Contemplify NonRequired Reading List for September 30, 2020
September NonRequired Reading List
Contemplative friend,
Let me begin with a story. “There is a famous Zen story about a teacher who was asked about the highest teaching of Zen. He wrote the word ‘Attention’ on a blackboard. But isn’t there anything else, he was asked. Yes, there is, he said, and he wrote the word ‘Attention’ again. But there must be something more, insisted the student. Yes, there is, the teacher said. And he turned to the board and once more wrote: ‘Attention.’ Now the board said, ‘Attention. Attention. Attention.’” (from Instructions to the Cook, p.104-5)
The waverlys of autumnal transitions have singed the tips of my attention. I have been noticing that caustic seasonal shifts fire up my frenetic attention, burning holes in my perception. In such a state reality is viewed through a swiss cheese lens. Seeing snippets but the whole is occluded. Forgetful as I am, I swear my allegiance again to right attention. To dip into still waters daily. When I come back to this remembrance, enthusiasm is bridled to purpose’s nape. With right attention harnessed, I ride towards still waters quickened by the desire for a baptism of presence.
Daily I run roughshod over still waters, troubling my attention into ten thousand different ripples. I hastily attempt to follow each ripple to shore. A brutal task that wears me down and disturbs the surrounding stillness. I have formed the habit of chastising my self-defeating efforts before I forgive them. I am slow to recognize that grieving the broken stillness is a gaffe. Stillness is never broken, I am immersed in it.
Another aquatic image breaches my mind’s surface. Stillness pours endlessly into my rusty bucket of being. Stillness shamelessly flows into this bucket, but it can’t help but leak through the holes punctured by my dispersed attention. Right attention is turning away from the outflow and towards the inflow with a humble bow. It is easy to slip into the notion that stillness does not move when in fact it never stops. Even as I write this, stillness quickens me, pours into me, and flows back out of me. Some might call it the peace of Christ, I prefer the creatureliness of Christ. Attention to this infill is a hint--a lover’s wink--of what has been, is, and is yet to come.
The set-up of attention, frenetic or right, is falsely binary. I know this to be true because my attention regularly trips over and splays onto this dividing line, forsaking either/or for a dynamic is.
The waxing moon calls me now. Is stillness not just the man in the moon? Hidden or spotlighted, stillness is present. It is only my dim attention that notes the moon’s fullness as a sign of refracting radiance. When sister moon turns her face, she is not gone but retreating to the stillness found in absence. I am learning to attend to all phases of attention.
September NonRequired Reading List
Contemplative Ecology Dialogue Series by Wake Forest University (Learn more and register here)
This is not a book, but a series of dialogues. And you can still jump in to participate! The next dialogue is tomorrow (Oct 1 - It is free, but you must register. Do so here). I attended the first dialogue hosted by Fred Bahnson (you have seen his work highlighted in Contemplify many times) with the focus on the work of contemplative changemaker Alison McCrary. This next session will showcase a dialogue between Douglas Christie and Lia Purpura on place-making and displacement. I highly encourage you to check it out.
Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hahn (Get it at the Public Library or IndieBound)
I love cross pollination. Whether you are a Buddhist curious about the heart of Christ or a Christian poking around Buddha's bodhi tree, treat yourself to Living Buddha, Living Christ. As a Christian seeking to take a full drag of life, I've been aided in my explorations of Buddhism to better embody my Christian faith. Thich Nhat Hahn's unique take on the small specificities on the Kingdom of God, the malaise of modern society, and the seeds of awakening keep my heart tender to the beauty offered by both Christ and the Buddha.
1919 by Eve Ewing (Get it at the Public Library or IndieBound)
This book of poems explores the stories that shaped the Chicago Race Riot of 1919. Ewing takes first hand accounts of the events and sews them into poetry. Each poem echoes a voice and perspective of the harshness of those eight days without comprising artistry and truth-telling. The past is not over. The creative outpouring of this work is not stationed in the static history, it lurks around the corner of today. Ewing is the type of poet who knows the past has arms.
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (Get it at the Public Library or IndieBound)
How do you feel about bestsellers? I am leary of the waves of zeitgeist that crash over culture. My curiosity about a simple story with elegant water coloring eventually drew me in. The simplicity of the story is that it circulates around a boy and his growing cadre of animal pals. They reveal vulnerabilities and swap timeless truisms in the aches of existential experience. Fear. Loneliness. Trauma. Friendship. They shore up universal love so that it can break it out into particular expressions for one another. Mackesy has written a book for all ages to read by all ages.
Contemplify Update
The three most recent episodes on Contemplify…
These episodes are available from Contemplify through these fine outlets: iTunes, Stitcher, Podbean, or Overcast
May your attention be the comma in the day of a sentence,
a pause collecting perception to faithfully continue what is.
May it’s impermanence be its the totem.
May your attention enlist you into a humble bow.
Swaying in Attention,
Paul
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P.P.S. The postings to kindle the examined life in a quarantined world are still being stitched together in a needlepoint daily under Quarantined Qontemplative at the Contemplify basecamp.