Packing up, sorting out, throwing away, the ghosts of the past now caught in a moment of time. I did it for my parents after my dad died, packed up their life together. Sold it, burnt it, put out for the bin men, gave away, sent to auction. and finally their home was sold.
Iain, who I traveled with in Japan last year, is back in England sorting out his parents home. He has interesting insights on things left behind.
Here is an extract from an email I received. It is published with permission.
I read with much interest and appreciation your recent diary entries, “Contemplations 1 – 4”. I have watched two people close to me die – a good friend who died young from Cystic Fibrosis and my Mother, who died 12 and a half years ago, from various lung diseases. She died at home in her own bed with her family around her. I sat with her as her world closed in until taking the next breath was all and everything, until finally even that was given up. On that afternoon in early May, some hours before she died, she was extremely weak but she found the enough energy to haul herself out of bed and pull herself upright at the window sill and look out over the blossom trees that bordered the fields behind the house and call out I want to see the spring again, I don’t want this to be the last spring. These were more or less her last words. She died relatively peacefully about eight hours later. Almost a year to the day after her death I found myself in Canada sitting in a beautiful park close to Niagara Falls (my one and only Canadian visit). I was alone and sitting on a park bench doing nothing really except contemplating two large splendid cherry trees in full blossom. Without thinking I just knew I was looking at those trees with their radiant white blossom through my Mother’s eyes (at least there seemed to be no me in the seeing) – she loved cherry blossom. It lasted the fleetest of moments.
So she did see another spring; and I feel she always will see and be part of each and ever spring.
Thanks Tim, and I am delighted to see your blog with the first posting published just moments ago. From The Edge of Europe A diary of Life in Kosova. It comes hot off the press and faster than it took to post a handful of cards at the local post office.
I managed to get out for a longish walk this afternoon however by 3.00 pm the sun was nearly behind the hill, sinking fast towards Alston in the next valley.
In practice we talk about climbing up the trunk of the tree and being careful not to stray off along a side branch. As you can see from this tree, once on a branch it is just so easy to get lost in the maze of little branches leading in every direction.
So how does one go directly. Climb the tree, so to speak, and not waste time exploring this that and the other thing? During an introductory talk recently I found myself constantly bringing the focus of the talk to ‘returning’. Simply returning. One could say it is to the trunk, the fundamental, that one returns having noticed oneself dangling dangerously from a twiggy branch, waving in the wind.
Side branches have their place in practice, helping to reestablish where the trunk is, however I’d advise against lots of side trips if you can avoid them.
The absolute upright holds within itself,
Many phenomena within it’s own delicate balance,
Both function rest reside within.
Lo! Hear! Set up not your own standards.
Around about this time of year back in 2002 the late head of our Order came to Cornwall where I was living at the time. He, along with another monk I work closely with, stayed in a cottage and talked business. We talked business every morning for a week. In the afternoons the late head of our Order wrote and polished his book, Buddhism from Within, sat at a table in my trailer. He worked incredibly hard. Little did he know he would be dead within three months, of lymphoma.
During that week we had wonderful lunches cooked by our host and, with him, set the wheels in motion to establish a charity for the OBC in England, the OBC Activities Trust. (On Monday I missed the AGM of the charity held near Manchester due to more pressing matters here in the monastery. ) Towards the end of our week together we visited a village, it could have been Newlyn, and these cats caught my eye.
Today, a beautiful crisp sunny day, I’d intended to treat you all to some photographs of the monastery clothed in a white coat of frost. However more pressing matters had me driving out of the valley, and when I got back the clouds had already covered the sun. They say we are in for more ‘weather’ in the next few days. Before I left I did manage to catch a quick shot of our cat, Smudge, in the window of the Novices Common Room.
Smudge and tree, with reflection of a Buddha. There is the cult of the Beckoning Cat which you may know about. It’s has an interesting monastic cat origin.
Written in loving memory of Rev. Master Daizui and our day out in Cornwall, one cold and frosty morning in 2002. And in gratitude for those meals, and so much more too.
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.
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.