Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

 

December 15, 2023

Let us be kind and compassionate to remove the sadness of the world.

—tag on a Yogi Tea bag

*

 

Someone at a lecture asked Suzuki Roshi about psychoanalysis.

 

In answer he said, “You think the mind is like a pond that you throw things in, and they sink to the bottom, like old shoes, and later they rise to the surface. But actually, there’s no such thing as the mind!”

 

—from To Shine One Corner of the World: moments with Suzuki Roshi

*

 

What Christmas Means to Me

 

It took me a long time to discover the error in presuming to write something with a title like “What Christmas Means.” But I’m an authority on “What Christmas Means to Me.” Who else?

 

It seems to me that every spoken or written sentence should begin with the phrase “it seems to me.” But that would be tedious. I am not and you are not in a position to make pronouncements about the way things are. 

 

Only Donald Trump is in that position. Just kidding. 

 

And so, dear reader, don’t take offense. This does not pretend to be the right way to look at Christmas. Just my way.

 

The birth of Jesus is a symbolic event, not a historical one. What it symbolizes is that every baby born on Planet Earth is an incarnation of the Divine.

 

End of essay. That’s about all I’ve got to say on the subject, but I enjoy saying it.

 

—Johnny Stallings, from the forthcoming book The Nonstop Love-In

*

 

  Earth Eve

 

Yes, we know that telling, about the apple

and the exile, how one son slew the other,

so we descended from their legacy of loss 

and violence, and blamed our troubles

on a woman’s taste for sweet. But

 

in another telling she remained resident

in green, her daughters Wind and Willow

danced together, could bless without fire

or sacrifice, could follow moth by night,

butterfly by day, moon and sun, enough.

 

Which story shall we tell the children:

how we failed, or how they might live.

 

—Kim Stafford

*

 

Brandon sent these quotes:

 

When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.

 

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

 

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.

 

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.    

 

—Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

 

—Brandon Gillespie

*

 

“It is very important to have at least one meal together every day. This meal should be an occasion to practice mindfulness, and to be aware of how fortunate we are to be together. After we sit down we look at each person, and breathing in and out, smile to him or her for a few seconds. This practice can produce a miracle. It can make you real, and it can make the others at the table real also.”—#359 “A Family Meal” from Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Welll—-ha ha ha! “A Family Meal,” “an occasion to practice mindfulness,” “breathing in and out, smile to him or her for a few seconds…” I don’t know how many of the twenty three people at our Thanksgiving meal had a chance to enact these practices, but I know that everyone laughed and hugged and ate and jabbered for hours and hours…and hours. One woman said, “You don’t know me, but Mary said she thought you wouldn’t mind…”  Another said, “Oh I’m Sean’s son’s girlfriend and Sean thought it would be okay if…” 

 

Of course it was okay. It was a gorgeous, sunny, chilly day, and the snowy mountain gleamed as white as the mounds of whipped cream on the pumpkin pies. Six kids under five years old caromed from wall to wall, inside and outside. They poked at Lolo the dog’s nose and ears, then shrieked and ran when she growled her old dog growl. We had to cook on the outside barbecue to get all the food ready; doors flung open and shut a hundred times. Cold air in, warm air out. “Hey, close that door!” “Can’t! Gotta’ heat up this ham because she has turkey in the oven!” Everyone, it seems, brought pies—pumpkin(s), apple, peach, blueberry/blackberry, pecan…  One of the pumpkin pies had a huge slice carved out of it. Sister, Holly, waving her wine glass around, announced, “Pie before dinner is my motto!”

 

In spite of all the chaos, the meal went off without a hitch. Sisters and brother-in-law spent the night, along with a few others who decided they were so comfortable they would, too.

 

So: Mindfulness? Not so much. Except for our singing of a round that my family has sung before each Thanksgiving meal since I was little. I passed out copies to groups of 4 or more; I sang for them to introduce the simple tune, then instructed groups to chime in after a few bars. Everybody settled down, and we sang. It sounded like a chorus of bells being rung. Ethereal. Holy.

 

    “Around the table now we praise the Lord of earth and heaven.

     In grateful songs to thee we sing for all thy mercies giv’n.”

 

We sang several rounds until the last group echoed away,  “….for all thy mercies giv’n.” And there was silence for a hushed moment. I guess that was our “mindfulness moment,” and we did all smile to each other, and we were real.

 

—Jude Russell

*

 

Open the Door

 

Open the door

Receive the breath like a wave

Weave a sense of calm

Whisper soft and shallow

Resonate – an underground stream

Smooth continuous deepening calm

Nourishing release

Feet heavy, lower legs settle

Stillness in the knees

Thighs heavy

Hips belly chest back

Sinking

Hands lower arms elbows upper arms

Shoulders – head heavy

Effortless heaviness

Silent silent

Peace peace peace on the in breath

Peace peace peace on the out breath

Body infused with peace

Mind saturated with peace

Become peace

Awareness

Peace inside the body

Peace outside the body

Peace above the body

Peace below the body

Surrounding the body

On the breath – in the mind

Absorbed

Unchanging

Undisturbed

The source

 

—Elizabeth Domike

*

 

Clairvoyance

 

When you work in newspapers, you’re always a few days in the future. On Tuesday you’re talking with your editor about Thursday, and on Wednesday you’re talking about Friday. On Saturday I talk about nothing. I sit on the patio at 5 a.m. facing the eastern dark, remembering how I tossed and turned in utero. I’m really not so intelligent as people think. I forget books as soon as I’ve read them, articles as soon as I’ve written them. I got through all of Proust in five months but could tell you little about it, other than how I superimposed my great loves over those of the narrator. When you work in newspapers, “today” is always in the rear-view, familiar but strange, like your lover’s face when you see it in the mirror, a speck of toothpaste in the corner of their backward smile.

 

—Alex Tretbar, originally published in SAND

*

 

5  “It was beginning winter”

 

It was beginning winter 

An in-between time, 

The landscape still partly brown:

The bones of weeds kept swinging in the wind, 

Above the blue snow. 

 

It was beginning winter, 

The light moved slowly over the frozen field, 

Over the dry seed-crowns, 

The beautiful surviving bones 

Swinging in the wind. 

 

Light traveled over the wide field; 

Stayed. 

The weeds stopped swinging.

 The mind moved, not alone,

Through the clear air, in the silence. 

 

Was it light? 

Was it light within? 

Was it light within light? 

Stillness becoming alive, 

Yet still? 

 

A lively understandable spirit 

Once entertained you. 

It will come again. 

Be still. 

Wait.

 

—from the poem “The Lost Son” by Theodore Roethke

 

“unto us a child is born”

Unto all of us. Delana Nalin Kloster has been born unto us, into our family and our loving, wise tribe. 

We are blessed and so happy to have you friends around us. Even in this time that, like all times, is troubled and people feel hopeless—more war, less water.

But a child comes into the world and all around this shining space, there

is anticipation and hope!  

A not so subtle shift; she comes like a force of nature, hungry for life.  

 

Delana – named by her parents Kornvipa “Ying” and William Forest Kloster, is an ancient name with many meanings in many cultures. It symbolizes the embodiment of beauty and love, sunlight, and resilience.

Nalin – in Sanskrit means Beautiful Lotus Flower. Named by her Thai Grandfather, following the tradition of waiting in meditation for the right meaning,

 

Delana Nalin arrives at Christmas time when millions of people are celebrating the birth of a child.

May she be a princess of Peace, Love, and Happiness

 

—Katie Radditz

*

 

This year is coming to an end. I just looked through the Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogues for 2023. It’s quite a treasure trove of beauty and inspiration! If, from time to time you find yourself in need of either, please visit the Meditation & Mindfulness Archive on the Open Road website: https://openroadpdx.com/event/open-road-meditation-mindfulness-archive/

 

Much love to everyone reading this!—now and in the year ahead.

 

Johnny