This morning, a butterfly in the garden was not like anything. I sat. The butterfly fluttered, then it didn't, it folded and unfolded its hazel-brown wings. I sat. The butterfly came and went nowhere, although it left my sight and entered it again. I sat. Only a thought made the butterfly like my mind, a [...]
The pages filling please me. I write to no end: The traces of doing gratify without reward apart from the doing itself, stroking to the drop-off.
I rest quietly and Apollonaire brings this to mind: Emperor Shukuso asked Chu, the National Teacher, "After a hundred years (after you have died), what do you want me to do?'' "Build a seamless tomb for this old monk," replied the National Teacher. "I ask the National Teacher, please show me the design of the [...]
Apollonaire, on the nature of a memorial for a fictional poet: "Il faut que je lui sculpte une profonde statue en rien, comme la poésie et comme la gloire." (I must make him a profound statue built of nothing, like poetry and fame.)
What might that be --- "traces of the sacred''? A museum tries many replies, all valid, yet ... What of that which is not in the show --- the beggars and buskers, the fancy cars and cheap shoes, tired workers on the Métro returning home, girls reading celebrity papers, smokers outside cafés, kids on bikes, [...]
Summer is underway, and there is still space for a week of intensive practice, in Portugal or in France. (Nous sommes en plein été, et il reste de la place pour faire une semaine de pratique intensive, au Portugal ou en France.) Portugal: 1-8 August France: 23-30 August 250 euros Beginners welcome. (Débutants bienvenus.) Infos [...]
Someone dear to me, my dharma brother Frank de Waele, calls this morning to announce the birth of his daughter, Hannia. His joy shoots through the phone line, we are happy together across the kilometers, tears fill my eyes. We share this ancient transmission of life. There is no transition when he then announces the [...]
What is in question apart from me tonight? Not a thing: Emptiness is what is not. If I am not, then I, too, am not in question. All that is is in question. When I question I: the nature of I is revealed. And to the question that cannot be answered, I reply, "Tu es [...]
I would like nothing better than to sit and read and write all this day, the first of summer, the year's longest, full with sweet charms of light and softness deep into the night. But such is the inexorable course of day and night that I have other callings. Things to tend await my attention. [...]
Happy Bloomsday! Celebrate Leopold Bloom's marvelous day in the life, Dublin, June 16, 1904! Drink a pint! Take a walk! Eat a kidney! Serve breakfast in bed! Step out along the strand! Dream! Sing! Love! Live! Say yes! Re-joyce! Read Ulysses!