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!
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.
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.
I hear that Lucy arranged herself just so.
Just as if she knew it was time to go.
And finding a position for her limbs, she passed.
The posting titled Animals and End of Life Issues, has stimulated quite a bit of feedback. The following letter is from a former congregation member in Edmonton and I know just how hard it was for her during and after the family dog Sandy died. So I was especially pleased to receive this letter. I believe it is not uncommon for this kind of resolution to come via a dream. Some dreams have a particular quality to them and can convey a teaching or, as in this case can console and help set grief and loss to rest.
Dear Reverend Master Mugo,
I caught up on your website and enjoyed your recent postings about animals. I especially appreciated the writing about Peter the cat and the kind act that the neighbor performed. I was holding onto a little regret and self-blame with Sandy’s death – it really hurt to think of the suffering she endured near the end. About a week ago, she appeared to me in a dream. I gave her a meal and she stepped up to place her paws in my hands- we were standing face to face. She was completely content and joyful and communicated the utmost gratitude towards me. It really helped me to start to let go of those feelings of regret and guilt.
On this note, could you please offer merit to Jasper the dog? When Chris was here last, we happened upon a dog that had just been hit by a car. It was in front of a neighbor’s house and the dog was just a pup. It was really admirable how Jasper’s person handled the unfortunate situation. I could tell that she was upset but she remained calm and was most worried about the woman who hit Jasper who was very shook up. She consoled the woman and tried to assure her that it was not her fault. I ran into my neighbor last night and she informed me that Jasper had been put to sleep. His leg was broken in two places. She thinks that Jasper was chasing a butterfly when he got in the way of the van driving by.
I last saw Lucy in Montana four years ago when this picture was taken with one of her loving companions. The list is long. Leo and Buddy come especially to mind this evening. Perhaps we will all meet in our dreams.
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come to the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. Wendell Berry
The situation of Peter Cat reminds me that, just as for humans, it’s helpful to have written Last Wishes for one’s animals in case they die while under the care of another person. Continued…
Be it forethought of grief or afterthoughts of grief, rest in the grace of the world. In wild places.
