September 2009: Working with the Earth Nine tons of crushed stone are shoveled and wheel-barrowed onto the site for the book-shed. Large stones are rolled onto handcart and wrestled to stone wall being built as retaining wall. The excavator dug out and leveled the land. Beams are hewn for sills. Earth is fragrant and rich as summer drifts north. Morning sitting is fresh and quiet. One or two or three or four arrive and sit and leave. As the day goes on different individuals stop by -- some to visit the meditation cabin, some for coffee or cookie and some words. Evening conversations are robust and delightful. There were 12 tonight. There were 10 at last Sunday's Evening Practice. The sutra chant was overpowering and strong. University classes begin. Temperatures drop at night. Darkness comes early after conversation and stays later in the early morning. Friday "Poetry Tea and Thee" conversations begin at one of the nursing homes. We are not pleased with the rancor of politics. We think we are a better people than the stridency suggests. We are trying to understand the enormous depths of the word-reality surrounding "this." This is our life.  , Rokpa  , & Mu-ge  ,and all who grace Meetingbrook August 2009: Summer arrives -- a little late but lovely It seemed summer arrived this year on the first of August. Cedar siding crawls up kitchen and barn. Meditation cushions hold still those who come to sit. Words and images dance the circle five evenings a week in conversation. The hermitage settles nicely, thank you, into itself. Week by week we are contacted by some who've wandered down to the cape by the harbor where a vacant store space looks out blankly to their looking in. A very few research and find us here, most, I suspect, shake their heads and say 'It must have been the economy.' It wasn't, exactly. But now taking a longer view, it appears it was a good time to have our lease not offered to us for renewal. We sell some books online. Some ask us to get books for them. Saskia baked ten dozen lobster cookies individually wrapped for a wedding at Whitehall Inn. We are surprised and delighted at how life as hito/mono (hermits in the open/monastics of no other) continues and deepens. Saskia works on program for 350.org's 24October celebration. I order textbooks for two fall courses on East Asian Philosophy and Comparative Religions. Rokpa runs with Wallace at Snow Bowl and tries to get the elder Oscar to return the tennis ball when he comes with Jay to do some siding. Mu-ge lays in wait for the cabin mice, feigning meditative posture but ready to pounce. The Korean Zen Master would have approved. The rain has let go its damp hold. Drying breeze skirts and lifts even the dripping sodden cellar. It feels that an early autumn approaches with night cooling. All is well. Everyone is a remarkable blessing. Aren't you now? , Rokpa , & Mu-ge ,and all who grace Meetingbrook ................ July 2009: How Goes Change from Harbor to Mountainside? Boardwalk built up to meditation cabin, seven sections of eight foot lengths strapped by thirty inch pressure treated boards. At the door of Wohnkuche to gravel drive, another two sections built with cedar planking with huge step-stones in middle angle change and at entrance to sliding door. Cedar shingles go up on dooryard side of kitchen. The fragrance in morning sun is delicious. Evening conversations continue, well attended. Just because we practice deep listening and loving speech, it doesn't mean the conversation isn't spirited with good arguing when called for. Like potatoes in a pot, we brush the unnecessary edges from our thick or thin skins. Saskia finishes a women's week at the Carpenter's Boat-shop in Pemequid taught by Bobby Ives and Mary from Connecticut. She comes home tired and happy with Shaker boxes and Shaker step-stool. She was delighted to be there with two women she knew and others she met. The community there inspires. The change goes well. We need to build a Book Shed, a gambrel approximately 12x20 to house the books for resale. A plan has been made. We'll look for volunteer help and the seven thousand to cover materials, foreman, and food to feed us all. The wet and damp month of June threatens the boxes in the barn. We need to start. The hermitage feels like a hermitage, even as visitors are happily welcomed for hospitality, meditation, and conversation practice. The shop by the harbor goes away. The hermitage between mountains, long sleepy, awakens and comes to be. May each and all be well! See you soon, , Rokpa , & Mu-ge ,and all who grace Meetingbrook, ..................... Theme: Visit Meetingbrook Hermitage, A statement of change Meetingbrook Dogen & Francis Hermitage
Between Ragged and Bald Mountains; Between Buddhist and Christian Traditions V I S I T M E E T I N G B R O O K H E R M I T A G E
Background: On 1May2009 Meeetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery returns to origin and source at Meetingbrook Hermitage on Barnestown Road at Ragged Mountain. From 29June1996 to 30April2009 Meetingbrook had a market face to its hermitage vocation. The bookshop and bakery existed as a place of hospitality and conversation at the harbor in Camden. The building we were leasing was sold in Spring 2009, we lost our lease, and have folded back home. We need new forms of being-with one another, a cosmotheandric spirituality, one that celebrates union with God & unity with Earth, Nature, & all Sentient Beings. Meetingbrook Hermitage is a contemporary lay monastic practice & place of collation & recollection. A monastic is someone who longs for a simple and inclusive communion with life, love, and wisdom. We invite visitors to attend the times of these practices of conversation, meditation, and hospitality. These 3 practices, often interchangeable, inspire radical originality. Blend and comprehend what, scattered, aches for wholeness. To listen, to speak, & to be aware of the silence and stillness which are the ground of our presence in the practice of conversation, meditation and hospitality -- this is how we practice. We continue hospitality and conversation along with mindfulness practice in our newly transformed ‘Wohnkuche” (living-in kitchen). The Waterford wood stove is encircled by comfortable chairs and seating for at least 14 people with room for more. There will be coffee, a kettle for tea and hot chocolate, along with offerings of Saskia’s baked goods accompanying the gatherings. Here is One - Another Itself. With our chapel/zendo cabin just up from the barn, quiet meditation room in the house, and soon to-be retreat cabins, we continue our practice inviting the larger community to stop by and join in as you wish. Books & gifts are available from our online collection to purchase, as well as a large lending library. Baking goods waft the grounds. Bakery orders are taken. Stop by, sample. May all words and every silence engage us in deep listening and loving speech! Foreground:
Meetingbrook Conversation Practice: these are an hour long each evening, & comprise of All events at Meetingbrook are, free, open, and informal. Quarterly Retreat Days: All day mindfulness retreat practicing looking, listening, & silence Here’s the schedule for conversations and meditations. Conversations are 5:30pm-6:30pm
Meetingbrook’s promises are contemporary versions of the traditional counsels of poverty, chastity, & obedience. Ours are called contemplation, conversation, & correspondence. They encourage us to look, to listen, and to respond with oneself. Saturday Morning Practice: 7:00am - 8:30am Involves: silent sitting; reading from different scripture or sacred text Lectio style; speaking to what is heard; collation at table. Collation is literally “to bring together”; an offering of light fare to eat & drink. Recollection is a tranquil recalling to mind -- remembering who we really are. Ground: Our personal practice focus involves the Buddhist Meditative, the Christian Contemplative, and the Engaged Service flowing from both. Our wider interest is keen and open, inviting all interreligious or nonreligious exploration and inquiry into wonder & wholeness, Love one an-other; for, when we do, there is no-other. Visit the hermitage anytime to converse, be silent, laugh or cry, be mindful or explore no-mind.. Let’s learn with one another in a spirit of profound humility. We look forward to engaging such community of being-with-care that is ordinary, accepting, & forgiving. May the heart/mind of the Christ & the Bodhisattva deepen our lives & ground us in service that is diverse, practical, diffuse, & real, Donations to Meetingbrook are always gratefully accepted & happily received. Directions: Hermitage is 4 miles from Camden or Rockport town centers. Follow signs to Snow Bowl. We’re 3rd driveway on left past Snow Bowl. You’ll see barn gate (open it), oar, & “M” on post. We encourage you in your practice and prayer. Let us be with one another in heart and mind ...now. See you soon, , Rokpa , & Mu-ge ,and all who grace Meetingbrook, Embodying the dwelling place of the Alone; Stepping aside to make room for Another 64 Barnestown Road, Camden Maine 04843 www.meetingbrook.org 207-236-4346, or, 236-6808 mono@meetingbrook.org ............... 4 April 2009, Meetingbrook Dogen & Francis Hermitage Update Theme: Not Something To Be Grasped The Bookshop and Bakery will be ending it's stay where it has been these 13 years. The new owner of the building on harbor edge wants the place for himself. So, on the 30th of April, we'll exit and he'll have it. Paul in Philippians, said:
Still, the longing is there to continue a life of prayer, meditation, hospitality and service. That we'll do. What form it will take, where we will locate ourselves, what we will look like -- all this is unknown. When thought about, it resembles the mythological problem confronting the psyche face to face with the Jesus story and Christ event. What form after death of body? Where will Christ be found? What will the resurrected Jesus look like? Our mythic journey is not in the same category as the one beginning with the narrative of Palm Sunday through Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and culminating Easter Sunday. But the narrative of our lives, all our lives, is not separated from each other. We are companions on the journey. So, keep in touch. More information when it reveals itself. There's not much we can hold on to, not much to be grasped. We'll just fall into the empty, into the service of our human family, and all nature, humbled to have been able to be anywhere for so long. With love, , Rokpa ,
& Mu-ge ,
and all who grace Meetingbrook, |