Unwelcome Reminders of Impermanence

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  The Unblinking Gaze

I suppose we always need reminders of the impermanence of everything.

But whether we think we need them or not, such reminders tend to visit us uninvited rather more frequently than we may care for.

After surviving two monkey invasions into my small forest dwelling in the past, I would not have felt a third visit to be necessary. They had certainly left their mark in my life and a point had been made.

However, recently a friend came to visit me at my little tin palace at a retreat center not far from Darjeeling. We had not seen each other for a long while so there was much to catch up on and share. Prior to my friend's departure the next day we decided to take a walk through the forest to a flat and open area near some tea gardens. From this place there was a lovely view of the surrounding valleys and mountains. From habit I advised my friend to check her hut and be sure that all the windows were shut and I made a thorough check of my own. I even double checked that everything was secure, closed the door, locked it and off we went.

It was a delightfully warm and sunny morning, the sort of morning that brings a good deal of optimism and spontaneous joy to the heart. The air was slightly hazy but even so, the majestic, white forms of the eastern Himalayan giants rose up before our view, breathtakingly beautiful.

A couple of hours slipped by but we hardly noticed until the familiar rumble of empty stomachs warned us that it was nearing the lunch hour.

Making our way back through the forest we could only marvel at the natural beauty of the area as we picked our way over the cobbled road canopied by old walnut, pine and Utish trees.

However, after crossing a small bubbling stream, just before the gentle rise to the monastery staircase, we noticed a young man on the road looking up very intently at my little cottage nestled among the trees and bamboo groves on the ridge.

I saw him but did not immediately understand why he was standing there and gazing up with such rapt attention. Just then a monkey, struggling to run with a jar of something tucked under its arm, suddenly shot out from behind a bush and darted across the road just in front of us. It looked very comical but then the implications of this little display suddenly ignited the light bulbs in my mind!

Holy sh......! It all became clear, horrifyingly clear. I started to run. Poor Katya who was not far behind had no idea of what we were in for, but I knew only too well.

Read more in Masters, Mice and Men
Volume Three in the series Shades of Awareness

An Open Secret

If you think that you need to turn yourself inside out and upside down in order to be able to understand ‘truth,’ you are definitely on the wrong tack.

Who and what we really are is nearer to us even than our own eyelashes..!

But how many of us notice our eyelashes?

The truth of our Being is not something that even requires understanding.

How could it be, when we actually are the understanding.

A truly spiritual path is not about 'freedom for the ego,' it is about 'freedom from the ego.'

It is not about 'fulfilling expectations,' but about freeing ourselves from them.

Yes, truth is an 'open secret,' it is always available to everyone and absolutely all of the time.

This is the reality behind the great 'cosmic joke' of our non-recognition.

We are so much more than we can ever imagine, why wait for another life time, another day or even another moment to realize what we already are...

Read on in Never Not Ever Here Now
Volume Four in the series; Shades of Awareness

Keeping Things Real

If there is one thing that we can all be absolutely sure about it would have to be the fact of our 'existence'.

Don't we wake up each morning and know that we are alive? Whether that feels good or not is another matter but we all know that we 'are'.

This is something we are so familiar with that we simply take it as a given.

We seldom if ever give the fact of our existence a second thought.

But stop right here!

There is a wonder and a mystery in this overlooked and all too evident fact.

Are we not always Ever Here Now?

Read on in Never Not Ever Here Now
Volume Four in the series; Shades of Awareness

Fearless

I am afraid of heights. I have been this way since I can remember. It’s a visceral thing; if I come near the edge of something which is very elevated, every cell in my body begins to scream and the familiar sensations of numbness and horror quickly flood every part of my mind and body and overwhelm me with a profound and irrational feeling of un-ease.

I suppose this affliction, if one can call it that, has accompanied me like a silent shadow since my earliest memories and yet that shadow has been more noticeable at certain times and almost unnoticed at others.

Fears are like this; they are the silent companions that walk with us through our lives. If we were to put all our fears together we would find we are not alone! We are not accompanied merely by one or two nameless fears, but by a host, a whole tribe of silent, unyielding, determined 'adherents'.

I have never overcome my fear of heights, it remains with me till this day, but I have learned how to cope with it and on a number of occasions, when it was necessary, I found one could look directly into the face of a fear and then continue on one's way.

We all feel fear at some time or other; we all know the taste of it. There are many, many different kinds. Fear of the unknown is such an integral part of our day to day lives that many of us don't even notice it consciously and yet its effects upon the way we live and the choices that we make are far reaching and pervasive.

We live with fear to some degree or other. It may be subliminal and unnoticed for most part and yet it is there. We could not survive without the instinctive emotion of fear being an integral part of our body, mind complex. Fear is natural and it is a necessary component of our ability to survive.

Read More in Masters, Mice and Men

Volume Three from the series Shades of Awareness

Never Not Ever Here Now

If there is one thing that we can all be absolutely sure about it would have to be the fact of our 'existence'.

Don't we wake up each morning and know that we are alive? Whether that feels good or not is another matter but we all know that we 'are'.

This is something we are so familiar with that we simply take it as a given.

We seldom if ever give the fact of our existence a second thought.

But stop right here!

There is a wonder and a mystery in this overlooked and all too evident fact.

Are we not always Ever Here Now?

Read on in Never Not Ever Here Now
Volume Four in the series; Shades of Awareness

Finding Our Inner Freedom

My teacher, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said that if death should happen to strike us down today, now, right at this moment we should be ready to leave, and furthermore, leave without any sadness or regrets or clinging to what we have or have had or expect to have...

Can any of us say that we are ready? Can we say that we have this kind of inner alertness which is always present and always free? Can we live in this moment looking outwardly but remaining ever focussed and unattached inwardly?

There is such freedom in being able to live this moment without hope or fear, without expectation or desire.

Continue reading in Return to Forever

The Way The Moments Pass

If we think of the way that we spend our days.

If we think of the way in which those days are made up of moments, so many moments...

Of the way in which those many moments turn into weeks, months and years. If we look back on our lives and all the things that we have ever thought of or done, what does all of that really add up to?

Some of us might feel fulfilled and satisfied, but many might question the whole purpose of their lives.

In looking back they might wonder, 'what was that all about'?

They would be right to do so, especially while still in the very midst of life.

Life offers us with such a unique opportunity to find out 'who and what we really are'.

Often it may take a crisis or some event which has involved us in a painful personal loss to shake us from our distractions, our routines and our fascination with the distractions of day to day living.

Read on in Never Not Ever Here Now
Volume Four in the series; Shades of Awareness

The Power of Simplicity

  

King Cobra

When Sri Ramana Maharshi was sitting on the Hill of Arunachala in the South of India one day, a cobra passed by, and, because the Maharshi was sitting right in its path, it slithered up onto His legs and over before passing on its way. The Maharshi sitting quietly and without showing the least concern or reaction observed its passage. 

People who were present at that time were shocked and afraid, but the Maharshi showed no fear or even surprise. When they asked Him how it felt He replied with the utmost simplicity, 'cool and soft.'

It is generally known that cobras are among the most dangerous of snakes in the world and the people of India are only too acutely aware this. If such a thing would have happened to one of us, well, you can imagine our reaction, our fear, our dismay...

Such reactions seem natural and normal, yet in actuality, they are nothing more than instinctual and borne out of habit.

We routinely invest so much emotional energy into the way that we react to 'life' and don't even know that this kind of living drains such a huge amount of our energy and time. It's little wonder that the world is in such a confused state.

Things happen, so what?

In our world, things never cease to happen. Motion and change are an integral part of our reality.
But stop for a moment.
What would it be like to let the world 'happen' around us and yet remain quietly centred in our awareness of being? Not in a zombie-like way but as an intensely aware point of focus. How would that change our perspective on the things that happen in and around and to us every day of our lives?

How much energy would we free up within ourselves by this simple change of perspective? If we are not perpetually caught up in the goings on of our lives we might begin to notice everything with much greater clarity and in a far more vital way.

People often had the impression that the Maharshi was not aware of what was going on around Him, they thought that He was in samadhi and their ideas and projections about what that state might be like led them to believe that He was in some way separate from the world, no longer a part of it and yet exactly the opposite was true, no one was more observant, aware and dynamically present than the Maharshi. He missed nothing.

From the tremendous power of His inner stillness and outer simplicity, He was far more present and vitally alive than most could ever imagine.

It is 'natural' for us to want to right wrongs, to change things, to feel that we are in charge, that we have some control over what happens to us. This is human nature, the great illusion of self-identity,' of 'ownership' of 'doer-ship.'

And yet there is another reality and even if one does not understand it, one should at least know that it exists.  Within the utter simplicity of who and what we really are, the inmost central core from which our world actually arises, there exists, not just the promise, but the fact of peace and happiness. This is not something which is outside us, it is not something which is far away. It is near, so very near that it is usually completely overlooked.

The incident of the snake gives us an example of a very different way to react to our world.  Whether we are aware of it or not there is an innate fullness in every moment, and if we do not project onto that moment our supposed thoughts and emotional reactions, then we allow ourselves the possibility of the unfolding of simplicity.

There could well have been a very different outcome to the 'incident' of the cobra and the Maharshi. However, because the Maharshi moved from an inner core of complete awareness, instead of reacting from instincts of panic and fear which in turn would most likely have ended in a fatality, it so happened that a cobra received the blessing of direct contact with a Jnani and went peacefully on its way and the Jnani came to know the cool and soft feel of a cobra on a hot summers day... 

Read more in Never Not Ever Here Now

Volume Four in the series Shades of Awareness

When All That Glitters Is Not Gold

There are happenings, events, incidents, call them what we will, that can arise very suddenly and unexpectedly in our day-to-day lives, but which prove to be defining moments that have the potential to change the way we view life and the world in which we live, forever...

These events can be subtle or startling but they have one thing in common, they give us such a jolt that they momentarily stop the mind and therefore subsequently, our world. Those moments in which mind is not, are very special. They hold the potential for recognizing what always is. Normally we move through life without any awareness of what or who we really are. But then awareness comes knocking or in some cases, crashing in on our cozy little preconceived world, turning it upside down and inside out.  Forcing us to re-evaluate what is and what is not.

No matter where we are on this planet and no matter how well educated or how little educated we may be, we are all, nevertheless, conditioned by our minds. Most of what we do throughout our lives, is preconditioned in some way by the habitual tendencies of mind and yet we are given opportunities to take stock. Some crumble under the challenge, others rise to it and are enriched thereby.

The incident that follows happened in the village where a friend of mine grew up in Andhra Pradesh.
When he was young, Akash was living in a small rural hamlet in which some forty other families were staying nearby. Every one knew everyone else and their business too. In such a close knit community, it was difficult to keep anything a secret.

One day,  one of the village men was on his way home from his fields and following the dusty path on an embankment above the river canal that passed through and watered all the farmlands of this region. It was almost sunset and the huge orange ball of the sun cast a fiery long shadow over the green and verdant fields. White egrets flew in flocks above his head, eager to find their roosts for the night and small groups of cattle and goats could be heard making their way back to the safety of their stalls, the calls of their owners echoing in the fading light. For the farmer, it was an ordinary evening in every respect. The village sounds, the golden hues of sunset, the scenes; all were deeply familiar to him.

There was a certain spot just before entering the village where he was accustomed to go down to the canal and wash before heading to his house which was nearby amid a grove of coconut trees. Following his usual habit he climbed down the steep embankment and began his daily ablutions, standing on the shallow step at the edge of the canal and while this was going on he suddenly looked up. Something had caught his attention.  It was the form of something floating down the river.

The waters in this canal were fast-flowing and anything that was caught in the current tended to move along with considerable speed.  It was not uncommon to see a corpse every now and then, as in these village areas, accidents and suicides were rather frequent. Most of the peasants could not swim. Those who slipped or who were pushed or who themselves jumped into the fast flowing waters, seldom ever survived to tell their tales, and, unless snagged along the way by someone or something, their bodies were swiftly carried out and lost to the open sea.

This particular evening, the man in question could just make out, in the fading light, that the corpse heading towards him, was that of a woman.  He caught the flash of golden ornaments amidst the folds of her sari and the strands of her long black hair.
He could see that she would pass quite near him. Just near enough that he could snag her sari with his long bamboo pole with its hooked knife attached to the end. He used this knife during the day to clip branches high up in the trees and these shavings would feed his goats. But now he put it to a very different kind of use and managed to snag the fabric of her sari at the precise moment that she was passing.  Quickly scanning the banks left and right, he saw that no one was in sight, so he drew her in. He recognized the victim, a middle-aged woman from a wealthy family that lived further upstream in the next village.

Suppressing his surprise, he remained as focused as he could determined not to miss this 'golden' opportunity, but nevertheless his hands were trembling. Quickly he began to remove all her golden ornaments. Firstly the earrings, then the bangles, then the nose ring.  She was wearing a lot of gold. Finally he tugged at the chain around her neck at which precise moment a loud and peculiar guttural sound issued from the pallid, lifeless corpse. 'How dare you take my gold', it seemed to utter in strange muffled, gasping tones. The farmer froze and almost passed out with terror. He nearly lost his balance and could have fallen into the turbid waters, but in the next instant he let go of the body and with it all of her gold which fell and tumbled into the torrid brown waters. He scrambled like a mad man crazed with fear, up the side of the embankment and ran, screaming and howling to his house.

Read more in Tibetan Tales and other True Stories
Books by the Writer

Meditation

There is a saying; 'the world in a grain of sand.'

Yet the profound and simple truth of those words is understood by few.

If only we knew how near and how unspeakably simple the greatest truths of life really are. How much more joyful our lives would be. How quickly we would un complicate things to give ourselves and others ease.

Meditation is a tool which we can use to connect with who and what we really are. In its purest form meditation is effortless, formless and completely un-contrived.

However, in this day and age where form is greatly emphasized, meditation is often turned into something which is entrenched in ideas and expectations, something marketable and branded. There are so many different kinds of meditation in the marketplace now, that it has become more difficult and tiresome than ever before just to get started.

In our times of super, super markets, where one can enter a department store and find fifty varieties of one item and feel quite overwhelmed by the number of choices, so too can it be with the beginnings of our spiritual journey into meditation.

Read on in Never Not Ever Here Now

Volume Four in the series; Shades of Awareness

Small Things with Unexpected Consequences

I recently read a quote of H.H. Dalai Lama that made me smile.

'If you think small things don't matter, try spending the night with a mosquito in your room...'

Well I have spent lots of nights with mosquitoes in my rooms so i am very much moved by this simple truth.
However recently i had a different sort of small 'visitor'.

About two years ago, an Indian friend of mine gave me a Christmas gift.
He had obviously taken considerable trouble to choose something that was extra special and when he delivered it i could see how excited and thrilled he was.
He turned the little gift giving ceremony into quite an occasion, turning up at my door at six in the morning! Fortunately i am usually an early riser, so i could take his unannounced arrival in my stride.

He placed a box on the counter with exaggerated care and turned to me with an expression not unlike that of an eager little puppy, all excited and fairly wriggling with anticipation, anxiously watching my every move and expression.

Getting into the mood of things i turned my attention to the brightly wrapped box
and with great care began to unwrap it. Inside i found a, well how to describe it?

A plastic lotus...

The sort of house ornament that one could perhaps only find the likes of in India!
It had two large silver outer petals and inside these were carefully arranged psychedelic pink and green petals in the centre of which were a series of tiny bulbs. In and around the petals were small plastic frogs, birds, bees and butterflies...

He urged me to press a switch on the bottom. Expecting something extra ordinary i was not unprepared for the sudden flashing of lights, however the sound that that little box produced was loud enough to wake the entire three story building. It was an electronic version of some little ditty and there was no volume button. It belted out it's tune while the light bulbs flashed and the insect life bobbed up and down in unison.

Astonishing stuff. I was quite taken aback.

My friend leapt into the air giving it a bit of a punch at the same time, as if to say,
YES and then dissolved into a fit of giggles.

That unforgettable gift had pride of place on my kitchen shelf for some years and then one day recently while i was spring cleaning, i decided it might be time for the 'gift' to grace some one else's home or shrine. My friend happened to be present and was helping me with my clean up, so i suggested he might take it to his Ashram where it could be prominently displayed and enjoyed by many. He agreed readily enough...

Read more in Masters, Mice and Men
Books by the Writer

At the End of Searching

Pearls of Searching

"Truth is not a reward for good behaviour,
nor a prize for passing some test.
It cannot be bought about. 

It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient
source of all that is.
You are eligible because you are,
You need not merit truth.
It is your own.
Just stop running away by running after.
Stand still.
Be quiet."
Nisargadatta Maharaj
                                                                           
We can circle the entire globe ten times over, yet in the end we must acknowledge that 'truth' is right here with us, in this very moment. 
There is no where to go in search of it. 
Not even anything to search for.
Everything that is ever needed, is already present.
There is nothing to be gained and there is nothing to loose.  
Truth is always with us, awaiting our recognition.
It is the simplest, the nearest and the most accessible of all. 

Read more in Never Not Ever Here Now
Books by the Writer

Being Prepared for the Inevitable

Looking Death in the Face. Not with fear but with clarity, readiness, acceptance and joy.
Its not like any of us are going to get out of this alive! There fore we must be ready for the inevitable, whenever it may come...

"Even if death were to fall upon you today like lightning,

  you must be ready to die without sadness and regret,

   without any residue of clinging for what is left behind.

Remaining in the recognition of the absolute view, you

should leave this life like an eagle soaring up into the blue sky."

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

Living each day as if it were out last, gives this moment a freshness, an intensity and a special awareness of what is here and now...

Read more in Never Not Ever Here Now
Books by the Writer

Forgiveness

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about."

Rumi

Where the mind may hesitate and tremble to venture, the heart can stride towards fearlessly...

We like to think that we make all of our own choices in life, that we are in control and that we are in command.

Our life circumstances may vary greatly from one person to another, but human emotions; the whole gamut of them, can be clearly defined in all their multifarious shades and these, we have all tasted at different times throughout our lives.

Don't we all feel, at some point or another, love or hatred, hope and fear, jealousy, generosity, lust or disgust, anger or approval? Don't we all know the taste of emotions? Whether we were born in Japan or in Timbuktu, America or the North Pole, we all share the commonality of experiencing different moods and feelings.

The outer and inner circumstances of our mental environment govern most of our actions and reactions in life. Every single one of these is based upon the sense, "I am", "I exist". We take this as a given and seldom ever question the source of this inherent belief.
Instead we think of ourselves as 'such and such' from 'so and so' and we make our way through the days of our lives caught up in the dramas associated with our assumed 'identity'.

Read more in Never Not Ever Here Now
Books by the Writer

The Wisdom of Pooh

 Winnie the Pooh

What is it that is always with us?  In this day, this hour, this moment...
The most overlooked and sadly neglected aspect of our existence.

If we did not 'exist' in this moment we could not know any of the moments of our lives.

Such a simple, constant and obvious truth and yet almost always taken completely for granted.

It is only in this moment, right now, that we can come near to 'knowing' who and what we are...

Read more in Never Not Ever Here Now
Books by the Writer