Category Archives: Teachings

Teachings

Looking At Everything

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Recent postings on Jade Mountains have got me reflecting quite a lot on how we can be driven by influences that end up being not good reasons for doing things.

I guess that everyone is different, but up there for me in these influences there are the things that other people think I should be doing; then there are the habitual patterns; and then there are the things that in some way I personally feel I should be doing – and here I find it gets tricky.

It seems that there is often some deep hurt or sadness inside us that makes us want to help or heal or somehow change the world and put it to rights. I am (often deeply) disturbed by the question What am I doing about it– where the it can be whatever we personally are drawn to, which for me has included the abuse, prostitution and trafficking of children; decimation of ancient forest, woodland and wilderness; the pain and suffering of members of my – quite extended – family.

Letting go of this disturbance and the craving to help seems to need an honest and direct looking at what is driving us. And sometimes what we need to look at triggers a deep hurt and even a sense of despair. Not looking somehow leaves the hurt and despair driving us, and yet the looking can be heartbreaking. I was once told by a senior monk that yes, it could be heartbreaking and actually sometimes it had to be – the breaking made an opening for the compassion to flow through us.

And from this it seems to me now that there can be a move not so much to grand heroic initiatives and world changing grand plans but rather to small acts of kindness. The horizon of our concern comes down to the personal, direct and immediate – I spend time with my family, I go and work or just be in the woodland, I try to respond as best I can to whatever calls for help come to me.

Then the feeling of the need to justify my actions can be seen as one of those distractions I find to pull me away from what is right in front of me, and yes, this can sometimes be because I am frightened or hurt by what I think is right in front of me.

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Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Think Animals – Think Compassion

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Kipling_1.jpg
Kipling, AKA Pumkin!

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Daily Life, Teachings

In The Landscape

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I don’t often think of being in the landscape however these past days I’ve had the opportunity to be just that. In the landscape, of the landscape.

To explain. Now and then there opens for me an opportunity to go off grid and spend time in a small retreat hut in the monastery grounds. So recovering, well by the way, from a cold and hearing the call to be less outwardly active I’ve carved out a few hours each day this week to hut dwell. A series of mini breaks, three or four hours here and there, to sit with nothing calling for attention.

As dawn comes to the valley, from dim glimmer through murky grey to misty glow, I’ve sat. And I’ve sat on the porch mid-day too, reciting a scripture. Intimate with the great sweep of the valley. An hour or two in the late afternoon, the sun first blazing in the window then dipping behind the hill. Evening, picking my way across the field in drizzle with headlamp batteries fading to nothing – and still finding my way. Deep blackness, inky black, with pin pricks of light. Are they near, or far? Is that one moving? It’s blinking. A plane? A satellite? A UFO?! With little or no illumination landscape takes off into a wholly other world of envisioning. After all sharp focus is only a very small part of our vision capacity.

So much of the time ones eyes are narrowed to sharp focus. On the screen, the phone book, notices on the notice board (bane of my life – where are my glasses!). Text and text and more text. So when there is not so much obvious need for sharp focus one can go wide screen. Be in the landscape. Allow corner-of-the-eye sight. Allow the eyes to roam wide and open, focused but not narrowed in on anything particular. Wholly in the landscape. Wholly the landscape.

With practice, even coming into a large room there can be an entering into a room-scape, rather than immediately narrowing ones beam, so to speak, to ones sitting or standing place. All rather interesting. But enough of this pondering. Take a look at these winning photographs from the Landscape photo of the year 2009 awards published on the BBC web site.

Thanks to Dave for the link – keep ’em coming Dave.

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Daily Life, Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Too Much Confidence

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Post by Adrienne Hodges

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Paper folding fun.
The other day I had friends over who, like me, enjoy being creative. The idea of our get together was to encourage each other by sharing ideas and teaching something of our own ‘specialities’. While the pumpkin soup was warming on the stove I went upstairs to fetch a quilt I have been working on to show them. This was duly admired. Then I remembered I had played with another medium – folded books. I had spent a happy hour making the said piece and wanted to share my enthusiasm with them. Although my friends seemed to want to see what I have been making, a further reaction made it clear to me that they felt overwhelmed and a little phased by my enthusiasm and confidence – I can be quite enthusiastic at times! Someone said something that pointed to a feeling of competativeness. The atmosphere changed, if only temporarily, and I realised that both of my friends were either measuring themselves by my seeming achievements and felt inadequate or they thought I was showing my stuff in order to feel better myself. The knowledge that I managed to ‘put down’ my friends, however unintentionally, keeps coming back into my mind. I feel disturbed to realise that my actions caused such a result.

I have both rationalised and wriggled around in order to avoid my part in their discomfort; they were both feeling disturbed by conflicts/inadequacies of their own, it’s their stuff, they misunderstood my intentions, stop stressing, it’s and not important etc, etc.

But the awareness and knowledge remains. What should I do? How should I change in order to avoid this reaction in the future?

I learned years ago about a piece of research in the field of psychology (sorry, can’t reference this at all) that demonstrated that when people were asked to notice and bring into their awareness a behaviour that they wanted to change this behaviour diminished in frequency, sometimes to the point of extinction. It was enough just to notice . So… no pushing away…… no necessity for rationalising, deliberate thought or forced behaviour change. To those of us that know Rules for Meditation this will sound familiar.

So I will do nothing. Or rather I am not going to get caught up in or dragged around by circumstances, thoughts, feelings and emotions. I will continue to be aware and notice what is going on to the best of my ability and trust my intention to avoid future harm in this way. And for now, I will just get on with the next thing. And along the line of next things, perhaps a simple apology to my friends.

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Daily Life, Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Sitting Still Helps The Process

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It’s not that often I get caught up in a scheduling crunch however I did this morning. There was a ceremony I’d committed myself to attend and a dentist appointment I HAD to go to. (Broken tooth. Patch essential.) I could juuust about see how it could work. There was juust about time to attend at least part of the ceremony and make the appointment on time. That’s if everything happened on time, if…and if…..and if….

This sort of situation can drive one to distraction. Need, wish, intentions (good ones), feelings (ones own and those of others), timing, unknowns, x factors all swimming about in ones mind. I’ve learned, although I don’t necessarily always remember, that it’s best not to act precipitously in such situations. Better to…empty the dust bin, do a short errand, photocopy something. Anything, (obviously not anything anything!) play for time, anything to give one of the x factors a chance to materialise. Walk down the lane and back. This morning if I’d checked the daily schedule I’d have known earlier the puzzle would not, could not, fit. There was a meeting scheduled, that was the missing piece of the puzzle. The x factor. And, as I put in a note, it didn’t work out that I could come to the ceremony.

This small event can mirror periods of ones life. It’s as if the pieces don’t fit together, no matter how hard one tries to get them to do so. What a relief to be able to say to oneself it didn’t work out, it’s not working out. And move on. Easier said, than done.

If you are in a situation, small, medium or large, where the pieces don’t seem to fit together – it’s probably a good idea to allow yourself the possibility that you are missing a puzzle piece or two. They will come. Given half a chance. Sitting still helps the process.

Acceptance essential, action unavoidable.

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