grass stem
bends with the wind –
back and forth
grass stem
bobs this way, that way
heady with seed
looking sideways
the forest raven’s eye –
sharp and alert
Categories
Category: Miscellaneous
Categories
NEWSFLASH!
In the early hours of Wednesday morning a strange assembly of beings was sighted in a moonlit clearing online. The exact nature of this meeting remains unclear.
According to eyewitnesses it appeared to be a Council of some kind, where each being present stepped forward one after the other to say something. Conspicuously, no humans were present. Concern is mounting that the many beings may have something to say to us. The list of beings at the Council apparently included a were-tiger, mosquito, forest raven, fox, kookaburra, corella, black cockatoo, migrating bird, snake, ibis, ibex, kangaroo, spider, seeds, rainforest, elephant, mountain, sky and nasturtium.
Once the assembly had dispersed no evidence of their activity remained, save the lingering sound of a song or lament, wafting through the clearing like notes from a harp.
If you have any more information about this Council, or would like to reflect on its possible significance, please contact gassho@zenopencircle.org.au
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Click here listen to all the recordings from our Autumn Sesshin 2021…
Categories
Continuation…
As we celebrate Thich Nhat Hanh’s 94th birthday this weekend, here is a short teaching from 2014 on how we might more deeply understand birth, death, and transformation… ()
It seemed at the latest study group,
that the virtual ZOOM whiteboard was our shared
material cultural activity today;
our campfire.
“The primary mode of communication in yarns is narrative – the sharing of anecdotes, stories and experiences from the lived reality of participants. Might include sand talk. Physical demonstrations are included. Sharing drink or food is often part of the ritual (most commonly cups of tea today). Often yarning will occur around a shared material cultural activity like weaving, painting, string making, Ceremony preparation, crossword puzzles and setting up birthday party decorations.”
Sand Talk pg 132
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Singularity
by ~ Marie Howe
(after Stephen Hawking)
Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?
so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money—
nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone
pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.
For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you. Remember?
There was no Nature. No
them. No tests
to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf or if
the coral reef feels pain. Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;
would that we could wake up to what we were
— when we were ocean and before that
to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not
at all — nothing
before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.
Can molecules recall it?
what once was? before anything happened?
No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with
is is is is is
All everything home
Read by Roshi Susan Murphy…
Categories
You reading this, be ready
by ~ William Stafford (1993)
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
Pandemic
This poem by Lynn Ungar was shared in Roshi Susan’s first talk of Term 1 for 2020.
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Centre down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
Keeping Quiet
–– by Pablo Neruda (trans. Stephen Mitchell)
Now we will all count to twelve
and we will all keep still.This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.The fisherman in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,
if we could perhaps do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and everything is alive.Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go.
Categories
Two Voices of Covid-19
In this Council of All Beings, these two pieces have emerged expressing the voice of Covid-19… if you gave voice to Covid-19 what would be said?
- Letter from Covid-19 to Humans
- #Listen (VIDEO)
Letter from Covid-19 to Humans
Via – Kristin Flyntz 3.12.2020
Stop. Just stop.
It is no longer a request. It is a mandate.
We will help you.
We will bring the supersonic, high speed merry-go-round to a halt
We will stop
the planes
the trains
the schools
the malls
the meetings
the frenetic, hurried rush of illusions and “obligations” that keep you from hearing our
single and shared beating heart,
the way we breathe together, in unison.
Our obligation is to each other,
As it has always been, even if, even though, you have forgotten.
We will interrupt this broadcast, the endless cacophonous broadcast of divisions and distractions,
to bring you this long-breaking news:
We are not well.
None of us; all of us are suffering.
Last year, the firestorms that scorched the lungs of the earth
did not give you pause.
Nor the typhoons in Africa, China, Japan.
Nor the fevered climates in Japan and India.
You have not been listening.
It is hard to listen when you are so busy all the time, hustling to uphold the comforts and conveniences that scaffold your lives.
But the foundation is giving way,
buckling under the weight of your needs and desires.
We will help you.
We will bring the firestorms to your body
We will bring the fever to your body
We will bring the burning, searing, and flooding to your lungs
that you might hear:
We are not well.
Despite what you might think or feel, we are not the enemy.
We are Messenger. We are Ally. We are a balancing force.
We are asking you:
To stop, to be still, to listen;
To move beyond your individual concerns and consider the concerns of all;
To be with your ignorance, to find your humility, to relinquish your thinking minds and travel deep into the mind of the heart;
To look up into the sky, streaked with fewer planes, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, smoky, smoggy, rainy? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy?
To look at a tree, and see it, to notice its condition: how does its health contribute to the health of the sky, to the air you need to be healthy?
To visit a river, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, clean, murky, polluted? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy? How does its health contribute to the health of the tree, who contributes to the health of the sky, so that you may also be healthy?
Many are afraid now.
Do not demonize your fear, and also, do not let it rule you. Instead, let it speak to you—in your stillness,
listen for its wisdom.
What might it be telling you about what is at work, at issue, at risk, beyond the threats of personal inconvenience and illness?
As the health of a tree, a river, the sky tells you about quality of your own health, what might the quality of your health tell you about the health of the rivers, the trees, the sky, and all of us who share this planet with you?
Stop.
Notice if you are resisting.
Notice what you are resisting.
Ask why.
Stop. Just stop.
Be still.
Listen.
Ask us what we might teach you about illness and healing, about what might be required so that all may be well.
We will help you, if you listen.
Wise words from Ayya Jitindrya, an Australian Theravadin nun:
What is Covid-19 teaching us:
- That when fear arises and is not checked with mindfulness and wisdom, it can quickly escalate into madness, aggression and harm.
- That when correctly perceiving the immanent risk of illness or death (which is nonetheless ever at our doorstep), it is teaching us to value and care for one another.
- That when ordinary household and food supplies become thin-on-the-ground, it is teaching us to value our resources, to make what we have go further and not waste anything.
- That when times and circumstances change dramatically, it is not ‘the end of the world’, but the beginning of a new way of being – we can discover our adaptability and ingenuity, rediscover our humanity and creativity, and our ability to focus and be content with the small necessities of life and love for each other, rather than the constant entropic becoming of getting something else or going somewhere else!
- That in quietening down and being alone, if we can get over the initial hump of restlessness it does not have to be lonely, but an opportunity to breathe and settle and discover a certain kind of oneness, a connectedness at the centre of our being – (loneliness >> aloneness >> all-oneness)
- That when governments across the world are choosing to value lives over economies, it is showing us that we can change the world and our priorities dramatically and quickly, when we accurately perceive the threat to be real and immediate. If we can do this so purposefully with Covid-19, we can do this all the better with the imposing and immanent threat of climate chaos that requires immediate action to protect the whole of life on earth. On a relative scale, the threat of irreversible climate change is a far greater threat than Covid-19 actually poses to humanity and the earth, our home. And to make the necessary changes, it is not required to shut down the world economies, but rather to stimulate incredibly promising, new technologies across the sectors of energy and industry and dramatically reconsider the way people and objects of trade move around the globe perpetually, at a dreadful cost to the environment. And this, as opposed to Covid-19, could be a fantastically exciting change to move through, one that surges with economic growth for communities everywhere, as we actually have the intelligence and capabilities at our disposal right now – we only need to make the decision and change direction at the level of government, policy and industry. Now we can all see how easily that can be done if the threat is clearly perceived, and the response is a global one.
May we all realise and fathom these great teachings at our disposal during these times of unprecedented change and challenge!
Love and compassion is a doorway to peace and clarity. Peace and clarity is also a doorway to love and compassion. On either side of that doorway, there is also true freedom and fearlessness to be found, no matter what the conditions displaying themselves. This is really the ultimate teaching.
Ayya Jitindriya 25/3/202