WHAT IS TIME?

My fair haired lad

adapted from an anonymous Gaelic song of the eighteenth century

Oh my fair haired lad
You have made me sad...

young I was when loving you
with hair flowing, you
from my kindred taken
they gave me home, I have forsaken

curled hair ringleted
bonny as any contemplated
my love secure in depth
of closeted chamber in my flesh

head like golden streams of hair
all my choice was there
if only you had chosen to refrain
coming to the tavern to sup there

winter was early when I fell first
in love as I must tell it
my own dearest wish you were
but you ceased from following your girl

last year I had a footstep
it sounds heavy now not laughter as I had
music sad I hear the tune yet
and I am full of it deep sorrowing for the lad

oh my fair haired lad
you have made me sad
my trouble lies in me here
and sadness around me all my cares
lad of the lovely hair
sorrow is now my share

I woke this morning in a negative frame of mind,after yesterday thinking I had come to some understanding.

Thought is conditioned. As we watch the breath rising in our bodies another breath comes to matcH it. In,out ...the conditioned cycle of response. One inhalation leads to the next.

So too thoUght.if I think something do these thoughts rise because of conditioning? Yes my thoughts of how wonderful past days might have been have arisen because maybe the winter isn't there just now. My thoughts of summer gone are dependent on winter coming.

I bring up mindsets. I am,say, angry or depressed because have known these things before and they have left residue in my mind . Therefore it is easy to recreate them. Perhaps the residues of joy and positivity are less well implanted and so do not rise so readily. Yet discipline is all. We do not have to go with the anger,the depression. We breathe into it to learn of its true nature. If I think sad,I am sad though there may not be sadness around me.

These things have I become and these things I undo. They do not define me. For myself does not exist except as a conventional tag to fit into everyday reality more easily. Yesterday I understood these things and everything was peaceful

So when I wake and the thrum of a dark cloud is there with its repetitive drone, have I undone that which I have started ? No. it is rather that I become aware of just how busy my mind is...yet in this blessing ...for in knowing what's there we move back to the point of concentration and try again until balance reasserts.

It is not the contempaltion of karma that is my tyranny. It is my mind. Bless us all as we learn to tame this inner tiger.

Woke I early

Adapted from the Scots Gaelic of Mary Macpherson

Woke I early on a May morning there
A little sadness was in my heart
The cattle lowing in their belly I heard
And the sun rising on the higher part
Of all the mountains around me lofty.
The night was taken off by the ray of day
And high above landscape a lark songs came to me
And youth returned in memory on my way

To remember what things did I then .
Some things I could not recall accurately
The winter work, and traipsing to weddings when
Peat guided us, no lamp there for me
In the song and the dances of lively youth.
It is away and sad the lonely valley now seems
When I look at Andy's house gone to ruin
Recall how young I was in remembered things

As I walked each high hill and low valley
Where once to fold the cows I did, I had
No cares then. Those happy young men were taken from me
Our natives driven without any claim, clearance made,
Where I used to clip the corn with joy in my heart
Rushes molded to the earth the expanse of the moor land...
If only I could again see the houses rebuilt in finer part
If only lightness of heart to hold again in my hand...

Simplicity and/or contentment?

Is sex better than meditation? Possibly. Is meditation better than sex? Possibly. Both contain the possibility of uniting, harmonising our psychic energies.
One of precepts as we learn to explore Buddhist teaching is the third precept to refrain from unskilful sexual practice. This is not to deny the joy of it or its inclusion in a healthy lifestyle. Rather it is about learning where our own limitations lie…and what can impact on others by actions taken. If it feels good do it may easily be taken as anything goes and such license may convince us of the joy seemingly implicit in hedonism. Yet celibacy I have found too difficult an option.
If it feels good and it helps, it may be ok to entertain the juncture that when love calls we should follow and love is certainly beyond morality. That the Buddha teaches clearly.
But I am a westerner, in part brought up on romantic diet. The bigger picture is always important. It is skilful to know where we are at in regard to this third precept, not to gain enlightenment…that might too might be a craving…but to have principles that minimise the discontented life and point us in the direction of a happier one.
I love is a simple definition of myself…what I do with that love is mine… yet I would hope to be guided by wisdom. Simplicity is the key and love itself is simple. It asks nothing.
I am working out my response to this third precept myself. Peace to all on the journey!

Song to the Future Love

I told my love all my heart
And poor thinking, thought he'd go away
He understood the discomfort of the smart
And kissed for a brighter day

He said "Never hold the notion unclear
That life difficult keeps us rent asunder
The promise of gold still holds good here
And forever calm after thunder"

Is love that never run smooth the lie that holds
Our mind when our heart runs too glad deeper?
He told me that brass must turn to gold
Obstacles dissolve into inevitable forever

The course is run through daily division
And yet the ties cut through even more certainty
That love will tame even this unruly sun
To beacon home all metal made of constancy

I shall run as fool if needed, but not fool
For heart not roaming from native grass.
I am beyond love and still in love. The rule
Is broken...

But not the loveliness in which my metal is cast...

HAVE JUST TRIED TO SUBMIT SOMETHING AND IT HAS AUTOMATICALLY GONE INTO DRAFT. IT TELLS ME THE DRAFT IS KEPT IN THE BACKOFFICE. ANY IDEA WHAT THIS MEANS AND HOW I MAY RETRIEVE THE FILE? JOHN

Joplin is on the radio. The scream of her blues,the descent into rock and roll madness, point me to consider the art form. The screech of her voice captures her moment...and I think to myself...what is blues?. Holliday said the blues ain't nothing but a good man gone bad. One might say that of theatrical tragedy. For me the blues is a tWelve bar or an eight bar of urban poetry, words supported by a prevalent musical structure. One can tire of the sameness of the structure at timeS but when one breaks out one can see the rightness of it, a statement of personal angst, a wail of predicament...the blues ain't nothing but a good man gone bad. Perhaps by identifying with the message we can learn of our common humanity...

THE fourth Noble Truth is principally about how we can make our lives better,how we can develop ease and confidence in our approach to things. Its ultimate aim in providing a methodology is of course enlightment but I believe enlightenment follows when you just live as best you can with the advice offered in this truth without becoming too hooked on the concept of nirvana. That can be heavy and leave one living too much in hope or fear.

Evrything about the method is based on direct experience. Putting things to the test.

The fourth Noble Truth has three basic components,understanding,ethics and reflection.

Right view is the basis of our understanding. Chance is that if develop negative states of mind then our reality will reflect that.

Yet is it is not easy to replace skilful approach where there has been unskilful mindsets. Our conditioning predisposes each of us differently to things we have to face...thus reflection or meditation. How can we know what is there is if we are not prepared to look?

Ethics is basically a soUnd way of relating to the world so that we may develop a sounder way of relation. Thus right speech, right action are indicated. This can all sound very simplistic and in essence it is. It is our habitual mindset that would undo the simplicity of approach

TakE care everyone...I find the methodology hard myself because of the conditioning of my life pattern, my personal energy, my history. Yet it doesn't deny the truth of the approach though it may be that it becomes theoretical, rather than something we put in to action. I have to remind myself everyday to think on the aplication of these things...with Metta...that noble search for compassion to myself and others which can be so elusive...

we go on...Such a journey! What a journey!

Bilingual Poem

Gwrid unwaith o garwr a ges
Ond dwywaith yma cymhleth
er nad yw'r cariad i minnau.
Sut caf i lwybr am ddryllio'r cadwynau...
eto mae o'n dal sillaf serchus
ac adduned mai fi yw'r un, er iddo bell

Ymrwymo naeth i frechferch sy'n pwyso
priodasfab perffaith rhwng ei breichiau hithau
ond ailadrodd mae o ddydd i ddydd y cariad ganddo
cariad i mi heb i ninnau gael ein cydio

Drachefn i'th garu o hyd ac o hyd
er waetha gormesgariad rhyngon ni
cymeryd eto dy loywlaw y bydda i
a throi at yr wybren hynt 'y nghofid i

Once there was blushing in him left
but now time is doubly complex
there is not the love I craved
what road to take to smash the chains?
He keeps words syllabic tender
I am his one though kept asunder

He has promised to wed a pockled girl
to husband her in arms opened there;
but repeats daily of his enduring love
love that strikes to continue with me a fool

Still to love from day to day
with oppressive passion our share,
I will again his shining hand take
turn to the heaven with sorrow's path there

I have said that from Gotama's point of view,there is dissatisfaction in things and there is a cause to these things:ignorance and craving.
Ignorance here is quite simply that we do not know what reality really is,only what we deem it to be.
Craving is wanting things to be other than what they are. We become attached to ideas, places, people,events and this causes pain.
Indeed when confronted with anything we can have three responses.
We like it-which may lead to attachment of it(craving)
We don't like it-which may lead to pushing it away(aversion)
The third point is that we may have no response(be neutral,indifferent)
Although with these things there is the level of degree,reflection should show us that these responses clearly do operate in regard to things we are presented with.
1. The first Noble T...That suffering or dissatisfaction exists
2. The second Noble T...There is a cause to dissatisfaction i.e. not seeing things as they really are(ignorance)
3.The third Noble T...there is an exit from dissatisfaction by beginning to change viewpoint.

Nirvana,enlightenment are ponderous ideas. We should stay with curiosity and our ability to reflect on things. We cannot escape life. It is not intended that we do so.
In my next blog-the fourth Noble Truth- I will hint(I can only hint)at the methodology the Buddha advises we use to move away from ignorance of the way of things;we mould a reality view by the idea of a finite,separate self.

Be courageous on your path my friends. It is largely intuitive. Different for each of us but inherently we are all the same;we are One. Keep well.