‘You must be sick in the head,’ replies, as quick as you like, his partner hermit of 40 odd years. (Obviously an old and oft shared joke).
‘Of course I’m sick in the head,’ bursts out of the hermit in response. ‘It’s like saying the sun comes up every morning. It’s a given, a simple fact of life.’
Problem is, it’s not true is it? the sun I mean; it doessn’t come up does it? Doesn’t go down either for that matter. I mean it looks like it rises up every morning, and it looks like it goes down every night. But it doesn’t. In reality it’s us here on planet Earth who are doing the turning.
At ‘sunrise’, our home planet in its continual revolving has us looking at a stationary star (our Sun, Sol, Surya) that is, rather than going up, just sits there as we revolve downwards leaving it behind, Same story at night with the sunset, just the other way round.
Our experience when looking at this scene is that the sun is going down behind the hills. But in reality it’s the hills and river and the viewer going up as Earth rovolves. Hard to get one’s head around.
To explain what we see, what we experience – or rather what our ancestors saw and sought to explain – the simplest, most obvious thing to do is tell it like we see it. Sounds obvious enough, but as we’ve just seen, the story we inherited and which was only recently (in historical terms that is) shown to be incorrect, of the rising and the setting of the sun was based on an illusion,
As to the hermit and his story – the long-held believed to be true story – well, if we’ve been able to establish that stories we tell ourselves are often based on illusions, then perhaps the hermit can look for another story concerning the state of his head health, that is based a little more on facts, not so much on illusion.
Or to put it in other words: It’s quite possible that if the truth of the matter is that the sun never goes up and never goes down, then just maybe the hermit is not actually sick in the head.
Except perhaps when it comes to old jokes shared between beloved partner hermits.
Anyone who has tried to meditate for more than a minute, knows very well that the mind right away jumps into overdrive, trying its hardest to keep us nice and distracted; anything but quiet and peace is the mind’s aim. Speaking for myself, all I want to do is get rid of that mind altogether.
But, I know, that would be a mistake. I may not like how my mind behaves sometimes, but I do actually quite like having one, a mind that is. I guess, for me, it’s about realising that my mind is here to stay, and can be either my friend or my foe.
Trouble is, when trying to meditate, I can easily believe it’s my worst enemy. Another mistake, I think, that arises from a not so discerning attitude to the thoughts that flood in seemingly at random.
But, sometimes in that quiet and still space – and even if that quiet and peaceful space hasn’t yet been reached – a thought comes from the mind friend, not the foe. It seems I must learn discernment. Here’s a good example.
Not long into my meditation earlier today, but already bombarded with random thoughts, memories, and other distractions to said peace and quiet, an idea came that just caught my attention. Suddenly, there seemed to be a full-blown idea for what sounded like a great blog post.
I din’t have this notebook with me, and though I had my phone handy, I thought, no, be firm, don’t let interruptions in. Of course, I thought that I’d remember the idea, but sure enough, I didn’t. Now, it’s nowhere to be found. I mean it must be in some tiny neuron in my brain, but it’s hiding pretty well!
Later, after my meditation session, I thought to myself, how come I could make a list of all the less than useful thoughts, memories, ideas and random mental craziness that tried its best to keep me distracted, yet I have no idea what that one wonderful blog post idea was?
I think it might possibly be about attachment; a lesson I’m giving myself in discerning between what thoughts are from my friend mind which ones from my foe mind, the mind running wild with its accomplice, my ego.
It’s a lesson I badly need, I think. Endless thoughts of little or no use to me have stayed, while the one that might have been helpful is gone, seemingly forever.
Yes indeed. Perhaps ny perspective on what ideas ad thoughts are useful to me and what ones aren’t, needs to be contemplated upon.
Actually, it’s not really needing a lot of contemplation: I mean, the one idea I thought would be great is gone. But looking at it the other way around, the fact that the great pile of not so good thoughts staying with me has given us this post I am now writing, and you are reading.
Perspective. It’s all about perspective. And discernment.
A curious title for a post, I thought as the words popped into mind. And it’s one that could be hinting at, pointing towards, any number of ideas, topics, or whatever.
In this case, however, it is really quite straightforward: The title refers to a three-line quote I rediscovered when I was transferring notes from a full notebook to a new one the other day.
Actually, ‘three-line’ quote may not be quite correct. In fact, I have no idea if it is a longer quote consisting of three lines, or, three individual one-liners that I happen to have grouped together.
Whatever the case, I don’t know where I found this quote or these quotes. All I can say is that I was surprised to come across them as I performed the normally routine task of transferring notes.
Surprised, because each of these lines I think, hold a special message for me; a unique piece of advice. You could even call them guidance.
Each individual line and its message is wrapped around and driven by the verb to keep:
Keep your spirits up Please help keep the silence. God’s will be done and keep calm.
As a whole, this quote (these quotes) constitute a kind of ‘how to live in the world’ mini-guide. Each – and all – of the three lines point to an aspect of what we might call Right Living – guiding us to the means by which we may approach daily life with its ups and downs, its sorrows and joys, good and bad times, mistakes, hurts, confusion, that make up our lives as flawed human beings living the best we can in an imperfect world.
Keep your spirits up
What with all those ups and downs, sorrows, daily crises – in our own lives and in the world around us – how are we to keep our spirits up?
How do we free ourselves of the pain and suffering caused to us by all these travails?
How do we remain positive and optimistic in the face of what passes for a life ‘in the world’?
All good questions, and there are many many answers out there in that same crazy, mixed-up world that’s giving us all the trouble in the first place.
Speaking only for me, I have nowhere near reached the point where I can say that my spirits are consistently lifted, that I let nothing disturb me.
Why is that? The answer is simple: because I’m a human being. Or perhaps it’s better to say I inhabit a human body which is subject to one thing only: constant change.
I’m learning more and more that the only one I can address such questions to is me. If there are any answers to how to keep my spirits up, I’m realizing slowly that I won’t find them out there in the world or in the things of the world.
So, going within has to be at least my tentative response. It seems that there really is nothing else that will keep my spirits up for more than some fleeting often illusory moments here and there.
Please help keep the silence
What silence? Well may you ask: hardly what you’d call a quiet place to live, this world of ours.
Once again, for me, going within is a good start. Though I’m not the quietest person in the world, especially ‘within’. Too many thoughts, emotions coming and going, all the craziness of an overactive mind and heart.
But it’s a start.
I keep re-centring when I can. I focus on my breath; recite some favourite prayers; chant mantra (the names of God); I sometimes just sit. All these do help me, will help me, I know. They do, sometimes, every now and again, for little moments, create that little (vast?) space I call silence.
As to playing my part in keeping that broader, silence? Well I’ve mentioned before the invisible community – the heaps of people all over the world who are on the same or similar paths, practising their own unique ways of going within, of cultivating both inner and external quiet, or silence.
All of which tells me, I am not alone. And it says, my little contribution to silence – to being still and quiet – actually counts.
God’s will be done and keep calm
For me, ‘God’s will be done’ is simply another way of saying that the Universe (or life) is unfolding exactly as it does in the only way it can. It just is as it is. And me, being also that life, I play my part.
And that’s all: we play our part; we do our bit, and it all happens as it does.
Acceptance of this truth is also one of those aspiration things I keep near the top of my list. Surrender, I sometimes call it. Surrender, rather than being a ‘giving up’ as we sometimes use the word, is more about going with the flow of the river, or accepting and cooperating with the flow of the natural order of the Universe as we experience it in our lives.
That ‘keep calm’ bit reminds me of that meme that was everywhere a few years ago: ‘Keep calm and carry on’. It, in a real sense, is exactly what I’m trying to do.
Surrendering, or accepting that ‘the universe is unfolding as it should’ (to borrow once again from the astonishing Desiderata) seems to be the clearest most obvious way to that calm our quote speaks about: Calm acceptance, free from the resistance and struggle against the flow of the river of life that lies at the root of much of our suffering.
So, the Dharma of Keeping. One small (or perhaps not so small) set of clues about how to live right in the world – and with the world.
The river of life is calling me to the kitchen. Even hermit monks have dishes to put away. So, keeping calm, I carry on.
Hermitage on the Loch (courtesy: a member of our community
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 