the passing of a squall

11/12/2010

I was never a yachtsman. Nevertheless, I remember a time, many years ago, when I found myself at the helm of a yacht in the Solent, off the south coast of England. It was a fine day with a light wind, perfect conditions to allow a novice like me to steer the craft. The squall hit without warning. Suddenly the wind was howling, waves were being thrown over the deck and the yacht was leaning over at an alarming angle, the mast was closer to horizontal than vertical. The skipper was on deck in a flash, shouting orders, trying to get some of the crew tied onto things and then seeing about taking in a reef (making the sail smaller). The whole episode lasted but a few minutes. The squall passed as suddenly as it had come and life returned to gentle tranquility.

Something like this squall happens to me from time to time, perhaps once every two or three months: A squall passes through my inner being, lasting a few days. My inner calm and joy is disturbed by a moody squall deep within, for no apparent reason.

I know now that nothing needs to be done about such a squall. I withdraw a little from social interaction, I take in a reef in my activities. And I sit. After three or four days I wake up and the squall has passed, life has returned once more to gentle tranquility.

do buddhas stub their toes?

07/12/2010

The other day I stubbed two toes, the little toe on my left foot and the big toe on my right foot, in separate incidents. Do buddhas stub their toes, I ask? In so far as I am a buddha, it would seem that it must be possible. The stubbing of a toe does suggest a lack of present moment awareness though. So perhaps I am a unique buddha: an absent-minded buddha.

My actual day-to-day experience of life includes moments of tremendous presence, with something of that serenity and grace which you might expect of a buddha. Frankly, though, such moments are in the minority. Most of the time I am bumbling along much like anyone else. The only difference, if there is any difference at all, is that I am not really believing the stories my mind is creating about myself, or about anything else come to that.

So, this buddha does stub his toes once in a while, or even twice in a while. As for other buddhas, you will have to ask them, starting with yourself.

the feather

05/12/2010

The feather drifted to the table directly in front of me. It stopped my thoughts in their tracks, drawing my full attention. It was a tiny, downy feather; half black, half white, a balance of yin and yang. For a few seconds, or perhaps a minute or more, my whole consciousness became the feeling of beauty. There was no “me” in that time, only the feather-beauty-feeling existed.

What a wonderful gift!

can we risk everything for a cup of tea?

03/12/2010

When travelling, I often carry with me a tin mug and a pair of little immersion heaters. These simple electrical devices sit in a mug of water and heat it to boiling point, allowing me to make chai and satisfy my addiction to tea.

However, through faulty manufacture, or perhaps by design, when the heaters are plugged in, everything becomes live: The mug itself is connected to the electricity supply. Touching it results in a mains-voltage electric shock. So, far it has happened to me three times.

The first shock was completely unexpected. Having grown up in a part of the world where everything is made safe, or at least as safe as possible, my awareness of potential dangers has been dulled. It did not occur to me that I could receive an electric shock from using the heaters, it was not in my consciousness at all.

After the first shock, I became very careful when using the heaters. Nevertheless, a second shock came when I tried to stir the tea. I was using a metal spoon. Chai conducts electricity very well, I discovered.

The third shock came with a moment of inattention, when my arm brushed against the handle of the mug.

Once is happenstance, twice is circumstance, three times and life is trying to tell me something. The making of chai has become a meditation for me, demanding total awareness of what I am doing, in the moment.

Seeing all this, one companion commented, “Somehow this is very Andy: risking life for a cup of tea!”

it never rains but it pours

01/12/2010

I awoke this morning to heavy grey skies, thunder and rain worthy of a monsoon. After indulging in a reiki self-treatment in bed, then sitting for a while, the rain was still falling unabated. My stomach was calling for action though, so I waded to the café, a hundred metres down the road, through ankle deep water, wearing only bathing shorts. A dry bag allowed me to bring a towel and shirt, for a modicum of decency, and a laptop so that I can write this blog entry!

There is an expression in English, “It never rains but it pours.” So it often feels with our troubles. Everything can be going just nicely, when suddenly a heap of problems burst upon us in quick succession. Why is that? Is it the alignment of the planets? Or perhaps the mind, when under pressure, tends to feel everything as a problem? Or perhaps there is a genuine clustering phenomenon, like the stars forming galaxies? Your guess is as good as mine.

In case you think that enlightenment will make life go the way you want it, I will share with you what happened to me in Hampi one evening, a few days ago. Watching sunset with a lovely companion and enjoying an excellent chai atop a hill, courtesy of an enterprising young chai wallah, aged about 12, everything seemed to be wonderful. We hopped on the rented motorbike and drove to the river crossing downstream, where battered coracles ferry people and bikes to and fro, during daylight hours. In the fading light, we saw the little boat reaching the far shore and then came the call of the ferryman, “Finished for today, come in the morning!”

We sat in the dark for a while, weighing up our options. We were on one side of a river, which was in spate, and our cosy guest house room, together with our toothbrushes, was on the other side. We jumped on the bike and started to head back to Hampi Bazaar. Halfway there though, in the middle of nowhere, the engine began to cut out: we were running out of fuel. I managed to coax the machine to the next village, where the local store had sold out of petrol.

We continued for a few hundred metres more before the engine finally died into an emphatic silence. My companion got off and started to walk whilst I pushed the bike. It was then that my companion was caught out by an unexpected moment of diarrhoea. It never rains but it pours.

If you think that enlightenment will make life go the way you want it to, then think again. That is not my experience, at least. Enlightenment, for me, means that I can accept what is actually happening and not pay much attention to what the mind was expecting or hoping to happen. And that change of attitude means that unexpected things are not felt as problems. Instead, there is a curiosity in the mind at such times.

And now that I have written enough, the pouring has stopped.

the butterfly

25/11/2010

At first I thought it a hummingbird: Its wings, with the full span of an open hand, were beating continuously as it hovered, sucking nectar from delicate pink flowers in the forest. Yet it was a butterfly. For the most part, its large wings were pale, almost transparent, with strong black markings. They were working hard. The rear part of the wings, though, were separated from the main part and were barely moving, seeming to act as a tail, to stabilise the magnificent creature as it performed its intricate operations with the flowers. This tail was the most striking aspect of the butterfly. It was yellow; a shocking, unashamed yellow which cried out to all “I am here! I am not afraid of life!” It was glorious.

I had never seen this type of butterfly before. Having dwelt some forty-seven years on this beautiful planet, I still see something new every day. And when I am at my most sensitive, I feel something new in every moment.  Life is bountiful indeed!