BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//The Open Road:  a learning community - ECPv6.15.3//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://openroadpdx.com
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for The Open Road:  a learning community
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Los_Angeles
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20220313T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20221106T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20230312T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20231105T090000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20221201
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20230105
DTSTAMP:20260426T115913
CREATED:20221201T182804Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T132338Z
UID:3442-1669852800-1672876799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  12/1/22
DESCRIPTION:  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nDecember 1\, 2022 \n  \n  \nThis coolness! \nIt is the entrance \nTo Paradise! \n—Issa  (1763-1828) \n  \nHappy Day! There’s a new book of “Letters and Uncollected Writings of R. H. Blyth\,” edited by Norman Waddell\, titled Poetry and Zen. \n  \nReginald Horace Blyth (1898-1964) was instrumental in introducing haiku poetry and Zen Buddhism to the West. He was a student and friend of D. T. Suzuki (1870-1966)\, who wrote many books and essays about Zen. Blyth’s four volumes titled Haiku are probably what he is most well-known for. These books were a big influence on Gary Snyder and Richard Wright\, among many other writers. My favorite book by Blyth is Zen in English Literature and Oriental Culture\, his first book\, which he wrote while he was a prisoner of war in Japan\, and which was published in Japan right after World War II. (Strangely\, after being a prisoner of war\, he was tutor to the Crown Prince for 16 years!) Every time I finish reading the book\, I start reading it again from the beginning. The boldness of his thought reminds me of Emerson and Thoreau. And he’s terrifically funny! \n  \nExcited by getting Poetry and Zen\, I thought Blyth would be a good subject for the next peace\, love\, happiness & understanding. I know a couple of other people for whom Blyth is a blithe companion on their life journey. I asked my friend Howard Thoresen if he would write something. This is what he wrote: \n  \n  \nThe first thing I remember hearing about R.H. Blyth was that he “had given up Zen for haiku.” Over many decades I have sometimes suspected I got it wrong; perhaps it was Lafcadio Hearn or one of the other early western luminaries of the cult of Zen and Haiku. Or maybe I had just imagined it. But in sniffing around the internet I came across this quote from Alan Watts: “R.H. Blyth\, who was a great Zen man\, wrote me once and said ‘How are you these days? As for me\, I have abandoned satori (enlightenment) altogether and I’m trying to become as deeply attached as I can to as many people and things as possible.” \n  \nThis quote doesn’t exactly say that he “had given up Zen for haiku” but perhaps my version is like an early translation of an ancient Japanese poem into modern English. \n  \nBlyth\, as quoted by Watts\, expresses my own attitude; I am an administrative director of a Zen temple\, and I have a lifelong meditation habit\, but I have never taken the precepts; and\, when people ask\, I say\, “My Buddhism is all about attachment.” I am working for the temple because I am attached to people in the community and that attachment is a common thread running through everyone and everything in my life. My attachment to Johnny Stallings is the reason I am writing at this moment.  \n  \nIn my nosing it appears that many modern pundits think Blyth didn’t understand Zen or Haiku; the same charge is leveled at Watts and other famous English language interpreters of Chinese and Japanese literature\, some of whom never even bothered to learn the original languages.  \n  \nHarold Bloom\, in a series of books beginning with The Anxiety of Influence\, developed a theory that all reading is misreading. You can never actually know all the things an author knows\, you can never embody the author’s experience\, so you are necessarily misreading or mistranslating. \n  \n     On a withered branch \nA crow is perched \n     In the autumn evening \n                                  —Bashō \n  \nThis Blyth translation brought to my mind a famous koan:  \n  \nAn old lady supports a monk and builds a meditation hut for him on her property. After 20 years or so\, she decides to test his enlightenment. She instructs a beautiful young woman to embrace the monk and then ask him\, “What now?” The young woman does as she is told and the monk says\, “A withered tree grows on a cold rock in winter. Nowhere is there any warmth.” When the old lady hears this\, she exclaims\, “Twenty years of meditation and no loving kindness? Burn down the hut!” \n  \nA more recent translation of Bashō’s haiku by Andrew Fitzsimons would never have called up that koan: \n  \nOn a leafless bough \n         The perching and pausing of a crow \n                  The end of Autumn \n  \nSomeone else would have to tell me which is the more accurate translation or which is the better poem. \n  \nIn this haiku\, one translator sees the crow perching on a withered branch and the other sees it perching and pausing on a leafless bough. As I write\, I am seeing my own crow\, and as you read\, so are you. Even if we study the history of haiku and the history of Zen and the history of crows and branches\, we will never see what Bashō saw back in the Japan of the 1600s\, although we tell ourselves that we do.  \n  \nDid the word “branch” call up that curious koan in your mind? Probably not. \n  \nI love this theory of misreading\, although\, of course\, I am probably misreading Bloom.  \n  \nMaybe Blyth misread the ancient poets\, but those of us who encountered his many volumes on haiku and Zen in eastern and western culture when we were young (he finds haiku “embedded” in the western classics) are happy that he did. In his charming and glorious misreadings\, he opened a door to a way of seeing\, hearing\, writing and interpreting that wouldn’t have existed without him. As is similarly true of Alan Watts\, it seems probable to me that many of the pundits who sneer at the earlier popularizers of “eastern thought” owe their very interest\, not to mention their careers\, to these “influencers.” \n______________________________________ \n  \nWas R.H. Blyth a major influence in my life? Is he still? I would not have thought so\, but… \n  \nEarlier I said that my own attitude about satori resonates with Blyth as reported by Watts. Is it possible that my hearing or mishearing of this quotation back in the 1960’s—before I had any involvement with Zen and before I had any acquaintance with Blyth’s writings—had a determining affect on the evolution of my thinking? Of my way of life? Certainly it has stayed with me through all these years. \n  \nAnd many haiku\, encountered first in Blyth\, have also been lifelong companions:  \n  \n          O snail \nClimb Mount Fuji \n          But slowly\, slowly! \n  \n           You light the fire; \nI’ll show you something nice— \n           A great ball of snow! \n  \n          For you fleas too \nThe night must be long\, \n           It must be lonely. \n  \n           A red sky \nFor you snail; \n           Are you glad about it? \n  \n…and\, oh\, so many more. \n———————————————————————— \n  \nI confess I never thought much about the man whose writing had such an influence on my thinking. If anyone had asked I probably would have imagined him as a stereotypical Englishman of the early 20th Century\, wearing a bowler hat and a suit and sharing with the Japanese a fondness for proper form and tea. What a superficial and chauvinistic person I am!   \n  \nIn this new book\, Poetry and Zen\, Letters and Uncollected Writings of R.H. Blyth\, edited with an introduction by Norman Waddell\, I encounter a sort of superhuman\, who taught himself European and Asian languages (without the aid of the internet); who played a number of musical instruments as well as repairing and building organs; who worshipped Bach; who practiced serious Zen under a master’s guidance\, wrote books\, taught\, and engaged with scholars\, artists\, and politicians. He was also a vegetarian and a pacifist and as a result was imprisoned during both World Wars. He is one of those intellectuals who seem to know about everything and are able to synthesize their knowledge and share it with wit and grace. He found the insight of Zen and haiku in the western canon\, and was as likely to quote Jesus or Wordsworth as Basho. He had a friendly relationship with D. T. Suzuki\, the foremost interpreter of Buddhism to the west in the first half of the 20th Century. Suzuki praised Blyth’s haiku translations as better than his own. \n  \nBlyth’s Zen teacher was Kayama Taigi Roshi. In a passage I love\, he describes his teacher’s teishos (dharma talks): \n  \nI found them completely different from any Christian sermon I had ever heard. One thing I remember when I took sanzen with him. He told me not to smoke while I was taking a pee. This next teaching is a bit indelicate. He spoke about how you feel when after relieving your bowels your finger breaks through the toilet paper as you’re wiping yourself—and he said that when that happens you must focus with great intensity on that feeling…. I suppose he meant getting intimately in touch with your own essential filth. Having your fingers touching your own shit puts you in touch with the fundamental self. \n  \nI believe that going forward I will always think of that “breakthrough” of finger through toilet paper to shit as the quintessential evocation of Zen insight—insofar as I understand it.  \n  \nRegarding his four volumes of Haiku through the seasons\, the poet Allen Ginsberg “stressed to his class how fundamental those texts had been for the young poets [Snyder\, Whalen\, himself]—a bible\, an encyclopedia\, a primer in direct perception and use of concrete details\, as well as in the mind that was still enough to catch these and the hand that was confident enough to set them down on paper.” \n  \nSince this is a wandering\, formless essay\, I’ll repeat the story here of how I once heard Ginsberg read at Cooper Union. At the back of the hall a commotion broke out and Ginsberg\, from the stage asked what was going on. Someone said\, “There’s a huge cockroach walking around here!” And Ginsberg said\, “Let’s write a haiku about it!” and took suggestions from the audience and reworked and edited it—alas\, I didn’t write it down. \n  \nSo what could I say to summarize my experience\, my life\, with R.H. Blyth? As I think is clear from what I have already said\, he was a wonderful companion and teacher of whom I was mostly unaware. In a Zen center where we had a bulletin board\, I used to post a haiku every season; and my exercise was to read through the volume of the particular season we were in—occasionally straying. These volumes were just there—treasures of wisdom and delight\, I assumed them the way I assumed the support of my parents without considering their human fullness. Now and then I wake up for a moment and gasp\, “Did I thank my parents? Did I actually say the words to them\, ‘Thank you’ ?” But I have so many supporters\, lovers\, parents\, friends\, blades of grass—These haiku\, these tiny glimpses of eternity\, remind me to be aware\, to be grateful for all the treasures that surround me. Thank you\, Dr. Blyth! \n  \nIn Poetry and Zen (pp. 6-7\, Shambhala. Kindle Edition)\, Blyth writes about the aim of life\, so I’ll let that be the last word here:  \n  \nThe aim of life\, its only aim\, is to be free. Free of what? Free to do what? Only to be free\, that is all. Free through ourselves\, free through others; free to be sad\, to be in pain; free to grow old and die. This is what our soul desires\, and this freedom it must have; and shall have. \n  \n–Howard Thoresen
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-12-1-22/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20221215
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20230115
DTSTAMP:20260426T115913
CREATED:20221217T190909Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221217T194512Z
UID:3481-1671062400-1673740799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue  12/15/22
DESCRIPTION:photo by Howard Thoresen \n  \nOpen Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \nDecember 15\, 2022 \n  \noften when walking in the streets of lower Manhattan or on the promenade along the Hudson River  \na young father crosses my path chatting gaily with his son or carrying his daughter on his shoulders \npointing to the statue \nor a young woman and a young man stroll beside me \ntheir bodies entwined their eyes shining the involuntary smiles \nand i sigh in the knowledge that i will never be a young father or a young lover \nor i read about some young actor who at 23 has a resume as long as i had at 60 and a better \nthe scientist\, the painter\, the family man\, the social worker\, the deep sea diver\, the marathon runner \nwhen there arises in me a longing to have another life \nto have been a different person \nto live for a thousand years \ni remember the stories of the yogis i read as a young boy—the siddhi of having more than one body and thus of working out innumerable skeins of karma which to them was a terrible task but to me sounds delightful \nthere arises another something that feels like a conviction “i am already doing this. all these bodies are mine\, not just the human but the dogs and cats and cockroaches\, the breakdancer and the ballerina\, the blah blah blah \nthese are my bodies my pasts and my futures\, i am life flowing through a million lives” \nthe guru said he had the power to enter the highest state at will and i think so do i \ni have only to shift my eyes in one direction or another and i am all beings and all being \nbut it isn’t a trance\, i don’t fall down or have to be taken care of by awed disciples \ni can continue to meander and people don’t know that i am them or maybe they do \n  \n—Howard Thoresen \n* \n  \nDec. 17\, 1834 \nThere is in every man a determination of character to a peculiar end\, counteracted often by unfavorable fortune\, but more apparent the more he is at liberty. This is called his genius\, or his nature\, or his turn of mind. The object of Education should be to remove all obstructions & let this natural force have free play & exhibit its peculiar product. It seems to be true that no man in this is deluded. This determination of his character is to something in nature; something real. This object is called his Idea. It is that which rules his most advised actions\, those especially that are most his\, & is most distinctly discerned by him in those days or moments when he derives the sincerest satisfaction from his life. \n  \n—Ralph Waldo Emerson\, from Emerson in His Journals\, selected and edited by Joel Porte\, p. 132 \n* \n  \n#264  Compassionate Listening  \n  \n“Compassionate listening is crucial. We listen with the willingness to relieve the suffering of the other person\, not to judge or argue with her. We listen with all our attention. Even if we hear something that is not true\, we continue to listen deeply so the other person can express her pain and release the tensions within herself. If we reply to her or correct her\, the practice will not bear fruit. If we need to tell the other person that her perception was not correct\, we can do that a few days later privately and calmly.” \n(from Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh) \n  \nRecently in a discussion group\, we have been experiencing a certain degree of ‘dialogue imbalance\,’ I’ll call it. One or two well-meaning members have been imposing advice (and veiled judgment) upon others who are sharing their thoughts and feelings. This has caused those ‘counseled’ to withdraw and become reluctant to share. \n  \nWe all need to express shared vulnerability\, not impose answers\, solutions\, corrections or advice. Any and all of these evoke frustration and feelings of being misunderstood (and judged) instead of being heard.  \n  \nThis can be a challenge. People want to help\, and we are a solution-driven\, solution-finding society. We believe that the best way to help is to find/give answers\, when often the most meaningful help is simply…to listen.  \n  \n—Jude Russell \n* \n  \n                    I Know Nothing \n  \nI know nothing about music\, but when the piccolo  \ngot lost in the cave\, and shadows began to weep\,  \nI wished I did. That way\, I could follow the scales  \nbeading a dragon’s neck all the way to the tail\, \nmelody oozing slow as honey from the strings  \nweaving a shroud for the hangman’s daughter \nafter her singing silence robbed my sorry hoard. \nI wish I knew the first few notes violas scribbled \nto reveal how percussion crushed the grass bowing  \ntoward the river where the horns flowed fast. \nAnd when the soloist turned her words to silver  \nshining past my mind\, I wished I could mesh \nthat lingering flame burning the English horn  \nto sear my soul long after the concert ended. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nParts of Me \n  \nPart of me is ready to begin. \nAnother part is already finished. \n  \nOther parts—unknown—keep themselves to themselves. \n  \nPart of me is party to silent movies \nplaying for no one \nat a drive-in theater in the sky. \n  \nWe are all of us part of each other. \n  \nPart of me doesn’t believe that\, though. Part of me stubs its toe \non trashcans in bowling alleys\, chair legs in cemeteries. \n  \nPart of me is gripping its part of me’s head \nlike a housewife testing a melon\, in market. \n  \nPart of me’s frightened of what I just said. \n  \nPart of me wants a lobotomy\, but cries for its mommy \ninstead. Part of me’s still an egg. \n  \nPart of me’s already dead. \n  \nPart of me is the start of me. Part of me’s also the end of me. \nPart of me part of me part of me. \n  \nThe part of me that thinks it is smart of me \nto write about all of the parts of me \nis one of the very worst parts of me—take it from [part of] me. \n  \nPart of me tires of parroting you\, pardoning me\, petering out & catching the flu. \nBut part of me also revels in blue\, resorts to leaving the zoo. \n  \nPart of me finds it hard to write \nwhen part of someone else \nis reading over part of me’s shoulder. \n  \nPart of me never knows how far apart \nthe parts of me are. \n  \nPart of me’s tired of faltering\, and in the end\, \nthe art of me consists of weaving together the far-flung parts of me. \n  \nPart of me parts the curtains and shows you all of me. \n  \n—Alex Tretbar \n* \n  \nSometimes I sit down to write a poem and sometimes I’m writing in my journal and something I’ve written seems like it could be a little poem. Here are some old and some recent examples: \n  \nWhat the Crow Said \n  \n“Caw\,” said the crow \nI didn’t say anything \nI just wrote down what the crow said \n* \n  \nMy Retirement Plan \n  \nI’m waiting for the elves to arrive \nwith bags of gold \n* \n  \na guy drives by in a blue car \ncovered with cherry blossom petals \n* \n  \ncouple of guys \nunloading mattresses \nfrom a Frito-Lay truck \nwhat the hell is going on? \n* \n  \nlast night I was playing miniature golf in my dream \n* \n  \ncold night \nsitting by the woodstove \nthe happiest man alive \n* \n  \nholy holy holy is the bean plant \ncup of coffee \nthe stuffed animals on the window sill \nthat have been loved unto baldness \nthe song sparrow \nthe sunlight \nand even the man sitting at his laptop \nfailing once again to say the unsayable \n* \n  \nChristmas Prayer \n  \nThank you\, Jesus\, \nfor giving me this day off work. \n* \n  \nthe Buddha’s best sermon \nwas when he gave that guy a flower \n* \n  \nY’know those paperweights \nwith a little house \nand little trees \nand if you turn it upside-down \nand then rightside-up again \nit snows? \nI’m sitting in that little house. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nMarcus Aurelius vs. Marie Howe \n  \nI have been in the habit these past weeks of picking up Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and finding a quote to ponder for the day. There was one quote last week that became the center of my conversations with three very different people. \n  \nLook attentively on each particular thing you do\, and ask yourself if death be a terror because it deprives you of this. \n  \nWow. I was immediately struck by how profound this statement is. To me\, this is a reminder to pay close attention and choose wisely how each day is spent. And then I started to feel a little insignificant. Marcus Aurelius\, was\, after all\, an emperor\, and wrote Meditations as a record for himself of self-improvement. Perhaps the idea of looking so closely through the lens of death robbing me of such importance is not for the everyday person. \n  \nI shared this quote with my daughter and we discussed my thoughts as I continued to chew on its meaning and she sat back for a moment and then said\, “Yeah but what about What the Living Do?” \n  \nWhat the Living Do is a poem within a book of the same name written by Marie Howe. Howe wrote the collection of poems about her brother who died of AIDS-related complications in his 20s. The poem simply and eloquently reminds us that the everyday moments – both good\, bad and indifferent – are what make up a human life.  \n  \nWhen I look back at my 48 years lived\, which includes the birth of four children\, a marriage\, a divorce and falling in love again\, these big life events are not what stand out to me. Life is driving through Delaware in July at sunset and seeing people in their Sunday best eating ice cream cones. Life is smelling the perfume my mother wore when she’d get dressed up and go out on the town – the scent taking me back to sitting on her bed as a child\, watching her put her jewelry on. Life is listening to my son tell me casually about his day on the ride home from school\, my heart filling up with his words\, unbeknownst to him. And life is feeling butterflies on a morning walk through my neighborhood in summer as I resonate on the poem from my lover as I swiftly prance down the sidewalk\, smelling every rose I can reach to stick my nose into. \n  \nThe ordinary is the extraordinary. And when I look again at what Marcus Aureilus has to say\, I think he understood this as well. It isn’t about what we do but how we perceive. It is in the looking that we can spot the miracles.  \n  \nWhat the Living Do \n  \nJohnny\, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days\, some \nutensil probably fell down there. \nAnd the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous\, and the \ncrusty dishes have piled up \nwaiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the \neveryday we spoke of. \nIt’s winter again: the sky’s a deep\, headstrong blue\, and the \nsunlight pours through \nthe open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in \nhere and I can’t turn it off. \nFor weeks now\, driving\, or dropping a bag of groceries in the \nstreet\, the bag breaking\, \nI’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday\, \nhurrying along those \nwobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk\, spilling my coffee \ndown my wrist and sleeve\, \nI thought it again\, and again later\, when buying a hairbrush: \nThis is it. \nParking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you \ncalled that yearning. \nWhat you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the \nwinter to pass. We want \nwhoever to call or not call\, a letter\, a kiss—we want more and \nmore and then more of it. \nBut there are moments\, walking\, when I catch a glimpse of \nmyself in the window glass\, \nsay\, the window of the corner video store\, and I’m gripped by a \ncherishing so deep \nfor my own blowing hair\, chapped face\, and unbuttoned coat \nthat I’m speechless: \nI am living. I remember you. \n  \n—poem by Marie Howe \n  \n—Nicole Rush \n* \n  \nNovember 2\, 2022  CALL OF THE HEART \n  \nThe initial bedrock from which speech grows is the voice. \nWhen the voice is born\, before words and prior to sentences\, \none’s desires are already beginning to sprout. \nBeing revealed is the possibility of the turning to another\, of a conversation. \n  \nThe voice precedes words. \nThe way the words of the prayer sound becomes their meaning\, \npaving for them a path to their destination. \nIt’s as if the melody of the prayer \nlifts the words on its wings\, \nwhispers between the pages of the prayerbook\, \namongst the prayer shawls\, \nascends from the place of prayer to the Holy Ark\, \nsoars through the windows\, out to the boundless skies.   \n  \n—from Prepare My Prayer by Rabbi Dov Singer \n  \nThis causes me to think of infants\, to wonder at the sounds. The process of self-discovery\, of self-awareness; hearing the sounds\, giving meaning\, learning speech\, communicating needs and wants. Primal\, unyielding. With age comes inhibitions\, filters\, separating the sounds from the heart connecting to the mind. Struggle begins to communicate what is felt\, using only words. And it fails—miserably. Life then moves on\, striving to reconnect mind and heart. Each strives and finds a way\, in time. Sound and heart rejoin; satisfying communication resumes. Heart and mind join as one. \n  \nThis is the struggle\, to communicate with heart and mind in one voice to convey deepest feelings\, sensations to another. Reaching out with voice to connect\, to be heard\, to be seen. Finding others\, uniting in common cause\, raising voices on high\, drawing close. We reach out\, yearning to connect\, finding our voices\, expressing heart’s desires. Throughout life we continue to use voice and sound\, still striving to communicate as we did when infants\, crying out from the heart to the One who hears. \n  \n—Michel Deforge
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue-12-15-22/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://openroadpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/unnamed.jpeg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR