Habits get a bad press in Buddhism. We use the term habit energy to describe that which drives our behavour. That’s the harmful habits which are the focus of attention when following a Buddhist practice. Habits can too often be unthinkingly linked in the mind as being BAD. But not all habits are harmful. Some can help turn around a life of undirected and half-hearted effort. Habits can indeed be good.
I must confess that when a friend quoted the saying below I took a double take. What? Habits that mint gold! Poetic yes, and from a training perspective we are in the business of aligning behavour with the Precepts. Of turning around our lives, for the good.
Habits are human nature
Why not create some
that will mint gold?
Buried now the bench in the woods
and beside the path…
Even when the flower of meditation is overtaken by the weeds of busy summer living there is still a place to sit. Though it does become harder and harder to find!
So quickly a fold crease forms. Soon to take shape around a baby Buddha
As with fabric and clothes so too with our bodies. Creases form over time! In addition how we habitually fold ourselves, and unfold, conditions how our form moves. I guess this follows on from the Buddha pears…. Unknowingly we cast ourselves in a mold, adopt a shape.
Keep in! the teacher at the back of the line of children called, gently, as they scuttled excitedly from the school yard onto the pavement this morning. Ah sunshine! I shared a little in their excitement remembering teacher telling us to Keep in as we scramble out of school to go on a ramble. Two by two, hand in hand and one behind the other. Just once a year we went into the woods during school time to…ramble. I loved those days.
The new leaves on the Field Maple caught my eye. They shine. Then as other leaves grow they lose their shine, mature and mellow. As is the way of things. One sees this process everywhere. Easy to think in sad terms. Perhaps in terms of passing time and all that brings in an everyday way. Of aging; decay and eventual shriveling up and ceasing to be. But I think not. Not today. There is something eternal in the scuttling excited children as with the new leaves. (And also equally true with the shriveled leaf.) There is certainly a depth to existence which is not diminished by mere passing of physical time.
Practice Within The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives
