Welcome to 04/04. Created by Rami and Aaron Shapiro (www.rabbirami.com) for use in public libraries, 04/04 promotes journal writing as a means of exploring your thoughts and sharing them with others.
Our name comes from George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty Four. It was on April 4, 1984 that Winston Smith, the hero of the novel, began journaling to free his mind from the Thought Police.
04/04 is a three-hour journaling workshop held each April 4th in public libraries around the United States. We explore the craft of journal writing from picking the right pen and notebook, to getting yourself past the blank page, and delve into the art of using a journal to deepen your capacity to think things through for yourself.
04/04 provides participating libraries with help in running a successful 04/04 event, and attendees can sign up to receive free monthly writing prompts to help them keep their journals going. We encourage 04/04 members to write out their thoughts longhand in a journal, and then share edited versions on the 04/04 blog (www.0404journal.blogspot.com)
Given the limitations of "blogspot," the way 04/04 works on line is this: Each month we will post a journal entry on the theme for that month. 04/04 participants are then free to add their own entries as comments. You need not comment on the opening entry; it is just there to help get the technological part of the process moving. Our hope is that 04/04 will turn into a conversation on the theme of the month, creation a virtual community of writers and thinkers from across the United States.
If you would like to bring 04/04 to your community, email Rami directly at rabbirami@gmail.com.
Sunday, April 4, 2984
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
04.04 July Prompt
Here is our prompt for July. Read it, journal about it, and, if you wish, share your thoughts as comments on this blog page.
Religion of Love
Ibn ‘Arabi, Sufi Mystic and Theologian
O marvel! A garden amidst flames!
My heart has become capable of every form:
It is a pasture for gazelles, and a convent for Christian monks, and a temple for idols, and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba, and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.
A garden amidst flames, burning passions unconsumed and yet all consuming. What are the flames that devour everything around your garden? What hungers haunt you? What addictions have there claws so deeply embedded in your flesh that pulling them out is more frightening that leaving them in?
Or maybe the flames don’t matter. Maybe we are wasting time focusing on the burning, when we should concentrate on the balm, the garden, the heart. After all, the flames surround the garden, they don’t invade it. The garden is too well watered to burn, too moist with tears of compassion for both self and other, to ignite even in the searing heat of blazing desire. Rather than investigating what fuels the burning, perhaps you would be better served by taking refuge in the heart.
“Heart” for the Sufi Ibn ‘Arabi is the sky untroubled by the clouds, the greater self that is unsullied by the madness of the smaller ego. We build concrete symbols of the Heart—convents, temples, the Ark, the Ka’ba—to serve as mirrors reminding us of the inner garden. Too often we mistake these mirrors and their reflections for the Heart itself, seeking outwardly what can only be found inwardly.
The way to the Heart is the inward way, the way of love. What does the way of Love mean to you? Love doesn’t quench the flames of desire; it simply offers an alternative to the heat. It is not limited to one path, or any. It goes where it goes and invites you to travel upon it. Where does love go in your life? There are no footsteps of prior travelers to follow; this way is your way alone. What is your way? You know you are traveling the Way of Love when you see there are no flames. You know your faith is true when you are no longer burning. How do you step out the fire and onto the Way?
Religion of Love
Ibn ‘Arabi, Sufi Mystic and Theologian
O marvel! A garden amidst flames!
My heart has become capable of every form:
It is a pasture for gazelles, and a convent for Christian monks, and a temple for idols, and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba, and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.
A garden amidst flames, burning passions unconsumed and yet all consuming. What are the flames that devour everything around your garden? What hungers haunt you? What addictions have there claws so deeply embedded in your flesh that pulling them out is more frightening that leaving them in?
Or maybe the flames don’t matter. Maybe we are wasting time focusing on the burning, when we should concentrate on the balm, the garden, the heart. After all, the flames surround the garden, they don’t invade it. The garden is too well watered to burn, too moist with tears of compassion for both self and other, to ignite even in the searing heat of blazing desire. Rather than investigating what fuels the burning, perhaps you would be better served by taking refuge in the heart.
“Heart” for the Sufi Ibn ‘Arabi is the sky untroubled by the clouds, the greater self that is unsullied by the madness of the smaller ego. We build concrete symbols of the Heart—convents, temples, the Ark, the Ka’ba—to serve as mirrors reminding us of the inner garden. Too often we mistake these mirrors and their reflections for the Heart itself, seeking outwardly what can only be found inwardly.
The way to the Heart is the inward way, the way of love. What does the way of Love mean to you? Love doesn’t quench the flames of desire; it simply offers an alternative to the heat. It is not limited to one path, or any. It goes where it goes and invites you to travel upon it. Where does love go in your life? There are no footsteps of prior travelers to follow; this way is your way alone. What is your way? You know you are traveling the Way of Love when you see there are no flames. You know your faith is true when you are no longer burning. How do you step out the fire and onto the Way?
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
04.04 June Prompt
Here is our prompt for June. Read it, journal about it, and, if you wish, share your thoughts as comments on this blog page.
No Less for Dying
Rumi, Sufi Poet and Mystic
I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Human.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall dies as Human, to soar
With angels blest. But even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God does perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel–soul,
I shall become what no mind e’er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! Non-existence Proclaims in organ tones: “To Him we shall return.”
Here is your real biography: you died as mineral and became a plant, and died as a plant and became an
animal, and died as an animal and became a human. And these are only the middle chapters of your life.
You began as nothing, and you congealed into gas. You died as gas and became molecules. You died as
molecules and became dust. The biography of the universe is your biography. Evolution doesn’t strip you of
purpose; it endows you with it.
You are the way life comes to know itself. You are the way God gets to turn around and see God’s Self. And
when you come to know your source you come to know your destiny: from God to God. The story of
creation, even when told in the most scientific of metaphors, is God’s autobiography. How could it be
otherwise? For all there is is God.
What are we to make of Rumi’s plea: “Let me not exist!” Is this a rejection of life? A betrayal of this chapter
in favor of the next and the next after that? Is this a rushing to the end and a devaluing of the in-between? Or
is Rumi saying this, “Let me not exist as this human being only. Let me not mistake this fleeting form for
ultimate form. Let me not imagine I am this and not that; this only and not that of which it is made and that
which will be made from it.”
This prompt is part of 04.04, a year-long journaling project.
For more information visit us at www.04-04.org/.
No Less for Dying
Rumi, Sufi Poet and Mystic
I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Human.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall dies as Human, to soar
With angels blest. But even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God does perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel–soul,
I shall become what no mind e’er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! Non-existence Proclaims in organ tones: “To Him we shall return.”
Here is your real biography: you died as mineral and became a plant, and died as a plant and became an
animal, and died as an animal and became a human. And these are only the middle chapters of your life.
You began as nothing, and you congealed into gas. You died as gas and became molecules. You died as
molecules and became dust. The biography of the universe is your biography. Evolution doesn’t strip you of
purpose; it endows you with it.
You are the way life comes to know itself. You are the way God gets to turn around and see God’s Self. And
when you come to know your source you come to know your destiny: from God to God. The story of
creation, even when told in the most scientific of metaphors, is God’s autobiography. How could it be
otherwise? For all there is is God.
What are we to make of Rumi’s plea: “Let me not exist!” Is this a rejection of life? A betrayal of this chapter
in favor of the next and the next after that? Is this a rushing to the end and a devaluing of the in-between? Or
is Rumi saying this, “Let me not exist as this human being only. Let me not mistake this fleeting form for
ultimate form. Let me not imagine I am this and not that; this only and not that of which it is made and that
which will be made from it.”
This prompt is part of 04.04, a year-long journaling project.
For more information visit us at www.04-04.org/.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
04.04 May Prompt
Unstained
Chong Ch’ol, Korean Buddhist poet born 1536
A dash of rain upon
The lotus leaves. But the leaves
Remain unmarked, no matter
How hard the raindrops beat.
Mind, be like the lotus leaves,
Unstained by the world.
What would it be like to be unstained by the world? Would you know fear or awe? Joy or sadness? Would
you matter to anyone other than yourself? Would you even matter to your self? Would anyone matter to you?
If being unstained means being untouched, it also means being dead. But Chong Ch’ol’s lotus leaf isn’t dead,
and the rain that beats upon it is in fact insuring that it lives. So being unstained is not the same as being
untouched.
The lotus leaf gets wet with rain, but is not damaged by the rain. It is touched, but not unduly so. There is a
way of being in the world, even of the world, that allows us to be drenched and yet not drowned. This is the
way for which Chong Ch’ol longs.
You may like to take refuge in the idea of being in the world but not of the world. Yet this is not the way of
Chong Ch’ol’s lotus. The lotus is of the world; it rests in the muddied waters of the world. It is not afraid of
mud; it just doesn’t cling to mud. Too often we cling to the very things from which we say we wish to be free.
In fact it is our protesting that keeps us bound to that which we protest.
How can you be in the world and of the world, and yet not stained by the world? How can your care for self
and others, and yet not drown in that care? How can you allow yourself to fear and to wonder, to laugh and
to cry, to love self, neighbor, and stranger without becoming trapped in the drama of all that?
This prompt is part of 04.04, a year-long journaling project.
To join the 04.04 community please email Rami at rabbirami.gmail.com
Chong Ch’ol, Korean Buddhist poet born 1536
A dash of rain upon
The lotus leaves. But the leaves
Remain unmarked, no matter
How hard the raindrops beat.
Mind, be like the lotus leaves,
Unstained by the world.
What would it be like to be unstained by the world? Would you know fear or awe? Joy or sadness? Would
you matter to anyone other than yourself? Would you even matter to your self? Would anyone matter to you?
If being unstained means being untouched, it also means being dead. But Chong Ch’ol’s lotus leaf isn’t dead,
and the rain that beats upon it is in fact insuring that it lives. So being unstained is not the same as being
untouched.
The lotus leaf gets wet with rain, but is not damaged by the rain. It is touched, but not unduly so. There is a
way of being in the world, even of the world, that allows us to be drenched and yet not drowned. This is the
way for which Chong Ch’ol longs.
You may like to take refuge in the idea of being in the world but not of the world. Yet this is not the way of
Chong Ch’ol’s lotus. The lotus is of the world; it rests in the muddied waters of the world. It is not afraid of
mud; it just doesn’t cling to mud. Too often we cling to the very things from which we say we wish to be free.
In fact it is our protesting that keeps us bound to that which we protest.
How can you be in the world and of the world, and yet not stained by the world? How can your care for self
and others, and yet not drown in that care? How can you allow yourself to fear and to wonder, to laugh and
to cry, to love self, neighbor, and stranger without becoming trapped in the drama of all that?
This prompt is part of 04.04, a year-long journaling project.
To join the 04.04 community please email Rami at rabbirami.gmail.com
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
04.04 April Prompt
Nothing Lives Long
(Cheyenne Proverb)
Nothing lives long.
Nothing lives long.
Nothing lives long.
Except the earth and the mountains.
Death is inevitable. It arises with birth and only together can we have life. End times arise with first times. “In the beginning God created” already carries with it “In the end God destroys.” The question you must ask yourself is this, “How shall I live my dying?” Unfortunately most of us are preoccupied with other questions: “Why was I born?” “When will I die?” “What will become of me after I die?” Of these four questions, only the first really matters. “Why” leads you into a forest of abstractions; “When” takes you out of the present into a fantasized future that allows the present to slip by untapped and undervalued; “What” leaves you vulnerable to your darkest fears or, worse, those of others. Only “How” leads you to engage the world in all its complexity here and now.
So let’s put these distractions to rest: “Why were you born?” To do what needs to be done in the present moment. “When will you die?” Tomorrow, so there is no time to waste. “What will happen to me after I die?” You will be judged by how you spent the gift of the present moment. Nothing lives long. Especially you.
Share with us three moments when you were most alive.
Share with us three moments when you were least alive.
How do you pull yourself out of those least alive moments?
How do you cultivate those most alive moments?
(Cheyenne Proverb)
Nothing lives long.
Nothing lives long.
Nothing lives long.
Except the earth and the mountains.
Death is inevitable. It arises with birth and only together can we have life. End times arise with first times. “In the beginning God created” already carries with it “In the end God destroys.” The question you must ask yourself is this, “How shall I live my dying?” Unfortunately most of us are preoccupied with other questions: “Why was I born?” “When will I die?” “What will become of me after I die?” Of these four questions, only the first really matters. “Why” leads you into a forest of abstractions; “When” takes you out of the present into a fantasized future that allows the present to slip by untapped and undervalued; “What” leaves you vulnerable to your darkest fears or, worse, those of others. Only “How” leads you to engage the world in all its complexity here and now.
So let’s put these distractions to rest: “Why were you born?” To do what needs to be done in the present moment. “When will you die?” Tomorrow, so there is no time to waste. “What will happen to me after I die?” You will be judged by how you spent the gift of the present moment. Nothing lives long. Especially you.
Share with us three moments when you were most alive.
Share with us three moments when you were least alive.
How do you pull yourself out of those least alive moments?
How do you cultivate those most alive moments?
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