Category Archives: Photo/Poem Series

Photo Three – Beehives

These bee hives have been a great talking point recently.
They have added colour to our walks along the road.
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Photo Four – Frosty Grass

Too bad I was not able to catch the jewel like sparkle on this frosty grass,
nature does sparkle so much more readily than we can!
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Photo Five – Sunup

Twas a cold and frosty morning walking out along the road.
Hope you enjoy this place as much as I do.
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Contemplation (four)

The ripening of practice has it’s own time table and that is where patience and taking the long view really helps the practitioner. There is no fast track and nobody who can do the practice for you. We have a saying, Buddha’s do but point the way, you must go alone. That’s alone in the sense of doing ones own practice, doing something about oneself. This takes a considerable level of sustained effort, it’s the same for everybody what ever form life is taking.

Each morning, in our particular tradition, we re state our resolve to continue by reciting a verse aloud before the kesa is put on. It is a statement that brings one out of the mists of past and future to a vow to practice within the already enlightened Universe, today. For just this one day.

How great and wondrous are the clothes of Enlightenment,
Formless and embracing every treasure.
I wish to unfold the Buddha’s teaching,
That I may help all living things.

To be resolute and to wake up and remain awake carries spiritual merit, however that is not enough. It is the rising up and walking on, and keeping on walking on, that counts. For all of us, practice and enlightenment which are not two, are given expression in being the best person one can be. This is real gratitude.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Contemplations (three)

Retreats have a particular place in the life of a Buddhist practitioner. If one is fortunate enough to be able to join others to do that, all well and good. They are not essential and not to be clung to either. It is rare to have the opportunity to devote oneself to simply just sitting still without the usual daily life distractions. (Even so, life circumstances have a way of throwing up opportunities to sit, right in the midst of distractions. See comment from yesterday.) Having found the time, and settled down, the mind can spew forth, in all the weird and wonderful ways imaginable, each of us according to our own particular inheritance. Memories, thought patterns, emotions, sensations all march through body/mind. Nothing permanent, just passing though. However, when you are dying of thirst a lake in the desert can become all too real, and ultimately disappointing of course. A mirage certainly can appear real.

At the time of the Buddha’s enlightenment the hordes of mara came to call shooting arrows, that fell around him as flowers. The Buddha unmoved, knew enough about the workings of the mind not to take False Evidence Appearing Real, as real. And that is what one learns, and re-confirms over and over again during a retreat. That is, to recognize fear for what it is, and refrain from being afraid of it. That fearful images and thoughts arise, or their equally alluring opposites, are not a problem. If not clung to as me and mine. As real. And yet moving on and out into everyday life, there may be good reason to be afraid, and to take note and to act accordingly.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email