Showing posts with label The Way. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Way. Show all posts

Monday, October 9, 2023

Let's Go On Like Men Who Are Lost....

 

Parker River wildlife refuge 


"Gahtay Gahtay Para Gahtay Para Sahm Gahtay Bodhi Soha"

 

Canon  G7x Mark II
Snapseed


Excerpted from the novel "The Monk Downstairs" which contains a letter from former monk Michael Christopher to Brother James still in the monastery.

Michael feels me:

    Dear Brother James,

      Thank you for your letter, which I took as an attempt to cheer me up.  But I am beyond being cheered by reassurances that I am "a good person at heart" and that "God will provide."  That kind of stuff just makes me suspect that you aren't really paying attention.  I am a futility.  The life of prayer begins with that.  And God is not a comfort, to be offered like Kleenex.  God is a poisoned sea, with broken syringes washing up on the beach.  God is shopping malls stretching to the horizon and warplanes in the sky.  God is a flat tire in a rainstorm and beer cans in the ditch, a bottle shattered on a highway overpass and the taste of gunmetal in your mouth. God is dying children.

      Have you forgotten, cultivating your pleasantness?  Or have you really never known that terrible enormity?  You talk of faith as if we were not desperate men; you prescribe it like an antacid.  But real faith is a failure and a defeat, vomiting blood; real faith is a morphine drip; it is plastic bags whirled by the wind in an empty parking lot and a cigarette butt in dirty sand.  It is possums squashed by trucks, and the slaughter on the evening news.

      You consider me a project, clearly -- community outreach or something, a target for your well-meaning nonsense about God.  You walk around passing out hope like theological Monopoly Money.  But your colorful bills are no good here, Brother James.  I am traveling in the desert, as you are; I'm off the game board.  If we go on together, let's go on like men who are lost, crying for love as men cry for water.  Let's not pretend we're doing anything else.

    Yours in Christ,
      Mike.


Monday, June 19, 2023

Passages

 

Parker River Wildlife Refuge


"Audubon Wildlife Refuge"

Canon G7x Mark II
Snapseed
Brushstroke


Three Dharma Companions recently passed into their next life. Two Companions I met and practiced with in the '90's at Mun Su Sa. One Companion was a member of a Dharma Study Group that I attended for a time. 

To a person they were spectacular people, great practitioners and teachers. 

The world is all the poorer for their loss.


May they be peaceful.
May they be happy.
May they be safe.
May they awaken to the light of their true nature.
May they be free.





~





 

Saturday, May 20, 2023

Everything is going according to schedule…




“Fun for Everyone”
Nikon D7200
Nikkor 35.0mm /f1.8 lens
Lightroom
Snapseed


Systems are falling apart right on schedule. Deafness
has recently gotten worse. Quite often now I exist in a sea
of vowels unable to discern words. I have to
work hard to figure out what is being said to me.
It’s exhausting.  Plus - I have to ask people to
repeat themselves - a lot. This results in a variety of responses,
From simple repetition, to slow, exaggerated pronunciation in a loud voice,
to ridicule, to exasperated reminders that
“You need to get a hearing aid!!”

Not fun by any stretch, but it is an excellent
instrument for observing other people’s
reaction to weakness and bodily decay…
And - being made fun of for deafness
helps me to work on 
accepting disgrace


~





 


Friday, April 28, 2023

PSA - In Buddhism - What You Say You Are, You Are..

 

Lens - CAM

 

"Lighthouse Lens"

Canon G7x MarkII
Snapseed
Brushstroke
Tangled FX




As far as "teachers" go in American Buddhism - there is a lot of "What I Say I Am, I Am" going on. Some lineages are better than others in vetting their teachers.. but in all cases - you should thoroughly investigate a prospective teacher prior to engaging with them in anything more than "HiHowAhYah?" 

Obviously - you're all grownups and as such free to do whatever the fuck you like. I plant this post like a lighthouse to warn ye off the rocks...

Carry on.





~





This is what happens at MY dharma halls..

 

Paarker River Wildlife Refuge 

 

"Surf"
Nikon D90
Nikkor 70.0mm-300.0mm Lens
Lightroom
2014




“The wave roars around you, and you are the wave; the forest rustles and you are forest. There is no more outside and inside. You fly, a bird in the air; you swim, a fish in the sea; you absorb light, and you are light; you taste darkness, and are darkness.”

~ Hermann Hesse ~








~






Monday, April 24, 2023

The Dharma Is Everywhere

 

 

Portsmouth NH 



"Words of Wisdom, Lloyd - Words of Wisdom"

Nikon D800
Nikkor 50.0mm f/1.4 Lens
Lightroom




~




Sunday, April 23, 2023

Forgive Us



Self portrait 

 

"Neuropathy Mudra - 3:30AM EST"

Nikon D7200
Nikkor 35.0 f/1.8 Lens
Lightroom
Snapseed
Carbon


We have been turbulent, uncharitable,
we have failed in love for the brethren,
have yielded to fear and despair and pride,
often in our lives.

Forgive us.

We are no more, when the truth is told,
than ignorant beset men,
jockeying against all chance,
at the hour of death,
for a place at the right hand of the dying One.
 
~ Father Daniel Berrigan SJ ~




~




Saturday, April 15, 2023

Words

 

 

Center for Mindfulness and Insight Meditation 

 

"Take Your Seat"

Nikon D800
Nikkor 50.0 1.4 Lens
Lightroom
Snapseed

 

 

FIFTY SIX
 
Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.

Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is primal union.

He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man.


Tao Te Ching
Gia Fu Feng Translation

 

 
Words are nice (sometimes) and
are a largely necessary evil (in general).
Actions though, are where the
truth of things can be
fully experienced.

Like sitting on a cushion (or a chair)
Like walking in the woods
Like visiting the Sea
Like fishing that one last stubborn
sock out of the far reaches
of the clothes dryer.



~

 

 

 

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Madness and Dream

 

Walking Stick 

 

"Walking Stick"
Sugar Maple Sapling

Canon G7x Mark II
Snapseed

 

I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me.

My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.

~ Hermann Hesse ~





 
 
 
~




Saturday, December 17, 2022

The Serpentine Dance

 

Audubon wildlife refuge 12/14/22


"Ice Edge"

Nikon D800
LensBaby Composer Double Glass Optic
Lightroom
Snapseed

Buddha said: ‘I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasure of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated one as flowers appearing in one’s eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.'

~ Paul Reps - 101 Zen Stories 
 
 
Having only one robe and one bowl, Buddha never concerned himself with "projecting success."  He saw through all of it for what it is - dust motes and the rise and fall of causes and conditions. 

Blessings upon his head...
 
 
 




~



 

 

 

 

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Accept Being Unimportant

 

Bend

 
 
"Bend"
Drift Log - Parker River Wildlife Refuge

Canon G7x Mark II
Snapseed
 


Thirteen

Accept disgrace willingly.
Accept misfortune as the human condition.

What do you mean by "Accept disgrace willingly"?
Accept being unimportant.
Do not be concerned with loss or gain.
This is called "accepting disgrace willingly."

What do you mean by "Accept misfortune as the human condition"?
Misfortune comes from having a body.
Without a body, how could there be misfortune?

Surrender yourself humbly;
    then you can be trusted to care for all things.
Love the world as your own self;
    then you can truly care for all things. 


~ Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching ~
Gia Fu Feng - Translator




~






Friday, June 17, 2022

Name Change

 

Edge 

 

"Edgy"

Canon G7x Mark II
Snapseed


I changed the title of the blog from "Great Wide World" (which - since I don't travel - seemed - oh - I don't know - ironic?), to something that has more fidelity to life here on the ground - "Being Nobody, Going Nowhere." I got the new title from a Boody Book of the same name by Ayyah Khema. The new name is closer to the way of things - both as they always have been and how they'll likely turn out. 
 
[Geek stuff - ignore if you're a civilian - the URL for the blog remains the same - as does the RSS feed name. Mailchimp emails should continue uninterrupted by these shenanigans..] 

Carry on...


 

 

~

 

 

 

Monday, January 31, 2022

Primal Union

 

 

Sarnath 

 

 

"Sarnath"

Nikon D5500
35.0mm @ f 1.8
LightRoom



FIFTY SIX
 
Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.

Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is primal union.

He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man.


Tao Te Ching
Gia Fu Feng Translation



The Tao Te Ching helped me more than any other book to survive the sharp corners, sharper elbows, and the unremitting, bloodless grind of the software industry. 
 
This particular chapter was extremely helpful in dealing with the scores of blowhards that populated the upper technical and managerial ranks at the Joe Big Ass Corp.

Now that I have been disposed of, I still find its advice compelling - especially the bit about keeping my mouth shut and tempering my sharpness.



~




Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Nothing

 

 

Plague Days 

 

 

Nothing whatsoever is worth clinging to.. 

~ The Buddha ~

 

 

 

~

 

 


Saturday, November 20, 2021

Looking

  

Fire watch



A recent post on Love Is A Place is a poem by Denise Levertov about looking. I love and connect with this poem.. 


I look and look.
Looking's a way of being: one becomes,
sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.
Walking wherever looking takes one.

The eyes
dig and burrow into the world.
They touch
fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor.
World and the past of it,
not only
visible present, solid and shadow
that looks at one looking.

And language? Rhythms
of echo and interruption?
That's
a way of breathing.

breathing to sustain
looking,
walking and looking,
through the world,
in it.


—Denise Levertov


...a pair of eyes walking... 

       right? innit?

 

~




Sunday, September 19, 2021

Whence


 

Surprise 

 

 

Someone asked Joju,

"Whence does a practitioner

of The Way receive

grace?"

"Where do you

not receive grace from?"

answered Joju.

 

 

 ~ Radical Zen: The Sayings of Joshu ~

(via One Hundred Days of Solitude)



~




Saturday, December 26, 2020

Responding to a Battered World



Jizo


The Buddha’s teachings were never about sending
bad people to bad places,
and sending good people to good places.
Instead, take those people heading towards bad places,
and help them move away from those paths.
This is how bodhisattvas respond.

Take good people  
and help them to forever move in good directions.
This how Buddhas respond.



~


 
 

 
~





Thursday, December 3, 2020

Never Look Away

 

Into the woods



“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

~ Arundhati Roy ~ 


I


~




Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Fin

 


Newbury Farm Sky



The job I've had for the last five years is ending soon and with it, no doubt, a thirty-nine year career in software will draw to a merciful close. 

I'll go from staring into a rectangular screen all day (and sometimes much of the night as well) to gaping at the sky and the land and pretty much anything else I feel needs a good staring-at. Day-to-day life will grow infinitely larger and more vibrant as I once again become an "outside dog", roaming around and sniffing in all the interesting corners - no longer tethered to a display, keyboard and mouse in exchange for money. 

Although it pays nothing whatsoever in the conventional sense of money for time, being an outside dog is important work.  Quinn Norton described it this way (bolding mine):

"It is good that in the body of this weak and tender African animal a piece of the universe has gazed upon itself, this tiny appendage of existence looked on everything its eyes and tools could drink in and experienced the most pure of wonder, the most terrible of awe. It is worth it, all of it, to even for a moment be the universe gazing upon itself. "
~ Quinn Norton ~ 


Parker River Wildlife Refuge





~




Monday, November 2, 2020

Groundlessness

 

Pratītyasamutpāda



When this exists, that comes to be.
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this does not exist, that does not come to be.
With the cessation of this, that ceases.

Samyutta Nikaya 12.61.



When one tugs at a single thing in nature, 
he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

~ John Muir ~



No, no, no, don't tug on that. 
You never know what it might be attached to.


~ Buckaroo Banzai ~



~