It was way back in the earlier days of this blog, sometime in 2022, that I wrote a post about our community’s liking for snacking on plain toast by choice. It’s our more or less regular late evening, before bed, bite to eat. Perhaps accompanied by black tea, as I described in that post.

As I also point out in that post, I do actually enjoy plain toast. It’s not that I no longer like jam or other yummy spreads; I like them too well truth be told, but sometimes, well, plain is good.

As the day winds down to become night, and we settle to our evening snack, I will sometimes make a joke about simple food, or monks with simple tastes, whatever. Anyway, a few nights ago I made a remark, a joke, that has had a profound impact on me.

‘I’ll just say a prayer for my two slices of dry toast.’

Of course I am just like so many other religious or spiritually inclined people, and say a prayer before I receive any and all food or drink. It’s a long time habit, and a blessing I like to perform. Just a thank you is all it is really.

This comment, this joke, as soon as it was out of my mouth, I realised, of course I will. Don’t I always?

It’s true that our community lives simply, as simply as we can. And that includes what we eat and drink. It’s also true that this is not some sort of ethical stance consciously taken; nor is it a kind of overlaid act of solidarity with those who have no choices due to poverty or other circumstances.

It’s purely and simple because we like simple. It really does suit our natures and temperaments and for us it is the obvious way to live.

It is no renunciation: we welcome simple. This obviously is not to say that we are unaware that our very natures and temperaments naturally steer us away from choices that are unethical or are out of sync with compassion (call it solidarity) for other beings.

The reason I’m ranting on about this off-hand comment thrown out as a so-called joke is, well just that: It was off-hand, and my misguided intention in making this ‘joke’ was insensitive and careless; it was lacking compassion for all the other living beings sharing life and consciousness with me.

And for that flippancy and carelessness, I ask forgiveness from the invisible community that is in fact all of us struggling to live in a material world.

My sense is that in saying ‘all of us’ I might instead say, all of us who are in truth One; We who are that one Self that seeks forgiveness.