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Readings Tuesday December 8th
No audio available today:
Fr. Kennedy Roshi extends his gratitude for all your prayers and well-wishes. He is feeling much better and hopes to resume the readings tomorrow. Until then, below is today’s offering in celebration of our Fall Ango 2009… Let Go!
Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self. —St. Francis of Assisi
Categories: Fall Ango 2009
Spring Ango 2016 
This quote stirs in me many questions and reminds me of how ignorant I really am. I offer my not-knowing to you, for it is all I have to share.
I always had a problem with this paradox. Christ is you, just as you are, yet, in order to be Christ, you must overcome yourself. To overcome the self may be a way to avoid being authentic. You may have a timid spirit, seeking to transcend what you lack the courage to be. To overcome the self may be a means to justify your feelings of worthlessness, a way to glorify your depression and insecurity. However, one who truly overcomes himself breaks beyond timidity and self-loathing, for the self is these fears just as much as its desires. It is the overcoming of these desires that confuses me most. If I am to follow my bliss, as Campbell recommends, how can I be true to my poetic impulse to create if I let go of my desires? Master Blake answers this question for me:” He who binds to himself a joy/ does the winged life destroy;/ but he who kisses the joy as it flies/ lives in eternity’s sun rise.” As a poet, I have been captured by a glimpse of this rising sun.
I have learned that you must let the self go so that it may soar like a small bird in the immensity of the sky in order to realize that who you really are is the Sky, itself, with wings.
Overcoming is being, for who you are isn’t what you control. You must lose control in order to be true, to be the Christ that is already you.
…oh yes…in 2009, our stigmata is identifying and being one with those who are suffering…and somehow praying for a transcending of that suffering……
I hope you’re feeling better, Bob!
12/8 is Bodhi Day. The day celebrated in Japan when the Buddha became enlightened…..and the morning star rose……thus the derivaion of the Morning Star Zendo…..how Jesus blesses the MSZendo!