ashes dust zen et cetera

Is there any day more than Ash Wednesday that Buddhism and Christianity are closer in medium and message?

Christians receive ashes, as a sign of mortality and repentance. As for the mortality aspect, is it not akin to the impermanence that Zen Buddhists practice?

Various Christian denominations impose ashes on the forehead with these words spoken, or some variation of them, from Genesis 3:19:

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

And then many walk around the rest of the day with ashes on the forehead, sometimes in the shape of a cross.

For me, it typically raises a quandary: wash them off or not? In other words, am I "bragging" about some sort of piety that I do not possess? Jesus warned against such strutting. But eventually the ashes need to get washed off, lest one's pillow become all ashy.

Is this a bleak day, a somber reminder of our mortality? I posit it should not be. I further suggest that Buddhists among us (sometimes I strut and pretend I am one, though "practice" is the only membership card, is it not?) would smile. They would not have to say anything.

A mindful Ash Wednesday (or Ash Monday, Ash Tuesday, Ash Thursday, Ash Friday, Ash Saturday, or Ash Sunday) would be occasion enough to smile.

Ash Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Maybe Monday and Tuesday

And we thought Lent was over. "Ashes to ashes; dust to dust." We are cavalier. We are masters and mistresses of our universe. We live in the modern age, even post-modern, if you will. "Apocalyptic" is an adjective reserved for theologians or drama queens or alarmists. Besides, it has too many syllables. Apocalyptic. All by itself, one line of a haiku about endings -- with no end in sight. We conquered nature, didn't we? Nature. She's so last century, so pre-millennial. (And who says Nature is feminine, anyway?) From ashes unseen on the ground, under a true-blue (liar!) sky, our high-tech world is insulted by dust. Fibers that upon ingestion by a jet's turbine can stall an engine or flame it out. The rudeness of these volcanic particulates to ruin our techno planet, to stall the mighty engine of progress, to flame out the fragile text of the future. We were just getting used to "global" as an adjectival cliche. If these ashes turn to fibers, is it like the angel hair we put on Christmas trees in the 1950s, causing us to scratch an invisible itch? These Icelandic (the nerve! Iceland!) ashes, this devil's hair, are the molecular patron saint of Luddites Universal. Who are we such that ashes drifting above an azure-cerulean clarion-clear sky force us to huddle, to encamp in airports, would-be Haitians in waiting, communing with not nature but each other, as if the Me Generation had no choice but to admit the potential of a We Generation. Generation Ash. Five syllables. Another line in the uncompleted haiku, the haiku with the missing seven, the missing middle, searching for the heart of the matter. Ashes.

The Unbearable Darkness of Being

Started in the dark this morning.

On my knees in the dark.

I am in the dark.

A little light, please.

Not just for me. Hardly. What about young Fiona, from Australia, mother of little Laura, husband of David, sight lost in one eye and losing it in the other fast? What about her? What about them?

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

The charred smudge on the forehead in the shape of a cross.

The mortal stain.



Of now done darkness . . . (Gerard Manley Hopkins)



Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

(Thomas Stearns Eliot)



Out of the ashes
Lots of green shoots today
Lots of green shoots
Watered

(PK)

Binge Purge Urge Dirge

Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday.

Cendre Mercredi. Ash Wednesday.

Binge.

Purge.

All together now, (one, two, three):

"I want more, give me more, right to the core."

"No, I don't; no, I won't; take it away, punish me hard."

"Give me now, no matter how, make me soar."

"Pare it down, shuck it off, all that lard."


(Okay, okay, so I suck as a songwriter.)

Carry on.

Some days are off-days for bloggers, too.