Our Buddhist center was meant to be running a workshop in Boston this weekend, in a church just one street over from where the bombs took place. That workshop, which would have been led by my teacher, Kelsang Pawo, was going to be all about the power of our minds, and how by training our concentration, we can overcome our inner demons - harness our minds to all our good qualities and learn to be of service to others. It's been a time where I've gone deep within, to find an answer, and it's brought me again and again to Shantideva.
This past week, I have found solace in an 11th century poet's mind. The great Buddhist master Shantideva. As bombs have torn through people and lives, and as chaos has reigned in the region, the country, the world. The accents on the radio and TV are the same Bostonian accents of my sangha friends down in Massachusetts.
Our Buddhist center was meant to be running a workshop in Boston this weekend, in a church just one street over from where the bombs took place. That workshop, which would have been led by my teacher, Kelsang Pawo, was going to be all about the power of our minds, and how by training our concentration, we can overcome our inner demons - harness our minds to all our good qualities and learn to be of service to others. It's been a time where I've gone deep within, to find an answer, and it's brought me again and again to Shantideva.
2 Comments
I am sitting in a farmhouse kitchen overlooking a crumbling stone wall where blue tits swoop in to eat sunflower seeds from a birdtable. This is my third day in French life, 11 more to go. Life, already quite calm and quiet in Portland, has been reduced to an absolute stillness here. An old way of life, where the only warmth comes from a couple of stoves so you spend your days sitting in the kitchen with your family, sharing stories and silences. You don't go off and sit on your own in your room because it's bloomin freezing out there.
There is the ringing sound of possibility in the air. It's the same every Lunar New Year, whether I'm deep in the flower markets of Hong Kong or in the polar ice plains of Portland. The planet feels like it is entering a new phase. The new animal rises to meet us; a snake with a playful game.
I am told, via my friend Alison on Facebook and the person who took the photo above of a print-out from Man Mo Temple (click on it to read the marvelously wacky predictions), that this will be a "wonderful year" for the horse. You may also spot the interesting mention of my "lucky accessory" of a Kirin unicorn. Something curious happened to me on my recent trip to Xi'An.
I had arranged to go this ancient city to meet with the heads of the Xi'An Academy of Fine Art. I was on a trip to help establish a partnership with Maine College of Art (MECA). I was also meeting Karen Smith, a legendary writer and art critic in Beijing who is the director of a new museum here in Xi'An. She helped to connect me to the art school and met me at the airport where we jumped into the academy's car. Today's blog is dedicated to my Mum, Jenny Tyrrell I have been thinking of her a lot lately. She's been going through some difficult times and my mind has been moving to the rocky walls of her French farmhouse. I wish I could teleport myself to her kitchen for a cup of tea.
It has been dawning on me lately, how blessed I was to be born to this woman. In Buddhist teachings, we hear of karma. We hear how we planted seeds of actions way back across many past lives and how these now ripen as experiences, as appearances, as the content of our lives. To have appeared in Jenny Tyrrell's life, I had extraordinary karma ripening. The fall arrived this morning. It's been poking its head up for weeks, but this morning the temperatures fell deep down and the radiators surged. I sat in the wooden chair where I drink my morning tea and looked out of the 100-year old window with its twelve panes of glass... and I saw the maple turning in the nun's garden. This ancient tree stands across the street from our second floor apartment. It grows in the back garden of the Monastery of the Precious Blood. This historic building has been home to a cloistered community of Catholic nuns, who have lived here in prayer since 1934.
I live opposite the convent, and am one of the rare people who can look over their wooden fence. And it's truly like a secret garden in there, cut off from the busy world. Their maple tree provides home to a community of crows and seems to be a timeless, motionless being in our midst. It listens to the musings of a community of nurses from Mercy Hospital who smoke under its shade. It fills my window with leaves and although we don't notice it most of the time, it is constantly changing. This time of year, that change becomes vivid, like fire. I spent several magical weeks in France, England and Wales this summer. Near the end of the two-week adventure, I found myself standing in the attic of my childhood home in Blackburn, Lancashire, and reaching into a dusty bookshelf to pull out a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
It turned out to be a fitting book as we flew back to Maine. As soon as I set foot in my living room, I signed myself up for Driver's Ed with the Lane Driving Academy. I joined 24 teenagers and sat in a classroom with them, attempting to conceptualize the mysterious process of driving a car. Then, one day, I got in that car and for the first time in my life, I set out on the road with my patience-guru-driving-instructor DJ by my side. Today's post is named after my friend and fellow retreat sitter, Adriana. She is a wonderful character who lives in Mexico and is a master of digital worlds. Her name pops up in my Gmail sometimes, she's inserted the following words under her name: "karma surfer".
I love this line. It reminds me that life is about surfing the waves of our karma. Sometimes our world is easy and filled with opportunity and new beginnings, we jet effortlessly along. At other times, it feels dead and lifeless, we are bored and directionless. Or maybe we experience turbulence, we move into a mighty storm and it feels like we're going to drown. Nothing is going right, everything is going wrong. A carpet was the topic of an inspired conversation this week. It lies on my living room floor (above) and sometimes visitors will pause and stare into the thing.
It is a curious creation that emits a strange power. This carpet, or Gabbeh to be more precise, is of an indeterminate age and originally harks from an Iranian village. I know this because I found a little piece of material sewn onto the back of the thing. The carpet found me ten years ago. It materialized one rainy afternoon with a boyfriend who, soon after meeting me, decided to move back to the States. He proceeded to offload most of his possessions into my apartment Soho, Hong Kong - and this delightful item was amid the second elevator-load. I had some great news this week. I was informed by the artist, Zoe Greenbaum, that I had won one of her works. She picks a winner randomly from her mailing list a few times a year, and I was the one for April. Zoe sent me an email with the good news, and instructed me to head to her site to choose my gift.
Zoe and her husband, the potter David Greenbaum, live close to the Kadampa temple in up-state New York. She is a painter whose large body of works evoke pure happiness—rich colors and compositions. David creates Shohola Bells, large clay bells that interact with the wind and bring wisdom into forests and gardens for those who happen to be passing through. (Watch a lovely video about the bells here.) |
Peace BlogWhere I contemplate my meditation practice and how it aligns with daily life. Categories
All
Archives
September 2023
|