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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  4/6/23
DESCRIPTION:The Rink \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \n \n  \nApril 6\, 2023 \n  \nI invited some friends to write something about their favorite films… \nWhen we read a great book\, we want all our friends to read it. When we watch a great movie\, we want all our friends to see it.  \nFor the next issue of peace\, love\, happiness & understanding\, which comes out on April 6th\, write something about movies\, films\, or tv shows that you love. \n* \n  \nPrabu’s film “In the Beginning” reminded me of the old\, scratchy\, haunting film “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge\,” based on a civil war story by Ambrose Bierce. Much darker than what Prabu offered us\, but a similar visual narrative of a man trying to negotiate a mysterious world. \nhttps://vimeo.com/15147706 \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nAt the top of my list is “Ted Lasso.” The improbable premise of this tv show is that the central character is nice. He’s generous to everyone. He has a corny sense of humor. He’s a good man. Whoever thought you could make stories about someone like that? The film that first came to mind is “Wings of Desire” by Wim Wenders. It’s about angels\, who are invisible to most people\, who help us to reduce stress and think positive thoughts by their presence. They are immortal\, but they are missing out on many human pleasures\, like the smell of coffee. Nancy and I love the films of Wes Anderson. Our favorite is “Moonrise Kingdom.” Of Coen brothers’ films\, it’s a toss-up for me between “The Big Lebowski” and “Hail\, Caesar!” I love the Australian film “Bliss” (1985)\, based on the novel by Peter Carey. Another classic is Terry Gilliam’s hilarious dystopian vision “Brazil” (also 1985!). I love the early silent films of Georges Méliès. “The Kingdom of the Fairies” (1903) is especially good. For physical comedy\, Charlie Chaplin’s “The Rink” remains unsurpassed. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nA favorite film of mine is\, ‘The count of Monte Cristo’. \nIt embodies the tireless effort for justice\, and a will to not give in to the deeds of those that seek ones demise. \nThe character\, Edmond Dontez (later\, the Count) is someone I could relate to while in captivity (prison). He spent 16 years seeking a way out\, to avenge the wrongdoings of his peers.  \nHe eventually did\, and along the way\, learned many other lessons about life and forgiveness. \nEssentially for me\, the story/film is an inspiration to never give up or give in. And to never forget where I came from\, for it is fuel for my fire.  \n  \n—Brandon Gillespie \n\n\n\n  \nThanks for the invitation Johnny.  A few ideas:   \n     \nAs for happiness\, along with some heartbreak and comic flair\, it’s hard to beat the book This Is Happiness by the Irish writer Niall Williams.  I felt like I was living in a village in county Kerry the whole time I was reading the book. In the end I felt like I had made new friends\, been wrapped in a prayer blanket\, fed a good meal and sent home along a winding green path with a fiddle tune and a song. It made me hopeful\, appreciative and aware of the happiness lurking in my own backyard.  Superb writing!  \n     \nAs for film\, “The Mission” (Robert Dinero) comes to mind not because of peace or happiness but because of understanding and the meaning of redemption and forgiveness.  The music is sublime and the scenery stunningly beautiful.  A sad reminder as well of what  artistic and cultural creations might have been had peace\, love\, understanding and imagination prevailed over avarice and greed.   \n      \nOpening day of baseball season always makes me happy.  Here’s a poem I wrote about it.  Love and Play Ball!!! Will   \n  \nWhy Baseball Matters \n  \nBecause in a world obsessed with time\, baseball is a past-time. \nBecause any game could theoretically last into eternity. \nBecause baseball is played on a diamond.  \nBecause in a world obsessed by success even the best hitters fail two-thirds of the time. \nBecause\, as George Carlin reminded us\, football is about “ground and aerial attacks”\, and “marching down the field” while baseball is about “staying safe and coming home.” \nBecause what other game has characters named “Goose\, the Big Hurt\, the Left Hand of God\, the Splendid Splinter\, The Say Hey Kid\, the Sultan of Swat\, Catfish\, Hammerin’ Hank\, Cool Papa\, the Bird\, Big Papi\, The Man of Steal\, Satchel\, the Big Unit and the Iron Horse?” \nBecause the crowd takes a stretch and sings together at the ballpark. \nBecause despite all efforts to improve the game\, baseball remains blessedly slow\, wonderfully conversational\, deceptively complex and enjoyably simple. \nBecause outside of going to the park\, baseball is best experienced on a radio broadcast where gifted storytellers usher us daily into a theatre of imagination.  \nBecause pitchers deliberately baffle\, confuse and confound with “curves\, sliders\, splitters\, sinkers\, screwballs\, knuckleballs\, fastballs and change-ups.”   \nBecause almost every day from April through October millions of boys and girls\, women and men play a game made in America before the Civil War and now beloved from Japan and Korea to Cuba\, Australia\, Venezuela and beyond. \nBecause as Leo Durocher said: “Baseball is like church. Many attend\, few understand.”  Yet\, I would add: all can be uplifted and enjoy. \nBecause as a Boston fan once said: “Baseball is not about life and death. But\, the Red Sox are!”  \nBecause these days it just feels good to shout: “Play ball!”  \n      \n—Will Hornyak  \n* \n  \nFor me\, THE RULES OF THE GAME\, by Jean Renoir\, is a great humanist document that happens to be a movie rather than a novel or play….It is a luminous farce that depicts a weekend at a country estate. The classes\, represented on the one hand by the owner and his guests\, and on the other by members of the staff\, especially a maid and a gamekeeper\, are assiduously separated: one serves\, the other receives. But at the same time\, they all meet and merge as equals in games of love and deception. Renoir misses nothing\, and forgives everything. \nA more recent movie that moves me is THE RIDER\, by Chloe Zhao\, an almost-documentary that tells the story of some Pine Ridge “Indian cowboys”\, who make brief and destructive livings as rodeo riders. The characters play themselves. I’ve watched this three times\, and will watch it a fourth. \nOh\, and also about RULES OF THE GAME; it’s funny as hell. \n  \n—Ken Margolis \n* \nWhat is it about peace that its story is not enduring? \n  \nWings of Desire\, a 1987 film directed by Wim Wenders \n  \nThe aerial shots of Berlin so long before drones. The use of space both physically and visually. The plants in the library. The stand-up desks in the library. The angels in the library. The soft leather seats in the sports car in the showroom where the angels meet to compare notes. The desire for that car from the people looking in. The miracle of being able to watch this movie again in the kitchen 36 years later. The world of humans is in color. A friend and student expressing aversion to angels when I read a poem to a recent class that had a passing reference to them. The discussion that followed over days and walks about this dislike of angels she didn’t even know she had. The drawing on the wall at the circus behind the elephant. The robe on backwards to protect Marion’s chicken feather wings. Nick Cave on the portable phonograph. Looking for the right hat. The trapeze artist in a tuxedo cat suit with a long white tail. But the story of the grass\, the sun\, the leaping\, and the shouting that is still going on as well. Sometimes beauty is the only thing that matters. Chest armor falling from the sky. The revelation and joy in color in a gray gray city. The mural of a ruined building on an intact one. The pile of sawdust the circus left behind. No one saw the carney go. The shared wine glass filled almost to the brim.    \n  \n—Elizabeth Domike \n* \n  \nThis is a fun idea\, Johnny.   \nI particularly like movies based on books. Even if I loved the book\, I like watching how it was made into film. From the many Jane Austen’s to “Bridget Jone’s Diary\,” in which Salmon Rushdie plays himself in a tiny part. The renditions of “A Room with a View” to  “Little Dorrit.”  \nMy favorite film\, that stands up over 50 years\, is “Heaven Knows\, Mr. Allison\,” directed by John Huston. Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr\, a marine and a nun\, are stranded on a Japanese-invaded island during WWII. \nBill likes old and new foreign films—Iranian\, Japanese\, French\, Irish\, Indian\, the farther flung the better. Our favorite series ever is “Heimat”–that begins at the end of WWI with a family living above their cow in a small village\, up through that family’s  youngest living amongst his creative fellow artists in the city in the 50’s. Rotten tomato reviewer writes about it: “Edgar Reitz’s Heimat is not just a brilliant film about Germany. It is a brilliant film about our time\, anywhere—perhaps about any time anywhere. \nI’m excited to see everyone’s reviews! \n  \n—Katie Radditz \n* \n  \nI want movies to move me.  \nTwo films\, totally opposite from one another on the surface\, would be my faves of all time. The Crying Game and The Lives of Others are both about love\, courage and compassion. \nMy short take on The Crying Game is that Love Conquers all; love remains love\, in spite of its being turned on its head in a very unexpected way.  \nThe Lives of Others\, a German film\, takes place in 1984\, 5 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Stasi\, the German version of the Nazi SS\, is in operation\, and Captain Gerd Wiesler is assigned the job of spying on a couple suspected of national dissident activity. The Captain is dry\, hardened\, methodical and dispassionate in his work (as he has been his whole life). However\, as time goes on\, he begins to care for his subjects (to his own puzzlement and fear). \nUltimately\, love and compassion conquer\, and he does the right thing\, makes the difficult\, moral choice\, to his own great peril. I love this.  \nOthers have different viewpoints of both these movies; this is what makes them both compelling\, and grand. \n—Jude Russell \n* \n  \nA Smile in Abjection \nnotes on the opening credits of Withnail and I \n  \nMy favorite frame in cinema is this one: Paul McGann as Marwood\, the “I” in Withnail and I\, just one minute into the film. We have drawn closer and closer to him as he smokes a cigarette that clearly brings no pleasure\, his eyes shifting and shifting and finding no solace. And as the saxophone of King Curtis carries us gently through a live cut of “A Whiter Shade of Pale\,” Marwood appears to reach some far limit within himself\, and his torment suddenly eases\, or it pauses to breathe\, or Marwood simply parts it like a blackout curtain. He lifts his eyes\, and we perceive a smile that is almost not even there. Perhaps we have just imagined it. Perhaps Marwood himself has imagined it. \n  \n \n  \nCan you see it? I can. It is the mark of a wild\, mad hope. I am certain it is there\, the smile\, because I have been there\, and I have smiled it. It is an abject smile\, a desolate smile\, a smile with sweat on its forehead. Undramatically\, I tell you that it is no less than the smile you face death with. I have been hunted by forces within me and without\, cornered and shivering in a sweater\, smoking far beyond any desire to continue smoking. And yet I would also\, in those midnights\, hallucinate some star\, some aberration of logic in which I could discern a reason to hope. Marwood is looking upon that star\, smiling upon it\, and I\, too\, have seen it. \n  \n—Alex Tretbar \n* \n  \nAndrei Rublev: \nAndrei Rublev is a biographical film about a medieval Russian iconic painter.  In the movie you can hardly see Rublev touching the brush. It is a movie about the formation of Rublev as an artist\, especially an artist living under an oppressive regime. It effectively shows that an artist is society’s conscience.  \n  \nTree of Life: \nTerrance Malicks poetic masterpiece that attempts to capture all of existence through the lens of a boy growing up in the American midlands.  As per the great film critic Roger Ebert “the only other film with this boldness of vision is Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey\, and it lacked Malick’s fierce evocation of human feeling.” \n  \n—Prabu Muruganantham \n* \n  \nDear Reader \nFor next month (May 4th)\, send me something about books that changed the way you see\, experience\, or understand the world. \n  \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n—Johnny \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-2/
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SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue  4/15/23
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nOpen Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \nApril 15\, 2023 \n  \nDear Mindful Meditators \n  \nOur Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue began on September 15\, 2020. Recipients include people inside and outside prison walls. It is currently mailed to 10 men 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! \n  \nWe are going to have our first get-together on Saturday\, May 13th\, from 2 to 4 p.m.\, at Taborspace in Portland: 5441 SE Belmont. \n  \nThis will be an opportunity for people to get to know each other\, and to have a dialogue about our life journey—what it means\, what we love\, what we do to nurture peace\, happiness\, goodness and understanding in our own life and in the lives of others. \n  \nI hope you can come! Bring a friend\, if you like. \n  \nMy friend Rocky Hutchinson\, who is a member of our meditation & mindfulness community\, called me the other day\, and was excited to tell me about an author he had just discovered—Kahlil Gibran! Back in the day\, The Prophet was an essential book in every hippie’s library. Rocky’s enthusiasm inspired me to re-read it (after 50 years). This quote from The Prophet relates to our upcoming gathering: \n  \nYour friend is your needs answered. \nHe is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving…. \nAnd let your best be for your friend. \nIf he must know the ebb of your tide\, let him know its flood also. \nFor what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? \nSeek him always with hours to live. \nFor it is his to fill your need\, but not your emptiness. \nAnd in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughing\, and sharing of pleasures. \nFor in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. \n  \n—Kahlil Gibran \n  \npeace & love\, y’all \nJohnny \n* \n  \n            Dreaming in Detail \n  \nThe casting director for my dreaming \nI can understand—bringing in my parents \nfrom gone\, grown children as infants again\, \nand a parade of strangers\, each with a bit part \nfraught with obscure purpose. The location scout  \nfound familiar places\, made them mythic\, then \nadded an abundance of tunnels\, caves\, cities  \nin ruin\, and a foggy coast. My costume director \nsurrenders to seasonal change—blues in spring \nyielding to summer gray\, and autumn black. But  \nwhy is the director of photography so obsessed  \nwith effects of light both atmospheric and exact?  \nIn one scene we see fine hairs on my father’s arm  \nglitter in low sun\, then a heap of medieval coins\, \nthen that lost button shining on a stone. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nA Fish Describes Water \n  \nThere are prayers best said \nonly at night\, in depths\, water steps \nrubies in the mouth. \n  \nWind ripples across moon grass \nlonging to be released by washed \nstones. The rowboat \n  \nis empty. What remains \nis a song\, a solitary gold-winged \nwarbler\, the pattern of rain. \n  \n—Elizabeth Domike \n* \n  \nWhat do you do to nurture  peace\, love and happiness in your life? \n  \nRecently I had a chance to sit in on a phone call with Johnny and Rocky Hutchinson. Rocky is one of our inmates in the dialogue group\, and he is one of the dearest human beings I’ve ever known. He has been in prison for a long time\, and has had quite a—well—rocky experience. \n  \nI asked him how he was doing\, and what he was doing\, and he told me he had just finished the Master Gardener program\, and he was also training dogs for use with people with disabilities. He loves it\, both the gardening and the dogs.  \n  \nI said\, “Rocky\, you couldn’t have picked two more valuable activities for the soul than gardens and dogs!” And I realized that that is just how I feel: Gardens and dogs fill my heart and soul like nothing else. \n  \nYou all might have heard that digging in dirt\, the smell of dirt\, of the soil\, stimulates endorphins in the brain\, the happiness endorphins. True!  Of course\, I don’t head to the garden thinking\, uh oh\, I think I need some of them endorphins about now! No\, it’s just an instinct\, a drive\, that takes me there. And planting carrots\, chard\, beans; digging watery moats around the tomato plants (the smell of those tomato leaves!); cutting bouquets of coral colored peonies and lavender irises (the smell of irises!); picking green beans with glints of sunlight beaming through the vines—all of this settles in me and brings focus\, joy\, and  quiet peace to my soul. Gardens\, yes!!! \n  \nAnd dogs! Lolo! My love! Some friends took care of Lolo while we were gone and when I asked how she’d been\, they said\, “She had us with one look into her soulful eyes.” So true. She looks into your heart and understands when you’re sad\, she rejoices when you’re happy\, and every emotion is acknowledged with a loving and energetic lick on the face. Ick! you might say. Not at all—it’s the lick of love. Don’t you remember that Dusty Springfield song\, “The Lick of Love..(is in your eyes…?”)  Oh wait—maybe it was “The Look of Love.” Whatever.  \n  \nAnyway\, she’s a soft and fuzzy and uncharacteristically sweet-smelling dog! What more can you ask for? \n  \nSO: gardens and dogs. Rocky\, you’re so right. But I must add that it’s you\, Rocky\, you and all the other men in our dialogue and theater group who bring peace\, love and sheer happiness into my life\, and I am forever grateful. \n  \nAddendum: But how could I have forgotten hiking??? Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams\, my two sentinels. How could I have omitted family\, and dear friends? Music!!!  Riding my bike! Art! Books and reading!!!  \n  \nWhat a topic! \n  \n—Jude Russell \n* \n  \nTo nurture peace\, love and happiness I simply do nothing.   \n  \nEach morning I take my coffee out on the porch and watch the daybreak.  I say my little peace prayer.  Then I do Nothing.  I don’t analyze or plan or meditate or cogitate.  I find myself surrounded by the sky.  Maybe the moon is out\, or the sun comes up.  It’s a moment of peace and harmony\, and I did nothing to get here.  I merely stopped distracting myself.   \n  \nI can’t spend the whole day sitting here.  There’s still clutter in my life or my mind or my house that needs some tending to.  But when the morning starts out this peacefully the rest of the day usually follows suit.  Our natural state is peace and love\, unless we sully it up.  How can this not nurture some happiness?   \n  \nThanks\, and love\,   \n  \n—Bill Faricy \n* \n  \nIn the chalice of the heart\, \n Lies love’s sweet essence: \nBorn of the seed of truth; \n Watered by the tears of devotion; \nWarmed by the sun of faith\, \n Through the fruit of days\, \nOn the vine of humankind– \n  One and another\, \nAll One Together… \n  \n—sam muller 14 April ’23 \n* \n  \nMichel is currenlty using a book by Pema Chödrön as the inspiration for his meditation journal. (I’m not sure which one\, but it appears to be inspired by Chögyam Trungpa’s Training the Mind.) \n  \nMarch 9\, 2023  #14  Seeing Confusion as the Four Kayas is Unsurpassable Shunyata Protection \n  \nThrough meditation practice you begin to realize: \n\nThoughts just pop up out of nowhere—dharmakaya\nThoughts are never ceasing—sambhogakaya\nThey appear but are not solid—sambhogakaya\nAll together: no birth\, no cessation\, no dwelling—svabhavikakaya\n\nThis understanding gives unsurpassable protection of \nrealizing called shunyata—“complete openness.” \nNothing solid to react to. \nYou’ve made much ado about nothing! \n  \nI can relate to this one. The fancy names mean little\, but the effort of meditation practice for complete openness is valuable—learning to not react to mental formations. Thoughts of mind are like mists or fog; the warm light of reality will dissipate all obstacles to reveal reality as it is. I’ve driven in misty\, snowy\, fog late at night and my vision played tricks on me\, so I had to drive extra cautiously. During a clear day\, the same road was easy to see and navigate. Mind plays the same tricks on me with reality; I need to slow down and pay careful attention—nothing changed except perception. Or did it? Surprises appear faster through foggy delusions. I can’t see them coming. Definitely: foggy\, misty\, delusions require proceeding cautiously until clearer. \n  \nMarch 13\, 2023  #17  Practice the Four Strengths\, the Condensed Heart Instrucions \n  \n\nStrong determination to train in opening heart and mind\nFamiliarization with practices helping you do this\nPositive seed within\, experienced as yearning to practice and wake up\nReproach\, tricky for Western students\, realizing ego-clinging causes suffering\, delight in self-reflection\, honesty\, seeing where you get stuck\nAspiration to help alleviate suffering in this world\, expressing that intention to yourself\n\n  \nI value each of these principles and judge they can be of benefit to any religious practice. I find\, and imagine it is similar for many\, that working with ego issues can be the most challenging of all\, since our culture is all about cultivating a powerful ego. My experience reveals Western egoism is the central source of all our sufferings. It’s from here that we develop attractions (grasping) and aversions (pushing away)\, and this ego makes us blind to our faults and challenges which\, once corrected\, would release—at least diminish—suffering. Yet\, we focus on and build up ego\, wondering at our suffering. The “escape” is to practice breathing. \n  \n—Michel Deforge \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue-4-15-23/
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