Category Archives: Information

Information, Teachings

So! – Aids to Right Speech

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So, here I am once again traveling. Since getting back from The Netherlands I’ve been ‘on the road’ visiting in Derbyshire and the East Midlands. So’s a great opener and many people find it almost impossible to start a talk or open a conversation with any other word. So, how come you are limping? So, when shall we plan to meditate this evening?

Such small words might seem to be unnecessary and silly however they do serve a function.

The truth is that so is a filler-word, and we all use filler-words. The thing is – well, I mean, you see – the human mouth can work an awful lot faster than the human brain. Nobody can think as fast as they can speak, and we all develop strategies to cope with it. Harold Wilson’s was probably the best. He did not smoke a pipe, or at least not in private. The pipe was there to help him through interviews. When he was asked a difficult question, he could fill it, tamp it down, light it, inhale, exhale, and all the time he was secretly thinking.

From Telegraph article.
Nobody can think as fast as they can speak. Now there is something to ponder when thinking about Right Speech.

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Falls Between the Cracks, Information

Ebook On Leadership

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Kind Leadership: A free ebook on how to make a difference in your organisation.

There is often an assumption that leadership involves being authoritarian and bossy. This assumption is based on the belief that this is the most effective way of obtaining good results. It is possible to achieve results this way but this is often at the cost of worker stress, absenteeism and low morale. This book show how being kind is a more effective form of leadership, one that can obtain excellent outcomes and good sustainability.
From Kind Leadership

I’ve not read this book cover-to-cover, however what I’ve seen has me wanting to read the whole thing properly. And my intentions to talk about the Ten Decisions from the start of The Scripture of Brahma’s Net have fallen by the wayside as I’ve direct myself these past days to preparing to travel.

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Curiosities, Information, Out and About

Wild Animal Rescue – Fish & Chip Babies

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There is the Kangaroo Sanctuary near Alica Springs and the Penguin Foundation Phillip Island, East of Melbourne. And around the world similar endeavours are finding creative ways to draw attention to their need for funds. I particularly like the Knit for Nature program providing the tiny Penguins of Phillip Island with much needed sweaters as part of their rehabilitation programme. Ahh, cute! And this evening we watched the first in a BBC2 series of Kangaroo Dundee featuring a lone man in the Australian outback who has dedicated himself to rescuing orphaned Joeys from the pouches of road killed mother Kangaroos. Imagine!

Then in Africa there are the so called ‘fish and chip’ babies. So called because newborns are going home from hospital wrapped in newspaper because the mothers don’t have resources for even a blanket or clothes either. Knit For Africa, blankets for the babies. I heard recently about some bodies 70 + dad knitting up a storm for these babies.

A British TV series about a man who rescues baby Kangaroos, an all out call to knitters around the world. What’s underneath this heart string pulling? Something good I’d hope. Compassion in action or rather the raising of that aspect in all of us? To nurture and care and act and above all to give of ourselves. Media can bring distant needs close however sometimes it is the need close to home that is harder to spot. Because it is close to home. Just a thought.

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Curiosities, Daily Life, Information, Out and About, Overcome Difficulties

Good-Time, Hard-Time Cat

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Nigel and ginger cat
This ginger is Spain’s ‘every cat’, every stray cat that is. They all need a special tender touch considering how many of them live on the edge. Many have taken to climbing into car engines to warm up and this happened to a couple I know while holidaying in Spain recently. They had driven for more than an hour up a mountain road unknowingly giving a cat the ride of it’s life! Thankfully it didn’t die but one can imagine it might have done on a longer journey. So, be warned, and check under the car bonnet for cats before driving off, when in Spain. That’s probably the last thing one might think of doing!

And closer to home, in London, around ten hand picked stray cats are having the time of their life! Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium, England’s first ‘cat cafe’ opened at the start of the month. A cafe for those who enjoy tea ‘n cakes – and playing with cats. Sounds like the whole venture is geared around the welfare of the felines, thankfully.

I’m left thinking this evening about these few good-time cats in London and the untold numbers of strays needing homes all around the world. If the the existence of The Cat Emporium (and similar ventures in the future) highlights the need for cat rescue then it will have done a great service.

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Falls Between the Cracks, Information

Interfaith Relationships

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…you cannot accurately determine anything about someone’s beliefs based on their religious label. And I have to say even when two people share the same label, say Buddhist, and practice within the same tradition, one can’t really know what the other person believes in or even practices! For example, a room full of people meditating, all from the same tradition, may each have completely different ideas about it… Only a problem when those ideas come between people. That is nowhere more so than when families are made up of two or more faith traditions.

The following is, I believe, a quote from a book called Being Both. It’s about interfaith families.

Whether or not two people have the same religious or nonreligious label, they are never going to share identical beliefs, practices, culture, family history. Both partners could be Reform Jews and one could be an atheist, the other a mystic. Or both partners could be secular humanists, and one loves to celebrate a huge Christmas and the other, not so much. Or both partners could be Protestant, but one sees Jesus as the Messiah and the other sees Jesus as more of a teacher or rabbi or even as a metaphor. What we teach children in interfaith community religious education is that you cannot accurately determine anything about someone’s beliefs based on their religious label.

From a thoughtful post, All Relationships are “Interfaith”

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