Monkey Mind

Monkey Mind Has Moved to Patheos

2012-01-06T11:58:00.000-05:00

Thank you for visiting. After being hosted happily for some years here at Blogger I've accepted an offer to join the team at Patheos.

You can link to my Monkey Mind blog from here.

Or, just type this into your browser: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/monkeymind

Thinking of Willie the Shaikh & the Wisdom of the Ordinary

2011-11-01T10:00:00.002-04:00

I'm very much looking forward to seeing Anonymous. It's getting some pretty good reviews.

Now, I just don't have the conspiracy gene that leads so many to look for hidden meanings and real stories behind stories - in our times so dreary and so often banal.

At the same time I love that people just can't accept that upstart crow that middle class man of middle class values could possibly have written the plays. Cut, to my heart, from the same cloth that suggests primitive human beings could never ever have constructed stonehenge or the pyramids...

Oh ye of little faith...

One of my spiritual mentors, a Sufi teacher, often referred to Shakespeare as "Willie the Shaikh."

It is the wisdom of humanity that this fellow touches, and it is so, so correct that it come from such an ordinary human being...

So much wisdom pouring from the pen of this ordinary man.

Something racing an electric current through him accessible to us all...

I see that on this day in 1611 Shakespeare's The Tempest was first mounted, at the Whitehall Palace in London. Perhaps my favorite...

Oh spirit that flows. Shakespeare is a good enough name for it...

Ordinary.

Thank you for your inspiration and your guidance...

Ordinary.

For all of us...

Ordinary.

Science: We've Got Your Number!

2011-11-01T06:27:00.002-04:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Weathering Fights - Science: What's It Up To?

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Thinking All Hallows

2011-10-31T11:10:00.001-04:00

A blessed and joyous All Hallows to all who care for contemporary or ancient versions.

The fabric between the living and the dead is particularly thin today.

Enjoy that dance of mystery

Serious or silly...

Moving On Up

2011-10-31T08:33:00.000-04:00

Just a small head's up.

I will be moving my Monkey Mind blog from blogger to the religious portal Patheos. Soon. Possibly as early as tomorrow...

And where is this I'm going? Who are they? You may ask. Their logo reads "seek" and "understand." Works for me. The name Patheos is a somewhat clumsy, to my mind, portmanteau, combining "path" and "theos."

I think of them as an upstart hoping to take on Beliefnet, although I think they see their own goal more as becoming the WebMD of religion and spirituality.

Other Buddhist oriented blogs that will be joining them at roughly the same time are American Buddhist Perspective and Wild Fox Zen. I'm not providing direct links (although you can look at the list to the right for direct access today) because, as I said, in the next day or two, or somewhere close to that, if all goes as expected, we'll have new URLs...

I'm excited.

And, I'll keep you all in this expanding loop...

Saving Ghosts: A Halloween Meditation

2011-10-30T13:23:00.000-04:00

Saving Ghosts: A Halloween Meditation

James Ishmael Ford

I recall a few years ago going with Jan and some friends to an event in support of the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry up in Boston, taking us out on a rare evening visit to the city’s downtown. It was, also, downtown on a Halloween weekend. Like this weekend. We parked about three blocks from where we were going. And as we walked along it was obvious magic was in the air. I first noticed a large mini-skirted bunny rabbit flag down a cab. Then, Jan nudged me as we walked past a vampire, a clown and a pirate standing together engaged in what appeared to be a serious conversation. In the three blocks we walked from the car to the event we passed a surprising number of strange and mysterious creatures each engaged in their own adventures. Now, just to be clear, I’m not talking the shorter variety of ghosts and goblins going about in small and large packs from door to door. There were some of those, but these were mostly the taller ones.

I love this season.

There’s a television commercial running now, I forget what it’s hawking. But, it follows a young woman wearing an astronaut’s gear walking surrounded by people, each wearing the costumes of their fantasies, displaying their dream selves. It felt that Halloween night was sort of like that.

And, I find myself thinking of monarch butterflies on their great migration, following some mysterious current of their being that takes them home, to a home they never actually knew before they arrived. Like that migration I wonder if this stepping out among the wondrous creatures as one of them is something deep in our bones, in our psyche, in our souls, as well. This feels an important time, that I’m sure of, a time to pause, to remember, and to explore, spreading our wings, and flying out to that butterfly home.

I think of bunny rabbits and astronauts and, of course, those other creatures of the night, vampires and ghouls and skeletons. And, and, I think of the many spirits that are always with us, some joyous, others not so much so. No doubt to me spirits surround us, that fabled cloud of witnesses. By the bye, as you know I use that line “cloud of witnesses” a lot. It’s from the Book of Common Prayer, which ranks right after Shakespeare and the King James Bible as a sourcebook of phrase and allusion in our shared Western heritage. That said, once a younger member of our community, after a service where I used that phrase, inquired about that crowd of witnesses. She noticed the courthouse just down the street from the church. Did they come from there?

Cloud or crowd, perhaps this, more than any other, is the time we find the ghosts of memory, and longing, and hope really surrounding us. As I said, some ghosts are joyous. But, some ghosts are sad. These days on Halloween night, wandering from house to house, and for the larger set, to parties of one sort or another, the ghosts we encounter are mostly happy, at least so long as candy or cocktails are involved.

But, what about the other ghosts? The crowd of ghosts in our hearts is pretty big. And the longer we live, the more of them there are walking along with us. Today I find myself thinking more of the hurting ones, the ones that hang about half forgotten, lurking in the shadows of our dreams?

This reminds me of a spiritual question asked in some circles. It goes, “How do you save a ghost?”

Now that’s a question. How would you save a ghost? How do you free a ghost? How do you release a ghost? The sad ones? The mean ones? The bad ones? The one’s we would usually rather not notice?

I’m curious. Anyone here have an opinion? I’m particularly interested in what the younger set might have to say. But, anyone, how would you save a ghost? How do you free a ghost?

(a time for discussion)

In Japan and other countries in the Far East, food is set out for the ghosts. And there are similar traditions in Europe. No doubt those are helpful ways. But, there are deeper ways to save, to free, our ghosts. I think.

The poet Marie Howe provides a pointer I find useful for this season of saints and souls, of longing and of liberation, of how we might go about liberating our ghosts. It’s from the title poem of her collection What the Living Do. It’s partially a recollection of her recently died brother.

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss–we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

That’s our work.

Remembering the saints and the souls.

Putting it all together.

And with that returning to the cool cold day with those cold bliss bestowing hands.

David Joseph Coady: Eulogy for A Zen Man

2011-10-29T14:45:00.000-04:00

David Joseph Coady

Seizan Yushin, Blue Mountain, Courageous Spirit

A Eulogy

James Myoun Ford, Osho

Delivered on the

29^th October 2011

at the

United First Parish Church (Unitarian)

The Church of the Presidents

Quincy, Massachusetts

Francis, Frank Coady was born in Dorchester, on the 24^th of July, 1935. His family was all immigrant Irish. His father worked for the post office, his mom did domestic work. While in High School Frank originally trained to do offset printing, but instead found himself working at pretty much everything from a chocolate factory to Boston’s docks to factories.

Sandra, Sandy, was also from recent Irish immigrant stock, born in Roxbury on the 21^st of March, 1940. Twelve years of parochial school. Worked for a while in cafeterias, then as a receptionist and then doing relocation services.

Now you might ask where would two nice Irish kids meet living in the greater Boston area? Well, somewhere along the line Sandy decided to join a bugle and drum corp. I’m don’t think she was thinking of meeting someone in particular in doing this. Just one of those things kids did.

Well, it turned out Frank decided to change his routines, just to get out of the rut he was in at the time, and went to a rehearsal of that bugle and drum group. Right off, he spotted Sandy and was, how shall I say, smitten. But he had a concern. He asked his friend “That girl over in the corner. How old is she?” He had trouble believing she really was over fourteen, but, my goodness, she was so pretty. She was.

Through the mysterious currents of karma, they both ended up in the same circle of friends. However, while smitten, and seriously so, Frank felt asking Sandy out was over reaching. Figured she could do much better. Probably true. But, showing what I think may be a family trait, when after a year or so Frank didn’t make the move, Sandy decided to take matters in her own hands. She asked Frank out on a date.

They were going to a dance, but they didn’t make it. Instead, they ended up at a little Chinese restaurant on route nine talking well into the night. They kept company for another year, year and a half, and then married.

And the kids came along. When talking with them, Frank said, we had Irish triplets. As I was long told my brother and I were Irish twins, I understood. It meant the kids were born close after each other.

The oldest was Michael, born on the 9^th of April, 1962. He would attend U Mass, Dartmouth, earning a degree in electrical engineering. Michael would marry the delightful Claudia, a Swiss national, and the two of them would live their lives all around the world. More important, perhaps, they presented Sandy & Frank with their grandchildren, Rebecca and Alex. Their part of the family currently lives in France.

Stephen followed on the 25^th of June, 1963. He would earn his degree in Political Science and German from U Mass, Boston. He’s just left Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science where he as assistant director for human resources. There seems to be a general consensus in the family that he has been lucky beyond deserving himself in finding his spouse James.

The baby of the triplets was David. He was born on the 17^th of July, 1965. He came in at eight pounds and thirteen ounces. Sandy offered, “That’s why we didn’t have any more.” Sandy said David was the sweetest of her babies, quiet and cute.

He would grow up with the wildest imagination. Frank described seeing his boy out in the backyard playing baseball by himself, alternating as the pitcher, the catcher, swinging the bat, as an outfielder trying to catch the ball, and as the engaged and rapt crowd in the bleachers. He loved playing actual sports as well, baseball in particular, but also hockey.

In the eighth grade he broke away from the tradition of parochial school. His friends asked, “Did you murder a priest or something?” He would be the only one of the kids not to go on to be an altar boy, even when Stephen pointed out there was money to be made serving at weddings.

By adolescence he had some strong friendship that would last for his life. Mike Coughlin and Chris Pinney came to mind immediately as I spoke with the family. Some friends from High School offered how funny David was. Smart and fast, with a sharp sense of irony that would never escape him. His friend Chris’s car once broke down in a storm, and so Chris pushed it along while David steered. Chris was cursing his fate pushing along soaking in the rain when David leaned out and said as sweetly as possible, “I’m parched. Want to stop at the 7/11?”

In his High School years he continued to love sports. Played tennis, ran track and cross-country.

Among his summer jobs, David did trail maintanence for the Trustees of Reservations. He particularly loved being out in nature. After High School among his jobs was one picking up and driving elderly people. It was observed a lot of the older ladies liked to flirt with him. And he enjoyed reciprocating. Sweet. Gentle. Compassionate.

David attended U Mass, Dartmouth studying engineering. He thought he was supposed to. But he didn’t enjoy it. Eventually he switched to the Amherst campus and studied philosophy. Restless, he left without a degree.

Looking for a shakeup he joined Stephen who was doing a year abroad in Germany. They traveled together for about seven weeks. Germany, yes, but also France, Paris was a highlight. And most of the time, four weeks, they spent in the ancestral lands, where they loved the pubs, but it was the land itself that pulled at some ancestral chord resonant in their souls. David would return again later for one more visit.

A small story from the time: They wandered into a pub where an American film crew had set up. As they made their way to the bar a regular yelled out to the crew that they owed the regulars a round. They were ignored, so the locals simply walked out, taking David & Stephen with them to the only other pub in the village where the youngsters joined in making jokes about the rude Americans.

Back in the Boston area David kicked around from one job to another. He briefly worked security at the Parker House hotel, the same institution where many years ago the young Ho Chi Minh worked as a bus boy.

Then Mike Coughlin went out to California. He called David and told him about this strange and wonderful place called Green Gulch Zen Farm and suggested he might like it there. David hesitated, a shadow he dealt with, along with the specter of depression. But not long. He decided to go for it. As his mom commented, a courageous move.

And it was a good move. David had always been a seeker. He explored Wicca. Liked crystals. Kind of born for California. Now he could easily laugh about the more woowoo aspects of his quest, but he was also a real seeker. And it was time to leave the old behind and find something new and maybe deeper for him. The only sadness was that he couldn’t leave the depression behind in New England as he left for California.

He found Zen his spiritual practice. In his own way. He took to zazen, Zen’s primary discipline. Absolutely. And sat serious retreats and joined in the regular life of a Zen community. But, I did mention in his own way. Famously, David liked to sing as he went about chores, not so common when doing tasks in Zen centers. He spent seven years within the training complex of the San Francisco Zen Center, fat Green Gulch in Marin County, at Tassajara the rural retreat center inland from Big Sur, and at the City Center in San Francisco. I think he most loved Tassajara.

During these years exploring the Buddha dharma and the ways of Zen practice he found a home and many friends. Among his friends who’ve shared remembrances, the author and Zen teacher Brad Warner writes about David. He commented how he, Brad, was pretty sure they’d first met at the City Center, but it was at Tassaraja when Brad, like David before him, was walking along and in violation of the general practice was singing, he claims quietly, Bob Dylan’s Odds and Ends. David heard and joined in with the chorus, ending with “lost time will not be found again.” They were instant life friends.

David loved music and David loved his Zen life.

He also had a lifelong love of animals, and there are any number of anecdotes about times with Ginger, Tassajara’s dog, or Boomer the rural center’s cat.

There are many stories about David. Many. Here are just a few brief anecdotes, peeks into David’s heart and the hearts of his friends.

Shoho Kuebast wrote of their time together at Green Gulch. In particular Shoho recalled how there was a large propane tank, which as he described it, while originally beige, it slowly “grew green and grey through layers of moss and dirt.” It was also a bit of a hazard and needed to be cleaned. Shoho says he resented the task of cleaning it off and making an eyesore all that more prominent as it sat nestled in a very lovely location. He described how David joined him and assumed an air of complete seriousness, throwing himself into the project with such focus that it reduced Shoho to helpless laughter. David’s style, something of David’s Zen.

Shinzan Trevor wrote, “I remember running into him on a trail in the mountains above Tassajara. I suggested that we hike together, as we had before, but he politely and sheepishly declined. He said he was having such a fine time alone in the forest, looking out for birds and lizards, enjoying the stunning scenery, and just being alone in that amazing wilderness.”

Shinzan also recalled how at other times David tried to knock him off his concentration, whether studying or working. David used various tools for this task that he seemed to find very important. Most notably at a particularly inappropriate moment David walked by Shinzan who was engaged in something that seemed important, and without even looking in his direction, how do I say this in a religious service, made an ancient hand signal in Shinzan’s direction. This would become a regular feature of their encounters. As Shinzan writes, “It got to a point where we wouldn’t even have to flip the bird; we’d just look at each other and laugh and shake our heads at our stupid, stupid joke.”

The intimacy of people engaged in a serious project, one that demands everything. Including laughter. Of course. Let me tell you, if its real Zen, there’s lots of laughter involved. And laughter trailed after David a very long tail.

Amy Parker writes of when they were doans together, “we squabbled like children and shared our experiences with depression and self-worth.” She added, “He could come up behind me when I was in a funk, say something brief and pungent and make me roll on the floor laughing.” She recalled, “Streaks of dust on the back of my robes from laughter.” And then “Getting frowned at by the Ino next to the samovar for laughing so hard during silence--laughing.” Amy concluded, “So much laughing.”

Another touch of David’s Zen: Renshin Judy Bunce shared her thought of David, addressed directly to him. “I think, of course, of our time at Tassajara, of working the compost together -- or, rather, of your working the compost while I stood around and talked.”

He was the real deal. He really showed up. And he brought it all into that Zen life.

Who knows how long David would have stayed at Tassajara. The terrible fire that nearly destroyed the rural center interrupted their rhythms in a harsh and ubrupt way, and left many people questioning themselves and how the whole matter had been handled, and, and what to do next.

David moved to the City Center, and it became clear he needed to go to a next step, to have a skill that translated outside the cloister. This is a perennial problem for Zen practice in the west, where there are few opportunities to spend one’s whole life within the center doing the work in that monastic way. He undertook the training to become a Pharmacy Technician, and did well, and even received his certification.

But the demons in his heart wouldn’t allow him to see the successes.

Depression is a terrible thing.

And, sadly, sadly for him, sadly for all whose lives his life had touched, he ended it.

Of course the measure of a life is the full course of it. And David left in his wake many friendships and joy and so much laughter.

I asked his mom and dad and his brother Stephen for words that caught him. The first was kind. The second was gentle. Sweet. The easiest person to be with. David knew other people were in the room. He was someone to confide in. Funny, very funny. You didn’t want to play trivial pursuit with him. Well read. Smart. Sweet. He loved poetry. He loved music. Philosophy. An earnest seeker. A seeker.

For me the image of David that lives inside me was something a young woman Emma, perhaps, told of him. It’s back at Tassajara. She was hiking by a waterfall when she came upon David. He had his arms spread as wide as he could. And he was singing to the waterfall.

A Zen life.

A whole life.

Too short, no doubt. Too short.

But a blessing to all he met from beginning to end.

Would that that could be said for any of us.

Walking (Around) Meditation: Insight Into Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-29T07:58:00.001-04:00

A video meditation by a friend...

Two Important Buddhist Bloggers

2011-10-28T10:33:00.000-04:00

Maia Duerr, at her blog Jizo Chronicles, interviews "Arun" of the blog Angry Asian Buddhist.

I admire both. Each offers perspectives into our emerging Western Dharma way that challenge and enriches. And I encourage folk to get to know them better.

And what a good place to start.

When Religions Go Bad

2011-10-27T06:19:00.000-04:00

At least according to Wikipedia, on this day in 312, the would be emperor of the Rome and its domains, the general Constantine would have his famous vision of a cross floating in the sky, and a mysterious voice whispering in his ear, "With this sign, conquer..."

At least in my book it's been sort of downhill for Christianity ever since...

Whose Am I? or, Who am I? And, How About Just Saying No...

2011-10-26T10:38:00.002-04:00

The current “Whose Are We?” program being foisted upon UU clergy turns on an anecdote about the Quaker theologian and activist, Douglas Steere. He wrote that the perennial question “Who am I?” inevitably leads to a “deeper” one, “Whose am I?”

Among the advocates for this program within my little UU clergy world the assumption out of this is that as we have no identity outside of relationship, that no one is autonomous in the final analysis, this question of “Whose am I?” is in fact the driving one.

I beg to differ. The one does not necessarily lead to the other, and the discovery of radical interconnectedness is not at all necessarily connected to the discovery of a being at the center of reality.

And something more.

As a spiritual director in a tradition that uses questions to drive our hearts and minds to the depths, when someone comes to me and says “the question I’ve been given leads me to another question,” I am inclined to reply, “That’s nice. But let’s stay with the question you’ve been given.”

And, the question that does indeed rise across the human condition is “Who am I?” Sometimes “What is this?”

A fierce pursuit of this question is, in fact, sufficient to take one on a journey of discovery. Although as a friend who read an earlier version of this post pointed out, our teacher Robert Aitken was very wary of the "who" question in any formulation, as it tends one toward a hall of mirrors, a place very hard to escape. Still, it does drive one to the pit, as well. And that's a necessary step.

“Whose am I?” is a lovely question. No doubt. It is, of course, predicated upon some assumptions about the way the universe is composed. Assumptions that I’ve not found confirmed in my own experience. And it has that house of mirror quality as well, this time multiplied...

The radical interrelatednedness, absolutely.

But a being at the center of it all, self or other, not so much…

So, for me, the problem with “Whose am I?” in particular is how it turns one too quickly to revealed truths, the doctrines of one’s spiritual community, which if that’s the question, will have worked out a good story. Who is also marred by an assumption, a tad more forgivable, I suspect, but only just...

The question here is are you in quest of a good story, or, are you looking for the bottom line, so far as a human mind and heart can apprehend it?

If the relentless pursuit until a real finding is opened for us is the goal, I’d be wary of questions with built in answers.

Actually, in the tradition within which I’ve followed my heart’s goal, the primary question is not even framed at a question. It is the simple word “No.”

Dark inside dark.

Is this the way?

No.

I understand.

No.

I don’t understand.

No.

It’s a hard path.

No.

But it leads right to the heart’s longing.

No.

Right to the core of the matter.

No.

Where self and other are understood.

No.

Now for those for whom no is too hard, we sweeten the pot and say just call it Mu. It's a Chinese (sometimes pronounced Wu) and Japanese word that means no.

Cracking open the knowing

And revealing the great not knowing

At the heart of the universe…

Sing Sing Sing

2011-10-25T16:00:00.002-04:00

According to Wikipedia, on this day in 1938 "The Archbishop of Dubuque, Francis J. L. Beckman, denounces swing music as 'a degenerated musical system... turned loose to gnaw away at the moral fiber of young people,' warning that it leads down a 'primrose path to hell.'"

Perhaps the good bishop was thinking of Benny Goodman who did this that year...

Marking the Death of John R McRae

2011-10-24T10:38:00.000-04:00

I've just learned the noted Buddhist scholar John R. McRae has died in Bankok.

He earned his doctorate at Yale, taught widely and wrote several very important books, including The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch'an Buddhism, and Seeing Through Zen.

The Zensite hosts a review by the erudite "Vladimir K" of this later book, fully titled Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism.

It begins "John McRae's latest book will surely upset some Zen students, Buddhist practitioners and teachers and, I suspect, a number of academics. John McRae is the Professor East Asian Buddhism at Indiana University and has published extensively on early Chan history so perhaps other academics may not be as surprised by this book as the non-expert may be."

I really liked the book. Thought it important.

And, I suggest, worth visiting the Zensite and reading the whole review...

Professor McRae leaves three children and his spouse the scholar Jan Nattier.

Many bows to a great scholar and an important interpreter of Chan and Zen Buddhism. Our debt is endless...

Thinking About the Forces That Run Our Nation

2011-10-24T09:07:00.000-04:00

A friend (thank you, Jeff!) sent me a link to this. And I thought it really, really worth sharing.

It's a website based upon a book, now in its sixth edition, Who Rules America, by G. William Domhoff. Important caveat! Not to be confused with a website devoted to White Supremacism.

Some Q&A on the Home Page:

Q: So, who does rule America?

A: The owners and managers of large income-producing properties; i.e., corporations, banks, and agri-businesses. But they have plenty of help from the managers and experts they hire. You can read the essential details of the argument in this summary of Who Rules America?, or look for the book itself at Amazon.com.

Q: Do the same people rule at the local level that rule at the federal level?

A: No, not quite. The local level is dominated by the land owners and businesses related to real estate that come together as growth coalitions, making cities into growth machines.

Q: Do they rule secretly from behind the scenes, as a conspiracy?

A: No, conspiracy theories are wrong, though it's true that some corporate leaders lie and steal, and that some government officials try to keep things secret (but usually fail).

Q: Then how do they rule?

A: That's a complicated story, but the short answer is through open and direct involvement in policy planning, through participation in political campaigns and elections, and through appointments to key decision-making positions in government.

Q: Are you saying that elections don't matter?

A: No, but they usually matter a lot less than they could, and a lot less in America than they do in other industrialized democracies. That's because of the nature of the electoral rules and the unique history of the South.

Q: Does social science research have anything useful to say about making progressive social change more effective?

A: Yes, it does, but few if any people pay much attention to that research.

Q: Is WhoRulesAmerica.net connected to the site called "Who Rules America?" on natvan.com?

A: No! That site (and many others with documents purporting to tell you "who rules America") is run by a white supremacist/neo-Nazi organization.

For the rest of the story, as someone once liked to say, go here.

The Heart of Being

2011-10-23T14:09:00.002-04:00

I think of koans as messages from the heart of the universe.

They are statements about reality that invite, and sometimes demand a response.

And not just any response, but your response, my response.

From the heart of being.

Your being.

My being.

So, a koan, an anecdote collected in two twelfth century Chinese anthologies of spiritual guidance, as case fifty-four of the Book of Serenity and as case eighty-nine of the Blue Cliff Record.

The case turns on two brothers who will both become renowned masters of the Zen way. The younger, Yunyan asks his brother who has already walked the way a great distance, “Why is it the Bodhisattva Guanyin (the archetype of compassion, of caring in this world, of love manifest) has so many hands and eyes?” His brother Daowu responded, “It is like someone sleeping, in the night, reaching behind her head for her pillow.” To these words Yunyan said, “I understand.” When asked what his understanding he said, “Our bodies are covered with eyes and hands.” Daowu replied, "Almost. You're eight tenths of the way.” And when asked what is the fuller response, was told, “There are only eyes and hands.”

A message from the heart of the cosmos, from the center of your heart.

From God's mouth to your ear.

A statement about reality.

And an invitation...

A demand...

Text, Translation & Zen

2011-10-22T19:45:00.001-04:00

Over at the wonderful blog No Zen in the West, Zen priest David Rutschman has been reflecting on the nature of text and translation as it relates particularly to the writings of the great Zen master Eihei Dogen.

David has been doing some serious commuting, not only lots of time in transit, but also in delving into the writings of the old master.

As he says, "It’s taken me quite a bit longer than I hoped to find the time to sit and write up the next installment of the thoughts that are continuing to swirl around for me as I read Dogen on my commute.
"One of the threads I find myself returning to is the question of translation and how translation operates from language to language, culture to culture, generation to generation, and this meandering mind-detour takes me straight to Walter Benjamin, about whom I know very little, actually, expect for his 1923 essay, “The Task of the Translator,” about exactly this issue."

I recommend, highly, reading the whole thing...

And, for visiting here, and at no extra cost, a brief excursion to the site where Dogen has his great awakening...

Why the Occupy Movement Needs to Continue

2011-10-21T09:30:00.000-04:00

Mr Steven Pare

Commissioner of Public Safety

City of Providence

Rhode Island

Dear Commissioner Pare,

First, I want to thank you for how you’ve dealt with Occupy Providence, so far. Your responsibilities are heavy, assuring the safety and welfare of all who visit, work and live in the city of Providence. Knowing how complex all this is, I have to thank you for the generous way you and the police and others with these responsibilities have dealt with the Occupy movement.

Together with a number of members of the First Unitarian Church of Providence, I attended the inauguration of Occupy Providence, Saturday afternoon, the 8^th of October. I personally saw how the police were courteous and helpful to all, both demonstrators and others. While I am grateful to the officers themselves, I can only assume you had a hand in the policy for dealing with the demonstration and the demonstrators.

Since then rumors have flown about regarding how long before the demonstration and its encampment are shut down. I myself was caught up in a rumor that said you’d given the Occupy demonstrators a deadline one day to shut down. It was wrong. Not long after I heard you were giving them two or three days. I could find no support for that rumor, either.

However, today I heard a report on WRNI that you have requested a date from the demonstrators for when they will end. I assume this is an accurate report.

And, I am writing to ask you to allow this demonstration to remain open-ended.

I believe the Occupy Wall Street movement is deeply informed by our American dream. I see it as profoundly patriotic, citizens who care, and see terrible difficulties, and are speaking out, calling our community to notice.

Two pillars support our republic: the inalienable rights of individuals and the shared responsibilities of belonging to a community. Somehow the balance has been lost and a headlong support of the individual ignoring how we also belong to a community, has led us to our current terrible circumstances. For too long our mutual responsibilities have been ignored and even steadily dismantled. The recent rejection of a federal jobs bill in the United States Senate that would support teachers and firefighters is an example. In the run up to the vote opponents characterized public sector workers as not “real” workers, assuming the only place real or good things happen is in the private sector.

Similarly, and most dramatically, the lack of oversight of Wall Street has led to directly to our current economic collapse and ongoing malaise. That the perpetrators were not held accountable, indeed accountability was shifted to the poor and minorities whom it was claimed poor bankers were forced to give loans to, takes the tiniest grain of truth and creates a terrible lie, one directed at destroying our sense of mutual responsibility.

Small wonder young people and, increasingly others, have taken to the streets. It is their patriotic duty to do so.

This movement, and movement does appear to be the right word is a call to return to a balanced understanding of our republic. We are in times of great peril. There are those who have forgotten how much we need each other, and how we need to hold each other to account.

Occupy Providence, like other actions of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that call to our better angels.

This call is so important that I hope you will, as you have done so far, allow the encampment to continue unmolested, to allow the continued recalling to all of us of this deep need we have as free individuals bound up together in a great communal experiment to stand together, and to pull together.

I remain yours in solidarity,

(The Rev’d) James Ishmael Ford

Elsie Mitchell

2011-10-20T13:43:00.000-04:00

Elsie Mitchell died on Monday, the 17th of October, 2011, at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mrs Mitchell was a pioneer of convert Buddhism in the West. In 1957, she, together with her husband John, D.T. Suzuki and Shinichi Hisamatsu founded the Cambridge Buddhist Association.

She was a friend and mentor to many.

David Chadwick archived a number of materials on Mrs Mitchell. I think you'll find it well worth a visit.

Thinking of Rasta Saints...

2011-10-19T08:49:00.002-04:00

Peter Tosh was born on this day in 1944...

Occupy Your Heart

2011-10-18T08:42:00.000-04:00

I've been quite excited and a little worried with the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The excitement because finally, finally, people are noticing we've had dirt thrown in our eyes and have been misdirected from the root causes of the current slide toward an even harsher divide between the richest of rich and the rest of us. The poor are becoming more numerous. The middle classes are ever more precarious. And the rich, well, they just keep getting richer...

The root cause is the great demon greed.

The worried is because while it is true our economic condition is driven by the greed of a small number of us, note not among us, but of us, it is too easy in hard times like this to set off a group and let the blame for all ills fall upon them.

A truth is that in our republic we are all complicit. We all have had a hand in the creation of these terrible times. Well, nearly all of us. The poorest are justifiably excused. Their need for bare survival makes it hard to attend to much else.

The rest of us, well, many of us have bought into the story that its all in our own hands, mine, not yours. And that story, which has resonances of truth, is ultimately not. And a willful embrace ignoring others and their plights, has allowed the infrastructure that lets those on a roll of success to move ever farther away from the mass of humanity of people...

We're all in this together.

Now this is for the poorest and the richest and everyone in between.

We must travel through the heart of greed and see in it the heart of love.

And along this way we all need to look to who we are, what we do, what we refrain from doing.

Well, only if we really want to find a cure for this common hurt.

Which will come only out of each of us seeing our uniqueness, our preciousness, and the uniqueness and preciousness of the other, and, and, how all of us are woven out of each other, and the world, and, indeed, the cosmos itself.

Intimate beyond words ability to describe.

Greed become love...

Seeing deeply into what we do and what we say matters in this world of intimacy.

And, then, acting from that place.

Just a word of advice from a friend on the barricades: occupy Wall Street. Occupy Paris. Occupy San Francisco. Occupy Providence.

And, occupy your heart.

Just 'Cause

2011-10-18T07:19:00.001-04:00

It is the season, after all...

Thanks, Joseph...

America's Next President?

2011-10-17T21:32:00.002-04:00

Thank you, Rachel!

Zarganar Released

2011-10-16T13:40:00.000-04:00

Comedian Zarganar Released Early From 35 Year Sentence

Democratic Voice of Burma
By AFP
Published: 12 October 2011

Burma freed one of its most famous political prisoners on Wednesday under an amnesty that was expected to include at least dozens more dissidents jailed in the authoritarian state.

The freedom of an estimated 2,000 political prisoners, who include pro-democracy campaigners, journalists, monks and lawyers, has long been a key demand of Western powers that have slapped sanctions on Burma.

Zarganar, a prominent comedian and vocal government critic, was among those released on Wednesday as part of a pardon of more than 6,300 prisoners by the new leadership, his family said.

For the rest of the story...

A Meditation in Advance of Going to the Inaguration of Occupy Providence

2011-10-15T15:38:00.004-04:00

I notice an Associated Press story today about the now global demonstrations arising under the banner "Occupy Wall Street," and a violent turn at some of the European events, particularly Rome, asserting how the protests that tumbled into riots were "part of demonstrations against capitalism..."

Possibly. Possibly in some circles, possibly among some subset among the Anarchists one of the groups that have gathered under the banner for their own purposes.

Let me assert the demonstration I leave for in an hour is not to speak out against capitalism, but rather the excesses of capitalism. I go to stand with the poor and the disappearing middle classes. I go to stand on the side of hope. I go to stand with those who are afraid. I am going to stand with those who need a voice.

I am going to stand on the side of Love.

And I'm standing against the excesses of capitalism that have put us where we are. I would add, those excesses need to be denounced by everyone concerned with our common human condition, but particularly by those who think capitalism has much to offer.

For those with eyes to see...

On this day in 1793 Marie-Antoinette was given the briefest of trials for parading similar excesses. The next day she lost her head...

Meditation Flash Mobs & Buddhist Reflections on Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-14T08:02:00.000-04:00

One of the interesting things happening at Occupy Wall Street and its vast net of affiliates are meditation flash mobs.

I just love it.

Obviously a motley crew, representing who knows how many traditions.

But, it gives me some hope that mindfulness by many names is part of this deal.

On that subject, Maia Duerr, former executive director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and currently director of the Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Program, compiled a listing of some Buddhist reflections on the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. Worth a look, I think.