To best fulfill the intention of this theme, think of it as a two-parter. The first half is to get you out of your residence and touring whatever you consider to be your neighborhood. Visit the familiar but try to look at it as if you are seeing it for the first time. As you tour, take note of how much is new to you and what you may have failed to notice before. This part of the exercise is especially designed to get you to consider the familiar but with fresh eyes.
The second half of the theme is to get you thinking about what kindness you can do in your neighborhood. So as you conduct your tour, look for opportunities for kindness, as defined by you. Try not to plan your outing on the kindness action, but let it appear to you. Be open to it. Let it find you. Is it for a person, a group, a particular age? Is it for another species? Is it for the environment? Or is it for some combination?
Once you have defined the kind action, plan it so it can be done as fully as is needed to complete it properly and then do it. Consider the act as having its own integrity and your job is to honor that integrity.
Per usual, please summarize your experience in your journal, keeping your summary concise yet complete.
Monday, 2 March 2015
Sunday, 1 March 2015
Saturday, 28 February 2015
Friday, 27 February 2015
The Importance Of Meditation
"Many years ago I was once much preoccupied with this sonata. That was during the period of my free studies, before I was called to teaching and later to the post of Music Master. At the time I was ambitious to work out a history of the sonata from a new point of view; but then for a while I stopped making any progress at all. I began more and more to doubt whether all these musical and historical researches had any value whatsoever, whether they were really any more than vacuous play for idle people, a scanty aesthetic substitute for living a real life. In short, I had to pass through one of those crises in which all studies, all intellectual efforts, everything that we mean by the life of the mind, appear dubious and devalued and in which we tend to envy every peasant at the plough and every pair of lovers at evening, or every bird singing in a tree and every cicada chirping in the summer grass, because they seem to us to be living such natural, fulfilled, and happy lives. We know nothing of their troubles, of course, of the elements of harshness, danger and suffering in their lot. In brief, I had pretty well lost my equilibrium. It was far from a pleasant state; in fact it was very hard to bear. I thought up the wildest schemes for escaping and gaining my freedom. For example, I imagined myself going out into the world as a itinerant musician and playing dances for wedding parties. If some recruiting officer form afar had appeared, as in old tales, and coaxed me to don a uniform and follow any company of soldiers into any war, I would have gone along. And so things went form bad to worse, as so often happens to people in such moods. I so thoroughly lost my grip on myself that I could no longer deal with my trouble alone, and had to seek help."
He paused for a moment and chuckled softly under his breath. "Naturally I had a studies adviser, as the rules require, and of course it would have been sensible and right as well as my duty to ask him for advice. But the fact is, Joseph, that precisely when we run into difficulties and stray from our path and are most in need of correction, precisely then we feel the greatest disinclination to return to the normal way and seek out the normal form of correction. My adviser had been dissatisfied with my last quarterly report; he had offered serious objections to it; but I had thought myself on the way to new discoveries and had rather resented his objections. In brief, I did not like the idea of going to him; I did not want to eat humble pie and admit that he had been right. Nor did I want to confide in my friends. Nut there was an eccentric in the vicinity whom I only knew by sight and hearsay, a Sanscrit scholar who went by the nickname of "the Yogi". One day, when my state of mind had grown sufficiently unbearable, I paid a call on this man, whose solitariness and oddity I had both smiled at and secretly admired. I went to his cell intending to talk with him, but found him in meditation; he had adopted the ritual Hindu posture and could not be reached at all. With a faint smile on his face, he hovered, as it were, in total aloofness. I could do nothing but stand at the door and wait until he returned from his absorption. This took a very long time, an hour or two hours, and at last I grew tired and slid to the floor. There I sat, leaning against the wall, continuing to wait. At the end I saw the man slowly awaken; he moved his head slightly, stretched his shoulders, slowly uncrossed his legs, and as he was about to stand up his gaze fell upon me.
"'What do you want?' he asked.
"I stood up and said, without thinking and without really knowing what I was saying: 'It's the sonatas of Andrew Gabrieli.'
"He stood up at this point, seated me in his lone chair, and perched himself on the edge of the table. 'Gabrieli?' he said. "What has he done to you with his sonatas?'
"I began to tell him what had been happening to me, and to confess the predicament I was in. He asked me about my background with an exactness that seemed to be pedantic. He wanted to know about my studies of Gabrieli and the sonata, at what hour I rose in the morning, how long I read, how much I practiced, when were my mealtimes and when I went to bed. I had confided in him, in fact imposed myself on him, so that I had to put up with his questions. but they made me ashamed; they probed more and more mercilessly into details, and forced me to an analysis of my whole intellectual and moral life during the past weeks and months.
"Then the Yogi suddenly fell silent, and when I looked puzzled, he shrugged and said: 'Don't you see yourself where the fault lies?' But I could not see it. At this point he recapitulated with astonishing exactness everything he had learned from me by his questioning. He went back to the first signs of fatigue, repugnance, and intellectual constipation, and showed me that this could have happened only to someone who had submerged himself disproportionately in his studies and that it was high time for me to recover my self-control and to regain my energy with outside help. Since I had taken the liberty of discontinuing my regular meditation exercises, he pointed out, I should at least have realised what was wrong as soon as the first evil consequences appeared, and should have resumed meditation. He was perfectly right. I had omitted meditating for quite a while on the grounds that I had no time, was too distracted to or out of spirits, or too busy and excited with my studies. Moreover, as time went on I had completely lost all awareness of my continuous sin of omission. Even now, when I was desperate and had almost run aground, it had taken an outsider to remind me of it. As a matter of fact, I was to have the greatest difficulty snapping out of this state of neglect.I had to return to the training routines and beginners' exercises in meditation in order gradually to relearn the art of composing myself and sinking into contemplation."
With a small sigh the Magister ceased pacing the room. "That is what happened to me, and to this day I am still a little ashamed to talk about it. But the fact is, Joseph, that the more we demand of ourselves, or the more our task at any given time demands of us, the more dependent we are on meditation as a wellspring of energy, as the ever-renewing concord of mind and soul. And - I could if I wished give you quite a few more examples of this - the more intensively a tax requires our energies, arousing and exalting us at one time, tiring and depressing us at another, the more easily we may come to neglect this wellspring, just as when we are carried away by some intellectual work we easily forget to attend to the body. The really great men in the history of the world have all either known how to meditate or have unconsciously found their way to the place to which meditation leads us. Even the most vigorous and gifted among the others all failed and were defeated in the end because their tasks or their ambitious dream seized hold of them, made them into persons so possessed that they lost the capacity for liberating themselves from present things, and attaining perspective. Well, you know all this; it's taught during the first exercises, of course. But it is inexorably true. How inexorably true it is, one realises, only after having gone astray."
The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse
He paused for a moment and chuckled softly under his breath. "Naturally I had a studies adviser, as the rules require, and of course it would have been sensible and right as well as my duty to ask him for advice. But the fact is, Joseph, that precisely when we run into difficulties and stray from our path and are most in need of correction, precisely then we feel the greatest disinclination to return to the normal way and seek out the normal form of correction. My adviser had been dissatisfied with my last quarterly report; he had offered serious objections to it; but I had thought myself on the way to new discoveries and had rather resented his objections. In brief, I did not like the idea of going to him; I did not want to eat humble pie and admit that he had been right. Nor did I want to confide in my friends. Nut there was an eccentric in the vicinity whom I only knew by sight and hearsay, a Sanscrit scholar who went by the nickname of "the Yogi". One day, when my state of mind had grown sufficiently unbearable, I paid a call on this man, whose solitariness and oddity I had both smiled at and secretly admired. I went to his cell intending to talk with him, but found him in meditation; he had adopted the ritual Hindu posture and could not be reached at all. With a faint smile on his face, he hovered, as it were, in total aloofness. I could do nothing but stand at the door and wait until he returned from his absorption. This took a very long time, an hour or two hours, and at last I grew tired and slid to the floor. There I sat, leaning against the wall, continuing to wait. At the end I saw the man slowly awaken; he moved his head slightly, stretched his shoulders, slowly uncrossed his legs, and as he was about to stand up his gaze fell upon me.
"'What do you want?' he asked.
"I stood up and said, without thinking and without really knowing what I was saying: 'It's the sonatas of Andrew Gabrieli.'
"He stood up at this point, seated me in his lone chair, and perched himself on the edge of the table. 'Gabrieli?' he said. "What has he done to you with his sonatas?'
"I began to tell him what had been happening to me, and to confess the predicament I was in. He asked me about my background with an exactness that seemed to be pedantic. He wanted to know about my studies of Gabrieli and the sonata, at what hour I rose in the morning, how long I read, how much I practiced, when were my mealtimes and when I went to bed. I had confided in him, in fact imposed myself on him, so that I had to put up with his questions. but they made me ashamed; they probed more and more mercilessly into details, and forced me to an analysis of my whole intellectual and moral life during the past weeks and months.
"Then the Yogi suddenly fell silent, and when I looked puzzled, he shrugged and said: 'Don't you see yourself where the fault lies?' But I could not see it. At this point he recapitulated with astonishing exactness everything he had learned from me by his questioning. He went back to the first signs of fatigue, repugnance, and intellectual constipation, and showed me that this could have happened only to someone who had submerged himself disproportionately in his studies and that it was high time for me to recover my self-control and to regain my energy with outside help. Since I had taken the liberty of discontinuing my regular meditation exercises, he pointed out, I should at least have realised what was wrong as soon as the first evil consequences appeared, and should have resumed meditation. He was perfectly right. I had omitted meditating for quite a while on the grounds that I had no time, was too distracted to or out of spirits, or too busy and excited with my studies. Moreover, as time went on I had completely lost all awareness of my continuous sin of omission. Even now, when I was desperate and had almost run aground, it had taken an outsider to remind me of it. As a matter of fact, I was to have the greatest difficulty snapping out of this state of neglect.I had to return to the training routines and beginners' exercises in meditation in order gradually to relearn the art of composing myself and sinking into contemplation."
With a small sigh the Magister ceased pacing the room. "That is what happened to me, and to this day I am still a little ashamed to talk about it. But the fact is, Joseph, that the more we demand of ourselves, or the more our task at any given time demands of us, the more dependent we are on meditation as a wellspring of energy, as the ever-renewing concord of mind and soul. And - I could if I wished give you quite a few more examples of this - the more intensively a tax requires our energies, arousing and exalting us at one time, tiring and depressing us at another, the more easily we may come to neglect this wellspring, just as when we are carried away by some intellectual work we easily forget to attend to the body. The really great men in the history of the world have all either known how to meditate or have unconsciously found their way to the place to which meditation leads us. Even the most vigorous and gifted among the others all failed and were defeated in the end because their tasks or their ambitious dream seized hold of them, made them into persons so possessed that they lost the capacity for liberating themselves from present things, and attaining perspective. Well, you know all this; it's taught during the first exercises, of course. But it is inexorably true. How inexorably true it is, one realises, only after having gone astray."
The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse
Thursday, 26 February 2015
Fire Monks
Wood, dirt, stone, bare skin: These are the materials that Tassajara is made of. Natural, sturdy, porous, impermanent. The smell of lemon-ginger scones.
It may sound confining, but the schedule is not intended to restrict. It's meant to release. Without a schedule, you have to wonder what you should be doing from one moment to the next. Should you wake up now or roll over and go back to sleep? Preferences must be weighed decisions constantly confronted. And since reality does not align itself with personal preferences, organising yourself to support them is usually an invitation to suffering.
Zen has a solution to this problem: "The great way is not difficult, just avoid picking and choosing." Just follow the schedule. Take up the tasks of whatever position you've been assigned, without being tugged around by likes and dislikes, and stop when the bell rings. Cook. Clean. Serve meals. Turn compost. Trim candles. Scrub toilets. Sit meditation. One is not higher than the other. A Zen student undertakes work as a practice - this is in the rules, too - "by entering deeply and wholeheartedly into the work given us to do."
But hope can be held too tightly. Zen cultivates a mind that doesn't tether itself to any fixed view or perspective - the belief that the buildings at Tassajara must be saved or, by contrast, that physical structures aren't important or worth saving. Hope is fine, as long as it doesn't lead to inflexibility.
"When you're living in the present moment, you're not so involved in hope or invested in a particular outcome," said the abbot. You do what needs to be done simply because it needs to be done, accepting that your actions may not bear the fruit you intend - and that this does not render the actions themselves fruitless.
A clever Zen teacher might say that standing back and letting the monastery burn belies a kind of attachment to the idea of non-attachment. In trying to save Tassajara from the fire - or your own life from disaster - you can't be sure you will. In fact, you can lose everything you love in a moment. And that's not a reason to give up. If anything, it's a reason to turn toward the fire, recognising it as a force of both creation and destruction, and to take care of what's right in front of you, because that's all you actually have.
From Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire, Colleen Morton Busch
It may sound confining, but the schedule is not intended to restrict. It's meant to release. Without a schedule, you have to wonder what you should be doing from one moment to the next. Should you wake up now or roll over and go back to sleep? Preferences must be weighed decisions constantly confronted. And since reality does not align itself with personal preferences, organising yourself to support them is usually an invitation to suffering.
Zen has a solution to this problem: "The great way is not difficult, just avoid picking and choosing." Just follow the schedule. Take up the tasks of whatever position you've been assigned, without being tugged around by likes and dislikes, and stop when the bell rings. Cook. Clean. Serve meals. Turn compost. Trim candles. Scrub toilets. Sit meditation. One is not higher than the other. A Zen student undertakes work as a practice - this is in the rules, too - "by entering deeply and wholeheartedly into the work given us to do."
But hope can be held too tightly. Zen cultivates a mind that doesn't tether itself to any fixed view or perspective - the belief that the buildings at Tassajara must be saved or, by contrast, that physical structures aren't important or worth saving. Hope is fine, as long as it doesn't lead to inflexibility.
"When you're living in the present moment, you're not so involved in hope or invested in a particular outcome," said the abbot. You do what needs to be done simply because it needs to be done, accepting that your actions may not bear the fruit you intend - and that this does not render the actions themselves fruitless.
A clever Zen teacher might say that standing back and letting the monastery burn belies a kind of attachment to the idea of non-attachment. In trying to save Tassajara from the fire - or your own life from disaster - you can't be sure you will. In fact, you can lose everything you love in a moment. And that's not a reason to give up. If anything, it's a reason to turn toward the fire, recognising it as a force of both creation and destruction, and to take care of what's right in front of you, because that's all you actually have.
From Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire, Colleen Morton Busch
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
In the mail...
I received this in the mail today. I love it, love it, love it...how have I not heard of this book? These things make Jenny happy!
I read the book in one sitting. It's one of those multimedia books where you get to take out the letters from their envelopes, carefully unfold them and read beautifully crafted letters, the kind I wish I could write.
Oh well, I can always keep working at it.
I read the book in one sitting. It's one of those multimedia books where you get to take out the letters from their envelopes, carefully unfold them and read beautifully crafted letters, the kind I wish I could write.
Oh well, I can always keep working at it.
Tuesday, 24 February 2015
I do it for one person
You ask how in the midst of all this chaos, I have the wherewithal or the sheer mulishness to go with this blog and to update it every day when you know, I have let so much else of my life and my resolutions slip away, unheeded. Wherefore the novel? I lost interest in the lead character. I killed off the only one I found interesting (he had to die) but with his death, I was no longer interested in writing...the tapestry has fared a little better. I force myself to add to it, at least a few stitches a day. And I watch it grow and become beautiful and exquisite.
What else? Well, the books I want to read, day by day - I'm getting through them. Have already made my way through three books of poetry and one book of Zen lectures. Yes, that is as it should be.
Ille introduced me to Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game. And now I sort of see why she is so intent on getting people to talk across disciplines. To come up with a common language so we will all understand each other. I also see why she keeps coming back to this book over and over again. What it is she seeks to find there. It is deep. So deep. It bears re-reading.
I will be excerpting part of the book here, so stay tuned.
I have decided to buy a bunch of copies of this book...because, well, I think it is one that everybody should read. But I am not sure it is one that everyone will enjoy. The popularity lies with his earlier, easier novels. Siddharta. Narcissus and Goldmund. Suchlike.
This one, which encapsulates his view of life as he neared death, scarred by the events of that horrific century, is harder to take in. Sort of like eating an elephant. You digest it little by little. And it takes a long long time. And you've got to be willing to take a long long time.
Are you?
We live in a skimming culture. In one that multitasks, moving from stimuli to stimuli. Nothing quite holding our attention for long.
You can see something of this craziness here. How many books do you reckon I'm reading all at the same time?
I don't know.
So, scattered as I am, unfocussed as I am, flighty as I am, why do I continue to update this blog.
For one person.
And that person is you.
What else? Well, the books I want to read, day by day - I'm getting through them. Have already made my way through three books of poetry and one book of Zen lectures. Yes, that is as it should be.
Ille introduced me to Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game. And now I sort of see why she is so intent on getting people to talk across disciplines. To come up with a common language so we will all understand each other. I also see why she keeps coming back to this book over and over again. What it is she seeks to find there. It is deep. So deep. It bears re-reading.
I will be excerpting part of the book here, so stay tuned.
I have decided to buy a bunch of copies of this book...because, well, I think it is one that everybody should read. But I am not sure it is one that everyone will enjoy. The popularity lies with his earlier, easier novels. Siddharta. Narcissus and Goldmund. Suchlike.
This one, which encapsulates his view of life as he neared death, scarred by the events of that horrific century, is harder to take in. Sort of like eating an elephant. You digest it little by little. And it takes a long long time. And you've got to be willing to take a long long time.
Are you?
We live in a skimming culture. In one that multitasks, moving from stimuli to stimuli. Nothing quite holding our attention for long.
You can see something of this craziness here. How many books do you reckon I'm reading all at the same time?
I don't know.
So, scattered as I am, unfocussed as I am, flighty as I am, why do I continue to update this blog.
For one person.
And that person is you.
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