Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

 

February 15, 2023

 

when the mind is still

all views disappear

 

trying to quiet the mind

is just more activity

 

—Seng Ts’an

*

 

“Abandoning concepts is of prime importance for a meditator.”

 

—from The Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh, p. 319

*

 

And a favorite quote for Valentine’s Day:

 

Love to faults is always blind,

Always is to joy inclin’d,

Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,

And breaks all chains from every mind.

 

—William Blake

*

 

¡Greetings from Guanajuato!

 

This morning (2/6/24) I was thinking about Thomas Traherne. He’s a Christian mystic from the Seventeenth Century. Naturally, he believes in God. For him, God created the heavens and the earth, and everything that lives here–including us.* He’s terrifically pleased with all this, grateful, and eloquent. I enjoy reading his poems and meditations. In my mind, I have to do some translating of what he says into ideas that are more congenial to me. So, this morning, instead of doing it in my head, I tried a couple things in my journal.

 

In Centuries of Meditations Thomas Traherne wrote…

 

58

The Cross is the abyss of wonders, the centre of desires, the school of virtues, the house of wisdom, the throne of love, the theatre of joys, and the place of sorrows; It is the root of happiness and the gate of Heaven.

 

…which I changed to…

 

58

Silence is the abyss of wonders, the center of desires, the school of virtues, the house of wisdom, the throne of love, the theater of joys, and the place of sorrows; it is the root of happiness and the gate of heaven.

 

A longer passage from Thomas Traherne…

 

71

But what life wouldst thou lead? And by what laws wouldst thou thyself be guided? For none are so miserable as the lawless and disobedient. Laws are the rules of blessed living. Thou must therefor be guided by some laws. What wouldst thou choose? Surely  since thy nature and God’s are so excellent, the Laws of Blessedness, and the Laws of Nature are the most pleasing. God loved thee with an infinite love, and became by doing so thine infinite treasure. Thou art the end unto whom He liveth. For all the lines of His works and counsels end in thee, and in thy advancement. Wilt not thou become to Him an infinite treasure, by loving Him according to His  desert? It is impossible but to love Him that loveth. Love is so amiable that it is irresistible. There is no defense against that arrow, nor any deliverance in that war, nor any safeguard from that charm. Wilt thou not live unto Him? Thou must of necessity live unto something. And what so glorious as His infinite Love? Since therefore, laws are requisite to lead thee, what laws can thy soul desire, than those that guide thee in the most amiable paths to the highest end? By Love alone is God enjoyed, by Love alone delighted in, by Love alone approached or admired. His Nature requires Love, thy nature requires Love. The law of Nature commands thee to Love Him: the Law of His nature, and the Law of thine.

 

…in my argot becomes…

 

71

It is impossible not to love someone who loves you. Love is so amiable that it is irresistible. There is no defense against that arrow, nor any safeguard from that charm. What life would you lead? By what would you be guided? We must have something to live for. What would you choose? Why not live in blessedness? Why not live in love? You must live for something. What more glorious than infinite love? Where there is infinite love there is infinite treasure. Choose the most amiable paths that lead to love and joy. By love alone is life enjoyed, by love alone delighted in. Love is the essence of life. It is our true nature.

 

*Darwin’s version seems more plausible to me than the account given in the book of Genesis–where Adam is a clay figurine and Eve is created from his rib.

 

paz, amor y felicidad

 

Juanito

*

 

Kim wrote in response—and sent a poem:

 

Thank you, Johnny, for these thoughts and texts. What you have done seems to me a version of what every reader does–adapt a text into one’s own frame of reference. I like that you took the time to spell it out in your own lingo.

 

I remember my father telling me about the early Spanish priest deep in the Amazon jungle preparing to preach the Christian gospel to the local tribe. For them, animals were gods. So the priest, to tell the story of Christ, began: “Once a jaguar was born in a nest of grass….”

 

This form of radical transformation of a text in translation, my father said, was called “an economy.” That is, an utterly thrifty and practical conversion of currency from one culture to another.

 

This you have now done, and all becomes a little more clear….

All praise to the Jaguar.

 

Kim

 

    Deep State II

 

Any songbird is a likely spy watching your

every move, head turned to hear your thoughts,

owl on night watch channeling your dreams,

wheeling hawk agent in feathered surveillance 

on the payroll of the CIA (Compassion in All) 

to know your part in the great extinction. If

you are complicit, it’s not too late to change—

switch loyalty to Earth and earn exoneration.

Join the underground in radical solidarity with

insects serving the FBI (Friend Bond Intrinsic) 

for the long-game operation eons old, code name

Conspiracy of Rivers trafficking in mist by secret 

transport hidden in plain sight, sotto voce bats

chanting dispatch passed along by moth wing 

semaphore for the sleeper cells of bees.

 

—Kim Stafford

*

 

Prayer for the Reader Who Photocopies This Prayer and Shares It with Friends and Sisters

 

Dear Coherence: Thank You for beer and friends and pencils and socks and the Red Cross and cellos and Paul Desmond’s saxophone and Wiffle balls and elm trees and woodpeckers and transistor radios in the pockets of old men who are fishing for bass and perch but also keeping one ear on the baseball game. Thank You for suspenders and Larry Bird. Thank You for typewriter keys and stamps and windowpanes and coffeepots. Thank You for Rosemary Clooney’s voice especially in her later years. Thank You for photocopy machines and friends and sisters and the refrigerators on which we pin up small lovely strange things people we love send us in the mail. Thank You for teeth and earphones. Thank You for sand crabs and safety belts. Thank You for the way men pat their pockets while checking for their keys and wallets and phones. Thank You for the way people defer to each other while boarding the bus. Thank You for all the little things that are not little. Absolutely beautiful work there. If You had a supervisor I would so  be writing a letter of commendation for Your personal file, but…And so: amen.

 

—from A Book of Uncommon Prayer by Brian Doyle

*

 

Walt Whitman says:

 

…The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,

And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

 

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.

 

7

Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her it is just as luck to die, and I know it.

 

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots,

And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,

The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

 

—from “Song of Myself,” sections 6 & 7

*

 

#318  “True Generosity”

 

“True generosity is not a trade or a bargaining strategy. In true giving there is no thought of giver and recipient. This is called ‘the emptiness of giving,’ in which there is no perception of separation between the one who gives and the one who receives.

This is the practice of generosity given in the spirit of wisdom, with the understanding of interbeing. You offer help as naturally as you breathe. You don’t see yourself as the giver and the other person as the recipient of your generosity, who is now beholden to you and must be suitably grateful, respond to your demands, and so on. You don’t give so you can make the other person your ally. When you see that people need help, you offer and share what you have with no strings attached and no thought of reward.”—from Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh

 

I am not a good board member; I am especially not effective as a fundraising committee member. I would like to be helpful in that area, but I am definitely a liability rather than an asset. In fact I have been quietly dropped from the two committees I’ve been on in the past. Let me explain.

 

Decades ago, I volunteered to go door-to-door soliciting donations for the American Cancer Society to put on the ‘resume’ for our Lake Grove Garden Club, to show others how charitable we were. I launched my campaign door-to-door, and after about a dozen or so households, I’d gathered a smattering of small checks and bills. Seemed like everyone had other needs for their money, very understandable. I’d collected about $75 when I came to the last house for the day. An elderly woman greeted me sweetly. I told her my reason for being there, and she whispered, “Oh my dear, I would love to help, but I have just finished my last round of chemotherapy myself, and I have not a penny left to my name, but I do wish you luck.” Well, I felt so terrible and could truly feel her pain, so I rummaged through my envelope of donations and gave her $60 of my $75 collection of the day. It was evident that she needed that $60, and much more; it was also evident that all the others I’d approached were in need themselves. Life is hard, I explained to the club members when I turned over my $15.00. Soon after, I was quietly taken off the fundraising committee and assigned to the cookie sales committee.

 

The fundraising committee of the Portland Artquake board evidently had not learned of this when they assigned me a spot in their group. They discussed with me how it was an essential component  that we donate a portion of our artists’ sales profits to other organizations. This was followed by a heated discussion about what we would get in return for our donation: If we gave X amount, could we expect to get X in return? Could we give less than X amount and still get what we wanted/needed in return? Could we get a particular in-kind, non-fungible (I was 29 years old and just learning the definition of ‘fungible’) favor/gift? Would that qualify as an equal, or more than a win-win for us? I was naive, and puzzled.

 

During a moment of stony silence in the arguing, I piped up, “But isn’t this a gift? I thought you didn’t expect something in return for a gift. Isn’t it something you give with no expectation of some reward, or return? It’d sure be easier that way.” The silence turned frigid, and pitying. One man sneered at me in disbelief, “You don’t think we do this crap for nothing, do you? This is business, sweetheart, business!”  The light dawned and I nodded slowly, knowingly.

 

Days later they told me everyone thought I’d be great on the arts display committee. They told me it was a promotion, an honor—but I’ve always wondered…

 

—Jude Russell

*

 

Mirror

 

Shipmates, we float on a sea of story.

 

Books become companions for a while,

saving us from chaos in our minds

 

We stay up to find

out what in the end

holds that particular narrative line. 

 

Even though we can guess,

the thirst is there to know

no matter how twisty we go.

 

Just not too.

 

Not too easy, not too twisty,

not too overblown, or risky.

 

Not too sappy,

pedestrian, predictable

and please, not too happy.

 

A challenge or predicament

must engage

could be in the form of a wizened sage.

 

Perhaps there is a tiger

unexpectedly on a raft

or a talking spider

caught in an updraft.

 

A bear and his friends,

an unwholesome fish,

it could even be someone

trying to find the right sized dish.

 

There are colors and places

and narrow cramped spaces

full of smells

and remarkably… tolling bells.

 

Wherever we go

we are still here,

never having gone and yet…

things become, curiously, more clear.

 

—Elizabeth Domike

*

 

These days I am taking care of my granddaughter about 2 hours a day. Delana is nine weeks old. She is so tiny she looks like a baby buddha, with her mother, Ying’s, Thai genes. She looks more like a little old man than a girl when she is serious. My husband often refers to her as “he” even now. When my son Will, her papa, comes to pick her up, his face transforms. He starts beaming when he looks into her eyes. And he exclaims, “She is so darling! Even when she’s crying, I think she is darling!” I see Will’s face shining, as he remembers over and over that he’s totally, unabashedly, unconditionally in love.  It lights up the room!

 

And I think of this poem. I carry this poem with me, I carry it in my heart!  

 

(i carry your heart with me)

 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

—e. e. cummings

 

—Katie Radditz