Kipling, AKA Pumkin!
Think Animals – Think Compassion
Kipling, AKA Pumkin!
Category Archives: Teachings
Kipling, AKA Pumkin!
In The Landscape
I don’t often think of being in the landscape however these past days I’ve had the opportunity to be just that. In the landscape, of the landscape.
To explain. Now and then there opens for me an opportunity to go off grid and spend time in a small retreat hut in the monastery grounds. So recovering, well by the way, from a cold and hearing the call to be less outwardly active I’ve carved out a few hours each day this week to hut dwell. A series of mini breaks, three or four hours here and there, to sit with nothing calling for attention.
As dawn comes to the valley, from dim glimmer through murky grey to misty glow, I’ve sat. And I’ve sat on the porch mid-day too, reciting a scripture. Intimate with the great sweep of the valley. An hour or two in the late afternoon, the sun first blazing in the window then dipping behind the hill. Evening, picking my way across the field in drizzle with headlamp batteries fading to nothing – and still finding my way. Deep blackness, inky black, with pin pricks of light. Are they near, or far? Is that one moving? It’s blinking. A plane? A satellite? A UFO?! With little or no illumination landscape takes off into a wholly other world of envisioning. After all sharp focus is only a very small part of our vision capacity.
So much of the time ones eyes are narrowed to sharp focus. On the screen, the phone book, notices on the notice board (bane of my life – where are my glasses!). Text and text and more text. So when there is not so much obvious need for sharp focus one can go wide screen. Be in the landscape. Allow corner-of-the-eye sight. Allow the eyes to roam wide and open, focused but not narrowed in on anything particular. Wholly in the landscape. Wholly the landscape.
With practice, even coming into a large room there can be an entering into a room-scape, rather than immediately narrowing ones beam, so to speak, to ones sitting or standing place. All rather interesting. But enough of this pondering. Take a look at these winning photographs from the Landscape photo of the year 2009 awards published on the BBC web site.
Thanks to Dave for the link – keep ’em coming Dave.
Too Much Confidence
Post by Adrienne Hodges
Paper folding fun.
I have both rationalised and wriggled around in order to avoid my part in their discomfort; they were both feeling disturbed by conflicts/inadequacies of their own, it’s their stuff, they misunderstood my intentions, stop stressing, it’s and not important etc, etc.
But the awareness and knowledge remains. What should I do? How should I change in order to avoid this reaction in the future?
I learned years ago about a piece of research in the field of psychology (sorry, can’t reference this at all) that demonstrated that when people were asked to notice and bring into their awareness a behaviour that they wanted to change this behaviour diminished in frequency, sometimes to the point of extinction. It was enough just to notice . So… no pushing away…… no necessity for rationalising, deliberate thought or forced behaviour change. To those of us that know Rules for Meditation this will sound familiar.
So I will do nothing. Or rather I am not going to get caught up in or dragged around by circumstances, thoughts, feelings and emotions. I will continue to be aware and notice what is going on to the best of my ability and trust my intention to avoid future harm in this way. And for now, I will just get on with the next thing. And along the line of next things, perhaps a simple apology to my friends.
Sitting Still Helps The Process
It’s not that often I get caught up in a scheduling crunch however I did this morning. There was a ceremony I’d committed myself to attend and a dentist appointment I HAD to go to. (Broken tooth. Patch essential.) I could juuust about see how it could work. There was juust about time to attend at least part of the ceremony and make the appointment on time. That’s if everything happened on time, if…and if…..and if….
This sort of situation can drive one to distraction. Need, wish, intentions (good ones), feelings (ones own and those of others), timing, unknowns, x factors all swimming about in ones mind. I’ve learned, although I don’t necessarily always remember, that it’s best not to act precipitously in such situations. Better to…empty the dust bin, do a short errand, photocopy something. Anything, (obviously not anything anything!) play for time, anything to give one of the x factors a chance to materialise. Walk down the lane and back. This morning if I’d checked the daily schedule I’d have known earlier the puzzle would not, could not, fit. There was a meeting scheduled, that was the missing piece of the puzzle. The x factor. And, as I put in a note, it didn’t work out that I could come to the ceremony.
This small event can mirror periods of ones life. It’s as if the pieces don’t fit together, no matter how hard one tries to get them to do so. What a relief to be able to say to oneself it didn’t work out, it’s not working out. And move on. Easier said, than done.
If you are in a situation, small, medium or large, where the pieces don’t seem to fit together – it’s probably a good idea to allow yourself the possibility that you are missing a puzzle piece or two. They will come. Given half a chance. Sitting still helps the process.
Acceptance essential, action unavoidable.
Tears Just Tumble
Yesterday I had a brush with physical pain. Walking home last afternoon it was all I could do to put my right foot down without yelping, loudly. I was probably limping at the very least. The pain wore off as I walked. Gone as quickly as it had arrived.
Nothing happens without a cause, of course. The root of this pain originates from a broken tibia back in late 1999. I slipped and fell on a frozen grassy bank, I heard a faint click and the rest is history. Soon after the fall, almost exactly one month when I think of it now, my father died. Dealing with his death, using crutches, while dragging along a plaster cast, was a challenge to say the least. I remember, for instance, loosing my balance at the grave side and almost falling on top of his coffin!
Following the fall and fathers death my life circumstances were such that I was not able to rehabilitate the use of the limb properly. So now, as a consequence, there is ongoing poor use of the limb (which I’m working on by the way). This morning as I walked a strong impression of my dad came to mind. I walked on. Later I engaged in a free write exercise using pencil and paper for a change. I found myself writing to my father telling him about my rehabilitation efforts. Just simple words as a child might pen a letter. Tears tumbled out of my eyes.
What is to be understood here? What indeed! That release/letting go – what ever one wants to call the arising and passing of conditions as I’ve described – come of themselves in the ebb and flow of conditions as they arrise, and arrise. And, given half a chance, they pass of themselves. It is not, as I see it, the particular conditions that are significant – in this story – it’s the wonder right there in the midst of being still within the conditions which captures my heart. Tears just tumble – in that there is both joy and sadness together.
Several posts are lined up in the wings to be published over the next few days. The first one is from a sangha member who is a practicing expert on physical pain. One cannot but bow to the fortitude coming through this post. It is not a light read. One cannot fail to be both disturbed and inspired in equal measure.