Leonard Cohen & Sasaki Roshi

 

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

 

January 15, 2022

 

Roshi

 

I never really understood

what he said

but every now and then

I find myself

barking with the dog

or bending with the irises

or helping out

in other little ways

 

—Leonard Cohen

*

 

This song, written by Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson, feels like a meditation song to me:

Love Itself

 

The light came through the window,

Straight from the sun above,

And so inside my little room

There plunged the rays of Love.

 

In streams of light I clearly saw

The dust you seldom see,

Out of which the Nameless makes

A Name for one like me.

 

I’ll try to say a little more:

Love went on and on

Until it reached an open door—

Then Love Itself

Love Itself was gone.

 

All busy in the sunlight

The flecks did float and dance,

And I was tumbled up with them

In formless circumstance.

 

I’ll try to say a little more:

Love went on and on

Until it reached an open door—

Then Love Itself

Love Itself was gone.

 

Then I came back from where I’d been.

My room, it looked the same—

But there was nothing left between

The Nameless and the Name.

 

All busy in the sunlight

The flecks did float and dance,

And I was tumbled up with them

In formless circumstance.

 

I’ll try to say a little more:

Love went on and on

Until it reached an open door—

Then Love Itself

Love Itself was gone.

Love Itself was gone.

 

—Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson

*

Alex Tretbar sent this poem by Jim Gauer:

 

Will This Thought Do?

 

So I don’t think I’ll work today. Today it seems best

To let this bench hold my end up. Today

Of what my part was, brooding

Over the sum of things, there remains

Only the sum of things, and that part

Seems best. Yes this morning, whatever is

Will do nicely in my absence: this sunlight

Looks fine, it seems to be holding

Its own without me; the crowded sidewalk

Is fully employed, it appears its task

Has come to be child’s play; even the trees

Are doing well, they seem to be working

As well as trees can, as trees

These truly work, and the things they do

Are all nicely done. What a relief

To be wide awake, knowing my wakefulness

Doesn’t need me, sure that my bench exists.

Never doubting its existence beneath me, knowing

For sure that it is truly beneath me

To sit on a bench that I doubt exists.

How sweet to be fully alive, for just this morning

To have nothing to live for, to think well of my thought,

The way a child thinks of his childhood, the way that a tree

Makes do with its boughs, the way this moment lives

On what it’s seized in its hands, because this morning

What the moment has seized in its hands

Is sweet and alive, and this thought will do.

Will this thought do? It seems it’s already done so.

Will this thought do? Today there could be no doubt.

Will this thought do? Today beyond the shadow

Of a doubt my thought is done with

All the light I doubted, and now

Its shadow believes it too.

At last I know I’m the genius that no one needs to listen to.

Ontologist of a morning that turned out better than he thought.

The thinker there on a park bench, resting his chin

In a hand I gave him, a hand I traded

For a day of rest, for a moment’s peace

I could have had no hand in, for an instant

Under just this sky that out of the clear blue

Has come to me, as silent as I am,

Full of birds I did not think up.

No I don’t think I’ll work today. Today it sounds best

To let the silence work its ends out. Today

Of what my words were, sounds

Forming the heart of things, there remains

Only the heart of things, and this heart

Rings true.

 

—Jim Gauer

*

 

From an early age I was Mr. Know-It-All. I was a big expert on every topic, especially the ones of which I was completely ignorant. The older I get, the less I know. I don’t know who I am or what’s going on here. The world is bigger than my descriptions, opinions and explanations of the world. I’ve met a few of the 8 billion people on the planet, but the inner lives of even my closest friends are hidden from me. Every night my dreams teach me that my inner world is full of mysterious people and places and events that I can’t remember when I wake up. I don’t know why we humans create so many problems for ourselves and for each other. Why can’t we be kind to ourselves and nice to each other? I don’t have solutions for our problems. I don’t have answers for anyone’s questions. Sitting quietly with a cup of coffee in the morning, everything I see is beautiful, miraculous, impossible, including the “cup” of “coffee” and whoever it is who is typing this.

 

—Johnny Stallings

 

Here is Michel’s meditation on a contemplation from For Someone Else by Chana Friedmol Uhlman:

 

December 3, 2022

 

Praying As One

 

In communal prayer we come together to stand before God.

Facing our lives, facing our existence

in communal prayer, I am not alone,

I don’t need to hold everything by myself.

I have partners. A sacred community.

We are like a philharmonic orchestra:…

Each person playing their own part…

There are many roles…

We are like a single body…

Not everything rests on my shoulders.

Here and now, I am not alone.

My existence began before me

and my friends are here surrounding me

playing together

focusing together

praying together

to the Master of the World.

 

Community is where everyone thrives, even hermits. (I think they’re in denial.) When I allow myself to connect with others—and allow others to connect to me—we develop a unity, a symbiosis, an interconnected reality where the whole is more,…everything, than the sum of its parts. As cliché as this may be, it’s no less true. Think about your communities; is there health and vibrant vitality, growth and expansion? Or, is there dis-ease, sickness of mind and contention? Or, like my living community: flu, cold, Covid, RSV, or other respiratory affliction in ⅓ or more; in addition to all of the above. I particularly like the idea of a healthy community, as in today’s contemplation. I like this because I don’t need to carry the community on my own; we can all play together as one. Any differences, and I hope they are myriad and plethoric, are what make a symphonic event out of a chaotic cacophony—be it life, love, music, prayer, or meditation. Together we, all of us, are more. I am dissatisfied with situations pushing us to be less. Let us come together and be symphonic.

 

—Michel Deforge

*

 

                               The Box

 

When I was a young poet, I went into schoolrooms 

to ask children, “What if you had a treasure box 

to fill now, and open when you’re old?

What would you put in it?”

 

Oh, they listed their first shoes, a tree, a best friend, 

a crown, a dog, “all my stuff I love so much.”

 

I made books of their wishes. But now that I’m 

old myself—what’s in my box? Waking in the night,

every night, I watch the parade of all I have lost, 

but not lost, stumble from the dream house

 

and become a blessing before the morning’s light.

 

—Kim Stafford

*

 

This Altar of Earth and Sky

 

Before he died

The old farmer

Told his lazy son:

“I buried

a chest of gold

In the field.

Plow deep

And far

And wide

And you’re

Sure to find it.”

The son plowed

For a day

A week

A month

A year

And found

No gold

But the fields

Well-plowed

Yielded

A Bountiful

Harvest

And on his

Ambits

He noticed

Fences

That wanted

Mending

A coop, a stall

In need of repair

Herds and flocks

To water and feed.

In time

A treasure

Accrued

From his

Devotion

To land

And labor.

 

With my penchant

For idleness

I call to mind

That lazy son

And

Putter

Endlessly

In my

Front yard

And back

Ambling from

Garden

To garage

Workbench

To toolshed

A path

Well worn

Over 18 years

Through rituals

Of planting

Pruning

Construction

And repair.

 

In time

Any practice

Can become

A spiritual practice

Any object

Sacred:

This wheelbarrow

Hauling compost

That hammer

Setting a nail.

In time

The druid

Doffs his robes

And

Dons overalls

The monk

Sets down

His holy book

And lifts up

The common spade

Even

The high priest

Retires

From the temple

And returns

To this altar

Of earth and sky.

 

—Will Hornyak   December 2022

*

 

#65 Don’t Underestimate Yourself 

 

“Don’t underestimate yourself. You have the ability to wake up. You have the ability to be compassionate. You just need a little bit of practice to be able to touch the best that is in you. Enlightenment, mindfulness, understanding, and compassion are in you. Very simple practices—such as meditative walking, mindful breathing, or washing dishes mindfully—make it possible for you to leave hell and touch the positive seeds that are within you.”

–from Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh

 

“Don’t underestimate yourself. You have the ability to wake up.” Believe me, if this happened to me it can happen to you. I “woke up” back in March of 1994, and it came as a bolt out of the blue. I wasn’t expecting it, or hoping or praying for it. Indeed, I was not the praying sort at all—more agnostic, or…simply indifferent to any kind of religion. My father proudly pronounced that he was agnostic on even days and atheist on odd days.  I was like that, only even less vocal about it. 

 

What happened? One afternoon I was talking on the phone to an aspiring artist, helping her with contacts in architecture firms, encouraging her to call and show her work. I’d been helping her and a dozen other ‘emerging artists,’ as we called them, for 6 months or so. Believe me, it had not been in my nature to be so helpful—I’d sort of been roped into it. I’d been on tv in a segment on artists’ careers, and the anchorman had done a great job—I was expecting lots of commissions for more work! Instead, I was deluged with requests for help. Shoot! Not what I had in mind, but I offered a workshop, and another, with a couple dozen artists. I gave handouts, articles I’d used, helpful tips on how to present your work, etc. No sense in making others go through all the junk I had gone through. And I followed up with all of them every few weeks, just to see how they were doing, if maybe they were discouraged and thinking of giving up. 

 

And then this afternoon of March 20, 1994, when talking to this one woman, she asked, “I don’t get it. Why are you doing this? You have a successful career, you’re very busy with your own work. What’s in it for you? What do you want from us???” And I said, “All I ask from you is that you do the same for somebody else some day. Isn’t that what it’s all about?” I don’t think that it was I who said those words. They just came out. And then I started crying, and crying. Something—everything—just opened up. I simply…understood…everything. The world, the universe, God—no, beyond God, not limited to God. I understood, and everything was complete, whole, filled with joy, with light, overwhelmed with love. These words can’t even express it adequately. I’m crying into the phone. This poor woman asks, “Are you alright?” I said, “Oh, you have no idea how alright I am!! Thank you!”

 

And that was it. My life changed from that instant. I knew I had to help others, to keep this alive, to continue to be imbued with joy. And I had to scramble to understand others, those not like me, since I’d had this moment of total understanding. I had to read, read, read to find out what this was all about. And I had to be quiet, and listen, to feel that beauty, that light, that joy.

 

The word that comes to mind is propelled. I was propelled to live my life differently than ever before. It is difficult, it can be frightening (but I am not afraid). It can be hard work (but I can’t live otherwise). If I’d had this moment of pure understanding, then I had to follow up with concrete understanding, of making connections with all those who I didn’t know, with all those who were not like me. 

 

I must understand others. I have dragged my husband to five different states to work with Habitat for Humanity: Meridian, Mississippi; John’s Island, South Carolina; Bartlesville, Oklahoma; Charleston, West Virginia, etc.… I have mentored at-risk teenagers (still, and now in their forties); worked in homeless shelters; supported a Native American woman and her family for 18 years; tutored dyslexic teenagers and adults; tutored Hispanic adults; given art workshops to homeless teens…and, of course, the most wonderful and joyful (and stressful) of all, being a friend and supporter to inmates at Two Rivers Correctional Institution for the last six years. 

 

Working my way to understanding (and loving!) others. After all of this litany, my point is that this just happened to me; I didn’t work to make it happen. And if I experienced this, so can we all. We can awaken. It is a life of joy. It is also sadness and grief and work, but that is all part of the beauty and the joy.

 

—Jude Russell

*

 

1.  It’s still the beginning of a new year and there is a practice from the Buddhas’s time called “Beginning Anew.” It is a practice for keeping the community healthy with kindness and openness. 

 

Thay writes, “Beginning Anew is not to ask for forgiveness. Beginning Anew is to change your mind and heart, to transform the ignorance that brought about wrong actions of body, speech, and mind, and to help you cultivate your mind of love. Your shame and guilt will disappear, and you will begin to experience the joy of being alive. All wrongdoings arise in the mind. It is through the mind that wrongdoings can disappear.”

 

At Plum Village, they practice the ceremony of Beginning Anew every week. Everyone sits in a circle with a vase of fresh flowers in the center. The ceremony has three parts: flower watering, expressing regrets, and expressing hurts and difficulties. This practice can prevent feelings of hurt from building up over the weeks and helps make the situation safe for everyone in the community.

 

They begin with flower watering. They take the vase of flowers in their hands to reflect the freshness and beauty of the flower. During flower watering, each person acknowledges the wholesome, wonderful qualities of the others. It is not flattery; it is to speak the truth. Everyone has some strong points that can be seen with awareness. 

 

At my Thursday night sangha, one woman told us that she does this practice with and for herself at home. Although it is meant for a group or a family, she sees how valuable it is for herself living alone. One way she found to do it is to write herself a love letter. Inspired by how Thich Nhat Hanh would write love letters to world leaders that he disagreed with.   

 

So this is an INVITATION!: 

 

 WRITE a love letter to yourself. You might acknowledge whatever you feel good about that you did this past year to nurture yourself or another, or how you may have helped someone, or how you learned something. How was your practice and your communication with others? How did you keep your heart open and yourself well? You may have regrets that you have dwelled on; acknowledge them but let them go with compassion for yourself. Maybe end with compassion for another that has done you a wrong. This is a practice like others – be a good listener to yourself, speak/write from the heart, and bear witness for deep understanding.  

 

The second INVITATION!! 

 

WRITE a love letter to Thay.  Dear Thay! Thank him for what he has taught you this past year. Was there a special meditation you read and responded to from Your True Home?Is there a difference in the way you breathe or walk? Do you take more time to listen and notice what you are noticing?  

 

Debbie Buchanan passed on an Ode written by Joe Lamb—a veteran, a writer, a meditator, an arborist—published in Nostos, a magazine of Poerty and Art.  It is titled :   “A Letter to Thich Nhat Hanh.”  Here’s a little  excerpt:

 

Dear Thich Nhat Hanh, 

 

Thank you for teaching me walking meditation. Walking exceptionally slowly through forests, feeling the earth with each step, slowing down to notice the shapes of leaves, the smell of bark, the sound of my own breath. 

 

Thank you for the reminder that microaggressions build up in the unconscious where they can radiate out into the world. More importantly, I want to thank you, for the many reminders that micro kindnesses also build up and radiate out into the world, that micro acts of compassion can heal and nourish people we may never even meet….

 

It’s misleading to say you taught me. We were never introduced. (He knows him from “a couple of lectures” and from a writing workshop with a two of  Thay’s other students, Maxine and Therese.)

 

Was it you who taught our sangha to walk slowly,  counting our breaths, feeling our presence on the earth? Or was it Maxine and Therese? Where does the self stop and the other begin? Where does the teacher stop and the student begin? You complicated this confusion when you said that you are not only the man we see wearing a monk’s robe, you are also a cloud, a river, a forest.

 

You said this was not religion or philosophy, but rather just an observation about biology, about the earth itself.  Thank you for that marvelous confusion….

 

Yes, of course, we are water….

 

Yes of course I am forest….

 

So thank you for that great gift of reminding my anxious brain – always fussing with imaginary futures, always trying to heal the wounded past – that right here, right now, I am in the world, an astoundingly beautiful world, and the world is in me.

 

—from Joe Lamb’s “Letter to Thich Nhat Hanh”

 

The letter reminds me how lucky we have been to have a great wisdom teacher alive while we are here too. And how Thay and the monks and nuns would say to us, “We are here because you are here.”  

 

Thank you all for your reading, responding, and your practice. Feel free to share your letters.  

 

Happy New Year!  

 

–Katie Radditz