Rocking chair on a deck in Whitefish, Montana.

Detail of a mend.

This chair is special. The woman who enjoys it's support has asked that it go to a museum when she no longer has use for it. She's the other side of 80 and still going strong so it will be awhile before the rocker leaves it's place on her deck.

Special because she simply likes sitting in it? Special because it is old? Special because it was given to her mother back in the early 1900's? Special because of it's connection with the history of the West? All of those reasons, and more probably. See how rickety the chair has become and needing splints and screws and other fixes to keep it's integrity?

When the '49ers were coming out West on the Oregon Trail, and those who came after them, they would sometimes have to abandon the furniture along the way. Lighten the load perhaps or perhaps they just had to continue on foot with what they could carry. So people gleaned the abandoned and broken furniture and made, furniture. That's the history of this rocker.

This afternoon, flying high over the Oregon Trail on my way south to the Bay Area, I paused for a moment to remember those who settled the west, the hardship and their endurance. And I also took a moment to remember with fondness the woman and her daughter on whose deck the chair rests. The chair gathered up from Oregon Trail. See! This is an old table leg.

I don't want to go on about the good-old bad-old days, to cover them with a nostalgic glow. Those times were tough and life was probably gruesome in the extreme, and people did lots they had to do. There are people alive now who have made a huge contribution, as they did, who have given their lives in the service of others. They have know real hardship, and joy, and once again I honour them. Like the chair they may be getting a bit fragile but it does not seem to stop them rocking!

But that we can emulate the oldies pluck.

Mother and daughter combo readying for a training ride.

This summer, five cyclists with a shared commitment to creating a sustainable future and extensive wilderness will bike from the southern border of the Yukon Territory in Canada 2,000 miles to Yellowstone National Park in the United States to raise awareness of the Yellowstone to Yukon project (Y2Y).
Quoted from Ride for the Wild - Bearing Witness

I'm drawing attention to this long distance bicycle ride for a number of reasons. Perhaps the main one is I know several of the riders, including the two pictured here, and many of them are practicing Buddhists within our Order. The cyclist's route takes them through some of the most beautiful country on the planet. My correspondent would know this personally since she grew up in northern Canada where the group start out from in mid August.

While the young woman, the daughter, was here in Whitefish over the week-end we talked about the ride; about safety issues, the reasons for participating, the practicalities and the inevitable vulnerabilities. Six weeks on the road will be a test for all the participants. Several people, including the mum seen above, will join the group at various stages of the trip. I wish them well and will follow their progress.

As far as I am concerned, in terms Buddhist practice, there is just the doing that which is good and following through in a reflective and intelligent fashion. This small band have a mission and a project which they consider good to do. Go for it! Engage fully, and take every safety precaution you can.

Simon with moose in June, Montana.
Simon is the happiest cat I've ever encountered, and he just loves to be included in photographs. So much so that it's practically impossible to take a photograph without him being in it! His caretaker was carefully focusing on the moose in the garden, not a common sight, when Simon insinuated himself and became the main subject.

My time is coming to an end here in Montana. It has been a joy to walk out in the early morning as the sun rises over the mountains, and to meet many old friends too.

Many thanks to Scott for the photograph.

Out in the Chevy pick-up,
hot day, heating stuck at ON.
Visit Ann, eighty six,
watch the Angles and the Red Socks.
Clean the toilet,
and shout a lot.

Stop on 2nd
heave couch into pick-up.
Rattle back
still hot.
Bought at yard sale Saturday
bound for out-of-town daughter.
We talked about death
mostly shouted.

Do it Now!
When you've got a job to do
Do it now!
If it's one you wish was through
Do it now!
If you're sure the job's your own
Just tackle it alone.
Don't hem and haw and groan,
Do it now!

Ann likes 'sayings'. She found this one in a catalog.

I picked up this book at a yard sale yesterday. Found, hand written, on the inside page,
This is a good book. Read and be wise.
In 1951 the Montreal Star, the most powerful English language paper in Canada, launched its Weekend Magazine supplement The Herald and Weekly Star, with an initial circulation of 900,000. Another hand written note states, Bought Blue suit $40.00 for Easter 1953 at (maybe) Hess Store. and Bought aluminum chairs from club, May 14-53. So this book more than likely is a compilation of information gleaned from the first two years of the magazine's life. It's described as An Encyclopedia of Useful Information. There are recipes and instruction for; Making a Bearskin Mat, Bicycle Enamel, Carbolic Soap, To Purify Rancid Lard and my favorite, Sticking Labels on Tin which calls for isinglass dissolved in acetic acid.

I'll remember the sad woman who sold me the book. And I'll also remember the book's yellowing crumbling held-together-with-masking-tape pages. Rich human history one can embrace, and smell.

A train is hooting and howling as it passes below the garden on it's way to Chicago. I see there is an entry First Railways in America. That was a line from Boston to Quincy, Mass., opened on April 17, 1827, And on the next page:

Origin of "Canada". The word Canada is derived from the Huron-Iroquois Indian word "Kannata," meaning a collection of huts! (my exclamation point).

Who would have thought that the dissemination of information would travel so far so fast. From down home books like the one described, to the Internet today.

But is it going anywhere?

Anna, who is a Jade reader and long time practitioner within our Order, wrote me an email which I am sharing here, with her permission. The reason I'm doing so is because it offers a window on a reader's world. Through this window we find one who overcomes multiple great difficulties with dignity and within them finds the time to express gratitude as well. Thus, as far as I am concerned, she offers spiritual encouragement. Thank you, with bows.

Reverend Master Mugo,

For days...weeks probably...I've had a list of topics from your more recent blog entries by my computer, entries that somehow live in my memory for a variety of reasons. Then this morning, when I read your blog's history I realized that I wanted to thank you for taking the leap whenever you initially began this project. I always appreciate people in the culture, and in this case, monks in our Order, who are willing to walk outside the box and take us to the Dharma in a less obvious way. So, thank you for your innovations and openness and I applaud their growth and your wisdom in guiding readers through new Dharma Gates. There are so many ways in, aren't there.

About this list next to my computer. When I first saw the green handicap parking sign and Towing Enforced I laughed aloud. For anybody who used to walk and has now periodic experiences in a wheelchair, you may not realize how relevant Towing Enforced is. I suddenly found in that sign a description for what happens on my ride from the Buddha Hall up to what a certain Reverend calls my horse barn when some brave soul--did you push me when you were here, I forget--has kindly given me a ride. I'm heavy in the chair, so nobody dawdles, but rather gains momentum and we move at quite a speed. No stopping to exchange the time of day with a pedestrian, no social exchanges, just enforced towing in reverse. And suddenly it's all over. It's like a major experience in impermanence--and I realize how much I enjoy walking slowly and taking in all the crinkles in the wood siding and the views out one or two windows-- when I am strong enough to walk. The object of my appreciation must change quickly, and I get more and more practice in that marvelous teaching...detachment. Always letting go, always letting go.

I remember the question from students about increasing their vocabularies...how???? Read, I always answered them, read. That's the only real way to let words learn to live inside of you. I wish I had thought of the inhaling/exhaling image. Really fine.

Somewhere in some blog about who knows what now, you ended with one of your pithy last lines...*"let go of loneliness." Well, I still haven't and create suffering for myself because of it and the line went like a knife straight through. There's a blog "format" that you employ sometimes, and I admit it's one of my favorites: some daily life story, perhaps pithy, perhaps simple [remember your vacuum cleaner duty at Throssel?], but it ends with a one liner of teaching that zaps the heart. You're really good at that and I am always grateful for it. Like the fine Dharma talks from some weighty piece of scripture that illustrate what's so true about the Dharma...it certainly understands the human heart.

Your recent discussion about trains and the points about excitement...I appreciate a teacher who doesn't tell me never to get excited, although I will bow to the idea, but I like being lassoed with the responsibility to walk the middle path. In that piece I saw, or "felt" in a visceral way, the loss of true excitement when it lacks limits. Experiencing the joy is one thing...then letting it go and going on, always going on. I don't have your text in front of me, but somehow it balanced excess while allowing some true pleasure. Ways and ways...you said....

I am so happy you went to Washington and I hope at some point you will indeed have some time in Ryokan's hut. I found Reverend Eido's talks renewing for me in a couple of ways. I was too ill to go to the retreat, so I missed the hands-on parts, and the parts one only really "gets" if one is present. But (a monk) recorded the Dharma talks and when I got my copy I sat in front of my computer here in my town hermitage and listened to one talk an evening. I realized that given the state of my body now, I got more out of the talks by listening to the mp3 than I would have if I'd had all the chemistry of adrenalin --both mine and other people's--to deal with if I'd been strong enough to be present. Her greatest gift to me was to open my heart again to what is innately true for my path: art, music, language do not take one away from the Great Silence of Spirit at all, but they can be Dharma gates and reflections of our Buddha hearts. I have heard some denials of that--perhaps I misunderstood--and I was so grateful to have what is true for me affirmed.

Sheds and stone walls...they are etched inside this damaged head of mine and I go to them sometimes for solace. No special ones, just visions of photographs that offer me quiet. Thank you for it all.

Travel safely and I hope I will see you in September, or at some point. Care for your heart, gently.

Bowing, Anna

Thank you Anna for the feedback and for giving me the opportunity to try out the Search feature on the blog. I was thus able to briskly find the articles you mention and then link to them.

This is the actual quote from the article Lonely Moon.
*Perhaps it is good to remember not to abandon ourselves to loneliness.

Here are some (un-lonely) pebbles on a lakeside beach in Idaho. Nature has done a perfect job of arranging them; like so much in this world should one choose to take the long, and un-lonely view.

Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world,
A phantasm, a dream,
Bubbles, appearing and dissolving,
in lake-side waters,
and in streams.
Paraphrased from a scripture.

Published in memory of Dave, a long time Lay Minister within our Order, who died on Sunday.

Don't do anything,
don't call it anything,
just sit and look at the wall.

I'm not able to attribute this quote at the moment.

This is Dakota.
She is a dog,
always moving,
constantly changing.
She is soooo beautiful,
like all of us,
fundamentally.
Dakota is in Whitefish, Montana,
and I don't care what anyone says!

Appearing is constantly changing.

Thanks to Dakota's people for strawberries an' ice cream and charming company, as always.

A woman of my acquaintance had been given a compilation of writings by Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett. There wasn't time to look at it that evening so the tome was left beside her bed, on a chair. That night, in her dreams, she was joined by Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett who spoke wise words about meditation. Later she found the exact words in Rev. Master's writings.

Such dreams are just dreams, nothing more. If they bring about a change of heart for the good or a sense of peace and resolution, that is good! However if they become another story to tell, then that's what they become. A story, a beautiful dream.
However, sometimes it is good to speak (take Refuge) with a trusted friend, a senior religious, your spiritual director or wise-one of your aquaintence. To thus speak in confidence can allow the dream to fade, along with the teaching or comfort it might have brought. This is a wise way to help oneself.
Why? Because anything, even good stuff, can become a burden.

Illusions have no substance, however they can become weighty. Dreams come, dreams go.

BTW. I always ask before publishing emails, letters or snippets from conversations. In order to preserve privacy I do not publish full names, or in some cases omit them all together.