Category Archives: Overcome Difficulties

Prone To Ponder

October 29, 2012 Mugo 2 Comments

This book and talk by Susan Cain should please all those closet introverts amongst us who have been trying to fit into the chatty world we inhabit.

Our most important institutions, our schools and our workplaces, they are designed mostly for extroverts and for extroverts’ need for lots of stimulation. And also we have this belief system right now that I call the new ‘groupthink’, which holds that all creativity and all productivity comes from a very oddly gregarious place.
[…]
There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.

From time to time people ask why we, in our order, do not pull the crowds and why we remain really small in numbers relatively speaking. The thing is contemplatives, people drawn to contemplation, are rarely gregarious types skilled in communication and the like. However there are many fine examples of reflective types speaking out. The Buddha?

This TED talk The Power of Introverts has really helped me to appreciate the spectrum of behaviour the terms introvert/extrovert cover. Each of us has a reflective side as well as the chatty side. But sitting gazing out of windows at leaves falling off trees is little valued. Even by those of us who are prone to ponder in this seemingly pointless way.

Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Merit Walk

October 5, 2012 Mugo Leave a comment

When I look around at the people I am in contact with quite a number are dealing with cancer and all that comes with it. Somebody said to me today in an email that having the cancer diagnosis puts everyday announces in perspective resulting in a brighter outlook on life generally. I congratulate her. This is not merely looking on the bright side. It is transforming where life is viewed from.

In my recent post on the Field of Merit site titled Thought With Legs I look at what can be done when thoughts grow strong and active legs. Well, I actually suggested taking the thoughts for a walk. A merit walk you could call that.

Spare a thought for those known and unknown who are facing themselves as they face cancer.

Field of Merit has a Twitter page. Follow and retweet our posts there. Please.

Overcome Difficulties

After Retirement

October 3, 2012 Mugo Leave a comment

It must be about ten years since Jim retired from his stimulating job in a police department in America. This is what he wrote, at my suggestion, some time after he officially retired.

There I was with a new found opportunity to unfurl from the responsibilities of what felt like, and at times literally were, life and death decisions. What slowly emerged were impulses and thought patterns which, when allowed to just be, seemed to be sparks of habit energy left over from the need to “manage” the world of conditions and to protect myself. Rev. Master Mugo described me as being one who had recently returned from a ‘war zone’ with my boots still smoking!
Boots Still Smoking.

Jim has been around in the sangha as long as history! He remembers me as a novice at Shasta in the 1980’s. It is always a pleasure to reconnect as we did this evening on Skype.

Overcome Difficulties

Luminescent Splendor In The City

September 23, 2012 Mugo Leave a comment

Long haired Guinea Pig
It is always a delight to visit Warp and Woof Knitting (and so much more) Blog and today’s adventure had me reaching for my dark glasses (only joking). The photographs and text convey something way beyond what you see. A bright attitude of mind is an understatement. The author has light coming out of her onto the page and through her lovely knits. I wondered if anybody is spinning up the groomings from guinea pigs….

It would seem there is a project afoot to look through new eyes at beautiful Vancouver. Here it is in M’s worlds.

I have to “go into town” every day for the next few weeks, and as this involves a bit of rush hour driving and the (really minor) hassle of getting into the congested part of Vancouver, I thought I would make it even more worth while by exploring and appreciating this place. After twenty-six years here it could be that familiarity has bred, certainly not contempt, but maybe taking for granted what a lovely part of the world this is.
This beautiful city, with simple crochet.

27th August post – Here is a Medicine Buddha statue, a recent gift, along with more knitting happiness. I just wish I could get my photographs to look so stunning. Perhaps I make them too small these days and they lose the quality of luminescence. You haven’t dear friend!

And the Guinea pig photo is for a long time reader and her husband. All merit to you two in Vancouver and you two in Reading.

Out and About, Overcome Difficulties

Enlightened Self Interest

September 20, 2012 Mugo 2 Comments

The Dodd at 2014 feet, a mountain for all that.
Not every day one gets to walk out of ones front door and climb a mountain! So said my walking companion as we paused at what was probably not the summit of the Dodd pictured above. That was Tuesday and a grand four hours walk it was too. Seven miles? Possibly nudging into eight miles? Possibly. Anyway it was good to get out for an extended walk even though I came down with something, a cold perhaps, hours after getting back to the monastery. Thus my absence from these pages. Sorry.

At one point, on our decent of the mountain, I pondered aloud on the question of the motivation behind actions. We talk sometimes about enlightened self interest which I’d take to mean that there is a recognition of an action as having an element of self interest in it. Something gained for oneself. A recognition that the act is ‘good’ and not primarily motivated by, or driven by, the part that’s greedy for itself. Oneself. Now, I don’t want to get into grading acts as more or less selfish. Or what is, or could be, a selfless act. This would be silly. Especially since the common everyday understanding of self is a physiological one. Errm, and the Buddhist understanding is that there is no separate self.

My question voiced into the air as we descended to the West Allen River was, What marks out the difference between enlightened self interest and un enlightened self interest? A question that went absolutely no where! Even when the intention is otherwise how drawn we are to grade, pin down and find measures to evaluate and judge. Both ourselves and others. There is a hairs breadth between judgmentalism and wise discernment.

I have found when veering off track that, when ones basic living intention is clearly and strongly pointing towards the good, there is that within our make up which prompts us, sometimes on a visceral level, to stop and take stock. And redirect. Not so easy to turn around when there is the inertia of time and personal investment involved. Yet possible. We see it in the story told by Giles Duley about himself. See my post and the links within it titled Photographer – a self portrait.

Bows to you Giles.

Jade Mountains Buddha Hall