peace, love, happiness & understanding 11/5/20
2020-11-05 - 2020-11-11
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

November 5, 2020

Nancy Yeilding sent this excerpt from Love and Blessings, the autobiography of Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati:

When I was in my mid-teens I saw Mahatma Gandhi, the founder and father of modern India. He was revered as a great saint. He believed fervently in the nonviolence of Christ, and he taught that India should be converted to a creed of pacifism. He taught that one should win another’s heart by love.

At that time, Britain was ruling India with full military force. To fight the British forces, which were armed with guns and bayonets, the Indians were made to march with slogans of nonviolence and peace. As a young man I thought this was very foolish. I had been extensively indoctrinated by the Marxist-Leninist groups, even somewhat brainwashed, to believe that the only possible redemption for India lay in a revolution organized exactly as the one in Russia had been. I had been made to believe that all of humanity could be divided into two groups: the exploiters and the exploited, the haves and the have-nots. However, it was difficult for me to decide whether my father was exploited or an exploiter.

This mythical division into two classes, two class interests, and class warfare all looked very reasonable to me. I thought that if only Mahatma Gandhi read a little of Marx and understood his true philosophy, India would be saved. Little did I know that he had lived in England and had every access to all the literature of Marx and Lenin, and that he knew all about revolution. I was so young and stupid, yet fanatically indoctrinated. So I found my way to the inner circle of the saint, and looked for an opportunity to present my gospel of class war to him.

When my chance came, I gave him a non-stop oratory on class warfare, as well as how useless his method of nonviolence was. He listened to me very carefully. That is my greatest surprise today. When I came to my final conclusion, he looked quite calm.

Then he asked me, “Are you sincere?”

That infuriated me: if I were not sincere, would I have gone out of my way to bring him this great message? I shouted that I was very sincere.

He went on, “You are speaking with conviction?”

“Of course!”

“Do you think I have no conviction about what I say?”

I had never thought of that before. I said, “Yes, you must have conviction.”

“Am I sincere?”

“Maybe….”

“Are you not saying something which is in total contradiction to what I say?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you see the possibility of two people with contradictory views both having full conviction and sincerity?”

“Yes.”

“You are asking me to stand in your footsteps and look. Have you ever considered the possibility of standing in my footsteps and looking? If I stand in your angle of vision, I will see what you see. That’s what you want me to do. Suppose I invite you to stand in my angle of vision and look at the same thing. Are you prepared for that?”

I was certainly not prepared, but I didn’t say so.

He continued, “Young man, truth is many faceted. You can look at it from a number of points of view, and from each angle you will get a different perspective. All that you have said is known to me, but what I see you have no patience to consider.”

I thought that was right. Although I had been listening to him for a week, waiting for my opportunity to pontificate, I had never really listened to him. I was only listening to myself, to my objections to whatever he was saying.

This simple incident was a great turning point in my life. It completely silenced me. Thereafter, when I talked with another person it always occurred to me that there could be one more way of looking at truth. I learned to step down from my pedestal and walk over to the other person’s, to sympathetically get into his way of seeing. To me, this was the beginning of a great discovery of what a wonderful world we live in and how rich our human heritage is.

—Nitya Chaitanya Yati
*

My father was so convinced of the rightness of his opinions that he would raise his voice and try to browbeat people into agreeing with him. It never worked. He got into a lot of arguments and even lost some of his closest friends, because when they failed to agree with him he said abusive things to them that they could not forgive. They stopped speaking to each other.

Unconsciously, I learned to argue from my dad. I had to be right about everything. Mr. Know-It-All. I was self-righteous in my opposition to war—convinced that anyone who didn’t agree with me was dead wrong.

In my twenties, I was one of Nitya’s students. I lived with his teacher, Nataraja Guru, in India for a year. His diagnosis was: “You have too high an opinion of your own opinions.”

Fast forward to 2006, when I began facilitating meaning-of-life dialogues at Two Rivers prison in Umatilla, Oregon. In my proposal to the administration, I named the program “The Stories We Tell Ourselves: How Our Thinking Shapes Our Lives.” The first thing I noticed, sitting in a circle with twelve or sixteen guys, was that we all had different backgrounds and beliefs—different life experiences. Each of us had formed our own understanding of who we are and how the world works. It would be impossible to get everyone to agree with all my views. And it would be disrespectful of them to try convert them to Johnnyism. The beauty of the thing is that we weren’t all alike—like robots. If we listened to each other—without arguing or trying to convince the others to think like us, to believe what we believe—we might learn something.

In 2014, we did the play “Twelve Angry Men” at Two Rivers prison. The play is aptly named. In that jury room, everyone’s anger is on a hair-trigger. And they are all convinced that anyone who disagrees with them is a moron. Gradually, because of one man’s patience, they learn to listen to each other, minds are changed, and the defendant is acquitted.

No one ever seems to “win” an argument. We stop listening to each other. In Nitya’s story above, he says that he hadn’t really been listening, he had been waiting for his turn to pontificate. When I was a teenager, I noticed that my dad didn’t listen to what I said. In the first sentence I spoke to him, he would pick out a word that suggested to him a kind of pre-recorded speech. He didn’t hear the rest of what I said. He made no reference to it. When I finished talking, he would give his pre-recorded speech, based on a word or phrase that I had said early on. I had heard his speech many times before.

At present, it seems that our society has broken down into warring factions—each convinced of the rightness of their side and the wrongness of the other side. One books that illuminates the current situation is HATE, INC by Matt Taibbi. There’s an election tomorrow (11/3/20), and both sides seem to think that if the other side wins it will be the End of the World.

But maybe the world will continue to go round. Outside my window, squirrels are scurrying up and down the old maple tree in quest of seeds. The sky is bluer than blue. I’m happy to be alive on this beautiful green planet.
*

Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) was mostly known by the honorific title “Mahatma,” which means “great soul.” He is best known for leading a nonviolent campaign for India’s independence from England.

He was born in India, studied Law in London, and became an attorney at the age of 22. He lived and practiced Law in South Africa from 1893 to 1914, where he led a nonviolent campaign for human rights and against racial discrimination.

The East India Company invaded India in the 18th Century and ruled India from 1757 to 1858, when rule of India was turned over to the British Crown and India became a “colony” of Great Britain. When Gandhi returned to India in 1915, he became one of the leaders of the movement for Indian Independence, based in part on his experience with civil rights reform in South Africa.

In the 1920’s and 30’s and up until he was assassinated in 1948, he was the most influential and charismatic of the movement’s many leaders. His ideas about civil disobedience were inspired by Henry David Thoreau and his nonviolence was inspired by traditional Hindu beliefs and by Leo Tolstoy. His successful campaigns of nonviolent resistance in turn inspired Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Nelson Mandela, too, was inspired by Gandhi’s nonviolent civil rights struggle in South Africa, but, unlike Gandhi and King, he said that violence and nonviolence were not mutually exclusive strategies for change.
*

Here are some quotes from Mahatma Gandhi:

If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. We need not wait to see what others do.

A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served.

If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.

Hate the sin, not the sinner.

Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal, not in reaching it.

Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.

Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence.

The future depends on what you do today.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.
*

peace & love
Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 11/12/20
2020-11-12 - 2020-11-18
Lonnie Glinski as Ophelia and Timothy Hinkhouse as Laertes in the 2015 production of Hamlet at Two Rivers prison

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

November 12, 2020

I got a letter from Lonnie Glinski this week. He wrote this:

The current times are somewhat frightening for society. I know this is antithetical to my recently written statement about only observing, but I cannot help but ache for some peace and compassion when so much of society is embracing dishonesty, hatred and prideful ambitions. Has it always been this way? Have only the justifications for such ambitions shifted from time to time?

Even some demonstrations are teaching hate in the name of love. Some time ago I attended a music concert by an outside religious group. Shocking was the observation that every spoken sentence had to invoke the name of Jesus once, even twice–three times or more were extra credit. Feeling assaulted, like the name of Jesus was a club, I was inspired to write the song I now include. The meaning of which was that the teachings and message of Jesus was left unspoken, unaddressed, as long as the name was invoked again and again.

Somebody Famous

vs 1
Wand’ring through the years
Looking far and looking near
Seeking clues in many ways,
Solutions to the fears
Accidentally finding answers
Empowering one to tears
Heaven inside realized
In the things somebody famous once said
In the things somebody famous once said.

Chorus
Somebody, somebody, somebody famous
Somebody, somebody, you know what the name is
Famous, famous, somebody famous
Famous, famous, somebody famous once said.

vs 2
Somebody famous once said
Love your neighbor as yourself
Let your light shine, keep it high on the shelf
Treat ev’ryone as you want to be
We are all one big family
In the things somebody famous once said
In the things somebody famous once said.

Bridge
For the poor in spirit, heaven realized
The meek shall inherit, merciful in kind
The pure in heart, see God shall he
Those who mourn, comforted and freed
In the things somebody famous once said
In the things somebody famous once said.

vs 3
Somebody famous once said, find your pearl of great price
My burden is light, come to me as a child
Don’t be a camel stuck in the needle’s eye
Follow me and never die,
In the things somebody famous once said
In the things somebody famous once said.
*

Here’s from a letter Lonnie wrote me on October 13th:

Dear Johnny,

Several things you have written and sent to me lately have spoken to me quite close to my recent thought.

One is your being called a hippie. That title has been directed at me lately, since I have let my hair grow out. Dozens have told me, and people currently still tell me, to get my hair cut.

On the one hand, I am shocked by the number of people who seem to care that “I” am growing out “my” hair. Yet, at the same time, I’m entertained by the vehemence and anger toward my hair being long. I find my quick head twirls, so the hair swirls from side to side, does little to assuage their frustration….

And of course your writing about a golden world is related to my recent song topic of “Bloom where you landed.” It’s the bluesy, striking music I put to it that brings it alive for me. But, here it is:

Imagi-
nation never imagined I’d be here today
Lessons learned, tables turned, mistakes along the way
Though I cannot go where my heart longs to go
I gotta bloom where I am, bloom where I’ve landed

The roads I drove, the choices I chose,
the words I spoke and the feelings that grow
Now I cannot go where my heart longs to go
I gotta bloom where I am, bloom where I’ve landed

I’ve travelled through the air to who knows where
I’ve journeyed by water, sometimes wet for hours
I’ve fallen from trees, landing like a nut
Still gotta bloom where I am, bloom where I’ve landed

Standing, crawling, climbing, falling, the winds blew you
Rough or smooth future calling, destination news to you
Help someone like someone helped you
You gotta bloom where you are, bloom where you’ve landed

Bloom like you did in the day when someone cared
Bloom like you did when the way someone clears
Bloom like you’ve done when you felt at home
Bloom where you’re at, bloom where you’ve landed
*

So, that’s what I’m doing, trying to bloom where I’ve landed.

Lonnie
*

On August 20th, Lonnie sent this song:

And They Just Smile

Mentions I hear, someone named Trouble
I try to name the face, but I’m unable
Walk, often-times I hear: here comes Trouble
Taking my chance, turn round really fast…and they just smile

Walk past, sometimes I hear: there goes Trouble
Turning, no one’s there, only empty air
Should I fear that Trouble may be near?
Ask where Trouble went…and they just smile

Chorus
Closed-door community, same faces to see
Seeking notorious version, of this Trouble person
Where can he be found?, not there when I turn around
Please point Trouble out…and they just smile

Chorus repeat

Intense mystery, Trouble passes so nearly
Around and around I go, really do I want to know
Where can he be found?, not there when I turn around
And why, oh why, do they just smile?

Should I be a’worrying, Trouble near concerning?
Where can I go that Trouble cannot follow?
Where can he be found?, not there when I turn around
Really, do I want to know?…and they just smile

Outro (loosely)
And why, oh why, won’t you point him out?
And why, oh why?—come on, help me out
And tell me why, oh why, do they just smile?
And why, oh why, oh why, do you just smile?
*

I began sending “peace, love, happiness & understanding” to friends inside and outside of prison, last Spring Equinox, after COVID arrived. This is from a letter Lonnie wrote last April 22nd that includes another song:

Thanks for including me on your mailing list. The issue I have enjoyed the most so far was the one on humor. Which fits in well with a song that came to me as I lay there between the states of sleep and wakefulness. While I usually have a message or a theme to construct a song, this one came all out of the blue with no premeditation. I had to get up and write it down immediately, or else, like so many others, it fades away like a fog fades to the rising sunshine.

It ain’t me

vs 1
Someone squeezed the last toothpaste, left me an empty tube
Someone used the last shampoo…now what am I to do?
I know it was my cellie, I’m gonna give ‘im hell
But…I live in a single cell

Chorus 1
It wasn’t me, it ain’t me—doing things irresponsibly
It ain’t me, it couldn’t be, always leaving me in some fix
My cellie’s gonna catch hell, don’t care I’m in a single cell
‘Cause it wasn’t me

Bridge 1
I know it was him who ate that last cracker
I know it was him who ate that last chip
I know it was him who used that ticket I know I had
I know it was my cellie, gonna give ‘im hell
Regardless, I’m in a single cell

Chorus 2
It wasn’t me; it ain’t me
Like the Family Circus comic strip, it wasn’t me
Don’t watch same TV shows, nor songs on the radio
I’m gonna give ‘im hell for changing that dial
‘Cause I know it wasn’t me

Bridge 2
He hides things so I can’t find ‘em
Knocks over things I’ve been organizin’
Empties things I know without a doubt were full
I know it was my cellie, gonna give ‘im hell
Regardless, I’m in a single cell

With spending so much time in our cells, others can probably relate.

—Lonnie Glinski
*

Well, that’s about it for the Lonnie Glinski Issue. Thanks Lonnie, for bringing smiles to a lot of faces.

May all people be happy.

—Johnny

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 11/15/20
2020-11-15 - 2020-12-14
Drawing by Charles Erickson

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

November 15, 2020

Welcome to our third meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS)
*

M & M Dialogue Group,

I regret that I have not opened my copy of Your True Home to start reading the wisdom within, nor that I have not written sooner in response to and for the M & M newsletter. As we all know, things seem to get in the way and/or we make excuses, but something happened yesterday that moved me to embark on something. I reached my one year mark, 365 days until I get released, and so I will read one wisdom each day, completing the 365 pages of the wisdom within, realizing “My True Home.”

In the book, I believe I will find that, as #1 says—“Your True Home is in the here and the now. It is not limited by time, space, nationality, or race”—although I have 365 days until I go home physically, my true home is not limited by time or space, those 365 days. My true home is here and now within me. It is also like that saying, “The home is where the heart is,” and my heart, and love, is within me. As long as I keep love within me, my home will be in the here and now.

My 365 days until release started yesterday, October 14th, so I also today read #2, One Hundred Percent. Although I look forward to reading #365—notice I did not write the heading name, as I have not looked forward in the book to that final day—I also have thoughts of my life after these 365 days are over, but I am still in the here and now. “Be there truly. Be there with 100 percent of yourself.” I can only take one day at a time, it’s all any of us can do.

I look forward each day to reading a new wisdom from the book, growing and finding a deeper meaning in life and within myself. With the added benefit of seeing the bookmark move closer to the end of the book, signifying my physical release home. To all of you reading M & M Dialogue newsletter, may peace, love and happiness be with you and within you.

—Josh Underhill
*

Responding to a couple of comments from the October newsletter: Johnny posits two seemingly dichotomous versions of “nirvana.” Either it can be accessed by a few rare souls who practice for many lifetimes; or it is an omnipresent perfect moment that is accessible to anyone who takes a moment to look for it. I wish to endorse a middle ground. Using one of the Buddha’s many definitions of Nirvana (and exercising a certain amount of editing):

“The practitioner may attain such a concentration…that the practitioner has realized the complete cessation of greed, hate, and delusion…Nirvana is realizable even during this lifetime.”

Historically, hundreds of thousands of people achieved Nirvana during the same generation, and maybe they number in the millions across the generations. So, not so rare.

But to Josh Barnes’ point, this state of mind seems very elusive. Omnipresent perfect moment though it may be, we have trained ourselves to see only imperfection. We can thank popular media, our parents, their parents for countless generations, society at large, and most especially our own selves for our preoccupation with imperfection. But there you have the problem, we have to untrain some old habits before we can “awaken” to the perfection around us. Venerable Thay describes this at #1, the namesake passage for YTH.

—Shad Alexander
*

I’m happy that Shad responded to what I wrote about nirvana in the October dialogue. I was hoping that this meditation and mindfulness dialogue would evolve into more of a dialogue as it goes along. Unsurprisingly, his perspective is a little different than mine. I don’t know. I imagine that the word “nirvana,” like words tend to do, means different things to different people. For me, one of the lovely things about meditation, is that when we sit in silence, we leave words aside for a while. When there is inner stillness, when thought and language fall away, we have no disagreements—not even friendly ones. For a time that has nothing to do with time, we have no problems, no explanations, no wrong views or right ones. No greed, hate or delusions. Whatever you call this, it’s quite a pleasant state of affairs. When we begin the day this way, the whole day somehow goes better. I think of “mindfulness” as the practice of living in meditation—to the extent we can do this, which changes over time and even from day to day. This dialogue is a way for us to share our experience and understanding with each other, and to use words to point to that for which there are no words.

—Johnny Stallings
*

I decided to change the way I am reading my copy of Your True Home. Instead of reading normally, front to back, I am going back to front, because the numbers are a countdown to me being released. Looking at the book, I will instantly know how many days I have left.

On 10/21 I read #358 “So Many Reasons to Be Happy”

I found it refreshing. I so desire to be one with nature, to be in the woods, smell the fresh air and hear only nature. To touch Mother Earth and for her to touch me, feeling her embrace. It has been way too long for me feeling pure nature, and reading #358 at first made me feel sad for what I have been missing, but then I read it again, seeing that “Whenever she sees us suffering, she will protect us.” In this moment I am in now, she is protecting me with the knowledge that soon I will have the chance to feel the woods and her embrace once again. I cannot wait for that day.

Reading #355 “Your Suffering Needs You,” on 10/24, reminds me that every aspect of ourselves, whether good or bad, needs our attention. All the good or bad within us are the things that make us, and they all require attention. But then #350 “Goodness Is Always in You” shows us all that, no matter the bad things we’ve done, there is goodness within each of us. Then, on 11/2, I read #346 “What Separates Us” and labels are something that hurts every one of us. Society uses labels to dehumanize and to separate us into groups, and if we can eliminate labels there can be peace in the world.

—Josh Underhill
*

October 7, 2020 THE SUFFERING OF THOSE WE LOVE

HOLDING AN EMOTIONAL STATE WITH MINDFULNESS—WOW! That’s a lot to “ask.” Having just finished reading For Your Own Good, I am, also, able to see others’ suffering more easily (than my own). Seeing, holding, even accepting my own suffering (a response to stimulus) and my own causes of suffering is not “easy,” especially to do with compassion….

Maybe I can…have some compassion for an other, and for this other (who is the same in suffering as all others)…holding with mindfulness (of the human “condition” we all share), a feeling or sensation, tied to an emotional state, and allow space to experience the “feelings.”

October 8, 2020 A LOVE LETTER

My first thought: “How wonderful! I’d love to receive one.” In this message he speaks of transformation: first within, then in another. That real love is required to accomplish such a task is awesome. To mend a broken relationship could take a whole life of time…. Is it so hard? No. I am often just so scared of being rejected, turned away, not even seen for my effort….

October 15, 2020 SELECTIVE WATERING

….I find that, in spite of doubts, if I maintain certain spiritual practices then I like the person I seem to be and this experience rarely seems fraught with insurmountable challenges. But, if I let these practices all fall away completely, even for a few weeks, then I descend to a dark place where I don’t like “me,” and everything is a challenge I can barely face, let alone master; life gets really hard and suffering ensues….

Maybe if each of us finds our path to travel on, and focuses more on the journey—making the most of each moment, and enjoying each moment (as best as we know and are able in that moment)—instead of any destination, then, maybe, we will end (personal) suffering and enjoy the experience of life more.

October 16, SOVEREIGN OF THE FIVE ELEMENTS

….I already have all the skills and capacity to live any life I want. I only need to live that life fully, here, now….I am sovereign of my existence. No one else on Earth directs this life I live in any way. My thoughts, feelings, words, actions are all “mine”…. Getting still enough to experience my “true self” at the core is my goal for mindfulness practice—to get behind those ego-stories, to see beyond those limits to reality.

October 19, 2020 CENTURY OF SPIRITUALITY

….I am thankful that a spiritual life is no longer the domain of religious elites—selected, born, or bought into such a life. Not everyone sees this, or desires to do so. I feel a gratitude that my life experiences have afforded me opportunity to learn this lesson and apply it in my lifetime….

October 21, 2020 THE SEEDS OF HAPPINESS

The first paragraph is a personal reminder that I am the one (and only one) responsible for the story I tell “myself” about the experience “I” have of reality as it exists….

I like the metaphor of life as a garden where I plant and water seeds, pull weeds and even work to “transform” my landscaping to be whatever I choose for it to be. I have a level of control over “my” life. How I choose to exercise my control will impact my results (life experiences)….

October 22, 2020 THE ART OF MINDFUL LIVING

….I can practice being mindful at any time, anywhere, while doing anything. This is powerful! It is a blessing to be able to do this mindfulness thing….

I like the idea of stopping, from my daily hustle and bustle, to enjoy breathing. Breathing helps me connect or remember that I am alive….

October 25, 2020 THE ENERGY OF LIBERATION from Be Free Where You Are by Thich Nhat Hanh

What first caught me in this talk was that anyone and everyone, including me, has the “seed” for mindfulness and concentration…. I don’t need a monastery, or a special rite, or a fancy religion. All I need to do is focus on whatever I am doing in this moment, enjoy the breath I am blessed with, and let the rest of the whatever drop away….

I think that’s awesome! I have always thought it was “easy,” but never found a way to explain it. Thây does so eloquently—probably all the years of practicing.

October 28, 2020 NO BEGINNING, NO END #30

Once again, Thây emphasizes that now is all that is and everything I need is already present, here in and/or with me now. When I go looking out there (outside myself)—to others, to the past, to any possible future, to things to places—I can never find peace, whatever I am seeking. When I begin to turn inward, embracing what is within me already, I find peace, freedom, happiness: nirvana. It’s all right there, just waiting for me to find it, as it always was.

November 3, 2020 THOUGHTS FROM 10/15 MINDFULNESS NEWSLETTER

I agree, or find personal resonance, with your thoughts on #247 NIRVANA IS NOW. Since everything I’ve learned from Buddhism is about learning to focus on and live in the “now,” why should Nirvana be anywhere or anytime other than now? My biggest challenge in life is tied to now presence; paying full attention to the “now” I experience, well…now. I find it very easy to get lost in past “realities” or future dreams.

I also resonate with Brandon G’s thoughts about cookie cutter life: seems deeply connected to challenge of now-presence. Before prison, even inside, too, it gets easy to develop a routine (cookie cutter life) and stay in this “rut.” “It’s comfortable,” I’ll say to self. I once had a counselor point out that a “rut” is only a grave with the ends knocked out. Cookie cutter life, comfortable life—it’s just happy in a rut!

Michel Deforge
*

The Secret behind Our Strife

I, so sure of myself, so ready
to explain why I am right—
I live in a body that will die, and all
my brave words be gone to the sky.

And you, with your shouted reasons
I am wrong, you live in a body
that will fall, be still, be mourned
for the peace you might have found.

Shall you and I, knowing this now,
set our strife aside, pause our proclamations
into curiosity, listening to see what we
might learn, one from another?

—Kim Stafford
*

What to say about meditation?

Thanks for all the beautiful writing in the last edition!

Every month or two I teach beginning meditation for my Zen temple. I love doing it, but after many years I have a bit of a routine, so last time I taught, I thought I would go back to Dogen, the 13th Century founder of Soto Zen Buddhism in Japan, and see what he had to say to beginners. In vintage Dogen style, he starts off by saying that everything is perfect and complete as it is, so what is the point of doing some kind of practice? The Way is right here and now, so what is the use of study, meditation, and other efforts to “improve”? And yet, we know that we become distracted, angry, confused, and have the feeling we have lost our way; in a word, we suffer. We want to be free of our suffering. And we have the example of wise people we admire who practice meditation. Dogen concludes: You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay.

I recently came across a talk by Krishnamurti that was in a similar vein. He was asking his audience, “Why do you meditate? Why do you do this thing that various teachers from the East have said you should do? Do you have an idea you will have some extraordinary experience? Are you trying to imitate another person? Ask yourself, why am I meditating? What is my motive?” And then he says, “When you look deeply into your life, when you investigate a question you really care about, you become very quiet and completely still without any effort. Meditation arises spontaneously when you look deeply, without fear, without knowing what you will find.”

Meditation is not self-calming. One idea about meditation is that it came out of hunting culture. When a hunter is waiting for their prey, they must be awake, alert, sensitive, ready; the mind has to be free of distraction and the body has to be relaxed, able to move in any direction. I mentioned this to a friend the other day and he started to imitate his cat waiting for a mouse to come out of its hole. His body became graceful, energetic, ready to pounce but without any tension. His eyes became focussed on the imaginary mouse-hole. The room vibrated with concentration, energy, and stillness. Vegetarians like myself don’t always like this idea, but there might be something to it.

—Howard Thoresen
*

Dear Johnny,

….What I have been thinking of a lot lately is birth and death, rather well known topics. Anyway here are some poems that seem to fit that thinking.

love, Deb

Insight

After we die we hover for a while
at treetop level with the mourners
beneath us, but we are not separate
from them nor they from us.
They are singing but the words
don’t mean anything in our new language

—Jim Harrison

The Old People

Pantcuffs rolled, and in old shoes,
they stumble over the rocks and wade out
into a cold river of shadows
far from the fire, so far that its warmth
no longer reaches them. And its light
(but for the sparks in their eyes
when they chance to look back)
scarcely brushes their faces. Their ears
are full of night: rustle of black leaves
against a starless sky. Sometimes
they hear us calling, and sometimes
they don’t. They are not searching
for anything much, nor are they much
in need of finding something new.
They are feeling their way out into the night,
letting their eyes adjust to the future.

—Ted Kooser

In Memory of Joseph Brodsky

It could be said, even here, that what remains of the self
Unwinds into a vanishing light, and thins like dust, and heads
To a place where knowing and nothing pass into each other, and through;
That it moves, unwinding still, beyond the vault of brightness ended,
And continues to a place which may never be found, where the unsayable,
Finally, once more is uttered, but lightly, quickly, like random rain
That passes in sleep, that one imagines passes in sleep.
What remains of the self unwinds and unwinds, for none
Of the boundaries holds — neither the shapeless one between us,
Nor the one that falls between your body and your voice. Joseph,
Dear Joseph, those sudden reminders of your having been — the places
And times whose greatest life was the one you gave them — now appear
Like ghosts in your wake. What remains of the self unwinds
Beyond us, for whom time is only a measure of meanwhile
And the future no more than et cetera et cetera …but fast and forever.

—Mark Strand

The Hammock

When I lay my head in my mother’s lap
I think how day hides the stars,
the way I lay hidden once, waiting
inside my mother’s singing to herself. And I remember
how she carried me on her back
between home and the kindergarten,
once each morning and once each afternoon.

I don’t know what my mother’s thinking.

When my son lays his head in my lap, I wonder:
Do his father’s kisses keep his father’s worries
from becoming his? I think, Dear God, and remember
there are stars we haven’t heard from yet:
They have so far to arrive. Amen,
I think, and I feel almost comforted.

I’ve no idea what my child is thinking.

Between two unknowns, I live my life.
Between my mother’s hopes, older than I am
by coming before me, and my child’s wishes, older than I am
by outliving me. And what’s it like?
Is it a door, and good-bye on either side?
A window, and eternity on either side?
Yes, and a little singing between two great rests.

—Li-Young Lee

The Archaic Maker

The archaic maker is of course naive. If a man he listens. If a
woman she listens. A child is listening. A train passes like an underground river. It enters a story.
The river cannot come back. the story goes on. It uses some form
of representation. It does not really need much by way of gadgets, apart
from words, singing, dancing, making pictures and objects that resemble
living shapes. Things of its own devising.
The deafening river carries parents, children, entire families waking
and sleeping homeward.
The story passes stone farms on green hillsides at the mouths of valleys
running up into forests full of summer and unheard water.
In the story it is already tomorrow. A time of memories incorrect
but powerful. Outside the windows is the next of everything.
One of each.
But here is ancient today
itself
the air the living air
the still water

—W. S. Merwin

Opus From Space

Almost everything I know is glad
to be born—not only the desert orangetip,
on the twist of tansy; shaking
birth moisture from its wings, but also the naked
warbler nesting, head wavering toward the sky,
and the honey possum, the pygmy possum,
blind, hairless thimbles of forward,
press and part.

Almost everything I’ve seen pushes
toward the place of that state as if there were
no knowing any other—the violent crack
and seed-propelling shot of each witch hazel pod,
the philosophy implicit in the inside out
seed-thrust of the wood sorrel. All hairy
saltcedar seeds are single-minded
in their grasping of wind and spinning
for luck toward birth by water.

And I’m fairly shocked to consider
all the bludgeonings and batterings going on
coninually, the head-rammings, wing furors,
and beak-crackings, fighting for release
inside gelatinous shells, leather shells,
calcium shells or rough, horny shells. Legs
and shoulder, knees and elbows flail likewise
against their womb walls everywhere, in pine
forest niches, seepage banks and boggy
prairies, among savannah grasses, on woven
mats and perfumed linen sheets.

Mad zealots, every one, even before
beginning they are dark dust-congealings
or pure frenzy to come into light.

Almost everything I know rages to be born,
the obsession founding itself explicitly
in the coming bone harps and ladders,
the heart-thrusts, vessels and voices
of all those speeding with clear and total
fury toward this singular honor.

—Pattiann Rogers

—Deborah Buchanan
*
November 12, 2020
Meditation and Mindfulness

#9 I Have Arrived
#44 We Already Have Enough
#130 Appreciating Simple Joys

These three principles express what my heart has followed for most of my life. I have been unaware of ‘wanting more,’ or ‘needing more,’ even though there were many lean years when I could have felt that. But here they are! All expressed far more lucidly than I have ever been able to explain them, or defend them to others, so I am grateful to Thich Nhat Hanh for that.

A few examples: When I married my first husband, we didn’t have a ring, so I used a friendship ring that a high school girlfriend had given me. She got it in Mexico and it cost about $1.00. I liked it. Bill kept asking when we were going to get a ‘real’ ring. I told him I was fine, that I liked this ring just fine. He said, “Boy, you are low maintenance!” And from then on his nickname for me was, “LM.”

Example #2: I had a large piece of art in a gallery exhibit in Portland. The title was, “Affordable Pleasures.” At the gallery opening, a man of considerable means was admiring it, and he chuckled and said, “Ah, I get it. You have to have a lot of money to afford this, right?” In consternation I said, “Well, no. It refers to the subject matter; the broken reflection of the moon on the water. Looking at the moon on the water is an affordable pleasure for everyone.” He said, dismissively, “Oh well, whatever. I’ll buy it!” I said, “No. You won’t.”

Example #3: My dad assiduously pruned and raked and composted everything. He had half a dozen magnificent compost piles. Fluffy, friable, fragrant piles, each was about 6-8 cu. yds. He named them after composers (not composters). My all-time favorite Christmas present was the W. A. Mozart Memorial Compost Pile.

My second favorite Christmas present was from my daughter’s boyfriend; about two dozen cleaned, washed, dried, smoothed out sheets of aluminum foil that he had saved for me from his noontime deli sandwiches. He knew that I used and reused aluminum foil for years, and this was his very thoughtful gift to me.

I have never been very big on ‘goals,’ or ‘progress,’ or ‘consumption.’ I have simple, but innumerable pleasures: Raisins on my cereal, stars in an inkwell black sky, nuzzling my dog’s fur, singing, planting, smell of fir needles in the sun, deer munching on my dahlias, cooking, Goodwill, art, hiking, the seasons…all of them.

To me there is a distinction between pleasures and joy. Pleasure is the ripples of water on the surface. Joy is the deeper down, abiding current. Pleasure is the hot, bright, snappy flame of a fire. Joy is the quiet, calm but intense, slowly glowing embers below.

So again, my thanks to Mr. T. N. Hanh (if I may call him that) for helping me express these thoughts. I don’t know if I could have done it without his guidance with these three principles.

—Jude Russell
*

[See drawing of elephant and sphere at the top.]

Abstract idea/concrete image. Both at once between sleep and waking.

I woke and found this present in mind and made a drawing quickly before it faded away.

The sphere was, simply, everything. The elephant was God.

When I was drinking coffee later, I added fancy titles from out of my memory:
“All and Everything,” title of a favorite book, for the sphere;

and “That which is Other than All that Is,” for the elephant; a memory from my time at college fifty years ago, when I read what a theologian had written about God as “radically other.”

—Charles Erickson
*

Thank you, everyone!

That’s a wrap for our third Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue. If you enjoyed it, please send me something for the December 15th issue. You can use Your True Home or anything else for inspiration. Feel free to respond to something that someone wrote in any of our dialogues, including this one. Share a poem you wrote, or a poem that someone else wrote that you like. Or whatever thoughts might be wandering through your mind.

(If you go to the EVENTS page on this website and click on “Previous Events,” you can find our September and October dialogues.)

May all people be happy.
May we live in peace & love.

—Johnny Stallings

peace, love, happiness & understanding 11/19/20
2020-11-19 - 2020-11-25
Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati, Peter Oppenheimer and Nancy Yeilding

THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

November 19, 2020

“Peace, love, happiness & understanding” goes out to people who live in prison and to people who don’t. We might imagine—if we don’t take a little time to think about it—that people who live in prison are not free, and that those who don’t…are. But our experience shows us that many people “on the outside” have all kinds of fears, problems, obligations, addictions, et cetera. They are not free. And if we take a moment to reflect, it’s obvious that every prison resident has her or his own subjective reality. “On the inside,” too, some people have a greater sense of inner freedom than others. Nancy Yeilding sent this essay in which she talks about what she learned about freedom from her guru:

Finding Freedom’s Firm Foundation

When I met Guru Nitya in the early 1970s I was, without knowing it, in the traditional state of a seeker of truth, described in India as being frighteningly tossed about by the waves of the ocean or being like a deer caught in the conflagration of a forest fire, not knowing which way to turn. My state was one that I shared with many young people of that time, and many people of all time. Although blessed with many good fortunes—loving care in my childhood, an excellent education, free from having to face the extreme deprivations of hunger, poverty, abuse, or slavery, or to live in the midst of war, which still afflict many millions of human beings—I was miserable. Every place I had looked for meaning and purpose in life had turned to ashes.

In high school I became happily involved with a local church, which offered good companionship, the opportunity to participate in good works, and the chance to sing beautiful music. However, as I learned more about the organization and the required set of beliefs, the first of which demonstrated some pettiness of spirit and the second of which began to affront my intellect and sense of reality, I slowly drew back, disappointed.

As I came to learn of the Civil Rights movement, of what made it necessary, and of the brutality that was often directed at the courageous people standing up for equal rights, the governmental and social institutions of this land I had been taught to regard as the world’s “knight in shining armor” began to look suspect. Then US involvement in the Vietnam war—which led to the killing of civilians, the wholesale destruction of the land of Vietnam itself as well as of its neighbors, the death, wounding, and soul-torture of many young men forced to fight, to die, to kill, or to face prison or exile and being branded as cowards and traitors—shattered any sense of pride I’d had about the nation and undermined hope for the future. Along with many others I felt compelled to oppose these actions by letters and petitions, and by nonviolent protests and demonstrations. Although these actions had more positive impact than is usually acknowledged, still the government continued to perpetrate violent crimes against humanity, such as through CIA support of the coup to assassinate and overthrow the government of fairly elected Allende in Chile, which was replaced with a reign of terror, along with indications that this was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of immoral and heinous activities covertly conducted around the world.

At Stanford, students discovered that the grand university that had opened so many doors for us—to the bounty of human culture in art, music, literature, to deep insights offered by psychology, anthropology, sociology, the latest in scientific discovery, and so much more—was deeply implicated in the war “machine,” through research on campus and through links to the companies that were making the bombs and Agent Orange. We protested, we brought about some changes, but our hearts were sad as our eyes remained open to the links that expanded the “military-industrial complex” to the “military-industrial-educational complex.”

During university years I fell in love with a fellow student, who, like every other healthy young man at the time, lived with the threat of being drafted to fight in a war he felt was immoral, so upon graduation we took two steps to provide some protection: by marrying and joining the Teacher Corps, which offered its participants a degree in education and a teaching credential and the opportunity to contribute by working in underserved inner city schools (and a draft deferment!). We were posted to Kentucky, where I discovered that I was ill-suited to early childhood education (the program we were placed in) and that the social environment was like stepping back in time fifty years. Skills I had honed at Stanford—of thinking for myself, of speaking up and speaking out—served only to alienate me from most everyone, who wanted no rocking of the boat, especially by a woman. I left the program and began to flail about, trying out many different ways to contribute to alleviating injustice, poverty, discrimination, and violence, unsuccessfully seeking meaningful work and community. Under the weight of my increasing distress, our marriage disintegrated.

I often became aware that the refrain of a popular song at the time was singing within: “any day now, any day now, I shall be released.” It was one expression of my deep yearning for freedom, though at the time I would not have been able to articulate freedom from what or freedom for what. After returning to California I worked in various jobs, and explored many possible avenues to meaning and happiness, none of which proved lasting or deeply fulfilling. My life had the freedom of a will-o-the wisp: I went where the wind carried me. Although will-o-the wisps are delightful to see, sparkling in the sun as they waft through the air, and though living as one had many charms, real freedom was elusive, as I was also living on an emotional roller coaster and often felt adrift. Once or twice my path crossed that of an old Stanford friend, Peter Oppenheimer, who each time told me about the teacher he had met in India and his strong feelings that I should meet him too. Then, on a spring day in 1973, he invited me for lunch at the San Francisco apartment where he and Guru were staying, hosted by some friends.

In those days, teachers from India often passed through the Bay Area, where they typically appeared at huge gatherings, treated with a good deal of reverence and fanfare, rarely approachable by those not in the inner circle. So the first thing that struck me about Guru was that he was unassuming and available. He was even one of the cooks of the lunch! When we sat down he pleasantly engaged in conversation with everyone, all of whom made me feel welcome. He had a way of making everyone laugh often. The whole afternoon had a relaxed flow. It was so pleasant that when I was invited to return the next day I readily agreed.

That day the invitation also was extended to come along to hear a talk he was giving to a group at a friend’s house. During the talk Guru began to speak about the universal Self that was also the most intimate core self of each of us:

Inexhaustible qualities of consciousness can be experienced as “I” in me and as “I” in you. It is the same cosmic “I,” the Word, the Logos, that is expressed as the boundless universe—boundless both in time and in space. The transient “I” has the same substance as the eternal Self. What is here and what is yonder there cancel out in the silence of the unutterable and the unthinkable.

It was like a bell ringing within as I resonated with what he described. Finally, here was someone saying what I had always sensed to be true and, importantly, doing so in a way that did not offend my intellect. I wanted to know more.

As I was being welcomed, I drove each day to spend time in the apartment on California Street, and to go along to whatever talks were happening. After some days Guru pointed out that his time in the US would soon be over and he invited me to stay with them for the rest of the time. I happily agreed. I made several new friends, some of whom are dear friends to this day. There were delicious meals, lovely outings to parks and beaches, deeply meaningful classes . . . and at the core of it all was this remarkable person who—besides being wise and brilliant and funny and creative and loving—was happy, happy in a way that was different from what I had ever encountered before.

He was happy and complete in himself, not looking to any thing or any one to meet some need, which would then make him happy. The image came to me of a fountain that continuously circulates. He was like a continuously circulating fountain of happiness, with plenty to share. That engendered a deep feeling of trust, trust that I need have no concerns about being manipulated or “used” in any way, for here—amazingly—was a person who needed nothing from me! It gave me a freedom I had never experienced in a human relationship before. Unsought and unanticipated, a surety of dedication to the wisdom and love embodied by Guru arose within me right from those early days.

For the next eight years, to the extent possible given limited finances, I oriented my life around Guru’s teaching visits to the US. I increasingly traveled, lived, and studied with him whenever he was in the US, and eventually joined him in circumnavigating the world: with stays in California, Oregon, Hawaii, Australia, Singapore, India, and Europe. In order to have money to support myself, I worked at a graduate department of a university in San Francisco, I cared for an elderly woman in Palo Alto, I worked as a typesetter and printer in Portland, as a landscape gardener in Hawaii, as a receptionist in an alternative health clinic in Australia, a secretary at Stanford’s Learning Assistance Center . . .

Through those years a dynamic inner and outer process was taking place. Slowly, bit by bit, Guru exposed the falsity of the props that held up my faltering though intransigent ego, whether based on background, education, intellectual equipment and attainment, companions, appearance…. At the same time, through his university classes (Portland State, UC Sonoma, Stanford, University of Hawaii, University of New South Wales), his public lectures, his books and articles, and informally and privately, he spread before all of us a vision of the vast panorama of the cultural, philosophical, and spiritual heritage of humanity, giving us maps and keys to find and unlock the treasures. He revealed the profound gifts of the Bhagavad Gita and the Bible, of the Upanishads and the Tao Te Ching, Heidegger and Sartres, the Buddha and Ramana Maharshi, Shakespeare and Kalidasa, Einstein and Eddington, Spinoza and Kant, Jayadeva and St. John of the Cross, Van Gogh and Beethoven, Basho and Rumi, and so much more, vividly helping us to see the links between wisdom-teaching and the creation of beauty and our own lives. Even more, his own living example of love for each moment, each being, and every aspect of life created an atmosphere in which we had the opportunity to attune ourselves to that vision and those possibilities.

His vision was vast and the spotlight of his teaching highlighted a myriad of insights. At the same time it was clear that the philosophical vision and life example of Narayana Guru, as profoundly manifested in his life through his relationship with his Guru, Nataraja Guru, was central. The teaching stories he told of his experiences as a disciple of Nataraja Guru were heart-touching and deeply stirring, setting off inner reverberations that continue to echo with profound meaning. They inspired me to read everything of Nataraja Guru’s that I could get my hands on: The Word of the Guru (The Life and Teachings of Narayana Guru), Autobiography of an Absolutist, One World Education, One World Economics, his unparalleled commentary on the Gita, his commentary on Saundaryalahari, and even his magnum opus, Integrated Science of the Absolute. Each such encounter was like entering a new world and, at the same time, having the opportunity to examine my own past, my experiences, my assessment of them, my conditioning, my thought patterns, and to throw out superstition, prejudice, confusion, and replace it with clearer thinking and openness.

I soaked deep into Guru’s own writing as well, especially once I started taking dictation of his books, articles, and letters, and beginning to edit his books. Most profound was the opportunity to devote a hundred days to an in-depth contemplation and application of Narayana Guru’s One Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction (Atmopadesa Satakam), which took place in Portland in 1977-78. In the course of those classes, Guru spoke about freedom in ways that articulated not only my inner yearning, but the way I could feel my life blossoming:

The passing moments of our lives are to be made lively and rich. One thing I have learned in my life is that the moment that comes will not come again. It’s gone. You can see the moment approaching. Receive it with open arms. Glorify it by enriching it with your joy, finding a new value, a new sense of direction in life. Have a renewed sense of wonder. Thus, that moment becomes eternalized in your life, it is a moment to be remembered and to be proud that you could live it so well. . . .

The only thing is that you shouldn’t drift into darkness. Don’t look at the world as something horrid, but as beautiful, divine. Every bit of it. Then we know we are the creators of our own fate. Not through this individual ego with all its vagaries, but through a full affiliation with the eternal, supernatural light that enriches everything. Only then will we have the strength to become masters of the situation, the whole beauty of creation, the beauty that has painted the petals of the flowers, which has given shape to the butterflies and birds, which makes the mountains look awe-inspiring and the oceans look vast, which makes the clouds float so gracefully overhead. This is where we find our true freedom.

You belong to the same overmind of beauty. Not with your ego but with your spirit. Participation in it will reveal to you the divine artist in you, the divine musician in you, the divine intelligence, the divine creator, the divine lover, the divine unifier, the divine peacemaker within you. It’s such a blessing to be in this world, to be born here and to live here.

And:

I can go from the physical world of experience to a dream experience to a deep sleep experience. If I go still farther I won’t be able to make any distinction at all between the subject and object. The world of the seer and the world of the seen come together until both are canceled out and effaced. One comes to a neutral area of unity. Once we know that there is an aspect of knowledge which effaces or cancels out the physical world, the heaviness of phenomenality is not felt any more.

From this you gain a new freedom. The freedom is to relate yourself to the phenomenal world, with all the laws which operate in it, and yet to keep within a calm repose by which you can sit on your own seat of absolute certitude as a witness.

Guru made it very clear that certain kinds of freedom were dead ends for those seeking lasting happiness and meaning in life, such as the freedom of rejecting all that had come before, the freedom of nihilism, the freedom of pursuing lifestyles based on self-destructive behaviors, the freedom of amassing wealth and property. At the same time he was not encouraging a withdrawal from participation in life. His own life abundantly demonstrated the freedom of relating to the phenomenal world, with all the laws that operate in it, and yet keeping within the calm repose of a witness, resting on absolute certitude, even when the passage through that world presented inevitable bumps.

He inspired all who came to him to learn more about the phenomenal world, to uncover its secrets through science, history, anthropology, sociology, literature, art, music, and through paying close attention to and peering beneath the surface of what presented itself to us right where we were, wherever we were placed in life. At the same time, his classes, his instruction in meditation, his illumination of the mystical truths revealed by seers and poets, and, above all, his silence, glowing with serenity and fullness, led us inward to our own essential nature.

We all encounter, to greater and lesser degrees, the obstructions to freedom presented by concrete reality, ranging from natural forces to our own nature, from the behavior of others in our work places and families to economic constrictions, and especially the terrifying dynamics resulting from injustice, oppression, war, and natural catastrophe. The great wisdom of Guru’s approach lay in not denying such dynamics, but in making it clear that we each play a significant role in either exaggerating or minimizing their impact, as well as revealing our capacity to understand them more deeply and deal with them more effectively.

His own life offered daily evidence, in the form of writing articles, convening meetings, and giving talks to expose and combat injustice and temper political and religious clashes, writing popular books that revealed the world’s cultural treasures as well as profound philosophical expositions, counseling thousands of people, with deep psychological acuity and profound spiritual guidance, taking action himself such as by sweeping a village road in need of cleaning or planting potatoes to provide needed employment as well as food or advocating for women’s health care or sponsoring celebrations of art, music, drama, and poetry. At the same time, how he dealt with his own physical suffering and disability provided a living example of what is possible when our identity is with the witness and not the suffering body.

I learned that the firm foundation created by insightful participation in the transactional realm, paired with imperiencing our identity with the limitless light of consciousness, supports freedom of ever-expanding dimensions: the freedom to wholeheartedly commit to manifesting our highest values; the freedom to explore widely and deeply as a blessed lover of life; the freedom to create unhampered by internal and external messages of inadequacy; the freedom to give open-heartedly without being stifled by fears of being taken advantage of; the freedom to be aware of ourselves as part of the ocean of all-pervading love. . .

The gift of such freedom is a priceless treasure for which words are an inadequate expression of the gratitude that continually arises in response. Life itself becomes the manifestation of gratitude and the celebration of love.

—Nancy Yeilding

peace, love, happiness & understanding 11/26/20
2020-11-26 - 2020-12-09
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

November 26, 2020

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

—e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
*

Giving thanks. There’s nothing more important. It’s the difference between living in Heaven or Hell. Something so simple. And yet, some people’s brains accidentally got programmed to complain. I usually start the day by noticing the miraculousness of everything, without exception, and then…feeling grateful. Every day a day of thanksgiving.
*

Poetry

And it was at that age … Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don’t know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

—Pablo Neruda (Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet, 1904-1973)
*

Kim Stafford sent us an approach to a daily writing practice. And some poems.

Writing as Ritual: Four Elements of a Daily Writing Page
A chapter from a work in progress, Writing for Happiness, by Kim Stafford

Be the Eric Snowden of your inner life.

I had been writing for years, by fits and starts, when my father’s death opened a
new path for my life as a writer, and as a seeker. By his last will and testament, I
inherited the care of his twenty thousand hand-written pages of daily writing
from the 1950s through the day of his death in 1993. William Stafford’s writing
practice had been invisible to me when he was alive, because he rose before
dawn to write, and I did not. All through childhood, I would see the literary
magazines where his poems were published appear on the coffee table — Crazyhorse,
Poetry, Cimarron Review — and every year a book or two would come forth. When people
would ask him, “Bill, when is your next book coming out?” he would often answer, “Which
one?”

How did he do that? Simple: he wrote something every day, and his books
were made from about one day’s writing out of eight that he found worthy.
A few weeks after my father died, I started to carry the reams of his scribbling
down from the attic, and leaf through his pages one by one. His scrawl was a
challenge, and I sometimes needed a magnifying glass to examine the tangle of
feral words to tease the meaning forth. But overall, I began to see four elements
in his practice that worked together in a way both practical and mystical.

I want to consider what my father’s daily writing pages contained, and how
they worked for him — and how something like his approach might work for any
of us who choose to give such daily writing practice a try. His pages, which are
now housed in the William Stafford Archives at Lewis & Clark College, exhibit a
varying daily mixture of four prevailing elements:

1. Each page begins with the date. Is that even worth mentioning? Well, it turns out to be strangely helpful — in the act of writing, and of course for keeping track of the writings. “Once I write the date on a piece of paper,” he said once, “I know I’m okay. I have made it to my writing.” This is the “open sesame” move of the daily writing practice, for by jotting the date down on a page, you have accomplished the most difficult first step: you have shown up, and you have begun. The pen is active before any wisdom is required, and you have stepped humbly into what William Stafford called “the realm where miracles happen.”

2. Then, often, the page would begin with some prose notes from a recent experience, a few sentences about a connection with friends, an account of a dream. This short passage of “throwaway” writing, it turns out, is very important, as it keeps the pen moving and gets the mind sniffing along through ordinary experience. I call this stage “the boring prose.” You are beginning the act of writing without needing to write anything profound. No struggle, no effort, no heroic reach. Just writing.

3. Then there will sometimes be an “aphorism” — a freestanding sentence, an idea, a question, a note about a pattern he perceived, a puzzle. With the aphorism, as we call it in his pages, William Stafford would write a sentence that “lifted off” from daily experience to observe an emblem of thought, a truth, an idea, or a private joke. (“It still takes all kinds to make a world, but there is an oversupply of some.”) This provisional understanding from daily life begins to raise the writer’s attention out of the mundane into the gently miraculous realm of poetry. It is your own koan.

The aphorisms in William Stafford’s daily writing rarely become part of the poem to follow (though a few of his poems are built from a series of such lines). Most often, they are little wonders left to resonate as private treasure, threshold, key. A bell has been struck, bringing the writer to attention.

4. Then he would write something like a poem… or notes toward a poem… or just an exploratory set of lines that never became a poem. Sometimes there might be a single line of lyric mystery. But he had taken a few steps up the ladder from silence in the general direction of song.

To write the date, some prose, an idea, and then poetic lines beyond prose — this can begin a process for distilling from ordinary experience the extraordinary report of literature. For this day, again, you have given yourself a chance to discover worthy things. Nothing stupendous may occur … but if you do not bring yourself to this point, nothing stupendous will happen for sure … and you are likely to spend the balance of your day in reaction to the imperatives of the outer world — worn down, buffeted, diminished, martyred.

William Stafford’s use of these four elements is capricious. Many pages, especially in his later years, show only the date followed by a poem. His long practice has speeded the process. And even in his early years, he can go many days without preliminary prose or aphorism—or he can jot a series of aphorisms as if he has been saving them to record in a rush.

Most of us do an assignment shortly before it is due. (That’s often true for me.) It’s better to begin the project when it’s first assigned, not when it’s due. And, I realize, again and again, it’s even better to practice self-directed searching, writing, thinking on the page — when there is no assignment given. This empowers the free range of mind, of “hands-on thinking.” By something like this daily practice, you build up a personal sheaf of riches, a democracy of inner voices, an archive you can draw from as needed for work and pleasure over time.

My students once said to me, “You give us a deadline for our writing. But who gives you a deadline?” A terrible sentence came to my mind: “Death is my deadline.” There are myriad latent discoveries in me. Daily, I must bring them forth. For this reason, several years ago, I made a vow to perform this four-part practice every day. What works for me is to do this four-step process first thing, before daylight. I’ve decided to enlist all four elements each day—the date, of course. And then there is always something to scribble about from the day before—the boring prose. And then—what now seems an essential element in the process—the aphorism. To wait for a thought, which always appears, given time and welcome, is the prelude to true practice. The aphorism is the hinge that begins to turn memory to thought, event to idea, scribbling to design. Then a poem, something like a poem, notes for a poem.

This four-step process on the page became a more mysterious form of beckoning when I learned an idea from Buddhism while traveling in Bhutan. Each place, I learned—each experience, each person, each dream, text, encounter—may offer four ways of knowing:

the visible
the invisible
the secret
the deeply secret

So there it is again: the date—visible. A scribbled memory from the day before—the invisible, but palpable. The thought—a secret episode of the Buddhist “unborn.” And then … then whatever mystery may come next, a secret so deep it will not appear unless you use something like this process to welcome what you didn’t know until you do.

As I tell my students, if you follow this four-step process, or something like it, you may not compose something of lasting value every day — but it will be a better day! It will be a day that begins with your own appointment with silence, with attention, with welcome. Something like this structure can lift your writing into a realm of episodic discovery reaching beyond a simple journal or diary, worthy as those habits can be. Gradually, inexorably, you will accumulate riches to return to, an archive of discrete beginnings to nurture on the path of your devotions.

Based on the legacy of William Stafford, as explored further in my own practice, I offer this four-part daily writing ritual as a kind of hands-on meditation. And with this pattern, I propose a year of daily exploration founded in your own version, as it evolves, of this daily practice. What will it be like to experience the kind of sustained and sustaining life of writing you have long imagined?

—Kim Stafford
*

While many have been locked down at home, what’s it like to be homeless, to watch the already fragile future dissolve, your landmarks of support and certainty vanish? Here’s a poem for anyone feeling adrift in the face of change. I hope you can support programs that help those currently living outside…

My Sheltering Sky

When I was born, when I was helpless, there were stars
Above me blue in their midnight galaxy.
When I was hurt, there were scars no one could see.
When I was growing, the sun was dimmed for me
By killing silence where there should have been a song.

Did you hear a song when you were young,
A chorus that sang your name with love?
How many little ways were you reminded of
Your worth, your chance, your path to rise above
Your struggles, a way to feel that you belong?

One night by the river when I couldn’t sleep
For streetlights glittering the water dark,
I looked above my troubles where I saw a spark,
Another world, a guide, a star to mark
My destination far beyond my pain.

On that shore I felt there was fatal door
I could step through into waters cold
To quench my life before I got too old
In sorrows, hard tomorrows, I could fold
My arms and plunge into the deep.

But then I looked above it all and saw
My shelter, my sky where stars were calling
And I felt that I was falling up instead of down,
And I wore some kind of crown
That gave me my ticket to the dawn.

Now I find there’s work, and worth, and wonder.
Though I know my sorrows won’t be completely gone,
Someone helped me carry on and find
A wealth in heart and mind
That helps me know I finally belong.

For I looked above it all and saw
My shelter, my sky where stars were calling
And I felt that I was falling up instead of down,
And I wore some kind of crown
That gave me my ticket to the dawn.

Poetry Doctor

How do you feel?
How, exactly, have you
learned to feel — to be
touched, to apprehend?
These twinges you have —
of compassion, empathy, pain —
how long have you had them?
Have they grown more intense
with age? Do they manifest at
sunset? At dawn? In the presence
of beauty? Of suffering?
Does your heart ever skip?
Do you ever feel dizzy
with delight or shame? Has
the grace of a few right words
ever blurred your vision? Caught
your breath? Has your heart
ever become a drum when
a song’s words told you
who you are in secret?

I’m afraid my diagnosis
must remain incomplete
without further tests:
Neruda, Dickinson, Basho.

—Kim Stafford
*

“Peace, love, happiness & understanding” will be bi-weekly from now on. The next one will come out on December 10th. See you then!

peace, love & gratitude

Johnny

Hsin Hsin Ming by Seng Ts'an
2020-12-01 - 2020-12-14
hsin hsin ming
by seng ts’an

the great way is not difficult
it has no preferences

when love and hate are absent
all becomes clear

make the smallest distinction
and heaven and earth are far apart

if you want to experience it
don’t be for or against anything

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

accepting and rejecting
we can’t see the essence

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

caught in duality
how can you know oneness?

when unity is not understood
both activity and quietude are failures

if you deny the reality of things, all things are lost
pursue emptiness and you stray even further from it

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

stop talking and thinking
and there’s nothing you can’t understand

return to the root and find meaning
follow appearances and lose the source

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

changing appearances in this empty world
seem real due to ignorance

don’t seek truth
just let go of your views

don’t remain in duality
take care never to go that way

choosing this or that
the mind is lost in confusion

duality comes from the one
but don’t be attached to the one

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

when things don’t affect you, they cease to exist
no thought, no mind

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

things are things because of the mind
the mind is the mind because of things

if you want to understand mind and world
see them as ultimately one emptiness

in this emptiness the two are one
it contains everything

don’t distinguish between coarse and refined
and you won’t be for this or against that

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

those with narrow views are full of doubt and fear
the more they hurry, the slower they go

clinging has no limit
we go down the wrong path

in accord with nature
nothing comes or goes

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

don’t trouble your mind
why shun this and desire that?

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

to accept everything
is to be enlightened

the wise man does nothing
the fool shackles himself

the dharma has no distinctions
they come from our foolish attachments

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

illusion creates concepts like tranquil and disordered
illumination destroys liking and disliking

all pairs of opposites
are created by our ignorance

dreams, illusions, flowers in the air
why bother trying to grasp them?

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

if the eyes don’t close in sleep
all dreaming ceases naturally

if the mind makes no discriminations
the ten thousand things have one essence

understanding the mystery of one suchness
difficulties are forgotten

see all things as equal
and all will return to naturalness

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

arrest motion, and motion ceases
move stillness and stillness is gone

when dualities are abolished
how can there be one?

in the end, things are ultimately
not subject to law

for the unified mind in harmony with the way
all striving ceases

all doubts are cleared up
established in right intuition

nothing remains
there’s nothing to remember

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

if you want to approach and enter it
just say “not two”

where there are not two, all is the same
there is nothing that is not included

the wise of all times and places
enter into this source

truth cannot be increased or decreased
one moment, ten thousand years

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

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

the vast is as small as the tiny
when there are no limits

what is, is not
what is not, is

any other view
must be abandoned

one thing is all things
all things are one thing

when you’ve understood this
there’s no need to worry about not being perfect

the stable mind is nondual
intuition and mind are not two

beyond words
no past, no future, no now

–version by johnny stallings

some notes:
The Hsin Hsin Ming is the earliest known Zen writing. Seng Ts’an is the Third Zen Patriarch. He lived in China from 529 to 606 AD. The First Zen Patriarch was Bodhidharma, who lived in the 5th or 6th Century, and is credited with bringing Zen (or Chan) Buddhism to China from India.
The origin of Zen Buddhism is the Buddha’s Flower Sermon. One day the Buddha held up a white flower. Mahākāśyapa realized enlightenment, and smiled.
The first Zen text comes a thousand years later.
The “great way” referred to in the opening verse is the Chinese word “tao,” which also stands for ultimate reality in Taoism. The “it” in verses 4, 6, 7 & 14, also refers to the Tao.
Translating Chinese is problematic. I am not a scholar of classical Chinese. I’ve made this version as accurate and clear as I can by consulting many English translations.
I hope you find it helpful in your meditation and mindfulness practice.

May all people be happy.
May we live in peace & love.

–Johnny

COLLISION REPAIR: Jake Scharbach at Froelick Gallery
2020-12-03 - 2021-01-30
Sisyphus, Titian 1548, painting by Jake Scharbach, oil on canvas, 60″ x 48″

Dear Friends of the Open Road

Nancy’s nephew, Jake Scharbach, has a show at the Froelick Gallery from December 1, 2020 – January 30, 2012.
Here’s a link to the exhibit:

https://privateviews.artlogic.net/2/1cdd977e49691fb0c6d57e/

If you live in the Portland area, be sure to see the show! Froelick Gallery is open by appointment, Tuesday – Saturday, from 11 am to 5:30 pm.

Here is a link to a conversation with Jake about his art:

https://youtu.be/cbVVcRRxU2A

peace & love
Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous! MYTHOLOGY with Will Hornyak 12/6/20
2020-12-06 15:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
On Sunday, December 6th, storyteller Will Hornyak will lead a lively Zoom conversation about MYTHOLOGY at 3 pm. Don’t miss this!!! Here’s the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82169567543

Into the Mythic!
The world’s oldest stories are like venerable ancestors whose voices still speak, offering insights and strategies for dealing with contemporary issues and predicaments. Because myths describe great times of upheaval and change, they are especially relevant to us during times of radical change in our own world. Storyteller Will Hornyak will consider some ideas from mythologists Lewis Hyde, Joseph Campbell, Martin Shaw and Michael Meade about the vital nature of mythology and a “mythic sensitivity” to the world. We’ll discuss how various myths have shaped our lives and our own personal connection to mythology.

peace, love, happiness & understanding 12/10/20
2020-12-10 - 2020-12-23
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

December 10, 2020

Aristotle and Phyllis by Rick Bartow

Charles Erickson

Andrew Larkin

Hugo Anaya

from Jake Scharbach’s sketchbook

peace & love

Johnny

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 12/15/20
2020-12-15 - 2021-01-14
Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

December 15, 2020

Welcome to our fourth meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS)
*

Dear M & M Dialogue,

Greetings to all the mindful ones and those learning the art of being mindful. And don’t worry if you are new to mindfulness, even the ones who have been practicing mindfulness for awhile are still learning to be mindful.

I am no expert in mindfulness, but reading a message a day from Your True Home has been a wonderful experience and ritual, which in itself has brought me joy and mindfulness. Then Johnny suggested that I journal my thoughts, feelings and whatnot on my daily reads, so I have started doing just that, which has brought me a new level of mindfulness and joy.

At first I thought I would have little to say, if anything at all, for most of the daily messages, but I have found that to be a wrong assumption. Some of them are only one or two lines, although I try to keep them short in order to be sure I get my point across and so that others can understand what I’m saying. Anyway, here are a few excerpts from my journal:

10/25/20 #354 The Energy of Love: Love yourself! Without that first, there can be no true love in your life. You cannot love another, nor they love you without truly loving yourself first. This reminds me of a saying I found that takes today’s love and yesterday’s suffering (10/24/20 #355 Your Suffering Needs You) and puts them together.

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness.” (By unknown.)

Once you have mastered self-love, love of another will find you and satisfy your need to be loved. To master that will make not only them happy, but you will be happy too. I’d rather suffer with love than suffer without love, and suffering from too much happiness sounds wonderful to me.

10/27/20 #352 No Enemy, No Savior: I honestly struggle with the meaning of the words “self” and “nonself.” Does it mean self is like yourself and nonself is like other people? I that is the case, I think of neither. We are all part of humanity. There is no self or nonself, there is one. One planet, one society, one humanity, one human race, and one love which is love for all.

That is it for me this month. I could write more, but Johnny said he can’t publish all my journal entries, as he has to leave room for others. Upon my release, I plan to loan my journal to Johnny to read and publish the entries he sees merit in. Peace, love and happiness to you all.

—Josh Underhill
*

(Michel is keeping a meditation journal on an almost daily basis. He sent a treasure trove of meditations. Here are the first three of twenty. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do a special edition of the Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue that features more of Michel’s meditations.) (JS)

November 5 AWARENESS OF BODY

Thây spoke first of sitting meditation; which reminds me of Zen—always the “sitting,” “just sitting” (shikantaza). I’ve been told that this act of simply sitting (or sitting simply?) is the foundation of all mindfulness practice. While this may be true, I found value and calm from sitting. In the Zen class here at TRCI, pre-COVID, that is what I experienced: sitting for no reason but to just sit (simply). I often struggle to make time for this in-cell. A book, recently gifted to me, talks about healing past traumas through several steps; the first involves an awareness of body. The author’s idea is that one effect of childhood trauma (no matter the intensity/severity) is the disconnect from body awareness. There are times when I would rather not be so aware of this body’s goings on. There are other times when I wish I could be more tuned-in to what is happening with my body. I guess I’ll be thankful for the times I am aware—pay more attention—and learn to “lean in” to the less aware times: hoping that paying attention when I’m more aware will leak over and affect the not-so-aware times. The body is always present. It is easy to become numb or ignore whatever is being experienced as common. I think by not being mindful of the “common” it is more challenging to become (or be) mindful for the extra-ordinary. It looks like I access the parts of life I think I’m missing out by paying better attention to the ordinary ones.

November 6 CONSTANT TRANSFORMATION

IMPERMANENCE: Thây’s first word today. Ouch! One of my biggest life challenges has been accepting the reality of change—nothing in my world can conquer impermanence, it’s all subject to change at some point in some way (even if it is just how I “see” it). I used to hate change. I still am not very fond of it; changes have often caught me unawares and have seemed to my small mind like “BIG” upheavals and trauma in life.

As I review my history: the problem was my efforts to fight for permanence, resisting entropy. Maybe, one day, there will occur a major change, where we all get nirvana, paradise, heaven, or whatever, and this place of “perfection” might be permanent. I am beginning to wonder if that would be “good.” I recall a saying Jake and Sara used with us last year on Julius Caesar: “‘Perfection’ is boring.” It’s true. For my experience to be “alive” it has to be imperfect, mutable, transient, “impermanent.” The alternative is a kind of “Groundhog Day” sort of life, where it is always the same, predictable, “Boring!” It is hard for me to not desire to be “safe.” Predictable is safe. Reliable seems safe. Change is not, because I may not know something, or how to do something. So, I’m weak. I’m vulnerable. I’m not safe. That place can be scary and difficult to live in, without some level of fear (“concern”).

Learning to be comfortable with “me” and what I can do helps, as I learn to be comfortable with IMPERMANENCE. Thây had two more words which stood out for me today. Within each, separately or together, I may find an answer: SELFLESSNESS, INTERDEPENDENCE. (hmmm….)

November 9 THE GREAT INSIGHT

I like, and I’m even attracted to the idea that we all can become a buddha—fully enlightened being. Further, while “becoming,” we are all already Bodhisattvas on the journey; aiding and benefitting others’ journey. I am also aware, and like the idea, that we are all already buddhas and have only to discover the buddha within. Both of these line up in agreement, as the second describes what I see/understand as the journey. Isn’t that always the challenge?: Getting out of the way of reality as it is, not as ego (“I”) tells a story to convince the self that reality is something totally different. I see ego as the source of duality and suffering—the idea of a separate “self” identity. I don’t have confirmation (complete), but this seems to be a portion of the truth.

—Michel Deforge
*

“Teaching is not done by teaching alone. It is done by how you live your life My life is my teaching. My life is my message.” Thich Nhat Hanh

This is not in the book Your True Home, but it is by TNH, and when I read it I thought of my parents.

My parents lived the life they loved. They hiked and backpacked and climbed mountains; they played the violin, viola, piano and harpsichord, and welcomed twice weekly chamber music gatherings in our home. They read for hours everyday; the library and bookstores were constant haunts. And art, all the time. They were nerds. They caused me constant embarrassment as a teenager.

Over dozens of years my mother took in friends of theirs and friends of ours who were struggling in life – for weeks, months, sometimes years. This was often to our young and selfish consternation: “Why do the Jacksons have to come again for Thanksgiving? Their kids always have snotty noses!”

Every two months, my mom and dad donated blood. “Why in Heaven’s name wouldn’t we?” my puzzled mother mused.

There were vegetable gardens and flower gardens and small tree farms. I smacked my lips waiting for blueberry pie, then watched as my mom picked and gave away our entire crop most years. “What about your own family’s needs?” we whined. Dad joined in on that one, but he also grew and gave away every fir seedling he nurtured to Christmas tree size. One year he said, “Don’t worry, I’m planting a new crop and I’ll make sure to save you one.” Good luck, he was 90 years old at the time.

So their lives were their teaching. There was no didactic teaching, no conscious ‘modeling’ to achieve ‘results’ in their daughters. They just lived life with passion and dedication.

Of course now I donate blood every two months, and am hitting 150+ units drained from my system, having started when I was 18 yrs. old. (“Why in Heaven’s name wouldn’t I?” when someone asks me why.) And hiking, backpacking and wildflowers are my passion. I have huge gardens so I can give away baskets of golden raspberries and strawberries, and yes, blueberries. I grow way too many peonies and iris so I can cut huge bouquets to give away. I read, read, read, and do art, art, art.

And if I’m not mentoring, tutoring, or otherwise being engaged in connection with others not like me, I am at a loss for meaning in my life.

—Jude Russell
*

138 I Think, Therefore…

This insightful page has inspired my Yoga routines lately! When I do this form of Yoga, I treat it like meditation. For me, it’s been a struggle my whole life to just “sit there” and not “be” with so many things constantly on my mind. It’s been nice to just be in the moment and focus on form, breathing and not everything else. For me to truly be there in that moment I cease all those fleeting thoughts for those 30 minutes every other day. Then, when I’m done, I enjoy the practice so much I begin doing stretches while practicing mindfulness. This has become my favorite part of my days lately, and it’s very peaceful. I encourage everyone to, at the very least, stretch and practice just being.

—Jeff Kuehner
*

Wandering Thoughts

My friends, I must be honest. I have written this paper six times over!

I started out writing about good and evil, page 156. Setting out, I had in mind an ideal of vanquishing good, evil and the universal duality….But I lost!

Duality has successfully wriggled its little fingers into every last nook and cranny; it won’t be going anywhere soon. And after thwarting my attempts at the highest level, it opened my eyes.

I’ve realized my “Not Sowing Karma” theme is wrong. Let me elaborate; we all were born upon a set of scales that started to tip in one direction or the other since our birth. There will come a time when we all will make a choice to either live with balance, or not. Without balance you can only tilt in one direction, until eventually you fall. With balance you will never fall, you only have to get there. Only then is there a chance of escape. Escape. Everyone seems to think there are a variety of ways to escape, but true escape is when you live in every moment and every thing is balanced.

Duality seems to offer a reasonable solution, and offers the key to any that seek.

Could co-existing be the harmony we seek, could it shine light on the hidden path? The wonder of wonders keeps me wondering still…

Well guys, those are this month’s thoughts. Let me apologize if it seems a little screwy. To be honest, I didn’t think something that seemed so simple would really be complex. Maybe it’s both!

Ahhhh, I’ll sign off now, before I have to re-write it all.

peace & love & everything else

—Joshua Barnes
*

From Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Be Free Where You Are, pages 37-40.

Being able to practice mindful breathing under duress, in an emotional state, or any unhealthy mindset. This is most likely a life long journey of practice and patience. “An emotion is only and emotion, we are much more than an emotion.” If we can recognize an emotion before it gets us on to becoming a wreck, then we can put it under a mindful breathing exercise and meditate on it, “you will see that you are strong—strong enough to withstand the storm.”

But, “don’t wait until you have a strong emotion to practice. If you do, you will not remember how to practice. You have to practice now, today, while you are feeling fine.”

I will speak for myself. So often when an emotion arises that I don’t want to have I bury it. But what happens when there is no more room for them?

This practice of mindful breathing to calm the storm or just wait it out without incident is the key, for me, to getting through many a bad day.

There are many forms of breathing. The point I am trying to make is: let’s just take a look at what is going on in the inside of us, grab ahold of it and examine it under a practice of mindfulness, calm breathing, and then maybe we can get a better understanding of what it is that makes us tick…or get ticked off.

Thanks to everyone who writes in the M & M dialogue. This is fun.

—Brandon Gillespie
*

#89 An Invitation from the Buddha

Mr. Underhill, I am really glad to hear you have started your countdown. I think that reading a passage a day is a good way to finish your set. I know you as a very good, caring guy and I wish you all the success in the future. Never forget all you have learned these last years and the good people you have met along the way

The first line of this—“We live in a time when everyone is too caught up in the preoccupations of everyday life,…”—how true this is for this year! It seems everywhere we turn there is nothing but blame for this or that, or: you don’t believe the things I believe, so I hate you. I believe our differences should be the thing that makes us love and understand each other all the more. Our uniqueness is one of the most special gifts we have.

I think taking the time to discover who we are, really down deep, is the true essence of life. When we start to understand ourselves more deeply, we can then open our eyes to the way others feel and have compassion for their ideas. We must remember that we are all brothers and sisters on this earth. It doesn’t matter what geographical location you come from, or the shade of your skin. These things have nothing to do with a person’s character. If we could stop and tell someone hello, give them an honest smile when we see they have a frown on their face, or, if you have to, tell a corny joke. I am sure, if the response isn’t immediate, that they will think about it later and hopefully have a moment of joy—that some stranger would say something so stupid to them. These little things we can do for one another to me are the true nature of life.

—Aaron Gilbert
*

Thanks to everyone who wrote last month. It is very moving to read about your experience of meditation and of Thich Nhat Hanh’s writing.

Johnny asked if I might write about some of my experiences hearing Thich Nhat Hanh speak. I have heard him several times, but the only time I remember the content of the talk was the first time, on the eve of the first Iraq war in 2003. He began by saying, “Bodhisattva George Bush and Bodhisattva Sadham Hussein had a quarrel.” And in my heart I did a little bow and thought, “You’re a better man than I am!” He explained that a Bodhisattva is responsible for many beings, which, certainly, Bush and Hussein were. Thây (that’s what his students call him) said that the United States had barely begun to recover from the psychic damage of the Vietnam war, and there we were embarking on another. He spoke about the young men, the soldiers in both countries, whose lives would be wounded by their experiences, and the pain this would inflict on both countries after the war had ended. I don’t suppose he could have foreseen all the little wars to come, including Afghanistan, the longest war in our history; twice as long as the Vietnam war, and counting. The other night I heard that Trump’s vaunted withdrawal of troops on the ground in Afghanistan only means that there will be more bombing, hence less targeted violence, hence more civilian casualties. Thây said, “I have not practiced enough, I have not practiced deeply enough…” and then he began a kind of litany: “you who are a teacher, you who are a student, you have to practice with us; you who are an artist, you who are a filmmaker, you have to practice with us…”and so on. This wasn’t really his talk, which he also gave… it was his response to the news of the day.

Thây suggested that each one of us in the audience could adopt a veteran, a young person who had been damaged by their experience of war and who could be helped to heal by being befriended. We could invite them into our homes, break bread with them, become real friends. I haven’t done this, I confess, although I have attempted to “adopt” some people who have been hurt by other circumstances of life. I’ve talked with many veterans who are on the streets, and, of course, the healing is mutual. It’s not a question of one helping the other–if a connection is made one can be a friend, even if the encounter is only for a few minutes. Johnny has embodied this approach to life as fellowship.

There were many other things in this talk–a lot of the breathing exercises in his book The Blooming of a Lotus were given that night. He told a story about his own war experience as a monk in Vietnam, counting bodies of bombing victims and the song they sang about the beauty of the sky and earth to keep themselves in remembrance of the gifts of life. He talked about someone bringing him food and he said, “I got enlightened” which is to say it awakened him to the blessing of preparing food, serving it, enjoying taste, even in these circumstances. He said, “Enlightenment is always about something. Buddhist enlightenment is about the nature of the self.”

So what is the nature of the self? If you practice with Thich Nhat Hanh and sit quietly you see that the self is always changing. It has no permanent identity. In the image of Suzuki Roshi, “I” is like a swinging door that comes in and goes out with the breath. A swinging door is not a fortress. It has a relative amount of importance, but not much; certainly not enough to start a war over.

As I look over what I have written, one thing that I notice is the absence of self-cultivation. Meditation is not about getting better. “Meditation” has been co-opted by the American religion of self-enhancement: we want to be better, thinner, stronger, more beautiful, wealthier, and we also want to be smarter and calmer and wiser, and we think of these properties as products that we can purchase for money or time. The meditation salespeople tell us that “practice” is a good tool to put in our shopping basket along with face cream and exercise and vegan or paleo diet and vitamins, eight glasses of water, and all the rest of it. But in Thây’s “Buddhist enlightenment” we meditate to end suffering, to see clearly, to meet life in all its beauty and horror as it is, to get over ourselves and befriend our fellow creatures. We don’t need years of practice and we don’t need to cultivate special psychological states; right now in this very moment, breathing in and breathing out, looking into the eyes of the veteran, or the neighbor (who well may be a veteran) or the cashier or our partner, we can be present, awakened, kind. I have arrived! says Thich Nhat Hanh; we have already arrived in our own true home.

—Howard Thoresen
*

My homework for today: study my distress and dissatisfaction. Doctors, nurses, and therapists use this format to diagnose physical/mental ailments, the SOAP format. Bhikkhu Analayo recommends applying the same format to our distress. Identify the problem by its (S) subjective and (O) objective components, (A) assess the cause, and then make a (P) plan. My problem today and every day is that I WANT THINGS TO BE DIFFERENT than they actually are. That person shouldn’t be rude. The rules shouldn’t be so arbitrary. The soup should not be so hot, and it definitely should never be cold. The subjective is my experience of distress/dissatisfaction/discontentment. The objective, the cause of my distress, is my desire for things to be different. (Notice the cause is NOT the “errant” situation!) The assessment is that I really need to learn how to accept things as they are OR be more effective in making necessary changes (complaining is not changing). The plan, using the jargon of this meditation tradition, is the Eightfold Path, or learning to behave differently, shift my mental focus, and learn to understand how the world actually works, as opposed to how I fantasize it works. YTH #7, 19, and 317 relate to this.

—Shad Alexander
*

As I sat still this morning at my writing desk, before turning on the light, in the darkness and silence the weather in my mind began to clear from yesterday’s worries and conundrums, something began to come into focus. In time, I turned on the light, and wrote down this thought:

A loss is first a pang, then a memory. Then , by writing or telling, it may become a story. Then, if told with curiosity and courage, the sorrow becomes a possession, an element of identity, and finally a treasure, a smudge of wisdom.

Then, as my habit each morning early, I explored this thought by shaping it into something like a poem:

Schooling Sorrow

When a sorrow’s young, it’s pure—stunned
pang at breakup, betrayal, failure, death.
You weep, rant, brood, slump. And then

in the morning, sorrow starts its epic
journey into memory, becomes an island
in your archipelago of sufferings.

Then, if you are strong, and lucky to have
a listener—you begin to apprehend its quirks,
to tell it, shape it, watch it grow into a story.

And if you tell your story well, with curiosity
and courage, it then becomes a possession,
and in time a treasure, a smudge of wisdom.

This can be your gift, your offering—but
if you don’t school your sorrow into story
it can never be your friend.

—Kim Stafford
*

Dear Johnny

Thank you for your continued support and love through all you do. I have very much enjoyed (and do continue to enjoy) your recent newsletters. Funny thing, to me at least, is I keep feeling like I want (almost to a need) to give you something profoundly insightful to share and lately felt at a loss, as I’ve read so many things (in your publications) that seem to already say what I would say. So I keep trying to think of something new and exciting—still, to no avail. Then, recently (last week), not trying to think of anything, a concept occurred to me on the subject of fate and “predestiny.”

Throughout my life I’ve pondered fate, choice and destiny. There have been many times in my life when I’ve wondered about the “what ifs.” What if I had made a different choice at any number of crossroads in my life? Would I still be the same person with the same resolve? At times the “could have beens” seem whelming, at best. Recently, the idea occurred to me that maybe both fate, that you make choice, and predestiny both exist simultaneously. The example, or visualization, that came to me is that maybe life, our experience, is like a long, vast river filled with twists, turns, smooth parts, rapids, falls, obstacles, and that our “fateful” choices steer us around or into these, yet we still eventually arrive at the same “pre”destination, no matter what course we take in this river.

Anyway, it’s a concept I’ve been mulling over lately.

—Joseph Opyd
*

I’m interested in co-creating “culture that nurtures” with you, my friends. In #214, “I Don’t Need These Things,” Thich Nhat Hanh says: “…negative forces are everywhere. When you turn on the television, for instance, you run the risk of ingesting harmful things, such as violence, despair, or fear.” Elsewhere, he talks about “mental junk food”—ideas and images which don’t nurture us.

It’s not possible to avoid mental junk food, but it’s unhealthy as a regular diet. Where is healthy food to be found? Everyone gets to figure this out for themselves. I’m prejudiced, but I think our monthly meditation and mindfulness dialogue is healthy food. Many of the people participating in this dialogue are currently living in prison—an environment which has a lot of negativity in it. Whether we are living inside or outside of prison walls, it’s important to choose wisely what we read, what we think about, how we spend our time. Life is short. Each day is precious.

Because most television fare feels unwholesome to me, I’m trying to create my own culture, my own world—one I want to live in. I make an effort to create an inner world that is rich in meaning, that makes me happy, broadens my understanding, nurtures peace and love in my heart. For me, certain writers are very reliable in this regard. And I’m always on the lookout for the next book that will teach me something new, delight me, give me a fresh perspective, open my mind and heart.

—Johnny Stallings
*

To: The Open Road & all its Travelers!

Hsin Hsin Ming is fantastic. It’s odd, your choice of subject, as this is exactly what I’ve been thinking about.

It’s funny, because while I’ve been trying to untangle my own gordian knot, the answers I sought were in front of me the whole time; but, unlike the hero in the story, I used a different way of slicing through my knot. Though I will admit, the process was much the same.

I believe one purpose of that story was to show that when we conform to a certain belief, or thought process, we are limiting ourselves, and in doing so will only fail.

I have been limiting myself for a very long time, but, thankfully, we all can change!

As I said in my last letter, I’ve come to the conclusion that indifference will never do. Balance, on the other hand, is a very different story. When using both the positive and the negative, you allow them to cancel each other out. The same goes for weights and counterweights. This, when done correctly, would leave you floating happily in between, neither drifting to one side or the other, but in the middle…Balanced.

The Hsing Hsin Ming said: “…Make the smallest distinction and heaven and earth are far apart…” and “…If you want to experience it, don’t be for or against anything…”

The only way I can see this working is by achieving balance, and, like I said before, there is only one way to balance the scales.

This led me to my next thought and another very helpful piece: “…Caught in duality, how can you know oneness?”

You know, I puzzled over this for a long time, and then, when reading the next line, found a wonderful answer staring up at me from the page….Unity and understanding. Two beautiful words. Unity is balance and understanding is realizing there can be no balance when striving towards any one thing alone.

I don’t think the texts are about condemning duality or escaping it, I believe they speak of duality being the weight and counterweight, the true keys to achieving balance, “oneness,” in order to escape the samsara. We are caught in duality and must make it work. Duality is in man’s nature for a reason, and like the wise words on page three say: “…following our nature, we are in harmony with the way, wandering freely, without a care…”

And here is where I’ll make my last stand with a final quote: “…to accept everything is to be enlightened…”

Peace & love

—Joshua Barnes
*

Today, December 13, is Bodhi Day, the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, experienced enlightenment. In Thailand, where my youngest son has lived for the past eight years, there are numerous temples that display the key moments in the Buddha’s life in a frieze that goes around the inner walls. So that we might step into the scene along with his disciples and remember the teachings.

I thought it would be a good time to tell the story of the Buddha’s awakening and the happiness derived from following his teachings. It may be familiar to most of you but worth hearing over and over. I have studied with Thich Nhat Hanh for many years and taught classes with Rev. Bob Schaibly. These teachings are for all; there is no reason to be a Buddhist or practice Buddhism as a religion. But it is good to know the essence of what we are talking about and to honor the original source.

Bodhi Day is observed in the Buddhist traditions in Asia from India and Japan to Thailand and Vietnam. Bodhi Day serves as a reminder of the wisdom that is naturally available to us all, the wisdom that comes from looking deeply in the present moment, of cultivating our minds, and recognizing that everything is interconnected.

Siddhartha, was born around 530 BC. He grew up in India, as a Prince born and raised into a wealthy family, who lived surrounded by beautiful gardens in a spacious palace. When he was born his parents were told that their son’s destiny was to be a great warrior or he would become a great spiritual teacher. His parents wanted him to carry on with their established life, they wanted a warrior. Like all parents they also wanted their son to be safe and grow up satisfied. So they tried to isolate and protect him from the world and meet his every need and desire. But as he grew into his teenage years and adulthood he felt like he was imprisoned. Sound familiar!?

One night Siddhartha and a servant went out of the palace gates into the surrounding villages.

They first came upon an old man who was stooped over, using a walking stick, and balding.

Siddhartha asked, what does this mean? His servant explained that this is Old Age.

They went on and came upon an ill person with sores who was in terrible discomfort. The servant explained to Siddhartha again, this is Illness.

They then came to a corpse in the road. And Siddhartha was shocked and asked again.

And his servant said, All living things pay a price for life and this is Death. Siddhartha was frightened by all this suffering.

Then they came upon a simple ascetic carrying a begging bowl, who did not want anything to do with commerce and the travails of the modern world. We too recognize this.

Siddhartha soon decided to leave the palace and follow the path of the ascetic to see if he can find release from his fears and this suffering. He went out into the world dressed in his servant’s clothes, an 18 year old young man. He went in search of knowledge with this group of poor and dedicated ascetics. He fasts to the point of exhaustion and realizes ultimately that this will not work for him.

The life of hedonism in a palace as a prince and a life of starvation are not giving him any more understanding about the world. So he adopts what is called The Middle Way.

He sits, determined to pay attention to what is happening. He sits under the Bodhi tree, meditating until he comes to some wisdom. He overcomes all temptations after a period like 40 days and 40 nights. He realizes enlightenment and in the moment of touching the earth he takes it as his witness. He finds that concentrating on our breath we can be happy in the present moment. One of his most important teachings is about calming the mind so that we are not overwhelmed by our emotions of fear and anger. From that day on he started teaching the eight-fold path to inner peace.

Compassion and understanding are what comes from mindfulness and meditation and the practice of looking deeply at our and others’ suffering. Compassion then can come about and one can move from being to acting without being overcome. Without compassion fatigue. This story is related to the western story of the Good Samaritan who helped another without worrying about the consequences from the rules of his religion or culture.

The Buddha in his enlightenment came up with an eight-fold path to follow for living with awareness and happiness for ourselves and others. The essence of the teachings are based on the five remembrances of the human condition that is a reality for each of us:

I am of the nature to grow old.

Oh how we try in vain to keep our youthful looks. We even find it hard to believe we are not still our younger selves when we look in the mirror. Even in our seventies we can feel close to those young adult years.

I am of the nature to become ill.

If we live a healthy life we often feel it is not fair if we get sick, as though it was a justice issue. We all will become ill as life goes on.

I am of the nature to die.

This is something live most of our lives in denial about. In our culture especially we keep death hidden away.

Everything that I care about will pass away.
This is the teaching of impermanence. Everything changes. We will lose those we love, and our possessions, and even our ideas and ideals.
Only my deeds will survive me.

May I act well to make a world that is lovely and loving. What we do, and how we do thing things makes a difference. This is the secret of peace and happiness and freedom.

Remember to pass it on, pay it forward, even with a smile, but especially with our stories.

I’m so glad you all are enjoying our monthly sharing of Mindfulness and Meditation!

Peace and love, I miss everyone in person. Be well.

—Katie Radditz

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Poetry's Task with Kim Stafford 12/20/20
2020-12-20 15:00 - 17:00
Dear Bibliophiles!

On December 20th, at 3 pm, our Zoom gathering will be hosted by Kim Stafford, who recently completed two years as Oregon’s Poet Laureate. Here’s the (new) link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054571039

December 12, 2020

As I sat still this morning at my writing desk, before turning on the light, in the darkness and silence the weather in my mind began to clear from yesterday’s worries and conundrums, something began to come into focus. In time, I turned on the light, and wrote down this thought:

A loss is first a pang, then a memory. Then , by writing or telling, it may become a story. Then, if told with curiosity and courage, the sorrow becomes a possession, an element of identity, and finally a treasure, a smudge of wisdom.

Then, as my habit each morning early, I explored this thought by shaping it into something like a poem:

Schooling Sorrow

When a sorrow’s young, it’s pure—stunned
pang at breakup, betrayal, failure, death.
You weep, rant, brood, slump. And then

in the morning, sorrow starts its epic
journey into memory, becomes an island
in your archipelago of sufferings.

Then, if you are strong, and lucky to have
a listener—you begin to apprehend its quirks,
to tell it, shape it, watch it grow into a story.

And if you tell your story well, with curiosity
and courage, it then becomes a possession,
and in time a treasure, a smudge of wisdom.

This can be your gift, your offering—but
if you don’t school your sorrow into story
it can never be your friend.

—Kim Stafford

peace, love, happiness & understanding 12/24/20
2020-12-24 - 2021-01-06
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

December 24, 2020

I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps…

—Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself
*

Since water still flows, though we cut it with swords,
And sorrow returns, though we drown it with wine,
Since the world can in no way satisfy our cravings,
Let us loosen our hair tomorrow and go fishing.

—Li Po (701-762 A.D.)
*

Found Kin

Ardent champions of comradery,
our found kin hold a cherished place
inside the chest cavity.
Stumble into our lives when we
need you most.
Battle back the self-doubt with
Deeds, Words, Actions, Presence.
Blood being equally without consequence
or measured sacred.
Embrace me found kin with gentle
acts of friendship.
Keep the wolves at bay, my hearth fire
heart stoked.
Against the oppressing laden storm of
Breathing upon this mortal stage
Found kin, I love you.

—Jeff Kuehner
*

Elemental Thoughts

Storm grey clouds frequent windy days,
Shedding their sadness on the land
Before moving on.
I watch them through my window pane,
Wishing they would stay awhile
or maybe take me with them;
For a storm grey cloud at heart I’ve become,
In need of a good wind to push me—
Until I too shed my sadness.

—Joshua Barnes
*

THE MEANING OF THIS

We are a feather
made of wings made of birds

No boos
cheers or other
interruptions

On our way up

Yes our body has fallen
apart

But finally we are floating

Like this & this
is what we wished for
relishing in our not
expecting it

Here is the inverted valley
& every blade
of grass on the godhead asking

What are you
& who is your name

—Alex Tretbar
*

I do hope you enjoyed my depressing poem. Here is another attached to this letter. It’s a piece I’m working on, but it has been hiding from my attempts at trying to bring it to paper. Where do all these words hide, anyway? Maybe it really is in between the blank spaces of every page and sentence. I wish I knew!

Hindsight (2020)

Hold your breath a little while
The reaper’s hounds are on the loose,
Trailing along their invisible chains
Extinguishing life like a hangman’s noose.

Hindsight: Speaking of history, history’s made
Though the irony remains in man’s surprise;
For we’ve opened the door to find again
A trojan horse in a man disguise.

The questions now—Will we learn?
Will these lessons keep and pass?
Or will the hounds come again
When comfort blinds us of our past?

But worry not, just hold your breaths,
For now just try to dodge the noose;
And watch the hounds’ chains grow taut
When pharma bears its golden goose.

—Joshua Barnes
*

Think Twice

If you think once, that’s good—
you’re ahead of the game. But do
yourself a favor, and think again.

Think for yourself, for number 1.
Then think for others, and see
how you are woven into we.

Think for today, necessity.
Then think for what comes soon,
and after, all that rich unfolding.

Think for your allies, then for “enemies.”
Think for the human, then for Earth.
Think for comfort, then for deepening spirit.

When anyone demands an answer, say,
“I am of two minds. Give me a moment.”

—Kim Stafford

Your Sovereignty

By law, your house is your castle—unless they have
a warrant to enter, sift through your stuff, is your
fortress, unless the bank holds the deed, or you rent
at a landlord’s whim, unless it’s a tent by the river
waiting for the sweep, a doorway with a blanket,
a place to stand by the road with your sign, a park
bench bed claimed at dusk, unless you are an inmate
in solitary concrete cell with stories behind closed eyes
your treasure, unless you flee, a refugee running by night
with only your coat and muttered clutch of words for
water, please, bread, prayer, brother, sister, home,
unless you are a tribe, your usual and accustomed places
torn away by someone’s treaty, one who never saw
dawn come over a prairie, forest, camas meadow,
unless you are a wren, your home thickets
skinned, plowed, paved, and you are made
to move, adapt, or die, so just before you fly,
on a wire you sing a last ravishing run,
the song your shred of sovereignty.

—Kim Stafford
*

Winter Feet

Early morning walk
Down Broadway
Inner city sidewalk
Still dark
Still cold

Ezra, a man I’ve come to know,
Sleeps in a doorway
His blue tennis shoes neatly placed
Next to his head

His bare feet
Extend out from the heavy blanket

I walk on
Then turn around
Gently pull the blanket over his feet

Ezra whispers a sleepy thank you
I start to leave
He kicks the blanket off

Feet once again bare
To the bitter cold
Life as he lives it
Exposed

—Esther Elizabeth

Daily Bread

Another Vet with little means
has found ways to appreciate slices of life
He goes by many names
I call him Joseph
He waits outside the café in his
electric wheel chair
with his dog Buffy snuggling on his lap,
four stuffed animals in the basket behind him—
two dogs, one monkey, one cat
On each side two
decorative colorful wind whirls

I leave the café with leftovers
What do you have for me today
Hash browns, chicken sausage,
whole wheat toast

This is better than last week’s donut,
laughs Joseph
This is a real feast, thank you
Now let me offer you a blessing
before you walk on

I weep now remembering his words, the
sincerity with which they were spoken

Dear God as I know you
Bless this servant—
As she offers me this day my daily bread
I ask you to offer her whatever she needs,
for we are all in these troubling times together
serving one another in love
Amen

Amen Joseph
Amen indeed

—Esther Elizabeth, two poems from Encounter: Poems of Engagement

Esther asked me to include her email address. Here it is:

estherwelizabeth@gmail.com
*

What Issa Heard

Two hundred years ago Issa heard the morning birds
singing sutras to this suffering world.

I heard them too, this morning, which must mean,

since we will always have a suffering world,
we must also always have song.

—David Budbill
*

I hope these poems keep you warm.

May all people be happy.
May we live in peace & love.

Johnny

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
2020-12-25
DEAR EDITOR:
I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

—Francis Pharcellus Church, Editor of The Sun, September 21, 1897

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Favorite Women Poets with Deborah & Katie
2021-01-03 - 2021-01-16
Dear Bibliophiles
On Sunday, January 3rd, Deborah Buchanan and Katie Radditz hosted a conversation about Favorite Women Poets on Zoom. We had a good turnout. It’s a big subject! They began talking about Japanese women poets:

Tankas from 4th – 19th century Japan
Ono no Komachi
While, waiting for you,
My heart is filled with longing,
The autumn wind blows—
As if it were you—
Swaying the bamboo blinds of my door.

Tanka stresses the beauty of life and nature, but there is a strong feeling of yearning in many tanka. The shortness of life, the transient nature of seasons and love.
First known poetry perhaps is the tanka written as letters between women in Japan who were basically imprisoned at home. They started writing letters to one another in simple haiku with hidden messages, the recipient would write back in two lines. Forming a tanka from the Haiku.
Izumi Shikibu. author of The Diary of Izumi Shikibu and was considered to be the finest poet of the time. She also wrote The Tale of Genji considered the first novel. It is full of hundreds of Tankas.

“To the lonely nights
when a robe comes between us,
would you then, you say,
have me add more layers yet
to keep us further apart?”

“Without showing a change in colour
The thing that fades
In this world
Is the flower
Called the human heart.”

“The colour of the cherry blossom
Has faded vainly
In the long rain
While in idle thoughts
I have spent my life.”

“Without a thought
For my black hair’s disarray
I throw myself down,
Already longing for the one
Who ran his fingers through it.“

“On the bamboo leaves
A fine ice fall
Patters and patters.
How bitter
To try to sleep alone!”

Then, Deborah and Katie talked about Emily Dickinson. They read this poem:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –

Johnny recited one of his favorite Emily Dickinson poems:

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

Deborah talked about Diane Di Prima and read this poem by her:

Poem in Praise of My Husband

I suppose it hasn’t been easy living with me
either,
with my piques, and ups and downs, my need for
privacy
leo pride and weeping in bed when you’re
trying to sleep
and you, interrupting me in the middle of a
thousand poems
in the middle of our drive over the nebraska
hills and
into colorado, odetta singing, the whole world
singing in me
the triumph of our revolution in the air
me about to get that down, and you
you saying something about the carburetor
so that it all went away
but we cling to each other
as if each thought the other was the raft
and he adrift alone, as in this mud house
not big enough, the walls dusting down around us, a fine dust rain
counteracting the good, high air, and stuffing
our nostrils
we hang our pictures of the separate worlds:
new york college and san francisco posters
set out our japanese dishes, chinese knives
hammer small indian marriage cloths into
the adobe
we stumble thru silence into each other’s gut
blundering thru from one wrong place to the
next
like kids who snuck out to play on a boat
at night
and the boat slipped from its moorings, and
they look at the stars
about which they know nothing, to find out
where they are going.

Deborah and Katie shared this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye:

Shoulders
A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.
We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.
The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

Nancy Yeilding read this poem by Barbara Crooker:

It’s Monday Morning

mid-November, the world turned golden,
preserved in amber. I should be doing more
to save the planet—plant a tree, raise
a turbine, put solar panels on the roof
to grab the sun and bring it inside. Instead,
I’m sitting here scribbling, sitting on a wrought
iron chair, the air cold from last night’s frost,
the thin sunlight sinking into the ruined
Appalachians of my spine. I know it’s all
about to fall apart; the signs are everywhere.
But on this blue morning, the air bristling
with crickets and birdsong, I do the only thing
I can: put one word in front of the other,
and see what happens when they rub up against
each other. It might become something
that will burst into flame.

Dave Duncan read the first two stanzas of “The Cry of the Children” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,

Ere the sorrow comes with years ?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ;
The young birds are chirping in the nest ;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows ;
The young flowers are blowing toward the west—
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly !
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
Why their tears are falling so ?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago —
The old tree is leafless in the forest —
The old year is ending in the frost —
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest —
The old hope is hardest to be lost :
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland ?

Here’s a poem from Wisława Szymborska that Katie and Deborah chose:

Possibilities
I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

And here’s a poem by Wisława Szymborska that Jude Russell read:

The Three Oddest Words

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.

Jeffrey Sher read a poem by Mary Oliver:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Here a poem by Ada Limon:

The Raincoat

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.

Nancy Yeilding didn’t know if she could get through this poem by Denise Levertov without crying. She was encouraged to give it a try:

The Fountain

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water
to solace the dryness at our hearts.
I have seen

the fountain springing out of the rock wall
and you drinking there. And I too
before your eyes
found footholds and climbed
to drink the cool water.

The woman of that place, shading her eyes,
frowned as she watched-but not because
she grudged the water,
only because she was waiting
to see we drank our fill and were
refreshed.
Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.
That fountain is there among its scalloped
green and gray stones,
it is still there and always there
with its quiet song and strange power
to spring in us,
up and out through the rock.

Here’s a poem by Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature:

Riches

I have a faithful fortune
and a fortune lost.
One’s like a rose,
the other a thorn.
What was taken from me
I still possess:
the faithful fortune
and the fortune lost,
and I’m rich in purple
and unhappiness.
Oh how I love the rose
and how the thorn loves me!
Like round twin apples
after the frost:
the faithful fortune,
the fortune lost.

(tr. Ursula K. Le Guin)

Here’s a poem by our current national Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo:

Perhaps the world ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
*

Nancy Yeilding also recommends:

“Late August” by Mary Chivers
“For a Friend Lying in Intensive Care Waiting for Her White Blood Cells to Rejuvenate After a Bone Marrow Transplant” by Barbara Crooker
“A Gift” and “Witness” by Denise Levertov

Deborah and Katie also recommend:

“A New National Anthem” by Ada Limon
“Sweetness,” “Give Me Your Hand” and “Song of Death” by Gabriela Mistral
“Some People” by Wisława Szymborska
“The Burying Beetle” by Ada Limon

Deborah asked me to add this:

Also please add that we only skimmed the wealth of African American poets:
Gwendolyn Books (first black woman to win the Pulitzer), Lucille Clifton, June Jordan and now a whole bevy of current ones: Tracy K. Smith, Nikki Finney, Claudine Rankin, Natasha Tretheway.

And for American Indian women poets, there are, in addition to the stellar Joy Harjo:
Natalie Diaz (her breakout book, When My Brother Was an Aztec), and Oregon’s own Elizabeth Woody.

There were lots more poems! You shoulda been there! Maybe you were.

Deborah recently published three books of poetry: The World A Well, Layers of Sediment and Moment Before. You can order them from her at: dlbadger@gmail.com.

We ended our Zoom gathering with Deborah reading one of her unpublished poems:

Unannounced

The grass moved
inhalation exhalation
as the animal slept
still but for breath
covered by the sky’s night
wind in the orchard
deeper shadows under dark firs

We find the grass bowl
in early morning, still warm
stalks flattened not by wind
but impress of being
a nest one might say
yet in soil not air
a vibrant emptiness

While we slept unaware
another life another world
passed by
inextricably connected
yet unknown
how many each moment
these transparent threads

Breathing the same air
walking so closely

peace, love, happiness & understanding 1/7/21
2021-01-07 - 2021-01-20
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

January 7, 2021

I sent some of Thomas Traherne’s poems to Alex Tretbar, who was inspired by the poem “Wonder” to write “DUST.” First Traherne, then Tretbar:

Wonder

How like an Angel came I down!
How bright are all things here!
When first among His works I did appear
O how their Glory me did crown!
The world resembled His Eternity,
In which my soul did walk;
And every thing that I did see
Did with me talk.

The skies in their magnificence,
The lively, lovely air;
Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!
The stars did entertain my sense,
And all the works of God, so bright and pure,
So rich and great did seem,
As if they ever must endure
In my esteem.

A native health and innocence
Within my bones did grow,
And while my God did all his Glories show,
I felt a vigour in my sense
That was all Spirit. I within did flow
With seas of life, like wine;
I nothing in the world did know
But ’twas divine.

Harsh ragged objects were concealed,
Oppressions, tears and cries,
Sins, griefs, complaints, dissensions, weeping eyes
Were hid, and only things revealed
Which heavenly Spirits, and the Angels prize.
The state of Innocence
And bliss, not trades and poverties,
Did fill my sense.

The streets were paved with golden stones,
The boys and girls were mine,
Oh how did all their lovely faces shine!
The sons of men were holy ones,
In joy and beauty they appeared to me,
And every thing which here I found,
While like an angel I did see,
Adorned the ground.

Rich diamond and pearl and gold
In every place was seen;
Rare splendours, yellow, blue, red, white and green,
Mine eyes did everywhere behold.
Great wonders clothed with glory did appear,
Amazement was my bliss,
That and my wealth was everywhere:
No joy to this!

Cursed and devised proprieties,
With envy, avarice
And fraud, those fiends that spoil even Paradise,
Flew from the splendour of mine eyes,
And so did hedges, ditches, limits, bounds,
I dreamed not aught of those,
But wandered over all men’s grounds,
And found repose.

Proprieties themselves were mine,
And hedges ornaments;
Walls, boxes, coffers, and their rich contents
Did not divide my joys, but all combine.
Clothes, ribbons, jewels, laces, I esteemed
My joys by others worn:
For me they all to wear them seemed
When I was born.

—Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)
*

DUST

I came down like an angel
from a gestative mountain

I have no memory
of

Since then loved
ones have told me

About the two
a.m. arrival

The usual bawling
& slap-shock of the other

Side of eternity
since then there have been

So many thens that now
seem second-hand

Like universal lullabies
whispered into the unconscious

Ears of babies my life
is just a transparent bead

On an endless
abacus

But you are there too
& you & you & you

And it seems fitting to me now
that abacus comes from the Hebrew word

For dust

—Alex Tretbar
*

Poetry Lovers: On Sunday, January 3rd, Katie Radditz and Deborah Buchanan hosted a Zoom gathering on the theme of “Favorite Women Poets.” Here’s a link to the web page on the Open Road website, where you will find poems to inspire you and whet your appetite for more:

https://openroadpdx.com/event/bibliophiles-unanimous-favorite-women-poets-with-deborah-katie/

In the last Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue, Joshua Barnes wrote about duality and oneness. He got me thinking about different things, including Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, from Book VII of The Republic. Socrates is doing most of the talking. The other speaker is Glaucon. You may be familiar with it, but it’s one of those things that is worth revisiting and pondering from time to time. So, here it is (in the Benjamin Jowett translation):

BOOK VII.

And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.
You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?
True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?
And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?
Yes, he said.
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
Very true.
And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?
No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
That is certain.
And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,—what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,—will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
Far truer.
And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?
True, he said.
And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.
Not all in a moment, he said.
He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?
Certainly.
Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
Certainly.
He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?
Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.
And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?
Certainly, he would.
And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,
‘Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,’
and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?
Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
To be sure, he said.
And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
No question, he said.
This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed—whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 1/15/21
2021-01-15 - 2021-02-14
Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

January 15, 2020

Welcome to our fifth meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS)
*

WITHOUT

Picture nothing.

Nothing is pictured.

And then everything food sex stoplight
yoga mat grocery bag little gnat—

as through a valve
in the middle of that pictured
nothing:

it all comes rushing
like sparks
jetting in the void.

The ocean goes back in the bottle
only when you ignore it.

I flit from station to station,
knowing nothing of meditation.

And I seek out mute buttons
as if there are more than one,
as if it is something that exists

without.

—Alex Tretbar
*

Mr. Barnes, in the December issue you said you wrote the paper (letter) six times over, but know, more times than not, the first writing is always the best, since when re-written over and over you can lose the essence of your writing. Don’t overthink it. The first edition was your rawest, which tends to be most true and to the heart. I find that in journaling, when I go back to read previous entries, I think I should have said it this way or that, but in reality it is its most true and rawest, honest to who you are.

I also would give you this thought in regards to what you wrote about how we all were born upon a set of scales that started to tip in one direction or the other since our birth. I understand your concept of the scale relating to one side being good, while the other is bad. But… Have you considered that there is no scale? In reading #312 None Other Than Enlightenment in Your True Home it seemed to me that the basic premise is that through enlightenment there is no scale. You can see the truth in all things, that truth being the good and bad in all things. Good and bad are one thing: the flower in the garbage and the garbage in the flower.

Mr. Gilbert, so many things this year have showed us that society is in dire need of a change, and that we all need a little more enlightenment. There is a lot of me me me, hate, blame for this or that, or: since you don’t believe what I believe I hate you. I briefly touched on this in November’s issue of M & M, but I will write a little more. On 11/2/20 I read #346 What Separates Us in our book Your True Home. In the message, it talks about labels. Putting labels on people is hurtful and destructive. Labels are what’s currently wrong in society. It’s us vs. them. Labels are something that hurts every one of us. Society uses labels to dehumanize, to separate us into groups, and if we can eliminate labels there can be peace in the world. We are all people on this planet, one society, one human race, and until we get that our society will not be able to heal. Be the one! On society, one human race, one world together.

What I want to write about for myself is about something that really affected me to the point of tears forming when I started journaling. I debated even writing this in the newsletter because of how it affected me and how personal it is to me, but after writing to my friend Jacob Green about what happened, I started to feel empowered to include what happened for everyone in the newsletter. On 12/2/20 I read #316 The Smile of Nonfear in Your True Home. This passage for some reason stirred something inside me. It’s the word “afflictions” that woke this thought, but really the whole bottom half spoke to me. Afflictions have been something I have been struggling with for a large part of my prison sentence. I’ve seen that what I had done to land me in prison these 18 years was an affliction. I concentrated on that “perceived” affliction for those first years, trying to correct where I went wrong. It took many many years to find my path to better and correct who I am, and to this point I, in some ways, didn’t know how I got there, or where I am today. But now, in reading #316, I may have a little more of an idea. I recognized early on that a big part of what I did was founded on a deluded mind and thought pattern that needed correcting if I was to live a life outside these fences. If I couldn’t succeed in correcting my deluded mind, thought pattern and affliction, I didn’t deserve a life outside the fence, or maybe even a life at all. What I saw in myself was only a deluded mind and thoughts, and in doing so I could only see the afflictions within myself.

Somehow, over the years, a slow chip away happened. I found my true mind, and in doing so I no longer only saw my afflictions, but saw much more. Call it enlightenment. I no longer concentrated on my deluded mind or thoughts, which in turn, I suppose, allowed me to truly heal my affliction that got me here to prison. I am still not perfect by far, none of us are, but I truly believe I have healed enough now to start my next chapter in life. A life outside these fences. A life as me and who I am. A life that will allow me to continue to heal and better who I am, the person I know I am and want to be.

Above is what I wrote in my journal. I know that many guys in prison struggle with their afflictions that caused and/or contributed to their incarceration. Some feel they don’t deserve forgiveness, and forgiveness from those you hurt may never come, but forgiveness of yourself is possible. It happens with internal healing and the enlightenment that you don’t need to run away from your afflictions, because with a true mind the afflictions are no longer there. And without afflictions there is only enlightenment; through enlightenment you will see much more within yourself.

Thanks for listening. May peace, love, harmony and mindfulness be with you all.

—Joshua Underhill
*

A meditative mind is silent. It is not the silence which thought can conceive of; it is not the silence of a still evening; it is the silence when thought—with all its images, its words and perceptions—has entirely ceased. This meditative mind is the religious mind—the religion that is not touched by the church, the temple or by chants.

The religious mind is the explosion of love. It is this love that knows no separation. To it, far is near. It is not the one or the many, but rather the state of love in which all division ceases. Like beauty, it is not of the measure of words. From this silence alone the meditative mind acts.

from Meditations by J. Krishnamurti
*

(Here are a few of Michel Deforge’s many meditations from December:)

December 2 #47 The Mind of Enlightenment

It is amazing what a few days of not mindfully breathing, or purpose (practicing) can do to my mental state—more mercurial and more affected by influences. (grrr) It’s my own doing. I can’t blame anyone. Maybe…I can just relax, breathe; and let it be what it is…? (Breathing…) How funny. Today is about bodhichitta and a “goal” of practice—to, ultimately, be able to aid/relieve the suffering of others. Wow! It’s funny because I see myself, right now, being very deep in my own mud/suffering. Getting better, or anything positive, is so far from my experience of now. And, forget about being of help or benefit …Yet, even now, I may learn, and from my learning, another may derive a benefit. If I waste my “now” on later—how/if I’ll be anything—then I’ll miss my lesson on how perfect today’s “mud”-bath really is. (I don’t know why I’m “in” mud today. It’s a metaphor for suffering, being human—made of the same mud as all other humans.) Even when I don’t “like” my now, it really is perfect. Now, where’s my snorkel? I think I lost a shoe! Oh well. It’s perfectly placed for now. (Better?) (Yes!)

December 3 #48 Enjoy a Moment of Nothing

(Taking a moment…) This is the essence of Buddhism, for me. To sit and enjoy doing “nothing.” But, it’s not nothing—(I’m channeling my inner Pooh Bear)—it’s a very wonderful something. It’s sitting. It’s being. It’s breathing. It’s often mind wandering and coming back; then wandering off again. It’s learning to enjoy me, now, in this moment. Breathing and existing (being) in a mindful moment/experience of each now, as the moments pass. Enjoying nothing can allow all the moments of something a little more presence and mindful enjoyability, if I want.

December 7 #49 What is a Leaf?

Thây points out how everything, including me and you, is made from other things. A leaf is composed of so many things, and so many things were critical to the growth of a particular leaf. Life is interdependent. When some say, “We’re all in this together,” I believe this is a deeper meaning behind a rallying cry for some cause. We do all exist in the same world. We share the same air, the same soil, the same clouds, rain, etc. We’re all made of the same elements—reduced to base elements, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. With so much sameness, how can I accept you as different from me? I do…

This is where I see the ego come in. Something tells me that I am special, unique, and unlike everyone and everything else; that there’s no connection whatsoever to anything or anyone else. Yet, if I take away all the parts of me (good or bad) that come from someone else or something else, “I” cease to exist entirely. Without you, there is no me: both in the realm of duality and, also, in the realm of inter-dependence. “I” also can’t continue to exist (survive) without “you.” Too often I attempt to behave as if I am all that is. I think that it is only when I embrace otherness (or others) that I truly begin to live. This is not easy. It requires compassion for weaknesses, mine too. It requires seeing “other” as same—not different or separate from.

Here on paper it is so easy to lay out, contemplate and visualize. In the realm of action/reaction (reality?)—ego, fear, duality, separateness—disconnect happens. I become guarded from you, forgetting how much I need each and every other “you” out there, so “I” can survive too. That’s my journey: finding my way to compassion, vulnerability and interdependence (not co-dependence…).

December 10 #51 Subtle Gestures

I find myself slowing down while reading and snacking—mindlessly. Yet, as I read, and felt my breath I un-deliberately (un-intentionally) slowed down and savored my moments… The sensations aren’t profound, but noticing them seems slightly so. That’s kinda neat; catching all the subtleties, flavor, muscles working, crunching, tasting, breathing, hearing…and then…like that *! (snap) It’s all over. I often find that life’s “best” moments come from those subtle gestures, and they’re often done without guile or deliberateness—they have intent of kindness, but it is a life state not as much as an effort to set out to do a kind act. Words fail to describe ideas fully, the thought carries on all the same.

December 16 #54 Rites of Life

….I have experienced a few of those key moments—ones where flow happened, or where I was perfectly attuned (although I do not recall them, due to lacking focused awareness.) I imagine that by having awareness I could experience the moments completely as they exist in time—maybe learn a lesson of life from the moment, create a deep etched memory, or simply exist in the perfection of that moment, watching as it passes to the next perfect moment—maybe even departing from “time.”

Is life a string of moments haphazardly strung together with no rhyme or reasoning? Can there be more than that, accessed by simply being mindful and aware? I don’t think it needs to be a BIG production, or some fantastic event(s). I like the idea of simple awareness, exercised through each moment—not just on the cushion….

—Michel Deforge
*

#314 Melt the Ice of Knowledge

Often in my experience of living in prison there have been “rules” or “discriminating views” on this or that person. There is an atmospheric influence that enforces racial segregation and fuels hate amongst others. It’s follow the rules, or the road. (As of late, the Road is wide open and lovely. Join me?) Harboring one train of thought as truth, and not having an open heart and open mind, blurs the hidden beauty of truth in others—obstructed by societal upbringings, social media, and other major influences. Abandonment of views, or opinions, is an ice pick of relief, chipping away the cold ice of hate, oppression, single-mindedness, and when you can finally free yourself from the icy blur of lies and deceit, you will find that what you thought was truth was an obstacle holding you from seeing the beauty in the soul of everyone/everything. Having an open heart, open mind, and leaving the views you’ve been taught, you will learn so much, and be able to see life, and live life, with deeper meaning, and understanding.

I send all the Open Road/M & M family and the world Peace Love Happiness and Good Vibes. You all are beautiful and deserve the most!

Till next time

Jake Green
*

Phone Call to Ancient Times

Out on the lawn, under the aspen tree
where I can get good cell reception,
I took a call from Johnny, who began
telling about a friend in prison, in
the hole again for some infraction,
and I stood so still, listening, from
the blackberry thicket a rabbit
crept under the fence to nibble grass
at my feet, a lolloping fist of fur
with whiskers and little ears, with
an inquisitive tremble, amiable ghost
from the lost world we shared
when there was enough for all.

—Kim Stafford
*

I have some thoughts about the “perfect moments” Michel wrote about in his meditations on December 14th and 16th. He mentioned slowing down. I have found that when I’m preparing a meal, if, instead of doing it fast, I slow down, I get great pleasure from cutting the vegetables. This is true for eating the meal, doing the dishes—for any activity, even walking across the room.

Joseph Campbell and many others say that eternity is not a long time, it’s timelessness. We have all experienced countless perfect moments. We don’t remember most of them because they leave no trace. It’s not a problem. We don’t need to remember them. The next one is coming soon. Maybe this is it.

—Johnny Stallings
*

#361: Offering Flowers to the Buddha

This is about impermanence and how we should and should not view it. Impermanence is constant. Often viewed as negative, as decay and death, as loss, and T N Hanh tells us we should enjoy things in their present moment instead of bemoaning their impermanence.

Agreed. But I take it a step further. Impermanence is death in one sense, but also seeds of life in another. Let’s look at nature, my favorite example for everything.

Most people see spring as birth, rebirth, life, growth; summer as lushness, abundance, profusion, light, sun…life.

They tend to view fall as one of dying, decay, shutting down, going dark. And winter? Ah, the ultimate death: dark, cold, still…hibernation (from hibernus, Latin for wintry. And ‘hiver,’ French for winter, etc.)

But when fall comes, I feel most alive, alert, sharp, eager, ready to get-to-work. Nature agrees: bushy, brilliant trees shed their leaves exposing lean, bare, shining, black limbs, looking like they’ve pushed up their sleeves to get ready to work. Their lean or muscular trunks stand sturdily in agreement. And now, without all that busy foliage, we have views beyond, to the hills, the sky. Views ahead. And what lies ahead? More life! Bare limbs, branches, and twigs house and host hundred of birds, perching, hopping about, twittering, swooping down to fetch seeds, insects, worms… Worms! What’s going on in all those fallen leaves, anyway? Life, in the form of worms! Millions of dark red, wriggling creatures burrowing, chomping, aerating their way into and through piles of leaves. Creating mulch! And mulch = life! My garden loves that decayed, death-like stuff. It eats it up! It brings me the biggest, leafiest, fattest, brightest vegetables you can imagine.

What else is happening when all the extravagance of spring and summer is gone? I’ll tell you what: Fungi, that’s what!

Whoa, that creepy, sneaky dark stuff that smells funky and looks weird? You bet!

Mushrooms, lichens, molds, all sorts of fungi = Life! Look at bread, wine, beer, cheese. All created with the indispensable help of fungi. (And what’s pizza without mushrooms, anyway?) And look at penicillin and other antibiotics; ergot, or LSD; fungi chemicals that produce statins! Life savers!

Finally, is winter really death-like? Is it the end of life? Well, are we dead when we sleep each night? Of course not. A good night’s sleep is purely restorative, and a good winter is nothing less. Can you imagine never sleeping but just going full-bore 24/7? Day in/day out, year in/year out? You wouldn’t make it past day two or three. Seasons are nature’s parallel; fall and winter are rest and sleep, but always with restoration and life at the core.

And then we die. Is that the end of it all? Not on your life! I will be cremated and my daughter knows just which mountain wildflower meadow to scatter me in. I will be bone meal for the Avalanche lilies, the valerian, the paintbrush, and they will love me for the strength and life I’ve brought to them.

So (really) finally, all these things produced by the ostensible death of stuff are nothing less that LIFE for the world.

—Jude Russell (alive and well)
*

The Hsin Hsin Ming reminds me of the Dhammapada, a collection of poetry that summarizes early Buddhist teachings. I find the Dhammapada to be very inspirational.

Taking ownership for my biases, I do not understand the representation of Zen Buddhism as it appears in American culture. The Buddha gifted us with clear and concise instructions for training the mind, often referred to as the Noble Eightfold Path. Meditation, lifestyle changes, and challenging our beliefs about “how the world works.” If you read the Buddha’s sermons in a “thematically progressive” order, a very clear instruction manual emerges. Personally, I need that. I’ve never really had a mind for philosophy or theology. But American Zen really advocates this message of “do nothing.” Don’t meditate. Don’t make lifestyle changes. Don’t challenge your beliefs, because all beliefs are false. It is as though the Eightfold Path was completely cancelled out by Zen masters several hundreds of years ago. But I have a friend who ordained and studied at Venerable Thay’s Plum Village, that is a very rigorous study and meditation practice. And people who went to study Chan in China also report: “study and meditation.” I visited a traditional Japanese Zen monastery in Washington, and the monastics there lived and practiced in a very similar manner to the Ajahn Chah monasteries I am familiar with. So, my bias, my prejudice, is I don’t understand American Zen. Traditional Zen uses the same meditation “manual” as my Vipassana meditation practice, the Satipatthana Sutta, “The Four Bases of Mindfulness.” Venerable Thay [Thich Nhat Hanh] is an expert scholar of the Satipatthana Sutta in all of the ancient languages in which it was preserved, and I have a lot of respect for his teaching. End of the day, “their” practices are more similar than dissimilar to what I’m familiar with.

—Shad Alexander
*

Thank you Thich Nhat Hanh, Johnny Stallings
and your wonderful friends!

I am here
I see (or hear or touch) some thing
I know it
Yes (tiny smile) I am meditating
My knowing it
My seeing
and my being here
are somehow
related Yes (chuckle to myself) I am ok
somehow divisions
are eased
can I “feel”
how you also
are breathing
can I deeply
understand
that the
water from a
cloud
is my relation?
the light and gray
colors from
that cloud
come all the
way here
luminous here
can these hard
lines
these
seeming forever
walls
be continually
“eased” “understood”
“held” like a child
I am dissatisfied
crying inside like
a wailing child
or a crazy politician
can I remember
what I said
above
I am here
my fear my dissatisfaction
is here also
but I am holding (embracing) it
like my own mother
like my own niece
like my own beloved lover
I am not
killing my fear my dissatisfaction
my crying child
I am embracing them
breathing a long side
belly and fear
are not unrelated
are they?
Forever
smile
laugh (to yourself – don’t let them
know you are crazy)
I can even
start to
think of your
breathing your
thinking
your pain
as my relation
although these sentences are calming
can you
sit here
for a few seconds
or a short time
without reading
these sentences
just sit here
with the satisfaction
breathing
then with the dissatisfaction
breathing
the pain of the
world is also
yours
smile you are Good
continue forever
make up your
own writing your own
song of the open
let it in form us and
you
how to dance our
loving meditating

—Alan Benditt
(roughly November 14, 2020)

Bibliophiles Unanimous! A PLAY READING with Howard, Alan & Andy 1/17/21
2021-01-17 15:00 - 18:00
On Sunday, January 17, 2021, at 3 p.m., Bibliophiles Unanimous! will feature a SPECIAL EVENT: A PLAY READING with Howard Thoresen, Alan Benditt and Andy Larkin! I can’t say too much about it, but it’s going to be FUN! Here’s the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054571039

DON’T MISS THIS!!!

peace, love & happiness
Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 1/21/21
2021-01-18 - 2021-02-03
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

January 21, 2021

Martin Luther King was born on January 15, 1929. This year, Martin Luther King Day is celebrated on January 18th. He believed in the power of Love to change our world. Here is one of his sermons:

Loving Your Enemies
So I want to turn your attention to this subject: “Loving Your Enemies.” It’s so basic to me because it is a part of my basic philosophical and theological orientation: the whole idea of love, the whole philosophy of love. In the fifth chapter of the gospel as recorded by Saint Matthew, we read these very arresting words flowing from the lips of our Lord and Master: “Ye have heard that it has been said, ‘Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.’ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”
Certainly these are great words, words lifted to cosmic proportions. And over the centuries, many persons have argued that this is an extremely difficult command. Many would go so far as to say that it just isn’t possible to move out into the actual practice of this glorious command. They would go on to say that this is just additional proof that Jesus was an impractical idealist who never quite came down to earth. So the arguments abound. But far from being an impractical idealist, Jesus has become the practical realist. The words of this text glitter in our eyes with a new urgency. Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.
Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing. And we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. Because Jesus wasn’t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command.
Now first let us deal with this question, which is the practical question: How do you go about loving your enemies? I think the first thing is this: In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self. And I’m sure that seems strange to you, that I start out telling you this morning that you love your enemies by beginning with a look at self. It seems to me that that is the first and foremost way to come to an adequate discovery to the how of this situation.
Now, I’m aware of the fact that some people will not like you, not because of something you have done to them, but they just won’t like you. I’m quite aware of that. Some people aren’t going to like the way you walk; some people aren’t going to like the way you talk. Some people aren’t going to like you because you can do your job better than they can do theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because other people like you, and because you’re popular, and because you’re well-liked, they aren’t going to like you. Some people aren’t going to like you because your hair is a little shorter than theirs or your hair is a little longer than theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little brighter than theirs; and others aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little darker than theirs. So that some people aren’t going to like you. They’re going to dislike you, not because of something that you’ve done to them, but because of various jealous reactions and other reactions that are so prevalent in human nature.
But after looking at these things and admitting these things, we must face the fact that an individual might dislike us because of something that we’ve done deep down in the past, some personality attribute that we possess, something that we’ve done deep down in the past and we’ve forgotten about it; but it was that something that aroused the hate response within the individual. That is why I say, begin with yourself. There might be something within you that arouses the tragic hate response in the other individual.
This is true in our international struggle. We look at the struggle, the ideological struggle between communism on the one hand and democracy on the other, and we see the struggle between America and Russia. Now certainly, we can never give our allegiance to the Russian way of life, to the communistic way of life, because communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. When we look at the methods of communism, a philosophy where somehow the end justifies the means, we cannot accept that because we believe as Christians that the end is pre-existent in the means. But in spite of all of the weaknesses and evils inherent in communism, we must at the same time see the weaknesses and evils within democracy.
Democracy is the greatest form of government to my mind that man has ever conceived, but the weakness is that we have never touched it. Isn’t it true that we have often taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes? Isn’t it true that we have often in our democracy trampled over individuals and races with the iron feet of oppression? Isn’t it true that through our Western powers we have perpetuated colonialism and imperialism? And all of these things must be taken under consideration as we look at Russia. We must face the fact that the rhythmic beat of the deep rumblings of discontent from Asia and Africa is at bottom a revolt against the imperialism and colonialism perpetuated by Western civilization all these many years. The success of communism in the world today is due to the failure of democracy to live up to the noble ideals and principles inherent in its system.
And this is what Jesus means when he said: “How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?” Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: “How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?”3 And this is one of the tragedies of human nature. So we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves.
A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and every time you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.
I’ve said to you on many occasions that each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality. We’re split up and divided against ourselves. And there is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life. There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.” There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions. There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Goethe, “There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue.” There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Apostle Paul: “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.”
So somehow the “isness” of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts us. And this simply means this: That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls “the image of God,” you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never slough off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.
Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.
The Greek language, as I’ve said so often before, is very powerful at this point. It comes to our aid beautifully in giving us the real meaning and depth of the whole philosophy of love. And I think it is quite apropos at this point, for you see the Greek language has three words for love, interestingly enough. It talks about love as eros. That’s one word for love. Eros is a sort of, aesthetic love. Plato talks about it a great deal in his Dialogues, a sort of yearning of the soul for the realm of the gods. And it’s come to us to be a sort of romantic love, though it’s a beautiful love. Everybody has experienced eros in all of its beauty when you find some individual that is attractive to you and that you pour out all of your like and your love on that individual. That is eros, you see, and it’s a powerful, beautiful love that is given to us through all of the beauty of literature; we read about it.
Then the Greek language talks about philia, and that’s another type of love that’s also beautiful. It is a sort of intimate affection between personal friends. And this is the type of love that you have for those persons that you’re friendly with, your intimate friends, or people that you call on the telephone and you go by to have dinner with, and your roommate in college and that type of thing. It’s a sort of reciprocal love. On this level, you like a person because that person likes you. You love on this level, because you are loved. You love on this level, because there’s something about the person you love that is likeable to you. This too is a beautiful love. You can communicate with a person; you have certain things in common; you like to do things together. This is philia.
The Greek language comes out with another word for love. It is the word agape, and agape is more than eros. Agape is more than philia. Agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. You look at every man, and you love him because you know God loves him. And he might be the worst person you’ve ever seen.
And this is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, “Love your enemy.” And it’s significant that he does not say, “Like your enemy.” Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul. And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemy.” This is the way to do it. When the opportunity presents itself when you can defeat your enemy, you must not do it.
Now for the few moments left, let us move from the practical how to the theoretical why. It’s not only necessary to know how to go about loving your enemies, but also to go down into the question of why we should love our enemies. I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.
I think I mentioned before that sometime ago my brother and I were driving one evening to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Atlanta. He was driving the car. And for some reason the drivers were very discourteous that night. They didn’t dim their lights; hardly any driver that passed by dimmed his lights. And I remember very vividly, my brother A. D. looked over and in a tone of anger said: “I know what I’m going to do. The next car that comes along here and refuses to dim the lights, I’m going to fail to dim mine and pour them on in all of their power.” And I looked at him right quick and said: “Oh no, don’t do that. There’d be too much light on this highway, and it will end up in mutual destruction for all. Somebody got to have some sense on this highway.”
Somebody must have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble, isn’t it? That as all of the civilizations of the world move up the highway of history, so many civilizations, having looked at other civilizations that refused to dim the lights, and they decided to refuse to dim theirs. And Toynbee tells that out of the twenty-two civilizations that have risen up, all but about seven have found themselves in the junkheap of destruction. It is because civilizations fail to have sense enough to dim the lights.8 And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction. And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history. Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.
There’s another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things. You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case. For the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful, and you will call them ugly. For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater. And this is why Jesus says hate [does damage to the self]… [Recording interrupted.]
…The way to be integrated with yourself, and the way to be integrated with yourself is be sure that you meet every situation of life with an abounding love. Never hate, because it ends up in tragic, neurotic responses. 9Psychologists and psychiatrists are telling us today that the more we hate, the more we develop guilt feelings and we begin to subconsciously repress or consciously suppress certain emotions, and they all stack up in our subconscious selves and make for tragic, neurotic responses. And may this not be the neuroses of many individuals as they confront life that that is an element of hate there. And modern psychology is calling on us now to love. But long before modern psychology came into being, the world’s greatest psychologist who walked around the hills of Galilee told us to love. He looked at men and said: “Love your enemies; don’t hate anybody.” It’s not enough for us to hate your friends because—to to love your friends—because when you start hating anybody, it destroys the very center of your creative response to life and the universe; so love everybody. Hate at any point is a cancer that gnaws away at the very vital center of your life and your existence. It is like eroding acid that eats away the best and the objective center of your life. So Jesus says love, because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated.
Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So, love your enemies.
I think of one of the best examples of this. We all remember the great president of this United States, Abraham Lincoln—these United States rather. You remember when Abraham Lincoln was running for president of the United States, there was a man who ran all around the country talking about Lincoln. He said a lot of bad things about Lincoln, a lot of unkind things. And sometimes he would get to the point that he would even talk about his looks, saying, “You don’t want a tall, lanky, ignorant man like this as the president of the United States.” He went on and on and on and went around with that type of attitude and wrote about it. Finally, one day Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. And if you read the great biography of Lincoln, if you read the great works about him, you will discover that as every president comes to the point, he came to the point of having to choose a Cabinet.10 And then came the time for him to choose a Secretary of War. He looked across the nation, and decided to choose a man by the name of Mr. Stanton. And when Abraham Lincoln stood around his advisors and mentioned this fact, they said to him: “Mr. Lincoln, are you a fool? Do you know what Mr. [Edwin M.] Stanton has been saying about you? Do you know what he has done, tried to do to you? Do you know that he has tried to defeat you on every hand? Do you know that, Mr. Lincoln? Did you read all of those derogatory statements that he made about you?” Abraham Lincoln stood before the advisors around him and said: “Oh yes, I know about it. I read about it. I’ve heard him myself. But after looking over the country, I find that he is the best man for the job.”
Mr. Stanton did become Secretary of War, and…later, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. And if you go to Washington, you will discover that one of the greatest words or statements ever made by, about Abraham Lincoln was made about this man Stanton. And as Abraham Lincoln came to the end of his life, Stanton stood up and said: “Now he belongs to the ages.” And he made a beautiful statement concerning the character and the stature of this man. If Abraham Lincoln had hated Stanton, if Abraham Lincoln had answered everything Stanton said, Abraham Lincoln would have not transformed and redeemed Stanton. Stanton would have gone to his grave hating Lincoln, and Lincoln would have gone to his grave hating Stanton. But through the power of love Abraham Lincoln was able to redeem Stanton.
That’s it. There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, “This isn’t the way.”
And oh this morning, as I think of the fact that our world is in transition now. Our whole world is facing a revolution. Our nation is facing a revolution, our nation. One of the things that concerns me most is that in the midst of the revolution of the world and the midst of the revolution of this nation, that we will discover the meaning of Jesus’ words.
History unfortunately leaves some people oppressed and some people oppressors. And there are three ways that individuals who are oppressed can deal with their oppression. One of them is to rise up against their oppressors with physical violence and corroding hatred. But oh this isn’t the way. For the danger and the weakness of this method is its futility. Violence creates many more social problems than it solves. And I’ve said, in so many instances, that as the Negro, in particular, and colored peoples all over the world struggle for freedom, if they succumb to the temptation of using violence in their struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. Violence isn’t the way.
Another way is to acquiesce and to give in, to resign yourself to the oppression. Some people do that. They discover the difficulties of the wilderness moving into the promised land, and they would rather go back to the despots of Egypt because it’s difficult to get in the promised land. And so they resign themselves to the fate of oppression; they somehow acquiesce to this thing. But that too isn’t the way because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way. Jesus discovered that.
Not only did Jesus discover it, even great military leaders discover that. One day as Napoleon came toward the end of his career and looked back across the years, the great Napoleon that at a very early age had all but conquered the world. He was not stopped until he became, till he moved out to the battle of Leipzig and then to Waterloo. But that same Napoleon one day stood back and looked across the years, and said: “Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have built great empires. But upon what did they depend? They depended upon force. But long ago Jesus started an empire that depended on love, and even to this day millions will die for him.”
Yes, I can see Jesus walking around the hills and the valleys of Palestine. And I can see him looking out at the Roman Empire with all of her fascinating and intricate military machinery. But in the midst of that, I can hear him saying: “I will not use this method. Neither will I hate the Roman Empire.” [Recording interrupted.]
And I’m proud to stand here in Dexter this morning and say that that army is still marching. It grew up from a group of eleven or twelve men to more than seven hundred million today. Because of the power and influence of the personality of this Christ, he was able to split history into A.D. and B.C. Because of his power, he was able to shake the hinges from the gates of the Roman Empire. And all around the world this morning, we can hear the glad echo of heaven ring:

Jesus shall reign wherever sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom spreads from shore to shore,
Till moon shall wane and wax no more.

We can hear another chorus singing: “All hail the power of Jesus name!”
We can hear another chorus singing: “Hallelujah, hallelujah! He’s King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Hallelujah, hallelujah!”

We can hear another choir singing:
In Christ there is no East or West.
In Him no North or South,
But one great Fellowship of Love
Throughout the whole wide world.

This is the only way.
And our civilization must discover that. Individuals must discover that as they deal with other individuals. There is a little tree planted on a little hill and on that tree hangs the most influential character that ever came in this world. But never feel that that tree is a meaningless drama that took place on the stages of history. Oh no, it is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity, and see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal reminder to a power-drunk generation that love is the only way. It is an eternal reminder to a generation depending on nuclear and atomic energy, a generation depending on physical violence, that love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming power in the universe.
So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, “I love you. I would rather die than hate you.” And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom. We will be able to matriculate into the university of eternal life because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to even decide to be good to those persons who hated us, and we even prayed for those persons who despitefully used us.
Oh God, help us in our lives and in all of our attitudes, to work out this controlling force of love, this controlling power that can solve every problem that we confront in all areas. Oh, we talk about politics; we talk about the problems facing our atomic civilization. Grant that all men will come together and discover that as we solve the crisis and solve these problems—the international problems, the problems of atomic energy, the problems of nuclear energy, and yes, even the race problem—let us join together in a great fellowship of love and bow down at the feet of Jesus. Give us this strong determination. In the name and spirit of this Christ, we pray. Amen.

Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957
*

By some miracle, someone recorded this thrilling moment at the birth of the modern Civil Rights Movement, four days after the arrest of Rosa Parks. Here’s a link to an audio recording (with text) of King’s “Address to the First Montgomery Improvement Association Mass Meeting” at the Holt Street Baptist Church, on December 5, 1955:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGtp7kCi_LA&t=53s

And here’s a link to a video of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech, given in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

peace, love & justice
Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Identity & Mythos--The Stories We Tell Ourselves
2021-01-31 15:00 - 17:00
Don Quixote by Gustave Doré

On Sunday, January 31, at 3 pm (PST), the theme for our Bibliophiles Unanimous! Zoom gathering will be Identity & Mythos: The Stories We Tell Ourselves. Here’s the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054571039

I’m using the word “identity” to refer to the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, and “mythos” to refer to the stories we tell ourselves about the world in which we live.
Where do our stories come from? How are we, individually and collectively, shaped by our stories? Can stories hurt us? Help us?
Lots to talk about!
I hope you’ll join the conversation!
peace & love
Johnny

Metropolitan Opera: Nightly Met Opera Streams
2021-02-01 - 2021-02-28
A new opera is shown every day, starting at 4:30 pm (PST). Each opera Met streams for 20 hours.
Here’s the link to the Metropolitan Opera.

peace, love, happiness & understanding 2/4/21
2021-02-04 - 2021-02-17
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

February 4, 2021

Two weeks ago, at the Presidential Inauguration, Amanda Gorman, America’s first Youth Poet Laureate recited her poem “The Hill We Climb.” (Read it aloud.):

The Hill We Climb

Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world:

When day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried that we’ll forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the Lake Rim cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

—Amanda Gorman January 20, 2021

Here’s a link to a video of her reciting the poem:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007561374/poet-amanda-gorman-inauguration.html?searchResultPosition=1
*

Prabu sent me his thoughts on Tolstoy’s last novel, Resurrection.:

Tolstoy’s final novel opens in a courtroom, where Dmitri Nekhlyudov, a landowning aristocrat, called onto jury service, finds out that Katusha, his teenage love, is among the three accused of a murder and theft. Katusha used to be a maid at his aunt’s estate when Nekhlyudov first met her. They fell in love and she eventually became pregnant with his child.

In 19th century Russia, it was not uncommon for an aristocrat to impregnate a maid. Tolstoy himself had a similar affair with one of his household servants before his marriage. Nekhlyudov doesn’t feel any moral obligation for Katusha or the child. He moves forward with his aristocratic life—becomes a soldier, returns to the civil society, drinks, has affairs with married women, and courts a young princess for marriage.

Katusha’s journey, however, takes a different turn. Who wants a pregnant maid in the staff quarters, after all? She gets kicked out of her job in the estate. She finds several jobs, but repeatedly gets molested at work. She gives birth to a son and leaves him in a orphanage. Circumstances get her into prostitution. She accepts her condition and gets a legal permit from the government. One day a wealthy client of hers, who torments her for a whole evening, gets killed in the hotel room. She is accused of the murder and ends up in the courtroom. She even gets wrongly convicted and sentenced to hard labor in Siberia, due to some petty negligence of the men on the jury and the judge.

For Nekhlyudov, the truth that his actions lead to Katusha’s ill fate starts to sink in. His Christian conscience seeks pardon for his sins. He immediately approaches a lawyer and appeals for a hearing of her case in the Senate. He also decides to marry her, if she consents.

Has Nekhlyudov turned into a moral human? Where was this conscience all these years? Why was he able to go on living without thinking about the consequences of his actions? These aren’t my questions. Tolstoy’s protagonist questions himself along these lines. The answer, as Nekhlyudov and Tolstoy would discover, is somewhere hidden in the values of landowning in feudal Russian society.

Nekhlyudov’s abandonment of love for the pursuit of pleasure and status was the injustice which occurred in the spiritual realm. In the worldly realm, the feudalistic idea of treating land and earth simply as a property that certain privileged humans can own and control at the expense of other humans, like farmers and peasants, is the underlying crime. In the novel Nekhlyudov realizes this and seeks remedies for it by distributing most of his estates to the peasants and keeping only what is essential to support a simple life for himself.

The Senate rejects Katusha’s case and she, along with other prisoners, begins walking on the 3000 mile journey to Siberia. He writes to the Tsar, explaining the jury’s mistake in her case, and decides to follow her to Siberia. Through his interaction with some of the other prisoners, he discovers that there are several innocent people among them. He tries to help them by all possible means, but often comes up against the power and wealth of his old aristocratic way of living. At times it even allures him to retreat into it. His conscience resists. He can seek cure for his own past mistakes, but how much can he change the injustices in society? Would his well-intended actions lead to any fruitful results? What is one to do with evildoers, like those who murder someone?

Tolstoy concludes by reflecting on the centuries old practice of punishing criminals:

“For many centuries people who were considered criminals have been tortured. Well, and have they ceased to exist? No; their numbers have been increased not alone by the criminals corrupted by punishment but also by those lawful criminals, the judges, procureurs, magistrates and jailers, who judge and punish men. Nekhlyudov now understood that society and order in general exists not because of these lawful criminals who judge and punish others, but because in spite of men being thus depraved, they still pity and love one another.

Doesn’t the Gospel tell the same in the Sermon on the Mount?—that man should not only not demand an eye for an eye, but when struck on one cheek should hold out the other, should forgive an offence and bear it humbly, and never refuse the service others demand of him.”

Like Nekhlyudov, I also lay silent in my bed on this rainy night, waiting for the first light of dawn to touch my window and imagining a society where these principles were carried out in practice. Only a century has passed between us.

—Prabu Muruganantham
*

The conclusion of Prabu’s essay reminds me of William Blake’s words:

Love to faults is always blind,
Alwasy is to joy inclin’d,
Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,
And breaks all chains from every mind.
*

May all people be happy.
May we live in love.
—Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous! Valentine's Day Special: LOVE POEMS
2021-02-14 - 2021-02-27
Paolo and Francesca by Anselm Feuerbach

Valentine’s Day Special! LOVE POEMS.

We read love poems. Joining our merry band of lovers were Jude Russell, Martha Ragland, Nancy Scharbach, Jeffrey Sher, Dave Duncan, Ken Margolis and Johnny Stallings. Katie Radditz couldn’t come, but she sent some poems. Jeffrey got the ball rolling with a poem by Theodore Roethke, and later added one by William Carlos Williams:

I Knew a Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).

–Theodore Roethke

Here’s Theodore Roethke reading the poem:

*
This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

–William Carlos Williams
*
Jude played Offenbach’s Barcarolle for us, sung by Anna Netrebko & Elīna Garanča, from Tales of Hoffmann:

*
Dave read “Re-Statement of Romance” by Wallace Stevens:

Re-Statement of Romance

The night knows nothing of the chants of night.
It is what it is as I am what I am:
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself

And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,

Nor night and I, but you and I, alone,
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes,

That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self,
In the pale light that each upon the other
throws.

–Wallace Stevens
*
Martha read “Wish in a War Zone” by Amy Gerstler, from Bitter Angel, published in 1990, and “The Shirt” by Jane Kenyon:

Wish in a War Zone

Somewhere under the weather
snores our drugged hero:
a gladiator or astronaut,
lying in a fringed hammock
in his mother’s garden,
waiting to be wakened
and loosed upon the world.
Quick, into my arms before
the next tremor hits.
Just beneath these monsoons,
an aurora borealis trembles.
Tucked into its luminous
gunbelt, a change of luck,
an abrupt windfall tunes up,
just for us. Soon,
instead of zinging bullets
we’ll find ourselves drenched
in concertos. I have no
authority to comfort
you, though I try.
If all this is to vanish,
If you and I are lost,
set loose, wounded,
to wander among uncomplaining
trees, fingering their lightly
haired, sticky little leaves,
then hand me my camera.
I must take pictures.

–Amy Gerstler
*
The Shirt

The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

—Jane Kenyon
*
Ken read a section of a poem by Bertolt Brecht.
*
Katie sent these poems:

Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

–Rumi
*

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

—e. e. cummings
*
I Loved You Before I Was Born
I loved you before I was born.
It doesn’t make sense, I know.
I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see.
And I’ve lived longing
for your ever look ever since.
That longing entered time as this body.
And the longing grew as this body waxed.
And the longing grows as the body wanes.
The longing will outlive this body.
I loved you before I was born.
It doesn’t make sense, I know.
Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse
of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes.
And I’ve been lonely for you from that instant.
That loneliness appeared on earth as this body.
And my share of time has been nothing
but your name outrunning my ever saying it clearly.
Your face fleeing my ever
kissing it firmly once on the mouth.
In longing, I am most myself, rapt,
my lamp mortal, my light
hidden and singing.
I give you my blank heart.
Please write on it
what you wish.

–Li-Young Lee
*

What We’re Doing Here

This is why we are here—
not merely to survive
but to fall in love
with the white-breasted hawk
and the rainbow fish,
with the lonely sidewalk
and the shadows of ourselves,
fall in love with the hands
of the woman wearing yellow
and the girl who loves chocolate
and the boy who loves cars
and the man who makes us want to be
a better version of ourself.

We are here to fall into unmanageable love—
to love beyond reason, beyond
fact, beyond certainty. We are here
to lose all our ideas about love
and know it as the next choice
we make, the next word
we say, the next invitation
we offer ourselves.

We are here to love
the world and each other
the way whales love water,
the way blue loves a peacock,
the way night blooming jasmine
loves night.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
*

I read “The Sun Rising” and the last part of “To His Mistress Going to Bed” by John Donne. And “We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d” by Walt Whitman. And this gem from William Blake:

Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclin’d,
Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,
And breaks all chains from every mind.

—William Blake
*
And my own poem, “wake up, heart!”:

wake up, heart!

wake up, heart!
wake up and love everyone and every thing
love the unlovable
the unhappy old men who start the wars
the geniuses who collapse the economy
the heads of the big corporations who ruin the earth
they need love, too
why else would they do stuff like that?

we all want to love and be loved
we all need to love and be loved
love everything that moves
and everything that won’t budge
love the person who is reading or listening to this poem

you might start with the easy ones
passing dogs
laughing children
fluffy white clouds
all the spring flowers shouting “love me!”
practice on the easy ones
until you get so good at it that you accidentally love the weird and scary homeless people,
the criminals,
the people whose views differ from yours
—before you have time to think about it

heart, you were born for love
mr. brain sometimes tells you not to
“don’t love that one,” he says, “that one doesn’t deserve it”
“don’t be a fool”
forgive mr. brain
he can’t help it
he’s always making distinctions between this and that
he needs a hug

you know better
you know that the thing to do is just to love
to wake up and love without limit

–Johnny Stallings

At the end I talked a bit about Romeo and Juliet. When they first meet, these two amazing young lovers spontaneously compose a sonnet–a sure sign that they are well-matched:

ROMEO
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do–
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
[He kisses her.]
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.
JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
[She kisses him.]
JULIET
You kiss by th’ book.

And…Juliet’s love is absolute:

JULIET
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep. The more I give to thee,
The more I have for both are infinite.

–William Shakespeare

Well, that’s it for now.

May we live in love.
Johnny

Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 2/15/21
2021-02-15 - 2021-03-14
photo by Kim Stafford

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

I find it interesting how my mind works.
—Michel Deforge

February 15, 2020

Welcome to our sixth meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. The tag on my Yogi Tea bag says: “Compassion will make you beautiful.” (JS)
*

Hey guys, I hope you enjoy this M & M submission.
You are all great & I hope you’re well.
I’m looking forward to reading your submissions.

#95 What Is Your True Face?

An answer from the face of ages.

What was my face you’ve queried, and although I know what it is, I can’t say it ever was.
Change… As far as I can tell my face has never changed.
Only the great multitude of masks I don in a moment’s notice can be defined as change, and only then in a second’s split.
Underneath my face remains the same, frozen, pursed in the seeker’s scowl as it journeys through the ages.
What was my face?
My face always is, and in always being never was, for the pulse of life is too strong to resist, & the change of masks a familiar constant.
Remember, how could I forget?
I still remember them all, whether gilded, plain, or in between, I still remember.
Maybe it’s time for a change…

—Joshua Tyler Barnes
*

I’m 25 wisdoms into Your True Home, and so far what has occupied my thinking most is the apparent (to my novice understanding) conflict for an artist (specifically writers) trying to practice mindfulness and meditation. My struggle with meditation is that I start to have good ideas! Then, I don’t want to forget them, so I either A) begin ruining the meditation by trying not to forget the good idea, or B) stop meditating so I can write down the good idea before I forget it. Also, as a writer, I am always applying words & labels & categories to everything I see, thereby denying the essential emptiness of everything, which my heart & mind both know to be true. But there is an everpresent pull, a wish, to exist without the endless desire to write about, catalog, chronicle the act of existence. This isn’t a unique torment. It’s actually something a lot of writers write about, especially poets: “I throw my quill into the sea, and burn my parchments,” etc. There’s an excellent little monograph by Ben Lerner called “The Hatred of Poetry” that I recommend you read. In it, he talks about this strange inclination, as evidenced in the renunciations of writing by legends such as Rimbaud & Oppen.

—Alex Tretbar
*

Not Thinking While Writing

Before I write in the early morning, I sit in the dark for a time, breathing, resisting thought but welcoming wondering, sensation, and the simple ache of being that is more primordial than regret or fear, the pleasure of some hunger, some cold. I’m in the shed, after all, in my chair with the strips of rug on the runners because it once lived in the fire station, where the card players did not want to disturb the sleepers.

When I write, do I want to disturb the sleepers? No, I want to sidle into their dreams and tell them how beautiful they are, give them wishes, provide them with stories of simple triumph that hurts no one, so when they wake, life will be a little easier. So we all may be more curious than afraid.

In 1913, the Russian futurist poet Aleksei Kruchenykh created the word zaum, which means ‘beyond or behind the mind.’ He sought an experimental poetic language characterized by indeterminacy: ‘beyonsense.’

The geese are shouting as they fly north
so they will not be encumbered by all those
extra syllables, can concentrate on the magnetic
tug toward the far beyond.

The river leaves its shouting in the mountains
so in the valley it can depend on wink and whisper
to convey its learning, its salmon home scent
for anyone alert enough to notice.

Shall I throw my pen into the sea? Shall I take
a vow of silence in order to be worthy of this
existence? How many trees did my poems have to
kill, anyway, to gather these pages? Just enough.

I plant seeds of silence, syllable by syllable.
My greatest gift for you is the space between words
where my code tells the secrets of our oldest kinship,
and all my love in the silence after the last breath.

—Kim Stafford
*

Kim also sent this poem by Chuang Tzu, along with a writing prompt:

The Woodcarver

Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand
Of precious wood. When it was finished,
All who saw it were astounded. They said it must be
The work of spirits.
The Prince of Lu said to the master carver:
What is your secret?

Khing replied: I am only a workman:
I have no secret. There is only this:
When I began to think about
the work you commanded
I guarded my spirit, did not expend it
On trifles, that were not to the point.
I fasted in order to set
My heart at rest.
After three days fasting,
I had forgotten gain and success.
After five days
I had forgotten praise or criticism.
After seven days I had forgotten my body
With all its limbs.

By this time all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away.
All that might distract me from the work
Had vanished.
I was collected in the single thought
Of the bell stand.

Then I went to the forest
To see the trees in their own natural state.
When the right tree appeared before my eyes,
The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly,
beyond doubt.
All I had to do was to put forth my hand
and begin.

If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.

What happened?
My own collected thought
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood;
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits.

—Chuang Tzu (translated by Thomas Merton)

Chuang Tzu, or Zhuang Zhou, or Zhaungzi…was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century B.C., during the Warring States period, a time corresponding to the summit of Chinese philosophy, the Hundred Schools of Thought. He is credited with writing…one of the foundational texts of Taoism… He is described as a minor official from the town of Meng, in the state of Song. (Wikipedia)

Writing prompt: Tell the story of something you did purely for beauty, for essence, in response to a call that reached your heart…
*

(Some excerpts from Michel’s meditation journal:)

January 24, 2021

#69 Suddenly You Are Free

It may happen like that—suddenly. Two days ago, I was uprooted and moved from my place of comfort and peace (complacency?), to a new unit. I tested positive for COVID-19 on 1/14. The DOC response was to take all positives and cohort us in one unit. There was little communication and much chaos and anxiety for all affected staff. Many of my fellow prisoners are also stressed out beyond their limits, or at the very fringe of their coping. I too was initially anxious. Because I was the only one leaving my unit and I didn’t know where I was moving or why. As soon as I learned it was not a move to the DSU/“Med” iso wing and that the goal was a conversion of a regular incentive unit into a COVID isloation/quarantine unit, I was able to release my tensions. I hate moving!….

Yet, somehow, amidst all the chaos, my stress settled quickly and I stumbled across peace, acceptance and understanding—suddenly. I’m no great success with mindfulness and meditation. But, sometimes it works!

In some ways, I see the truth of Thây’s thought in the experience, and in some ways I wonder if he is speaking of a more deliberate and permanent result of all the work—suddenly finding freedom after looking for so many years. I do think that for something appearing suddenly, it can also disappear just as suddenly. If I relax into the appearance and don’t grasp it tightly, then, maybe, I won’t get hurt so much when it goes away just as suddenly.

January 25, 2021

#70 Miraculous Smile

Writing here, I am also looking at my first lines from January 1. So much has happened since then. Yet, it is still true. Life is really “perfect” just the way it happens—whether I “like” it or not is irrelevant. Today’s writing reminds me of how easy it can be to feel better. As Thây puts it, knowing (how) to breathe, we can find our peace and our smile. (I wonder if I really know how to breathe.) I have had times when finding my smile has helped someone else relax a little. I have read before that faking a genuine smile will cause a shift of hormones and thoughts, leading to having a genuine smile—I think it works. Whatever the case, I can stop…breathe…smile at myself (or what/whom ever)…and carry on with my day. It may or may not be a grand “miracle.” It will be a smile and a moment of breathing mindfully. It will be a break, no matter how brief, from whatever else is competing for my life’s energy. And, it is a moment I can control in a world of chaos.

9:00 pm Update:

Having been awoken for mail delivery…(normally, this would be grounds for great upset by any prisoner), I came to realize this poor fella (PM-swing CO) running this unit is having to keep up with a “COVID-POSITIVE” unit—with showers, phone calls, access to ice and water and whatever other services he must provide—like mail, meals, call-outs—alone… It is hard to not have compassion for anyone subjected to such work-conditions, (or, it’s relatively “easy,” especially since he has been positive and generally conciliatory in the performance of his duties). I find it interesting how my mind works. A staff person whom I don’t know, and with whom I haven’t had much contact, comes in, working alone, with a positive attitude, doing all he (or she) can to keep abreast of the daily duties, and is doing so in a manner which does not put any of that burden upon us prisoners—is one to applaud. It is easy to feel compassion, almost automatically, for this person. Random thoughts at 10 pm.

January 27, 2021

#71 Habit Energy

….I see this same pattern in my life—OLD HABIT energy holding me back or weighing me down. When I can, I let it go. Sometimes I need to go through a challenging learning process to do this. In the end I grow. Thây doesn’t teach a technique for letting go, but a gentle awakening to an awareness of exploration into the habit energy I do have—be it of my own creation, or inherited. Having come to an awareness, I then have a choice about what I do with that energy—keep, change, or Let Go. I have power.

January 28, 2021

#72 You Are Safe Now

This is not a phrase I hear here in prison often. Yet, it’s timely. I just had a cellie on a previous unit—(they’re bouncing the COVID POSITIVES – PRE/POST CLEARANCE all over)—who was told he was to move to an unknown cell with high probability of mortal danger. Through timely machinations by kind staff he was allowed to stay put—he’s safe. That same night I got word of my immanent reassignment. I am back “home” on Unit 13. I too am safe now. I wonder how often we fail to recognize this truth in our day-to-day ordinary lives. If I never hear this, or tell myself this, will I be able to recognize when a crisis is over and I am again safe? My guess is: no. I wonder how many of life’s challenges became traumas simply because I didn’t know I was now “safe.” And, maybe I never knew “safe” as part of my reality growing up, but, I can learn that now and maybe even offer this bit of help to another in saying, “You’re safe now.” (Mantra exercise, with breath.)

January 29, 2021

#73 The Anchor

Once again I am brought back and reminded that my breath is my connection to life. “Well, sure, silly! Of course it is. Everyone has to breathe to stay alive.” It is true. To live is to breathe. If I stop breathing, I stop living. It’s an unavoidable technicality. I am, however, looking through Thây’s lens. When I am disconnected from my breath and breathing, life just sort of happens without my conscious involvement—which is most often the case for me. I can’t say that anything mystical or magical happens if and when I’m alert to my breathing—connected. But, when stressed, if I focus on my breath and pray, (contemplate the Infinite, if you will), then I am calmed, eventually, and able to be more present and rational, or in control of much of my actions and words.

My breath becomes my “still point” (anchor), from which I can move out into the world around me, regardless of events (or chaos) within it.

January 30, 2021

#74 Caught in the Idea of a Self

This idea of no-self (integrating self and non-self) has been a focus of mine, off and on. I don’t know where it will lead me, or how far I am along a path to understanding or embracing such an idea. So far, I have learned (?) that we are all inter-related and not separate from any thing or anyone—even if our experience and sense of self-identity suggest otherwise….

What I do know matters is learning to connect fully to this “life.” I can only do this through breath, and intent. We’ve been calling this “mindfulness.” I think (it’s my guess, mind you) that the Buddha (and all his progeny), Jesus and others, are fundamentally striving to explain this very simple idea—living a complete, whole life, connected to reality as it is, not as ego manufactures it to be through stories to convince the self of it being a hero of its story. I’m probably off base on this… But, I’ll keep breathing to find out.

—Michel Deforge
*

#46 Deep Listening and Loving Speech

Deep listening and loving speech are wonderful instruments to help us arrive at the kind of understanding we all need as a basis for appropriate action. You listen deeply for only one purpose—to allow the other person to empty his or her heart. This is already an act of relieving suffering. To stop any suffering, no matter how small, is a great action of peace. The path to end suffering depends on your understanding and your capacity to act without causing harm or further suffering. This is acting with compassion, your best protection.

I wanted to write out TNH’s piece on this, because my thoughts follow his thought, but his are integral to mine. I keep trying to articulate what I mean when I say that relationships/understanding/connection are what give life meaning to me. But without going deeper, those words don’t mean much. Or else they mean too much!

Thich Nhat Hanh opens it up for me, with Deep Listening and Loving Speech. Before relationship, understanding and connection can happen, I must listen deeply, intently, slowly, and respond by speaking with love. My life is at its fullest, its richest, when I am listening so deeply to someone that they feel loved enough to open their heart. Listening to someone who is normally unheard, derided, discounted, debased—a prison inmate; an unwed, pregnant mom; a vet with PTSD; an angry teenager; a woman living on the edge in Meridian, Mississippi; an Hispanic worker trying to learn English…all those who are suffering in whichever myriad ways one suffers.

A corollary to deep listening and loving speech is—time. Deep listening and deep response that lead to understanding, relationship and connection requires years to achieve. I have always said I give everything ten years—ten years for my stepchildren to love me, my wisteria to bloom, my body to shed 5 pounds. I am patient. After ten years, I re-evaluate and might give it (whatever “it” is) another ten years. In relationships time is important. Trust doesn’t happen immediately. One who is suffering has built up sturdy walls of protection, and only time, deep listening and loving speech can build trust and break down walls. And when those walls come down, oh man! the richness that pours forth is a gift—the gift of life, and relief from suffering, the gift of peace and joy. All those things for both the person suffering and for me.

—Jude Russell
*

I once lived in a small cabin and wrote small poems. Here are some of them:

a bowl of oatmeal
and a cup of coffee
did you think heaven was up in the sky somewhere?

let go of thought
and see what happens

all these people walking around
imagining that the ideas in their heads
make them different from each other

sitting here
with a cup of green tea
I forget what it was
that I was so worried about

do you imagine
there is some other day?

the things we think we know
are the stones of the prison
in which we live

say “I am”
and leave it at that

when you see how simple it is to be happy
you’ll kick yourself
for spending so much time being miserable

what Reason has rent asunder
the Heart will make whole

everything I touch
touches me

—Johnny Stallings
*

Meditation, it seems to me, is like detox for the mind. Similar to the way our bodies need detoxing when we’ve indulged in too much for too long, our minds can become saturated with noise to the point where an intervention is required. The remedy is the same for both the body and the mind: let go of the indulgence. Quit drinking. Quit thinking. Keep still.

The uncluttered awareness of the meditative mind reconnects us with the elemental beauty of life. Clarity returns. The painful sense of isolation diminishes. How can we not feel gratitude for such an exquisite and accessible way to restore ourselves?

—Bill Faricy
*

#45 The Bridge

Breath is the bridge to life; in sleep or awake, we cross the bridge always. We also share and build bridges with others by breathing in their love, dreams, needs and respect. Breaths & Bridges are more than air.

—Rocky Hutchinson

peace, love, happiness & understanding 2/18/21
2021-02-18 - 2021-03-03
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

February 18, 2021

February 14th was Valentine’s Day. Our Bibliophiles Unanimous Zoom gathering celebrated by reading love poems. Here are some of the poems we shared and some we didn’t. But first, some wisdom from the tag on my Yogi Tea bag, and then a story of young love:

You don’t need love, you are love.

—anonymous sage employed by the Yogi Tea Company
*

In fifth grade I developed this major crush on a sixth-grader named Wendy. She always had the prettiest face and the nicest smile; everybody thought so. So I started kissing rocks and throwing them at her.

—John, Connecticut, b. 1959, from Up To No Good: the rascally things boys do, edited by Kitty Harmon
*

Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclin’d,
Lawless, wing’d & unconfin’d,
And breaks all chains from every mind.

—William Blake (1757-1827)
*

THESEUS

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold:
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear?

—William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, scene i.
*

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

—e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
*

I Loved You Before I Was Born

I loved you before I was born.
It doesn’t make sense, I know. I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see.
And I’ve lived longing
for your ever look ever since.
That longing entered time as this body. And the longing grew as this body waxed.
And the longing grows as the body wanes.
The longing will outlive this body. I loved you before I was born.
It doesn’t make sense, I know. Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse
of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes.
And I’ve been lonely for you from that instant.
That loneliness appeared on earth as this body.
And my share of time has been nothing
but your name outrunning my ever saying it clearly.
Your face fleeing my ever
kissing it firmly once on the mouth. In longing, I am most myself, rapt,
my lamp mortal, my light
hidden and singing. I give you my blank heart.
Please write on it
what you wish.

—Li-Young Lee – 1957-
*

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

—William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
*

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

–William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
*

What We’re Doing Here

This is why we are here—
not merely to survive
but to fall in love
with the white-breasted hawk
and the rainbow fish,
with the lonely sidewalk
and the shadows of ourselves,
fall in love with the hands
of the woman wearing yellow
and the girl who loves chocolate
and the boy who loves cars
and the man who makes us want to be
a better version of ourself.

We are here to fall into unmanageable love—
to love beyond reason, beyond
fact, beyond certainty. We are here
to lose all our ideas about love
and know it as the next choice
we make, the next word
we say, the next invitation
we offer ourselves.

We are here to love
the world and each other
the way whales love water,
the way blue loves a peacock,
the way night blooming jasmine
loves night.

–Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
*

I Knew a Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).

–Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
*
On Valentine’s Day, Jude Russell played Offenbach’s Barcarolle for us, sung by Anna Netrebko & Elīna Garanča, from Tales of Hoffmann. Here’s a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u0M4CMq7uI
*

VII

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or an arrow of carnations that propagates fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom,
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love, a certain dense fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where;
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving

but this, where there is no I or you—
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that when I fall asleep, it is your eyes that close.

—Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), from One Hundred Love Sonnets
*

Re-Statement of Romance

The night knows nothing of the chants of night.
It is what it is as I am what I am:
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself

And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,

Nor night and I, but you and I, alone,
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes,

That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self,
In the pale light that each upon the other
throws.

–Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
*

We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d

We two, how long we were fool’d,
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,
We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,
We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings and evenings,
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic and stellar, we are as two comets,
We prowl fang’d and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,
We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,
We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling over each other and interwetting each other,
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence of the globe,
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two,
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.

—Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
*

When they first meet, these two amazing young lovers spontaneously compose a sonnet–a sure sign that they are well-matched:

ROMEO
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do–
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
[He kisses her.]
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.
JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
[She kisses him.]
JULIET
You kiss by th’ book.

And…Juliet’s love is absolute:

JULIET
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep. The more I give to thee,
The more I have for both are infinite.

–William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from Romeo and Juliet

Well, that’s it for now.

May we live in love.
Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: A Group Reading of the poem "FACTORY" by Antler 2/28/21
2021-02-28 15:00 - 18:00
Dear Bibliophiles!

We’re going to have a Group Reading of the poem “FACTORY” by Antler, on Sunday, February 28th at 3 pm. Here’s the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054571039

This is an amazing poem! It can change the way you see and feel and understand our world. I first read an abridged version in the Winter 1979/80 Issue (No. 24) of the CoEvolution Quarterly. I got a copy of the complete poem from City Lights Books, which published it as a separate volume.

It’s a long poem. It’s progenitors include Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” the Chicago poems of Carl Sandburg, and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” I have abridged it for this event.

Here’s something brief about the poet from Wikipedia:

Antler (born Brad Burdick); 1946 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, is an American poet who lives in Wisconsin.
Among other honors, Antler received the Whitman Prize from the Walt Whitman Association, given to the poet “whose contribution best reveals the continuing presence of Walt Whitman in American poetry,” in 1985. Antler also was awarded the Witter Bynner prize in 1987. Antler was the poet laureate of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for 2002 and 2003. He is also an advocate for wilderness protection.

Here are just a few passages from the poem to entice you to join us on the 28th:

The machines waited for me.
Waited for me to be born and grow young,
For the totempoles of my personality to be carved….

This is the hall big as a football field….
Machines large as locomotives,
louder than loudest rockgroup explosions…

From my work alone 280,000 lids each day….
14 million cans each day
from a single factory!….

How can I apologize to primeval shorelines cluttered with beercans?
Should I say I needed the money?
….Should I say I’m a spy behind enemy lines….?
Should I say here’s a free pass
to the antique beercan collector’s convention?….

I should be paid for wondering if I’m only a defect
in the mass-production of zombies!….
How much do I get for watching the sunrise?
How much do I get for sleeping under the stars?

Before I said—“I will never cringe under the crack
of the slavedriver’s whip!”
Now my job is to murder the oceans!
Now my job is to poison the air!
Now my job is to chop down every tree!….

….I should be paid to say everyone’s job is enlightenment!
I should be paid to run naked through the sprinkler
the hottest day of summer!
I should be paid to lie in a canoe
and drift over the lake all day!….

All I have to do is stand here
and package factories as they come from the press—
Factories that make cans.
Factories that make the machines that make cans.
Factories that make the machines that make the machines
that make cans.
Factories that make factories….

Factories that make cuckoo-clock canaries.
Industries of canned laughter, canned applause,
canned music.
Telephone factories, television factories,
radio, stereo, tape recorder factories,
refrigerator, stove and toilet factories.
Telescope factories, microscope factories,
film, camera, movie screen factories,
jukebox, roulette wheel and slot machine factories.
Industries of nuts! Industries of bolts!
Industries of bulldozers, roadgraders, steamshovels,
cement mixers, steamrollers, jackhammers,
pile drivers and wrecking cranes!….

Working your way up to foreman in the insecticide factory!
Working your way up to employment manager in the squirtgun factory!
Working your way up to the top in the pay toilet factory!

Well, that should give you a feeling for the poem. There’s much much more!

DON’T MISS THIS!!!

peace & love
Johnny

peace, love, happiness & understanding 3/4/21
2021-03-04 - 2021-03-17
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love, happiness & understanding

March Forth! (2021)

The world is so full of a number of things.
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

—“Happy Thought,” by Robert Louis Stevenson, from A Child’s Garden of Verses

Among the great works of imaginative literature, along with The Odyssey of Homer, Dante’s Divina Commedia, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, we must place Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon. As a philosophical vision, it stands beside The Bhagavad Gita, Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” and Wittgenstein’s Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung. When we think of works of visual art to which we might compare it, several come to mind: “The Adoration of of the Mystic Lamb” by Hubert and Jan van Eyck (1432), “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch (1510), Michelangelo’s fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1512), “The Isenheim Altarpiece” by Nikolaus of Haguenau and Matthias Grünewald (1516), and perhaps Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” (1937).

In Crockett Johnson’s masterpiece, young Harold, dressed in those kind of flannel pajamas into which you put your feet (“onesies”), sets out like Parsifal on an epic journey, armed only with a purple crayon. As he goes, he creates the world in which he lives. He makes a moon, so he will have moonlight to light his way. He terrifies himself with a monster from his own id. He falls into a sea of his own making, but saves himself from drowning by drawing a boat with his purple crayon and climbing into it. I’ll say no more of what befalls our youthful protagonist on his quest. Suffice it to say that, as in the archetypal Hero’s Journey, he returns home with a Treasure, and bestows it upon Humanity. The Treasure is of course the slender tome: Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Another Bold Young Explorer is Alice. We empathize with the indomitable Alice, who has adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, because we once shared her plight—the plight of the child trapped in a world of Bossy Adults, who are irrational and/or completely insane. Here’s an example of what she has to endure:

CHAPTER VII.
A Mad Tea-Party

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.”
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming. “There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked.
“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.
“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.
“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare.
“I didn’t know it was your table,” said Alice; “it’s laid for a great many more than three.”
“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.
“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some severity; “it’s very rude.”
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud.
“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said the March Hare.
“Exactly so,” said Alice.
“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.
“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.”
“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”
“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”
“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”
“It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much.
The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.
Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.”
“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare.
“It was the best butter,” the March Hare meekly replied.
“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Hatter grumbled: “you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.”
The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the best butter, you know.”
Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. “What a funny watch!” she remarked. “It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!”
“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does your watch tell you what year it is?”
“Of course not,” Alice replied very readily: “but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.”
“Which is just the case with mine,” said the Hatter.
Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she could.
“The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.
The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, “Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.
“Nor I,” said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.”
“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice.
“Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!”
“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.”
“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”
(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)
“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.”
“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.”
“Is that the way you manage?” Alice asked.
The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We quarrelled last March—just before he went mad, you know—” (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!’

You know the song, perhaps?”
“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice.
“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:—

‘Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle—’”

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep “Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—” and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.
“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”
“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice.
“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.”
A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.”
“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice.
“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.”
“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured to ask.
“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. “I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.
“Then the Dormouse shall!” they both cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!” And they pinched it on both sides at once.
The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: “I heard every word you fellows were saying.”
“Tell us a story!” said the March Hare.
“Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice.
“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.”
“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—”
“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; “they’d have been ill.”
“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “very ill.”
Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: “But why did they live at the bottom of a well?”
“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.”
“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”
“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice.
“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?”
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, “It was a treacle-well.”
“There’s no such thing!” Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went “Sh! sh!” and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, “If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself.”
“No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly; “I won’t interrupt again. I dare say there may be one.”
“One, indeed!” said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on “And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, you know—”
“What did they draw?” said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.
“Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.
“I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter: “let’s all move one place on.”
He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate.
Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: “But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?”
“You can draw water out of a water-well,” said the Hatter; “so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?”
“But they were in the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.
“Of course they were,” said the Dormouse; “—well in.”
This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it.
“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all manner of things—everything that begins with an M—”
“Why with an M?” said Alice.
“Why not?” said the March Hare.
Alice was silent.
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: “—that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say things are “much of a muchness”—did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?”
“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think—”
“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
“At any rate I’ll never go there again!” said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!”
Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it. “That’s very curious!” she thought. “But everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.” And in she went.
Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. “Now, I’ll manage better this time,” she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and then—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.

Oh dear! I wanted to talk about some more books for children of all ages. Another day, perhaps. Stay tuned.

May all people be happy.
May we live in peace & love.

Johnny

Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Poems, Songs & Stories About Work 3/14/21
2021-03-14 - 2021-03-27
Greetings, O Bibliophiles!

On Sunday, March 14th, our topic was POEMS, SONGS & STORIES ABOUT WORK. Jeffrey Sher, Martha Ragland, Dave Duncan and Todd Oleson joined the conversation.

We talked about Antler’s poem “Factory,” which we read together on February 28th, and regaled each other with stories about jobs we’ve worked at. We talked about work that is fulfilling, and work that isn’t.

Todd Oleson read “After Apple Picking” by Robert Frost. Johnny read “The Right to Grief” by Carl Sandburg.

Meditation & Mindfulness 3/15/21
2021-03-15 - 2021-04-14
picture by Andy Larkin

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

March 15, 2021

A note on this picture:

A couple of years ago I began illustrating a South Indian book on meditation and mindfulness called “A Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction” by a 19th century yogi from South India named Narayana Guru. This picture shows Verse 16, which reads as follows:

A very vast wasteland suddenly
flooded by a river in spate – thus comes the sound
that fills the ears and opens the eyes of the one who is never distracted;
such should be the experience of the seer par excellence.

Everyone who meditates probably hears about some far-off experience called “enlightenment” that’s had only after years of heroic meditation sitting in a cave. When you read this verse, you might think that’s what’s being described, but I don’t think the author intended that. In a certain sense, there’s something in us that’s always focused, never distracted. It was working when you first opened your eyes this morning and looked out on your world. It was a wordless awareness that heard every thought you’ve had today, and it monitored your heartbeat and your respiration when you were deeply asleep. If you look for it, you can’t see it, and you can’t say anything about it, other than that it Is. So the picture shows you, the “seer par excellence,” in the center, with that wordless awareness functioning continually in all these ways. As that awareness is all-filling, the author likened it to a river in full flood.

I hope you enjoy the picture!

With best wishes to all
—Andy Larkin
*

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.

—words of the Buddha, from The Dhammapada, version by Thomas Byrom
*

Welcome to our seventh meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS)
*

A few months ago, I squeezed a whitehead near the tip of my nose, squeezing out a most satisfying tiny white tube of gook. It turned out that in my enthusiasm, I must have squeezed out some of the material that actually constituted that part of my nose, because the next morning there was a pit displayed there, of inestimable depth.
Over the ensuing months I have sometimes used cortisone cream or vitamin E to help along my body’s unceasing but ineffective efforts to rebuild that little piece of nasal real estate. Most of the time, I have just watched, in my bathroom mirror, the ceaseless process of rebuilding, destruction, rebuilding, etc… Had this happened sixty-five years ago, when I was fifteen (and it probably did, given all the squeezing I was doing in those days), it would have healed in a week.
This increasing inability of my body to fight my and time’s ravishings is part of a gradual slowing down of my systems. I can feel and see, in and on my body and brain, the cascade of imperfections always coming and coming.
The falling away of functions is like being stroked; I am being prepared, so gently really, molecule by molecule, to detach completely from this pulpy shell that is me and not-me.
All ways of going are good. I am very grateful to be able to participate, so far, in this way.

—Ken Margolis
*

[Here are some excerpts from Michel’s meditation and mindfulness journal. I highly recommend the practice of keeping a journal to everyone. JS]

February 1, 2021
#75 Your True Nature
This idea could challenge some of us. For me, the point I think Thây is trying to make is: not only is “heaven” or “nirvana” possible, but, like the ability to awaken (be a buddha), is already contained within all of us. If this existence is simply part of the journey, then, maybe, I don’t have to attach to the identity of this self (or body driving that story). I can release those judgements—good/bad, up/down, like/dislike, etc.—and simply be. I think this is where the challenge of living arises: letting go of attachment to preconceived (or inherited) beliefs or notions about life and what comes next. We can focus on the life we live now and be part of the now. The future, not needing our control, or guidance, will attend to itself without our involvement (including whatever comes after “life.”)
We can and do (briefly) experience nirvana (“heaven on earth”). Sometimes, I think, it happens and we’re too busy with past/future concerns to notice. Other times, we realize what we’ve found and, in our excitement, we begin grasping at that (old) moment, trying to hold on to “perfection” forever. It’s fleeting, this thing called “now.” If we learn to hold gently, with open hands, we might be able to relax into a moment, become more familiar and comfortable in that space, and eventually we may even bring some of it with us to share with others.
Whatever it is, or whatever it looks/feels like, words will fail us to describe and share with others. We’ll know that they would benefit from what we found, (our experience—but one of their own), yet each person must find his/her own way to nirvana/heaven in the now. The journey is where we find “the meaning,” not the destination. I suspect this is why the Buddha had so much to say—not only do words fail us, but others (each uniquely) hear a message differently, based on their own life experience. My excitement, over a moment in heaven on earth can pull me out of my “moment….”
For me, it is like practicing zazen (just sitting) in the Zen dojo. I practice in a safe neutral space with the intent that the effect of learning to be present to the “now” will leach over into everyday life. I see heaven/nirvana interaction the same way. As I learn to be more present to “now,” I am able to do so during ordinary (non-cushion practice) life. Likewise, as I experience heaven, I can just be with this. Eventually, the experience will be transferable (translatable?) to everyday life too. May you find your nirvana soon.

February 4, 2021
#78 The Wounded Child
This is a toughie. I am aware of my wounded child within. I just don’t, (or haven’t been aware of how to), understand “embracing” the child within. I have made some deliberate efforts to connect. So far, I’ve not had much success even being aware of him. One day, I’ll be able to create a sense of safety for him and be attentive to his needs—through practicing mindfulness. Until then, I keep doing my best to care for this mind/body and practice mindful living often—on and off cushion—mostly “off cushion” currently.
I don’t know about you, but I want to connect with my child self—wounded or not. To reconnect, reopen, or revive the state of child-like awe and wonder—to embrace and protect that awareness. Being a “grown-up” doesn’t mean being “old.” Our world values strange, alien ideals which we were compelled/forced to adopt/adhere our self identity. A result is we close off from parts of the world, or shut down awareness to the beauty, and then struggle for the rest of our adult life to return to that connection, awareness, “innocence” we once possessed. Some never find it again, due to looking for outward objects for inward fulfillment. Our inner child, wherever he or she is hiding, is waiting to be heard, seen, loved, held, protected, and known again. We only need to be quiet, look and listen.

February 14, 2021
#82 Something to Believe In
It is a day dedicated to ideals of love—regardless of its origins or current capitalization. I am a little bit tender of heart. NEWS INSIDE from the Marshall Project, (Issue 6, December, 2020)
(https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/06/04/i-wonder-if-they-know-my-son-is-loved),

“I Wonder If They Know My Son Is Loved” by Ymilul Bates: This was a heart rending story of what one mother experienced as she visited her young son. Words fail to express other feelings for me, beyond the sadness I experience thinking of what my own mother has faced to come visit me—and I wonder how she has “felt” about all of this—worsened by guilt that I dragged my parents into this place with me. But that’s love, isn’t it? To follow your loved ones wherever they may go—emotionally, if not physically—to set aside my comfort and accept a new paradigm for “normal,” and go to a place (made to create fear and isolation) to bring and/or share comfort, compassion and love to a person I care about. I wonder if I could do it, to be strong enough to overcome discomfort and fear to share a restricted moment with an other, for whom I feel love—could I? I want to hope so. I’ve only known this side of the exchange—receiving the gift of love and compassion, the gifting of value estimation to remind me that I do have worth in this world. Whether it has been my mother and father, uncle and aunt (in person), or the generous volunteers of Group Dialogue and Theatre for OHOM, or religious volunteers and teachers—each has brought light, color, beauty, love, compassion inside, and shown me that I am more than a number, a statistic, a criminal code violation followed by a sentence, that I am still a human being, that I still have worth and value, that I am still lovable, able to love, and that I am worthy of it. The saddest, darkest hour must be for those here for whom the call never comes for a visit, a program, a call-out to school or any other life-affirming event; because these walls give back only noise, overwhelming light, or absolute darkness, (never warmth), and they never give back love, compassion, or humanity. So on this day of love, SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN is love. We each do our part to hold on to our spark, but to fan the flame I found I must give it away to another—two sparks become a flame, many sparks can become a fire to warm ourselves, together.
(Now, I’ve paused to read…Thây.)
Thây spoke of mindfulness as the “something” to believe in, which is present in everyday concrete actions, such as sitting or drinking water. I offer this to add. Experiencing love. If I give of myself, whatever the moment may be, to the experience of love, and I do it mindfully, (focused, fully present, not distracted by past or future, or worries clouding the now), then I can sink into the moment and really feel this love. I will also be ready to return love, fully committed and freely.
I can’t think of a time, since being incarcerated (August, 2007) to the present, or even prior to being locked away, that the idea of love has not been my quest, my holy grail. I didn’t always have the words, or the capacity to express/receive (with full awareness) love as it was offered. But I was always pursuing it as a precious gem, a treasure beyond compare, buried beneath a mountain. I have experienced various moments over the years, when awakened to the reality and beauty of love, and now know it was not a fable, or a lie, or something just for those others more special than I. To this day I still struggle and search for my place in the sun, and I Believe, when it’s my time, I’ll find the completeness held within. Until then, I can BELIEVE IN this reality I have for now, knowing I have love inside and outside these dark and musty walls.

February 28, 2021
#88 The Deepest Relief (the day after turning 49!)
“…the deepest kind of relief is the realization of nirvana” (or heaven on earth, if you would prefer different terms.) The best part of today’s thought is this: Everything is “perfect” as it is; I have everything necessary to fully realize heaven on Earth for this self right now, and all I need to do to access this is—breathe, all the rest can take care of itself….
I find the allegory of farming—“cultivation” to be highly relevant. We must prepare soil for planting—tilling, weeding, fertilizing, watering, more tilling, resting, exposing to nature, etc.—then we can “plant” seeds, water and fertilize for a specific result.
I think life can be much the same. Mindfulness can be both plowing/tilling of soil—turning up the deep and rich fertile ground—and it can also be the time allowing the ground to rest in nature…. We reap what we sow, so they say—I think “they” are right…..
When I neglect all of my practice, I find the ground hard and dry; no matter how abundant the rains have been. But when I maintain even a small practice I find life is grander, and I am more of the person I desire to be. I may not attract all the butterflies and pollinators to my “field,” as I desire; at least the ones who do attend my field are appreciated and seen.
I want to encourage each and everyone to discover and develop a time and space to focus on and to “cultivate” a garden of life. I believe it will make all the difference to be deliberate, rather than hoping for a “happy accident” to come about—it’s not as common as many wish it was. I too shall strive towards a daily, regular, focused, recharge of love.

—Michel Deforge
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Shakespeare said: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Like Plato’s Cave, this is a deep metaphor. When called upon, we play our parts. At the moment, I’m offstage. Nothing is required of me. I don’t have to pretend to be Johnny Stallings until I get my next cue.

Bright sunlight this morning (3/6/21). Always welcome this time of year. The forms and colors of Spring are vivid. I like to sit quietly, like this, in the morning. Even words like “meditation” and “mindfulness” are unnecessary. It’s too ordinary (and too extraordinary) to be named. I like how, in the last verse of the Hsin Hsin Ming, Seng Ts’an says: “No past, no future, no now.” No now!

—(pretending for a moment to be) Johnny Stallings
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Below is a copy of the Dalai Lama’s morning meditation to begin with right intention for the day. I think you will enjoy and relate.
I thought it might be great for the dialogue people too. It makes me think of the intentions we must make to come regularly with kind and open intentions for everyone’s well being.
This prayer was written by Shantideva, a Buddhist monk of the Mahayana tradition who lived around 700 AD. It is said that His Holiness the Dalai Lama considers this text to be THE source for developing altruism in your character and the “Spirit of Awakening.” It is also said that His Holiness the Dalai Lama recites this prayer every morning as part of his waking rituals.

Bodhisattva Prayer for Humanity
May I be a guard for those who need protection
A guide for those on the path
A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood
May I be a lamp in the darkness
A resting place for the weary
A healing medicine for all who are sick
A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles
And for the boundless multitudes of living beings
May I bring sustenance and awakening
Enduring like the earth and sky
Until all beings are freed from sorrow
And all are awakened.

What a beautiful prayer to start a new day! A Bodhisattva is a person who has attained Enlightenment, but who postpones Nirvana in order to help others to attain Enlightenment.

The bodhisattva ideal:

The teachings of Buddhism are about your life, about being the person you are. The practices of Buddhism are about being willing to be intimate with yourself, with your idiosyncrasies. So when we talk about compassion and the ideal of the bodhisattva, we are talking about how we as ordinary people—with this body, this mind, this life, these problems—can find generosity, effort, and wisdom right here and now. We realize that they are always available.
Bodhisattvas are beings who are dedicated to the universal awakening, or enlightenment, of everyone. They exist as guides and providers of relief to suffering beings. They are models who exemplify lives dedicated to eradicating suffering in the world. Bodhisattvas can be awesome in their power, radiance, and wisdom, and they can be as ordinary as your next-door neighbor. Bodhisattvas appear wherever they can be most helpful. Being a bodhisattva is especially about being an adult – a playful, compassionate, creative adult.
Johnny embodies the life of a bodhisattva. I think there are others in the dialogue group that we may view this way.

—Katie Radditz

[Leaving aside questions of nirvana and enlightenment, in my view, anyone who sincerely desires to love all people, and “all creatures great and small” is in tune with the bodhisattva ideal. Maybe a bodhisattva is nothing more or less than a kind person. JS]
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[Howard is doing an online study course with Nancy Yeilding and other friends on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. JS]

I just sent in my assignment for Nancy Yeilding’s class and I thought maybe with a little modification it could be my contribution to the meditation letter.

Sutra II:43

Perfection of the body and sense organs through destruction of impurity by self-purification.

The deepest inquiry of yoga was expressed by Ramana Maharshi as, “Who am I?”
When I say “my body” or “my mind” there is a presumption of separation. There is “I” and there is “my body” and the two are at odds with each other. “I” want to “control my body” or “I” want to “control my mind” but who is this “I” who thinks it can chop pieces off of the whole and then control them?
The body is not some dog that has to be beaten into submission. But neither is it some dog that has to be well fed and trained. It is the very matrix of my being. It is the finest intelligence, awareness, the consequence of a billion years of evolution. It perceives the world and it simultaneously creates the world. There is no brain without the body…and no heart, either.
In Buddhism they say the first prerequisite for enlightenment is a human birth.
There’s a famous Zen story in which a person brags that his master can walk on water. Another student says, “My teacher can also perform miracles. When he is tired he sleeps; when he is hungry he eats.” To me this story has infinite implications and ramifications.
What is purity?—what is purification? Meister Eckhart said, “To be pure is to have no thoughts.”
How to have no thoughts? Listen, listen, listen.
I feel that “tapas”—purification—is listening, with all the connotations of that beautiful word. When I am listening, there is no division. If I am listening and the voice of division arises, it is just another sound like the song of the bird or the beep beep beep of the truck backing up…it has no more “authority” than that.
If I listen, I can sleep when I am tired and eat when I am hungry.

—Howard Thoresen
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Here’s a recent one:

Radical Justice

My dream displayed two words: radical justice.
No scene, no story, just those syllables delivered
to a man, American, in the age of gizmos, of radical
injustice careening toward catastrophe. So my outer life
says to my inner life, What do you mean? Are you saying
Give back the Western Hemisphere to First People here?
Are you demanding Deep reparations for slavery?
Do you specify The rich divest utterly? Do you say
Radical kindness to all creatures of the Earth?

If these, they are far beyond my power, yes? Well,
no. For if I choose to be a citizen of justice, every act
will question: What is best for every one and all?

—Kim Stafford
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In meditation I was made aware of the fact that I have forgotten to smile…for quite a long time. In fact, I have been unable (chosen not) to read, think about, write about, many things. I have been unwilling to communicate in many ways, including with myself, or the larger consciousness. I feel a failure (no lectures, please). Realizing that I had stopped taking my “smiling medicine,” I became aware of a song I wrote as part of a song writing challenge here at DRCI a while back. I share the lyrics despite the fact that I believe that song lyrics often don’t translate well to silent poetry. So, if any of you are “anti-rhymers”—read no further. Rhyme facilitates meter, which combines in powerful ways with melody & harmony, in my not so humble opinion. Maybe sometime I will be able to share this in its entirety, it is the best advice I can offer myself & others. Thank you so much for The Open Road in both forms, much anticipated, highly appreciated.

Learning To Smile

Without a smile, I walk a mile
Smilin’ just not my style
I miss my friends, I miss my wife
I miss my outside life

But there’s beauty to see
Air to breathe
Thoughts to think and hear and be

A smile overcomes all grief and pain
It takes me home again
So I force a smile, walk that mile
Smilin’ might become my style

Because there’s beauty to see
Air to breathe
Thoughts to think and hear and be

So, check out this smile, it’ll be here a while
It helps me through this trial
My spirit lifts, the smile grips
My mood and won’t let go

So there’s beauty to see
Air to breathe
Thoughts to think and hear and be

I’m alive, I’m headed home
When I smile I’m free

—T. String Clements
© 2019
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I had to smile when I read the Feb 15, 2021 Open Road M & M dialogue filled with many intrigues. In particular, and most notably to me, the 3rd to the last line in the poem by Kim Stafford, which says: “My greatest gift for you is the space between words.” The reason this stood out to me is that I recently was reading a book titled Forbidden Science by Douglas Kenyon, which is a collection of articles, one of which is titled “Altered States” by Patrick Marsolek. In this is a reference to an experiment by…

“…Dr. Les Fehmi…a psychologist and neurofeedback researcher from Princeton, also studying the value of subjective experience, as well as what we know about the physical mechanisms of the brain. He promotes an open focus state of awareness signified by synchronous alpha frequencies in the brain. He first experienced these alpha frequencies for himself when he tried and failed. ‘At the moment of surrender I experienced a deep and profound feeling of disappointment. Fortunately, I surrendered while still connected to my EEG and while still receiving feedback. It was surprising to observe that I now produced five times the amount of alpha than before the act of surrendering.’ After learning how to open his focus and create the alpha waves, he ‘felt more open, lighter, freer, more energetic and spontaneous. A broader perspective ensued, which allowed me to experience a more whole and subtle understanding. As the letting go unfolded, I felt more intimate with sensory experience, more intuitive….’
“Fehmi found that imagining space was one of the ways to force the brain to stop grasping and move into open focus. The state is experienced as ‘a vast three-dimensional space, nothingness, absence, silence, and timelessness. The scope of our attention is not only expanded, but is experienced with greater immersion. Thus, the ground of our experience is reified, realized as a more pronounced sense of presence, a centered and unified awareness, an identity with a vast quality-less awareness in which all objects of sensation float, as myself.’ This sounds surprisingly similar to meditators’ reports when they quieted the orientation area in their brains. You can get a taste of open focus now, if you want. As you read, become aware of he space in between the letters on the page while you are attending to the words and the meaning of the words. Can you also be aware of the space between you and the paper? At the same time, is it also possible to be aware of the sounds around you? Let all of that stay with you as you attend to the words and to the meanings of the words you read.”

When I read Kim’s words, this immediately came to mind. I’d also like to include the next two paragraphs of this for you:

“Fehmi believes that the way we pay attention is important. If someone is always in narrow objective focus, he will start to experience stress, regardless of the content of his attention. Fehmi was chronically in narrow focus; that is why he experienced such a profound breakthrough. He finally gave up and went into the open focus state. Consideration of our society’s chronic narrow focus may help us to explain both rampant drug use and fascination with meditation and ecstatic spiritual states. These methods help us to alleviate the tension of remaining chronically narrow focused in our consensus trance.
“The relief that comes with altering our attention and our consciousness is more than just feeling good. Fehmi’s open focus, hypnotic trances, and other ecstatic states have been shown to bring about the remission of many stress-related symptoms, chronic pain, insomnia, even eye and skin disorders. People who have been the most narrow focused may experience the most profound results. With practice most people can experience lasting changes.”

I can personally attest that the more I try this idea of “space between” things, the more my body seems to relax.

–Joseph Opyd
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Aches and Tensions #337

“When I breathe in, I generate the energy of mindfulness. With this energy, I recognize my body’s aches and tensions. I begin to embrace my body tenderly, and allow any tension to be released. Many of us accumulate a lot of tension and pressure in our bodies, working them too hard. It’s time to come home to our body. This is possible anytime, anywhere, whether we are sitting, lying, standing or walking.”
Aches and tensions I have been intimately familiar with the past two weeks – actually for about a year before that. My feet have had so much wear and tear from years of sports that I was hobbling in pain, no matter what the shoes I wore. After complicated foot surgery two weeks ago – pins, screws, splints, twenty stitches looking like black spider legs – I know the aches and pains of slow recovery.
I have returned to the practice of sitting and breathing, thirty minutes each day, this past year. Usually it takes me a little while to let go. Breathe in – I wonder how Harry and Meghan are feeling. Breathe out – Will this fingernail ever stop splitting? In – Should I divide those peonies now or wait until fall? Out – Those dang voter suppression bills are gonna sink us if they all pass… Finally the breath and the body prevail and the mind goes. But not lately.
The severe pain of the foot surgery has caused extreme tension in my body. I can hardly walk (nor should I), and my breathing is shallow and rapid. I resumed sitting about five days after surgery. Not easy. Aches, pain, tension create a mind disjointed from the body, let me tell you. I’m sure everyone has experienced this (or is experiencing it now) and can remember how pain can suck you dry. The first three days of sitting were hopeless. I just sat and went through the motions, waiting for something to change. And then I read this ‘everyday wisdom,’ #337. There it was: “It’s time to come home to our body.” And then, that is just what happened. Breathing in, breathing out – this body is miraculous. This breath is miraculous. And since then, when I sit, my body smiles and relaxes. We are back together —mind, body, breath. And where did that pain go, anyway?

—Jude Russell
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One of my favorite writers has been Thomas Merton. One example of why:

What I wear is pants.
What I do is live.
How I pray is breathe.
Who said Zen?
Wash out your mouth if you said Zen.
If you see a meditation going by, shoot it.
Who said “Love?”
Love is in the movies.
The spiritual life is something people worry about when they are so busy with something else they think they ought to be spiritual.
Spiritual life is guilt.
Up here in the woods is seen the New Testament:
that is to say,
the wind comes through the trees and you breathe it.

—from the memoir “Day of a Stranger,” published in the Hudson Review, Summer 1967

In this ground-breaking essay, Merton allows himself to speak in the unexpurgated voice of the self he was excavating to be most true. You can read the entire essay here:

https://hudsonreview.com/1967/07/day-of-a-stranger/

—Deborah Buchanan
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This is for the meditation & mindfulness newsletter. It’s out of my heart, not “Your True Home.”

Many times in my life I would sit and deeply think to myself. This is before I knew what it was to meditate. Many times I have imagined my self being a massive stone out in the sea. With wave after crushing wave breaking on me. The wave represented all of the whips and scorns of life. Nothing could ever break me.

The inevitability is that the erosion, pressure & time have slowly taken their toll on me. With a full and happy heart I will turn to sand on an eternal beach inside the hourglass of time.

Blessings,
Peace,
Joy,
Unconditionally
Love
All
There is in Life

—Rocky Hutchinson
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Reflections On Meditation

Greetings to this worthy sangha. My name is Peter Oppenheimer. I’m an old crony of Johnny Stallings. I think it was 1973. Johnny and I were spending days, and some nights, together in a hospital in South India, attending to our teacher’s teacher, a well-known guru thereabouts.
At one point, when I think, only Johnny and I were in the room, Guru motioned from his bed for me to come near. He said, “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be around. Do you want to ask me anything?”
I was taken aback. Daily I had countless questions, but in the calming aura of his presence and under the spotlight of his gaze, I couldn’t immediately think of one. “Oh yeah,” I thought and asked, “Can you teach me how to meditate?” His response was quickly made and quickly over, “Meditate on the world without you in it.” Boom. That was/is both a tall order and has become a lifelong aspirational practice of mine.
Oddly enough, years later when I told my own guru about what his guru had suggested to me as how to meditate, he said, “That’s funny. Guru told me the opposite. He told me to meditate on the room that I was in as being all inside and having no outside.”
And there’s another secret of meditation. There can be many ways to meditate, but the paths all converge at the same goal. What is that goal?
An inner quietude, an inner fortitude, an inner gratitude, an inner clarity, an inner affection, an affection both that we have tasted from others and from Nature, and an affection that we have within us as a treasure to share with others. This manifests as universal good will. These are all primary indicators of successful meditation.
If that’s the goal, then how do we get there?
During the ensuing 5 decades after those words of the guru, I have studied and practiced several types or schools of seated-meditation, such as the one taught by Johnny’s and my guru, several practices taught by different Indian schools of yoga, and zazen, the practice of Zen Buddhist meditation.
There’s been a through-line in all of these approaches to meditation. They all start from and aim at maintaining a state of mindfulness, a “Be Here Now” approach to mental self-discipline. Another common thread I’ve noticed is using one’s breath to help focus on the here and now. Just notice, your breath. Be with it, and in essence become your breath. In and out. In and out. Calmly. Mindfully. Affectionately. It is the energy from your breath that keeps your heart beating and the blood circulating. Be mindful of that going on. Part of mindfulness or “being here now” includes body awareness – pains and pleasures, strains and pressures. How fully can you be with your breath and your body? If you can be simply present for what’s going on within you, the chances are good that you will be able to be present and available to what arises in the world around you.
Sitting meditation is not for everyone. Sometimes in the case of trauma survivors, sitting and observing one’s thoughts can be too triggering. The state and fruits of “Meditation,” as discussed above, can be attained not only through sitting, but also if done whole-heartedly through, among others things – walking, running, dancing, drawing, singing, cooking, conversing, writing, communing with nature, laughing, sharing affection, or simply taking a moment to feel comfortable in one’s own skin and feel open to what arises. Then the practice becomes to be prepared to treat everything which arises (within and without) with generosity, uprightness, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, and wisdom.
Finally, coming back to my Grandguru’s instruction to “meditate on the world without you in it,” years later a Zen teacher of mine, with whom I sat periods of zazen, described meditation as “cutting the storyline of your own inner narrative.” My and Johnny’s Guru, Nitya, sometimes described meditation as shifting one’s identity from the ego-center to the spirit-center. The ego is our self with a small “s” and revolves around uniqueness, what separates us from others. Whereas the spirit-center is our Self with a large “S” and revolves around that inner spirit which ignites and unites us. When we forget or transcend our smaller self and slip into a flow state, there arises within us an identity or belongingness with the world around us. It’s a state of both peacefulness and vibrance. All of this is what I have come to know as a meditative state.
I invite and welcome any additions, corrections, questions or comments from the sangha. I will be happy to respond and continue the conversation. With Love and Best Wishes to all……

—Peter Oppenheimer
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[Peter is inviting people to have a dialogue with him. Feel free to use the monthly Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue as a place to have conversation, and respond to what others have written. If people inside or outside the prison walls want to be pen pals with others in this “sangha,” let me know. I can help with that. JS]

Will Hornyak presents: Tales of Erin's Daughters
2021-03-17 - 2021-03-21
Storyteller Will Hornyak presents:

Tales of Erin’s Daughters

From Lusty Queen Maeve and Pirate Queen Grace O’Malley to the Hag of Beara and the White Witch of Feakle, storyteller William Kennedy Hornyak celebrates the Wild Celtic Feminine with Tales, Myths, Poems, History and Lore in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, 2021

Three live Zoom performances:

St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 at 6 p.m. Pacific Time Mature audiences
Friday March 19 at 6 p.m. Pacific Time Mature audiences
Sunday March 21 2 p.m. Pacific Time Family Show

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82659078275

The Event is Free but Donations are Welcome:

https://paypal.me/WillHornyak?locale.x=e

or mail to:

Will Hornyak
11375 SE 33rd Ave.
Milwaukie, OR 97222

Individual Storytelling Coaching Sessions Available:

hornyak.will@gmail.com

25th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners March 17th-31st
2021-03-17 - 2021-03-31
Gas-n-Go by Bradlee Cournaya; Hypervigilance by Bryan Picken

25th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners

There are some amazing works of art for sale, now through the 31st of March. Highly recommended!!

Here’s a link to the website:

https://dcc.carceralstateproject.lsa.umich.edu/s/pcapexhibition25/page/home

Spend some time on the website. There’s lots to see! The full price of the artwork goes to the artist.

peace, love & creativity!
Johnny
