Escaping through the trees, a beam of light skims the tops of the bamboo, painting a flash of silvery green.
A wren’s joyful vibration animates the stillness. She’s out of sight but fills the air.
I send her great gratitude for her morning prayer.
I used to cling to summer for dear life, fearing the darkness and cold that swallowed the sun.
Not anymore.
It’s as if nature reached out to me and said “Don’t abandon me, love me like this too.”
And I did and everything changed.
Seasonal affective disorder had me living half a life. Clinging to light and cowering from darkness.
My energy would be so low in November that I’d roll out my yoga mat, only to collapse onto it in a depressed heap.
I couldn’t move.
It felt like even breathing robbed me of energy.
After my late ADHD diagnosis I found out that this SAD is a comorbidity. A very high proportion of people with ADHD also suffer winter depression.
It all changed for me when I started to be much more mindful about autumn.
I started to journal, photograph and paint the transition, looking for the beauty in it.
And there was so very much to be found.
Aversion has us closing our eyes to the wonder that waits to embrace us.
We can always find the beautiful, even in the decaying of that which we love or the seemingly mundane.
Flowers can always be seen by the Buddha in the temple, but they stay the whole course. Each shedding, curling and browning of the petal is left there, teaching us of the beauty of the whole way.
There’s no cherry picking of youthful moments at the feet of the Buddha.
Impermanence is so utterly beautiful when we see it with naked eyes.
Can we love this lesson the dying flower offers?
There’s an aching beauty in the dying rose. The way she stoops and twists is pure poetry. And it’s only a poem because she doesn’t resist the change.
Were she to resist, her voice would be ugly, a declaration of war.
Does she droop her head in sadness or in loving gaze at the ground to which she longs to return? She goes willingly, letting nature pull her back into itself.
Surrender is strength and wisdom sewn together.
To the uninitiated she looks so lonely, but beauty doesn’t die alone, the whole of the watching world will attend her wake.
In the quiet stillness of this morning, where do I find the words to begin?
Perhaps here, where the melodies of birdsong greet me, a familiar symphony that unfolds with the rising sun. Their sweet song fills the air, a chorus celebrating the unfolding of new life in spring. I feel certain their songs intensify on mornings like this, when a new day’s sunlight bathes the world in warmth.
I wonder, did the birds make music long before our human grunts ever emerged? It seems unlikely that our crude sounds bring them the same delight their voices bring to us.
Now is the season when new leaves unfurl, as if the trees themselves are birthing fresh life into the world. They adorn themselves in hues of vibrant green, bathed in the soft glow of sunbeams.
How blessed we are to have the presence of trees, offering shelter, sustenance, and protection to all living things. They even grant shade to those who raise axes in an attempt to fell them. Today, I shall capture their essence on canvas, seeking to paint the profound beauty that emanates from their sturdy branches and leafy canopies. And so, I leave you with the timeless words of the Buddha, reminding us of the tree’s benevolence—a magnificent living organism that embodies compassion, even toward those who would harm it.
“A tree is a wonderful living organism which gives shelter, food, warmth and protection to all living things. It even gives shade to those who wield an axe to cut it down”.
I want to live the way I want to live. Something stops me. It draws me away from the moment.
I want to set my sails in the direction I want to travel and I want the travelling to be beautiful too.
I want to feel my way, fully alive.
Right now on this beautiful spring morning, I can hear the birdsong I so adore, and for now, it is not masked by the cawing of our new neighbours, the crows. I enjoy the sweetness while it lasts. It has been made more rare by the crows, their incessant squeaks now ceased, damn, I spoke too soon.
A wooden duck is straining her neck to peak over the top of the sofa, reaching up to meet me in this moment, one eye glaring at me from her perch on the windowsill. All I can see of is the light underside of her beak turned to turned to the side, lit by bounce light from the sofa, with one big black eye fixed on me. She’s been there the whole time, not moving for months, watching me paint and write, how have I not seen her before now? It makes me question which of the two of us is more alive.
A wooden duck maybe, but she’s as alert as my sheepdog Sam.
There is something in the air in these moments when we are met by life unfolding, an invisible power, a silent crackle of energy in the air, it fills things with space.
How could we ever be lonely when all of creation is meeting us in this moment?
Absence is as far away as could possibly be. There is just this awesome, and awesome is the right word, awesome presence. It is here when the black clouds cry rain and it is here when gentle sunlight fills the room.
Nothing missing.
Drawn deeper into it, even the squawk of the crow finds its place in the melody of this moment.
Ahhhh this. As it is. My life, here, now. Perfect.
Beautiful in the beginning, beautiful in the middle and beautiful in the end.
This is part of a Buddhist chant and it refers to the Dhamma (teaching).
Well, for me it was beautiful in the beginning, too beautiful.
Somewhere in between the beginning and the middle I got lost; lost in myself.
The results came very quickly, I slipped into an ecstatic state after only meditating four or five times.
Things that had always bothered me began to slip away.
I had discovered something and what I had discovered was rapidly altering my perception of reality.
I had found the holy grail and I drank from it with the thirst of a desert wanderer.
I became a junkie and my fix was the meditation cushion.
At one point I was meditating four hours a day. If I wasn’t meditating I was reading about meditation. Can you imagine fitting that into a schedule of work, a new marriage, a house move, a baby and a toddler?
Well, it didn’t. I didn’t fit it in at all.
Something had to give and over my dead body was it going to be my meditation.
I lost everything.
I lost my job. I work as a fashion designer and fashion is an ego driven world, it was the antithesis to the new me.
I lost a lot of my children’s early years.
I was on retreats over Easter periods. Instead of a trip to the park being a family occasion, I jumped at the chance for the quiet to get even more meditation in.
I lost my Wife…nearly, several times.
I made it clear I wanted to leave family life and ordain as a Buddhist monk.
One day in a row she told me to go.
I couldn’t believe it, I was free, I could begin the new life I’d longed for.
No sooner had that thought hit me, in crept the thought “I can’t leave me children, it isn’t right.”
As much as I longed for the monastic life, I loved my children very deeply, hit with the reality of not seeing them grow up I sobered up in seconds and realised my folly.
I was being pulled apart, I had to make things work somehow.
I spent the next decade in a very deep depression, nothing made sense anymore.
Sure, I was making good ground in my meditation. Insights were flooding in.
I went through several deep energetic shifts, one in which I physically accepted death.
I surrendered myself over to this internal energy which at the time I thought had come to take my life.
It was 3am, I couldn’t sleep so I went to meditate in shavasana, in yoga this is called the corpse pose. An intense wave of energy began to build in my stomach. With every breath it increased and I felt like it was going to completely overpower me. It was terrifying, I was pinned to the ground, I couldn’t move a muscle.
I remembered the teachings on being with what was present and letting go. I remembered how clinging to life causes suffering.
I then thought “Let go, if I die, I die”.
As soon as did I let go I felt this strange energy blast me up into the heavens, it felt like I left my body behind altogether. It was such a tremendous whooshing experience, I felt the G force I would imagine an astronaut feels as the rocket rips through the sky. It went on for maybe a minute and then there was a massive explosion as I hit the top, lots of light, like a firework hitting the sky then exploding into light. And there was light, light was the only thing I could see, just endless light.
After a while I felt the sensation of gently drifting back down, as light as a feather and even the swaying motion the feather as I felt that too, water just streamed from my eyes, I was in complete awe at what was unfolding, it was incredibly blissful and ecstatic. It was the deepest experience I have ever had. (Yes, I do try to get the conditions right to make it happen again…still waiting).
I told my teacher about it and was so happy to hear he too had experienced exactly the same thing. He said he could only call it a death experience, the experience of death while being physically alive. It wasn’t anything he was taught externally and I had heard nothing of it.
I reflected that this came as a great inner teaching to break my bonds with earthly existence.
It was incredibly important and I think lost most of the fear of death. I can’t be certain, the ego can pull all kinds of tricks to make us feel accomplished.
Many other strange and wonderful things happened. I was being lured inside of myself.
To the outside world I must have looked like a madman.
I’d smile my head off to people in the street, if it was a gang of builders, I’d have some very strange looks come my way.
I on occasion went to church with my wife, the minute I heard a beautiful song that spoke of God I’d be in floods of tears.
It was such a mixed bag, depression at not being able to make my external world work, ecstasy in my inner world.
Buddhism is a path that is designed to lead one out of suffering.
This path consists of the four noble truths. 1. There is suffering, (or this inherent feeling that nothing is quite right, no matter what we do). 2. There is a cause to suffering (craving). 3. We can actually bring an end to our suffering. 4. The eightfold path; the steps we take to end our suffering.
You could say I got stuck on the first noble truth.
Everywhere I looked I saw suffering and I wanted out.
I wasn’t running into what I loved, I was running away.
I thought if I just meditate long enough and hard enough then my freedom will miraculously happen. This in my opinion isn’t right effort.
When we meditate we are purifying ourselves.
I was working at a speed that the rest of my life couldn’t keep up with.
Right effort means progressive but it also means balanced.
The right way to practise is to establish a routine.
This routine is most effective if it includes daily meditation, at the same time every day, once in the morning and once in the evening is perfect.
We should start with ten or fifteen minutes and then slowly build it up to fit into our lives. You might add a minute a month and see how you go on.
Observe the effects and if change is occurring too rapidly take a few minutes off; if nothing is happening, gently increase it.
There is no rush.
The spiritual path is a marathon, not a sprint.
This sensible right effort will protect you from the problems that I encountered.
Don’t misunderstand and see what I’ve said as a negative.
Although a bumpy ride it’s been incredibly transformative and I wouldn’t give up that transformation for anything.
I finally found a way to make things work, teaching meditation with all the spare time I have, this is a devotional practice to me,
I am on fire with spreading the practice.
This of course doesn’t pay my bills so I had to go back into my old profession, as a fashion designer, which is what I do now.
One day, I heard a poem recited by a lady called Stin, she had a podcast about 15 years or so ago.
I must find her and tell her sometime because that poem changed everything for me, it was my great turning.
It taught me how to live and work in the world and I now revere it.
I will finish with it now.
It is by Khalil Gibran and it is from the book The Prophet.
Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when the dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
This is an outline of last week’s live podcast show.
This week we will be discussing beginners mind and I will then lead a guided meditation. If you want notifications on all live sessions on this and other platforms, send me a DM and I will add you to the group.
How had I forgotten this, the peaceful sound of rice bubbling in the pot. The sound soothes me deeply and takes me back to a time when distractions were rare; when I was there for the spaces in between the ticking of the clock.
I look out of the window, the autumn sun becomes autumn rain, another sound I love, percussive peace on the window pane.
It stops suddenly, leaving in its wake silvery puddles on grey paving slabs.
The trees have lost most of their ochre leaves and all that’s left are a handful that refuse to let go.
Don’t they know that the ground that awaits them will make them new again?
There’s a strange sadness that rises in me, watching them, as they wait for one last dance with the wind.
The Buddha starts his four noble truths by stating that there is suffering. This sounds really dismal but the other three noble truths state that it is caused by something we do, namely “craving.” The third noble truth makes the profound statement that we can in this lifetime find complete freedom from suffering. The fourth noble truth lays out the path to this freedom.
By suffering (dukkah in Pali) he is talking about what is better understood as unsatisfactoriness; a clumsy word but more accurate to the western mind as to us suffering makes us this of agony. The build up of little things not going out way create such a heavy mental load that we don’t really notice until we clearly see it in meditation.
Once we see it we can start the process of unburdening ourselves from it.
Another way to look at this is that when you feel down in anyway, we can see that there’s not actually anything unusual this or wrong with us, it’s the just the normal human experience. Add to that that it’s actually something we are doing to ourselves and what we first here as dismal is extremely liberating, because if suffering is something we are doing, we can stop doing it.
James Clear in his book “Atomic Habits” states “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”
If you’re struggling to maintain a meditation habit, it’s worth reflecting on this.
Every single time you sit to meditate you are reinforcing your identity as a meditator.
Every single time you skip a meditation session you are reinforcing yourself as someone who has a problem establishing the habit of meditation and someone who doesn’t value meditation above checking Facebook or Instagram. (You can’t deny this if you’re reading this now on social media.)
There is nothing I have ever discovered to be remotely close to meditation for its life-affirming impact, believe me, as an ADHD hobby addict, I’ve tried everything.
So, sit every day even if you fall asleep on the cushion.
If nothing else you’ll be saying to your brain “I am a meditator because I value the impact it has on my life.”
Besides, if you only ever sit when you feel like it, you’ll only ever know the part of your mind that feels like sitting. A huge part of progress, arguably the most beneficial, is sitting with a mind that really does not want to sit.
Getting things done feels to me like a rejection of the present moment.
Of course, once done another thing will arise which we must get done. A string of these tasks in this mindset has us slave to the unfolding moment. It’s throwing away life for a cherished moment of imagined bliss which never, ever arrives, because, once it does, the mind will start bullying you to get something else done, maybe even the thing you absolutely avoided.
How about instead we “do things”? Really do them.
I just did the dishes, not to get them done, but to engage in the process of being alive. An experience so wonderful I gave an already clean plate an extra wipe with the sponge, just for the joy of feeling the subtle vibrations it made as the squeak of sparkling clean ran into my hand.
I felt my body temperature rise as the hot water on my hands travelled through my bloodstream, heating my whole body. Then I ran the rinse water cold to feel how wonderful it was to bring coolness back into my hands.
Life is all play in a wonderland when rightly viewed.
Don’t buy into “getting things done” because they never ever will be and that’s called being alive.
Every step you take is on a shifting sand of emptiness.
The very foundations of your house will one day be the finest dust, drift in the vastness of infinite space.
I look out of my bedroom window as I write and the grass is the colour of dead straw, it’s been the hottest day on record here in England.
Not all of the grass is this colour though, there’s a brilliant green metre-wide semi-circle where my dog engages in fence wars with the neighbour’s dog, it marks his territorial urinations watering the grass.
He’s saying, “this is my solid ground, back off.”
Why do we do all do this, dogs even;
irrespective of that meme of the dog in the present moment whilst his owner’s head is full to the brim.
Well, I guess you could say we don’t trust that Reality has our back.
We can’t let go of our need to control things in way that favours self preservation.
On a day to day level this seems to work, right?
That’s definitely debatable.
From an ultimate perspective the self that’s being preserved is the self that keeps us shackled.
There is no refuge in this world, everything that arises is doomed to pass away.
That’s terrible news for the ego but it is literally the best phrase we have to connect to our true refuge.
Anicca is the Buddhist word for this and it means impermanence.
The realisation of this isn’t doom, it is the gateway to eternal freedom; full and final enlightenment.
Mindfulness Man 