photograph by Ansel Adams

 

May 15, 2023

 

Let your heart speak to others’ hearts.

—tag on Yogi Tea bag

 

                Gandhi Returns

 

As if he had said enough in life, he uttered 

not a word where we stood in the station 

in my dream, only a stillness in the bustle 

all around us. Instead, he listened, turning 

his bright young face in welcome to every 

traveler as they made speeches of their own. 

A mother told of her son, and in Gandhi’s eyes 

the boy was hero. I told him how Ali in Tehran

had written me that poetry is oxygen, and in 

Mahatma’s eyes, this was a truth no gun 

could injure. One by one he summoned

witness from each pilgrim. Then, smiling, 

in his folds of pale cotton he helped us 

struggle with our luggage onto the steaming 

train. And when I turned, I saw he had none.

 

—Kim Stafford

*

 

Alex Tretbar sent two translations of a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke—showing what a big difference a translator’s choices make. He prefers the Robert Bly version:

 

PALM

 

Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk

only on feelings. That faces upward

and in its mirror

receives heavenly roads, which travel

along themselves.

That has learned to walk upon water

when it scoops,

that walks upon wells,

transfiguring every path.

That steps into other hands,

changes those that are like it

into a landscape:

wanders and arrives within them,

fills them with arrival.

 

—translated by Stephen Mitchell

 

PALM OF THE HAND

 

Palm of the hand. Sole that walks now

only on feeling. It turns over,

becomes a mirror,

shows sky roads, which

themselves are walking.

It has learned to walk on water,

when it dips down,

moves on springs,

causes all roads to fork.

Comes forward into other palms,

those like itself

turn into a countryside,

through them it travels and arrives,

fills them with having arrived.

 

—translated by Robert Bly

*

 

I saw lots of Jet trails in the blue sky gaily criss-crossing

and wondered how many of us might be able to see them.

Then this poem, that our beloved friend and  Zen teacher 

Bob Schaibly liked, popped into my mind.  

 

Love Note

 

Let us hire a hundred planes

Stuff them with hot cotton smoke

And write white poetry on the paper of the sky.

Let the ant people on the hot summer beaches look up squinting

Read feathery descriptions of your lips,

Traced by the sky writers.

 

We’ll pick a calm noontime,

Sun pressing wrinkles out of the steamy sea

Sky flat, receptive.

“Love,” I’ll write, and “mouth,” and silver words.

“Cling,” I’ll write, and “Stars,” and oh, don’t worry.

The words will all come easily enough.

It’s the idea that matters.

 

Then I’ll fly up in the highest plane’

And jump and parachute right through

The O in the word “Love”

And land in your backyard,

And kiss you – home again.

 

—Joseph Siebel

 

—Katie Radditz

*

 

And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels…

—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

 

The Miraculousness of Everything

 

Because life is short and each day is precious, I like to begin each day by entering what I call “the Golden World”—a state of quiet joy. To do this, I often reflect upon the miraculousness of everything. Puffy white clouds floating by in the sky—how do they do that? Where did these coffee beans come from? The trees I see out my window have brand new bright green leaves. How did that happen? Our neighborhood is full of tulips. The irises and the rhododendrons are just starting to bloom. The daphne and the daffodils have had their glorious days. The laptop computer that I’m typing this on was undreamt of when I was a boy.

 

Maybe the most impossible and amazing thing of all is that I am alive and aware. My eyes, brain and nervous system somehow create the illusion of a three-dimensional world in full color. Scientists might say, “It’s just photons of light hitting the surface of the eye, sending an electrical current to your brain, where the synapses in your visual cortex something something something…” Huh? Photons? Synapses? Brain? What the heck are those? Where did they come from? One of my little poems goes like this:

 

there has never been

is not now

and will never be

anything more perfect

than this glass of water

 

Oops! Here I am again…in the Golden World.

 

—Johnny Stallings

*

 

#186  The First Noble Truth

“The Buddha told us to recognize the First Noble Truth, the truth of suffering, and to look deeply in order to discover the Second Noble Truth, the cause of suffering.That is the only way the Fourth Noble Truth, the path to transform suffering into happiness, can reveal itself. So we have to emphasize the role of suffering. If we are so afraid of suffering, we have no chance.”

—from Your True Home  by Thich Nhat Hanh

 

When I was in the midst of deep suffering, of course I couldn’t comprehend that this was a good thing, leading to happiness. Sure didn’t feel like that to me.

 

The suffering was thirteen years of marriage to a raging alcoholic—yes, “raging” is not an exaggeration. Trying to cover a black eye with makeup, wearing long-sleeved shirts to cover bruised arms, making humiliating excuses for his passing out on the floor in the presence of company, sharp, cutting words more lasting than any physical pain…on and on. I thought if I left, I would be seen as a failure in my parents’ eyes, so I stayed and endured and excused for, yes, thirteen years. Believe me, I was not thinking of these years as those leading to happiness. Upon divorce (thank you, Al Anon), I eventually became a new person—or I became who I had been before marriage, Jump-up Jude! I felt like a helium balloon released into the sky. Happiness and euphoria beyond belief. However, I lived periods of time (and still do!), infused with what I would now call PTSD: Once I clambered over audience-filled seats in a theater in Ashland to escape sitting through a play by Sam Sheppard about an alcoholic husband who goes to bars and trades his car for bags of green peppers, which he drunkenly spills on the kitchen table as he lurches home to his wife. I can’t watch the movie Elephant Man, or The Days of Wine and Roses. Much as I wanted to, I could not even sit and watch the delicious hunk, Bradley Cooper, starring in A Star is Born, as he devolves into violent and abusive alcoholism. And I just can’t be around drunk people. I feel like I’m suffocating.

 

So where does the happiness component come from that??? The happiness and benefit come from my ability to connect and empathize  with others who have been traumatized by life experiences. The kids I mentored, the Indian woman whose family I helped for 18 years, and most especially, the men in prison I have spent time with for seven years; I have not lived their lives, nor have they lived mine, but we all have had deep trauma and all can relate to one another’s deep trauma in a blessedly bonding experience. 

 

It truly is sheer happiness when one understands, and is understood by another, in experiences of trauma and suffering. I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

 

–Jude Russell

*

 

Out Here

 

We come out here to watch the stars

fade as Orion heads home towards

the horizon. Low lying mist obscures his

turning as waves curl and crash, foamy flow

up on newly deposited rocks, old wood,

yellow toes of bald eagles foraging

among crows, pink footed gulls.

 

Light comes up slowly burning mist

away. As we are away at the edge of the

known world. Beacons of cable laying ships,

barges full of earth slowly appear

as tide comes in. Now there is color

as sky settles into her blue cloak, hovers

protectively around the huge remnant

 

Rock of sister cape worn down, left

standing alone in calling distance of

shore. Before us feasting on starlight

the sword edge crescent moon glints

over barrier pine hills,

sweeps the way clear, for us to make

what we can of this fresh new day.

 

—Elizabeth Domike

*

 

Michel is using a book by Pema Chödrön, based on the slogans in her teacher Chögyam Trungpa’s book Training the Mind: And Cultivating Loving-Kindness, as inspiration for his April meditation and mindfulness journal. Here are some excerpts:

 

April 4, 2023  #35  Don’t try to be the fastest. Don’t compete with others.

I might offer a step further along: Don’t compare self to others—don’t get judgy, of anything. I’m finding this is one of the lasting legacies of Jake Merriman and OHOM in my life: the letting go of judgement words. To do this one has to follow Johnny Stallings’ trait—compassion for everyone. I find that letting go of obsessive need to categorize and judge, or sort out good/bad, like/dislike, etc. I will vie less and less against others, or even self, for prizes that do not exist. From this less judging space it becomes easier to understand and have compassion for an other, and eventually even for self.

 

April 20, 2023  #48  Train without bias in all areas. It is crucial to do this pervasively and wholeheartedly.

IT’S IMPORTANT TO INCLUDE EVERYONE AND

EVERYTHING YOU MEET AS PART OF YOUR PRACTICE.

THEY BECOME THE MEANS BY WHICH YOU

CULTIVATE COMPASSION AND WISDOM.

Who doesn’t want to cultivate compassion and/or wisdom? I certainly have been striving to do this. There are certain beings (things are also included in this teaching—sigh) with whom I have a very challenged relationship. I don’t like them, they don’t like me, and neither is open to changing this. Yet, I’m certain (from all my readings) these others are here for some greater purpose in my life; shouldn’t waste an opportunity to grow, I may not get another one—then what? Go about with a malformed (uncorrected) ego, as I do now? No thanks! I guess I better get busy with my work/training.

 

April 21, 2023  #49 Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.

DO TONGLEN PRACTICE WHENEVER YOU FEEL RESENTMENT.

DO IT WITH SMALL THINGS ALL THE TIME. THEN YOU’LL BE

PREPARED TO WORK WITH THE BIG ONES WHEN THEY ARISE.

It seems wise to work with resolving one’s resentments, before they grow into “hates” for people, beings, or things. I believe all mindfulness practice is like this; sit now, in silent reverie, so amidst a fierce stormy barrage calm may prevail. Everything would simply build from there. Just breathe…

 

April 23, 2023  #49 Don’t be swayed by external circumstances.

WHATEVER YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES, PRACTICE  TONGLEN.

WHATEVER IS WANTED, SEND THAT OUT; WHATEVER IS

UNWANTED, BREATHE IT IN AND EXPERIENCE IT FOR

YOURSELF AND ALL OTHERS IN THE SAME BOAT.

This speaks to equanimity—not allowing the outside storms of life to sway my little stuff. Currently, I am bracing for the eventual passing of my father, whom I’ve come to love very much. Alzheimer’s is taking a toll on his mind and personality. I don’t see it yet, but my mom has to deal with many of the challenges that are arising. There’s nothing I can do for either of them; letting those concerns frazzle me doesn’t help any. All I can do is keep doing as best as I can. I’m not ready to let him go, and at the same time he is already gone. My father I knew as a child is long gone—the one with whom I had so many conflicts and struggles—and the one I’ve come to know, love, and appreciate from prison, he, too, is now gone. What’s left is the husk of of a man I once knew for his strength and resolve. He’s not dead, nor has his mind gone completely yet. However, the inevitable reality of time’s ravaging of mind and body are no longer easily ignored. It is time to embrace each moment, as it may be the last one I get with him. Whether by phone, or if I get to see him once more face-to-face, truth is present that we all proceed apace to the same destiny—each on our own path and in our own time.

 

—Michel Deforge

*

 

Dear Mindful Meditators

 

Our Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue began on September 15, 2020. It is mailed to 10 people who are in prison and emailed to about 60 people who aren’t—including 9 men who were in prison in September of 2020 who are now out of prison! Hallelujah!

 

We had our first get-together on Saturday, May 13th, at Taborspace in Portland. In attendance were: Charles Erickson, Nicole Rush, Sam Muller, Nancy Scharbach, Katie Radditz & Johnny Stallings. We talked about how our “life journey” and our “spiritual journey” are the same thing. Everyone shared stories from their life. Abe Green visited us from Montana—via FaceTime. We all had a lovely time together. 

 

May all people be happy.

May we live in peace & love.

 

—Johnny