Reckonings: a journal of justice, hope and history

Ensō

I've included in a few pages of Reckonings, especially those related to my and others' thoughts of spirituality and the practice of meditation, an image called an ensō. A friend with whom I was talking today explained to me what an ensō is, and has drawn many of them herself. There is also a short Wikipedia entry about ensō, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ens%C5%8D.

I especially enjoyed the Wikipedia author's remark, "A person draws the ensō in one fluid, expressive stroke. When drawn according to the sōsho (草書) style of Japanese calligraphy, the brushstroke is especially swift. Once the ensō is drawn, one does not change it. It evidences the character of its creator and the context of its creation in a brief, continuous period of time. Drawing ensō is a spiritual practice...." 

Here are two more ensōs:    

 

 

 

 

John O'Donohue's "Bennacht"

 

Too often I forward news of the illnesses of our culture, so I wanted to offer you—literally—a blessing. John O'Donohue died much too early, and was a lovely voice of Celtic spirituality. It is a blessing in itself to hear him read his poem, "Bennacht" ["blessing" in Gaelic]. Krista Tippett interviewed him shortly before he died. 

 

https://onbeing.org/blog/john-odonohue-beannacht/

 

 

Bennacht

On the day when
 The weight deadens
 On your shoulders
 And you stumble,
 May the clay dance
 To balance you.

And when your eyes
 Freeze behind
 The grey window
 And the ghost of loss
 Gets into you,
 May a flock of colours,
 Indigo, red, green
 And azure blue,
 Come to awaken in you
 A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
 In the currach of thought
 And a stain of ocean
 Blackens beneath you,
 May there come across the waters
 A path of yellow moonlight
 To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
 May the clarity of light be yours,
 May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
 May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
 Wind work these words
 Of love around you,
 An invisible cloak
 To mind your life.

Mary Oliver, "Mindful"

Preparing to lead our meditation group this morning, I stumbled upon a poem by Mary Oliver, "Mindful," that I had not read before. I'll put it below, in addition to an excerpt from her more familiar poem, "The Summer Day." Our discussion focused on mindful caregiving—caring for self and others—what we do with our meditation when we leave our simulacrum of a zendo and take our meditation into our everyday lives.

 

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass

        — Mary Oliver

 

 

From "The Summer Day":

 

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should have I done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

 

One association leads to another. In this instance, from Oliver's poems to a remark made by Norman Fischer in his recent book, What is Zen? 

"... as I've gotten older and practiced with more and more people over the years, I have attached much more importance to the teachings about compassion and connection... [Those teachings] are saying that it's nothing but connection, compassion, and love. That's all there really is... The teachings are expressed through dialogue and encounter, person to person."