mud and blossoms
fall away and
still
wood is stacked
and there’s little
left to say.the bell is rung
in joyful
proclamation of
life times
fallen away.yes a rare moment
of reflection
on This and
still
there’s little
left to say.
For the woman who stitched this verse and for her family.
…the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Viktor Frankl
As a youngster I kept a book of quotes. I called it my Book of Wisdom. This is one I found and remember even now: We would do well to remember we live in the presence of constant choice. But that we would remember… Ah?
This is for the family I stayed with last night. It is not my attempt to teach more a way of acknowledging there collective wisdom. May you all go well and safely.
Note: It’s worth following that link to Viktor Frankl. He lived an inspired life and helped many who were in extreme circumstances.
Morning Service. That’s a ceremony. It happens after morning meditation. It happens every day of the year. And it is more or less the same, every single day of the year. For people new to our practice who maybe come for an introductory retreat ceremonial can be a bit of a challenge. It was for me when I first started going to Throssel as a lay woman.
To cut a potentially long post short the answer to the challenge is simple. Firstly one is not required to adopt a particular attitude of mind, or feel a certain way while taking part in a ceremony. For example it is not a requirement to be devotional while singing or grateful when bowing or feel wonderful or uplifted. Or even like it. Morning service, any ceremony, is an overtly religious activity within which one sits still and acts in concert with others. Singing, bowing, chanting, turning, sitting, standing. Doing the best one can.
As with participating in overtly religious activities such as morning service so it is with seemingly mundane daily activities. The inner aspect or quality of mind (sitting still) is exactly the same what ever is happening. That quality of mind is not a practice or quality as such it is simply our True Nature which does not come or go, nor does it need perfecting. The deeper challenge of ceremonial (or whatever) is to accept that. Deeply. Trouble is we imagine there is something lost to find and something broken to fix or improve upon. Tah!
There is a certain something in repetition, a blessing really, that propels one through to acceptance. You could call that faith I guess.
Modern medicine is good at staving off death with aggressive interventions—and bad at knowing when to focus, instead, on improving the days that terminal patients have left.
From an article in The New Yorker.
The subject matter discussed in this article is dear to my heart. I have not had a chance to read the whole thing but what I have seen looks interesting.
Thanks once again to Julius in London who regularly turns up valuable web content.
The temperature is rising, 31c here in the Flathead Valley Montana. And having just returned from a trip in a hot car my mind is returning to an article sent me earlier in the year. Yes, now is the time to link to this article, Fatal Distraction Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake.: Written by Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post.
Here is an extract from a congratulatory piece on winning the Pulitzer. Fatal Distraction is hard to read and at the same time deeply compassionate.
It’s a masterpiece. And it’s brutal. If you’re having a wonderful day, and are in high spirits, maybe you shouldn’t read it. But it’s a deserving winner, (Pulitzer Prize) and while we’ll never know for sure, I personally prefer to believe that this piece (written by Washington Post Staff Writer Gene Weingarten) has already saved many lives. That’s a fine thing to be able to say about a piece of writing!
From a review in The Huffington Post
Thanks to Julius for the link.