The uncertain is a landscape we gaze into trying to identify what we are seeing.

We are that landscape.

It is what we are.

Seeing.

The self-nature of suchness gives rise to thoughts. But even though the six sense-faculties see, hear, sense, and know, it is not tainted by the myriad images. The true nature is constantly free and self-reliant.
- Platform Sutra

No need to identify.

Rather, simply see.

In that immediate and intimate act.

You come to be.

Free.

Watching Jeremy Rifkin's talk based on his book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis.

Brilliant!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-7BjeHepbA

We've really got to talk.

In the dark wind gusts pushed bow of peapod from its track. It was a good row demanding strong concentration. Alone and attentive with every stroke.

The kindness of a mariner who motored to 30 yards of my rounding the currents and waves buffered by swirling blow -- when he saw I was just fine, he circled away.

Attention is never alone.

Aristotle said that in order for people to become virtuous, we need role models—others who have developed their capacities for courage, self-control, wisdom, and justice. We may emphasize different sets of virtues or ideas about what makes a proper role model, but Buddhism also asserts that, as we are all connected and interdependent, none of us can do it all on our own.

Acknowledging this dependency is the first step of real emotional work within relationships. Our ambivalence about our own needs and dependency gets stirred up in all kinds of relationships. We cannot escape our feelings and needs and desires if we are going to be in relationships with others. To be in relationships is to feel our vulnerability in relation to other people who are unpredictable, and in circumstances that are intrinsically uncontrollable and unreliable.

-Barry Magid, No Gain (Tricycle, Summer 2008)

We're not thinking yet.

We are frozen in thoughts and concepts.

But we're not thinking yet.

It is a call, thinking is.

And we are being called.

Rowing to Curtis Island tonight swells squeeze through passageway between island and mainland. Centerboard down, incoming tide and northwest wind make tricky currents in lowering dark. Balmy at 9PM sidling western channel.

The Mind is neither large nor small; it is located neither within nor without. It should not be thought about by the mind nor be discussed by the mouth. Ordinarily, it is said that we use the Mind to transmit the Mind, or that we use the Mind to seal the Mind. Actually, however, in transmitting the Mind, there is really no Mind to receive or obtain; and in sealing the Mind, there is really no Mind to seal. If this is the case, then does the Mind exist or does it not exist? Actually, it cannot be said with certainty that the Mind either exists or does not exist, for it is Absolute Reality. This is expressed in the Ch'an Sect by the maxim: "If you open your mouth, you are wrong. If you give rise to a single thought, you are in error." So, if you can quiet your thinking totally, all that remains is voidness and stillness.
(-- from, The Dharma of Mind Transmission, Zen Teachings of Huang-po)

What can be outside something without an outside? What can be inside something with no inside?

You cannot escape yourself because there's no place to go. No need to be yourself because the self is an illusion.

Might as well buy that small house in Aspy Bay and begin it while being done with it. Five bedrooms. There could be guests. And long walks on a long beach.

the finger
by Charles Bukowski

the drivers of automobiles
have very little recourse or
originality.
when upset with
another
driver
they often give him the
FINGER.

I have seen two adult
men
florid of face
driving along
giving each other the
FINGER.

well, we all know what
this means, it's no
secret.

still, this gesture is
so overused it has
lost most of its
impact.

some of the men who give
the FINGER are captains of
industry, city councilmen,
insurance adjusters,
accountants and/or the just plain
unemployed.
no matter.
it is their favorite
response.

people will never admit
that they drive
badly.

the FINGER is their
reply.

I see grown men
FINGERING each other
throughout the day.

it gives me pause.
when I consider
the state of our cities,
the state of our states,
the state of our country,
I begin to
understand.

the FINGER is a mind-
set.
we are the FINGERERS.
we give it
to each other.
we give it coming and
going.
we don't know how
else to respond.

what a hell of a way
to not
live.

(Poem, "The Finger" by Charles Bukowski, from Bone Palace Ballet. © Black Sparrow Press, 2002.)

It's hard to imagine a sillier way to live than blowing each other up and shooting bullets into one another.

Soon, some say, we'll stop.

Maybe after we spend the additional recently allocated 59 billion dollars on our warring Afghanistan we'll drop a dime on stupidity and turn it in.

Stupidity is tired and wants and deserves to be taken off the streets.

To be replaced by something -- something more kindly.

Maybe there's a chance of becoming human -- for a change.

Are there words?

It is possible the world is more dangerous than we think.

What really matters is to be aware, not wary.

Live well, die well, but don't fret.

"If you walk, just walk. If you sit, just sit. But whatever you do, don't wobble." (-- Master Ummon)

War seems too matter-of-fact. Let's see -- shop for peanut butter, write letter of thanks for gift, change air filter, and...go to war.

Unmoving, it presents itself in a thousand shapes.
And when it moves, it doesn't reveal itself in anything.
What is the essence of this nothingness?
Chrysanthemums luxuriously blooming after frost.
- Taego Bowoo (1301-1382)

Cicadas! A few days early, but their chant begins.

There are 5589 US casualties as of 25July2010 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sorrow for their deaths.

And sorrow for all who have died in these countries in the wars, terrorism, and other related causes.

There are no words.

None.

After Sunday Evening Practice we take Gerard home and go down to peapod. It is large moon one day short of full. We row out and around Curtis Island in the dark silvery wake of moonlight. Green blinking lighthouse, we pray for Connie, chant Nunc Dimittis, and pull hard against northwest wind back into harbor.

Silvery moon hangs high in the sky.
I ride a tiny boat in the vast and misty sea.
Moon and sea forgotten;
I forget that I have forgotten.
And before the window
I sit quietly in meditation until midnight.

- Jakushitsu (1290–1368)

I think during 12 hours on the road today that the traditional repartee still makes sense: The Lord be with you! And with each breath you take.

Be.

With you.

In each breath.

The City, Berobed in Blue
by Eleanor Lerman

What do you think has come over me?
I did not feel like this yesterday
but today, all I find myself thinking is,
This could be my last apartment,
my last lover; this could be the last dog
I ever own—as if I were going to die
at any moment. Which of course
is possible (myocardial infarction,
genetic defect, lighting bolt)

The anxiety may pass, but not
the age. Yikes, every moment says
And then, Look out!

Well, what can be done but put
a good face on it? A big one,
round as a moon and glittering
to the last. Or maybe slide into
an om state, where nothing is
something and everything is
more or less of something else

Better yet, maybe it's time to think
about the city, berobed in blue,
which now appears to me in memory
as a good place for a young girl,
who only I can recognize

See how lightly she steps off into
another, and then another morning
And as if she has never done it before,
begins to breathe
(Poem, "The City, Berobed in Blue" by Eleanor Lerman, from The Sensual World Re-emerges. © Sarabande Books, 2010.)

To be in communion is best.

With one another.

Tonight, full moon.

Wholeness is with us in each breath we are given!

Sunday.

At the hermitage we find that to oppose is to draw a tight box around what you oppose -- with you on the inside. Better to invite what you are uncertain of into an open questioning circle -- which is loose, laissez-faire, and liberating. That the circle is perimeter-less and permeable makes the questioning circle-back upon itself while spiraling toward unreachable and ungraspable extension of itself. In other words (my mother's favorite phrase) there's no end to it and no one knows how, where, or when it began or even whether there was a beginning.

This is God's name and face -- unpronounceable and diffusely unrecognizable. It is silly to even try to employ metaphors and words about this inquiry. Silly and foolish.

Still, being a fool becomes me as I become some other being.

Among the many realizations to which I awakened was this: "You don't have to go to church to know God." For reasons too obvious to mention, this isn't the kind of message the church, or any religion, wants spread around. But it's true nonetheless. There is no religion, not even the Christian religion, holding the title deed to God. God's grace is not limited to a select few. The moment any religion believes it is, you can be sure that religion knows nothing of God.

If there is anything Jesus, and the Buddha, made abundantly clear it is that the wind blows where it will. You can hear it, see its effects, and feel its power, but you can never contain it. In other words, the moment I stopped trying to find God, God found me. I love the way Deepak Chopra once framed it: "God is not difficult to find; God is impossible to ignore."

Even the title to this article, "Finding God After Religion," seems to imply that there's something you must "do" to know God. But the real truth is this: there is nothing you need to do to know God. You know God already. The mistake that virtually all religions make, including Christianity, is to confuse beliefs for faith and, as a consequence, condition people to think that there are things that they must do, duties that they must perform, etc., for God to be pleased and her presence to be known.

Finding God after religion? Remember the following: In Eastern thought, there's something called "the law of least effort," or "do less and accomplish more." If you will give up the "doing" and, instead, just enjoy "being," I think you'll make a great discovery. The psalmist said, "Be still and know ... " In my own experience, I have found that when I'm present (and that's my spiritual practice), I'm immediately in Presence, the real and sacred sanctuary of God.

What more would you want? What more would religion ever give you?

(from, Finding God After Leaving Religion, by Steve McSwain, author of, 'The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God', Posted: July 24, 2010 11:23 AM,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-mcswain/finding-god-after-leaving_b_651148.html)

Saskia and I chant Lauds in chapel/zendo. Dog stays on porch. Cat surveys any movement from loft.

We like the words from Ephesians:

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
(Ephesians 2:19-22, New International Version)

"Being built together to become."

To be, come to be with.

Be-come.

This is my church, my religion, and my spirituality.

Chipmunk scampers over lichened rocks. Phoebe alight then depart felled tree limb. Dean brings David Bodanis book on E=MC2 and Roger Collins' Keepers of the Keys of Heaven, A History of the Papacy to where I sit on this porch.

Cheryl also visits with Cynthea Bourgeault's The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind--A New Perspective on Christ and His Message -- which we will read from and converse about the next several Tuesdays at Pilot to Practice.

We are here to converse with Being Itself Becoming Itself.

There are no priests or preachers, no imams or rabbis, zen masters or chief executive officers, no tenured chairs or gurus of any stripe.

Only each of us.

Come round. Look around. Circle yourself. Encircle everything.

With loving attention

Go on.

To be with.

Mitzein.

Philosophy conference in Camden today. Sat in left rear near kitchen door behind by one row the standing Dutch man up from Friendship Road.

The second presenter was a philosopher named Michael Anker from the College of New Rochelle in NY. He said, "As something is coming to be it is already becoming something other."

From his website:

FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2009
opening of world as world - thinking difference
Within Any Possible Universe, No Intellect Can Ever Know It All: Scientific American

Part 1: first thoughts/questions in relation to article above.

As Jean-Luc Nancy continuously emphasizes throughout his philosophy: "there is no outside the world". The world or universe as such has only itself, in the sense that it always already exceeds totalizations by being totalization par excellence. Herein lies an interesting dilemma or problem. How can the world/universe always exceed totalization by never being understood or totally grasped from the outside (always understood from within and thus uncertain as the article above notes), and at the same time be a type of totalization in and of itself by being an all encompassing one-all? It's interesting to see how quickly these thoughts lead us to the age old philosophical question discussed from Parmenides to Heraclitus, and onward to such thinkers as Leibniz and Spinoza. This question of course is the relation of the One to the Many. How can the universe or world be "One" by having no outside, and yet contain within it a multiplicity of difference recognized as "Many"? In other words, if the universe is all encompassing, how can difference as such within the world truly exist? Or, if difference as such does exist within the world, how can it be circumscribed by the notion of One-All? Again, if each and every singularity as difference in the world exists with each and every other singularity in the world, does this inter-connectivity of "being-with" in the world (with no outside of world) not lead us toward a rethinking of difference itself? In short, what is difference in relation to a universe or world which is an all encompassing entity?

Note: These preliminary thoughts have led me toward a thinking on Alain Badiou's philosophy in relation to set-theory, multiplicity, the "count-as-one", and the matheme as ontology. It seems Badiou also tries to navigate through the terrain of the "one and the many".

POSTED BY MICHAELANKER AT 2:06 PM http://michaelanker.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-11-15T18%3A21%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=7

From the Snow bowl you can hear sounds of Hope Jazz Festival drift through drizzle to hermitage.

I'm glad there are men and women thinking -- we are called toward thinking. I'm equally glad there is a love of jazz, an acceptance of rain, and the never-ending insistence by white Border Collie to pick up and toss tennis ball across kitchen where the Coon Cat steps up to his feeding platform under the kitchen table

Perhaps the World Ends Here
by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what,
we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the
table so it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe
at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what
it means to be human. We make men at it,
we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts
of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms
around our children. They laugh with us at our poor
falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back
together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella
in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place
to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate
the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared
our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow.
We pray of suffering and remorse.
We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table,
while we are laughing and crying,
eating of the last sweet bite.
(Poem, "Perhaps the World Ends Here" by Joy Harjo, from Reinventing the Enemy's Language. © W.W. Norton and Co., 1998)

I'd rather be in my kitchen than at a philosophy conference or jazz festival.

It's a hermit's preference.

Happy to know.

Others are there.

En route elsewhere.

Somethings should remain hidden.


The way Christ is hidden.

Everywhere we look.

Perhaps "Here."

Or,"Now."

"No w here."

"With-us."

If you chose a name, any name, for God -- which would you choose to use in constant prayer speaking the name until there was no other name and every other word along with the one you chose had no meaning whatsoever but the permeating sense that it is of God that every word resonates intention, feeling and resolve; therein, the emergence and emanation of your word, your God, your self?
Tonight mine was: Here, we are.

Or: Here, I am.

About which and wherein which all proceed in the name of the Lord.

Is that how you felt, Mary of Magdala?

Is this how we pray?

Everything within the name?

Which, of course, becomes unpronounceable.

Becoming no-name.

Would you choose again?

Non ubi, nunc heri, cum nobis.

There is no choice for me...

Let it be:

No-where now-here with-us!

"Selah" in the Hebrew Psalms shows up and probably indicates a musical interlude.

Selah (Hebrew: סֶלָה‎, also transliterated as selāh) is a word used frequently in the Hebrew Bible, often in the Psalms, and is a difficult concept to translate. (It should not be confused with the Hebrew word sela‘ (Hebrew: סֶלַע‎) which means "rock.") It is probably either a liturgico-musical mark or an instruction on the reading of the text, something like "stop and listen". "Let those with eyes see and with ears hear" is most concise.[citation needed] "Selah" can also be used to indicate that there is to be a musical interlude at that point in the Psalm. [1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selah#cite_note-0

Interlude. To play between.

Perhaps we are that interlude, here to play between the cycles of nature that introduce, eradicate, and reconvene.

Psalm 24 (New International Version)

Psalm 24

[Of David. A psalm.]

1 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
2 for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.

3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ?
Who may stand in his holy place?

4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false. [a]

5 He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from God his Savior.

6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, O God of Jacob. [b]
Selah

7 Lift up your heads, O you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.

8 Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty,
the LORD mighty in battle.

9 Lift up your heads, O you gates;
lift them up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.

10 Who is he, this King of glory?
The LORD Almighty—
he is the King of glory.
Selah

Play, play, wherever you may be; dance, dance, whatever you may see.

Waterworld
A review of The Flooded Earth:
Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps

review by James N. Gardner

IS ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING the cataclysmic threat that Al Gore and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proclaim it to be? Or do powerful natural forces like variable solar output, plate tectonics, and volcanic activity dwarf the climate impact of human-generated greenhouse gases?

That is the deep question that lurks beneath the surface of a fascinating new book — The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps — by University of Washington scientist Peter D. Ward. Ward, co-author of the highly acclaimed Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, is at his best when he provides snapshots of the climate extremes our planet has experienced over the billions of years of its existence. Here is his description of ancient episodes of global warming that make the dire warnings of current climate prognosticators seem almost benign:

Long before humans were even a gleam in nature’s eye, the convergence of geological forces repeatedly caused the planet to heat up. Such events, however rare, hugely altered life and its evolution. The warming had resulted from enormous volumes of carbon dioxide that emanated from the flood basalts, creating atmospheric greenhouse conditions that quickly heated the planet to a point that the poles were nearly as warm as the equator, leading the normal winds and ocean currents to diminish and in some cases totally stop. A stilled ocean, eventually even on its surface regions, loses oxygen. The apparent result was a series of nasty events, such as oceanwide “dead zones” … where conditions of eutrophication — where a body of water first warms and then loses its oxygen as its enclosed life dies and then rots — have eliminated all the life-giving oxygen in the water.

If nature is capable of this level of environmental catastrophe on its own, just how much can we feeble humans really influence the future evolution of the vast, complex global climate system? The optimistic answer, favored by Ward, is that humankind is now firmly in the driver’s seat of climate change:

As I give talks around the country about a newly discovered phenomenon of the deep past greenhouse extinctions, people always ask about the relevance of these studies to the present and near future. That question is simple to answer, at least for me: what happened in the past can and will happen again if we continue to heat the planet at present rates.

Ward’s implication is that if we humans will only cease our global warming malefactions, the violent climatic oscillations he so colorfully documents — oscillations that predate by millions of years humanity’s evolutionary emergence on the savannahs of Africa — will be brought under tolerable control.

The pessimist would argue that the mountain of geological evidence assembled and expertly presented by Ward points to precisely the opposite conclusion — that what happened in the past can and will happen again regardless of what human beings do.

What seems incontrovertible from Ward’s compelling narrative is that, irrespective of the precise causal interplay of human-induced and natural factors, the Earth’s deep history offers ample evidence that the atmospheric conditions on this planet are likely to continue to fluctuate dramatically, with potentially dire consequences for the biosphere. From the mysterious Permian extinction 250 million years ago, in which 96% of all marine species went extinct, to the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event 65 million years which killed off the dinosaurs, the story of our planet’s long environmental history is a tale of repeated episodes of dramatic change that have threatened the very survival of complex life.

In the face of this overwhelming evidentiary record, only a cock-eyed optimist would contend that what is past is not prologue.

(--from Skeptic, Promoting Science and Critical Thinking, http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/10-07-21/#feature)

If we are 'of the earth' which is 'of the Lord' we are as we are of a piece. Nothing happens to us, rather, everything happens as us.

Q: By what expedient means can we turn our minds around instantly to realize our inherent essence?

A: It is just your own mind; what further expedient means would you apply? If you apply expedient means to go on to seek intellectual understanding, this is like wanting to see your own eyes because you think you have no eyes if you cannot see them.

Since they are your own eyes, how can you see them? As long as you have not lost them, that is called seeing eyes. If you have no more desire to see, does that mean you imagine you are not seeing?

So it is also with one's own open awareness. Since it is one's own mind, how can one yet seek to see it? If you just seek understanding, then you do not understand it. Just know that which does not understand; this is seeing essence.

- Master Chinul (1158-1210) DailyZen

Our inherent essence.

Our own eyes.

One's own open awareness.

Whatever is taking place is just this: this is seeing essence.

Play well.

Selah

In July thoughts turn to ice cream and racism. I prefer ice cream. I leave racism where it belongs, namely, in the gutter where only men and women with heavy-shod politics stomp noisily for contributions from gutter funds spent effusively on things like race-divide and elite-unite themes. This would be better understood with an acronym: G.O.uP. or, Gratuitous Only-us Perseverating. The theme, stripped of the G.O.uP.'s finery called "Our New Clothes" really is: People of differing color or clan go away; People who fear people of differing color or clan gather around.

I've got to get back to the cushion.

"Meditation is sometimes described as an open presence that is highly aware of all inner and outer experiences without further evaluation or conceptualisation."
(--from a survey question by Liverpool John Moores University; "we are currently running an online survey investigating the relationship between meditation/mindfulness, eating attitudes, emotions and how we think." http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/mindfulness)

The President of the United States is a person of color. Some people are nervous about that fact. I'm not. I think integrity and fairness know every color, race, creed, ethnic origin, and chosen philosophy. It is up to each of us to act on what we know, not limit our actions and reactions to only what we fear.

Some of my best friends are people who fear and people who hope. For some there is no fact, only conspiracy. Nothing is ever what it is; it is always a plot by the upper or uppity class to take advantage of them. For others there is no hope, only doom. Their doom is mitigated by a shining light someone told them awaits on the other side of this valley of tears. They condemn anything that doesn't kiss-off this current existence for one written about, chapter and verse, in a book they like a great deal.

And then there are still others who prey upon the fears and hopes of all of the above. They are cynical and resourceful. They speak into radio microphones and look into TV cameras, and pen juicy columns all of which involves focusing on themselves (these cultural warriors) as the purveyors of fear and sole source of hope for the gnashing people so in dread or dream.

Let them eat non-fat seaweed chocolate and drink jewel-weed sweetened tea and crouch in hiding as time marches on and passes them by! My dear July-watching dog and cat will watch them parade away into their nether world.

Elsewhere, on a different topic, a Romanian singer dies and 40,000 attend her service.

"Church: No full burial service for Romanian singer"
(AP) – 4 days ago
BUCHAREST, Romania — The Romanian Orthodox Church said Friday as thousands mourned the death of a popular singer that it would not give her a full burial service because she committed suicide.
A single priest will perform a simple service for Madalina Manole in a church courtyard, the church said, because it considers suicide "a grave sin."
Some Romanians, including singer Tavi Colen, publicly urged the church to reconsider, saying Manole was a believer who suffered from depression, which should be treated as an illness.
It would break church law to give the singer a full service without written medical evidence that she was clinically depressed, church spokesman Constantin Stoica said.
Thousands paid their respects at a church before her burial later Friday in her hometown of Ploiesti, north of Bucharest.
Manole died Wednesday on her 43rd birthday after drinking a powerful insecticide. Her husband found her body.
Manole was of the country's best-loved artists, specializing in folk and popular music, often with romantic themes, and her death shocked Romanians.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press.

In her honor I listen to her songs. I give her full honors and blessings for her journey. And for her family and followers a wish ... of Peace.

The causes of any conflict lie in strong attachment to certain views, and the core of Buddha’s teaching is of great help here. All phenomena, in addition to being transient, arise and disappear according to a complex set of conditions. When we apply this truth to conflict, we give up the simplistic, black-and-white picture through which conflict is usually described and perpetuated. Views about the “good guys” and the “bad guys” simply do not correspond to the reality.
(--Zarko Andricevic, "Peace: How Realistic Is It?" in Tricycle)

Racism and non-inclusion do not conform to or confirm reality.

I prefer reality, not the factitious construct of minds enamored by illusory and fictitious exclusion.

Reality, I suspect, is not what we think it is. We've got to look closer.

We don't have to believe in reality. It is not a belief. It is the deepest, most grounded, and liberating nature of existence itself.

It is, let's say, that which remains when everything else falls away.

Just engage it.

As it is.

As we are.

We've a choice.

It seems facile to suggest we are forgetting truth. But it seems so much time and expense is spent fabricating expedient lies, distortions, and semblance of accuracy. From political parties to corporations, from pushers to pedophiles, from merchants to unfaithful spouses -- more and more energy is expended justifying and excusing what passes for truth, but is not even close to it.

Lies take us away from a genuine, authentic, and original relationship with life.

I know lies. I've lived some.

I know semblance and inauthenticity.

It is a coat too ratty and shoes too torn for civilized company.

The choice is to go unclothed and unshod for a while -- until the realization good clothes and sturdy shoes serve better.

What is good has been explained to you, man;
this is what the Lord asks of you:
only this, to act justly,
to love tenderly
and to walk humbly with your God.
(--from Micah 6:1-4,6-8, from the Jerusalem Bible)

Another translation has it:

You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God. (New American Bible)

Reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali is engaging for July afternoons. The day clouds over. Freedom and allowing freedom feels the right idea.

Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream, have faith in its course. It will go its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it. Never let it out of your sight. It will take you.
- Sheng-yen

Truth has no purpose but to be itself.

Like our lives, just to be itself is sufficient.

Let each be completely themselves. Without dictating to another. But living wholly in good and true relationship. Not false rules and traditions. But reverential service and assistance.

When the Horses Gallop Away from Us, It's a Good Thing

I always find it strange—though I shouldn't—how creatures don't
care for us the way we care for them.
Horses, for instance, and chipmunks, and any bird you'd name.
Empathy's only a one-way street.

And that's all right, I've come to believe.
It sets us up for ultimate things,
and penultimate ones as well.
It's a good lesson to have in your pocket when the Call comes to
call.
(--Poem "When the Horses Gallop Away from Us, It's a Good Thing" by Charles Wright, from Sestets)

Hello?

Yes?

How can I help?

You.

Be.

You.

Rokpa scrapes gravel stones from alongside east/northeast side of barn where it meets glass doors of wohnkuche for cool terrain this hot July day.

Everything moves more slowly.

At 5:40AM he and I climbed into JOOTJE for a nearly 3 hour row in the Matinicus Peapod around bell buoys surrounding Camden Harbor. The swells mixed with outgoing tide and gathering breeze to keep us assuaged and undulant.

Saskia phones from the Mass-Turnpike en route home from Mom's after yesterday's wedding in New York State.

Conversations continue in wohnkuche as does silent sitting in meditation cabin so too guests staying in the Merton bookshed/retreat. The construction rests. Only one bare-of-cedar-shingles spot reminds there was something going on for most of a year. This is the first July in many dozens of years that no teaching, shopkeeping, child welfaring or studenting is taking place. There is only morning and evening holding between them the quiet revelation of ordinary tasks -- some volunteering at prison and nursing home, chauffeuring to worker's comp audits. The rest becomes non-obligatory time to read and ruminate, row and walk, converse and be silent.

It occurs from recent conversations that what we call "love" is welcoming and unconditional hospitality. This applies to ourselves and whatever arises in our psyches, body, and appears at our doorstep. In addition it applies to the presence, ideas, opinions, beliefs, and conditioning this world tosses our way. The fact that we have a choice to ignore what arrives only deepens the freedom that love suggests. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said it this way: “To say ‘love’ is to say ‘liberty.’”

John O'Donohue in Anam Cara writes:

Nietzsche said that one of the best days in his life was the day he rebaptized all his negative qualities as his best qualities. In this kind of baptism, rather than banishing what is at first glance unwelcome, you bring it home to unity in your life. This is the slow and difficult work of self-retrieval. Every person has certain qualities or presences in their heart that are awkward, disturbing and negative. One of your sacred duties is to exercise kindness toward them. In a sense, you are called to be a loving parent to your delinquent qualities.

(--p.117, Anam Cara, by John O'Donohue)

These are the guests long waiting at our threshold for sanctuary.

It's a good time to receive them.

As it is for you.

And you.

And me.

Peace and...all is good!

Any identification is troublesome.

Rather say: "I am not this; I am not that."

Just do what you are doing, without commentary or classifying.

Zen mind is not Zen mind. That is, if you are attached to Zen mind, then you have a problem, and your way is very narrow. Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind. Only keep the question, "What is the best way of helping other people?"
- Seung Sahn

By unconditionally welcoming.

Be radically hospitable.

Even if it kills you.

Let it.

Be.

Maggie said someone suggested she was in grief because she is losing her sight.

Walt, her husband, read a Carl Dennis poem:

A MAXIM

To live each day as if it might be the last
Is an injunction that Marcus Aurelius
Inscribes in his journal to remind himself
That he, too, however privileged, is mortal,
That whatever bounty is destined to reach him
Has reached him already, many times.
But if you take his maxim too literally
And devote your mornings to tinkering with your will,
Your afternoons and evenings to saying farewell
To friends and family, you’ll come to regret it.
Soon your lawyer won’t fit you into his schedule.
Soon your dear ones will hide in a closet
When they hear your heavy step on the porch.
And then your house will slide into disrepair.
If this is my last day, you’ll say to yourself,
Why waste time sealing drafts in the window frames
Or cleaning gutters or patching the driveway?
If you don’t want your heirs to curse the day
You first opened Marcus’s journals,
Take him simply to mean you should find an hour
Each day to pay a debt or forgive one,
Or write a letter of thanks or apology.
No shame in leaving behind some evidence
You were hoping to live beyond the moment.
No shame in a ticket to a concert seven months off,
Or, better yet, two tickets, as if you were hoping
To meet by then someone who’d love to join you,
Two seats near the front so you catch each note.

(Poem by Carl Dennis, in The New Yorker, June 7, 2010)

They have grown old together.

My travels from prison conversation to nursing home conversation is from eternity to infinity.

A thousand clouds and ten thousand streams,
In their midst lives an idle man,
In the daytime wandering over green mountains,
At night returning to sleep by the cliff.
Swiftly springs and autumns pass,
At peace and free from ties to the dusty world.
How pleasant with nothing to rely on,
Still as the waters of autumn rivers.
- Han-shan

Not only am I nowhere near home, I've never left it.

And old is not a word that has anything to do with time.

Come. Sit here in the front. Can you hear well?

You are evidence of something loving.

In the early hours of the morning I call your name.

92 Bonum est confiteri

1 It is a good thing to give thanks to the LORD, *
and to sing praises to your Name, O Most High;

2 To tell of your loving-kindness early in the morning *
and of your faithfulness in the night season;

3 On the psaltery, and on the lyre, *
and to the melody of the harp.

4 For you have made me glad by your acts, O LORD; *
and I shout for joy because of the works of your hands.

5 LORD, how great are your works! *
your thoughts are very deep.

6 The dullard does not know,
nor does the fool understand, *
that though the wicked grow like weeds,
and all the workers of iniquity flourish,

7 They flourish only to be destroyed for ever; *
but you, O LORD, are exalted for evermore.

8 For lo, your enemies, O LORD,
lo, your enemies shall perish, *
and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.

9 But my horn you have exalted like the horns of wild bulls; *
I am anointed with fresh oil.

10 My eyes also gloat over my enemies, *
and my ears rejoice to hear the doom of the wicked who
rise up against me.

11 The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, *
and shall spread abroad like a cedar of Lebanon.

12 Those who are planted in the house of the LORD *
shall flourish in the courts of our God;

13 They shall still bear fruit in old age; *
they shall be green and succulent;

14 That they may show how upright the LORD is, *
my Rock, in whom there is no fault .
(--Psalm 92, from The Psalter or Psalms of David According to the use of The Episcopal Church, http://www.bcponline.org/

And you answer me.

In the stillness, light, and silence of your dwelling place.

Saskia brings me Cheryl's raspberries in honey-Greek yogurt where I sit on meditation cabin porch.

In the New York Times Opinion section Robert Wright, quoting Teilhard de Chardin, writes: “There need be no fear of enslavement or atrophy in a world so richly charged with charity.” Or, as he more aphoristically put it: “To say ‘love’ is to say ‘liberty.’”
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/with-liberty-and-connectivity-for-all/#more-56113

I find talk of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's "Noosphere" as interesting today as I did in the 1960's reading his book The Phenomenon of Man (Le Phénomène Humain, 1955).

Wikipedia:

Noosphere (pronounced /ˈnoʊ.ɵsfɪər/; sometimes noösphere), according to the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, denotes the "sphere of human thought". The word is derived from the Greek νοῦς (nous "mind") + σφαῖρα (sphaira "sphere"), in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere".

In the original theory of Vernadsky, the noosphere is the third in a succession of phases of development of the Earth, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere. In contrast to the conceptions of the Gaia theorists, or the promoters of cyberspace, Vernadsky's noosphere emerges at the point where humankind, through the mastery of nuclear processes, begins to create resources through the transmutation of elements. It is also currently being researched as part of the Princeton Global Consciousness Project.^[1]

History of concept

For Teilhard, the noosphere emerges through and is constituted by the interaction of human minds. The noosphere has grown in step with the organization of the human mass in relation to itself as it populates the earth. As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness. This is an extension of Teilhard's Law of Complexity/Consciousness, the law describing the nature of evolution in the universe. Teilhard argued that the noosphere is growing towards an even greater integration and unification, culminating in the Omega point, which he saw as the goal of history. The goal of history, then, is an apex of thought/consciousness.

One of the original aspects of the noosphere concept deals with evolution. Henri Bergson (1907) was one of the first to propose that evolution is 'creative' and cannot necessarily be explained solely by Darwinian natural selection. L'évolution créatrice is upheld, according to Bergson, by a constant vital force that animates life and fundamentally connects mind and body, an idea opposing the dualism of René Descartes. In 1923, C. Lloyd Morgan took this work further, elaborating on an 'emergent evolution' that could explain increasing complexity (including the evolution of mind). Morgan found that many of the most interesting changes in living things have been largely discontinuous with past evolution, and therefore did not necessarily take place through a gradual process of natural selection. Rather, evolution experiences jumps in complexity (such as the emergence of a self-reflective universe, or noosphere). Finally, the complexification of human cultures, particularly language, facilitated a quickening of evolution in which cultural evolution occurs more rapidly than biological evolution. Recent understanding of human ecosystems and of human impact on the biosphere have led to a link between the notion of sustainability with the "co-evolution" [Norgaard, 1994] and harmonization of cultural and biological evolution.

The resulting political system has been referred to as a noocracy.

American integral theorist Ken Wilber deals with this third evolution of the noosphere. In his work, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995), he builds many of his arguments on the emergence of the noosphere and the continued emergence of further evolutionary structures.

The term Noöcene epoch refers to "how we manage and adapt to the immense amount of knowledge we’ve created." [1]

The noosphere concept of 'unification' was elaborated in popular science fiction by Julian May in the Galactic Milieu Series. It is also the reason Teilhard is often called the patron saint of the Internet.^[2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere

Robert Wright in his "Opinionator" piece adds:

Many others, far from thinking I’d gone off the deep end, encouraged me to venture beyond the shallows. Several recommended that I read the mystical Catholic theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who in the mid-20th century built a theology around the superorganism idea. He saw the emergence of a global brain (the “noosphere”) as part of God’s plan to lead humanity toward “Point Omega” — which, as best as I can make out from Teilhard’s dense, poetic writing, will be a kind of worldwide organic love blob. (Count me in!)

One commenter — the theologian Philip Hefner, who once wrote a pithy little book on Teilhard — suggested that a Teilhardian view could allay the fears of the DA06488s [Note: a responder to Wright's earlier piece] of the world, showing that we cells needn’t be enslaved or diminished by the superorganism. Teilhard, wrote Hefner, “saw that the evolution toward the interconnected brain is one pole of the dialectic, while the enhancement of the ‘cell’ is a co-equal pole… . One needs to have a metaphysic (or theology) that recognizes both elements of this dialectic. Perhaps you can write your next piece on this balancing of the two poles.”
(--from The New York Times, Opinionator Blog, A Gathering of Opinion From Around the Web, July 13, 2010, 9:00 PM, "With Liberty and Connectivity for All" By ROBERT WRIGHT)

Another responder to Wright adds an interesting point of view:

One of my favorite television series, dating back to the 90s, was a show called "Northern Exposure". And one of my favorite scenes from that series was one in which a character named Chris, a radio announcer, read the following Einstein quote over the airwaves, just before packing up one evening to head home, ending the show for that week:

"Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men -- above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends."

And just as he closes up shop, the scene switches to a snapshot of all the characters in the series, taken at "The Brick", a favorite place to get together in the fictional town of Little Cicely Alaska. The camera pans over the snapshot, showing smiles, banter, friendships built up over years of meaningful personal exchanges, exchanges that the show used to highlight on a weekly basis.

The characters didn't spend hours "friending" each other over the internet, dropping little tidbits about daily activities. Instead they spent hours together face to face, having meaningful conversational exchanges. They didn't have dozens of what for all intents and purposes might be considered acquaintances, instead they had a handful of highly communicative relationships.

Whenever I see that scene now, I smile and find tears welling up in my eyes. Why? Because the art of meaningful face to face exchange seems to me something we're trading in more and more for alternate modes of new but shallow communication.

There was a study a few years back now about growing isolation in America, and the significant drop in true confidants had by people in general, with a sizable portion of the population now having few or none at all. It's natural to wonder if there's a correlation with the increase in these other more shallow modes of communication. I also read another study recently in "Scientific American" magazine about how a small number of meaningful conversations had throughout a day results in an increased sense of personal well being, while days spent in dropping tidbits do not.

And so I wonder as I did in my previous comments if instead of building a global brain, we aren't building a kind of global labyrinth instead, increasing social isolation in a significant sense. Daedalus was one smart cookie, but he constructed the labyrinth in such a way that even he himself found it barely possible to escape the thing once dropped inside. What would an episode of "Northern Exposure 2010" feel like I wonder? I bet each week the townsfolk of Little Cicely would be glued to their cell phones and social networks, and I'd be watching some other show instead.
Scott Inglett
Rochester, MN
July 14th, 2010, 10:00 am, NYT

I marvel how all these thoughts come to the porch of meetingbrook's hermitage in Maine. Inside, a candle burns before the icon depicting Jesus' liberating visit to our first parents (however you understand them) after his crucifixion but before his resurrection. The icon sits in this non-winter season on the black wood stove in the corner. Scent of incense left here by a visitor many years ago and lighted an hour ago permeates the chapel/zendo.

We are invited by Paul to have that mind in us that was in Christ Jesus. Buddhist thinkers suggest there is only mind, Big Mind, for us to consider. Others say that Consciousness is all there is. If so, those of us denying anyone freedom or acting unlovingly to self or others are, literally, out of our mind.

Some make the supposition that being of one mind means the absence of freedom or the end of individuality. I prefer not to think that way.

I think we will become like the individual in Hsueh-feng Hui-k'ung's verse -- sketchers of dream -- artists of sight willing to give each its particular appearance, call each its particular name, allow each its particular reverence.

All alone, in any place,
One can achieve simplicity:
An old man on verdant cliffs
Among layered peaks.
Truly the view of these
Streams and mountains
Resembles a dream,
So on the contrary you should
Take ink and water
And sketch the streams and mountains.
- Hsueh-feng Hui-k'ung (1153)

It's a curious world we live in.

We need to dwell in our right mind.

A fresh simplicity: mind me; mind yourself.