an eternal spring of impermanent forms
January 19, 2020
In the beginning there was ‘the One’ and it was bored out of its frickin’ mind … and so it became two, just for something to do. Yin and yang, nothingness and somethingness, space and object, tumbling eternally.
I imagine those two would have quarreled endlessly had they not become lovers and given birth to an eternal spring of impermanent forms, the “ten thousand things” (as we are known in Taoism and Buddhism).
Perhaps this ephemeral impermanence of things is a sort of truce that was made between the abyss of absolute nothingness and the possibility of something actually existing… a truce that makes it possible for everything imaginable to rise and fall, in and out of existence temporarily, throughout the boundless cosmos, for eternity.
one bow
January 14, 2020
practice
December 22, 2019
I do not have a teaching,
I have a practice.
I do not have a belief,
I have a practice.
I do not have a message or story to tell,
I have a practice.
I do not have a god,
I have a practice.
The word dissolves into silence.
The silence dissolves into action.
The action dissolves into wonder.
At dawn, be the mist in a sunbeam.
At evening, be the mountain on a cloud.
~ Fred LaMotte
icons
December 12, 2019
As I stare at the bottles of red wine we purchased almost a year ago, I‘m reminded of the fantastic day we spent in Sonoma Valley with our children discovering its wonderful vineyards.
I find it somewhat odd when we spend that sort of money on things we’ll mostly give to others as gifts or likely won’t use for a very long time.
But, when you experience such a wonderful day — a day beyond imagining — it’s momentous and natural to wish it wouldn’t end. That day in particular reminds me of how little children love being thrown up in the air or pushed on a playground swing over and over — they’ll shout, “do it again!” until the parent is worn out, because they want to repeat that apogee of freedom, that briefest moment of release from banality, over-and-over.
I think this could be why icons of memories of these moments matter. Photos or paintings or statues or figurines or yet to be emptied bottles of wine. They all matter.
Icons matter because they remind us of what liberation feels like.
~ Scott Kinnaird
meditation
November 2, 2019
People have trouble being quiet for even five minutes.
When people sit in their first mindfulness session and experience structured silence for the first time, the intensity of their monkey-mind (ego) railing against even the *prospect* of being ignored, usually overwhelms any insight which might have been cultivated by that first practice.
But…a glimpse…a curiosity…a mental question…a wondering…experienced that first time, can push a curious seeker to the next ‘sesshin‘.
And, with practice, that five minutes can eventually expand and the silence can expand with it.
The chattering can subside and the meditator can realize they’re “watching” the chattering monkey-mind. ”They” are not the monkey.
They’re just watching it.
This is the first glimpse of Liberation. This is when we realize what’s possible.
This is when we can stop identifying with the noise in our head and identify with who we really are — an individuation of the Divine.
~ Scott Kinnaird
awake
October 1, 2019
balance
September 29, 2019
As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.
sluffing off my bug body
September 14, 2019
the focal point
August 2, 2019
this sparkling moment
April 21, 2019
Jesus made it so clear that
he did not want to “save” us;
he wanted us to become
what he is.
Crucify the concepts
that cling to the cross
of duality –
past and future,
heaven and hell,
matter and spirit,
ignorance and enlightenment.
Your resurrection is the pollen
at the heart of the rose.
Your emptiness glows
with compassion.
Dissolve in the womb
of this sparkling moment:
it is the Kingdom.
If you think that the Kingdom
is anywhere else,
you have already fallen
into exile.
Here is the Gospel, the Good News:
you are what you have been seeking.
~ Fred LaMotte