In loft of cabin warmed by birch in stove -- the silence of wood.

The bait is the means to get the fish where you want it; catch the fish, and you discard the bait. Words are the means to get the idea where you want it; catch on to the idea, and you forget about the words.
- Zhuangzi

Sky, earth, and water. This trinity sets alongside mythic metaphors acculturated through history by theology.

But then, isn't all of matter the making of theology?

I bow to the threeness. Holy, and holy, and holy is communion of each and each in all.


Who can say for certain what is true?

If you try, please, retain some humility.

One final patch of snow melts. They piled a 20 foot high mound about 60 feet round weeks ago. Now, a few inches high and three feet across it melts where the tube run once was at the Snow Bowl.

Every plant and tree knows spring will soon be gone
A hundred pinks and purples
Compete with their bouquets
Willow fuzz and elm pods lack such clever means
They only know how to fill the sky with snow.
- Han Yu (768-824)

The walking man with cancer sat in shop this evening talking about how he cannot tolerate the thought of a bladder bag and will nix the idea of surgery.

We're all walking death through life.

We just don't understand what either of them is exactly.

So, we walk on.

Happy for the practice.

There is no teacher. Only learners; only the teaching.

Mind to Mind

Literature gives us the great gift of the present moment. As we read we enter the author's mind and follow it like a train on its tracks... she is taking us far out or far in and we're there! --no place else. Mind to mind...

But you ask, isn't the present moment just this: the sun coming in through the window, me leaning on a wooden desk, my eyes darting along the page, my legs crossed--not trucking along, my mind deep in the author's story?

Yes, that also is the present moment, but usually if I'm sitting there without reading, I am a divided person. Half of me is there, the other half is out the window, down the block shopping for wild rice, thinking about supper or how mad I am at a friend. But when I'm reading and I love what I'm reading, I'm totally connected, whole. Me and Shakespeare, me and Milton--no time or space between us. We are one--not two, not split. Then with that oneness, full of concentration and presence, I look up and can really see and experience through my whole body the light coming in through the glass pane and how it plays on the desktop where my book is, and I can feel my legs crossed underneath.
(--Natalie Goldberg, from 365 Nirvana, Here and Now by Josh Baran)

Just concentration.

Only presence.

Can we be entrusted to love?

"Do it!" -- we're told.

"Be it!" -- we intuit.

Just as the soft rains fill the streams,
Pour into the rivers,
And join together in the oceans,
So many the power of every moment
Of your goodness flow forth to awaken
And heal all beings;
Those here now, those gone before, those yet to come.
- Traditional Buddhist blessing

If we are love as it is loving, healing is the order of the day.

"What I command you is to love one another.’
(--John 15:17)

Stout fellow! Fine lassie! As you are, so will you be.

Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French comander, from Latin commendare, from com- + mandare to entrust.

Into your hands, Origin/Source, we commend our spirits.

An angel is a message taken in and made one's own.

Go ahead!

Be an angel!

Speak -- we'll listen!

Do you feel different?

How elegant is the morning sun
Shining on the rafters and eaves.
How cool are the terrace and pond after the rain.
I burn incense to break the deep silence,
Drink the spring water and relax in joy.
When the mind is at ease and spirit is at peace,
Understanding is gained.
There is nothing left to comprehend.
Who can say that the realm of Tao is far from us?
How tranquil it is
Like the beginning of Heaven and Earth.
- Ni Tsan (1301-1374)

The argument shifts. Are you ready?

In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day. I’m not qualified to take sides, believe me. I’m just trying to anticipate which way the debate is headed. We’re in the middle of a scientific revolution. It’s going to have big cultural effects.
(--from The New York Times Op-Ed Column, The Neural Buddhists, By DAVID BROOKS, Published: May 13, 2008)

What's gotten into us?

We'll never be the same.

Ever.

Again.

Father is origin. Son is loving attention. Holy Spirit is enlightening consciousness.

Breathing mothers creation.

Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
- Sutta Nipata Buddha

When enlightening consciousness fills us, we begin to gather in communion.

In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you’, and showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.
‘As the Father sent me,
so am I sending you.’
After saying this he breathed on them and said:
‘Receive the Holy Spirit.
For those whose sins you forgive,
they are forgiven;
for those whose sins you retain,
they are retained.’
(--from John 20: 19-23)

You see, if you choose not to forgive, then it doesn't happen -- and you are burdened with carrying with you the weight of unforgiveness of an-other, namely none other than you.

But if you have understanding, and you forgive -- then everyone is unburdoned, and we go on, lightened and freed.

What do you think? Is it time for Pentecost?

Time for Holy Spirit?

Are you conscious?

Any awareness?

Of peace?

Breathe!

Note: The bookshop/bakery will be closed Friday. (Open Sat & Sun)
There will be no Sunday Evening Practice 11May.

................................

“Love the whole world as a mother loves her only child.”
(--Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)

So much to learn about mothering!

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
(--John 19: 26-27)

One's own home!

Two weeks later, Mu-ge the cat walks back in the door. Just like that.

Meister Eckhart said: "Leben ohne warum." (Life without why.)

No questioning why. Just life.

At itself. With itself.

Looking as itself.

Riggers climb masts, painters brush hulls, captains shake out coastal charts. Schooners in Camden Harbor begin to ready the season.

I row small skiff around harbor.

Many paths lead from
The foot of the mountain,
But at the peak
We all gaze at the
Single bright moon.
- Ikkyu (1394-1481)

Someone asks about a spiritual teacher's connection to religion. "He's not not Christian," is the response.

In John 17:1-11 is the phrase: "And eternal life is this:".

Fill in what "this" is.

It's not not this.

Heaven help us.

On the count of three, jump!

When Iraq was invaded so many cheered. When Iran is attacked, so many will leave.

The truly still mind, with which you were born, is the mind that moves freely. Without ignoring anything, it reacts wholeheartedly to everything it encounters, to everything on which it reflects. And yet, for all that, it is the mind that is never seized by anything, but is always ready to react on the spot to whatever it encounters next. The mind that is still is the mind that never forfeits its freedom and is able to constantly keep rolling and rolling and rolling.
- Soko Marinaga Roshi (1925-1995) Dailyzen.com

Leaving this country because it has disappeared will not be easy. There's a need for a foothold; a place from which to step off. That's the difficulty with a disappeared country; there's no ground remaining to it.

Listen; the time will come – in fact it has come already –
when you will be scattered,
each going his own way and leaving me alone.
(--from John 16:29-33)

As if Jesus knew our situation. He lived so long ago. Good God -- this is the 21st century! What use could someone from the first century have? Does he see us disappearing?

Part Four: Time and Eternity

VIII

LOOK back on time with kindly eyes,
He doubtless did his best;
How softly sinks his trembling sun
In human nature’s west!
(--Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.)

We'll look back at this time in our country and wonder how it was everyone was so impotent and uncaring.

Many will weep.

Most won't.

Rokpa the border collie licks peanut butter from my fingers. Rain tires us after 5:30am walk on Ragged Mtn. Sunday morning curls onto black chair.

Elsewhere, pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, zen masters, elders, and friends perform their rituals for people who hunger for justice, compassion, and a true experience of integrity. We've been fed illusion. Time to go beyond it.

When I started writing about Guantánamo several years ago, I thought the inmates might be lying and the Pentagon telling the truth. No doubt some inmates lie, and some surely are terrorists. But over time — and it’s painful to write this — I’ve found the inmates to be more credible than American officials.

Both Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates have pushed to shut down Guantánamo because it undermines America’s standing and influence. They have been overruled by Dick Cheney and other hard-liners. In reality, it would take an exceptional enemy to damage America’s image and interests as much as President Bush and Mr. Cheney already have with Guantánamo.
(--from A Prison of Shame, and It’s Ours, By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, Published: May 4, 2008, New York Times)

It is a difficult time. Belief comes hard. Trust in our leaders is so low you'd think someone would notice. Only uncaring arrogance can ignore the somber bitter loss of faith and trust. What will replace what is lost? It is hard to imagine how the people of America will survive the defeat of principles long held dear by generations in this country. A difficult, bleak time.

I am not in the world any longer,
but they are in the world,
and I am coming to you.
(from John 17: 1-11)

I've come to a fondness for the universe. So vast. Maybe without end. Of uncertain beginning. A lot like human life. Space might have as many as ten or twelve dimensions. Strings of energy dance emphatically with tonal reverberation at core of the theoretical investigation of matter and (what is called) energy or spirit. Far far beyond our capacity to grasp with our thinking. Yet close, very very close.

What made Nishitani question emptiness on the basis of his own present existence was precisely nihilism. It is through the mediation of nihilism that emptiness was removed from a museum showcase--that is, from its status as a dead 'thing' to be viewed or an object of archaeological study, to make its appearance in the real marketplace as a currency with actual power, restored to its status of living and operative spirit. The real marketplace, of which we speak here, also has the meaning of the town called "The Motley Cow," where Nietzsche's Zarathustra proclaimed his idea of the eternal recurrence. According to Nishitani, this "town called The Motley Cow" means "the multicolored world with its infinite variety of forms"; in other words, the contemporary world. To let emptiness loose into it is to walk that town barefoot, or to stand in the very midst of nihilism. According to Nishitani, it is precisely when standing there that a human being gets in touch with the point of origin or zero point from where religion as religion is born.
(--from Nihilism, Science, and Emptiness in [Keiji] Nishitani, by Hase Shoto, Univ of Hawaii Press)

Time to begin again.

Passing through.

Illusion.

What is looking and what is looked at co-construct what is being created as it is.

No kidding.

The entire day I searched for spring,
But spring I could not find,
In my straw sandals I tramped among the
Mountain peak clouds.
Home again, smiling, I finger a sprig of
Fragrant plum blossom;
Spring was right here on these branches
In all of its glory!
- Plum Blossom Nun (DailyZen.com)

One thing after another.

Nothing follows.

This.

Zen is seeing what-is.

Both the gaze that sees and the object that is seen construct themselves simultaneously in the one act of vision.
(--p.18, in Beauty, by John O'Donohue)

And, what-is takes place between us.

He'd not ascended to the Father. He told Mary not to cling to him, not to hold on to who and what he was. He preferred to be who and what he is. And that, whenever he became that which he is where he is as he is.

So, let him.

I saw the Son of Man, and he said to me, ‘Have no fear! I am the First and the Last. I was dead and now I am to live for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and of the underworld.’
(Apocalypse 1:17-18)

There being no time but now, Jesus is ascending as this is written, as this is read, as this is.

As are you and am I.

That's the kind of Thursday today is.

Nothing to cling to, so everything appears.

As it is.

With God.

A new template could help. A new religious life based on two rules: simplicity and kindness.

Some worry that America is heading for a big fall.

I let mind and body go
And gained a life of freedom
My old age is taking place
Among ten thousand peaks
I don’t let white clouds
Leave the valley lightly
I escort the moon as far
As my closed gate.
- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623) Dailyzen.com

Rain has stopped.

Stars are out.

Cold wind blows.

After the fall, we'll try to get up.

When we bow we bow. Passing front room meditation space we bow. My eyes might look at crucifix. Or small seated Buddha. Or prayer flags hanging in window. Or icon of mother/child. Or the open emptiness of room itself. I have no object for the bow. Just bowing. With gratitude.

Do not sweep the fallen leaves,
For they are pleasant to hear on clear nights
In the wind, they rustle, as if sighing;
In the moonlight, their shadows flutter.
They knock on the window to wake a traveler;
Covering stairs, they hide moss.
Sad, the sight of them getting wet in the rain;
Let them wither away deep in the mountains.
- Kim Shi Sup (1435-1493)

Dog is bathed. White replaces gray. Mud drains into ground again.

You have been given more than human beauty,
and grace is poured out upon your lips,
(--from Psalm 44)

I'm glad the minister from Illinois spoke to the National Press Club. It's good to hear unapologetic wit, controversy, and spirit.

The mumbling incoherence of political swiping and sniping employed by contenders and commentators in this years horse race to the white house has become offensive and embarrassing. I'd like to hear something other than jejune backhand slaps.

I, Too, Sing America

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

(--From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Knopf and Vintage Books. Copyright 1994)

In prison last Friday, the realization that words are alive, as are things alive, so too animals, humans, and all of nature, supernature, and that which we call divinity -- all life is alive, all being is, in itself -- holy.


Because we are mis-educated, Rev Jeremiah Wright says, we do not want to hear truth.

That's the truth.

Holy life!

Consider the words: "because he is with you, he is in you".

Except for dripping faucet into scraped yogurt plastic, silence.

Gospel
Jesus said:
‘If you love me you will keep my commandments.
I shall ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate
to be with you for ever,
that Spirit of truth
whom the world can never receive
since it neither sees nor knows him;
but you know him,
because he is with you, he is in you.
I will not leave you orphans;
I will come back to you.
In a short time the world will no longer see me;
but you will see me,
because I live and you will live.
On that day you will understand that I am in my Father
and you in me and I in you.
Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them
will be one who loves me;
and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I shall love him and show myself to him.’
(--John 14:15 - 21)

Look no further than to Raisin Bran box, Cuisinart machine, and Nupro container on washing machine under cabinets beside window where gray morning sits with unmoving branches in dooryard. Daybreak walk with Border Collie beyond brook to winding trail, back to cabin -- zafu, candle, incense, sitting. In kitchen, dripping faucet, water from high mountain melt finds way through ground to well, pumped up to metronomic beat.

Prayer Chain

My mother called to tell me
about an old classmate of mine who

was dying on the parish prayer chain—
or was very sick—or destitute—

or it had not worked out—the marriage—
or the kids were all on drugs—and

all the old mothers were praying intensely
for all the pain of their children

and for life—they were praying for life—
in their quiet rooms—sipping decaf coffee—

I bet they've been praying for me at times—
so I'll find my way—so I won't rob a bank—

I'll take them—the mystical prayers of old mothers—
it matters—all this patient and purposeful love.

(Poem: "Prayer Chain" by Tim Nolan. The Writer's Almanac)

I mention my mother's name, her mother's name, their daughter and granddaughter, the men surrounding them, and the rippling remembrance of many names -- all gone beyond, (some say dead), as I crossed bridge over brook on morning prayerful steps and walking meditation.

Within us. We are within the within. No outside, no inside. Only God in God. Just us in us. We in God. God within all. The solitude of stillness, a silence of mind, an unknowing so profound there seems no need ever to speak or hear words again.

The mind says: "Show yourself!"

Earth responds with itself.

Itself knowing no other.

King falls; game over.

With or without words...

Love itself, nothing else.

Mu-ge the cat has gone on walkabout. Traceless.

Lake water enters the bamboo fence,
Mountains surround the cottage.
A recluse’s life avoids this world.
The unused door hides behind
A green moss hue;
When a stranger passes,
The white birds fly in alarm.
Selling herbs, I taste and compare
But charge no price.
I do some gardening,
But love to do it unplanned.
Why is the wooded path leading
To T’ien-chu monastery
Still in autumn
Deeply dreaming in blue?
- Lin Pu

Six of us at Saturday Morning Practice consider hope as an obstacle.

There being no future, hope must have to do with what is in one's heart right now.

May each be where they need to be.

Happy, safe, truly at home.

Who knows where?

Vivian, in the drama W;T --(or Wit)-- says it is time for simplicity; time for kindness. She is dying.

All my life I have yearned for true reclusion,
Days on end sought wonders beyond this world:
Here old peasants enter their fields at dawn,
And mountain monks return to their temples at night.
Clear sounds come from pine-shaded springs,
Mossy walls filled with ancient truths.
I will lodge on this mountain forever,
I and the world are done with each other.
- Meng Hao-jan

At end her former professor reads to her about a bunny whose mother --like God -- will find it no matter where it hides; an allegory for soul being sought for by God.

There are choices to be made.

One is for kindness.

Take it.