Good Morning!

I just arrived yesterday afternoon.  The cake that was sent by the devotees of DC to the brothers here was warmly received and enjoyed.  It was a very pristine expression of love and I send out a thanks to the one who hatched such a sweet plan.

I read the first chapter of "The Imitation of Christ" just now.  It spoke of a verse that we shared in a lecture not too long ago from Ecclesiastes 1:8.  It reminded me that the eye cannot be satisfied by seeing nor the ear filled by hearing.  It encouraged me to focus beyond the senses for peace.  It  is to live in that changless place behind the mind and senses.  It is a call to notice yourself as the viewer of you mind, the viewer of your senses.  In that identity lies peace and tranquility.  

My travels over the last week

Gave some lectures in Cambridge UK

Visited Edinburgh, Scotland last week

Organ and bells concert at St. Pauls Episcopal Church in Poughkeepsie.

The St. Paul's church in Poughkeepsie renovated their pipe organ and put on a celebratory recital.  I went with Bob from the monastery.  We had a rip-roaring time.  Grin.

The Tiffany stained glass windows were beautiful and the old style woodwork were incredible.

Earlier in the week I went to brunch at the Eveready Diner.  Classic diners are everywhere up in this part of the country and are a highlight every time.  It always feels like you are dining on the set of a sitcom.

The classic diner template.  Diners get their iconic looks from their origins as recycled trolley and train cars.  They always serve American comfort foods and are usually staffed by the best of snarky waitresses.  I love them all.

Hiking Photos

Took a great hike up into the Shaupeneak Ridge Park about ten minutes from the monastery.  It was a beautiful hike.

I was amazed at the patterns in fern as it grew in large fields in the woods.  I mused a bit about the design constraints that it works with that produce those patterns.  It made me think about a "responsive" intelligence that nature displays to the laws that govern it.

I saw three of these little, tiny guys on my walk.  They were less that two inches long and looked amazingly vulnerable.  The color was so vivid.  If you zoom in you can see faint markings on its skin.  It seemed to be the opposite of camouflage;  it made me wonder if they were poison to predators or tasted awful so the color was a warning.

 A moody overlook waited for me at the highest point of the hike.  I am amazed at how beautiful this valley is.  There was a prominent painting movement here in the mid 1800s.  It was called the Hudson Valley School.  I saw a great display of some of the works at the Vassar Art Gallery.  Every day the lighting or mists and clouds produce some lovely moods.  

I noticed this little nature vignette on my walk.  It seemed like such an intentional arrangement that it caught my attention.  Small things like this are small reminders of the beloved for me.

This photo is just a random photo of the trail.  There wasn't anything overtly inspiring about it, but you get the idea of the casual beauty that is everywhere up here.

Musings on Being

I am not thought.  Thought comes from me.  I am not its content.  Thought exists before my view in sequence.  The meaning is me manifested.  I assemble the implication.  I never move.  The reflection is stored.  It is retrieved as thought.  It is referenced by the present.  The present is obstructed, defined, colored by it.  

Latest pics

Went for a walk in Newpaltz today.  Saw houses built in the 1600s!  They were full of character and made me think of a time when houses were built for humans and not only for profit.

New flowers by an ancient wall.

A photo of the Holy Cross church from the patio on the backside of the monastery.  Sat here today having a wonderful talk with some of the monks (Bernard and John).  Mondays are the day with no schedule.  

For Pentecost we had a performance by Kairos.  There is a clip below of the music.  It is recorded by my phone, so imagine it a bit better.  grin.

Kairos.

Mr. and Mrs. Nain visited me this last weekend.  We hiked up to John Burroughs' cabin in the woods.  He was a naturalist writer from last century.

About that storm

The thunder and lightning storms were quite dramatic over the last 24 hours or so.  The sky was churning colors of the noir.  With the expansive view, you could see things coming and going for a long distance.  

Didache - Part II

The second example of the two paths is from the Katha Upanisad.  Yama (the king of death) is teaching a young man named Naciketas:

I. Yama said: The good is one thing and the pleasant another. These two, having different ends, bind a man. It is well with him who chooses the good. He who chooses the pleasant misses the true end.
II. The good and the pleasant approach man; the wise examines both and discriminates between them; the wise prefers the good to the pleasant, but the foolish man chooses the pleasant through love of bodily pleasure.
III. O Nachiketas after wise reflection thou hast renounced the pleasant and all pleasing forms. Thou hast not accepted this garland of great value for which many mortals perish.
IV. Wide apart are these two,--ignorance and what is known as wisdom, leading in opposite directions. I believe Nachiketas to be one who longs for wisdom, since many tempting objects have not turned thee aside.

It is interesting that Yama says in the first verse that both paths bind a man.  This idea of being bound is closely tied to the idea of us maintaining an identity separate from the Divine.  As long as we have the sense of agency as opposed to the experience of God moving through our being...the state of complete surrender, we maintain a sense of responsibility in our mind.  This sense of exercising a will apart from God's is the ignorance referred to in the rest of the passage.  One must understand that this state of surrender is the highest ideal and can almost not be conceived of in our normal state.  Thus, we travel one of two paths on the way to this understanding.

Following the pleasant, meaning that which feels good in the moment, leads one deeper into the idea of being a body/mind that is somehow separate from the Divine.  To serve the good is to see the long term effect of your action.  For example, drinking yourself under the table on Friday night might seem pleasant on Friday night.  On Saturday morning, however, you will agree that it would have been good to not do it.  Thinking about things this way is a form of discrimination that is mentioned in the verses from the Katha Upanisad.  Following the path of things that are good is the better path and will lead to wisdom.  Wisdom lies in knowing the nature of your relationship with the Divine.

The Didache and some ideas...

Ok, I don't know how interesting this will be for everyone; but I am studying the Didache with Brother Richard here at the monastery.  He is a scholar of the old school trained at Oxford and has offered to teach me a few things.  I will digest these things and add my own ingredients and dump out what I come up with for you to read over the course my stay here.

The Didache is the oldest know Christian manuscript as I understand it.  It is the teachings of the 12 apostles to the non-Jews around the 1st century.  It is a short manuscript which is why I thought it would be a good candidate for the blog.

Verse 1
There are two Ways, one of Life and one of Death, there is a great difference between the two Ways.

Here we have the writer presenting us with two paths.  This start is a common approach found in wisdom literature.  In the Katha Upanisad, for instance, Naciketas is told that there are two directions one can go at any moment.  For him the choices given were "the pleasant" and "the good".  Sri Ramakrishna in his teachings also describes two paths "vidya" (knowledge) and "avidya" (ignorance).

Named differently, these paths are really the same choice.  Let's look at each of the pairs.

The path of life, when contrasted to the path of death could be reasonable deduced as immortality.  Immortality belongs to the spirit.  It's source is the tree of immortality that is still within the Garden of Eden, but protected by a cherub with a flaming sword.  To get there is the goal of this path.  We get a clue from Psalms of how to reach this place. 

(Psalms 16:11) You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

The path of life is to live in the constant awareness of the presence of the Beloved.  It is to defeat the causes of distraction and forgetfulness which are the things of the material world and not of the spiritual.  It is to conquer the flames of desire, hence the cherubim preventing you from eating of the tree of immortality.

In contrast, the path of Death is to follow the call of the body.  It is to hasten to its constant call for pleasure and satisfaction with ever increasing need.  To see yourself as being material and not spiritual in nature is the practice of looking through your senses for your fulfillment.  This mistake is the mistake made by Eve in the Garden of Eden.  It is the cause, or the reasonable outcome of the curse which is:

(Genesis 3:17-19)Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."

If you choose to identify with yourself as material, you are dust.  As such you will toil continuously to eat, to pay for your house, to find love, to afford vacations and pleasures of all manner.  In this context you and all you collect for your enjoyment will turn to dust in the long run.  You will experience death because you identified with your body and not with your spirit and made decisions accordingly for your happiness. 

I'll continue with the next path distinction tomorrow.

More springtime beauty

I have found nothing more comforting, nothing more profound, nothing more beautiful than the remembering that love is everywhere present and never fails.

Inner Silence

In regard to the practice of simply being with nothing to occupy yourself with, I read this great quote in Abhishiktananda's book titled Prayer:

Indeed, since we are so constituted that it is well  high impossible to achieve any goal without special discipline, it is advisable to fix certain days or certain times when, free from any obligation, including even vocal prayer and common worship, we are content simply to be, with our gaze turned inwards and our ears attuned to inner silence, attending to one thing only, that God is.

As I mentioned yesterday, this week has been in silence at the monastery.  The daily prayers have been reduced to three and work times are cancelled.  That has left a lot of time to fill.  There is only so much reading and meditating that I can do at a time.  This put me into a position where I asked Mother what she expected me to do with all this time.  That is when the practicality of this having no occupation began to make sense.  I sat in a chair in my room and did nothing.  I did not think about anything but simply went inside myself to sense what it was to be alive.  I have to say there is an inexplicable joy that arises in doing that successfully.  The important thing is to stop the analyzing and forming of thoughts about things.  There is enough in the moment to keep the mind silent. 

Vesper Song

Vesper Song

I thought you might like to hear a sample of the chanting that we do each day.  This vesper song is one we sing at the end of each day.  Most of the chanting comes out of the book of Psalms in the Old Testament of the Bible.  Chanting is done five times a day and lasts anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes.  They change according to the day and time and special celebrations.  At present we are finishing the Easter season chants and beginning the Ascension chants.  I can talk more about those seasons, if anyone is interested.

Days of Silence

Good morning!  Well it is the second day of silence.  I think they go to Friday, but I am not sure.  The times in the church have been reduced to 3 instead of 5.  I have a stack of books:

Prayer by Abhishiktananda (very interesting swami with a history like mine)

The Apostolic Fathers - specifically an interesting text called the Didache which has been dated to the first century AD, making it the earliest Christian manuscript.

The Little World of Don Camillo - a fun fiction about an Italian priest and his relationship with his town and parish and his on-going conversation with Christ about the events.  It is very funny and depicts a refreshingly real relationship with the divine.  I highly recommend it for fun reading.

The New Testament - a translation by Richmond Lattimore.  He has a more secular training and I am hoping a very pure translation without bias.  It reads very nicely and is not broken into traditional chapters/verses.  That alone makes it read more smoothly.

Aside from that I have filled my days with meditation, a wonderful walk in the woods, a lot of thinking and working on being present without anything to occupy myself.  That last one in particular is turning into an interesting and rewarding experiment.  I'll write more about it most likely.

Here is a photo or two from my walk...

Of Benedictine Monasteries

Just a photo around the monastery.  There are many icons of saints everywhere, many of them painted by monks and guests.

This is the meditation veranda.  It overlooks the Hudson River and is always silent.  There are more flowers now and I really should take another photo.

Just the monks sitting at my table for lunch one day.  Their names are Randy, Joseph, Roy and Bernard.

The food here is delicious!  Really, I have not had a day where I was not amazed at the quality and healthy factor.  I will tell you more about the chef later.  He was trained at the Culinary Institute of America, which is just up the river from here.

This is the monastery in the foreground, the church in the middle and the guesthouse at the far end.

My room.