This was the question put to me recently by a young adult. In the way it was phrased it wasn’t really a question… more a statement implying that everybody knows that it’s good to do what you want. That to be able to do what you want is the freedom worth striving for, and if the opportunity arises surely anybody sane would take it…. after all, doing what you want makes you happy… right?

It depends… if you’re talking about transient happiness maybe… but if you’re talking about a more profound satisfaction, one which is equally at home with the happiness and sadness integral to being connected with the world, then the starting point for that comes from spending some time getting to know who you really are – beyond any stories you or others might tell – rather than spending time doing whatever it is that you think will do the business.
Maybe this particular groove, which seems to fit you so well at present, leads to a ditch which gets deeper and deeper – so deep that perspective is lost, and any talk of your infinite nature sounds like so much gobbledygook.

Isn’t it likely that if I do what my ego dictates I just become a puppet of my own desires? Isn’t it likely that the more I make satisfying these desires my priority, the more validity I give them, the less important everyone else’s wants and needs are to me… and so I’ll become even more egocentric and selfish. My ability to make a wise decision about what’s most appropriate to do, considering all involved, diminishes.  I become blinded to my impact on other people and ignorant of the detrimental consequences for myself…as the ego-skin thickens the sense of being separated from ‘others’ and the ground of being increases. Then the world is seen and valued  depending on how well it fits in with my priorities, with the thinking that I should be able to get what I like and do what I want.

And if I’m blocked in the fulfilment of my desires I will be unhappy. Sure enough, eventually, the world will block me because, strangely, it does not come into being in order to fit around, and satisfy, my ego’s changing shape.

It’s a bit like in Hogarth’s the Rake’s progress… the likelihood of the rake seeing the error of his ways and making amends diminishes as he ‘progresses’….the potential is always there but no realisation of  wisdom…so it’s ‘I can’t get no..o.. satisfaction!

Just doing what you want is not the road to freedom.

Talking with teenagers in school many of them believe that getting what you want will make you happy.

I say that that might be so for some people… for a little while… but that I know many people who got what they wanted then found that there was no lasting satisfaction in that achievement. Often, however well they do as far as their external circumstances go, there is a sense of dis-ease, or unsettledness, on the inside which shows itself in how they feel about themselves, in their behaviours, and the way in which they relate to other people. Often there is a great effort made to try to show worthiness, their value, to parents, relatives or friends. This is so sad because it implies that their sense of having value rests on approval from people who cannot be relied upon to give this for ever, if at all. In any case if the approval is based on prestige or status or wealth or some particular deeds, some factor which is not even symbolic of their particular being… a manufactured display…it’s always unsatisfactory, at ‘one stage removed’ from the one seeking approval.

One man I tell them about started a company determined to make enough money to buy himself a very expensive sports car. He succeeded… but that didn’t quite do the job so he bought another the same, and then he bought another of a different type. None of this satisfied his longing for acceptance, for the the love of his mother, a love for which he sometimes cried.

The factors for the continuity of these symbols are in any case  unstable and so there is also anxiety around losing them or having them outshone or devalued….

In St Tropez the yachts are arranged smallest (with the smallest floral arrangements) near the quayside with the yachts and floral arrangements getting larger as you walk out along the jetty over deeper water.  The satisfaction of some of those in the larger yachts, as they walk past the smaller yachts to shore, shrinks when a massive yacht belonging to a Russian oligarch comes into view… all black glass, black uniforms, black ropes and fenders, but… a botched mooring leaves the onlookers with a sense of superiority. All in all samsaric vision’s not such a pretty sight. Who can be at ease as they squander all this energy in trying to show that ‘I’ve arrived’?

I remember the advertisement of an expensive watch manufacturer which made the statement ‘Wear a ‘… ….’ to show you’ve arrived!’ Arrived where? Arrived at a place where you able to spend a lot of money on a wristwatch…it doesn’t actually say anything at all about your own state.

As for being the envy of one’s friends…what a ghastly idea!

The young friend i referred to earlier had been, as part of an exercise at work, looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
I’ve included a couple of extracts from Wikipedia below… Wikipedia is very handy for this kind of thing but there are issues… one of which made me smile. A famous musician was discussing correcting an error in his Wikipedia entry. It was something he knew very well, something like his date of birth, but each time he altered  the entry it was changed back… he was able to watch this happening in front of his eyes and gave up after the third attempt!

Self-actualisation

“The term “self-actualization” may not universally convey Maslow’s observations; this motivation refers to focusing on becoming the best person that one can possibly strive for in the service of both the self and others.^[3] Maslow’s term of self-actualization might not properly portray the full extent of this level; quite often, when a person is at the level of self-actualization, much of what they accomplish in general may benefit others, or “the greater good”.

From what this friend was saying i think that ‘self-actualisation’ is sometimes being mis-construed, interpreted as having the freedom to be able to shape your life in the way you want. Also, in the model she was given, the higher level of self-transcendence (below) was absent.

Self-transcendence

In his later years, Maslow explored a further dimension of needs, while criticizing his own vision on self-actualization.^[8] The self only finds its actualization in giving itself to some higher goal outside oneself, in altruism and spirituality. “Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos”

Then there’s non-dual realisation…when the true nature of self and other is experienced as awareness within which manifestation arises….
I used to encourage myself in dharma practise by saying if you aim for the top you might just get there, but if you aim for something lesser you surely won’t.
However, what if you don’t know that there is a top to aim for ???….or someone takes the top off your mountain…?

Anxious striving in samsara ties us in knots and in dharma practice also it takes us further from where we want to be… the open state… because as we gather ourselves up and apply more effort there is more a sense of solidity and grasping  with that.  I know because I’ve tried it… and become exhausted… but then there’s a  direct invitation to look differently.
“Sit on your bum and get enlightened now” as James once said…that too can seem like a ‘mountainous’ injunction! But he knows the nature of the mind;  his directions are clear as to what to do when you are sitting on the climbing ropes.
Coming across teachings on resting in the nature of mind, relaxing into spaciousness are a blessed relief…it’s always there, wherever you find yourself… and all the busyness can’t improve your true nature, it just kicks up the dust and makes it more difficult to see.

It’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!’ …..

It 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.

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.

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.

‘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’

When I started with a little group in  Tiverton some years ago James suggested that I could ‘take along pens knives scissors chopsticks and so on’… or words to that effect.

Sometimes, in order not to interrupt the flow, I trust that things will become clearer in time or through engagement… if I asked him anything by way of clarification I think the answer probably was ‘you have to hold them differently’…err…  yes…and???

As I put together an assortment of articles to take with me I had a glimmering of that to which he was alluding. That everything, everyone, with whom we engage – if the engagement is to be the most attuned or appropriate – requires a unique response, specific to their presentation that time.

I could give you many examples of my not getting that right…however I think this one, which doesn’t involve people, is a good illustration –

I was in charity shop a little while back and when  i went to pick up a painted wooden duck, very similar in appearance to one i once owned …  there was an explosion….it was very surprising …bits of stuff went all over the place.

Luckily I managed to catch a little vase in my skirt before it hit the ground and amazingly the other bits and pieces which I had knocked over were unbroken.

I’m not usually clumsy so what had gone wrong?

Well, it was just that I had picked up the wooden duck, which looked so much like one I had owned some years ago, as though it was the exactly the same. However whilst this duck looked like it was made of wood ( I was not wearing my glasses!) it was in fact pottery – quite a different weight – and, moreover, the head and neck came apart from the body… they formed a lid to a pot… and it that was what I lifted up. I had gauged the amount of energy needed and the trajectory completely wrong and the spare energy scattered everywhere.

So  it is with people. If we are confident that we know how the other is prior to meeting them, or if we meet them without sufficient spaciousness to have a sense of how they actually are ( because we are already full of our own ideas about how they are, or what we have to get across to them)   or if we just have our own constant ‘ way of being’ – take it or leave it this is me! – then the possibility of a beneficial congruence is remote…. and the risk of explosions much greater!

Instead we have to keep looking, take nothing for granted, put our memories aside, and have the confidence to be tentative…trusting that we can regain our balance after a faux pas or mis-step/ mistake… and also play a different tune if that’s what the situation requires.

All of which requires a good degree of openness. Intentionally practising doing it differently will, in my experience only take you so far…  it’s the on-going practice of openness which will naturally lead to that ‘fresh cooking’ in the moment… of/as which James speaks

This P.S. arose as a solution to a practical –?what is fitting – problem and might just be useful-

I have a fridge and from time to time the drain hole bungs up and the bottom fills with water. The instructions suggest inserting a little plastic gadget (sometimes supplied) or a straw into the hole. This has worked before but this time no luck!

I didn’t want to call out an engineer to dismantle the drain from the back but, looking on the internet for another solution, i got to see the shape of the drain – its straight for a little bit [the gadget/straw solution works for blockages in this section] but then it then curves away downwards.

I wondered… What would have sufficient strength to clear the blockage…be the right width to fit inside the drain…after insertion- maintain a curve in the right direction so that it would enter the curved part…and be soft enough not to damage the drain ?

…a little while later i caught myself looking at the open plastic ring with the tab – the one that you pull to get the top off a plastic milk carton – as it lay on the side waiting to go into the bin…

Perfect!

Fly

At one time, little fly, you had the freedom of the space

but then your body  nudged against a tiny sticky filament

and in your struggle to get free

your wings and body were stuck fast

” Fly in a net ”

and yet……..

no spider came as answer  to your calls

to turn you into means for its existence

and so,  unwrapped,  flying again became a possibility.

Why don’t you move?

you are not dead!

using a lens and dampened brush

so gently, wash away the unseen residue, the glue,

and be a fly, and fly and be….

each moment freed, spontaneously.

The little net of the ‘ego thought’ catches the passing, fleeting thought… the beginning of the forming of a shape…of solidification and reification  “Open… release…. begin again”…

In the childrens’ game of ‘Pin the tail on the donkey’ the winner is the one who, whilst blindfolded, manages to pin a pretend tail onto a drawing of a donkey…  closest to the anatomically correct position.

Now, if we were inflatable donkeys…of the kind children might ride in a swimming pool (well i’m sure you’ve seen Loch Ness Monsters in that setting…so donkeys are a possibility…

….aha, found one… the incredible creativity of the mind!…)

we’d rightly be very wary around pins…for fear of deflation …. sssss….

In our felt separation – there’s me and there’s you

and we donkeys can make such a hullabaloo
…swapping tails with each other
we say ‘How d’ye do’ but….

we can be quite wary (while holding our pin)
with the thought that ‘the other’
might stick theirs right in…

………………………………..our posterior!

In being not donkeys,
the tails are just tales…
and we don’t have that feeling that
we could be nailed.

And, in being (not donkeys)
we don’t fear the pin…
as there isn’t a rump
for the pin to stick in

Just being is us, but it cannot be done
if we spend our time fearing a pain in the bum!

This came after a chat about the  behaviours that we do with a friend who is about to be 90…happy birthday Gwen!