2023-05-30 I Inquiry I The Generosity of True Practice I Flint Sparks by Appamada

To paint a bird's portrait

~ Jacques Prevert

First of all, paint a cage

with an open door.

Then paint something attractive

something simple

something beautiful

something of benefit for the bird.

Put the picture on a tree

in a garden, in a wood, or in a forest.

Hide behind the tree

without speaking, without moving…

Sometimes the bird arrives quickly

but sometimes it may take long years

before deciding.

Don't be discouraged. Wait.

Wait for years if necessary.

The rapidity or the slowness of the arrival

of the bird doesn't have any relationship

with the result of the picture.

When the bird comes, if it comes,

observe the most profound silence

Wait until the bird enters the cage

and when it has entered

close the door softly with the brush.

Then erase all the bars one by the one

taking care not to touch any of the bird’s

feathers.

Then paint the portrait of the tree

choosing the most beautiful of the

branches

for the bird.

Paint also the green foliage

and the fresh wind, the sun’s dust

and the noise of the beasts of the grass

in the summer's heat

and then, wait for the bird to start to sing.

If the bird doesn't sing

it's a bad sign,

a sign that the painting is not quite right.

But if it sings it's a good sign

a sign that you can sign.

So, very gently, you pull out

one of the bird’s feathers

and you write your name in a corner of

the painting.

2023-05-15 | Depth In Practice | Bring Me the Rhinoceros | John Tarrant by Appamada

2023-05-08 | Depth In Practice | Bring Me the Rhinoceros | John Tarrant by Appamada

Poems read :

~Trudy Johnston

Maybe love is like a mackerel line

When I was about 7 my parents

took me fishing in a small boat.

We each cast a line, a mackerel line,

a single thread holding many hooks,

over the side and into the waiting seas.

The line spooled into the inky depths

and when I finally pulled it up

there was one wriggling fish, some seaweed

and an old flip flop attached,

That which was wanted

and the abandoned detritus

of a careless world.

Maybe love is like that.

We cast our longing overboard,

watching it sink into the dark unknown.

There is no way we can determine

what we will land.

Love and kindness and connection

and pain and failure.

The present moment and our histories

all tangled,

and all caught from

exactly the same place.

To catch one, we have to open

to catching everything that comes with it.

I’ve been finding the depth

of love, and the preciousness of it

inextricably caught up with

pain too.

Love brings up things most unlike itself.

And I’m not returning any of it.

~Mary Turner

All day my heart says nothing but thank you (inspired by a poem of the same name by Jeanne Lohmann)

All day my heart says nothing but thank you

I breathe the words with every step

Still walking heel to toe with all of you

My mind can still see the peonies falling open like your beautiful faces

I am saying thank you, yes, to all that comes

And practicing dying with all that falls away

Gratitude comes easily after such connection

The gifts and openings of our shared humanity

Swimming in the merciful ocean, just being a fish

And with wholehearted joy I am saying thank you as I

Remember how it is to be nothing and everything all at once

The boundless love with which the dharma passes warm hand to heart

That Is Not Your Mind!: Zen Reflections on the Surangama Sutra

by Robert Rosenbaum

“A central tenet of Soto Zen is that we don’t practice to become enlightened. We meditate because it’s a natural expression of the fundamental enlightened nature we share with all beings. This is true, but it won’t be grounded in the reality of our lives if we don’t acknowledge the personal needs that bring us to practice.

Whatever our original motivations, something unexpected happens: our self-centered goals begin to morph into wider, stranger shapes. Like a Möbius strip, a small twisting-turn changes our topology, and we enter a different dimension; instead of feeling we are on a solitary quest, seeking a Way hidden somewhere in the wilderness, we discover the Way is also, always, seeking us.”

Small Kindnesses

~ Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way,

when you walk down a crowded aisle,

people pull in their legs to let you by.

Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes,

a leftover from the Bubonic plague.

“Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons

from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up.

Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,

and to say thank you to the person handing it.

To smile at them and for them to smile back.

For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,

and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now.

So far from tribe and fire.

Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy,

these fleeting temples we make together when we say,

Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

What is the Greatest Gift?

~ Mary Oliver

What is the greatest gift?

Could it be the world itself – the oceans, the meadowlark,

the patience of the trees in the wind?

Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?

Something else – something else entirely

holds me in thrall.

That you have a life that I wonder about

more than I wonder about my own.

That you have a life – courteous and intelligent –

that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.

That you have a soul – your own, no one else’s –

that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.

So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yoursmore than my own.

2023-05-14 | Dharma Talk | Meeting Motherly Mind | Jessica Steinbomer by Appamada

2023-05-07 Dharma Talk | Abiding in the Brahma viharas | Joel Barna by Appamada

2023-05-07 | Precept Class 4 | Meeting People on Equal Ground | Joel Barna

00:00:44 - Joel Offers a Brief Suggestion for Meditation Practice

00:01:48 - Joel Welcomes Everyone and and Offers Appreciation

00:03:23 - Joel Talks About The Precept 'Meeting Each Other on Equal Ground' and The Right Use Of Power

00:06:06 - Joel Talks about the Three Types of power: Personal Power; Role Power; Status Power

00:06:12 - ’Three Types of Power’ Slides

00:13:44 - Joel Continues with the 3 Types of power, adding Collective and Systemic Power

00:13:50 - Types of Power Slides including Collective and Systemic Power

00:20:17 - Participant's Reflections on Right Use of Power Materials and Meeting People on Equal Ground

01:01:42 - Joel Introduces an Exercise:Power Parameters /Self reflection

01:02:08 - Power Parameters Self Reflection Slide

01:05:33 - Participants move into Connection Rooms of 2 People for 15 minutes

01:05:51 - Reflections on the Exercise

01:10:47 - Concluding Remarks from Joel

01:13:31 - Offering Dana

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2023-04-30 Dharma Talk | Shunryu's Right Here | Todd Bankler by Appamada