Monthly Archives: January 2020

Teachings

Appreciation of Tree

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Been thinking about trees, so much part of my life, yours too. Here’s an ode to the glory of tree. Actually nothing like an ode but what the heck, it was fun to do!

Wood
wardrobe
once
tree
all tree.

Looking around –
Lotus Scepter
brush back
notepad
bedside table
chair arms
rosary
bed head
banana boxes
(under bed storage)

Trees in
disguise
trees turned
useful
utilitarian
beautiful
profound

Once
waved in
the wind
sheltered
did breath
with
vital life.

I’ll
balance the
Lotus Scepter
straight with
the grain
thinking
“You are tree”
All tree.

Thank you for
being alive
now
sustaining
us.
Forgive
us.

I’ll talk about the Lotus Scepter in more detail another time. For now and briefly, at the top of it is a stylized lotus blossom, a symbol of enlightenment and the stalk is in the shape of a human spine. It is balanced delicately upright, just as a human spine is. The celebrant carries it during a ceremony showing the teaching of the lotus with the intention of gathering the aspiration of all present to know the teaching of the lotus.

Overcome Difficulties

Reflections on Physical Disability – republishing from 2006

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I recently received an email from a long-standing friend in the Dharma, and reader of this blog. Reproduced below, with her permission, are personal reflections on disability, sparked by an audio posting, (2006 – now long gone.)

Lovely to hear your voice Reverend Mugo. I saw a documentary on TV about a year ago about the lady with autism who is quite a character I think. I worked with some autistic children and was/am fascinated by the whole thing.

With reference to transitions–as you say, and sometimes we don’t realise till later that we’ve been through one. I am currently in a funny one which I find interesting. I’ve spent the last 2-3 years being ill and incapacitated with osteoarthritis. At first, I tried to hide it and was embarrassed when I first began to use a walking stick. Now I would never feel self-conscious about using a walking aid or any other kind of aid.

I didn’t know what was wrong for a long time. I’ve discovered it’s common for people to be relieved when diagnosed, no matter how bad the diagnosis is. It’s better than not knowing. Since having to stop work I’ve hung out with other disabled people and with older people in my village, especially a lady in her mid-seventies who uses a wheelchair and can move one hand only. She can talk and hear well though. I know well two more women with MS who use wheelchairs and a lady who was very close to death after a brain bleed, and many more suffering from various forms of arthritis. They are all very individual characters with real determination to get through each day positively.

I feel privileged to have been a part of these communities. When I first went to a hydrotherapy class run by the local physiotherapist at the swimming pool it was wonderful to be with a bunch of other people with problems. The non-disabled community had begun to seem like they spoke a different language from mine and didn’t ‘hear’ or understand what I said. The disabled people didn’t need to have many things explained to them. We were in the same boat and could discuss our problems without feeling we were complaining or ‘harping on’ about our difficulties or being boring. We were interested in each other.

Now I have recently had my second knee replaced (well, partially replaced to be precise). I have 2 rectangles of metal above and below each knee with a plastic bendy bit between. Soon I will be able to walk ‘normally’ and should be able to stop the painkillers I’ve used on and off for 3 years. I won’t be classified disabled any more and won’t be entitled to an allowance or a special parking space. Unlike some people’s daft ideas I won’t be bouncing around like an 18-year-old! I will still have the body of a 56-year-old after all – and I won’t be running marathons.

My friends in the disabled community have been encouraging and supportive all the way through. They never say how lucky I am to be getting a second chance, luckier than they are perhaps. Sometimes I stop and think after I’ve said something to my friend in the wheelchair, like grumbling about what nuisance crutches can be. she would probably love to have that problem.

I actually didn’t care if I never walked again but was desperate to be free of the constant pain which is so incapacitating. Some of the people I know have a lot of pain and use various devices to control it. Others are not very mobile but don’t feel pain. Painkilling drugs bring their own problems and most of us have gone through periods of trying to do without them. Most people have good days and bad days which is something many non-disabled people find difficult to comprehend.

So, soon enough I have to return to the ‘real’ world. I may have to get a job. I am hoping to do a training course in counselling and maybe work with dying and terminally ill people. I hope I never lose sight of how it is to be overlooked by the majority because I can’t run around or walk like them. Or of how frustrating it can be to be ignored or simply not understood when in pain or discomfort. Or not considered ‘interesting’ because I don’t do an important job or have much of a social life.

I think I’ve said mainly what I wanted to say.

Thank you Reverend Mugo once again for being there and for having sparked off my flow of expression on this subject.

With love, A

Thank you, and good fortune for the future. Mugo

Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Selfless Service and Simply Living

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The late Iain Robinson left this poem as a comment to a post about Servant Leadership. It is one of the best known modern Japanese poems, ‘Ame ni mo makezu’ by Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933). This translation is by Hiroaki Sato
With our modern ears, this poem may not sit well however the background sentiment of selfless service sits well enough with me.

Neither yielding to rain
nor yielding to wind
yielding neither to
snow nor to summer heat
with a stout body
like that
without greed
never getting angry
always smiling quietly
eating one and a half pieces of brown rice
and bean paste and a bit of
vegetables a day
in everything
not taking oneself
into account
looking listening understanding well
and not forgetting
living in the shadow of pine trees in a field
in a small
hut thatched with miscanthus
if in the east there’s a
sick child
going and nursing
them
if in the west there is a tired mother
going and for her
carrying
bundles of rice
if in the south
there’s someone
dying
going
and saying
you don’t have to be
afraid
if in the north
there’s a quarrel
or a lawsuit
saying it’s not worth it
stop it
in a drought
shedding tears
in a cold summer
pacing back and forth lost
called
a good-for-nothing
by everyone
neither praised
nor thought a pain
someone
like that
is what I want
to be

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For subscribers

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I just published the Guest Post ‘Realizing body/mind Together’ prematurely! I’d not added ‘Guest Post’ to the title so you might be wondering if I am, or was, training to climb mountains. Not. Absolutely not. That’s John, he recounts his efforts to get fit to climb mountains, which he did quite a few years ago.

I’ve known John since 2006 and have enjoyed many a phone call and received much help and encouragement and advice around my blog and online presence.

And for those of you who are not subscribers…you can do that by filling in your email address in a box, top left of the website. I don’t do anything with subscriber emails. They are private and only I see them.

Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Realizing Body/mind Together – Guest Post

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One day, several years ago, I woke up and decided (quite out of the blue) that I was going to climb a mountain. Now a lot of people do that, it’s sort of a primal urge, but most of them aren’t middle-aged, overweight, asthmatic, and firmly planted on flat, sea-level, ground. To this day I can’t really explain the origin of that idea or why I didn’t shrug it off as unrealistic.

Of course, I couldn’t get anywhere near a mountain in that shape. I had to embark on a punishing training and diet regimen and stick to it for many months before setting foot on a mountain would be possible. So I did my research, started my training, and even reached out to a famous mountaineer who would become my mentor, my friend, and eventually my climbing partner.

Training at that level is really something. In the months leading up to some of my climbs, I was working out at 5 am before work, during my lunch break at work, and a couple of hours each evening after work. I would run 100 stories of stairs in 100-degree heat or freezing cold, put in several miles, and lift weights every single day. And at no point during this did I ever think that I was “in shape”. At no point did I ever consider myself a mountain climber. I thought of myself as a person who was climbing mountains to learn how to be a mountain climber. That title was a goal that moved further off in the distance with each accomplishment. I was focused – arguably too focused.

Which brings me to Zen practice and the similarities between it and climbing – at least from my view. Both require persistence and faith. Both are made easier with the assistance of mentors who have travelled the way and who understand the inevitable pitfalls. We can even say, with no disrespect, that both undertakings are also a little bit crazy – unconventional if you’re trying to be polite. And once undertaken with some seriousness both can become goal-driven in a way that blinds us to an important truth; perhaps what you seek to attain is already there.

My climbing mentor once told me that you don’t have to feel good about your training. You just have to do it. You just have to show up every day and do it. Take your expectations, feelings, likes, and dislikes and set them down. Perfection is manifested in the act of showing up each day and putting one foot in front of the other. He also said that climbers are defined by the act of climbing, not summits reached. For the climber, form, the act of putting one foot in front of the other regardless of feeling or outcome, becomes a refuge.

Form can feel superficial when we’re focused on the divergence between it and our inner dialogue. But that divergence doesn’t change the fact that we are in touch with perfection at every single moment – realized or not. When we practice zazen we are the physical embodiment of our teaching and the greater wisdom that it points to. In this way form can be a refuge for us as well. Unlike the climber, we can sit quietly and know, feelings and conditions aside, that we are already on the summit. It is there – waiting to be seen.

Contribution by John.