Tag Archives: be here now

What’s ‘Ordinary’ Got to do With It?

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Perhaps shameful is too strong a word, but that’s kind of how it feels. You see, I’ve been thinking of giving up on the book I’m reading at the moment. And you are thinking, this is a big deal? If you don’t like it, put it aside and try something else.

Yes, excellent advice, thank you. And usually that’s what I would do. In fact now I think about it there was a time when I would force myself to complete a book, even if I wasn’t enjoying it or was bored with it. But I learned a long time ago that this is a waste of time, waste of mind, waste of energy, and unfair to me.

Yet, on this occasion, I started to have some thoughts that took it a bit deeper. It’s true to say that I’m a bit bored with this book; it’s as if I’m not overly interested in the story the author is telling, and in the way she’s telling it. As well I had this feeling that the book was ‘ordinary’: meaning that it was a kind of day to day telling of a segment of a life with its mundane and routine elements included along with the ‘good bits’.

And it was that feeling of being not so interested that got me thinking. The author’s vocation, thinking, activities, and the subject of the book itself, is exactly in line with areas I am very interested in reading about, not only for entertainment but for my learning, for my own spiritual journey and way of life.

The way she’s telling it? Now, this one got to me even more. The book was put together after the author’s death and is made up of extracts from the author’s journals and from the many letters she wrote to family and friends during the period of her life the book covers.

That’s what I do isn’t it? Keep a journal? Write letters? These and the many many blog posts (which in a way are a lot like letters, and even journal entries do you think?) I’ve written over many years, and the journal I’ve been keeping for most of my life, are the core of at least the personal writing I have done over my lifetime. By rejecting this book I started to feel that I was rejecting my own, for want of a better word, genres.

Or, worse than that, I’m rejecting the invitation to share a life. And illogically I’m rejecting the life story and insights of a person whose own experience I actually value for my own quest and from whom I could learn a great deal.

And what about the feeling of boredom and that the book was too ‘ordinary’ and mundane? Well, to borrow a well-worn phrase, this really does take the cake. I mean if you were to look at much of my past writings and look at my photography blogs from times past, you would see that one of my main statements of belief was:

There are no ordinary moments, nor are there any ordinary people.

And I still believe this. Indeed, spiritual practice and study has only deepened my instincts that all there is is the moment; all there is is all the beings of the world experiencing that ongoing presence, that never-ending moment. There can be nothing in the least ordinary about that.

I’ve saved the best – or is it the worst? – for last: what the book is about. It tells the story of a three year period in the life of a person just out of university who looking for a deeper meaning to life and to finding a true course for her life, travels from her home to Japan and enters a Zen monastery to become a monk.

Her journals and letters give the reader an intimate and in-depth account of her experiences: what she learned; insights into the language, culture, and history of Japan and Zen itself; the people she met and knew, her own feelings and reactions to what was a huge shift in her life.

After three years the author left the monastery to travel slowly back to see family at home. Sadly she was killed in a bus crash along the way.

Pretty much everything that has to do with living a life. And here’s me rejecting it because it was ‘ordinary’ and some details were ‘boring’.

So, I’m going to stay with this book. It’s taught me a lot already, and I think there is more there for me. Perhaps, I can better put into practice by own so strongly held idea that there are no ordinary moments or ordinary people.

Peace and love from me to you

Talking About Sloth

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Sloth.  Its a good word isn’t it?  One of those words you don’t have to look up to know what it means.  But if you do look it up, you’ll find it has a couple of meanings.  One is: laziness, indolence and a reluctance to make an effort.

Is sloth a bad thing?  Certainly it gets a bad rap; I mean: lazy? Indolent? Not willing to make an effort? Hardly words of praise. On the other hand we value words like busy, productive, efficient, hard working, and the rest. In our culture, these are definitely words of praise.

Go out and play; Read a book; Go to school; Study hard; Get a good job (whatever that means); How much do you make a year? When are up for promotion?  Demands and questions like these are constants in all our lives, and they force us into defining ourselves by what we do whether we are a little kid at school, a teenager trying to sort life out, an adult trying to make our way in the world the best we can.

Yes, it’s true I think: it always seems to be a about defining ourselves by what we do, rather than who we are, or what we stand for.  Always we have to be doing something.  Ever heard that little identity joke, I’m a human being, not a human doing?  I wonder how many of us would feel lost if we shifted from that need to be a doer to another definition of our identity, one less reliant on what we do or on what we’ve done in the past, or will do in the future.

Well, I hear you saying, this is all fine and dandy, but my boss won’t pay me unless I show up, there are meals to cook for the kids, I’m running late for an appointment, the lawn needs mowing and after that I have to write a report for my night class.

All very true, valid, and all of them things that do need to be done. We all have a life don’t we? But perhaps sometimes, even just now and again, and perhaps just for a few minutes at a time, you can stop. Just stop. Thats all. Stop and just do nothing, or rather stop and simply be.

Have I mentioned a favourite little two word sentence I really really like? Just sit. Don’t read, don’t think, don’t try to stop thinking, don’t ‘meditate’. All that’s required is to do nothing. Do No Thing. Actually, I think I’ve found a new favourite.

On, remember I said there are a couple of definitions of sloth?  Well the other one tells us that a sloth is a slow moving nocturnal mammal noted for hanging upside down from tree branches.  It lives entirely in the trees and is capable of only very slow movement on the ground.

So, I guess you should be very careful when you tell someone else I’m a sloth. Mind you, putting aside the hanging upside down bit, and the nocturnal requirement, it’s probably not such a bad way of being to emulate, do you think?

Have a lazy (slothful) day.

Right Understanding:First Step on The Eightfold Path

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In my last post, I reflected upon a lovely Buddhist mantra, an invocation for peace and happiness for all beings (Lokah Samastah Sukhino). We discovered along the way, that it is no ordinary mantra: it actually amounts to a solemn promise to contribute to the peace and happiness of others (and Self obviously).

Then we thought about how to actually go about acting on this promise: Be kind. That’s what I came to. That’s all that is required. But, as you will recall, being kind sounds easy but quite often isn’t. The Buddha himself came to our rescue with  The Eightfold Path,

At the end of that last post, I declared I would devote this next one to looking at Right Understanding, the first of the principles in The Eightfold Path. I said I would just sit at the keyboard and see what emerges as I thought about what is Right Understanding.

Before we get started, let me make the point that The Eightfold Path is not a kind of ‘to do’ list where you tick off one item and move onto the next. The Path is more about integrating the principles into our lives, letting them overlap when they do and moving forward in one area, while (possibly) moving backwards in another as our lives unfold with all the usual twists and turns.

The Eightfold Path is a life-long (some would say lives-long) process; don’t think in terms of goals to be achieved.

Does this mean we will need to explore all eight principles on the Path? Well, we’ll have to see how this evolves over time. Although as I say it’s not a to-do list, I think it more than possible to at least think about the principles or steps on the Path one at a time.

The second thing to say by way of introduction is this: As I mentioned in my previous post, there are virtually unlimited places on the internet where one can source The Buddha’s Teachings, including many commentaries on The Eightfold Path.

I’ve made no use of any of these sources. I have sought only to put down some of my own ideas and learnings, as well as just letting my heart have its say.

If in that process I’ve made any errors of any kind, forgive me. I merely follow The Buddha’s own instruction: Don’t take my word for it; Ask questions; Do your own analysis; Think for yourself.

Now that’s all out of the way, let’s just describe briefly the Four Noble Truths. This is necessary because the injunction to follow The Eightfold Path, comes in the Fourth of those Noble Truths.

Putting them as succinctly as I can, The Four Noble Truths are as follows: The first truth tells us that life is suffering, the second that the cause of suffering is desire (or we can also say attachment), the third that there is a cure for suffering and the fourth tells us what that cure is.

That’s where The Eightfold Path comes in: it’s what you might call The Buddha’s prescription for the alleviation of suffering. At this point I would like to suggest that if you are not familiar with the Four Noble Truths, please take some time to check out the topic for yourself.

The Eightfold Path does, as I mentioned last time, in fact sound very easy when put it in list form like this:

  1. Right understanding
  2. Right thought
  3. Right speech
  4. Right action
  5. Right livelihood
  6. Right effort
  7. Right mindfulness
  8. Right concentration

Remember, though, as I said, it’s not a to-do list we can work through one item at a time. Or perhaps we can put it another way: It is possible to work on one item at a time, but it’s not about getting that one completed before one can move on to the next item on the list.

The first step on this Noble Path we have embarked upon is Right Understanding. Actually it’s not only the first, it is the ongoing one; and it is the final step also on this particular Path of Liberation. And it seems to me that I’m right in this: my life has been one continual search for undetstanding.

Not many people know this, but I spent some time working as a journalist. One of the fundamental principles (aside from telling the truth of course) that I followed was the, Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? set of questions.

Now, I wouldn’t say that it was necessary to ask every one of these questions in every situation. But, as a general rule, they served as a useful guideline to getting as much information on all relevant aspects of an event, a person, or whatever the subject of a story was. And I have to say that I find myself quite often using this list or some varient of it when I’m trying to understand or figure out something.

Why those questions? Where do they lead? What am I trying to do by asking them? How do they help me? (See what I mean? I can’t help myself) If we sum it up, then we would say that asking the WWWWWandH questions have the potential to lead us closer to understanding.

Let’s say you are unhappy with the work you do on a daily basis. You don’t understand why; After all, it pays okay; the hours aren’t too onerous, the work itself is fairly easy as work goes. What’s the problem then? You just don’t understand. You know there’s something not quite right, but you just can’t put your finger on it.

Who is doing that job? I am, you say. But, really, who are you? Is it you doing the job or just a part of you that you kind of section off from the real you for the working day?

What are you doing that makes you unhappy? Is it being in that workplace? Is it the work itself? It might be ‘okay as far as work goes’, but is it really okay?

When are you at that job? I guess this question is about how many hours, what percentage of your life you spend doing that job. And, even more to the point of the when question: When are you really there? How much of your work day are you actually off somewhere else? (refer to the where question)

Where are you? Are you where you want to be? And, kind of getting back to the Who question, who is it that’s there? Is it the real you? Or is it that sectioned off bit of yourself you access during work hours while the real you is off somewhere else?

Why are you doing that job/work? Well most likely your answer will be something like: I have rent to pay, food to buy, bills to pay, family to support. Well, those answers have to do with what you do with the money you earn from doing that job. The question lingers: Why are doing that job? I mean, the real you; why?

How can you be happier at your work? By now you’ve got the hang of this. If you have answered all the W questions then you will already be getting some clues about the answer to the H question.

Asking variations of this set of W and H questions can help us in many aspects of life where we seek understanding. They don’t have to be put as formal questions, and they don’t have to all be asked in every situation. Also they don’t have to be thought based queries either, if you know what I mean.

The answers may well come by simply asking the question, and ‘sleeping on it’. By that I mean you don’t have to tirelessly mull over a question. Meditate on it, think about it, of course, but then forget it consciously and let the answer come to you. And, of course you can always literally sleep on it.

There’s a small art gallery in a desert mining down almost in the heart of Australia. On their window they used to have a quote by  Claude Monet:

I know we aren’t talking about art here (or maybe we are?), but I think this quote applies to many of us as we try to understand our lives and our place in the world. Especially when it comes to what makes us happy. All of us spend a lot of time, not so much pretending as in going through the motions. That’s because sometimes it’s just too hard to try and understand.

But, keep at it. Ask the questions but don’t worry about the answers: they will emerge when they’re ready. True understanding is close to love, as Monet says.

Peace to you from me

May All Beings be Happy & Free

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Lokah Samastah Sukhino

There is a little shrine at the foot of a huge and ancient tree, outside a Buddhist temple above the banks of the Mekong River in a little town called Chiang Khong in the far north of Thailand. As I looked at this obviously highly revered sacred site, through the viewfinder of my camera, I knew what I would call the photo:

Lokah Samastah Sukhino

Now, I already knew that this translates to: May all beings everywhere be happy and free. A friend of my son’s used to use this ancient Sanskrit mantra a lot and I’d long since discovered its meaning. Or so I thought.

Anyway, later as I readied this (what turned out to be quite a lovely image in my ever so humble opinion) I thought I would look up the mantra again. Just to make sure I had the right spelling and so on.

It was then I had a surprise. May all beings everywhere be happy and free is only the first part of this beautifully expressive mantra. I quickly discovered that this mantra is not simply some vague wish or prayer for universal peace and happiness; it is also a call to action. Here’s the complete translation as I found it:

May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.

But, wait. There’s more.

As I read more deeply into the meaning of all the words in the mantra, I discovered that it’s more than a call to action or a simple invocation. I learned that the mantra as I knew it was missing a final word: Bhavantu. So with this word missing, a vital element of the mantra was lost: the use of the suffix antu at the very end in the original Sanskrit turns the whole thing into a solemn promise. Antu means it must be so.

This all got me thinking: How? I mean, how do we transform our ‘thoughts, words, and actions’ so that they will contribute to the happiness of all beings? And how can we actually make it a promise?

Then it suddenly occurred to me: the action required was summarised very nicely by the Buddha in what he called The Eightfold Path. We are meant to start living according to the principles in that teaching.

Now, The Eightfold Path is, on the face of it, a fairly straightforward set of life principles that, when understood and integrated into one’s life and being, will lead to the cessation of suffering.

Now, this sounds all very well and good, but I’ve been wondering if there was a way I could sum it up in just a few words.

Something succinct, and to the point.

Then I found myself (again suddenly, right out of the blue) scribbling a note on my phone:

Be nice.

That’s really what it boils down to

Kindness in all our intereractions with all the forms that life has taken: other humans; other animals; plants; Earth herself; the rivers; the oceans; the forests. You name it. All forms that life has taken.

So, how do we be nice?

When I say it like that, it almost sounds silly; I mean, how hard can it be? Be nice? Easy.

Well, I guess I can say for myself that it’s true, sort of, sometimes. Yes it is often extremely easy for me to be nice. And, then, other times I have to try to be nice. And then there are those times when try as I might, nice just doesn’t happen.

Which means, I guess, that it might not be quite that simple after all.

There are so many wonderful explanations of the Buddha’s teachings, including The Eightfold Path, on the Internet. On the face of it, that might seem confusing. However Buddha himself advised that each person should question the teachings and come to their own conclusions. In other words, he said, don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself.

The Eightfold Path. I might know that lovely list by name (Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, and so on), and I’ve read a little about them, but maybe it’s time to dig a bit deeper.

I’m going to make a start with Right Understanding simply because it’s the first on the list, and has always seemed to be a pretty important starting point.

So, next post (or perhaps a later one) that’s what I’m going to do. Just sit and see what comes out of my heart and onto the page (or screen). Please join me then and we’ll see what happens.
Peace and love from me to you

Van Gogh: Mystic & Saint?

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A few weeks ago I finished one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read. Yes, I know: we live in the days of hype and the redundant superlative. Everything is the best, biggest, greatest. Or, conversely, the worst, most tragic, saddest; it goes on and on.

In this case however I am not exaggerating. This book was amazing. It’s Learning from Henry Nouwen and Vincent Van Gogh: A portrait of a compassionate Life, by Carol A. Berry. From this book I’ve learned as much and more about Van Gogh’s motivations, his vision, his art, and yes, his very nature and soul, than in everything I’ve read, seen or heard about Vincent until now put together. And that includes from several visits to the magnificent Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

The book had its genesis in a course the author sat in on in the 1970s put on by Henry Nouwen for Theology students. The course aimed at helping future ministers and pastors learn to connect with their future parishioners. Basically it was about accessing the compassionate sides of their own natures so they might better help others. Nouwen used Van Gogh as a the model of a person who had lived a life built on compassion for others.

The author has mined Vincent’s letters (mostly to his brother Theo) and studied deeply his paintings and drawings, in order to understand and demonstrate what it means to live a life of compassion, and to highlight the artist’s mission in life. For me that mission is summed up very nicely in a quote from one of Van Gogh’s letters:

Art is to console those who are broken by life.

Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo

I had a vague sense of Vincent’s spiritual leanings (I knew he’d been a missionary living among poor miners and their families to better understand and help them), and he’d tried to become a preacher. But, before finding this book my thinking hadn’t gone much deeper than that.

But, through reading this book I discovered Vincent was really what many of us might call a mystic. The author goes further and after what i’ve learned, I tend to agree with her: she thinks Van Gogh is a saint.

A mystic in the sense that he tried to live a holy and compassionate life. He viewed all nature (of which he concluded humans are simply one equal part) as being expressions of the divine. And a saint in that he dedicated his life to making art that would inject light and colour into the darkness of people’s lives.

As I mentioned, Vincent had been a missionary for a time. But his radical way of living among the poor and sharing their lives in order to know and love them better was shocking and way too extreme for his bosses, and he had to move on.

So, he finally settled on full-on immersion in his art. His mission was to make paintings that offered comfort and consolation to those who are suffering. And that’s all of us to one degree or another isn’t it?

You can see by now that this supremely accessible (and pleasurable to read) work has had a profound impact on me. This book isn’t only for artists, nor is it a religious book; it is as I have said an inspiration and guide to living a compassionate and loving life.

I don’t want to just say ‘I can’t recommend highly enough that you read this book’; I want to say instead Please, please read this book. Then obviously act on what you have read!

I’ve always admired – loved – Vincent, now I think I know why. Or as Don McLean says in one of the most profound love songs (Vincent) in history (remember, I never exaggerate):

Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now

Perhaps.

Love and Peace from me to you

Dear Diary: The Story of Your Birth

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Namaste friends and Welcome

I wrote this little remembrance about the birth of my journaling life some time ago. I thought it might be nice to share it here on my new Notes from the Hermit’s Cave blog as keeping a journal has been such an important aid to my own ongoing healing, and has been key to my spiritual journey.

See the fascinating update at the end!

Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash

For many of us keeping a journal is a key element in our efforts to live a good life, or even to have a life: it can be a tool for healing, a means to bring some order to the chaos in our hearts and heads, and a venue for reflections on life, the Universe, and everything. For me, it’s been all of these things and more.

I guess for most people Henry David Thoreau is best known for the book he wrote about his time living alone in a small cabin on Walden Pond in Massachusetts, titled funnily enough Walden. And I suppose most people would have no idea that all, or pretty much all, his writings, lectures and so on, came from his Journal. Note the capital: he himself called it The Journal.

Photo by Hester Qiang on Unsplash

A few years ago I read a very cool book called The Book of Concord: Thoreau’s Life as a Writer, which is an examination of, yes you guessed it, his life as a writer. What made it extra interesting was the way the author (William Howarth) used The Journal as his way into Thoreau’s writing and life.

Let me tell you one of the many things that jumped out at me from this fascinating book: the reason Thoreau started keeping The Journal in the first place. It seems that one of his neighbours in Concord was Ralph Waldo Emerson (imagine that if you can). Anyway, one day Emerson says to Thoreau,

‘What are you doing? Do you keep a journal?’

Now, it seems that Thoreau had been running around telling everyone he was a writer and that he was examining nature and studying the life of the town. All that writerly kind of stuff. But he hadn’t been keeping a journal.

So, he answered Emerson’s challenge by beginning The Journal. And, as I said, all his writing from then on came right out of that journal. Sometimes, believe it or not, he literally ‘cut and pasted’ from The Journal; he actually tore out pages or cut up passages and stuck them together to form the final manuscripts. Now, that is called having supreme confidence in your own work.

Anyway, after I read that, it got me thinking about my own journal and how I came to begin it. As I sit typing this, my journal is safely stored away in a trunk in my sister’s garage. (See the update at the end. Strange syncronicity indeed)

There are close to one hundred separate volumes, mostly school type notebooks (called exercise books in Australia), some exotic volumes from travel in India and a few odd looking specimens of varying shapes and sizes. Hard to believe really: so many words.

This is my personal journal; my art journals are another matter. Just wanted to make that distinction, though oftentimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

In late 1980, I returned to Australia after a few months in New Zealand. I wasn’t in great shape and was hanging around at my parents’ house and feeling like a ‘wet week in a thunderstorm’ (if you get my meaning). One day, my mother out of the blue said,

‘Why don’t you start keeping a diary?’

Of course you don’t know my mother, but believe me when I say that this is most definitely not the kind of thing I’d have ever expected her to suggest to her son as a way for him to deal with his very poorly mental condition.

But, just like Thoreau after his chat with Emerson, I headed to the shops without delay, bought a school exercise book, and began my diary (I often interchange the terms diary and journal). And I’m still at it, as I’ve said.

And you know what? Thinking about my journal now, I feel a sense of pride. I don’t mean arrogant, ego driven ‘pride’: my heart is glad. I have consistently for over forty years kept a record of my life which goes deep into my psyche and beyond. Well that’s what it often feels like.

Sometimes it’s been an extremely detailed account and written every day; other times there have been gaps with just scant little notes to record my doings, thoughts, feelings, and so on. But, at least it is there. I have a profound sense of achievement when I think of my journal. Maybe I need to adopt the capital like Thoreau: My Journal.

My final words must be then, thanks Mum. I know I thanked you when you were still in this world with us, but it can’t hurt to announce my thanks to the world (as much of it as reads this blog anyway) can it?


Update

The trunk containing The Journal has left my sister’s garage (thank you little sister) and is as I type this update, on a truck heading this way and will arrive late tonight or early tomorrow.

The timing is completely serendipitous: By ‘chance’ I came across the above piece of writing today as I was looking for other things, then a little while later got a call from the shipping company with the news! Pickup wasn’t scheduled for a few more days.

Of course I still regularly spend time with The Journal, perhaps more than ever, and it will be very nice indeed to have the whole thing with me once again.

Yet Another Update

Yes indeed, it certainly is, nice I mean. Here is The Journal in its full glory (one volume missing but will be here soon)

I love the Now. When else is there?

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Over the last couple of months or so I’ve been listening on and off to Jimmy Buffett. I like Jimmy’s music, and I have liked it since the late 70s. I have at least ten of his albums in my Music folder.

Anyway, Buffett is an American singer/songwriter who writes and performs songs about beach life, sailing, exotic island paradises, and generally having a good time down at the beach and in and on the water. And preferably in sunny climes.

Yes. Hedonistic is a word that’s been used to describe his music and the lifestyle he celebrates. Still, I’ve liked him for a very long while now, and every so often I get into his ‘escapism’ and his relaxing in paradise kind of vibe.

Something a little rebellious about many of his lyrics too. But let’s not go there just now. What I want to talk about is a song I’ve listened to dozens of times, but when I played it again the other night, it got my attention in a way it never had before.

What I mean to say, is that for the first time I actually heard the song (Love the Now. Have a listen, you won’t regret it). I got what the writer was saying with his lyrics.

All the pain and the pleasure
I love the now
All the blood and the treasure

Then another verse:

The whole damn world’s gone crazy
The moon is jumping over the cow
How can you help
But not love the now?

It’s like he’s saying, ‘yeah, it’s all good.’ Not just hedonistic but nihilistic as well. Like he doesn’t care, doesn’t want to know. But, then, in another verse he writes:

It’s the only place I’ve ever been
It’s the only way that I know how

It is. That’s what he’s saying. ‘All the ranting and Ravin’ and ‘All the cussin’ and cravin’‘ are there for sure. Or, rather, they are all here. And now. But, dig a little deeper, read between the lines (so to speak).

Listen to this:

Don’t talk about your superstitions
Don’t talk about your cats meow
But don’t talk about tomorrow tonight
I Love The Now

You see? He doesn’t want to hear about your belief systems imposed on you by others. He doesn’t want to hear about your fears that have been manufactured by someone else to keep you in line. And he is not the slightest bit interested in your fancy material toys and other stuff (cat’s meow: a great expression coined in the 1920s meaning fancy, flashy, cool, awesome and other similar epiphets).

And don’t talk about some far off distant future (okay tomorrow night may sometimes seem awfully close to now, but you get the meaning).

The bottom line (literally and figuratively): he loves the now. And that’s because that’s all there is: the now.

So, on the face of it hedonistic, nihilistic even, as if he’s shrugging his shoulders in a ‘so what?’ kind of way. But he’s not doing that at all; he’s actually offering a solution to the overwhelming tidal wave of ‘things that are wrong with the world’, and about which many of us feel helpless and sometimes even hopeless.
The Now. It really is the only thing you’ve ever known, the only time and place you can ever hope to be. So why not love it? Why not just live it?

This is not resignation; it is not fatalism or a giving up (or in). In fact it is a courageous engagement with the total reality of life as it is right now.
Jimmy writes that:

Tomorrow’s right around the corner
I’ll get there somehow
But I’m stuck in [the] meantime

And, then, most importantly he says:

And I Love The Now

The Function of Faith

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We Can All Change the World

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This quote is from the very famous & prolific Anonymous Thank you, whoever you are.

I’ve always liked this idea, this notion that by helping one person, you can change their world. I’ve always believed it to be true; after all,

Nobody ever made a bigger mistake than one who did nothing because they could only do a little

Sydney Smith

A couple of days ago when this powerful and important statement in the form of this illustration showed up on my social media, I was struck by something I don’t think I’d noticed before. Suddenly I saw: ‘might not change the world”. Might not? Which gave me the idea: it could as easily say ‘Helping one person might change the world …’.

But, you know, my thinking went even further: I realized that might and might not have nothing to do with it. The reality is that every action we take, and that includes the action of helping other living beings, actually does change the world.

Well, firstly, which of our actions help other beings, and thus change the world, we can’t always know. And obviously we can’t always (actually it’s more like very rarely) see the impacts of our actions.  And even if we do, it’s likely that we’ll only directly get to see what happens in a limited and local sense.  Nevertheless, all actions have a tendency to result in a domino, or cascade effect that literally never stops.

But, wait, there’s more. I kept thinking about it, and came up with a couple of ideas about why it could be a good idea to change the might not in this marvelous saying, which speaks of a negative possibility, to always will, which points to something definite.

All is one on the physical and the non-physical levels

We’ve all had those moments when we sense a connection with the rest of the world; we feel that we are part of nature, part of something bigger than just the one of us.

But, have you ever felt you were even more than just a ‘part of’ the world or nature? Have you ever had a sense that you are nature? Maybe this sounds a bit esoteric: we are one Self; we are all manifestations of the divine; we are all sparks of the one light, and so on.

And of course we can’t know for sure what goes on beyond the physical world. But, even at the most basic level of the material world, especially as we get down to the microscopic and even atomic levels, it’s hard to see any ‘separation’ between any individual and another. Atoms merge and cross over, interact, and change, energy fields collide and mingle, between all living and non-living things.

So, who’s to say that one small action on my part, one small change, won’t have a cascading effect as the ripples (that’s a good way to put it isn’t it?) from that action spread through the world and beyond?

The ‘What can One Person Do?’ Dilemma

Our Sydney Smith quote partially answers this agonising question for us as we’ve seen. Still, you might think that one person can’t do a lot when the needs are so many and so vast, and when most problems in our world seem to be so intractable. Mr Smith says that there is always something you as one person, as an individual can do, even if it’s a small thing you do.

Just think how many people everywhere are asking this same question: ‘What can one person do?’ If even a tiny percentage of those individuals answered that they could do something, then you would start to see changes taking place for sure. How could all those actions not add up to a changed world?

The Multiplyer Effect

Just now I used the words ‘add up’. Well actually it’s more like a multiplication effect isn’t it? If we say we change the world by helping just one person, then there has to be a Multiplyer at work I think.

We have all heard that aphorism that if you give food to a hungry person then you feed them for a day, but if you teach that person to produce their own food, then you feed them for a lifetime. Another truism definitely.

Still, once again, I think we can go further. Is it possible that by teaching one person to produce their own food you can help the whole world eat properly? Let me tell you a story I heard on an online video just a few days ago.

A man was traveling in a poor part of a country he loved. He’d spent the previous few years in another part of the same country building a house and growing his own vegetables and fruits.

He met a local person who was renting a small block of land, and that person asked him if he could help them build a house and teach them to grow their own food. It was a poor area, and the land was pretty much a little slice of jungle.

Anyway, this man agreed to help, and has been there for a few years now. He showed that local person how to grow various fruits and what looked to me to be a huge variety of vegetables. And they didn’t forget the flowers either.  As the seasons passed, seeds were gathered and more land turned over to growing food.

Apparently from the very start they had a surplus of the fruits and vegetables they were growing, so they began offering them to neighbours, most of whom were also very poor.

Our traveling friend then showed them how to collect seeds from the food they ate (and the flowers too) and began to show these neighbours how to plant, fertilise, care for, and harvest what those seeds produced. In this way they too were able expand the amount of food they could grow.

So, already there is a growing area of this one slice of one country, that’s becoming self sufficient in fruit and vegetables. Now, that’s not the whole world obviously, but you’d have to agree, it’s a good start.

Anyway, just think: those people now have skills and surplus food and seeds to share further afield. Who can say how far such action might spread?  It all sounds quite simplistic put like this, but it is the way that many grassroots movements for change have worked. And remember, nobody can reliably predict the ongoing impacts of any actions.

So, yes it is true, helping one person does indeed change the world for that one person. But whatever we do for one person, it also does definitely change the world beyond. As we’ve said, we may not see how or that it changes everything in the world and certainly not all at once.

We may think of ourselves as just one separate little individual, but we are united with all life. We may think that it’s all too much; too many problems; what can I do? The road to changing the world seems to be blocked, seems to be impassable.

Well, one teacher I admire is Swami Ramdas who founded Anandashram in India. Among the many great things he said, this one stands out for me above them all. I may have the wording a bit wrong, but basically the message is:

              

Once you have set your feet upon the path, then you are already at your goal

Which is another way of saying that if you help one person, then you have already changed the world.

Peace from me to you

What I learned from a Glass of Chai

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One of my favourite things to do India back in the days when I still spent hours in cafes was to drink tea. Or Chai as it’s called there, very often served in a glass. 

Most of the time the glass is filled to a level that leaves a small space at the top of the glass cool enough to allow the drinker to pick up the (usually) super-heated glass.  A great idea really because Chai is best imbibed at close to boiling point!

However, occasionally, a glass will arrive full to the brim with scalding hot but sweet and tempting Chai. With no cooler glass at the rim, how is the desperate Chai addict going to get to that sweet and satisfying liquid?

Well, obviously, the only way is to take the rim of that glass as gingerly as possible between one’s toughest and most calloused two fingers and just lift that glass and finally taste the flavorsome nectar contained within.

Of course there is another possible response: our Chai drinker may fear the painful consequences of taking hold of the hot glass, so will either leave the glass to cool or will reject the Chai completely.  Neither of these outcomes would ever satisfy a true Chai aficionado.

Now, how does the cliché go? This is a lot like life isn’t it? Well yes it is.  How often have we been confronted with an obstacle that’s preventing us from achieving something we want, or that is keeping us away from finding peace or love or some other condition we want in our lives?

Those problems, those obstacles, they are simply the hot glass blocking our way to the good things we want. Perhaps this is a good time to go ahead bravely, grab that hot glass and declare that for you there really are no problems that are (ready for another cliché?) too hot to handle.