Here I am again linking. Linking to a recent blog post by Rev. Alicia on the Precept on Anger. Instructive and speaking to all in a practical way to understand and appreciate where anger can point to.
Turn around
the light
to shine within,
then just return.
Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage
by Shitou Xiqian (700-790)
And do turn around and take a look at the shining light coming from your screen as you read Rev. Alicia’s blog. For the last little while she has been reflecting on and teaching about the Buddhist Precepts. Sitting Buddha Hermitage – Blog is the place to visit, read and take into your Heart.
You can see the full poem Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage here.
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
Pat Schneider
Being a bit pushed for time and mind space to write posts it’s so good to have some blog contributions to keep the boat afloat. Well I hope I can be delicate and fragrant, as the Wych Hazel is, under the stress and strain of these in-between times.
Between Winter
and Spring
between now and
what’s up-ahead.Be patient O ordinary things
be patient with us
as we wriggle and chomp
our ordinary days
Thanks to Diane in Victoria, Canada for the poem and to Mark in the UK for the photograph. He writes thus:
The witch hazel in our front garden blossoms in late January / early February. Although everyone writes it ‘witch’ hazel, it’s actually ‘wych’ (as in ‘wych elm’). ‘Wych’ derives from an ancient word meaning pliant, or pliable, and related to ‘weak’. But these fragile petals are unhurt by frost or snow, and on the coldest days they give out a delicate and lovely fragrance. I expect you could work up a teaching from that!
Hope you’re hale and hearty.
Bows
Pliable? “Able to adjust readily to different conditions”
A strength.
It seems like yesterday, but it wasn’t, when I strained to hold up a flight of stairs while my dad fixed them in place at the top. They were heavy and I was seriously challenged; my relationship with this man, my relationship with myself. Why am I doing this, doesn’t he appreciate how ridiculously heavy these stairs are! For goodness sake, I could hurt myself. But that all flashed by so quickly and the thought imprinted indelibly on my mind was, I love this person, not in spite of his idiosyncrasies but BECAUSE of them,
How true it is of people, places, animal friends. Everything and everybody I’d say. The now-and-then craziness of our friends and acquaintances are still bonkers at times – love doesn’t render us blind. Each of us has habits and…quirkinesses others find difficult! But love transcends and acknowledges what is, seemlessly (and for sure sometimes love tells us to hot-foot it out and away, and fast.)
I love the car I drive, the place I’m staying, the pots and pans I use. I thank them as I leave and return, when I turn the key in the locks and when I burn a pan (as this morning) and it comes up shiny and new again. Love just comes and that’s the way of gratitude and of love, not a feeling, more simply of the heart. Just arises without counting the costs, the hurts and disappointments the slights and the worries. Oh, and of course the inter-personals!
I guess there isn’t a thing, not anything, that’s outside or inside for that matter. All the same it’s when we are estranged, leaving, leaving behind, waving good by, that what’s ever-present makes manifest.
These flowers above are in memory of my father who died on the 29th January 2000 and for a chap who is getting ready to exit this world. My kind thoughts to all who suffer with loss and with lost love.
It never is.
But that we could behold our fellow human thus. To appreciate. To admire. Whatever the shape or condition. To not intrude. Obviously. But to allow the depths of us to meet. And to meet and to meet. With no gaps.