Wendy’s Writings

A dualistic dish – the fish replies:

My question is… dear fish…
whether you identify as British?
Spanish or perhaps Flemish…?

The fish replies:
You who address me as ‘a fish’…?
your question suggests ownership

I see your interest is upon which country’s dish
my heated form should lie
if humans cause my life to die…

…perhaps
in decompressing rapidly
when i am hauled up from the sea.

So many of us,
weight… in net,
compressed…
then split and gutted, each like all the rest.

My corpse sold on… for what money they are able
until i lie upon a dinner table…
and am
eaten before too late…
before my own expiry date…?!

That’s a ‘fishy’ joke! : )
But humour won’t save me…
this hapless denizen of the sea!

As a fish, to you I am
worth more dead… than alive!!!

However –

I don’t want you to pity me
but to take this opportunity

To tell you how it is for us,
deeply affected
by you land-bound populace.

I know, habitually through time,
you ‘humans’ feed on flesh…
like many of us living in the brine.

I am not angry, do not judge…
but wish for you
to realise how bad it is for us…

and it is getting worse!

And you should care – for us, for you…
affected by the chemicals
we eat, our bodies change.
This knowledge is not new…

as you eat us… i grieve to think…
you concentrate
whatever chemicals were in our food and drink.

Water which is thirty per cent more acidic that it used to be
has changed our world
… information kindly shared by Mark Carney*

And we,
just as you humans
would, suffer experientially…
living continuously in/drinking in
water of such high acidity

Water pH affects reproduction rates
… heavy metals concentrate…
so stress increase with falling biodiversity
and worse…

We don’t have ‘plants’ to treat the water in the sea
but we need you to do something… because,
chemically,
it’s become disgusting –
dangerously.

Environmentally our friends the whales… can help,
with carbon capture, eco-balancing – oxygen assist
if doubtful you can check on this…

However they who have been eaten sustainably
on the Faroe Islands for many years
… are no longer considered fit to eat.
The levels of mercury and other heavy metals in their bodies are high enough to be implicated as causal factors
in increasing rates of Parkinson’s disease in humans.

The impact of this on the whales is unknown…
but to imagine they are they completely impervious
…and creatures lower down the ‘food chain’ unaffected
defies your ‘reliance on science’.


Like our bird-friends we become entangled in your fishing nets
and other aspects of your detritus…
Like them, our bellies fill with plastic floating in the sea
… and micro-plastic’s found internally.

Some humans have to manage their food intake, artificially
reducing the size of their stomach to stay alive.
We do not have this difficulty…

…if we swallow plastic and it doesn’t pass through
we may well not survive…
it’s certain that we will not thrive
with the capacity of our stomachs so reduced.

So when you catch us,
cooks note this
your dish will be a mix of food …
non-food chemicals and some plastics!

Speaking for the whales…there has been criticism lately of the behaviour of some of them.
Recently a pod of orcas in the Mediterranean have been head-butting boats sometimes damaging the boats and frightening the noise-making occupants.
The orcas are not built to head-butt solid objects, they may have big headaches after this, but as yet no human has been killed or hurt.

But humans have attacked these orcas… their pod is close to extinction due to human interference.

I’d like to remind you that when you humans first met the whales they were delighted to greet you and were very playful.
In time they realised that meeting you, oftentimes, meant death…

You killed them and used them for food,
as fuel for your lights,
as shapers in corsetry to make the female form more appealing to the male;
… for lubrication, for cosmetics, soaps, vanishes, paints, laquer, perfumes, vitamins, carvings…

Killing followed killing, the whales became wary
… they learned…

Your boats’ propellers have chewed into their bodies, and they sink.

One way or another they have died in great numbers, almost to extinction.

Some fisherman regard them as their enemy… competing for their fish (their fish!)… and kill and mutilate them.

Across the wide oceans the whales who used to sing…
voices travelling half-way around the world,
have to shout loudly to be heard above the shipping noise
(subtle communicative nuances are lost in shouting)

Navigation becomes a nightmare
as extraneous sounds impede interpretation…
poisonous chemicals impact on neural functioning…
untimely deaths of young and old inhibit transmission of knowledge…
and the starlight patterning is occluded by satellites and space junk.

Yet despite all this, such massive provocation
there are as i said, as yet, no human deaths from Orca attacks.

In Australia there have been more shark attacks than usual, and overall seventeen attacks and eight deaths…
One response, typical of humans, is
‘we need to kill them’.

Whilst we are not humans and anthropomorphizing us is unwise,
we are sentient and intelligent, we communicate and feel pain
… please, I beg you, do not react to our behaviour in this way.

It will not help the situation.
Many of us are, with good reason at this time, very disturbed…
we live in these oceans
but you ‘guests’ treat our home as your toilets, larders…
swimming pools…

Building for leisure, trade, or base for future fights
along our shores and in our world,
means noise continues day and night

Hungry to find, and to take out more
disturbing the depths, the crust,
your machinery explores

Pollution follows every entry
that you make into the water
and below the sea

I plead with you,
knowing your desolation in the face of your current crisis of viral infection, and human tendencies to fight over resources,
not to use your energy to fight over who will get the greater share of our bodies…

But to turn your energy instead towards health and survival,
towards of health of the waters that we live in,
the waters that nourish us, that nourish you…

That we may share this earth and it’s waters
Treating our environment and each other
respectfully,

with love,

from what ‘you humans’, ha ha, call

A fish


picture: wikipedia licence creative commons
*(2020 Governor of the bank of England… in his final Reith lecture)

note…some fish are less susceptible to the hazards of marine life.
If you eat us perhaps you’ll seek what’s best…
for, as with plants, when we are penned, kept close in nets,
chemicals are often used to keep us ‘healthiest’
…or maybe not…









Flowing freely – our potential: Lama Chetsasngpa on the guru and guruyoga

At a time when, as a baby, I had learned how to sit…my mother left me sitting on a chair for three quarters of an hour. I was minded by a family friend who told me years later.
During that time I was not upset but just sat upright on the chair on which I had been placed, calm, unmoving and completely impervious to her attempts to engage me in the way that a baby would normally be engaged. 
She found this very disturbing!
I had a red mark, a nevus, which I never saw (no mirrors), right in the centre of my forehead… which was removed as a child. 
I found that a rupa of the Guru had been in my house since before birth.
I always wished, on the one wish that we were allowed on eating birthday cake, that all of the family could be happy… (this was a rare occurrence) .
My reason for going to medical school was to help reduce the pain in the world.

So far so good? Well maybe, but we haven’t got very far…

But then the winds of karma blew… and my aspirations shrank…
I married and had a child and life revolved around the happiness of a very few.
I wanted my family and friends to be happy… and the world which had been opening out in my late teens gradually shrank… and shrank… and shrank to the point where, if the dharma hadn’t turned up in such a big way a few years beforehand…I probably wouldn’t be here now. 
There was a lack of clarity…and a non-availability to others in any way which could truly be called helpful, beyond the relative, for decades of my life.

Why am I saying this to you? 

I am saying all this because, even if perhaps we come into a re-birth where our bodhisattva or other vows are not blown away in the death process, the karmic consequences of dualistic engagement, in the past and present, mean that until we are fully established in the truth of ourselves we can so easily get lost before we know it… and this lostness will be normalised quick as flash – everyone around us confirms a dualistic view –
then every move we make can strengthen the karmic bind.

So how long will it take us to find our way home when we do get lost… some months? some years? some lifetimes? some aeons?
One thing we can be sure of is that tension arising from having a sense of an individuated self brings suffering along with it…
Without recognising its cause we keep trying to scratch this subliminal yet perpetual itch…and we look for completion, for satisfaction, for ease, for relief, in that which cannot offer resolution…

If the dharma truth, the unchanging uncompounded ground of our being, is not sought or encountered… in our daily lives, moment by moment, how will we see ‘things’ more clearly… so how will we not suffer?

We have such a short time before death, that it is very sad not to make the most of this opportunity, this precious human re-birth (transiently!) complete in our faculties, and engage in the dharma without reservation.

Anyone reading this is likely to already know that we are truly lucky to have encountered such a clear and unadulterated river of dharma, presented for us, for our time, for our culture… for the particular tendencies and confusions particularly common to, but not limited to, those in the west.  
The most recent teachings James gave are linked here to texts with vimeo link below the texts… or direct to vimeo here
They are the first of a series of three… and have just become available on the simplybeing website…and seem to me to be extraordinarily valuable!

I was going to post some ‘small beer’ stuff about dependent origination in duality, maybe something about that difficult point in meditation where we could go deeper or return to the familiar… but life is limited and listening to these teachings if they speak to your condition will surely bring you much more benefit. 


If you have listened already, listening again will surely help this to go deeper, note-takers can re-relate to what was said… 
I know from experience that we miss so much on first hearing and that although the refreshing shower of truth feels great and warming…it is engagement and ‘inward digestion’ – reflection and questioning – and application…which gives optimal potential for effective maceration!!!

Painting by artist Stewart Edmondson

Welcoming each ‘daisy-fresh’ moment of the New year…

In some other cultures and countries it’s not yet New Year.
For those following the Chinese lunar calendar it falls on the 12th of Feb, for ‘Persians’ the New Year, Nowruz, begins around March 20 – for Parsis it’s August 16/ 17th…lots of different ideas about the timing of new beginnings!

Maybe you remember a talk James gave – as I remember it quite well it was probably a Macclesfield talk – when he was laughing at the idea of getting rid of four o’clock or some other time that was deemed unpleasant. ‘You don’t have to say “Stop the clock! I just can’t bear four o’clock” … four o’clock is going by itself.’

Recently we have heard, very much, ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of 2020’ ‘Thank God 2020 has gone!’
With that there seemed to be assumptions that all the difficulties would end as the clock strikes, and the New Year will be inevitably better than the previous year.

But relative reality, the world of entities, as it is usually construed, does not work like that. With that view, what happens now is inextricably linked with what has happened in the past and is always shifting and changing. There is an interconnecting web of causal factors through time leading to an inter-dependent, inter-linked network of effects arising in the present,
and what may seem a better year for some will, no doubt, seem far worse for others.

Yet 2020 was a year of our limited life-span, one that we won’t have a chance to experience again; and every moment of those manifold unique experiences has vanished, gone forever, all by themselves…
To say it was a ‘rubbish year’ denies the rich complexity and variety, and
truly, any memories of 2020 or before are thoughts arising now – currently in 2021…and are also vanishing

Some neighbours recently said to me ‘I’m just waiting ’til it’s over and life can begin again and we can get back to normal’.
Marking time, or passing time or wishing life away… when you realise how swiftly it flies… seems a terrible waste…
Given the option, would we really rather have been anaesthetised for the previous 365 days than choose to live them, to fully experience whatever movements, joys and sorrows and all, arising and passing? There is such a big difference between enduring life and living.

Many years ago I picked up a piece of photocopy paper from the floor of our derelict new home. The chimney had just imploded and a couple of centuries of soot lay over everything… I turned it over and it said:

Out of the gloom a Voice spoken unto me and said
‘Smile and be happy, things could be worse’
So I smiled and was happy and behold… things did get worse.
That was my experience!

However, true happiness arises not from accentuating the positive or an optimism that ‘things can only get better!’ or ‘counting your blessings’ all of which can change our mood (and gratitude for everything is a good place to start)…. but with a dharma understanding, from wisdom.

And a few days ago I found, jotted down on an envelope in a kitchen drawer, a quote from James which is a distillation of a buddha’s teaching:
‘The root of dissatisfaction is attachment to experience based on a misunderstanding of the nature of experience.’

Yesterday at the shops I met a man and a woman, one carrying a paint can the other bags of material for stuffing…’I see you’ve got stuff for your projects in hand’…’Well, what else is there to do…?’ she said.
It was a bit too cold and windy for suggesting exploring the statement above!

2020 has come and gone and we did whatever we did, but what’s more worthwhile for 2021 than to deeply realise what a correct understanding of the nature of experience would be?
That realisation and the ensuing freedom from dukkha that the dharma offers would be the best ever birthday present to yourself and the world…as you would become ever fresh – new beginnings with every moment of the Year.

Some new dates to hear about all this:
James’ on-line teaching program recommences on Wednesday 20th Jan…rolling through to March
Check under Events on the simplybeing.co.uk website







Peace on earth

Gijjakuta

As ‘human beings’ we will cling
to any kind of covering.

To thoughts, to thought-formed ‘objects’,
ideas, words, beliefs…

… which, in imagining a fixity,
give shaping to identity.

Its maintenance depends
for safety, for stability,

for ‘freedom from anxiety’
upon grasping –

clutching at straws…
at fig leaves blowing in the wind ?!

Tensions from these delusions
find release…

resolved in wisdom’s
naked peace

A

Wisdom is expressed on the simplybeing.co.uk website

under ‘New and Recent’ you will find recents talks

to ease the tensions of the heart/mind…

and love flows from that easing

May all find what they need, over this Christmas and always!


Joyful thanks – an invitation to you

Much of what i have written on this web-site has a dualistic orientation.
As we get to non-duality from duality…this is our starting point.

Reading some of what i have written along the last ten years of the journey might invite dipping a toe in the water with the thought…’we are not so very different, it would be very possible for me too, to take up the invitation to journey deeper into the dharma towards its heart…and perhaps discover that it is the truth of my own.’

There is a beautiful book ‘Buddhist offerings 365 Days’ which was my companion in the early years…gorgeous pictures and a reflection for each day…
One i had in mind when writing this post connected gratitude thankfulness and love. In deep dharma love arises from wisdom…but the journey may well start or be aided by the the softening of gratitude.

It’s unusual for me to advertise anything on this website…we all find our own ways of contributing to what is beneficial in this world…but what follows is a little different. 

Earlier this year I made a donation to the charity Calcutta Rescues’ major fundraiser … and they have followed through with a lovely idea they had to thank their donors by creating a concert full of joy.

I offered to post a link to share this with you…it’s being broadcast live this Sunday December 13th … and from past experiences of their creativity i am sure it will be highly enjoyable!!!

So here is the invitation from the organiser to :

Thirty great musicians from seven countries are performing for free in support of charity Calcutta Rescue.
The line-up from the UK includes Liane Carroll, Frank Moon, Biddu – the man who brought us the unforgettable Kung Fu Fighting – and from India, three outstanding artists, Rishabh Dhar, Samantak Sina and Arko Mukhaerjee.
There will be a kaleidoscope of musical genres, from folk to Bollywood, Baroque to classical Indian.
The two hour show is being hosted by the charity’s chief executive, Jaydeep Chakraborty, who will share what life has been like in the slums of Kolkata, India this year, as well as providing a fascinating insight into how Christmas is celebrated there.
Watch out for the organ and trumpet piece shot from a drone inside a Swiss church!
The show starts at 2pm on Sunday, December 13, and you can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VPUnSVUeRk

https://www.facebook.com/325011967694487/posts/1504712356391103/
If you can’t make it then you can watch the show later on Calcutta Rescue’s Facebook page or YouTube channel. Please share the love by inviting friends and family to watch too!

Learning not to listen…sticking labels over our ears, eyes…

Hi Holly. (Holly is young enough to have just started school) How are you doing?

‘I’m OK’… smiles

I’ve just been up underneath the trees, it’s really windy isn’t it?

‘Yep’

I was listening to the sounds underneath the tree… do you listen to that sometimes too?

‘Yes’

What’s sounds do you hear?

Holly thinks, seriously, and looks at me… a big smile crosses her face and she declares:

‘Rustle…!’

Mmmm…hmmm…and can you tell me what the sound is when the wind blows even stronger… and more and more trees are waving their leaves and branches?

Holly thinks again…smiles… and puts on a bigger emphasis

‘Rustle…!!’

OK…. So what sound would you hear when all the trees are joining in… and dry leaves are blowing past your feet really quickly down the tarmac road…

Holly considers for a while and then gets back to me… loudly proudly and happily:

‘RUSSELL!!!’

Interesting… Do you think maybe they are all calling out for their dear friend Russell?

Laughter from Holly, and the parents who are there as well.

What you could try, one day if you like, is to stand under the trees but kind of sit inside your ear… and let the sound fill you up completely… And feel how that is ….

Then there is no ‘thinking about’…
which word makes a noise closest to the sound?
… or which word the sound is supposed to sound like…?

But you will really get the sound of the sound….


I know I asked for it in this case, but trying to ‘can’ experience into words is like a kind of desiccation for later re-presentation… a feebly ghost-like gesture towards the amazing actual.

‘Thinking about’ what leaves sound like brings about an abstraction…
Holly disappears into the ‘thought chamber’ and comes back with what she has learned….

The problem with that is we kind of hang a label around the neck of what is always a unique experience – and write on it what we have learned… or our opinion of it… or someone else’s opinion of it.

Then encounters which are fresh seem similar to us. We stop looking and listening, directly experiencing, because we already know.

Instead of there being a co-emergent arising in the field of experience (where I become as I find myself in relation to what is arising, within awareness)… we become the subject, separated. Searching for the right label – as we imagine it to be, then reading off and using what we have written on the label to inform our response.

Using these labels to define/quantify/ qualify experience seems smart but it deadens the world for us, it’s like pouring ash over it.

Abstracted from the actual we sleep through many moments of our lives… in thinking about this or that thought…in pouring in our life energy into them, linking them to make tapestries, arriving at ‘certainties’….

Busy writing on water…we forget…
how the game started…
how the blinkers came on… and we started to believe what we thought to be true.

Legs on a snake… anyone?

This links with the previous post on being ‘captivated’ by phantasms…do take a look if you have time.

‘Don’t be putting legs on a snake’…. is an instruction from ancient dharma teaching from the orient…

and what the dharma teachings all point towards…whether ancient or modern, eastern or western…is the same ultimate truth.

‘So does this saying imply that the truth is obscured by trying to put legs on a snake??!……….. I mean, come on! Who would do something so daft? Snakes don’t need legs or want them…who would spend their time doing something so crazy?’

Well, maybe the ancient story about the dragon, and the example from the more recent past about the guy who eventually believed in the reality of the phantasms he co-created, are examples.

But do we need to go back in time to see this behaviour enacted?
Perhaps there’s someone you know (or don’t know very well) who does this?

Believing what arises in the mind, taking the arisings to be indicating the truth… precludes investigation into their illusory nature…

Illusions vanish, thoughts and feelings come and go, snakes slither away…

but the busy and deceptive habit of ‘snake-legging’ (maybe with red wellies to fit?) never will end…

…until we see what we are up to.

Thanks to the one who sent me the dragon… and to Emily for his legs!

Captivated by phantasms…believing in the creativity of our minds

Some sayings and koans I have come across seem easy to understand… others have i parked in puzzlement…’the penny may drop later’.

Sometimes we are just not open to what is being allude to… other times there is a symbolic content which is only comprehensible if you have the key to the hidden meaning, current at that time and place.

Perhaps you’ve come across the story about a man who wanted to paint something as a gift for the abbot of a monastery – I had trouble with this one for years.

To the dismay of the artist the abbot requested a dragon to be painted on the temple ceiling.

The artist said that he had never seen a dragon so was not sure he could do this.
The abbot was surprised, he said there were many around the temple.

The artist used his imagination and painted something.

The abbot was not impressed… so the artist tried again.

The abbot found it better but explained that he wanted it painted so that the dragon would be really ‘life-like’ – so that he could feel the warmth of the dragon’s breath.

The artist fully let go into the creative process.
It took him a long time but when he finally presented it to the abbot… leading him into the temple and inviting him to look up… he knew that he had succeed. The abbot was clearly delighted.

The artist looked up again at his finished work… had a heart attack and died!

What!!! I thought to myself!? This man offers a gift… he tries so hard and finally, successfully completes this extraordinary task.

Such skill and effort…dedication rewarded by a heart attack!!!

How is that fair … or in any way a good teaching?

Well as I have learned from my teacher life is not ‘fair’… ‘that is children’s logic’. So that’s the first complaint dismissed…

Is it a good teaching?…. I would now say so…

At the time I was ignoring what was going on – the process.

With engagement … the notion of a dragon becomes more real for the artist.
With practice he becomes very good at conjuring up a dragon shape in his mind.
Finally he succeeds in making an arrangement of colours on a surface…creating a shape which had the potential to be interpreted as a life-like impression of a dragon…by someone who has a notion of dragons.

The abbott was not terrified by the image… although it looked life-like he knew it was not alive.

However the artist forgot… he forgot that what he saw when he looked up was an image, the creativity of his own mind…
He took it to be real… a big mistake… and frightened himself to death

It is an explanation and a warning…

The dharma invites us to be curious… to see what we are up to… and to be clear about the nature of what is arising in the mind (and what is the nature of the mind).

As we see what we are up to… we see that we are not compelled to give solidity to arisings, to thoughts feelings and sensations.
Compounding them, imbuing them with a false sense of reality, and believing in our own creativity… is normal but not natural

Such activity is a habit of confusion – and it is blinding, diminishing, exhausting, unsatisfying…and potentially lethal!

No doubt alternate views are available :-)… but nonetheless less the Dharma offers respite and recovery, a welcome home for us convicted thought-addicts!

P.s. The guy who was so good with ‘smoke and mirrors’ – producing special effects which, allied with appropriate music, helped to create a rich environment for the envisionment of phantasmagoria in some ‘spiritualist’ meetings in the early 20th century… was apparently driven mad by what he thought he saw.

Beautiful…luminosity and kindness

Today sees the rising of the new moon…

and here to complement that are two poems shared by Shambhala Publications from a book of poetry: The First Free Women – Poems of the early Buddhist nuns.

This collection  of poems was composed around the time of the Buddha and called the Therigatha, which translates as ‘verses of the elder nuns’.  It has been revived by Matty Weingast.

Buddahadarma notes that these were written long before it was safe to utter the words ‘women’ and ‘liberation’ in the same sentence… we are now so very fortunate.

The open heart is not ‘gender biased’ in nature, nurture… nor availability

“Punna ~ Full”
Fill yourself
with
the Dharma.
When you
are as
full
as the
full
moon—
burst open.
Make the dark night shine.
“Grandma Sumana”
After
all those years
looking after others,
this old heart
has finally
learned
to look
after
itself.
Each act of kindness
a stitch in this warm blanket
that now covers me
while I sleep.

Emptiness and fulness – the kindness ahhh…

James is speaking on the potential depth of that tomorrow…

Our true kindness, arising from our openness, is of a very different quality from our intentional and conceptualised efforts.

If you  are not able to listen tomorrow no doubt it will be up on the website shortly… but you may find the transcript of an earlier talk on this topic – Emptiness equanimity and kindness  illuminating…like the full moon bursting through the clouds!!!

New Moon image:wikipedia uploaded to Flicr byQuimGil license: creative commons 

Emails… Open only if you’re sure….

Some may be helpful to read…. but on checking whether sender, senders address, spelling, spacing, and sense match with what you know already… some need to go straight in the bin.

If you should receive an email from Simply Being (South West) …perhaps  from admin (ha ha!), or something similar… with perhaps just a link in it… please don’t click the link… simply delete.     If you check the senders address it may start with ‘wordpress’ (which is incorrect)…
if you’re expecting something from me then the senders address will be different from that.

If you are unsure you can always send an email to check with me  before opening…

So that’s the binnable bit…

the next bit may be more helpful to read…..

 

I wrote the email below to a dharma student earlier in the yearand it seems to chime with the teachings of the past weekend and includes the link to ‘The healing power of emptiness’ which James referred to towards the end on Sunday… so i have pasted it below.

 

Begin forwarded message:
From: Wendy 
Subject: Re: On becoming unstuffed!
Date: 1 March 2020 at 11:19:03 GMT
To:   

 

I wrote this in response to a question you raised on Thursday evening.
We have some time associated with this human body and life, but we do not know how long. What so what will we do with it?
The call to awakening  is the call to the ending of suffering…to the arising of wisdom and compassion; it is the blackbirds song and the song of every apparent thing which shows and goes…but who hears what it is indicating?
Over thousands of years many have… but the majority are deafened by cacophony –  thoughts ‘about’ every apparent ‘thing’…
This kind of thinking – thinking ‘about’ – is limited in value  because it occurs in an abstracted state…remote from the lived, actual situation… it takes you out of the flow of life and creates further cloudiness.
Sometimes this kind of thinking, spun by the energy of our attention, goes round and round, chewing up the time of our lives with no conclusion because there is no satisfaction, no completion – no end to thoughts
But  often we feel we can come to a conclusion ( more thoughts) about whatever thoughts it is that we were thinking about
and this satisfies the ego’s desire for a personal certainty and stability: ‘I know!’ ‘ I know how it is’   ‘It is how I think it is!’
So few of our activities move us in the direction of wisdom. Usually, because of prior energetic investment flowing with our interest, we move towards towards greater enmeshment with whatever seem to be our ‘own’ current priorities, beliefs, and desires …
But these interests arise from many connections through family, cultural, and social connections and transiently we attach to them, but with bias and a karmic drivenness,  to give clothing to our limited and transient egoic sense-of-self.
At  the end of this public talk  The Healing Power of Emptiness  which James gave in 2013, he hopes that the talk, although maybe surprising, is helpful.
It is such an extraordinary move in the direction of wisdom that i’m sure the public was indeed surprised! (This is the talk James just recommended at the weekend people have a look at.)
You’ll see that it gives an outline of how we get lost and what is hidden by our agitation in our pseudo-separation and our false fixed notions of identification…
The ultimate truth is very different from how we ordinarily see things
and the kind of ‘happiness’ that goes with that is worlds apart from what arises when ‘I get what I want’ which, strangely, is itself a cause of suffering.
So if you’d like to, take your time with this, and let me know if I can help unpack any aspect that is not clear…
In my experience seeing how it makes sense is one thing –
making  that ‘non-journey’ from here as we are not… to here as we are…is another.
But however many slips and slides along the way
it is the journey most worth making!
love
Wendy
Photo credit   http://Ludovic Péron                    creative commons license

The lightness of being… and a loaf of bread…

Towards the end of lockdown I had run out of bread but not wanting to make a special trip to the shops just for that.

I’ve made bread in the past and had some old (2015!)  wholemeal bread flour and what looked like a good recipe… so I started.

I had read that a stage which I had always completed before was unnecessary, so instead of initially adding the yeast to water and sugar, I added it directly into the flour.

The recipe was also a little different, it required a couple of stages for rising as an alternative to a lot of kneading.

I was quite taken by this idea, letting it do its own thing without much effort from me was appealing, but by three in the afternoon despite ‘knocking back’ twice something which did not seem to have risen much…  hopes that I hadn’t been completely wasting my time were dashed, it was clear that any rising was imaginary.

Most likely the yeast was inactive, being too old. I would have discovered this if I had used the normal method… and also if I hadn’t been convinced that the yeast’s expiry date was printed on the lid of the tin.. which I had thrown out because it had been eaten by the mouse  with whom I shared a couple of months of lockdown…but that’s another story.

Something now made me look again the tin of yeast and I found that the date was in fact marked on it’s bottom… it was ten years out of date!

So, unwilling to waste the ingredients, what to do with two non-risen loaves?

Answer number one – make a load of crackers!
Rejected on two counts:  two loaves would make a lot more crackers than I would eat in a month of Sundays and also my teeth are friable and likely to crack before the cracker.

Answer number two – use a packet of yeast mixed with water and sugar and, when the sugar and yeast have reacted together, try to incorporate that liquid into the, by now rather hardened and dense – plasticene-like, loaves of dough.

I thought this might work after fashion…but was a long way from the recipe plan.  It took some time to incorporate the liquid, a gentle touch was  required… not making Play-Doh!… but eventually it seemed to be fairly well incorporated.  Original recipe now cast aside I couldn’t be bothered with more than one rise before I cooked them.

Yet they were really good. Some areas you could see were a bit more dense where I hadn’t been able to incorporate the liquid equally throughout… however it was definitely bread… not too dense and it tasted good.

What’s this got to do with the Dharma?

Well, I’m stretching a metaphor here! but the dharma teachings are like the yeast in sugared water… and we  have come to feel that we are like the dough…something a bit heavy… with the imagined solidity of all our weighty thoughts.

Without the dharma yeast to lighten and make the true potential clear the alternatives could be off-the-pace stodginess, or  hard-baked (+) crackers!

Yeast on its own would have been impossible to incorporate evenly, into the dense and somewhat hardened dough…so if any reaction did take place it would be incredibly slow and patchy. But mixed with sugar and water it was possible.

Fortunately, unlike yeast, the truth/wisdom does not go out of date! However the teachings need to  be brought to life in relation to the current time and situation…and to be expressed in a way which can be  received and digested – this is compassion i.e. the sugar and water.

Incorporating these dharma teachings with a persistent yet gentle touch, massaging them into to our heavy sense of selves… gradually we soften, and feel lighter. We become less dense and much more digestible, easier to be at ease…both with ourselves and with others… more sane, not crackers!

And no matter how hard or intractable we feel ourselves or our situation to be… gently applying…softening, relaxing – tensions releasing.  Realising and coming into realignment  with the Dharma, as the truth of ourselves, can’t help but bring about changes for the good.This lightening up…it sounds scrumptious, and healthier than cloud bread!

…and as the emptiness of the old flour, the dusty stuff we cling to…is perceived as such…fresh ingredients come to hand…

Recipes are available on-line also masterclasses!.. but is anyone the master of the mind? : )… see below

5th Sept, this Saturday, as mentioned under events here and on the Simplybeing.co.uk website.

also this Sunday, 6th Sept, Dissolving The Enemies Of Love – Talk – Sunday, 09/06
10:00 – 17:30 (London Time) details as above.

The Three Points of Garab Dorje

Some of us were fortunate enough enough to  hear James teaching  over the last weekend

 

Afterwards I wrote this down to celebrate:

 

In gratitude for Garab Dorje’s Three Points

 

Our infinite spacious hospitality, 

seam-less with phenomena

 

arising and passing ceaselessly…

 

Wow!
 

Our real home – yet, no ‘thing’ to see  

wisdom beyond concepts  

no tensions of identity

 

Wow! again… Wow!

 

This empty ground of ‘you’ and ‘me’…??? 

Forgetting this we’re  

lost in ways which hide the key  

 

so busy making ‘You!’ and ‘Me!’ 

out to be what we are not, 

clinging to thoughts with certainty.

 

Habits  and intellectual chicanery  

these blind us to ourselves, 

we want to ‘Know’, compulsively… 

 

…so round and round we go in misery.  

Locked in our ‘selves’, we’ll not get free  

using these bent samsaric keys.  

 

‘Ow!’ ‘Ow!’ ‘Ow!’

 

Homage then, now, eternally 

to the truth reminders 

of empty indivisibility.  

 

Pointing to space, to true reality  

the mind itself, 

the greatest gift, our unseen key. 

 

So lucky ducks – that’s you and me  

with practice find ourselves  

relaxed, at home, united with our mum! 

 

Released from yearning, breathing easily 

no place to find, no thing to grasp  

how simple we can be… 

 

…freed within life’s complexity! 

 

Emaho ! 

Wonderful !!! 

and time for another cup of tea !!!! 

There’s a great team working on the recordings and they will soon be up on the James Low You Tube video channel…If you check in there you’ll find plenty to keep you going until then. 

 

There is also the Macclesfield Talk 9 for an earlier explanation – Refuge is liberation – Garab Dorje’s Three Points as the
essence of refuge –  From fusion   to dualistic intention      to
non-dual liberation
Nov 2008           audio       videos  (x3)
Picture of grab Dorje: creative commons Wikipedia chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com 

Zoom Talk James Low : Ignorance, prejudice and cruelty

‘In a world where vulnerability often evokes cruelty rather than kindness it is helpful to remember the Buddha’s teachings on how ignorance arises, and from it, the mental dullness which leads to selfishness, complacency and indifference. If we are to avoid a wish to blame others and seek revenge then it is vital that we see the absence of inherent existence in both persecutor and victim. Loving kindness is powerful when linked to the awareness of how our mind actually is.’

This talk is on wednesday

June 10 @ 6:30 pm8:40 pm BST

and organised at short notice so I’m highlighting it here…check under Events on the Simplybeing website for details.

If you can listen i’m sure  you will find it very helpful…

In this cartoon…credit …. it’s the case that there is one big realisation, one genuine fact, which makes the scales redundant.

Not knowing who we or others truly are we act out from our cherished certainties but, being blindfolded by them, we miss the point.

Working through my own life-experience, in the face of recent provocation from an old but unresolved situation,  this same realisation that James will speak of on wednesday properly ‘penny dropped!’ for me only yesterday.

So maybe it would be helpful to share, in a rambling way, some of my moves towards this realisation.

I had a Christian upbringing which taught me to turn the other cheek… to the extent that I lost feeling in that cheek and ‘head turned away’ became an habitual position!

‘Do as you would be done by’, ‘ Give and do not count the cost’ (‘to whom and why’..had fallen away here) and many other ideas about ‘true love’ and the nature of marriage had been taken in as veridical, and these defined my behaviour.

As I later learned… no habitual position will be appropriate and attuned in response to the ever-changing display of the world.

Freeing up from that has been part of growing up… out of a self/other imposed chrysalis or framework I relied upon to guide my behaviour…and also, very slowly, a release from judgment of karmically driven behaviours – my own and others.

As I extracted myself from that system, with no thought of revenge but with a strongly held notion of fairness, I was shocked to discover that belief in this and my interpretation of it, something I assumed was central to people I  felt close to and by assumed extension, all ‘good’ people, was in fact both personal to me and more than a little naïve.

So I found myself reeling at this late discovery and my, once firm foundations, in the house of relative compassion – I am happy when others are happy…I  want others to be happy, therefore I will do my best to please, to facilitate ease for others, to care for others… I will always be kind and not upset anyone or try to take anything for myself…that’s the best way to be! – were shaken. As you can see appreciation of the potential breadth and profundity of compassion was missing and my knowledge of the operation of karma in relative reality, non-existent.

That this way of being might be exploited or undervalued just hadn’t occurred to me.
That, through my own limited behaviours, I might be implicated in the resulting unpleasant situations, was an insight which dawned… slowly. The ego does not like to see how very foolish it can be!

Although, by great good fortune a moment of experience kept me welded to the dharma-track… the behaviour arising from from abiding in the truth of the realisation of the non-duality and empty nature of self and other, was way over the horizon!

Many right-minded people (in my opinion, at the time!)  might have come to the same conclusion as me as to what was fair…but clearly different notions of fairness are in operation…. some more self-serving than others…

Taking advantage of others stupidity seems wise to some…behaviour will depend on the view held at the time and the opportunity to act from that…and that’s just how it is in samsara.  Complaining or agonising that others are not ‘as I think they should be’… is activity based on opinions and not at all helpful. There is no magic wand to change the ideas of another…and lacking a deep dharma view, such an intention may just give energy to the seeming solidification of the polarisation of duality. Are ‘good’ ideas inherently better than ‘bad’ ones?

I see things as I do depending on the strength and inclusions/faults/distortions in the karmic lenses in front of my eyes… others are wearing different glasses…different makes of hearing aids/filters.

So for me to say ‘You need to see it my way’… is an aggressive statement coming from my ego. ‘Why  can’t you see it my way?’… the answer is obvious… because your lenses are different!

Can I really knock someone’s glasses off and give them mine to wear instead?  Would they be able to see through them, or want to wear them? If there’s any air of superiority about my glasses that distortion means they would not be so helpful anyway.

Most likely the egoic push-back will be ‘Get off me… these are my glasses! I can see perfectly well… thanks!

I was once told by an antique dealer that ‘a willing buyer and a willing seller makes a fair trade’. But is it fair if you, the buyer, can recognise the hallmark as silver but the seller cannot?…or if you know that a piece of furniture has been cobbled together but the purchaser does not?

The belief depends on which thoughts your sense-of-self (itself a bunch of thoughts) identifies with. ‘I buy and sell antiques… I have rent and petrol to pay… a family to feed… care home fees for my elderly mother… I need to make a profit to survive. You want some money for your antique… I will offer you this much… you can accept or not.’ That’s fair, isn’t it?’

When King Trison Detsen became buddhist he looked at his kingdom and was shocked by the material inequalities he saw. So he tried to introduce fairness  by gathering in all the material goods and redistributing them more equally.

At the end of the year he checked, expecting to be satisfied with a more ‘Buddhist’ situation… and was surprised to find that  the equality had not been maintained. He had two more goes at acting on the situation before realising that there  were more factors in play than he could control…the karma of others being one of them, dependant co-origination another!

You might enjoy a look at these different views of the character of Shylock in Shakespeare’s the Merchant of Venice…[my notion that fairness was a natural outcome available under the legal system was also laid waste to during my late ‘adolescence’.]

At one point I had the notion that there were jailers and prisoners… and those who acted to liberate.
Having compassion for the prisoners, feeling the misery of their situation, I wanted to be a liberator!!!
Then I saw that the jailers were also prisoners…that good and bad were not separable but one arises upon the ascription of the other… and that we are complex in our showing, so simple terms don’t cut the mustard!
then that liberation does not come through becoming anything…

The polarisation of discrimination between those labelled by us as virtuous and unvirtuous… with its attendant aversion accentuates the artificial divisions of the world and will inevitably circumscribe our lovingkindness… with it’s warm welcome of ‘however you are it’s okay’ as basic…

The historical Buddha taught that praise and blame, profit and loss, pleasure and sorrow, fame and infamy come and go like the wind… (is this not true?)…so to be happy remain rooted like a great tree in the midst of it all.

Rooted in what?  In none of  the above obviously …nor the soil…but in the ground.
In the ground of the open spaciousness of your ungraspable actuality…in wisdom.

Another version is:

“Praise and blame,
gain and loss,
pleasure and pain,
fame and disrepute
are the eight worldly winds.
They ceaselessly change.

As a mountain is
unshaken by the wind,
so the heart/mind of a person
is unmoved
by all the changes on this earth.”

I’ve added  /mind   to this version otherwise it can look as though a a profound lack of sensitivity is indicated.
The heart/mind is unchanging and stable – wisdom. Compassion arising from that is very sensitive to the presenting situation… and more tolerant of phenomena knowing their self-arising and self-liberating nature.

With this the desire to control is dissolved and whatever comes comes and whatever goes goes…this sense of ease is not dependent on external factors. Interactions grounded in that easy view lack the tension which is the dis-ease of samsara and so are healing without intention.

So this love arising from wisdom heals the sense of separation arising from these artificial divisions and is of a very different order/quality than conditional love which arises dependent upon behaviours, or habitually through a sense of attachment and appropriation.

For myself…  a squillion squenchy thoughts and feelings may arise…including the desire to control…but arise…and pass.
My invitation to a different way of relating, by being both different and equal as guests in this world, may ‘cut no ice’…
but since encountering the dharma, over the years i have learned that despite the resonance of habitual pattens and tendencies to tighten… not responding as some fix-ed ‘thing’ to some other pre-defined ‘thing’ is always available as potential through softening and opening without solidity.

‘Nothing is better than something because something is always nothing anyway’…takes all the heat out of it!
..and, koan-like, did my head in when i first heard that from James…so many years ago!

While you’re here I invite you to put all your own worries aside and see how projection, combined with an uniquely limited view of external perfection, and an unwillingness to accept that a situation cannot be manipulated as desired, brings suffering to two healthy adults in otherwise relatively easy life circumstances:

Spare a thought for the suffering!

My neighbour’s neighbour’s life you see
is being ruined by a tree
A tree she finds so deeply ugerlee…!

Yet neighbour, guardian-owner of the tree
has come to see it differently
…and thus arises misery.

Oh woe is she…!!!
She so much wishes it were dead
it’s taken root inside her head!

It’s darkness makes her act things out
though, being ‘genteel’, she won’t shout..

Covering her fence with anti-virus cloth,
black, on both sides
incurs artistic neighbours wrath

also as she
wants details of propinquity!
You slept with him? You must tell me!
Contaminated you may be…

Neighbour removes cloth forcibly…

etc.

The buddha’s equanimity…
present yet absent
in this lunacy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sisters……. in non-duality

 

In jealousy and foolish pride

greed hatred and delusion

we immolate our peace of mind

and suffer in confusion

 

Old fears and anguish quake the heart,

in place of ease a tightness comes –

releasing this …A…ཨ…o p e n n e s s

reveals the sameness of our “bones”

 

Each moment of our life will pass

as fresh or turbid waters

we have a choice…

in letting go

we are the the buddha’s daughters

 

 

 

‘Sisters under the skin’  could be this pictures title

of course ‘brothers/sons’ fit too – it just doesn’t rhyme as well!

I wrote this poem many years ago after some turbulent interactions helped me see how quickly I could still become enmeshed in reactivity.

People we find difficult to relate to are priceless for showing  us our ‘pinch points’ or unresolved bruises, and then we can notice the depth of our limited, habitual, egoic response to freeze, withdraw or try to control the situation.

With this, the limited effectiveness of the scabs which act as a protective covering for old wounds is exposed. Picking at their edges is still painful…so there is incomplete healing.

Defensiveness, when there is some’thing’ to protect is a natural response… When there is directly seen to be no ‘thing’ as such,  then resting in the spaciousness of openness works to resolve the tension. The primary locus of perspective is inclusive rather than individuated.

With this, the edges of the wound are brought together and the pain of separation, of being a truly separate other with the fear of annihilation by definition, is healed.

This may sound like a ‘happy ever after’ story… but it’s certainly not the case that all interactions then flow easily. But maybe more easily than they otherwise might because…
as the defensiveness of the ego decreases there is more of a sense of innate inclusion and with that sense, warmth increases and the defrosted softness allows other possibilities of engagement to come to mind.

There is space for the situation to evoke, rather than a habit which provokes, the response.

A screwdriver for a screw… a hammer for a nail…but ‘me’ as something rigidly defined is not useful for very much…!

We are all scions, reflections of the buddha-mind.
It’s in not seeing, recognising, realising that sameness…with that an absence of fixed internal/external definition….that self-other definition increases and the divisions of the world arise.

 

 

Photo creative commons Write Well Daily

This perspective may help …

and hopefully will do no harm!

 

Once, in a talk James said… ‘keep your dosh in your pocket, sit on your bum and get enlightened!

That’s pretty simple eh?… but it doesn’t happen so often.

So many distractions, emotional obscurations, karmic propensities limit the time on the cushion…
and then the time spent there, although different in location posture and initial intention, is often not so very different from ‘samsaric-time’ off the cushion.
Time is spent fusing with arisings and chewing on them. Sitting there making ‘something’ from nothing – as if that were possible…waiting for it to be over, falling asleep…drifting.

It can be so very hard to let go of old habits…
Although, in believing in, validating and identifying with thoughts we give up our freedom, feel locked-up and suffer the consequences, because they feel ‘just right’ – there’s no questioning them, whether snug and cosy like wrapping up a soft cardigan or putting the usual straight jacket. What to do?…What I usually do!

Yet in this lifetime, as meditators, the goal is to realise our true nature. To succeed we need good teachings, and good examples, application and time. We are so lucky to have the first two for sure, the third to a lesser or greater degree depending on circumstances, the fourth i’m hoping to influence a bit with this article.

We need time to see how we obstruct ourselves; time to have our ‘bum on the cushion’ sufficiently long for the knots to dissolve, and to look in the relaxed way and recognise the ground to which we apply our interpretive matrices

So my practical suggestions below will not cause you to  realise your pre-existing lightness… but  they may buy you just a little extra time for this realisation to occur!

Basic biological knowledge tells us that our nose is good at filtering out ‘stuff’ in the air we breathe. It also warms the air going down into our lungs so that the oxygen exchange there is more efficient.

Some more in-depth thinking and research has shown that nitric oxide is produced in the nasopharynx and that this gas has excellent anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-microbial effects (1)acting as first line of dense against micro-organims.
This article (2) Nasal nitric oxide in man – Thorax BMJ suggests that a function of  nitrous oxide  is to keep the sinuses sterile under ordinary conditions. Nitrous oxide also has an effect on the ability of haemoglobin to release oxygen (3).

Severely afflicted Covid patients, until they become very weak, have no difficulty in breathing…so oxygen is getting down into the lungs…yet they present as breathless. The problem is that the oxygen is not able to be utilised for exchange in the normal way.
Lately this realisation has been having an impact on when and how ventilation is offered …seeing that increased pressure is not the answer and may increase damage to lungs which are particularly fragile in this state.
A New York ER/ICU doctor who had noticed how different this condition was from anything he had seen before voiced the idea  of the use of nitrous oxide…and maybe he is onto something.

Certainly (2) nasal air(containing NO) added to the ventilation of intubated patients increases oxygenation and decreases vascular resistance. Although its rôle in inflammation is not really known and is debatable, this article in thorax leans towards the beneficial.
Long-term ventilation can result in cilliary dysfunction and bacterial infection both of which effects, it suggests, may be mitigated by the addition of nitric oxide.

So, particularly under current circumstances, it makes good sense for us to utilise the nitric oxide produced in the nasopharynx to cleanse the incoming air for our own benefit… and the outgoing air for the benefit of others. Also to ‘disinfect’ the lower lungs (which is where maximal exchange occurs) and to maximise the efficiency of oxygen exchange.

If you breathe through the mouth these beneficial effects are bypassed (and diminished if you smoke)… so, if you are able, it’s much better to use the nose for breathing at all times… including exercise and… sleep … (do ask if you are interested in this or any other aspect!)

Also the benefits of using a surgical mask will be greater if you breathe like this… and it is a good reason, if you make your own, for ensuring that it is not so dense that you cannot breathe sufficiently easily through your nose that you start to breathe through your mouth to get more air. We can survive on less breath than we imagine (see below).

There is another factor to consider… that is the rate of breathing. Aiming for a soft, slow, and light (ssl!) even flow … yet taking the air down deep – to make the lower ribs move in and out slightly…
The  concentration of nitric oxide is higher at lower flow rates (2) So this way, which may seem like underbreathing if you are used to taking big breaths, may not only be perfectly adequate but may concomitantly increase oxygen exchange by not over-saturating with oxygen.

You can match the flow of breath to a mantra, or to the increasing breathing timing (4 6 4 etc), or Tong Len, or just allow the flow to flow. The breath will naturally regularise if you practice shiné …… as explained with other practices in James low’s latest zoom videos on How to make use of solitude.

Simple mindfulness of the breath…noticing as it comes and goes… takes you out of thinking, brings you into the present, is relaxing and increases the capacity for non-distracted attention to the boring…! so we are not so easily seduced by ‘exciting’ arisings

and maybe buys… not so much, more days for ‘fun in the sun’… but maybe some extra time for sitting on the bum!!!

 

P.S. I have a bit of a cough at the moment but rather then express it to no point, i’m holding my nose for a few secs. then breathing in… seems to do the trick just now…(though to match this with the very reasonable ‘keep hands away from face’ instructions… you’d be keeping up with the hand washing instructions, ideally before and after!)

I thank Patrick Mackeown for that tip and some of the other ideas around breathing… in a video offering breathing techniques for covid prevention/ recovery… there are others on the advantages of nasal breathing for asthma and athletes. His training for athletes…effectively taking them three miles high to practice… linked in my mind with the E.R.doctors sense that some patients seemed to be like those suffering from altitude sickness.

Whilst some of our notions, particularly of the purpose of meditation, may differ… his words like mine, are i’m sure, well intentioned gestures in the flow…arising and passing… with meaning (if any) imbued by the mind of the listener
Being calm and clear, breathing well, facilitates relaxation and ease with whatever circumstances arise for us.

 

P.P.S.Humming may clear the nasal passages….(and produce nitrous oxide). There’s some pubmed research on that which you can google if you like…i’m done googling, it can swallow a lot of time, this just seemed worthwhile… off to dinner and my cushion

P.P.P.S! The photo i found in my album… entitled ‘Go without regrets’…sounds good to me. Just built a ramp for the mouse to exit under the defunct dishwasher but sounds like he wants to use the back door…   Thanks to whoever sent that to me or, if i filched it in my ignorance, apologies and please let me know if you are unhappy and i will remove it. Looks good the other way up too, i think.