Undeceivable - nature, zen and sliding

All is Zazen

One day, when time-travel exists (well, if it will ever exist it exists now) I will go back and thank everyone who taught me how to sit Zazen. Because without it, I mistake my thoughts for the centre of my world. And with it, some space reveals itself, to not be so self-centered.

I tried to explain what being deceived meant in relation to Zen the other day to a good friend. And I couldn't think of an example. But that's my answer there in good old Fight Club fashion: you are not your thoughts. Not your thoughts of how good you are or how rubbish your are. Not any of them. Not even these thoughts of not being your thoughts. 

I get the feeling this goes totally against what most sane people think or want to follow. But I get the feeling it's what I want to follow.

So follow, I will.

Nice day here. 

You Won't Always Feel Like This

It's very rare that I have an interesting thought during Zazen. Usually I'm either trying to just stay upright or just letting go of a stream of random nonsense. But tonight, as I found myself inside a particular train of thought, I suddenly realised that I could jump off the train. And also, that the feelings that accompanied those thoughts would not be there forever. "You won't always feel like this" I thought. 

That's a common thing for me: getting caught by stuff which a bit further down the line seems totally unimportant.

Maybe it's good to try and see a problem from your future.

A Small Smile

I'm reading Seeds for a Boundless Life by Zenkei Blanche Hartman. It's a nice and simple book. In it she recommends smiling...not a big inane grin, but a small smile.

Now, I've heard people recommend this before and have always run a mile from that advice: Zen, for me, is all about being exactly how you are right now, not forcing yourself to feel something you're not. But, Hartman is lovely, so I'm giving it a go.

A very small smile whenever I remember. And it does something, that's for sure. 

Balloon of Happiness*

On the way to yoga today, I had a thought which, I thought, when I thought it, that's quite a wise thought. And this is what I thought:

If the basis of your current feeling of happiness is based on something outside of you, drop it**

This might sound a bit extreme to most people who have no interest in Zen. It's pretty common to hear of people saying to let go of harmful feelings or worries though. But all these buildings we create with our thoughts and feelings will fall no matter what they are, happy or sad. And by drop, I don't mean, get rid of...just don't keep on thinking them, building upon them, turning them into megastructures upon which you base your life. Which is what I tend to do...

This is probably inspired by Kosho Uchiyama's Opening the Hand of Thought, which is pretty much the best book on Zen I've ever read. To paraphrase...no, I won't, just read it yourself.

*Originally my metaphor was blowing up a balloon, but deleted that and went for a building, but forgot to delete the title.

**I have to add a disclaimer to these sorts of posts. I like writing about these sorts of things but am often talking rubbish which I look back on and think, ooh, that's stupid.

Ryokan's Hut

My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest;
Every year the green ivy grows longer.
No news of the affairs of men,
Only the occasional song of a woodcutter.
The sun shines and I mend my robe;
When the moon comes out I read Buddhist poems.
I have nothing to report, my friends.
If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after
so many things.

– Ryokan

Lately, I've been going for late evening walks into the local wood, hoping to see a tawny owl. I haven't been successful yet but I'll keep trying. I've also been trying to find a place to rent but also haven't been successful. I'll keep trying. 

One day I'll have my own place and will let the ivy grow too. But will also check Facebook a little too often.

The Garden Life

Most of my customers at the moment are customers whose gardens I have chosen. By that I mean, I don't take on customers whose gardens I don't like aside from some older customers who need help for some reason. So the bulk of my working days are spent working on places I'm interested in. I know a lot of gardeners who take on every job that they are offered but you don't really need to: there is so much work that I find I can pick and choose! I've kept my hours pretty low compared to most gardeners as after about 6 hours a day I'm usually exhausted and losing the will to live. But as I look to renting, I'm going to have to do a couple more hours a day. Myabe I just need to drink more water!

Anyway, so most jobs involve me going around and doing what I want! My customers know I'm organic and interested in wildlife, so they give me free riegn in most areas. I'm really into my gardening and read a lot of myth-busting sort of books (Ken Thompson's being my favourite), but I'm no expert. However, the gardens I work on look OK and my attempts at making compost, no-digging, use of cardboard to suppress weed, etc seem to be working. An experienced gardener who I occassionally work with mostly just critisizes what I do and remarked that my homemade compost had a lot of sticks in it. I'm not using it to sow seeds in, so I really don't see the problem! As a slightly ugly mulch, it works fine! And I let some shrubs take on their natural shape rather than hacking them all the time into nice shapes...

I sowed cornfield annuals in a patch last year and they looked lovely:

In Autumn I cut them down, raked over a little, did a bit of hand weeding and left the patch. I planted some alliums a while later and now it looks like this:

Loads of dead nettle came up as well as hairy bittercress but mostly it's just a carpet of corn chamomile with the odd cornflower. Which is OK! The bees are loving the dead nettle and the corn chamomile will grow through the weeds. The advice is to sow again each year but it was nice to see what would win in the self-sowing battle. Turns out it's weeds and corn chamomile.

I'm also doing a cutflower garden for a customer. Again, I just do it my way: two raised beds, cardboard on the bottom and pile my compost on top. For more permanent plants I'd think about the soil more, but for annuals, I think the compost will be fine. I have plenty of little plants on their way in the greenhouse:

Not the tomatoes obviously, but pot marigolds, cosmos, sweet peas, zinnias, tithonia, amberboa, and asters. It could be nice!

Hmm. That was basically a post to show what the cornfield annuals look like in their second year without re-sowing. The rest was waffle. 

Yoga + Zazen = ?

I've been sitting Zazen pretty consistently now for over 10 years. The kind of Zen meditation I do is called shikantaza, literally meaning, just sitting. It's the only kind of meditation that made sense to me as it doesn't involve any tricks, no object to focus on, no mantras, no goal. I like this natural approach, as I've often found that the normal mind as it is, is perfectly fine! Sure, mine is full of rubbish, but the underlying essence is fine and just sitting there off and on, I can feel it. 

This type of Zen is like one posture of Yoga, which according to the book I'm reading 'The Spritual Teachings of Yoga' by Jo Manuel and Mark Forstater, originated over 6000 years ago, well before Buddhism. Sitting in the lotus posture with the back straight and meditating isn't unique to Buddhism. I knew this before reading this book, but it has got me re-thinking the place Zazen has in my life. Zazen, although a physical and mental practice feels mostly like a mental one to me. And the authors highlight another point I hadn't really thought about: to paraphrase, the mind influences the body and the body influences the mind. Supposedly the Yogis realized that just focusing solely on the mind wasn't enough to bring about any sort of liberation and that spiritual seekers would often regress to old habits contained within the body. On the surface, this may sound a bit lofty, but it makes sense to me. No amount of sitting still will stop the tendency to slouch when walking or sit with shoulders hunched because the body has habits just like the mind has habits. The body tenses up when the mind is anxious. But also, when the body is tense, the mind is tense too. Yoga teachers often talk about stress being located in the hips, shoulders, etc and a part of me always thinks, er, nope, it's in my mind. But we're not mind and body. We're mindbody: where everything in the body influences and is influenced by everything else.

The Zen monks of old always had trouble with their bodies because pretty much all they did, was sit. I wonder why Buddhism didn't assimilate more of yoga into the practice. The Shaolin monks did, with their kung-fu...and a lot of the Zen centres in America now seem to have a lot of yoga incorporated into sesshins and retreats, but any practice I've done in Japan or here has been focused on sitting still with limited concern for what the body is up to. It seems like a sensible middle way to have some physical practice too working on the body. I seem to remember Ryokan or Hakuin incorporating some massaging into their practice but that's about it...

Anyway, I'm doing 3 Yoga classes a week now and am really enjoying it: I like things to make sense and doing both Yoga and Zazen makes sense to me.

Damn it: didn't put any jokes in this post...

Ridgeway Walk Day 4

I was a bit nervous about this last day, walking 18 miles into Wendover. Walking the Ridgeway is not difficult, but each adventure, however small, is an adventure into the unknown and I wasn't entirely convinced my feet would carry me that far. To give myself extra peace of mind I left at 6:30, walking the first hour or so in total darkness.

The little patch of light is from my headtorch. It felt exciting to be walking in woodland in the dark. Once the sun started to rise, this section to Wendover revealed itself to be one of most pleasant of the 4 days. The Chilterns are a wonderful mix of wooded valleys and rolling hills.

There's a steep descent through the woods that leads to the Plough at Cadsden pub where I saw David Cameron having a beer.

I wasn't definite it was him until I looked at my guidebook and read that Chequers was just up the road.

By about 1pm I was 6 miles from Wendover so knew I would make it with plenty of time to spare, so I had a proper rest and lunch. Up until now I'd only rested for 5 or 10 minutes every now and then, so it was great to have a proper sit down. I wanted to make my Ridgeway walk a bit of a challenge and I enjoy doing things a bit differently. At times I even jogged! Having said that, it's also nice to take it easy and rest...

I arrived in Wendover at 15:30 and was greeted by my parents. Wendover was lovely and the perfect end to a lovely walk. We had hot chocolates in a chocolatier in the high street to celebrate my 62 miles in 4 days.

All in all I had a fantastic time walking the Ridgeway trail. It was a lot more impressive than I had imagined. The scenery was awesome at times with hillsides rising a lot more extremely than the traditional image of the English countryside. It was also fairly remote in parts in that all I could see around me were fields, woodland and hills. My blisters made the final stages of most days an endurance test which was fine but did mean that I couldn't really enjoy my surroundings as much as I would have liked to. But, talking to fellow hikers along the way was always a joy no matter how painful my feet felt. 

This is the second time I've walked part of a long distance trail and I really like doing them: you get into a rhythm walking day in day out and the mind just focuses on walking, which is a really nice feeling. In spring I'd like to either do the West Highland Way or do some of the GR10 in the Pyrenees. Bring on the golden eagles!

Ridgeway Walk Day 3

I'd inadvertently pushed my rucksack up against the tent in the porch area, creating a gap through which the wind could blow into the sleeping area. I only noticed in the morning so spent most of the night wondering why it was so draughty!

Anyway, it's so exciting being out on an adventure, it didn't bother me. After I'd packed all my stuff away, I got going. After an hour or so of not really knowing whether I was on the trail or not, I saw the Ridgeway acorn which took me up into a wood and onwards into more delightful scenery.

It was blowing a gale though! This part of the walk was lovely along an iron age mound known as Grim's Ditch through woodland and then up into Nuffield where this sign awaited me in the church.

I'd been walking for a good couple of hours by now in the strong wind and felt tired. When I saw this sign, I was so happy. Hot coffee, cakes, a rest in a warm church: perfect! I had a chocolate roll, a piece of Christmas cake and a cup of coffee. I left my donation in the box and headed on my way, thankful for Nuffield church's hospitality.

The rest of the day's walk was lovely again, walking across big rolling fields, into woodland and past grand estates.

I reached Watlington by two and even though I'd shortened my walk to around 10 miles my feet ached so much on the road down into town, I had to keep stopping. I could see the town but couldn't quite make it in one go. I booked myself into the Fat Fox pub and b&b and enjoyed 2 baths, a beer and cheeseburger and chips. Tomorrow would be a long day: 18 miles to Wendover.

Miles: 10 miles on weary feet.

Day 4 coming up...

 

My Ridgeway Walk Part 2

Day Two: Sparsholt Firs to Streatley

I woke up well before the sun and donned my headtorch, without which I'd probably have left most things behind! Setting off in the dark was fun: sleeping in the woods is great but in wet, wintry weather I couldn't wait to get back on the path and keep walking and soaking up the scenery...

 

This first section, as dawn was breaking, was wonderful. The Devil's Punchbowl and Crowhole Bottom are stunning, forming impressive craters in the land. I met many people up on the wide chalky path out for a post-Christmas walk and it was lovely to be out so early.

The views really open up too.

After 5 hours of walking, my feet were starting to hurt. I had blisters from the day before under my heels so I naturally adjusted my gait, the result being that now my calves and the balls of my feet ached! I tried to walk normally ignoring the pain each time I placed my heel on the ground, but I'd forget and continue walking with a slight limp. The way down into Streatley itself was really painful and I walked a bit like an old Japanese lady wearing geta after a long day in the rice fields. Everything overtook me.

When I finally reached the Thames at Streatley I was exhausted but happy. Unfortunately it was another 5 miles or so to my campsite! I was tempted to just book into a b&b for the night but managed to find a bus that could get me there in 20 minutes. After downing a bottle of Tango, a Bounty and a packet of Squares, I boarded this wonderful invention.

I pitched up at my campsite just outside Wallingford, had a hot shower then went and had a beer at a lovely pub by the river.

It's a nice feeling, strolling into a cosy country pub after a long and tiring day on the hills. It really felt like I deserved my bottle of beer.

Miles: 18.5 on foot. 5 by bus.

Day 3 coming up...