My vow is to be of service. It serves as touchstone as I live each day. Whenever a choice or dilemma rises, it guides me: pretty straightforward most of the time. Ever so often, especially in my work at hospice, I get thrown off the path. I feel helpless and frustrated that I can’t “do more” [...]
namas-te!
There are times when, faced with another person’s difficulties, the most compassionate thing we can offer is to “be there.” Be it hearing a friend’s tale of a messy relationship, catching a stranger’s begging eyes on a street corner, or seeing a man standing in a hospital hallway–weeping quietly–while his beloved is approaching an “unfair” death from [...]
tsk, tsk
Bangkok, Thailand — A senior Buddhist preacher in Thailand has announced plans aimed at curbing the flamboyant behaviour of monks. The “good manners” curriculum – the country’s first – is being introduced in the northern province of Chiang Rai.
The senior monk told the BBC he was particularly concerned by effeminate activities among novices such as the [...]
our monday poem (david whyte)
For the last two mornings I’ve sat with a group of yoga students on retreat. We meditated mostly in silence … embracing the chatter of three male ducks, the bark of a puppy named Gunnar, and my incantations to guide us. Rising and falling, notice your breath. Expanding contracting, breathe with your heart. This moment, and this [...]
sweet idleness
Yesterday was my day of rest. No clock, no appointments, nothing pressing. La dolce far niente the Italians call it: sweet idleness. Does the body good, and the heart-mind. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1788), Swiss philosopher, essayist, and “brilliant, undisciplined, and unconventional thinker,” described all this with elegant simplicity:
I got up at sunrise and was happy: I walked, and [...]
caring for everyone
As I go to work today, I’m reminded once more of the Bodhisattva vow to “save all sentient beings.” It may sound pretentious and impossible, and so it is. What it does, however, is to shape and refine the intention that undergirths my relationship with the world and the main reason why I get up [...]
if it be your will
Mr. Leonard Cohen and his superb band of musicians and singers gave a three-hour concert in Victoria last night: an honour and a joy to be in the audience! Among their generous encores was a song new to me, “more of a prayer,” which the Webb Sisters kindly unfolded for us.
[You can listen to it [...]
nothing special
By now you may have noticed that I do more than drinking hot beverages and eating whole-wheat cranberry scones while sitting at the little café down the block. I also watch and listen to other early birds, including a fidgety pair of swallows preening their wings in the sun. A ‘regular’ stopped by to say [...]
learning as one
Last Tuesday I wrote about an instant, while hiking near the Swiss border, when I felt as one with the earth on which I stood and the trees that rose up all around me. In fact, the were no “I” and no “trees,” no me, no them. What happened that morning was, in retrospect, a falling-away of [...]
sunday poem (leonard cohen)
While sitting in yesterday’s café, I pondered the impermanence of everything, including what I used to think of as my ability to cause sparks to fly. Stopping to make an appointment at the optometrist’s next door, the young woman at the desk told me that I looked young for my age–until she realized, with a blush, [...]
it may not be so
As I sat at an outdoor café this morning, a man crossed the street talking about hockey in a loud voice. His hoddie fully deployed, he seemed dressed in two overcoats on a sunny day. No one was walking next to him; the nearest were two young women giggling and gesturing. ”A nutter,” I thought instantly, ”talking to [...]
are buddhists violent?
Bangkok, Thailand. Excerpts from an April 14 article by Lawrence Osborne in Forbes.
Like many former residents of Bangkok, I have been watching the country’s slide into virtual civil war with a mixture of incredulity and tetchy disillusion. It is hard for us to think of one of the world’s only truly Buddhist states descending into a [...]
got boundaries?
I’m in trouble at work. My manager is unhappy. You’re working too many hours; when your shift is over, I want you to go home and live your life. Ten years ago I vowed ”to be of service,” which later became “To save all sentient beings.” What better place to pursue such noble intentions than at a hospice, where the [...]
be [more like] a tree
In response to yesterday’s poem, Terrill wrote: ”I will practice being more tree-like and less human-like.” Her words reminded me of the differentiations we make between me and you, us and them, human and nature. This dualistic view, it seems to me, is at the root of international wars and neighbourly disputes. Evidence is everywhere: how we treat each [...]
