We come to practice with these sicknesses of anger and
fear, mistrust, love and hate, and soon they begin to manifest
in the practice itself. We see them functioning in groups, in
families, in nations, in cultures.
Is it possible to function in this life in a nondual way?
Vimalakirti said yes. Buddha said yes. Manjusri said yes.
Countless Buddhas and Ancestors from time immemorial
have said yes.
From a lecture by John Daido Loori. Vimalakirti’s Gate of Nonduality
Tonight I’d like to think the pillar we see here on the church kneeler symbolizes what we call mountain still sitting. For the next couple of weeks I will be publishing more photographs of kneelers from St. Mary’s church in the Mallerstang valley, Cumbria. There will be quotes about mountains, and pillars and stupas and the like. If you have a quote or poem you would like to offer into the pot, I’ll use what I can. Please send what you have via the contact form or directly if you have my email address.
In her writings my teacher Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett referred to the iron pillar which penetrates the universe (that might not be an exact quote), spoken of from her own experience of meditation. It was her way of talking about mountain still sitting written about by Zen Master Dogen. Let’s sit!
Read also Axis Mundi for wider understanding and appreciation.
This quote struck me this evening as I looked around for inspiration for a post.
One man cannot do right in one department
of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong
in any other department. Life is one
indivisible whole.
~Mahatma Gandhi
Relatively recently I heard a story of a man who was said to be a gambler, and not a very good one because he was always broke. Being a gambler was the explanation for why he was so short of money. After his death it transpired that he actually lived a double life. He was always broke because he was supporting two families! He was indeed a gambler!
Gambler – Someone who risks loss or injury in the hope of gain or excitement. And who in this world has not done that? And who has not lived to regret that?
Sometimes it’s good to complain. To make an official complaint because that needs to be done to highlight a mistake, or negligence, or the like. The heart that does that can be altruistic, not vengeful. I believe this is what Edera, the wife of the late Iain Robinson of Little House In The Paddy, has done. Her letter of complaint is an altruistic act. I particularly like this sentence:- To keep my mind in peace I would like you to investigate Dr. A and require him to really reflect on his own practice.
There is an interesting comment to the post mentioned above in which the writer talks about grief. I’ve taken the liberty of copying it here. I am glad you wrote the letter Edera you will be helping others. When I studied grief and loss I heard something different to those stages of grief that really helped me with my own losses – instead of seeing grief as a process from which we recover, it sees it as a process by which we develop a different relationship with the person who has died. This helped me so much because it gave me license to keep having a relationship with my friend but to see that just like in life that relationship changed as I changed. It was true I could not see them in a conventional way and I missed them because they weren’t in my life in the same way, but that I still had a relationship with them. Just as I talked in my head to those people when they were not with me when they were alive, so do I continue to do so now they are dead. This way of looking at it helped me see my grief as an on-going process of developing a different relationship with them, through which I have grown.
Written by Bay.
As in life so in death. Relationships can be testing. I can attest to that.
Out walking this afternoon. What’s that I hear? A sound remembered from long past. Rhythmic rumbling. Could it be, could it possibly be…a steam train? And looking through the trees and to the distant horizon, yes indeed! Steam rising from the engine gasping it’s way up the track bound for Settle in Yorkshire. It probably came through from Carlisle.
Yesterday I walked close to the line of the Settle-Carlisle railway, once called the Midland Railway, as it passed up through the Mallerstang valley. What a bleak place. Full of wild beauty. The waterfalls on the high edge where pluming upwards in the winds, the Eden boiling and rushing along. My first stop was the small church in the village of Outhgill. A treasure trove of history. The hassocks depicting rural life in and around the village are splendid. I’ve a passion for hassocks valuing the hand-work and dedication that’s gone into their making. I took photographs of them for use in a future poetry series. Here’s a steam train. They must have been regulars on the line above the church in the 1970’s, when the hassocks were stitched.
Hassock – a cushion for kneeling on for prayer. Also known as a kneeler.
St. Mary’s Church, Outhgill, Mallerstang, with thanks for your trust in keeping the church open. And for the peace to be found therein.
At the back of the church I found this list of those men, women and children buried in the church yard who had died during the construction of the line. They lived in huts. So many of them were babies and young children.
The rest of the walk followed the Eden up stream. Goods trains and passenger trains were my companions. I waved as they went by. Goodness, what a life it must have been to labour on the line or farm the land back in the 1870’s.
But would life have been regarded as hardship by those who lived it, back then?
