Something Beautiful I Saw at the Chicago Botanic Gardens
Hope. by Kilikina
2016 iPad
Something Beautiful I Saw…Hope
Trends
I read this morning that the early Christian church took on the laws and structures of the Roman state.
It was when persecutions of Christians ceased and mandatory affiliation as a Christian became the norm.
It was an ancient trend.
Trends are nothing new, groups form and share what is attractive or
fashionable and trends take hold. There were, however, apparently some who felt the new structures, the new religious regime although widespread was not
favorable for spiritual awakening. In Christian terms, it might be said it was
not favorable for knowing God. It was a trend, a style of life that was in
vogue but may not have been helpful in spiritual awakening.
Where are we?
Our spiritual work is not a trend, although Zen seemed to offer a flashy
alternative for those who wanted to be in a chic spiritual practice.
The “church” whatever that might mean today, continues to struggle with ancient laws and structures of a Roman state. To affiliate with a particular denomination or religious dogma is not the norm today. Neither is popular from a worldly perspective to study the Dharma unless it is hip deep into psychology and brain science. These new interests may be all the rage in Buddhist and Christian circles but they do not serve the spiritual seeker, and they may not be a favorable environment for spiritual liberation.
The ego-self is happy to be in a dalliance with modern ideas.
In such an affair the ego remains strong, frivolous and the center of our lives. As long as the ego-self holds a central position our ability to know the Dharma is blocked.
What is the environment that matches an inner longing to awaken for you?
Is it to continue where you are, as you are?
Or is there a sense of seeking that is not quenched by the material world of psychology, science or even religious laws and dogma?
It seems there may be a sense of foolishness that conflicts with an inner sense of purpose and we get stuck on this ledge. It is on this ledge we battle and may live out the short life we have been given in an inner skirmish between the ego and the Dharma.
We don’t want to be seen as fools but we do want to know our purpose. The ego continuously bangs the door shouting, “You fool!” when we consider devotion to the Dharma as our purpose.
Devotion of this sort requires guts and a keen sense of inner loyalty to this
devotion. This type of devotion is not understood by the material world.
Where is your allegiance?
This work demands a greater honesty than psychological analysis, where defenses are reworked and rebuilt in more “appropriate” and “healthy” ways. A mask of defenses is still a mask and it disguises and blocks knowing the Truth.
As human beings, we tend to relate to everything as “mine” and this masquerade although often acceptable in the material world is a death mask in the spiritual realm.
Let me give a little example.
When we are alone, feeling blue or lonely we tend to want to find a way to get rid of this feeling. We hunt for things to make this feeling go away.
The dispelling of the feeling often takes the form of what can I do to feel better? Call a friend? Do something? The sense of “me” is central. This is the human condition and is normative in the material world.
What about “me?”
How do I look after “me?”
If we seek help from the material world, we will get directions on how to get what we need or how to get what we want so we won’t feel “lonely” or “blue.” We can barely imagine another way, a way that looks for the Dharma of the feeling, of the moment, of what is actually going on in a given circumstance. It is similar to being in the darkness, when we are in the darkness we hunt for a light switch to end the darkness. What if we remained with the feeling, facing whatever it is as God’s voice, the voice of the Dharma rather than reacting to an inner impulse to escape the feeling?
What if we met it, met the feeling as part of our interior landscape without rationalization or even reason, but just to meet it. It requires an allegiance and devotion to seeing everything, the whole panorama of inner experience as the voices and sights of Dharma and letting go of the topography as “MINE.” It means accepting whatever is happening, wherever we are, as our life. This inner geography is our spiritual life with God whether we see it or not. It requires relinquishing fantasy for something to be better.
This practice is an expedition of leaving “ME and MINE” and crossing into the unfamiliar spiritual geography of solitude, silence and wholehearted engagement with the diversity of the Dharma, the assortments of God.
Nothing in Life Has Lines Around It | We Draw the Lines By Yao Xiang Shakya
What is true everywhere, for everyone…all the time?
We are born, we appear, we get sick, we grow old and we die. That is true everywhere, for everyone…all the time. It is the cycle of life. Yet, in the propaganda of the mind, the ground of fabrication, we are drawn away from the true line of events over and over again. Instead, we look at the lines we draw, those imaginary lines drawn in the shifting sands of the material world of the mind.
We spend most of our time drawing these lines, pulling on them, reeling them in, darkening them, and continuing them in order to maintain the ignorance of our puny view. We insist. We prolong. We protract. We believe.
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
We ask. Is this admonition enough?
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
But our puny view wants more when we look, we want to look for some entertainment, we want to look like somebody, and we want to look acceptable.
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
We look for more.
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
No matter what the circumstances, we are advised to look, look, look.
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
There is no direction given, no proposition, no hint of what to look for or what to look at.
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
Here is a story of a man in misery who goes to the sage for some advice.
“I am so sad and unhappy,” the man declares as he looks into the face of the sage.
The sage nods his head and whispers, “I see.”
“Yes. I am miserable.”
Again the sage nods his head and repeats. “I see.”
The man decides to define and draw out his sadness.
“I am miserable because I want to go into business.”
“Look! Look! Look!” the sage begins.
The man is uncertain, does not know what the sage means for him to do. The man decides to further explain his situation.
“I am miserable because I want to go into business, but I have no money.”
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage again.
The man wants to clarify further.
“I am miserable because I have no money to go into business. If I had money, I could go into business.”
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
The man takes a deep, coarse breath and begins to feel anger in his misery.
“I don’t think you are listening to me. I am sad and miserable because I have no money to go into business and I have no way of getting any money to go into business.”
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
Now the man begins to forget about his sadness and misery of having no way to get the money to go into business and begins to raise his voice at the sage.
“You are not listening to me. I am telling you I have no way to get the money to go into business!”
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
The man begins to feel a burning in his body and in his mind. His sadness and misery begin to be overtaken by the fire of anger and hate. He wants to yell and scream at the sage.
“Look!” the man shouts. “Listen to me! You are not listening to me! All you keep saying is this stupid thing….look, look, look…what in hell does that have to do with the fact that I am miserable because I have no way to get the money to go into business.”
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
The man crumples over in an agony of rage, sorrow and misery. He begins to weep. His hands are on the floor in fists. He wants to pound something. He is as the saying goes, beside himself. The sage looks at him and touches the top of his head and says,
“Look! Look! Look!” says the sage.
This is the Way to have a simple life. This is the Way of simplicity.
“Look! Look! Look!”
What is true everywhere, for everyone…all the time?
Reference for Nothing in Life Has Lines Mike Sibley, Drawing from Line to Life.
Don’t Lament Death, Watch Your Step
Don’t Lament Death, Watch Your Step
by Yao Xiang Shakya
Last week I was asked to speak at a memorial service for one of the members of our small community here. It was a talk for a woman who had many friends, friends that supported her at the end of her life with daily phone calls, body massage, meals delivered…friends that helped her manage and navigate the medical system…with appointments and medications, with surgery and rehab, from diagnosis through treatment and prognosis. Helping her every step of the way… from the first, unexpected fall in her backyard to her last breath.
In the middle of a heavy duty diagnosis…in the middle of the hard work of dying…this woman gave her dog away, arranged schedules for others to visit her, managed her bill paying, transportation to and from doctor visits and hospital; ate chocolate, drank coffee, complained, laughed, argued, cried and talked on the phone and let others see her in the most vulnerable situations. She allowed others to see her body diminish, her feelings come and go, her impulses push and pull, her dreams disappear until her consciousness ended and her breath returned to the One.
Life goes on…even though she knew she was dying…the material world, the everyday world made demands on her…even though she knew she was dying. Perhaps the BIG difference between her and us is in awareness. She did not lament death, she watched her step. As her body weakened, she began to know she was dying while her life continued. She was given a glimpse into what we often ignore. She began to know firsthand the material world makes demands on us in the middle of our dying.
She hit the jackpot. Her diagnosis gave her the treasure of time and awareness to know she was dying. She could tie up loose ends, make amends and let others love her.
Early on she told me “I am not afraid to die, I am afraid to suffer.” Her words suggest a real and present insight into the human condition, into her human condition, into our human condition.
We all are going to die and we don’t want to suffer. We are all going to die and life continues to make demands on us even though we are dying. It’s no use lamenting death. It’s still required we watch our next step.
We all are faced with this condition, but not all of us are aware of it.
When someone we know, someone we admire and respect, someone we care about dies we are given a small pot of gold. The death is a small glimmer into our human condition. It is a reminder, another chance to reflect on where we are and what is going on here.
As all things come to awaken us, death comes to awaken us.
We can’t stop death. We continue to respond to life as it comes. We do our very best knowing we are going to die. We meet the demands of our life in every circumstance. We remember this earth is a temporary situation for each one of us. It’s not a time to mourn, but a time to remember and awaken.
In the face of loss, we are given another chance to see close-up where we are. It’s a time to see clearly, to know directly what it means to let go, to relinquish everything, to see the impermanence of the material world and to know the insubstantial nature of the human condition.
Don’t lament death. It comes to awaken. Don’t take life too seriously. Do your best, your very best knowing you are going to die. Take the pot off your head and see for yourself what’s the next step.
The Way Through
A Way Through
Life seems simpler if we blot out awareness of its mystery, but such a life is an impoverished one. There is a dimension to ourselves, the most essential dimension, which it is folly to ignore. Patricia Wright’s Gate is a delicate image of this. She shows us the complexities of a normal existence – lines in confusion, with hints of gridded order behind, to which we are not privy. As we move to the center, the lines grow ever more clotted and chaotic: who can understand the meaning of events that make up our conscious experience – in relationships, in business, or whatever? But the swirls of events are the context wherein is held the gate. It is a real but shadowy presence, a way through, a possibility. If we allow silence to open up within, we shall see the gate and be free to open it. Sister Wendy Beckett, Meditations on Silence.
The decision to end the Sunday meditation at A Single Thread is both clear and fitting for this new dimension of practice. It is, however, not a decision to stop practice but to embrace it in the middle of the swirls of change where the gate to liberation is in a frame of silence, solitude, sitting, and study; it is a Way Through in the middle of the complexity of our lives.
No one is able to do the work for another. The Way Through is …a real but shadowy presence which requires that we do the work to see the gate and go through.
The Cardinals by Elliot W. Lesser
When I walk into her apartment, into the small entranceway where she greets me, takes my coat — hugs and kisses me with agape’ affection — directs me with her hand on my arm, into her main living space, the first thing I notice is that she has candles lit. One or two, on tables or bookcases up against each of three walls of the room. The room is aglow with soft light.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she says. “I’m getting the champagne. We will celebrate.”
I feel my body relax letting go of some of the tension I feel, heaviness that has been with me all day. Much of my time was spent looking out of my office window instead of working. I shouldn’t have come.
I am in no mood for conversation – especially worthless babble. I intended to develop a new time management plan today — to implement tomorrow— but I didn’t get to it…that bothers me. I feel sluggish…like stagnant water.
She is an intelligent, highly educated woman — an extremely beautiful woman — but I never met a woman yet who didn’t do some kind of Jibber-Jabber.
I’m in no mood for the multitudinous questions that will arise when two people know so little about each other. After so many years in this game, I am tired of the interviewing process that takes place. I have often thought of writing a resume, handing it to a woman, and saying, “Here, this is who I am, what I have of offer, what I am looking for? If you’re interested, call me, if not, let’s not waste your time or my time.”
But of course I never do that. It would be crass. It’s the dreariness of this day that’s making me think about this stuff.
My eyes go to the credenza, which is up against the fourth wall. This is the main focus of the room, or the center stage, so to speak. There are six pillar candles lit…each one six inches tall, all flickering in rose-colored glass containers.
They surround a dark wine colored vase that holds six small two-toned pink carnations, at least eight to ten white daisies and other small white flowers that look like baby lilies. They look so serene. So carefree. So fresh and new.
At each end of the credenza enclosing the candles and the flowers, as if in the edges of a painting are two frames…in one frame on the left side is the picture of a lovely little tan cardinal, on the other side in the other frame is the larger magnificent red cardinal – the male.
She must be a bird lover.
• • • •
“ I thought a credenza was a type of buffet used in a dining room?” I said as she came in with a tray, a bottle of unopened champagne and two champagne glasses. She had served cheese and crackers.
She laughed. “ Well, yes, but these days we use our imagination and make use of furniture in whatever way we need to. The word credenza has its roots in the Latin word credere, which means “to believe.” Then, in medieval Latin, the word became credentia and then in Italian credenza. You can pop the cork,” she said. “ I imagine you are an expert at opening Champagne.”
‘ I never did this,’ I think to myself, smiling as I took the bottle and acting like I knew what I was doing. ‘ I had seen other people do it….I saw how they held the bottle so I got into position.’
“It is likely that the modern credenza was inspired by the credence, a long table used in the Catholic Mass to hold items for the liturgy.”
‘For Christ’s sake, she’s a holy dervish or something like that?’I thought there was something odd about her.
“Its first known secular use was as a sideboard for nobility where food would be placed and taste-tested by servants for poison.”
At that moment, there was a resounding pop and some of the champagne ended on her face and mine.
Laughing she said…“You are so much fun . . . let’s celebrate!”
_____________________________
Copyright All Rights Reserved 2016 Photo Credit: Elliot W. Lesser, 2016
A Bite of an Apple
Holy Objects
Holy objects point to wholeness, not to the literal or concrete. Icons are one example of a holy object. It is not a mere symbol. A symbol suggests a contract or signa as a means of identification as in a badge. An icon is something greater. It shows a slice of something bigger.
When we enter a space we search for holy objects to determine whether we fit in as an ally. In a real sense, we are searching for the holy object. We look for the power of it to teach us something bigger than what is given within the confines of the frame of the object. We tend do this whether we know it or not.
The more universal the icon, the more widespread power it has.
A good question to start off is, “What is the icon image of my life as it is?” To begin to see your life as holy (wholeness) begins to broaden and deepen your place in the world. It, in some way, reveals the power of holiness.
In order to understand this, consider your big toe. It is not just a big toe, it is part of a team of toes, and the team is part of a foot which is part of a leg, which is part of a body, which is part of being. The big toe suggests something larger. Your life suggests something larger.
- How does your life complete the wholeness (holiness) of being?
- What is the bigger context of the frame of my life?”
In other words, we discover who we are in the eternal mosaic of being alive.
Attention to what shows up is a venerable and reliable method of this discovery. It will, if you give it some effort help you find out the bigger context, the holiness, of the icon called ‘your life.’
It requires effort to discover what is hidden in the frame of your life. It may sometimes feel like a coded message, but it might be better understood as a veiled bride or bridegroom waiting to be revealed. And…there is the possibility that somethings are meant to remain hidden. And hidden brightness requires a quiet, restful stance of faith.
Vanishing — Look, But Do Not Touch
Look, But Do Not Touch
My friend is dying. My children no longer see me as who we brought forth together. The arrival of both makes clearer for me that I spend much time and effort trying to be, when I already am. Wiser for me to let go and look for what is already there.
I will not be known.
Neither will I be remembered.
I will be remembered briefly, but not known.
I will not be known, but remembered, then forgotten.
I work to create memories of me for no one.
Let go of the work.
Surrender, rest here.
And welcome the wind that will carry me away.
Photo and text by Zhong Fen li Bao yu Di
Learning My Self: Unnamed Art.Nomads in the Memory Arbor by Jiaoyuan Qian Yue
In the beginning…
The art teacher comes on Wednesdays, one thirty to two thirty.
I go to help.
The table is set. At each place is painting paper taped to a foam core board; two brushes, a wide one and a small one; a plastic bowl of water; a pallet of paints. The residents come, invited or enticed. Some come. Some can’t. Instructions for the day’s subject are given which everyone forgets.
We make it up as we go.
Connie sits at the end of the table. She likes her space. Independent and feisty she wants no help and complains when she doesn’t get it. She knows a lot about art but now sits confused, not knowing what to do first.
“I don’t know what to do”, she says.
“No one will help me.”
So we help her get started. Her once clear colors have become muddy.
Bev is happy, funny and a flirt. She is no longer anxious to go home to get supper for her boys. She doesn’t remember. She needs a hand holding hers to help her paint.
“That’s lovely, Bev,” I say. “Do you want me to hold it up so you can see it?”
Bev says it’s pretty.
“Who painted it?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“You did!”
“I did? I did pretty good!” She laughs.
“You can write your name in this white space, Bev.”
Her hand with pencil swoops down to make its mark, then up again and down and up like a bird and down, never quite landing.
“Do you want me to write your name for you?”
“Yes. I need to go visit those people,” she says, nodding toward someone else’s company.
Joanne is a professional, a gifted artist, prolific in her day. She doesn’t cry anymore because she can’t do what she used to do. She paints and studies her work, thoughtfully determining what it needs next. She paints beyond the boundaries of the tape.
“You can write your name here, Joanne,” we tell her when she is done.
She writes her whole name in her beautiful script. Two weeks later when again she is invited to write her name on her painting, she prints W.R.I.T.E.1.2.3.
Jean is almost completely blind. She says she doesn’t know anything about art but she makes colors dance across the paper. She is pleased as punch.
“I like it,” she says. “It’s happy.”
Karen doesn’t want to paint.
“You do it! You can do it!” she commands in her gravelly voice.
Hand in hand we paint a great, multicolored heart for Valentine’s Day, the last painting she will do.
“There’s a big white space here, Karen. Do you want to paint some words? Maybe, I Love You?”
“I love you! I love you! I love you,” she growls.
“I love you too, Karen.”
“Well!” scowls Connie from the other end of the table. “I’m glad you two are happy!”
Father Jim isn’t much one for painting. He paints three bright colors on his paper and then leaves, mumbling something about having to go visit the sick.
Shirley taught art in collage when she was young. She’s quiet and smiles a Mona Lisa smile when you greet her. She is blind in her left eye due to a stroke so her painting fills only the right side of the paper, which is all that she can see. Her painting is fine, delicate, and very beautiful. She paints nothing in particular and it says everything.
“Shirley, How do you know what color to use?” someone asks.
“I think,” she replies.
Carol won’t paint. Sometimes she acts out. She wanders.
“Will you be with me?” she asks.
“In a little while, Carol. I am helping with the painting right now.”
“I don’t mean right now. I mean in eternity.”
“Oh, yes. We’ll have lots of time there.”
She smiles.
She says,
“I’m lonely.”
In the end.
Liz and Mary Mantra, Untitled Prayer, Undertow
Liz and Mary Mantra
May I find the peace, the calm, the strength to let go of my craving…
wanting to know, wanting to have, wanting to be.
May I surrender and rest right here.
Do not wander. Do not wander.
Liz is my teacher. Mary is my friend and retired teacher who travels to be with family and friends, working on whatever needs to be done. I see her for the month of June when she arrives at the farm. She retreats during the winter to live in her tent in the desert.
Photo and text: Zhong Fen li Bao yu Di
Untitled Prayer
Tormented souls surround me.
I am one myself.
Some I choose to like.
Others I do not.
Some I choose to love.
Some I can forgive.
Others I choose to condemn with my fear or hate.
This is a madness.
All are suffering.
Some crack slightly.
Some shatter.
Some explode.
Many love in the midst of their suffering.
As always, they parade before me,
One after another.
May I bear witness
Offering only my love.
Zhong Fen li Bao yu Di
UNDERTOW
Submerged in the rippling water,
My toes gently sink in the sand.
I step into the next wave,
And feel a strong pull as it recedes.
A riptide can be dangerous,
But it is I who make it so.
My fear of disappearing,
Of leaving all behind,
Keep me from the joy of the deep water.
I cling to the shoreline,
And imagine what it will offer.
Let me possess the calm and faith
To go instead with what my heart knows.
To go out willingly with the riptide,
To swim in the swells of deep waters.
Zhong Fen li Bao yu Di
Photo: Zhong Fen li Bao yu Di