Not complete but just enough

    Categories: dharma glimpse

    A Dharma Glimpse by Greg Cundiff

    I entered the military a conservative. Not a fire breathing conservative but a my family are all liberals kind of conservative. An act of rebellion conservative. Not a fire breathing conservative, but conservative none the less. I left the military a fire breathing liberal. And I knew everything worth knowing. I was more liberal than my family by a long shot.
    This newfound world view worked out quite nicely. Nicely, as long as I surrounded myself with people who thought and talked like me. My friends in San Diego were all lefties. My church was mostly lefty. My partner even pretended to be a lefty so I might find him more appealing. Oh everything was right in my world. I had a neatly defined sense of us and them.
    Boy did all that change when I moved back to Baltimore. Yes, Maryland is a blue state – but trust me it has never been all that blue deep down. Thems started popping up all over the place. I even learned that my family wasn’t as lefty as I had always painted them.
    One afternoon in a senior literature seminar a classmate looked at me after I had made a comment about something, I don’t remember what, said, “you sound like a Buddhist.” I could tell by his tone that it wasn’t a put-down. The only thing was, I had no idea what he meant.
    By and by I started reading about Buddhism. I thought of myself as a Buddhist. I even put it in my Veterans record. Still a lot of us and them. The more I listened, the notion of us and them started to slip. Not perfectly, but slip it did. How many times does the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hahn have to say that everyone wants to have happiness and avoid pain until it starts to seep in. I don’t know. But if you listen. And I do mean listen. It does start to sink in.
    One Sunday morning I was chatting with one of the farmers at work. This was a person that I had a lot of fun being around. In the middle of a conversation about something to do with farms he mentioned that he was a big supporter of the then current governor. And yes he said, that means that I’m a Republican – I guess you hate me now. I can remember a time when I would have. At that moment I didn’t feel any hatred or dislike toward him. Of course I don’t, I told him. Everyone seeks happiness and wishes to avoid pain. Yes it sounds nice. Listen to it, really listen. Think about it some. Compare the idea to how you live your life. After a while and probably when you least expect it, compassion sinks in. Not complete compassion, but enough for now.

    Building Bridges and Golden Thread

    Categories: dharma glimpse

    Dharma Glimpse by Alison

    Written 08/05/23

    Recently I met a Chinese speaking Buddhist community in Malvern.  After this meeting I realised what I’d been missing.  The uprootedness of continually having to leave behind my friends and familiar surroundings, such as when I left Asia after eight years of living there, had left an enormous hole I hadn’t even noticed until I found myself in another Asian community.  Sometimes, when we shut out the pain of things taken from us, we can’t always see what causes the pain until we confront it again.   I suddenly saw, in a flash, that what was needed to restore connection and to heal this gaping wound, was to begin building bridges.  Bridges from ourselves to all the things of our heart.

    In England, I find myself picking up all the pieces of my broken life and stitching them back together again.  It’s a long and laborious process.  I’ve been reminded that, in Japan, there is a tradition of restoring broken objects by putting gold into all the cracks of broken ceramics.  This is known as Kintsugi.  This has the effect of creating resilience and beauty.  The cracks are the most prized parts – they are signs of growth;  of hard lessons learnt;  of journeys travelled;  stories lived;  of acquired wisdom through experience.  The cracks are what make us resilient and more beautiful.  The more cracks we have, the more resilient and beautiful we become.  

    After having moved about so much, I’m starting to think that perhaps it doesn’t matter whether I can return to all the places I’ve called home, but what matters most are the connections we make here and now.  Separation requires connection to heal.  What once used to be found by travelling far and wide can also be experienced in the here and now, if we simply remain open and receptive to what is here –  right now.  There exists the potential to bring the whole world into a single grain of sand.  By stitching the past, present and future together we can find Wholeness.  Wholeness in this moment now – right here.  In order to help restore this Wholeness, we need to build bridges to the things of our heart.  Restoring, reconnecting, recreating.  

    Picking up the broken pieces and stitching them together with golden thread, we can find a beautiful Whole, laced with strands of golden wisdom, beauty and resilience.  

    The Importance of Boundaries

    Categories: dharma glimpse

    A Dharma Glimpse by Alison

    I’ve been contemplating the importance of boundaries since moving into the temple. The subject has come up a number of times and different people have referred to their need of them. It seems that boundaries are an important topic and that most of us find putting in boundaries, when relating to others, extremely difficult. I am no exception.
    What is a boundary? It’s a protective zone, or space, we can imagine having around ourselves to keep us safe and stop us from becoming hurt, or hurting others. It might take the form of limits we need to put in place that show other people how far they can go in their interactions with us -what’s appropriate and what isn’t.
    Our parts (parts of ourselves, especially the vulnerable ones) need boundaries to feel safe – we need to make them, but – we also need them made by others. We need to feel walls on all four sides of us to feel safe. If we don’t set boundaries, others will step into our space, especially those parts of others that are either vulnerable; needy; seeking love, or to be liked; needing attention; wanting to feel special and also those parts wanting to feel superior, prove a point, or to rescue another and to be useful. Sometimes we need to reign parts in that seek to burrow holes as deep as they can without obstruction. Healthy boundaries provide safe space for all to manoeuvre – space to grow. I’m imagining how it is for the plants. They need space to grow, unfurl leaves, space to stretch their roots in the soil, to drink the rain and to reach up to the sunlight.
    When we give enough space we allow growth. Having space allows us to grow into our selves, just like the plants in the flowerbed. The sun’s rays can reach out to all the plants, shining down on every part of them, no matter how perfect or imperfect they are.
    In order to be able to give ourselves, and others, this space, we can do as the plants, bringing all of the parts of us, including those vulnerable parts, to the Buddha or to Self (as it’s called in Parts Work or Internal Family Systems). These parts can be met by self compassion, or the warm compassion of Amida, in the same way the plants are greeted by the sun. There’s enough room for every part and all parts are received, just as they are. Perhaps, if we can learn to love and value all of the vulnerable, flawed parts of ourselves, we can show others how to do the same.

    Impermanence, grief and healing

    Categories: buddhism dharma glimpse

    Dharma Glimpse by Ali

    In October last year one of my best friends sadly took her own life. I was devastated and heartbroken and was weighed down with grief.

    Another close friend sent me these words which I will share with you now.

    “ When it comes to grief, remember this –

    You have not broken a bone, there is no default treatment, no cure, no timeline for your healing.
    You cannot strap your heart to the heart next to it and hope it mends itself.
    You cannot rest it for weeks or months.
    You cannot rely on your other heart like you might a leg or an arm.
    You have not broken a bone.
    And yet, like a broken bone, your heart will always now have a vulnerable spot, a bruise, a burn, a scar.
    And just as your arm can still ache after breaking when it has been holding too much for too long, so your heart will ache.
    When it has been holding too much for too long.
    But just as your once broken arm can still hold things and your broken leg can still dance, so your heart will learn to carry you forward,
    Even when it aches.”

    These words brought me great comfort but I was still burdened with grief.
    And then I walked into the temple here in Malvern and my healing really started.

    I was struck by the ways Buddhism provided insight in my grief that was completely different than anything else.
    In Buddhism , impermanence is an inescapable truth of existence. In a world and culture where we strive for permanence (lasting or remaining unchanged).
    Buddhism teaches us that impermanence (lasting or temporarily) is fundamental to everything. From life to health to joy and sorrow to material objects to our very identity, nothing is permanent no matter how much we want it to be. Everything is constantly changing, existence is always in flux.
    Buddhism explains that our attachment to things and failure to accept impermanence is at the root of all suffering.

    As someone who had gone through a significant loss, this idea of impermanence resonated with me immediately. As I read more and thought more, I decided I had two choices. I could try to restore the old life and self that I believed was the real ‘me’ and how things should be. Or I could accept that my loss fundamentally changed me, and we will forever be changing.

    I could pretend I was the same person now but I knew I was not. I had changed and would continue to change. So forcing myself to believe the things that I believed before was not the answer. Instead I needed to focus on the present. One day at a time, one moment at a time. Building awareness of my life – the good, the bad and the ugly, all in flux and ever changing.
    Buddha would remind us that we should not become attached to our path, it will always look different for all of us.

    Holly Leaves

    Categories: dharma glimpse earth

    Dharma Glimpse by Angie

    For the last two spring seasons I have watched with intrigue as new Holly leaves form on my walks around Malvern. They emerge small, waxy and surprisingly soft to the touch. Over the course of a few weeks they harden up,  gradually lose their softness and their edges turn from soft points to the prickly spikes iconic of the Holly plant. If I look down whilst stood by the Holly, I can often see a few fallen old holly leaves on the floor; their hard adult bodies now skeletal, withered, dried and crumbly. Their prickles that were once painful to stand on barefoot, now crumbling grains of leaf matter. The whole life cycle present in one moment, individual holly leaves and branches forming and dying whilst the plant as a whole persists.

    This reminds me how soft and vulnerable we are when we emerge from the womb and how, over time our many edges harden to form the necessary protections and defences against the world. Sometimes those barriers soften with age, sometimes they become more deeply entrenched as they continue to be needed and the value of getting close enough to others to be vulnerable and connected is weighed up against the cost of getting hurt. 

    I’ve found that, over time, spiritual and therapeutic practise has profoundly altered my prickles. Some edges and defences have melted or fallen away entirely, others have become like an adult cat’s claws; able to stay contracted or to extend dependant on the situation. My fluid sense of self persisting as the many strands that make it up rise and fall, solidify and wither. Each move towards openness allows me to feel more intimately in touch with love and presence, with interconnectedness and the Ultimate. As I experience this more frequently and come to trust their existence, in the times when my protections extend and I feel more distant from them, I can still know that they’re there. 

    Blowin’ in the Wind

    Categories: dharma glimpse

    Dharma Glimpse by Philip

    I was driving down to the temple recently in my slightly battered, but beloved, Twingo. It has a temperamental and capricious CD player (yes, it is pretty old!). I kinda love that about it. Choice isn’t always a good thing in my opinion and when a CD finally works it feels more joyous than being able to play whatever I want all the time. I’m not particularly in to Bob Dylan, but I stumbled across an old ‘Best of’ CD which I threw into it which miraculously worked. It played ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ before unceremoniously, and loudly, spitting it out! Bless it!
    A couple of days later I was walking in the Malvern Hills. It was a beautiful, warm and sunny afternoon. It felt good to be alive. I was blessed to have spent some time with much valued templemates, and temple dogs, in the hills over the previous couple of days. I was now blessed to be spending some time with myself. Coming down the path towards St Anne’s Well I was taken by the trees swaying gracefully in the light breeze. Their luscious, beautiful green leaves being thrust towards the sky from their trunk and branches to bask in the sun’s rays whilst their deep, sinuous roots would have quietly and imperceptibly grown over many years to give them the necessary stability and provision of other life-sustaining nutrients. I remembered the Bob Dylan lyric “The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind. The answer is blowin’ in the wind”.
    If not THE answer, maybe trees can tell me quite a bit about the dharma I thought. I remember a friend told me “trees are our munda”, meaning trees are our temples. I wondered if we need to quietly, humbly cultivate our spiritual roots in order to catch the light of Amida. Or perhaps the light of Amida helps us cultivate our spiritual roots of being connected to something deeper and life sustaining. Maybe it is a symbiotic relationship (always wanted to use that term as it sounded clever when I heard people using it!). Maybe Western spirituality and the self-help culture frequently promotes the equivalent of the leaves basking in the sun, rather than the less glamorous work of immersing oneself, and growing, in the soil and earth.
    I feel lucky to have come across Pureland Buddhism. I confess when I first entered the temple I did not understand how it differed from other branches (pun intended) of Buddhism. I’m slowly learning it seems to emphasise the importance of immersing, or ‘transdescending’, oneself in the soil of life rather than trying to transcend it. That the soil, sometimes seen as just ‘dirt’, gives the same life-sustaining nutrients as the sun. Whatever you take ‘life’ to be. And the soil is also fed by the sun. It is all interconnected.
    Namo Amida Bu

    Joy in change

    Categories: buddhism dharma glimpse

    Dharma Glimpse by Maria

    This week I’ve started my new job. My head has been bursting with all the information on the company and my project, in that respect I’ve been pretty much dropped in the deep from the get go! But even more importantly, I’m now working with the same people I used to work with about two years ago, so there’s been a lot of catching up and emotional trips down the memory lane.

    Today was my first day at the client site, which is located in Coventry. I haven’t really been around Coventry much since my MBA graduation 6 years ago and I pretty much expected to see the same tired grey city centre. What a surprise when I stepped off the train to see a brand new train station building, new shops, refurbished square and a few new office buildings nearby! I realised that I expected Coventry to not have changed at all in 6 years – maybe Coventry also had not expected me to change? Isn’t it strange how we tend to analyse and acknowledge all our progress and achievements, but then we pretty much expect the rest of the world and people to just stay as they are, as we remember them.

    How many times have I formed a negative opinion of someone and not given them a chance again later? Do I always assume it’s just me who’s evolving and everyone else is stagnating? How prejudiced if so. Indeed so much has changed in my life in 6 years. My colleagues probably made the same mistake about me and my life and were surprised to see how much my priorities have changed. I need to give them the courtesy and assume nothing!

    I’ve never been one for nostalgia and looking back. When I was younger, I just thought it was black and white – if you miss someone, go ahead and give them a call! Now I know it’s not as plain as that, yet still I’m weary of looking back. Maybe deep down I know the world is impermanent and there’s a part of me that resists the reaffirmation of that knowledge. There is no going back into the same waters, and even the most solid rocks eventually crumble down into the sea. I think we should learn to find joy in the discovery of how much the familiar is changing every day!

    Permission Slip

    Categories: buddhism dharma glimpse

    Dharma Glimpse by Helen

    There’s been a few times in my life when I’ve heard the voice of God tell me something very
    strongly. It’s generally been when I’ve been doggedly pursuing a path that deep down I’ve
    knows wasn’t right for me but for one reason or another I’ve been ignoring all signs to the
    contrary and determinedly digging my heels in and carrying on blindly, certain that either
    there is no other choice or, in some cases, a breakthrough will come and the path I’m on will
    become the right path if only I work hard enough to make it so.

    Recently I’ve been experiencing some minor, but still upsetting health issues. I’ve various
    tools, in my tool box that I’ve built up over the years to cope when things get tough like this
    and one of them is physical exercise, a little run, a little weight training and then home to
    my biscuit & tea, bliss! The problem is that I’ve noted my lack of motivation to actually
    engage and go to the gym, even though I know I’ll feel better if I do; preferring instead to sit
    on the couch, sneak chocolate past my teen, watch the latest Netflix drop of “Selling
    Sunset” deep into the night and feel sorry for myself.

    Don’t get me wrong, I know this is not unusual. But deep down I’ve also known that this
    isn’t bog standard procrastination (although that is another hobby of mine). Something is
    getting in my way. Something that I’ve not wanted to admit to myself as I feel slightly
    embarrassed by it.

    So, facing a mirror, scanning myself as I sometimes do with my reflection staring back a few
    days ago I asked, why, why are you avoiding the one thing you know makes such a
    difference to your mental health? The answer came loud and clear. BECAUSE YOU HATE
    RUNNING. The shock and relief I felt at saying it out loud was palpable.

    Now, I have said this out loud before, usually, as some kind of joke or quip with friends. But
    Ive never really admitted it to myself before. Typing this now it feels so stupid and minor,
    but its something I feel I SHOULD love, most of the people I know love it, swear by it and
    have assured me that once I get into my stride ill love it too. But after yeas of trying all I ever
    feel is dread at the thought of it and then afterwards serious muscle cramps, nausea and
    light headed. Admitting the truth felt like a weight off my shoulders

    So I’ve taken the opportunity to consider my whole routine and, more importantly, why I do
    it in the first place. The revolutionary conclusion? I QUIT! Instead, a small voice inside of me
    suggested going for a swim.

    So that’s what I did. 30 blissful mins later I was back up on ground level, in the glorious
    sunshine feeling a little achy but refreshed and grateful.

    I’m not even sure if this really counts as a dharma glimpse but taking the time to listen to
    what the divine is trying to tell me about myself has made a small but important change to
    my life this week.

    Namo Amida Bu

    Faith

    Categories: dharma glimpse

    Dharma glimpse by Beth H

    Having faith is a tricky concept for me.
    It’s a bit like the clouds. It comes and goes.
    The sun is there shining and grinning its reassuring glow.
    And as suddenly, it’s gone and I’m thrust back into greyness and find I’m floundering.
    Sunshine provides the reassurance, the comfort and glow that nurtures me and I imagine that is what faith provides.
    I can’t hold on to it. The cloud comes and murks the clarity. No sinjin here!
    But, I realise that practice has its place and role to play, so I pick up my Buddhist books, I meditate, I sing the nembutsu and I learn to breathe and be still. Restoring my Buddha nature. And I feel marvellous.
    I’ve started on this journey, that’s enough in itself for me.
    NAB

    Doggy Glimpse

    Categories: dharma glimpse

    by Sharon Taylor Dechen

    Today my dog Poppy and I did our usual walk and I was thinking what I could share of my recent experiences to put into this Dharma Glimpse. As I was pondering this a set of two legs and two wheels came running past us sniffing flowers
    It was an elderly Labrador’ who still had use of his front legs but not his back. His owners spoke to me and said they had got him “his wheels“ so he could still get out and about . I have heard people say that it’s not fair to keep a disabled dog and at this point it would be better to have it put it down to end its life.
    This made me think, ”Were the owners being selfish refusing to accept the impermanence of even those we love?”
    I thought around this but in the end I decided that I didn’t think so. I think they were recognising that even when suffering ill health and age their friend was still a sentient being as we know from Buddhism and that he could still have some quality of life if only using wheels.
    He didn’t seem to be in pain and was happily sniffing and trotting along if with the odd bash into a tree!
    Life is impermanent and involves suffering. We can however value the simple joys that we have and appreciate our life in this minute right now . It may be that at some point the choices will be harder but for now let’s smell the flowers, using legs or wheels if we need them. NAB