Women’s washroom, Greyhound Bus Station. Nanaimo, Canada. Anon, today.
Your success
is not measured by
how popular you were
in high school or how
many people you put
down, but it is
measured by how much $ you make as
an adult, whom you
help in times of need
what grades you got
and where you’re headed.
many times you’ve
avoided stepping on a
bug, going to wal-mart,
and thinking that
you matter.
My daily affairs are quite ordinary;
but I’m in total harmony with them.
I don’t hold on to anything, don’t reject anything;
nowhere an obstacle or conflict.
Who cares about wealth and honour?
Even the poorest thing shines.
My miraculous power and spiritual activity:
drawing water and carrying wood.
Bold and thoughtful people, with wisdoms to share, come in every age. And in every place – if one looks and listens.
There was sea fog on the way from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo, Vancouver Island. And sea fog on the way to Gabriola Island too. People are so polite in Canada. We are going to have to sound the fog horn folks, be prepared. Especially if you use a hearing aid! Really, where else in the world would one get this kind of consideration?
So I am here on Gabriola Island for just one night staying with long-time supporters of the Order. It is a delight to be welcomed into their lives once again. Their cabin is on the highest point of the island and the view over the water and islands as the light faded this evening was moving. To say the least. Video to follow in a day or so.
Onwards to Victoria tomorrow. Car ride, Greyhound bus ride, car ride and then into the company of a dear monk who already is an inspiration. Her temple and sangha are treasures, as is she.
Valdez Island is the next island south of Gabriola. In 1967 I was there. Flew in and out by sea plane. What an adventure for a youngster, I’m so glad to revisit the area and revisit that adventure too. Looks like the island has returned its old cars to nature. And nature is doing a stunning job.
Off to work in DTES (Down Town East Side) Vancouver
Yes, he is a full patch Buddhist!
If there is one quality that is the saving of those, Buddhist or no, who work in high stress/high exposure jobs it’s having a sense of humour. Which helps to maintain a sense of perspective in situations where one might want to cry all day. My hosts of the past few nights, both in high stress jobs, certainly have a great sense of humour – and a respectful one too.
And early this year a young man who immersed himself in the life of the DTES and made a series of videos, Streets of Plenty. He starts out sassy and ends up a lot lot wiser as he gets deeper into the life.
You will have to look up what full patch means, to bikers.
Well, this article is certainly an eye opener and a half.
How is a group its own worst enemy?
So, Part One. The best explanation I have found for the ways in which this pattern establishes itself, the group is its own worst enemy, comes from a book by W.R. Bion called “Experiences in Groups,” written in the middle of the last century.
Bion was a psychologist who was doing group therapy with groups of neurotics. (Drawing parallels between that and the Internet is left as an exercise for the reader.) The thing that Bion discovered was that the neurotics in his care were, as a group, conspiring to defeat therapy.
There was no overt communication or coordination. But he could see that whenever he would try to do anything that was meant to have an effect, the group would somehow quash it. And he was driving himself crazy, in the colloquial sense of the term, trying to figure out whether or not he should be looking at the situation as: Are these individuals taking action on their own? Or is this a coordinated group?
He could never resolve the question, and so he decided that the unresolvability of the question was the answer. To the question: Do you view groups of people as aggregations of individuals or as a cohesive group, his answer was: “Hopelessly committed to both.”
