Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Musings on one Hermit's life & world

The Best Job in the World

Posted on November 9, 2023 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Indeed, it is clear to all who dwell there that through them the world is kept in being

I jotted down this note I forget how long ago. Over the last few years I’ve read a lot about the early Christian hermits who lived in the deserts of Egypt, Syria, and other areas of that area we label the Middle East.

While I think it was one of these early hermits who uttered these words, it may instead have been a monk or hermit from the 9th or 10th Century, living in the forests of Russia or Eastern Europe. (I wish was a lot less careless with sources for things I note down).

In any case, it was spoken by a hermit or monk who, along with perhaps thousands of other men and women, fled the strict dogmatism of both government and religious institutions , as well as the corruption, materialism, noise, and all the other distractions of the cities and towns.They went to the deserts, the forests, and other remote places, in search of solitude, silence, and peace.

They longed to commune with the divine. They chose to bypass the mire of worldliness, and hoped to find a better way to serve the divine and the world. The writer or speaker of our quote is pointing our attention to all those who went to the deserts, the forests, and other sanctuaries, who in her or his words, believe they are actually keeping the world going, and its people too.

These nuns, monks, priests and hermits, knew that by communing with the divine without distractions, and living a simple life completely and absolutely centred on the divine, was the way to save the world.

‘So’, you might be saying with a slightly cynical tone in your voice: ‘These are people who have ‘escaped’ from the world and are ignoring governments and the law, rejecting social status of any kind, not associating with other people like other good citizens. They’ve gone to sit in a hut or cave or whatever and are doing nothing productive at all. They’re not buying stuff so they aren’t contributing the the economy. And you say they are the ones keeping the world spinning round? Hardly.’

Yes, I think they are. Keeping the world spinning I mean. Just as mystics from all the world’s religious traditions, these women and men of the deserts – and the forests too – knew that the world they’d left behind wasn’t real. Well, yes, it’s real enough of course: I mean we only have to look around us, and feel the workings of our bodies. It’s real alright.

But, realer (I know, it’s not a real word) than this physical world we are in and are an integral part of, is what lies within us as well as everything else in the Universe:

Holy Wanderer
Detached from all Worldly Entanglements

The divine, God, the life force, Consciousness. So many names for the same thing. Many of us sense that at the core of ourselves there is ‘something else’; that there is some kind of intelligence for wont of a better word. This intelligence is what illumines life, as in life, the universe, and everything.

But, we don’t see this, or not so often anyway. The mire of worldliness (a phrase I mentioned earlier and which I like very much) seems to be specifically designed to keep us in the dark so to speak, about our true nature.

Think about the seemingly endless focus on materialism with its temptations and promises to make us happy; the conflict and competition among individuals and nations to acquire more power, possessions, land and anything else that ‘they’ve got and that we want’.

Mire is a good word: We’re trapped and sinking fast in a kind of quicksand.

And this mire keeps us from becoming aware, from realizing, that we are the Consciousness (the word I prefer but, as I said, names are just names) mentioned above. It keeps us ignorant of our true nature, and we go on and on struggling to keep afloat in the world.

The hermits of the past and the present, the nuns, monks and other contemplative people of all kinds, and, in many and various places, are all engaged in a quest to know – and yes, to realise – that they and everything else in the material and non-material universe is Consciousness.

I believe that, far from being unproductive, from ‘doing nothing’, It is the engagement by such people everywhere with this quest that does indeed keep the world in being.

I would like to leave you with a couple of quotes if I may.
The first is from Abba Moses, one of the greatest of the early desert fathers who was born in Ethiopia and lived in Egypt in the 4th Century:

‘Our objective is puritas cordis,’ Abba Moses told Cassian and Germanus [fellow monks]. ‘A heart kept free of all disturbance. The more we cultivate such inner stability, the more we can offer our lives in service to the world.’

The second quote I would like to share is from Saint Seraphim of Sarov, a 19th Century Russian monk who lived as a hermit deep in the woods:

‘Acquire a peaceful spirit, and thousands around you will be saved.’

Probably the best gig in the world I would say.

Peace and love

‘Sometime Soon’: When is it?

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

There used to be a thing – maybe it’s still a thing – that would happen sometimes. You’d be talking to someone and suddenly they’d burst out:

‘Hey that rhymes! You’re a poet and don’t know it!’

This exclamation, this sudden and surprising interruption, was always prompted by some sort of accidental rhyming happening in something you’d said.

Or, sometimes, it even happened when you had written something and had through no fault or thought on your part, created a rhyme, even a little impromptu and accidental poem.

Well, that’s what happened to be. It was a while ago now and I was writing in my journal. It must have been ages ago because I don’t keep a journal anymore.

In any case, with nobody reading over my shoulder, it was left to me to express surprise at a sudden outburst of poetics on the page. And along with the surprise, I was able to make a quick note of what I’d written:

Anyway, this post isn’t about this little demonstration of spontaneous poetic genius; it’s actually about the ‘sometime soon’ tagging along on the end.

I have no idea where or what the walk to take, the pilgrimage to make, was – or is. Which suggests a rather obvious conclusion: ‘sometime soon’ never came. The walk was not taken; the pilgrimage was not made.

Now, I’m thinking to myself, if the walk under discussion was so appealing – as well as so significant that it transformed into a pilgrimage – then how come ‘sometime soon’ wasn’t right now, or rather right then. If you follow me.

Of course there’s no telling the reasons for the sometime soon. Maybe plans would have been required; travel to arrange; equipment to gather; fitness to acquire. Who knows?

Clearly I was inspired to at least put down in writing that I thought this walk, this pilgrimage, was (or would be) a good thing to do.

Meaning, in that moment, in the present that is (or was) of that moment, that walk/pilgrimage was a thing I wanted to undertake.

Now, while I might have longed to take that walk, to make that pilgrimage, in the present of that moment of writing, and even though planning may have been required, thereby putting off the actuality of the taking and making till some future time, I at the very least could have taken some action – again in the present of that moment – to get the ball rolling so to speak.

So, what’s the lesson here?

Well it’s simple really, very simple. Maybe simpler to say than to actually put into practice, but I think my lesson here is just this. Tell myself the truth as often and as much as I possibly can. In other words:

Be honest with myself

Let’s look at the options

If I’d really wanted to take this walk, to make this pilgrimage, no matter how remote, how complicated the logistics or planning, why didn’t I take action in that present? Or at least in some present before I actually forgot completely what the walk/pilgrimage was.

And why add ‘sometime soon’ if I didn’t actually desire or intend for this thing to happen? Well, possibly to put of any decision about doing or not doing. Or perhaps it was a way of saying (in completely other words), ‘Well, it sounds very nice, but I doubt I will ever end up doing it.’

So, honesty, and clear thinking about what I want and what I don’t want. That way I won’t be so attached, so keen on clinging to outcomes that I can’t see clearly, can’t easily know what I am to do or not do. Presence. Being present is what this is really about isn’t it?

To be completely present, to be fully here and now, requires me (all of us I suppose) let go of the maybes, and the ifs and buts as well as the endless ruminations about do this or don’t do that.

If I want to take a walk, or make a pilgrimage, then I say to me: just get on with it! If I don’t, then just say so, and move on.

Last little comment: I would really love for the present to remind me of what this walk/pilgrimage was. I’m a bit curious I guess(yes I know, curiosity is a present moment deflater) Maybe it’ll come back to me now I’ve written this post.

Peace

The Beginning of Devotion: A Poem

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

*The Paradox of the Hermit Life* (Courtesy of @travellinghermit3)

THE BEGINNING OF DEVOTION

Attention, paying attention.
It’s the beginning of devotion.
And when you see? When there is seeing?
Well, seeing is praise.

When we see, what we see,
is God.
Not the god, or this or that god.
There aren’t lots of gods,
or so it seems.
And in the end, there isn’t even one god:
there is only God.
So it was said by the sages.

My take on Dharma, Karma, & Living a Good Life Part 1

Posted on August 24, 2023 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Most likely I’m not alone when I say that when first listening to new information, a lecture, teachings or anything else for that matter, I will often forget either part of what I’m trying to learn or even all of it. In fact, I’m sure there are more than a few scholarly research papers that will tell us all about this universal phenomena with all facts and figures along with all the whys and wherefores.

Anyway, I was listening to my teacher ( Swami Tadatmananda) recently. He summarized the teachings he was giving on that occasion in three succinct, pithy lines. Thinking back now, I have no memory of the teachings being presented, and all I have is a quick note jotted down of the teacher’s summary:

Do your duty
Follow Dharma
Live a righteous life.

Fast forward a couple of days and I was watching a video about 19th Century English poets. Once again I’m not able to tell you the names of all those poets or what the show was about (actually to be honest, I got bored and stopped watching half way).

And, again, all that remains is a scribbled note about the pioneering of a particular rhyming scheme by one of the featured poets.

That revolutionary rhyming scheme is ABBA (where the first line of a verse rhymes with the fourth, and the middle two rhyme with each other). It’s as well that I did jot down a note: I have never been able to take in, much less retain in memory, all the technical stuff to do with poetics. Never.

But for some reason this particular idea appealed to me. Maybe it’s to do with how I was once a big fan of the Swedish pop group Abba? (okay, maybe I still am)

As it happens, my note on this appears in my notebook just below the first one I mentioned above. So, as I thought about ABBA (the rhyming scheme, not the pop group), I saw that first note and started playing with it:

Do your duty
Follow Dharma
Earn good Karma
Do nothing naughty

Okay, I know, it’s not exactly great literature is it? Never mind; it’s only an experiment. But, having said that, I do quite like this little, what shall we call it? This little ditty. It seems to be a nice, even quirky, little rephrasing of my teacher’s own summary.

This is all very well and good you might think, but what does it all mean? Does it actually mean anything? Well, my short answer is yes: for me it does indeed definitely mean something.

Actually, it means a lot. But as this post seems to be dragging on a bit, perhaps we will have to continue in another post.

Meanwhile, be blessed

Looks Like a Comfy Chair

Posted on August 18, 2023 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

‘Looks like a comfy chair’.

That was the first thing my partner said when I showed her this photo. Her eyes – and perhaps even her heart – had found that which is illuminated by the sun, even though it’s surrounded by wreckage and ruin.

The wreckage by the way, of an abandoned and trashed store front. One of several in a small arcade, that’s long sat empty.

Ah, I thought: one more illustration of a metaphor I’ve been hearing a lot lately in my studies about consciousness.

Allow me, please, to adopt our teacher’s metaphor which, for me, really clarifies this concept of consciousness, or Atma as it’s called in Sanskrit.

Is the brilliant light streaming into this room and onto this chair affected in any way whatsoever because the chair is sitting amidst all that wreckage?

Is the sun shining any less brightly on the chair than it would if the chair was sitting in a luxuriously decorated space instead?

Of course the answer to both questions is no. The sun, and its brilliance remains undimmed, and completely unaffected, untouched, regardless of what it shines on.

The ‘I’ that photographed this scene, and my partner’s ‘I’ whose eyes were drawn to the chair in the scene, are both consciousness. Not ‘my’ consciousness; not ‘her’ consciousness. Consciousness is all; all there is. Boundaryless, infinite, all pervading. We can’t even say there is one consciousness, because there is only consciousness.

Ah, I hear you say: there is one sun shining on our world; and the sun isn’t ‘all there is’. Well, as our teacher likes to remind us, all metaphors are flawed: you can only take them so far.

Metaphors, are only meant to illustrate, to show us the way, point us in the right direction as it were. In our little example here, the metaphor is meant to help us gain some knowledge.

The knowledge that we are not what we see, hear, taste, touch, think or feel. We are that light – consciousness – that allows us to know what we experience with our senses.

One more thing: The light of the sun, flooding the chair with its brilliance, enabled my partner to see that it was comfy, even though it was sitting in that wrecked, abandoned and lonely place.

Just as in our lives, when everything seems to be crashing down around us and we feel we are the ones stranded in that wreckage, we can remember that the light of our own consciousness, is the way in which we may shine our attention on the truth of our unchanging eternal, and true nature, that is who we really are: perfect, eternal, absolutely unaffected by anything at all.

Peace and love

One Way to Look at Life

Posted on August 8, 2023 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Peace & love

Yes, it’s true: life is precious.
But gold? Silver?
And what about diamonds?
Something to think about.

When Misreading is no Mistake

Posted on August 20, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

We’ve all had this experience I think. I’ll be reading something, and right away I’ll come to a conclusion, become either sure of something or the complete opposite; I can be confused, force myself to ask more questions. I can even have brilliant insights or realizations.

No? Well, maybe it’s really just me then. But, wait there’s more: this is a two part experience. When that second part happens we will come to realise that what we think we read is nothing at all like what the words on the paper (or screen) actually said in a factual sense.

Yes, you’ve probably guessed by now that there’s a story coming. In fact this exact thing happened to me this morning, all the way to the brilliant insight or realisation bit.

In fact it was a brilliant realisation, the only problem was that it was based on only on what I thought I read, not what was actually being said.

Anyway, I was reading the verse quoted below, from my Bhagavad Gita and a sudden flash of insight hit me.

Despite these five lines saying a particular thing in a clear and precise manner, I somehow misread the first three lines to say:

All beings ensue from Me.
Bhagavad Gita Ch 7:12

Somehow my mind skipped the ‘states of’ bit and made a leap that actually lead to a great realisation: Of course, I thought; God is not in us (as in living beings), it’s we who are in God.

Which to me means that we are all part and parcel of God. I’m not saying, I’m God; I’m not saying you are either. What I am saying is that all creation as one, unified whole, is in God. And if that one unified whole does indeed ensue from God, then it follows that all of creation is God.

As individualized, embodied entities, we (along with all life everywhere) are simply manifestations in the material form of that divine energy, that life, that truth; that which we often call God.

Now, this is an instance of a flash of insight leading to a truth, when the receiver of the insight (that’s me) is engaged with what you might call some other factual reality, that is, the actual words on the page.

At first I thought, that’s weird: how did I misread all those words related to states of being? I mean they are pretty clear right? But then I thought, no, maybe not so weird. In fact, it makes sense.

How can my material mind and intellect possibly be expected to always keep its millions of thoughts, ideas, impulses and the rest, in perfect order each thought or whatever following completely logically from the one before and to the one after? It’s never going to happen is it? Not for any of us (Well maybe I’m overstating my case here, but you know what I mean).

And if mind does indeed operate on what seems on the face of it to be a random basis, then it’s perfectly reasonable to suppose that one might be prompted to some momentous insight by, well by anything really. Even if it’s a conclusion jumped to after the misreading of a text.

In this case though, that jumping to conclusions, even though based a misreading, has turned out to be a genuine realisation that I feel on an intuitive level; my instincts tell me it’s Truth.

Jai Gurudev
All that I am today is by your grace.

You Say You Want a Revolution, Well You Know …

Posted on May 1, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Welcome friends to another post

I’m actually scheduling this one to publish sometime in the future. The reason is that, as I reread it now, I see I’ve used ideas, and even some sentences here that appear in a couple of recent posts. The thing is, I think this is a post worth reading, so I’m kind of sneaking it in via a touch of time travel. In any case, please enjoy, and by the way, thank you for sticking with me for this long (however long this is).

It was a revolutionary idea for its time, the early 19th Century. Come to think of it, it still is. A reform minded Christian minister, William Ellery Channing proposed that the proper goal for each of us human beings is perfection.

Or rather, the goal should be a realisation of the perfection that is already our true natural state, our true selves, which we’ve forgotten as we have got on with the rarely easy business of living in a material world. You see? I did say it was a revolutionary idea.

After all, he wasn’t talking about the obsessive perfectionism that often curses so many of us anxious types. Or the myths propogated by mass media of what it means to be ‘perfect’. No, he was proposing a complete and thorough shift in the prevailing thinking about the nature of humans, and in reality, of all life.

Anyway, he posed the question:

Do you ask in what this perfection consists?

He then proceeded to answer his own rhetorical question:

I answer: in knowledge, in love, and in activity

When I came across this little vignette in an unrelated book I’ve recently finished reading, I was a little bit mind-blown. Channing’s formula is more or less identical to that presented over millennia in a number of the world’s religious or spiritual traditions.

For example in the tradition I am studying these last years, Sanātana Dharma, this little formula constitutes pretty much the foundation for any kind of spiritual growth. It could be said that in a real sense it is the very basis of all Yoga:

Jnana Yoga (knowledge, study, includes meditation, contemplative practices and so on), Bhakti Yoga (Divine Love. In the sense that love is always divine) and Karma Yoga (often called the Yoga of action. It basically includes everything we do in the physical world. The Karma bit is about our actions becoming selfless).

In other words, just sitting there on their own these three Yogas offer a pretty succinct answer to the question many of us ask ourselves constantly: How can I live a good life?

We pursue knowledge for many reasons: it may be a reluctant pursuit as we sit through the interminable years of high school; or later as we head to university or college to train for a career that we hope will support us. The thirst for knowledge might arise when we come upon a topic or an area of interest and fascination that we just have to learn more about.

Just as with the infinity of knowledge, love comes in equally infinite guises. Unlike knowledge, however, I don’t think there are ‘reasons’ we can give for love. Love is love; it is its own reward (and it’s own torture), it just is what it is. Divine is as good a word as any. Any love, all love, is love for all and for everything.

And then there is the kind of knowledge we pursue as we try to answer what I like to call the Who am I? questions. Things such as: What’s the meaning of life? Where am I from? Where am I going? Is this all there is? Oh, and of course the real biggie: Who am I?

Now, at the risk of having to take the prize for the most obvious statement ever made, let me make the point that all living things have to take action all the time if they are to remain alive. So obvious that I’m even having to take several different actions in order to tell you this. So, you might well ask, what’s the big deal? What’s Channing and all the others through the ages getting at? What activity?

Well, I think Channing was getting at the notion that every action we take needs to be informed by knowledge and love. But, what knowledge? Well, clearly we are caught in a tsunami of information much of which goes to making ‘fake’ knowledge, propaganda, deceptive advertising, biased education, and the rest.

In other words how often do we see knowledge not used correctly? And, how often is humanity’s use of knowledge – our actions – informed by love? Now we can begin to realise how revolutionary this idea is, and always has been.

I think that’s why the Sanātana Dharma teachings and world view embody the concept Bhakti, or divine love. As I noted, all love is divine. These teachings tell us that all action is to be undertaken with love, without attachment to rewards or outcomes, and dedicated to the welfare of all life.

Channing had the same idea: for him all life is pure and perfect already. And of course it follows I think that all actions we take have the potential to be informed by a wisdom gained from proper use of knowledge, and to be informed by love, whether it’s for self, for other people, other animals, Earth herself.

So, pretty revolutionary stuff eh? I guess a lot of us have heard that famous quote from Gandhi:

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Well, here’s the freaky bit. Just now as I looked up the quote to make sure I got it right, I discovered that he never actually said those words. Not in that form anyway. Here’s what he actually did say. It’s a long quote but I think it’s an interesting note to finish on. I think for me it clarifies many of the questions this little discussion has raised in my own mind, as it will for you I hope.

Gandhiji at his spinning wheel (thank you Wikimedia Commons)

Knowledge; Love; Activity

We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man [sic] changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.
Mohandas Gandhi

Peace from me to you

Let Me Tell You About a Visitor I had This Morning

Posted on April 22, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Greeting and Welcome to you

Quite a long time ago now I half wrote a book. I mean to say, I wrote half the thing before giving up. The book was going to be called When a Pet Dies, and was about, well exactly what the title suggests. All the practical stuff that you’d expect, as well as ways to deal with the grief over the loss of a companion animal .

I thought at the time that the reason it was only half written is that, once I got through that practical stuff and was ready to tackle the grief and loss parts, some kind of lethargy set in, or I got lazy. Or perhaps, I was thinking also, the muse for that particular project had simply left and was gone. So it remains half written.

So, why am I musing over this half done, half forgotten project from long ago? Well, let me tell you about a visit I had this morning.

I was sitting, focusing on chanting my mantra. Suddenly I felt an absolutely overwhelming sense of loss and sadness. I don’t recall thinking of anything in particular beforehand, but the sense was overpowering. Flooded with grief is what they call it I think.

Lofi (on the right) with his sister Shanti

And then, just as powerfully, I sensed the presence of Lofi, my cat who died in my arms over ten years ago. Immense feeling of presence is what I wrote in my notebook. Now, I’m not saying he was literally there with me. I’m also not saying he wasn’t. All I can say is that it was among the most intense of similar experiences I’ve had over the years. Anyway, that’s most likely what got me thinking about my incomplete book.

Later this morning I was sitting with my partner on a benchseat overlooking the sea, the bit of the Pacific coast I’ll be leaving behind next week.

Actually, now I’ve mentioned that, you might remember from my last post how keen I am to get out there to the desert. That excitement and anticipation doesn’t mean for a second that I’m not feeling quite sad about leaving the coast.

Anyway, we were just sitting there and chatting on and off, when suddenly a thought seemed to push its way to the surface. I all of a sudden knew why I stopped where I did when writing that book. I realized in a strong and convincing way that you can’t build a structure to define what grief is or how or if it should be experienced, by whom and when.

I’m not talking about the ‘truism’ that one hears all the time that says that the ‘stages of grief’ are in a set order, until they’re not. Actually come to think about it, I’m not even sure this is true. I mean, I’m not sure it (grief) is a thing to be labelled, quantified, recorded, predicted, analysed.

I mean, who’s to ever say how any other individual, or even oneself, will feel about anything at all? Sure, there might be a ‘typical’ set of responses to any given circumstance, such as a loss, but even the proponents of such theories will tell you that none of us is typical.

Which kind of leads me back to my feeling of oneness with my Lofi earlier in the day. Obviously I’m not alone in having such feelings. How often has any one of us heard other people say, after they’ve lost a loved one:e, ‘S/he was really here. It was so real’.

Such experiences can occur anytime, even decades after the loved one has left. I’ve mentioned somewhere else that I’m reading (in little chunks) a great book by Joseph Campbell, the renowned scholar of myth. Let me share with you a quote from the section I’ve been reading today where he’s talking about how art in India seeks to portray the divine in all things:

This is the wonderful song that one hears when one reads the Bhagavad Gītā or any of the great texts of Eastern philosophy. This is the song of that immortal spirit that never was born and never die.

Of course this isn’t meant to be a consolation to myself or anyone else. After all, we are physical beings, living in a material, solid and apparently ‘real’ world. So, naturally, we experience loss, like everything else in that context.

Our bodies react (or don’t) as do our minds, creating physical sensations and emotional responses. Or not. These physical and emotional responses, or lack of them, are totally unpredictable, unexpected, and most definitely unclassifiable by anyone outside of oneself (myself)

Anyway, there are no rules. Even the grief and loss experts will tell you this. Mind you, I can and will only speak for myself, and my experience. Basically that experience has taught me that I have an intuitive resistance to ever thinking in terms of there being a ‘roadmap’ for grief.

Or a statistically valid ‘pattern’ or ‘process’, or that there are even such things as ‘stages of grief’.

My grief for my Lofi is unique, just as everyone’s is. I’m pretty sure I don’t even want to define it, label it, ‘try to get closure’, ‘come to terms with my loss’. No. None of that. It’s like I’ve said someplace else, or at some other times:

Sometimes we make way too many words for something for which there are no words.

Thank you for allowing me to share these words with you. I pray that they are not ‘too many’

peace and love

Am I Here & Now or There & Then?

Posted on April 21, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

One week today and I will be there. In other words, this time next week at this time I will have arrived in the desert city of Broken Hill. Almost in the heart of the continent and right in the middle of the Outback. In fact they call that whole area The Big Red after the colour of its tens of thousands of square kilometres of desert sands.

It’s about 1500 kilometres from the Pacific Coast where I am right now. I’d like to write about the ‘call’ to the desert, which I am finally answering, but maybe I’ll get to that in another post.

Right now I only want to say how excited I am to be going. A bit anxious too (I’ve been there before, but still …), and plain and simple looking forward to getting there.

Acturally, to be perfectly clear about it: I can’t wait to be there. But, you see, herein lies the problem: I am so keen to get there that I’m feeling as if I am no longer here. I am not present; I am not living in the moment and in the place I’m in (which I love by the way, the place I mean).

I don’t mean to say that I am some sort of Buddha who is usually fully present in each moment; or who is serene and calm when he knows change is coming. Any reader of this blog will tell you that presence isn’t necessarily my greatest strength.

But, I must say that lately I have improved (slightly) my living in the moment, being here and now, way of living. It’s just that I’ve been longing for this particular change (and all that I anticipate will come with it) so much that I just can’t help myself.

Did I mention already that this is a problem for me? Well, yes, I did, and it is. I prefer very much to be where I am and when I am and fully in the flow of the ongoing present.

Of course there is nothing wrong with wanting something to happen. The problem arises when one is so anxious for whatever it is to happen, that what’s happening here and now ceases to be where one is at—in other words: the trouble is that I stop being in the present.

Buddha taught what are called The Four Noble Truths. (which pretty much form the core of Buddhist teachings) The second of these Truths says that attachment is the cause of suffering. Suffering here means anxiety, worry, regret, fear; all those kinds of things. Whenever we say something like, ‘I can’t wait to…’, then it is a sure sign we are attached to that want or desire.

By the way, the First Noble Truth is: Life is suffering. Suffering, The Buddha taught, is simply the price of being alive. We get hungry, we are conscious of pain (in all its guises), we grieve; we grow old; we get sick; and we die.

But, right now, I want to talk more about Noble Truths three and four. Number three says that suffering can be overcome. Nice clean, clear, and not to mention, succinct little statement. Of course, it’s easy for him to say isn’t it? He is Buddha after all.

Perfectly reasonable reaction from us suffering humans. But there is hope and we will find that in Noble Truth number four which gives us the how to overcome suffering. There are quite a few ways to put this Truth into words, but the one I like best says:

The way to overcome suffering is to sit.

What? Sit? Yes, sit. Be still; stop moving. Of course if we relate this Truth to my little dilemma for wanting to so badly to be somewhere else that I’m not able to be where I am now, we can expand this Truth to something like this:

Focus your full attention on what you are doing now, and where you are now as well. As much as you can, be open to change, but be less attached to the nature or timing of that change. After all, you can make all the plans you like, but who knows what’s really going to happen—you won’t know that till it actually happens.

So, that’s what I am trying to do. Instead of saying stuff like ‘I wish I could go sooner’, or ‘it’s only x days till I go’ (yes I know, that’s what I said way up there at the top of the post), I am going to ask myself, ‘What am I doing now?’, and I plan to look around me, and engage more with the reality of this moment. And try hard to realise the ongoingness of that everlasting moment.

As Ram Dass said,

Be Here Now.

Hey, that’s a great mantra isn’t it? Chanting it whenever I start getting out of the here and now mode, might just put me back there again. I mean here—and now. You know what I mean!

Love and blessings from me to you

Paul