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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20231015
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20231115
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UID:4194-1697328000-1700006399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness  10/15/23
DESCRIPTION:  \nOpen Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \nOctober 15\, 2023 \n  \n  \nWalk beautifully\, talk beautifully\, live beautifully. \nLet your heart speak to other hearts. \n  \n—wisdom from Yogi Tea bags \n* \n  \nBe joyful\, though you have considered the facts. \n  \n—Wendell Berry \n* \n  \nSome excerpts from a recent letter (8/31/23) from Rocky: \n  \nToday was a good day for me here. Almost everything ran smoothly. My dog Nelly is programming well & so am I. I’m on my way to being one of the primary trainers. That means I will also be training another A.I.C. [Adult In Custody]! Real work! All of this is going well. \n  \nMy mind has been wondering & thinking about what we have been talking about in the whole relationship department. I’m not sure how all of that will happen. “Organically” I hope. But you do not have to worry about me trying to save anyone! I might be the one that needs to be saved. LOL. I’m getting out to a whole new world\, one that I do not know too much about. \n  \nHonestly\, I want someone I can admire and appreciate and muse over. A simple\, kind love that is fun & sweet. That would be really…nice. Hummm…we will see how it goes! It should be hard to find her I think. LOL. I would like to know & love someone completely & be known & loved by them. Kind & gently & with happiness. I don’t feel I am damaged any longer. I can only feel the scars\, which is really good. It took a long time for them to heal. \n  \nWhen I was 22 or 23 years old\, I was working as a “cedar maggot.” We did not cut down living trees\, but cut up and cleaned up what the old time pioneers left on the forest floor. You see\, bugs don’t like cedar wood too much & cedar does not really rot too fast. The old timers would cut only the “clear” wood\, from the stump to where the branches started\, and leave the rest to rot. That’s where we came in. We cut all that left over stuff and we turned it into cedar bolts for shakes & shingles. \n  \nOne morning I climbed up on a tall cedar stump to sharpen my saw. There\, stuck in the stump\, was a rusted old wedge & the head of an axe with a splintered handle! There were also five pieces of yellow glass and an aluminum ring laying in a pile of rust—the remains of an old time lantern! All that stuff had been there for a long time. \n  \nAll of these moments we all have in our lives are what we are made of—strands of our hearts\, links in our minds\, reflections in our souls. I\, in my mind\, have returned to that stump\, the smell of the woods\, many times over the many years I’ve been in prison. My place of peace & solace when the weight of correction becomes much too much. \n  \nThe place in the woods\, the stump\, wedge\, axe & lantern glass are all lost\, as they should be. Magic does not just linger in one place. Maybe I took it in my soul & that is a good thought & it’s true? I go there often & I could have captured it that day so long ago all for myself & that is a good thought. It makes me smile to think it’s all mine\, & now yours too. \n  \n—Rocky Hutchinson \n* \n  \n#363   Why Wait to be Happy? \n“Many people in our society are not happy\, even though the conditions for their happiness already exist. Their habit energy is always pushing them ahead\, preventing them from being happy in the here and now. But with a little bit of training\, we can all learn to recognize this energy every time it comes up. Why wait to be happy?”  \n—from Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh \n  \nWhat makes me happy? What brings me joy? I’ll tell you\, for me\, it’s opening to love. Letting love in. \n  \nI have to admit\, sometimes I have episodes of resentment\, judgment\, selfishness\, defensiveness…more often than not\, though\, these episodes are brief and they just—melt away. The other day we were discussing Thanksgiving. I’d already offered to have Thanksgiving at our house\, for ‘my side’ of the family\, and then in passing\, I offered and invited David’s sister and others on ‘his side.’ When Mary called to confirm\, she breezily\, albeit apologetically\, announced that ‘everyone’ wanted to come\, like fourteen people!  ‘My side’ includes only five people. I had the distinct physical sensation of my heart balling up like a tight fist. ‘Fourteen\,’  I kind of gasped. Did I gasp\, or bellow? I’m not sure. I struggled for a bit with all those big negative feelings: resentment (pretty nervy to descend with fourteen people!)\, selfishness (‘my side’ will be engulfed!)\, judgment (they are not ‘my kind’ of people). But then the miracle happened: just as precipitously as my heart clenched into that hard fist\, it spilled open and…love…poured out. I just relaxed into love and happiness. “Well\, I think that will just be fine\,” I said. And I meant it. To have all those people\, young and old\, want to come up to our home on the mountain all of a sudden was a wonderful thing. I felt such love and happiness and joy at the thought of twenty family—‘my side’ or ‘his side’—spending the day of Thanksgiving together in our warm\, cozy home\, fire in the fireplace\, maybe even with a dazzling mountain view\, or maybe with a few snowflakes drifting down… \n  \nThis happens often; one moment I’m feeling a little ‘grrrr\,’ the next moment I’ve dissolved into love\, and happiness. Don’t ask me the formula\, the key to unlocking—I don’t understand it myself. I sure recognize it every time it comes up\, but don’t understand the radical nature of it. All I know is that I am in wonder of it myself and never fail to feel blessed. \n  \n—Jude Russell \n* \n  \npast parentage or gender \nbeyond sung vocables \nthe slipped-between \nthe so infinitesimal \nfault line \na limitless \ninteriority \n  \nbeyond the woven \nunicorn   the maiden \n(man-carved   worm-eaten) \nGod at her hip \nincipient \nthe untransfigured \ncottontail \nbluebell and primrose \ngrowing wild   a strawberry \nchagrin   night terrors \npast the earthlit \nunearthly masquerade \n  \n(we shall be changed) \n  \na silence opens \n  \n—excerpt from “Silence” by Amy Clampitt \n  \nMay we be at peace \nMay all be healed \nMay we be a source of healing for all beings. \n  \nlove\,  \n—Katie Radditz \n* \n  \nLast Thursday\, when friends had gathered for coffee and conversation\, Will Hornyak asked: “What do you do to feed your soul in difficult times?” I passed that question along to some friends\, and here is what they sent me: \n  \nThree poems from Kim for Gaza and Israel: \n  \n     War for the Holy Land \n  \nYou could say it’s Biblical\, this fury \nbetween the children of Yahweh and Allah\, \nthis frenzy of rockets and bombs opening \nthe gates of hell for fire to take and take \nwhere hungry Death stalks the streets. \n  \nWeak leaders need war\, or else we would \nrequire them to be wise and kind. Instead\, \nthis fury allows them to say\, “We wage war \nbecause it’s the anniversary of war\,” and \n“We wage war because they wage war\,” \n  \nand everyone else goes along with it\, \nan eye for an eye\, a child for a child. \n  \n  \n     Peacenik\, War-nik \n  \nWhen there are two sides\, \nand one side starts shooting\, \nwhat are the rest of us to do? \nPeace-mongers may run and hide\, \n  \nwhile war gives warriors a certain \nclarity: be the implement between \ncommand and death. Hawks seek \nprey\, while doves sort seed. \n  \nFlower child\, thistle child—when \nwe hear an angry leader speak \nof vengeance\, of human animals\, \nthen it’s up to all of us. \n  \n  \n     Armor \n  \nWhat armor can our hearts put on \nwhen facts and photos find us\, far war \nhunting us from hiding? Now news \nbecomes an implement to pry us open \nso we\, too\, carry children through smoke \nand rubble. We bury victims of atrocity\, \nflee with only what we can carry. We find \nour kinfolk heaped. We are the massacre. \nWe try to keep the beating drum from \ngiving in\, giving up. We guard our capacity \nfor hurt\, each wound proving we feel\, proving \ndivisions are a lie\, proving our complicity. \nOld heart\, let suffering prove we are kin. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nNavigation \n  \nIn early morning dark\, I could meditate. \nI have done. 40 mornings. Sa Ta Na Ma. \nThe fingers of both hands in rhythm. \nAwkward\, fumbly. Good for the brain \n  \nThey say. Integration of the hemispheres. \nInstead\, I feed the cat. Fend off the worst \nof the arthritis with small movements \nuntil I can sit upright at a keyboard. \n  \nNo\, not music. That would be lovely\, \na little Chopin. A laptop. Precious tool\, \ndictation. I close my eyes. And talk. \nIf I look\, I want to edit\, dangerous walk \n  \nThis revision thing. More conversational \nthis way. The petty indignities\, frets from \ndays before\, get out all the surface stuff\, \nthe annoyances\, so the sweet stuff \n  \nHas room to grow into the day. \nAn unexpected bloom of affection \nor engagement with something \nabsurd and wonderful. \n  \nDid you know that if you smell \nThe inside of your elbow \nIt clears the nasal palate for all \nThe aromas the next encounter will bring? \n  \nElizabeth Domike \n* \n  \nIn answer to Will’s question… \n  \nThe times are always difficult. There is still the urgent question: How do you feed your soul? I try to nurture peace\, love\, happiness and understanding within myself. Without them\, I don’t have much to offer my fellow mortals that might be helpful. And I enjoy them for their own sake. I try to live a life that is rich in meaning. Life is short. Each day\, each moment\, is precious. I try to pay attention. And not forget to say thank you thank you thank you. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nI write. That takes many forms. Novel\, screenplay\, song\, essay\, memoir. Just whatever I’m currently doing\, that has a world I can dive into\, and let everything else fall away. If I’m too brain-tired to do any of that\, I’ll do a crossword puzzle\, and if that’s too much\, I’ll go for Wordle. I lose myself in words\, and if I’m doing a song\, the music is extra bonus points. \n  \n—J Kahn \n* \n  \nHow to cope with a calamity\, of which there seem to be a surfeit? I started to add “right now” but that is not true…there is always a surfeit of despair. One necessary action is to be involved in preventing or ameliorating the disaster. Often you can help others. It sustains all of us to mutually better situations and solve problems.  \n  \nHow else do we come to terms with difficulties? For me both music and poetry are deep sources of consolation. I started to list poems and then realized the list is endless. Follow your own loves and you will find many poems that speak to the heart. A good starting one is Wendell Berry’s: \n  \nThe Peace of Wild Things \n  \nWhen despair for the world grows in me\nand I wake in the night at the least sound\nin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be\,\nI go and lie down where the wood drake\nrests in his beauty on the water\, and the great heron feeds.\nI come into the peace of wild things\nwho do not tax their lives with forethought\nof grief. I come into the presence of still water.\nAnd I feel above me the day-blind stars\nwaiting with their light. For a time\nI rest in the grace of the world\, and am free. \n  \nAnd\, yes\, being in the wild\, whether a city park or untrammeled mountains\, is a deep source of nurture. Not consolation. Nature can be wild and destructive but not cruel. It is a vital reminder of the nurture and persistence of the world.  \n  \nOliver Sacks said that music is the one art that is both abstract and emotional\, it can elevate and reassure us\, deeply touch the place where we have no words. That is certainly true\, and my music may be very different than yours but both are the endless world of sound and silence that envelop us. \n  \nBut above all: find what you love\, give yourself to it\, work through reward and pain and frustration. Give yourself to it. Your immersion will carry you through so many griefs. Don’t do it all alone. We need one another\, we need community and its irreplaceable links. As the poet June Jordan often reminded us\, we are a community in fact and in aspiration. \n  \n—Deborah Buchanan \n* \n  \nJill sent this poem: \n  \nThe Red Wheelbarrow \n  \nso much depends \nupon \n  \na red wheel \nbarrow \n  \nglazed with rain \nwater \n  \nbeside the white \nchickens \n  \n—William Carlos Williams \n  \n—Jill Littlewood
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-10-15-23/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20231030
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20231207
DTSTAMP:20260425T190223
CREATED:20231030T172247Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T135604Z
UID:4212-1698624000-1701907199@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  11/2/23
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \n  \nNovember 2\, 2023 \n  \nPeople who love are happy. \n  \n—Yogi Tea bag wisdom \n* \n  \nMy friends and I have been talking about the ongoing violence in the Middle East. Kim wrote: \n  \nI lie awake at night thinking about Gaza. I have a friend there. She has fled her home and is camped in a house near Rafah with six families. \nBombing happens there\, too. \nHence\, today’s (10/26) poem… \n  \n      Other Laws of War \n  \nWhere anger flares\, wisdom withers. \nWhere death thrives\, truth dies. \nBoth sides are the bad guys. \nAs with weather\, no one is in charge. \nEven precision kills children. \nWar funds the hate school. \nDead soldier\, mourning mother. \nStrategic advantage limits thought. \nYour vengeance vow is a trap. \nLocal victory\, regional defeat. \nKilling gives killers secret wounds. \nA war wounds a generation. \nEasy to start\, hard to end. \nMunitions makers always win. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nMark Danley reminded me about Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer\,” written in 1905. When asked if he intended to publish it\, Twain said: “No. I have told the whole truth in that\, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after my death.” Mark Twain died in 1910. “The War Prayer” was first published in 1923. \n  \n  \nThe War Prayer \n  \nIt was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms\, the war was on\, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism. On every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun. Nightly\, the packed mass meetings listened\, panting\, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts\, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause\, the tears running down their cheeks the while. In the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country\, and invoked the God of Battles—beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. \n  \nSunday morning came. Next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there\, their young faces alight with martial dreams—visions of the stern advance\, the gathering momentum\, the rushing charge\, the flashing sabers\, the flight of the foe\, the tumult\, the enveloping smoke\, the fierce pursuit\, the surrender Then home from the war\, bronzed heroes\, welcomed\, adored\, submerged in golden seas of glory! The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said. \n  \nThen came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was\, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers\, and aid\, comfort\, and encourage them in their patriotic work. \n  \nAn aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle\, his eyes fixed upon the minister\, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet\, his head bare\, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders\, his seamy face unnaturally pale\, pale even to ghastliness. He ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. \n  \nThe stranger touched his arm\, motioned him to step aside—which the startled minister did—and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes\, in which burned an uncanny light. Then in a deep voice he said: \n  \n“I come from the Throne—bearing a message from Almighty God!” \n  \n“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No\, it is two—one uttered\, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications\, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this—keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself\, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it\, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it. \n  \n“You have heard your servant’s prayer—the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it—that part which the pastor\, and also you in your hearts—fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory\, O Lord our God!’ When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–must follow it\, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! \n  \n“O Lord our Father\, our young patriots\, idols of our hearts\, go forth to battle—be Thou near them! With them—in spirit—we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God\, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded\, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst\, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter\, broken in spirit\, worn with travail\, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it. For our sakes who adore Thee\, Lord\, blast their hopes\, blight their lives\, protract their bitter pilgrimage\, make heavy their steps\, water their way with their tears\, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it in the spirit of love\, of Him Who is the Source of Love\, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid\, with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. \n  \n(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it\, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!” \n  \nIt was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic\, because there was no sense in what he said. \n  \n—Mark Twain \n* \n  \nOn YouTube you can find a film version\, adapted by Marco Sanchez and directed by Michael Goorjian. \n* \n  \nfrom CNN’s website on October 27th: \n  \nSari Beth Rosenberg was teaching a high school history class in New York City recently when a student interrupted her with a question: “Are you Team Israel or Team Palestinian?”…. \n  \nRosenberg\, who is Jewish\, feared that getting into a conversation on the complexities of the conflict could alienate some of her students with ties to the Middle East. So she tried to turn the question into a learning experience. \n  \n“I told them I’m ‘Team Humanity\,’” she says. She told her students that she thought both the deadly Hamas terror attacks in Israel and Israel’s ongoing bombing of Gaza are horrific. \n* \n  \nWhen I was a young man it was against the law to not join the military. I refused to obey that law for the simple reason that I didn’t want to kill anyone. Instead of going to Vietnam\, I went to India and studied with yogis. \n  \nI am against all present and future wars. Our problems can be solved with words\, instead of violence. Wars represent a failure of dialogue\, of intelligence\, of empathy\, of good will\, of love\, of imagination. All children are our children.  \n  \nOn the Fields of Peace website (fieldsofpeace.org) we learn that in World War I\, one civilian was killed for every 9 soldiers. In World War II\, the ratio was one to one. In modern warfare\, one soldier is killed for every 9 (unarmed) civilians—most of whom are children. From the perspective of people my age\, soldiers are children. Here’s my latest version of the Metta Prayer: \n  \nMay all people be happy. \nMay we live in peace & love. \nEven if some people are making other choices. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nThich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022) was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who advocated for peace and refused to take a side in the war. He taught meditation & mindfulness to people throughout the world. He published many books\, including Being Peace\, Creating True Peace and Peace is Every Step. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King. Here is his poem “Please Call Me by My True Names\,” followed by an account of how he came to write it: \n  \nPlease Call Me by My True Names \n  \nDo not say that I’ll depart tomorrow— \neven today I am still arriving. \nLook deeply: every second I am arriving \nto be a bud on a Spring branch\, \nto be a tiny bird\, with still-fragile wings\, \nlearning to sing in my new nest\, \nto be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower\, \nto be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. \nI still arrive\, in order to laugh and to cry\, \nto fear and to hope\, \nthe rhythm of my heart is the birth and death \nof all that are alive. \nI am the mayfly metamorphosing \non the surface of the river\, \nand I am the bird which\, when Spring comes\, \narrives in time to eat the mayfly. \nI am the frog swimming happily \nin the clear water of a pond\, \nand I am the grass-snake \nthat silently feeds itself on the frog. \nI am the child in Uganda\, all skin and bones\, \nmy legs as thin as bamboo sticks. \nAnd I am the arms merchant\, \nselling deadly weapons to Uganda. \nI am the twelve-year-old girl\, \nrefugee on a small boat\, \nwho throws herself into the ocean \nafter being raped by a sea pirate. \nAnd I am the pirate\, \nmy heart not yet capable \nof seeing and loving. \nI am a member of the politburo\, \nwith plenty of power in my hands. \nAnd I am the man who has to pay his \n“debt of blood” to my people \ndying slowly in a forced labor camp. \nMy joy is like Spring\, so warm \nit makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. \nMy pain is like a river of tears\, \nso vast it fills the four oceans. \nPlease call me by my true names\, \nso I can hear all my cries and laughter at once\, \nso I can see that my joy and pain are one. \nPlease call me by my true names\, \nso I can wake up \nand so the door of my heart can be left open\, \nthe door of compassion. \n  \n  \nAfter the Vietnam War\, many people wrote to us in Plum Village. We received hundreds of letters each week from the refugee camps in Singapore\, Malaysia\, Indonesia\, Thailand\, and the Philippines\, hundreds each week. It was very painful to read them\, but we had to be in contact. We tried our best to help\, but the suffering was enormous\, and sometimes we were discouraged. It is said that half the boat people fleeing Vietnam died in the ocean; only half arrived at the shores of Southeast Asia. \n  \nThere are many young girls\, boat people\, who were raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries tried to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy\, sea pirates continued to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day\, we received a letter telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai pirate. She was only twelve\, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned herself. \n  \nWhen you first learn of something like that\, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will see it differently. If you take the side of the little girl\, then it is easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we can’t do that. In my meditation\, I saw that if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was\, I would now be the pirate. There is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I can’t condemn myself so easily. In my meditation\, I saw that many babies are born along the Gulf of Siam\, hundreds every day\, and if we educators\, social workers\, politicians\, and others do not do something about the situation\, in twenty-five years a number of them will become sea pirates. That is certain. If you or I were born today in those fishing villages\, we might become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate\, you shoot all of us\, because all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs. \n  \nAfter a long meditation\, I wrote this poem. In it\, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl\, the pirate\, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? The title of the poem is “Please Call Me by My True Names\,” because I have so many names. When I hear one of the of these names\, I have to say\, “Yes.” \n  \n—Thich Nhat Hanh
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-11-2-23/
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