It struck me this morning at 11.04 am that today, in England, is Remembrance Day. At 11.00 am precisely people are encouraged to stop what they are doing for one simple minute in remembrance of those killed in war. This event stated after WW1 and continues on to this very day. Rare I think that the eleventh of the eleventh falls on a Sunday. People are out on parade, laying wreaths and sporting the Remembrance Poppy about their person. I was driving at 11.00, from North Norfolk back to where I am staying for the moment in North West England. So I am pausing now…and using this on-line timer.

Landing back after three days away it is so easy to hit the ground running. Unpacking, catching up, planning and preparing for the next away time. Tea? No, just this post, a moment to remember and then out for a brisk walk to iron out those traveling/driving wrinkles.

It really does take effort and a firm hand to slow down, and stop. And then start up again refreshed and renewed. Remembrance, deliberately bringing to mind with compassionate attention is to offer merit.

On this day remembering ALL killed in war or who suffered, are still suffering, from the consequence of war.

A new post on Field of Merit has the title of Song Of The Skin Bag. The title is a riff on the title of the previous post (Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage). That post featured a poem by one of our spiritual ancestors Sekito Kisen which has the same title as the post itself. Here is a middle section of the poem which I really resonate with:

Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can’t be faced or turned
away from.

This is a song to sing-along with.

The following was originally a Daily Dharma offering from Tricycle.

Image source.

In a famous parable, the Buddha imagines a group of blind men who are invited to identify an elephant. One takes the tail and says it’s a rope; another clasps a leg and says it’s a pillar; another feels the side and says it’s a wall; another holds the trunk, and says it’s a tube. Depending on which part of Buddhism you grasp, you might identify it as a system of ethics, a philosophy, a contemplative psychotherapy, a religion. While containing all of these, it can no more be reduced to any one of them than an elephant can be reduced to its tail.

– Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

I’m so glad to find this image of the elephant and the blind men. We often use this parable. To have this image is so good.

For an evening ceremony at Throssel, a lotus carved pumpkin to light the way.

Triple Gem points the way
when I’ve gone astray.
It takes care of us.

Deeper ones who see
ways of helping me.
They take care of us.

Training letting go
meditation flow.
They take care of us.

Now I am coming home
never more to roam.
It takes care of us.

By the late George Barker

This poem was taken from the Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey Newsletter, just out this morning. George is mentioned. Computer mentor and vacuum cleaner Bodhisattva! I hold him dear in my heart.