For Jack and family.
I’m kneeling.
Not thought of kneeling before
my laptop.
Have to. The table is low.
It’s a stool actually, not a table.
An ant. A very busy ant.
Runs up the screen, climbs up
the mountain of Jade Mountains
then off across the top of the screen.
Again.
Viewing in profile. Now down
the side of the screen. So active.
I start to wonder if it’s looking
for something. Or is it on a mission
of some kind. Perhaps it’s one of those
scout ants I’ve been told about.
WATCH OUT for the scout ant!
Beware! Be aware.
There will be a marching army
behind it. If it’s worth their while
to march this way. But I know better,
now,
not to give them any cause at all.
A whiff of something sweet, something
of anything. An invitation?
Will bring on an invasion.
Thinking about ants. Talking about ants. Using military words. Invasion. Marching. Mission. But who am I to know what they are up to. They are simply making a living. Best way they can. Arn’t we all.
….uh! There it is again making
a decent south to the task bar!
Across the rocky key pads and….
down my sleeve! Or
into the headphone jack?
Yes, kneeling before my laptop, as I still am, seems to help. With? With connecting ‘with’. Which is just about what my writing for Jade Mountains is all about.
I don’t like to think about it however
I think that ant is now down
at my foot. So perhaps it is time
to get up and take a walk in
those wonderful woods. Where I walk
with those four Bull Elk.
Not that I’ve caught sight of them.
Yet.
However. They are non the less there.
Just not in sight.
Like you.
….uh! There goes that ant again
heading for the rocks.
Over the mountains. Deft climber.
Now. Down behind the screen.
Again.
Where you all are!
Sitting.
Still.
Always still.
Human beings must work.
When you are not competent, learn.
When you are competent, do it yourself.When you are not familiar, practice more.
When you want to work,
start immediately.When you are poor,
work all the more.
When you are rich, work harder.If work is done wrongly,
correct it.
When you are old, enjoy working more.
Seen at a Chinese Buddhist Temple in Malaysia.
Translated from the Chinese.
If one thinks of work as action then, indeed, we are working all the time. And I believer that is what the above quote is pointing to. It’s not about the work ethic in the way the word work is commonly understood.
What I am getting around to in this post is to tell you about the meaning of my name. Mu means empty or immaculate and go means action, or karma, or work. So Mugo translates as immaculate action, empty action, empty karma, immaculate karma.
Change the word work to act or action in the saying and something rather interesting comes through. Right there is that begging question. What is my purpose? Why am I alive? What’s my motive? From whence does action spring?
Mugo – (the word) points to the (smiling) heart of the great matter. My name has been, and is, my great teacher and guide. It was given to me here at Shasta Abbey.
This post is dedicated to the recently elected Abbess of Shasta Abbey and the community both lay and monastic. It has been a privilege and a delight to sit and walk and talk and, this evening, eat ice cream with you all!
The idea of the servant as leader (developed by Robert Greenleaf) came out of reading Hermann Hesse’s Journey to the East. In this story, we see a band of men on a mythical journey… The central figure of the story is Leo, who accompanies the party as the servant who does their menial chores, but who also sustains them with his spirit and his song. He is a person of extraordinary presence. All goes well until Leo disappears. Then the group falls into disarray and the journey is abandoned. They cannot make it without the servant Leo. The narrator, one of the party, after some years of wandering, finds Leo and is taken into the Order that had sponsored the journey. There he discovers that Leo, whom he had known first as servant, was in fact the titular head of the Order, its guiding spirit, a great and noble leader.
Robert K. Greenleaf – Wikipedia
The 10 Characteristics of Servant Leaders are: Listening, Empathy, Healing, Awareness, Persuasion, Conceptualisation, Foresight, Stewardship, Commitment to the growth of others, and Building community. Yes! ten times over.
Thanks to Ian Miller for his post nurse as servant-leader which inspired me to delve into the thinking of Robert Greenleaf and others who have developed his vision and out-of-the-box thinking on leadership.
As Ian says, Servant leadership is not a position to be bestowed or awarded by your peers, it cannot even be earned, but rather it is a quality of recognition, returned to you as a gift from those you serve.
Brilliant! Let us aspire to serve thus, with no expectation of reward or recognition.
While I was at the temple in Germany last week I talked to a small group about the actual significance of Dharma connections and about ways of honouring them. Basically we honour them by giving expression to, keeping alive, the heart connection that exists by going to the roots, or the source as it is sometimes put. Sometimes that is given physical expression by going somewhere, as I did. To visit a temple, a teacher or grave marker.
I have been thinking of ancient times, say in Tibet, when devotees actually walked to a pilgrimage site. A holy mountain or shrine. They used their legs to get them from A to B. Often this involved spreading out their entire body in a full prostration between every step. One step, bow. One step, bow. Huge act of devotion, growing faith and resolve along the way.
The devotional aspect of journeying is less obvious now with mechanical means to get from A to B. But as I prepare to fly to the US on Tuesday bound for Shasta Abbey, there is a sense of joyous anticipation. This trip has a strong element of giving expression to, showing my love and devotion for, my direct Dharmic connections. What does that mean? Yes I’ll offer incense and make bows at the Stupa that marks where my Master is buried. Yes, I will connect up with trainees lay and monastic and that will be wonderful. We will sit together, sing together, eat ice-cream together no doubt! What does that all actually mean though?
Well, again at the temple in Germany, it came to me that while it is essential to grow deep roots and a strong stem of faith if one fails to look up and see the magnificent blossom attached to the top of the stem – well one has missed the point completely. And sadly that happens.
Patiently we wait
When already
the lotus
blooms.
And smiles eternally.
That’s it! The smile in the heart is there, in every step. Pilgrimage? A journey without a destination. While holding aloft the smiling lotus.
Thanks to Tony for the photograph.
This post was slightly edited June 3rd.