 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
Hermitage Update
November 1999
Samhain, All Hallows, All Saints, and All Souls – the falling of brown leaves over everything. Blaze orange in the woods. Stiff winds on the ocean. The thin veil between worlds is slid open and shut.
My sister died Wednesday, 20Oct1999, eight weeks after diagnosis of cancer. For seven weeks we kept hospice care and final vigils with Patricia. Her family at bedside, with prayer and silence surrounding, her final breaths came and went at1:05am. Shared vigil presence with her/spirit in silence ended three hours later.
After wake and funeral, returning to Maine, this new silence enters Dogen and Francis Hermitage.
Morning sitting is now followed by morning Lauds at 7:40am, read and chanted from the Liturgy of the Hours. Leaves fall on the marked footprint designated for Chapel/Zendo. Tim R’s prayer benches, two with hearts, two with crosses, warm the space now hearing morning silence and chant in the small red farmhouse. At other times during the day visitors drop by to sit, to grace the room. A sign “Please observe silence visiting here” greets them.
Finally, four fragments for our meditation. 1. a poem written during vigil; 2. from Jeremiah (29:13); 3. from Dogen Zenji (via Taizen Maezumi Roshi); 4. from Office of Readings, Apostle.
1. No words
Explain
Everything
2.“You will seek me, and when you seek me with your whole heart, you will find me.”
3. Isshiki no bendo means, “To practice the Way with whole-heartedness”, or, “to become one with what you do.” In other words, When you really become one with whatever you do, that is the realization of the Way.
4. “When the end is near
I still am with you
For I will never leave you alone.”
In gratitude,
4Nov99