I may well be unable to making postings for the next ten days, on the other hand I may be able to continue, it just depends if I can get an internet connecting where I’ll be staying in rural Washington.
All is well.
Monthly Archives: June 2008
The Refuge Without Compare
The last Oxherd picture can be seen on the right of Roger in the first photograph. It shows a joyful person, perhaps dancing in the street! Somehow that sums up my day, which might seem odd all things considered, but that’s the way it is.
The refuge of the Sangha is without compare. Thank you good sisters and brothers, near and far.
I’m sorry that I’ve not been able to respond to comments recently.
Monasticism and the Environment
Gethsemani III / Monasticism and the Environment. All of the talks given at this gathering mentioned a few days ago can be downloaded as MP3 files. The following is a small part taken from the statement issued at the end of the conference.
We renew our commitment to the sacredness of the earth, relating to it as a community, not a commodity.
A monk from our Order gave a presentation titled, Monasticism vis-à-vis the consumer society: The Monastic Instinct to Revere, to Conserve, To Be Content with Little, and to Share.
Gassho to Urban Dharma for posting the material so briskly.
Blooming as Buddha
Thanks go to Jack who left this comment in a previous post.
Thomas Merton was also for me an introduction to spirituality. At university, my creative writing teacher introduced me to him and then as I wrote she told me that my writing reminded her of the “Zen” poets from China and Japan and contemporaries such as Gary Snyder. I started to read them, found an ad for Shasta Abbey Buddhist Supplies, ordered a statue and received info from the Abbey and a few months later when I was eighteen I took the Greyhound bus from Denver to Shasta. A moment that changed my life and just now I can feel the gratitude in my heart to this professor who really took me under her wing in my young days. Interestingly, she was an ex-catholic nun. Thank you, Rita, for pointing me in the Way. If you are interested here is a bit about Rita Brady Kiefer.
Amida Buddha sitting still in the garden
Mt. Shasta as seen from the monastery grounds
Jacks comment, left on the previous posting, reminded me of several people who entered my young life and for whom I too have great gratitude. Tonight I’m thinking particularly of an aunt who encouraged me to write after she read letters I’d sent to my parents describing my travels in America in 1967.
It would appear that Rita Kiefer is still encouraging people to express themselves through writing.
Looking into the faces of these flowers this afternoon I found myself smiling. So too when looking into the faces of people in bloom.
We can encourage that, by blooming too.
www.monks.org
This evening we watched a DVD about The Abbey of Gethsemani the Trappist monastery in Kentucky where Thomas Merton lived during the latter part of his life. The Abbey has a classic URL: http://www.monks.org/. A contemplative order they may be, out of touch with the world they are not.
We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men (and women) are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have – for their usefulness.
Thomas Merton
A modern day Zen monk is remembered for say that Zazen is ‘good for nothing’!
Here’s more on Thomas Merton for your interest and information.
The abbot (of Gethsemani also) urged the young monk (Thomas Merton) to write his autobiography, which was published under the title The Seven Storey Mountain (1948) and became a best-seller and a classic. During the next 20 years, Merton wrote prolifically on a vast range of topics, including the contemplative life, prayer, and religious biographies. His writings would later take up controversial issues (e.g., social problems and Christian responsibility: race relations, violence, nuclear war, and economic injustice) and a developing ecumenical concern. He was one of the first Catholics to commend the great religions of the East to Roman Catholic Christians in the West.
For some years Gethsemani has hosted conferences under the banner Inter-religious Dialogue when Buddhist and Christian Monastics join to debate. This years meeting which ended a couple of days ago was titled Monasticism and the Environment.
Links to the works of Thomas Merton on-line.