Category Archives: Teachings

Daily Life, Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Small Steps Big Changes

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A good friend has been readying herself to have hip replacement surgery. Here follows excerpts from our recent correspondence.

So I phoned today for my annual medical check-up, and as I put the receiver down, a little voice said, call your surgeon, to which I replied, Oh, I don’t think so, this is enough for one day to which the little voice replied, call your surgeon, to which I replied, well, I don’t have the number to which the little voice replied, look it up in the phone book. So I did and then reached for the phone, and hesitated, and you can guess what the little voice replied, so I reached again, and hesitated. And that little voice, in a rather exasperated tone, said how will you ever explain this to Mugo? so I (reluctantly) dialed and asked to speak to Dr. Watson’s nurse. A cheery voice said You got her! Oh well, no backing out now.

The nurse answered all my questions and the surgery coordinator will call me next week to talk about possible dates. And as if that wasn’t enough, after I hung up the phone I went into see my department head and we sat and talked about possible dates and what would work best for him. I was also able to talk to him about some of my anxieties at having the surgery done at all. When it was all over (the phone call and chat), I felt much better. It’s actually a big relief (to have started the ball rolling), and I am immensely grateful to you for your encouragement. Please consider this my first installment to my helpful mentor. Is mentor the word I want? Yes WordWeb has given me a definition that describes what you are, for me.

Here is part of my response:

I think your story is not uncommon when it comes to taking a major move in life. And let’s face it having major surgery is a major move in life. It just takes that first leap over the voices, familiar ones I know about too, for the next steps to roll out before one.

…and her response:

Thank you for your reply. It was very encouraging to hear you say that my story is probably not uncommon. I had never thought of that! (And after all those years of mothering and nursing!) I actually think writing what I wrote to you helped me along in my process. And by all means you are welcome to use whatever of it for your blog, I trust your sense of privacy. In addition your comments have given me the thought that perhaps I will try to write a little more about the voices we hear in our own minds.

I hope this posting speaks for itself.

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Curiosities, Teachings

Delight

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In this moment there is nothing
which comes to be.
In this moment there is nothing
which ceases to be.
Thus, in this moment there is no birth
and death to be brought to an end.
Thus, there is absolute peace in this
present moment,
Although it is just this moment,
there is not limit to this moment.
And herein is eternal delight.
Hui Neng

Sitting and working in the priors office at Reading Buddhist Priory near London. It is getting late, I’m attempting to catch up on a weeks worth of unanswered emails. This quote popped out at me from her notice board earlier in the day. Now it can be on yours.

The photograph? Taken in the Chilterns north of Reading on Friday.

What is it? Not at all sure.

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Daily Life, Teachings

The Fourth Thought

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Just bumped into a chap in the cloister and we had a chat. He was leaving the New Year retreat early. Some might say he had failed because he didn’t make it through to the end. Not so, definitely not so.

I’ve just eaten three chocolates, he said holding up three fingers in front of his face. Three chocolates, I just saw them on offer in the common room and took three. He was triumphant. Err? You’ll have to fill me in a bit more on that one. He did. Apparently last time here he could hardly eat anything, it was a real struggle to sit and eat a meal. To actually put food in his mouth. Why’s that then? I asked. Oh, you know. Guilt and all of that stuff.

We parted. OK if I email you? Sure. Go to my Jade Mountains web site and you can email me from there. Same goes for anybody who wants to write me.

The fourth of the Five Thoughts is: we will eat lest we become lean and die. Few of us are eating to keep flesh on our bodies so obviously this has levels of meaning just like the preceding three. Our friend above, like so many people, go head to head with life and their troubles when faced with a plate of food. To eat or not. To eat life, or not.

Eating ones life, actively connecting with what’s there and eating without picking and choosing is practice. People dying inside for lack of nourishment is a very very sad sight. And so when people come here who struggle with life and who then connect with the practice and eat, well that is cause for joy.

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Teachings

The Third Thought

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Continuing on with the Five Thoughts, the third goes thus: We must protect ourselves from error by excluding greed from our minds.

While it is obvious that one eats primarily for need not indulgence in greed and to be woofing down ones grub mindlessly is a mistake, however there is a primary mistake. The word exclude is the pointer here. To exclude greed, to exclude anything is to set something apart and separate. In the relative sense exercising greed keeps up the illusion of separation and at the same time ultimately it’s not possible to prise apart the Universe

During the retreat a few weeks ago I suggested to one of the guests that he might have a question to ask during one of our public question and answer ‘teas’. Sure enough he did and it gave me an opportunity to make a point which relates very much to the matter of excluding.

What Question?
An honoured monk suggests I
Might have an interesting
Question or two
But really what else
Is there to ask
Besides how to solve
The Great Matter
And this bothersome “I”?

What Reply?
In this unfractured universe
where can this
“bothersome”*
be found?
Why expend so much
energy looking for fractures
in this unfractured
unfracturable
whole?

Many thanks to Puerhan, come and visit us again. Not sure about the ‘honoured monk’ though. Uh! There I go trying to fracture the universe again…

BTW The Great Matter refers to the question of life and death.

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Curiosities, Out and About, Teachings

The Second Thought

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Along with the life saving ColdFX capsules from Edmonton (thanks Mike) were a couple of clippings from Canadian Geographic. I’d heard Mike tell of the ice roads in the Northwest Territories, and beyond into Nunavut which reaches into the Arctic Circle. Each spring in late January or early February Mike dispatches truck loads of supplies to the diamond and gold mines in the far north. It is a big eye opener to see what is going on in an area of the world we could be forgiven for thinking is uninhabited and uninhabitable.

The Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road runs for 360 miles. Driving speed is 22 mph or less, trucks go out in convoys of three at a time, the ice has to be 40 ft thick to take the weight of the largest trucks. There always has to be two up in a truck and apparently drivers wave the seat belt rule to give themselves needed seconds to jump clear of their vehicle if the ice breaks. If I were up in Lac de Gras at -31c I’d have second thoughts about the wisdom of being there.

At the start of our feast today we recited the customary meal time verse, the Five Thoughts. The second thought is ‘we must consider our merit when accepting it’. One can understand this in a number of ways, for me it is a right now consideration. Eating a meal is not a life threatening activity however in terms of practice there is ultimately no room for past or future. I guess that must be the same for those truckers out on the ice.

Be careful out there!

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