Dread and Bliss

"The person who has not, in a moment of firm resolve, accepted—yes even rejoiced in—what has struck him with terror—he has never taken possession of the full, ineffable power of our existence. He withdraws to the edge; when things play out, he will be neither alive nor dead.

To discover the unity of dread and bliss, these two faces of the same divinity (indeed, they reveal themselves as a single face that presents itself differently according to the way in which we see it): that is the essential meaning and theme of both my books (The Sonnets to Orpheus and The Duino Elegies).

—Rainer Maria Rilke

Wasp Dreams

Awake, thirsty, hungry, I fly
from parchment nest through woods
to the porch where I feasted last night
on shreds of barbecued chicken thigh.

Seeking, now, a morning meal
I blunder heedlessly, hapless
into sticky woven threads
strung between porch and post

both wings held fast—web sways
who’s this? wrapping me, spinning me
swaddling me tight in silky sheets
bound, secure, attentively embraced

her mouthpart—painless—a spider’s kiss
i liquify, am drunk, a dreadful bliss.


******************
You can listen to this sonnet here:

  Wasp Dreams by Dan Gurney 

Miracles Everywhere: A Moment in Kindergarten

"When we live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere."  —Thich Nhat Hahn

As snack time got underway, I found a chair at M’s table and sat down with her and three of her friends—four five year olds whose combined 20 years on earth total about one-third of my almost 60 years around here.

M. had brought the apples—crisp organic Galas we had just cored and sliced into wedges.

I lifted one of the apple wedges to my mouth and bit off a small piece. Closing my eyes I slowly crushed it between my molars and let sweet juice mix with my saliva. Slowly, I chewed this little morsel again and again, slowly, until the last of its form liquified into a formless, pulpy juice. I swallowed,  emptying my mouth of all but a lingering sweetness. I let my eyes open and said, “Apple trees are so magical.”

“Magical? Apple trees?”

“Oh, yes!” I went on. “Deep, deep magic—a miracle, really.”

“It’s just a regular apple,” M said somewhat skeptically. I wondered if I had made too much of a spectacle eating this one bite of apple.

“Yes, it’s a regular apple! Regular apples are miracles!  Clouds become millions of raindrops and fall to the earth and soak into the ground. Apple trees have roots that sip the water out of the soil. Somehow trees also know how to pull out of the soil just exactly the right minerals they need to make wood, bark, leaves, and apples, using sunlight for power and ancient magic they got from their ancestors for the how-to-do-it. They made the sweet juice and crispy apple flesh that just filled my mouth. It’s a miracle that apple trees know how to do this.”

I took a second bite of the wedge and closed my eyes again. I decided to simply enjoy the flavorful moment and not to go on about seeds and oxygen.

Seducing the formless into form

My daily practice these days takes about an hour and typically includes:

• waking at 5 AM
• dream journaling (assuming there’s a dream worthy of it),
• a quick yoga routine,
• playing a Native American flute,
• reading poetry—Hafiz, Rumi, Rilke, for now
• 20 minutes or a little bit more of Samantha (concentration) meditation.

I finish up by cultivating the intention to awaken kindness, compassion, and wisdom throughout the day ahead.

From there it’s off to the living room for tea with my wife.

Today this poem by Hafiz spoke out:

only

 

that illumined 

one
 

who keeps
 

seducing the formless into form
 

had the charm to win my

heart
 

only a perfect one

 

who is always

laughing at the word

two
 

can make you know

of

Love

Arachnid Dreams

How I wish that in the space of one
night’s darkness I could weave a spiral galaxy of silk
designed by my ancestors
and mysteriously bestowed to me from some deep

time before time. I would doze in the morning sun,
amid my particular array of glistening dewdrops
and—rocked by soft morning breezes,
and at the edge of sleep—

snooze until some flighty insect blunders into my gossamer-spun
dream. Waking, I would swaddle my breakfast in silky attention
wrapping and comforting this trembling body before sipping
guts gently inside me and swallowing them deep

the better to digest heedlessness into filaments
that I can string in the sun to be jeweled with dew.

—Dan Gurney


  Arachnid Dreams by Dan Gurney 

Polar Bear

My friend, Sandy Eastoak, had a poetry reading at one of my town's tea shops this evening. She read praise poems.

I particularly like this one, an arctic love story. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.


polar bears

do you remember
ice fishing

it was maybe six
eight hundred years
ago

a happy life, that one
& simple

we met as children

watching each other
cautiously at
first then running
wild over the meadow
just emerging from piled
snow

small wildflowers
laughing as loud as
we singing
beside the new
rivulets
stomachs grumbling
for our forgotten
dinner

our families traveled
with different herds
so sometimes weeks would
pass then sometimes
you’d come with
mine or i’d go

they all winked
happy at our glad
games & looking toward
fertile

& it came

first ecstasy
then understanding
deeper & easier
season by season

& the small son
who rose the sun in
your eyes & made  you
silly

then the daughter
& you discovered how
your hands could
twist beauty everywhere
in bone fiber dye

she made you known
for craft that became
our people’s as you
taught

one winter day when our children
had grown beyond
we caught five fish against hunger
when the white bear came
we saved ourselves
by losing our
food

but your were angry
even your cool wisdom
left you crazy
over this one thieving
bear

we talked with death
in our lodge
& you went across
the frost hard ground
to meet him
just your knife
you’d carved magic
in the handle
i’d sung the
blade

you tracked the bear
& met him on
the ice
where you baited the
scene with new
fish

& when he came with
fangs roaring
you stood & spat
your secret words

i followed &
watched
the two of you
grappling

i lost the easy man
of innocence
& gained the bear man
of power

you cleaned the skin
& made the robe that
marked you
you gave the meat
to everyone & all
the dogs
songs & sparks
lit the long
night

i was a singer
now everyone wanted to hear
i glowed with
your honor
carried your light like the
sun in my two
hands

love lit winter
bright as midsummer
the taste of berries
was always on our
lips

our grandchildren
were favored & kept
faith with the people’s
fondness
each giving full

their broad smiles
made you laugh &
grow ever more
generous

after years you
weakened
one day you said
i will not pass
another winter
readied me, promising
to stay close
until i

one morning you
lay in my arms
counting every sky
wide & beautiful because
i was there
& i counted every
earth fragrant & solid
because of
you

you stayed close
the grandchildren
were happy to see me
talking with you
i missed your
body

seasons later
i said i’m going to your grandfather
walked over the ice
to find your bear’s
descendant

when she brought her
sharp teeth to my throat
i was already flying
glad & grateful
your welcome big
as the whole sky

do you remember
ice fishing

Karma Etheree*

Some Taoists believe that each of us has 36,000 gods and goddesses living inside us. We please these deities in us when we think good thoughts, eat good food, and take proper care of our physical, emotional, social, and spiritual health. But if we abuse ourselves, they’ll get up in disgust and leave.

Thich Nhat Hahn says that we honor our forebears and our offspring by cultivating mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom.

While thinking about these things, I composed this Etheree.

look.
every
breath i draw
each word i say
every bite i eat
touches for good or ill
my children, grandchildren and
unseen future generations.
each action pleases or displeases
all my forebears, human and otherwise.

—Dan Gurney

*********************************
*Consisting of ten lines, the Etheree poem starts with a one syllable line, then adds one syllable per line, ending with a final line of ten syllables yielding an overall syllable count of 55. In other words the syllabic structure is as follows: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10. It’s an uncomplicated, unpretentious form of poetry that has the quality of slowly opening, like a flower.  Try composing one—you may like it!

Hope for the Future

Inspiring kid. There's hope in the future. This is proof.

Pro- Procrastination

"Procrastination isn't the problem. It's the solution. So procrastinate now. Don't put it off."

—Ellen DeGeneres

I love epigrams like this.

Another is ee cummings, "Think twice before you think."

Such epigrams amuse me because so much of our human activity seems concerned with undoing some earlier doing.

We get so busy fixing our mistakes and that we make unforeseen new mistakes to fix later. It occurs to me that the most helpful thing to do in many situations is to sit back, take stock, and take a baby step in what you think is the direction to go. Of course, my mind is running pleasantly down this channel because my wife wants to clean out the garage—a task we've avoided for a couple of years—by Monday.

Probably best to get out of my pajamas and get my work clothes on.

Forever

This is something young children know——until they're given an education.

Later on, lucky ones may learn again——from spiritual teachers, poets, or whatever——the nowness they knew before they got to kindergarten.

What a clock looks like to a young child.

"Forever is composed of nows."

—Emily Dickenson

Holiday Blessings, 2010

My holiday blessing to all readers of Mindful Heart and everyone else, inclusive of all life—


May kindness and caring wash through me, through my loved ones, and through the whole web of life;
May wisdom and compassion wash through me, through my loved ones, and through the whole web of life;
May gratitude and serenity wash through me, through my loved ones, and through the whole web of life—

Breath after breath,
Minute after minute,
Hour after hour,
Day after day,
Week after week,
Month after month,
Year after year,
Life after life

Cry Easily

A poem-gift from Rumi. At Christmas, keeping our grief glistening can help us connect with our loved ones—those closest to us.

The tender heart at the center of our sentience wants us to attend to its hurting. Desire for caring/healing/wholeness connects us to each other and to all life.

The web of life is love. 

Attending to our tender hearts with love can transform the hurting energy into the joy we wish to feel (and cannot buy) at Christmas.

Rumi says it most eloquently and succinctly.

 

Cry Easily

Keep your intelligence white-hot
and your grief glistening
so your life will stay fresh.
Cry easily like a little baby.

—Rumi

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

I was particularly taken with winter solstice 2010 because on that night a spectacular lunar eclipse coincided with the solstice.

Here in my corner of California the clouds parted just enough to have peeks at the moon as the earth’s shadow fell on La Luna. Then, as if by magic, just the eclipse became complete, the clouds almost disappeared. As spectacular meteor flashed from east to west across the dark and starry sky.

In moments like that, Earth/Moon/Sun’s splendor are so obvious. Small wonder that people have celebrated the winter solstice for many thousands of years.

Here’s a splendid photo taken by amateur astronomer Bob Johnson and shared on his blog Black Holes and Astro stuff.

[Click Photo to enlarge]

It just made me want to sing!

I’m not the first to observe that many of our familiar Christmas holiday customs are actually adaptations of winter solstice celebrations which came before the Christian era.

Here at Mindful Heart I’d like to offer a lovely response to that comparatively recent history. My friend, Sandy Eastoak has borrowed the melody of a familiar Christmas Carol and offers us these words celebrating the winter solstice. We sang it at our meeting Tuesday night.


O Flourish All Ye Gentle Folk
(sung to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”)
by Sandy Eastoak


O, flourish all ye gentle folk, let nothing you dismay,
Remember that the sun returned to us on solstice day,
To save us all from winter’s cold and hunger’s cruel way—
O, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
O, tidings of comfort and joy.

O, deepen all ye seeking truth, let nothing you impede,
Remember that the winter’s dark can nourish winter’s seed,
Silent changes grow within and to compassion lead—
O, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
O, tidings of comfort and joy.

O, celebrate ye thankful folk, let nothing you delay,
The miracle of light and dark renews us every day,
Winter, spring,summer, fall all year the seasons play—
O, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
O, tidings of comfort and joy.

Be trustful all ye gracious folk, enjoy the season’s peace
Renewal of the earth’s sweet green for eons will not cease
Each winter time our hearts can rest our burdens all release—
O, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
O, tidings of comfort and joy.

Rejoice now all ye gentle folk be patient come what may
Remember that the sun returns each winter solstice day
That passing through the darkest time we find our brightest way—
O, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
O, tidings of comfort and joy.



*******************************************************************
Coda:

I think one of the best things about this season is it is an excuse for us to sing with folks we know informally, spontaneously, without shame or any need to explain.

And, allow me to pass along Ruth Mowry’s  blessing—

Let’s warm up together like birds on a bough
And remember the year we’ve shared until now
Our flights have been wild, our songs wide and clear
May we scout, soar and sing
Even freer next year!

Link to Ruth Mowry’s blog, synch-ro-ni-zing

Link to Bob’s interesting blog: Blackholes and Astrostuff

What We Can Give?

At this time of year, it can be helpful to remember that giving can mean more than exchanging holiday material gifts.

What else can we give to each other?

In the Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings, Thich Nhat Hahn identifies six aspects of giving.

We can give our:

PRESENCE: spending time with people

STABILITY: being loving and calm, without harboring anger, stress, sadness

MATERIAL GIFTS: within one's means, to those who are impoverished

FRESHNESS: wholeness, beginning anew, offering forgiveness

UNDERSTANDING: wisdom; offering support and reassurance to the ill and dying, so they do not feel alone

SPACIOUSNESS: non-clinging, practicing equanimity by tempering our demands of people.

"When we give these things, they grow in abundance in ourselves, and this can be applied globally as well."
Thich Nhat Hanh

Wishing all of you abundant riches as described above!

(Thanks to my good friend, Debra Birkinshaw who gave me this reminder to pass along here!)

Singing and Dancing

The Society of Friends will meet Tuesday night to close out our discussion of Jack Kornfield's compilation of basic Buddhist teachings called The Teachings of the Buddha. Among the passages we'll discuss is this sublime expression by Hakuin in the Song of Zazen:



Effect and cause are the same;
the Way is neither two or three.
With form that is no form,
going and coming, we are never astray;
with thought that is no-thought,
even singing and dancing are the voice of the Law.

How boundless and free is the sky of Awareness!
How bright the full moon of wisdom!
Nirvana is right here, before our eyes;
this very place is the Lotus Land;
this very body, the Buddha.

Excerpt from The Song of Zazen by Hakuin Zenji
adapted from the translation by Robert Aitken

I feel very fortunate to have a live-and-in person group to explore Buddhist teachings, and also very fortunate to have this wider audience through blogging.

EARTHLINGS

I saw recently a movie called “Earthlings” by Shaun Monson. I learned of it from blog pal, Sabio Lantz at Triangulations.

This movie was very difficult for me to watch. Some scenes were so painful that I turned my eyes away. But I’ve come to know that suffering arises, as the Buddha taught, from ignorance. If watching this movie would dispel some of my ignorance and empower me relieve some small bit of the suffering in this world, then, painful as it might be to watch—and it was very painful to watch, I must make myself see it.

I am almost sixty years old, and I felt my naïveté evaporate as I watched this movie. It is only about an hour and a half long but felt, without question, like the longest movie I’ve ever seen.

This movie disabused me of some of my delusion about animals as they encounter humans, a delusion I have a hand in perpetuating. As a kindergarten teacher I often paint fairy tale picture about animal husbandry practices in the America today, a fairy tale which suggests the norm in America is something resembling the  Arable’s family farm in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. (My son reminds me that in some parts of the world, as in Togo, West Africa, where he just spent two years in the Peace Corps, people follow more humane animal husbandry practices.)

This movie, Earthlings, takes an unflinching—and horrifying—look at how it really is in America and other parts of the “developed” world. We allow our animals to be treated—I’m sorry, but “tortured” is the apt and accurate word here—in order to fulfill, at minimal economic cost, our desires for pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and “scientific” research.

So, if you’re interested here’s a link to the movie’s website. You can watch it there or see the trailer:  EARTHLINGS.


Here's the trailer. Warning: Don't watch it unless you're prepared to see a disturbing side of reality (and contemplating becoming a vegetarian).


Make the Connection. EARTHLINGS.com

Wean Yourself

One of my teachers usefully pointed out to me that my “scientific” skepticism about the existence of otherworldly realms was, essentially, fashionable.

Across the broad sweep of human experience, an enormous chorus of mystics and wisdom seekers have encouraged us to look beyond the evidence available through the “five” senses—beyond even what we can perceive aided by powerful tools like radio telescopes and electron microscopes.

I join that chorus. A meditation practice is one place to begin a search for what lies outside ordinary perception.



Here, listen to Rumi—

WEAN YOURSELF


little by little wean yourself.
this is the gist of what i have to say.

from an embryo, whose nourishment comes in blood
move to an infant drinking milk,
to a child on solid food,’to a searcher for wisdom,
to a hunter of more invisible game.

think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.
you might say, the world outside is vast and intricate.
there are wheat fields and mountain passes
and orchards in bloom.

at night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding.

you ask the embryo, why stay cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed?

listen to the answer:

there is no “other world.”
i only know what i have experienced.
you must be hallucinating.

—rumi

Mute Muse, an Etheree*

like
concrete
kwan yin who
stands wordlessly
in the entry way
of my house, sentry fey
spirit of lovingkindness
like her, my muse is mute, guarded
as i make love, sing, dance, cook, paint, walk
eschewing idle chatter, needless talk

*********************************

*Consisting of ten lines, the Etheree poem starts with a one syllable line, then adds one syllable per line, until the last line of ten syllables for an overall syllable count of 55. In other words the syllabic structure is as follows: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10. It’s an uncomplicated, unpretentious form of poetry that has the quality of slowly opening, like a flower.

I'm a Fungi. I mean a Fun Guy.

Each day the web of life becomes more sacred and more amazing to me.

I’m convinced that the lowly fungus may be not only the largest, but perhaps also among the oldest and most intelligent life form on Earth.

Here, from Wiki:

“Is this the largest organism in the world? This 2,400-acre (9.7 km2) site in eastern Oregon had a contiguous growth of mycelium before logging roads cut through it. Estimated at 1,665 football fields in size and 2,200 years old, this one fungus has killed the forest above it several times over, and in so doing has built deeper soil layers that allow the growth of ever-larger stands of trees. Mushroom-forming forest fungi are unique in that their mycelial mats can achieve such massive proportions.”

—Paul Stamets, Mycelium Running

Under our feet in the forest are vast mats of fungi forming fecund soil in ever deeper layers. This soil grows trees. Trees produce food and oxygen for parasitic animal life—our kin—that fascinate us so. Is it not accurate to call animals parasites?

What do the fungi know? I suspect they know a great deal. I know that fungi can undo some of the toxins and compounds that our chemical engineers concoct and render them useful to life again. According to Wiki:

“One of the primary roles of fungi in an ecosystem is to decompose organic compounds. Petroleum products and pesticides that can be contaminants of soil are organic molecules. Therefore, fungi should have potential to remove such pollutants from the soil environment, a process known as bioremediation.”

Though I haven’t experimented personally, others report learning things from eating psilocybin mushrooms. According to Wikipedia, again,

“61% of subjects reported a "complete mystical experience" after their psilocybin session, while only 13% reported such an outcome after their experience with methylphenidate [Riralin]. Two months after taking psilocybin, 79% of the participants reported moderately to greatly increased life satisfaction and sense of well-being.”

Is the fungal genetic code vastly larger than our own? I don’t think anyone knows, but I suspect that it is.

(We know that trees have more genes than humans, a lot more. See my post, “Why I Listen to Trees.”)

Are fungi our truest Mother? Are trees her dendrites?

Here’s a poem my friend Sandy shared at our Meeting:


redwoods


how long ago
is the voice you hear
stopping in silence
among their big
weights rising

how thousand
the breathing years
& years
the damp rolling
off their trunks

misty cloud
in the light
of a millionth
morning
green moss
singing

how old the fingers
that weave
the bark
red gray ridges
swirling & fraying
higher higher

how vast the hands
that cup the
sheltering needles
into sky & hold
through merciful
breezes & violent
storms

miles & miles of clouds
racing the globe
drop their stories
in the web of
sky spidering
green always
green

the redwoods
drop the stories
from far away
with the wet needle
drip of close
close fog

mingle them with
billions whispered
under their shade
told by tender tracking
roots conversing
with mycelium acres

tiny human
when silent
among the fire resistant
trunks attended by
fern & lichen & sorrel
you can hear the forever
of past joking with
unimaginable
future

the simple
call of jay or
fugue of raven
flash of bolete or
shimmer of tan oak
in the skittering
light

becomes significant
as the first ever
smile

eloquent as the
very last word

a salvation
unto itself
& all our
relations

—sandy eastoak


Let me give Rumi the last word here:

Love is not condescending, never that,

nor books, nor any marking on paper,

nor what people say of each other.

Love is a tree

with branches reaching into eternity

and roots set deep in eternity,

and no trunk.

Have you seen it? The mind cannot.

Your desiring cannot.

The longing you feel for this love

comes from inside you.

When you become the Friend,

your longing will be as the man in the ocean

who holds to a piece of wood.

Eventually, wood, man, and ocean

become one swaying being,

Shams Tabriz, the secret of God.

 

—Rumi

Links:

sandy eastoak

Mycelia

Psilocybin

108

 More about our meeting of the Society of Friends on November 30:

The mala I use

Friend Christian shared information about the “Mala” a Buddhist rosary with 108 beads. He reviewed traditional ways to use the Mala, how to hold it between the fingers, how to advance from one bead to another, not crossing over the larger “Guru” bead which marks the beginning and end of the sequence.

Christian talked about the significance of the number 108, especially as it relates to Buddhism. He shared this array of 108 defilements which must be overcome to achieve enlightenment.

(Several of us remarked that we had some work to do in regard to this list!)

The number 108 is, elegantly enough, the product of 1 to the first power times 2 to the second power time three to the third power, that is, 1 times 4 times 27 = 108

Christian shared how 108 refers to the number of defilements to overcome. It derives from the following:

The three sense experiences times the six senses  3 X 6 = 18

The three sense experiences are:
pleasant
unpleasant
neutral

The six senses are
touch
taste
smell
sight
hearing
consciousness
(Buddhism regards the consciousness as the sixth sense—it is consciousness that senses thought objects like loyality.)

Aversion to or Craving for these experiences: 2 X 18 = 36

Past, Present, and Future incidents of the aversion/craving: 3 X 36 =108

On a more practical level, 108 slow breaths (about 5 breaths per minute) takes just about 20 minutes. You can "count" your breath and use the mala to “time” a meditation period without need of any watch or timepiece. This “clock” ticks to the movement of the breath.

He also talked about about how this number appears in other religious traditions in Asia. He stated that the Catholic rosary has 54 beads on it, half of the 108 on the mala.






There are additional links he pointed us to. They are here:

The Significance of 108

The 108 Defilements in Buddhism

The Number 108 in Buddhism

Wikipedia on Mala

More on our meeting in coming posts.

Kindness Miracle

We sat in meditation on that quiet, cold, night. The warm, dimly-lit living room cuddled us. The kitchen's refrigerator shut itself off just as the start-of-meditation bell ebbed into the void.

So near silence—I could hear everyone breathing.

We provided each other shelter.

Sue shared this poem by Mary Oliver:

In the Storm

Some black ducks
were shrugged up
on the shore.
It was snowing

hard, from the east,
and the sea
was in disorder.
Then some sanderlings,

five inches long
with beaks like wire,
flew in,
snowflakes on their backs,

and settled
in a row
behind the ducks --
whose backs were also

covered with snow --
so close
they were all but touching,
they were all but under

the roof of the duck's tails,
so the wind, pretty much,
blew over them.
They stayed that way, motionless,

for maybe an hour,
then the sanderlings,
each a handful of feathers,
shifted, and were blown away

out over the water
which was still raging.
But, somehow,
they came back

and again the ducks,
like a feathered hedge,
let them
crouch there, and live.

If someone you didn't know
told you this,
as I am telling you this,
would you believe it?

Belief isn't always easy.
But this much I have learned --
if not enough else --
to live with my eyes open.

I know what everyone wants
is a miracle.
This wasn't a miracle.
Unless, of course, kindness --

as now and again
some rare person has suggested --
is a miracle.
As surely it is.

~ Mary Oliver ~