Fungi Web of Life

DC and I have not long since emerged from the cinema. We saw 'Fungi Web of Life' featuring Merlin Sheldrake. The film co-opts our usual aesthetic to show the beautiful forms and colours fungi can make. Of course it would have been possible to show more cringe making pictures but that wouldn't have fitted the narrative. This isn't to suggest that I don't agree with the premise of the film, fungi are fascinating and as beautiful as any other part of nature. It's just that I noticed a certain construction in the film. A thought came to mind as it was pointed out that industrial scale deforestation is destroying not just the above ground forest but also vast swathes of underground fungal networks which contain huge amounts of information which we'll never be able to learn. This is the case with so much of the natural world we destroy. The thought - we have created a fungi like structure and let it loose in our world and now we have lost control of it and it is controlling us- capitalism. Fungi is an ancient life form and it has survived many environmental changes over earth's evolution. Different types of fungi will have had their period of time, come and gone, but the kingdom of fungi has sustained. Will it survive mankind? Will we sustain? At this time we really are dicing with death yet as a species we seem unable to significantly change our behaviour.

Fungi can terrify me. They rot wood! Childhood family trauma caused by building structural timber decay is very much part of my trauma history. And the nature of fungal hyphae and mycelium- spreading out taking and following the form of that which it consumes without itself having any centre of control is the stuff of nightmares! As Sheldrake is fascinated by fungal creation I am appalled by it's capacity to destroy. This is of course an essential part of nature- without it the world would be full of dead wood and the nutrients for future growth locked up. And so I have to settle myself, just keep the water away from wood we want to stay as wood! Water is the heart of life on this planet and it was interesting to hear in the film that there are aquatic fungi. These are even less well understood than land based fungi. Water is an element us engineers are constantly controlling as best we can. Again not entirely satisfactorily...

There's something about the flow of evolution and the waxing and waning of forms at various levels which leaves me feeling exposed. We all feel this to some extent and so we grip on to what we like. This film has left me feeling both this need and its futility. There is possibility in the amorphous.

A Bell Ringing In The Empty Sky

A bell ringing in the empty sky is a piece of shakuhachi music which I recalled yesterday. DC gave me a CD recording of it back in 2006 and I remember listening to it at various times of reflection. The music is indeed meditative. Listening this morning I recalled a time as a small boy saying to my dad that 'if you're blind, you see what is behind your head' He replied that 'if you're blind you don't see anything'. I remember this clearly as I knew that he had not understood what I was saying. What I was expressing was my realisation that when I covered my eyes I saw black and this was different to the not seeing of the visual space behind my head. I realised two different kinds of absence were at play here and I was trying to put this into words. This morning the 'space' drawn out by A bell ringing in the empty sky reminded me of this childhood reflection and the aural and visual gates alighted at an at least partly unified 'space'. Glimpses of the mirror (of awareness) are through that which is reflected, be it sound or light. I know that I'm very visually orientated and even an aural 'space' becomes an imagined visual field for me whether filled with sound(s) or silent. I have a sense in all this that the pictures in my imagination and the thoughts, which are part and more fully formed words are sort of out there in front of me as I project the space in my head into the world as we do when considering things in general. Obviously there's a separation and sense of me in this too. But also as alluded to above there's an appreciation of the 'space' I'd tried to convey as a child.

Koan

Recently I've had some 'half baked' notion or other in my awareness. I've not really been able to articulate to myself what it is. And so I decided to see if blogging would draw it out. What came to me in part after listening to Leonard Cohen was a previous post -this one - about the ground of our being and everyday life. But this is not all. More specifically I suppose the notion is more related to attachment and ultimately death. Freedom as alluded to in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets - 'costing not less than everything' is I think also inextricably tied up with the other part of that poem - that we 'arrive where we started and know the place for the first time'. Much has been written about ego death and physical death, attachment, surrender and the various forms of knowing. But this is both poetry and fingers pointing at the moon. In the everyday, in the difficulties of any physical, mental and emotional state to what extent can I surrender to what is and even be in playful samadhi? Not to give up in depression looking down, a condition which holds tightly on to the way I want it to be, but to give up and look up or rather to expand to hold what is. Why? Why what? Why expand? Is there a subtle holding on to me, mine, being safe and happy in this? Of course there is. A constant dance of subject and perceived object and emerging in that a tiredness and a giving up sometimes into liberation and sometimes into tightness. The Four Quartets are a favourite of DC and in his wonderful way, he has printed and framed the verses including 'to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time'. They sit on the sideboard in the entrance to our home clustered by various papers and objects which are yet to find their way to their proper place as we negotiate everyday living whilst having work done on the house. The builder's dust and materials etc. mingle with displaced items of life as we 'camp' in the spare bedroom and keep our clothes in what will be the sitting / reflective / meditation room. The dust is getting to me. It and the clouds in my eyes caused by PVD together with the other works yet to be started so as to bring the house into a shape more harmonious with our way of being feel like a constant challenge to be accepted worked with and through. This juxtaposition in my mind of everyday tightness, tiredness and 'spiritual' 'position' hangs koan like as this 'half baked' notion.

DC will say to me that I need to learn how to be happy. He knows that I do know how to be happy, but tend to pessimism. He also says quite rightly, that pessimism is just a way to avoid disappointment. The koan constantly shifts and I wonder is there is any real underlying movement towards liberation or if it just adjusts position staying largely in the same 'place'. I try to constantly wipe the dust (of unhelpful thoughts and ways) from the mirror (of awareness) knowing that the mirror 'has no stand nor any place for dust to land' yet the knowing is still through a glass darkly, though the sense of the koan is also a knowing in some sense of it's resolution.

We're going to spend this long weekend by the sea for a much needed rest from the dust etc. DC loves the sea and it will be lovely to walk along the cliff tops and beach. Friends will stay with us for a night and I'll let go (I hope) of anxieties about getting our house in the shape of the home that feels 'right'. Coming 'home' being its own koan!

'76

 It is a beautiful day today; a clear blue sky, barely a breeze, the air warm and soft. Some memory of the summer of '76 seems to float through my mind. Six weeks of summer holiday from school, day after day of hot sunny weather, the burn at the bottom of our street still flowing but presumably more navigable by kids in wellies. We lived in wellies; up in the mornings and out to play, back only when hungry or called in because it was time to eat or time for bed, all day making dens, damming the burn, flicking green slime weed off the end of sticks on to the bridge over the burn, fishing with nets on bamboo canes for sticklebacks and putting them back. We had rings on our legs where the wellie tops would rub. I recall a steel washing line post in the lane at the back of the terrace of Tyneside flats where we lived. Unpainted, rust pitted and weathered by the elements and use to a semi-silk finish, the polished rust flowing on to the slopping concrete apron in which the post was set... Hot concrete, hot metal, hot lethargic minutes which seemed like hours and hours. And now it's forty-six years on. Other childhood days down the dene and in or on the edge of the burn now a memory. I recall playing with the idea of making a water-wheel to drive my bike dynamo in the burn. I badgered dad - could he not bring me from work a little wheel with some paddles set in it and an axel and a way of attaching to the dynamo splines? I knew he worked in a factory that made turbines for power stations. Surely if they could do that they could make me what I Neeeded. He did bring a wheel of sorts and a shaft of sorts, obviously not what was required but it didn't matter; there was something to try in the water. Although likely disappointed at the lack of suitable resource for the endeavour I must have learned a lot about the difficulties involved. Small steps to the future engineer. Much has unfolded in the intervening years. Time collapses like the remnants of a bubble when memories come like this and the unfolding of one moment in to the next that is life seems to be as much a dream as anything... Concepts such as 'my mind', past, present, self etc. seem to be in some way exposed and questioned, a faint sense of something, some no-thing emerges. Out of nothing or no-thing, emerges everything.

Spring

It's spring and all around life is starting to burst out. From the kitchen window the cherry blossom is poetic and to the distance is a haze of green and copper chocolate as the leaves open on the trees. It's gently beautiful and laced with exquisite agony. I'm tired and I want to go home (to the source).

The karma that I am is struggling with itself; myself. It comes from various angles and there is little capacity for self forgiveness.

Yet the water doesn't wet the glass, the mirror is not coloured by what is reflected. What is reflected colours only itself. I'm tired and I want to go home.

And yet there are people like this in the world.

Black & White

These pictures were taken with my phone, which takes colour pictures! But winter trees and snow under a heavy sky and more falling snow produce a black and white world!

Sunday

It is warm and sunny today, Sunday. I've no plans and nothing 'needs' to be done. It's ideal for just hanging out, going for a stroll (rather than a hike) and generally having a 'lazy' Sunday. I notice that I feel a bit sad. I am happy enough on my own but like company. Today feels like a day for sharing but DC is not due here until next week and as things have turned out no other 'play mates' seem to be about. Yet a gentle breeze wafts through the open window to say 'hello' and entice me out in to the sun and then on to the beach. Warm gentle weather seems to invite being rather than doing on such days. Without company it's being with the day, the weather, the environment, my thoughts, feelings and body and the body of the earth... with company it's all that and the energy of an other person. Depending upon the person the areas and depth of intimacy will vary as the interplay of self and other unfolds in the body of the day. Separation and connection, many and one; my experience unfolding in interdependent origination, the paradox of each being separate and the same one.

Shift

I feel something has shifted. Don't know what. I've sort of stopped struggling to find what to do, I am being more patient. I was resisting.

The small potted rose which DC bought for me as a valentine gift some years ago has put out some new leaves. Tenacious little thing; it often looks like it might be at the end, then it has an other go. It probably needs more sun as it is next to a North facing window on the sideboard. I know I need more sun! Roll on spring!

Mandelbrot set

DC and I watched a program about chaos and fractals last night. Self similar properties and feedback based upon recursion are to be seen everywhere in the natural world; simple feedback generating complex (chaotic) results. The Mandelbrot set, which has apparently been described as the thumbprint of God is a famous fractal. This theory seems to show how land, cells, plants etc evolve into the forms we see. And as I was reading about how we send out signals to life about what we want and so attract the same, or to put it an other way I suppose you could say we find that for which we look, it occurred to me that our world view and life are a feedback loop. Nothing new in that; angry people get in to fights and thus get more angry for example. But consider chaos theory and we see how the feedback loop generates much more complex situations... And is this not our state of consciousness, our life, self similar recursion? The Mandelbrot set might not just be a way of looking at forms in the natural world, it might show how the seeds of our karma generate the world we call our life... Now that puts an even more interesting spin on the thumbprint of God. I suppose I am musing on the expansion of forms out of the void. Not just from a material world view but maybe from a mind only school view.

I am a bit too tried to expand on this, but you get the gist.

The Ridiculous

After an other training session to be a citizen advocate I had lunch with Ian B today. Ian and I talked about being, the unknowable nature of 'reality', the things we can know, the way the universe presents its self in our experience, psychology, individuation, ones 'stuff' / psychological baggage, meaning, purpose, all that stuff. And it came around to me saying that I feel responsible for choosing to choose AND making my life as meaningful and happy as possible. And Ian pointed out to me that there is no reason I should feel responsible for that. At which point I saw just how my inner critic never misses a chance. That said no one can eat for us; we each must do our own 'work'. But Ian has a point and as he said, not very many people really take a good look at the meaning of (their) life AND try to live authentically as a result, so I might go easy with myself for finding it tough at times. Which is much what my friend Graeme was saying yesterday to me after we finished installing the last of his new windows.

We covered quite a bit of ground in short time pulling various bits of philosophy, psychology and spirituality into the mix and I felt the need to bring it back to two points; we need to DO and we need to SHARE. And I talked a little about creating sacred space in a sharing circle and how there is almost no space where this happens in Western society at this time and how I think that people are afraid of such sharing as it involves moving to look inward and to dismantle defenses. This prompted Ian to say that in flamenco the coming together of people is recognised and given a name, I can't recall the details, but the recognition is I feel, important.

After lunch I did a few odd jobs and found myself in B&Q warehouse to get some screws etc. where I saw for sale electric fires that include an LCD display screen showing a recording of a real fire! It was not obvious where the heat came out; the screen was the main part of the fire AND it had sound, the sound of a crackling fire! Price; just under £700. Talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous! This is no way for human beings to live, people have got to wake up!

Rant, rant... Ah well... I seem to be keeping occupied...

It has been good sharing these past few days.

And in closing I recall that even though the mirror has no stand, no place for dust to settle, we still need to wipe the dust away.

Evolution

What is the relationship of the evolutionary biology model of life on earth to the perennial philosophy? No, I am not thinking about why Richard Dawkins is wrong, or rather why is it that he misses the key to the whole does God exist argument? Namely that there is no Archimedian point, it's all interdependently originated and he doesn't seem to get the point about the definition of God. If you want to debate first define your terms and all that. But let's not get into that argument, Voltaire is attributed with 'God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere.

Evolutionary biology sits comfortably for me within interdependent origination. There seems to be in the void a desire to be, to give rise to as many forms as we see, and there are lots of forms, lots of creatures and lots of things. None of this sheds much light on the ground of being, the nature of the void, the unanswerable question 'is it divine?' It's not just about the mechanism by which forms emerge, the nature of the observer needs to be considered.

Anyway, the question I was thinking about is the relationship between desire and enlightenment. Now, as I understand it, most spiritual traditions can be summed up by the perennial philosophy, which broadly speaking, tels us to practice non-attachment, see the emptiness in things and aim to stop being dragged around by desire. With this approach acceptance or compassion arises and we become an expression of the source, charitable love. Bingo, enlightenment. Would that it were that quick and simple! But, to return to the question, 'what's this got to do with desire, and what's that got to do with evolutionary biology?'. Well, desire to survive is the basis of evolution and evolution seems to have given the universe human beings, the most aware creatures in the material world. You see that I acknowledge the problem of not having an Archimedian point; reality is bounded by our experience, so we can't limit it just to the material, so we can't rule out more aware beings. Indeed, from a spiritual point of view we assume that there are more aware beings, but at this point we move out of the limits of the material world away from form is form. Yet it is in a human life that we have the chance to practice a spiritual tradition, to seek enlightenment. And so the void in generating forms, in generating evolution (including desire) gives rise to the opportunity for enlightenment. Desire being an interesting link, an interesting way to look at things, a frame (which I think of as a device by which we might understand the way the void forms by folding forms over each other), is the driving force behind all this including the opportunity for enlightenment. Unless I've got something very wrong in my thinking. But then I recall, from my post in January on Vitality;

...that in his book 'Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist' DT Suzuki writes about trisna (tanha) as:...more deeply rooted than we imagine, as it grows straight out of the root of karuna.

So I've had this sort of thought running around in my head for a bit it would seem. And why is it of interest? Because, I think it points to a very important question; what is it that one should desire? What is a life well lived?

Everything and Love

I want to write about everything. So I have labeled this post Form. And that is where we start; form. In outline, all forms are interconnected and thus not knowable in themselves. For example, the mug to my left on the desk came from clay and is glazed. There will be a hole where the clay was removed, ditto the glaze. The energy used in transporting and making the mug will have resulted in CO2 in the atmosphere etc. etc. And I can only see it with my vision and only then in the way that I look at it. I don't get all the details,even if I look closely at it. And the colours are not the same to me as for a bee. And I can't help but see a mug, which a bee would not see. The world that a bee or a dog knows is not the world that I know. And we as humans don't have the last word on what is, we just think we do, that's just a habit we have. Every thing is connected including our perception of things. What is, is the unknowable void, empty and folded upon its self to give rise to form and in so doing making manifest its desire to be, to know. And some unknowable aspect of this desires an amazing variety of forms. Just think how many types of grass there are, let alone all the other forms, chairs, trees etc. And then the sentient beings including human beings with our amazing minds. And at mind we see that all we have is our own experience. Sit in meditation and see thoughts and sensations come and go. But who sits? Where to focus attention, inside or out, is there a difference, who is focusing, what is the will? Thinking, thinking, just sit with open awareness. Deep inside, in the body-mind a sense of stillness embracing all, refusing not a thing. Only our thoughts judge. Being accepts and is, all there is in any moment.

Each contains the other, yin and yang, no dark without light. And everywhere is change, yang flowing to yin which gives birth to yang. Without change there would be no life. The breath would not enter and leave, the oxygen would not flow in the blood. And in meditation this is seen, the constant flow of change. And my awareness always just behind time, just behind where the universe is. I hear a noise, I think bird and picture it in the tree outside. But I have not seen this it is just imagination. And beside, the sound is gone, when did I hear it? We live in the gap between what was and what is, always just behind. The void's desire to be, present in us, we attach to things we like. Yet change tends to take them away and so we suffer. Yet deep within us the stillness remains unmoved, accepting all. At this point I could move to talk of compassion and reducing the ego's demands so as to be more free, to accept more of life and be more there for others. But it is other that I want to explore.

Our situation is a paradox; we are all connected yet separate. We can't survive alone, the mug does not exist without the hole in the ground and the CO2 and is not a mug without human culture to so define it. I am defined by my relation to other. Yet I must face my own death. The void seeks to know by coming into form and in human being we derive the existence of the void. It is my understanding though not experience that some apprehend this not just by intellect but by direct perception. But it is my direct perception that I seek unity. In love in all its complex forms I seek to be one with other. And it seems that the desire to generate more form and more unity is without end. Is this the point about which spirituality turns; samsara, nirvana, desire, acceptance, form, void, meaning and purpose, meaningless and purposeless? I am no Bodhidharma. I need meaning. And I need to be needed. And to return to love, I have with my partner of almost eighteen years achieved a sort of selfless unity. Each of us through a process of sharing, giving and taking, has woven the three cloths I have spoken of elsewhere; his (self), my (self) our relationship, all three one as all is one. Family, friends, our society, animals, desks, chairs, the air, all one. Yet perceived as joined and separate at different levels. It is the closeness, the proximity, the intimacy of the connection that we crave. And having reached high levels of intimacy with an other human being, desire for more connection arises, and so in form the desire for unity returns. At the 'lower' levels, in erotic desire the mind seeks the new, the constant chase for excitement. This not what I am writing about. There is the desire for unity in it, but the emphasis is more in the expansion of form, the desire to know more forms. But in love as apposed to lust, we see the desire for unity, to return to the void. In lust the head long chase for the abandonment to be found in the little death of orgasm. In making love the partial death of self as each flows into the other, heart to heart and only then the temporary slip in to the almost selfless abandonment of orgasm. Yet we do not die, we pull back from our connection with our lover and into our own experience of orgasm, however much we desire to unite. Then gradually we return to the world.

Is it possible for me to live in the world with an aliveness of deep connection as my experience? My aloneness healed, forms all changing but the stillness of the void present, is this the place to be? Part of me can remain at the eye of the storm, watching. But I am not playful, I am attached to things, I feel the gap between the way the universe appears and what I want. The void generates both of course. And where am I? I am not alive with deep connection, not as I write. This is generally taken to be the spiritual work, to be present and playful without attachment. How far down that road can I make it? I am not a monastic, meaning and complex love are deep in my needs, not desires, needs, it seems. And the desire expressed above for more unity is moving me to a polyamory I can see is just not practical. Here we see the juxtaposition of form's desire for unity and the incompatibility of forms. Or is there a way? And would it be in harmony with The Way? This question, which has arisen out of the unfolding of things, together with my desperate need to feel useful, and the two are not unrelated, is burning in me. I've written about vitality and meaning before and included a reference to Pan. (Please follow this link now, before returning.) But not just Pan, the post also looks at the relation of desire and compassion. I feel now that there is some deep wisdom in the need for us to be united in form; the void knowing its own oneness. Is there more than one type of spiritual experience pointed at here? Or am I just too attached, and if so to what? Love and attachment; loving someone and wanting something from the situation. How can we love and how can we be with?

The 'Red thread' koan it would seem, has come right up in front of me. Here I am having tried to go for Gold, to be like Bodhidharma, without attachment to meaning, responding to life as it comes, holding and letting go of the boughs, and this comes up; I need to be needed and I need closeness with more than one man. It might well only be my mind's projection, issues of co-dependency and the different forms of love are there but the feelings remain. We relate to each other through our feelings, by being in the body part of the body-mind. Thoughts and feelings are not separate and it is possible to get great feelings of joy by talking about ideas, but about is not the thing its self. Again I am not just talking about the erotic, in fact that's the least of it.

In passing I would add that DC and I saw 'The imaginarium of doctor parnassus' at the cinema last night. I enjoyed it. To me it plays with ideas from the mind only school of reality and the battle of good and evil. Interestingly, or so I thought, the devil doesn't want to win, he just wants to keep playing the game, what would be the point in wining, there would be no more game, no more fun for him. Where does this sit with form and void? This is complex, why must the devil take his fun at the expense of others? Is this because he represents a separatist, selfish view of being? Where is the desire for unity, the pain of separation? I've not thought too much about this. It's so unrewarding to view the world from the view point of a tormentor. Anyway, good triumphs and love flowers. It's a good movie, I was touched by parts of it. On leaving the cinema and walking to the car park DC pointed out that 'the great thing about art is how it shows up the madeness of things'. After the fantasy world of the movie, the almost pantomime of punters queuing to get into night clubs in town seemed very made.

And I think back to last week at Cluny, the joy of connection with caring and interesting people. The journey people make from head to heart as they say in the Findhorn community. And I recall the way the community seems in part to be about 'probing the field' again to use the language of the community. It can be challenging, there are some ideas that I find interesting but I also hear my alarm bell ringing; take care, not all views of reality lead to enlightenment. And it all comes back to this; rub along together, take care of your self AND each other. The pots need washed, the people fed and sheltered, in all of this love each other. And they have many ways to help people start to take off the armour of their adapted self, to move towards authenticity, self and other acceptance. The Findhorn community is complex. It is a shame that I was not in a more relaxed space, when at Cluny, my body-mind too full of emotions. I did however, find periods of joy living in community. But it is in the world that I need to find a place to be. I have always been a bit of misfit and probably never quite sure where to place my power. In the past, career wise there was a sort of path though, but now I just don't know.

I have no idea what I am going to do. But in me is a sense of still strength, my power. And I do my best to be good.

Thought for the day

I was half heartedly thinking whilst bathing after exercise this morning, which is to say that my monkey mind was babbling away to its self as it does, that one can hear lots of ideas around the Findhorn Community about the way reality is. And, musing on some of my own fantasies I had a brief thought about how the interconnectivity of everything might make for all sorts of possibilities. Yes I thought, but you can't make the toaster work by trying to connect it to the hot tap. Which is a nice way of reminding one's self about relative and absolute truths.

Sex is an interesting area when it comes to connection and creativity. We are all connected but not in all ways. The universe's desire to be, to create, seems to be evident in the drive to connect sexually with, in the case of heterosexuality or birds, bees and flowers, the concomitant procreative function.

So it's the different types and levels of connection that, as form folds over form, creates reality as we experience it in everyday life, i.e. at the relative level. Relative; from Wiktionary:

'Preposition: relative. Relating to, being relevant towards. Adjective - : not absolute ; connected to or depending on something else ...'

After that sojourn in a warm bath I headed off to the ball room and did some Tai Chi. Too fast, too fast, not enough meditation in it. So I went and got my MP3 player and used a bit of new age type music to help me slow it down a bit, which was helpful. Then a bit of free form dancing before tea. Which all goes to show inter dependant arising.

Attunement

I arrived at Cluny on Friday and took the bus to Park where I stayed B&B for the night. Saturday I returned ready for Exploring Community Life (ECL). Only three sleeps (as kids say) and it has had time to feel like a month. So many connections and so many emotions to process. But today thankfully, I 'landed' sufficiently to be in a reasonably comfortable space for my Living in Community as a Guest (LCG) attunement which took place at 2-30PM today. I attuned to three weeks of LCG post ECL and to Cluny kitchen work dept. (which is where my ELC work dept. attunement placed me). So, feeling lighter for having the 'will I stay or will I go' over with I returned to the kitchen to continue my shift.

Separating 60 eggs, the whites into a bowl large enough to have a deep ring when struck with an egg, the gong perfect to help recall mindfulness. So, 'Instructions for Zen Cook'?

I'd like to past a link to an other site so those not familiar with Dogens work would understand the reference to 'Instructions for Zen Cook' but this iMac thing is too clunky, so google it if you want.

Getting it right / wrong

It seems that my writing is too telegraphic, too condensed. I am not completely unaware of this and on Sunday at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey, in conversation it came up. But in a short while it was understood why; I try to look at things on lots of different levels and remain mindful that to even attempt to say anything on some of the stuff I am writing about is to risk getting it all wrong. Here we go... getting it all wrong. At the deep level there is the whole non-dual, not right not wrong; important, but none the less a smack in the face is painful. At the more relative levels... oh, well look, you either know all that stuff or not. This sort of links up with an other conversation about everyone doing their best. That works at different levels too. No, I am not being clear here am I? Forget it. I am probably being far too presumptuous anyway.

Tuesday now. Spent the morning tidying the wood shed and raking leaves at Harnham Buddist Monastery before having lunch there. Helped with the post lunch tidying then used their hall to sit in meditation. The monks are happy for the public to use the hall to meditate. I'd checked that they were ok about forms of meditation related to traditions 'other' than theirs.

Just started reading Tao Te Ching / Lao Tzu; translated by David Hinton. The introduction to this is, I think, marvelous. Wu-wei: Nothing's own doing, etc. (from the author's list of key terms). To live in harmony with the depth of this philosophy, well, for me it's an aspiration (when I remember) that could be one way to put it. To write of the day to day reality as it seems to me of the unfolding, well I am not being clear am I?

In each moment, choices, nominally right, nominally wrong.

Harmony

The real challenge I think is getting a balance between things. Yin and Yang in harmony in ones life. And upon reflection the most salient for me recently is the balance between acceptance and goal. Of course given sufficient wisdom one would see and accept what needs to be done and the goals would form and dissolve as part of the flow. But I've not seen them clearly for quite some time now and the desire to be involved in something which both takes and thus gives me energy is pressing. Hence the plan to spend time exploring community life.

The universe desires to be, to express multiple forms all shifting. The ultimate of its being, beyond knowing, the formless, might be deduced by reason and even glimpsed by the very few but 'life as we know it Jim' is in the interaction of forms. Chop wood carry water.

I wonder just what it is I should be doing. Ouch, there's the S word; should.

Monday

Well, first day of 'not working' today. And it feels quite good. Gym, meditation, bread making, off to take part in a rehearsal for an installation this evening and I realise that I do indeed need to 'come down' before going up to Scotland. As my dad said at the weekend, 'Just the start of an other phase'.



I've still got a head full of stuff, but that's to be expected.

Started writing this Monday, and now it's Tuesday. Time passes.

School

My mother was telling DC and I about a little boy who had just started school. He's not happy and keeps asking why he is being punished by being sent to school. 'I am too small to go, why are you punishing me?' He is, apparently very upset. My mother had consoled the boy's mother saying that she knew all about it, I'd been just the same, it took the fist two years until I stopped being extremely distressed. I felt for him. And of course it's likely that he has a rocky road ahead. He would probably be better off in a Steiner school, but that's no doubt off radar for his family... I hope he finds a way to be himself and be happy and before too long, may the road be kind.

Talking this morning with DC he recalled the conversation with my mother. He said that upon hearing of my distress in those early school years he realised that most of the time we've been together I've been trying to find a way to individuation in the Jungian sense. A rocky road it has been in that respect at times. And where is the road now taking me? Any way, a thought for the boy, may he find his way soon, may he grow to express the universe's desire to be in the fullest way he can and in adulthood may his inner child be happy.

Falling

One way or an other I keep coming back to what I was thinking when I posted in January on Vitality.

The title of this blog refers to Mumonkan Case 5 Kyogen's "Man up in a Tree"

Kyogen Osho said, "It is like a man up in a tree hanging from a branch with his mouth; his hands grasp no bough, his feet rest on no limb. Someone appears under the tree and asks him. 'What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West?' If he does not answer, he fails to respond to the question. If he does answer, he will lose his life. What would you do in such a situation?"

In his commentary Katsuki Sekida explains that there is no meaning but that this means emptiness, not nihilistic emptiness, but the ancient Way. He goes on to explain 'Bodhidharma came from the West, but he came without being attached to a single purpose'.

This koan spoke to me at a time when I just could not see how to proceed. Recently for different reasons I've struggled to see how to proceed. However, what the situation seems to be showing me is my need for meaning. And I think there is some deep wisdom in all this which his beyond my ken. The answer seems to be in the falling. Acceptance whilst trying to do the 'right' thing. Sounds simple. Why then is it so difficult?

Ingenuity

The professional body of which I am a member regularly sends me journals/magazines and whilst the content is a mixed bag there are some interesting snippets. A short item featuring an exhibit at the Imperial War Museum Manchester is one such. Prisoners of war built a radio from scrounged bits and pieces using great ingenuity to construct the electrical components from card tubes, tins, toothbrushes, ashtrays and the like together with a film projector. The radio was hidden under the floorboards, powered from the lighting circuit, operated using knitting needles and remained undiscovered. Upon liberation the set was recovered still working and had kept the men well informed about the state of the war. I've checked the War Museum website and can't find any information to which I could make a link, but you will get a picture of the ingenuity of the prisoners from the above and will no doubt be aware of their suffering.

There it is, that great human inventiveness! Like I said in Monday's post, it's what we are, we went to the moon. Such a shame that we don't always use our talents in the pursuit of noble aims. We don't always create the best forms but there is a beauty in the creativeness described above that made me want to share it with you.