Category Archives: Teachings

Teachings

Teaching Moments

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Recently….

Morning. You do look well!

Yes, and I still find it difficult…daily life. You know.

Yah. It comes, it goes.

Oh, I really want to thank you Reverend Mugo, for saying what you said to me, way back.

Yah?

Tally Ho, and full steam ahead.

Oh… Yes!

And some years ago I said to somebody else: Fear is the egg and bread crumbs of karma!

And the chap reminds me of this almost every time we meet. He derived meaning from it. Especially when he learned to cook and saw how egg and bread crumbs bind and hold in place, whatever they are wrapped around.

The main point here is it is not the truth or falsity (or off the wall nature) of the teachers words that matters to the going on, it’s the sincerity of the student.

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Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Not Nothing

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I just published the following in the comment section in response to a woman speaking about her father, who is recovering from a stroke. Seeing myself reflecting on the site and how people might derive benefit from it I thought it worth publishing as an actual post. Because? Because it is an opportunity for me to draw attention to what I believe is the merit of writing and reading this blog. Could be wrong.

So sorry to hear about your father. I hope you have a Transfer of Merit notice up at Throssel – if not let me know his name and I’ll get one posted.

Glad you find this site of help. A source of comfort and insight? – I think this comes through you and your practice and reading here simply resonates with ‘that which is’ within you. This is probably how people derive something from coming here, and keeps them/you returning.

There is nothing of real value to be gained from reading the stuff I publish. However if there is benefit, on the simple information level perhaps, that’s good. The real gain is being reminded that one has not lost anything and what one has, is priceless. (This last sentence has been added after the comment was published.

Thanks for leaving this comment.

The other reason to publish is to offer merit in the direction of a very unfortunate situation unfolding in a distant country. No details possible here however the reader will find comfort in knowing there is a circle of well wishers gathered. Spiritual merit is not nothing, it’s related to the resonance spoken of in my comment published above.

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Information, Teachings

Road Side Recycling

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bag_of_rubbush_2.jpg
Rubbish gathered on a walk around the block.

Lets take bags with us, she said. There’s SO much rubbish accumulated on the grass verges. I want to pick it up. So we walked and stooped and walked and stooped our way around, what we call, the block. When we leave the monastery either by car or on foot we sign out with our destination and time of leaving. That way if there is a fire (not happened yet) everybody can be quickly accounted for. Such is community living, involving a high level of consideration for others.

I guess our walk ‘n stoop walk was about consideration for others in a certain way, as well as just simple civic mindedness. So we walked up the road towards the T junction, left towards Allendale going gradually up hill then left over a gate into the monastery property and down to the main buildings. That’s our country block and it takes just under an hour, walking briskly, to get around. Two of us collected two large shopping bags of rubbish. All sorts of rubbish however, as I recall, no Tetra Pak cartons.

There’s Tetra Pak getting a mention again. Opening the fridge to day and pulling out a smoothie carton I saw on the package that Tetra has a website. Impressive site, impressive company.

And now confession time. The rubbish we collected…went directly into the rubbish bin, unsorted. Shame on us. However like everything that is good to do one can get a tad over-the-top obsessive. And worse – virtuous in an externalised kind of way.

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Daily Life, Information, Teachings

A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change

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It is with some trepidation that I post on the Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change because it is important not to (even implicitly) sell my views and opinions through the vehicle of Jade. This blog is aimed at a deeper level of our functioning while, at the same time, acknowledging that we live in a complex world which asks much of us; to unconditionally engage with it. To notice, acknowledge and respond to what’s here sensitively, intelligently, and above all from where the Precepts call back to us, is the only way I know. To prescribe action, or inadvertently to do that, may remove one several levels away from the gift of personal responsibility.

Trouble is our culture tends to feel that to be fair both sides of the argument must be presented! Debate is seen as a self evident good. As if (to use that wonderful teeny expression). As if there were just two sides to anything at all. As if debate in itself is good, or the path to wise action. Might be, might not be. Complexity yes. Yet how to respond? Compassion has to come first, doing nothing is not an option, although, sometimes doing nothing is doing a great deal.

Confused? Depressed? Wish the whole matter (in this instance climate change) were a bad dream? Want to bury your head under the duvet ’till morning? Such thoughts are the stuff of Buddhist practice, what ever one is attempting to ignore. Climate Change or the fact you didn’t recycle that tetra pack juice container, when you knew you could have, asks of us to lift ourselves out of our beds and take a look. Honestly.

Having talked my way towards this declaration, here is orientation to the statement:

In the run-up to the crucial U.N. Climate Treaty Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, the Declaration that follows will present to the world’s media a unique spiritual view of climate change and our urgent responsibility to address the solutions. It emerged from the contributions of over 20 Buddhist teachers of all traditions to the book A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency. The Time to Act is Now was composed as a pan-Buddhist statement by Zen teacher Dr David Tetsuun Loy and senior Theravadin teacher Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi with scientific input from Dr John Stanley.

The Dalai Lama was the first to sign this Declaration. We invite all concerned members of the international Buddhist community to study the document and add their voice by co-signing it at the end of this page.

The statement follows…

Have I signed? I’m not saying. Climate change is at once a huge matter of immediate global concern and…how one responds (the details of that response), both inwardly and outwardly, is unique unto each of us.

As in this instance so in every instance of our responding.

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