“Sit like a mountain
Stand like a pine tree
Lay down like a bow
Walk like the wind”
Walking tonight in
still evening air
What bliss!
What good fortune!
The Four Postures, sitting, standing, walking and laying down are most often talked about in Buddhism in terms of meditation practice. As deeply significant as formal seated Zazen is (as well as paying attention when standing, walking and laying down), we need not limit ourselves. There is after all also bending, twisting, standing up and sitting down, turning and all the other complex movements we can sit still within….right? And move like the wind.
Outwitted
He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
—Edwin Markham
Hum…and it seems that Edwin Markham was born not a hundred miles away from where I am right now in Portland. Oregon City to be exact. Anyway I was introduced to this poem this evening and it seemed a good one to publish here.
Abandonment is a big one for very many people. Step out of line in school for example and one can carry the shunning with you all your life. I did something at school which I felt I could not own up to. That was until the whole class was told we couldn’t go out to play until the person who had printed their initial in several places on the walls of the school, owned up! Nobody thought to point out that it was obvious who had done it! Anyway, what a relief to own up and we all went out to play. But it was a close thing in the class mate shunning department. Others may actually suffer the shunning and that can be hard, very hard, to overcome. Especially so when one is held up for public ridicule.
To draw a circle around and draw in those who have cast you out can be more than most can do, at a tender age. Later on in life the circle can be drawn and they can be embraced. Drawn in with compassionate acceptance.
Hammock: A hanging bed of canvas or rope netting (usually suspended between two trees); swings easily.
Yep, I spent three wonderful hours this afternoon at Eugene Priory swinging easily suspended between two trees, napping and contemplating. Then this evening a meeting with the good people who make this small temple possible. It is one of the few purpose built temples in our Order and largely built by the lay congregation. In fact I can’t think of another temple with a similar history at the moment. It’s set in a small woodland right at the edge of the city limits, bounded by three roads, minor roads. Quite the wild life sanctuary too – deer, chicken, cats + dense vegetation.
This is really for those who concern themselves about my well being. The message is, I’m learning to pace myself and isn’t that about maintaining a balance in ones day?
4th July. American Independence Day. Much flag waving going on all over the nation. And here in the monastery there is the Ceremony of the Fourth of July. We bow, we sing, we sing some more, bows again then offer the merit to all beings. I met somebody wondering aloud about a Buddhist ceremony to celebrate nationhood and whether or not she would be able to be join in. Hum? Well that had me thinking about people who are stateless. They don’t have a country, they officially don’t ‘belong’ anywhere. So I shared this thought and, well, it seemed I had a point. We are always offering gratitude to the Four Benefactors, one being the country one is able to practice peacefully within. So I sang along about peace in the land and similar sentiments. I missed that one of the invocations we sang was set to the music of the British national anthem!
Our country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee we sing;
Anyway, with the ceremony nearly over a very loud cat fight started up outside the hall. I caught the eye of the monk facing me who was stifling a giggle. I struggled to maintain my composure, with moderate success! One can not help but see the funny side. After the ceremony the Abbess greeted everybody and remarked in her lovely English accent; There may be peace in our land but there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot of that in our garden!
What ever one might feel about ones nation, it’s actions and policies etc. One can at least be grateful for having a place of relative peace to practice.
Leave a door open long enough,
a cat will enter.
Leave food, it will stay.
Soon, on cold nights,
you’ll be saying “excuse me”
if you want to get out of your chair.
But one thing you’ll never hear from a cat
is “excuse me.”
Nor Einstein’s famous theorem.
Nor “The quality of mercy is not strained.”
In the dictionary of Cat, mercy is missing.
In this world where much is missing,
a cat fills only a cat-sized hole.
Yet your whole body turns toward it
again and again because it is there.
By Jane Hirshfield
Many thanks to Rev. Margaret for this poem answering that question I posed some time ago around what is the enchantment surrounding cats?
And animals can be used and collected to accumulate the most terrible suffering. See Animal Hording. Do take a few deep breaths to prepare yourself before clicking on the link. Then offer your good thoughts for animals and humans caught in this horrendous web of suffering – together.
