The thing about impermanence is that everything is impermanent.

Try as we will, we cannot hold on to anything.

So, let's let go.

Are you concerned with enlightenment,
which implies a static attainment,
or rather enlightening,
an unending process
of continual opening?
Are you concerned with answers
or rather with boundless questions?
For the answer
never fails to kill enlightening;
the mind then reverts
to the static knowing,
soon becomes caught
again in the web
of associations and
reduces the entirety
of the world to the mundane.
- Ji Aoi Isshi

If someone finds you unacceptable, be unacceptable. Saint Francis called that perfect joy. Some of that joy is mine today.

“A voice of one calling in the desert,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God’s salvation.’”
(Isaiah 40:3ff)

Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" is not as simple and playful as it seems.

In Robert Frost: The Trial by Existence, Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant locates in one of Frost's letters the source for "The Road Not Taken." To Susan Hayes Ward the poet wrote on February 10, 1912:
Two lonely cross-roads that themselves cross each other I have walked several times this winter without meeting or overtaking so much as a single person on foot or on runners. The practically unbroken condition of both for several days after a snow or a blow proves that neither is much travelled. Judge then how surprised I was the other evening as I came down one to see a man, who to my own unfamiliar eyes and in the dusk looked for all the world like myself, coming down the other, his approach to the point where our paths must intersect being so timed that unless one of us pulled up we must inevitably collide. I felt as if I was going to meet my own image in a slanting mirror. Or say I felt as we slowly converged on the same point with the same noiseless yet laborious stride as if we were two images about to float together with the uncrossing of someone's eyes. I verily expected to take up or absorb this other self and feel the stronger by the addition for the three-mile journey home. But I didn't go forward to the touch. I stood still in wonderment and let him pass by; and that, too, with the fatal omission of not trying to find out by a comparison of lives and immediate and remote interests what could have brought us by crossing paths to the same point in a wilderness at the same moment of nightfall. Some purpose I doubt not, if we could but have made out. I like a coincidence almost as well as an incongruity.
This portentous account of meeting "another" self (but not encountering that self directly and therefore not coming to terms with it) would eventually result in a poem quite different from "The Road Not Taken" and one that Frost would not publish for decades. Elizabeth Sergeant ties the moment with Frost's decision to go off at this time to some place where he could devote more time to poetry. He had also, she implies, filed away his dream for future poetic use.
(By George Montiero, From Robert Frost and the New England Renaissance. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1988. Copyright © 1988 by the UP of Kentucky.)

Today I, too, file away a dream for future use.

I accept the unacceptable.

This day. This life. This listening.

Three members of the Christian Peacemaker Team hold a news conference in London. They plead for leniency and no death penalty for the men who kidnapped them and murdered Tom Fox. "We want good to come out of this," says James Loney.

In November of 2005, Loney, Harmeet Singh Sooden and Normman Kember were kidnapped along with U.S. peace activist, Tom Fox. Fox, who was also a full-time member of the CPT team, was working in Baghdad at the time. He was murdered on March 9th 2006. The remaining three were set free on March 23rd.
(From Democracy Now, Friday, December 8th, 2006)

When John Lennon was finally given a green card and asked if he had any bad feelings about the heads of the FBI and Justice Department, he responded with a phrase that is a variation of "Time heals all wounds." We're unsure if the phrasing is: "Time wounds all heels"; or, "Time wounds; all heals".

So much depends on how and what we hear. So much depends on how we experience what we hear.

But now the Lord speaks, who created you, Jacob, who formed you, Israel: ‘Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are mine.’
(Isaiah 43:1)

It occurs to me that the name that is God's and the name that is yours and mine can also go through a twofold view.

Listen to the sound of your name in your mind and memory as spoken by your mother or your father. The sound of your name as spoken by mother/father/God resides in your being as your being.

Did Mary hear and have an immaculate sound as her origin?

What we hear is experienced by us according to the mind we listen with. With a clear mind everything can be heard with compassionate clarity. With an unclear mind things are heard with cutting intent.

Is this how the clear among us are able to transform hurt to healing, and unkindness to an experience of humility?

Time wounds. "All" heals. The words themselves have gone beyond.

We need a transforming listening to metaphor in order to go beyond ourselves -- to wake up.

Siddhartha Gautama heard with clarity what he saw with transforming awareness, and awoke.

At an early age I learned that things stand for other things. ...
I have had to look at my life. And I have escaped from madness by understanding transformation, how each thing transcends its own reality. I either go mad or I learn about metaphor.
(from "Thorazine Shuffle" by filmmaker Allie Light -- in the book Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness, ed. by Rebecca Shannonhouse)

Wisdom is beyond me.

How amazing it is
That all people
Have this but cannot polish
It into bright clarity.
In darkness unawakened,
They make foolishness
Cover their wisdom.
- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)

When I ascend beyond that which I identify with as me, I am closer to awake than when I first began.

In this, in "this" -- we are all, "all" alike.

This is our life.

I think this is true.

I think we do want good to come out of this.

Beliefs are at times unbelievable. Take the belief some hold that God the Father ordained that his son suffer and die for sins. Or the belief that some men and women will be tortured and punished with excruciating pain in hell for ever and ever without end.

In the early days many sages stressed the follies and dangers of impurity. When delusion, perverted views, and bad thinking habits are eliminated, the mind is as clear and tranquil as the autumn stream. It is pure and quiescent, placid and free from attachment.
- Master Kuei-shan Ling-yu

It seems uninteresting to believe in a place of unending torture or a God who tolerates the pain of creatures. I'll sit out that belief.

On the Subway Station

The child is speaking to the father
he is looking into the father's eyes
father doesn't answer
child is speaking Vietnamese
father doesn't answer
child is speaking English
father doesn't answer
The father is staring at a mosaic in blue and green
and lavender three small ships in harbor
set again and again in the white tiled
beautiful old unrenovated subway
station Clark Street Brooklyn
(Poem: "On the Subway Station" by Grace Paley, from Leaning Forward.)

We need renovated spirituality.

Jesus lived in the light of a loving Father encircled and permeated by Holy Spirit. (Here is a tolerable narrative.) Jesus died the same way good men die always -- at the hands of lesser men fanatic in their notions of purity and superior motivations.

Which leaves us. And our times.

Do not think for a minute that the stories of religious tradition were about some far-ago time and some other people. They are about right now. About you and me.

For God's sake, give up torture and punishment -- give up hell. Then give up false notions of God.

So as to rest in the true God who has no difficulty having been given up. Maybe laughs at it. Certainly is forgiving to all of us unknowing what we do. And goes on being God.

Somehow Christ is seen through.

I need to learn prayer.

Prayer

If we don't believe in heaven, who reads the letters we mail there
every evening?
Children send most of them, kneeling by the bedpost
imagining the universe under the care of a father
who rumbles behind the newspaper
smelling of cigarettes and Old Spice.
To grow up is to lose one's God at sea —
better to lose one than be one.
If you believe the world is perfect,
think of Keats dying young.
I never would have seen it if I hadn't believed it,
the saying goes. Somebody has to awaken us
to the time of day it is when the earth is empty
of any intention, or any human presence.

And yet it is noon, and here you are — your blue headlands
and swords, your wave-moistened silences.
As if at the heart of things
there were a heart.
(Poem: "Prayer" by James Armstrong, from Blue Lash.)

Reality has no opinion.

It just is.

As it is.

For now.

So...

The air that I breathe. The breath of One, God. Filling and emptying.

Beneath the mountain
A stream flows
On and on without end.
If one’s Zen mind is like this
Seeing into one’s nature
Cannot be far off.
- Hakuin (1686-1768)

Outside kitchen window red squirrel scampers over dust snow on hill . We are a breath's simple and humble passage through. We, unfortunately, do not yet comprehend the ins and outs of One's breath.

Isaiah pondered it. Many translations later, we read:

A shoot springs from the stock of Jesse,
a scion thrusts from his roots:
on him the spirit of the Lord rests,
a spirit of wisdom and insight,
a spirit of counsel and power,
a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
(The fear of the Lord is his breath.)
He does not judge by appearances,
he gives no verdict on hearsay,
but judges the wretched with integrity,
and with equity gives a verdict for the poor of the land.
His word is a rod that strikes the ruthless,
his sentences bring death to the wicked.
(Isaiah 11: 1-4, Jerusalem Bible)

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Isaiah 11:4 (New International Version)

4But with (I)righteousness He will judge the (J)poor,
And decide with fairness for the (K)afflicted of the earth;
And He will strike the earth with the (L)rod of His mouth,
And with the (M)breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.
( Isaiah 11:4 New American Standard Bible)

4But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
( Isaiah 11:4 King James Version)

4The poor and the needy
will be treated with fairness
and with justice.
His word will be law
everywhere in the land,
and criminals
will be put to death.
( Isaiah 11:4 Contemporary English Version)

4 He will give justice to the poor
and make fair decisions for the exploited.
The earth will shake at the force of his word,
and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked.
( Isaiah 11:4 New Living Translation)

4 but He will judge the poor righteously (E)
and execute justice for the oppressed of the land.
He will strike the land
with discipline [a] from His mouth, (F)
and He will kill the wicked (G)
with a command [b] from His lips. (H)
( Isaiah 11:4 Holman Christian Standard Bible)

4But with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.
(21st Century King James Version)

So it goes. We all breathe the same air. With some translation, perhaps we might read:

One air,
One breath.
One life,
Each in all.

The wicked take our breath,
poison the air, our thoughts, our sight.
Dark words, insane distrust, a fetid denigration.
We choke. Cancer lung. Words rot in throat.

Return to spirit, to clear air,
See the transparency of One, God;
Inhale, exhale --
Collation of original life!

Cat stretches on lap as I write. Dog sleeps in front room after yesterday's surgery. Front window crucifix next to Mother/Child icon and seated Buddha.

The morning seems (suddenly) itself.

Yes, Itself.

I've been thinking about war.

This world
Is but
A fleeting dream
So why be alarmed
At its evanescence?
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)

The sorrow of it.

Advent Circle Lectio.

His mind is free from all thoughts.
His demeanor is still and silent.
His forehead beams with simplicity.
He is cold as autumn,
And warm as spring,
For his joy and anger
Occur as naturally
As the four seasons.
- Chuang Tzu

Henry, at end, says: "Waking is listening."

Free debt.

8 Owe nothing to anyone — except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law. 9 For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.”[a] These — and other such commandments — are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.
(Romans 13: 8-10, New Living Translation)

Questions?

What is God's will?

Wake up!

Let us shut out the fear of death and meditate upon immortality
Our obligation is to do God’s will, and not our own. We must remember this if the prayer that our Lord commanded us to say daily is to have any meaning on our lips. How unreasonable it is to pray that God’s will be done, and then not promptly obey it when he calls us from this world!
(from The treatise of St Cyprian on mortality)

(Ask again.) What is God's will?

Rain falls on roof. Dead mouse under bed, removed.

Open window airs room.

The field is clear. You might say, clear light. Or the field is compassion, maybe God, love itself.

The sound
of water
says
what I think.
- Chuang Tzu

When on or in the field, all is clear. The only barrier is what we hold on to, clutching the small definitions we think is our self, with resentments, grievances, anger, ego, and assorted blockages.

As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew; they were making a cast in the lake with their net, for they were fishermen.
--Matthew 4:18 - 22

Fishermen fish.

The field might be the sea. It might be consciousness, or existence. Maybe we are the field.

Live well therein.

Water speaking.

Smoke from fireplace in shop returns to back room from furnace pipe and curls out from under bricks of Rumford arch. The yearly battle begins: wood stove? or open fireplace?

“I am empty of everything and there is nothing left in my mind,” said the monk to Joshu. “What do you say to that?”
Joshu said, “Cast that away.”
But the monk persisted. “I have told you, there is nothing left in me. I am completely empty. What can I cast away?”
“In that case,” replied Joshu,”keep on carrying it.”
- Joshu

On the field of consciousness everything appears and disappears. The field remains. Like a second baseman taking the baseball infield for an inning, we assume positions then exit and disappear.

Tomorrow is the feast of St Andrew.
Christmas Anticipation Prayer
Beginning on St. Andrew the Apostle's feast day, November 30, the following beautiful prayer is traditionally recited fifteen times a day until Christmas. This is a very meditative prayer that helps us increase our awareness of the real focus of Christmas and helps us prepare ourselves spiritually for His coming.

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment
In which the Son of God was born
Of the most pure Virgin Mary,
at midnight,
in Bethlehem,
in the piercing cold.
In that hour vouchsafe, I beseech Thee, O my God,
to hear my prayer and grant my desires,
[hear mention your request]
through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ,
and of His blessed Mother. Amen.
http://www.catholicculture.org/lit/prayers/view.cfm?id=951

I remember the woman who taught me this prayer. She read an e.e.cummings poem once.

The world went thirty years by.

We'll think about the wood stove. We'll remember Andrew.

We'll pray toward Advent and through.

A great unkindness is inflicted by America on the people of Iraq. Their dead are strewn about the country. They are mute.

In America it is time to go shopping to honor the Prince of Peace, in whose name (curiously) war and murder occur. There is no spin to offset this stupidity. But spin many do.

Ever desireless,
One can see the mystery.
Ever desiring,
One can see the manifestations.
These two spring
From the same source
But differ in name.
- Lao tzu

It is time to admit the Christian message is delivered often by missionaries and preachers with failing emphasis. Their goading gloat about Armageddon and rapture is an embarrassment. Naive followers of simplistic narrative easily take hostile posture in defense of their certainty that God wishes (they say) to punish and condemn those not believing in him. More specifically, those who do not articulate particular formulas of belief. Many, said a woman at the shop, have had "formula conversions." To them, anyone not reciting word for word their statements of belief or testimony, are outside and alien to "the" true belief. The presumption and rote inanity staggers. This view is a learning that rivets fast the mind. If learning it can be called.

The enemy has hounded my spirit,
he has crushed my life to the ground,
he has shut me in darkness, like the dead of long ago.
So my spirit trembles within me,
my heart turns to stone.
(--from Psalm 143)

This is not a dirge, not a lament. It is a song of despair. There is no hope. Sorrow would be a step up. The song of despair is cold listening.

And yet, and yet, and yet. We hear a quiet sound. Something ends. Something begins. Are we still listening?

Advent nears. The feast of Christ the King was flat and uninspiring in today's delegitimized metaphor of regal rule. Advent, at least, brings a mind capable of contemplating a new start.

If we don't wake up -- now -- we might never.
If the path doesn't appear -- now -- it might not.
If the light isn't seen -- now -- darkness slaughters.
And, if we are not born into true wholeness -- now -- we remain partial and pathetic.

Let us say now an embodied prayer of kindness. End disembodied ugliness.

Begin the loveliness of incarnation with something true.

Redeem the time.

Unlearn everything.

Soon, I suspect, the switch will happen.

This is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive – it is the Lord who speaks. Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people
-- Jeremiah 31:33

All the stern-faced angry Jesus-will-condemn-you types will suddenly stop dead in their tracks.

It will occur to them that they've been terribly wrong.

They will weep.

Finally they will understand their own hearts.

There is where God comes through.

Truth is unrelenting.

Called from. Called out. Called to.

What does it mean to be called out?
ecclesi-.
Main Entry: ecclesi-
Variant(s): or ecclesio-
Function: combining form
Etymology: Late Latin ecclesia, from Greek ekklEsia assembly of citizens, church, from ekkalein to call forth, summon, from ex- + kalein to call -- more at: church
http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=ecclesio

"Church" has become a nest. Very temporary.

If in a storm in a desolate terrain you are called out, be prepared to leave that place. If in a rich palace you are called out, be prepared to leave that place. If in solitude, if in community, you are called out -- leave that place. But only if you are foolish enough to follow truth.

What is the sequel to truth?

Shut up and go home!

Home, like truth, is nowhere we know.

In this silence and source, there is no knowing wherefore or why. Truth is its own relentless presence. Only enter. Only engage. Only disappear.

Too many steps have been
Taken returning to the root
And the source.
Better to have been blind
And deaf from the beginning!
Dwelling in one’s true abode,
Unconcerned with that without -
The river flows tranquilly
On and the flowers are red.
- Kakuan (1100-1200)

Leave everything behind. The next step contains the everything you are to also leave behind when you take the next next step.

I have moments in which I understand that there is no one who owns the narrative of my life, no one to whom the events of my life are happening, that all of creation is a huge, interconnected, amazing production of events unfolding in concert with each other, connected to each other, dependent on each other, with no separation at all. When these moments happen, I feel happy, at ease, and grateful. I think of them as experiences of enlightenment. They are real and I trust them, but they don’t last. However clearly I see, however much I think, “Now I will never lose this perspective,” my mind makes wrong turns and I do lose it.

When I discover that I am-once again-confused, I try to remember that the habit of return is what matters. I credit myself with the insights I’ve had and assume that I can get them back. I think about the Buddha charging his monks with the responsibility to go on by themselves. I think about the geese, programmed for their journey, and I imagine that we are programmed for our journey as well. I pay attention. I make course corrections. I think about “Strive on with diligence,” or “Move with sureness into the future,” and I remember that I don’t need to move into the whole of the future. Just the next step.
(-- Sylvia Boorstein, Shambhala Sun | September 2002, "The Buddha's Four Noble Truths")

What is truth for me? Dare ask?

For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"
(-- John 18: 37-38)

The most eloquent response in all of scripture is what is recorded as Jesus' response to the question of Pilate.

Do you remember it?

(Silence).

Yes, it was, and is, silence.

Morning light.

Seed breaking bird.

Called out to next step.

If we run into each other some time ahead, please tell me your name.

That's my final line. I write it because I don't ever know who anyone is. Appearances are full of mystery. As much is concealed as is revealed.

"As is" reveals itself in ways mostly unclear to us. That's why Zen masters and poets both appeal to us and leave us questioning.

Happy Continuation Day

If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people. To be born means that something which did not exist comes into existence. But the day we are “born” is not our beginning. It is a day of continuation. But that should not make us less happy when we celebrate our “Happy Continuation Day.”
Since we are never born, how can we cease to be? This is what the Heart Sutra reveals to us. When we have tangible experience of non-birth and non-death, we know ourselves beyond duality. The meditation on “no separate self” is one way to pass through the gate of birth and death.
Your hand proves that you have never been born and you will never die. The thread of life has never been interrupted from time without beginning until now. Previous generations, all the way back to single cell beings, are present in your hand at this moment. You can observe and experience this. Your hand is always available as a subject for meditation.
(--Thich Nhat Hanh, from Present Moment, Wonderful Moment)

Lori's grandma Mary died the other day. That, and Jon's good friend hauled off and found himself in a heap of hoosegow this week. This morning wind blows easterly and windowpanes are wet. The celebration of gratefulness strains on days not earmarked for it. And yet, there is always poetry.

The Summer You Learned to Swim
for Lea

The summer you learned to swim
was the summer I learned to be at peace with myself.
In May you were afraid to put your face in the water
But by August, I was standing in the pool once more
when you dove in, then retreated to the wall saying
You forgot to say Sugar! So I said Come on Sugar, you can do it
and you pushed off and swam to me and held on
laughing, your hair stuck to your cheeks—
you hiccupped with joy and swam off again.

And I dove in too, trying new things.
I tried not giving advice. I tried waking early to pray. I tried
not rising in anger. Watching you I grew stronger—
your courage washed away my fear.

All day I worked hard thinking of you.
In the evening I walked the long hill home.
You were at the top, waving your small arms,
pittering down the slope to me and I lifted you high
so high to the moon. That summer all the world
was soul and water, light glancing off peaks.
You learned the turtle, the cannonball, the froggy, and the flutter
And I learned to stand and wait for you to swim to me.
(Poem: "The Summer You Learned to Swim" by Michael Simms, from The Happiness of Animals. Monkey Sea Editions.)

Courage can wash away fear. Not fighting courage, but attention courage -- the kind of heart that sees kind heart as a continuation worth attending to -- we learn to serve, to stand and wait.

So it is that the mysteries of Christ will not be completed until the end of time, because he has arranged that the completion of his mysteries in us and in the Church will only be achieved at the end of time.
(from The treatise of St John Eudes on the kingdom of Jesus, Office of Readings, Fri.24Nov06)

I like the notion it is we who will complete and continue what has been begun with attentive courage -- to put a face on kindness.

For, what else was this Jesus about? But facing kindness with attentive courage -- saying: learn to make your way through this way of being!

Dive in. Try new things. Put down all formulas of conversion and belief.

Swim in the completing continuation of this day, these faces, our time together, the name you reveal to me each time you show up.

Presence, not kingdom.

It's right here.

Right now.

What do we make of it?

Waddya say?

Gratitude.

For everything. Today.

I never cite Buddha’s words
Or the words of Zen patriarchs
When I teach.
All I do is comment directly
On people themselves.
That takes care of everything.
I don’t have to quote either the
Buddha Dharma or the Zen Dharma.
I don’t have to when I can clear
Everything up for you by
Commenting directly on you
And your personal concerns
Right here and now.
I’ve no reason to preach
About Buddhism or Zen.
- Bankei (1622-1693)

Gave talk to group of men yesterday entitled "Lifetime Recovery -- A Spirituality That Everyday Uncovers."

Truth is that which is uncovered. What is truth? Mahatma Gandhi said, Yes -- what is is Truth. He'd held that God is truth. Then he realized that Truth is God. There's a notable distinction.

For the men exploring spirituality together yesterday it is a useful consideration that "truth" is everywhere everyday uncovering. Whether you call Truth 'God,' or God 'Truth" -- it is useful to remember that the Greek word for 'truth' -- Aletheia in Ancient Greek -- means not merely ”truth” as we think of it in English. It means literally, un-covered, dis-covered, discovery, unveiled.

This leads me to wonder. To the question: "Where is God?" The response: "Where are you?" Or, "What are you looking at (or as)?" To the question: What is Truth?" The response: "What are you uncovering, discovering, unveiling?" That which longs to be revealed is the truth always right here with us.

Truth right here with us is God's very name.

Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh
So God's name, at least the one given to Moses in the above Torah passage, is "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh." What does that mean? In biblical Hebrew, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" is a deceptively simple phrase consisting of the relative pronoun "asher" sandwiched between two instances of the first person singular imperfect of the verb hayah--to be. "Ehyeh" is most commonly translated as "I will be." Asher is a remarkable Hebrew word. Imagine, in English, a single word that can mean "that" "who" "which" or "where." So the phrase could mean:
I will be that I will be; I will be who I will be; I will be which I will be; I will be where I will be.
http://www.bluethread.com/ehyeh.htm

I remember Prophet's professor Alexander A. Di Lella, O.F.M. in 1968 translating the words Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh as "I shall be there, as who I am, shall I be there."

We'll never know who will show up, in what disguise, what they'll say, how they'll say it, nor how we'll receive it. But, says our no-name God, such a presence will always be there between you and me. That's where God is -- between us. We've got to step out from the covers, out from behind the veil, out from our hiding place -- to the open-between -- and face the truth, to face our truth.

Annie Dillard wrote in "Teaching a Stone to Talk" (1982): Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing.

It occurs to me there's a toll for attention. We have to 'pay' attention our presence before attention opens up for us what is right there in front of us. What is within us must come out of its tent to be part of what is between us. This means the (so-called) other person must also step out. When both appear, they appear in the dwelling place of God. 'Heaven' is between us. (Greek:mesos= between). Once we step out of our hiding place, we enter the realm of prayer. Unceasingly we find ourselves praying, asking 'What am I doing here?" or 'What the hell is going on?' or, 'Who am I?' or, 'Help me, Lord, please?'

To pray is to be aware of what is taking place, looking at it, questioning it, and (if we have the courage) engaging it as best we can. To surrender in prayer to the overwhelming reality placed before and between us means we let go of our (erroneous) belief we can do it by ourselves, handle it, manipulate it. Most times we can't. Not alone. And so we (slowly) come round to ask God and one another to bring us along the way of annunciation and renunciation. Annunciation, meaning, the revelation of presence. Renunciation, meaning, the letting go of that which is false or impedes the realization of true presence. This we must do unceasingly.

My heart is ready, God. My heart is ready. I will offer you music and song.
Awake, my glory, awake, lyre and harp. I will awaken the dawn.
I will proclaim you among the peoples, Lord, and make music for you among the nations,
for your mercy reaches as high as the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. (- from Psalm 57)

So, it is Thanksgiving Day, 2006. Presence longs to be revealed. Falseness wants to disappear. Each one of us longs to be here with one another -- whether in solitude or in community. On a profound level, to be alone is to be with everyone, to be together is to experience the mystery of suchness and distinctive singularity where each one is each one, alone-with-others.

It is Not Enough

It is not enough to know.
It is not enough to follow
the inward road conversing in secret.

It is not enough to see straight ahead,
to gaze at the unborn
thinking the silence belongs to you.

It is not enough to hear
even the tiniest edge of rain.

You must go to the place
where everything waits,
there, when you finally rest,
even one word will do,
one word or the palm of your hand
turning outward
in the gesture of gift.

And now we are truly afraid
to find the great silence
asking so little.

One word, one word only.
(-Poem: "It is Not Enough," from Where Many Rivers Meet by David Whyte.)

Gratitude.

We practice a spirituality of everyday uncovering.

There are no precepts to follow,
No practices to engage in.
From the outset
There are no passions;
From the beginning we are
Enlightened.
We eat when we are hungry,
Rest when we are tired.
- Nonin (d.1196)

I wish the words 'gratitude' and 'open' a nearer dwelling with you.

"Now what happens?" Richard asked ending his contribution to the final circle. We were speaking of truth, of not knowing, and Zen Gifts to Christians (book by Jesuit Robert Kennedy)..

On the day of his enlightenment, in front of the lecture hall, Tokusan burned to ashes his commentaries on the sutras. He said: “However abstruse the teachings are, in comparison with this enlightenment they are like a single hair to the great sky. However profound the complicated knowledge of the world, compared to this enlightenment it is like one drop of water to the great ocean.” Then he left the monastery.
- The Gateless Gate

The sky tonight is clear and vast. It is cold. Ground tightens.

"Among so many great events, there is one phenomenon which, in the eyes of posterity, may well overshadow everything that has been discovered in radiation and electricity: the permanent entry into operation, in our day, of inter-human affinities - the movement, irresistible and ever increasing in speed, which we can see for ourselves, welding peoples and individuals to another..."
(--Indian Ocean, March 1929, "The Sense of Man", in Toward the Future, Teilhard de Chardin)

Perhaps truth combines inter-human with inter-sentient and inter-spiritual affinity.

You never, really, know.

Gandhi went from holding that God is truth to a new understanding. He began to hold that Truth is God.

There's no knowing truth. There is, however, seeing, feeling, and experiencing truth. Truth is being revealed as what is now taking place.

We need to be poised right here with the question: Now what happens?

Taking place here.

"The day will come when, after harnessing space,
the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness
for God the energies of love. And, on that day,
for the second time in the history of the world,
man will have discovered fire."
(--Peking, February 1934, Teilhard, "The Evolution of Chastity", in Toward the Future, London: Collins, 1975: 86-87.)

Burning away. Falling away. Into empty open presence.

Comes.

Now.

God.

Truth.

What are we waiting for?

Why do I talk here?
Only because you
Followers of the Tao
Go galloping around in
Search of the mind,
And are unable to stop it.
On the other hand,
The ancients acted in a leisurely
Way, appropriate to
Circumstances as they arose.
- Lin-chi (d.867)

Some wait for the Second Coming. Some for the coming of season's first snow. But some wait for nothing. These I find in a sympathetic monastery of mindful silence and stillness.

Through justification and the spiritual resurrection, grace now effects in them an initial change that is God’s gift. Later on, through the bodily resurrection, the transformation of the just will be brought to completion, and they will experience a perfect, abiding, unchangeable glorification. The purpose of this change wrought in them by the gifts of both justification and glorification is that they may abide in an eternal, changeless state of joy.
Here on earth they are changed by the first resurrection, in which they are enlightened and converted, thus passing from death to life, sinfulness to holiness, unbelief to faith, and evil actions to holy life. For this reason the second death has no power over them. It is of such men that the Book of Revelation says: "Happy the man who shares in the first resurrection; over such as he the second death has no power." Elsewhere the same book says: "He who overcomes shall not be harmed by the second death." As the first resurrection consists of the conversion of the heart, the second death consists of unending torment.
(from The treatise of St Fulgentius of Ruspe on the forgiveness, Office of Readings, Monday of week 33 of the year)

I suspect the torment need not be the incendiary good fire torture the preacher told the men about the other day, but more a torment of realizing regret. This regret will arise in a mind slowly coming aware of the kindness and sweetness of so many in our lives, generosity displayed us that we failed to recognize at the time, failed to respond to, and failed to relate to as worthwhile endeavor of human action.

This realization begins to fall upon our fledgling awakening all of a gradual seeing tinged with soft sorrow that so much authentic compassion and wisdom went by without appreciation or caring engagement.

Interlude

We are waiting for snow
the way we might wait for a train
to arrive with its cold cargo—
it is late already, but surely
it will come.

We are waiting for snow
the way we might wait
for permission
to breathe again.

For only the snow
will release us, only the snow
will be a letting go, a blind falling
towards the body of earth
and towards each other.

And while we wait at this window
whose sheer transparency
is clouded already
with our mutual breath,

it is as if our whole lives depended
on the freezing color
of the sky, on the white
soon to be fractured
gaze of winter.
(Poem: "Interlude" by Linda Pastan, from Queen of a Rainy Country. W. W. Norton & Company.)

If we open our eyes now, will we see one another's efforts to make manifest the inner longing to be kind, be true, be present? Will hearts show through the never ending invitation of holy reality urging spirit to permeate our forgetful and unforgiving inconsiderations? If our eyes began to see, would the vision of sacred Christ-life (enlightened Buddha-mind, resplendent Tao-nature) slowly turn us to one another in such a way as to free us from separative fear?

Second death, I suspect, would be our final unwillingness and inability to care for one another -- and thereby, not see with the beatific vision of the One we call God. Resurrection, I suspect, would be our coming to see with the beatific vision what is being seen with the gaze of God.

Seeing what falls is to see what is rising in our hearts.

So it is -- separation calls for union, sin calls for redemption, unloving calls for loving.

It is a kind and sweet call.

If we listen, we can hear it.

It asks us: Now? It urges us: Now! It comforts us: now.

What are we waiting for?

This is worth experiencing

I'm saying this to myself: the sacred cannot be found unless you give up some old version of it. And when you do, mon semblable, mon frere, I swear there'll be an emptiness it'll take a lifetime to fill.
(-Stephen Dunn, footnote in Zen Gifts to Christians by Robert Kennedy, from Riffs and Reciprocities, cited in American Poetry Review 27, March/April 1998)

Or not to fill. No need collecting versions.

Let the sacred fall through each vision.

See it now.