Let us mourn for murdered men and women in Middle East.
Thin Afghani taxi driver
ending harsh interrogation
in American chains
does not know
he is dead
(-wfh)
In our prayer we pray for life.
In sorrow we watch it fade.
Will we awake and end war?
Do you know?
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Oriole, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and Red Cardinal fly away when I open door to let cat out.
To practice conversation means to engage what is presented; revealing and engaging a reciprocal presentation with words of one's own.
Cat hunkers below hanging feeder. Rain shower begins. Grass overgrows with sudden spring.
I'd prefer all life to find its way without taking away another's life. In fact, that preference is often my prayer. Sometimes I forget to pray.
Killings in Iraq, in Palestine, in Idaho, and in Maine -- converse with my heart.
As a protective armor around the quiet flame of the heart, prayer is the best defense in the face of such onslaughts. And it is more: it is a life-giving discipline that can bring us to our senses -- back to God -- when we have gone astray. It focuses us and directs us to the source of peace.
Personally I have found the discipline of prayer crucial to maintaining a sense of peace and order in my life. More than anything else it seems that prayer (or the absence of it) can decide the outcome of our day. As Bonhoeffer notes in his Letters and Papers from Prison, time we waste, temptations we yield to, laziness or lethargy in our work -- in general, any lack of discipline in our thoughts or in our interaction with others -- frequently have their root in our neglect of prayer.
Prayer need not be formal. For my wife and me, it is the natural way we begin and end our day together; we pray every morning when we get up, and every evening before we go to bed. Some may pray more often than that, others less. Some people pray on their knees; others use a prayer book. Some speak; some do not use words at all. Pastor Blumhardt was known to open his window each evening in order to say good night to God. As long as our prayer is genuine, and not just an empty rite, it does not matter how we go about it. The important thing is to make room for it, somewhere.
(LIVING ON A PRAYER, an excerpt from Johann Christoph Arnold's book "Seeking Peace")
Whenever I let the cat out I call out in prayer and inform the mountainside to stay alert. Danger is out among us. There is a chasm we have to cross -- prayer alerts us to remain authentic even in the face of threat and danger.
The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber says that whenever we pray, we should cry out, imagining ourselves as hanging from a cliff by our hair, with a tempest raging around us so violently that we are sure we have only a few seconds left to be saved. Buber goes on, "And in truth there is no counsel, no refuge, and no peace for anyone save to lift up his eyes and his heart to God and to cry out to him. One should do this at all times, for a man is in great danger in the world." (Arnold)
In the world, and to the world.
I call out from my partially open door.
Stay alert! Please do not kill!
Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you.” (No wonder we prefer rabid religious revenge to the words of Jesus.)
If we are killed, (my prayer continues), let's go straight home!
(Mama Cardinal balances on wire for a pause above the chasm.)
To practice conversation means to engage what is presented; revealing and engaging a reciprocal presentation with words of one's own.
Cat hunkers below hanging feeder. Rain shower begins. Grass overgrows with sudden spring.
I'd prefer all life to find its way without taking away another's life. In fact, that preference is often my prayer. Sometimes I forget to pray.
Killings in Iraq, in Palestine, in Idaho, and in Maine -- converse with my heart.
As a protective armor around the quiet flame of the heart, prayer is the best defense in the face of such onslaughts. And it is more: it is a life-giving discipline that can bring us to our senses -- back to God -- when we have gone astray. It focuses us and directs us to the source of peace.
Personally I have found the discipline of prayer crucial to maintaining a sense of peace and order in my life. More than anything else it seems that prayer (or the absence of it) can decide the outcome of our day. As Bonhoeffer notes in his Letters and Papers from Prison, time we waste, temptations we yield to, laziness or lethargy in our work -- in general, any lack of discipline in our thoughts or in our interaction with others -- frequently have their root in our neglect of prayer.
Prayer need not be formal. For my wife and me, it is the natural way we begin and end our day together; we pray every morning when we get up, and every evening before we go to bed. Some may pray more often than that, others less. Some people pray on their knees; others use a prayer book. Some speak; some do not use words at all. Pastor Blumhardt was known to open his window each evening in order to say good night to God. As long as our prayer is genuine, and not just an empty rite, it does not matter how we go about it. The important thing is to make room for it, somewhere.
(LIVING ON A PRAYER, an excerpt from Johann Christoph Arnold's book "Seeking Peace")
Whenever I let the cat out I call out in prayer and inform the mountainside to stay alert. Danger is out among us. There is a chasm we have to cross -- prayer alerts us to remain authentic even in the face of threat and danger.
The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber says that whenever we pray, we should cry out, imagining ourselves as hanging from a cliff by our hair, with a tempest raging around us so violently that we are sure we have only a few seconds left to be saved. Buber goes on, "And in truth there is no counsel, no refuge, and no peace for anyone save to lift up his eyes and his heart to God and to cry out to him. One should do this at all times, for a man is in great danger in the world." (Arnold)
In the world, and to the world.
I call out from my partially open door.
Stay alert! Please do not kill!
Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you.” (No wonder we prefer rabid religious revenge to the words of Jesus.)
If we are killed, (my prayer continues), let's go straight home!
(Mama Cardinal balances on wire for a pause above the chasm.)
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
We have to talk.
Whether the intuition of spirituality, or the investigation of intellectual inquiry -- there is need for conversant community to give ground and breath to the eccentric spaciousness of each one of us.
I let mind and body go
And gained a life of freedom
My old age is taking place
Among ten thousand peaks
I don't let white clouds
Leave the valley lightly
I escort the moon as far
As my closed gate.
- Han-shan Te-ch'ing (1546-1623)
Ground gives place to stand. Breath gives shape to inspiration and expiration.
Wisdom brings up her own sons,
and cares for those who seek her.
Whoever loves her loves life,
those who wait on her early will be filled with happiness.
(Ecclesiasticus 4:12ff)
From birth on we are thrown from the center of wherever we are; pushed out from boxes and confines into the open. Often we fear the open into which we emerge at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, or 70 -- causing us to try to re-insert into another box, another confine. If we can't say it, someone has to say it for us -- "No!" No further, no more, no bananas.
We shouldn't be where we shouldn't be. It is too easy to default to the known and familiar. Someone helped me once, saying (in effect) "get lost, drop dead, no way." Gratitude comes slowly.
Sometimes we're only a pause, a comma, in a longer conversation. But that miniscule hiatus contains all of the universe in its purpose.
We are each the getting out and the passing through -- the lapping of water from bowl, the level of it refashioning itself.
It is good to have been born.
Good to be here.
What say?
Whether the intuition of spirituality, or the investigation of intellectual inquiry -- there is need for conversant community to give ground and breath to the eccentric spaciousness of each one of us.
I let mind and body go
And gained a life of freedom
My old age is taking place
Among ten thousand peaks
I don't let white clouds
Leave the valley lightly
I escort the moon as far
As my closed gate.
- Han-shan Te-ch'ing (1546-1623)
Ground gives place to stand. Breath gives shape to inspiration and expiration.
Wisdom brings up her own sons,
and cares for those who seek her.
Whoever loves her loves life,
those who wait on her early will be filled with happiness.
(Ecclesiasticus 4:12ff)
From birth on we are thrown from the center of wherever we are; pushed out from boxes and confines into the open. Often we fear the open into which we emerge at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, or 70 -- causing us to try to re-insert into another box, another confine. If we can't say it, someone has to say it for us -- "No!" No further, no more, no bananas.
We shouldn't be where we shouldn't be. It is too easy to default to the known and familiar. Someone helped me once, saying (in effect) "get lost, drop dead, no way." Gratitude comes slowly.
Sometimes we're only a pause, a comma, in a longer conversation. But that miniscule hiatus contains all of the universe in its purpose.
We are each the getting out and the passing through -- the lapping of water from bowl, the level of it refashioning itself.
It is good to have been born.
Good to be here.
What say?
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
God is what is God.
Break open
A cherry tree
And there are no flowers,
But the spring breeze
Brings forth a myriad of blossoms!
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)
Splitting mauls cannot do what gentle breath can. Yet, "to serve the Lord" is to trust the opening breath of what is/God no matter where it takes the body.
My son, [my daughter], if you aspire to serve the Lord,
prepare yourself for an ordeal.
Be sincere of heart, be steadfast,
and do not be alarmed when disaster comes.
Cling to him and do not leave him,
so that you may be honoured at the end of your days.
Whatever happens to you, accept it,
and in the uncertainties of your humble state, be patient,
since gold is tested in the fire,
and chosen men [and women] in the furnace of humiliation.
(Ecclesiasticus 2:1-4)
It is easier to be militantly opinionated about forcing God's will externally on others than it is to be quietly present as what is authentically real unfolds within us. I wonder if this difference isn't the one that most divides peoples into two: them that demand and impose, and them that invite and integrate.
The essential for hope is to be found in that critical minority of human beings who insist on being unrealistic, who for some still unknown set of reasons continue to argue that human beings are capable of the possibility of empathy, compassion, love and sensitivity even as cruelty, hostility, insensitivity and rationalized dishonesty now dominate. In the final analysis, only those courageous individuals provide the hope for the ultimate realism that is defined by the capacity of a society to survive rather than be destroyed on the altar of human barbarity .
(-- Kenneth B. Clark)
(Kenneth Clark, the psychologist and educator whose 1950 report showing the destructive effect of school segregation influenced the United States Supreme Court to hold school segregation to be unconstitutional. Clark died Sunday, 1May05. He was 90.)
Human barbarity never ceases to surprise. It excludes, fractures, factionalizes, segregates, quarters, and disembowels in the name of the false real, the cruel necessity, and the self-serving power. So much of the unloving and unkind is predicated on the lie, "I'm doing this for your own good," or, "Trust us, we know better than you what you need, and we'll get it for you."
Rather than attempting to replicate the untrue, the unloving, and the disembodied -- we need to invite, integrate, and embody what is most real. By turning and turning again to the true, loving, and whole -- we practice offering up to higher and wiser compassion what current human capacity is not willing or able to reach.
To give ourselves over to what is real is to rise above mere opinion or diminutive thought and ideology to a more difficult yet spacious realm. That realm is where we have attributed "God" -- the realm where humankind, in its best moments, longs to be. Without fear. Without greed. Without domination or suppression.
I do not yet concede as real that which pretends and postures as real in this world. The posturing pretence of politics, economic and military battles over resources, and petty grabs for power and control over others -- these "realities" of life in the world today strike me as closer to delusion and illusion than to what is real.
When Ecclesiasticus says, "prepare yourself for an ordeal. Be sincere of heart, be steadfast, and do not be alarmed when disaster comes," I take note. I resolve to notice what is taking place. I will not venture to know nor try to guess what will take place between this moment and the moment when critical mass arrives. I suspect I will be surprised.
I expect to be surprised by reality. I invite it. I will try to integrate it. I hope to embody it.
After all...
God is what is God.
Break open
A cherry tree
And there are no flowers,
But the spring breeze
Brings forth a myriad of blossoms!
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)
Splitting mauls cannot do what gentle breath can. Yet, "to serve the Lord" is to trust the opening breath of what is/God no matter where it takes the body.
My son, [my daughter], if you aspire to serve the Lord,
prepare yourself for an ordeal.
Be sincere of heart, be steadfast,
and do not be alarmed when disaster comes.
Cling to him and do not leave him,
so that you may be honoured at the end of your days.
Whatever happens to you, accept it,
and in the uncertainties of your humble state, be patient,
since gold is tested in the fire,
and chosen men [and women] in the furnace of humiliation.
(Ecclesiasticus 2:1-4)
It is easier to be militantly opinionated about forcing God's will externally on others than it is to be quietly present as what is authentically real unfolds within us. I wonder if this difference isn't the one that most divides peoples into two: them that demand and impose, and them that invite and integrate.
The essential for hope is to be found in that critical minority of human beings who insist on being unrealistic, who for some still unknown set of reasons continue to argue that human beings are capable of the possibility of empathy, compassion, love and sensitivity even as cruelty, hostility, insensitivity and rationalized dishonesty now dominate. In the final analysis, only those courageous individuals provide the hope for the ultimate realism that is defined by the capacity of a society to survive rather than be destroyed on the altar of human barbarity .
(-- Kenneth B. Clark)
(Kenneth Clark, the psychologist and educator whose 1950 report showing the destructive effect of school segregation influenced the United States Supreme Court to hold school segregation to be unconstitutional. Clark died Sunday, 1May05. He was 90.)
Human barbarity never ceases to surprise. It excludes, fractures, factionalizes, segregates, quarters, and disembowels in the name of the false real, the cruel necessity, and the self-serving power. So much of the unloving and unkind is predicated on the lie, "I'm doing this for your own good," or, "Trust us, we know better than you what you need, and we'll get it for you."
Rather than attempting to replicate the untrue, the unloving, and the disembodied -- we need to invite, integrate, and embody what is most real. By turning and turning again to the true, loving, and whole -- we practice offering up to higher and wiser compassion what current human capacity is not willing or able to reach.
To give ourselves over to what is real is to rise above mere opinion or diminutive thought and ideology to a more difficult yet spacious realm. That realm is where we have attributed "God" -- the realm where humankind, in its best moments, longs to be. Without fear. Without greed. Without domination or suppression.
I do not yet concede as real that which pretends and postures as real in this world. The posturing pretence of politics, economic and military battles over resources, and petty grabs for power and control over others -- these "realities" of life in the world today strike me as closer to delusion and illusion than to what is real.
When Ecclesiasticus says, "prepare yourself for an ordeal. Be sincere of heart, be steadfast, and do not be alarmed when disaster comes," I take note. I resolve to notice what is taking place. I will not venture to know nor try to guess what will take place between this moment and the moment when critical mass arrives. I suspect I will be surprised.
I expect to be surprised by reality. I invite it. I will try to integrate it. I hope to embody it.
After all...
God is what is God.
Monday, May 16, 2005
It's not funny.
I think the time for joking is over. It feels more that it is time to really worry. The prospect doesn't cheer me. Things are unraveling.
The Rycroft Memo; the torture and abuse of Muslims; the chaos of the war against Iraq; the fundamentalist Christian bias against any other belief or thought; the secrecy; the deceptions; the utter disdain for countervailing views.
It is growing more and more absurd to think that the behavior and ideology of this administration is some simplistic Republican/Democratic or conservative/liberal politics-as-usual. It begins to feel far more dangerous. More and more people in this country as well as abroad realize something is wrong.
Intellectuals -- genuine thinkers, not shills and spinners -- are ready to come out of the closet.
"There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be 'the man in the street.' Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology." (--Joseph Goebbels)
Joe six-pack is putting down the beer and asking questions.
"The aide said that guys like me [i.e., reporters and commentators] were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"(--An unnamed "senior advisor" to President Bush made to a New York Times Magazine reporter last fall, 2004)
Nascar fans are wondering how they let themselves be used.
"Fool me once, shame on you ... fool me twice ...uhhh... you can’t get fooled again." (President Bush)
Even the president doesn't want to -- but is closer to saying, "Shame on me."
"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas. (Governing Magazine 7/98)
"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush joked. (-- CNN.com, December 18, 2000)
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it, " [Bush] said. (-- Business Week, July 30, 2001)
The attempt at humor, to down-home and downplay, upon further reflection, is no longer remotely funny.
The mountains stand unmoving
Just the way they are
All day they let the clouds
Roll out and roll back in
Even though red dust is
Countless layers deep
Not a single speck reaches
My thatched hut.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)
The specks of ambition, arrogance, and false words do reach us. There is no immunity. We will have to answer.
The wise man sees ahead,
the fool walks in the dark.
(from Ecclesiastes 2)
How much trouble are we in?
What do we see ahead?
I think the time for joking is over. It feels more that it is time to really worry. The prospect doesn't cheer me. Things are unraveling.
The Rycroft Memo; the torture and abuse of Muslims; the chaos of the war against Iraq; the fundamentalist Christian bias against any other belief or thought; the secrecy; the deceptions; the utter disdain for countervailing views.
It is growing more and more absurd to think that the behavior and ideology of this administration is some simplistic Republican/Democratic or conservative/liberal politics-as-usual. It begins to feel far more dangerous. More and more people in this country as well as abroad realize something is wrong.
Intellectuals -- genuine thinkers, not shills and spinners -- are ready to come out of the closet.
"There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be 'the man in the street.' Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology." (--Joseph Goebbels)
Joe six-pack is putting down the beer and asking questions.
"The aide said that guys like me [i.e., reporters and commentators] were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"(--An unnamed "senior advisor" to President Bush made to a New York Times Magazine reporter last fall, 2004)
Nascar fans are wondering how they let themselves be used.
"Fool me once, shame on you ... fool me twice ...uhhh... you can’t get fooled again." (President Bush)
Even the president doesn't want to -- but is closer to saying, "Shame on me."
"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas. (Governing Magazine 7/98)
"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush joked. (-- CNN.com, December 18, 2000)
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it, " [Bush] said. (-- Business Week, July 30, 2001)
The attempt at humor, to down-home and downplay, upon further reflection, is no longer remotely funny.
The mountains stand unmoving
Just the way they are
All day they let the clouds
Roll out and roll back in
Even though red dust is
Countless layers deep
Not a single speck reaches
My thatched hut.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)
The specks of ambition, arrogance, and false words do reach us. There is no immunity. We will have to answer.
The wise man sees ahead,
the fool walks in the dark.
(from Ecclesiastes 2)
How much trouble are we in?
What do we see ahead?
Sunday, May 15, 2005
I'm glad it's Pentecost. The mere remembrance of it helps. It helps recall a time when spirit and truth were celebrated. These recollected gifts of the Holy Spirit are sorely missed today. A president who claims to follow his favorite philosopher, Jesus Christ, doesn't seem to have heard of spirit and truth. Maybe Jesus' philosophical lecture wasn't clear enough. Maybe authentic advocacy is an elective course for this president.
I prefer to let this president run his course then disappear into impermanence and irrelevance. There's no use standing under a collapsing building hoping to hold it up. This president has blown the explosives against pivotal pillars of stability and the collapse is spewing unbreathable dust and stench in every direction. Better to comfort the broken-hearted, bury the dead, and sweep clean the debris. Better to cultivate spirit and truth than try to eliminate lies and deceit.
Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,
vouchsafe within our souls to rest;
come with thy grace and heavenly aid,
and fill the hearts which thou hast made.
(Words translated from Latin to English by Richard Mant, Ancient Hymns, 1837.)
Pentecost -- the celebration of Spirit and Truth arriving to guide and console those willing to engage the Christ Reality in this existence -- is more than a propriatory possession of the Church. It is a birthday celebration of Original Awareness come to be with everyone and everything open to receive and engage its presence. We've called Original Awareness, "God." The difficulty for us is that we've used the word "God" as a cudgel so long we've forgotten the reality behind the name.
No use fretting over gold, beauty or fame;
Nurturing these, how can we calm
Our fluttering heart?
Non attachment brings deep truth,
And a truthful nature brings immortality.
Empty your heart,
Sit quietly on a mat.
In meditation we become one with All;
Tao billows like the vapors
In a mountain valley,
And its supernatural power wafts into our soul.
- Loy Ching-Yuen (1873-1960)
Lately, a woman attending evening conversations has taken to saying over and over the word "meditation" as her encouraging suggestion for anyone longing to get beyond the surface inanity and daily insanity put forward by dreadful people trying to further numb and dumb the lot of us. Meditation, I suspect, for her, leads to a more profound seeing -- and, thereby, a less likely mindless, hopeless collapse.
Your interests, however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit of God has made his home in you. In fact, unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him. (from Romans 8)
Belonging to Christ is a theme worth meditation.
Avoid the users and abusers of Christ -- they are legion in these times. Instead, investigate Christ with whole mind and whole heart. Investigate what "neighbor" means. With this investigation, accompanied by quiet, even silent, meditation -- there is a possibility we may see.
Celebrate this birth.
Watch ardently.
Speak carefully.
Embody Christ.
Go your way.
I prefer to let this president run his course then disappear into impermanence and irrelevance. There's no use standing under a collapsing building hoping to hold it up. This president has blown the explosives against pivotal pillars of stability and the collapse is spewing unbreathable dust and stench in every direction. Better to comfort the broken-hearted, bury the dead, and sweep clean the debris. Better to cultivate spirit and truth than try to eliminate lies and deceit.
Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,
vouchsafe within our souls to rest;
come with thy grace and heavenly aid,
and fill the hearts which thou hast made.
(Words translated from Latin to English by Richard Mant, Ancient Hymns, 1837.)
Pentecost -- the celebration of Spirit and Truth arriving to guide and console those willing to engage the Christ Reality in this existence -- is more than a propriatory possession of the Church. It is a birthday celebration of Original Awareness come to be with everyone and everything open to receive and engage its presence. We've called Original Awareness, "God." The difficulty for us is that we've used the word "God" as a cudgel so long we've forgotten the reality behind the name.
No use fretting over gold, beauty or fame;
Nurturing these, how can we calm
Our fluttering heart?
Non attachment brings deep truth,
And a truthful nature brings immortality.
Empty your heart,
Sit quietly on a mat.
In meditation we become one with All;
Tao billows like the vapors
In a mountain valley,
And its supernatural power wafts into our soul.
- Loy Ching-Yuen (1873-1960)
Lately, a woman attending evening conversations has taken to saying over and over the word "meditation" as her encouraging suggestion for anyone longing to get beyond the surface inanity and daily insanity put forward by dreadful people trying to further numb and dumb the lot of us. Meditation, I suspect, for her, leads to a more profound seeing -- and, thereby, a less likely mindless, hopeless collapse.
Your interests, however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit of God has made his home in you. In fact, unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him. (from Romans 8)
Belonging to Christ is a theme worth meditation.
Avoid the users and abusers of Christ -- they are legion in these times. Instead, investigate Christ with whole mind and whole heart. Investigate what "neighbor" means. With this investigation, accompanied by quiet, even silent, meditation -- there is a possibility we may see.
Celebrate this birth.
Watch ardently.
Speak carefully.
Embody Christ.
Go your way.
Friday, May 13, 2005
If love is all there is...
That the self advances
And confirms ten thousand things
Is called delusion;
That the ten thousand things
Advance and confirm the self
Is called enlightenment.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
...what is it we think we are doing?
Sie sagt fur dich: Ich bin!
(She says for you: I am)
(from Rilke poem)
In this case, let me say it for you:
You are...
Love.
That the self advances
And confirms ten thousand things
Is called delusion;
That the ten thousand things
Advance and confirm the self
Is called enlightenment.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
...what is it we think we are doing?
Sie sagt fur dich: Ich bin!
(She says for you: I am)
(from Rilke poem)
In this case, let me say it for you:
You are...
Love.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Final meeting of Fantasy, Myth, and Enchantment as Self-Discovery at University College at Thomaston this evening.
No opposite means no need to cross over. Of course, the raft is not the shore -- but when love is all there is: the shore, the water, the raft, the person, and the other shore are not five things.
If love has no opposite it is no wonder there's so much trouble finding words for love. "Who needs more words," a student asks. We need more leaders -- more of a community of shared counsel. With opposition politics there are rigid laws with specific agendas banging against a dyadic solution.
We need more leaders who can see us through.
We grow accustomed to the Dark --
When light is put away --
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye --
A Moment -- We uncertain step
For newness of the night --
Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --
And meet the Road -- erect --
And so of larger -- Darkness --
Those Evenings of the Brain --
When not a Moon disclose a sign --
Or Star -- come out -- within --
The Bravest -- grope a little --
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead --
But as they learn to see --
Either the Darkness alters --
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight --
And Life steps almost straight.
(Poem by Emily Dickinson)
Maybe we'll only come through if we see community as self-discovery; when we experience connectivity as our natural way of being.
Let's find no opposite to love.
No need to word what is not there.
Present ourselves to our open extended family.
Arriving at the movement taking us through each and every expression of what we are building together -- community itself -- our mythopoetic story and new form of self.
Each leaves final class with common gratitude.
One in all.
No opposite means no need to cross over. Of course, the raft is not the shore -- but when love is all there is: the shore, the water, the raft, the person, and the other shore are not five things.
If love has no opposite it is no wonder there's so much trouble finding words for love. "Who needs more words," a student asks. We need more leaders -- more of a community of shared counsel. With opposition politics there are rigid laws with specific agendas banging against a dyadic solution.
We need more leaders who can see us through.
We grow accustomed to the Dark --
When light is put away --
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye --
A Moment -- We uncertain step
For newness of the night --
Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --
And meet the Road -- erect --
And so of larger -- Darkness --
Those Evenings of the Brain --
When not a Moon disclose a sign --
Or Star -- come out -- within --
The Bravest -- grope a little --
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead --
But as they learn to see --
Either the Darkness alters --
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight --
And Life steps almost straight.
(Poem by Emily Dickinson)
Maybe we'll only come through if we see community as self-discovery; when we experience connectivity as our natural way of being.
Let's find no opposite to love.
No need to word what is not there.
Present ourselves to our open extended family.
Arriving at the movement taking us through each and every expression of what we are building together -- community itself -- our mythopoetic story and new form of self.
Each leaves final class with common gratitude.
One in all.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Fog sat off Curtis Island most the day.
Fog is visible courtship between sun and sea. Sun is sun; sea is sea. When they become entwined as sunsea there is fog. Droplets of water vapor suspended in the air near surface; fog reveals itself for brief intervals. Then dissipates.
The vagaries of life
Though painful,
Teach us
Not to cling
To this fleeting world.
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)
Water, they say, carries code. Essence and intention take form in water's memory. Water seeks lowest place. Water conforms to any shape. Water is life. It is arche, primary principle of life, according to Thales of Miletus.
In Camden boats are lowered into harbor. Floats are set in place. Visitors stop by. Roads are torn up and repairs snarl northern end of town. Sandals appear. Tracey prepares soil and begins flower work for owners. Fog is sculpted testimony to passing nuptial.
The Sailor
In my movie the boat goes under
And he alone survives the night in the cold ocean,
Swimming he hopes in a shoreward direction.
Daylight and he's still afloat, pawing the water
And doesn't yet know he's only fifty feet from shore.
He goes under for what will be the last time
But only a few feet down scrapes bottom.
He's suddenly a changed man and half hops, half swims
The remaining distance, hauls himself waterlogged
Partway up the beach before collapsing into sleep.
As he dreams the tide comes in
And rolls him back to sea.
(Poem by Geof Hewitt)
Fog clarifies what at bottom is invisible. Fog shapes what is passing.
We come to see by seeing what is coming.
The only mystery left is why we treat each other poorly.
Or, why we refuse God becoming with us.
Fog is visible courtship between sun and sea. Sun is sun; sea is sea. When they become entwined as sunsea there is fog. Droplets of water vapor suspended in the air near surface; fog reveals itself for brief intervals. Then dissipates.
The vagaries of life
Though painful,
Teach us
Not to cling
To this fleeting world.
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)
Water, they say, carries code. Essence and intention take form in water's memory. Water seeks lowest place. Water conforms to any shape. Water is life. It is arche, primary principle of life, according to Thales of Miletus.
In Camden boats are lowered into harbor. Floats are set in place. Visitors stop by. Roads are torn up and repairs snarl northern end of town. Sandals appear. Tracey prepares soil and begins flower work for owners. Fog is sculpted testimony to passing nuptial.
The Sailor
In my movie the boat goes under
And he alone survives the night in the cold ocean,
Swimming he hopes in a shoreward direction.
Daylight and he's still afloat, pawing the water
And doesn't yet know he's only fifty feet from shore.
He goes under for what will be the last time
But only a few feet down scrapes bottom.
He's suddenly a changed man and half hops, half swims
The remaining distance, hauls himself waterlogged
Partway up the beach before collapsing into sleep.
As he dreams the tide comes in
And rolls him back to sea.
(Poem by Geof Hewitt)
Fog clarifies what at bottom is invisible. Fog shapes what is passing.
We come to see by seeing what is coming.
The only mystery left is why we treat each other poorly.
Or, why we refuse God becoming with us.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Ecology of consciousness is nuptial. Ethics is the study and practice of who we are, and who we are with one another; the common impulse for interdependence.
I confess that there is nothing to teach: no religion, no science, no body of information which will lead your mind back to the Tao. Today I speak in this fashion, tomorrow in another, but always the Integral Way is beyond words and beyond mind. Simply be aware of the oneness of things. (Eight, in Hua Hu Ching, by Lao Tzu, Translated by Brian Walker)
We go to prison to converse, to practice writing and math, to be part of healing the broken minds and spirits of ourselves and our times.
What percentage of the U.S. jail and prison population is mentally ill?
Of the nearly 2 million inmates being held in prisons and jails across the country, experts believe nearly 500,000 are mentally ill. According to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), 16 percent of the prison population can be classified as severely mentally ill, meaning that they fit the psychiatric classification for illnesses such as schizophrenia, major depression, and bipolar disorder. According to staff at city and community jails, 25 percent of the jail population is severely mentally ill. However, when other mental illnesses, such as anti-social personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and depression, are included, the numbers are much higher, and NAMI puts the number of inmates suffering from both mental illness and substance abuse the percentage at well over 50 percent.
(from Frontline Documentary "The New Asylums", aired 10May05) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/etc/faqs.html
At Tuesday Evening Conversation at the shop tonight Genevieve said she comes, not for the ideas, but for the spirit. We read Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven. The author speaks of experiencing "no inside, no outside." That intuition changes things. It's part of our going in and out of prison. The distinctions drop. Who is inside and who outside, who is mentally ill and who not -- these borders dissolve and fade. We are left with this person, that person; these words, those observations. Each is itself. We're there to verify that intuition.
Each moment is fragile and fleeting. The moment of the past cannot be kept, however beautiful. The moment of the present cannot be held, however enjoyable. The moment of the future cannot be caught, however desirable. But the mind is desperate to fix the river in place: Possessed by ideas of the past, preoccupied with images of the future, it overlooks the plain truth of the moment. The one who can dissolve her mind will suddenly discover the Tao at her feet, and clarity at hand. (Twenty-One, Hua Hu Ching)
The plain truth of the moment is the ecological ethics of person to person interdependence.
We might not be able to name God, but we can greet and speak with one another.
The intuition is not to name or own; just be with.
I confess that there is nothing to teach: no religion, no science, no body of information which will lead your mind back to the Tao. Today I speak in this fashion, tomorrow in another, but always the Integral Way is beyond words and beyond mind. Simply be aware of the oneness of things. (Eight, in Hua Hu Ching, by Lao Tzu, Translated by Brian Walker)
We go to prison to converse, to practice writing and math, to be part of healing the broken minds and spirits of ourselves and our times.
What percentage of the U.S. jail and prison population is mentally ill?
Of the nearly 2 million inmates being held in prisons and jails across the country, experts believe nearly 500,000 are mentally ill. According to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), 16 percent of the prison population can be classified as severely mentally ill, meaning that they fit the psychiatric classification for illnesses such as schizophrenia, major depression, and bipolar disorder. According to staff at city and community jails, 25 percent of the jail population is severely mentally ill. However, when other mental illnesses, such as anti-social personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and depression, are included, the numbers are much higher, and NAMI puts the number of inmates suffering from both mental illness and substance abuse the percentage at well over 50 percent.
(from Frontline Documentary "The New Asylums", aired 10May05) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/etc/faqs.html
At Tuesday Evening Conversation at the shop tonight Genevieve said she comes, not for the ideas, but for the spirit. We read Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven. The author speaks of experiencing "no inside, no outside." That intuition changes things. It's part of our going in and out of prison. The distinctions drop. Who is inside and who outside, who is mentally ill and who not -- these borders dissolve and fade. We are left with this person, that person; these words, those observations. Each is itself. We're there to verify that intuition.
Each moment is fragile and fleeting. The moment of the past cannot be kept, however beautiful. The moment of the present cannot be held, however enjoyable. The moment of the future cannot be caught, however desirable. But the mind is desperate to fix the river in place: Possessed by ideas of the past, preoccupied with images of the future, it overlooks the plain truth of the moment. The one who can dissolve her mind will suddenly discover the Tao at her feet, and clarity at hand. (Twenty-One, Hua Hu Ching)
The plain truth of the moment is the ecological ethics of person to person interdependence.
We might not be able to name God, but we can greet and speak with one another.
The intuition is not to name or own; just be with.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Everywhere at ease?
This month brings Meetingbrook to the cusp of beginning its 10th year at the harbor. The raw rain and blowing swells out of the northeast these last few days remind that spring in Maine is a variable notion. So is Meetingbrook – a variable notion.
In blue-ephemeral haze,
You come and go
Through your Zen gate.
On Yen Mountain,
The view’s ten thousand li,
A thousand peaks.
When will we arrive
And be with the floating clouds
Everywhere at ease?
- Liu Chang-ch’ing (710-787)
The notion is a good one. It holds that we are all connected. That wherever gathers, however briefly, more than one person, begins the practice of changing and deepening one’s view of life. That even in solitude the practice of community continues. That even in communion with or in the presence of others the practice of solitude is ongoing.
Meetingbrook is nothing other than a loosely knit association of individuals walking along the path moving from dependence through independence to interdependence --and arriving home each step of the way.
The practice is to be everywhere at ease. With one another. Or alone. No one, no other – just dwelling at home at ease with the ways form changes and time empties – completely in one’s own place: the place of faith, hope, and love. These perennial virtues of faith (saying yes), hope (asking please), and love (wordlessly praying as openness itself) – are variable hermit pathway trails into assertions of affirmation, invitation, and recognition.
Thomas Merton writes about a conversation with the Dalai Lama who asks Merton: “Well, to be precise, what do your vows oblige you to do? Do they simply constitute an agreement to stick around for life in the monastery? Or do they imply a commitment to a life of progress up certain mystical stages?” I sort of hemmed and hawed a bit, and said: “Well, no, that’s not quite what the vows are all about.” But it was interesting to see that this is what he thought the vows ‘should’ be about.” When you stop and think a little bit about St. Benedict’s concepts of ‘conversio morum’, that most mysterious of our vows, which is actually the most essential, I believe, it can be interpreted as a commitment to total inner transformation of one sort or another -- a commitment to become a completely new man. It seems to me that that could be regarded as the end of monastic life, and that no matter where one attempts to do this, that remains the essential thing. (p.337, from “Marxism and Monastic Perspectives,” by Father Louis, O.C.S.O. {Thomas Merton} Talk delivered at Bangkok on December 10, 1968, Appendix VII in The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, c.1973)
Later, recalling a conversation with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Merton writes:
He sent a message to a nearby abbot friend of his saying: What are we to do?” The abbot sent back a strange message, which I think is very significant: “From now on, Brother, everybody stands on his own feet.”
To my mind, that is an extremely important monastic statement. If you forget everything else that has been said, I would suggest you remember this for the future: “From now on, everybody stands on his own feet.”
This, I think, is what Buddhism is about, what Christianity is about, what monasticism is about – if you understand it in terms of grace. It is not a Pelagian statement, by any means, but a statement to the effect that we can no longer rely on being supported by structures that may be destroyed at any moment by a political power or a political force. You cannot rely on structures. The time for relying on structures has disappeared. They are good and they should help us, and we should do the best we can with them. But they may be taken away, and if everything is taken away, what do you do next? (p.338, Merton)
Living life dedicated to inner transformation is a variable notion and moveable feast.
What is essential in the monastic life is not embedded in buildings, is not embedded in clothing, is not necessarily embedded even in a rule. It is somewhere along the line of something deeper than a rule. It is concerned with this business of total inner transformation. All other things serve that end. I am just saying, in other words, what Cassian said in the first lecture on ‘puritas cordis’, purity of heart, that every monastic observance tends toward that. (p.340, Merton)
Meetingbrook has often wondered whether it would find itself elsewhere. Those loosely associated with the place – regularly or irregularly – catalogue their opinions and feelings about our wonderings and inquiries according to the seasons. Hearts are restless until they realize there is no permanent home with fixed street address; realizing this, hearts rest in the open, their true home.
Let us affirm, invite, and recognize one another in this hospitable dwelling place.
As always, we’re here for now.
This month brings Meetingbrook to the cusp of beginning its 10th year at the harbor. The raw rain and blowing swells out of the northeast these last few days remind that spring in Maine is a variable notion. So is Meetingbrook – a variable notion.
In blue-ephemeral haze,
You come and go
Through your Zen gate.
On Yen Mountain,
The view’s ten thousand li,
A thousand peaks.
When will we arrive
And be with the floating clouds
Everywhere at ease?
- Liu Chang-ch’ing (710-787)
The notion is a good one. It holds that we are all connected. That wherever gathers, however briefly, more than one person, begins the practice of changing and deepening one’s view of life. That even in solitude the practice of community continues. That even in communion with or in the presence of others the practice of solitude is ongoing.
Meetingbrook is nothing other than a loosely knit association of individuals walking along the path moving from dependence through independence to interdependence --and arriving home each step of the way.
The practice is to be everywhere at ease. With one another. Or alone. No one, no other – just dwelling at home at ease with the ways form changes and time empties – completely in one’s own place: the place of faith, hope, and love. These perennial virtues of faith (saying yes), hope (asking please), and love (wordlessly praying as openness itself) – are variable hermit pathway trails into assertions of affirmation, invitation, and recognition.
Thomas Merton writes about a conversation with the Dalai Lama who asks Merton: “Well, to be precise, what do your vows oblige you to do? Do they simply constitute an agreement to stick around for life in the monastery? Or do they imply a commitment to a life of progress up certain mystical stages?” I sort of hemmed and hawed a bit, and said: “Well, no, that’s not quite what the vows are all about.” But it was interesting to see that this is what he thought the vows ‘should’ be about.” When you stop and think a little bit about St. Benedict’s concepts of ‘conversio morum’, that most mysterious of our vows, which is actually the most essential, I believe, it can be interpreted as a commitment to total inner transformation of one sort or another -- a commitment to become a completely new man. It seems to me that that could be regarded as the end of monastic life, and that no matter where one attempts to do this, that remains the essential thing. (p.337, from “Marxism and Monastic Perspectives,” by Father Louis, O.C.S.O. {Thomas Merton} Talk delivered at Bangkok on December 10, 1968, Appendix VII in The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, c.1973)
Later, recalling a conversation with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Merton writes:
He sent a message to a nearby abbot friend of his saying: What are we to do?” The abbot sent back a strange message, which I think is very significant: “From now on, Brother, everybody stands on his own feet.”
To my mind, that is an extremely important monastic statement. If you forget everything else that has been said, I would suggest you remember this for the future: “From now on, everybody stands on his own feet.”
This, I think, is what Buddhism is about, what Christianity is about, what monasticism is about – if you understand it in terms of grace. It is not a Pelagian statement, by any means, but a statement to the effect that we can no longer rely on being supported by structures that may be destroyed at any moment by a political power or a political force. You cannot rely on structures. The time for relying on structures has disappeared. They are good and they should help us, and we should do the best we can with them. But they may be taken away, and if everything is taken away, what do you do next? (p.338, Merton)
Living life dedicated to inner transformation is a variable notion and moveable feast.
What is essential in the monastic life is not embedded in buildings, is not embedded in clothing, is not necessarily embedded even in a rule. It is somewhere along the line of something deeper than a rule. It is concerned with this business of total inner transformation. All other things serve that end. I am just saying, in other words, what Cassian said in the first lecture on ‘puritas cordis’, purity of heart, that every monastic observance tends toward that. (p.340, Merton)
Meetingbrook has often wondered whether it would find itself elsewhere. Those loosely associated with the place – regularly or irregularly – catalogue their opinions and feelings about our wonderings and inquiries according to the seasons. Hearts are restless until they realize there is no permanent home with fixed street address; realizing this, hearts rest in the open, their true home.
Let us affirm, invite, and recognize one another in this hospitable dwelling place.
As always, we’re here for now.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
It's time to change tactics concerning Iraq.
I expected to see only pink blossoms,
But a gentle spring snow has fallen
And the cherry trees are wearing a white coat.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)
Naomi Klein writes:
The administration says the war was about fighting for democracy. That was the big lie they resorted to when they were caught in the other lies. But it's a different kind of a lie in the sense that it's a useful lie. The lie that the United States invaded Iraq to bring freedom and democracy not just to Iraq but, as it turns out, to the whole world, is tremendously useful -- because we can first expose it as a lie and then we can join with Iraqis to try to make it true. So it disturbs me that a lot of progressives are afraid to use the language of democracy now that George W. Bush is using it. We are somehow giving up on the most powerful emancipatory ideas ever created, of self-determination, liberation and democracy.
And it's absolutely crucial not to let Bush get away with stealing and defaming these ideas -- they are too important.
Then:
So what is our role here? We need to support the people of Iraq and their clear demands for an end to both military and corporate occupation. That means being the resistance ourselves in our country, demanding that the troops come home, that U.S. corporations come home, that Iraqis be free of Saddam's debt and the IMF and World Bank agreements signed under occupation. It doesn't mean blindly cheerleading for "the resistance." Because there isn't just one resistance in Iraq. Some elements of the armed resistance are targeting Iraqi civilians as they pray in Shia mosques -- barbaric acts that serve the interests of the Bush administration by feeding the perception that the country is on the brink of civil war and therefore U.S. forces must remain in Iraq. Not everyone fighting the U.S. occupation is fighting for the freedom of all Iraqis; some are fighting for their own elite power. That's why we need to stay focused on supporting the demands for self-determination, not cheering any setback for U.S. empire.
(in "How to End the War" by Naomi Klein, published May 5, 2005, by In These Times ) http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0505-23.htm
Her words suggest we must now truthfully do what the Bush administration has winked and nodded it was doing -- we must work for democracy in Iraq. Not the substitution of Saddam's tyranny for the United State's imperial puppetry. Just because the invasion wore the mask of "for democracy" after the disguise of WMD fell off, doesn't mean the deception used couldn't become the real thing in honest hands.
Same with spirituality. People give up spirituality because they see its abuse and control by those for whom religion and institution are goals substituting for authentic experience.. Spirituality is practice. It is the grace of transparency, presence, and transcendence come home to everyday interaction.
The people of Iraq deserve, finally, their own country. It is a longing to be ordinary, free from both tyrant and usurper.
Tyrant is gone, but we cannot be sure if usurper will let Iraq belong to itself. That will take time and courage. Iraqis need to be confident Americans are not behind the pillaging of their country and resources. We must find again and retrieve our soul -- the one that recognizes and distinguishes fairness, justice, and purity of heart. It might not be too late.
It is a good idea that government must serve the people. There's been enough of the opposite. It is time to take the war away from the administration and work -- Americans and Iraqis -- for transparence, more authentic presence, and the grace to transcend.
Dan Berrigan wrote: "Bodies belong where words are."
It is time to embody authentic democracy and peace.
What do you say?
What do I say?
Are we free to?
I expected to see only pink blossoms,
But a gentle spring snow has fallen
And the cherry trees are wearing a white coat.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)
Naomi Klein writes:
The administration says the war was about fighting for democracy. That was the big lie they resorted to when they were caught in the other lies. But it's a different kind of a lie in the sense that it's a useful lie. The lie that the United States invaded Iraq to bring freedom and democracy not just to Iraq but, as it turns out, to the whole world, is tremendously useful -- because we can first expose it as a lie and then we can join with Iraqis to try to make it true. So it disturbs me that a lot of progressives are afraid to use the language of democracy now that George W. Bush is using it. We are somehow giving up on the most powerful emancipatory ideas ever created, of self-determination, liberation and democracy.
And it's absolutely crucial not to let Bush get away with stealing and defaming these ideas -- they are too important.
Then:
So what is our role here? We need to support the people of Iraq and their clear demands for an end to both military and corporate occupation. That means being the resistance ourselves in our country, demanding that the troops come home, that U.S. corporations come home, that Iraqis be free of Saddam's debt and the IMF and World Bank agreements signed under occupation. It doesn't mean blindly cheerleading for "the resistance." Because there isn't just one resistance in Iraq. Some elements of the armed resistance are targeting Iraqi civilians as they pray in Shia mosques -- barbaric acts that serve the interests of the Bush administration by feeding the perception that the country is on the brink of civil war and therefore U.S. forces must remain in Iraq. Not everyone fighting the U.S. occupation is fighting for the freedom of all Iraqis; some are fighting for their own elite power. That's why we need to stay focused on supporting the demands for self-determination, not cheering any setback for U.S. empire.
(in "How to End the War" by Naomi Klein, published May 5, 2005, by In These Times ) http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0505-23.htm
Her words suggest we must now truthfully do what the Bush administration has winked and nodded it was doing -- we must work for democracy in Iraq. Not the substitution of Saddam's tyranny for the United State's imperial puppetry. Just because the invasion wore the mask of "for democracy" after the disguise of WMD fell off, doesn't mean the deception used couldn't become the real thing in honest hands.
Same with spirituality. People give up spirituality because they see its abuse and control by those for whom religion and institution are goals substituting for authentic experience.. Spirituality is practice. It is the grace of transparency, presence, and transcendence come home to everyday interaction.
The people of Iraq deserve, finally, their own country. It is a longing to be ordinary, free from both tyrant and usurper.
Tyrant is gone, but we cannot be sure if usurper will let Iraq belong to itself. That will take time and courage. Iraqis need to be confident Americans are not behind the pillaging of their country and resources. We must find again and retrieve our soul -- the one that recognizes and distinguishes fairness, justice, and purity of heart. It might not be too late.
It is a good idea that government must serve the people. There's been enough of the opposite. It is time to take the war away from the administration and work -- Americans and Iraqis -- for transparence, more authentic presence, and the grace to transcend.
Dan Berrigan wrote: "Bodies belong where words are."
It is time to embody authentic democracy and peace.
What do you say?
What do I say?
Are we free to?
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Some stayed late after poetry this evening. It is courageous to attempt wording one's life.
To this place of retreat,
The world does not follow;
But many old ailments heal here.
I polish words of old poems;
View mountains, and sleep
Outside my hut.
Colored clouds
Cross the setting sun;
Cicadas ring in the leaves
Of trees.
With this my heart again
Knows happiness;
And who would have thought it,
Without wine or money?
- Yao Ho (831)
It's what makes Saturdays rich. Poetry, Tea, and Literature is really about Berrigan's "Bodies belong where words are." Some poems we write are prelude to the poem writing itself.
Every poem is a good poem. Some think they're good. One or two are goodness itself. It is these we listen for; these we can't hold back when their time comes.
Are you willing?
Write yourself.
To this place of retreat,
The world does not follow;
But many old ailments heal here.
I polish words of old poems;
View mountains, and sleep
Outside my hut.
Colored clouds
Cross the setting sun;
Cicadas ring in the leaves
Of trees.
With this my heart again
Knows happiness;
And who would have thought it,
Without wine or money?
- Yao Ho (831)
It's what makes Saturdays rich. Poetry, Tea, and Literature is really about Berrigan's "Bodies belong where words are." Some poems we write are prelude to the poem writing itself.
Every poem is a good poem. Some think they're good. One or two are goodness itself. It is these we listen for; these we can't hold back when their time comes.
Are you willing?
Write yourself.
Friday, May 06, 2005
We go into prison for conversation. We come out with something harder to comprehend.
Pat, Saskia, Bernard, Steve and I talked about V.I. Lenin's article "What is to Be Done?" about professional revolutionaries; Raymond Carver's poem "At Least"; and the final lines of Salinger's Catcher in the Rye spoken by Holden Caulfield -- "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do you start missing everybody.".
So taken with
The faultless face and radiance
Of an alluring moon,
My mind goes farther, farther
To reach remote regions of the sky.
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
At Interreligious Dialogue this evening Sri Aurobindo's translation and commentary of the Bhagavad Gita. It might be true that by their fruits you may know them, but Sri Krishna says it's unimportant to know the fruits, just to perform each act with pure mind and open heart unattached to the results. We have a right to the act but not to the fruits.
Aurobindo says: "With devotion, without desire."
All existence is a manifestation of God because He is the only existence and nothing can be except as either a real figuring or else a figment of that one reality. Therefore every conscious being is in part or in some way a descent of the Infinite into the apparent finiteness of name and form. But it is a veiled manifestation and there is a gradation between the supreme being of the Divine and the consciousness shrouded partly or wholly by ignorance of self in the finite.
The inner Divinity is the eternal Avatar in man; the human manifestation is its sign and development in the external world.
(Sri Aurobindo)
The ordinary -- there's something ordinary about conversation. Even in prison.
I want to spend the day watching this happen
and reach my own conclusions.
I hate to seem greedy -- I have so much
to be thankful for already.
But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.
And go to my place with some coffee and wait.
Just wait, to see what's going to happen.
(from poem "At Least" by Raymond Carver)
You see -- something takes place. What follows is anybodies guess. You open your ears and listen; you open your mouth and speak. Whatever takes place is...gift.
We don't bother to wait -- we can't. We leave. The saluting corrections guards honoring their brothers and sisters as they entered and left are gone from front door. The room we occupied with inmates is empty and dark. The visitors' desk vacated. The wind has shifted northeast.
Like the question asked on Ascension Day, we ask: Where does conversation go when nothing but silence remains?
Each is left to reach their own conclusion.
We have so much to be thankful for.
We try to comprehend.
Without desire.
With devotion.
Pat, Saskia, Bernard, Steve and I talked about V.I. Lenin's article "What is to Be Done?" about professional revolutionaries; Raymond Carver's poem "At Least"; and the final lines of Salinger's Catcher in the Rye spoken by Holden Caulfield -- "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do you start missing everybody.".
So taken with
The faultless face and radiance
Of an alluring moon,
My mind goes farther, farther
To reach remote regions of the sky.
- Saigyo (1118-1190)
At Interreligious Dialogue this evening Sri Aurobindo's translation and commentary of the Bhagavad Gita. It might be true that by their fruits you may know them, but Sri Krishna says it's unimportant to know the fruits, just to perform each act with pure mind and open heart unattached to the results. We have a right to the act but not to the fruits.
Aurobindo says: "With devotion, without desire."
All existence is a manifestation of God because He is the only existence and nothing can be except as either a real figuring or else a figment of that one reality. Therefore every conscious being is in part or in some way a descent of the Infinite into the apparent finiteness of name and form. But it is a veiled manifestation and there is a gradation between the supreme being of the Divine and the consciousness shrouded partly or wholly by ignorance of self in the finite.
The inner Divinity is the eternal Avatar in man; the human manifestation is its sign and development in the external world.
(Sri Aurobindo)
The ordinary -- there's something ordinary about conversation. Even in prison.
I want to spend the day watching this happen
and reach my own conclusions.
I hate to seem greedy -- I have so much
to be thankful for already.
But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.
And go to my place with some coffee and wait.
Just wait, to see what's going to happen.
(from poem "At Least" by Raymond Carver)
You see -- something takes place. What follows is anybodies guess. You open your ears and listen; you open your mouth and speak. Whatever takes place is...gift.
We don't bother to wait -- we can't. We leave. The saluting corrections guards honoring their brothers and sisters as they entered and left are gone from front door. The room we occupied with inmates is empty and dark. The visitors' desk vacated. The wind has shifted northeast.
Like the question asked on Ascension Day, we ask: Where does conversation go when nothing but silence remains?
Each is left to reach their own conclusion.
We have so much to be thankful for.
We try to comprehend.
Without desire.
With devotion.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Gone where?
This Ascension Thursday I sit on porch of cabin reading student's papers. They are mythic writings on experiences and engagements with life. We wrestle with the ordinary each attempt to place the ordinary into words.
Pure seeing, or mere seeing, is itself the ambiguous gift of being in the world. Where did Jesus go during that event scripture and tradition calls his Ascension?
Are we willing to merely look? Are we capable of seeing in and of itself?
And from this, it appears that pure meditation without thought or object -- practiced in order to achieve pure mind or "purity of heart" and thereby enter the Kingdom of Heaven -- is the one authentic strand of Christian spiritual practice that can be traced through at least fourteen centuries back to Jesus Christ and John the Baptist. (p. 121 in Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven, Reflections on the Tradition of Meditation in Christianity and Zen Buddhism, by Tom Chetwynd, Wisdom Publications, 2001)
Where'd he go? Today is the anniversary of my mother's death. Where'd she go?
"Only by purifying the heart -- the depths of the feeling-mind and the seat of passion -- can we free ourselves from our particular egoistic reactions to which we are tethered by long conditioning. The storm of the ego is always on the surface, but in the depths of the mind there is unlimited peace." (Tom Chetwynd)
Theological and historical speculation aside, there is an opportunity to see through the Ascension.
The heart-mind is what is seeing itself.
In this case, Jesus and Katherine. Purity of heart and depth of mind assist their see through and our seeing through.
They were still staring into the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them and they said, "Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky? Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there."
(Acts 1:10 - 11)
Calm the storm of ego which always wants things its way. No need to look for reflection when looking for someone. What is looking is what is seeing through the looking.
The same way as you have seen.
Him.
Her.
Today.
This Ascension Thursday I sit on porch of cabin reading student's papers. They are mythic writings on experiences and engagements with life. We wrestle with the ordinary each attempt to place the ordinary into words.
Pure seeing, or mere seeing, is itself the ambiguous gift of being in the world. Where did Jesus go during that event scripture and tradition calls his Ascension?
Are we willing to merely look? Are we capable of seeing in and of itself?
And from this, it appears that pure meditation without thought or object -- practiced in order to achieve pure mind or "purity of heart" and thereby enter the Kingdom of Heaven -- is the one authentic strand of Christian spiritual practice that can be traced through at least fourteen centuries back to Jesus Christ and John the Baptist. (p. 121 in Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven, Reflections on the Tradition of Meditation in Christianity and Zen Buddhism, by Tom Chetwynd, Wisdom Publications, 2001)
Where'd he go? Today is the anniversary of my mother's death. Where'd she go?
"Only by purifying the heart -- the depths of the feeling-mind and the seat of passion -- can we free ourselves from our particular egoistic reactions to which we are tethered by long conditioning. The storm of the ego is always on the surface, but in the depths of the mind there is unlimited peace." (Tom Chetwynd)
Theological and historical speculation aside, there is an opportunity to see through the Ascension.
The heart-mind is what is seeing itself.
In this case, Jesus and Katherine. Purity of heart and depth of mind assist their see through and our seeing through.
They were still staring into the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them and they said, "Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky? Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there."
(Acts 1:10 - 11)
Calm the storm of ego which always wants things its way. No need to look for reflection when looking for someone. What is looking is what is seeing through the looking.
The same way as you have seen.
Him.
Her.
Today.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
We do; we run after illusions.
Sons of men, how long will your hearts be heavy?
Why do you seek for vain things?
Why do you run after illusions?
(from Psalm 4)
The day was odd in the shop. Some talked of NAACP involvement. Some, of dislike of conspiracy theories. Later, reading from book someone left for us, a scatter of opinions that were contentious. The range of opinion fluctuated wildly all day.
Walking along a little path,
I find a footprint on the moss,
A white cloud low on the quiet lake,
Grasses that sweeten an open door,
A pine greener with the rain,
A brook tumbling from a mountain source,
And, mingling with Truth among flowers,
I have forgotten what to say.
- Liu Chang-ch’ing
Four of us -- two dogs, two humans -- walked between streams of divided brook this morning. The flow has cut deeply the ground. It is the way of nature to expose elements to change.
It is good that prisoners find commonality for learning. It is awful to think some in government would use tragedy to manipulate their agenda. It is curious that fidgety reaction would follow the words of someone whose sincerity is surrounded in suspicion.
Even if someone is questionable in our minds, we must first ask ourselves the selfsame question formed for the other.
We must investigate.
No doubt it is the sliver moon.
Practicing respect tries patience.
We suffer seeing only by looking.
Sons of men, how long will your hearts be heavy?
Why do you seek for vain things?
Why do you run after illusions?
(from Psalm 4)
The day was odd in the shop. Some talked of NAACP involvement. Some, of dislike of conspiracy theories. Later, reading from book someone left for us, a scatter of opinions that were contentious. The range of opinion fluctuated wildly all day.
Walking along a little path,
I find a footprint on the moss,
A white cloud low on the quiet lake,
Grasses that sweeten an open door,
A pine greener with the rain,
A brook tumbling from a mountain source,
And, mingling with Truth among flowers,
I have forgotten what to say.
- Liu Chang-ch’ing
Four of us -- two dogs, two humans -- walked between streams of divided brook this morning. The flow has cut deeply the ground. It is the way of nature to expose elements to change.
It is good that prisoners find commonality for learning. It is awful to think some in government would use tragedy to manipulate their agenda. It is curious that fidgety reaction would follow the words of someone whose sincerity is surrounded in suspicion.
Even if someone is questionable in our minds, we must first ask ourselves the selfsame question formed for the other.
We must investigate.
No doubt it is the sliver moon.
Practicing respect tries patience.
We suffer seeing only by looking.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Consciousness is changing. That's news to many of us.
Old standards used for thinking about the world have rotted like barn sill with north-west exposure tired from too many storms. New ways of thinking are kidnapped and held for ransom. Until a dollar worth can be affixed, new mind is held captive. Once amortized, new consciousness is parceled like real estate to new entrepreneurs for distribution after signature on loyalty oath.
Everywhere you look
The mountains are covered
With mist and blooming cherry trees.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)
Dawn rain gives way to sun as Cesco and I climb path along Ragged Mountain. Water sits on every grass blade. Underground springs cannot be contained; they gurgle through soaked surface and run in mime of skiers.
Two planes go down in Iraq. Who will be blamed? Who attacked? Which way war's expansion? In this country we are regaled with news of pedophiles and politicians -- both who use their power to grab what they want.
On the mountain, soft with wet, spring growth burrows through and out. Meditation cabin becomes Wallace Stevens' jar in Tennessee
Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
(poem by Wallace Stevens)
It's only, some say, a poem. The first time I heard it (from visiting English teacher Geoffrey the beat poet/singer in New Hampshire in early sixties) I had the old awareness. Now, nearly none. Do I understand? Not much. Nary a clue.
Wallace Stevens is, at times, the exemplary figure of the austere Modernist, shorn of Transcendental excess, wary of its expansionist programme for consciousness: 'Anecdote of the Jar' has been mined by generations of students teasing out its seemingly endless self-referentiality to demonstrate that 'less is more'. The poem is, of course, an ironic critique of the Romantic yearning for the creative interfusion of consciousness and nature as the basis of art. Its circular self-enclosing form seems an austere rebuke to Emerson's more expansive solipsism. Emerson wrote, "The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end', but Steven's circling is a demarcation line, an exclusion zone. Similarly the poem cheats the reader's desire for narrative lift-off; this is an anecdote which leads nowhere, which fends off chatty familiarity, and in which there is no significant joining that transcends its constitutive elements.
(On "Anecdote of the Jar" by Pat Righelato)
In the executive, legislature, and judiciary -- in the media, including news, celebrity, and sports -- there is powerful pressure for each to become what someone thinks they should be.
In the cabin nothing becomes itself.
Chatty ceases; transcending unties.
No identity.
Clueless.
As if as is.
Old standards used for thinking about the world have rotted like barn sill with north-west exposure tired from too many storms. New ways of thinking are kidnapped and held for ransom. Until a dollar worth can be affixed, new mind is held captive. Once amortized, new consciousness is parceled like real estate to new entrepreneurs for distribution after signature on loyalty oath.
Everywhere you look
The mountains are covered
With mist and blooming cherry trees.
- Ryokan (1758-1831)
Dawn rain gives way to sun as Cesco and I climb path along Ragged Mountain. Water sits on every grass blade. Underground springs cannot be contained; they gurgle through soaked surface and run in mime of skiers.
Two planes go down in Iraq. Who will be blamed? Who attacked? Which way war's expansion? In this country we are regaled with news of pedophiles and politicians -- both who use their power to grab what they want.
On the mountain, soft with wet, spring growth burrows through and out. Meditation cabin becomes Wallace Stevens' jar in Tennessee
Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
(poem by Wallace Stevens)
It's only, some say, a poem. The first time I heard it (from visiting English teacher Geoffrey the beat poet/singer in New Hampshire in early sixties) I had the old awareness. Now, nearly none. Do I understand? Not much. Nary a clue.
Wallace Stevens is, at times, the exemplary figure of the austere Modernist, shorn of Transcendental excess, wary of its expansionist programme for consciousness: 'Anecdote of the Jar' has been mined by generations of students teasing out its seemingly endless self-referentiality to demonstrate that 'less is more'. The poem is, of course, an ironic critique of the Romantic yearning for the creative interfusion of consciousness and nature as the basis of art. Its circular self-enclosing form seems an austere rebuke to Emerson's more expansive solipsism. Emerson wrote, "The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end', but Steven's circling is a demarcation line, an exclusion zone. Similarly the poem cheats the reader's desire for narrative lift-off; this is an anecdote which leads nowhere, which fends off chatty familiarity, and in which there is no significant joining that transcends its constitutive elements.
(On "Anecdote of the Jar" by Pat Righelato)
In the executive, legislature, and judiciary -- in the media, including news, celebrity, and sports -- there is powerful pressure for each to become what someone thinks they should be.
In the cabin nothing becomes itself.
Chatty ceases; transcending unties.
No identity.
Clueless.
As if as is.
Monday, May 02, 2005
"We'll just have to spend some time silent," said man to woman after she noted him coming in and asked him why there was nobody in church at 8:03am. She went up front. Empty churches are inspiring. On back bench he read yesterday's readings. He's a day late for everything.
Simply reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have. (1 Peter 3:15)
Got 4.9 gallons of gas for $11.00 at McDucks at corner of Elm and John. Coffee and donut came to $1.20. A classical version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" was playing on WERU driving Hosmer Pond Road home.
Last night leaving shop Tommy asked what I thought about the conversation that afternoon where somebody was talking about the five Israeli men filming from New Jersey the lower Manhattan crash, burn, and collapse in September 2001 attack. I told him I didn't know what to think. Most times I don't know what to think. If there's evidence, look at it. If there's opinion, listen to it. If there's something to research and investigate, do so.
Form one's own point of view, after investigation and meditation, and continue an open mind. My hope is that there is truth, love, service, and hospitality to be found and shared. I'm willing to opt for attentive presence and compassionate relationality.
21. Flowers Don't Return
A monk asked Kegon, "How about when an enlightened man returns to illusion?" Kegon said, "A broken mirror does not reflect; fallen flowers do not go back to the branch."
[Commentary] This does not mean that an enlightened man is infallible and cannot make mistakes or do bad or foolish things. It means that he partakes of the inevitability of things. Just as flowers make no effort to return to the branch or the broken mirror to be whole again, so the enlightened man does what he does without regret or self-pity.
(from p.89, in Games Zen Masters Play, Writings of R.H. Blyth, ed by Robert Sohl and Audrey Carr)
For now, I'm staying with Blyth's words about partaking of the inevitability of things.
On 61st street and Bay Parkway in Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn there is a church named after St Athanasius. Today, in another, empty, church, I pray with and for all known at that time in that place and from there to here.
Spending time silent.
Hope, if that's what it is, spings from silence.
Simply reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have. (1 Peter 3:15)
Got 4.9 gallons of gas for $11.00 at McDucks at corner of Elm and John. Coffee and donut came to $1.20. A classical version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" was playing on WERU driving Hosmer Pond Road home.
Last night leaving shop Tommy asked what I thought about the conversation that afternoon where somebody was talking about the five Israeli men filming from New Jersey the lower Manhattan crash, burn, and collapse in September 2001 attack. I told him I didn't know what to think. Most times I don't know what to think. If there's evidence, look at it. If there's opinion, listen to it. If there's something to research and investigate, do so.
Form one's own point of view, after investigation and meditation, and continue an open mind. My hope is that there is truth, love, service, and hospitality to be found and shared. I'm willing to opt for attentive presence and compassionate relationality.
21. Flowers Don't Return
A monk asked Kegon, "How about when an enlightened man returns to illusion?" Kegon said, "A broken mirror does not reflect; fallen flowers do not go back to the branch."
[Commentary] This does not mean that an enlightened man is infallible and cannot make mistakes or do bad or foolish things. It means that he partakes of the inevitability of things. Just as flowers make no effort to return to the branch or the broken mirror to be whole again, so the enlightened man does what he does without regret or self-pity.
(from p.89, in Games Zen Masters Play, Writings of R.H. Blyth, ed by Robert Sohl and Audrey Carr)
For now, I'm staying with Blyth's words about partaking of the inevitability of things.
On 61st street and Bay Parkway in Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn there is a church named after St Athanasius. Today, in another, empty, church, I pray with and for all known at that time in that place and from there to here.
Spending time silent.
Hope, if that's what it is, spings from silence.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Workers untie!
In a short time the world will no longer see me;
but you will see me,
because I live and you will live.
On that day you will understand that I am in my Father
and you in me and I in you.
(John 14:19-20)
Sitting in silence, stove hot, walking three times round, chanting Compline.
There are no half measures but in mind. Everything done, wholeheartedly, is practice. Dogen says, that's enlightenment. And enlightenment?
Dogen said, that's practice.
Each way is whole way.
Sitting at table, sipping soup, words of Hua Hu Ching precede bread.
Cesco barks. It is May.
Untie, untie, untie!
In a short time the world will no longer see me;
but you will see me,
because I live and you will live.
On that day you will understand that I am in my Father
and you in me and I in you.
(John 14:19-20)
Sitting in silence, stove hot, walking three times round, chanting Compline.
There are no half measures but in mind. Everything done, wholeheartedly, is practice. Dogen says, that's enlightenment. And enlightenment?
Dogen said, that's practice.
Each way is whole way.
Sitting at table, sipping soup, words of Hua Hu Ching precede bread.
Cesco barks. It is May.
Untie, untie, untie!
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Sometimes a review is necessary.
Back from sitting, lectio with Hua Hu Ching, walk at Snow Bowl along swelled Hosmer Pond, and back from chores picking up food for cat and provisions for hermitage -- I ask Saskia as she begins baking in kitchen whether she considers herself Buddhist. "Yes," she says. I ask if she considers herself Christian. "Yes," she says. Then she asks, "And you?" I answer, "Certainly."
A Buddhist Retreat Behind Broken Mountain Temple
In the pure morning, near the old temple
Where early sunlight lights the tree tops,
My path has wound, through a sheltered hollow
Of boughs and flowers, to a Buddhist retreat.
Here birds are alive with mountain light,
And the mind touches peace in a pool,
A thousand sounds are quieted
By the breathing of a temple bell.
- Ch'ang Chien
Sando and Cesco join us for silent sitting. Mu-ge went across Sally's land to the Spencer's to see if they, at least, had cat food out for their cat. The half-stick of Tibetan incense lasted 38 minutes. My knee thought the incense was malingering.
A superior person cares for the well-being of all things. She does this by accepting responsibility for the energy she manifests, both actively and in the subtle realm. Looking at a tree, she sees not an isolated event but root, leaves, trunk, water, soil and sun: each event related to the others, and "tree" arising out of their relatedness. Looking at herself or another, she sees the same thing. Trees and animals, humans and insects, flowers and birds: These are active images of the subtle energies that flow from the stars throughout the universe. Meeting and combining with each other and the elements of the earth, they give rise to all living things. The superior person understands this, and understands that her own energies play a part in it. Understanding these things, she respects the earth as her mother, the heavens as her father, and all living things as her brothers and sisters. Caring for them, she knows that she cares for herself. Giving to them, she knows that she gives to herself. At peace with them, she is always at peace with herself.
(# Thirty-Seven, in Hua Hu Ching, by Lao Tzu)
Woodchips are rippled on path to cabin from torrential rain. Tumbling brook's joyous sound fills inside of cabin with moving stillness.
"Guess what?" says Saskia as oven beeper tells end of baking time for croissants. "Ok, Ok I'm here, relax," says Saskia to oven.
The Unmanifest manifests.
There is a simplicity to practice.
Awareness transfoms each presentation. Each vibration is filtered and transformed by the presence of each one of us. That's what Rodney, KJ, Everett, and Greg thought about as we worked (ostensibly) in prison yesterday on punctuation by reading Rilke's "The Archaic Torso of Apollo."
In that practice, we must change our lives.
Back from sitting, lectio with Hua Hu Ching, walk at Snow Bowl along swelled Hosmer Pond, and back from chores picking up food for cat and provisions for hermitage -- I ask Saskia as she begins baking in kitchen whether she considers herself Buddhist. "Yes," she says. I ask if she considers herself Christian. "Yes," she says. Then she asks, "And you?" I answer, "Certainly."
A Buddhist Retreat Behind Broken Mountain Temple
In the pure morning, near the old temple
Where early sunlight lights the tree tops,
My path has wound, through a sheltered hollow
Of boughs and flowers, to a Buddhist retreat.
Here birds are alive with mountain light,
And the mind touches peace in a pool,
A thousand sounds are quieted
By the breathing of a temple bell.
- Ch'ang Chien
Sando and Cesco join us for silent sitting. Mu-ge went across Sally's land to the Spencer's to see if they, at least, had cat food out for their cat. The half-stick of Tibetan incense lasted 38 minutes. My knee thought the incense was malingering.
A superior person cares for the well-being of all things. She does this by accepting responsibility for the energy she manifests, both actively and in the subtle realm. Looking at a tree, she sees not an isolated event but root, leaves, trunk, water, soil and sun: each event related to the others, and "tree" arising out of their relatedness. Looking at herself or another, she sees the same thing. Trees and animals, humans and insects, flowers and birds: These are active images of the subtle energies that flow from the stars throughout the universe. Meeting and combining with each other and the elements of the earth, they give rise to all living things. The superior person understands this, and understands that her own energies play a part in it. Understanding these things, she respects the earth as her mother, the heavens as her father, and all living things as her brothers and sisters. Caring for them, she knows that she cares for herself. Giving to them, she knows that she gives to herself. At peace with them, she is always at peace with herself.
(# Thirty-Seven, in Hua Hu Ching, by Lao Tzu)
Woodchips are rippled on path to cabin from torrential rain. Tumbling brook's joyous sound fills inside of cabin with moving stillness.
"Guess what?" says Saskia as oven beeper tells end of baking time for croissants. "Ok, Ok I'm here, relax," says Saskia to oven.
The Unmanifest manifests.
There is a simplicity to practice.
Awareness transfoms each presentation. Each vibration is filtered and transformed by the presence of each one of us. That's what Rodney, KJ, Everett, and Greg thought about as we worked (ostensibly) in prison yesterday on punctuation by reading Rilke's "The Archaic Torso of Apollo."
In that practice, we must change our lives.
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