Category Archives: Teachings

Who Said That?

February 1, 2020 Mugo 2 Comments

The lesson for today. Take care who and what you quote. Sometimes the consequences are neither here no there. At other times there can be serious, long term, consequences. This comes under the heading of Right Speach.

Somebody recently sent me this quote while pondering its origin. I am heartened to find sites that thoroughly investigate and answer such questions. As well as finding out who said what one can, for example, see what Bette Midler said, or didn’t say about shoes!

A poem
is never finished.
Only abandoned.

Attributed to Paul Valéry

See Quote Investigator for further (fascinating) reading.

And if you want to see what the Buddha is attributed as having said try Real Buddha Quotes. Here is one of them:

And what the Buddha didn’t say, try? Fake Buddha Quotes.

Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Nothing Lost

January 31, 2020 Mugo Leave a comment

There seems to be a wholly different language and vocabulary around poetry and creating to the point where I’m thinking ‘this is not something I can connect with, or ‘do’. However, I will continue to read the book somebody kindly lent me recently. Here is a quote which does ‘ring’, somewhat.

It is not any moment, but this very moment, that a Japanese poem contemplates and preserves; not any feeling, but the emotion pressed like wine from its underlying events. And there are underlying events – behind almost every tanka stands the essence of a particular story, a set of circumstances.
From Nine Gates, Entering – The Mind of Poetry by Jane Hirshfield

emotion pressed like wine from its underlying events. For me, emotion is welded to the event. No amount of pressing is going to sever the feeling from the underlying event since all of one’s senses are invoked. Recalling the circumstances surrounding my father’s death for example. It played out like a movie both at the time and now – filled with pathos yet from one place removed. Not exactly detached, that would be cold, more both in the film and watching it at the same time. I’m not having a problem with that.

Triumphantly
he died
beating the odds
He won!
Nothing lost.

Daily Life, Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Perfectly Balanced – With Poise

January 28, 2020 Mugo 2 Comments

This evening I learnt a sangha member in North America had announced to her community of trainees that their cancer had metastasised involving lung and other parts of the body. The merit of these images and this post is offered for the benefit of this dear woman who has been dealing with cancer for a number of years.

Dear Rev. Mugo,

Here are shots of a heron we saw at the north end of Druridge Bay on 17th (January). It was quite as cold as it looks. There’s something extraordinary about the stillness of a heron – how it stands, and stands, and stands, as if it had never been anywhere else.

And then it took off and I just happened to have the camera trained on it and caught that moment of perfectly balanced but dynamic form. But that we may all remain still, so still and then spread our wings and take flight in reflexive response to the air around us. I wish that for our sangha member and for all. It is a matter of faith, which has no object. Faith, or trust in that which underpins our lives.

Teachings

Appreciation of Tree

January 25, 2020 Mugo Leave a comment

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, Teachings

Selfless Service and Simply Living

January 22, 2020 Mugo 3 Comments

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

Jade Mountains Buddha Hall