Imagine yourself as a child lying on your back, gazing up into a cloudless sky, and
blowing soap bubbles through a plastic ring. As a bubble drifts up into the sky, you
watch it rise, and this brings your attention to the sky. While you are looking at the
bubble, it pops, and you keep your attention right where the bubble had been. Your
awareness now lies in empty space.

--B. Alan Wallace, "Tibetan Buddhism From the Ground Up"

Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --

Just Done By Yuan Mei (1716 - 1798) English version by J. P. Seaton A month alone behind closed doors forgotten books, remembered, clear again. Poems come, like water to the pool Welling,                               up and out, from perfect silence -- from A Drifting Boat: Chinese Zen Poetry, Edited by J. P. Seaton / Edited by Dennis Maloney

============ Thought for the Day: It is not the path that makes the person holy. The person makes the path holy. ============

Here's your Daily Music selection -- Yurdal Tokcan Passion Listen - Purchase More Music Selections

Archived issues of the NDHighlights are available online:
http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Nondual Highlights Issue #2495, Saturday, June 10, 2006




...the source of true happiness lies in our mind and heart, not in
possessions, others' actions, praise, reputation, and so forth. But
we must examine this for ourselves, so the Buddha asked us to
observe our own experiences to see what causes happiness and what
causes misery.

For example, we have all had the experience of waking up on the
wrong side of the bed. Nothing in particular happened to cause us to
be in a bad mood; we simply feel lousy. But, interestingly, just on
those days we feel grumpy, we encounter so many uncooperative and
rude people.

Just on the day we want to be left alone, so many obnoxious people
descend upon us! Suddenly, the way our spouse smiles appears
sarcastic, and our colleague's "Good morning" seems manipulative.
Even our pet dog no longer seems to love us! When our boss remarks
on our work, we take offense. When our friend reminds us to do
something, we accuse him of being controlling. When someone turns in
front of us on the road, it feels they are deliberately provoking us.

On the other hand, when we are in a good mood, even if our colleague
gives us some negative criticism on a project, we can put it in
perspective. When our professor asks us to redo a paper, we
understand her reasons. When a friend tells us that he was offended
by our words, we calmly explain ourselves and clear up the
misunderstanding.

That our interpretations of events and responses to them change
according to our mood says something important, doesn't it? It
indicates that we are not innocent people experiencing an
objectively real external world.

Rather, our moods, perspectives, and views play a role in our
experiences. The environment and the people in it aren't objective
entities that exist from their own side as this or that. Instead,
together with them, our mind co-creates our experiences.

Thus, if we want to be happy and to avoid suffering, we need to
subdue our unrealistic and non-beneficial emotions and perspectives
and enhance our positive ones.

- Venerable Thubten Chodron, posted to DailyDharma




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Virtuous...

Where, and when,
did mankind
adopt
the absurd belief,
that is valorous
or, virtuous,
to endure pain...?

That same belief,
is the very one,
that keeps
the experience
of ecstasy
and joy,
just out of our reach...

In Ecstacy and Joy...
ARIAL, posted to Poetic_Mysticism


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Drumsound rises on the air,
its throb, my heart.

A voice inside the beat
says, "I know you're tired,
but come. This is the way.

- Rumi
, version by Coleman Barks, Birdsong

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The purpose of life is not to arrive at the grave
a beautiful corpse, pretty and well-preserved, but
to slide in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally
worn out, proclaiming, "Wow! What a ride!"

- posted to meditationsocietyofamerica


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Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices

I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent

The wind has settled,
The blossoms have fallen;

Birds sing,
The mountains grow dark -

This is the wondrous Power of Spirit

- Ryokan, posted to Poetic_Mysticism

---

The next time you're tempted to compare your life to another's,
pause for a moment. Remind yourself, over and over, that there is no
competition on the spiritual plane. The blessings your nemesis has
received also can be yours as soon as you are really ready to receive
with an open heart all the good fortune created just for you. 

- Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance - A Daybook of Comfort and Joy

                   Cad is grá ann? Ó!                                              What is love? Oh!

                   Anois anois anois!                                             Now now now!

                   Ní thuigim …                                                    I don’t understand …

                   An grá atá uait, nach ea?                                    It’s love you want, is it?

                   Taibhsítear duit é                                             It appears to you

                    Samhlaítear duit é                                           You imagine it

                    In am éigin a d’imigh tharainn                            Belonging to some time past

                    Nó am éigin atá le teacht                                  Or some time to come

                    Nó é measctha agat le grá Dé                            Or you mix it up with love of God

        Nó grá do dhuine eile                                      Or love for another

                    Nó grá ar son an ghrá                                     Or love for the sake of love

                    Nó, fiú, grá don bhfocal féin, grá?                      Or love of the word itself, love?

                    Anois anois anois!                                         Now now now!

                     Ní fhéadfadh an grá a bheith i bhfocal, a ghrá,             Love could not be in a word, my love,

                     I gcoincheap                                                  In a concept

                     Ná in am, ná in áit, ná i nduine eile ná i ndán.          In time, or place, or person or poem.

                     Murab ann dó anois                                        If it is not now -

                     Gach piotal de á oscailt                                    Each petal opening to the sun

                     Don ngrian is ea é, é féin –                                Which is itself -

                     Sé oíche dhorcha an anama de shíor é! Ar m’anam.    Then it is the dark night of the soul.

                     Machnaigh.                                                     Reflect.

                                                            Gabriel Rosenstock

WRITING IN IRISH – FOR WHOM?

                                    Gabriel Rosenstock

When Irish more or less died out in most of the households on Achill Island – Achill, where Böll had a cottage and in which I stayed as a child, and later as an adult – when the language died out in the houses, the men continued for a while to use it at sea. What a metaphor for the use of minority languages today.... Fishermen, out at sea, speaking a threatened language among themselves, fishing for old words. Back on land and the secret language becomes a dying whisper in the breeze and then silence.

Writing in Irish today – for whom? Well, even if  you have something to say it is unlikely that the current generation will be interested. Or, if they are, they won’t have the key. They may have a skeleton key that opens up a few well-anthologised texts – that’s about it.

 Writing for some future generation is a lost cause. What’s left? Writing for oneself alone? Somewhat selfish, bordering on autoexoticism. And so, I write for generations past, honouring those and and thanking those who honed and shaped the language, helping to make Irish a world literature. But only a few of us believe this to be palpably true and, anyway, our strange language today, cappucino-flecked, wouldn’t wash down easily with those earlier generations. And the ancients are hardly reading the latest titles, are they? So really, one is writing for nobody. Is that bad?

No! Writing for nobody bestows an extraordinary freedom on the writer. He can explore anything. There are no market expectations, no agents to advise you about trends, none of the foppery of your books in windows or dressing up in front of a mirror before picking up an international prize. (For appearance’s sake, of course, we do allow for the odd celebrity and boast to the world that we’re still alive. Yes, we have our somebodys – but most of us are nobodys). It’s a humbling expereience. And maybe that’s not a bad thing either. After all, bad enough as we are, what would we be like if we had an ego?

 I once wrote a comic Mass (Aifreann Krishnamurphy) knowing that nobody would haul me up for blasphemy because nobody would bother to read it – or perform it before a live congregation. In a sense, it’s not fun any more being a heretic knowing that nobody is going to threaten you with  burning or anathema. If they’d only curse us, ban us, ridicule us – then, at least,  we would know that somebody actually read something and disapproved. But one continues .... why? Nobody knows. Is it just an incurable itch, an insanibile scribendi cacoethes? An urge to fill the Irish language with everything it may have lacked, lacked until recently, from the fridge to the I-pod via the vibrator?

Maybe to ask this question ‘For whom?’ is to start off on the wrong footing. For whom do we write? Well, let’s ask ourselves for whom do we live? For ourselves? For others? For whom or for what do we suffer, do we love? Or do we just suffer? Just love? Just write?

Our world is bewildered by questions. The mob is constantly bellowing: ‘We want answers!’ You do, do you? Everybody is looking to someone else for an answer. I have posed a question. For whom does the Irish-language writer write? For some it is a tantalising question. For many it is a question of no importance at all. Some will await an answer. Most will not be bothered. And so it goes.

If you have something important to say, why don’t you write in English, in a world language? Are you contemptuous or afraid of an audience? I hear this question from time to time. Why do I need a world language or world audience? I have read poetry and haiku in Irish all over the world, in India, Japan, US, Australia, Berlin, Lisdoonvarna etc. Far from being a hindrance, Irish was just the opposite. In an increasingly homogenised, globalized world, an ancient tongue – whatever its dubious status at home – can excite interest. After all, it is an English-speaking Anglo-American fraternity that is currently involved in wargames, not an Icelandic-speaking one.

Why did  Achill fishermen continue to speak Irish at sea when on land they abandoned it? An urge for continuity? Better communication? Of course, it would have been unsafe to switch suddenly to English if weather lore, names of landmarks and promontories, fishing terminology etc. were mostly in Irish. Well then,  was it simply for the pleasure of it that they continued in Irish?

I have no pressing communicative or safety reasons to write in Irish. Do I have the so-called  urge for continuity? Maybe, but not for its own sake. Anyway, what continuity? Raftery – the last of the bards – may have been a frequent visitor to my mother’s ancestral home but isn’t that stretching continuity a bit when my mother’s generation had long abandoned the language? So, do I write for pleasure? That must be it. Pleasure. Yes, pleasure. It’s enough.  Most Irish children derive little pleasure from Irish as a school subject and that is a sin.

 I once read on the same platform with a poet who had never published a poem in his life for the very simple reason that his language did not have an alphabet or written form! He was a big hit, I can tell you! I would have loved to have kept up a correspondence with him but, as you can imagine, he was unable to write his address. But we communicate across the great silences of dying languages with every single line we compose.

You may ask, did that poet who could have been a stuntman in that moving film The Weeping Camel, did he have something important to say?  Importance? What is importance? I have no idea in the wide world what importance is. Is it something invented in London or San Francisco or somewhere? They have no weeping camels in London – what would they know about important things! I seem to recall the alphabet-less poet intoning something about a horse’s mane blowing in the wind. Is that important? Well, I am sure that nothing was quite as important for that poet when the utterance came through him. Probably important for the horse too.

Hey, can we forget about importance,  please? Nothing is important. Everything is important. Irish is not important. Irish is very important. You are not important. You are very important. And so on... Take your pick. It won’t matter a tráithnín in a thousand years.

The poet who wrote about the horse’s mane was a shaman, of course. Shamans are the only poets left. Well, they were the first. And they shall be the last. Give him an alphabet, give him books to read, radio to listen to and chances are he will complain that his shamanistic powers are beginning to fail him.

 Irish still has enough ancient magic and music to allow us to chant in it and  perform our shamanistic rites. If the world is sick, the shaman poet and not the multinational pharmaceutical company may be the one to call upon. Then the nobody who has been performing for nobody all along is suddenly perceived as performing for the whole tribe and the tribes of all nations and none.

as flowing waters disappear into the mist
we lose all track of their passage
every heart is its own Buddha
ease off; become immortal


wake up: the world's a mote of dust
behold heaven's round mirror
turn loose: slip past shape and shadow
sit side by side with nothing-save Tao

by Shih-shu

The Clouds Should Know Me By Now

By Alan Larus

with more photos: http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/islands/clouds.htm

---

Dogen's Cosmology of Space and the Practice of Self-Fulfillment
-Taigen Dan Leighton

excerpt 1:

Conventionally, "flowers in space" are an image of delusion, illusion, and non-reality. But Dogen is affirming that all the buddhas' teachings are just "flowers in space." The supposedly illusory space flowers are exactly where buddhas teach, "The vehicle upon which the buddhas ride." And even the Buddhist scriptures are flowers in space. This paradox is in full accord with the Mahayana principle, enunciated in the Lotus Sutra, of buddhas appearing precisely for the sake of awakening beings from the delusions and afflictions of the mundane world. Dogen says further, "By practicing this flower of space, the buddha-tathagatas receive the robes, the seat for teaching, and the master's room, and they attain the truth and get the effect. Picking up a flower and winking an eye are all the Universe." This is a reference to the legend of Shakyamuni holding up the flower and Mahakashyapa, considered the First Ancestor of Zen in India, smiling. Dogen says, "Picking up a flower and winking an eye are all the Universe, which is realized by clouded eyes and flowers in space. The true Dharma eye treasury [that is "Shobogenzo"] and the fine mind of nirvana, which have been authentically transmitted to the present without interruption, are called clouded eyes and flowers in space."

Dogen has turned a conventional image for delusion totally upside down. "Bodhi, nirvana, the Dharma-body, selfhood, and so on, are two or three petals of five petals opened by a flower in space." And then he quotes this line mentioned above, "Shakyamuni Buddha says, 'It is like a person who has clouded eyes seeing flowers in space; if the sickness of clouded eyes is cured, flowers vanish in space."

Dogen also says:

"No scholars have clearly understood this statement. Because they do not know space, they do not know flowers in space. Because they do not know flowers in space, they do not know a person who has clouded eyes, do not see a person who has clouded eyes, do not meet a person who has clouded eyes, and do not become a person who has clouded eyes. Through meeting a person who has clouded eyes, we should know flowers in space and should see flowers in space. When we have seen flowers in space, we can also see flowers vanish in space."[15]

Dogen is not just talking about space, but the "flowering of space," and of the Dharma. Zazen and the whole Buddhist project is just a "flower in space" for Dogen. This is typical of Dogen's sense of humor, or at least he is playing with our usual understandings, and even the usual understandings of Buddhist scholars and teachers. It is exactly amid the space flowers that buddhas awaken and produce more space flowers. Dogen is also reaffirming, in a very deep way, the issue of nonduality.

Usually nonduality is considered as opposed to duality. Dogen often refers to nonduality, and it is usually thought that this is about transcending duality and discriminating mind, seeing through the dualities of form and emptiness, this and that, good and bad, right and wrong, all of the conventional dualistic illusions. But in his discussion of the flowers of space, Dogen is clearly talking about the nonduality of duality and nonduality. Dogen's nonduality is not about transcending the duality of form and emptiness. This deeper nonduality is not the opposite of duality, but the synthesis of duality and nonduality, with both included, and both seen as ultimately not separate, but as integrated. In the "flowers in space" of the buddhas' teaching, "space" is not empty space, "space" is our activity and life, the dialectical synthesis of form and emptiness.

Dogen also adds in Shobogenzo Kuge, "People who understand that flowers in space are not real but other flowers are real are people who have not seen or heard the Buddha's teaching." He is saying yes to everything, and cutting through duality and nonduality, right in our everyday life. "The everyday speech of a monk is the whole universe in ten directions" is a kind of a nonduality that goes beyond our conventional idea of nonduality. He is describing the ontological and cosmological awakening of the natural world, and the impact of space itself.

 

---

No Limit

 

in a distant land
at the castle wall
 I let you into my heart

you said

this sky is your skin
 there is
no limit
to beauty

 

 

When I came to say

I can see the way

 

One thing leads to another

I am at your feet

 

She did show me this:
There's no limit to the bliss

 

 

by Alan Larus

 

http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/islands/no_limit.htm

 

 

---

excerpt 2:

Another influence is the native Japanese poetic tradition, as Steven Heine elaborates in The Zen Poetry of Dogen.[17] Dogen's rhetoric, his poetic style, and philosophical approach come out of both the koan material, but also from the great literary tradition in Japan, in which he was very well versed. Yet another influence is the whole Mahayana tradition of the bodhisattva, apparent in his many quotes from various sutras. The image of "Flowers in Space" recalls the Flower Ornament Sutra, the Avatamsaka, which also talks about space and buddha-fields as full of flowers, as well as jewels, birds, and the adorned land itself all preaching the Dharma. The Mahayana sutras provide a tradition for this way of speaking about space, but as usual, Dogen turns it a little bit. [..]

................

Dogen says, "When one displays the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, sitting upright in this samadhi even for a short time, everything in the entire dharma world becomes buddha mudra, and all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment." To say that all space itself becomes enlightenment is a startling and radical statement from our usual view of space, or of enlightenment. Dogen continues:

"There is a path through which the anuttara samyak sambodhi, complete perfect enlightenment, of all things returns to the person in zazen, and whereby that person and the enlightenment of all things intimately and imperceptibly assist each other. Therefore this zazen person without fail drops off body and mind, cuts away previous tainted views and thoughts, awakens genuine buddha-dharma, universally helps the buddha work in each place, as numerous as atoms, where buddhas teach and practice, and widely influences practitioners who are going beyond buddha, vigorously exalting the dharma that goes beyond buddha. At this time, because earth, grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, all things in the dharma realm in the universe in ten directions [the whole of space and all the things that are space: grasses, trees, fences and so forth] carry out buddha-work, therefore everyone receives the benefit of wind and water movement caused by this functioning, and all are imperceptibly helped by the wondrous and incomprehensible influence of buddha to actualize the enlightenment at hand."[22]

Because of this mutual resonance, Dogen is saying that not only teachers help the practitioner, but that there is an "imperceptible" guidance and assistance between space itself and the person sitting. Zazen influences not only the people around the practitioner, but also, "grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles." But because the elements of space then also carry out "buddha work," they in turn inform and assist the practice of the person engaged in zazen. This is the import of this previous passage, which is part of the "self-fulfillment samadhi" jijiyu zanmai section of Bendowa that is chanted daily in Japanese Soto Zen training temples.

The etymology of the "self-fulfillment samadhi" is significant in Dogen's teaching about space itself becoming enlightenment. The etymology of jijiyu, or self-fulfillment, is literally, "the self accepting its function." When each person takes their place or dharma position, receiving their particular unique function or role in the world, then that active acceptance becomes the fulfillment of the deeper self that is not separate from the things of the world. There is an intimate relationship between self and the world, and that is involved in what might be called "faith," in trusting both oneself and the world. But this does not mean mere passive and unquestioning acceptance of everything. The practitioner's own active response and participation in the world, based on precepts and on principles of acting to benefit and awaken all beings, is part of the dynamic space that Dogen is expounding.

There is a word in the previous passage that I had not heard before studying in Japan, myoshi, or another version is myoka, meaning "mysterious guidance," or "incomprehensible assistance." This refers to the possibility of practitioners receiving benefit from the bodhisattva energy and buddha energy of the world. But also it works reciprocally; when we sit zazen, we affect the nature of the space. After you have sat a period in the meditation hall and arise, you might perhaps feel a difference in the space. This is hardly objective or scientific in the usual sense, but if you travel to Bodhgaya in India, or certain old temples in Japan, places where people have practiced for a very long time, and then walk into that space, you might feel some of the impact of the centuries of practice.

This idea of myoshi implies trusting the world to give what is needed, no matter how painful it is. It is also taking refuge, returning to the world, returning to one's place in the world. Myoshi is the basis for the whole practice of lay people, going to the temples and making offerings, chanting, and bowing to buddha and bodhisattva statues. Japanese college students call on Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, for help on their tests. But the other side of myoshi is that there is a responsibility; it is not just one-way. It is our practice that activates the response from the phenomenal world. So we have a responsibility to the world and to space, and with our responsive and aware practice, assistance can arrive from the awakened space.

Caring for Space

This view of space has some implications that are significant in terms of Dogen's contemporary relevance. This aspect is not all there is to Dogen's writing; there is also the psychological dimension implied in his teaching of "studying the self."[23] But we could call this teaching about space the environmental aspect of Dogen. Dogen is saying that the environment is alive, just like the Native American peoples say that all our relations in the four directions are alive. The trees and grasses, and for Dogen even the lights, the rug, and the chairs, have some spiritual agency.

For a modern reading and current contemporary recreation of Dogen, one might see how this relates to Dogen's attention to taking care of the monastery or practice place, and taking care generally of the phenomenal world (which some people have considered "fussiness" on Dogen's part). According to Dogen, the space that one practices in is alive, and supportive, in this level of dharma practice. Taking care of the phenomenal world is the natural expression of the practice of zazen. Gary Snyder says that Zen comes down to meditation and sweeping the temple, and it is up to each person to decide where the boundaries of the temple are. There are particular practice places, and then there is the whole universe in the ten directions, and we each work within the limits of the field of space that we are in.

This view of space is also relevant to faith. The sense of faith for Dogen is that it is not belief in some thing, in what Dogen says, or in a buddha image, but faith as a kind of active practice relationship with space. This faith is just taking the next step, meeting each thing. That is because, from this perspective, the dharma world of space is alive. One does receive support when acting from that space of faith.

 

Taigen Dan Leighton has been teaching at the Institute of Buddhist Studies since 1994. He is author of Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression, and is editor and co-translator of a number of Zen texts, including Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Koroku; Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi; and Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community; A Translation of the Eihei Shingi.

Thanks to Ed (stillpointed) for posting the link where entire article may be read.

http://www.mtsource.org/articles/dogenspace.html

Read more at

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/nyregion/18franck.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

photo: Mr. Franck's work, "Pieta."

Archived issues of the NDHighlights are available online:
http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Nondual Highlights Issue #2504, Wednesday, June 21, 2006




Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation?
What do you know of Love except the name?
Love has a hundred forms of pride and disdain,
and is gained by a hundred means of persuasion.
Since Love is loyal, it purchases one who is loyal:
it has no interest in a disloyal companion.
The human being resembles a tree; its root is a covenant with God:
that root must be cherished with all one's might.
A weak covenant is a rotten root, without grace or fruit.
Though the boughs and leaves of the date palm are green,
greenness brings no benefit if the root is corrupt.
If a branch is without green leaves, yet has a good root,
a hundred leaves will put forth their hands in the end.

- Rumi, Mathnawi V:1163-1169, version by Camille and Kabir
Helminski, Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance, posted to Sunlight





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How did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its Being,
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too Frightened.

- Hafiz, from The Gift, Poems by Hafiz, the Great Sufi Master,
translated by Daniel Ladinsky



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The mind is very difficult to 'see'
Very delicate and subtle ...

It moves and lands wherever it pleases.

The wise one should 'guard' his mind,
For a 'guarded' mind brings happiness.

- The Buddha, Dhammapada, translation by Daw Mya Tin, posted to
Poetic_Mysticism



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If you want money more than anything,
you'll be bought and sold.

If you have a greed for food,
you'll be a loaf of bread.

This is a subtle truth:
whatever you love, you are.

- Rumi, version by Coleman Barks, Birdsong, posted to AlongTheWay



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Spring-water in the green creek is clear
Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white

Silent 'knowledge' ...
the spirit is enlightened of itself

Contemplate the void ...
'this' world exceeds stillness.

- Han-shan, posted to Poetic_Mysticism



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Love lies in service; only that which is done not for fame or name,
not for the appreciation or thanks of those for whom it is done, is
love's service.

- Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Service lies in the naturalness of giving and receiving. Not looking
for appreciation and not refusing whatever comes. This is the open
heart.

- Xan, both posted to SufiMystic

"The particular skill required is that it must be a state of total relaxation which is not distracted or dull. It is not an objective experience of looking for the mind or looking at the mind. On the other hand, it is not a blind process; we are not unaware. There is seeing without looking; there is dwelling in the experience without looking at the experience. This is the keynote of the intuitive approach."

 

"While the mind is poised in the state of bare awareness, there is no directing the mind. One is not looking within for anything; one is not looking without for anything. One is simply letting the mind rest in its own natural state. The empty, clear and unimpeded nature of mind can be experienced if we can rest in an uncontrived state of bare awareness without distraction and without the spark awareness being lost..."

 

 

Ven. Kalu Rinpoche

by Jax on Dzogchen Practice

 

 

---

 

 

By Alexandra Topping
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, June 22, 2006; H01

LONDON

At a few minutes to 11 on a recent balmy night in East London, a black Ford crawled along the dimly lighted street. The suspicious driver rolled down his window to quiz a young woman by the curb. "What are you doing here?" he asked. The reply came quickly, cheerfully. "Gardening."

She was one of two dozen men and women gathered at a long-neglected public flower bed about 20 feet long and 10 feet wide. Under flickering street lamps in the bleak urban landscape, they spent the next four hours transforming the block with pitchforks and spades, fresh soil and plants.

These are London's Guerrilla Gardeners, a fast-growing force of renegades who are breathing life into neglected and timeworn pockets of open land across this vast metropolis.

Similar grass-roots movements are long established in New York, Philadelphia and, on a smaller scale, Washington. But the idea is relatively new to Britain, where people are more likely to wait politely, if vainly, for their municipalities to fix up the public open land.

What makes the British version particularly odd, though, is that it is done under cover of darkness, reinforcing the idea that this is rebellious and illicit. The guerrillas work at night to avoid run-ins with authorities, some of whom may not take kindly to trespassers working on land that is not their own.

The movement was started two years ago by Richard Reynolds, 28, a freelance advertising executive and passionate gardener who first tackled the wasteland around his high-rise apartment in the Elephant and Castle neighborhood in south London. He tells of setting his alarm for the middle of the night and attacking the littered flower bed on his block. He planted vibrant red cyclamens and cordylines, the latter chosen because they were "evergreen, strikingly sculptural, and they echoed the pattern of the spiky metal burglar-preventing fence at the top of the wall."

Soon he was enlisting the help of friends to mount more ambitious raids and, thanks to regular blogs on his Web site ( http://www.guerrillagardening.org/ ) and interest from the British media, Reynolds found he was welcoming more people on every dig.

Today, the Guerrilla Gardeners number more than 1,000 and counting. Reynolds continues to fund most of the plantings himself, but also receives donations from supporters. He tends towards hardy, drought-resistant plants because they won't need much maintenance. A favorite choice is lavender: "It's wind-resistant, drought-resistant, sweet-smelling, floral, honey-bee attracting." Two or three times a month Reynolds sends a group e-mail informing his troops of the next dig's secret location. A select group of the guerrillas comes armed with tools, and sometimes plants, but Reynolds is always at the vanguard, handing out gloves and trowels and directing operations.

Like a lot of big cities, London has its attractive parks and squares, but residents also live with open space that is neglected, trashy and a blight on the urban environment.

[...]

Later that evening, the risks of moonlit gardening were exposed. Around 2 a.m., while Reynolds was doing maintenance work on another site, two cops pulled up. "We've had reports that someone is stealing plants from this traffic island," they said. "Yes, young dandelions mostly, officer. Is that okay?" he replied. One look at the roots and they drove off, an example of the "supportive blind eye" that the authorities have taken to the guerrillas' nighttime antics.

The stealth gardening movement is spreading to other cities, such as Brussels; Erie, Pa.; and Vancouver, British Columbia. Reynolds's ambition is to record 100 acts of guerrilla gardening across four continents by Sept. 1; he has 75 to go. His Web site proclaims the group's rallying cry: "Enlist, and let's fight the filth in our public spaces with forks and flowers."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062100541_pf.html

American Community Gardening Association 

Garden Web - "The Internet's Garden Community"

Trust for Public Land - Land conservation is central to TPL's mission.

http://www.greenguerillas.org/links.asp

Monday, June 26 2006 @ 04:52 AM PDT

I thought this would be a drama, like Blue Crush, the fabulous modern day Gidget. But this is a documentary, highlighting one of the longest running subcultures, if not countercultures, ever. Whereas the Beats were prompted by writers Ginsberg and Kerouac, who, in many ways defined the ethos, and the hippie movement seemed to also flow out from the art community with writers like Kesey and Tom Wolfe to heighten and define it, the surfer lifestyle long predated the art form, and these other subcultures. There was a cohesive, sun, fun-loving culture around southern California's waves about as soon as the boys came home from the war.

Now when you've got sunshine and skimpy clothes and tans and waves and fun-loving kids, right near Hoolywood... well, it didn't take long for someone to capitalize on that. Gidget was a huge hit that propelled the surfing scene from a few thousand to a few million in 1959. It spawned a long spate of Beach Blanket, Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello hits. The heyday was '65-'69 when the Beach Boys promoted and provided the soundtrack for the scene, like the Dead did for the hippies.

It's very much a subculture in the sense that it is a lifestyle, people can be fully immersed in it as a way of life. But, it has a self-limiting feature in a way. Surfers are not looking to build anything, they're not trying to change the world like the Beats, hippies, communes, cults, religious communities and almost any other type of subculture you could name... they just want to catch a wave. They're not driven by ideals, or even ideas, other than to enjoy life in a way most of us dare not.

And actually, at this point, surfing has become a somewhat codified sport with it's players and hierarchies. Last time I was in Laguna I had a long talk with someone about the surfing scene which can be less than pretty because there are lots of surfers, and a limited amount of waves. They are not seeking to expand their ranks.

Now, talk about your testosterone, these guys are pretty far out there, especially the big wave riders, which is the subject of this film. I grew up a few blocks from the ocean and went there all the time, especially in HS, and even though I'm pretty adventurous and have great balance... it's a bit much for me. I've been churned in the ocean enough times to fear it. These guys are wailing down 80' mountains, often almost vertical cliffs, that are, essentially, chasing them. The strength of mind and body required to do it is greater than any endeavor I can think of.

But, that's the rush they look for. The risk, not to mention skill, is huge, but so is the payoff, the thrill of a lifetime. It's a bit like The Right Stuff, shedding some light on the mindset of people who are willing to live life on the edge. They are willing to face their fears and the awesome, uncontrollable ocean every day. These people are centered on living their lives to the fullest, finding out what they are made of, in the face of God's true expression of power, not making money. They know what it's like to be fully present in connection with God, because, that is clearly what it takes to ride those waves. I really respect that.

There is a real brotherhood, I only saw one female surfer in this whole film (and I guess women don't have "the right stuff" either). The attitude these guys have toward each other is different from the mountain climbers who do not feel particularly compelled to rescue each other, it's sort of every man for himself. But, with the advent of towing into waves, the surfers all take extreme risks to pull their buddies out of gnarly sets of successive breaking waves. When they lost one of their own, they all lined up their boards in memorial. So, check out this fantastic indie film, which was bought by Sony at Sundance. It's chock full of fascinating info on a little explored sport/lifestyle which has had a big influence on the American psyche.

Station 8 - Unganji

There was a Zen temple called Unganji in this province. The priest Buccho used to live in isolation in the mountains behind the temple. He once told me that he had written the following poem on the rock of his hermitage with the charcoal he had made from pine.

This grassy hermitage,
Hardly any more
Than five feet square,
I would gladly quit
But for the rain.

A group of young people accompanied me to the temple. they talked so cheerfully along the way that I reached it before I knew it. The temple was situated on the side of a mountain completely covered with dark cedars and pines. A narrow road trailed up the valley, between banks of dripping moss, leading us to the gate of the temple across a bridge. The air was still cold, though it was April.

I went behind the temple to see the remains of the priest Buccho's hermitage. It was a tiny hut propped against the base of a huge rock. I felt as if I was in the presence of the Priest Genmyo's cell or the Priest Houn's retreat. I hung on a wooden pillar of the cottage the following poem which I wrote impromptu.

Even the woodpeckers
Have left it untouched,
This tiny cottage
In a summer grove.