Once we were found. But now we're lost. Once saw. But now are blind.

Our amazing disgrace in Iraq and Afghanistan must be placed where it belongs. On me.

The whole universe,
The whole world, is you;
Do you think
There is any other?
This is why the ancients say,
“People lose themselves,
Pursuing things;
If they could turn things around,
They would be the same as Buddha.”
- Hsueh-feng (822-908)

I did it. Yes -- I did have help from Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, Tenet and Perle, Rice and Powell, narrow ideology and puffed-up sense of importance -- but I am the one responsible. I dropped the bombs, set the mortars, fired automatic rifles, screamed at innocent people to drop or be shot, and smiled for the cameras while smugly calling into question the patriotism of anyone whose opinion of our unitary superpower status and privilege differed from mine.

I know men and women who believe that by thinking about the war I am drawing attention and attraction to "negative vibrations" that will only cause me not to get what I want from the universe. I do not live on the same earth as those people.

April 15, 2007
Marines’ Actions in Afghanistan Called Excessive
By CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan, April 14 — American marines reacted to a bomb ambush with excessive force in eastern Afghanistan last month, hitting groups of bystanders and vehicles with machine-gun fire in a series of attacks that covered 10 miles of highway and left 12 civilians dead, including an infant and three elderly men, according to a report published by an Afghan human rights commission on Saturday.

Families of the victims described in interviews this week the painful toll of the attacks, which took place on March 4 in Nangarhar Province. One victim, a 16-year-old newly married girl, was cut down while she was carrying a bundle of grass to her family’s farmhouse, according to her family and the report. A 75-year-old man walking to his shop was hit by so many bullets that his son said he did not recognize the body when he came to the scene.
(--The New York Times)

I lie on the street, my body torn in two from retaliatory gunfire, my life snuffed out because (some say, stupid and arrogant) men and women want to kill and revenge killing.

I've had enough of war. I'll fire my gun until everyone is dead. I'll return to America, collect a medal, then begin to dismantle my church, my community, and my government. I am a hero. I am the sleeping bad dream of a nation that sacrifices nothing while their military service people sacrifice everything. I love this country that uses me, laughs behind my back, and says "Atta boy!" to my face.

I am the president. I no longer believe in my ability to care.

That won't stop me.

I am you.

No?

Watching After Innocence (about exonerees) upstairs over shop. A community prison-related event with pizza and mint chocolate ice cream.

no path but this one —
I walk alone
(poem by Santoka Taneda)

I simply don't know. Tossing.

Two crusts to the sea.

Envy is defined as "painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage." (Merriam-Webster)

If you pass your
Whole life half asleep,
What can you rely on?
- Kuei-shan Ling-yu (771-854)

To be jealous is to be "hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage."

Let no one imagine that baptism consists only in the forgiveness of sins and in the grace of adoption. Our baptism is not like the baptism of John, which conferred only the forgiveness of sins. We know perfectly well that baptism, besides washing away our sins and bringing us the gift of the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of the sufferings of Christ. This is why Paul exclaims: "Do you not know that when we were baptised into Christ Jesus we were, by that very action, sharing in his death? By baptism we went with him into the tomb."
(--From the Jerusalem Catecheses)

In the film "The Razor's Edge," Larry says to Isabel: "It doesn't matter." And: "There is no payoff."

It is ego's delusion to want to hold on to what is not ours -- just as it is ego's illusion to attempt to disown what is our very being.

Is it possible to live with no purpose? With no meaning?

If everything is itself and belongs to itself, no exterior meaning or purpose is necessary. When something is what it is, nothing else is needed.

What is true is what is doing itself.

Truth is what is showing itself.

We are all old-timers,
each of us holds a locked razor.
(from poem "Waking in the Blue," by Robert Lowell)

The razor's edge, salvation, is literally -- a greeting, a healing, and a safe passage.

Hello. Can I help? Where is home for you?

Easter Wednesday in Maine is sunny and warm at 43 degrees. The foot of snow from 7 days ago is melting. Patches of hill show. There will be more snow, or rain, tomorrow.

If you wish to cast aside the false
And return to true,
Concentrate and settle your
Mind in wall gazing.
Self and other,
The unenlightened
And the saintly,
Are all as one.
- Bodhidharma

Perhaps what Bodhidharma refers to as wall-gazing is looking at what is there as what is there.

I practiced a kind of "wall gazing" while on retreat. I watched. Without embellishing nor disparaging, keeping eye on what presented itself. By and large, what else is there but what presents itself? We so often create images of what we'd like to call the divine or the holy -- reminders of past figures, events, stories, or experiences.

Looking at what is there as what is there is zen practice. As we become skillful, we come to see, and say what is there in such a way that we are here with what is here. (I have to deepen my practice.)

Holding It All In
I think a lot about the fact that the Buddha made a separate category for Right Speech. He could have been more efficient and included it in Right Action, since speaking is a form of action. For a while I thought it was separate because we speak so much. But then I changed my mind--some people don't speak a lot. Now, I think it's a separate category because speech is so potent. During the 1960s, when the social ethos was "letting it all hang out," I had recurrent fantasies about writing a book called Holding It All In. I think I was alarmed that people had overlooked how vulnerable each of us is. In recent years, I've revised my book title to Holding It All In Until We've Figured Out How to Say It in a Useful Way. I believe we are obliged to tell the truth. Telling the truth is a way we take care of people. The Buddha taught complete honesty, with the extra instruction that everything a person says should be truthful and helpful.
(--Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think)

I am grateful for all the helpful people who have practiced right speech on me.
For all who've shared bread, themselves, and looking, with me.

Then they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread.
(--Luke 24:35)

Seeing what is there (as what is there) is seeing you, as you are, seeing itself.

Retreat Log

St Joseph's Abbey, Spencer MA,

///

Good Friday

I cannot grasp the notion of "being washed in Jesus' blood.” Maybe I will. (Maybe I won't.) Traveling by way of the cross is a deeply physical as well as metaphorical journey. I've not been satisfied with explanations of sacrifice, whether animal or human blood, in order to settle or attain something. The fact that we die, the fact that Jesus died, are facts to acknowledge. But I'm not yet moved by the notion that animal-killing, blood-feuds, war-slaughter, or even son/daughter killing-sacrifice has anything to do with, nor is associated with, what is in fact the sacred.

I note the suffering and death of Jesus. I'm unconvinced of the subsequent explanation of the purpose and divine order of execution so prevalent in the theology and spirituality of our heritage. Whether the case is Abraham (ready to cut Isaac's throat), Angels (smearing lamb's blood on lintels to facilitate the killing of the right first born), or Adonai (willing/allowing the death of his son as expiation for sin) -- I am reluctant to hold such stories in divine light. I grieve for the first-born that are killed -- whether in ancient Judaic lore, or in contemporary Iraq lawless war.

If the human psyche glorifies slaughter as divine will and historic wish, then (heaven help us!) there is no better way to honor the divine than by participating in the slaughter and murder of the first-born. If the so-called "good guys" as well as "bad guys" utilize the method of killing innocents in the erstwhile liberation/salvation stories of the Ancient Near East, and such telling is celebrated annually as desired rendition, I can't help but feel we are a people with a lost and devastated heart/mind.

///

As night passes, I dream about Slavic cabdriver taking me around New York City. Then I meet a nemesis and we talk a brief while. He says he was hurt by me.

After Vigils at 4:30am, I sit in silence for 30 minutes. One other person in chapel. Woman in first pew is a Sister, a friend of monk Robert.

I am thinking about the prison. I can only face what is.

“What is” is I am not chaplain. My choice was not to be an employee. I am as befuddled by the choice to be offered and accept the position for 6 months as I am delighted by choosing not to continue it. The joy I experienced working with the population of over 900 men -- all religions (and none), all levels of faith understanding (and none) -- was remarkable. Sitting with Buddhists, Christians, Jewish, Muslim, Native, Pagan, AA, and none-of-the-above, whether at their cell doors or in small groups -- was a lesson in learning and service.

Meetingbrook's prison conversations will continue. I'll change status and return to volunteering. :

• Offer to teach independent studies for university credit for those who wish.

• For those not interested in college courses, do time-specific ordinary studies -- (Individual Tutorial Studies) for inmates so interested. (Perhaps 3 ITS's at any given span.) Any topic, any focus -- individualized time and interaction to increase learning.

• Perhaps, through Education Dept., a program in Protective Custody Pod -- or even in SMU (Special Management Unit, the old “Super-Max.”)

• Meet with individual men for purpose of human hospitality and engaging inquiry.

• Begin in outside community prison-related discussion groups, e.g. Restorative Justice, or Prison Fellowship, or Innocence Project.
  
  

  ///

Afternoon, Holy Saturday

The monk Robert says -- “Cheer up! Things will get worse.” He refers to Jesus', “Now is the Son of Man glorified.” He is on the cross. All hurts, humiliations, depressions, pains, snubs, diminishing comments, injustices, doubts, and delusions hang there. And this is the death and reconciliation of the limited and the unlimited -- this being, this man, drawing all to himself, turns the world upside down. It is the weak, the poor, those ill, those without security or means, the broken and the heart-broken -- to these belong the kingdom of heaven.

I walk the woods. Three deer, two ducks, and a tail-slapping beaver later I climb the hill back to retreat house.

I went to see Robert after his conference to talk about recent experience at the prison. He says it was a gift, a grace to be so angry, frustrated, and humiliated. Thomas Aquinas in his ethical teachings claimed virtue existed in the middle between the opposite of the vice and the defining virtue -- but that anger had no opposite. Only the suffering of it. (Maybe “no-anger” -- but that's the absence, not the opposite.)

“Cheer up; things will get worse,” he says, cheerfully.

The way he says it, the prospect isn't unattractive.

The experiential undergoing of injustice deepens the intense longing for justice. The single candle in the dark longs to give way to the bright sun.

///

Final Hours of Holy Saturday

Icon-painting monk asks me if I am a hermit.I say yes. I am, (I think to myself), most likely lying. But I'm not. This hermit is not in seclusion. This hermit dwells within solitude.

There's a difference. This hermit, 90% of the time, arrives late and stays in the rear. (Except visiting the monastery - I arrive on time and stay in the rear.)

Then there's the issues of being active in the bookshop/bakery, at conversations, teaching a course at the university, and the regular visits to prison. Hardly a hermit in any classical sense. More the template of hermit in the open. My cloister is the inter-related solitude of the human heart, one to one, inquiring into “Who am I?” Yet, still a hermit: one dwelling alone with the Alone or Another.

The realms of what some call the relative and absolute dissolve into what I might call the interrelating whole. Jesus tried to teach he and the father were one as we are one with him and the father. We dwell in the interrelating whole. Sometimes we forget this. We then remember. At either times of forgetting or remembering we are prone to hurting one another. Thus the notion of “hurting God” as we hurt one another -- because God is not other than any one or two of us.

We are not equal to God. Equality is a relative term. We are co-responding and co-relating with God. This is not the same kind of relativity or responsibility as the terms seem. To be co-responsive is to share the wording-of-act, and acting-of-word with God. To be co-relating is to be with God in each act. Whether we are conscious of it or not impacts the response we make after the co-responding takes place, Whether we intend our presence or not influences the mind we have after co-relating takes place.

When people ask: How could God allow suffering in the world? We might respond: How can I be of assistance to the one suffering? We, perhaps in a fit of forgetfulness, might have caused the suffering. It always seems reasonable to have someone ask: How could God allow such and such to happen? And yet, mostly, we forget our co-responding and co-relating existential and ontological true nature vis-a-vis God. (Does God forget when we forget?)

The ancient hymn says: “Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not reach out his hand to make himself equal to God. Instead, he emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave.” (Philippians)

Might we say: One form, many examples of emptiness? Or: One emptiness, many forms of it?

However we try to word what is beyond words, the Name of God bends us with humility. The profound co-relative and inter-responding entirety of the sacred presence is the meditation and contemplation of our heart/mind as mendicants wandering a strange land.

The Ancient Homily at Vigils says: “Something strange is happening--there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness.”

The homily concludes: “The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.” Which brings us back to birth. Incarnation. Life.

So: Come alive! Someone once said: “The Glory of God is man fully alive.” (Irenaeus)

Adyashanti says: “The awakeness of this moment is the unconditioned being.”

///

Easter Darkness, 2:02am

Adyashanti says: “It's not about embracing, it's about letting go of not pushing away. That's all.”

///

Easter Morning, 9:42am

The stained-glass metaphor used by Adyashanti works well. The source of light is beyond the red, green, and blue of the glass. The colored glass is our conditioned mind. It sorts light into variety of colors. The result is aesthetically pleasing and soothing.

The unconditioned, unborn, and undivided is the source. If we get a glimpse into that reality, all remains beautiful and undifferentiated. But we often contend one color against another, worship one, demand our color is 'the' color -- thus making warfare and dissension.

Jesus has risen. Indeed, he has truly risen!

So it is we attend the truth of this Christian mystery. Unity consciousness, 'coincidentia oppositorum,' undifferentiated suchness -- Christ Consciousness -- rises following the death of the servant of God.

Whoever serves God undergoes this death. (There are so many willing to assist and expedite this death -- if not, as preface, the suffering leading thereto.)

To be born is to die. To enter the unborn is to practice resurrection.

///

Easter Haiku, 9:29am

to be born is to

die; to enter the unborn

is to practice re-

surrection

(wfh, 8april2007)

[note: the traditional 17 syllable count for haiku is here exceeded by 3 unaccountable syllables.]

+++

haiku 6:14pm

crucifixion ends

abbot lifts host -- we are to

be vault, ground repose

(wfh, 6apr2007)

+++

haiku 8:51am

he was one of us

when we accused him, broken

into two, came death

(wfh, 7apr07)

+++

haiku 8:56am

innocence -- no one

is free from accusation --

there we are, entombed

(wfh, 7apr07)

On retreat. In silence.
...

Nature regenerates itself. White Bald Mountain. Snow through night. Innumerable small falling flakes rendered full moon invisible. With morning, snow shrouds mountain stone with same soft ease it did brilliant moon -- this religious liturgy.

Boundless and free
Is the sky of samadhi,
Bright the full moon
Of wisdom!
Truly, is anything
Missing now?
Nirvana is right here,
Before our eyes;
This very place is the
Lotus Land,
This very body
The Buddha.
- Hakuin

History and sacred memory call to mind the first evenings of Passover. Slavery is repugnant to nature. Yet it continues. From Guantanamo to Pakistan, Africa to towns and suburbs across America -- enslavement is unregenerate nature.

Nicholas Kristof writes about disturbing incidences of sex-slavery. "This kind of neo-slavery is the plight of millions of girls and young women (and smaller numbers of boys) around the world, particularly in Asia."

This nexus of sex trafficking and police corruption is common in developing countries. The problem is typically not so much that laws are inadequate; it is that brothel owners buy the police and the courts.

But Ms. Parveen’s tale arises not only from corruption, but also from poverty.

“If I had money, this wouldn’t be happening,” said Ms. Parveen’s mother, Akbari Begum. “It’s all about money. In the police station, nobody listens to me. The police listen to those who sell narcotics.”

“God should never grant daughters to poor people,” she added. “God should not give sisters to poor brothers. Because we’re poor, we can’t fight for them. It’s very hard for poor people, because they take our daughters and dishonor them. There’s nothing we can do.”
(-- "Sanctuary for Sex Slaves," By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, Published: April 3, 2007, The New York Times, Meerwala, Pakistan, http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/opinion/03kristof.html?hp)

Think of Passover, think of Crucifixion, in a new way. Think anew the ancient narratives, not merely as historico-religious recherché, but as contemporaneous real-life revelation impacting our brothers and sisters worldwide. This memoria is daily awareness of the suffering experienced in our world, suffering promulgated by human forgetfulness and human ignorance. We forget, and we cultivate ignorance, when we refuse to stop, turn, and consider with compassion the suffering we cause by our unmindful acts and ego-obsessed behavior. We are called to a much clearer way of being.

Sacred time and sacred awareness invite us into profound emptiness -- there to encounter and embody mystery-of-being yearning to fully realize itself in our midst.
We have to open our being to the unobvious. Often, profound experience and truth dwell just out of view, beyond our distracted attention. We are being called to dwell in an open place of kindness.

In other words, we have to begin a new life, and we cannot do so until our previous life has been brought to an end. When runners reach the turning point on a racecourse, they have to pause briefly before they can go back in the opposite direction. So also when we wish to reverse the direction of our lives there must be a pause, or a death, to mark the end of one life and the beginning of another.
Our descent into hell takes place when we imitate the burial of Christ by our baptism. The bodies of the baptised are in a sense buried in the water as a symbol of their renunciation of the sins of their unregenerate nature.
(--From the book, On the Holy Spirit, by Saint Basil, bishop, Office of Readings, Tuesday of Holy Week, http://www.universalis.com/readings.htm)

Is Basil's presentation of 'baptism' a call requesting our burying Christ, our burying ourselves (self-emptying) in the profound loving and compassionate regeneration? Is what we are, and how we are, actually (and really) at core, the mystery of nature, at origin? Will regenerating nature wash over us -- darken our understanding so as to enlighten our soul -- bringing us to the precipice, to the starting line of authentic life with what we call "God and neighbor"?

Will we ever come to see -- here?

Notes from the Other Side

I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching
one's own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course
no illness. Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light.
(--Poem: "Notes from the Other Side" by Jane Kenyon, from Constance. Graywolf Press.)

Is 'there' (possible and possibly) 'here'?

There is so much said and written about degenerate behavior. Do we have the heart to pause, stop, and turn -- to fall below surface, to let flow over and through us a regenerating spirit interpenetrating our being itself?

Do we stay stuck in unregenerate nature because we fail to see and enter into the 'undergoing' emptiness of reversal and return?

Is the call to 'regenerate nature' what Passover and Baptism, Surrender and Enlightenment, Ahimsa and Moksha, Hashem and Avalokiteshvara, Tao and Waken Tanka -- all sound toward us?

Panta Rhea, ("Everything flows"), wrote Heraclitus.

Nature regenerates itself.

Going under.

And through.

This week.

In silence.

On retreat.

On retreat

...

Juncos arrive and scatter along ground below feeder. They join sleet, rain, and snow delivering Monday afternoon teisho.

What does it matter,
The new year, the old year?
I stretch out my legs
And all alone have a
Quiet sleep.
Don’t tell me the monks
Aren’t getting their instruction;
Here and there the nightingale
Is singing;
The highest Zen.
- Bankei, 1622-1693)

Snow flakes, size of silver dollars, slant foreground of Bald Mountain. Scattered and few, they are like rare visitors passing through only once. If unseen, then gone. If seen, then (also) gone, but first seen.

"Solitude can be a jungle," Mac once cautioned, when I fantasized about plunging into the monastic life. For this reason, he said, the Trappist novice is closely monitored when he begins his initial experience with solitude. "The first discoveries in solitude are generally not reassuring," Mac explained. "You confront your essential aloneness. You learn that whatever your life may be, it is of your making. Whatever others do to you, good or ill, they do by your leave, and often at your suggestion.
"Alone with your God, you find freedom. You are freed from the need to blame, freed of whatever holds you, impotent, in your past. No longer bound by fear of failure, or the need to be what you believe pleases others, you will discover what it is to be yourself."
(--from pp.35-36 in, Voices of Silence, Lives of the Trappists Today, by Frank Bianco, c.1991)

Nothing is done to me by another without the invitation to see the other as one's incorporable self. This is not easy meditation. Benefits include no lingering blame nor inclination to recrimination. Lifted from our disturbed mind is gerbil-wheel repetition of hurt feelings, revenge tactics, and special membership into club of injustice victims. (All these experiences might be true, temporarily needed, and really felt -- but they are not our identity.) We are not what we think we are. We are not the category of agony we file ourselves into.

We are sharers in silence. This silence is open-ended. It hesitates to break itself into story -- but it sometimes, compassionately, does. It shies from anything repetitive; looking, rather, for the once and once and once -- that which is always at origin, that which is inchoate -- the unfolding itself longing to be what it is in itself.

Do we hear the silence? Are we within the incorporable mystery of Christ-being revealed today.

Who is Christ if not the Word of God: "in the beginning was the Word, and the Words was with God, and the Word was God? This Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us." He had no power of himself to die for us: he had to take from us our mortal flesh. This was the way in which, though immortal, he was able to die; the way in which he chose to give life to mortal men: he would first share with us, and then enable us to share with him. Of ourselves we had no power to live, nor did he of himself have the power to die.
In other words, he performed the most wonderful exchange with us. Through us, he died; through him, we shall live.
The death of the Lord our God should not be a cause of shame for us; rather, it should be our greatest hope, our greatest glory. In taking upon himself the death that he found in us, he has most faithfully promised to give us life in him, such as we cannot have of ourselves.
(--From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop, Office of Readings, Monday of Holy Week)

This wonderful exchange -- dying through us, living through him -- is Augustine's way of wording what Juncos dance atop split-open shells under feeder looking for seed not yet consumed. That seed, taken in by Junco, disappears into a reality it itself now creates.

Christ Teisho Junco -- A Holy Week Flap

Broken, open shell
disappearing seed through one-
another, shows how

wholeness dances -- now
is itself here...Christopher?*
...disappears. What joy!
(-wfh, 2apr07)

Fog mist surrounds everything this afternoon with its own soft obscure kindness.

Mountain disappears.

Who can bear it?
...

*{"Christopher" -- means "bearing Christ", derived from Late Greek (Christos) combined with (phero) "to bear, to carry".}

On retreat.
...

Last what? Last breath? Last "his"? The reading on Palm Sunday says, "With these words he breathed his last."

Seeing the Moon
A Zen poem says, "After the wind stops I see a flower falling. Because of the singing bird I find the mountain calmness." Before something happens in the realm of calmness, we do not feel the calmness; only when something happens within it do we find the calmness. There is a Japanese saying, "For the moon; there is the cloud. For the flower there is the wind." When we see a part of the moon covered by a cloud, or a tree, or a weed, we feel how round the moon is. But when we see the clear moon without anything covering it, we do not feel that roundness the same way we do when we see it through something else. When you are doing zazen, you are within the complete calmness of your mind; you do not feel anything. You just sit. But the calmness of your sitting will encourage you in your everyday life.... Even though you do not feel anything when you sit, if you do not have this zazen experience, you cannot find anything; you just find weeds, or trees, or clouds in your daily life; you do not see the moon.
( --Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind; Tricycle's Daily Dharma: April 1, 2007)

Cesco walks near my Sorel boots at Moose Point State Park in Searsport. Sea is unrippled. He is greeted in open field by shaggy gentle Bronson, twice his size. We walk edge of land. Cesco laps snowmelt.

Eucharist is rhubarb muffin and coffee from Chase's Daily. I visit church in Belfast for gospel reading and Fr. Joseph's preaching. I pray for Paco, and all the rest.

The veil of the Temple was torn right down the middle; and when Jesus had cried out in a loud voice, he said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit’ With these words he breathed his last.
(--from Luke 22:14 - 23:56)

On earth, on this planet, breath is lifeline. Jesus gives his breath back. He sends it back to, what is for him, source and only source of, life. As he dies. Gives over life-breath.

I will look again this Holy Week. Listen again. Again consider the mystery underlying each breath. This mystery points out nothing can be kept -- not breath, not unchanging self. The far side of the mystery is that only nothing can be kept.

But where do you keep nothing?

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
(-- Poem by Robert Frost

No need to stay.

It's just...Why go? And, where?

Happy to be silent.

Just this.

One breath.

Make it.

Last.

It is a fascinating two weeks. What we call 'nature' and 'sacred' come together in celebrations worldwide. Leading figures are noted and feted. Historical events are recalled and restated.

• Snow melts

• Vernal Equinox Wednesday, March 21, 2007

• Rama Navami, The Birthday of Lord Rama, Tuesday, March 27, 2007

• Mawlid al-Nabi (12 Rabi 1), Prophet Muhammad's Birthday. This holiday (in 2007, 31March/1April) celebrates the birthday of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. It is fixed as the 12th day of the month of Rabi I in the Islamic calendar. Mawlid means birthday of a holy figure and al-Nabi means prophet.

• Pesach (Passover) Start - Sundown Monday, April 2, 2007 through Wednesday, April 4, 2007 End - Sundown Sunday, April 8, 2007 through Tuesday, April 10, 2007

• Holy Thursday, Thursday, April 5, 2007

• Good Friday Friday, April 6, 2007
  

• Easter Sunday Sunday, April 8, 2007

• Shakyamuni's Birthday (Gotan-e), or the Flower Festival (Hanamatsuri), Sunday, April 8, 2007

(http://www.curw.cornell.edu/holidays0607.html)

The confluence of Pagan, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim themes over this two week period calls to mind.

What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for
Self-realization, but continue
To ask yourself even more
Intensely,
What is it that hears?
- Bassui (1338-1500)

When we listen to the individual drops of rain splashing, do we hear rain itself? If hearing includes both -- and more, hears itself throughout the hearing -- everywhere 'nature' and 'sacred' are celebrated. As we are -- celebrating. What mind is this? What heart is this?

Citta
In Pali, heart and mind are one word (citta), but in English we have to differentiate between the two to make the meaning clear. When we attend to the mind, we are concerned with the thinking process and the intellectual understanding that derives from knowledge, and with our ability to retain knowledge and make use of it. When we speak of the "heart" we think of feelings and emotions, our ability to respond with our fundamental being. Although we may believe that we are leading our lives according to our thinking process, that is not the case. If we examine this more closely, we will find that we are leading our lives according to our feelings and that our thinking is dependent upon our feelings. The emotional aspect of ourselves is of such great importance that its purification is the basis for a harmonious and peaceful life, and also for good meditation.
(--Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies)

Light of day slips quietly below last season's silent leaves finally revealed out from under passing snow on hillside. Above, the slightest sway of high limbs kissing dust away. Everywhere else televisions tune into Final Four broadcasting from Atlanta. This religion too, as well as beginning of baseball season, round out the devotee's devotion. There is enormous variety in how we respond to the holy.

René Descartes said, "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

John Fowles said, "Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want."
(--The Writer's Almanac, 31mar07)

There is joy in moments no want is felt. Times no need to say 'No" -- nor say 'Yes.' Just the gaze. Only looking. (What is it...looking?)

All the great scriptures were probably penned by poet-mystics. Mysticism is not an aim of art (nor is it an aim of mystics!): mysticism is a pejorative used by critics in a rational age to denote a departure from the established meanings of words. Every good poet is a "mystic"; that is, he departs from the dictionary, as the painter departs from the straight line and the perfect circle.
(-- Karl Shapiro, in "What is Not Poetry", The Poet's Work, ed by Reginald Gibbons,c.1979)

Day is its own poetry. Dusk, a seeing naming itself. Tomorrow someone will be heard saying: "Hosanna! Make him king!" We'll watch with foreknowledge and again the whirlwind failing truth will gather reasons to make us forget another face made sorrowful for us. We live in a time of war. We who are far away are not asked to sacrifice much. It's easy to forget faces we never look into. Look carefully at what is loved. That gaze will carry beyond forgetting. The liturgy of remembrance is upon us.

(Old dog laps water. No other sound -- his drinking. Walks around table.)

Tracks

The small birds leave cuneiform
messages on the snow: I have
been here, I am hungry, I
must eat. Where I dropped
seeds they scrape down
to pine needles and frozen sand.

Sometimes when snow flickers
past the windows, muffles trees
and bushes, buries the path,
the jays come knocking with their beaks
on my bedroom window:
to them I am made of seeds.

To the cats I am mother and lover,
lap and toy, cook and cleaner.
To the coyotes I am chaser and shouter.
To the crows, watcher, protector.
To the possums, the foxes, the skunks,
a shadow passing, a moment's wind.

I was bad watchful mommy to one man.
To another I was forgiving sister
whose hand poured out honey and aloe;
to that woman I was a gale whose lashing
waves threatened her foundation; to this
one, an oak to her flowering vine.

I have worn the faces, the masks
of hieroglyphs, gods and demons
bat-faced ghosts, sibyls and thieves,
lover, loser, red rose and ragweed,
these are the tracks I have left
on the white crust of time.
(--Poem: "Tracks" by Marge Piercy, from The Crooked Inheritance. Alfred A. Knopf.)

What is -- wonderful delight!

So many faces!

We wear.

Out.

Hello.

(Then the gaze.)

Goodbye.

Throughout, a crazed suspicion -- "Perhaps I've never ever been here."

Cast off what has been realized
Turn back to the subject
That realizes,
To the root bottom,
And resolutely
Go on.
- Bassui (1338-1500)

What is, at root, bottom?

There is a story (to be) told:

The Sickness of Adam

In the beginning, at every step, he turned
As if by instinct to the East to praise
The nature of things. Now every path was learned
He lost the lifted, almost flower-like gaze.

Of a temple dancer. He began to walk
Slowly, like one accustomed to be alone.
He found himself lost in the field of talk;
Thinking became a garden of its own.

In it were new things: words he had never said,
Beasts he had never seen and knew were not
In the true garden, terrors, and tears shed
Under a tree by him, for some new thought.

And the first anger. Once he flung a staff
At softly coupling sheep and struck the ram.
It broke away. And God heard Adam laugh
And for his laughter made the creature lame.

And wanderlust. He stood upon the Wall
To search the unfinished countries lying wide
And waste, where not a living thing could crawl,
And yet he would descend, as if to hide.

His thought drew down the guardian at the gate,
To whom man said, "What danger am I in?"
And the angel, hurt in spirit, seemed to hate
The wingless thing that worried after sin,

For it said nothing but marvelously unfurled
Its wings and arched them shimmering overhead,
Which must have been the signal from the world
That the first season of our life was dead.

Adam fell down with labor in his bones,
And God approached him in the cool of day
And said, "This sickness in your skeleton
Is longing. I will remove it from your clay."

He said also, "I made you strike the sheep."
It began to rain and God sat down beside
The sinking man. When he was fast asleep
He wet his right hand deep in Adam's side

And drew the graceful rib out of his breast.
Far off, the latent streams began to flow
And birds flew out of Paradise to nest
On earth. Sadly the angel watched them go.
(--Karl Shapiro, From "Adam and Eve")

Always, alone, we continue. Even, with another, still alone.

Do not fret this.

There is (we hold) no other. Hence, alone is never what we think it is.

Goodbye. (Gazing.) Hello.

We are.

Here.

All.

Right.

Place yourself well.

"The art of literature, vocal or written, is to adjust the language so that it embodies what it indicates."
-- A.N. Whitehead

Then, all is well.

The Suffering Itself Is Not So Bad
It is possible to take our existence as a "sacred world," to take this place as open space rather than claustrophobic dark void. It is possible to take a friendly relationship to our ego natures, it is possible to appreciate the aesthetic play of forms in emptiness, and to exist in this place like majestic kings of our own consciousness. But to do that, we would have to give up grasping to make everything come out the way we daydream it should. So, suffering is caused by ignorance or ignorant grasping, or suffering exaggerated by ignorance or ignorant grasping and clinging to our notion of what we thing should be, is what causes the "suffering of suffering." The suffering itself is not so bad, it's the resentment against suffering that is the real pain.
--Allen Ginsberg, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol. II, #1

Some place.

You have.

Here.

To trust is to allow each thing its own being; each person their own being.

"Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves."
-- T.S. Eliot

It is rare to find trust.

Equally rare to give it.

We're so busy. In such a hurry. We scamper about, thinking there's no time to lose.

Something, (as is) said these days, seems to shift.

(The wary mind says "Slow!" -- but something else shifts energy, and even "slow" seems an irrelevant notion.)

Buddha the Baker
Buddha was not interested in the elements comprising human beings, nor in metaphysical theories of existence. He was more concerned about how he himself existed in this moment. That was his point. Bread is made from flour. How flour becomes bread when put in the oven was for Buddha the most important thing. How we become enlightened was his main interest. The enlightened person is some perfect, desirable character, for himself and for others. Buddha wanted to find out how human beings develop this ideal character--how various sages in the past became sages. In order to find out how dough became perfect bread, he made it over and over again, until he became quite successful. That was his practice.
(--Shunryu Suzuki, in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind)

Enlightenment is not the goal -- it is the practice. To treat one another in a combination of how they wish to be treated and how we ourselves wish to be treated -- re-collects energy that had split and drained itself in acrimony, mistrust, and cynicism. Such a rush to nail down what isn't there.

It is spring. Ground softens. Anyone intent on holding tight to fear and blame grows tired of the weight and is invited to put it down.

In "The Way of the Bodhisattva," Shantideva explains how we can connect with the very best of ourselves and help others to do the same. One powerful method he describes is rejoicing. Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut down and unable to connect with others.

Rejoicing generates good will. The next time you go out in the world, you might try this practice: directing your attention to people—in their cars, on the sidewalk, talking on their cell phones—just wish for them all to be happy and well. Without knowing anything about them, they can become very real, by regarding each of them personally and rejoicing in the comforts and pleasures that come their way. Each of us has this soft spot: a capacity for love and tenderness. But if we don't encourage it, we can get pretty stubborn about remaining sour.

I have a friend who, when he begins getting depressed and withdrawn, goes to a nearby park and does this practice for everyone who walks by. He finds this pulls him out of the slump before it’s too late. The tricky part is getting out of the house, instead of giving in to the seduction of gloom.
(-- From, The Practice of Rejoicing, in "No Time to Lose" by Pema Chodron, published by Shambhala.)

There is "no time". Therefore there is "no time" to lose.

Lose it. It's not there.

Rejoice.

It is no longer "what" our vision is.

It is "how" our vision is.

"How" we see replaces "what" we see.

Wing it.

Three pieces of news; only one not about death.

Well versed in the Buddha way,
I go the non-Way.
Without abandoning my
Ordinary man’s affairs,
The conditioned and
Name-and-form all
Are flowers in the sky.
Nameless and formless,
I leave birth-and-death.
- Layman P’ang

1.
Yesterday, a meetingbrook community person, Jim McLarty, 61, died during a kayak-related event on the St George river in Searsmont. Our hearts go out to Chris, Jim's wife.

Haiku
(for Chris, on hearing sorrowful news)

Frost covers both cars
Outside barn door, ground draws hard,.
Walking to chapel.

(wfh, 25mar07)

2.
Last week, on St Patrick's eve, the feisty Dorchester former postman, Joe McMorrow, 88, long time member of meetingbrook community, died after a stroke. We hold his wife, Gigi, in our hearts.

Haiku
(for Gige, who will be my hospice volunteer)

Joe thought the Red Sox
should play in his alleyway --

He'd stay awake then.
(wfh, 25mar07)

3.
This morning, meeting with landlord, the two of us, along with 3 board members, seemingly arrive at an open field with clear running water. The surprise of any unusual occurrence usually befuddles the mind. Horizon appears with invitation to continue -- should that be our choice.

Epilogue.
Sam, Susan, Tommy, Peter, Saskia, and I keep a brief silence for Jim and Chris before our meeting at the harbor shop. The suddenness of death puts things in context.

Gige, Joe and I used to have lively complaint sessions Joe sparked about the Red Sox and the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals. (There might have been some space between the two topics, but not much.)

And Bubba, whose unwritten resume was he'd never darken a church door, died in waters he loved to fish, to his heart's joy. No more emails about fighting monks on Mt Athos or irresponsible contraceptive restrictions foisted by "that other church" in the Africa in which he led safaris.

The joy of life is our diversity and surprise. Some surprises sadden. Some gladden. And the diversity surrounding the unknown moment to moment breath we capture and release -- this is what makes us sensitive to, and profoundly aware of, the well-being of each and every one of us.

Rain falls.

We celebrate Annunciation.

Each announcement bids us -- Listen!

There is revelation in words that transcend the sentence they comprise.

Take Martin Luther's reputed words ending his argument with the Roman Church delivered at Diet of Worms in 1521. In German: "Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders." Translated: "Here I stand; I can do no other."

The words reveal more than his unwillingness or inability to recant and alter his way of thinking grown contrary to the Roman Church. The words actually encapsulate a position of independence.

He says: "I can do no other."

"No other" is a point of view that is not dependent on "other" -- on a church, tradition, creed, or God "out there" or "above" or in a "heavenly afterlife." As it is, he might not have been aware of the insight the words themselves invited.

Does Luther realize that he can do "no other" -- that he is able to dwell in the undifferentiated suchness (as Buddhists say) which is the ground reality of existence?

"Here," he says, "I stand." Luther expresses the absolute near-side of presence -- he stands "here" where there is nowhere else. His words indicate an appreciation of the perception that "Here" is "no other." The sole reality is here, and he can do "no other" -- a non-dualistic activity that is not predicating, nor predicated on, anything else, other, or absent. (Far from being a solipsism, this is front porch to egolessness.)

I like this as a useful apperception of the reality of God passing through as well as dwelling within and around everything.

When we became monastics of no other we were not aware that Martin Luther's insight would take so long to reach us. (It is quite astonishing what the man Martin Luther, and his words, unleashed.)

Now it is here.

We, too, can do it.

(Almost.)

Apperceptive dwelling in itself.

Perceiving the inner meaning of no other.

Jump?

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

(There's something about that phrase -- "as it is.")

"Thy will" might refer to that which is true, lovely, and compassionate. The words need not refer to something other than what is deeply inherent within the core of each and every being. If grace is gift, if God is creating love, and if ego is the sometimes necessary but often deluded impression that it is in charge of what happens -- then the prayer "Thy will" is prelude to surrender to what is true, lovely, and compassionate.

Avoid Doing Harm
If you wonder whether evil karma can be neutralized or not, then know that it is neutralized by desire for goodness. But they who knowingly do evil deeds, exchange a mouthful of food for infamy. They who knowing not wither they themselves are bound, yet presume to pose as guides for others, do injury both to themselves and others. If pain and sorrow ye desire sincerely to avoid, avoid, then, doing harm to others.
(--from W.Y. Evans-Wentz, in Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa)

Caring and careful watchfulness is our constant meditation. We watch everything within and without us. We watch with attention; and we watch with an open and (prayerfully) wise awareness when to, and when not to, engage. There is often a mysterious gap between active engagement and active surrender. Many experience themselves in that gap, betwixt and between -- unsure whether to jump or to jump,(that is, jump headlong into the engagement, or jump out of the way and settle temporarily into stillness and non-engagement). (Ask Arjuna.)

Overnight At a Mountain Monastery
Massed peaks pierce
The sky’s cold colors;
Here, the trail junctions
With the temple path.
Shooting stars pass
Into sparse-branched trees;
The moon travels one way,
Clouds the other.
Few people come
To this mountaintop;
Cranes do not flock
In the tall pines.
One Buddhist monk,
Eighty years old,
Has never heard
Of the world’s affairs.
- Chia Tao (779-843)

I've heard of the world's affairs. They are complicated and dizzying. Engaged or non-engaged -- most of us are not neighbors of that monk on his mountain top. Only in our inner vastness can those of us in the world come close to what we might call 'loving non-engagement' with the affairs of the world. We ordinarily live very close to the necessities and consequences of proximate experience living with the difficult realities of this material/temporal existence. Suffering is observed and felt. If our eyes and heart are open, suffering is observed and felt.

Jung used the term individuation “to denote a process of becoming a psychological ‘individual,’ that is, a separate, indivisible unity or whole.” To individuate is to gradually actualize our innate capacity to live as a unique individual. Jung recognized that there would be times on this journey when we are challenged to surrender the central dominance of ego to the deeper significance of what he called the “Self.” For Jung, “Self ” refers to the center of our totality--a deeper seat of wisdom that holds a sense of our innate potential as we unfold in our lives. He was not implying that the Self had some kind of ultimate existence, but that it is nevertheless experienced as a center of wholeness, just as the ego is experienced as a center of consciousness. The Self individuates us--that is to say, its “intention” is that we evolve in such a way that the relationship between the ego and the Self matures. At certain times on our journey, the ego begins to realize that it is not the prime mover, that there are forces at work that have far greater influence. The Self asserts a kind of psychological pressure on us to change and become whole, a pressure that can be extremely disquieting as the ego loses its safe, familiar ground. A major aspect of this undercurrent of change is the need to shift our understanding of what is really at the center of our lives. The shift of emphasis from the ego to the Self has been described as the shift from “I will” to “Thy will be done.” While as a Buddhist I find the notion of a Thy somewhat untenable, I have always found the sentiment of letting go to some deeper sense of purpose profoundly meaningful.
(-- from The Solace of Surrender, February 6, 2007 , By Rob Preece, in Tricycle)

What is really at the center of our lives? What is experienced as a center of wholeness? What is the shift from ego to Self? How do we move from our experience of and belief in careless separateness, to the understanding and embodiment of a core caring oneness?

One of my favorite lines in the Course, which really is a perfect definition of a miracle even though it does not use the word, says that "the holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love" (T-26. IX.6:1). Someone whom we hate, hatred being the ego's way of looking, becomes someone whom we love, and that vision of love is given to us by the Holy Spirit. What we are talking about are two different ways of looking at the world and, more specifically, looking at the relationships in our lives. One is the ego's way of looking, which is a way of seeing more and more separation, anger and guilt, justifying our anger, and making sickness real here in the body. All these perceptions really reinforce the basic ego premise that we are separate from each other and from God. The correction for that is to go from the ego's way of looking to the Holy Spirit's way of looking, and it is that shift from the ego to the Holy Spirit that is the miracle. The identical word for that process of shifting from the ego's perceptions of someone else to the Holy Spirit's, is "forgiveness."
(--from pp.6-8, in The Fifty Miracle Principles of a Course in Miracles, by Kenneth Wapnick. C.1992.)

There's something here.

One way, or another, we are asked to leap.

Compelled to leap.

Any tasty berries at hand?

Word is our landlord at the harbour shop wants the building for his brother and other purposes.

A blustery wind blows through phone calls.

Is it time to become a mindless piece piece of wood? Or would a slingshot be handier? (Ask David.)

Like A Mindless Piece Of Wood
Shantideva... mentions specific instances when it is advisable to remain like a mindless piece of wood. We can do this when our mind is very distracted or when the thought arises to belittle, slander, or abuse others. If pride, haughtiness or the intention to find fault with others arises, we can also remain impassive until our deluded motivation fades. Feeling pretentious, thinking to deceive others and wishing to praise our own qualities, wealth, or possessions are all occasions when it is wise to pretend that we are made out of wood. Whenever we have the desire to blame others, speak harshly or cause disruption we should practice this technique of non-reaction.
(--Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Meaningful to Behold)

Eleven years has been a good run. It's always a wonder the way wind moves things around.

Time to think about packing up the odds and ends that accumulate over time. Endings are beginnings seen through back of mirror.

Our vocation is to let blustery winds blow themselves out, pick up fell wood, and stack for future warming stove fire.

Brethren, how fine a thing it is to move from festival to festival, from prayer to prayer, from holy day to holy day.
(--From an Easter letter by Saint Athanasius, bishop)

Day by day.

Holy way.

(I bow.)

(As best can be done.)

How lost is lost?

Sitting in screened porch of meditation cabin for an hour last night in cold moonless silence of Ragged Mountain, nothing comes to mind. I sit in the emptiness of my life. Up path, across frozen footprints, pieces of bark from broken and fallen tree lay on icy indentations. Out behind barn, where white-lights circle on front red sliding door, ashes from once burning wood stove fire settle stiff in plastic bag by sawn harbor pilings under crusted snow. According to Hsuan-sha, that's where I might be found.

The way of buddhas is wide open, without any stages. The door of nothing is the door to liberation; having no intention is the will to help others. It is not within past, present, and future, so it cannot rise and sink; setups are counter to reality, because it is not in the realm of the created. Move, and you produce the root of birth and death; be still, and you get drunk in the village of oblivion. If movement and stillness are both erased, you fall into empty annihilation; if movement and stillness are both withdrawn, you presume upon buddha nature. You must be like a dead tree or cold ashes in the face of objects and situations while acting responsively according to time, without losing proper balance. A mirror reflects a multitude of images without their confusing its brilliance; birds fly through the air without mixing up the color of the sky.
- Hsuan-sha

Nothing makes sense. Wind blows through it. Bell-chime moves vibration through it without hindrance. Morning fragrance of something in kitchen oven downstairs comes through open door over wool socks without permission. Low rumble-groan of basement furnace says to no-one in particular that, although it is calendar spring, it is not time yet to stay unbidden and unmoving.

It is time of weakening spirit.

Come quickly and hear me, O Lord,
for my spirit is weakening.
Do not hide your face from me,
do not let me be like the dead,
who go down to the underworld.
Show me your mercy at daybreak,
because of my trust in you.
Tell me the way I should follow,
for I lift up my soul towards you.
(--from Psalm 143)

It has been a question since I first looked out over stair-shed in Bensonhurst backyard at white DeSoto near patch of grass bordered by hydrangeas. Will someone tell me the way? Or is the way looking out from the question over slanted shingled roof?

So many of my dear brothers and sisters offer, and want to tell us, the way. Some have wanted to beat it into us. Others shake their heads and say, "You are lost!" I've been grateful both for their caring and their conclusion.

Hsuan-sha's One Bright Pearl

(Dharma Discourse by John Daido Loori, Roshi. See at http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/daido/teisho05.php
True Dharma Eye, Case 15, Featured in Mountain Record, Fall 1996.)

The Main Case

The great master Hsuan-sha was once asked by a monk, "The entire world of the ten directions is one bright pearl.1 How can I understand the meaning of this?"2 Hsuan-sha said, "The entire world of the ten directions is one bright pearl. Why is it necessary to understand the meaning of this?"3 On the following day Hsuan-sha said to the monk,4 "The entire world of the ten directions is one bright pearl. How do you understand the meaning of this?" 5 The monk replied, "The entire world of the ten directions is one bright pearl. Why is it necessary to understand the meaning of this?"6 Hsuan-sha said, "Now I know that you are living inside a cave of demons on the black mountain."7

The Commentary

When our lives are not free of fixed positions we drown in a sea of poison. Following after another's words and mimicking others' actions is the practice of monkeys and parrots. Zen practitioners should be able to show some fresh provisions of their own. Be that as it may, you should understand that even in the cave of demons on the black mountain the one bright pearl's radiance is not diminished.

The Capping Verse

The question came from the cave of demons--
The master answered with a mudball.
Beyond telling, absolutely beyond telling,
Ultimately we can only nod to ourselves.
(--True Dharma Eye: Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans, is a complete, modern English translation of Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koan or Chinese Shobogenzo.)

I notice this practice of nodding. When walking aisles of grocery market, when passing individuals along town streets, when looking into zendo, chapel, or cemetery, I nod, or bow -- sometimes slightly, other times profoundly -- at my companions, visible or invisible. It is beyond telling, this companioning realization.

Dear Reader

Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing
in the doorway of these words.

Pope welcomes you into the glow of his study,
takes down a leather-bound Ovid to show you.
Tennyson lifts the latch to a moated garden,
and with Yeats you lean against a broken pear tree,
the day hooded by low clouds.

But now you are here with me,
composed in the open field of this page,
no room or manicured garden to enclose us,
no Zeitgeist marching in the background,
no heavy ethos thrown over us like a cloak.

Instead, our meeting is so brief and accidental,
unnoticed by the monocled eye of History,
you could be the man I held the door for
this morning at the bank or post office
or the one who wrapped my speckled fish.
You could be someone I passed on the street
or the face behind the wheel of an oncoming car.

The sunlight flashes off your windshield,
and when I look up into the small, posted mirror,
I watch you diminish—my echo, my twin—
and vanish around a curve in this whip
of a road we can't help traveling together.
(--Billy Collins, The Art of Drowning, University of Pittsburgh Press)

We are composed in the open field of this...

This...what?

This lost...

(How lost?)

And...found --

Traveling together.

How lost is lost if there is only "Being!...Alone?" If nothing is between the statement and the question -- then we travel together, one by one, through this open field.

Nodding, affirming, what is here and there, in our midst.

Ultimately, (one bright rosary of circling light), we can only nod, to ourselves.

It grieves me that I have approved torture. It saddens me that my spirit is damaged by the torture I have encouraged.

"There is no such thing as a little bit of torture."(-from HBO Documentary, "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib")

We do not seem to understand how torture deteriorates and destroys the human spirit of both tortured and torturer. If anywhere in the world torture is used against other human beings, the torturers and tortured experience diminishment and horror. If America approves and condones torture, then the human spirit of Americans is deteriorating.

Our government does our bidding. And yet, by approving torture -- by allowing my representatives in the executive and legislative branches of American government to speak for me to legalize and employ torture -- I choose to abuse my spirit, doing so as the bodies of perceived enemies are abused. Is this self-abuse one of the byproducts of not recognizing my self -- not being aware of true self? If so, there is a great distance yet to traverse before coming to genuine self-knowledge and self-awareness.

Skillful Versus Unskillful
Rather than dividing thoughts into classes like "good" and "bad," Buddhist thinkers prefer to regard them as "skillful" versus "unskillful." An unskillful thought is one connected with greed, hatred, or delusion. These are thoughts that the mind most easily builds into obsessions. They are unskillful in the sense that they lead you away from the goal of Liberation. Skillful thoughts, on the other hand, are those connected with generosity, compassion, and wisdom. They are skillful in the sense that they may be used as specific remedies for unskillful thoughts, and thus can assist you toward Liberation.
(--Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English, from Everyday Mind)

We have been living in an age where private armies and mercenary forces acting with no oversight or accountability are used as substitute for US military to fight wars and carry out the wishes of powerful men often using means and tactics under deep cover and with no checks and balances. We are becoming what we fear -- lawless and unaccountable.

Return to me, says the Lord of Hosts, and I will return to you. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the prophets in the past cried ‘Turn back from your evil ways and evil deeds’ but they would not listen.
(--Zechariah 1:3 - 4)

The morning in Maine is glowing. Today is the first day of spring. Sun shines brightly. Nature turns on its axis of retrieval.

We can, and must, retrieve our dignity. We the torturers and the tortured must work to retrieve the spirit of wholeness and compassion available to us by the grace of wholeness and the practice of compassion.

Write down how many things you want.
Meditate on how many things you need.
When you write them down
You will see
That you want millions of things.
When you meditate
You will notice
That you need only one thing
And that is God the Compassion,
God the eternal Compassion.
(- Sri Chinmoy)

Notice this need. Notice sunlight turning warmer, daylight turning brighter. Notice our spirits longing for return. Longing for a retrieving, renewing, wholeness.

I confess my unskillful acts.

I watch for -- and hope to notice -- the change.

I research antonyms of torture.

I need to practice antonymic connection with both tortured and torturer -- namely: alleviation, contentment, happiness, relief.

Let us.

Return.

And retrieve.