The Burthen of the Mystery

 Tragically I have until now thought Wordsworth and his poetry very much on the boring side. Obviously my heart has often danced with the daffodils but beyond that very little has stirred me. Until recently that is. Almost by chance I happened upon Wordsworth's Ode based upon a visit to the countryside around Tintern Abbey. Much to my surprise I read the poem right through and was almost moved to tears. 

One short passage particularly caught my eye - or ears - or heart. 

Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.

Certainly the world has been "too much with me" lately. The heart of a bodhisattva is far from me - hell not quite other people, but often close. 

 But moving on from that passage and those thoughts, another few lines from the poem mentioned the "burthen of the mystery" being lightened, this in contemplation of natures beauties. Really, I have not delved that deep into Wordsworth's thoughts and mood as expressed in his Ode to actually claim disagreement. It is simply that I feel no burden (or "burthen") from any "mystery". It is mystery, in the sense of having reached no conclusions, of actually having claimed no answers, that actually seems to offer to me, as gift, a way of approaching and accepting Reality as it unfolds. In a strange way, if there was no "mystery" my heart would be dictated to; by formulas, creeds or custom. The Pure Land myokonin Saichi has exclaimed in his Journal:- 

"Not knowing why! Not knowing why! That is my support! Not knowing why! That is the Namu-Amida-Butsu". 

Such joins with a simple faith, a trust that "all shall be well" no matter what unfolds in any immediate future.

 Anyway, getting back to Wordsworth and his own  words from his poem. He speaks of the "still sad music of humanity" but then of:-

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.

 Good stuff! Maybe best not to crawl and trawl through each and every word looking for seeds of disagreement - better to feel and open to the presence of another human heart contemplating the "burthen of the mystery". To join with them. And sadly, this as a retreat from the mass of people I often feel around me, the barren crowd, the awful pointlessness of so many pursuits, the apparent direction of so many towards aimlessness.

What is the link between "mystery" and "aimlessness". Is there any at all? Something to give thought to.

The "homely" self and all things more.

 In his book "The Inner Experience" Thomas Merton draws from "eastern" examples of the "inner experience" that finds us once again "at home". The finding of our "homely self" , that which we have always been. Alas, once again for Merton this is not enough! "Theological faith" must step in and in some sense we must leave home once more and get beyond the inner self to an "awareness of God", apparently a "darkness". Really, I am lost once more!

Just as in the dialogue with D T Suzuki "Wisdom in Emptiness" contained in "Zen and the Birds of Appetite" Thomas Merton eventually reaches beyond "suchness" and the eschatology of the present moment (Suzuki) to speak of something more (I assume of "Theological Faith") where our present moment is to be handed over to God to create something totally new. "It is to be the great, mysterious, theandric work of the Mystical Christ, the New Adam". 

So homeliness and being in the present moment - coming back to where we started from "and knowing it for the first time" - is not enough. Something called "theological faith" must step in. Which seems, at least to me, to be superfluous, virtually bringing us back to the old and outer self of anticipations and epitaphs! 

Much like some versions of a deep incarnational Christianity where after the dying to self and becoming "as Christ" some still insist upon the unique uniqueness of Jesus which sets Christianity apart from all the other (acknowledged) unique Religions/Faiths of our world. It all seems totally unnecessary. Each moment, each human being, forever unique. Particular. Why stick a uniquely unique person on top as some "item of faith"? Why look to them?

I love Thomas Merton. I am very familiar with his Letters and Journals where I think we find him at his best. Almost totally undidactic. I'm not sure about this particular book, which appears at times to be pasted together from various sources - I got a bit lost in the introduction where its genesis and evolution were charted. But fair enough.

For me Faith (simple, homely, such as it is) is salvation itself. Of infinite potential.

Let us leave theories there and return to here's hear (James Joyce, from "Finnigans Wake")

 Not much to say on this subject. Obviously. Very difficult to live in the "here's hear" rather than theoretical explanations of life and the living of it. 

Tried Google Images for "living in the now" and I think they might have thought I meant "snow".

Anyway, much to do with reaching conclusions. A living death. Difficult to be or say anything relevant when we live entirely from the self's past and its round of justifications.

Another direction suggested by James Joyce's words is towards "living in the now", a way of being often beloved of New Agers. "Live in the Now man!" So, possibly, forget the past, sod the future, let it all hang out. Mind the gap!

Nevertheless, the words can take on what could be seen and known as a deeper meaning, this especially in the writings of the 13th century Japanese monk Dogen. Dogen today is a hot property of the zen book industry and apparently is now more well known in the west than in his homeland. Much loved these days because of his advocacy of Zazen, a meditation technique, even of "zazen only", which among westerners often begins a competition of just how many hours can be spent on the zafu (meditation cushion) each day. A pursuit of the carrot of "enlightenment" and as typical westerners, "I want it Now". Bringing us back to the moment in which we all must live.

Dogen ("Better to see the face than to hear the name" - zen saying)

For Dogen I have found, Zazen is not just "practice" but is also metaphor. A metaphor that can point towards each and every moment, not simply moments of meditation on the zafu. Zazen only. Dogen (pronounced Dough-gan as I found out recently after a few weeks of Dog-n) was a master of the Japanese language, a poet, who saw through the "zen beyond word and scripture", recognising such was pure duality. 

" Don't mistake the finger that points for the moon itself", a ubiquitous phrase in many Dharma books, but Dogen saw the necessary inter-being of finger and moon and thus the realisation of non-duality within duality.

Don't forget the finger, it's important

Anyway, enough of that nit-picking. Here is a short poem by Dogen...

Just when my longing to see

The moon over Kyoto

One last time grows deepest,

The image I behold this autumn night

Leaves me sleepless for its beauty.

Here Dogen catches himself. Just when he is about to leave the moment he finds the Now, and its beauty. 

A later poet, Basho, captures the loss of  "the moment" in his:-

Even in Kyoto —
hearing the cuckoo’s cry —
I long for Kyoto.

But for Dogen there is no expectation or regret, only simple thankfulness. Gratitude. "Sleepless for its Beauty."

All of which brings in the nature of time. Which many, including myself, can't crack. Yet we live in time. T.S.Eliot's "Four Quartets" can be seen and read as a contemplation on, and exploration of, time. And ends with the rose and the flame becoming "one". But really, I'm not one for endings or conclusions.

Need this be a conclusion?

The road goes on forever, and the journey itself is home.

I enjoy waffling. I find it therapeutic. Others may not find the reading of my waffle so therapeutic. All things considered (perhaps not "all") I'm simply a Pure Land bombu, a foolish being, incapable of engineering my own enlightenment. So I just say "thank you" for everything, for every moment, not distinguishing between what could be considered "good" or what could be considered "bad". Living in time, how would I know which is which?

Why? I like it.

Related quotes:-

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

(Line from the "Hsin Hsin Ming" by Sengstan)

What is the teaching of a whole lifetime? "An appropriate statement" (Yun-men)

An appropriate tune

The vision of ‘things as they are’ is never of a fixed reality/truth; the power for self-subversion and self-renewal is inherent in the vision itself. Thus ‘things’ seen as they are are transformable. Every practitioner’s task is to change them by seeing through them. From Dogen’s perspective, this is the fundamental difference between contemplation (dhyana) and zazen-only. To him, seeing was changing and making. 

(Hee-Jin Kim)

........the leaves fall because the budding from underneath is too powerful to resist........ 

(Unknown)

The crucially important point to note is that in Dōgen, opposites or dualities were not obliterated or even blurred; they were not so much transcended as they were realized. The total freedom in question here was that freedom which realized itself in duality, not apart from it.

(Hee-Jin Kim)

.....many Zen patriarchs used language to defeat language, or as a “poison to counteract poison,” resulting in a realization beyond thought and scripture. Dogen, on the other hand, employs a variety of verbal devices such as philosophical wordplay, paradox, and irony in order to stress that there is a fundamental identity of language and enlightenment, or a oneness of the sutras and personal attainment. Rather than emphasizing silence or the transcendence of speech, Dogen proves himself in his main work, the Shobogenzo, to be a master of language. He exhibits remarkable skill in revealing how ordinary words harbor a deeper though generally hidden metaphysical meaning.

(Stephen Heine, from "The Poetry of Dogen")

The ‘clear seeing’ of Zen practice-enlightenment is a process not a product, an activity not a resolution.......liberation is not a fixed form or static state, but a flowing-form of continuous activity, study, practice and verification.

(Ted Beringer, from "Zen Cosmology")

"To teach students the power of the present moment as the only moment is a skillful teaching of buddha ancestors. But this doesn’t mean that there is no future result from practice". 

(Dogen's teacher in China to Dogen)

Dookie's State of the Nation Address

 

Dookie noticedably absent

Having withdrawn from Facebook as far as political observations are concerned, I feel compelled to give vent here. As a place where even fewer people come, I therefore feel free to let it all hang out.

Let it all hang out

First the Great Vaccine Rollout must be mentioned. Desperate for some good news the Government of the day has thrown caution to the winds and advocated "take the jab" as its mantra. Uncle Boris assures everyone that it is all for the best so hurry along to the nearest centre, roll up your sleeve and be grateful. And Boris and Co will do their level best to attribute the success not to the NHS, not to the multi-national development of the vaccine, not to its multi-national production centres......no, but to them, the British, even Global Britain......even Brexit!!

Community effort

And comparisons can be drawn. Continually. Day after day. For weeks on end. More jabs here than virtually anywhere else. Though of course far too soon to make comparisons regarding such things as Covid death rates and Covid driven economic down-turns. Far too soon......different criteria, too varied the means of compiling the statistics being used. Let's just get back to vaccination comparisons which can be made!

Meanwhile, the new Downing Street Media Centre figures large in every Boris Johnson newscast. Constructed at a cost of £2m (or is it £2bn......difficult to tell these days now that we all know that there IS a magic money tree. You see, as has been explained, we actually borrow 92% of the money from the Bank of England, thus ourselves; a point to remember at the next election when Labour spending plans will again be trashed)

Shades of Nuremburg?

Anyway, the Union Jacks figure large behind Mr Johnson as he announces his latest spiel, complete with his unkempt hair and suit one calculated size too small - our very own "man of the people". Some have objected to our national flag being given such prominence and one or two Tory MP's have suggested that such people need "re-education". Where have I heard that before?...oh yes, China and Russia. My own view on our ardent flag wavers (beyond such truisms as "patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel") revolves around just how our national flag has been brandished over the past few years. I refer to those such as Mr Tommy Robinson and his supporters and many others who have waved it not as a sign of our own valuable heritage and as our own emblem of unity with the whole world wide community of sovereign nations, but provocatively, a token of our division from others, even our superiority, And judging the mind-set of many it would, in my view, be far more appropriate if they actually waved the Cross of St George, given that the Union is now becoming more strained around the edges.

Who needs re-educating?

Of course Brexit must be mentioned. Looking at the economic statistics since our "freedom" from the "shackles" of the EU was finally gained, it is obvious that those who warned that Brexit was an act of economic self-harm were correct. Had such a downturn, such a drop in exports, occurred during the first few months of a left-leaning Labour government the Tory Press would be screaming from the house tops. Yet given their support of the current Government the news is buried beneath Covid and the Great Vaccine Rollout.

No case or......?

Leader of the Opposition, Mr Keir Starmer declares that there is no case for re-joining the EU. This is pretty sad to hear and rather surprising. That there is a case is evident. The Referendum Campaign was one of false promises and assurances, even outright lies. Such assurances and promises are becoming more and more exposed each and every day.  Brexit is now acknowledged even by many of its most ardent supporters as, as already said above, to be an act of economic self harm and many Polls show that re-joining the EU has great support across the whole of the UK, while resistence would seem to be confined mainly to England. What is needed is a new voice, a fresh voice, one that can galvanise and unite those who recognise the madness of Brexit for what it is. 

Calls for Mr Gove and Mr Farage to confront our fishermen and ex-pats (who now realise just how many rights once taken for granted have been stripped from them) in a prime time TV debate have been ignored. No doubt they would have great difficulty in justifying their wild promises and assurances of the sunlit uplands awaiting us all following a Leave vote.

Madness

(Maybe I should just draw attention to how the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland are beginning again. Warnings have not been heeded. Such is the result of having a PM who declares that "no British PM would accept a border down the Irish Sea" and then creates one, who declares that Northern Ireland would have no extra forms to fill in post Brexit after negotiating a Deal which actually requires bin loads. Our PM is, as Ex Tory Minister Sir Alan Duncan has written, a "selfish, ill-disciplined, shambolic, shameless clot." And, worse, he has cost us lives)

The tragedy is that just a few short years ago the UK had the advantage of a market of 27 countries of over half a billion people, a market of totally frictionless trade. If our businesses and entrepreneurs produced the best then no tariffs or quotas could prevent the sale of our goods, the unleashing of our potential. Now we actually have our very own army of 50,000 extra bureaucrats trying to cope with the "free" trade deal negotiated by our Government. Our Trade Secretary, Liz Truss (who campaigned for Remain and said at the time that no Trade Deal around the world would be better than the ones we then enjoyed as part of the EU) now walks around trying to talk up the potential of maximising trade with Japan or wherever. 

The Deal we now have is, according to most, worse than that negotiated by Theresa May. Mrs May's Deal was actually voted against by Boris Johnson - thus he played his part in helping to hold up Brexit for two more years. Then Mr Johnson wins an election with the slogan "Get Brexit Done" with his "oven ready deal" - a Deal that was far from oven ready, with terms that Mr Johnson would eventually threaten to break International Law to renege on.

Such are some of the facts associated with our "democracy". Gaining just one third of the votes of the total electorate Mr Johnson wins a "landslide", a "great endorsement" of Tory policy according to our friends in the Press, ignoring the distortion created by our First Past The Post electoral system. And now this Government allocates a Billion pounds to local authorities, 90% of it to those with sitting Tory MP's. The method of allocation has been "fair and transparent" according to Boris Johnson. No doubt. Mr Johnson has a great track record of integrity and honesty (sarcasm)

Last, a mention of the new legistration being proposed to stifle public protest. The small print allows ten year prison sentences for causing a "serious annoyance" with any protest. What is "serious"? What exactly is an "annoyance"? Who gets to decide? Who will monitor the progress of such measures? The BBC, which now has as its newly appointed chairman a £400,000 donor to the Tory Party?

Oh, "it" can't happen here. It is happening. And the public appears compliant and docile.

Related Quotes:-

 "There will be no border down the Irish Sea - over my dead body"

(Boris Johnson, 13th August 2020)

One more memo

 Well, here I am again. It is raining so unable to take up my seat on the bench beside the river. Maybe for the best......yesterday a little wagtail appeared looking for crumbs and I had nothing to give. His/her chirps were in vain.

I live in a small retirement complex, about 45 apartments. All self-contained, it is not a care home. We have a two bedroom groundfloor apartment looking out over a park.

Feet first

It is the sort of place where, as I observed once, you can only exit feet first. From a Buddhist perspective, the whole ambience assists with daily contemplation of one's own mortality. Possibly this can be deemed morbid but in fact I find it life giving. Insight grows into the reality of thankfulness for the present moment, whatever that moment holds. Insight grows slowly, very slowly at times, but grow it does - which nourishes faith in the grace of Reality-as-is.

Thankfulness

Every so often another resident exits feet first, or takes a tumble, or has time in hospital. You remember them when they are gone. For me, often, I recognise that the time you saw them stumble by, or welcome their grandchildren, or join in the christmas sing-song, that you were seeing their "golden age". That recognition helps me bless the moment now.

While I can acknowledge that some might see all this as cheap platitudes, for me they do not come cheap. The cost can be seen as infinite, a price only Reality can "pay" or even understand.

We all have to speak from our very own Pure Land.

Another Memo

 More from the Pure Land.

Empty spaces

Coffee in hand, pissing down, seeking to draw comfort from "what does not destroy us makes us stronger", I read a few bits and pieces from Stephen Batchelor. A man who advocates no position.

He speaks of some obscure Tibetan "view" on "emptiness".....

".....the emptiness of inherent existence is a simple negation as opposed to an affirming negation. This means that the absence opened up by emptiness does not disclose and thereby affirm a transcendent reality (like God or Pure Consciousness) that was previously obscured by one’s egoistic confusion. It simply removes a fiction that was never there."

The Buddha spoke of "dwelling in emptiness". As Mr Batchelor says, "emptiness is first and foremost a condition in which we dwell, abide, and live."

Stephen Batchelor goes on:-

Rather than being the negation of “self,” emptiness discloses the dignity of a person who has realized what it means to be fully human. Such emptiness is far from being an ultimate truth that needs to be understood through logical inference and then directly realized in a state of nonconceptual meditation. It is a sensibility in which one dwells, not a privileged epistemological object that, through knowing, one gains a cognitive enlightenment.

As a Pure Lander I identify with the above and would call it Faith. Always open to the simple hearted. Very egalitarian.

Faith has no content. "Though He slay me yet will I love Him" as theists might say - thus pointless in many ways. It offers nothing. Mocked by many. Yet I find it more and more life-giving.

"What are the teachings of an entire lifetime?" Answer, "An appropriate statement."

Yes.

Yet another memo

 

Not much to report this morning from the Pure Land (AKA the park bench or wherever) I have been ploughing my way through the Dhammapada over the past few days. The translation is fairly dry to say the least but gems appear from out of the mist. A little phrase....... "Day and night, the mind delights in gentleness." The words struck me and stuck. They have already saved me from a few mental diatribes aimed at Boris Johnson - the mental processes mercifully cut off at the second or third "bastard". After which, the delight in gentleness! For a few moments at least.

Almost through the Dhammapada now and moving on to the Flower Ornament Scripture. I have often dipped into that in the past. D T Suzuki says of this work.....(he gives it its posh name)

“As to the Avatamsaka-Sutra, it is really the consummation of Buddhist thought, Buddhist sentiment, and Buddhist experience. To my mind, no religious literature in the world can ever approach the grandeur of conception, the depth of feeling, and the gigantic scale of composition, as attained by the sutra. Here not only deeply speculative minds find satisfaction, but humble spirits and heavily oppressed hearts, too, will have their burdens lightened. Abstract truths are so concretely, so symbolically represented here that one will finally come to a realization of the truth that even in a particle of dust the whole universe is seen reflected—not this visible universe only, but a vast system of universes, conceivable by the highest minds only.”

Humble spirits? Now there's a thing! As Thomas Merton once said, "we can never be humble enough."

Nevertheless it is a fine scripture. Still, if a scientific treatise is preferred or the morning paper, that's the way it goes.

The rain has held off. The forecast is that snow is on the way.