‘Like hospital food… do yer?’

I remember hearing this phrase from my youth!

It is really saying ‘If you don’t do what I would like you to do then I will hurt you so badly you will end up in hospital… and suffer the limitations and constraints –  relating to nutritional understanding, financial, logistical, and so on – which operate in trying to feed the variety of people who turn up and are cared for in our hospitals.

This seems bad but hopefully, if the worst came to the worst,  you’d recover and continue to enjoy the kind of food you eat prior to the hospital visit!

There are some resonances with what James said in his teaching this Sunday –

‘Do you like to eat food you’ve pissed on?’ 

No…’cos it taste of piss 

‘Well, of course it will, if you keep pissing on it!’

James has been explaining how to ‘not to make it stale’ in a series of teachings on a text he translated many years ago written by a great Yogi – Lama Chetsangpa Sri Buddha.

While his tone was light, he was pointing to the more critical consequences of ignoring, or not attending to and realising the teachings of/on the truth – and continuing to opacifying the simple givenness of ‘what is’ with our non-sense. 

This is, in a way, much more grave and serious than an injury necessitating a temporary stay in hospital – it is a chronic condition whereby we live in a deadened life of deprivation and limitation.

Falling out of the ease of abiding as the innate and inalienable integrity of our openness, and with that loosing the facility to manifest freshly in each moment as appropriate to the moment, rather in relation to an idea about it – we misconstrue and solidify… depriving others and ourselves of vitality and spacious connectivity.

This dis-ease, arising from ignoring the actual, although a chronic and pervasive process is completely curable… by attending and ‘wising-up.’

Now that we know that the symptoms need not just be endured or masked… we are happy to conduct an in-depth examination of the situation. 

If we meditate we can closely examine and see the way in which we engage our life energy with arisings in the mind.

These arisings are patternings of energy that the thought patterns with which we mistakenly identify – take to be true, valid, fascinating and fully worthy of in-vestment (geddit?– clothing, wrapping, Emperor’s new clothes ; ) – and spiral into…

In giving a spuriously heightened reality to impermanent phenomena we become a-mazed – confused and enmeshed in our own creativity.
And until this issue is resolved through practice we will continue to obscure, distort and falsify the truth…and suffer as a consequence.

James Low has been explaining so clearly how we get lost and how to return in the simplest way for so many years now… and has recently been teaching on this text by Chetsagpa Ratna Sri Buddha you’ll find in the book Simply Being. The texts are also available here.

The first and second recordings are now available to watch … with further teachings on March 13 and 14… concluding on 17 18 April.

I once heard a Sikh teacher trying to teach children who were fizzing with energy. He was quite fierce and he just shouted at them ‘Listen up…’ and they did!

James was lightly saying the same thing towards the end of the teaching and suggesting how we should do this: 

1.First time: just listen… allowing the teachings, mood and flavour to flow through you.

2.Then listen again a second time. This time make your own notes of  what seem to be a critical point or a point for further clarification.

[We can discussion in the group or 1 to 1, though maybe check with the text first, it may help…]

3.Then go to the text and see if your understanding matches what’s written…is it clear ?

If still not clear …just ask. Then…see next post…

When I first started teaching James suggested that I gave homework… but not so many bothered with completing it!

There were a few things going on with that – the quicksand pull-back of samsara, the apparent primacy of friends family and worldly duties and involvements…seeing the dharma as an ‘add-on’, like bridge or golf with a particular ring fenced time and place… plus an unwillingness of the egoic structure to rock the relatively comfortable though temporary, apple-cart – or, as an adult, to follow instructions ; ). 

I’m not judging, I have felt subject to, and worked with the same restrictions…but the struggle for freedom, including from my own non-sense, is unquestionably worthwhile in my experience.

In my little group we have been exploring the introduction to the Dhammapada – the text found in Finding Freedom with James’ commentary… as well as anything arising from the Q and A and other sessions.

However a good number have been listening or are hoping to listen to James’ teaching. So I think it is worth putting aside the Dhammapada for a bit and engaging as much as possible with this profound text and explanation … We have time to do this… catching up now with the first if you missed it. 

Approaching it, and the second, in the way James suggests… there is hopefully more alignment and attunement as we come into connection with the third and fourth sessions.

As has been said ‘the key to your enlightenment or realisation is already in the palm of our hand’… but we do have to put it in the lock and turn it!

For many the door is like a secret door…although it’s always open if you don’t know how to look (or that it even exists) how you would find it?

So for these teachings, explanations and much else… deep gratitude to those who have realised and passed this on through time. Let’s make the most of this precious opportunity. 

I was writing this for my group initially but thought others may find it helpful!

*** See next post on further advice for how to engage with this text from James’ teaching weekend 13 14 March.

Photo of Devon Violets: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Devon_Violets._Viola_odorata_(33624079715).jpg