Neighbor Possum

A possum lives under our front step. From there, it's a short trip to the grocery store, otherwise known as our compost pile. Once in a while, if we take the kitchen scraps out after dark, we can find her dining out.

My neighbors and i have decided we like possums because they eat ticks, mice, and rats. My neighbor who has a chicken coop feels lucky to have a possum living underneath the coop.

Mindfulness eats our pesky thoughts, simply by watching and feeling them. Here and gone. I don't have to believe that thought, after all. Sometimes, i watch the same thought come and go a dozen times. Why does the mind need to keep giving me the same message over and over? Because the mind isn't listening to the silence of truth.

The possum waddles off into the dark.

Do No Harm

The reading in my neighborhood meditation group this morning reminded us to Do No Harm. I remind myself of this when i recite the 5 Precepts every morning.

Today i intend to:

do no harm to anyone

take nothing that is not freely given

use my sensual energy wisely

speak truthfully and helpfully

and keep my mind clear.

The precepts outline specifically how i can do no harm. The precepts are my guiding principles.

Just for today, can i speak truthfully and helpfully? Can i refrain from gossip? Can i refrain from chitchat? Can i refrain from divisive speech?

My plants are silent. Perhaps i should take a lesson from them.

Sorrel Soup

Sorrel is ready to harvest. I do love perennial vegetables, especially something such as sorrel that surprises me. What are those big green leaves? They are ready to make into soup! Tonight!

Sorrel has a strong lemon-y taste, so this evening i'm using broth and adding some leftover chicken.

Perennial wisdom is also good, year after year. That's the kernel of truth that is true in all religions, despite seeming differences.

Tetanus Shot

I went to the doctor for my annual physical exam and received a tetanus shot. It's a good idea for gardeners to get a tetanus booster every 10 years, since 30 percent of tetanus injuries occur in the yard and garden and another 25 percent occur somewhere else outdoors. There's enough rusty garden paraphernalia around my property, and occasional manure too, that a tetanus shot seems like a good idea to me.

Of course, some people don't believe in vaccinations or suspect them of harboring some danger. Yes, there is a minuscule risk. On the other hand, when i hear about a 3-year-old child dying of tetanus because his parents didn't believe in the vaccinations, well, i feel very sad.

How can we inoculate ourselves against the vagaries of life? Can we feel happiness despite conditions?

Contemplate this chant today:

All things are impermanent.

They arise and they pass away.

To live in harmony with this truth

brings great happiness.

How can it be that looking, deeply, at arising and passing away brings us happiness?

National Rhubarb Pie Day

It's National Rhubarb Pie day. Now that sounds like a delicious holiday to me. Time to take the rhubarb out of the freezer and bake up something with rhubarb. I like Rhubarb Squares--a rhubarb filling on top of a shortbread crust. Or maybe a rhubarb crumble? Mmmmm. Sometimes, I sneak rhubarb into my sweetie's pancakes, where he barely notices it.

Rhubarb is one of those tastes that you either love or you avoid. And i might even say the taste for rhubarb is a bit like the taste for the Dharma. At first, the Dharma seems like a bitter pill to swallow. The first Noble Truth is suffering?????

But when we look closely at our lives the sweetness of this sour truth tastes true. Yes, dukkha (suffering, stress, dissatisfaction) is all around us. And once we recognize that, well, the Dharma fixes everything.

Multi-use Herb Garden

Running over the chocolate mint.

Every November, my sweetie and i disagree about my herb garden. Since it's at the back door, he wants to back up the truck full of firewood right to the back door. "But it's a garden," i plead to no avail. In truth, it's a multi-use area. For 5 days in November, my herb garden is a driveway for our truck.

Can you see how i get myself into this feeling of ill-will?

1) i resist what is happening: a truck with firewood.
2) i believe the word "herb garden." In true truth, it's an ever-changing patch of dirt. As soon as i give it a label, i create a concept, which i can then believe. The world becomes dualistic--this? or that? If it's an herb garden, then it can't or shouldn't be a driveway. But, in fact, both are happening.

Our woodshed is filled to the brim with firewood for the winter. The chocolate mint, the onions, the thyme have survived.

The kale stays out of the way of those tires.

Naked Ladies Dancing in the Garden

Naked Ladies are blooming! In fact, they are dancing throughout one of my flowerbeds. Lycoris has pink amaryllis-type flowers atop a 3-foot stem. Its strappy spring leaves are nowhere to be seen, having dried up last month. Thus the stem and flowers are "naked" of any foliage.

What's the naked truth of our lives? The unadorned, yet surprisingly beautiful truth of life?

The Buddha offers us 4 unadorned truths:

1. Life is challenging. We experience stress every day.
2. The cause of our stress is craving.
3. Our stress and distress can end.
4. The way to end our stress is through 8 steps of mindful living.

These naked truths are called The 4 Ennobling Truths because they ennoble those of us who follow their guidance.


At first glance, these Ennobling Truths don't seem very pretty and certainly not beautiful. But they point the way to a beautiful mind. A beautiful mind that is calm and peaceful. A beautiful mind that is wise and skillful when we come face to face with the naked truth of our life.

Yearning

The houseplants are all leaning toward the sun. They look like they'd jump out of the window, if they could. I can practically hear them saying, "Let me out. Let me out of here." They are yearning for the sun.

We too yearn for something, perhaps something we can't quite put our finger on. We are hungry for Truth. I don't mean "truth" as opposed to "lies." We are looking for something genuine, something authentic.

We busy ourselves pursuing the things we think will make us happy: children, money, career, family, marriage, clothes, flowers, gardens. Our lives are filled with busy-ness, even with good things. Still the yearning remains.

Oh, days, weeks can go by, and we don't notice. Then some thing, perhaps some little thing, triggers it.

Stop. Come home to yourself. Retreat for an hour, or a day, if you can. I've just signed up for a week-long retreat at the end of March.

Photo from ehow.com

The Icy Truth

Two inches of slush last night froze on tree branches overnight. So when the sun shone this morning, the icy trees shimmered like diamonds.

It's cold. It's wet. It's icy. It's beautiful. It's dangerous driving. It's heavenly.

Our attention freezes onto one of these qualities and calls it "the truth" to the exclusion of the others.

We freeze our attention into beliefs and cling to what our minds tell us.

Meanwhile, the ice on the trees is cold, wet, icy, and beautiful. Truth encompasses it all.

Foggy

Fog.

50 degree weather is evaporating 16 inches of snow.

Doing walking meditation this morning at Vermont Insight Meditation Center, it was so foggy i couldn't see anyone else. I knew there were a dozen people nearby, but where? I felt alone. Other people were invisible. Cars, trees, buildings--gone.

We walk around in the fog of delusion for most of our lives, unable to see clearly the truth of what is. We make up our own stories and call them opinions. Then we believe what our minds tell us and define ourselves by those same opinions.

Wouldn't we love to see clearly? Wouldn't we love to see what is?

Seeing things as they really are.
Every bit of our experience is defined by 3 characteristics:

• impermanence
• stress
• not self

But we'd rather walk around in a fog, and pretend that things are stable, pleasant, and substantial. Just a figment of our active imaginations.

Photo from csm-art.blogspot.com

A Bear and a Problem

A black bear prowled around our house last evening, just before sunset. It smelled the birdfeeder on a second-story deck in which we keep only a handful of seeds at a time. Fortunately, it did not climb up the 10 feet to lick up a few stray sunflower seeds.

Inside the house, my sweetie was running from door to door, locking them, and closing the garage door, which leads to the trash can where we store our birdseed. The trash can protects the seed from mice, but would be easy pickings for a bear.

Sometimes our minds are grappling with a "bear" of a problem that prowls around our mind, ravenously hungry, and looking for any excuse to justify our words or actions. The "I" wants to be right, and it will toss and turn the body for hours in the middle of the night to prove its point, over and over again.

The visit from the bear encourages me to clean up my act:
(1) don't feed the birds in the summer
(2) NO meat scraps in the compost

How do we clean up our mind?
We practice compassion for ourselves and for the "bear" of a problem.
We practice kindness toward ourselves first and toward the other person.
We notice what truth feels like: There's a relaxation that goes with truth. "Ahhh. Yes."
Chances are, the bear-of-a-problem has to repeat itself over and over, in our minds, telling us again and again and asking us to believe it time and time again. (Is that the definition of propaganda?) We only need to hear truth once to "know" it's true.

When you stand--or sit--on the side of truth, the mind relaxes and becomes like a still forest pool. As Achaan Chah says, "All kinds of wild animals will come to drink there." Even a black bear.

Boiling Water Your Christmas Tree

An 89-year-old neighbor waters her Christmas tree every day with boiling water. By February (February?), her tree is sprouting new growth.

Although boiling water sounds extreme, the theory is that trees stop absorbing water because the pores of the stump become clogged with resin. Boiling water melts the resin, and thereby increases absorption.

In dark times, our own minds can become clogged with sticky thoughts that stress our mind and our body. The first step toward unclogging these sticky thoughts is simply mindfulness. Go ahead and write that thought down, because otherwise the mind is very slippery. Look at that thought. Does it meet the Buddha's qualifications for Right Speech? Is that thought true? useful? beneficial?

Is that thought true? Is it really, really true? Is it so true that you would stake your life on it?
Ask yourself: How does truth feel?

Truth feels like "Ahhh." "Yes." "Of course." Truth relaxes the sticky thoughts that are gumming up the mind. Truth brings peace to the mind and calmness to the body. Out of that tranquility springs the tender green shoots of creativity and kindness toward yourself.