Here is a video of Philip Gould pondering his impending death. Notice the Buddha and several elephants on the mantelpiece.
Thanks to Angie for the link to this rather interesting interview. Philip Gould died in November last year.
Yearly Archives: 2012
Bike It You’ll Like It
Think of The Netherlands and think bicycles. The sit up and beg type, as we term them in the UK. Heavy, utilitarian and well…very upright. Nothing mountain bike about the Dutch bike! All ages are out spinning along and somehow I sense that the Dutch go into a different zone when they are peddling. Alert and fast while at the same time seemingly profoundly content. This evening a couple sped past side by side and close together, the chap had his hand on the girls waist. A variation on strolling hand in hand in the evening shadows. At speed.
While I am in The Netherlands for the next five days I’ll be watching out for bikes dressed up with flowers as you see above. The practice has become quite the thing I understand. And in an interesting switch of power on the roads, here it is the motorists who are nervous of the cyclist and not the other way around.
Bike it you’ll like it! A slogan from times past when we cyclists of Manchester took to the city streets on mass to lobby for more cycle lanes.
Outstanding Natural Beauty
Peat Bog – Northumberland
Walking in a
wilderness
of outstanding
natural beauty.That’s the
Northumberland
moors with
grouse honking.Walking companion.
Encourage
support and
inspire.
Thanks for a great walk above Throssel on the wild moors. There is nowhere else like it. Seeing the Lakeland Fells, the Pennines, the Chiviot Hills from more or less the same place. Amazing!
Opening Gates
When you are old and infirm you are put in a bed with gates. They are there for the safety of the resident, and for carers peace of mind. The gates will be opened when it is time to move, or be moved. Opened by those whose job it is to do that. Here is an extract from an essay written by a chap who reads here. A touching story about life in a gated bed.
I woke Norbert and told him we had to go downstairs for a test. His bones, laden with years, stretched a good length of the bed and looked heavy as lead. The notes said one-person transfer, but I had my doubts.
Gates are often used both metaphorically and actually in Buddhism. They symbolize, among other things, that the teachings of Buddhism are offered freely. All that is required or needed is to enter. The gates of the Dharma stand open wide, always.
The second ceremony of the Ten Precepts Meeting is Opening The Gates of The Precepts. The teaching of this ceremony, a time when the Precepts are read out aloud, is that the sense of hearing is fundamental and that hearing the teaching, the Precepts, brings one to the opened gate. The next ceremony during the week is when a formal commitment to keeping the Precepts is made. At this ceremony, called Lay Ordination, a small kesa is given as well as a certificate. Each ceremony is the enactment of steps in practice, taken many times a day. Making the formal commitment at Lay Ordination is stepping through the gate. That’s the step we all take every day of the year, Buddhist or no. It is always time for us to step through those gates – representing commitment to active engagement with our lives. Now.
For those living in a gated bed, the elderly and infirm. Life, every move one takes is in slow motion. By the time one gets to Norberts age one would hope to know that, what ever the external circumstances are, the gates are indeed open. It sounds like Norbert knows that. He is free to be himself without pretence. Not much covered up. Nothing hidden.
The Open Hand – Lets Go
Had you ever thought?
That by opening
your hand
your mind might
do the same?
And
That placing both
opening hands
together might
express the Truth?
Yes, there is something to it. Our hands are designed for doing. They grasp, they manipulate and they generally do our bidding all the day long. We would be lost without our wonderful hands. Look at the hands of a baby or young child. They are open, rarely curled up like the ones of most of us adults. Their hands are learning, ours have learned and are half way there to grasping already.
Young in training we advise people to offer up what ever it is that is troubling, painful or plain stuck. This offering up might include an actual physical act. That would be to open up both hands, palms up, in a gesture of offering. I believe the link between body and mind is ignited/enlivened in this act. Opening hand(s) opening mind. A mind that is open allows space for movement. Brain boxes are more like baskets, both ways permeable. Thus allowing our thoughts to escape quickly. And allowing thoughts to arrise, with less pre judgment.
And
Palms together? We instruct new people about making the gassho (palms together). What is happening with mind and body when opening palms are placed together in the traditional gesture of prayer? Experiment and listen carefully. There are of course busy hands, and goodness we need them, and then brought together in the gassho this gathers together and settles the mind.
Can busy hands be opening, at the same time?