Phrased a little lyrically, tonight's meditation was like... What's more immediate and basic and original than a thought? Let that be the meditation. . (Alternative "lyric"...) What's more immediate and basic and original than a thought? Let that have you.

There was 7 inches of snow in my yard a couple days ago ... and today there are little Persian speedwell flowers in the lawn (which I'm seeing described as a "winter annual weed").

Put only slightly playfully, tonight's meditation was about allowing an embrace from something that's more original than I am. 🙂 🙏

If approached in metaphysically conceptual terms, "God is transcendent" means God is, like, on a plane outside this world. But if understood in practical, experiential terms (and we ask how such a statement *works*), it's akin to how our experience of sleep transcends our waking & thinking process.

Reading a book on apophaticism (a fancy word for letting go of words) and see statements like "[The Divine] is essentially incomprehensible." As a basic, if over-educated, meditator person, it seems more to the point that what gets called the Divine is just too basic and immediate for our concepts.

Nicholas of Cusa (15th c.) suggested "idolatry ... gives to an image that which belongs only to truth itself." Could say the same about our concepts and ideas—they're better appreciated as poetry. Especially given our waking, thinking, "wording" mind isn't the starting place— it, too, is generated.

from my walk up the hill just now, outside Asheville

1/x I've been in a couple conversations lately with persons who hold the view that there are no experiences that aren't pre-shaped by conceptual frameworks (and thus there are no real cross-cultural commonalities in contemplative/ meditative experiences).

for fun, here's some of the Cloud author's Middle English (I've kept most of the original spelling, but I've modernized the lettering — Middle English [= Chaucer's time] had a couple letters that we don't use anymore, namely, the thorn, “þ,” for “th”, and the yogh, “ȝ,” for “y” or “gh”)

tonight's sunset, outside Asheville

good morning the moon setting, from my kitchen window (8°F)

1-8 I'm a longtime contemplative (meditator). I'm also a bit of an academic. I'm writing a book addressed to my daughter on the nature of contemplative experience, and considered across cultures. Here looking at a passage from the contemplative philosopher, Plotinus, I've indulged my academic side.

snowy sunset just now, outside Asheville

good morning, from outside Asheville

Snow falling, and having just written about Plotinus' portrayals of all manifest things as a "dance" of a One truth and source, I'm reminded of this Zen image of all things-and-one: reed flowers in the snow. Reed flowers are white. Snow is white. Neither being erased, they're together in suchness.

I am a white man, born in Selma in the late 50's. The words Christopher has posted pretty much sum up her 1.5 min interview ... and they got me 😭. These are of course brutally unethical times. We all need to step up for one another.

this morning's view from my front door (outside Asheville) ... 5 seconds' video, at the end of which you can just hear that the neighborhood rooster is still greeting the morning

"It's as though she's holding the moment between her thumb and forefinger." ~ John Berger talking about a Vermeer painting, but feeling appropriate here... #Photography, The Nara period. Detail of the companion figure in the Yakushi-ji, Nara (1958) #art #sculpture

in fond memory of Catherine O'Hara ... an all-time favorite SCTV skit (7.5 minutes) www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dtr...

1/4 from writing I'm doing on Plotinus, regarding some of the ways he portrays and gestures towards contemplative experience that's more immediate than thoughts and words (and is, hence, effectively "selfless," given how our concept of self is a generated thing)

In tonight’s meditation there was a sense for how phrases like “awakening is through the body” and “awakening is realized in suchness” can get too conceptual and wedded to ideas. Here “body” and “suchness” are terms for “honesty”—an honesty more immediate, wonderful, and matter-of-fact than words.

People may be seeing, Bruce's "Streets of Minneapolis" has a video now. It's heart-breakingly well done. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDaP...

tonight's sunset, outside Asheville

from some writing I'm doing on the contemplative philosopher Plotinus ... his stuff is 3d century Platonism, he wrote in long complicated sentences, with poor eyesight, which his student Porphyry had to transcribe ... and it's pretty wonderful

In reply to a post about resilience training for activists (for addressing the potential for burnout):

sunset here outside Asheville moments ago

The New England Patriots win the AFC championship game, and will now be going to the Super Bowl. I'm pleased. I don't follow a lot of football — but Drake May (true) is my brother's wife's daughter's ex-boyfriend's brother ... So it's a family thing. 🙂

(1'2)

The sense of tonight’s meditation was that it was about what was going on before there was an idea of what it was or what it meant, before it being about whether it was right or wrong, before there was a judgement or an evaluation. The sense of tonight’s meditation was about what was going on.

Checking the Greek for “drunk” in a Plotinus passage I see it's *methystheis,* and learned that amethyst gets its name as a purported cure for drunkenness — etymonline[.]com suggests that that might be out of a kind of sympathetic magic idea, given that the color of amethyst is similar to wine.

don't tell anyone ... but this is me at 18

took a picture with my brother's corgi, Midge, just now ... but she told me she wasn't ready, so I had to take another

#Asheville area WEATHER FORECAST — it has changed significantly in the lead-up to this weekend, but the current expectation is for 12+ hours of "freezing rain", beginning around 5pm Saturday. I've only been in that condition a few times. It can be a serious mess, taking down trees and power lines.

1:6 first draft of some writing I'm doing tonight on unific, non-dual experiencing as it's portrayed by Plotinus

tonight's sunset, outside #Asheville

I've received a couple "likes" and comments on a post from earlier today regarding the too-simple-and-too-immediate-for-words nature of the core of contemplative experience. So I'll share what I'm working on today, about Plotinus and things he says about such wonder and "wordlessness." (1\3)

In what he tags as "Just some Spinoza-posting to remember what matters," Pierrick reminds me of a footnote for some writing of mine about how so much of religious language is best engaged with as a kind of poetry — artistic & performative gestures regarding truths that are more immediate than words.

from my kitchen window just now ... female (upper left) and male cardinals

Reminds me how matter-of-factly subtle are mechanisms of our not seeing things as they are. Neuropsych suggests our brain is designed to model the world & predict what's coming. When we forget it's a model (avidya) & get caught up in our predictions (tanha), relationship w/ life is "unsatisfactory."

I've been meditating some 50 years now. Mostly Zen, some Vipassana and jhānas (synesthetic altered state absorptions), and in college I did mantra TM. And the more I do it, the more basic I find it to be. Like tonight, where the sense was simply— what is happening is what does the meditation.

just came across this in Plotinus: "All life...is activity {energeia}...a movement {kinesis} which is not random...the activity of life is an artistic activity {technike}, like the way in which one who is dancing {orchoumenos} is moved" *orchoumenos* is related to "orchestra," lit. "dance place"

A monk asked, “What is the essential meaning of Buddhism?” Zen teacher Mazu said, “What is the meaning of this moment?” . (in Andrew Ferguson, *Zen's Chinese Heritage*)

good morning (outside #Asheville)

I have a best friend, an American currently living in Europe, who used to be a Minneapolis resident. She contacted a friend of hers who still lives there, and the friend has texted her this tonight:

sunset tonight, outside #Asheville (11 sec)

1|3 Getting into some fun weeds with Plotinus at the moment. "Being" and "Beauty" for him are effectively a same thing, and all things that exist are their “faces.” Being and Beauty themselves come from the One, which is beyond description.

good morning from my (chilly) neighborhood, outside #Asheville

Random note on Buddhist "suffering"—dukkha—better translated as "unsatisfactoriness." It's like if we were a character in a movie—even if we're in a pleasurable moment in the story, it's "unsatisfactoriness" if we don't realize where we are. "Waking up" entails appreciating our stories as stories.