A Different World

Have you considered the possibility

that everything you believe is wrong,

not merely off a bit, but totally wrong,

nothing like things as they really are?

If you’ve done this, you know how durably fragile

those phantoms we hold in our heads are,

those wisps of thought that people die and kill for,

betray lovers for, give up lifelong friendships for.

If you’ve not done this, you probably don’t understand this poem,

or think it’s not even a poem, but a bit of opaque nonsense,

occupying too much of your day’s time,

so you probably should stop reading it here, now.

But if you’ve arrived at this line,

maybe, just maybe, you’re open to that possibility,

the possibility of being absolutely completely wrong,

about everything that matters.

How different the world seems then:

everyone who was your enemy is your friend,

everything you hated, you now love,

and everything you love slips through your fingers like sand.

FEDERICO MORAMARCO

(Thanks to Andy at Pilgrimpace for introducing me to this poem.)

The creation of the universe (Wikimedia Commons)

When you think about it, all things — the universe, the world, all inanimate things, all animate things, ourselves, protozoa, electrons — are governed by the law of cause and effect. It's the way it is. In fact, without this expectation we would feel completely disoriented in a surreal, irrational universe, and would probably go mad. The Big Bang was perhaps the very first cause (though what caused that?) — bringing about every effect there has ever been. Each animal and plant, each rock and stone, each configuration of weather and landscape, each slice of history, geography and geology, each thought, deed and action that exists depends on a network of influence and being influenced, of cause and effect, of cooperation and exploitation, of cost and benefit. Look at the food chain, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the movement of the stars, the planets and the seasons. Look at the effects of heredity and environment on human beings, on all living creatures. Look at the now-incontravertible Darwinian theory of natural selection (which led, however, to the sinister phrase 'survival of the fittest'). Look how we constantly use conjunctions such as 'if . . . then', 'because', 'so that', 'since', 'consequently' and 'therefore'. Look at everything.

The reasons for things and the results of things can be simple or complicated: 'A' followed by 'B' prompts 'C'; we predict the sun will rise each morning because of the earth's self-rotation and orbit round the sun; we throw stones into a pond and watch the ripples; the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil may set off a tornado in Texas. All our motions — even the most routine duty or automatic gesture — have causes, many of which are hard to trace unless we involve ourselves in continual self-analysis. All our stirrings — even the tiniest movement or most insignificant thought — have consequences, many of which we will never be aware of.

Despite post-Einsteinian and modern speculative physics, most of us believe that life is a temporal progression, a linear track through space forged by cause and effect, action and result. But supposing it isn't always like that? Supposing there's a different way of seeing things? Supposing everything you believe is wrong, / not merely off a bit, but totally wrong, / nothing like things as they really are?

Cambodian buddha (Wikimedia Commons)

It may seem impossible to challenge, to sidestep even for a moment this eternal line of relentlessly falling dominoes. But I believe it can be done if we use certain Zen tricks and techniques, mind sets and meditative practices. In the Four Noble Truths Buddhism shows us the indisputably hard reality of life, i.e. that life is suffering, and that suffering is caused by greed and desire, ignorance and delusion, hatred and the impulse to destroy — and by our attachment to the mental, physical and sensory world replete with all these negativities. In the final two Truths we are taught how to disentangle ourselves, to liberate ourselves from suffering and the causes of suffering by following the Eightfold Path, or Middle Way, as a route to enlightenment or nirvana (no mystical state somewhere 'out there', but a state attainable in the 'here and now', suffused with deep peace, joy and compassion). The Eightfold Path consists of eight 'steps': Right Understanding, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration — stages which all cultivate independent thought, a positive attitude, empathy, deep awareness and a kind of 'moral' rectitude.

My point here is that it is in our power to change the cycle of desire (cause) - suffering (effect) -  further desire (an abortive attempt to escape suffering) - further suffering if we break the connection between desire and suffering by eliminating desire. In other words, rather than accepting the inevitability of long-established chains of cause and effect, we can disrupt them — break the links. In this and similar acts we assert individual choice and freedom, free will if you like: things don't have to be this way! (I suppose you could argue philosophically that by asserting this free will you are still using the cause and effect principle, i.e. your free will causes your new state of being, but can you go along with me and just call this semantics? I think you understand the gist of what I'm trying to argue.)

Satori

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm very interested in Buddhism — Zen Buddhism in particular. This is not the place to go into the fascinating and complex history of Buddhism in India, China and Japan; nor is it the place to explain how DT Suzuki brought his interpretation of Zen to a spiritually-bereft Western world. Suffice to say that, simply put, there are two modes of Zen thought and practice — not mutually exclusive, but interwoven and complementary: one involves study, contemplation, meditation and discipline; the other is the spontaneous, immediate, less intellectual, more intuitive experience of koan and satori. Reflecting back on my recent Camino along the Via Francigena, it occurs to me that my illuminative moments on the banks of the Rhône were an unexpected, unpremeditated satori. Here's my account of it:

It was near to here, on a flower-strewn bank overlooking the river, that I had my picnic lunch: a superb garlic sausage, doux Fontal cheese and pain complet from the Migros supermarket in Aigle, plus a small 20 cl bottle of Aigle les Murailles white wine bought in the castle shop. It was an idyllic place, and, after the meal, I experienced one of those sublime, mystical moments I treasure so much. You never forget such rare, spontaneous events, and they cannot be manufactured or predicted. Suddenly I had a strong conviction that everything was coming together in an almost magical way: my mind, body and soul felt at one with the life I was leading out there on the road — and at one with the universe itself. My practical skills for what they were worth — knife or route-finding or backpacking skills for instance — seemed to merge effortlessly with any emotional and spiritual intelligence I might have; it was an overwhelming, deeply satisfying sense of harmony, control and insight. I have explained it as best I can, but really the experience was beyond words. This intense state lasted for perhaps five minutes, then, when I had packed up and left, the feeling was still there, but more diluted. Here I was, living cheaply and well, each day in the open air and in the heart of nature, like some vagabond or holy tramp, in good health, in good spirits, and as free as a bird . . . Indeed, I was truly fortunate.

Balance

It struck me today how much of life is Reaction and Counter-Reaction.

Reformation then Counter-Reformation. Classicism then Romanticism. Aufklärung then Sturm und Drang. Monarchy then Republicanism. Socialism then Conservatism. Culture then Anarchy. Despotism then Democracy. War then Peace. Rebellion then Acceptance. Indulgence then Denial. Boom then Bust. You get the picture.

I don't want to go too deeply into this. Sometimes the Counter-Reaction is preferable — and sometimes it's not. Sometimes there's Thesis, Antithesis, then Synthesis — and sometimes there's not. Sometimes we learn from our mistakes — and sometimes we don't. Sometimes the process seems like a pendulum swinging perpetually and uselessly from one extreme to another.

But more and more I believe in a balance between the extremes, a syncretism which takes the best from all worlds. (I hope this isn't being indecisive and chickening out of some exclusive, evangelical, firebrand faith. I hope I won't be called a wooly-minded liberal.)

It's just that I tend to be interested in many things, to hover between this and that. One day's enthusiasm gives way to the next day's enthusiasm. The Age of Enlightenment  — yes! The triumph of reason, the rejection of the superstitions and prejudices of the past, the advancement of science. But didn't that go too far? The ensuing Romantic Age reasserted a belief in the individual, the personal and emotional life, the inner man and woman.

I want to take clues and threads and jewels from everything, and form my own balanced, if idiosyncratic, self and world view.  That's my own process, my own experience — my own life path.

Read about the 'not too loose or too tight' Middle Way of Buddhism here.

Sacred Silence

Loren Webster from In a Dark Time . . .The Eye Begins to See has been blogging some thoughts about Joan Halifax's book The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom. The first post in his sequence starts here. I was very taken with this passage quoted by Loren:

The poet Kathleen Raine once suggested, 'It is not that birds speak, but men learn silence.' I think that it is when we learn silence that the birds speak to us. Fertile silence is like a placenta nourishing us from both emptiness and its connectedness with the greater organism of creation. Indeed, one aspect of silence is emptiness, and yes, it is often lonely. In the presence of silence, the conditioned self rattles and scratches. It begins to crumble like old leaves or worn rock. If we have courage, we take silence as medicine to cure us from our social ills, the suffering of self-centered alienation. In silence, sacred silence, we stand naked like trees in winter, all our secrets visible under our skin. And like winter’s tree, we appear dead but are yet alive.

I really want to read this book.

Cravings

Buddha (Source: Wikimedia Commons).

The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism are these: (1) Suffering ('dukkha') exists. (2) Suffering arises from attachment to desire. (3) Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases. (4) Self-awakening and freedom from suffering ('nirvana') are possible by practising the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path.

It's abundantly clear that there's no end to the stress, anxiety and suffering we all experience from birth till death. Yes, life can be full of joy, pleasure and delight, but it can also be racked with hurt, illness and disappointment. Life is constantly changing; it's worryingly impermanent, random, often without any apparent stability and order; there seems to be no inner substance to things, no resolution to the painful difficulties which perpetually confront us. Buddhism looks dispassionately at this truth about suffering, accepts it, but is not pessimistic about it. Buddhism offers a practical answer.

The answer revolves around our understanding and analysis of our desires and cravings. Some cravings are necessary, natural, basic to our very existence, such as our cravings for food, drink and warmth. Without food, drink and some degree of warmth engendered by clothing and shelter we would soon die. I'll also include the sex drive in these basic cravings — without sex we would not individually die, but we would eventually die out as a species.

However, these basic life-or-death cravings and many other secondary cravings (e.g. for power, prestige, fame, influence, possessions, material goods, spiritual fulfilment, love, companionship, money, happiness, a new job — the list is endless) can easily get out of control and become a tyranny. For instance, an excessive craving for food (and it's very easy to become addicted to wanting more and more sugar, salt or fat) can lead to ill-health and obesity; an excessive craving for drink can lead to alcoholism; an excessive craving for warmth and comfort can lead to over-indulgent, over-protected, over-upholstered, artificial and unfulfilled lives (all those cars and over-heated, ill-ventilated homes in which we insulate ourselves from the real world, all those meaningless toys and gadgets!); and an excessive craving for sex can lead to sex addiction. My own experience is that over-indulgence in any sort of craving leads to unhappiness and an unpleasant feeling of lack of control.

Buddhism teaches us to recognise that our desires and cravings are the cause of our unhappiness. When we understand this (the recognition may come in a sudden flash like many Buddhist moments of realisation), and are aware that we can exert some influence over them, we feel free, liberated, relieved, more confident, more in control. We take charge of ourselves, rather than it being our desires and cravings which always have the upper hand.    

Growing In Stillness

Like Henry Miller, I'm convinced that the meaning of life lies in this world, not in the next world or in other worlds. Other worlds can take care of themselves. However, this kind of spiritual secularism, this faith in the saving grace of the here and now, is both wonderful and terrible. Wonderful because one can learn to relax and trust in the present moment; terrible because it entails an existential responsibility not to screw up. No stored karma; karma is being used right now. No deathbed conversion; the only conversion is a continual conversion of perception: to see a better world in the actual world, to find the miraculous in the day-to-day, the eternal in the temporal, the infinite in the finite.

For me, life has been a search, a quest, a becoming rather than a being, and perhaps it will ever remain so. The next person I meet, the next book I read, the next piece of music I hear, the next bend in the road, the next brow of the hill — always hold out such promise. This promise is rarely completely fulfilled. But there's always a new minute, a new day, a new landscape, a new philosophy, a new dream, a new sonata. This makes life exciting, fascinating, compelling; the prospect of the novel and the unexpected gets one up in the morning. Yet there's always a lurking feeling of disappointment, a suspicion that there must be something more, something better, something different; something deeper, more multi-layered and more satisfying.

How to reconcile acceptance of the now-as-all-there-is with the very human desire for betterment, for increased knowledge, for change? Can there, paradoxically, be a state of permanence in change, of stasis in motion, of stability in flux, of harmony in disharmony, of being in becoming? The nearest I've approached an answer to this is in Buddhism, Taoism and other related Eastern philosophies and religions.

Things grow and grow,

But each goes back to its root.

Going back to the root is stillness.

This means returning to what is.

Returning to what is

Means going back to the ordinary.

LAO-TZU Tao Te Ching

Translated by STEPHEN ADDISS and STANLEY LOMBARDO

Mindful Walking (3)

A human foot carved in limestone in Egypt around 600 BC.

. . . Take a look at your feet: the slanting row of toes, the ball, the arch, the heel, the ankle. Why don't you admire them? Go even further — love them! Why not? They are beautiful. Think of what they do for you. They are masterpieces of design; they are miracles. Stand up on them. Sway forwards a little, then backwards, then from side to side. See how you balance. You could not do this without them. Be conscious of how your body is standing upright, erect, the centre of gravity running straight from the top of your head through your spine and pelvis and legs right down to your feet. Watch how the mind controls what the body does. Wriggle your toes. Stand on tiptoe. Rock back on your heels. Bend your legs, one after the other, flexing the Achilles tendon. Your legs and your whole body are supported and balanced by your feet. It feels good, doesn't it?

Step out of the bedroom. What freedom you have on your own two feet, what choices, what infinite possibilities! You could take them — or they could take you — across the landing to the bathroom or into another bedroom. You could move them downstairs into the kitchen or the living room or the garden. Or down the street and round the park and into the shops. Or up the hill and through the woods and by the lake and past the crossroads and along the river as far as the sea. And beyond the ocean there's Yssingeaux, Xanadu, Morocco, Samarkand . . . 

Don't try putting on your socks just yet. Why don't you go barefoot for a while? It's normal, it's natural, it's liberating. We don't walk barefoot enough. We lose touch with our feet, our beautiful feet, in thick socks which make them hot and sweaty. We encase them in ill-fitting footwear, fashionable and expensive shoes and boots, which cause them suffering and deformity. We pervert four million years of evolution by forcing our feet into unnatural contortions. Go barefoot for a while and taste the freedom. Feel how directly and naturally the heel and the ball of the foot touch the wooden floorboards, the cool tiles, the lush carpet, the dew-laden grass. Feel how the skin loves this contact, and hardens a little to protect itself, yet remains sensitive to all the textures and temperatures of the ground surface . . .

(Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Mindful Walking (2)

The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art. LEONARDO DA VINCI

The feet of the Solitary Walker encased in a pair of Keen walking sandals.

Where does it start? Muscles tense. One leg a pillar, holding the body upright between the earth and sky. The other a pendulum, swinging from behind. Heel touches down. The whole weight of the body rolls forward onto the ball of the foot. The big toe pushes off, and the delicately balanced weight of the body shifts again. The legs reverse position. It starts with a step and then another step and then another that add up like taps on a drum to a rhythm, the rhythm of walking. The most obvious and the most obscure thing in the world, this walking that wanders so readily into religion, philosophy, landscape, urban policy, anatomy, allegory, and heartbreak. REBECCA SOLNIT Wanderlust: A History Of Walking

You don't have to embark on a long and significant trek before engaging in a bit of mindful walking. You only need swing your legs out of bed in the morning, plant them on the floor, and you can begin.

But first let us consider briefly the human foot, that masterpiece of engineering and work of art. It's a wonderful, remarkable thing — one of the most complex mechanical structures in the human anatomy. The foot comprises twenty-six bones (only the hand has more, one more to be exact), thirty-three joints (twenty of them articulated) and over one hundred muscles, tendons and ligaments. The hands and feet alone contain more than half the total number of bones in the human body, and just two bones in each foot carry the bulk of its whole weight.

It's taken four million years of evolution to walk upright. Walking on two legs distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom (ok, birds and kangaroos also manage on two legs, but they hop rather than walk, and use their tails for balance). This miracle of bipedalism was an essential evolutionary step forward in the development of the hominid, leading to our present unique human shape: straight toes, arched feet, long straight legs and spine, flat stomach, flexible waist, low shoulders and erect head.

Now back to those feet on the bedroom floor . . .

Click here for Mindful Walking (1)

(Click here for the daily Turnstone quote.)

Riding The Ox

More great advice from the Zenrin, a classic collection of Buddhist wisdom -quoted in David Brazier's inspirational book The Feeling Buddha, which I've just finished reading:

In life, seek no heaven;

In death, fear no hell.

Enter the woods without disturbing a blade of grass;

Enter the water without making waves.

Meet the enlightened one on the street;

Do not greet him with words nor silence.

For so long, like a bird in a cage;

Now fly free like a cloud in the blue sky.

Hold the hoe with empty hands;

Ride the ox by standing on your own feet.

Brazier comments: These verses point to an innocence of mind that is yet fully mature. The enlightened person is mature enough to enjoy life as it is and by doing so liberates the creative fire within. The ox is an age old symbol for the wildness in us that is also the basis for our spiritual life. If we can catch and tame the ox, we will be in command of our power.

Brazier's book is a radical new look at Buddhism, going back to the Buddha's original words and intentions (so far as it is possible to tell them). It's a refreshingly simple, psychological, common sense approach to the subject.

These are Buddhism's Four Noble Truths as Brazier interprets them:

DUKKHA: AFFLICTION, burning, adversity, suffering, provocation, ill-being: SPARK

SAMUDAYA: RESPONSE, welling up, passion, feeling, reaction, spirit: FIRE

NIRODHA: CONTAINMENT, holding firm, harnessing, sheltering the fire, applying the energy: TENDING THE FIRE

MARGA: TRACK, making tracks, way, trace, the completed work, the undefeated life: THE COOKED MEAL

Throughout his book Brazier makes helpful analogies with the fire symbol - an image which the Buddha himself used constantly.

I quoted another poem from the Zenrin here.

No Ideas But In Things

Nothing is hidden;
It has always been clear as day.

For divine wisdom: look at the old pine tree;
For eternal truth: listen to the birds sing.

Seeking the mind: there is no place to look;
Can you see the footprints of flying birds?

Above, not a single tile to shelter under;
Below, not a morsel of ground for support.

From the Zenrin, a classic collection of Buddhist wisdom, and quoted in DAVID BRAZIER's The Feeling Buddha.

Walking As Meditation (3)

Camino, Spain

To meditate does not mean to fight with a problem.
To meditate means to observe.
Your smile proves it.
It proves that you are being gentle with yourself,
that the sun of awareness is shining in you,
that you have control of your situation.
You are yourself,
and you have acquired some peace.

THICH NHAT HAHN

This is a vast, fascinating and important subject, and I fear I'll only have space for a few hints and glimpses in this post. But if these brief thoughts and jottings encourage anyone to read and explore further, I will be happy.

There's a rich history of walking as an aid to reflection, meditation and spiritual self-discovery. Those great walker-writers of the English Romantic movement who found in Nature such a source of creative inspiration - Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hazlitt, De Quincey et al. - I'll consider in another post. Here I want to concentrate on the religious and ritual aspects of walking.

Two main religions come to mind when we think of walking as meditation: Western Christianity, and Eastern Buddhism (though Buddhism is not, strictly speaking, a religion - rather a set of ethics or a philosophy of life.) Christianity has a long tradition of pilgrimage walking - to Canterbury, to Rome, to Jerusalem, to Santiago de Compostela, to a host of other sacred sites. Such peregrinations are undertaken for a number of reasons: to perform a penance, to give thanks to God, to petition for a cure, to fulfill a vow, to meditate on and reaffirm faith. A pilgrim route also has a symbolic significance as it represents the journey of the soul through the vicissitudes of mortal life to heaven. The popularity of pilgrimage has waxed and waned over the centuries. At the moment its appeal is growing, as more and more people seek  an alternative, spiritual, non-materialistic mode of life.

The blog Pilgrimpace expressed a personal view of pilgrimage, and the relationship between walking and prayer, in a post of just over a year ago called The Walking Becomes The Praying:

'A pilgrimage gets to the holy place at last but what gives it its part in prayer is the slamming down of ones feet to complete the journey praying the while for all its features.'  ALAN ECCLESTONE

A book that I come back to again and again is A Staircase for Silence by Alan Ecclestone. Ecclestone, a Communist Anglo-Catholic, was for many years Vicar of Darnall in Sheffield and is, for me, one of the most important figures of the twentieth century. A Staircase for Silence is a study of Charles Peguy, the French poet and visionary.

While I walked through Spain I tried to pray. I also reflected and reflect now on the deep connection between prayer and walking. The praying took many forms. Sometimes I prayed formal intercessions for people or situations. Sometimes I sang. Sometimes a breathing prayer such as the Jesus Prayer. But most of all the walking became the praying. The slamming down of the feet, the being at one with myself, landscape and God, tiredness, the mind shutting up and stilling. Walking, pilgrimage itself, became prayer. It felt very real, linking deeply into the rest of my life in all its aspects, and into the Office and Holy Communion. Ecclestone describes Peguy 'treading out in the countryside with the joyfulness of a lover, the delight of an artist, the ecstasy of one who worships.' The Camino was all those for me, but it was also hard and penitential (bloodily so – literally on one occasion, when I witnessed an ill-prepared Spanish peregrino remove his boots outside the bar at Albergueria).

Although Buddhism does not use the idea of prayer as part of its own meditative process, there are affinities, I believe, between Christian walking prayer and Buddhist walking meditation. Both address our inner spiritual needs, our mental and soul conflicts, our human struggle with this world of transience and illusion, in the pursuit of peace, understanding and enlightenment. Whether we're addressing a God or some unnameable not-self doesn't really matter, it seems to me. There may be different points of entry, but they all lead to the same 'interior castle'.

Walking meditation is widely practised in Zen Buddhism (it's known as kinhin, as opposed to zazen, which is sitting meditation). The mindfulness and meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn has written much about this, and I myself mentioned one particular technique here.) The Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh wrote this poem, offering some of the mental images he uses for walking meditation:

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
In/Out.

Breathing in, I see myself as a flower.
Breathing out I feel fresh.
Flower/Fresh.

Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain.
Breathing out, I feel solid.
Mountain/Solid.

Breathing in, I see myself as still water.
Breathing out, I reflect things as they are.
Water/Reflecting.

Breathing in, I see myself as space.
Breathing out, I feel free.
Space/Free.

There's a tradition of itinerant mendicant monks all over the Far East. Shramanas were wandering monks in ancient India who renounced the world and lived ascetic lives of austerity in order to attain spiritual development and liberation. Komuso were Japanese mendicant monastics who wore straw baskets over their heads - to demonstrate the absence of ego - and who played bamboo flutes for alms in a practice aimed at gaining enlightenment and healing. And of course Gautama Buddha himself walked far and wide thoughout his life, first as a seeker, then as a teacher.

I've found Buddhist mindfulness and meditation techniques incredibly beneficial on my own pilgrimage treks across France and Spain. They really do work in calming the mind, making you more alert to each passing second, giving you a super-consciousness of the landscape you're passing through, and renewing your energy for the miles ahead.

Piece Of Mind/Whole Mind/Peace Of Mind

I'm finding it impossible to write anything even mildly creative at the moment - let alone get my thoughts together about the South West Coast Path - because the virus I came back with (which I thought gone) has left my ears in a sorry state. To put it bluntly, I'm half deaf in one, and completely deaf in the other. I believe I may have an infection in the completely deaf ear, as it hurts. So I suppose I'll have to visit the doctor on Monday if things don't improve. I thought a purgative onion, garlic and chilli soup had blasted the virus away - but, oh no! There's often a sting in life's tail (or tale), isn't there?

The Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche is giving me some consolation, so I thought I'd post a few quotes from this wise classic ...

Confined in the dark, narrow cage of our own making which we take for the whole universe, very few of us can even begin to imagine another dimension of reality. Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit.
'Where do you come from?' asked the frog in the well.
'From the great ocean,' he replied.
'How big is your ocean?'
'It's gigantic.'
'You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?'
'Bigger.'
'Bigger? You mean half as big?'
'No, even bigger.'
'Is it ... as big as this well?'
'There's no comparison.'
'That's impossible! I've got to see this for myself.'
They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces.

Dudjom Rinpoche described the buddha nature of mind thus:

No words can describe it
No example can point to it
Samsara does not make it worse
Nirvana does not make it better
It has never been born
It has never ceased
It has never been nonexistent
It has no limits at all
It does not fall into any kind of catagory.

And the poet Nyoshul Khenpo wrote:

Rest in great natural peace
This exhausted mind
Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought,
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara.

Emptiness Is The Track On Which The Centred Person Moves

Unborn emptiness has let go of the extremes of being and non-being. Thus it is both the centre itself and the central path. Emptiness is the track on which the centred person moves. JE TSONGKHAPA (1357-1419)

Reading this quotation from the Tibetan Buddhist Je Tsongkhapa (aka Je Rinpoche) just now in Stephen Batchelor's excellent book Buddhism Without Beliefs (1997), it struck me that it had some affinity with the poem I wrote a few days ago, Sweet Nothing.

The photo was taken on Mount Etna in Sicily.

Our Walking Is Our Preaching

Aparigraha is the Buddhist tradition of non-possessiveness, non-hoarding, non-attachment - taking only what you absolutely need, not coveting unnecessary, luxury items, not grasping at things greedily, not clutching on to things. St Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) also practised this philosophy of taking only that which is necessary, and it became one of the precepts of the Franciscan Order he established in 1221.

Another book of my mother's, now on my own shelves, is the Everyman's Library edition of The Little Flowers Of Saint Francis. This was first published in 1910 as the 485th book in the Library, but my copy is the 1947 reprint on War Economy Standard paper. (In my former life as a book salesman I used to tout the Everyman's Library round the UK, a wonderful series which brought the classics within reach of the ordinary working man and woman. They were published at affordable prices in small-size formats. In their heyday nearly 1000 volumes were in print.)

The book contains three 'biographies' of St Francis, his life and teachings: The Little Flowers itself, translated into English from the Italian which in turn is translated from the Latin; The Mirror Of Perfection, based on documents and memoirs left by Friar Leo, one of the Franciscan brothers; and The Life Of Saint Francis by St Bonaventura.

In 1222 a certain Thomas of Spalato saw St Francis preaching in the piazza in front of the Palazzo del Podestá in Bologna, and described the effect his words had on the whole city which had assembled to hear him: ...he treated his theme so well and so wisely that many learned men who were present stood filled with admiration when they heard such words from the lips of an untutored friar. The whole matter of his discourse was directed to the quenching of hatred and the establishment of peace. His dress was mean, his person insignificant, his face without beauty. But with so much power did God inspire his words that many noble families, sundered by ancient blood feuds, were reconciled for ever.

These are are some of the words of St Francis:

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.

What we are looking for is what is looking.

Start by doing what's necessary; than do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.

True progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice.

I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

I hope to visit Assisi later this month.

The painting of St Francis at the top of this post is by the Spanish artist Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664). Zurbarán was born in the village of Fuente de Cantos in the region of Extremadura; I passed through this village on my recent pilgrimage along the Vía de la Plata.

Thanks to George at Transit Notes for the photo below, which was taken in a 'small hermitage near Assisi, Italy, where St Francis and his followers frequently meditated and broke bread together.'

Books Which Change Your Life

I like to think of mindfulness simply as the art of conscious living. You don't have to be a Buddhist or a yogi to practice it. In fact, if you know anything about Buddhism, you will know that the most important point is to be yourself and not try to become anything that you are not already. Buddhism is fundamentally about being in touch with your own deepest nature and leting it flow out of you unimpeded. It has to do with waking up and seeing things as they are. In fact, the word 'Buddha' simply means one who has awakened to his or her true nature. JON KABAT-ZINN Wherever You Go, There You Are

That's the last of my quotes from Jon Kabat-Zinn. It's time to move on to other things. My recent readings of his books Coming To Our Senses and Wherever You Go, There You Are came at just the right time in my life and have affected me deeply. It's strange how sometimes exactly the right book is 'gifted' to us at exactly the right moment in our lives - a book which may quickly become a landmark book, influencing us, rescuing us, inspiring us in profound, often life-changing ways.

When I was in my late teens I read The Penguin Krishnamurti Reader and The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader and these books fired a life-long interest in Zen Buddhism and were mind-blowing for me at the time. They affected absolutely the way I thought and the way I lived. Other books which have done this to me are Thoreau's Walden, the novels of Hermann Hesse and John Fowles, and (this may surprise you) the novels of Henry Miller. I read all of these writers in my twenties.

I wonder how many of you have totemic books you read at a critical time in your lives - books which altered your mindset? The power of the written word can be truly astonishing.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. THOREAU

The Unfolding Path

In the middle of this road we call life / I found myself in a dark wood / With no clear path through DANTE Inferno

The journey metaphor is used in all cultures to describe life and the quest for meaning. In the East, the word Tao, Chinese for 'Way' or 'Path', carries this meaning. In Buddhism, meditation practice is usually spoken of as a path - the path of mindfulness, the path of right understanding, the path of the wheel of truth (Dharma). Tao and Dharma also mean the way things are, the law that governs all of existence and non-existence. All events, whether we see them on the surface as good or bad, are fundamentally in harmony with the Tao. It is our job to learn to perceive this underlying harmony, and to live and make decisions in accord with it. Yet, frequently, it is not exactly clear what the right way is, which leaves plenty of room for free will and principled action, and also for tension and controversy, to say nothing of getting lost entirely.

When we practice meditation, we are really acknowledging that in this moment, we are on the road of life. The path unfolds in this moment and in every moment while we are alive. Meditation is more rightly thought of as a 'Way' than as a technique. It is a Way of being, a Way of living, a Way of listening, a Way of walking along the path of life and being in harmony with things as they are. This means in part acknowledging that sometimes, often at very crucial times, you really have no idea where you are going or even where the path lies. At the same time, you can very well know something about where you are now (even if it is knowing that you are lost, confused, enraged, or without hope). On the other hand, it often happens that we can become trapped into believing too strongly that we do know where we are going, especially if we are driven by self-serving ambition and we want certain things very badly. There is a blindness that comes from self-furthering agendas that leaves us thinking we know, when actually we don't know as much as we think. JON KABAT-ZINN Wherever You Go, There You Are

Ring Them Bells Of Mindfulness

Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail / For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale / And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail / And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing BOB DYLAN Chimes Of Freedom

Ring them bells St Catherine from the top of the room / Ring them from the fortress for the lilies that bloom / Oh the lines are long and the fighting is strong / And they're breaking down the distance between right and wrong BOB DYLAN Ring Them Bells

When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain? BOB DYLAN When You Gonna Wake Up?

The poet John Donne said 'never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.' The bell Donne is referring to is the funeral bell, the bell that reminds us of our brief sojourn in this world. But there is another bell, the bell of mindfulness, that tolls in each moment, inviting us to come to our senses, reminding us that we can wake up to our lives, now, while we have them to live. The bell of mindfulness tolls for thee as well. It tolls for all of us. It tolls in celebration of life and what might be possible were we to hear it in its fullness, were we to wake up. JON KABAT-ZINN Coming To Our Senses

No News Of The Affairs Of Men

Ryokan (1758-1831) is a Japanese poet of whom I'm very fond. A Buddhist monk, he trained 12 years with a Zen master. When his master died, he set off on a 5 year pilgrimage. Finally, at the age of 40, he settled down in a spartan hut on Mount Kugami and became a hermit for more than 30 years, living in absolute simplicity with very few possessions. This short, simple, yet for me profoundly resonant poem of his is quoted in Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Coming To Our Senses. It's the very essence of Zen:

My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest;
Every year the green ivy grows longer.
No news of the affairs of men,
Only the occasional song of a woodcutter.
The sun shines and I mend my robe.
When the moon comes out, I read Buddhist poems.
I have nothing to report, my friends.
If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things.

RYOKAN

Liberation From The Self

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self. ALBERT EINSTEIN

A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Out task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security. ALBERT EINSTEIN

Your One Wild And Precious Life

Two poems about awareness and mindfulness, and the amazing possibilities of the present moment in our sensory world...

You Reading This, Be Ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life -

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

WILLIAM STAFFORD

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean - the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

MARY OLIVER

I like the way Mary Oliver considers 'awareness', or close attention, as a kind of secular 'prayer'.

Both poems end with a question, which is a wake-up call to all of us.

Can we awaken our minds and senses to what the 'now' has to offer?

How do we really want to spend our lives - our precious lives, our only lives?