Monthly Archives: November 2011

Why abundance is too much: in praise of enough

Fiona writes: For most of my life, I’ve expected that one day I’ll get more clients/write a best-selling novel/win the lottery. This current state of having just-enough-money has always felt temporary.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a thought. I’m 37 already. I might not ever be any richer than this.

This week, as you know, we’ve been helping our Buddhist Sangha out with their ten day continuous chanting. Everyone has had a very different experience of their time chanting. My experience has included a lot of worrying. Is Sumaya going to get any rest? Has Kaspa eaten enough? Will anyone else come into the shrine room and relieve me so I can go and get a cup of tea?

I’ve noticed these thoughts, and then I’ve noticed what’s happened next. Somebody usually does turn up when I want a cup of tea. Sumaya has gone to have a nap at the back of the room. We’ve been close to the wire, but we’ve had enough.

It got me thinking about the word ‘enough’. Is enough enough?

A word I’ve come across a lot during the years is ‘abundance’. Self-help books encourage us to welcome abundance into our lives. If we think abundant thoughts then abundance will automatically grace us.

The dictionary tells me that abundance is, “an extremely plentiful or oversufficient quantity or supply”. In these difficult financial times, is it realistic to expect abundance? Do we really need an ‘oversufficient quantity’?

I’m coming to feel pretty fond of the word ‘enough’. Enough is saving the washing up water and putting it on the roses. It’s appreciating every melting moment of a square of bitter chocolate. It’s chanting for an extra half hour, even though you’re dying for a cup of tea. It’s having a terrible morning and then noticing those red berries on a walk to the post-box. Those red berries!

Enough feels more realistic than endless abundance. Enough is satisfying. Enough is not-always-what-I’d-prefer and just-what-I-need. I’m coming to trust in it.

Maybe the money I make now is as much as I’ll ever make. That’s OK.

Enough is…. enough.

Beautiful photo by harold lloyd, Creative Commons, used with gratitude. Practice finding your own red berries: join us in our River of Stones Mindful Writing challenge in January.

This is how we begin – afraid

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Fiona writes: When I’m looking for inspiration, I often return to favourite books. These books are my old friends. They always have something fresh and wise to say.

Today I visited Terrance Keenan in ‘St Nadie in Winter: Zen Encounters with Loneliness’. I opened the book at random and this is what I found:

“This is how we begin – in the morning with small birds near and echoing train yards in the distance – afraid. Exactly like one another.”

Keenan is talking about what it is like to be human. There is a lot for us to feel afraid of. Smaller impermanences – close friends moving away, or apparent financial security shifting like sand under our feet. The big impermanence, which will come to all those we love, unless it comes for us first.

This is what we have in common. We are all afraid, of something or the other – we are all trying to hold everything together.

There are two sources of hope in this short quote.

We are exactly like one another. This can be hard to believe, when we’re struggling with a situation that seems entirely unique and nobody seems to understand the first thing about it. But it is always true. Look deeper, and cosmetic differences (what jobs we do, what we look like, how much money we have) seem less and less important. Our struggles and our joys are our common ground.

Also, there are small birds and train yards.

How can small birds help us, in the face of such fear?

I will show you how. The next time you are outside, look for (or listen out for) a bird. When you’ve found one, watch him closely. What colour is his beak? How do his feathers catch the light? How does he move?

To help you observe, think about what word you would use for the colour of his eye. How would you describe the texture of the skin on his ankles? How would you describe his song?

If you can’t find a bird, choose something else. Notice the sky. The cold breeze. That man across the street with his limp and his old dog. Something. Anything.

How do you feel now?

If we can observe the details of things, and if we can allow ourselves to be influenced by what is ‘other’, then we will get to know the ‘other’ more intimately. We will feel a kinship with this particular bird, as he forages for food in the winter. We might recognise him when he visits again.

This approach works with all animate objects (even slugs) and also with inanimate ones. Pausing to reflect on our favourite mug will put us into a deeper relationship with it – to wonder who designed those orange swirly petals, or where the paint came from, and to feel gratitude to whoever invented bone china to keep your tea nice and hot.

This reverent observation is exactly what our January mindful writing challenge, the River of Stones, is all about. Don’t take my word for it. Commit to noticing one thing properly every day during January, and to writing it down. Every day we’ll have a guest post to encourage and inspire you, and a post where you can post your small stone. I’ve created a practice one below to help you get into the hang of things.

Find out more here. Join us. This is how we begin.

Image: Birds in flight by Temari, used with permission and thanks.

Practice run: Post your small stone here

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Every day during January we will create a blog post like this one where you can post the small stones you’re writing as a part of the River of Stones mindful writing challenge.

This is a practice run so we can get into the hang of things. Write a small stone (your first or your hundredth) and post it below in the comments. You can include your blog address if you like.

We look forward to reading them…

An interview with Dharmavidya David Brazier: writer, psychotherapist and Pureland Buddhist master

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It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dharmavidaya to this blog. I first met Dharmavidaya on a psychotherapy training course in 2006 and not long after that I asked to be his disciple.

He has a deeply rooted faith which underpins his other work. It’s always risky to put words into other people’s mouths, but if I had to frame that faith in words I would say that “all things flow from Love”. His answers to the questions below are comprehensive and well worth reading slowly.

Dharmavidya travels all over the world, teaching Buddhism and Buddhist Psychology, he has eight published books including his first poetry collection Her Mother’s Eyes and Other Poems, and Love and its Disapointment: the meaning of life, therapy and art. He has three children, three grandchildren and two more on the way. He is vegetarian. He enjoys travelling, gardening, woodsmanship, and photography.

You can befriend him on Facebook, or follow his Facebook page: Writings from David. The Huffington Post listed him as one of the 12 top Buddhists to follow on Twitter – @dharmavidya. He also keeps a blog on typepad.

Thank you for joining us, what drives your creative work?
Challenge. I generally write against something. This is not to say that what I write is negative, simply that I need a reason to write and the reason is generally that something is lacking, something asserted is wrong, or simply that something wonderful can be bettered, or, at least, played with in new ways. Creativity is dialectical. I do not think that I ever have the last word, but I have a duty to advance the discussion.

Also, personal experience. My book Who Loves Dies Well followed and records the death of my mother with whom I was very close. My autobiography, which will come out next near, has helped me come to terms with the death of my father. The poetry book, “Her Mother’s Eyes” which is on the point of publication is an anthology of my struggles with real life – war, cruelty, love, absurdity and the elusiveness of our efforts to make sense of it all.

The process of producing poetry is something that is particularly difficult to understand. It is like a state of possession. I have, on occasion, woken in the middle of the night with a whole sonnet waiting to be written. I wrote another sonnet about this experience. One is, as it were, flooded by poetry. Sometimes one goes long periods with nothing, then, unexpectedly, I am writing several poems a day, on a wide range of themes and in diverse styles. It is an experience of being taken over by the Muse, a bit like channeling.

Then a very important area of creativity is my relation to spirituality where I have been in dialogue with angels since I was an infant, but this has, gradually, brought me into deeper and deeper contact with people. Writings sometimes grow from shorter pieces – talks I have given, for instance. But a talk is personal. It is a function of that situation with those particular people. To turn it into a book chapter is almost a contradiction of terms. It is more a case that what was in a talk may stimulate me to think what a book audience might want. I am well read in my field, but my writings are not generally scholarly. They come from inspiration. Even when I read a scholarly book, I am looking for the person of the author in it. I want to know what brought him or her to life, what challenge made them write, what the angels are telling
them.

I could go on, but I think what emerges from this that could be relevant to your readers is the elements of, firstly, inspiration coming when for one reason or another one’s ego gets out of the way, and secondly, conflict or counter-point where stimulation comes from the creativity or opposition of others and the whole process has the character of a dialogue of emergent forms. I suppose that this means that I do not really experience the drive to create as something that comes from within myself. I need the stimulus of an other. The creative individual is borne of a creative culture or community, which is also one in which authentic conflict can flourish.

What would you say to yourself if you could go back in time and meet yourself at the beginning of your creative career?
Well, I suppose, something like, “You’ll be surprised”. Really, I do not think that there was a beginning. If what you are asking is what advice would I give, it would be “Err often, fling yourself at life, know triumph and disaster and taste them to the full, and, if you survive and can express what remains with you, you may get somewhere and be half useful in the end.” Above all, although one can and does copy many models, one has to get beyond them somehow. One has to get to the point where it no longer adds up. When one falls into the stew-pot of contradictions that one cannot master, then there is some hope of creativity. Short of that one’s writing is just too self-satisfied. I have written an awful lot of rubbish in my time and thrown far more in the bin than I have ever published.

How do you keep creating when things get difficult?
There are two different kinds of difficulty. There is writer’s block and there is the difficulty of life. Difficulties of life are often a stimulus. A more apt question might be “How do you keep creating when things get easy?” That is much more difficult. People tend to die spiritually when life gets comfortable.

Actually, in my life I can distinguish alternating phases. There are times when one is under a lot of pressure of events and it is as if a lot piles up waiting for attention. During such time one creates, but one also knows that a lot is being put on the shelf to be dealt with later. Then there are slacker periods when things forgotten resurface and those can be times when one does some more radical thinking or receives more profound insights. Things re-arrange under the pressure of the stacked up material getting loose. This wouldn’t happen, however, if the intervening times had not been a struggle.

Writer’s block is a different kind of phenomenon. It does not afflict me much. When I can’t write I just do something else until the Muse shows up again. However, she is never away long because there is always something that needs dealing with.

How does your creative work affect the rest of your life?
Creating one’s life and creating artefacts are two things, but there is an endless dance between them. They never let go of one another. My life is as a Pureland Buddhist teacher and in Pureland I have discovered what is really the key to much of my creativity. This is the notion of the “bombu”, the idea that we are all fools and villains in various ways. My poetry expresses this and my psychology explains it, but there is no escaping it. It is an altogether more liberating idea than the idealism that pervades most contemporary spirituality and too often renders the latter effete and disconnected from real life. Actually as I reflect upon your question I become less sure that there is a “rest of my life”. My life is an adventure. I am constantly travelling, literally and spiritually, having interesting encounters, getting lost and found again; writing is just the running commentary. One could always do with more time, but even that deprivation is grist to the mill.

What is it like to send your work out into the world?
Generally a relief, as when children grow up and start taking responsibility for themselves. It is more a problem when one’s work comes back. If you are creative then each work is a stage. Each book is a kind of therapy. After it I am a changed man. Ten years later somebody asks me to come and give lectures on the theme of the book I wrote back then but I am no longer that man. Writing that book edged me on and then there was another one and another one. Sometimes people who like one of my early books come and chastize me for writing subsequent ones that do not say exactly the same thing. If I only knew to say the same thing there would have been no point in writing again. Nowadays my books go out into other countries too and this is a joy because it makes me more international – a liberation – and brings me invitations to travel and meet people. I really do have the most enviable existence. The meeting with another soul is such a treasure. Much of my life is now spent going about in this way, but it is not seeing the sights that interests me, it is meeting the people, each with his or her own special passion.

What was the best advice anyone gave to you?
When my mother died she left a note. It included the injunction “Take time to smell the flowers, dear”. One of the poems I have written contains the line “all the flowers you have kissed are blooming now in heaven”.

What helps you to pay attention to the world?
Awareness derives from wariness. At the simplest level, we pay attention so that we do not fall down holes or get eaten, and also so that we can catch our dinner, find a mate and care for our dearest. I try not to let my sense of awareness rise too much above that basic level. That is where the energy resides. Being modern, sophisticated persons, I cannot rape you, eat you or recruit you in the hunt for another prey, nor you me. Instead we do interviews, have complex discussions, and exchange verse, but I know that the libidinous purpose is never far away, despite the refined style of our discourse. What helps is to stay in touch with the animal while still listening to the angels. The latter arrange things in most unexpected ways and there is
always something new to learn. So I do not need help. The world is always butting in, or dragging me along.

Thank you for the opportunity of this interview. I think that the work that you are doing is hugely important. Facilitating the process of artistic creation, cultivating the written word, seeing the unity of art and spirit, these are the kinds of things upon which the higher evolution of humankind depends. We live in an age that has become overly materialistic. The death of dialectical materialism has only led to the rise of undialectical materialism which is not going anywhere. Somebody wrote a book saying that we are at the end of history – I certainly hope not. Cherish the contradictions. Foster the spaces where something of the Beyond can come into our midst, and you will be doing a service to future generations, the value of which surpasses your imagination. Thank you very much. – DB

Thank you, some really interesting thoughts there, as usual, take care.

Kaspa & Fiona

Bigger and warmer and happier

Ten day continuous chanting. What’s the point?

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Fiona writes: Starting yesterday at midday, and finishing at Friday the 2nd of December at midday, eight of my Buddhist sangha will be taking turns to chant. All day and all night long. The chant is in two teams, and so the sound is continuous.

I completely failed to explain the reasons behind this to my mum. And so I may fail here as well. But it feels important to try.

Yesterday, Kaspa & I joined them for a mere six hours. The chant we use (as Pureland Buddhists) is ‘Namo Amida Bu’, which means ‘I call out to Amida Buddha’.

Amida Buddha is the Buddha of infinite light and life, and by chanting we put ourselves in relationship with this ‘ideal’. His sparkling golden qualities rub off on us, just as we become better people when we’re in a relationship with anyone wise, ethical and loving.

But this theology, in some ways, is neither here nor there.

What’s crucially important (and what feels impossibly difficult to explain) is that we are chanting to connect us to a kind of universal love. And we are chanting for the benefit of everyone.

We are reminding ourselves and other people that we are held by something much bigger and more complex than we can imagine. We are expressing our gratitude for this. We are putting aside our usual daily concerns – making a living, watching TV – and dedicating a decent period of time for intensive practice. We are making a point. We are individually renewing and strengthening our relationship with this ‘something bigger’.

You could call this ‘something bigger’ spirit, or the ineffable. You could conceptualise it the spirit of humankind or Gaia. We call it Amida. It doesn’t matter. We’re chanting for everyone.

Yes, sometimes it’s boring. We sit for twenty minutes and then walk for twenty – in six hours that’s three hours of walking. Your hips ache. Your voice gives out, despite the fresh lemon and ginger tea and the throat sweets. Sometimes five minutes felt like four times that. Important things aren’t always easy.

Sometimes, the hours flew past like birds.

The candle-light flickered around our big golden Amida Buddha on the shrine. I sat and chanted, and I walked and chanted. I watched Susthama stroking her glorious pregnant stomach and I imagined her little girl, already listening along. I listened the harmonies as our voices stirred together – sometimes jarring and flawed, sometimes as sweet as the angels. I looked around the room at dear old friends and at complete strangers, all of us working together to keep the chant going. Frequently, tears came – of gratitude and of belonging. To this funny old thing, the human race. I love them all. Namo Amida Bu.

If you have any way of getting to The Buddhist House in Narborough (just south of Leicester) before they finish on Friday the 2nd, I’d strongly suggest you pop in and experience it for yourself (call ahead 0116 2867476 if you need accommodation or just turn up if you’re just going for the day (or if you can chant during the night)). You’d be extremely welcome, and our team can do with all the help they can get. Stay for an hour or three, or stay the night.

In the meantime, you can watch them live here.

The photo is a painting by one of our sangha, Maitrisimha Leo Kouwenhoven, called ‘Nembutsu’ (Namo Amida Bu) – it’s a visual representation of the chanting.

Give me three minutes. I’ll give you deliciousness.

An interview with Peter Clothier: Writer

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Fiona writes: I met Peter Clothier in the blogosphere through his blog, The Buddha Diaries, and then we swapped books in the post (his book ‘Persist’ is wonderful).

This summer we were lucky enough to meet with him and his wife whilst he was over in the UK, and we ate quiche in the sunshine in Cirencester. We’re very pleased to welcome him here.

Bio: Peter is a long time observer of the contemporary art world and a widely published writer. His newest publication, PERSIST: IN PRAISE OF THE CREATIVE SPIRIT IN A WORLD GONE MAD WITH COMMERCE, addresses the predicament of the creative individual in a culture in which celebrity and money trump talent and quality of work.

A graduate of Cambridge University, Clothier came to the U.S. in 1964 for the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa. He became Dean and Director of Otis Art Institute, and was Dean of Fine and Communication Arts at Loyola-Marymount University before leaving academia in 1986 to devote full time to writing. He has been happily unemployed since then and describes himself as a recovering academic.

Peter, what drives your creative work?

This is an interesting question, and one I don’t remember having been asked in quite this way before… I do feel “driven”—in a good way, I hope—but by what? I often tell people that writing is “what I have been given to do” with my life, so I think that there’s a sense of mission involved. I know that if I’m not doing it, I don’t feel right about myself.

The other part, for me, is the communication. There’s some part of me that needs to share my perceptions about the world and those who live in it with my fellow human beings. There’s a great reward in hearing from a person who has read something I’ve written and who responds to it; especially—and this does happen—when I hear from someone who feels their life has changed as a result of having read my words.

What would you say to yourself if you could go back in time and meet yourself at the beginning of your creative career?

I would tell myself to have the courage of my convictions. I have known since the age of twelve that I wanted to be a writer, but at some point—when it came to making a living, I suppose, after university—I faltered in that purpose and chose a different profession, teaching, in order to be that productive member of society I had been taught I ought to be. So I would tell that young creative person to listen carefully to his calling and take heed; and to believe in his own skills and his own potential.

How do you keep creating when things get difficult?

I persist. I wrote a whole book about this. It’s called “Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad With Commerce.” I used to worry about having “something to say.” Now I realize that there’s always something to say, if I pay attention to what’s going on inside. I need only to listen. I look for an edge, a way into what it is I need to write. If I listen carefully enough, I hear the first few words, the first line. And then I follow where it leads me. My approach is based on that old question: How do I know what I think ‘til I see what I say? It’s the writing that carries me.

The other familiar discouragement has to do with whether there’s anyone out there willing to listen to me. To be speaking into what feels like a void or an echo chamber can lead to eventual despair. This is why the Internet is such a marvelous gift to the writer: there is always someone out there listening. My blog, The Buddha Diaries, is a small one by comparison with many, but it has a daily world-wide readership. I have created a following that encourages me to continue.

How does your creative work affect the rest of your life?

I’m tempted to say that my writing IS the rest of my life. The rest of my life feeds into my writing every day. I see no separation between the two.

I’d be less than honest, though, if I did not confess that my obsession with—addiction to?—my creative work can cut me off from those close to me, and even from the world out-there, if I’m not careful. It can become all-consuming which, as I see it, is not healthy. I have to be sure that my mind gets breathing space, that it gets time and leisure to wander off and find new pastures, or the work gets stale and ingrown. If I forget to embrace life, I start to wither.

What is it like to send your work out into the world?

It’s the best. As I mentioned earlier, to know that I have readers everywhere, throughout the world, is the most satisfying experience I can have as a writer. Sending a piece of writing out when it’s done is a welcome release of energy; and to know that I have reached out and touched another being in this world is sheer joy.

What was the best advice anyone gave to you?

Hmmm. I can tell you the worst advice, without hesitation. It was in a wine cellar in Vienna, more than fifty years ago. An old “count”—perhaps he really was a count, but he was also a wizened cynic, told me I should never compromise my talent as a writer. You’re a poet, he said. I was, and am, but he was wrong to insist on the poet’s exclusivity and superiority. Words are words are words…

The best advice? To trust myself. To trust my voice. To trust my personal vision. To be able to be less than perfect. To embrace my imperfection. For this—at least for the beginnings of this trust—I thank one of my professors at the University Of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

What helps you to pay attention to the world?

Meditation. I’m a daily practitioner, have been for fifteen years now. The practice teaches me how to focus my attention. And how to persist, when the attention wanders. That, and an associated, ever-growing sense of compassion for myself, for those close to me, for my fellow living beings. The more I care, the more I pay attention.

Thank you for visiting, Peter. Hope to see you in Cirencester again some time!

Writing small stones changes lives: announcing The River of Stones January 2012

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Fiona & Kaspa write: During January 2011, hundreds of people all over the world noticed one thing properly every day and wrote it down as a part of our paying attention challenge, ‘the river of stones’.

As a result they engaged more deeply with the world, other people and themselves. They paused at least once a day to notice the sunlight glinting on the roof, or the wind rustling through leaves. Blocked writers were unblocked. Colours became more vivid. Breakfast tasted more delicious. We remembered how to praise.

Notice one thing properly every day and write it down. It might sound like a simple practice, but we’re not exaggerating when we say that people who’ve started writing small stones have gone on to change their lives.

We’re getting ready to unleash the river again… this year it might break its banks…

This year we’ll be accompanied by 25 of our VERY favourite writers, who will be guest-posting here throughout January. We’ll announce the names soon.

You can find out everything you need to know at our new information page – please do help us out by sharing the link on Facebook and on Twitter. And help yourself to our funky badge immediately (and tell us where you’ve posted it in the comments, we want to see!).

We’ll be asking the marvellous small-stoners on our mailing list for a bit of special help, do sign up here if you’re not already.

And if you haven’t already met Lorrie, you might want to make her acquaintance… she’ll show you what it’s all about.

Let the river countdown begin….. 43 days to go…

Badges for the Jan ’12 River of Stones

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Fiona writes: Kaspa has excelled again, and hand-drawn this badge to accompany us all in the river this January.

If you start displaying the badge as soon as possible, more people will join us in the river… get yours today… Copy the image above and link to our information page, or use the code below. Help yourself!

Here’s the code to copy and paste the badge into the html section of your own blog (including a link to our river of stones information page), or just copy and paste the image at the top of the page. Different blog platforms will need you to add your badges in different ways – if you’re not sure, look at your blog’s help pages.