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SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue  10/15/20
DESCRIPTION:Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \nOctober 15\, 2020 \n  \nWelcome to our second meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS) \n* \nHello the Open Road! I’m very excited to be part of the mindfulness and meditation group. My experience with Your True Home has provided interesting insight on the riddles I seek to solve\, and is filled with wonderful tools. \nToday my inspiration for writing \, and just inspiration in general\, comes from pages 1\, 2 and 148: Your True Home\, One Hundred Percent and Fearless Bodhisattvas. These three brought thoughts about many things\, but some in particular I explored: The Sam-sara\, Living in the moment. \nA friend once told me\, that in order to escape the Sam-sara we mustn’t sow karma\, good or bad\, and must just be. At the time I thought he was suffering delusions\, but I’m not sure that is the case anymore. Maybe he was right\, maybe if we live in the moment we truly live\, rather than die. I say this because by living in the moment we can escape the constant cycle of dying with each moment as it passes\, and escape being born again as another moment arrives. Instead of surfing each wave\, sail the sea\, move with the wind and tides. Be a piece of driftwood; who cares what happens\, because it doesn’t happen until it does\, and even then be driftwood. \nIn a way my friend was right\, he was a piece of driftwood and I the wave. But that moment has passed and I am truly home now\, fearless\, one hundred percent of the time\, possessing the key to the great escape. \n—Joshua Tyler Barnes \nPS…All the meditation writings I read in your last newsletter Rocked! Thanks. \n* \nThank you for the Finding Deep Calm thing from Kim Stafford. [“peace\, love\, happiness & understanding\,” 8/27/20] I really appreciate it! I’ve shared it with several people and it’s really been an eye opener for perspective…especially right now… \nThe Suffering of Those We Love  #23 \nHow do we cope with the suffering of those we love? I’d surely take their pain away if I could. Makes it a lot easier to keep mindfulness in your heart when those you love are in pain. I can try to hold my anger or sorrow and fear with the energy of mindfulness for them. It’s the least I can do\, right? \n—Jeff Kuehner \n* \n#75  Your True Nature  &  #247 Nirvana Is Now \nIn the legend of the Buddha\, it is said that he sat under a tree and realized nirvana. When we hear this story\, we wonder: “What’s nirvana?” Nirvana is described as something like “perfect freedom\,” or “ultimate reality.” It sounds pretty good. We might think\, “I’d like to get that. How do I do it?” In one version of Buddhism\, it is very hard to get. Only a few rare souls can attain it\, after diligently practicing for many lifetimes. In Thich Nhat Hanh’s version of nirvana\, which he equates with the Christian idea of the Kingdom of God\, we already have it. It’s not far away or hard to get. It’s who we are. I like that. A perfect moment is always available to anyone. Maybe this moment is perfect. \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n#305  Sit With Your Fear \nWhen I was 10 or so my family was eating dinner with our church’s pastor\, I was outside playing with the pastor’s two boys. They had built a treehouse and a zip line from the treehouse to another tree\, and they had wrapped a mattress around the tree to soften the landing when using the zip line. The “landing” was basically crashing into the tree\, so the mattress was helpful. The treehouse was around 20 feet off the ground\, not so high that I had trouble climbing up to it. Oh\, by the way\, I’m afraid of heights\, but using the zip line was a whole different thing. I stepped to the edge\, wrapped my hands around the handle\, and…well\, nothing. I froze. I was yelling in my head to just step off the edge\, I’d be fine\, but my body would not respond. So I did what any logical 10 year old would do: I told my friends to push me off the edge. They were not too keen on the idea and tried to provide verbal assistance\, but their words could not overcome my body’s response. So I again told them to just push me. In fact\, I think I yelled it. So the oldest did! Off I went down the line\, slamming into the mattress. It was so fun! So up I went\, and this time I could step off the edge without assistance. \nThere are always going to be things in this world to be scared of\, sometimes all we need is a willing heart and a friend to give us a push! \nJohnny\, this has been fun writing for the M & M Dialogue. Thank you! I enjoy writing and I need to practice\, but I find it hard to write for myself or for its own sake. Having something to write for is very motivating! \n—Cody Dalton \n* \nToday’s study card encourages me to assess my progress with meditative practices. Quality of life should improve with consistent and genuine practice\, and if that is not true\, I’m probably not doing something correctly. YTH reflects on this at #129. Meditation results in becoming more anchored emotionally/intellectually/spiritually\, and more freedom from emotional ups and downs. \nThe founder of this meditation tradition outlined several benefits of meditation. “Better sleep.” Check. I sleep great\, most of the time. “Wake up feeling refreshed.” That is usually true. “Nightmares will become rare.” Hmmm\, I had a nightmare last week\, but they do seem rare. “Animals and people will feel drawn to you.” Well\, I focus on a mostly solitary existence\, but I don’t think I have “charisma.” I will work on this more. “Mind becomes immediately calm.” I’ll rate this 70-30\, true 70% of the time\, which is a huge improvement over where I was even two years ago. “Complexion brightens.” Seems true. “You’ll die with a clear mind.” Yeah\, I’m not ready to test that theory yet. I’ll take that on faith. \n—Shad Alexander \n* \n#365 \n“The moment of awareness\,” this is something that we as a nation need. First of all\, I am guilty of this. But it is a practice. Something not unattainable. To be aware of what is going on to the left and to the right. To see where we are headed. “We have to wake up!\,” this sleepy nation of ours. So many just going through the steps. Cookie cutter lives\, if only I had the opportunity to live outside these walls. No better\, no worse\, just driven. Driven to enjoy bettering myself and those to my left and right. \nLet’s start the revolution. \nThanks Johnny. \n—Brandon Gillespie \n* \nDear Johnny\, \nAs I think I told you\, I have taken up golf in my old age\, just by accident\, since I live a few blocks from a golf course\, I thought I would try it just to see what it was like. That was last spring. I quickly found that I loved the game. It is a practice of putting mind and body together in a challenging physical ritual\, and at it’s best there is a mystical experience to be had….fleetingly. \nI began with no skill and have worked my way up to having a tiny amount. But lately my eighty-year old body has been having trouble finding the intersection of time and space\, and I have been playing at the level I was playing at six months ago. Yesterday I played 18 holes particularly badly and came home feeling very frustrated. Of course I went out this morning and practiced\, and did a little better\, almost certainly because I wasn’t trying too hard to do well. \nThen I came home\, turned on my computer\, and read Beginner’s Mind. It came like a ray of light that if I can play with beginner’s mind\, I will no longer get frustrated. I will probably play better too\, although that won’t matter any more (yes it will). \nThanks\, Johnny\, this filled my tank. \nLove\, Ken \n—Ken Margolis \n* \n“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others’ views\, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life\, perfect your life\, beautify all things in your life.” \n—quote by an unknown author from Josh Underhill \n* \nYesterday [10/5] I heard that Thich Nhat Hanh has stopped taking food. They expect his “transition” soon. But today I heard that he occasionally stops eating and then starts again. So he is really unchanged. On October 11 he will be 94. \nI have been thinking about a teaching of Thay’s that I try to remember often. He said once\, “Are you enjoying not having a toothache?” This feels like a profound thought to me. Some time ago I had a pain in my side. It went on for a couple of months and I even went to a doctor\, which is rare for me. They didn’t find anything\, but the pain went away. Am I enjoying not having a pain in my side? In my school of Zen\, “appreciate your life” is a central teaching and it is certainly an important practice. The gift of life\, with all its beauty and sorrow\, is what we have. We tend to endlessly wish it was “better” but it’s a good practice to once in a while be grateful for just the amazing fact of it. But this other way\, the way of remembering that we are free of all kinds of suffering that we could be undergoing and/or have undergone is also good. \nThat’s my thought for the day. \n—Howard Thoresen \n* \nDear Johnny\, \nSome time ago you were kind enough to send us a copy of Ashley Lucas’s “Prison Theatre” book\, for which I sent you a brief thank-you note. Since then I have had   \nthe opportunity to read the book in more depth and realized how much of your \nprison work is discussed. Voodoo Doughnut’s contribution is discussed\, as well as that of the Smith Foundation. \nHowever her book is not all about love and roses. Page 146 points out that some of the women inmates [in Eve Ensler’s writing class] had killed people\, taken actual lives\, which makes evident that all life\, particularly including prison life\, is often filled with ambiguities and heartfelt remorse for past actions and a need for new beginnings. \nZen philosophy speaks to this concept: Always be a beginner\, always start with a fresh mind. Few concepts may be as important to success  in prison reform as new beginnings. \nPeace and Love\, \n—Jerry Smith \n* \nMichel Deforge has been meditating deeply on Your True Home\, and keeping an (almost) daily journal. Below are just a few of his meditations. (JS) \nAIMLESSNESS \nWhat an idea! I already contain God\, I am God (in flesh). I have everything I need to fulfill my destiny/purpose in this life—it’s already present here in “me\,” now.  I don’t need to strive to be/become anything or anyone! I am already perfected\, right now. The only “problem”/“challenge” I face is accepting this reality instead of spinning stories from the ego about being “less than” all this. I don’t stop being the flower\, I stop striving\, against “myself”; to become what I already am. Some days this acceptance is easier said than done. I suspect the challenges arise when “I” listen to ego’s stories and to all the nonsense (noise) from the ego of others. The only voice I need to hear\, like a clarion\, is the voice of God within—already complete\, already perfect\, already fully present in this place/time (now). \n* \nI AM HERE FOR YOU \nI started today’s musings early\, got distracted\, listening to my cellie tell his tales\, and now I am back. I like the ideal I see at the core: life’s purpose. I may not fully grasp how or why “I” am here now\, but I can be open to moments as they occur—“you.” (There is a hint of reciprocity\, but I find that too ego-centric a thought to fully allow.) My “you” can be anyone/anything as Thich Nhat Hanh points out—self\, now\, other(s). My thoughts now wander. If I (all of us) approach life from this vantage: “I am here for you\,” what would life\, “this” world be like\, or how different would it be? I see this modeled by Johnny\, Jude\, Dick\, Kristen\, Jake\, Sarah\, Bill\, Deborah—ALL our OHOM friends and volunteers\, each in their own unique and special way. I have tried and failed at this on occasion. I wonder\, is this a deliberate act or a skill to cultivate\, or\, is it a mindset for life\, being open to this moment (now) and what- or whomever is present\, as part of the moment\, for “me” to be present myself to only this now and all it contains? I like the mental openness\, opposed to the striving (grasping?) to do or control; but\, just letting be as is… \n* \nFOUNDATION OF LOVE \nI agree with this day’s sentiment; yet I know that it is also hard to do at times. Maybe if I can learn (remember) that there is no “you” or “me” (duality) and begin to see everything as a part or piece of the One\, All-existent\, then maybe it will seem less challenging to love “self\,” since the One is love and we (I) are all part of (included within) that One. I suspect the delusion of duality\, believing “I” exist separate from “you” and the All-that-is\, leads to selfishness. “I” must protect “me.” Breaking down ego can help [me] see that I and you are part of unity. If I can love you\, then I can love me\, and as I learn to love me better then I can love you better too. I love you! \n* \nEMBRACE THEM WITH GREAT TENDERNESS \n….I also enjoyed/related to Aaron’s ideas about feeling lack of worth\, as a traumatized child\, insecure and uncertain. Are there not times to be tender toward self/other and allow the feeling flow\, while reminding self that\, “Yes\, I am worth the ‘good’ I experience and the ‘bad’ is just suffering over aversions I haven’t yet LET GO. Maybe? I wonder\, what child-hurt left myself\, Aaron\, or others with this scar of doubt? How do we (can we or anyone) heal this harm? Is it preventable? I hope! \n—Michel Deforge \n* \nKatie sent a letter from Thich Nhat Hanh and a poem by Juan Felipe Herrera. (JS) \nTomorrow [10/11/20] is Thich Nhat Hanh’s birthday.  It is a gift to be able to share together around Thay’s words and his own practice.  Below is a copy of what he posted yesterday on the importance of loving our Home\, Mother Earth—for peace\, world peace. \n  \nA LETTER TO THE EARTH \n  \nDear Mother Earth \n  \nEvery time I step upon the Earth\, I will train myself to see that I am walking on you. Every time I place my feet on the Earth\, I have a chance to be in touch with you and with all your wonders. With every step I can touch the fact that you aren’t just beneath me\, dear Mother\, but you are also within me. Each mindful and gentle step can nourish me\, heal me\, and bring me into contact with myself and you in the present moment. \n  \nWalking in this spirit\, I can experience awakening\, I can awaken to the fact that I am alive and that life is a precious miracle. \nI can awaken to the fact that I am never alone and can never die. You are always there within me and around me at every step\, nourishing me\, embracing me\, and carrying me far into the future. \n  \nDear Mother\, I make the promise today to return your love and fulfill this wish by investing every step I take on you with love and tenderness. I am walking not merely on matter\, but on spirit. \n  \nThich Nhat Hanh \n* \n  \nBasho & Mandela  \n  \nAs Basho has said— \nit is a narrow road to the Deep North—as Mandela has said \nthe haphazard segregation later became a well-orchestrated \nsegregation \n—as Basho has said the journey began with an attained \nawareness \nthat at any moment you can become a weather-exposed skeleton \n—think of us in this manner \nthese are notes for your nourishment—hold them \nas bowls of kindness \nfrom journeys of bravery \nthe will to seek & find the sudden turning rivers & the dawn-eyed \n    freedom \n  \n—Juan Felipe Herrera \n  \n—Katie Radditz \n* \nWithin the Window Frame is an exercise or project that I adapted from a friend who is an artist and who uses it in her Nature Journaling art classes. Here we are going to use it as a focusing and centering process. We can use writing with this activity\, drawing\, singing\, collage\, etc. The methods of “filling the window frame” are not limited to any one mode. \nFirst choose a frame size\, maybe one like a big hardback book\, maybe one like a small paperback—either cut out the frame from paper or cardboard to use or imagine the size. Then choose something to concentrate on that is near at hand—what is right in front of you in your room\, on your table\, even out your window. It can be a person or two\, an object (your sandwich or meal\, a purse\, etc.). \nNext look at it\, in real life or in your imagination\, with fuzzed eyes. Don’t look for specifics. Try and see outlines\, colors\, or emotions. Try this for a few minutes being open to the essence of the situation. \nFinally start filling the frame\, putting into the window what you see\, and that can be either physically or emotionally what you see. \nMaybe start with words—a haiku\, a short poem\, or just the most vivid and necessary words. Then jump to a short story. \nOr try drawing in cartoon images. Then maybe a drawing that is as detailed as you can make it. \nAfter doing one of “filling in the window frame” try another\, maybe do a few each day. See if you can notice a pattern or see a direction revealing itself. Or maybe just a mood or feeling common to one day\, either in your mind or in the situation around you. \nThis project is a process through which we can begin to see our world and ourselves in more focused and attentive ways\, through words or images or both. This is one way of meditating on your world and your outlook—not that they are so very separate!! After awhile you will see threads of connection and understanding. \nMaybe you can keep these windows as a journal of your experiences. Maybe come back to them as small frames of insight into an otherwise busy time. \nEnjoy.  \n—Deborah Buchanan \n* \n“Rather than love\, than money\, than fame\, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance\, an obsequious attendance\, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices.” \n—from Walden by Henry David Thoreau (quote sent by Jake Green) \n* \nI have been thinking about the power of love lately. We are in some unprecedented times with covid\, the wildfires and all the civil unrest. It is a powerful thing to see communities come together and help their neighbors when they are down and feeling lonely and lost. The stories you hear of people who have lost homes due to the fires or loved ones from covid\, there are just as many positive stories of neighbors or strangers stepping up to help ease their pain. It can be just a simple sign that tells the first responders how much they are appreciated and to see their reaction when the street is filled with people holding signs and telling them that they love them. I can tell you first hand\, recently returned from the fire lines\, that after working days on end and feeling tired and burned out\, then having people honk their horn and yell their appreciation—it gives you strength to carry on. \nLove can come from some very unexpected places when you least expect it and you may need it the most. It is an amazing thing that people are out there that care for their fellow humans. Even when the love might not be directed at you personally\, to see others loving others\, like I talk about above\, can have a huge impact on people. Reading all of your words and the newsletters has been great. When I see that type of thing it makes me want to be a better\, more loving and compassionate person. It is infectious. \nI recently lost my father who was killed in a tragic motor vehicle accident. He was my rock and I was so looking forward to spending time with him when I got home. I tried to be strong at first\, but I started to slip into a very lonely dark place within a month. Nothing made sense and I felt fearful. Then I started to get unexpected support from the community where I grew up. A friend from the past reached out to me and we have been speaking ever since. Their love and support has seen me through the worst of it\, and I am feeling excited again about going home and continuing my father’s legacy. Love is a beautiful thing and it knows when you need it most\, how others’ compassion and understanding can bring you through dark times and make you feel hopeful again. Neat! Let’s all keep loving one another for the sake of those that may not know they need it. \n—Aaron Gilbert \n* \n#53   When You Argue with the One You Love \nIn my past\, when I have argued with the ones I love I always felt like I wanted to just be a million miles in any direction away from them. A lot of my childhood was filled with the ones I loved fighting and arguing. It scared me then and it scares me to this day. When it is all said and done I really just want all of us to be happy\, and when I imagine being 300 years away from the one I love\, well…the content of any argument is not worth it. I would rather forgive everyone that ever hurt or wronged me\, and replace the hate with love and joy and kindness—and fill the argument with peace and love. To forgive is to live in love\, to do this is the key to peace\, and to have peace is to allow the seeds of love to grow. \n—Rocky Hutchinson \n* \nWell\, that’s a wrap for our second Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue. Lovely! \nThe next one will come out on November 15th. It’s a conversation. It goes to just over a dozen people who live in prison and just over two dozen people who don’t. Please write or email me with your contributions. You can respond to what someone else has written\, use a poem or text for inspiration\, share a poem you’ve written\, or your own ruminations. \n  \nMay all people be happy. \nMay we live in love. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue-10-15-20-11-14-20/
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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  10/29/20
DESCRIPTION:  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \n  \nOctober 29\, 2020 \n  \nLast week I was thinking about loving the Earth. (Why is Earth Day just one day out of the year? Shouldn’t every day be Earth Day?) Kim sent a poem\, but it arrived a little too late to be included in last week’s issue. Here it is: \n  \nRevising Genesis  \n  \nAnd God said\, Rest here in the garden  \nwhere you belong\, where now you know  \nthe good from evil\, and so the good may be  \nyour calling. Be home here in beauty and bounty\,  \nand by salt sweat of your close devotion\, make Earth  \nyour wise guide\, each creature teaching miracles of being  \nin wing and song\, in blurred heart of hummingbird \nand deep thump of whale\, counting nights  \nin peace and days in blessing\, as you \nraise your arms in praise.  \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nAnd he recommended this poem by Gary Snyder: \n  \nFor All \n  \nAh to be alive \n       on a mid-September morn \n       fording a stream \n       barefoot\, pants rolled up\, \n       holding boots\, pack on\, \n       sunshine\, ice in the shallows\, \n        northern rockies.  \n  \nRustle and shimmer of icy creek waters \nstones turn underfoot\, small and hard as toes \n       cold nose dripping \n       singing inside \n       creek music\, heart music\, \n       smell of sun on gravel.  \n       \n        I pledge allegiance  \n  \nI pledge allegiance to the soil \n       of Turtle Island\, \n       and to the beings who thereon dwell \n       one ecosystem \n       in diversity \n       under the sun \nWith joyful interpenetration for all. \n  \n—Gary Snyder \n* \n  \nKatie sent this poem of Deborah’s: \n  \nThe Color of Eyes  \n  \nThe glacier weeps \nicicles\, weeps shades \nof sky and azure sea. \n  \nBlue\, blue of the waves\, \nrippling along sand\,  \ncoral\, and melting ice. \n  \nCornflowers in summer\, \nblue among the fields \nof green and gold. \n  \nFlashing blue eyes \nbeckoning with silence. \n  \nColor of a morning\,  \ncolor of time\, \nof mourning. \n  \nBlue the song of sadness\,  \nsmoky grey in the early hours \nblue the color of words. \n  \nOh\, blue dripping \nover ears\, into eyes\,  \nwater molecules separating\, \n  \nthen vanishing\, atoms alone.  \n  \n—Deborah Buchanan \n* \n  \nRobin Schauffler wrote: \n  \nHey Johnny\, \n  \nThank you for the ongoing peace-love-and-happiness! We’re all depressed and hysterical\, if one can be both at once\, but we have to\, have to keep remembering what’s good.  \n  \nAnd here’s another poem you might want to share: \n  \nThe poet\, Derek Mahon\, had just died (October 1)\, and this poem of his was read by another Irish poet on NPR. He wrote it in 2012\, but it feels like today. As soon as I heard it I decided to commit it to memory\, and I’m working on that. It helps me go to sleep at night. Everything is thoroughly fucked up\, but still\, on some most basic level\, we will manage. \n  \nLove\, \nRobin \n  \nEverything is Going to be All Right \n  \nHow should I not be glad to contemplate \nthe clouds clearing beyond the dormer window \nand a high tide reflected on the ceiling? \nThere will be dying\, there will be dying\, \nbut there is no need to go into that. \nThe poems flow from the hand unbidden \nand the hidden source is the watchful heart. \nThe sun rises in spite of everything \nand the far cities are beautiful and bright. \nI lie here in a riot of sunlight \nwatching the day break and the clouds flying. \nEverything is going to be all right. \n  \n—Derek Mahon\, from Selected Poems \n* \n  \nI was listening to an audio book by David Whyte called What to Remember When Waking. He read this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins\, which fits our Earth-loving theme. As always\, with his poems\, be sure to read it aloud: \n  \nInversnaid \n  \nThis darksome burn\, horseback brown\, \nHis rollrock highroad roaring down\, \nIn coop and in comb the fleece of his foam \nFlutes and low to the lake falls home. \n  \nA windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth \nTurns and twindles over the broth \nOf a pool so pitchblack\, féll-frówning\, \nIt rounds and rounds Despair to drowning. \n  \nDegged with dew\, dappled with dew \nAre the groins of the braes that the brook treads through\, \nWiry heathpacks\, flitches of fern\, \nAnd the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn. \n  \nWhat would the world be\, once bereft \nOf wet and of wildness? Let them be left\, \nO let them be left\, wildness and wet; \nLong live the weeds and the wilderness yet. \n  \n—Gerard Manley Hopkins \n  \n[Word notes. Inversnaid is a little village on the shores of Loch Lomond\, in Scotland. A burn is a mountain stream. Coop and comb are the high and low parts of the water. Flutes are grooves. He made up the word twindle. Fells are hills. Degged means sprinkled. A brae is a hillside.] \n  \nThis is a charming excerpt from a brief biography on the Gerard Manley Hopkins official website: \n  \nHe was a man of passion and he was a lover\, this poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. As a boy he loved to climb a tree in his family garden in London and look up at the sky and down at the earth. At Oxford University he loved his studies in Greek and Latin and won a brilliant “First” in his final examination. He loved his family and friends and God\, he loved music and sketching\, he loved hiking and swimming\, and he loved beauty\, nature\, and the environment. As a priest he loved his fellow Jesuits\, his students\, and his parishioners\, and as a poet he loved his creativity and the words and images and rhythms and sounds of his poems. \n* \n  \nKim has revised the Gettysburg Address as well as Genesis: \n  \nAbe & I \n  \nFour score and seven years from now our descendants will inherit on this continent an older earth conceived in diversity and dedicated to the recognition that all creatures live as one. Now we are engaged in a great struggle\, testing whether this creation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met in a great community for that struggle. We have come to dedicate a portion of our grief as a final resting-place for those creatures who gave their lives departing from this creation. It is fitting and proper that we should do this. In a larger sense\, we cannot dedicate\, we cannot consecrate\, we cannot hallow this creation. The desperate creatures\, neglected children\, vibrant cultures and local ways of being\, living and dead\, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The whole earth will little note nor long remember what we say here\, but it can never forget what we now choose to do. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who struggled and lost here have thus far so painfully clarified. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these tattered beauties we take increased devotion to that cause for which they lost their last full measure of living witness and of song—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not be joined by an endless parade of others long in splendor\, suddenly gone\, that this whole earth shall have a new birth in welcome to its own\, and that reconciliation of all creatures\, by all creatures\, for all creatures shall not perish from the earth. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nSomebody else who wrote their own version of the Gettysburg Address was the astonishing beatnik-poet-philosopher-saint-comedian Lord Buckley. He said\, “I’m a people worshipper. I think people should worship people.” Just for fun\, here’s his version: \n  \nThe Gettysburg Address \n  \nMilords and Miladies of the world of people  \nmost restfully and most humbly  \nand with the deepest reverence  \nfor the great and precious American Saint Abraham Lincoln. \nI shall translate in the modern semantic of the hip\,  \nthis new zig-zag semantic\,  \nhis beloved Gettysburg Address…. \n  \nWhen dey called old Lanky Linc up to de podium  \nand he dug all dem cats and kiddies swingin’ on the green sward\,  \ngreat love look come on his Saint face\,  \nand he put dis issue down to ’em\, he say: \n  \nFour big hits and seven licks ago\,  \nour before-daddies swung forth upon this sweet groovey land  \na jumpin’\, wailin’\, stompin’\, swingin’ new nation\,  \nhip to the cool sweet groove of liberty  \nand solid sent upon the Ace lick dat all cats and kiddies\,  \nred\, white\, or blue\, is created level in front. \nWe are now hung with a king size main-day Civil Drag\,  \nsoundin’ whether this nation or any up there nation\,  \nso hip and so solid sent can stay with it all the way. \nWe have stomped out here to the hassle site  \nof some of the worst jazz blown in the entire issue. \nGettys-mother-burg. \nWe are here to turn on a small soil stash  \nof the before-mentioned hassle site  \nas a final sweet sod pad for those  \nwho laid it down and left it there  \nso that this jumpin’ happy beat might blow forever-more. \nAnd we all dig that this is the straightest lick. \nBut diggin’ it harder from afar we cannot mellow\,  \nwe cannot put down the stamp of the lord on this sweet sod  \nbecause the strong non-stop studs\,  \nboth diggin’ it and dug under it\, who hassled here  \nhave mellowed it with such a wild mad beat  \nthat we can hear it\, but we can’t touch it. \nNow the world cats will short dig nor long stash in their wigs  \nwhat we are beatin’ our chops around here\,  \nbut it never can successively shade what they vanced here. \nIt is for us the swingin’ to pick up the dues  \nof these fine studs who cut out from here  \nand fly it through to Endsville.  \nIt is hipper for us to be signifyin’ to the glorious gig  \nthat we can’t miss with all these bulgin’ eyes\,  \nthat from all these A-stamp studs we double our love kick\, too\,  \nthat righteous line for which these hard cats sounded  \nthe last nth bone of the beat of the bell. \nThat we here want it stuck up straight for all to dig  \nthat these departed studs shall not have split in vain\,  \nand that this nation under the great swingin’ Lord  \nshall swing up a whopper of endless Mardi Gras\,  \nand that the big law by you straights\,  \nfrom you cats\,  \nand for you kiddies\,  \nshall not be scratched from the big race. \n  \n—Richard “Lord” Buckley  (1906-1960) \n* \n  \nHere’s a link to a performance by Lord Buckley: \n  \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuQ-Xt-pDbk \n* \n  \nI guess while we’re at it\, we should include the original: \n  \nFour score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent\, a new nation\, conceived in Liberty\, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. \n  \nNow we are engaged in a great civil war\, testing whether that nation\, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated\, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field\, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. \n  \nBut\, in a larger sense\, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men\, living and dead\, who struggled here\, have consecrated it\, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note\, nor long remember what we say here\, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living\, rather\, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation\, under God\, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people\, by the people\, for the people\, shall not perish from the earth. \n  \n—Abraham Lincoln\nNovember 19\, 1863 \n  \npeace & love\, y’all \nJohnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-10-29-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201105
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201112
DTSTAMP:20260503T105317
CREATED:20201105T162152Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T121425Z
UID:1414-1604534400-1605139199@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  11/5/20
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \n  \nNovember 5\, 2020 \n  \nNancy Yeilding sent this excerpt from Love and Blessings\, the autobiography of Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati: \n  \nWhen 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. \n  \nAt 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. \n  \nThis 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. \n  \nWhen 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. \n  \nThen he asked me\, “Are you sincere?”  \n  \nThat 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.  \n  \nHe went on\, “You are speaking with conviction?”  \n  \n“Of course!”  \n  \n“Do you think I have no conviction about what I say?”  \n  \nI had never thought of that before. I said\, “Yes\, you must have conviction.”  \n  \n“Am I sincere?”  \n  \n“Maybe….” \n  \n“Are you not saying something which is in total contradiction to what I say?”  \n  \n“Yes.”  \n  \n“Don’t you see the possibility of two people with contradictory views both having full conviction and sincerity?”  \n  \n“Yes.”  \n  \n“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?” \n  \nI was certainly not prepared\, but I didn’t say so.  \n  \nHe 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.”  \n  \nI 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.             \n  \nThis 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. \n  \n—Nitya Chaitanya Yati \n* \n  \nMy 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. \n  \nUnconsciously\, 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. \n  \nIn 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.” \n  \nFast 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. \n  \nIn 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. \n  \nNo 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. \n  \nAt 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. \n  \nBut 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. \n* \n  \nMohandas 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. \n  \nHe 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. \n  \nThe 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. \n  \nIn 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. \n* \n  \nHere are some quotes from Mahatma Gandhi: \n  \nIf 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. \n  \nA man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes. \n  \nHappiness is when what you think\, what you say\, and what you do are in harmony. \n  \nA coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. \n  \nLive as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. \n  \nFreedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. \n  \nService which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. \n  \nIf 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. \n  \nThe best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. \n  \nIn a gentle way\, you can shake the world. \n  \nIf 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. \n  \nHate the sin\, not the sinner. \n  \nGlory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal\, not in reaching it. \n  \nWhenever you are confronted with an opponent\, conquer him with love. \n  \nPermanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. \n  \nThe future depends on what you do today. \n  \nTo give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer. \n  \nEarth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs\, but not every man’s greed. \n  \nI object to violence because when it appears to do good\, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. \n  \nYou 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. \n  \nIt’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. \n* \n  \n  \npeace & love \nJohnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-11-5-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201112
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201119
DTSTAMP:20260503T105317
CREATED:20201112T160428Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201112T161225Z
UID:1438-1605139200-1605743999@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  11/12/20
DESCRIPTION:Lonnie Glinski as Ophelia and Timothy Hinkhouse as Laertes in the 2015 production of Hamlet at Two Rivers prison \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nNovember 12\, 2020 \n  \nI got a letter from Lonnie Glinski this week. He wrote this: \n  \nThe 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? \n  \nEven 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. \n  \nSomebody Famous \n  \nvs 1   \nWand’ring through the years \nLooking far and looking near \nSeeking clues in many ways\, \nSolutions to the fears \nAccidentally finding answers \nEmpowering one to tears \nHeaven inside realized \nIn the things somebody famous once said \nIn the things somebody famous once said. \n  \nChorus \nSomebody\, somebody\, somebody famous \nSomebody\, somebody\, you know what the name is \nFamous\, famous\, somebody famous \nFamous\, famous\, somebody famous once said. \n  \nvs 2 \nSomebody famous once said \nLove your neighbor as yourself \nLet your light shine\, keep it high on the shelf \nTreat ev’ryone as you want to be \nWe are all one big family \nIn the things somebody famous once said \nIn the things somebody famous once said. \n  \nBridge \nFor the poor in spirit\, heaven realized \nThe meek shall inherit\, merciful in kind \nThe pure in heart\, see God shall he \nThose who mourn\, comforted and freed \nIn the things somebody famous once said \nIn the things somebody famous once said. \n  \nvs 3 \nSomebody famous once said\, find your pearl of great price \nMy burden is light\, come to me as a child \nDon’t be a camel stuck in the needle’s eye \nFollow me and never die\, \nIn the things somebody famous once said \nIn the things somebody famous once said. \n* \n  \nHere’s from a letter Lonnie wrote me on October 13th: \n  \nDear Johnny\, \n  \nSeveral things you have written and sent to me lately have spoken to me quite close to my recent thought. \n  \nOne 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. \n  \nOn 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…. \n  \nAnd 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: \n  \nImagi- \nnation never imagined I’d be here today \nLessons learned\, tables turned\, mistakes along the way \nThough I cannot go where my heart longs to go \nI gotta bloom where I am\, bloom where I’ve landed \n  \nThe roads I drove\, the choices I chose\, \nthe words I spoke and the feelings that grow \nNow I cannot go where my heart longs to go \nI gotta bloom where I am\, bloom where I’ve landed \n  \nI’ve travelled through the air to who knows where \nI’ve journeyed by water\, sometimes wet for hours \nI’ve fallen from trees\, landing like a nut \nStill gotta bloom where I am\, bloom where I’ve landed \n  \nStanding\, crawling\, climbing\, falling\, the winds blew you \nRough or smooth future calling\, destination news to you \nHelp someone like someone helped you \nYou gotta bloom where you are\, bloom where you’ve landed \n  \nBloom like you did in the day when someone cared \nBloom like you did when the way someone clears \nBloom like you’ve done when you felt at home \nBloom where you’re at\, bloom where you’ve landed \n* \n  \nSo\, that’s what I’m doing\, trying to bloom where I’ve landed. \n  \nLonnie \n* \n  \nOn August 20th\, Lonnie sent this song: \n  \nAnd They Just Smile \n  \nMentions I hear\, someone named Trouble \nI try to name the face\, but I’m unable \nWalk\, often-times I hear: here comes Trouble \nTaking my chance\, turn round really fast…and they just smile \n  \nWalk past\, sometimes I hear: there goes Trouble \nTurning\, no one’s there\, only empty air \nShould I fear that Trouble may be near? \nAsk where Trouble went…and they just smile \n  \nChorus \nClosed-door community\, same faces to see \nSeeking notorious version\, of this Trouble person \nWhere can he be found?\, not there when I turn around \nPlease point Trouble out…and they just smile \n  \nChorus repeat \n  \nIntense mystery\, Trouble passes so nearly \nAround and around I go\, really do I want to know \nWhere can he be found?\, not there when I turn around \nAnd why\, oh why\, do they just smile? \n  \nShould I be a’worrying\, Trouble near concerning? \nWhere can I go that Trouble cannot follow? \nWhere can he be found?\, not there when I turn around \nReally\, do I want to know?…and they just smile \n  \nOutro (loosely) \nAnd why\, oh why\, won’t you point him out? \nAnd why\, oh why?—come on\, help me out \nAnd tell me why\, oh why\, do they just smile? \nAnd why\, oh why\, oh why\, do you just smile? \n* \n  \nI 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: \n  \nThanks 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. \n  \nIt ain’t me \n  \nvs 1 \nSomeone squeezed the last toothpaste\, left me an empty tube \nSomeone used the last shampoo…now what am I to do? \nI know it was my cellie\, I’m gonna give ‘im hell \nBut…I live in a single cell \n  \nChorus 1 \nIt wasn’t me\, it ain’t me—doing things irresponsibly \nIt ain’t me\, it couldn’t be\, always leaving me in some fix \nMy cellie’s gonna catch hell\, don’t care I’m in a single cell \n‘Cause it wasn’t me \n  \nBridge 1 \nI know it was him who ate that last cracker \nI know it was him who ate that last chip \nI know it was him who used that ticket I know I had \nI know it was my cellie\, gonna give ‘im hell \nRegardless\, I’m in a single cell \n  \nChorus 2 \nIt wasn’t me; it ain’t me \nLike the Family Circus comic strip\, it wasn’t me \nDon’t watch same TV shows\, nor songs on the radio \nI’m gonna give ‘im hell for changing that dial \n‘Cause I know it wasn’t me \n  \nBridge 2 \nHe hides things so I can’t find ‘em \nKnocks over things I’ve been organizin’ \nEmpties things I know without a doubt were full \nI know it was my cellie\, gonna give ‘im hell \nRegardless\, I’m in a single cell \n  \n  \nWith spending so much time in our cells\, others can probably relate. \n  \n—Lonnie Glinski \n* \n  \nWell\, that’s about it for the Lonnie Glinski Issue. Thanks Lonnie\, for bringing smiles to a lot of faces. \n  \nMay all people be happy. \n  \n—Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-11-12-20/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201115
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201215
DTSTAMP:20260503T105317
CREATED:20201115T185314Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201115T185428Z
UID:1448-1605398400-1607990399@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue 11/15/20
DESCRIPTION:Drawing by Charles Erickson \n  \nOpen Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \nNovember 15\, 2020 \n  \nWelcome to our third meditation and mindfulness dialogue! The numbers below refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS) \n* \n  \nM & M Dialogue Group\, \n  \nI 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.” \n  \nIn 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. \n  \nMy 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. \n  \nI 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. \n  \n—Josh Underhill \n* \n  \nResponding 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): \n  \n“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.” \n  \nHistorically\, 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. \n  \nBut 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. \n  \n—Shad Alexander \n* \n  \nI’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. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nI 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. \n  \nOn 10/21 I read #358 “So Many Reasons to Be Happy” \n  \nI 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. \n  \nReading #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. \n  \n—Josh Underhill \n* \n  \nOctober 7\, 2020  THE SUFFERING OF THOSE WE LOVE \n  \nHOLDING 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…. \n  \nMaybe 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.” \n  \nOctober 8\, 2020  A LOVE LETTER \n  \nMy 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…. \n  \nOctober 15\, 2020  SELECTIVE WATERING \n  \n….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…. \n  \nMaybe 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.  \n  \nOctober 16\,  SOVEREIGN OF THE FIVE ELEMENTS \n  \n….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. \n  \nOctober 19\, 2020  CENTURY OF SPIRITUALITY \n  \n….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….  \n  \nOctober 21\, 2020   THE SEEDS OF HAPPINESS \n  \nThe 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…. \n  \nI 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)…. \n  \nOctober 22\, 2020  THE ART OF MINDFUL LIVING \n  \n….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…. \n  \nI like the idea of stopping\, from my daily hustle and bustle\, to enjoy breathing. Breathing helps me connect or remember that I am alive…. \n  \nOctober 25\, 2020  THE ENERGY OF LIBERATION from Be Free Where You Are by Thich Nhat Hanh \n  \nWhat 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…. \n  \nI 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. \n  \nOctober 28\, 2020  NO BEGINNING\, NO END  #30 \n  \nOnce 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. \n  \nNovember 3\, 2020  THOUGHTS FROM 10/15 MINDFULNESS NEWSLETTER \n  \nI 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. \n  \nI 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! \n  \nMichel Deforge \n* \n  \nThe Secret behind Our Strife  \n  \nI\, so sure of myself\, so ready \nto explain why I am right— \nI live in a body that will die\, and all \nmy brave words be gone to the sky.  \n  \nAnd you\, with your shouted reasons \nI am wrong\, you live in a body \nthat will fall\, be still\, be mourned \nfor the peace you might have found.  \n  \nShall you and I\, knowing this now\, \nset our strife aside\, pause our proclamations \ninto curiosity\, listening to see what we \nmight learn\, one from another? \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nWhat to say about meditation? \n  \nThanks for all the beautiful writing in the last edition! \n  \nEvery 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.  \n  \nI 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.” \n  \nMeditation 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. \n  \n—Howard Thoresen \n* \n  \nDear Johnny\, \n  \n….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.  \n  \nlove\, Deb \n  \nInsight \n  \nAfter we die we hover for a while \nat treetop level with the mourners \nbeneath us\, but we are not separate \nfrom them nor they from us. \nThey are singing but the words \ndon’t mean anything in our new language \n  \n—Jim Harrison \n  \nThe Old People \n  \nPantcuffs rolled\, and in old shoes\, \nthey stumble over the rocks and wade out \ninto a cold river of shadows \nfar from the fire\, so far that its warmth \nno longer reaches them. And its light \n(but for the sparks in their eyes \nwhen they chance to look back) \nscarcely brushes their faces. Their ears \nare full of night: rustle of black leaves \nagainst a starless sky. Sometimes \nthey hear us calling\, and sometimes \nthey don’t. They are not searching \nfor anything much\, nor are they much \nin need of finding something new. \nThey are feeling their way out into the night\, \nletting their eyes adjust to the future. \n  \n—Ted Kooser \n  \nIn Memory of Joseph Brodsky \n  \nIt could be said\, even here\, that what remains of the self \nUnwinds into a vanishing light\, and thins like dust\, and heads \nTo a place where knowing and nothing pass into each other\, and through; \nThat it moves\, unwinding still\, beyond the vault of brightness ended\, \nAnd continues to a place which may never be found\, where the unsayable\, \nFinally\, once more is uttered\, but lightly\, quickly\, like random rain \nThat passes in sleep\, that one imagines passes in sleep. \nWhat remains of the self unwinds and unwinds\, for none \nOf the boundaries holds — neither the shapeless one between us\, \nNor the one that falls between your body and your voice. Joseph\, \nDear Joseph\, those sudden reminders of your having been — the places \nAnd times whose greatest life was the one you gave them — now appear \nLike ghosts in your wake. What remains of the self unwinds \nBeyond us\, for whom time is only a measure of meanwhile \nAnd the future no more than et cetera et cetera …but fast and forever. \n  \n—Mark Strand \n  \nThe Hammock \n  \nWhen I lay my head in my mother’s lap \nI think how day hides the stars\, \nthe way I lay hidden once\, waiting \ninside my mother’s singing to herself. And I remember  \nhow she carried me on her back \nbetween home and the kindergarten\, \nonce each morning and once each afternoon. \n  \nI don’t know what my mother’s thinking. \n  \nWhen my son lays his head in my lap\, I wonder: \nDo his father’s kisses keep his father’s worries \nfrom becoming his? I think\, Dear God\, and remember \nthere are stars we haven’t heard from yet: \nThey have so far to arrive. Amen\, \nI think\, and I feel almost comforted. \n  \nI’ve no idea what my child is thinking. \n  \nBetween two unknowns\, I live my life. \nBetween my mother’s hopes\, older than I am \nby coming before me\, and my child’s wishes\, older than I am \nby outliving me. And what’s it like? \nIs it a door\, and good-bye on either side? \nA window\, and eternity on either side? \nYes\, and a little singing between two great rests. \n  \n—Li-Young Lee \n  \nThe Archaic Maker \n  \n          The archaic maker is of course naive. If a man he listens. If a \nwoman she listens. A child is listening. A train passes like an underground river. It enters a story. \n          The river cannot come back. the story goes on. It uses some form \nof representation. It does not really need much by way of gadgets\, apart \nfrom words\, singing\, dancing\, making pictures and objects that resemble \nliving shapes. Things of its own devising. \n          The deafening river carries parents\, children\, entire families waking \nand sleeping homeward. \n          The story passes stone farms on green hillsides at the mouths of valleys \nrunning up into forests full of summer and unheard water. \n           In the story it is already tomorrow. A time of memories incorrect \nbut powerful. Outside the windows is the next of everything. \n          One of each. \n          But here is ancient today \n          itself \n          the air the living air \n          the still water \n  \n—W. S. Merwin \n  \nOpus From Space \n  \nAlmost everything I know is glad \nto be born—not only the desert orangetip\, \non the twist of tansy; shaking \nbirth moisture from its wings\, but also the naked \nwarbler nesting\, head wavering toward the sky\, \nand the honey possum\, the pygmy possum\, \nblind\, hairless thimbles of forward\, \npress and part. \n  \nAlmost everything I’ve seen pushes \ntoward the place of that state as if there were \nno knowing any other—the violent crack \nand seed-propelling shot of each witch hazel pod\, \nthe philosophy implicit in the inside out \nseed-thrust of the wood sorrel. All hairy \nsaltcedar seeds are single-minded \nin their grasping of wind and spinning \nfor luck toward birth by water. \n  \nAnd I’m fairly shocked to consider \nall the bludgeonings and batterings going on \nconinually\, the head-rammings\, wing furors\, \nand beak-crackings\, fighting for release \ninside gelatinous shells\, leather shells\, \ncalcium shells or rough\, horny shells. Legs \nand shoulder\, knees and elbows flail likewise \nagainst their womb walls everywhere\, in pine \nforest niches\, seepage banks and boggy \nprairies\, among savannah grasses\, on woven \nmats and perfumed linen sheets. \n  \nMad zealots\, every one\, even before \nbeginning they are dark dust-congealings \nor pure frenzy to come into light. \n  \nAlmost everything I know rages to be born\, \nthe obsession founding itself explicitly \nin the coming bone harps and ladders\, \nthe heart-thrusts\, vessels and voices \nof all those speeding with clear and total \nfury toward this singular honor. \n  \n—Pattiann Rogers \n  \n—Deborah Buchanan \n* \nNovember 12\, 2020 \nMeditation and Mindfulness \n  \n#9  I Have Arrived \n#44  We Already Have Enough \n#130  Appreciating Simple Joys \n  \nThese 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. \n  \nA 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.” \n  \nExample #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.” \n  \nExample #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. \n  \nMy 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. \n  \nI 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. \n  \nTo 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. \n  \nSo 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. \n  \n—Jude Russell  \n* \n  \n[See drawing of elephant and sphere at the top.] \n  \nAbstract idea/concrete image. Both at once between sleep and waking. \n  \nI woke and found this present in mind and made a drawing quickly before it faded away. \n  \nThe sphere was\, simply\, everything. The elephant was God. \n  \nWhen I was drinking coffee later\, I added fancy titles from out of my memory: \n“All and Everything\,” title of a favorite book\, for the sphere; \n  \nand “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.” \n  \n—Charles Erickson \n* \n  \nThank you\, everyone! \n  \nThat’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. \n  \n(If you go to the EVENTS page on this website and click on “Previous Events\,” you can find our September and October dialogues.) \n  \nMay all people be happy. \nMay we live in peace & love. \n  \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue-11-15-20/
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DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201126
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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  11/19/20
DESCRIPTION:Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati\, Peter Oppenheimer and Nancy Yeilding \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nNovember 19\, 2020 \n  \n“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: \n  \n  \nFinding Freedom’s Firm Foundation \n  \nWhen 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.  \n  \nIn 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. \n  \nAs 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. \n  \nAt 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.”  \n  \nDuring 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.  \n  \nI 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. \n  \nIn 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.  \n  \nThat 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:  \n  \nInexhaustible 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. \n  \nIt 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. \n  \nAs 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.  \n  \nHe 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.  \n  \nFor 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 . . .  \n  \nThrough 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.  \n  \nHis 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. \n  \nI 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: \n  \nThe 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. . . . \n  \nThe 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. \n  \nYou 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. \n  \nAnd: \n  \nI 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.  \n  \nFrom 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. \n  \nGuru 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. \n  \nHe 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. \n  \nWe 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.  \n  \nHis 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. \n  \nI 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. . .  \n  \nThe 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.    \n                \n—Nancy Yeilding
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DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201210
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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  11/26/20
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nNovember 26\, 2020 \n  \n  \ni thank You God for most this amazing \nday:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees \nand a blue true dream of sky;and for everything \nwich is natural which is infinite which is yes \n(i who have died am alive again today\, \nand this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth \nday of life and love and wings:and of the gay \ngreat happening illimitably earth) \nhow should tasting touching hearing seeing \nbreathing any-lifted from the no \nof all nothing-human merely being \ndoubt unimaginable You? \n(now the ears of my ears awake and \nnow the eyes of my eyes are opened) \n  \n—e. e. cummings  (1894-1962) \n* \n  \nGiving 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. \n* \n  \nPoetry \n  \nAnd it was at that age … Poetry arrived \nin search of me. I don’t know\, I don’t know where \nit came from\, from winter or a river. \nI don’t know how or when\, \nno they were not voices\, they were not \nwords\, nor silence\, \nbut from a street I was summoned\, \nfrom the branches of night\, \nabruptly from the others\, \namong violent fires \nor returning alone\, \nthere I was without a face \nand it touched me. \n  \nI did not know what to say\, my mouth \nhad no way \nwith names\, \nmy eyes were blind\, \nand something started in my soul\, \nfever or forgotten wings\, \nand I made my own way\, \ndeciphering \nthat fire\, \nand I wrote the first faint line\, \nfaint\, without substance\, pure \nnonsense\, \npure wisdom \nof someone who knows nothing\, \nand suddenly I saw \nthe heavens \nunfastened \nand open\, \nplanets\, \npalpitating plantations\, \nshadow perforated\, \nriddled \nwith arrows\, fire and flowers\, \nthe winding night\, the universe. \n  \nAnd I\, infinitesimal being\, \ndrunk with the great starry \nvoid\, \nlikeness\, image of \nmystery\, \nfelt myself a pure part \nof the abyss\, \nI wheeled with the stars\, \nmy heart broke loose on the wind.  \n  \n—Pablo Neruda  (Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet\, 1904-1973) \n* \n  \nKim Stafford sent us an approach to a daily writing practice. And some poems. \n  \nWriting as Ritual: Four Elements of a Daily Writing Page \nA chapter from a work in progress\, Writing for Happiness\, by Kim Stafford \n  \nBe the Eric Snowden of your inner life. \n  \nI had been writing for years\, by fits and starts\, when my father’s death opened a \nnew path for my life as a writer\, and as a seeker. By his last will and testament\, I \ninherited the care of his twenty thousand hand-written pages of daily writing \nfrom the 1950s through the day of his death in 1993. William Stafford’s writing \npractice had been invisible to me when he was alive\, because he rose before \ndawn to write\, and I did not. All through childhood\, I would see the literary \nmagazines where his poems were published appear on the coffee table — Crazyhorse\,  \nPoetry\, Cimarron Review — and every year a book or two would come forth. When people  \nwould ask him\, “Bill\, when is your next book coming out?” he would often answer\, “Which  \none?” \n  \nHow did he do that? Simple: he wrote something every day\, and his books \nwere made from about one day’s writing out of eight that he found worthy. \nA few weeks after my father died\, I started to carry the reams of his scribbling \ndown from the attic\, and leaf through his pages one by one. His scrawl was a \nchallenge\, and I sometimes needed a magnifying glass to examine the tangle of \nferal words to tease the meaning forth. But overall\, I began to see four elements \nin his practice that worked together in a way both practical and mystical. \n  \nI want to consider what my father’s daily writing pages contained\, and how \nthey worked for him — and how something like his approach might work for any \nof us who choose to give such daily writing practice a try. His pages\, which are \nnow housed in the William Stafford Archives at Lewis & Clark College\, exhibit a \nvarying daily mixture of four prevailing elements: \n  \n1. 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.” \n  \n2. 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. \n  \n3. 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. \n  \nThe 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. \n  \n4. 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. \n  \nTo 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. \n  \nWilliam 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. \n  \nMost 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. \n  \nMy 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. \n  \nThis 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: \n  \nthe visible \nthe invisible \nthe secret \nthe deeply secret \n  \nSo 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. \n  \nAs 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. \n  \nBased 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? \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nWhile 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… \n  \nMy Sheltering Sky \n  \nWhen I was born\, when I was helpless\, there were stars \nAbove me blue in their midnight galaxy. \nWhen I was hurt\, there were scars no one could see. \nWhen I was growing\, the sun was dimmed for me \nBy killing silence where there should have been a song. \n  \nDid you hear a song when you were young\, \nA chorus that sang your name with love? \nHow many little ways were you reminded of \nYour worth\, your chance\, your path to rise above \nYour struggles\, a way to feel that you belong? \n  \nOne night by the river when I couldn’t sleep \nFor streetlights glittering the water dark\, \nI looked above my troubles where I saw a spark\, \nAnother world\, a guide\, a star to mark \nMy destination far beyond my pain. \n  \nOn that shore I felt there was fatal door \nI could step through into waters cold \nTo quench my life before I got too old \nIn sorrows\, hard tomorrows\, I could fold \nMy arms and plunge into the deep. \n  \nBut then I looked above it all and saw \nMy shelter\, my sky where stars were calling \nAnd I felt that I was falling up instead of down\, \nAnd I wore some kind of crown \nThat gave me my ticket to the dawn. \n  \nNow I find there’s work\, and worth\, and wonder. \nThough I know my sorrows won’t be completely gone\, \nSomeone helped me carry on and find \nA wealth in heart and mind \nThat helps me know I finally belong. \n  \nFor I looked above it all and saw \nMy shelter\, my sky where stars were calling \nAnd I felt that I was falling up instead of down\, \nAnd I wore some kind of crown \nThat gave me my ticket to the dawn. \n  \n  \n Poetry Doctor \n  \nHow do you feel? \nHow\, exactly\, have you \nlearned to feel — to be  \ntouched\, to apprehend? \nThese twinges you have —  \nof compassion\, empathy\, pain —  \nhow long have you had them? \nHave they grown more intense \nwith age? Do they manifest at  \nsunset? At dawn? In the presence \nof beauty? Of suffering? \nDoes your heart ever skip? \nDo you ever feel dizzy \nwith delight or shame? Has  \nthe grace of a few right words  \never blurred your vision? Caught \nyour breath? Has your heart \never become a drum when  \na song’s words told you \nwho you are in secret?  \n  \nI’m afraid my diagnosis  \nmust remain incomplete  \nwithout further tests:  \nNeruda\, Dickinson\, Basho. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \n“Peace\, love\, happiness & understanding” will be bi-weekly from now on. The next one will come out on December 10th. See you then! \n  \npeace\, love & gratitude \n  \nJohnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-11-26-20/
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