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 16 Apr 2007 @ 14:18
Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.
---Claude Bernard
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
---Henry Miller
I have been reading all day, confined to my room, and feel tired. I raise the screen and face the broad daylight. I move the chair on the veranda and look at the blue mountains. I draw a long breath, fill my lungs with fresh air and feel entirely refreshed. I make tea and drink a cup or two of it. Who would say that I am not living in the light of eternity?
---D.T. Suzuki
The drawing illustrates an article in the current issue of In Character, for which Joannah Ralston is credited with design.
When I set about to look for an image to illustrate this entry, I typed the word "solitude" into the search engine. A number of paintings showed up, but surprisingly not many that were created before the Twentieth Century. A few landscapes from the late 1800's seemed to celebrate Wordsworthian romance, but in his poems too we witness the beginnings of modern isolation.
For some time I've been concerned about a gradual loss of community and neighborhood connection that has occured in my lifetime. This may not be the case everywhere or among people who have not lived the kind of life that I have. I've moved around a good deal---especially in the 1960s and 70s---and am not living in the town where I was born. I tend toward liberal ideals and am not a member of a "mega-church." More conservative folks, who can trace lineage in the same geography back several generations, may enjoy a different experience. But how many of those are there, and is their number dwindling? And what good is neighborhood anyway, if you don't want people meddling in your privacy?
Bill McKibben's article in the current issue of the journal referenced above got me wondering whether a reinvigoration of community may be a major ingredient in solving huge problems that face us planetary inhabitants today. Bill McKibben is teaching at Middlebury College currently I guess, but has lived in the Adirondack Mountain region of New York for some time. You may have read his essays in The New Yorker and other publications, usually devoted to spiritual aspects of environmental concern. He's also written a few books.
This article doesn't talk about TV, industrialization, and overpopulation, which are topics that fly to my mind immediately when I think of wanting to get away from it all and just live in the woods with a computer. Here he suggests the very goal of getting off the grid and living the life of the self-sufficient survivalist ultimately may lead nowhere. More >
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 5 Feb 2007 @ 05:10
The mind creates the chasm which only the heart can cross.
---Stephen Levine
It is our very search for perfection outside of ourselves that causes our suffering.
---The Buddha
A disciple lived for a time with Zen master Kassan. But feeling that the teachings did not suit him, the disciple decided to go on a pilgrimage. But everywhere he went, the disciple only heard praise for how Master Kassan was the best of teachers. Finally the disciple returned, and when he greeted his old master he said, "Why did you not reveal your profound understanding of the dharma?"
The Master smiled, and replied: "When you cooked rice, did I not light the fire? When you served food, did I not hold out my bowl? How have I failed you?"
At this the disciple was enlightened.
---Zen mondo
When someone creates a work of art that seemingly captures, describes, celebrates your life at the moment, you get spoiled. You think you must have a personal connection with this artist, that somehow you are universal and famous: an archetype, a microcosm, a herald. You develop expectations of the artist...and if the next piece doesn't continue the synchronicity, you're disappointed and maybe resentful. Perhaps you dismiss the artist as having dimmed and missed the boat. Washed up, a has-been.
Everyone knows, and especially today's teen-agers, this kind of thing used to happen a lot in the rock music of the 1970s. Few singer-songwriters did it to us more than Joni Mitchell...and few suffered our disdain for her later efforts more than she. Joni didn't seem to need our illusions and fantasies about her as much as other performers though. Probably when you grow up in Saskatchewan, you're accustomed to the richness of solitude...and there's always something else to do.
People cruelly have responded to Ms. Mitchell's solitary ways by calling her "reclusive," which really isn't true at all. She always is creating and her art is for others, as well as an expression for herself. New music and paintings have been around if you cared to look for them. But suddenly now once again, Joni Mitchell seems to be everywhere. A big feature article in yesterday's New York Times, a gallery showing in LA last month, an award ceremony in Toronto last week (where the decorating photo of her was taken), choreographies for ballet companies, and a new album of songs in the wings. Alas, she still smokes. More >
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 15 Nov 2006 @ 10:52
The striking photo of Bush's war cabinet in 2002 is the work of Annie Leibovitz.
All worldly pursuits have but the one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow: acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings, in destruction; meetings, in separation; births, in death. Knowing this, one should from the very first renounce acquisition and heaping-up, and building and meeting, and...set about realizing the Truth. Life is short, and the time of death is uncertain. So apply yourselves to meditation.
---Milarepa
All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher---reality. It is as hard to get the children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on a cold morning. One is not better than the other; each can be quite boring; and they both have the virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and its good results make the very activities of our life into the path.
---Gary Snyder
The rain has stopped, the clouds drifted away,
the weather is clear again.
If your heart is pure, then all things in your world are pure....
Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the way.
---Ryokan
To the wisdom of these Buddhist poets let me add another piece of downhome advice: He who hesitates is lost. Addison said it I guess, and Oliver Wendell Holmes repeated it for American practicality...but I first heard it from a radio station engineer when I was a little boy. We were riding with my dad in the station van full of equipment up to Chautauqua, New York, for a network broadcast of the symphony. We were speeding toward the Erie railroad crossing just south of Ashville, and our driver could see a train was coming---but it was far enough away still that we could make it across. But our driver lifted his foot off the gas while he decided...and now it was too late. We sat there as the freight rolled by...and 'twas then the proverb got uttered. With all the drama of that moment, I've never forgotten the saying...and I'm thinking it today too.
It's the title of a Leadbelly song that graces this entry...and all this has to do with discussions stirring through the States on what we're going to see out of this new Congress. I'm dizzy with the possibilities...and really only want to point you thisaway and thataway as to what's up. But beware of hesitation! More >
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 28 Aug 2006 @ 09:27
It's amazing, a wonder, that one wakes up in the morning.
---Nagarjuna
Better a handful of quietness
Than both hands full of toil
And much chasing the wind.
---Ecclesiastes
I have to let go of the need to know so much. What we can know is so small---the holiness around is so large. Now I trust in simplicity, simplicity and love.
---Hindu sage
This morning I received an atypical communique from a friend who is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Sociology at Ohio University. Ordinarily he checks stuff I send out with a meticulous eye and lets me know when I get carried away. This time his eye seems a little moist and I readily admit he got me that way too...with this wonderful story~~~
When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighbourhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it.
Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person - her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know. "Information Please" could supply anybody's number and the correct time.
My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbour. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway.
The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlour and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlour and held it to my ear. "Information Please," I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. "Information."
"I hurt my finger. . ." I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. "Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
"Nobody's home but me." I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?"
"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."
"Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could. "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts. Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary died. I called "Information Please" and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was un-consoled. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?"
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better. Another day I was on the telephone. "Information Please."
"Information," said the now familiar voice.
"How do you spell 'fix'?" I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home, and somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then, without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information, Please." Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well, "Information." I hadn't planned this but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell 'fix'?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."
I laughed. "So it's really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time." "I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls." I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
"Please do, she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered "Information." I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" she asked. "Yes, a very old friend," I answered.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this", she said. "Sally had been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago."
Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Is your name Paul?"
"Yes."
"Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you. The note says, 'Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean.'"
I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant. Never underestimate the impression you may make on others. On that note I would like to ask you to remember how much difference one person can make in someone's life. More >
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 21 Jun 2006 @ 11:07
Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.
If you don't break your ropes while you are alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?
---Kabir
Actually there is no real teaching at all for you to chew on. But not believing in yourself, you pick up your baggage and go around to other people's houses looking for Zen, looking for Tao, looking for mysteries, looking for awakenings, looking for Buddhas, looking for masters, looking for teachers. You think this a searching for the ultimate and you make this into your religion. But this is like running blindly. The more you run, the farther away you are. You just tire yourself, to what benefit in the end?
---Foyan
A human being is a part of the whole called by us "the universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest---a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection of a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its being.
---Albert Einstein
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is the first woman to lead the Episcopal Church.
Photo by Michael Houghton for The New York Times
There are many peculiar terms in the Episcopal Church. "Episcopal" is one of them. The word in Latin means "bishop," which hardly differentiates this church from anything known as Anglican throughout the rest of the world. Its members want their own identity in the United States, so we use Episcopal instead of Anglican. Apparently that's only the first of many annoyances we cause.
The physical organization of the church resembles the Catholic, from which it broke so King Henry could keep trying out wives until he found one to suit him. (Not much spiritual inspiration there.) Other Protestant denominations have bishops and such, who are leaders elected in some way or other. In the Episcopal Church there are 2 houses, like Congress: the House of Bishops I suppose is like the Senate, smaller and with more clout; the House of Deputies is similar to the House of Representatives.
The "president" of the whole Anglican Community is known as the Archbishop, and as anybody can become a priest and a bishop anybody could get elected Archbishop too. Well...until now, any MAN could be Archbishop. And to be more specific, any clearly practicing heterosexual man. A priest needn't be married but it's better, if he's going to have some kind of sexual partner living with him, that it be a woman. You know, help with church auxiliaries and picnics, choir practice, Sunday school...that kind of "womanly" thing. I suppose our Catholic friends laugh up their sleeves at how complicated all this has become for us. We have nuns too. More >
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