She lived at the Portland Priory and now enjoys her retirement out on the Oregon Coast. Her name? Metta. Ms. Metta. Her breed? German Shepherd. Her pedigree? Impressive.
Metta is most commonly translated as loving kindness. The Metta Sutra instructs on the various practices of loving kindness. And the link goes to a very good translation and explanation of the Metta Sutra by the way. We were not instructed in formal Metta practice. And it is not one that I have picked up either. The closest we come to metta is benevolence. That being one of the four signs of Enlightenment. The other qualities are tenderness, sympathy and charity.
What a great photograph. What a great dog. She was rescued, I believe. What an apt name. Our animal friends don’t practice metta, they ARE metta! And I guess we can be the same. Can we not?
Just why are those people flashing their lights? At me. Driving along this morning, the oncoming cars, the drivers, were flashing their lights. Something wrong with the car? Do I need to stop and see if something is flapping, or dragging along the ground? Something worrisome about the car I can’t see, but they can. There is something going on here. They are saying something, but what?
When something like this happens, drivers communicating something the tendency is to slow down and wonder and be warned. And that was precisely it. The message was SLOW DOWN there is a police vehicle up ahead with a speed camera aboard. Slow down or you will get a ticket! This all set me pondering the whole business of regulation generally. Not to mention the preceptual implications of warning other drivers about speed traps. I smiled inwardly because the police presence may not have caught anybody speeding but it did caused drivers to regulating each others speed. And that, after all, is the point of the police presence. To discourage drivers breaking the rule of the road.
My late father would become very animated when he saw signs on the side of the road announcing speed cameras. He was convinced they were not cameras at all, just dummy cameras. He didn’t like to be regulated like that. He felt it was regulation through deception. And I can see his point. Thankfully he didn’t speed up when he saw such signs!
I heard about a silent retreat where the participants agreed between themselves not to talk to each other. Sounds so simple. How else is silence to be maintained and held to if there is not mutual agreement to BE silent? This is self regulation. And that for the most part is how the sangha functions. Self regulation, guided by Preceptual truth.
My last thought: were those deceptive dummy cameras my father saw? Or was he deceiving himself? Love that dad.
This is for a regular reader, and her father just recently deceased.
There were severe weather warnings put out a few days ago of gale force wind and heavy prolonged rain fall. Where I am there were a few crashes and bangs in the night however in the morning there were no signs of damage. No chimney pots or roof tiles in pieces in the road or uprooted trees. All the same it was a wild 24 hours and I stayed indoors. Weather disturbances. There is every indication that Britain is in for another hard winter too.
And sitting here in the calm of this night I’m glad to be settled to sit through the weather of winter. And the weather of life too. Winter brings its call to settle, to reflect and to move within. Not that daily life discontinues, obviously, more a sense of moving deeper within oneself and being more indoors than out. Of taking this opportunity to move deeper as the nights draw in. Lighter later in the mornings, darker earlier in the evenings.
From the green leaves of spring and summer to the crinkly brown of autumn and winter
The sun is shining out of a clear blue sky here in Lancaster. We have already sung happy birthday, 80th at that, and now it’s presents and cards and laughter and fun. Later I’ll land in a town on the edge of the Lake District where I will be house-sitting until spring time. When the leaves will be budding out and I’ll no doubt be packing ready to travel again.
One of the joys of being part of a community is seeing children grow into adults and become parents themselves. And seeing fellows mature and mellow and grow in depth. Lay/monastic community, side by side and one behind the other – at the same time. We say that there is always a Buddha senior to us. This is about humility, and about bowing. I bow to my dear friend, and her partner too.
As I write this I can see, just to the left of my computer, a wooden carving of a Buddha on a lotus throne. It looks a bit bashed around and doesn’t quite sit straight – it never has.
Some years ago, I was looking around the bookshop at Throssel Hole Priory (as it then was) and saw a group of wooden carvings which, I think, had recently been imported from Hong Kong. I was particularly taken with a Buddha on a lotus throne with an intricately fretted and carved nimbus behind it. It was in three or four parts – the Buddha itself which was loosely do welled into a lotus throne made out of several layers of carved wood and, plugging in behind the figure on a flimsy wooden tongue, the carved nimbus. The other carved figures looked pleasing too, especially the one of Kanzeon with an upended water jug, but the one I really liked was the Buddha. Anyway it was too expensive for me at that time so I had to let it go but I did remark to the monk running the bookshop how attractive I thought it was.
A couple of visits later that same monk told me that the Buddha carving which she believed I liked had been bought but had been subsequently returned because the purchasers had discovered, when they got it home, that it was seriously flawed. Apparently it didn’t fit together as it should and looked crooked. Since it was now second hand, would I like to buy it at a reduced price? I did and here it is.
When I got it home I did a certain amount of improvement on it. I managed to make it fit together a bit better so that it looked almost straight and I glued some of the parts permanently so they wouldn’t go any further out of alignment. Then I varnished it and this turned the bare wood a rather nice golden colour. I placed it on the left of my computer, where I could see it and where, I assumed, it would be reasonably safe.
While I was replacing and updating my computer equipment earlier this year (faster horses, you understand) a power cable, sweeping across the table, knocked the little figure on to the floor where it broke into four pieces (different pieces from the original components, of course) and suffered a split where no Buddha statue should have one. Well, I restored it once again but, I’m afraid it’s now more crooked than ever. Every so often I turn the Buddha slightly on the throne and move the nimbus from side to side but it’s impossible to get everything straight at the same time.
Now, I expect you think, I’m going to start drawing parallels with the spiritual life or use this as an extended metaphor for my own training. Well, it’s OK, I’m not. Just straight Buddha, crooked Buddha, that’s all.
By Tony Lee
Thanks Tony for this article. And for those left wondering where about’s that split was where ‘no Buddha statue should have one’…. In my view it was the split dowel which affixed the statue firmly to it’s seat, the Buddha’s Lotus Throne. Now, I expect you think I’m going to start drawing parallels with this split and personal training… I’ll do that tomorrow!
