peace, love, happiness & understanding 2/5/26
2026-02-05 - 2026-03-04
Bodhidharma

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

February 5, 2026

The Infinite a sudden Guest
Has been assumed to be—
But how can that stupendous come
Which never went away?

—Emily Dickinson
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Beginning My Studies

Beginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,
The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,
The first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.

—Walt Whitman
*

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out—no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

—William Stafford
*

“…I believe there is a limit to the number of times a man can profitably inform his neighbor, or be informed by him, that the inexpressible cannot be expressed.”

—Owen Barfield, from the essay “Imagination and Inspiration” in The Rediscovery of Meaning and Other Essays, p. 180
*

A man who encountered the Buddha for the first time was impressed by his radiance.
He asked: “Are you a man or a god?”
Buddha replied: “I’m awake.”
*

some thoughts on Zen

According to legend, one day many people had gathered to hear the Buddha speak. Instead of speaking, he held up a flower. One man, Kasyapa, smiled, and realized enlightenment. Zen Buddhism traces it’s origin to this “Flower Sermon.”

That just about sums it up.

A thousand years later, Bodhidharma traveled from India to China, and sat for nine years facing the wall of a cave. Buddhism had been in China for many centuries by this time, but this emphasis on sitting in silence was what launched the Zen tradition of Buddhism. Bodhidharma is known as the “First Zen Patriarch.”

The Third Zen Patriarch, Seng Ts’an, produced the first Zen text—Hsin Hsin Ming. As an account of what the Zen way of experiencing the world, it is unsurpassed. Here are 28 of the 73 couplets:

the great way (Tao) is not difficult
it has no preferences

make the smallest distinction
and heaven and earth are far apart

conflict between liking and not liking
is the disease of the mind

if its deep meaning is not understood
we strive in vain to quiet the mind

it is perfect like vast space
nothing lacking, nothing left over

don’t get entangled in outer things
or abide in inner emptiness

when the mind is still
all views disappear

trying to quiet the mind
is just more activity

the more talking and thinking
the farther you go from what is

look within for just a moment
and go beyond appearance and emptiness

don’t seek truth
just let go of your views

when the mind is still
the ten thousand things do not offend

without an object of thought, there can be no thinking subject
without a thinker, there are no things

the great way is vast
to live in accord with it is neither easy nor hard

following our nature, we are in harmony with the way
wandering freely, without a care

fixed ideas can’t encompass what is true
they sink into darkness, become unhealthy

if you want to take the one vehicle
don’t reject mental or sensory experience

to accept everything
is to be enlightened

seeking the mind with the mind
isn’t that a big mistake?

profit and loss, right and wrong
get rid of them once and for all

understanding the mystery of one suchness
difficulties are forgotten

no descriptions or analogies are possible
of this state where relations have come to an end

empty, clear, your light shines
without mental effort

thought can’t reach this
beyond knowing, imagining, feeling

in the realm of things as they are
there is no self or other

no here, no there
the whole world right before our eyes

the tiny is as large as the vast
when boundaries are gone

beyond words
no past, no future, no now

Lao Tzu’s advice in the Tao Te Ching to do nothing (wu wei), and the Zen practice of sitting in silence had a big influence on Chinese and Japanese culture, and, more recently, on the lives of many people in the rest of the world.

The idea of sitting in silence seems to many people like a big waste of time. The practice goes back to before the time of the Buddha in India. The Japanese word “zen” is a translation of the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which means “meditation,” or sitting silently. Sometimes, in the quiet, thought and language fall away.

I came upon this idea of blissful silence in Paramahansa Yogananda’s book Autobiography of a Yogi when I was 19 years old. He called it samādhi. I wanted to get that!

The Zen texts which are dearest to my heart, and to which I’ve returned again and again are: the Hsin Hsin Ming of Seng Ts’an, Cold Mountain: 100 Poems of Han Shan, translated by Burton Watson, Unborn: The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei, 1622-1693, translated by Norman Waddell, “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics by R.H. Blyth, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki & the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh.

Han Shan lived in China sometime during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). He spent the last part of his life living the simple life of a hermit in the mountains, writing poems like these:

Among a thousand clouds and ten thousand streams,
Here lives an idle man,
In the daytime wandering over green mountains,
At night coming home to sleep by the cliff.
Swiftly the springs and autumns pass,
But my mind is at peace, free from dust or delusion.
How pleasant, to know I need nothing to lean on,
To be as still as the waters of the autumn river!

The clear water sparkles like crystal,
You can see through it easily, right to the bottom.
Mind free from every thought,
Nothing in the myriad realms can move it.
Since it can not be wantonly roused,
Forever and forever it will stay unchanged.
When you have learned to know in this way,
You will know there is no inside or out!

Bankei gave talks to large groups of people. He said we all have unborn Buddha-mind. He said: “Don’t exchange your unborn Buddha-mind for the mind of a hungry ghost!”

Many of the things Walt Whitman says in “Song of Myself” express what to me is the essence of Zen. Here are a few examples:

This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,
There is no better than it or now.

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

All truths wait in all things.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars…
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

…to glance with an eye, or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times…

Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics is one of my favorite books. I read it slowly. When I get to the end, I start at the beginning again. Blyth explores the Zen way of seeing and being in the world. We come to see beauty and perfection in ordinary things.

For many people of my generation, Shunryu Suzuki served as a contemporary exemplar of the Zen way. He taught us how to sit.

Thich Nhat Hanh is the most congenial Zen teacher to me. I love his friendliness, his gentleness, his sweetness, his joy. He seems to radiate deep peace and love. His book Your True Home has been for me the most useful guide for how to live my human life on Earth. I’ve given away dozens of copies to my friends.

peace & love
Johnny
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If you want peace love happiness and understanding NOW, RIGHT NOW, all I can say, my friends, is watch (google, facebook, instagram, etc.) the 18 Buddhist monks as they walk for peace. They are walking 2300 (!) miles from their monastery in Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, D.C. They cover approximately 20 miles per day, and have walked between 1900-2000 miles from October 26th when they began.

Their leader is 44 yr old Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara, and he began this journey in an attempt to foster and promote peace in his fellow man, in a troubled world. When they began there were a few curious onlookers—a very few. Most just curious to see these burnt-orange robed men walking, mostly barefoot, (but booted and bundled when heavy snow began to fall), along the roadways, first through Texas, then Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia… Soon, however, there were hundreds, and then thousands, tens of thousands followers, the monks now with multiple police escorts to manage the crowds. Men, women, children all lining the roads, bowing their heads offering prayers and heartfelt thank yous, shedding tears, tears of relief, and peace and joy to witness this moment of beauty, this moment of peace in a fractured world. This respite from pain.

The Venerable Bhikkhu says he has been overwhelmed at the response; he never expected this tremendous show of peace, love, happiness and understanding. Now millions are watching, witnessing their progress towards Washington, DC.

The peace which passeth all understanding. This is it.

—Jude Russell
