PS

I am India bound soon. See you in mid-December. For those of you who are connected on KCC’s Community listserve, I hope to make daily posts of the goings on at Mirik. Love to all. And in the unlikely event of my early demise, just know that this life has been end-to-end joy for me, that my love for you all abides.

Ritual for Family

What do you remember about family, or family gatherings? Ask people this and often their reply will include some aspect of rituals. Do you have rituals in your family? Some families have few and some are highly connected to ritual.

Children may enjoy rituals that they learn at an early age. Ritual gives a continuity to daily life, marking “same” and “different” among the passing days and years.

If your family has few–or no rituals–to carry forward, you can certainly begin some now. The younger your kids, the better. Rituals provide a pausing point for family members to take a mindful moment to connect. Though kids may seem to dismiss rituals when they are young, they may well appreciate them when they are adults.

Here’s a link to an article on the psychological and social value of rituals in family, particularly as a stabilizing influence.

I like rituals that involve the senses (ringing a bell, lighting a light) and rituals that require all members to participate (talking, holding hands). Buddhism is full of ritual. We can intertwine it with our family ritual to create opportunity for meaning and connection.

Homework? Create a ritual that takes less than 5 minutes. See if it sticks.

 

 

Dharma Computer Games for Kids

Dharma *ping!* computer games for *ping!* kids.  You can play, too, don’t worry. *ping!*

What? a Recipe on this Blog?

Yep. These take about as much kitchen energy as most parents have. Which is to say, not much–so have fun.

Super Simple Pickled Lemon and Olives

4lbs organic lemons (or not organic if you don’t prefer organic)
1 cup coarse salt
2 TBS Turmeric
olive oil
dried or fresh thyme
yummy olives*

Wash the lemons well and dry them. Cut each lemon into 8ths at least. Put them in a large glass, plastic or other non-reactive bowl. Add 1 cup coarse salt and the turmeric. Then stir it up.

Put the salted lemon into a jar. (I use two, quart sized sterilized wide mouth Mason jars.) The lemon pickle gets better as it ages. I let it sit for one week at least. But 4 or 5 is not uncommon. It does not need to be in the fridge, but it’s ok if that makes you feel better. I think it could last for two or more months no problem.

To make the olive dish, I rinse the olives (or not, depending on the brine). Then I add some lemons. Add a little if you are salt sensitive, or more if you like salt. Pour good quality (I used a cold pressed and sometimes stone pressed oil, but that’s only if I have it around) olive oil on the mixture. Add the thyme. Dried thyme is fine. My Turkish friends add it to everything–including putting it on top of fried eggs.

This will last pretty much forever in the fridge, but in my house it seems to last much less than forever. I think the turmeric is antiseptic and the salt is a preservative.

* If I have them, I use both black and green, unstuffed olives. But I think you could use most any olive except the canned black ones, which might get kind of soggy. I like sun-dried. But really, any old olive will do.

I learned to make these kinds of pickles in Nepal, where everyone has many jars of mango, carrot, lemon, lime and other things pickling on the roof pretty much all the time. The pickles are a nice counterpoint to a simple meal of rice, vegetable and lentils. But I like them at home by themselves or with a few crackers and a little goat or sheep cheese.

Asking Kids Magical Questions

Magical questions are questions that will help kids increase their “out of the box” thinking capacity. They are fun. They are instructive. They are brain-benders that help us “unlearn,” as well as learn.

Try to have one magical question in each substantive conversation. What makes a question “magical”?

Here are some hints:

–Ask a question that does not fit an expected pattern. For example, if you say, “What colour is an orange?” or “What is its smell?” A follow-on magical question might be, “What sound does it make?”

–A magical question like the one above helps us break a pattern of certainty. We KNOW oranges don’t make a sound.. or DO we? They cause us to explore.

–Some magical questions cause us to think in new ways. For example, we could ask our child, “What did you look like before your parents were born?” (This is a question for an older child.)

–Magical questions can help us have new conversations. For example, if we ask, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound?” Even if we can discern the answer, the discussion will be intriguing.

–Magical questions help us look at how we know (or IF we actually know) things, which affects our learning. For example, if you turned off ALL the lights, you could ask a child, “How tall are you now?” They will say their height and you can say, “How can you tell?”

Here are some examples of magical questions:

• Is there a view that is from nowhere?
• How does green feel?
• Are you inside out? Are you sure?
• What’s the most expensive thing you ever bought that was free?
• If you had a calm mind, could you hide it somewhere?

Got a magical question for us? Need one?

Obedience

I have been exploring obedience as a principle in practice. There appears to be both gross and fine-grained truth and though I am surely more suitable for the more gross analysis, I feel the texture of the finer grain on rare occasions of stillness.

Obedience in practice is not an issue of me and my teacher or his authority. It is more an issue of my relationship to awakening: if I give up endless opinions and a dogged insistence on the exercise of my own will, I believe that I will experience the Mind which abides beneath the static of disobedience–it is my home, and I would like to return.

In regards to dharma, certainly in potential, my teacher and I are equals. We share, in fact, the most radical manifestation of human equality: the ground of awakened mind. From this perspective, I cannot fathom the slightest abdication of on-going responsibility–situational or moral–to anyone else. But as a matter of path, while the questions are mine, the answers must always be his. This is not an issue of personal dynamics. It is an issue of getting my false self out of the way, so that I can realize who I am actually am. My opinions and my will are obstacles. They might improve work, gain me notoriety, and help me get my way, but they will not likely  liberate me from suffering.

First, It has helped me to clarify what I am choosing to obey. From the beginning, I have mostly blindly obeyed the programming of my culture and my family of origin. I never chose; I was a puppet of habit.  I wish to be free from that. So in the end, it is my own aspiration for freedom that I want to obey, and obedience is the method.

Second, and based on the principle above, I aspire to obedience to awakening mind (bodhicitta) itself, which redirects the incessant question, “What works for me?” to, “What’s working for others?”

This momentary shift saves me from the inevitable suffering of self-focus by attending less the to seductive voice of the kleshas and more to the soundless voice that represents us all. At this point, I find the moment of shifting focus abrasive. It takes determination and usually more than one try. And yet, focused less on personal opinion and choice, I attain the one authenticity that rises above the pallid certainty of “I know”– two words whose meaning together and separately spell danger to spiritual progress.

This sounds easy. It is not. The parts of this contemplation that I examine the most are now vaporous: I am losing familiar bearings. This might be progress. The parts to which I am more blind are more solid. There is so much to do and my best efforts are often awkward.

I hope that the growing, itchy discomfort of uncertainty is indication I am where I mean to be, landed between what I used to know, which has not yet been extinguished and what I do not or cannot know, which is a small light on a far horizon. I ask the lineage to sustain me in my effort of awakening.

What is the role of obedience in parenting? Who obeys whom, and why?

Apology and Update

I am behind on posting, if such a thing can be said of a volunteer effort. There was a 5,000+ acre fire near our retreat center a few weeks back and I helped manage the deployment of volunteers for 3 days, non-stop. I am behind in every possible way. This is nothing new, but it hasn’t happened in a few years and I had forgotten how long it can take to get back on track. Thanks for your patience. Of course, as parents and other busy people, you get it.

Update following in a few minutes here.

Failure

“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”

—Abraham Lincoln

One Less Worry

Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today, it’s already tomorrow in Australia.

– Charles Schulz, in Zen Paths to Laughter

Writing Prayers as Practice

I have written several prayers requested this month. This one: Prayer to be Recited by Those Suffering from Addiction.

Next up–prayer for a departed dog. We can write prayers in our family. For ourselves, for others, even for our animals.

 

Mila Guru, I supplicate you, Hear this humble request:

Free me from the tyranny of addiction,

I who flee the suffering of suffering, the suffering of change,

the suffering of cyclic existence–

I who grasp for transcendent states,

in this moment acknowledge my inherent goodness,

unrecognized by my own eyes.

I draw the truth towards me now

by a thread of aspiration and the kindness of my teachers.

I can do this.

For all beings, I will, and I am.

Fear evaporates in the great dharmakaya.

Grant me the power to recognize kleshas when their force is small and to rest in what is, free from hope and fear.

Continuing with courage, obstacles disappear.

I rally against the three poisons, I will, I am now– determination stands vigilant at the door of my mind– I will not be fooled.

I will not be enchanted by the forces of evil.

I will not be distracted.

I will never give up.

Lift me, oh saints and hidden buddhas, carry me safely to sacred rest.

Protect this body, from habits and from the accurate force of the karma of this life and before.

Grant me freedom from reliance on that which deceives– which promises but never delivers–never can deliver, never will deliver, never has delivered.

I take refuge instead.

In the Buddha, the Dhamra, the community of practitioners– this precious, noble family to which I belong, which offers me shelter and home.

I turn my mind to its own brilliance, to its own pure nature, the bright light which has never gone out, which is never diminished.

Raise the essence like a fire!

With the alchemy of the dharma, turn my tendency for destruction into the healing hand of bodhicitta.

Turn obstacles into the path.

Turn every defilement into skillful means until even my mistakes bring benefit in the world of confusion.

I who was dying choose to live.

Even in the brief home of this body may I recognize the fleeting opportunity of having encountered the truth and may I return to each moment, determined to wake up for the benefit of beings.

Now I rest. I let go.

Everything complete here: Breath after breath, I awaken this body.

Everything complete here: Breath after breath, I awaken this speech.

Everything complete here: Breath after breath, I awaken this mind.