Wendy

Medicine, meditation and mindfulness

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fitness2It’s maybe a bit personal – the story and the opinions – it feels a little strange to write, but perhaps this reflection will be helpful or encouraging to someone reading it.

When I was a child my main experience of trouble with health was mouth–ulcers ( lucky me).

In my late teens I added migraines (treated by a giant box of soluble aspirin courtesy of the NHS)

In my early 20s along came tooth–grinding and temporomandibular joint problems, fibroadenomatosis and irritable bowel disease (packets of Fibogel).

In my 30s  a period of gastro-oesophageal reflux ( Gaviscon)  had replaced the irritable bowel disease and fibroadenomatosis, along with recurrent dental infections ( lots of antibiotics), and an event of atrial fibrillation ( a bottle of beta-blockers)  also just a week of depression.
I am glad to have briefly experienced the depression because without it I would not have understood that bubble of bleakness, colour washed out, feeling of the pointlessness of existence.
In one of James’ talks he mentions working with people who are depressed and sometimes catching them out… making them laugh… showing them that it wasn’t a  continuous state. I think that really would have helped, but in my case I didn’t mention it, no one noticed it, so it went untreated and passed by itself – very lucky.

In my 40s… just ongoing dental infections and extractions.
But during this period i looked into my toolbox, the one I hoped would contain a solution to the other difficulties I was experiencing, but inside was just a bent nail.
Then a choice – one way led to the dharma the other to making silver jewellery. Happily the dharma won and led me to the explanations which James gave in the Macclesfield talks about how life comes to be as it is, and the part we play in this. These were revelatory and later gave me the wherewithal to see circumstances more clearly and develop a range of responses well beyond what I had imagined were possible.

In my early 50s with relocation and dislocation came bladder infections and then atrial fibrillation and flutter which had me hospitalised and discharged on beta-blockers for life.
I had been to medical school and had a particular view of illness as just a bodily malfunction but following the heart problem I picked up a book in an Oxfam shop. It was a book which normally I would have been a bit sniffy about  – The wisdom of Menopause by  Dr Christine Northrup. I was a bit snobby about the strap-line ‘as featured on Oprah’ but that was a mistake, all kinds of things can act as tools to open us up…and there’s lot’s useful information within. That health is affected by so many factors…genetic, dietary, societal, mental, familial, environmental made perfect sense. All of this, in buddhism, comes under karma…due to causes and conditions it’s like this…what happens now is the fruition of past events.
I started to read about the connection between life-force, conditioning, and health and thought ‘oh my goodness’ I see… problems with my heart….!!!  and the words of warning … ‘Grow or die’ were speaking to me just as they did to her.
This with many other factors came together so that  later, when i realised my heart  couldn’t go on, in the nick of time, I finally released myself from unworkable circumstances.
Luckily by this point wisdom had been glimpsed, so desperate thoughts could move through, and the great warmth of dharma compassion and support of friends meant that what could otherwise have been an annihilating rupture in circumstances was certainly a very difficult patch… but one which eventually, following the dharma, opened me out to myself and the world.  Heartfelt! thanks to those who helped in this.

So that was my luck in my first half-century. The following decade has been good. Now in my nearly 60s I’m very well and not on any medication though I’m not taking health or life for granted… the seeds of decay will flower naturally!!!

Looking at my life from this vantage point it’s clear that all the medical interventions had an effect on the symptoms yet did not address the underlying cause of the problems. Each ailment was treated medically as an isolated random occurrence  yet each, I would say, was triggered by or sustained by stressors in the environment and by my response, or lack of response, to them – this resulting from the embodied tensions, the stresses and neurotic patterning that I was carrying from the past…the underlying disease showing itself in different ways.

I was recently speaking with a prominent dentist in this neck of the woods who was very happy to include, from observation, stress as a major factor in those recurrent dental infections where dental hygiene is good…  certainly as circumstances changed and I became more alive the infections disappeared.

The situation with the heart was interesting. I had the luck to make a follow-up appointment, not having received one, with the consultant I thought had looked after me. I got the wrong name but as it turned out the right person. He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him, but he decided on conservative measures so I would gradually come off the beta-blockers with the intention of returning for hospital treatment as necessary.  I was very glad to do this as they acted like a veil and slowed me down.

In the last decade, since changing my life, I have had only two episodes of A.F. neither of which required medical treatment. The first of these occurred in the same way as the initial event… physical activity suddenly going from zero to a thousand volts…this time finding myself dancing solo to South African music in front of a church audience!  Afterwards I realised that my heart hadn’t returned to normal. It was late and rather than go to hospital I decided to try and meditate through the night to see if I could bring it back to normal rhythm. An ECG the following morning showed that there had indeed been an event but there was just a slight residue… it was resolved.

The second occurred when a friend spoke violently of suicide or attack and that literally made my heart jolt. This time it took an evening of paying particular attention to the breath, long and slow, and other practices to bring things  back to stability. We certainly affect each other physically by our words and tone of voice as well as looks but in my experience both the impact and the refractory period can be militated by the lack of rigidity/solidity which can be realised through meditative practice.

Mindfulness, as it is now offered, might have helped me in earlier life…brought me water–wings in the swamp, or a piece of cork on which to rest my chin – some refuge – and might have led to other changes… but, being dualistic, could not not in itself bring about liberation from the root cause of suffering.
As I see it, and I have done a mindfulness teacher-training, it can bring about a re-connection with the senses, coming out of the spiralling thoughts… and attention to the thoughts and to the breath in various ways, and some lovely poetry to open the mind… all of which can be very helpful and healing.
The qualities of the healer are important for effective healing to take place and John Kabat-Zin and Saki Santarelli were very good at this, their programs were successful. They offered a high degree of relatedness and also brought a depth of experience, compassion and long personal practice as mediators to what they offered… that’s hard to replicate.
The group work done in mindfulness programs can be very beneficial, but when it is offered as the packaged panacea for so many of the problems arising from samsaric existence, things have gone awry. Recently I heard of overworked, hard-pressed, psychiatric nurses on the point of breakdown being offered expensive mindfulness courses as the response to their distress. It  was no solution…again, it might help with the symptoms but not the cause.

What to do with the opening up which can occur with mindfulness, how that is worked with, is at the root of some of the negative case reports in the media. If it were still part of the well tested training system from which it was extracted there would be the wealth of experience of those who had practised deeply, in a continuity of thousands of years, to rely on for support. On one mindfulness course I attended a woman was crying, very upset by the discovery that she  was ‘not her thoughts’. This distress was met with…. that must be very scary!
….whereas the dharma would say… Bravo! now you can start to get free. If you are not your thoughts (and I am not mine)…. and i am not my body(and you are not yours)…yet we are here…what are we here as?

It’s not that these meditations on the nature of the mind, the nature of the self, are intended to or will in themselves prevent disease… but with waking up a bit also comes more consciousness of ‘locking and tightening up’ and the held, embodied, rigidities. Releasing as you go along and, for example, Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Five rhythms dancing, massage, Rolfing …lots of ways to shift the stuckness can be used alongside the meditation to get more of a free flow of energy through the body…and with that comes a natural increase in vitality.

 

P.S.Just a smile… A woman who runs a charity shop looks at me and says… ‘Oh i know i should switch to decaffeinated tea!’…. Why?
‘I have high blood pressure’…. Have you cut down on salt?… ‘yes, i don’t have any’.
She’s carrying a few extra pounds and her feet swell up…so how about exercise? ‘I don’t do any’.
She’s already explained about some skirts she bought in charity shop on holiday, skirts that swish, that she wants to fit into.  Ok, so how about dancing? ‘Oh i was a dancer’…explain about the inclusive and welcoming dance improvisation and five rhythms group in Exeter…’i’m coming!’ …..

 

 

 

 

Cutting through the karmic knots… (2)

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alexcuttinggordionknotSo it seems that, as human beings, our sense of self is formed through identifying with a mass of little ‘thought knots’, of energetic kinks twists and shapings.
One little thought, ‘i’, links out to many other thoughts about ‘me’.  By giving these thoughts our attention as being particular to – and definitional of – ourselvelves they become beliefs… and so the knots tighten and seem more solid.
This constructed, conditioned, false, sense of self appears to be the natural, only and inevitable ground for our behaviours…but this is a movement within the mind, identifying with movement, and linking/ knotting together. And if we act with that as the basis – with a solid real sense of ‘I’ as something separate, disconnected from the rest – then one effect of this karmic activity will be to re-inforce these beliefs.

To untie a knot usually you have to loosen it… the space within and without the knot allows for this…then you can see how the loops have overlapped and gently tease them apart.

As a child I spent hours untying the knots in the line on my father’s fishing reels, sometimes working pins into them to get some movement and open them up a bit. When these knots were released the stretching and tension in the line had often caused kinks around which new knots would form, either during the untangling or when the line was next cast.

However the dharma truth is that in the spaciousness of awareness, unlike knots in fishing line, karmically generated knots can untie themselves…completely.

When Alexander the great was starting his ‘career’ he needed to win an initial battle to give his troops confidence. Nearby was the town of Gordia and there was a prophecy that whomsoever could undo the ‘Gordian knot’ would have victory over all of Asia. Alexander saw this as  key to his future success but the knot was incredibly complicated – formed from a number of knots with the ends tucked inside. It had been created by King Gordius a hundred years previously, in honour of Zeus, and it bound together the shaft and the yoke of the ox–cart in which Gordius had travelled into the city (a prerequisite to fulfilling the prophecy of Zeus and being recognised as the next ruler).

In one version of this story, Alexander struggled for some time at the side of the ox-cart trying to undo this knot then, in frustration at being thwarted, he just drew his sword and cut right through it.

I used to think he cheated…but it did the job!

In another version, he simply pulled out a lynchpin running through the yoke, thus loosening the knot sufficiently for him to tease it apart.

Either way he went on from there to win the first of many battles!

In dharma terms cutting through the knot could be likened to sudden enlightenment; removing the pin to a direct introduction to the nature of the mind – You have suddenly changed address (as the Maltese say of the deceased) and yet the heart is still beating.

There are practices for liberation from the false sense of identity – the investigative work around the question of who we really are, beyond the stories we and others hold about ourselves, loosens the grip on the knots. The absorption of  light, dissolving into light, and concentrated diminution of that light into the emptiness of the dharmadatu releases the attachment to a sense of solidity..and the three ‘A’ meditation releases the knottiness into infinite space.
This process is likened, in Tibet, to pulling a hair out of a pat of butter. If the pat of butter is very cold this is impossible to do but, by massaging in the warmth of the dharma, the pat softens… and then, with gentle but firm ongoing effort it is possible. Having the curiosity to look at our selves is essential but looking in a very kindly way for otherwise we won’t do it. We won’t want to look to see what we are up to if we think we are going to be revealed to ourselves as the ‘Bad One’, nor will we bother if we think we are already the ‘Good One’ – we’ll prefer a distraction to finding our true self.
If we know for sure, either from experience or because we have faith that the teachers know what they’re talking about, that  actually there is no ‘Bad One’ to be found, then we can gently proceed with the process of revelation. Unlike with unwrapping an Egyptian “mummy” the result will not disappoint – lightness, flexibility, humour for starters

And once the unchanging ground of all is known, the knotted up–tight ego-self is revealed as a limiting fixation which softens to a function, not a big issue, as the previous reliance upon it for definition is relaxed.
The thoughts relating to that ‘structure’ go free and the knots unravel…deconstructing the  ‘me-self-knot nut–house!’ .

 

Untying karmic knots… dharma, love (1)

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16261-62_nuts_for_knots_bow_tugger_copyFollowing on from the previous post…. Understanding both the meaning and purpose of ‘ being tender towards your ‘self’ was a bit of struggle for me.  Though our particular knots will surely be tied in different ways, perhaps sharing some thoughts on that struggle might be helpful.

in James’s commentary to the  treasure text of Nuden Dorje  in the book Being Right Here  he speaks of a kindly investigation into the self.

He talks of making friends with yourself, kissing yourself, and tickling yourself until you start to relax… and then he says… if you become very good at it, you can make love with yourself and you will become all dissolved and then you don’t cause yourself any more trouble!

Blimey!!! I thought when i read that… I have no doubt that he knows exactly what he’s talking about; it sounds good but I haven’t a clue how to set about doing that. That was a paragraph I couldn’t make much sense of for years…  It helped when I realised that the self he is referring to here is the wobbly ‘I am – ego-thought structure’ with which we are prone to identify…and it being taken care of by the hospitality of our true self. Gradually it came together around seeing how the karmic knots, from which the wobbly self-sense is formed, are created and how they can untie.

If someone is all knotted up and anxious…. how would you treat them? Would you tell them they are stupid? Would you order them to relax? Would you tell them that they are hopeless?
Say a child has badly hurt themselves but is so scared that they won’t let you look at the damage… how would you be with them? I think probably soothing, gentling  and tender and giving confidence that, whatever the situation, fundamentally it will be ok,  you can work through it for the best outcome. Firstly though you have to help them relax.

If you would naturally do this for someone else… would it be possible to consider applying the same kind of tenderness to your self? If not there’s something weird going on, isn’t there?

This weirdness might be to do with unconsidered false divisions and certainties – I am an individual and I deem myself worthy of this particular  treatment, so this is how I will treat myself – you are also an individual who I consider  worthy of that particular treatment, so that is how I will treat you. But in fact what is happening here is that I am imagining you, and  imagining me (by applying my biased views  to our unique revelations) and then I am bringing into the situation whatever I have learned, or just feel is suitable, from what I have picked up along the way. Within this view behaviour is dualistic, determined by concepts, and there is no understanding of dependent co-origination nor of the freshness which arises directly from openness.
But, in what is referred to as  the ‘false relative’ in the book Simply Being, this is our normal, worldly, way of proceeding.

Overt habitual kindness is not the most attuned or beneficial way of being, but leaving that aside, if we are practising harshness with ourselves most of the time, as we switch into a different role with others and try to be kind it’s hard to see how that could be a genuinely responsive move. Maybe sometimes, but it is hardly flowing and innate, is it?

There is a Taoist saying about governing a large country ( which is rather what our ego-self resembles, with all its multiple states) it says… ‘like with frying small fish… too much poking spoils the meat.’
All the critical checking of behaviours causes more problems, more anxiety, more sense of being separate and ‘less than’… but in Dzogchen we’re not trying to govern, the practice is to dissolve or resolve these aspects within the infinity of openness. Softness and tenderness to yourself, rather than poking and prodding, are key to this profound relaxation.

If you can be tender then you will be able to get closer to yourself, the defences will drop a bit, and you’ll be able to see what kind of nonsense you’re up to.  Being kind could be seeing  “Oh there  I go again – (repeating a karmically created pattern)… maybe not so useful, done this a few times before”… ” never mind; relax… open… begin again”… rather than the harsh attacking recriminations to which we often subject ourselves.  With the softness and closeness comes the possibility of settling and relaxing the ego so it can let go into its proper place…with the harshness there is further reification of division and separation.

Mistakes are not so serious. if you can see them for what they are. After goodness knows how long of behaving in a certain way patterns are highly likely to recur, even with awareness,  for some time – there is such a karmic/energetic charge behind them. They will release, given space humour and tolerance, but not if we crowd in and judge.

Not putting yourself on the hook, but not taking yourself off it either… is one way James speaks of this in one of the Macclesfield talks. It is perfectly possible to discriminate and see what’s helpful without being judgemental.
So we ourselves are the laboratory for this very interesting investigation – the opposite of a Frankenstein creation. And if we can show this tolerance for ourselves on an ongoing basis, than it’s  possible to bring that forward as a way of relating to goings-on of the world.

P.S.There is now a Japanese robotic Sense-roid which is a torso and jacket which lets you hug yourself by returning the pressure and strokes which you give to it. I haven’t watched the video which is billed as disturbing…
The dharma teachings, if applied, do more than the business… but i think many robotics engineers would have trouble knowing what to make of them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paying tender attention to your cucumber – a Valentine’s day invitation.

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In the early days James once mentioned to me in a fleeting sentence that…

…. ‘when i could slice a cucumber…. then i would…grace.’

Both koans and cucumbers come in different shapes!

I can remember my thinking at the time…’Oh my goodness!…so i have all the grace of an elephant!’

Wrong thinking on many counts:

Firstly elephants are amazingly graceful in their movements…

Secondly James wasn’t really talking about physical gracefulness per se….

Thirdly it wasn’t a judgment about me…

…it was an invitation to see/be different.

images

That self-referential thought led to something helpful.

I watched myself slice a cucumber. Very quick…chop, chop chop… and swish the results into a bowl…onto the next thing… zip, zip

I could see the speed…grab the cucumber, grab the board and the knife and get the job done!
Speed and efficiency as priority plus the distraction of  unnecessary thinking (whether off-piste, pissed-off or bog-standard) precluded any real participation in, and enjoyment of, the process.

Yes, the slices were quite even, and no, i did not cut myself… but acting in this way i lost any sense of presence and also the offering of the cucumber…
Its texture, its ridges and asymmetry, its variegation in colour, its coolness, fresh scent, and glistening interior passed me by, as did the knife with its shiny blade, the balanced weight of the handle and its hardness, the arc of the knife as it moved through the air and the hand that was holding it…the warmth and the cool, the movement of the arm.
The way the slices pile up onto each other, then topple over…and the texture and warmth of the wooden board under the hand as the cucumber is slid off into the shining bowl…all these were lost to ‘goal–orientated chopping!”…
The  shape and weight of both the cucumber and the knife invite the hands into a different grips, but this and the relation of the activity to space…and everything else… just whizzed by me…

The task, for me, was something to be got out of the way as soon as possible…? in order to get on with something more important?… but if your practice is your life…exactly which bits, which moments, are unimportant?
If, as within samsara, the next moment is predicated on this one, surely this moment matters too…?

Remembering that it is ‘I’ (my little egoic thought–structure) who says this moment is ‘special’ or ‘rubbish’  could i move from this towards fully seeing each moment just it as it is?
It’s one thing to read about lack of inherent self-nature in phenomena, it’s another to directly experience the open ground of arisings, yet even then the tendency to impute has such a very long history behind it….

Rather than commenting on my deportment, I think James was positing the possibility of living a different kind of politeness, a politeness which is itself grace; gesturing towards an absolute welcome to each moment in its entirety. An appreciation completed if the moment is fully received…without prejudice.

A  soft attuned participation will surely come with that practice…rather than rushing through and pushing on…on to the next…and the next.   Each moment is entire; it is there just for you…as a revelation of the creativity of your mind.

Washing floors, opening doors,
taking the lid off the milk or cutting silk..
Present or absent? awake or asleep?
Noticing, noticing…the sense of separation… then remembering…the form and the senses are always ‘becoming’ together with everything…yet not becoming any ‘thing’ as such… within your unborn awareness.

If self and other come into being together a gentle enquiry could be appropriate….how friendly are you with the potato?….how tender towards your self?  ♥

 

 

Gift-horses…coming and going

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image-of-polio-virusWell if this ‘blog’ were about cats, with cute pictures of them crawling over the PC or dancing on the table then millions of people would enjoy…

As I’m able to see how many people look at this site (whether or not they enjoy it or find it helpful is a mystery) …i know it is not like Cats…  but it’s enough to make me feel that it’s worthwhile. I haven’t written for a bit as I did a little retreat over Christmas and then had the pleasure of entertaining the local virus in bed… interesting shapes they come in…(see left).

This was an ordinary kind of virus (rather than one of man’s engineered new ‘life forms’ – virus +injected DNA) and  dealt with by the immune system in its own good time. However because I use a voice recognition system – my typing is so slow – writing this was impossible for some time as it didn’t recognise my voice.

So I had some time to just be properly quiet… no point to try and do anything.

There I am propped up in bed… and happy, delighting in the fact that for dharma practitioners everything is an opportunity for practice. Being a bit woozy and just sitting up and meditating for hours was a situation occasioned by a virus…so thank you virus!

There are teachings e.g. from my mother… and the zen tradition (and dzogchen in a way) which suggests you say Thank You! for everything.  You do not ‘look a gift-horse in the mouth!’ Whatever it is…its this, and its here for you…’whether you like it or not’.

‘Whether you like it or not’ is what makes this tricky to practice…
It gets easier when you see that your opinion is kind of irrelevant; that you have choices around making this the main event; and that what you make of it can go many ways – depending on your karmic or dharmic outlook!

I used to be quite irritated by people who would announce ‘it’s a gift!’ into the face of someone who was struggling with an event. I don’t think that’s at all helpful, but if you know for yourself how to change your perspective when you are ‘sinking’  then you have options.

Saying ‘Thank you’, mentally or verbally, slows down the immediate reactivity and gives space to put the experience into a wider perspective…and more to the point there’s a softening that comes with acceptance.
This contrasts favourably for us, as we experience this in the body, with the narrowing and tightening which occurs with an attempt to reject the unwanted gift… and frustration at the impossibility of rejecting something which has already arrived.

You probably look at a gift quite carefully, with appreciation… ‘I didn’t necessarily ask for whatever this is, maybe it’s really not something I want at all… but here it is…hmm… Well, there will be different ways of working with it’… and with this more relaxed approach… the more relaxed I am the more I’ll be able to see and feel what these possible responses are.

Why is this ‘gift’ here just now, where did it come from?
Well you could probably say something…
You could look at some of the infinite number of factors that brought it about on the level of dependent co-origination…. but looking from a limited perspective you would only ever see a few of these …. so why bother even trying to work it out why, it’s usually far too complex!
Sometimes though it is useful to look, there may be something to be learned, something to change in the way of behaviour to alter an outcome if that’s what you want.
But is there really something to be done?
If so, what is it?… then do it.. If there is not – just leave it… it’s just like this and its ok.

I remember each time my daughter caught a cold, when she was very little, a relative would ask me ‘who gave that to her’? And sounding quite cross about it. I was so surprised by this…

I thought that, if actually I could ‘name names’, would she want me to go round and bop them on their (probably already sore) nose? It was not an intentional gift. But she’s not alone, I’ve heard other adults saying much the same, sometimes in annoyance and sometimes just as statements… ‘I got it from here or there’, ‘so-and-so had it and then I got it from him’, but what’s the point of that? even if they are, in part, correct… you can’t give it back!

The ‘use by date’ of this gift  is also something to look at seeing as you have some influence there.
The cold will go quickest if you take care of yourself – early nights, keeping warm, plenty of hot drinks.
But if say, you torture yourself with a continuous re-presentation of the horrors of the world, in fusing your energy with those thoughts then it’s quite possible that your immune system will also be compromised.
I was speaking with a lady today who is going to try comedy instead of horror for a while – she has been suffering off and on with a virus since October and has become hooked on watching horror films in the evening.

Sometimes you can go all the way around the houses with people who are upset and then find they are not actually interested in letting go of their sorry state.  ‘Well thank you, but I think I just need to sit some more with my anger/ depression.”

Well, I guess if you think you own it, then sitting with your very own ‘pile of pooh’ seems a valid thing to do!

Sure, pushing it away will make it stay (you’ll get it all over you) as in doing this you are validating the imagined ability of a thought, feeling, or sensation to overwhelm you. You energise it by your attention and make it act like a boomerang –  ‘I am going to  get rid of this ‘thing’… (to which I am attached)… so i  forcefully push it away… and it comes right back and hits me… with the same force used to throw it!’

Putting ‘it’ inside an imaginary box inside yourself, which you then lock, is no real solution. It means that these thoughts have an unnoticed continuous impact – it leaks out…  you have imagined a compartment (toilet) inside you which is a no-go area…and that’s not going to contribute to a free flow of energy.

Someone I was talking with recently, who had been severely traumatised, had been advised by her counsellor to deal with fearful situations by imagining a small safe box inside herself and then for her to climb inside it and shut the door!
I was amazed, how could making yourself feel even smaller, powerless and disengaged in the middle of a difficult situation be at all helpful?
It is exactly the opposite of what the dharma would suggest.
As a sentient being, with a precious human re-birth, and having the nascent potential to express the wisdom and compassion of the buddhas, there are many methods available to change our relationship with ourselves and others, to change our way of being such that, relative to the full openness of being, the difficult situation is a small movement – tumbleweed – and so being overpowered by external events becomes less and less likely .
The easiest, though initially difficult, way is just to let the experience flow through without attaching to it…as a part of the infinite dynamic experiential field. Trust that it will go by itself anyway if you let it… impermanence will see to that.

Whatever the situation – the point is to stay spacious and turn the available energy in the right direction, not waste it down spiralling avenues of speech or thoughts that go to nowhere…..

Someone who came to the Crediton group was very taken by the following story… it meant a lot to her and she used it to help relate usefully to the changing circumstances of her world…

wild-horsesIt’s the story in which a magnificent wild horse turns up, quite out of the blue, at the master’s farm high up in the mountains.

The neighbours said ‘Oh, how lucky you are!’…but the master said ‘maybe yes… maybe no’…  which leaves them puzzled.

The horse escapes… ‘ Oh, how unlucky you are’ say the neighbours… ‘maybe yes… maybe no’ says the master…  They think…’how strange he is!’

Sometime later the horse returns bringing the rest of the herd with it.

The neighbours say ‘Oh, how very, very lucky you are!’…but the master says ‘maybe yes… maybe no’ which leaves them completely nonplussed.

A few days later… the master’s son was trying to ride the horse but he falls off and breaks his leg.

The neighbours say ‘Oh, how unlucky you are, what with the harvest coming up and everything, what bad luck!’  the master says ‘maybe yes… maybe no’ which again leaves the neighbours shaking their heads, with much discussion about him and his ‘weird words’ over tea, and breakfast and dinner.

A few days later some guerrillas came through the area collecting, at gunpoint, all the young able-bodied men… taking them off to fight for them.

The young man with a broken leg was left behind…

[Depending on how phlegmatic the young man’s reaction to the old man’s ‘maybe yes… maybe no’ this could be good or bad luck for the master!]

He  had a mind of equanimity….and  maybe he could see round corners.

Within the realisation of the empty nature of all phenomena, hanging a label on an experience and then writing an opinion on the label is still quite possible to do – but it’s not ‘essential’ to have an opinion on everything, nor is the opinion taken to be definitive…or something which has to be pumped into the world.
When we do the work of the ego, in labelling and judging according to some pre-figured thoughts, we loose touch with the flow of experience… narrowing down onto, and effectively isolating, one aspect from the complete moment.  Then, as we judge it we solidify the experience…and get.. heavy!
It’s perfectly possible to discriminate, to recognise distinctions and difference, without judging…(that’s when the ‘and I don’t like it…it’s bad.. and it shouldn’t be like that’ comes in).
Conversely, when we do the work of the buddha we put into question the nature of the one who is doing the judging, and also the nature of that which is being judged.

If the true nature of these arisings (which includes the egoic structure) is clearly seen, this loosens the knots of fear and desire. Without seeking ‘good’ times or trying to avoid ‘bad’ it’s all a much lighter play…

 

 

 

 

 

A timeless gem, a present from the Tao….

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This link will take you to the translation of the 9781848375444-uk-300Tao Te Ching done by J.H. McDonald in 1996

This extraordinary teaching is as pertinent now as when it was written around  2500 years ago.

I have come across quite a few different translations  and find this to be the clearest so far…. and I have seen some which are very strange indeed!

This is a translation for the public domain so I believe it’s fine to offer it in this way. I found it on a site, to which I am grateful, but as it was decorated by, amongst other things, a picture of a small tank…..

…. I have ‘re-wrapped’ it for your enjoyment.

If it appeals to you I found some attractive soft-back copies of this translation which are available from Abe books.

No i don’t get commission 🙂    Merry Christmas!

Good bye and good luck to those at Wisdom books

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Wisdom books (Ilford, Uk) was run by some very friendly helpful and knowledgeable people on a not-for-profit basis – a pretty rare way of operating these days but particularly meritorious in their enabling and facilitating of dharma study over many years.

They recently ceased trading and i wanted to join with many others in thanking them for what they have done and in hoping that their new lives are healthy, enjoyable, fruitful and as full of dharma as before!

He said……!!!

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he_said_what-330It is my pleasure to edit some of the audio recordings – mainly those made in England –  and also the archived material from tape recordings.

The video recordings however, along with many of the audio recordings, are unedited and therefore contain material which given time and facility might otherwise have been removed. It is also possible that there is some material left in the recordings I have edited which may cause, at least, raised eyebrows…not that that is necessarily a ‘bad thing’.

So I think it may be useful to explain some of what i understand about the giving and receiving of this kind of teaching. It is essentially non–dogmatic, arising from the ground itself, for the benefit of those who are listening… at the time the teaching is given.
If you are listening later it is still true dharma and truly beneficial, but it’s different in that its dynamic nature, of teaching relating to and evoked by that particular context, is not apparent.

Within the mix of those who are listening at the time the levels of dharma understanding will vary with their particular lineaments of confusion [i.e. whatever they are bringing  to the teaching in the way of bias or tendencies.]

So in talking with people after James has talked…and in the groups that I have facilitated…I have noticed that some people hear something loud and clear as though it was just for them, whilst other people have different foci.  Sometimes what is fed back as something he/she said – is definitely not what came out of the mouth – however it’s what the person ‘heard’ and sometimes this is useful…but sometimes the change has been made by the recipient so that it fits in with their current beliefs.  Also, adding to the mystery of this process, i know that i have ‘heard’ material which checked out with James… but is not on the recordings.

Whole chunks of teaching can also just slide by if the key to access them is missing or as consequence of distraction  …. and often that which is abstracted, and held to, may need the context and the view in order for it to be correctly comprehensible.

At the time the words are spoken they may be an expression of the speakers mood,  but moods and feeling and circumstances are always changing. So there could be room in our own conversations  for ‘what did you mean by…’ and ‘i understood you to say … is that correct?’…’Is it still how you feel or have things changed?’

My mother used to say “Say what you mean…and mean what you say” …but so often we are unable to clearly express what we mean with words …we would have to go on and on and on…and in trying to refine the particulars of the expression we get further from the heart of the matter… and anyway, what we do say is then interpreted through a conditioned  matrix, or filter, in the others ears.

Teachers also can be unreliable, this may be a selfish act…i remember one teacher advising me that it is ‘good to keep them waiting’ adopting a superior position and incorrect…but unreliability may not be an ‘act’ but a fact – a response to situations which are dynamic.  At a certain level reliability may be a showing of generosity towards the students need at that time – but at some point  questions around the desire for a straight-jacket of reliability based on conventional expectations will arise. ‘You said’ can be met with myriad responses… which do not include ‘i said…. so i must!’…though if being reliable is appropriate that’s also possible!

James once said that a dermatology consultant gave him the simple explanation of the way he worked with patients’ conditions: ” if it’s wet – dry it”  ” if it’s dry – wet it”.  So sometimes a teacher moves to the left, showing that the right is an empty position, and vice versa. If an opinion is voiced it is just that…an opinion, not a defining truth…and someone who really knows what they are talking about will not turn an opinion into a keystone – a belief on which to rest the apparent weight of existence.

Any ‘truth’ which can be spoken will depend on concepts and is a reflection in  relative reality –  so its an expression which may be useful – but is never the truth itself.

Certainly great practitioners can see a situation very much more clearly than is usual but at the same time the relative domain is very complex in its interdependencies, its nature is impermanence and when James first started teaching in Macclesfield he sang  ‘if you’re looking for someone who’s  always right and never wrong – that ain’t me Babe!’… for me that was very refreshing.

In my experience this particular teacher, rather than regurgitating the scriptures… or other’s interpretations of them… is working more  with directly manifesting of the dharma into the energetic field. For this reason he can drop ‘bombshells’  to wake/ shake the field, evoke a mood of playfulness, be outrageous… whatever is required by the situation to facilitate the transmission of the dharma. It bounces off rigidity …though rigidity is not apart from it.

The intention is not  ‘never disturb anyone’… quite the contrary… because it is from our assumptions – into which we have fallen asleep, believing them as truths we can rest in – that a great teacher gives their time and energy to help us awaken.

All the way along the dharma path there are encampments where people feel they have ‘arrived’…  ‘these teachings are it – Now I Know! This is how we should be!’  If they are lucky they will hear the whistle of someone who points out the way around the corner that fewer people know of.

So it’s very interesting to look at what exactly it is that we snag or snarl up up  around… our own certainties of rights and wrong, good and bad, that which we think is ultimately true,  inalienably and enduringly so… then, looking  to see whether there isn’t  a dharma view which dissolves or transcends this.

The Buddha’s later teachings were perfect for some… others were completely appalled…but thankfully, whatever our level of understanding, there are dharma teachings which, if applied correctly, will certainly increase our capacity to act (or not) from wisdom.

 

 

 

The chocolate bar – grace and generosity

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220px-Cadbury-BournvilleGrace and generosity….
Generosity exhibited by the giver of the chocolate bar …

and grace by the recipient who, despite finding the words ‘you’re homeless aren’t you?’ uncomfortable, and despite not actually wanting a bar of chocolate, nonetheless accepted it… as he could see the giver wanted him to.

He was moved to tears afterwards by the gesture, this surprised him… he didn’t realise that part of him, the ability to be touched and moved, was still functioning.
Not only that but he now feels directly supported, as a Christian, by angels…not all of whom, he now suspects, are male!

Just about to go a job interview, at which he very badly needs to succeed, the confidence boost is very helpful.

So whilst he felt some discomfort in seeing that his poor state was so obvious to others, and also the gift didn’t match his needs… the giver’s intention came from the open heart…and had a beneficial effect for both.

For now…he’s keeping the chocolate bar !

[this links with the earlier post ‘everything you do makes a difference’]

 

Everything you do makes a difference…

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Juni_2012_Alte_Fasanerie_Sikahirsch-Kuh-2I was talking with a homeless man who had in his hands an envelope… not bad news as it turned out but good, so good he could hardly believe it – that he had been found a place to live in, a place where he could cook and where perhaps his daughter might visit him.

He had recently been very disappointed as a tenancy that had been found for him was withdrawn at the last minute by the landlords – but that place did not have cooking facilities and this new place was much more suitable.

For many years he had been living alone in some woods. His business had collapsed, it was a small business employing nine people, and in the disappointment and sadness with himself and life, he retreated completely.

He told me that two things had brought him to a point where he felt he could engage again with society.

The first was that one day a deer with a fawn at foot walked into the clearing where he lived. It looked about, sniffed the air, and then eat a few leaves before leaving… he felt accepted by the wood and its creatures – he felt he belonged.

The second was when a teenager detached herself from a group of other teenagers walking over a bridge and came and sat down beside him, beside the river, for a few minutes. She said  ‘you’re all right (his name), you’re all right!’

Seven words… and her gesture of leaving the familiar to sit briefly with the outsider…no pushing, no judgment, made such a difference.

so all good luck to him… and the teenager…and our homeless bothers and sisters.

After Cathy  is an excellent and powerful radio documentary formed of the recordings of the lives of three homeless people compiled fifty years after ‘Cathy Come Home’ shocked the nation (well, some of it!)

“do not take lightly small good deeds…in time they fill giant pot”

Likewise “do not take lightly small misdeeds, believing they can do no harm:even a tiny spark of fire can set alight a mountain hay”

– from The Words of My Perfect Teacher by  Patrul Rinpoche…a book which fell into my hands when visiting my mother in Malta many year ago and is an inspiring, comprehensive and very readable explanation of the dharma pathways and pitfalls.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

image:4028mdk09 (via Wikimedia-Commons) / bei Nutzung bitte zusätzlich angeben “aufgenommen im Wildpark Alte Fasanerie Klein-Auheim”, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJuni_2012_Alte_Fasanerie_Sikahirsch-Kuh.JPG

Index to Macclesfield talks and videos

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The on-going index to links and titles of the available Macclesfield audios and videos  is available on this website in  Audios/ Videos section.  Its existence may get ‘buried’   so i’m adding a  link to it here.

THE LAND OF THE ENLIGHTENED

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image.phpOn 11 November the cinema was less than full – in fact only four people had come to watching this extraordinary and impactful film.

 http://thelandoftheenlightened.com

The number watching was no indication of its quality – its evocation of the complete madness and irresponsibility of the war in Afghanistan and its enduring legacy, of the energy and resilience of the children and of scenery of great vastness… of harshness and beauty.

International Film Festival Rotterdam (USA, 2016) World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Best Cinematography at Sundance Film Festival

SHORT SYNOPSIS from savage films

A gang of Afghan kids from the Kuchi tribe dig out old Soviet mines and sell the explosives to children working in a lapis lazuli mine. When not dreaming of the time when American troops finally withdraw from their land, another gang of children keeps tight control on the caravans smuggling the blue gemstones through the arid mountains of Pamir.
SYNOPSIS

In this seamless blend of fictional and documentary form, we experience a stunning cinematic journey into the beauty of war-tormented Afghanistan. Shot over seven years on evocative 16mm footage, first-time director Pieter-Jan De Pue paints a whimsical yet haunting look at the condition of Afghanistan left for the next generation. As American soldiers prepare to leave, we follow De Pue deep into this hidden land where young boys form wild gangs to control trade routes, sell explosives from mines left over from war, and climb rusting tanks as playgrounds-making the new rules of war based on the harsh landscape left to them.  De Pue’s transportative and wonderfully crafted film confronts the visceral beauty and roughness of survival, serving as a testament to the spirited innovation of childhood and the extreme resilience of a people and country.  – Sundance Film Festival

This seems to be available free to download on the internet.

Macclesfield videos/audios – a great dharma tree to explore

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From 2003 James taught in Macclesfield either once or twice a year. Originally when he came up he taught in a little room above pizza express, then in a park building and in a hospital out-building.  After that the group of practitioners in Macclesfield had the use of a building which became a buddhist centre…

For about a decade Chris Coppock, who was a major contributor to this, made audio recordings of the talks which James gave… and also made (along with Charles Lomas) some video-recordings.

Thanks to Pedro and Barbara this set of recordings is now available within the complete collection on James’ YouTube channel .  
(Videos posted prior to December 2002 are included are still available on the  Vimeo collection)

Due to causes and conditions that buddhist centre eventually folded but happily James continued to journey north and teach in different venues, annually, since then.

 Over two decades, James took us along in the dharma stream opening up and elucidating different aspects to us. Beginning with little knowledge of the dharma and what it offered we became able to follow and change and grow out of, at least some of, our limiting old ideas about how ‘things’ are.

Some people are using these audio and video teachings as a way to study so to make it easier to see and hear how the talks evolved as we did, I have grouped what’s available in this set of teachings together on this page. 
I hope you enjoy the journey as much as i have done!

In this short and sweet video James offers an introductory explanation as to how we become confused… and the freedom of the view of Dzogchen, to which all his videos audios and texts relate. 

 

 

In the Macclesfield set, we have so far :

1. View of Dzogchen                                                                                Nov 2003

The beginning: explaining how the dzogchen view fits with the other teachings in buddhism. As you listen you may begin to sense how this right this engagement could be for you. The possibility of …’freedom is our birthright’…is scented in the air.

 audio  only                                                                                        

 

2. Focussing and Distraction – Dzogchen practice                             July 2004

Without realising and activating our capacity to choose whether or not to identify with arising thoughts we have little freedom.

Like preoccupied puppets we are pulled by the strings of internal forces and external triggers which drive us into reactivity. 

Practices such as following the flow of the breath on the upper lip help develop a clear attention, and bring the calmness and perspective necessary for a more intentional and pro-active life.

audio  only                                                                                                            

 

3. Living with Anxiety and Doubt                                                February 2005

Most of us have a lot of worries and anxiety in our lives. James explains the traditional Nyingmapa understanding of the nature of anxiety, the structures underpinning its development, and shows how meditation can help us cut through the root of that development.

In practicing  different meditations, we can offer a more open precise and present attention to the complex circumstances of daily existence. We can then work more easily with everyday moments of anxiety and confusion.

audio  only                                                                                                

 

4. Wisdom and Compassion                                                                   May 2006

Explaining the two truths: how it appears…the imagined illusion, and how things are…the ultimate truth.

That real compassion arises from wisdom i.e. from realising the ultimate truth and then helping others realise their true nature.

So getting to know your own mind, letting go of the knot of dualism, and not being distracted is vital…   

audio only                                                                                                        

 

5. Lojong – Mind training                                                                         Dec 2006

audio    videos – YouTube      vimeo (x3)                                                                            

 

6. The Transmission of  Flow and the Flow of Transmission         June 2007

Considering the nature of lineage, its function and importance…and continuity
James refers to a short text by Saraha, ‘The Treasury of Songs’, which is included in his book ‘Simply Being’.

audio   videos-YouTube  or   vimeo (x3)                                                                                  

 

7. Clearing the Clutter                                                                  November 2007

audio    video-YouTube or  vimeo  (x3)                                                                      

 

8. Basic Buddhism practiced with a dzogchen view                     March 2008

audio     videos – Youtube  or vimeo videos (x3)    

How the preliminary practices in Tibetan buddhism can be taken up and made use of within the dzogchen view                                                                       

 

9. Refuge is Liberation                                                                             Nov 2008

Teaching on Garab Dorje’s ‘Three Points’ as the essence of refuge

Using the three statements as a base for exploring dzogchen, view and practice…

the view shifts from  fusion… to dualistic intention… to non-dual liberation

 

audio    videos                                                                     

 

10. Love, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity                                       June 2009
– The Four Immeasurables

The deep meaning of the  ‘Four Brahmaviharas’, which is found in all schools of buddhism, is expounded here… with the accompanying prayer.

Wishing for all beings to rest in the integration of their natural condition and that the obstacles to this may dissolve.

Then, seeing the equality and insubstantial nature of what our conditioning would denote as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, we practice remaining relaxed and open with whatever occurs.

audio     video                                                                                      

 

11. Four Foundations of Mindfulness – a dzogchen perspective      Jan 2010

Mindfulness is explored from different perspectives including psychotherapy, theravada and dzogchen. With mindfulness we can become intentionally attentive and careful so we are no longer at the mercy of whatever is happening. From the view of dzogchen we can be in the movement of the world as it changes… and remind ourselves to relax back into integration.

audio      videos – YouTube  or   vimeo                                                                                                  

 

12. Working with Change and Impermanence                                   Nov 2010

Exploring how my behaviour is generated from the belief that I have a fixed internal ‘essence of me’ 
… and how my belief that there are self-existent ‘things’ in the world keeps me trapped in reactivity.

As we meditate, and thoughts feeling and sensations arise and pass, we experience that change is the basis of our existence.

If we can see that we are change – that who I am is co-created – then we can inhabit our existence freed from the trap of trying live to life on our own terms. 

audio         video                                                                                             

 

13.   The Illusory nature of Experience                                           March 2012

The text of the Heart Sutra, which is the basis for this talk, begins ‘Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness not other than form’.

It continues in is way expounding the true nature of all phenomena, including what we take to be ourselves.

This is so very other than we how habitually imagine it to be and James explains freshly, clearly, and accessibly.

audio      video                                                                                 

 

14.    Integrating openness and presence                                        Feb 2013

Explaining how wisdom and compassion can be activated in our own existence.

Seeing that the compassion which arises from through understanding the illusory nature of phenomena is not artificial…

that the openness, the radiance,  and the arising gesture are integrated.

This talk includes the  practice of tong-len

audio  only                                                                                                     

 

15. Balancing Relaxation and Effort in Buddhism                              Feb 2014

We can see how effortfully attempting to stabilise that which is inherently unstable will be exhausting and ineffective.

So, on retiring from that struggle, how do we make the appropriate shifts between agency – the assertion of energy… and plasticity – where we allow ourselves to be moulded by circumstances? 

Looking at how space allows us to see clearly…and how, by relaxing into our potential, our potential can be activated into the situation with finesse.    

audio    only                                                                                                        

 

16. Staying Open to Life as it is                                                              Feb  2015

The world impacts us and influences us as it flows into us through our sense organs…

and we influence the world by being part of it, like a stream of many potentials within a bigger river.

Exploring how observing yourself as you are, being kind to yourself and letting yourself reveal yourself… is the way to make life easy… 

audio  only                                                                                                  

 

17. Buddhism and creativity                                                                   Feb 2016

Buddhism would say that ethics is the basis for the forms of our experience…

That due to causes and conditions we inhabit a particular vision, a mental construct created from a configuration of many factors. 

Exploring this and seeing how meditation brings the spaciousness and flexibility needed to respond easily in interaction with the world. 

audio only                                                                                                     

 

18. Dissolving attachment in the openness of being                          Feb 2017

Dissolving attachment in the openness of being. Dzogchen practice focuses on avoiding hanging on to what we like and pushing away what we don’t like. This is supported by the mindfulness that helps us avoid falling asleep in the process of living. Being undistracted is simply talking with full attention when you are talking, walking with full attention when walking etc.

audio        video                                                                                         

 

19. Working with Life and Death                                                      March 2018

Many different ideas exist about what happens at death which direct our intentionality in this life.

Here James explores what buddhism has to bring to these ideas and explains the traditional view of what the mind is and also what is  consciousness.

Including the nature of the death process and how we might work with that.

audio                                                                                                    

 

20.  Balance in Turbulent times                                                              Feb 2019

Attempts to withdrawal from the turbulence or to control the mind are actions which increase our sense of separation.

With the Mahayana view we are looking at how our mind is rather than focusing on its impermanent contents.

Through meditation we are seeking to open to that which is stable…an invitation, explanation and practice.

audio                                                                                                         

 

21. Kindness, Fellow Feeling and the Common Weal                       Feb 2020

Loving kindness, karuna, is the foundational attitude of Buddhism. Kindness sees all life as kind, as kin, as always-already-connected. With this view the barrier between self and other shrinks and we become inclusive in everything we do. This is deepened and supported by the wisdom of seeing our mind as it actually is.

audio     video                                                                                          

 

22. Finding Refuge and Spreading Light                       Jan 2023

Finding enduring refuge in the intrinsic purity of our own mind. 

audio video

‘Note to self’ :

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Light + concept = pseudo-entity

 

In the speed of interactions in the world – will i remember the truth of this?
[from Macclesfield talk 08 Integrating-the-dzogchen-view-with-basic-buddhist-practice/ ]

Any time i tighten or freeze and ‘make something of it’ i know that i’ve got lost in a situation and fused with concepts, with my thoughts or feelings or sensations.

Reminding myself of the truth on a daily basis with the prayer by Rigdzin Godem means that, for at least the time while i’m saying it, that view in the equation above is operational…but that’s only for a few minutes… what about the rest of the twenty four hours???

Re-membering, re-membering (preferable to being surrounded by body parts!)… form is not other than emptiness, form is exactly emptiness…
So, what is it?…this ‘thing’ to which i am averse?… It’s the flower of emptiness…inseparable from its ground.
And who is this one who is tightening up?…also the radiance of the dharmakaya – impermanent and so ungraspable, arising due to causes and conditions which are themselves impermanent…
Maybe a knot in the handkerchief would help!

Maybe… but this is a slow and uncertain way to proceed…where kind of ‘during or after the event’, if i’m lucky, i realise, so there’s a bit of a gap while i assess, remember….  then also there’s remembering that what is arising in me as a response is also empty… and then orientating myself accordingly – according to received wisdom, or that deduced by analysis.

It’s through the opening and dissolving practices in tantra and dzogchen that i can have an on-going certainty regarding the nature of each manifestation, including that which i call ‘me’. Its through these practises that eventually the relaxation of rigidity enables creativity… when responsivity arises directly from spaciousness, from the infinite hospitality.

iStock_000005584686XSmall-300x299

 

Observing a cat, seeing ‘itself’ in the mirror for the first time

 

……a sudden shock, bristling – the hairs of the fur standing on end, eyes widened…

then settling

…relaxing

…disinterested

 

whilst we might think ‘that’s me who’s in the mirror’ – this cat just checked it out

and then

spent no further time on a reflection.

 

 

Doing the ‘hokey cokey’…..

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hokey

‘You put your whole self in – you put your whole self in, you put your whole self out, in out – in out, shake it all about… ‘  ‘that’s what it’s all about’.

Maybe this can be a good metaphor for effective practice!… particularly tantra and dzogchen.

Before I went to sleep as a child there were three prayers i used to say out loud.  One was ‘MatthewMark Luke andJohn blesssther bed that I lie on… Arrrrrmen’    and I said the words… exactly that, I said the words… like a rhyme.

I was very moved by the story in one of the scriptures of the pigeon who felt so desperate to help in the face of  a forest fire which was consuming every living thing…… but was powerless to do anything but fly to and fro with a beak full of water from a nearby river… and then died, exhausted. The beak-fulls of water did not put the fire out yet good consequences did ensue… so maybe these little somethings…? So, later in life, in saying different prayers on a daily basis I started gradually to put more meaning, more intention, more energy and concentration into my hopes and requests.

Although I knew that ‘energy follows intention’  as I spent more time in this neck of the woods, with prayers being the best that I could offer into the desperate and difficult situations in the world, and spending more time doing this, I felt the need to ask whether or not it really made any difference. I could see that it made a difference to me as, over time, it changed my appreciation and orientation yet I was dubious as to how much difference, if any, it made outside of that.

The answer came in the form of a question ‘Can you get someone to turn their head around and look at you if you stare at the back of their head?’….    my answer  was ‘probably yes, if they are not deeply involved in something else.’

Really this was deepening my comprehension that however we are, whatever we do, has an impact – it might not be visible but nevertheless it does.  I had previously explored this with people who say ‘ what’s the point, why bother, what I do doesn’t make any difference?’

Over the years of doing the Rigdzin Puja, often as if it were a piece of pleasant homework, sometimes just ticking the box – ‘task completed’– I finally had a lightbulb moment… seeing that if ‘I’ was doing it – even with my good intentions – it wasn’t being done, or being used, effectively as it should.  For a long time I was going…ah yes, white light…now red light…and so on, turning the pages…but without any feeling of a change it was just words. I had to allow myself to become an engaged participant in the activity, to allow the activity to flow through me, to become the activity, for it to be possible for any effect to occur. That also implied changing priorities, giving enough time and space to the practice and engaging ideally at time when i was fresh rather than half-asleep!

Ah well, it takes as long as it takes…

……Put my little self in, take my little self out

in-out, in-out, shake it all about (it will dissolve if I shake it enough),

Get my big self out, let my little self in…

…the whole self i’m in…     oh! the hokey cokey…

With practise the tune changes…… in out, in out > out-in-out, out-in-out…not so catchy!

 

The teachings have a rather different origin from say “Teach yourself Buddhism”…(the first dharma book i bought…and one i didn’t finish – dry bones)…and it takes time and is worthwhile to let the perfume sink into every pore..

 

I was talking with someone a while ago and mentioned the haiku by Kobayashi Issa “slowly, slowly, the snail climbs Mount Fuji”…he felt so sorry for the snail!

…an alternate rendition “O snail! Climb Mt. Fuji… but slowly, slowly” …maybe gives a better sense of the way

As the practice says…and as the Irish say in a beautiful way… ‘Take your time’