…there are signs that in some significant ways, General Mills has a distinctly unusual corporate culture. Open the right door on a Tuesday morning and you might find a few dozen team leaders and executives meditating silently together on cushions, steeling their minds for the work week ahead. Enter a conference room later that afternoon and witness more than 50 senior employees from across the organisation standing on one leg in the tree pose as they practise yoga. Note that in every building on the General Mills campus there is a meditation room, equipped with a few zafus – or cushions for sitting practice – and yoga mats where, day after day, employees duck in to grab a few minutes of equanimity in between their meetings. These are the most obvious signs that, as an organisation, General Mills has something resembling a collective spiritual life.
Yearly Archives: 2012
Grand-parentage
Whisky Keg Mountains
Yesterday traveling south from Inverness to Aberdeen along country roads.
Turned a corner and come upon these mountains of kegs in a Cooper’s yard. Bound no doubt for one of the many whisky distilleries along the river Spay.
Wendy Hut
Today visiting and walking and talking and eating with sangha members. Turned a corner in a garden and came upon this Wendy House. A dream children’s house. A Wendy Hut! Grandad planted geraniums and painted it red.
Drawing together these two images is a thread of skill and craftsmanship. There is almost a sense of romance around the ancient hand trades. Such as Cooperage, dry stone walling and the like. And in the painting of the Wendy House and the tended vegetable plot is demonstrated equally an ancient skill and craftsmanship. Though not recognized as a trade. Grand-parentage!
This is in gratitude for those I have spent time with these past two days. I bow to what you all have done, are doing and will no doubt continue to do. Getting on and caring. Sacrificing retirement years, health and more. No romance, lots of love and devotion. Satisfaction, little recognition.
Highland Zen
Beside the River Ness, Inverness
The Highland Zen Group met this evening in a church owned by the National Health Service. Can that be true? The man with the key had a NHS logo on his work shirt and yes, indeed, he had come out of a hospital reception area. So it must have been true. In the photograph, above the top railing, are hospital buildings with the historic church tacked on the end. All nestled in behind trees.
It has been a wonderful few, refreshing, days in Inverness in the heart of the Scottish Highlands. Where everything is Ness. Lock Ness, Ness Islands, the Lock Ness Monster. River Ness. My hosts for these days own a Guest House, a short distance from the river, where I have enjoyed all that such accommodations provide. And more. I’ve particularly enjoyed strolling along with the lady of the house along Ladies Walk! The River Ness is hypnotic, wide and shallow, running fast. With fly fisherman up to their armpits, waters washing around them, still and content. I hear most fisherman return their catch to the waters too.
I see on the Meditation group’s website that, and I quote, hopefully we can persuade Rev. Mugo to give a Dharma talk to the group during the meeting. I did a talk and what a pleasant evening it was too ending with an escorted walk along the river enjoying fairy lights twinkling in the trees.
Thank you to all who came to the group this evening (especially the out-of-towners) and those who have generally supported the visit these past three days. With food and good company aplenty.
Well In Wales – And Scotland
Well Jademountains readers you must have noticed I’m involved with Field of Merit website and project. Hopefully my posting here will not suffer too much.
I have a couple of beach photographs from the trip Rev. Alicia and I took to west Wales lurking in the wings which I’m quite pleased with and thought to share them. They connect with Words of Wisdom, our most recent News post on Field of Merit.
And some recumbent Welsh cows for good measure.
Clear Seeing Eyes
Ushnishasitatapatral Bodhisattva who represents the canopy of white light that emanates from the Buddha’s head in the creation of the Surangama Mandala
The Buddha said to Ananda,
‘I will now raise for all of you
a Great Dharma-banner
so that all beings
in all directions
can gain access to
what is wondrous,
subtle and hidden –
the pure and luminous Mind
that understands –
and so that they can open
their clear seeing eyes.’
The Surangama Sutra
This is especially for those who care for their eyes and who aspire to the clear seeing eyes pointed to in this extract from the Surangama Sutra. As we know there is more to seeing than meets the physical eye!
And for those of you who find this kind of devotional thing a bit of a challenge. Don’t worry yourself. Open your heart and the light will come in. You might try adding that valuable little word intend to that last sentence. Intend to open your heart and the light will come in.