Quality of Listening

I came across this beautiful story narrated by the prominent Buddhist teacher and Psychologist Jack Kornfield. It touched my soul and I felt I needed to share it with my blogging friends.

"In Africa. There is a story that illustrates the quality of listening that can come through meditation.

In a particular East African tribe or village when a child is born they don't count the birthday of that child from the day the child comes from its mother’s body or even the day it is conceived as in certain other cultures, but rather from when that child was first a thought in its mothers mind, that is the real birthday.

And as soon as the mother realizes that she would like to have a child with this particular partner, she will go off and sit out in a field under a tree, and listen, and wait until she can hear the song of the child that wants to be born in her heart that will come from the wedding or the coming together with this particular man.

And when she hears this song, she sings it to herself, and then returns back to the village and teaches it to her partner so that when they make love together, joined together in love, they sing this song and invite this child to be born.

And later as she is pregnant. She sings the song to the child in the womb and teachers it to midwives so that when the child is born the first song or sound that it hears is those gathered around singing its own unique song.

And as the child grows the people of the village learn the song of this person so that when he falls or she falls and hurts herself someone picks her up and sings her song to her, or in the rites of passage or rituals of the village the song is sung, the wedding ceremony where both songs are sung until finally even at the end of life, the song of this child now as an old man or women is sung for the last time, and say their last words...

When I first heard the story in it touched in me a longing to live in a place where we heard one anothers songs, where we were so in tune with ourselves and with one another that we could greet each other in that way, to meditate allows us to hear the song within ourselves and to be respectful and hear the song of those around us."
~~ Jack Kornfield

Do you know your song? Can you hear the song of others?

Take the time to listen.


"Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we really listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created."
~~ Brenda Ueland


My gorgeous friend Joseph, one day old - August 2006. We sing his song together every week.

Gudju Gudju - The Great Rainbow Serpent

Back in the dreaming when everything was dark and cold, lost dreaming spirits were wondering the land. Gudju-Gudju, the great rainbow serpent spirit roused from his sleep decided to create a world of beauty and purpose. The process of creation began.

He rubbed the coils of his body so hard fire was created for the first time. He called on the spirit of the Kookaburra to call the sun to rise and to create the first day.

All the spirits marvelled at what stood before them. With one great flash of light they came before the Rainbow Serpent and found him pulsating with magnificent colour. The spirits were told to go into the world and to create beautiful living things, animals, birds, trees and fish.

The earth rose into shapes of mountains and hills, rivers and creeks, then he blew on the sky and his breath formed feathery white clouds. The trees began to turn various shades of green, the mountains to violet and purple, and the birds began to display colours of the rainbow.

He told his people: What you are witnessing is part of you, and you are part of it, you must respect everything you see, hear and feel. Without this respect you will drag yourselves back into the freezing darkness for all eternity. I will now sleep forever but will guard the treasures which were created this day.

Story told by Paddy Jerome an elder of the Undami people North West of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Another Aboriginal dreamtime story which is part of the curriculum that we teach to the kids who attend Mt Druitt Learning Ground in Sydney.


"Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high, There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby"


Above mural photo of a serpent taken in Treagear, Western Sydney in August 2006.

Be Here Now

When I studied Practical Philosophy for 3 years the words BE HERE NOW were repeated over and over. There was a very simple reason why these three little words became my mantra.

In the chaos of the modern world, there is a beauty in simply doing.

We’re buffeted wildly by whatever emails, conversations, news, events, demands, that are going on around us.

Our minds become a constant deluge of thoughts dwelling in the past, worries of the future, distractions pulling us in every direction.

But all of that melts away when we focus on just doing.

It doesn’t matter what the doing is: sitting, walking, writing, reading, eating, washing, talking, snuggling, playing.

By focusing on the doing, we drop our worries and anxieties, jealousies and anger, grieving and distraction.

There is something profound in that simplicity. Something ultimately heart-rendingly breath-takingly gorgeous.

So when you are caught up in the sandstorm of thoughts, feelings, to-dos, meetings, readings and communications.

Pause. Breathe. Let all of that fade.

Now focus on doing one thing, right now. Just choose one thing, and clear away all other distractions.

Seriously, clear it all away. Turn off your Internet. Stop reading this article (OK, read a couple more sentences, then close your browser!).

Let all thoughts about anything other than the doing also fade away. They’ll come up, but gently make note of them, and then let them go. And return to the doing.

If you’re washing a dish, do it slowly, and feel every sensation. If you’re eating a fruit, taste it, feel the textures, be mindful of your hunger or lack of it. If you’re writing something, pour your heart into that writing, become the writing, inhabit the words.

Just do.

The rest of the world becomes meaningless distraction. It’s just you, and your doing.

And you realize: this is all that matters. In this, there is everything.


"Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water".
~Zen Buddhist Proverb


This sign caught my eye when I was walking in Paddington, Sydney today - 7th August 2011.

A Tale of Two Writers

Once upon a time, there were two aspiring writers. The first, named Susan, wanted to write a novel and sat at her desk each day, between the hours of 8am and noon, dutifully writing her set target of 1500 words.

She wasn’t sure what her subject was yet, let alone the characters or plot, but some creative writing teacher told her that if she merely continued to put down words on the page consistently, over the weeks and months these narrative necessities would magically emerge, like a time-lapsed image of a Polaroid.

The second aspiring writer, Bruce, also wanted to write a novel. He had a few ideas about the characters involved, a vague notion of the story's turning points but wasn't sure of which point-of-view to choose, or how the drama might resolve itself.

He realised intuitively that novels aren't linear but cellular, tiny patterns of interconnnectedness that, when fully grown, form their own, unique mosaics.

Bruce didn't mind the discipline of hard work but didn't feel ready to embark on a first draft with his ideas in such an embryonic state. So, instead of writing lots and lots of words every day, trying to summon characters, motives and basic plot, Bruce kept a notebook for about a year but he didn't write in it religiously. But whenever he had a "eureka" moment - it could be on a bus, standing in line at the supermarket, or sitting on the loo - he'd scribble it down.

He didn't just jot down plot ideas or character traits; sometimes he'd draw diagrams of imaginary country towns, or the floor plan of his protagonist's house, or the genealogy of his fictional family.

Sometimes, when reading the newspaper, an item would pop out that would either inspire his subject matter or even resolve a narrative problem that had long been teasing him.

He pasted them into his notebook in no particular order, along with pictures and photographs.

Whenever he overheard something witty or intelligent he always made a note of it, in the same book, before time erased it forever. Bruce had learned the art of "writing without writing", a process that allows the imagination to wander freely; to make unconscious connections between narrative possibilities without the pressure of producing a consistent tone, a tight prose style, beautiful sentences and starting metaphors.

When it came to writing his novel, Bruce had prepared himself so well that he wrote it in six months and only had to revise it once.

Bruce was published and lived happily ever after.

Susan, however, is still at her computer, checking her word count and watching the clock!

"Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near-perfect method of writing avoidance"
~~ Dan Greenburg


Full moon 14 July 2011 taken at the front of my house in Sydney.

Foresight

I read an article recently that suggested we can make lifestyle decisions that reduce our risk of developing eye diseases like macular degeneration.

It said certain aspects of the eye are directly related to the physical body. Just like in reflexology, where they press our toes and neck pain releases, symptoms like myopia, cateracts and glaucoma are directly related to parts of the physical body such a back pain.

We can improve our own eyesight naturally, through an approach that begins with the brain.

People can have eye surgery to see clearly but the symptoms held with the brain aren't addressed.

Here is the technique that Allison Fahey, the Dorrigo based Yoga and Pilates teacher, learnt at the Yoga School of Perfect Eyesight in Pondicherry, India:

"The first thing to do is to blink regularly, to lubricate the eyes".

"We like to use our full range of movement in our joints; the eye muscles are the same".

"First look up and down, slowly.
Then look left and right.
It's quite hard as the muscles will be tight in certain areas"

"Other steps include standing in the early morning sun and swaying side to side with closed eyes and gently covering them with the palm and concentrating on seeing black"

"When you have good eyesight, you should see black only; if you see other colours, simply visualise black"

"It should be a pleasant experience".

Other suggestions include:

• Eyes tire when looking up close for long periods. When reading or using a computer, look into the distance for a couple of minutes every hour.
• Soothe tired eyes with a cool moist face cloth for 10 minutes.

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."
~~ Henri Bergson


Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney - November 2009