HAIKU BY SARYU
Without a brush
The willow paints the wind
Zen Haiku, selected and translated by Jonathan Clements
London: Frances Lincoln, 2000
contemplativeinquiry
This blog is about contemplative inquiry
Month: May, 2019
May 29, 2019
TRUE MEDITATION AND THE GRACE OF DISAPPOINTMENT
“If you run from disappointment, you run from life itself. Disappointment can soften the mind and open the heart. If you let it.
“…. When life doesn’t turn out the way we’d hoped, disappointment can burn hot inside. The invitation? Turn towards the burning place. Actually feel the pain, instead of numbing it or running towards some new dream. It’s more painful to run away, in the end. The pain of self-abandonment is the worst pain of all.
“Break the addiction to ‘the next experience’. Bring curious attention to that which you call ‘disappointment’. Contact the fluttery sensations in the belly, the constricted feelings in the heart area, the lump in the throat, the fogginess in the head. Stay present for what’s alive …. Do not refuse the now.
“Turn towards this burning moment; this is true meditation. Breathe into the uncomfortable place. Don’t abandon yourself now for a new imagined future. Don’t leave yourself for the world of thought. Find your home in what is.
“Let the mind chatter away today, but don’t take it as reality. Disappointment is bringing you closer to yourself. To your breath. To the weight of your body upon the Earth. To the sounds of the afternoon. To the evening’s song. To the sense of being alive. To a deep surrender to the imperfection of this human experience.
“… Return to the heart …Soften into the moment. Return Home . The moment as it is … The moment as it is. Let all expectations melt. Into the silence. Into a new beginning. Disappointment is the gateway.”
Jeff Foster The Joy of True Meditation: Words of Encouragement for Tired Minds and Wild Hearts Salisbury, UK: New Sarum Press, 2019
May 6, 2019
DAYFLY
“The brief dayfly dies before evening; summer’s cicada knows neither spring nor autumn. What a glorious luxury it is to taste life to the full for even a year. If you constantly regret life’s passing, even a thousand long years will seem but the dream of a night.”
Yoshida Kenko A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees Kindle edition of a Penguin Classic. This is a selection taken from Essays in Idleness and probably written around 1329-31 CE. Translated into English by Meredith McKinney.
The son of an administration official, Kenko was born Urabe Kaneyoshi and served as guards officer in the Imperial palace. He became a Buddhist monk in later life, living in a hermitage within a Zen monastery. He has been seen as the most important Japanese literary figure of his day, retaining something of a secular lens on the world despite his monastic standing. He also wrote: “it is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.” I like him for writing that sentence, and I like being able to read it.
May 3, 2019
ARNE NAESS AS PHILOSOPHICAL VAGABOND
“Naess embodies the spirit of philosophy in its original sense as being a loving pursuit of wisdom. It is a deep exploration of our whole lives and context in pursuit of living wisely. The essence of Socratic inquiry is to know ourselves. From his work on Pyrrhonian scepticism to his … positive statements on pluralism and possibilism, Naess says he is a ‘philosophical vagabond’ or ‘wandering seeker’, what the ancient Greeks called a zetetic’” (1).
In 1968 Arne Naess (1912-2009) published Scepticism (2) two years before resigning as chair of philosophy at the University of Oslo to devote himself to environmental problems. Part of this book focuses on Sextus Empiricus (150-225 CE), the last recorded Pyrrhonist philosopher in a line going back to Pyrrho of Elis (c360-c272 BCE).
Pyrrhonists, as described by Sextus Empiricus, neither made truth claims nor denied the possibility of making them. Instead, they cultivated a deeply embedded attitude of suspension of judgement (epoche), allowing possibilities to stand open within the process of continuing inquiry. Such a turning away from the drive for intellectual closure enables peace of mind (ataraxia) in our engagement with the richness and diversity of experience. As Naess says, the Pyrrhonist philosopher “leaves questions open, but without leaving the question. He has however given up his original, ultimate aim of gaining peace of mind by finding truth because it so happened that he came by peace of mind in another way.” (2)
Naess was not himself a Pyrrhonist, but clearly valued the Pyrrhonist frame of mind. He took something from it into his later work, as is made clear in Alan Drengson’s introduction to Naess’s Ecology of Wisdom (1):
“… there is never one definitive interpretation of philosophical texts; there is never one description of an event and all processes are complex interactions involving changing forces and relations, internal and external. Experience and the processes around us form changing patterns or gestalts. The nature of reality is multidimensional and creative. … Our spontaneous experience is so rich and deep that we can never give a complete account of it in any language, be it mathematics, science, music or art … As a deep questioner and seeker, Naess remains free of dogmatic and monolithic doctrine about the world … [which] partly explains why he celebrates a movement supported by diverse people with many world views”.
I enjoy this view of inquiry, and feel inspired to carry it forward more consciously in my own work. My sense is that it will bring my inquiry more into the world, without its losing its contemplative core.
(1) Arne Naess Ecology of Wisdom UK: Penguin Books, 2016 (Penguin Modern Classic. First published 2008)
(2) Arne Naess Scepticism Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 1968
See also:
https://contemplativeinquiry.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/pyrrho-scepticism-arne-naess/
https://contemplativeinquiry.wordpress.com/2019/04/25/spiritual-truth-claims/
May 2, 2019
HOW EXTINCTION REBELLION SHIFTED THE OVERTON WINDOW
The Overton Window, as you may remember, is a way of understanding which ideas are politically viable and which are considered impossible or radical. If an idea is within the window, it can be discussed and will be taken seriously. If it lies outside of it, a politician will be risking their career and credibility if they support it.
According to its originator, ideas move through a spectrum towards official acceptance. They start out unthinkable, and move to radical, acceptable, sensible, popular, and finally they get adopted as policy.
Robust action on climate change had a moment ten years ago when the Climate Change Act was passed with cross-party support. The failure of the Copenhagen talks took the wind out of its sails, and the financial crisis overwhelmed it with other priorities. A decade of Conservative government has pushed climate change into the margins, with some in the party…
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May 1, 2019
POETRY FOR THE MERRY MONTH
Below are two versions of late fourteenth century verse, written by an anonymous English author, probably from North Staffordshire or Cheshire. It depicts the turning of the wheel of the year as it moves through spring into summer.
The first version is a mid-twentieth century translation by J.R.R. Tolkien. The second is the original. The poem is embedded in the text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which arguably shows an immature warrior class (King Arthur’s knights) being taken down a peg by the primal forces of nature.
The extract here stands outside the main narrative, which occurs during the Christmas festivities of one year and the Hallowe’en to Christmas period of the next.
“But then the weather in the world makes war on the winter,
Cold creeps into the earth, clouds are uplifted,
Shining rain is shed in showers that all warm
Fall on the fair turf, flowers there open,
Of grounds and of groves green is the raiment,
Birds as busy a-building and gravely are singing
For sweetness of the soft summer that will soon be
On the way.
And blossoms burgeon and blow
In hedgerows bright and gay;
Then glorious musics go
Through the woods in proud array.
After the season of summer with its soft breezes,
When Zephyr goes sighing through seeds and herbs,
Right glad is the grass that grows in the open,
When the damp leaves
To greet a gay glance of the glistening sun”. (1)
“Bot thenne the weder of the worlde with winter hit threpes,
Colde clenges adoun, cloudes uplyften,
Shyre schedes the rayn in schowres ful warme,
Falles upon fayre flat, flowres there schewen.
Bothe groundes and the greves grene are her wedes,
Bryddes busken to bylde, and bremlych syngen
For solace of the softe somer that sues thereafter
Bi bonk;
And blossoumes bolne to blowe
Bi rawes rych and ronk,
Then notes noble innoghe
Are herde in wod so wlonk.
After, the sesoun of somer with the soft wyndes,
Quen Zeferus syfles himself on sedes and erbes;
Wela wynne is the wort that waxes theroute,
When the donkande dewed dropes of the leves,
To bide a blysful blusch of the bright sunne.”
(1) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo translated by J. R. R. Tolkien New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1975
(2) C. Cawley (ed.) Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight London: Dent & New York: Dutton: Everyman’s Library, 1962
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