, as demarked by BC/AD or BCE/CE, an experience of remarkable interest has intersected time and history. Time past rolls back from it; time future ascends from it.
The Way is presence. "Present!" -- we say when our name is called. "Here," when asked our location. "I am with you," when someone in darkening uncertainty or failing health imprecates us. We are asked to be what we are when nothing else dares distract or divert us from our true nature.
And he told them this parable: "There once was a person who had a fig tree
planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but
found none, he said to the gardener, 'For three years now I have come in
search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down.
Why should it exhaust the soil?' He said to him in reply, 'Sir, leave it
for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and
fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it
down.'"
(-- from Luke 13:1-9)
We exhaust the soil of Being itself when we do not cultivate or allow the fruit of our being to show and present itself.
Itself presented -- this is the fruit of human, earthly life. The 'Itself,' or, the very being of What-Is-Called-God, is both source and fruit of all life.
The Way is prayer. Prayer is longing for revelation and realization of what we call 'real,' 'truth,' and 'love.' Prayer is the abandonment of seeming separate self. It is intentional letting go of diversion, distraction, and dispersion. It is surrender into the ever-present origin, which is What-Is.
Person, presence, prayer -- this is a trinity of interwoven movement intertwining each and every moment of this existence.
This is what sustains our Christian practice -- this flowing of one into and through the other, the grace of participating in the mystical wonder, word, and water -- life now, and now, and now!
What some call God, what others call Sacred Feminine, and what a few call Way -- this is our interest.
This is our body and blood, soul and divinity, humus (earth, humility) and humanity.
Francis called each and every thing 'brother,' 'sister,' 'mother,' 'father.'
Dogen said when we forget our 'self' we are enlightened by the 'ten thousand things' -- by everything that is.
Christianity is about Christ. And Christ is about you, and me, and every person, presence, prayer in existence.
Buddhism is about Buddha. And Buddha is about you and me and everything awakening with awareness to who and what each is.
The form of religion is empty. The emptiness of religion is form. And what are we?
We are asked to contemplate what is 'going beyond.' We are invited to dwell inseparate from what and who we are. Any form that helps this contemplation and dwelling is welcome. Any emptiness that drops us into reality-itself is welcome.
We are interested, [L. 'inter' = between, among; 'esse' = to be]. That is to say, we are willing to present ourselves, or, in Thich Nhat Hanh's word, to live "Inter-Being" -- in such a contemplation and dwelling.
In the Christian metaphor -- we are willing to be the person we are, we are interested in dwelling in the ground of presence, and, we long for the illusion of separateness to dissolve so that all life and being might find happiness, safety, and home.
If we bear no fruit, we will be cut down -- that is, we will display no life, no flowering, and therefore nothing to carry on.
And yet, as practitioners of Zen, that too is just fine.
Where does a cut-down tree go?
No--
W--
Here!
If you can get through
The world by following
The Way and embracing
Virtue to the end of your years,
It can be said that you are able
To embody the Tao.
- Huai-nan-tzu
Christianity is not the religion we think it is. Not dogma, not creed, not history, not authority, and not static scripture. These things might have come to surround, and even contain, Christianity -- but they are not the soul of the Way.
The Way is person. Throughout time, as demarked by BC/AD or BCE/CE, an experience of remarkable interest has intersected time and history. Time past rolls back from it; time future ascends from it.
The Way is presence. "Present!" -- we say when our name is called. "Here," when asked our location. "I am with you," when someone in darkening uncertainty or failing health imprecates us. We are asked to be what we are when nothing else dares distract or divert us from our true nature.
And he told them this parable: "There once was a person who had a fig tree
planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but
found none, he said to the gardener, 'For three years now I have come in
search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down.
Why should it exhaust the soil?' He said to him in reply, 'Sir, leave it
for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and
fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it
down.'"
(-- from Luke 13:1-9)
We exhaust the soil of Being itself when we do not cultivate or allow the fruit of our being to show and present itself.
Itself presented -- this is the fruit of human, earthly life. The 'Itself,' or, the very being of What-Is-Called-God, is both source and fruit of all life.
The Way is prayer. Prayer is longing for revelation and realization of what we call 'real,' 'truth,' and 'love.' Prayer is the abandonment of seeming separate self. It is intentional letting go of diversion, distraction, and dispersion. It is surrender into the ever-present origin, which is What-Is.
Person, presence, prayer -- this is a trinity of interwoven movement intertwining each and every moment of this existence.
This is what sustains our Christian practice -- this flowing of one into and through the other, the grace of participating in the mystical wonder, word, and water -- life now, and now, and now!
What some call God, what others call Sacred Feminine, and what a few call Way -- this is our interest.
This is our body and blood, soul and divinity, humus (earth, humility) and humanity.
Francis called each and every thing 'brother,' 'sister,' 'mother,' 'father.'
Dogen said when we forget our 'self' we are enlightened by the 'ten thousand things' -- by everything that is.
Christianity is about Christ. And Christ is about you, and me, and every person, presence, prayer in existence.
Buddhism is about Buddha. And Buddha is about you and me and everything awakening with awareness to who and what each is.
The form of religion is empty. The emptiness of religion is form. And what are we?
We are asked to contemplate what is 'going beyond.' We are invited to dwell inseparate from what and who we are. Any form that helps this contemplation and dwelling is welcome. Any emptiness that drops us into reality-itself is welcome.
We are interested, [L. 'inter' = between, among; 'esse' = to be]. That is to say, we are willing to present ourselves, or, in Thich Nhat Hanh's word, to live "Inter-Being" -- in such a contemplation and dwelling.
In the Christian metaphor -- we are willing to be the person we are, we are interested in dwelling in the ground of presence, and, we long for the illusion of separateness to dissolve so that all life and being might find happiness, safety, and home.
If we bear no fruit, we will be cut down -- that is, we will display no life, no flowering, and therefore nothing to carry on.
And yet, as practitioners of Zen, that too is just fine.
Where does a cut-down tree go?
No--
W--
Here!
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Note: The bookshop/bakery is closed until evening conversation today. We hope to be back by 5pm. We're on the road Downeast for our other work.
.....................
A new day.
In the dialogue between Judas and Jesus something like the following is said:
Judas: "I thought I was special to you."
Jesus: Everyone is special to me."
Judas: "That would mean we're all the same."
Jesus: [Emphatically] "Yes, that's it, exactly."(-- from film "Judas"...with apologies for anything inexact.)
Zen takes the more direct affirmation -- "You're nothing special to me." It is, in Zen parlance, a statement of great intimacy and appreciation. (Perhaps it should wear the warning: 'Don't try this at home. Use with caution. Know location of nearest emergency room.')
Through green fog, red clouds,
Miles of bamboo,
To a hut where quiet lasts
Just let go and worries end
Stop to think and they're back
An unpolished mirror holds millions of shapes
A bell doesn't ring until it's rung
Your basic nature is the real Buddha
Not form or space; nothing old or new.
- Stonehouse
Visiting a hermit in central Maine yesterday we perform a ritual so profound we have yet to comprehend its depth of meaning.
Which ritual?
This one: We say hello; we say goodbye; and we touch each other in passing.
It is an open ritual, available to everyone, and not the exclusive property of anyone. It celebrates the mystery of the Christ. It celebrates the mystery of the Bodhisattva. And it celebrates the open-circle mystery of every one of us, all sentient beings, everything in creation and beyond creation.
Christians immersed in the Season of Lent are re-considering whether the sacrifice, suffering, and death of Jesus are central to, or solely, the mystery of Christ.
Christ is no mystery -- a Zen view might say -- Christ is the very breath we breathe, sounds we hear, love we long for and enact.
The unpolished mirror has our shape in it; the unrung bell is sounding our names.
In passing, our prayer rises...
To new life!
.....................
A new day.
In the dialogue between Judas and Jesus something like the following is said:
Judas: "I thought I was special to you."
Jesus: Everyone is special to me."
Judas: "That would mean we're all the same."
Jesus: [Emphatically] "Yes, that's it, exactly."(-- from film "Judas"...with apologies for anything inexact.)
Zen takes the more direct affirmation -- "You're nothing special to me." It is, in Zen parlance, a statement of great intimacy and appreciation. (Perhaps it should wear the warning: 'Don't try this at home. Use with caution. Know location of nearest emergency room.')
Through green fog, red clouds,
Miles of bamboo,
To a hut where quiet lasts
Just let go and worries end
Stop to think and they're back
An unpolished mirror holds millions of shapes
A bell doesn't ring until it's rung
Your basic nature is the real Buddha
Not form or space; nothing old or new.
- Stonehouse
Visiting a hermit in central Maine yesterday we perform a ritual so profound we have yet to comprehend its depth of meaning.
Which ritual?
This one: We say hello; we say goodbye; and we touch each other in passing.
It is an open ritual, available to everyone, and not the exclusive property of anyone. It celebrates the mystery of the Christ. It celebrates the mystery of the Bodhisattva. And it celebrates the open-circle mystery of every one of us, all sentient beings, everything in creation and beyond creation.
Christians immersed in the Season of Lent are re-considering whether the sacrifice, suffering, and death of Jesus are central to, or solely, the mystery of Christ.
Christ is no mystery -- a Zen view might say -- Christ is the very breath we breathe, sounds we hear, love we long for and enact.
The unpolished mirror has our shape in it; the unrung bell is sounding our names.
In passing, our prayer rises...
To new life!
Saturday, March 06, 2004
Fog over everything. Harbor wrapped in it.
Jeanne talks about her older dog: "There's nothing left but the love." Therese brings donuts from Willow Street Bakery as donation. We set them out as donation to donut lovers. Here, bringing coals to Newcastle works.
The fog makes nothing clear.
I must strain to see
The few buds this old tree
Labored to open;
In pathos we're one, and I wonder
How many more springs we'll meet here.
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
Dirk brings in material for Festival of the Spirit. Sam, Hillary, and Susan catch up. Moose, the Black Lab, stops by and nuzzles head into biscuit basket before Therese calls him out.
Fog lowers into soul. Rain comes, fog lifts. Rain ceases, fog suffuses. Snow melts, mist rises.
Full moon tonight. A languid distance opens and closes as mud season runs ahead of itself. 'Raw,' Laurie said, 'damp and raw.'
By all calculations, spring nears. With Saigyo, in surround of fog we wonder, how many more springs we'll meet here.
Sam plays harmonica. A soulful solo. Afternoon drifts with outgoing tide. He plays "Going Home." Joanie reads Vegetarian Times.
Earlier this morning at "The Many Faces of Death" conversation, we read the words:
Our task is to find that pure love, and curiously it is death, or rather impermanence, that can help us. The reason we become so fiercely attached to things -- from our emotions, ideas, and opinions to our possessions and other people -- is that we have not taken impermanence to heart. Once we can accept that impermanence is the very nature of life, and that everyone suffers, including ourselves, at the hands of change and death, then letting go becomes quite natural.
With impermanence securely in our hearts, we'll see that if everyone were to realize its truth, then even in the thick of change and death and bereavement, we would not feel any great sense of loss. Our tears then would not be because death and impermanence are facts of life, but because of something much deeper: we would weep with compassion, because we'd know that all the pain and suffering we go through do not need to be there. They are only there in fact because we fail to understand that everything, absolutely everything, is transient.(p. x, in Facing Death and Finding Hope, A Guide to the Emotional and Spiritual Care of the Dying, by Christine Longaker, c.1997)
Jonathan writes that his grandmother died this week: "Grandmother passed away last night at 7:00 PM. Apparently in the last week she'd started to not recognize Martha and to slip away from whatever moorings were holding her in the present." There'll be cremation, a Mass, and in summer, burial in Arlington.
Peter and his companions had been overcome by
sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men
standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to
Jesus, "Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one
for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." But he did not know what he
was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow
over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.
( from Luke 9:28b-36)
Fog lifts above islands out in the bay and lowers over Battie above town.
We enter the cloud.
For Peter, James, and John -- a voice was heard there. "After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone." (Luke)
In our cloud, nothing clear is discerned.
Jeanne talks about her older dog: "There's nothing left but the love." Therese brings donuts from Willow Street Bakery as donation. We set them out as donation to donut lovers. Here, bringing coals to Newcastle works.
The fog makes nothing clear.
I must strain to see
The few buds this old tree
Labored to open;
In pathos we're one, and I wonder
How many more springs we'll meet here.
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
Dirk brings in material for Festival of the Spirit. Sam, Hillary, and Susan catch up. Moose, the Black Lab, stops by and nuzzles head into biscuit basket before Therese calls him out.
Fog lowers into soul. Rain comes, fog lifts. Rain ceases, fog suffuses. Snow melts, mist rises.
Full moon tonight. A languid distance opens and closes as mud season runs ahead of itself. 'Raw,' Laurie said, 'damp and raw.'
By all calculations, spring nears. With Saigyo, in surround of fog we wonder, how many more springs we'll meet here.
Sam plays harmonica. A soulful solo. Afternoon drifts with outgoing tide. He plays "Going Home." Joanie reads Vegetarian Times.
Earlier this morning at "The Many Faces of Death" conversation, we read the words:
Our task is to find that pure love, and curiously it is death, or rather impermanence, that can help us. The reason we become so fiercely attached to things -- from our emotions, ideas, and opinions to our possessions and other people -- is that we have not taken impermanence to heart. Once we can accept that impermanence is the very nature of life, and that everyone suffers, including ourselves, at the hands of change and death, then letting go becomes quite natural.
With impermanence securely in our hearts, we'll see that if everyone were to realize its truth, then even in the thick of change and death and bereavement, we would not feel any great sense of loss. Our tears then would not be because death and impermanence are facts of life, but because of something much deeper: we would weep with compassion, because we'd know that all the pain and suffering we go through do not need to be there. They are only there in fact because we fail to understand that everything, absolutely everything, is transient.(p. x, in Facing Death and Finding Hope, A Guide to the Emotional and Spiritual Care of the Dying, by Christine Longaker, c.1997)
Jonathan writes that his grandmother died this week: "Grandmother passed away last night at 7:00 PM. Apparently in the last week she'd started to not recognize Martha and to slip away from whatever moorings were holding her in the present." There'll be cremation, a Mass, and in summer, burial in Arlington.
Peter and his companions had been overcome by
sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men
standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to
Jesus, "Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one
for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." But he did not know what he
was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow
over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.
( from Luke 9:28b-36)
Fog lifts above islands out in the bay and lowers over Battie above town.
We enter the cloud.
For Peter, James, and John -- a voice was heard there. "After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone." (Luke)
In our cloud, nothing clear is discerned.
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