If elephants can do it
And moose can do it
Can we not do it too?
Play brings light into the heart.
And joy flourishes.
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Norfolk
I’ll be spending some down time in north Norfolk from the 9th October for a couple of weeks. Depending on internet connections there will hopefully be some photographs and stories to tell here.
First Mind
A couple of nights ago sitting outside the Friends Meeting House in Lancaster readying to attend the Lancaster Meditation group meeting I pondered on what I’d talk about. This is what came to me. It’s from the monks ordination ceremony.
The merit of first mind
Is the widest and most completely
Fathomless.
Even if Buddhas
Explain it fully
Such explanation can never be enough.
It is just so hard to talk about first mind (or beginners mind) without there being huge misunderstandings. And being hampered by mental tiredness didn’t help either! If I were to zip now to first mind and think about that I’d say it is largely marked by humility. Natural humility.
There is nothing like
a tired mind
attempting to talk about
first mind to bring up
humility!
There is no way, and no point, in pushing a brain that has just run a mental marathon, which mine has over the past weeks. Nor pushing oneself on other levels either. Tired is tired. I’m glad I went to the meeting – you were all kind and compassionate. Thank you.
Lessons For The Living – The Film
Moving through New York City’s fast-pace, life often seems a blur. Yet, within this city, a group of people quietly seek solace by spending time with the dying.
Lessons for the Living reveals a unique subculture of Hospice volunteers as they reflect on their experiences and philosophies of life and death. Among them, a teenager escapes from the drama of high school, a hard-edged corporate lawyer searches for meaning and a terminally ill woman faces her own death with unexpected humor and grace.
As the baby boomer generation nears its end, this film offers a timely look at what it means to face death. Lessons for the Living shows that the dying have a great deal to offer the living.
Lessons For The Living. Also see Brain Pickings.
Once again, thank you to Julius for the links. Must try and track down the film.
Buy On The Never Never
I remember my parents talking about buying items such as a fridge or a washing machine on the never never. We call that something else now. Monthly payments perhaps? Interesting it was called the never never back then in the 1950’s. Was it that re-payments lasted so long it never seemed they would end? Now there are monthly payment plans (on the never never): a mortgage, a cell phone contract, a bank loan, paying off credit card debt etc.
Being in debt, of any kind, is a huge stress factor. One of the major life stressors as I understand it. But imagine if one isn’t even credit worthy? Today I found out that I wasn’t. What a shock. Apparently one has to have been in debt and proved oneself able to pay it off to be able to be credit worthy. I couldn’t get my head around it this afternoon. Had I done something wrong? Was there something wrong or irresponsible in the way I’d been handling money? Well of course not but it took me some time to realize what the problem was and what the remedy is.
Stressful to be in debt and stressful not to be able to be in debt! Odd world.