menu

 Let there be three meat-

balls shared by two, eleventh

June a saturday

sequence

 Dribbling to the left

Stops, steps back, shoots, arcing ball

Falls easily, through

if true, then conscious awareness, contemplating unconditioned (free) will

 In prison today, the joy of conversation! 

Nine men, the greetings, laughter, deep inquiry, listening and asking into the edge of fluid unknowing.

Our second meetingbrook conversation after two year COVID hiatus.

Ends with Berdyaev, 

“Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.” —Nikolai Berdyaev

A good place to begin again. 

the distaste of it

 It’s hard not to see facts and evidence suggesting the former president was involved in and advocated for something very, very, wrong.

Yes, soon enough, he will be gone. But the dishonor worn by republican sycophants and enablers will stick to them for long, long, time.

Their crass cynical defiant denials are sheer embarrassment.

un sacco di niente*

                         (a lot of nothing*)

votes against gun bill

say nothing about the right

to protect what's left

widerwilliger zuhörer*

As a reluctant listener* -- I practice listening.

He said this in the interview, that being spiritually unconscious means one is "at the mercy of the conditioning of your mind and emotions" (E. Tolle, 42:00 ff)

Awareness attempts to suspend conditioning for an instant so as to allow a wisely attending presence to arrive in the moment and rest caringly in the surround wherein one is dwelling.

nescient and obsolescent

 If you want to be

a hermit, go ahead be

one — no one will know

fino a quando ci incontriamo nuovamente*

                            (until we meet again*)

Words are what we use

When feeling and thought want out

Into great silence

Where god dwells so emptily

Nothing can grasp what is said

certo che capisco

 I want god

to be god

I do not

want god 

to be

human

I want

humans to be

human. I do

not want humans

to be god.

one is not

the other

there is no

other, only

itself being

itself…

capisce?

my brothers, I salute you

 How frightened they must

have been stepping off landing

boat to wave and sand

bullets explosions cries of 

pain and silence muting lives

half-mast

 On D-Day in Normandy the beaches filled with dead men in combat gear.

The horror!

On every day in America the ground and floors are filled with dead children, teens, and adults -- in school clothes, casual wear, and Sunday best.

The horror!

No, the war is far from over.

The enemy refuses to allow us to keep our citizens safe.

In their suits and office dress they will not look out their political windows to see the bloodshed or hear the screams of anguish.

Keep the flags at half mast.

out of darkness

 Imagine there is a Spirit of oneness and wholeness that hovers throughout the world. 

All we’d have to do is not hold ourselves apart. To allow what is actually and only there to be what it is — actually and only there. 

That might be called a sane response to reality.

This is the meditation we are invited into at Pentecost.

Not to be insane.

Do we dare?

Or shall we remain the devastated and incoherent society and culture we’ve become in our distracting  and divisive disorientation?

No, let’s try sanity!

Maybe kindness.

Even holiness.

Show up, Holy Spirit, take us over, disarm us, let us see, your, clear, silence.

I recall the refrain of a mantra taught by a Carthusian:

Still our stormy minds.

Calm all our strivings.

Present

To us

With life

Make us one.

ipso facto

Words, fixed on paper, 

Detatch from writer, stand there

On their own, eman-

cipated, no imperfect

source nullifies their true fact

g t g

 Sitting zazen Saturday morning bookshed/retreat, these letters come to encapsulate prayer:

go to god

going to god

gone to god

A prayer for others

A prayer for oneself

A prayer for those gone beyond 

this place

It's not an easy world. Nor is it anything other than a high-wire walk on a cable stretched between Twin Towers twenty years fallen and fretfully remembered in a contemporary time of automatic gunfire mowing down school children, elderly Black shoppers in a supermarket, and medical personnel at a hospital.

It's hard to hear the bromides: not to focus on the news, much less the bad news, and all will be well; or, it has nothing to do with guns. Rather it is marijuana, gays and lesbians, trans-people, democrats, fire-exit doors, pedaphiles, groomers of children, anyone critical of the former guy who was president, and anyone quoting statistics that do not support lies told by true believers.

I often wonder whether we are losing the ability to discern what is true from what is not likely, not verifiable, not possible, or not factual. I'm not willing, yet, to give up the struggle.

I am, you are, we continue to be, the struggle.

Good Bones

       by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.                                                                                       

(--Maggie Smith, "Good Bones" from Waxwing.  Copyright © 2016 by Maggie Smith)

This morning was our first Friday return to meetingbrook conversations at Maine State Prison since the Covid hiatus. Seventy five percent of those attending were new to us. Immediate thoughtful, deep, and personal conversations right out of the chute. 

Gift.

Right?

παιδᾰγωγῐ́ᾱ

 Some quotes from Heidegger that catch my attention:

“Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being. This question has today been forgotten.” (—first words in Introduction to Being and Time)

“Thus ‘phenomenology' means αποφαινεσθαι τα φαινομενα -- to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself.” 

“Language is the house of Being.” 

“The poets are in the vanguard of a changed conception of Being.”

“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.

Attention, like breath, is the heart and soul of learning.

The presence of pedagogy.

Greek: παιδᾰγωγῐ́ᾱ • (paidagōgíā) f (genitive παιδᾰγωγῐ́ᾱς); first declension

1. the act of guiding, attending
2. teaching
3. attendance

to keep calling it ours

It's not only a gang member's observation, the effort to own streets.

If you take a life, do you own it?

It's what every killer or someone abetting murder and self-interest over public good could say.

 "We never owned shit. But we killed each other to keep calling it ours anyway." (-p.82, in novel Haiku, by Andrew Vachss)

Our primal ignorance concerns the belief we own anything. Signed legal papers and 'no trespassing' signs are held as some kind of proof we are the owners of this or that, car or house, stocks or weapons.

In fact, there's only one place to look to ascertain what we own. That place is the casket carrying our body or the urn with our ashes. Everything we actually own is contained in those places.

So, why do we pretend? Why do we take someone's life as though we owned it? Why do we strain to acquire objects and possessions to store near us or in our name?

Everything, some say, is here for our use, not ownership.

Takers refute this. They take for their own whatever they can.

Can we see another way?

Can we see at all?

dreams the doors of perception

 Doors stay where they are

Faithful to passing bodies

Knobs eager for hands

If you open one you see

What once was hidden no more

reminding ourselves

Dear Board Members,

Here are the names, physical and email addresses, of your fellow board members.

We are delighted that each of you have agreed to so serve.

Our goal is to have times to connect, via electronic means or in person, with one another to reflect on things that pertain to meetingbrook. When I review the email sent to you asking your interest in joining the board, I realize that I like the words used: 

"In true meetingbrook style, involvement in meetingbrook, its programs and philosophy, if only in thought, meditation, and prayer is the sole/soul service of a board member."

We came to this realization over 25 years ago when we wrote about meetingbrook:

Meetingbrook Dogen & Francis Hermitage intends to serve a loosely knit association of individuals who travel the meditative & contemplative road from dependence to independence to interdependence in their spiritual lives. Providing a forum and place for solitaries, hermits, seekers & contemplatives, the hermitage invites anyone interested in silence, simplicity, stillness, or times of solitude to deepen their spiritual life in their own locations, and, by day visits, writing, overnight stays, individual and group sitting, listening & learning -- to experience Meetingbrook. 

 

We ask your help in creating this forum and place. The Hermitage is to be a resource for practitioners who walk the pilgrimage between two worlds and are open to awakening spirit and truth in root tradition and new creation. 

 

We look toward to two expressions for the Hermitage, water based & land based, barn & boat. With the capacity for visiting at Camden Harbor, sailing Penobscot Bay and hiking the trails of Ragged and Bald mountains, the Hermitage will provide an opportunity to step apart and enter nature and one's soul. Silence, prayer, or reflective conversation would prevail in both places emphasizing eco-spirituality, personal meditation, retreat, or silent mindfulness. Both resources are for solitude, silence, & sanctuary. 

 

Meetingbrook Hermitage, barn and boat, serves as a community resource for individuals to deepen their current spiritual life & explore anew the direction of their spiritual journey. We will depend on free-will donations by those participating, and the generosity of other benefactors. Our interest is to assist and encourage the availability of meditative and contemplative opportunities.

As lay contemplatives interested in monastic spirituality East/West, we are rooted in catholic contemplative tradition & conjoin Judeo-Christian prayer and Buddhist Zen meditation. We continue the study, practice, and engaged service flowing from them. 

 

Think of us. Come visit. Let us hold each other in heart, thought, & prayer!  In Peace,     

  

The goal, then and now, is for each individual to engage in their own practice, to reflect on their heart’s longing, and to reside in their mind’s quiet silence for their own good and the good of all — sole and soul.

While we might use the metaphors of monastery, hermitage, zendo, or chapel — we actually see meetingbrook as anyone, in their own homes, being true to their own inner truth, and being mindful of the lives of others — with compassion, wisdom, and loving attention.

As of this writing, the 35’ Island Packet, Sandokai Edelweiss, will be launched 2June. Its primary focus, now in its second season, is to provide Healing Respite Sails for individuals involved: with cancer care, patients & caregivers, families, those involved with hospice, and other health related issues. (All others, as well, are invited to sail with Saskia.)

The yurt, chapel/zendo, and Thomas Merton bookshed/retreat are in good shape and always available. (The barn, on the other hand, keeps asking us to help it.)

Thank you for this participation!

Pax et Bonum

(Peace, and to all, good!)

Saskia and Bill

nowhere else

 This world

This very existence

Is what we are

Looking to see

All there is

Here