memories of sky

Put a fish on land and he will remember the ocean until he dies. Put a bird in a cage, yet he will not forget the sky. Each remains homesick for his true home, the place where his nature has decreed that he should be.

Man is born in the state of innocence. His original nature is love and grace and purity. Yet he emigrates so casually without even a thought of his old home. Is this not sadder than the fishes and the birds?
-The Maxims of Master Han Shan

Your Moment of Zen

The Great Bell Chant from R Smittenaar on Vimeo.

Evening Chant and 5 mindfulness trainings.

I sang the evening chant at the sangha meeting last night. I had been practicing for weeks. It went better than I expected, only a few moments of anxiety, deep in my belly. My voice cracked on one note, the jump on "leaving", as I feared it might. I will practice that. But the acoustics in the room were great, and really made things sound better. Most of the group said thank you and they enjoyed it. I felt proud and shy at the same time. I haven't sung really since high school, not in a performance aspect, and surely not a capella.
I also noticed that I don't like the cushions facing each other. I feel like I am being looked at, or something. I don't like eyes on me! Isn't that strange? Or paranoid. I am not sure which.
We also went over and recited the new Plum Village 5 mindfulness trainings. Many people spoke of fear of dogma and 'thou shalt nots'. I felt the same way, but I also recognize that those are my own preconceived notions of what precepts are. Are they suggestion? Intentions? Rules? Laws? I fear and reject such things because of my own experience with dogma. What if they might help?
I am conflicted. I refuse to allow anyone to place spiritual rules on me, as I reject much authority on the matter. I take what seems right to me and apply it. I always found 'commandments' so childish. Why do you have to tell anyone that stealing is wrong, that you shouldn't lust so much it breaks up a family? It seems like common mores, but then I was raised in a judeo christian society, so I guess that is my baseline.
I feel that some of the older people in the group think they are supposed to be tied to the dogma. What does it matter really if you don't recite the mindfulness trainings? I see the need to remember them, to refresh them, but it is almost as if you are upsetting someone or something if you don't. I don't think Thich Nhat Hanh cares if you don't. It is you who are being upset, you who have guilt?
But I am being judgemental, thinking I know anything about anything. I do love having a full cup, and I keep refilling it!

Sat for 30 minutes last night. I hadn't been sitting more than 20 min lately so I am glad I made myself do it. At one point some embarrasing memories came up. Nothing at all bad, just times I probably should have worded things differently or kept my mouth shut. I tried to sit with them but I had a very strong reaction to them. I do tend to run from embarrasing memories when they pop in. I often make a noise or sing a song, or move quickly, I just have to stop the thoughts. None of these are horribly bad memories, or moments of outright humiliation, but they pop in at random times and mess up my attempt at stillness. This fear limits my willingness to take chances with other people. Fear of rejection or embarrassment. It give me social anxiety and a lack of social confidence. I wonder who else has this issue.

Tigers and roaches

I got a little bit of kindness from our mother raised tiger two days ago. She did not shift out when she should have, and so had to stay inside for a little bit in a 'time out'. She was mad that she didn't get to go out, and was whining, just like any kid who didn't do what they were told. So I went and sat with her. There was a lot of roaring and spitting at first, as she always does. But after a few minutes of my own quiet sitting and "grooming" myself, she calmed down. I put my head down on an exposed pipe, and pretended like I was resting. She came over and sniffed, and lay down by the mesh. Now this cat hates humans, to the extent that she wants nothing to do with us unless we have food. She roars, jumps at the mesh, growls etc if we are doing anything but feeding her. But this time she acutally rubbed against the mesh, a clear sign of camraderie and solicitation for attention. I tried to react slowly by talking, but that was too much and she started growling again, but rubbed against the mesh again. The poor girl doesn't know what she wants. But it just shows that a lonely creature wants companionship no matter the personality/aggression/or nature of the beast. Now, if there had been no mesh, I promise I would be dinner. But even then, our common beingness can still meet, shake hands, seek a hug, find commonality. Even when she wants to destroy me.The Buddha's first disciples were said to be a litter of reincarnated tiger cubs that had been saved by an earlier incarnation of the Buddha. The cubs and their mother were starving when the Buddha(in a previous life) happened upon them. He saw their suffering, and thought first of getting them food. Then realized that getting them meat meant killing another being. He could not make that choice. So he decided to sacrifice himself to the tigers so that they could live. These tiger cubs lived on, died, and much later reincarnated as the first disciples of the Buddha.
Here again the commonality of beingness, that you and i and birds and cats and tigers are all the same, made of the same stuff, have similar feelings, and can suffer. Now, this may be a radical example. But I completely understand his desire. As a person who has worked closely with a wide variety of animals, from crocodiles to giraffes, from raptors to great apes, I see that each and every animal has intelligence, feelings, and deserves respect and compassion. There is a spectrum to be sure, but who am I to determine what is better or worse, who am I to think that there could be a better or worse??  Is the fruit fly any less deserving of respect than the orangutan? Form is emptiness emptiness is form.
But as a lay person, those conflicts are unavoidable. It is all well and good to say that we should not squash a mosquito, but we put out traps for roaches, or have a bug zapper, or hit a bug on the windshield driving to an animal rights fundraiser. Or, in my very specific case, be mostly a vegetarian, but feed 75 lbs of horse meat to tigers every day.
But lately, I have been trying to be aware of the animals that gave their lives so that my tigers could eat, so that the public had animals to look at, so that I had a way to communicate to them about conservation and why we need to care about tigers, their ecosystem, and the people that live around tigers. I hope that this makes their deaths worthy. And my guilt be reduced. But perhaps this is all my pretty little delusion.

Bodhicattva

Not my cat, from Moose Country Garden.

Have you ever watched a cat for an extended period of time? My cat is a great bodhisattva. I just watched her lay here on the deck for 20 minutes, her one good eye half shut, gazing with kitty equanimity across my garden. Winged insect creatures alighting on roses, sunbeams stretching across the grass blades,  clouds humming along above fingertips of trees. And she just sits. Surveying her kingdom. Soaking in the tiny sliver of afternoon sun hitting the corner of the deck. Not disturbed by my oafish attempt to get her attention. Nor by the butterfly a leap away from dinner. Nor by the squabbling woodpecker crashing branches in the nearby tree. She slowly turns her head to look, curious, but not bothered.
Now kitty life is probably pretty easy. No boorish bosses, or drama filled personal relationships, no money problems or moral quandaries. But there is something about cats that gives them an air of acceptance. Yes, they have their moments of fear, frustration, violence, as does any being, but mostly they just sit. And watch. And play. And ask for scratches sometimes.
Of course, my Artemis did kill a rat the other day. I was so shocked. I have never seen her go for anything but the occasional bug, a rat snake, and to scatter the neighbor's chickens. Working with tigers daily at the zoo gives me great respect for the hunting abilities of my little tiger at home. She has a great power to be a great killer, and plenty of opportunities with the not so wary wildlife that live around my home. But she and the birds have come to an agreement it appears. They are flying to the bird feeder two feet away from her, seemingly undisturbed by her presence. Two taxa thrown together by human meddling, and they understand each other well. I have seen the same birds that do not fear her at all run from and even attack other cats from the neighborhood. But not Artemis. She has achieved inter-species respect. I can only hope to do the same.

Our actions ring like a bell through the cosmos,
each moment of life,
a peal in the song of wonder.
Each strike causes infinite concerts of interdependent arising.
The universe is a great carillion, of which you are
the bellringer,
the bell,
the striker,
the vibration,
the echo, and
the cessation.
What note will you strike next?
Will it be in harmony with existance?
Do not fret. You cannot sing wrong!