Monthly Archives: April 2016

Dheepan

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4628In one of James’ Macclesfield talks he invited us to imagine what it would feel like be to be a wee kid in Pakistan speaking Urdu and with a large connected family fully embedded in that culture who is uprooted when his family comes to England.

I couldn’t imagine what that would feel like but this film brought me a little closer – a ‘put together’ family ( a way of using a dead families passport)  fleeing the fighting in Sri Lanka  is followed as they try to find their way as refugees in a foreign country.

As a Native American Indian saying goes you have to walk for two moons in someone else’s mocassins before you can judge them – (and then your understanding of their situation would be so great that you wouldn’t!)

The loss of everything which seemed to comprise your identity is gone, can be turned to nothing, no value, no use, in fact sometimes the opposite in this different setting. A completely foreign language, religion, culture, politics, schooling, family relationships,etc. to get used to and to try to work with. Its a phenomenal undertaking for someone in good physical mental and financial health –  rarely the luck of refugees!

The film does evoke some question marks well covered i think in this review:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/apr/20/dheepan-immigration-depiction-selective-jacques-audiard-multiracial-france

 

Oh Man!

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Yes we can…Moon

Put a man on the moon

make an outside womb,

change DNA

……..? blow hatred away?

There’s a muffled response ( ‘cos the heads up the arse)

‘Oh, leave peace to the doves!  Let’s find life….

up on Mars!’

wendy, april 2016

 

In 2006 foreign correspondent Christina Lamb and the soldiers of the British parachute regiment she was accompanying on a ‘hearts and mind mission’ in Afghanistan was  pinned down in a series of irrigation trenches by fire from a Taliban ambush. The British soldiers were very skilled but, after two and a half hours under fire, excitement was turning to desperation….the air power required for them to make their escape was not available, being fully deployed elsewhere. Eventually they were liberated by an attack from the air which killed the dozen Taliban who had them pinned down. The soldier responsible said ‘we blew them into red mist’

I’m not going to play around with words… for me, time stood still at the impact of those words.

 

Man, it seems, is pretty good at desire, including the desire for knowledge, and also at hatred…but how about being human?

The dharma speaks of the resolution of desire in the satisfaction arising from experiencing the emptiness or openness of all manifestations whilst fully appreciating the differences in which they display, or manifest.

From the Dhammapada comes…’We are what we think, all that we are arises with out thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world….

….In this world hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law ancient and inexhaustible. Knowing this, how can you quarrel?

Give up the old ways – passion, enmity,folly. Know the truth and find peace.’

 

 

 

Extracted from Wikipedia: In 2013 Christina Lamb co-authored the autobiography of Malala Yousafzai “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education and Was Shot By The Taliban”[2] In the same year, Lamb joined the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars as a Wilson Center Global Fellow.[3] Her latest book entitled “Farewell Kabul” exhaustively details her many years in Afghanistan and Pakistan offering a close up account of the long war and its many missed opportunities on the part of the US on account of its tortured relationship with Pakistan. Her book essentially lays the problems of terrorism in the region, if not in the world, on that country’s door.[4]

Plenty of dependant co-origination here!

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who-is-responsible-for-the-taliban gives a view of that complex situation from another angle.

The scent of bluebells… or bullshit?

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Something fresh for you..Bluebell_aka_Hyacinthoides_non-scripta

Recently I was talking with someone and we were imagining the notion of sitting inside  a lotus bud, in a pure–land, hearing the Dharma bells sweetly singing of ways to the truth as we surely grow into buddha-hood…(ok you have to use your imagination for this!)

…and then contrasting that with a common position in samsara where we have climbed inside a dustbin to keep safe and then pulled the lid down tight on top of us. The sights smells and sensations are… ummm…rather different.

Then tidying up some paperwork yesterday I came across a few lines of James’ –                                      “if you believe in conceptual elaboration, if you believe that the creativity of your own mind is telling the truth about the world, you will delude yourself and stay in the staleness of the repetition of your own mental confectionery!”– and the thought of the ego burping away as it chews on all the old beliefs and certainties makes life inside the dustbin seem even less attractive!

 

 

Taxing reminder!

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So long as people give priority to material values then injustice, corruption, inequity, intolerance and greed – all the outward manifestations of neglect of inner values – will persist.

(H.H. the Dalai Lama)

Of the many words attributed to the Dalai Lama some seem much more likely than others… but who could argue with the truth of this?

Sayings to sustain …

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0d8de815c3660fc9c166e5a6f92515306c26dc6dWe have met with the true dharma teachings…how lucky!

We have the body we need, with the capacity to understand these teachings and put them into practice….how amazing!

But these  circumstances, as with everything else, are only here for a while, things will inevitably change.

“You see, we are all dying.It’s only a matter of time. Some of us just die sooner than others.” (Kalu Rinpoche)

So, life grows shorter not longer everyday.

“I ask myself why we do not practice, just for those few moments of time in which death has lent us our bodies.” (Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche)

“If not now, then when?”  …   “our problem is that we think we have time”

and…if by the time you get to this point this you are feeling a little unsettled….well…

“We can always begin again!”…..i’ve used that myself so often!                                                … always beginning again. Whatever happened in the meantime when i was disturbed or lost in some way has gone and now is a fresh start.

 

It  has been said that, in trying to let go of the identification and fusion with our constructed sense of self, we are engaged in something similar to trying to pull out a hair which has been churned into a lump of butter.

Because the hair we are trying to remove has been twisted and folded within the butter pat as it was pounded and patted into shape… if we pull too tight the hair will snap and we won’t succeed but if we don’t exert enough pressure then nothing changes.

We need a certain grip and just the right amount of exertion sustained through time in order to succeed….and the middle way is not in the middle. Sometimes it seems to the left, sometimes to the right…sometimes more effort, sometimes less…balancing and rebalancing moment by moment.

With a tendency to try too hard i’ve been learning that when i’m at ease in the doing of whatever it is, then i’m more likely to be hitting the sweet spot – working in a way which is sustainable and in harmony with my state and the other factors in play. Also there’s a greater likelihood that i’m attending to what actually needs to be done rather than getting ‘stuck in’ …So now, being hungry, its time to stop this writing for the practise of dinner!