I used to work with someone I did not like. To be in a meeting with him drove me crazy. As soon as he spoke I began to squirm and eventually to seethe. No matter that a lot of people agreed with me that this guy was a "jerk", I knew that my reaction was out of proportion, and I had to work on it to see what it said about ME. I sat with it for several days, trying to narrow my distress down to a single characteristic that bothered me. I eventually realized that what really got my goat was that (I felt that) he was lazy. And even worse, he got away with it. No one challenged him or made him do his fair share.
Once I had gotten to the crux of what characteristic irritated me, I had to turn it back on myself. How was I in the laziness department? The opposite. Miss Compulsive Worker. Stay up all night to finish a project. Do it myself rather than delegate to someone else. Haven't allowed myself to take a non-working vacation in 15 years. Suddenly I realized that I was actually jealous of this man. He was "lazy" and I never let myself even relax. I'd stumbled onto an idea of who I was and how I had to be busy, productive, compulsive. As soon as I realized this, my excess emotion at him dissolved, and I was able to leave "him" and go back to work on me.
Anger is a very good koan, enabling us to step back a little from our self- notion and see where we are attached. Do we have to do anything about what we discover? I don't know. Depends. Often just stepping back to see something is enough. Often just becoming aware of something, like a little piece of our notion of self, means the beginning of the end of that something. Many koans show evidence that Zen teachers used anger skillfully to poke at their students' addictions, unbalance them and help them step "off the top of a hundred foot pole".
Another example. A student came to me in sesshin, unsure if she should work on Zen koans because she was a Catholic. I asked her if she had any questions within Catholicism which were bothering her. She said that she had been worried over the question "Is there anything outside the will of God?" Perfect koan! She 'worked intently on it all sesshin. In Zen terms we could re-phrase it, "Is there anything outside of Buddha nature?" Is jealousy outside the will of God? Is child abuse outside the will of God? Is a toilet brush outside of Buddha nature?

Jan Chozan Bays

“It’s fun to laugh at a hypocrite, and recent years have given Americans a great deal to laugh at…Scandal is great entertainment because it allows people to feel contempt, a moral emotion that gives feelings of moral superiority while asking nothing in return. With contempt you don’t need to right the wrong (as with anger) or flee the scene (as with fear or disgust). And best of all, contempt is made to share…Tell an acquaintance a cynical story that ends with both of your smirking and shaking your heads and voila, you’ve got a bond.”
“Well, stop smirking. One of the most universal pieces of advice from across cultures and eras is that we are all hypocrites, and in our condemnation of others’ hypocrisy we only compound our own. Social psychologists have recently isolated the mechanisms that make us blind to the logs in our own eyes. The moral implications of these findings are disturbing; indeed, they challenge our greatest moral certainties. But the implications can be liberating, too, freeing you from destructive moralism and divisive self-righteousness.”
Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, pp. 59-60.

bread & water

can so easily be

toast & tea

Nunc caepit, Domine, nunc caepit.

Now I begin, O Lord, now I begin.


Perservering in the practice of love.....and prayer requires us to repeat this over and over. Kevin Hunt, a Trappist from St. Joseph's Abbey, says this has been an invocation of monks for centuries. Today is a new day. Let us begin again.

I find myself easily caught by the enticements of secular consumer culture: new cars and tables and shampoo all do make me feel much better about myself, and even provide a more secure sense of my false self, but this self is fleeting. It needs to continue to be upheld by neverending amounts of stuff.

One of the other stay at home dads, Ted, was a lawyer. He worked at a firm downtown and had graduated from U of M law school. Ted keeps up with seven of his fellow classmates all of whom moved to Chicago and got jobs at big law firms. All seven of them either have a drug/drinking problem and/or are divorced. But they all drive nice cars and have plasma TVs.

How much of what I buy do I truly need? How much of our lives are spent working for empty stuff that doesn't satisfy on any level?

A poet, Andrei Codrescu, had a short piece on NPR's All Things Considered. While I am always pondering these ideas, this piece spured yet another reflection on them. You can read his commentary HERE.

be well,

Chris

Gratitude

If the only prayer you said

in your whole life

was, "thank you,"

that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart

I've been participating in a hundred day practice period via the internet with a teacher from Minnesota. His blog is interesting, wildfoxzen.blogspot.com, and I've found the study to be interesting. We are reflecting on a piece by Dogen, the Japanese father of Zen. Here is one of my comments on the 'training blog'.

"When all dharmas are the Buddha‑dharma, there is illusion and enlightenment, practice, birth and death, buddhas and sentient beings."I have a tough time with this one. Listening to Lenoard Cohen's 'Anthem' seems to express my feelings wonderfully: "Forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything...." I find that I attempt to chase the quiet mind (my mind is rather active) and the 'perfect' activity. This if only mind really leaks into everyting I do. My practice is alright how it is. How I do the dishes is alright. How I blow my nose, etc...is all ok. Being chained to the present moment or any idea of how it should be is filled with ego. If only I could drop it.....

The dead do not want us dead;

such petty errors are left for the living.

Nor do they want our mourning.

No gift to them --- not rage, not weeping.

Return one of them, any one of them, to the earth,

and look: such foolish skipping,

such telling of bad jokes, such feasting!

Even a cucumber, even a single anise seed: feasting.

--- Jane Hirschfield, "The Dead Do Not Want Us Dead"

I recently returned from a five day men's retreat. It was run by the center for action and contemplation and their founder, Fr. Richard Rohr. I will post some of my insights and reflections on the retreat after marinating in them from awhile. Part of the experience consisted of spending a lot of time alone in the woods with five envelopes, each containing a truth that men (and in my estimation, women) need to learn. Here they are:

1. Life is Hard

you must know this in your belly, mind, and heart, and not waste time trying to make life easy for yourself.

2. You are going to die

The mortality and impremanence of your own life must become very real to you. Life here is limited and everything happening to you is a school for death. Everything is passing away.

We are all baptized into the death of Christ.

3. You are not that important

Humility is of central importance for human truth and happiness. You are of the earth (humus), your only dignity is that you are a human being beloved of God. Nothing else matters.

You owe respect to life, to creation, to others, to yourself, to God. But don't expect or demand that respect from others. You do not have the 'right' to anything except the rights the Gospel gives you: to love and forgive.

4. You are not in control

You will live with the illusion that you are-until God is able to lead you to the limits of your own resources. Then you might learn something utterly new and good: "In His will is our Peace" (Dante). Reality is in control, and you must let 'the actual' teach you.

It is a limited world, you are limited, as is all else and everybody else. Poor people learn this naturally, but we from the overdeveloped and 'white' world learn it very slowly, if at all. You must experience your own powerlessness before a true spiritual journey can begin.

5. Your life is not about you

The summary experience. You are about Life. You are a momentary instance of the suffering and resurrection of God. You are a small part of a much bigger mystery that is everywhere and always happening. Your job is to listen, obey, and adore, not calculate and manage your small life. Take your old head off, and put this one back on. It will change everything.

I have found heaven on earth, since heaven is God, and God is in my soul.
— Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity

St. Bonaventure

Today is Bonaventure's feast day. He is an interesting fellow.


'God is within all things but not enclosed; outside all things, but not excluded; above all things, but not aloof; below all things, but not debased."

Bonaventure was the first to speak of God as one "whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."

check out this hilarious political ad

Describe Your Grief

Tom Hawkins

I am driving a back road

where there are still farms

fenced cattle, tobacco barns,

I can't describe my grief,

unless it's like marching

into a lost war, folding clothes by numbers,

waiting in rank for breakfast

beneath the steamy electric lights

before dawn, crawling in a cave

that hasn't been mapped.

I round a curve and see two birds

flapping in the road.

One has been hit

by a car, and its mate

flutterrs just above,

wild to inspire

its fallen partner's flight.

When Anna was ill,

I would have seen her as the fallen bird,

injured in the road, as I hovered,

watching her struggles,

urging her to fly on broken wings.

But now she is gone,

with our marathon conversations,

her startling questions.

And I don't know

which of those two birds

I am.

get rid of your junk mail

HERE

Mark Twain spins words like I churn my thoughts: eloquent and forceful. Unlike my thoughts his statements often ring true. If I'm in the right mood there is nothing finer than a witty twainism. I've stumbled upon several recently. Here are a few:

"There are two kinds of people: those that think there are two kinds and those that don't."

“All generalizations are false, including this one.”

Twenty-First Century Waterfall

No Country For Old Men

There are a bevy of movies I save to see when Sara is on call or otherwise occupied. Movies that would be of little or no interest to her or, more importantly, movies that are too violent. Sara has Friday and Sunday call so I got No Country For Old Men in anticipation of some time in solitude.

I've heard mixed reviews of the movie. Most people disliked at least the ending. Some people found the theme profound.

I'll watch it again and provide a full critique but, after a first watch, the movie struck me as a classic. Amazing one liners, deep abiding characterization, and themes that make me pleased to witness such great art.

One exchange that provided me with something to chew on occurred a ways into the movie. One character has another in a compromising position and inquires, "If this is where your rule has gotten you then what good is your rule?" While the question does have a specific context, this question one we all could ponder. Sort of like a Zen koan or a parable from scripture.

If how we live our lives ultimately leads to death (all of our lives lead to this), then what does that say about our lives and how we live them? What does this say about our code of conduct? If everything leads to the same end then how do we evaluate how we live?

I'll end with another sublime one liner:

"I'm just looking for what is coming"

"But no one ever sees that."

Everything Belongs

"We create artificial fullness and try to hang on to that. But there's nothing to hold on to when we begin to taste the fullness of the now. God is either in this now or God isn't at all.
As we grow older, we tend to become control freaks. We need to control everybody and everything, moment by moment, to be happy. If the now has never been full or sufficient, we will always be grasping, even addictive or obsessive. If you're pushing yourself and others around, you have not yet found the secret of happiness."
from Everything Belongs
Richard Rohr

Bob endorses Obama

"Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval,” he says. “Poverty is demoralising. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor. But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up...Barack Obama. He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.” He offers a parting handshake. “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future,” he notes as the door closes between us. "

read the rest here

Overheard: interview for some snazzy tech company, occurring next to me in Starbucks in the lobby of the Sheraton in downtown Boston, “if janet (interviewee) walks into a room, what is your theme song?” What a question? I'm not sure where I would go with that. "Dancing on the Ceiling" is the obvious choice but it might not fit with the image of the company.

In a similiar vein, another blogger, asked spiritual friends to provide the title of one book that is worthy....of time. An interesting list is provided. What would my title be?

The Great Failure

FROM The Great Failure by Natalie Goldberg

INTRODUCTION

“She knows there’s no success like failure,
And that failure’s no success at all.”
Bob Dylan

After my Zen teacher died, a fellow practitioner said to me, “Natalie, your writing succeeded. You didn’t follow the teachings. Everything Roshi taught us was about how to fail.”

We both laughed.

But I think it was true that we were trained in defeat. Downfall brings us to the ground, facing the nitty-gritty, things as they are with no glitter. Success cannot last forever. Everyone’s time runs out. This is not a popular notion, but it is true.

Achievement solidifies us. Believing we are invincible, we want more and more. It makes us hungry. But we can be caught in the opposite too. Human beings manage to also drown in the pool of despair, seeped in the mud of depression. We spend our life on a roller coaster with rusty tracks, stuck to highs and lows, riding from one, trying to grab the other.

To heal ourselves from this painful cycle—the severe split we create and then the quasi equilibrium we try to maintain—we have to crash. Only then can we drop through to a more authentic self.

Zen transmits its legacy from this deeper place. It is a different kind of failure: the Great Failure, a boundless surrender. Nothing to hold on to and nothing to lose. Sitting still feeling our breath, we watch the electric animals of desire and aggression arise and pass away. Our arms spread wide, we welcome it all, In the Great failure we find the Great Success. They are no longer different from one another. Both dissolve into the moment. Illusions break open and we can be real with ourselves and the people around us. When obstructions are swept away, we can see clearly. Here we are with our lives in our hands. Who were we? Who are we?

Find out if you are....

living a sustainable life. Play the game!

http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/

How could I have expected that after a long life I would understand no more than to wake up at night and to repeat: strange,strange, strange, o how strange, how strange. O how funny and strange.
Czeslaw Milosz

I can only trust to gain such wisdom as I grow old. This not knowing provides ample room to be and experience life as it is.

When you hear a dog bark...

Sensaki Sensei asked, “When you hear a dog bark, do you think of your own dog?” This is an interesting question. Why does he ask it? What is he asking? And what will you do with his question? You have to look and see for yourself. What do you do when you hear a dog bark? You might think of your own dog. Or you might think how much you dislike barking dogs. Or you might think of how inconsiderate your neighbor is to go off to work and leave the barking dog in the back yard for you to listen to all day. Reactions to hearing the dog can be many and the branching out of these thoughts can multiply. The chain reaction begins- 1,000 blossoms!
Sensaki is inviting us to see our endless commentaries, descriptions, and interpretations. If we aren’t aware of these we are likely to fall into the trap of experiencing the present moment through the fog of thought. Do we really hear the dog barking or do we hear our thinking about the dog barking? Why do we have to comment on everything? Why do we have to always evaluate, judge, compare, and offer our two cents? Our own barking! Is it possible to listen without thought intruding?
I really appreciate Sensaki’s question. Hearing a dog bark, he asks, “Do you think of your own dog?” My sister has seven dogs! I visited her recently and marveled at how much care and affection she gives to each one, how well she knows and understands each one. To her, each dog is precious. When you hear a dog bark, do you think of your own dog?
When there is real attention to life, when we give real care and affection to each moment, when each moment is precious then the mind is still, quiet, awake, full of wonder, and thought need not intrude. Then there is real intimacy- do you hear the dog barking or do you hear yourself? This is the experience of non-duality. It is an experience of your own essential nature that is one with the essential nature of the universe. Now the thinking self or separate self dissolves into the original world where all the morning stars sing together and the sons and daughters of God shout for joy. Ellen calls this the open range where we don’t fence anything in or out. Now we can get on our horse (or ox) and ride off into the wide-open spaces.
So when you sit each day take a good look at how your mind works, what thoughts are doing to the direct, immediate, innocent, and intimate experience of life. When we clearly see what thought is up to, then something happens all on its own and the mind becomes still, quiet, alert, full of wonder, and intimacy awakens. Of course I’m not denying the importance of thought- that would be absurd. But thought divides, separates, it turns forms into things. Thought is a step back from the direct experience of life. Thought cannot experience the innocence and intimacy of wholeness.
Recently, at the end of a Zen retreat, a woman commented that in the deep stillness of meditation she heard a goose honking as it flew over the zendo. Her eyes filled with tears as she said, “It was just so beautiful. It was like my whole life was worth it just to hear that goose.” What is the quality of mind that the sound of a goose can bring tears to the eyes? You have to find out for yourself. But surely such a mind is innocent, intimate, new, fresh, vital, sensitive, and alive. Such a mind is free and so capable of experiencing tenderness, affection, and real love.
(Charles Birx, Sensei)

Richard Rohr is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico. He attempts to combine, as I do, being and doing. A call to be prophetic and accept the present moment. I often find he articulates what I believe better than I can. Here is his experience of freedom:

The primal freedom is the freedom to be the self, the freedom to live in the truth despite all circumstances.
That's what great religion offers us. That's what real prayer offers us. That's why the saints could be imprisoned and not lose their souls. They could be put down and persecuted like Jesus and still not lose their joy, their heart, or their perspective.
Secular freedom is having to do what you want to do. Religious freedom is wanting to do what you have to do.

Everything Belongs

Richard Rohr

When all of our idols are taken away, all our securities and defense mechanisms, we find out who we really are. We're so little, so poor, so empty—sometimes, even so ugly.
But God takes away our shame, and we are able to present ourselves to God poor and humble. Then we find out who we are and who God is for us.

Richard Rohr

Great Themes of Scripture

Back to the early Christian monastics, the Desert Fathers. More information on who they are can be found here. More of their stories can be found here. Here is another teaching of theirs:

"It was said of Abba John the Dwarf that he withdrew and lived in the desert at Scetis with an old man of Thebes. His abba, taking a piece of dry wood, planted it and said to him, 'water it every day with a bottle of water, until it bears fruit.' Now the water was so far away that he had to leave in the evening and return the following morning. At the end of three years the wood came to life and bore fruit. Then the old man took some of the fruit and carried it to the church saying to the brethren, 'take and eat the fruit of obedience.'"

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers
translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG

This is a wonderful story and one worth reflecting on. The cultural values of power, money, and sex are usurped by the monastic and spiritual values of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Questioning our cultural assumptions is worthwhile.

The value of obedience is presented in the story. For me, this story presents several questions. Some about the story. What did this old abba have that made John the Dwarf go to such extraordinary lengths to follow his instruction? Did John wonder about his task and its purpose?

Like all stories worth reading, it brings up several questions for me about my life. What is worthy of my obedience? What task do I undertake that have no clear purpose? Whom do I respect enough to follow without cause or concern?

Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī was a thirteenth century Persian poet and Sufi mystic. Known in the West as simply Rūmī, his poetry is wildly popular; I've even heard he has sold the most books of any poet in the United States.

Before Jonah was born Sara and I both chose something to recite to him while still in the womb. Every night Sara sang a chilren's book and I recited this poem by Rūmī:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing

there is a field

I'll meet you there

When the soul lies down in that grass

the world is to full to talk about
ideas, language, and even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense

Besides being a poet, Rūmī was a teacher. Many of his teaching stories resonate with me. Here is one that I currently find particularly meaningful:

A certain man caught a bird in a trap.
The bird says, "Sir, you have eaten many cows and sheep
in your life and you're still hungry. the little bit
of meat on my bones won't satisfy you either.
If you let me go, I'll give you three pieces of wisdom.
One I'll say standing on your hand. One on your roof.
And one I'll speak from the limb of that tree."


The man was interested. He freed the bird and let it stand on his hand.


"Number one: Do not believe in absurdity, no matter who says it."


The bird flew and lit on the man's roof. "Number two: Do not grieve over what is past; it's over. Never regret what has happened."


By the way, " the bird continued, "in my body there is a huge pearl weighing as much as ten copper coins. it was meant to be an inheritance for you and your children, but now you've lost it. You could have owned the largest pearl in existence, but evidently, it was not meant to be."


The man started wailing like a woman in childbirth.The bird said, "Didn't I just say 'Don't grieve for what's in the past' and also 'Don't believe in absurdity?' My entire body doesn't weigh as much as ten copper coins. How could I have a pearl that heavy inside me?"


The man came to his senses. "All right tell me number three."

"Yes, you've made such good use of the first two!"
"Don't give advice to someone who is groggy and falling asleep. Don't throw seeds on the sand."



How we misinterpret, misconstrue and misuse words based on our fears and insecurities!

Snow can never emit flame.

Water can never issue fire.

A thorn bush can never produce a fig

Just so, your heart can never be free

from oppressive thoughts, words, and actions

until it has purified itself internally.

Be eager to walk this path.

Watch your heart always.

Constantly say the prayer

'Lord, have mercy on me.'

Be humble.

Set your soul in quietness.

-Hesychios

The Book of Mystical Chapters-Meditations on the Soul's Ascent

from the Desert Fathers and Early Christian Contemplatives

"Furry Logic" Parenthood by Jane Seabrook

Here some quotations:

1. You can't scare me. I have children.

2. Those who say they sleep like babies.... don't usually have them.

3. The quickest way for a parent to get a child's attention.... is to sit down and look comfortable.

4. Your children are growing up when they stop asking where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going.

5. A perfect example of minority rule is a baby in the house.

Del McCoury Band ~ High On A Mountain [Live 1986]

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up workers to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

Antione de Saint-Exupery
The Little Prince

Chasm

Yesterday, the writers/actors of the movie, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story , were on NPR's Fresh Air. The movie is a parody of the rockamentary and follows the life of Dewey Cox, a fictional rock star. The lead actor, who played Dewey, explained how a rock star might begin to believe the image that people project onto superstars. Even as an actor playing a musician, he started to believe his image. There is a gap between reality and this projected ideal. Once you totally believe the image over the reality you end up in Vegas in a white jumpsuit.

Fortunately, most of us only watch movies about Vegas and white jumpsuits. Still, we all have these 'gaps' between what we want and what we are. Abiding between ideal and the truth.

100 People

If we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:
60 Asians
12 Europeans
5 US Americans and Canadians
8 Latin Americans
14 Africans

49 would be female
51 would be male

82 would be non-white
18 white

5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth, and all of them would be US citizens

80 would live in substandard housing

24 would not have any electricity(And of the 76% that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)

67 would be unable to read

1 (only one) would have a college education.

50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation

33 would be without access to a safe water supply

7 people would have access to the Internet

I received this as a forward and don't know its validity. It does make me wonder about my complaints and their appropriateness.

more from True Cost of Low Prices

"What will appear in the media are the values of competition, materialism, and consumerism. They have been ingrained into our psyches. Our minds have been colonized. We are inundated with media that communicate to us and our children the predominant values of our media. Essentially, the media values sex, violence, money, thin bodies, wine and beer, athletes, rock stars, rappers, and the beautiful rich and famous people. We live in a consumer society where it seems most people really worship at our malls and sports stadiums. It is difficult, if not impossible, to shelter our children and ourselves from these value, which are diametrically opposed to spiritual values. They are truly seductive.

It is scandalous that our children are bombarded by these false values. Americans are on the top of the heap of wealth in the world. Most will never worry about having enough food, clothing, or shelter. Most have more economic security than 99 percent of the people who have ever inhabited the planet. Yet the media gets us focusing on what we do not have."




Profound. Is it little wonder we have epidemic problems with self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Marketing works and the message they sell us is that we aren't good enough. Our sense of self is constantly undermined.....unless we buy a new car, new kitchen, have more friends, the new shampoo, or the best TV. But that is an endless cycle. Buddhist call these beginningless desires hungry ghosts. The pictures of ghosts depict beings with large bellies but a tiny mouth. What they crave can never satisfy their hunger. No amount of 'stuff', status, or prestige will ever leave them (or us) content.

If only I have this or that or look like....then I'll be happy. One of the most successful assignments I completed with middle school students was an 'if only' poem. If only this or that would happen. They locked into and understood this state of mind instantaneously. Although age appropriate, continuing on such a path, as most of us in the west do, leads to grave consquences. As one teacher I like says, "Good beginnings make OK middles, and terrible endings." I hope I'm not still doing this when I'm in my....there it is again another if only...maybe everything is OK how it is right NOW?

Great Ad

Wouldn't it be nice?

Parenting Inc.

From Talk of the Nation

April 7, 2008

From ergonomic strollers, to sleep consultants, to professional potty training, child rearing has become a very big business. Author Pamela Paul discusses her new book, Parenting, Inc. and the aggressive marketing aimed at new moms and dads.
"Sometimes, spending a lot on children isn't just unnecessary; it's counterproductive," Paul writes. "Every parent I know is struggling to figure out how to afford a family without succumbing to the spiral of consumption that characterizes modern parenthood."
Paul says she was determined not to fill her house with baby junk. Then she had her baby.
"I have baby gear coming out of every closet, and I really found myself overwhelmed with products," she says.

Listen to the rest of the story here.

Baby Giving the Evil Eye

Blessed Peter Gonzalez

So this guy is not a saint but on the way to becoming one (maybe). Beatification is the step before canonization. You have to be credited with a miracle or two and then your case is argued before some people in Rome and then you can be beatified. And if you cure some more sick people....a saint. Apparently, Peter, didn't make the next step after becoming Blessed (beatified). April 14th is his day of commeration. It would be a feast day if he were a saint.

Bl. Peter was traveling on the road, by horse, to the city of Astorga. The Bishop was his uncle and was appointing him to an important and dignified post at the Cathedral. But the road was muddy and threw him, literally, off the horse on which he was traveling. Onlookers laughed. Peter humbly reconsidered his reasons for accepting his new post. This incident changed him. He joined the Dominicans and spent the rest of his life preaching tolerance and humility. Thank God for humiliations and muddy roads.

Bede Griffiths

He is an interesting pioneer in inter-religious practice. A Catholic monk, he spent the majority of his life in India learning the nondual Hindu tradition.

Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain is not simply a contemporary book or popular movie but also a poet from China. Twelve centuries ago, many men retreated to the mountains in rejection of their current society (sound familiar?). While not all overtly religious, many would probably speak of their manner of life as 'hsiu Tao' or 'practicing the way'.

One of these mountain men was a poet, Han-shan--which translates as 'cold mountain'--he prolifically wrote and is a mythical figure in China, Korea, and Japan. It is speculated that he came from a privileged background and his poetry speaks of his bitter disappointment with the prevailing system. Zen and Taoist teachers revere the insight expressed in his verse.

A find young man on horseback
waves his whip at the willows
he can't imagine death
he builds no boat or ladder
the seasonal flowers are lovely
until the day they wither and fade
rock sugar and clarified butter
mean nothing when you're dead


Inside Jade Hall is a curtain of pearls
behind it lives a graceful girl
her beauty transcends the immortals
her skin is like that of a peach
spring mists rise in the east
autumn winds stir in the west
thirty years from now
she'll look like chewed sugarcane


The transient nature of what the world values is apparent in his work. More of his poetry can be found here.

from http://themindfulparent.org/:

"One of the keys to the doorway of stillness and deep joy is found in our connection to our children. Time and again our hearts melt when we observe and are with our children. At these moments, we are in a state of pure awareness -- the joy creeps in without us knowing about it. Then, without fail, our thinking mind kicks in telling us just how precious and wonderful is the moment. That feels good, but w:e are no longer experiencing the joy of the moment; we are instead reflecting on a memory of the moment. If only we could sustain that very present, very aware state of truly being with our child. So it is every moment of our lives. But it can be difficult to pierce through the moment into this stillness. It is less difficult to do so through our connection to our children."

Desert Wisdom

The desert fathers and mothers orally passed on instructive interactions between themselves. Eventually these were written down. There are numberless books of these sayings by contemporary authors. I find these books conducive to parenting; most of the stories are short--I find becoming engrossed in reading only to be interrupted exasperating-- and easy to finish. I've been perusing Desert Wisdom by Yushi Nomura and three days later, am almost done. As with my previous post on Dortheous of Gaza, the stories that jumped out at me had to do with judgement. Perhaps, there is a reason for this? Anyway here are a few from Desert Wisdom:

A brother asked Abba Hieracus: give me a word, how can I be
saved? The old man said to him: sit in your cell; if you are hungry,
eat; if you are thirsty, drink; and do not speak evil of anyone, and you will be
saved.

Abba Poeman said to Abba Joseph: tell me how I can become a
monk. And he replied: if you want to find rest here and hereafter,
say in every occasion, Who am I? and do not judge
anyone.

Like lots of endeavors in life, not judging others is easier said than done. In my experience thoughts of judgement pop up all the time (like every few minutes). I fall into judging myself for having the thought which isn't at all helpful . Instead, simply watching the thought or labeling it, 'judgement', seems to work best, for me.

The Onion: Results Of 08 Election

On Beauty
by James Longenbach

A sword held high above a goat’s head,
Then the goat with no head—
Calcutta, where my father was stationed in the war.
Tiny black-and-white snapshots in a row.

By the time his ship sighted Australia
One soldier had been burned in a vat of oatmeal,
Another swept from the deck and drowned.

What happened next was like a movie.
Soldiers clambering through knee-high water to a beach
Where villagers have set up card tables,
Platters of food—what food
The camera doesn’t care about because
Soldiers are throwing themselves on the grass,
Rubbing the red dirt on their faces, their mouths—

I overheard him tell this story to my daughter
While they were coloring Easter eggs,
Painting them with wax to resist the dye,
Tracing patterns with the head of a pin.

Our capacity to be overwhelmed by the beautiful
Survives, unlike beauty,
Amid the harshest distractions.
For white and yellow against green

Dip the egg in yellow dye, dry it, mark it
With wax again, clear paraffin,
Then submerge it in blue.

The New Yorker

March 27, 2007

Most of the poetry in The New Yorker provides ample examples of why people find poetry to be as useful as a flashlight, midday. However, this poem is representative of what I find redemptive about poetry: one, or in this case two, lines in the midst of memoir and description that cut to the bone--something you've always known but never heard spoken (our capacity to be overwhelmed by the beautiful .....survives, unlike beauty).

Dorotheos of Gaza

The Desert fathers and mothers were individuals who withdrew themselves from society in order to experience God directly. These early monastics felt the rejection of the compulsive mind and society's faulty judgements might lead to the discovery of the true self. While they lived between 300-500 C.E. and fled into the Egyptian desert, their experience of culture resonates with me, today. In their society, as in ours, power, prestige, and possessions were the measuring stick to evaluate the self. However, as we all discover, the false self is never satisfied no matter how many possessions and friends it accumulates, whatever power and prestige it claims, it always wants more.

Dorotheous of Gaza is one of my favorite desert fathers. He unflinchingly strips the varnish off of our manipulative mind in pursuit of freedom.

"Why are we so ready to judge our neighbor? Why are we so concerned about the burden of others? We have plenty to be concerned about, each one has their own debt and their own sins. It is for God alone to judge, to justify or to condemn. God knows the state of each one of us and our capacities, our deviations, and our gifts, our constitution and our preparedness, and it is for him to judge each of these according to the knowledge that he alone has."

"Those who want to be saved scrutinize not the shortcomings of their neighbor but always their own and they set about eliminating them. Such was the man who saw his brother doing wrong and groaned, 'woe is me; him today--me tomorrow!' You see his caution? You see the preparedness of his mind?"

Dorotheos of Gaza Discourses and Sayings- Desert Humor and Humility

Dorotheos points out one of my struggles. This is a great freedom to allow God to be judge. As satisfying as it can be to feel superior to others by putting myself in a position of power, this serves my ego. Those "who want to be saved"...salvation's root is salv which means to be healed. Instead of orientating ourselves to other's faults we may do well to heal ourselves with humility.

In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, Taylor Branch, relates some of Dr. King's final sermon. It is based on a parable about the rich man and Lazarus. It causes me to reflect on my life and where I find Lazarus. Who is Lazarus to me?

What Dr. King prescribed in his last Sunday sermon begins with the story of Lazarus and Dives, from the 16th chapter of Luke. Told entirely from the mouth of Jesus, it is a story starring Abraham the patriarch of Judaism, set in the afterlife. There’s nothing else like it in the Bible.

Dr. King loved this parable as the text for a fabled 1949 sermon by Vernon Johns, his predecessor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. Lazarus was a lame beggar who once pleaded unnoticed outside the sumptuous gates of a rich man called Dives. They both died, and Dives looked from torment to see Lazarus the beggar secure in the bosom of Abraham. The remainder of the parable is an argument between Abraham and Dives, calling back and forth from heaven to hell.

Dives first asked Abraham to “send Lazarus” with water to cool his burning lips. But Abraham said there was a “great chasm” fixed between them, which could never be crossed. In his sermon, Dr. Johns drew a connection between the chasm and segregation.

But according to Dr. Johns, Dives wasn’t in hell because he was rich. He wasn’t anywhere near as rich as Abraham, one of the wealthiest men in antiquity, who was there in heaven. Nor was Dives in hell because he had failed to send alms to Lazarus. He was there because he never recognized Lazarus as a fellow human being. Even faced with everlasting verdict, he spoke only with Abraham and looked past the beggar, treating him still as a servant in the third person — “send Lazarus.”

Dr. King’s sermons drew more layers of meaning from this parable. He said we must accept the suffering rich man as no ordinary, nasty sinner. When refused water for himself, he worried immediately about his five brothers. Dives asked Abraham again to send Lazarus, this time as a messenger to warn the brothers about their sin. Tell them to be nice to beggars outside the wall. Do something, please, so they don’t wind up here like me.

Dr. King said Dives was a liberal. Despite his own fate, he wanted to help others. Abraham rebuffed this request, too, telling Dives that his brothers already had ample warning in Torah law and the books of the Hebrew prophets. Still Dives persisted, saying no, Abraham, you don’t understand — if the brothers saw someone actually rise from the dead and warn them, then they would understand.

Jesus quotes Abraham saying no. If the brothers do not accept the core teaching of the Torah and the prophets, they won’t believe even a messenger risen from the dead. Dr. King said this parable from Jesus burns up differences between Judaism and Christianity. The lesson beneath any theology is that we must act toward all creation in the spirit of equal souls and equal votes. The alternative is hell, which Dr. King sometimes defined as the pain we inflict on ourselves by refusing God’s grace.

Dr. King then went back to Memphis to stand with the downtrodden workers, with the families of Echol Cole and Robert Walker. You may have seen the placards from the sanitation strike, which read “I Am a Man,” meaning not a piece of garbage to be crushed and ignored. For Dr. King, to answer was a patriotic and prophetic calling. He challenges everyone to find a Lazarus somewhere, from our teeming prisons to the bleeding earth. That quest in common
becomes the spark of social movements, and is therefore the engine of hope.

Every Grain of Sand (dustbowl)

The requested music and lyrics to Every Grain of Sand. I can't find information on who is singing...anyone recognize her?

The New Yorker August 07

Death

Tuesday August 13, 2047.

According to Deathclock.com this is my estimated date of death. The website takes your birth date and a few other pieces of information and spits out your estimated day of death and a ticker with the diminishing amount of seconds that date implies. If their estimate is correct, I have about two billion seconds left. This date awaits every one of us.

The Hindu holy men, sadus, as part of their training live at a cremation site. Christian monks are taught to not go a day without pondering their demise. Zen liturgy contains several chants about death. The following is chanted at the end of the day during a sesshin (intense practice period of over eight hours of meditation). It contains an even more haunting quality in the context of that altered state of mind:

The great matter

is birth and death

time swiftly passes by

and opportunity is lost

awaken! awaken!

this very night

your days are numbered

by one

do not squander your life

We have that chant framed and placed in our bathroom-there must be a joke there somewhere. Back to Tuesday, August 13, 2047:

For the Anniversary of my Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the date

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveler

Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And boding not knowing to what

W.S. Merwin

Every Grain of Sand

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed

There's a dyin' voice within me reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake,
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.

In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear,
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good
cheer.

The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.

Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light,

In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the
I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.

I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

Bob Dylan

Shot of Love

Copyright © 1981 Special Rider Music

Gratefulness in the Now

Suzuki-roshi

"Suzuki-roshi, I've been listening to your lectures for years,' I said, 'and I really love them, and they're very inspiring, and I know that what you're talking about is actually very simple and clear. But I must admit I just don't understand. I love it, but I feel like I could listen to you for a thousand years and still not get it. Could you just please put it in a nutshell? Can you reduce Buddhism to one phrase?'

Everyone laughed. He laughed. What a ludicrious question. I don't think any of us expected him to answer it. He was not a man you could pin down, and he didn't like to give his students something definite to cling to. He had often said not to have 'some idea' of what Buddhism was.

But Suzuki did answer. He looked at me and said, 'everything changes.' Then he asked for another question."

David Chadwick

Crooked Cucumber

Woody Guthrie

I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard travelling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood.

I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think that you’ve not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I’d starve to death before I’d sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.
—Woody Guthrie

laughing baby

Nothing like a laughing baby

No Man Is An Island

Thomas Merton

"We too easily assume that we are our real selves, and that our choices are really the ones we want to make when, in fact, our acts of free choice are largely dictated by psychological compulsions, flowing from our inordinate ideas of our own importance. Our choices are too often dictated by our false selves.

Hence I do not find in myself the power to be happy merely by doing what I like. On the contrary, if I do nothing except what pleases my own fancy I will be miserable almost all of the time. This would never be so if my will had not been created to use its own freedom in the love of others."

Merton is an fascinating figure in our modern spiritual landscape. Living at his monastery for awhile enabled me to witness the assortment of characters for whom he has become a spiritual mentor. He is claimed by Catholic conservatives, inter-religious dialogue liberals, new age seekers, poets, and Buddhists to name a few. Like Flannery O'Connor his appeal has stretched well beyond his death. More information on him can be found here.

Flannery O'Connor

One author I continue to return to is Flannery O'Connor. She belonged to the Southern Gothic tradition and her work deftly weaves the comic, the tragic, and the brutal. O'Connor is considered a master of the short story. While her stories are not overtly Catholic, one can nevertheless discern her faith through her work. The morally challenged characters, the unlikely heros, and the ironic endings create stories that I adore. She battled Lupus and died at thirty-nine years old. More information on her and her stories can be found here.

Her letters reveal a complex, thoughtful, and sometimes shockingly forthright persona.

From All Things Considered May 12, 2007 · "Emory University made public Saturday a previously sealed collection of letters from the Southern writer Flannery O'Connor. The letters contained correspondence with a seemingly unremarkable file clerk named Betty Hester. She was, in fact, a passionate, private intellectual who enjoyed a deep friendship with O'Connor.

Steve Enniss of Emory University speaks with Jacki Lyden about the letters." Transcribed from this interview:

"Letter to Elizabeth Hester...
Compared to what you have experienced in the way of radical misery, I have never had anything to bear in my life but minor irritations — but there are times when the worst suffering is not to suffer, and the worst affliction, not to be afflicted. Job’s comforters were worse off than he was, though they did not know it. If in any sense my knowing your burden can make your burden lighter, then I am doubly glad I know it. You were right to tell me, but I’m glad you didn’t tell me until I knew you well. Where you are wrong is in saying that you are the history of horror. The meaning of the redemption is precisely that we do not have to be our history, and nothing is plainer to me than that you are not your history. "

Morning Edition March 28, 2008 ·

"Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn. He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"

Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.

"You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth."

Listen to or read the rest of the story.