Thursday, June 18, 2020

practicing listening







I want to speak just briefly on the whole idea of universalism, since that’s what has brought us all together and I’d like to share a little bit about my own background. I was raised Catholic, and I’m now a Quaker – a member of the Celo Friends Meeting, which is part of Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting. I am also a practicing Buddhist, and I have had some experience in Native American religious tradition. This past summer, I had the pleasure of experiencing Hinduism in Indonesia. So when someone says, “What religion are you?” I give a different answer each time. The fact is, it really doesn’t matter what you call yourself. What I have found is that words are easy to come by, and I’ve heard many things said in the name of religion. What really matters is what people do with their lives. How they live out their faith and what they do with what they believe and what impact they have on the world and on their neighbors. That is the essence, I think, of religion. 
 ...
 Many times in social change movements, activists help polarize the situation. We create enemy images, just as anyone else does. They are the bad guys, we are the good guys. Or they are the people who don’t understand, and we are the people who do understand. So when we approach people in this way, they feel defensive and the potential for change actually decreases. We don’t really listen to people who disagree with us – listen to their fears and concerns – so they become even more polarized against us. Too many peace groups are largely isolated and seen as “outsiders” or fringe groups in their own communities. That was one of my primary reasons for starting the Listening Projects. I saw people in the peace movement going out to preach, to convert, to change people and tell them what was the right way, but very little true communication was happening. As you know, the minute you’re preached to, you become defensive, because the people preaching to you seem not to really care about who you are or what you believe. All they care about is changing you. 
 ...
 So the Listening Project was an attempt to break through the isolation and barriers that separate people into the good vs. the bad; liberal vs. conservative; hawks vs. doves. The Listening Project is an attempt, through deep listening and non-violence, to get down to the basic human values that really connect us all. These are the same values that connected my father and myself. Deep down in us all there is a desire for peace, for goodness and for justice. For each person those feelings come out in different ways and in some cases they get covered up, distorted or hidden by painful human experiences, by fear, insecurity or lack of knowledge. As children, we’ve all learned ideas from adults that we later found to be negative or problematic. My father grew up as a poor farm boy. He had no other opportunity to change his life than to join the military. The military became his way of understanding world issues. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with him that made him go into the military and want to use those kinds of solutions. It could have been me. Any of us could have ended up in the military instead of at a Quaker gathering about peace.
...
The Listening Project involves listening at a very deep level so that one builds a relationship of trust and respect between oneself and the person doing the speaking. We try to be non-judgmental and not react to things the other person may say. The other person must be allowed to start from where she or he needs to start. As this trust is built, people open up and begin to reconnect with their basic yearning for goodness and peace. What normally prevents that opening up from happening is a polarization process. People aren’t able to overcome their fears. When we tell them that what they think is all wrong, they feel that they have to defend themselves. So while we’re sitting there telling them what all the right answers are, they’re figuring out a way to say, “Yeah, but this is what I believe.” They defend their viewpoint. 
 ...
 Listening is a way of empowering people. It’s a way of saying to people, “What you think, what you feel and what you believe really counts and is important, and you can make a difference.” In Palau most of the people with whom we talked said they wanted more information and they wanted to get involved. In Southern communities and areas that are probably some of the most conservative areas in the country, we’ve gone in using a Listening Project and a large percentage of the people have said: “We do care. We want to get involved.” We’ve used projects to talk about social problems and military spending and we’ve found that people have never had the opportunity before to really explore their feelings and explore what they think and what might make a positive difference. One very important aspect of a Listening Project is that the group conducting the project is committed to following up with people who express an interest in getting involved. Listening Project participants are committed to acting on some of the input and ideas that come from people. So even after the active act of listening has concluded, a process of empowerment continues.




 ~ Herb Walters
excerpts from the article Adventures in Listening
find more here:  https://universalistfriends.org/walters.html




listening






What is deep listening?
Sema is a greeting from the secret ones
inside the heart, a letter.

The branches of your intelligence
grow new leaves in the wind of this listening.

The body reaches a peace.
Rooster sound comes,
reminding you of your love for dawn.

The reed flute and the singer's lips.
The knack of how spirit breathes into us
becomes as simple and ordinary as eating and drinking.

The dead rise with the pleasure of this listening.
If some cannot hear a trumpet melody,
sprinkle dirt on his head and declare him dead.

Listen and feel the beauty of your separation,
the unsayable absence.

There is a moon inside every human being.
Learn to be companions with it.
Give more of your life to this listening.

As brightness is to time, so you are 
to the one who talks to the deep ear in your chest.

I should sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears
when that one steps near and begins to speak.



~ Rumi
from The Big Red Book
translations by Coleman Barks




before listening







Before listening to the way, do not fail to wash your ears.
Otherwise it will be impossible to listen clearly.

What is washing your ears?
Do not hold on to  your view.
If you cling to it even a little bit,
you will lose your way.

What is similar to you but wrong, you regard as right.
What is different from you but right, you regard as wrong.
You begin with ideas of right and wrong.
But the way is not so.

Seeking answers with closed ears is
like trying to touch the ocean bottom with a pole.




~ Ryokan
from Sky Above, Great Wind



extraordinary concentrated affection





You know, when you have a small child with you, you listen to its cries, 
you listen to its words, its murmurs.  You are so concerned you listen;
 you may be asleep, but the moment he cries you wake up.  You are attentive
 all the time because the child is yours, you must care for it, you must love it, 
you must hold it.  You are so tremendously attentive that even though 
you are asleep, you wake up.  Now, with that same quality of attention, affection,
 care, you give to every movement of that child, could you watch the mirror 
which is yourself?  Not me, you are not listening to me: you are listening 
with that extraordinary concentrated affection and care to the mirror
 which is yourself, and to what it is telling you. 
 Will you do it?



J. Krishnamurti
from a talk at Saanen, July 18th, 1978




Wednesday, June 17, 2020

we conceal ourselves








Like cuttlefish we conceal ourselves, 
we darken the atmosphere in which we move; 
we are not transparent. I pine for one to whom
 I can speak my first thoughts; thoughts which
 represent me truly, which are no better and no worse than I; 
thoughts which have the bloom on them, which alone 
can be sacred and divine. Our sin and shame 
prevent our expressing even the innocent thoughts 
we have. I know of no one to whom I can
 be transparent instinctively. I live the life of the cuttlefish; 
another appears, and the element in which I move is tinged 
and I am concealed. My first thoughts are azure; 
there is a bloom and a dew on them; they are papillaceous feelers
 which I put out, tender, innocent.
 Only to a friend can I expose them.



~ Henry David Thoreau



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below high cliffs - ten poems





1

Below high cliffs
I slash and I burn
there's vegetables and grain
to boil and steam
to satisfy the present
to brighten old age
looking at a tree in the yard
I count its falls and springs

2

Below high cliffs 
my companions are the ancients
having reached the source
here I rest
others of more mystic persuasion 
study koans to death
wait beside stumps for rabbits
notch boats to find lost swords

3

Below high cliffs
all day I see plants
no sign of people
yellow leaves in the wind
birds call at dusk from the valley
the mountain moon rises at night
a crane takes flight from a pine
and showers my robe with dew

4

Below high cliffs
tigers and snakes are my neighbors
once I forgot my mind
their natures suddenly became tame
people born in this world
all have something divine
mouths of teeth heads of hair
why can't they be kind

5

Below high cliffs
unaware of the source
wherever you turn is karma
chaos and confusion
in order to see the truth
look beyond your senses
it's always been this way
the spring flows all around you

6

Below high cliffs
serene in solitude
not visited by time
the mind creates the world
the window holds a setting moon
the stove contains a dying fire
pity the sleeping man
startled from his butterfly dream

7

Below high cliffs
a white-haired old man
his robe with no hem 
his pants with no lets
practicing zazen at night
working his fields by day
herein lies the Path
where else could it be

8

Below high cliffs
I face a thousand mountains
one sense finds the source
all six relax
white clouds drift
green water ripples
beyond movement and stillness
there's another world

9

Below high cliffs
I don't dress up by body
I eat roots and wear plants
my socks are hemp my shoes are sedge
dense bamboo shades my windows
thick moss covers the steps in front
desires die in the quiet
cares disappear it's so still

10

Below high cliffs
you eat and sleep your fill
indulge desire and lethargy
idle away the months and years
until old age and illness arrive
and a thousand pains afflict you
digging a well when you're thirsty
you endure heat in vain





~ Stonehouse
from: Book Two Gathas, "The Zen Works of Stonehouse"
by Red Pine
art by Huang Kung-wang
.

.


dew light








Now in the blessed days of more and less
when the news about time is that each day

there is less of it I know none of that
as I walk out through the early garden

only the day and I are here with no
before or after and the dew looks up.
without a number or a present age


~ W. S. Merwin





in every moment



.
No one imagines that a symphony 
is supposed to improve in quality
 as it goes along or that the whole
 object of playing it is to reach
 the finale. The point of music
 is discovered in every moment
 of playing and listening to it. 
 
It is the same I feel with the 
greater part of our lives 
and if we are unduly absorbed
 in improving them we may forget
 altogether to live them.





~ Alan Watts
 
 
 

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

love is every only






love is every only god
who spoke this earth so glad and big
even a thing all small and sad
man,may his mighty briefness dig

for love beginning means return
seas who could sing so deep and strong

one querying wave will whitely yearn
from each last shore and home come young

so truly perfectly the skies
by merciful love whispered were,
completes its brightness with your eyes

any illimitable star




~ e.e.cummings



to my teacher



.




An old grave hidden away at the foot of a deserted hill, 
Overrun with rank weeds growing unchecked year after year; 
There is no one left to tend the tomb, 
And only an occasional woodcutter passes by. 
Once I was his pupil, a youth with shaggy hair, 
Learning deeply from him by the Narrow River. 
One morning I set off on my solitary journey 
And the years passed between us in silence. 
Now I have returned to find him at rest here; 
How can I honor his departed spirit? 
I pour a dipper of pure water over his tombstone 
And offer a silent prayer. 
The sun suddenly disappears behind the hill 
And I’m enveloped by the roar of the wind in the pines. 
I try to pull myself away but cannot; 
A flood of tears soaks my sleeves.




~ Ryokan
art by Thomas Wood






near






When the soul leaves the body, it is no longer under the burden 
and control of space and time.  The soul is free; 
 distance and separation hinder it no more.  

The dead are our nearest neighbors; they are all around us. 
 Meister Eckhart was once asked, Where does the soul of a person go
 when the person dies?  He said, no place.  Where else would the soul be going?
  Where else is the eternal world?  It can be nowhere other than here. 

 We have falsely spatialized the eternal world.  We have driven the eternal 
out into some kind of distant galaxy.  Yet the eternal world 
does not seem to be a place but rather a different state of being.  

The soul of the person goes no place because there is no place else to go. 
 This suggests that the dead are here with us, in the air that we are
 moving through all the time.  

The only difference between us the the dead
 is that they are now in an invisible form  You cannot see them 
with the human eye.  But you can sense the presence of those you love
who have died.  With the refinement of your soul, 
you can sense them.  You feel that they are near.




~ John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara
art by Roderick Maclver



maggie and milly and molly and may






maggie and milly and molly and may 
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang 
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing 
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone 
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) 
it's always ourselves we find in the sea




~ e. e. cummings



Monday, June 15, 2020

magna carta



.


.

Today is the anniversary of the day King John of England placed his seal on the Magna Carta, granting basic liberties to his subjects. He wasn't the first English king to grant a charter, but he was the first to have it forced on him by his barons. He had taxed the Church and the barons heavily to fund the Third Crusade, defend his holdings in Normandy, and pay for unsuccessful wars, and England was on the brink of civil war. The charter limited the monarchy's absolute power and paved the way for the formation of Parliament, and it is the nearest thing to a "Bill of Rights" that Britain has ever had. It guaranteed, among other things, that 

"No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land."

Of course, John had no intention of upholding the document, and it was repealed almost immediately on the grounds that he gave his seal under duress. But the idea had taken root, and through a succession of subsequent charters, it became the basis for the British legal system and, in turn, the legal systems of most of the world's democracies. Parts of the United States Constitution were lifted directly from the Magna Carta, and it is so central to our own idea of law that the American Bar Association erected a monument at the meadow of Runnymede. The yew tree, under which the signing is believed to have taken place, still stands.



Alive today, the yew tree at Runnymede has lived over 2,000 years.

with thanks to writers almanac





at home everywhere






In reality there is only the source, dark in itself,
making everything shine. 
Unperceived, it causes perception. 
Unfelt, it causes feeling. 
Unthinkable, it causes thought. 
Non-being, it gives birth to being. 

It is the immovable background of motion. 

Once you are there, you are at home everywhere.




–Nisargadatta Maharaj
from I am That
translated by Maurice Frydman



when pain is great







When the pain is great,
 go with the pain. 
Let it take you. 

Open your palms and your body to the pain. 
It comes in waves, like a tide, 
and you must be open as a vessel
 lying on the beach—letting it fill you up, 
and then retreating leaving you empty and clear.

 And with a deep breath
 (it has to be as deep as the pain) 
one reaches a kind of inner freedom from the pain,
 as though the pain that you experience 
were not yours but the body’s. 

The spirit lays the body on the altar.




~  Anne Morrow Lindbergh