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t good neighbors 19 january 2026 by ben howard as the world knows zen buddhism is a practice of stillness and silence its iconic image is a figure sitting cross legged in meditation but zen is also a practice of active questioning and no question is more central to the practice than one a child might ask what is this zen teachings enjoin practitioners to ask this question over and again not only in formal meditation but throughout the day whether the immediate focus of attention be an orange an iphone a transitory feeling a state of mind or what is commonly called the self to practice zen is to inquire deeply into whatever we encounter to penetrate beneath its illusory surface to its true nature yet one need not be a zen practitioner to benefit from asking zen s central question radical inquiry is basic to pursuits as diverse as science medicine law philosophy and the visual arts and it is also fundamental to western meditative poetry as in wordsworth s prelude or t s eliot s four quartets where the aim as in zen is both to understand the essential nature of the object under scrutiny and to reignite an edenic sense of awe and wonder few western poems better illustrate this process than robert frost s mending wall 1913 one of the most celebrated widely anthologized and enduring poems of the 20 th century at first glance this readily accessible poem is a folksy anecdotal account of a conversation between two neighboring farmers in rural new hampshire but on closer inspection it reveals itself to be a profound inquiry into the nature origins and purpose of man made walls more broadly it is an examination of the sources of division enclosure and territorial conflict in western culture and the role that fixed traditional ideas play in such conflicts in mending wall two owners of adjoining farms are engaging in the annual springtime ritual of repairing a drystone wall that separates their properties even as they work together the narrator who has initiated this chore by getting in touch with his neighbor is inwardly questioning its worth and meaning something there is that doesn t love a wall he confides to the reader whatever that unspecified something may be it has both human and natural agents the hunters who break through the wall in pursuit of prey and the winter groundswell which topples the carefully balanced stones and just as these physical forces undermine the established wall so the narrator subverts its very existence by questioning its reason for being as he notes there is no practical need to separate his apple orchard from his neighbor s pine forest neither is harming the other nor are there cows to enclose why erect a wall at all in response to this mischievous but searching question the neighbor offers a platitude most likely derived from a 19 th century farmer s almanac good fences make good neighbors recognizing this argument as proverbial rather than original expedient rather than persuasive the narrator characterizes it as his neighbor s father s saying which the man has neither the inclination nor the imagination to call into question and toward the end of the poem the two neighbors merely restate their opposing positions something there is that doesn t love a wall and good fences make good neighbors whether the author is siding with one or the other remains unknown and the question itself remains unresolved mending wall has sometimes been read or misread as a didactic poem with a simple message tear down all walls but given the even balance of opposing perspectives supported by the author s own impartiality the poem might better be understood as a concrete demonstration of an ongoing inquiry that the issue remains far from resolved after more than a hundred years may be seen in an episode of the tv drama yellowstone season 1 episode 7 where the cattle baron john dutton kevin costner directs the asian tourists who are trespassing on his property and photographing a nearby grizzly bear to take note of his fences and get off his land when one of the tourists objects asserting that the earth belongs to everyone dutton dismisses his argument with a memorable line this is america we don t share land here in zen practice what is this is both a question and a koan whose purpose is not so much to produce definitive answers as to lift the veils of prejudicial concepts freshen our perceptions and reveal the impermanent selfless and interdependent nature of things we usually take for granted likewise robert frost at once a social conservative and a radical explorer offers a koan of his own inviting us to look more deeply into the nature of walls and boundaries literal and figurative and to ask what place and meaning such fabrications have in our daily lives photo robert frost to read mending wall go to https www poetryfoundation org poems 44266 mending wall posted in 1 tagged buddhism meditation philosophy writing zen leave a comment i should have thought 3 december 2025 by ben howard many years ago when i was still an undergraduate i traveled from eastern iowa to the north of england to study english literature at the university of leeds a so called redbrick university in west yorkshire there i lived for a year in a village on the outskirts of that soot laden city in a hall of residence built in 1865 from yorkshire gritstone most of my fellow residents were english but others hailed from such faraway countries as ghana south africa iceland and rhodesia sometimes in the evenings i would walk down the hall to have a chat with my friend asmundur asi jonsson a husky deep voiced older student from keflavik asi smoked an ornate meerschaum pipe sometimes after i d offered up a fresh opinion or no less likely a callow misperception he would sit back in his chair and patiently puff on his pipe as he formulated his response i should have thought he would finally say and proceed to address whatever i d said more than once his views differed from mine i have long since forgotten our opinions but i recall his opening phrase as vividly as i do the sweet fragrance of his tobacco i had never heard it before and have rarely heard it since i should have thought is a verbal phrase cast in what grammarians call the conditional past tense it places the action in this case having a thought in a time prior to the present before a subsequent event has occurred in this instance the subsequent event is the voicing of a different or contrary opinion for example were geoffrey to observe that i ve heard that it s better to brush your teeth first then floss afterward nigel might reply i should have thought it was the other way around as this innocuous exchange illustrates i should have thought provides a vehicle for polite disagreement but even when engaged in more charged conversations especially those concerning politics and religion this now rare usage can serve to open the conversational space establish an appropriate distance between conversationalists and set a distinctive tone in contemporary american life we have grown accustomed to living in cramped conversational spaces where there is often little room for a variety of perspectives or a divergence of views if one participant says something the other finds erroneous ill informed or otherwise objectionable the conversation may soon be abruptly over or worse it might escalate into an angry confrontation by contrast i should have thought expands the conversational arena to accommodate multiple differing and opposing views and it opens the possibility of a both and rather than a right wrong or either or resolution even views that stood in polar opposition at the beginning of the conversation may by its end prove compatible and even complementary by the same token i should have thought widens the emotional distance between the participants in a conversation it establishes an appropriate space between them as the zen teacher norman fischer has observed in any relationship between two people two components are ever present their connection and their essential solitude the two participants may be intimately connected by such bonds as family friendship country or affiliation at the same time each has a private inner life that the other has no way of knowing in the japanese martial arts an appropriate combative distance known as ma ai is strictly maintained analogously an appropriate distance in conversation honors both the speakers interconnection and their respective solitudes and as fischer puts it it also creates a space charged with openness silence and mystery and that is not all in its very formality i should have thought forges a link between contemporary usage which tends to be casual and all too often careless and the long history of the english language asi s first language was icelandic he learned english in a school where the old rule regarding should rather than would was still taught and enforced according to that rule should must be used when speaking in the first person however archaic asi s locution conjured a linguistic universe in which the observance of such fine distinctions imparted precision to ordinary speech by extension it also heightened the beauty and dignity of a conversation today no one i know would say i should have thought except perhaps ironically or in a role playing context the phrase would come across as a pretentious affectation but might there not be other ways by which the space distance and tone once created by that turn of phrase could be re imagined if only as a welcome alternative to the rude interruptions and abrupt dismissals the in your face confrontations and the unnecessary misunderstandings that afflict contemporary american discourse i should have thought so posted in 1 tagged adel books education fiction leeds life norman fischer writing zen leave a comment a peaceable heart 19 november 2025 by ben howard like the word silly which once meant innocent the silly sheep but now means foolish frivolous lacking in common sense the word contention has a distinctive history derived from the latin contentio it once meant striving struggle competition but sometime in the sixteenth century contention came to mean disagreement argument fighting unlike silly contention has retained its earlier meaning but today it most often conjures scenes of conflict dysfunction and disharmony or at its most extreme mortal combat a contentious person is someone inclined to instigate division discord and outright feuding and in the worst case incite violent action in its healthiest manifestation contention is fair minded competition physical or intellectual the bills and the chiefs contend for victory on the playing field olympians contend for the gold nations contend in an open if regulated market but in its unhealthiest forms contention is first and last a ruthless power struggle fairness goes by the board as do such norms as lawfulness decency and respect oxford debaters contend but unless they are prepared to be disqualified they adhere to established rules but contending parties in an ungoverned dispute may simply fight to the bitter end verbally or physically with no holds barred all that matters is winning or being in the right or both contention is often understood to be an existing condition akin to the temperature of a room or the quality of the air likewise a propensity toward contention is commonly viewed as an aspect of temperament a trait of personality more likely to harshen than mellow with age but from the standpoint of zen practice contentiousness is a mental and emotional capacity susceptible to changing conditions with sufficient self awareness we can choose at any time to nourish or actively neglect it at the same time we can also cultivate a peaceable heart a heart inclined toward peace toward that end classic zen teachings offer a practice known as the four great efforts an aspect of the noble eightfold path practitioners are encouraged to water the seeds of such wholesome states of mind as mindfulness patience kindness and wisdom as distinguished from such unwholesome states as greed hatred and vindictiveness the first effort is to cultivate wholesome states that have already arisen the second is to nourish wholesome states that have yet to arise the third is to allow unwholesome states that have already arisen to languish and the fourth is to do the same with unwholesome states that have yet to arise these efforts are to be conducted methodically their aim being the perfection of character in monastic settings the practice of the four great efforts may include the recitation of vows and the contemplation of such virtues as patience kindness and compassion for lay practitioners it may be enough to regularly stop whatever one is doing and check one s heart for currents of aversion bringing contemplative attention to such currents can lessen their destructive power and forestall future harm robert thurman an emeritus professor of indo european buddhist studies at columbia university once noted that throughout our everyday lives we are feeding one state of mind or another we may be doing so habitually and unconsciously with neither a beneficent nor malevolent intent but whether we are listening to a quiet contemplative piece of music or watching a violent blood drenched action film we are directing our attention to a particular object we are engaging as it were in a form of meditation in the first instance the mental state being fueled is one of tranquility harmony and accord in the second it is one of destructive ego driven action but whatever our present state of mind may be for good or ill we are at once sustaining and strengthening it in an old jewish story a man is strolling along a sandy beach when a bottle floats by out pops a genie who invites the man to make a wish without hesitation he blurts out world peace oh i m sorry replies the genie a lot of people ask for that but i m afraid it s out of the question please make another wish not everyone would agree with that genie in the views of such prominent peace advocates as desmond tutu dr martin luther king jr thomas merton and the ven thich nhat hanh peace between peoples and nations is an attainable if distant objective but as thich nhat hanh often reminded ardent pacifists back in the 1970s any serious effort toward peace must begin with ourselves at any moment we can examine the presence of contentiousness in our hearts and minds and if we so choose deprive it of favorable conditions we can practice what the dalai lama has called inner disarmament even as we tend a peaceable heart image fred easker mississippi meditation posted in 1 tagged buddhism meditation mindfulness philosophy spirituality leave a comment the practice of veneration 22 october 2025 by ben howard in the closing line of his poem sandstone keepsake the irish poet and nobel laureate seamus heaney describes himself as one of the venerators that line is striking not only because the verb venerate has largely disappe...
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