[Photo by me of the Akshobhya statue at Vajrasana retreat centre, Suffolk, UK]
Sunday 29 November 2009
This place
[Photo by me of the Akshobhya statue at Vajrasana retreat centre, Suffolk, UK]
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Lila
I was walking down a road the other day, and I decided to walk on the edge of the pavement, balancing with the cars and lorries of the road on my right and the relative safety of the pedestrian area on my left.
If I put my mind to it I am quite good at it, walking along on the edge without swaying too much and without falling this way or the other. And I imagine that there is no road on my right and that there is no pavement to my left, but a drop of several hundred meters on either side. And I imagine that I need to bring these vitally important things over to the other side of this chasm. It doesn't make it harder to balance though, and the imaginary cross-winds doesn't seem to cause much disturbance. I even allow myself to catch my balance by using a couple of centimetres of the pavement.
Maybe I'm just not taking my fantasies seriously enough?
If I put my mind to it I am quite good at it, walking along on the edge without swaying too much and without falling this way or the other. And I imagine that there is no road on my right and that there is no pavement to my left, but a drop of several hundred meters on either side. And I imagine that I need to bring these vitally important things over to the other side of this chasm. It doesn't make it harder to balance though, and the imaginary cross-winds doesn't seem to cause much disturbance. I even allow myself to catch my balance by using a couple of centimetres of the pavement.
Maybe I'm just not taking my fantasies seriously enough?
Tuesday 24 November 2009
Writing, sleeping, mindstuff
I didn't write a blog entry last week. I was feeling a bit tired and sluggish the whole week for some reason and I couldn't gather my thoughts enough to write about anything in particular.
I still don't quite know what to write, but I do know that there's a number of themes I'd like to explore somehow in the future.
Oh, there's a vaguely interesting thing I've noticed in my early morning meditation that could write about today.
I meditate between 06:00 and approximately 07:00 or 07:15 every morning (on weekends I might go back to sleep after sitting), and I have found that this is a good way of making my meditation part of the morning routine (which is important, otherwise it wouldn't happen).
I get up, out of bed, and I walk over to my meditation place in the next room. I dedicate the practice, meditate for an hour or so, and recite a simple refuge verse after having transferred the merits of the practice. The practice I do varies from day to day with my mood and the weather. It's the mindfulness of breathing (a simplified form of the anapanasati practice), the metta bhavana, or just sitting.
Something that I've noticed is that my mind is full of stuff. It's not as if there are well-formed thoughts or ideas floating around as there might be if I'm sitting during the day. No, this is just stuff that my mind is trying to wade though, like objects in a fog or in a dark room, mindstuff that is left over from the dreams I've probably had, dream leftovers. I can feel my mind trying to get hold of it, slipping from shape to shape, like over wet stones in a ford, but without getting hold of anything that I can label. It's like failing to pick up peas from a plate with a fork. It takes about 10-15 minutes for this to clear, which is why I usually just sit with myself without doing anything in particular (apart from possibly engaging in body awareness exercises) for the first part of the sit.
It's likely that the fluff that lives in my mind after waking up is just itself trying to get into gear for the day.
When the morning mists of my mind has cleared, I pick the practice that comes to me naturally, or I pick the practice I haven't done for a while, or I default to the metta bhavana.
That's all for today. Take care.
[Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net]
I still don't quite know what to write, but I do know that there's a number of themes I'd like to explore somehow in the future.
Oh, there's a vaguely interesting thing I've noticed in my early morning meditation that could write about today.
I meditate between 06:00 and approximately 07:00 or 07:15 every morning (on weekends I might go back to sleep after sitting), and I have found that this is a good way of making my meditation part of the morning routine (which is important, otherwise it wouldn't happen).
I get up, out of bed, and I walk over to my meditation place in the next room. I dedicate the practice, meditate for an hour or so, and recite a simple refuge verse after having transferred the merits of the practice. The practice I do varies from day to day with my mood and the weather. It's the mindfulness of breathing (a simplified form of the anapanasati practice), the metta bhavana, or just sitting.
Something that I've noticed is that my mind is full of stuff. It's not as if there are well-formed thoughts or ideas floating around as there might be if I'm sitting during the day. No, this is just stuff that my mind is trying to wade though, like objects in a fog or in a dark room, mindstuff that is left over from the dreams I've probably had, dream leftovers. I can feel my mind trying to get hold of it, slipping from shape to shape, like over wet stones in a ford, but without getting hold of anything that I can label. It's like failing to pick up peas from a plate with a fork. It takes about 10-15 minutes for this to clear, which is why I usually just sit with myself without doing anything in particular (apart from possibly engaging in body awareness exercises) for the first part of the sit.It's likely that the fluff that lives in my mind after waking up is just itself trying to get into gear for the day.
When the morning mists of my mind has cleared, I pick the practice that comes to me naturally, or I pick the practice I haven't done for a while, or I default to the metta bhavana.
That's all for today. Take care.
[Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net]
Saturday 14 November 2009
White Tara
Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Mama Ayuḥ Punya Jñānā Puṣtiṃ Kuru Svāhā.
White Tara has made her appearance a number of times over the last month or so, in different ways. I don't know why, and what follows is just the result of me bringing this image to mind and turning it around for a while.
White Tara is an interesting figure in many ways. In a sense, she's the introverted big sister of Green Tara. While Green Tara is the enlightened compassion which reaches out, an active force in the world, White Tara does not reach out in any obvious way (Green Tara is always depicted as about to step down from her mediation seat, but White Tara does not). She reaches inwards instead. There's more of a wisdom aspect in her. She holds the compassion that is wise, or maybe even the wisdom that is compassionate.
What are the reasons I say that? She is white, which is the colour of purity, of the unstained wisdom of the Buddhas. She has seven eyes. Apart from her two ordinary eyes, there are eyes in the palms of her hands and on the soles of her feet, and there's an eye in her forehead too. These eyes signifies that the acts performed by her in body and mind are mindful, guided by wisdom, while motivated by a keen interest and concern for the well-being of all beings.
With her right hand, out of her compassionate nature, she forms the varada mudra of giving or of bestowing blessings. With her left hand, she forms the abhaya mudra of bestowing fearlessness while at the same time holding three blue lotuses in different stages of development. Although the mudras are the same as those of Green Tara, White Tara is said to specifically bestow the blessings of long life, merit, and wisdom. This together with the lotuses in three stages of development creates, at least in my mind, a sense of someone willing to help with one's spiritual development in a very pragmatic way.
White Tara is sometimes called the Mother Of all Buddhas, just like Pranjaparamita, the goddess of the Perfection of Wisdom. She is the mother of all Buddhas in the sense that she combines wisdom and compassion, and in doing so she combines the introverted qualities with the extraverted, outreaching aspect of the enlightened mind. She is, in short, complete, able to stand on her own. She embodies a complete path to Enlightenment.
The sense I have of White Tara and Green Tara is that they move on either side of Tara, the Saviouress. One on the wisdom side, the other on the side of compassion, each one in their own way reaching out to the people whose minds are more inclined to one or the other.
[The photos in this post are by me of paintings of White Tara and Green Tara by Aloka; Padmaloka retreat centre, Norfolk, UK]
White Tara has made her appearance a number of times over the last month or so, in different ways. I don't know why, and what follows is just the result of me bringing this image to mind and turning it around for a while.
White Tara is an interesting figure in many ways. In a sense, she's the introverted big sister of Green Tara. While Green Tara is the enlightened compassion which reaches out, an active force in the world, White Tara does not reach out in any obvious way (Green Tara is always depicted as about to step down from her mediation seat, but White Tara does not). She reaches inwards instead. There's more of a wisdom aspect in her. She holds the compassion that is wise, or maybe even the wisdom that is compassionate.
What are the reasons I say that? She is white, which is the colour of purity, of the unstained wisdom of the Buddhas. She has seven eyes. Apart from her two ordinary eyes, there are eyes in the palms of her hands and on the soles of her feet, and there's an eye in her forehead too. These eyes signifies that the acts performed by her in body and mind are mindful, guided by wisdom, while motivated by a keen interest and concern for the well-being of all beings.With her right hand, out of her compassionate nature, she forms the varada mudra of giving or of bestowing blessings. With her left hand, she forms the abhaya mudra of bestowing fearlessness while at the same time holding three blue lotuses in different stages of development. Although the mudras are the same as those of Green Tara, White Tara is said to specifically bestow the blessings of long life, merit, and wisdom. This together with the lotuses in three stages of development creates, at least in my mind, a sense of someone willing to help with one's spiritual development in a very pragmatic way.
White Tara is sometimes called the Mother Of all Buddhas, just like Pranjaparamita, the goddess of the Perfection of Wisdom. She is the mother of all Buddhas in the sense that she combines wisdom and compassion, and in doing so she combines the introverted qualities with the extraverted, outreaching aspect of the enlightened mind. She is, in short, complete, able to stand on her own. She embodies a complete path to Enlightenment.The sense I have of White Tara and Green Tara is that they move on either side of Tara, the Saviouress. One on the wisdom side, the other on the side of compassion, each one in their own way reaching out to the people whose minds are more inclined to one or the other.
[The photos in this post are by me of paintings of White Tara and Green Tara by Aloka; Padmaloka retreat centre, Norfolk, UK]
Friday 6 November 2009
Love
It looks like I've got several friends who are in love at the moment (and it's not even spring). It's complicated and emotional, and it turns their lives upside down in all the wrong ways.
I wish I could give them advice, but I can't.
Well, maybe I can.
Don't hurry, that would be one thing I could say. But that's pretty lame advice, because this animal demands to be fed now. It's blind and easily hurt, and when you fail to properly attended to it, it runs its claws deep into your chest. Being incapable of forming words, it can not express itself in any other way.
There's a totally different beast though, one that is borne out of the patience of friendship. Compared to the untamed solitary love, this love may not be easily spotted at first, because it doesn't make a fuss of itself. Once it it acknowledged, it doesn't necessarily explode or even bloom, not at once, but it may do so later. It is enough to quietly recognise that, yes, there it is. It is easily fed and often satisfied with being remembered, by both.
I wish I could give them advice, but I can't.
Well, maybe I can.
Don't hurry, that would be one thing I could say. But that's pretty lame advice, because this animal demands to be fed now. It's blind and easily hurt, and when you fail to properly attended to it, it runs its claws deep into your chest. Being incapable of forming words, it can not express itself in any other way.
There's a totally different beast though, one that is borne out of the patience of friendship. Compared to the untamed solitary love, this love may not be easily spotted at first, because it doesn't make a fuss of itself. Once it it acknowledged, it doesn't necessarily explode or even bloom, not at once, but it may do so later. It is enough to quietly recognise that, yes, there it is. It is easily fed and often satisfied with being remembered, by both.
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