I have spent quite a bit of time this morning answering the back-log of comments. My blog activity gave way to community activity over the holidays and the internet gave way for periods of time too! Now I am back at it on line, although I still have some visiting to do over the next few days.
Sometimes a comment gets lost so I’m answering Pascals here on the front page. Both as a personal response to him and a public one to you all who read this. Be you a regular reader or have just stopped by, have a good year and thank you for your support.
A number of you have left donations using EveryClick (see Donations tab at the top of this page). Here is my chance while talking directly to thank you so much. Your donations put food on the table and a roof over my head. Literally.
Dear Pascal,
Thank you for this comment which was attached to a post from some time ago.
Well, well. I encourage you to keep writing!
Pascal, not the one who wants Surfing pictures…
I am delighted to see you here Pascal. Where you are, land locked in Canada, you have no need of surfing pictures. Yes, there are two Pascals who visit here. You are the FRENCH Pascal. A pleasure to know you.
In this post I am responding to your encouragement to keep writing, and all the other encouragement that comes my way. I will and I am continue to write.
Having a comment left from you and others does have an impact on helping the flow of thinking to have expression here.
A devotee of the Dharma and friend within the sangha died yesterday morning.
She was a Buddhist. Devoted, caring, giving and elegant. And while I feel sad right now I know it will not last. Not for me not for anybody. People will grieve, family and friends especially. First sadness and then within that joy! There is no explaining, save that we sit where seeming opposites, such as life and death, lose their ordinary meaning.
I think my friend would like the music to be found in this video. Watch, listen, smile and be moved. And have a good day. Hopefully with good company and that includes yourself.
Garden Buddha – pointing to where we sit, benefiting self and other.
Viewed from my window. A lorry loaded with huge plastic pipes went up the road. Then later, down the road only to be followed by it coming back up the road. Lost! Yes probably lost and the roads are in no state to be in any doubt as to where one is going. People on foot. Booted and gloved with shopping bag or backpack. Many preferring to walk in the road rather than the uncleared pavements. All walking purposefully. Fetching and carrying or escorting children for play in the snow. The going underfoot is somewhat perilous for the young and fit, for those who are less young and less fit life is a struggle right now.
Last afternoon I fell into conversation with an older chap as we slush-ed our way along an uncleared side road. Him in his wellies, me in hiking boots. He had a walking pole. He recounted that he had already fallen and had gone back to fetch the pole to steady himself. Poles are in effect an extra limb to help with balance especially on ice and inclines. We parted with a wave. I mused to myself that these extreme conditions do bring people together. I found myself entering into more conversation as I went about my business. Getting in supplies while there was a break in the snow falling.
Being sure of foot goes largely unquestioned and thus unappreciated. It is after all more or less continuously. The occasional trip or slip gets ones attention, to pay more attention to the going under foot, which is good. Then there are the little slips which have big consequences. A broken limb! A sprained ankle! Mobility then becomes a BIG ISSUE. Then imagine a young man, on patrol, in the army, stepping on a trip wire. The story of one such chap, now a triple amputee, has been told on a BBC3 Documentary titled My Boyfriend the War Hero. It can be downloaded or watched on line for the next 13 days on BBC iPlayer. The story centers around the relationship between the chap and his sixteen year old fiance who becomes his full time carer. People who have amputations tend not to lament their loss, they are focused on mobility and all the huge challenges presented. They have had time to make their decision and come to terms with it. However for our soldier in the documentary there was no time, just a bright white flash as he took the hit.
Mobility compromised is a gross understatement and not the whole picture by any means. This post is for all those who take the hit like this soldier, or in the other multitudinous ways people are hit in life. Largely such extremity is hidden to all save those who care for them. One can only imagine the chronic isolation and loneliness for all who suffer a hit, as well as the stresses and strains encountered by those around them. A thought.
Unlike our little bitty fall of snow, fetching strangers to converse in a picture postcard world, the raw reality of amputation is not a pretty sight. However I believe it is important to allow the sight and reality to enter in. For the benefit of others as well as oneself.
Thank you for the photograph good friend. The Buddha has a good place in this post, and a good place in your garden too.
We say to start where you are. To deal with what’s in front of you. And, the next step is found within present conditions. There are probably lots more ways of saying the same thing. However in the end one just has to move and do something, but what? What a clamor there is in our lives and it’s good to remember there is more to living a life than clamor. Even sitting still can become another doing clamoring away. As is obvious I chose to first write a post here. It’s so good to have the time and space to devote to this activity.
Here’s what’s in front of me this morning. My computer is opened and ready to write a post for Jade Mountains. Further out a dish with two walnuts from Butchart Gardens, Victoria Canada and a piece of picked-up-and-passed-on pumice found during a trip to Medicine Lake and Glass Mountain, California. Next a Kanzeon holding a lotus. Outside, a dusting of snow. This is the view from an upstairs window where I am staying this winter. This then is what’s before me this morning.
Then there is the rest of the desk with papers and items all calling and competing for attention. Petty cash to balance, a short video calling from a flash drive to watch and respond to, a book of poems by Seamus Heaney (Human Chain) quietly whispering to thank the couple who gave it. Oh and there is the bank to deal with, personal business, that announced they had closed my account while I have been away, and to my right a pile of cards ready to be written and sent off. They are thank you cards to temples and their communities for hosting me this summer.
Behind, beside, above and below. The phone, the email, Google Talk, Skype, Twitter (my ID is revmugo for those who even know what Twitter is) and now back to this. This. THIS! And this is what’s here in the midst of the up, down, above and below. How very easy it is to loose contact/awareness with oneself. The skin, flesh, bones, brain, mind, consciousness of oneself.
We in Buddhism call what I am broadly talking about as the five skandas. Form, sensation, thought, activity and consciousness. That which constitutes self and which (very important to remember this) are not fundamentally separate from conditions. And even more import, to know that the important thing is not something other than THIS. All is all in the up, down, beside, below and behind. (I will be had up for sounding Zen if I am not careful!) At Shasta Abbey there are, I think there still are, five red lights hanging in lotus flowers above the altar. We call them the skanda lights. Jim reminds me that I pointed these out to him years ago, it was our first conversation together.
Anyway. Now as I drive off into the tasks calling to me I’ll take a look in my rear view mirror. Like any good driver knows, first check the rear view mirror. For me this has the effect of bringing me back to THIS. Which embraces the this and that’s I’ve been talking about.
At least, at last, here is an actual post for you all. It’s my first thank you note of the day.
ZEN DOG
He knows not where he’s going
For the ocean will decide –
It’s not the DESTINATION…
…It’s the glory of THE RIDE
Edward Monkton
This quote was mentioned while sitting over a cool cup of tea with an old friend on Sunday. Thanks Friend. I had a look at Edward Monkton’s website. There are certainly some zany thoughts coming out of Mr. Monkton. I’m left scratching my head a bit….
Anyway I am posting this quote because it reminds me of the happy Sunday meeting. Twenty years it’s been. How fortunate we are to have shared training in the Way – and can still share a joke, and talk about the important thing.
Thought I was
done with going about.
But I was wrong.
A week of here and there
only to come back again
to rest and hopeful repose.
