Leonard Cohen's last love letter to Marianne

Before he was famous Leonard Cohen met Marianne Ihlen on the Greek island of Hydra. She was the inspiration of songs such as So Long Marianne and Bird on the Wire. They were together for seven years. When he learnt she was dying in Oslo and only had days to live he sent her this letter.
" Well Marianne it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand I think you can reach mine. I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love. See you down the road".
According to a friend she was so happy to receive this beautiful letter and died two days later.
I think this is love and lovely. The painting is one of my small ones for a coming exhibition and is of wild flowers. I think their love was wild and unconditional and that this painting is therefore appropriate for my tribute to them both.

How to survive a fourteen day Buddhist retreat at Padmaloka.

I recently attended a fourteen day  Buddhist Retreat over Christmas and New year. If you are planning such a retreat here are some tips on surviving it. 

First learn to eat fast. There is a spiritual inner man and a spiritual outer man. Feed the latter to connect with the former. The food is excellent but portions are small so there is a race to clear plates in order to obtain seconds which are limited. You could miss out! 

In this retreat there were ten days of complete silence so be selective who you talk to in the preceding two days. Avoid obvious dharma bores and it is wise to avoid any stranger wearing a Kesa ( a sign of an ordained Buddhist ) because although they will be lovely they will have a funny ordained name which you will forget after ten days silence and therefore risk giving offence. These names are confusingly similar, such as Dharmayeti, Dharmadippy, Pranjapringle, pranjameetup and so on. Best stick to those still sporting a normal name like John, Paul, George etc which are easier to recall. Especially avoid anyone wearing a Kesa, a pony tail and bare feet. This is a serious statement and conversation with this individual will probably be about Siddhi powers and he will aspire to emulate Tibetan monks who can dry a wet robe with body heat while meditating in a blizzard. He will probably also have a cold. Bare feet in December!! 

Talking of colds try to spot early who has one, you can then avoid sitting next to them in the shrine room. Also as seating in the dining room is pretty random, identify and avoid a table with those so afflicted. Of course it is important to feel Karuna  ( compassion ) towards them, but at a safe distance. 

Silence is golden but TEN days! To remind yourself how golden, sneak off in your car for half an hour and turn the radio on full blast. This being Christmas you will probably hear Slade’s Merry Christmas and other such oldies. I am sure you will hear these being played at Christmas in your next life time too! Safely reminded rejoin the retreat. 

In serious retreats, each day will end with ritual and chanting. If this is the sevenfold Puja this is bearable and even quite pleasant. However this can sometimes be expanded in which case you may find your Metta  ( loving kindness ) slipping somewhat and you may even lose your Upekkha ( equanimity ) so distract yourself by speculating who won Strictly Come Dancing or how the final episode of The Bridge finished. 

Oh and for a New Years resolution resolve to spend next Christmas with your family! With apologies to my Buddhist friends for this light-hearted take on a retreat. If you didn’t smile you may be missing the point! With Metta to all. 

Come home to yourself

I like it here
this place of quiet
time alone

Firelight faces dance
to the music in my head
as evening slips by

No need for words
for a week, no need
to offer up any sacrifices


All the open wounds
all the torn pieces
are band aided together

And I can sleep
with the door unlocked
my thoughts light as snowflakes

Poem by Eileen Carney Hulme. Painting of Retreat Cottage by Chris Gaunt

Nowhere Man

When The Beatles wrote the lyrics to ' Nowhere Man ' they probably didn't intend it to have a deep meaning. Indeed maybe it was a disparaging observation on a life lived without meaning! However there is a wisdom in No Where. There is a wisdom' in Not Going. There is a wisdom in Not Doing.
So many people are on ' a journey ' a journey to find themselves, to find the truth, to become enlightened.
Here in Findhorn we have a constant stream of ' Teachers ' claiming to give answers. Their workshops are well attended and if their methods don't work, well there is another ' way ' on offer by another teacher!
From my observations there is a certain type of deluded egoism at work here. It is fashionable to drop into conversations the revelation that " I am on a journey, I am on the path " Here in Findhorn everybody is on a ' journey ' so endless conversations about the collective ' journey ' take place and reinforce the seekers determination to get ' there '
But where is  there? Where is it?
Actually it is nowhere and it is everywhere. It just is. It is not necessary to follow the latest teachers workshop or Utube video. Save your money and sit. Sit and watch the sea. Sit and contemplate nature, a wonderful sunset, the miracle of a bee and the warmth of the sun. You are part of this. Isn't it enough?

Am I Crazy?

Am I crazy? My fellow Buddhist practitioners would ALMOST certainly think so and the wider world certainly would. I have talked before about the little Sparrow who sits on the gutter above my front door, always in the same place looking down at me. I call him ( for it is a he ) my Guru and I feel a profound love for him.

Why is this? Well almost all my enlightened moments, mystical moments, peak moments, call them what you will. have occurred in nature. I have had what seemed to me mystical moments and these have happened completely out of the blue, always in nature, always alone and never sought. Duality just dropped away and I was at one with my surroundings. What were these experiences?

I have meditated for years, been on the path, talked about enlightenment, understood intellectually the 51 mental events identified by the Abhidarma scholars.but I am not enlightened, That is to say in the sense that I am in the constant state of bliss which we seem to be aiming for.. It has to be said also neither are any of my fellow practitioners, as far as it it possible for me to ascertain! The trouble is that there is no path to follow and we are still caught up with this idea. We study, practise and in some Buddhist groups pass a series of tests until we are considered worthy enough to be given a funny name. We are then admitted to a sort of hierarchy and are expected then to initiate less ' advanced ' beginners along the same ' path '  Does this miss the point? There is a line in the Heart Sutra which reads ' Attainment too is emptiness ' So what are we striving for? This mysterious thing called enlightenment? Anybody can have the kind of experience I described above and you don't have to be a Buddhist. Just stop trying!

This is not to say I am recommending anyone to give up on Buddhism, I am not. Meditation will at the very least make you a happier more integrated person and most importantly if you join a Sangha you will benefit enormously. Thich Nhat Hanh said the Sangha is holy, even if some people in it are not!

So I am happy to give up trying, to just be, and be open to my Guru, be it the Geese flying over on migration, a flower or my little Sparrow. So some will think I am crazy and some will get it.

There is a famous Zen saying by Hsin Hsin Ming ' Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water'. Of course these days we have to find the rent and attend to emails and facebook as well!

I will finish with my favorite quote by T S Elliot. ' And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time'

Findhorn Original Garden and the Cat

Every Saturday members of the Northern Lights Sangha meet for a morning of meditations. I quite often join them and it is always wonderful. One of the meditations consists of walking slowly and mindfully around the Findhorn Foundation's Original Garden.

The garden is a delight, an eclectic mixture of wild flowers, vegetables, fruit trees and cultivated flowers. Now whether you believe that the story of giant vegetables on extremely poor soil is a myth or not, it is absolutely undeniable that there is a terrific energy here.

Almost always during our walking there is a zen like black cat in the garden. He is completely unfazed by the 15 to 20 humans walking around his domain and just gets on with his business. This mostly consists of just being, although he is not adverse to the odd stroke and ear tickle.

It is sobering that we, advanced beings supposedly, have to make a constant effort to be in the moment and yet for this cat it is effortless. Is he affected by the gardens energy I wonder?

Last Swim

 On Saturday a dwindling number of the members of our informal swim club took a bracing swim in the icy waters of the Moray Firth.
In Buddhism we are constantly reminded of the impermanent nature of existence. The arising of certain conditions give birth to something and then dissolving when those conditions no longer exist. Therefore given that the conditions drawing us to swim in the icy Scottish waters may be changing, this could be our last swim of this year! We are also reminded to be in the moment so accordingly we enjoyed every freezing minute. Hopefully conditions will arise to draw us into the water again. Perhaps next year now!

Walking Meditation, My Poem

On Saturdays I sometimes go to The Northern Lights Sangha for meditation. One of the meditation sessions is walking meditation in the very lovely original garden at The Findhorn Foundation. I love this slow walking while observing closely the wonderful flowers and birds. There is so much change week to week. A reminder that nothing is permanent and today's intensely yellow flowers will be fading next week only to be replaced by another beautiful colour. This week my mind went back 20 years or so to when I walked slowly with a dear friend through gorgeous parkland. Recovering from an operation my friend could only walk slowly with many pauses. Without realising it I was doing a walking meditation for the first time. The intensity of that day was such that I wrote a poem about it. The poem was called.

MOMENTS

Slowly, slowly we walk. Time to absorb. First past the old Chestnut trees. Pausing we wonder. The white fountain of flowers are examined as never before. Huge with delicate subdivisions topped by red stamens. Beautiful. Glowing against the backdrop of green leaves. We observe the lushness and exceptional greenness of late spring, the result of heavy winter rain.

Slowly, slowly we walk. Onto the ancient parkland. The hot sun drawing the vigorous grass upwards. Buttercups and blue flowers populate the grass. So dense in the middle distance the grass turns blue and yellow. Everything pulsates with, throbs with, life's unseen power. The delicate ethereal blue flowers radiate and channel this most strongly. It penetrates us joyfully. We sit and rest in the extensive shadow of an old oak. We admire the gnarled bark and the light and dark greens of it's sun dappled foliage. Further away a low boughed tree casts shadow of such intense blackness that the sunlit Cow Parsley stands out like a light on a dark night.

Slowly, slowly we walk. Into the woods. Enveloped by coolness we listen to the unbridled joy of birdsong. Undergrowth alive with sound and movement. Two squirrels dance the tango of life around a tree trunk. We look at the Bluebells, their full glory gone. A reminder of the changing changelessness of each perfect moment.

Slowly, slowly we walk. Retracing our steps. Past those wonderful aged oaks. Observers of so many seasons of change and renewal, of rain, sun, wind, and snow. In witness today of us, as we enjoy each other and this perfect moment.



Keep Sane. Avoid Psychiatry.

Did you know that Psychiatrists in America are five times more likely to commit suicide than the general population?

Abhidharma Buddhist Scholars identified 51 mental events and advised how to overcome the negative ones.

The American Psychiatric Association ( APA ) in it's reference book ' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders ' ( DSM ) lists 374 mental disorders. It seems almost any normal life event can now be diagnosed as a mental disorder and treated!

A brief history. In 1840 there was 1 mental illness, insanity. In 1880 the APA classified 7. In 1952 the APA created the aforementioned DSM which contained 112 disorders. In 1968 it contained 163. In 1980 it contained 224. In 1987 it contained 253 mental disorders. Finally in 1994 the world now had 374 mental illnesses to contend with. Unfortunately the routine prescription of drugs for many of these fraudulent mental conditions can and does create a real mental disorder.

Many of the relatively new childhood disorders such as Attention Deficit Disorder ( ADD ) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ( ADHD ) for which drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac are given could be addressed by a change of diet.A child consuming 6 to 8 soft drinks a day may be ingesting over 70 teaspoons of sugar or worse Aspartame.No wonder they would be hyperactive!

Many adult disorders could also be treated by dietary changes but it is not in the interests of the burgeoning Psychiatric profession to offer less harmful solutions.This is not to say that in some cases anti depressants can be appropriate but when you consider that 56 per cent of the American Psychiatrists who committed suicide had prescribed themselves drugs, questions need to be asked.

If you want to stay sane don't think Shrink. You may be prescribed something that could harm you.

Amoghasiddhi Buddha of the North

This is a rough depiction of Amoghasiddhi the Buddha of the North. His name means unobstructed success. There are many Buddhas in Buddhism which may come of a surprise to many people. What they represent is qualities rather than an actual entity. For some reason I am drawn to this particular Buddha and the qualities he represents. I couldn't articulate why! Any way I wanted to put something onto the abstract watercolour background to add a little interest. I may revisit this on another abstract but this time taking more care with the image. 

Eckhart Tolle and the Confucius Duck

 I was dipping into ' The Power of Now ' by Eckhart Tolle the other night, many years after first reading it. I don't know if it is my age or just that I am looking at it from a Buddhist perspective but I found myself becoming a bit irritated. There is something about these new age gurus that increasingly strikes me as somewhat smug. So many of them are just regurgitating and repackaging old wisdom. Perhaps it has always been thus? If it gets each new audience to look at these things then it does indeed have a purpose. I was talking to a man who had just joined our meditation group. He was an expert in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and he had just realised how much CBT owes to the Buddhist understanding of the human mind!

Anyway as any one who has ever read my blog knows, I myself think animals, birds and nature anchor us in ' The Now ' I was therefore pleased to agree with Eckhart when he wrote that he had lived with several Zen Masters, all of them cats! He then went on to write about ducks and the spiritual lesson they give. The lesson being that even when their serenity is interrupted by a brief squabble they just flap their wings and sail serenely on as if nothing had happen. In other words they do not hold onto negativity and resentment about the fight and continue to live in the now. The picture is of  Mandarin Ducks so being Chinese they perhaps are followers of Confucius. They could also be Buddhist ducks but either way they were very serene. 

Emptiness

Amoghasiddhi. Buddha of the North.

After over 30 years of sporadically studying and practising Buddhism I finally get it!


I know nothing, that is enough.


Does this mean I am enlightened?

Swallows

Here is another poem of mine inspired by the change of season, by the sadness of farewells. In this case by the departure of swallows and the amazing fact of their huge journey south. Such small creatures to undertake this enormous and dangerous voyage. What power is calling them? It is also a reminder to obey our intuition and not be fearful.

Swallows

The swallows are sitting on the line;

Their purpose here nearly over.

A pulse, a scent, something calling.

Tiny scraps, empowered;

To ride the wind southwards.

I hear their twittering restlessness.

Primordial longing;

Connecting me to the same fever.

What is it we seek with journeying?

Heed the calling to the source:

Or be fearful and die.

Grey. A Buddhist Poem

This is one of my poems. It is expressing the Buddhist concept that life is one unceasing movement. Everything coming into being, fading away and reforming into something new..
According to Buddhist philosophy human unhappiness is compounded by trying to hold onto fixed circumstances. I am reminded of this when I feel melancholy as Summer turns to Autumn and I don't want to think of winter. It also is a reminder that everything is interdependent and independence is an illusion.
We cannot hold back anything or onto anything let alone the seasons. I need to remind myself of this and look forward to the next manifestation which will be beautifully different.

GREY

 

A cold wind moves the grey pines

My heart whispers grey like the air

 

 

The illusion of independence vanishing

Crushed on the grey rocks of reality

The shattered dust of delusion
Reforming in glorious yellow

Clear Vision

After days of relentless rain, grey skies and cold I woke this morning to a cloudless blue sky.

One of the objectives of Buddhism is to see things as they really are. However how do you know what is reality?

Good question; if you accept we all create our own reality by the quality of our mind then we are all seeing things differently are we not?

This morning I went to the meditation sanctuary at The Findhorn Community to attend a Thich Nat Hann meditation group. The meditations were wonderful, sitting meditation, walking meditation and then sitting meditation again. As the day was so superb with amazing clarity the walking meditation in the original garden was especially penetrating. The blossom on the fruit trees, the flowers, the bark and moss on the tree trunks stabbed me into awareness.

However after the meditations John the leader read out the five training principals. Now I am aware of the five precepts but have never heard them expressed in such a way before. I have read many of Thich Nat Hann's books and found them to be gentle and inspiring. John explained that some people at Plum Village (The Thich Nat Hann community in France ) had decided to apply these precepts to contemporary life. For me and several others in the group these precepts in this form closed down the expansive liberation which was originally intended.

As an artist I love to look at things closely and I know that since taking up art after my business career I find myself really looking at everything in a new way. That is my reality but is it the ultimate reality? I don't have the answer but I would say if someone else is trying to impose their reality on you and it does not feel comfortable it is not the right reality for you.

Perfect Zen Moment

I was thinking about those Zen moments today. Those moments when there is an awareness of being aware. When we meditate we reach these moments during the meditation practice but when going about our daily tasks it is harder to be mindful. We know we should practise awareness during these tasks but it is so easy to be in the future or past with our thoughts. Even worse we can get swept away by negative emotions such as anger. How wonderful then, when we are jolted into awareness and feel connected to and part of everything. At that moment everything is perfect. It can be, and usually is, something quite ordinary which is the trigger.

I wrote my poem ' The Rooks have Gone ' after one of these moments. You can see this poem in My Poetry if you are interested. I had been away for a month and before I went the rookery in the nearby trees was incredibly noisy, with the constant coming and going of the adults feeding the young rooks. During my absence the young rooks had left the nests and all the birds were now away or quiet.

I was hanging out the washing, mind quite relaxed when I heard the call of a wood pigeon. When the rooks were there it was impossible to hear any other birds as the noise was so loud. At that moment, on hearing the call, I was aware of the pigeon and aware that there were no rooks and aware of being aware.

It is so mundane but I was awakened to the eternal now by the pigeon, to the passing of time by the pigeon and of the future by the pigeon. At the same time everything became one in the perfection of that moment. I can think of lots of similar Zen moments. I guess to be ' an awakened being ' is when all of life is lived in awareness and the mundane becomes a miracle.

Sit quietly and meditate

It is good to travel if only to realise you have already arrived.

Sit quietly and meditate.

Go through the gate and know yourself for the first time: Again and again and again.

Dharma Weekend

The Highland Triratna wider Sangha attended a two day Dharma and Meditation workshop this weekend. It was led by the chairman of Vajraloka retreat centre Tejananda.

He is an inspiring teacher with a very clear and special way of communicating and teaching. He is remarkably free of fixed view points on dogma and doctrine and his clear and honest explanations gave fresh insights into familiar subjects.

For me it came at exactly the right moment as there has been some slight difference of opinions regarding the way forward within our sangha. Some of the concerns regarding my relationship with Triratna were answered by Tejananda, not in response to specific questions but more in his attitude to the Dharma.

The situation has arisen principally because there has been an increase in the size of the Moray sangha after our recent and successful beginners courses. Up to now the decisions and directions have been made by a small group of order members and trustees in the other main centre of activities at Inverness. Now some members of the Moray sangha want greater autonomy to be considered. The other issues are more to do with teaching styles and other doctrinal matters.

However all of this is very healthy and is to be expected with a growing sangha and hopefully as Buddhists we will be able to accommodate all views.

Steve Jobs was a Buddhist

Further to my previous post when I said I didn't know if Steve Jobs was a Buddhist. It seems he was! Apparently he was a follow of Zen. This does explain the passages I posted from his Stanford University speech. The exhortation to contemplate death and therefore not waste this life is one of the four reminders.
The other three are. This Precious Opportunity, Karma and The Defects of Samsara.

Steve Jobs wisdom on death

I don't think Steve Jobs was a Buddhist but his speech at Stanford University could have been by the Buddha himself. In that long inspirational address the following short passages contain all the wisdom you need for living life as it should be lived! As Buddhists we are taught to contemplate death as a reminder not to waste this precious life. I salute the humanity of Steve Jobs, he was a great man. Here are the two short passages.

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary".

Personally I think these words are as important as his great career.