Category Archives: Teachings

Teachings

Retreating

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Devout Buddhist are ‘on retreat’. Traditionally December 8th marks the time of the Buddhas Enlightenment and the seven days leading up to that time are spent in intensive meditation or sesshin. In Japanese Buddhism the retreat is called Rohatsu, which translates as the 8th day of the 12th month.

This quote caught my eye as I thumbed through next years diary. Perhaps because I am retreating in another direction. Meaning that this is not a time of formal retreat yet there is a growing sense of turning within as the temperature drops and the light fades.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction!

Douglas Macarthur

Advancing in another direction? That suits rather well since while life has a direction, a flow if you like, each advances in a unique fashion. Water doesn’t struggle or strive, nor should we.

Internet connections have been a bit unreliable. Snow on the hills, snow in the valleys. But nothing too serious as yet.

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Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Out Of Strength Comes Sweetness

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Loss seems to be the watch word of the moment. I’ll not enumerate because once one is sensitised around an area of pain it seems that pain is everywhere and everybody you know is suffering similarly. Why would one list losses anyway. But we do. A bag full of slights. A case of betrayals. Bucket upon bucket of grief.

At a certain point numbness sets in which is a relief in a certain kind of way. But it can’t go on for long. Not too long. Perhaps the emotional numbness that comes with sudden loss for example, or even accumulated loss, is a mechanism to counter shock. So deeply shocked you don’t even know you are in shock! That was the case for me back in July when Iain died suddenly and unexpectedly.

But what I was actually thinking about was the popular sentiment that we humans grow strong in adversity. That overcoming difficulties, moving on and going from strength to strength is the stuff of life itself. It’s certainly the stuff of popular entertainment. Oh so very much so. And a very popular way of raising funds for charity now I think about it. All very character building.

But what kind of strength? What sort of character? Brittle I’d say. Easily broken, subject to damage. Not universally so of course. In Buddhism we talk about pairs of opposites and steering a middle path. What of strength paired with weakness? Well I’d like to think that the kind of strength which comes from facing life challenges, the challenge of loss for example, is a soft and pliable strength. One that can bend and move and be responsive. Neither strong in the popular way nor weak in a diminishing way. That would be the middle way. A fine sweetness.

This is for those known and unknown who are making hard choices. And a reminder that happiness passes, and finds you again when you least expect.

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Teachings

Eternal Sunshine

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Sometimes the sun is out, and sometimes in goes in. When it is out, we all smile and are happy to see it. When it goes in and stays in for days on end, we are not happy. Then like today when the sun is in with patches of blue sky there is a sense of promise in the air. Of hope the blue will get bigger and those dark grey skies over there – will not come over here and dump their clammy contents. Today grey skies with blue patches. Small ones. No rain to speak of.

Especially at this time of year, and on through the darkening days of December and January/February/March, there is a real tendency to be adversely affected by the low levels of light. I am. I’ve a little box which pumps out light of the right kind and I sit with it each day to bump up my daily light dosage. No, I probably don’t have S.A.D. in a clinical sense however that extra light does help my poor brain to look lively when it would rather lay down and hibernate. Until spring time.

Walking out among the fields and remote farm houses today in the dim light I wonder, now, about the people from long ago. Hard lives, truly grim lives. They made this landscape, huge chunks of it anyway. I’m thinking that perhaps the human response to weather, the ups, the downs hasn’t changed much. Just like the response of plants and vegetation to changing conditions, it’s chemical a lot of it, I presume.

But where am I going with this? Oh, perhaps a thought about the rhythm of the seasons and how our indoor lives, predominately so for most, has us like plants growing under artificial conditions. A life in eternal sunshine! All the same I have the feeling we are still deeply effected by the seasons, the weather, and all manner of more subtle influences known and unknown. Lets face it nothing happens in isolation from anything else.

And I am now going to cut and run before I drown in my own ignorance. I am not carrying a banner of any kind today, just a love of our land and all that makes it.

Many thanks to my friends who walked out under grey skies with me this day and kept a smile in their hearts.

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Daily Life, Teachings

Meta-Message

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I remember somebody saying The entrenching tool looks like a joke, until you use one. Just so. In the first post on Jade Mountains back in the dim and distant past (August 2003) you will find a photograph. A picture of me holding an entrenching tool. What’s more, as is the custom with first posts, I was contemplating my purpose and intention for starting a blog. Now referring back I am glad to say I still stand by what I wrote, back then.

….spiritual inspiration; inspiration to keep traveling the road and overcome difficulties. They also provide information and insights; information about the practice of the Serene Reflection Meditation Tradition (Soto Zen) and insights into how that practice unfolds in daily life.

My current thoughts around Jade have been about developing the site rather than questioning continuing to write, or not. Just in case anybody was wondering.

Just as with the entrenching tool on first sight Jade might look like a joke or better put, a self-indulgence. A monastic going on about herself, Where’s the Buddhist teaching in THAT? One might well ask. Unfold the site, use it, and hopefully you will find it a useful tool. A good place to return to. But most importantly, Jades meta-message if you like, Buddhist practice is not something outside of daily living or confined within the walls of monastic practice. If that comes through then I’m happy.

Thanks folks for your feedback. If I had more time available I’d write more, and more often.

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Out and About, Teachings

A Wise Pope

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I found this link and was bowled over by it – to think this scene is above us all the time-could we but see it!
Apparently there was a Pope once who tried to ban street lighting since it stopped people from appreciating the night sky, after I watched this I decided he was right! Anne.

Thank you Anne for sending the email with the link to this amazing time lapse video of the Milky Way – with storm.

There are those who are inspired and awed standing in a Buddha Hall. All candles and incense, dim lights and soft chanting. Others though find their spiritual home and inspiration while out at sea or in a desert. For some though it is the night sky. Ah, the night sky. I’ve a dim memory of walking hand in hand with my dad gazing up at the night sky. Or did I dream that!

PS Watch out for the Whitetail buck. It apears briefly at about the 1:57 mark in the video.

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