Put it Down!

It was my turn to start the ball rolling with this months Field of Merit Newsletter. Each month there is an original article written by one of us. Unfortunately I ended up using a photograph I’d intended to use here in my article. Well here is the photograph anyway and if you would like to read the article that goes with it you can access it via the Newsletter Archive.

Eat Greens!

Eat Greens!


The post is not only about the joys of eating Dandelions and other vegetation plentiful at this time of year or about foraging in general. Though it might have been since I am enthusiastic about eating what grows out in the wild. I always have been enthusiastic however not a very active practicing forager. There is a reason for that. And it is the same reason why you don’t see campaigning on Jade. Yes, sometimes there will be a link to something that desperately needs spiritual merit injected into it.

It is good to work to relieve suffering, including taking up a cause. Many effective campaigns are started by people whose lives have been touched by an incident which propels them to help others in similar situations. In a way, and it’s a long story, Jade Mountains is the answering of a vow I made when I was 13. My brother had seriously gone off the rails mentally and had been taken to hospital. I decided I would find an answer or solution to his plight. Simple as that. The Teachings and practices of Buddhism are what I found. Eventually. So here I am doing my best to point to a way out of suffering, or rather to transcend suffering. Buddhist practice transforms the lives of those who take it up and keep going without falter. Fundamentally it is a life of faith which can influence the lives of beings universally. The spiritual difficulty of championing a cause comes when one can’t put it down!

My mission, if I have one of those, is to help point out a way to put things down. Not to encourage people to pick things up! While at the same time engendering compassion.

Great Potential

Going to London for a visa interview at the American Embassy usually leaves a deep impression on me. Most often not a positive one. This time circumstances I met left me feeling philosophical about the whole business. Perhaps because I’m not pressed to get to America and also I was through the whole process in record time. In the past I have been caught in the Embassy for up to five hours!

Picture the scene. The American Embassy in London, the non-immigrant visa section. Having started to que outside at 8.00 along with my follow hopefuls the line starts to move at 8.30, slowly. By around 9.00 I find myself, with more than a 100 others, in a large room facing a huge screen part of which shows a video, with subtitles, of America. The video is selling America. Universities, National Parks, family life, leisure, freedom and above all the potential to achieve ones dream. To be a success. Everybody is young and smiling, there is no rain! This America is indeed beautiful. And clearly we waiting hopefuls would not be putting ourselves through this ordeal if we didn’t want or need a visa to grant us entry to this beautiful country. From Field of Merit – Always Being Buddha.

Merit to those who grieve.

Encounter with Bluebells

image

Imagine the delight. To come upon this fragrant wood. Oxfordshire, north of Reading after a full day driving. South to attend a visa interview in London on Thursday. Climbing aboard the train and tube and bus, walking on Oxford street with Selfridges to the right. All somewhat as in a dream.

Ah, to live a settled life….

Productivity

Productive of beauty, bringers of joy.

Productive of beauty, bringers of joy.


The plumber came early this morning, his second or possibly third visit to fix a boiler problem. A recent visitor diagnosed the problem and left me with a drawing and the magic words – pressure chamber. But somehow it didn’t seem right to be telling a professional how to do his job. But as it turned out, and with a number pointed questions from me after he’d failed first time around, my visitor had correctly diagnosed the problem. Nothing’s terminal the plumber said as he good-naturedly set to work on that – pressure chamber!

So a successful outcome. Problem fixed. But from past experience that which seems fixed doesn’t stay fixed. Which phone number do you prefer me to use, I asked as he was packing up, just in case err…the problem comes back again. You can have faith in it Reverend, he said. Then he left. Out into the pouring rain to his next job. So I guess we learnt something from each other today.

And the photograph of the daffodils? They reminded me of a much valued aspect of our lives – productivity. Producing goods and services to create wealth. With warmth and all this rain the land is once again growing green. It is becoming productive. Indeed being productive. The lambs are avariciously eating grass. They grow rounder and less bouncy by the day. Soon they will go to the market, get sold and then…eaten! Some may live on to have their own lambs next year. And so the process goes on. Thinking about it I believe I appreciate the flowers and the lambs in equal measure. I’d hope we can appreciate all beings that way, productive or not.

Plumbers, I have to say, hold a special place in my heart.

A Different Perspective

View from above the Pembrokeshire Coast

View from above the Pembrokeshire Coast

The Pembrokeshire Coast Path, viewed with Google Earth is a doddle. Flying above the land, seeing remnants of an old air field, as in this image, brings a new perspective. And so it is with life circumstances some times. To fly above, to zoom out, to take the long view can help troubled times take on a three dimensional quality. And perhaps in doing that troubled times are seen with fresh insight.

I hope when Adrienne is lifting her boot on this stretch of coast I’ll be walking behind her, one step at a time.