There was a queue of people outside the bread shop – wasps and humans were wanting the sweet things inside. One minute I was looking to see if there was any of the bread I wanted left for sale, the next I was watching the lady in front of me twisting the ball of her foot on the ground, grinding a wasp into the pavement. She turned to me and said ‘they do no good you know, they are completely pointless.’ I can get hooked by incorrect statements and i mildly observed that, maybe surprisingly, wasps pollinate flowers just as bees do. She retorted that bees were okay but wasps were not because they were malicious and stung out of spite.  ‘In your story-book’ was my quiet response ….and she was in agreement with this saying that I was about to be stung by the one on my wrist!

I left the wasp to walk about on my wrist and then fly off. I bought my loaf of bread and left but afterwards I thought about the wasps and how we can soften our certainties by becoming more conscious of our limited views and so becoming more curious… and also how treating the small creatures of the world with respect is a softening practice to start with, and one which, overtime, can make harshness less and less likely to arise inappropriately – whether for insects or humans. Some of us can become hugely tender to the lives of little creatures but unsurprisingly find the bigger (speaking) ones much more challenging.

Wasps are used in great numbers by farmers in agriculture for pest control, they are predators for all the world’s insect pests. The greenfly in the garden  are eaten by them but at this time of year they are very hungry as their main food source, a sugary secretion from the wasp larvae in their nest, is no longer being produced. That’s why they quickly gather round food and are very persistent! The wasps didn’t know that the shop’s air-space and its contents  was supposed to be off-limits to them, for them it was suddenly ‘manna from heaven.’

Stinging is their defence mechanism. If a wasp is in trouble it will emit a pheromone which will disturb all the nearby wasps and put them into defensive/ attack mode. So its really best for all concerned to let them be. In my experience, usually, if you are still and calm then creatures can sense that you are no threat.

I think that, from the wasps point of view, suddenly being crushed could well be seen as a malicious act… and as for these humans, do they do good?… What is the point of them? Projecting out anger and hatred onto the other and then reacting violently to what we see is common human behaviour …do wasps behave like this?

If our own concept of functionality is a prerequisite for the continuation of existence of the other then we really have taken over the role of gods (of the ‘all knowing’, ‘all powerful’ but not ‘all loving’ kind). Nevermind this arrogance, at this point in time we seem very close to losing the plot in many different ways.  We can now genetically modify mosquitoes so that they will not breed, some would think that this is a very good idea but fortunately there are people who realise that the mosquito is an essential food source for many different creatures. More troublingly  the normal molecular structure composed of the four amino acids – the basic building blocks of lifeforms – can now be altered and replicated using other substances. This creates a completely different lifeform and, as a commentator said, ‘this could be quite scary as we have no defences against this organism’…..’err yes indeed!’ i thought … he went on to say ‘but on the other hand if in the future we want populate Mars then producing lifeforms  which can cope with radiation etcetera could be very helpful’…. Sometimes I find it very hard to believe my ears – going to another planet, that’s possible,…creating new and potentially dangerous life-forms that’s also possible,… we know so much yet do we know how to be truly alive… what do we know about how to live together, how to care gently for ourselves, each other, and the suffering world that supports us? (link to National Geographic article)

As I remember it, one of the patients in the l’Arche foundation’s first home was bedridden and could do nothing more than move an eye, yet the quality of his being was such that people wanted to spend time in the room with him, not from pity but for grace. Was he pointless? Maybe, but he surely had value. Many activities and qualities like altruism and patience could be deemed pointless…. and tolerance is such a precious quality for living together in this strange world… we are all here, we belong, so how shall we be with each other?

Maybe, for starters, we have to see, to sense, to feel, to be open to the field (you plus me plus the context)… that’s hard to do with hands full of the book of, and both eyes glued to the story of, ‘Me!’.

…and when you see that the wasps persistence is due to hunger and their drowsiness to ‘hypoglycaemia’ then its easy to give some beings what they need – a teaspoon of jam in a dish outside keeps about twenty wasps happy for the day (and it does keep them outside which makes me happy)! The three which looked drowned in the dish this morning, after the rain, surprisingly  sprang back into life when I gently emptied it out, but a flat surface would be safer.

Five major rivers, vital to the existence of millions of beings in Tibet India China Myanmar Burma Laos and Thailand, all have their origin high on the Tibetan plateau. The water there is as fresh as water can be but by the time these rivers reach the sea their colour has changed from blue to brown and levels of pollution are disturbing.  The energy of the rivers is increasingly being used to generate electricity so the flow of water and migration of fish is disrupted by dams. The silt release, in which sediment is periodically released from behind the dams to prevent them from silting up, is a phenomenal event which has a devastating impact on the life in the river downstream. So human interference with the flow of these waters – as with other rivers in Africa – and around the world, is having an impact which sadly resonates through time.

The streams of dharma are like this. Most of you will know this so please excuse me but there are some dharma teachings and books which are, one way or another, very close to the source – fresh and with minimal pollution – and others which are so heavily impacted by human interpretations and ignorance that, like the water from the yellow river, they should carry a dharma health warning.

I started my studies with ‘Teach yourself Buddhism’ and without a teacher they would have ended there, it was not dharma …..apart from which its too easy to read a lot and think you ‘know’ as the story of Naropa shows… and little bit of this and little bit of that, like mixing colours in a paint box, ends up with a muddy brown.

How to  pick your way through the minefield… unless you are already an expert how will you know whose advice to trust?

The internet is helpful here as you can check and cross-check very carefully. Keep looking and finding out all you can about the validity of the source of dharma which you are using for your own life transfusion…Look outside and inside the tradition and listen to other teachers. Gradually you’ll get a sense of where your connections lie and the difference in qualities. You matter too much to just cross you fingers and spit, trusting to luck or happenstance. Who taught the teacher? Who gave them authorisation to teach? How qualified are they? What have others said about them? Is there some kind of ‘group think’ going on?

If they write, can you see how much of what they write is dharma and how much is personal opinion. If you are reading a translation what are the translators skills in both languages… maybe you can check for bias and differing interpretations by reading other versions. Two english translators of the I-ching had a judeo-christian bias and used a little respected Chinese version as their source; one of the versions of the Tao te Ching i have i find completely unreadable while another seems very clear and beautiful.

Are they open to questioning….some are straight down the line…take it or leave it…and if they are straight down the line that will do no harm. They may have other ‘fish to fry’  but can you work with that? – there’s a  song Leonard Cohen wrote about how he and others tried to persuade his zen teacher to say ‘just a little bit more’…unsuccessfully!

Observe their behaviour for many years, do they embody what they teach, what can you learn from them? Do they want you to wake up, or to use your energy, or are they confused. Is there an agenda involving the worldly dharmas– is the dharma running the show or the ego?

Whichever the stream you drink from… may the water be clear.

There is a plum tree just outside the place where I live.

In the late summer the plums ripen and many wasps come to this wonderful restaurant for the free food and drink.

 I like to have the fresh air coming in so I often leave my door open.

Some of the wasps get lost (maybe they’ve drunk too much) and they end up inside my flat.

They fly to the windows and try to get out through the glass.

This they cannot do.

They try very hard, and they hammer with their little heads on the glass over and over again. They use up a lot of energy and sound quite frantic.

The noise is quite irritating, and I feel sorry for the wasps, so I open the window for them.

These windows are Velux Windows set in the roof; as you pull down the handle the window open up and out into the space outside.

As I do this, the wasp is free to go … but it doesn’t leave, it clings tightly to the glass.

It doesn’t see that it is free to go anywhere it likes; the wasp is literally holding a fixed view.

It’s little eyes are very close to the glass, looking through the pane of glass to the freedom it desires, and it has no awareness that it is already out in space.

Even when the window is almost vertical–so all around the wasp is space–the wasp insists, with great agitation, on trying to get through the glass.

The wasp is unaware of the futility of its approach, and holds very tightly to the very thing which is preventing it from being free.

Our attachment to thoughts, fixed views, makes us like the wasps; agitated, buzzing, repeating old patterns, with no rest. We are so caught up in this behaviour that we ignore the spacious awareness in which we move;  the view in which  alternative, more helpful, moves are possible.

The true freedom that comes from seeing the trap of believing in thoughts may not be available to wasps but for us, thanks to the teachings, this is a real and very wonderful possibility.

How to liberate the wasps? Me, I use some care and flick them off with a plastic spatula. If I did not do this the wasp would die—exhausted from its efforts trying to get through the glass.

We are more fortunate in that, having come across the teachings, we can see that moment by moment, the choice is in our hands.

We can hold our fixed view in front of us, look through it and be stuck; or be aware of the ways in which we construe (or construct) things,  relax and be free.

P.S Today a butterfly flew in and up to the window. It too fluttered against the window pane trying to get out. As I opened the window, the butterfly settled down. When the window was fully open, a breeze slightly lifted the wings of the butterfly and it flew up and away, out into space.

I wrote this some years ago when living in a different place,but was reminded of it today as i was trying to persuade a fly to leave through the open velux window in the kitchen. This was more tricky as he had flown in following his nose and was not trying to escape. He flew out and then flew back in again (perhaps having a liking for samsara!) So encouraging him out of the kitchen into another, more boring, room and leaving him there with the window open….was like us in meditation, cooling down the busyness to see clearly and find our way.. it took a while, he was there when i first checked, but eventually he went free : )

I have worked in hospitals and come across the word invalid many times before  but recently was shocked when i looked at it in a different light – ‘in-valid’ and all the feelings that go with a  sense of being ‘less than’ or discounted.

This poem is  for Jo … and everyone who is trying to be at ease, finding a different way of being in the world, as their ability to function in the way in the way they, and others, have expected is impaired (in her case by a brain tumour)

Please don’t join the dots to make me,

I’m still here – but different lately.

Not just as i was before, and nor are you…

but what is more, there’s not one thing that we can see

that stays the same eternally.

We can’t go back; we can go on –

breathing each breath of this life’s song.

As our lives shift so poignantly,

will you stay in the dance with me?

Will tenderness move through your heart

and help me feel i am a part –

and not apart from,

life?

with love, wendy