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#1453 - Friday, June 6, 2003 - Editor: Gloria

When you understand one thing through
and through, you understand everything.
~Shunryu Suzuki  (Gill Eardly on SufiMystic)

How you do one thing is how you do everything.
~Cheri Huber   (bondzai on SufiMystic)  

photo of pottery by Lee Love, see final article  

======================================

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
~e e cummings    

Viorica Weissman ~ MillionPaths  

Free and Easy: A Spontaneous Vajra Song

By Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche

Happiness cannot be found

through great effort and willpower,

but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go.

Don’t strain yourself,

there is nothing to do or undo.

Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind

has no real importance at all,

has little reality whatsoever.

Why identify with, and become attached to I,

passing judgment upon it and ourselves?

Far better to simply

Let the entire game happen on its own,

springing up and falling back like waves –

and notice how everything vanishes and

reappears, magically, again and again,

time without end.

Only our searching for happiness

prevents us from seeing it.

It’s like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching,

or a dog chasing its own tail.

Gendun Rinpoche is a senior Kagya lama, abbot and retreat master of Dakpo Kagyu Ling Monastery in Dordogne, France where this poem was translated form Tibetan.

"Temple" monoprint by Jean Shannon (see final article)    

Joe Riley ~ Panhala  

this amazing day

  i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes  

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)  

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?  

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)  

~ e.e. cummings ~    

Web version
Web archive of Panhala postings
To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com    

Carl Karasti ~ SufiMystic  

..            * What is Grace *
..
..
..       "What is grace?" I asked God.
..
..                And He said,
..
..             "All that happens."
..
..    Then He added, when I looked perplexed,
..
..              "Could not lovers
..  say that every moment in their Beloved's arms
..                 was grace?
..
..             Existence is my arms,
..    though I well understand how one can turn
..                 away from
..                    me
..
..           until the heart has
..                 wisdom."
..
..
..      - St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
..    (Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinsky)    

Su Gandolf ~ NDS  

An excerpt from
Awake in the Heartland by Joan Tollifson

http://www.trafford.com/robots/02-1346.html

******************************************************

In the Beginning: A Story

Life as it is, the only teacher.
Joko Beck

Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment.
This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light,
every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every
illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every
addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the
Guru.

My right hand and the lower part of my right forearm were amputated
by a fiber in the uterus during my mother's pregnancy. My mother
tells me that when I was a baby, I used to reach for objects with my
non-existent right hand and then look really surprised. Maybe I
experienced a phantom limb. I like to think that this reaching for
objects with a hand that turned out to be imaginary might have been
my first visceral glimpse into the illusory nature of so-called
material reality.

Having one hand has been a wonderful teacher. The funny thing is, I
would never choose such a teacher, but now that I have it, I am truly
grateful for it. I knew from early on that the body is impermanent,
that there is a deeper reality than form, that true perfection must
embrace imperfection.

Addiction has been another wonderful teacher or me. It taught me
everything there is to know about the etiology of suffering and the
question of free will. It took me to places I would never otherwise
have gone. Again, I would never have chosen this teacher. But having
gotten it, I'm infinitely grateful for it. Addiction is a superb and
relentless teacher.

Whatever appears in your life is the perfect teacher or you. No two
lives are the same. Don't get lost in comparing your experiences to
anybody else's experiences. Each life is beautifully unique, and each
reflects the whole.

  Zen Oleary ~ SufiMystic  

Backpacker Poets


We're in and out of
each others' lives
like backpackers
sharing hostels
who meet up with
each other frequently
as we travel the
same routes,
unsure yet of our
next destination,

words and images are
given and received,
tossed in the common pot,
shared and passed around,
here amidst the laundry
hanging out to dry,
the sweaty boots and the
scent of bug repellent,
we're feeding each other
communion, poems written
from the sacredness
of our souls,

I may never see you again
or we may travel together
for a week or a month,
or even longer as we
write lines in the dark,
hunkered in third class
on overnight trains
too noisy and crowded
to allow sleep,

Your face and words will
slowly fade from memory
along with
all the maps, creased
and wine stained,
that we study spread out
on cafe tables as
we plot our routes,
 
I want to remember
your smiles and laughter.
this time shared
slumbering in the warmth
of poems running with
the swiftness of rabbits
on word stained pages,

so I print out poems
and favorite posts,
pages I stamp in the
passport of memory
and tuck away in a
special waterproof pouch
for safe keeping.

© Zen Oleary
June 6, 2003
 

Lee Love ~ E-Zendo  

Photos from our opening (my pottery, Jean's woodblock prints):

http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/2003/06/03/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/2003/06/04/

This graduation show is the finish of a 3.5 year apprenticeship.  It has been
very intense but rewarding.    The formal apprenticeship is exactly what I
needed.

       Next, I do pottery at my own workshop and work on my book in the evening.
My book's general theme is Zen Practice and Craft.    It is much inspired by
Dogen's writings on cooking and sewing.

maitri,

--
Lee In Mashiko Ikiru@hachiko.com
..
      "With Humans it's what's here (he points to his heart) that makes the
difference.  If you don't have it in the heart, nothing you make will make a
difference."

                                    ~~Bernard Leach~~
                                            (As told to Dean Schwarz)      

Beneath Cedar needles

We hide the first spring bamboo shoots

Nightengale’s call...

I found the first bamboo shoot of the year in the woods next to the upper storage building. I announced my find at the end of lunch. After a while Fukiyan, the seventy-five year old "retired" foreman at the pottery, left the workshop, so I followed. I had to show him where they were. Earlier at beginning of tea break I had dug up the largest bamboo shoot. It was the only one ready to pick.

Fukiyan noticed the hole where the bamboo shoot had been and said, "Ah, you took the first one." He then started putting a teepee of sticks over each bamboo shoot and then covered the sticks with cedar needles. I asked him, "Is the sunshine bad for the bamboo shoots?" He laughed and said, "No, the sunlight is good for them. It is the people who walk by that are bad for the bamboo shoots. We are hiding them so nobody will find them."

The potters in Mashiko have always been farmers too. They were busy farming in the spring and fall and potted during the slow agricultural times. Today, after we all put in a full day at the workshop, on my way home I saw Fukiyan in his rice fields preparing them for spring planting. In his own way, even though his time is focused on being a shokunin (skilled craftsman) at the pottery, his rice farming puts you in mind of the Mashiko potter’s roots

rest of story about Lee Love's apprenticeship with his teacher, Shimaoka Sensei, may be read here:  

http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~ikiru/cedar.html  

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lee Love

I put up photos of Jean's woodblock prints (many from temples and buddhist
imagery.)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/2003/06/05/

Maitri,
--
Lee Love Ikiru@hachiko.com
Mashiko  JAPAN

    "Really there is no East, no West,
    Where then is the South and the North?
    Illusion makes the world close in,
    Enlightenment opens it on every side."

          -  Japanese Pilgrim's Verse.

    "Samyoji Temple" by Jean Shannon

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