It’s all a bit weird…

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Its all a bit weird and strange isn’t it?  The world is suddenly a very different place.  Our lives have changed radically .  A lot of what we were used to doing we can no longer do.  A strong lesson in impermanence!

I must admit it all threw me off course for a little while.  I must admit to not taking this virus seriously enough at first – I never really believed that it would be this dangerous and as widespread. I always try to look at things calm without catastrophising.   Obviously I was completely wrong! It is something to take very seriously indeed.

I am okay at home.  I had a very stressful and worrying few days when I thought that I would have to leave here and go elsewhere.  Fortunately I have a lovely friend who was fully prepared to welcome myself, my two cats and my dog into her home.  I think that we are both truly thankful that that didn’t happen.  We get on very well – but her flat is very small!  I miss my girls who are with their Dad.  However, I know that they are safe and looked after.  And we have FaceTime, texts etc.  I am okay here with Pretzel, JD and Smirnoff.  Pretzel and I have just had our one trip out for a walk for the day on Bexhill beach staying well away from others.  The cats come and go as they always do – they are currently asleep on Callie’s bed.  It is actually really lovely to have space and time to read, sew, crochet, meditate, watch a bit of TV and just be.  Life can get very hectic normally.

I do feel sorry for those who feel very isolated and alone though.  It must be very tough for those who haven’t got access to the Internet and / or people checking in on them.  I am also in awe of those wonderful people working in hospitals and care homes risking their lives in many cases and working extremely hard.  Also those working in supermarkets having to deal with stressed shoppers looking for toilet rolls and pasta.  There are a lot of people (Keyworkers) still working very hard.

And what about those poor teenagers who have spent the last couple of years studying hard for GCSEs and A Levels?   This must have thrown them a bit of a curve ball!

This is making me realise what is important to me.  Family, friends, a safe place to live. I am fortunate that I don’t mind a simple life. I enjoy being on my own. I have time to meditate, read, sew, work on a spreadsheet for the local hospice. When we get back to “normality” I hope that I continue to live spaciousness, calmly and peacefully.

If this hadn’t of happened; if we were living normally – not in lockdown – I would have been at my Sangha evening earlier.  I was planning to build a shrine to Amoghasiddhi, the fearless dark green Buddha of the North.  Instead I sat at home, in my caravan, and worked on a spreadsheet.

So this evening, I consider myself to be lucky.  The caravan site hasn’t closed its doors to us.  I have a home; I have food; I have my pets.  I can talk to family and friends on line.  I can read, sew, sleep comfortably.  I can play Zoo Tycoon, watch Law and Order SVU.  Once a day I can take my Pretzel out for a walk.  I can meditate, reflect and continue my study of the Five Buddha Mandala.

I am not sure that I would be taking it all so well a couple of years ago. The Three Jewels help me to stay balanced and calm. This human life is precious. It is full of suffering and impermanence but it is precious and can be joyful.

Simple pleasures

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Life has been hard lately.  People I love are going through really difficult times.  It is sometimes  a challenge to keep remembering that things will change and that life won’t always be that way for them, or for me.  When life’s inevitable suffering seems stronger than usual, it can seem impossible to relax and enjoy anything; especially when there is a lot to do.

Today I am reminded that life is beautiful and precious.  A change of scenery has challenged my slightly jaded outlook.  I am staying temporarily (not for long) in a flat on Eastbourne seafront.  It’s such a beautiful flat.  And it has a bath!  I do miss having baths.  The view from the window is amazing and I walk out of the door straight onto the seafront.

Don’t get me wrong.  I adore my caravan.  It is home.  It has enabled me to change my life – at least for a little while.  And I am missing my daughters, my dog and my cats.  It is quite strange to be completely on my own.  But it is lovely to just be.  It is so pleasant to be able to leave the car and just walk to places (even though finding a place to park it in the first place was a bit fraught!).  Sitting here I can hear the sea and the church bells.

I know that I am particularly jittery and unsettled at the moment.  I find it difficult just to sit and reflect; meditation is nigh on impossible.  But I am hoping that this couple of weeks (with a few days of visiting family in the middle) will help to calm me.

Last night on the way to and from Dharma Study I walked along the seafront listening to music.  It was lovely.   I must do more of that.

 

 

Mindfulness on a dog walk

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My first posts were about my Pretzel walks.  I remember writing about what I had seen and experienced as I walked.  So a return to this today.

I have been forgetting to be mindful – present as much as I can in all I do.  So for the past few days I have been making an extra special effort.  Whether it be eating my dinner, washing up, talking to a friend, watching “Eat, Pray Love” (Julia Roberts – Always a winner), I have tried to be more present in them.  Not letting my mind wander off on to other things, not checking Facebook, not looking at my “To Do” List.

So this morning I tried extra hard to be “in” my morning walk with Pretzel.  It is amazing how much I noticed.  There are a few brightly coloured flowers out in some plots which are just lovely to look at.  The trees with the sky as a backdrop were so crisp and present this morning.  Some of the plots on my morning route are so beautiful to look at – their owners obviously spend a lot of time tending them.  Being present makes even the mundane more interesting.  I do the same Pretzel walk every day – and usually I am cold and half asleep,  The walk was so much more enjoyable this morning.  I had snuck in 20 minutes Meditation before Pretzel woke up (yes she is a dog not a baby) and was very chilled and present as a result.  I had actually felt good after that meditation – meditation does not come naturally to me so I take that as a win.

So this morning I stopped to say “Hello” to a couple of people with their dogs – a lovely lab and a small bichon frise in a brightly coloured knitted jumper.  I  gave my usual greeting to the gold coloured Buddha in a plot not far from here.  I took a detour to smile at the skeletons on the battered decking owned by an older, rather eccentric man (a very kind and friendly person),

I didn’t take my phone with me as I walk around the site so no pictures of this walk….  But maybe tomorrow.  So instead – a photo of Pretzel my Pug / Chinese Crested Cross (Pugese).

 

Beauty and Urgency Part One

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I went on a retreat in November for 10 days at the absolutely amazing and breathtaking Taraloka.  It was a retreat based around the Four Reminders which I have talked about before in this blog;  a retreat called “Beauty and Urgency”.

It was a very special retreat for me… a lot of firsts!  The first retreat which wasn’t led by Order Members (friends) who I know well.  The first retreat where I knew no one.  It was a longer retreat than I had done before – 10 days compared to the 4 done over the Easter weekend.  It was my first retreat for those who are working towards Ordination.  My first women only retreat….  So many firsts.

The retreat was so powerful for me.  A lot of time spent in silence; hours spent in meditation; time spent “just sitting” and reflecting.  I learnt such a lot about me; about my previous (and present) patterns of behaviour.  I learnt more about the Dharma.  And I realised – again – how much I love this Buddhist life.  The women on the retreat – both the Order Members who led it and my fellow retreatants – were so warm and beautiful; their love sustains me still.   The retreat was also a reminder of how far I have to travel.

I had all of these plans, these expectations of how I would be on my return.  How I would be acting, what I would be doing.  Life was going to be calmer yet more full.  I would be living according to the beauty that is this life, and the urgency caused by its very impermanence.  I even had plans for this blog – posts I would write….

Expectations!  Expectations are dangerous things.  They can arrive quickly and easily then laugh in your face.

For a whole host of reasons life has not been as I expected since my return and I have not (until today) implemented many of the plans I had made.  My mind has been all over the place.   I spent some time last week beating myself up about this, feeling the usual guilt arise.  But now – I just accept what it is.  I cannot change what is happening; I cannot change the last few weeks.  However, I can change my reactions to it all and I can resolve to act differently now.

My brain is beginning to function again.  I am starting to go through all of the notes which I made on retreat.  I am beginning to look through my photos.  So this is the first (I hope) of a series of posts about my retreat at Taraloka.

 

 

 

Happy first birthday to Becoming More Tee

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Well it has been a year!  A year ago today I wrote my first blog post.  It was about my walk with Pretzel.

I remember that weekend well.  I had been very miserable – lots of things were not going as I thought that they should!  I was in danger of giving in to it all and wallowing in sadness and depression.  But that Saturday morning I woke up and decided that things had to change.  I had to look at things differently.   I had to change what I could change and find a way of accepting what I couldn’t.  I spent most of the weekend setting up this blog.  Things hadn’t changed – the situation was still the same but I made up my mind to think differently about it all.

The mind is everything; what you think you become

Things have changed a bit since then. Everything is impermanent; nothing stays the same.   Some things I have managed to change for the better.  Some situations just got worse and new things are always surfacing.    Life is not perfect – but it never will be.  But I am handling it all better – well, most of the time.

I have just reread the “About Me” blurb for this blog.  I was considering rewriting it.  But – no!  It all still stands.  I am still on this incredibly difficult but exciting journey.  I still wander off my path all too often but get back to it and continue walking.  The man who showed me this path is, sadly, no longer very present in my life.  He reappears briefly now and then.  However, I am still so grateful to him.  I would not be where I am today without him.

I know that I haven’t been posting as much as I used to.  That isn’t because I am losing interest.  It is more that there are lots of things that I am still processing.  My thoughts are often not clear enough to be able to write about them in any coherent way.  But there are things coming up that I know I will want to write about so I am sure that there will be more posts soon.

 

 

 

Why hasn’t the bird stepped out of her cage and flown to freedom (Part 3)

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Convention  Realisation!

All of the reasons for living the life that I was living are all tied up together like a bag of tangled wool.  I did what I thought I should do because of fear, because of fear of going against convention which all led to a distinct lack of imagination.  Now I am not berating myself for that any more.  I chose what I chose and I have had  / am having such a good life overall.   My intention here is not to look back and feel regret but to learn from what it all.  I want to live a life in which I am true to what I want and which is helpful to others.  I am trying to live less selfishly and more open to the needs of other people. I need to feel a certain amount of freedom to be able to do this.

What I do not want to do is to continue around the same wheel.  I need to get off the wheel and start the spiral; in fact I have, I think, stepped a little off the wheel.  I just have to live mindfully and make decisions carefully;  I cannot afford to slip backwards!

I know that I have lived a lot of my life according to how I think I should live.  Convention; what is right.  I was brought up to think that the aim of life is to get a reasonable job, get married, have children and go on holiday once a year.  That’s what my parents wanted for me.  Now – they wanted that for me because that is the right way to live but also because they were so happy living that way.   My Mum and Dad lived for each other and for their family and friends.  Because that was the way in which they wanted to live, their life left them free to help others.  They were always doing things for others.  My Mum still does whatever she can although her ability to do this is restricted now.  There must be a lot of elderly people in Hereford who are missing the hot meals and cakes which Mum used to make for them.

This post started off looking at convention and my need to conform.  But, just now I have changed the title to “Realisation”.  As I was writing about my Mum and Dad, I saw that they chose the life they led in many ways – it was the life they wanted!  Ok, they were, as we all are, constrained by circumstances such as lack of money, illness …  but they did live authentically.  They were true to themselves.   And part of that life was looking after family and friends.

I  keep talking in the past tense.  Over the last couple of years, life changed so much for them and now Mum is on her own.  The life that she was living with Dad has gone.  But my Mum still carries on living life as fully as she can.  Her friendships continue; her faith continues; her determination not to wallow in sadness and grief continues.  My Mum still cares for the people around her and does what she can to make their day better whether they are the Home Staff, fellow residents, family or friends.  There are such a lot of lessons to be learnt from my Mum.

 

Why hasn’t the bird stepped out of her cage and flown to freedom (Part 2)

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FEAR!

I was talking with a friend – well messaging via Whatsapp actually rather than talking – yesterday and this morning.  This friend is an amazing man and always makes me think more deeply about myself and my life.  He is the one who introduced me to Buddhism in the first place so has witnessed a lot of my growth, frustrations, my journey.  He knows me very well, better than anyone in some ways.  Anyway as we were messaging I began to realise how much fear has played and is still playing in my life.  I knew that it was there (as discussed in Part 1 of this [possibly grandly named] mini series; but I hadn’t fully experienced how deeply seated it is.

In embracing Buddhism I have had to look deeply into myself and face what I am, how I have got to be how I am and accept it; not only accept it but to try to feel compassion and love (Metta) towards myself.  There is a lot in that which I won’t unpack completely here – it would take a book or two!   But what is relevant is this:  Buddhists believe that there is no set self as such.  The self is ever changing.  I might repeat the same behaviours, feel the same things etc over and over again but that is not because I am a set self.  When I studied the Self at University all of those years ago, the idea of a set self seemed prevalent and that is what I believed at the time: I am who I am; I may be able to tweak myself but I cannot fundamentally change. I seem to remember writing a few essays on the subject all with the same conclusion.  But now I see that I am who I am because of conditioning and how I have reacted to situation and events.   This means that I can change. Just saying “that’s who I am; I cannot change” does not cut it any more.

Back to the fear thing!  I think that fear has manifested itself and continues to try to manifest itself in many ways.  Fear of looking deep inside myself and facing what I might find; fear of doing something that is not conventional / not normal; fear of doing something new; fear of being someone new; fear of being alone; fear of doing things alone…..  So many ways in which fear has played a part in my life.  So many times I have moved towards a more authentic life, a life more suited to me – and so many times fear has played a part in pushing me right back on the same old path.

But not this time!  Now is the time when I accept the fears.  Accept that I am afraid.  Now is the time to confront those fears and to question them.  Look them in the eye.  I have made steps this year on my journey down this different path.  And I know that I need to rest here for a little while to do what I need and positively want to do now.  I need to work on myself, learn more about this Buddhist path that I am on and to reflect.  What I don’t need to do is to give in to my fears and go back to the same old well-trodden path to which I have always returned.

I have mentioned the fears involved in facing myself and what I am at the moment.  It means taking a long hard look at my reactions to events and situations over the years.  It can be so extremely uncomfortable to do this!  My past  behaviours, actions and emotions were often so flawed, so unskilful.  And yes – they often still are; I am just slightly better at using the gap between the event and my possible reactions to it.

Yes – fear has definitely helped to keep the bird in its cage.  I may have stepped outside of it a few times in the past but fear has pulled me right back in.  Now is the time to step outside and look around.  Ready for flight.

A year ago

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I posted the picture at the top of this post onto my Instagram account a year ago. I look all smiley don’t I? I had just had my hair cut and coloured and loved it. But … at that time I wasn’t having the best time to say the least! What was happening? Well…

I was in a job which no longer gave me much satisfaction. I loved and admired many of the people I worked with but the job itself had changed. I was never made to be at the computer all day everyday! The service had changed; Children’s Centres were not as they were; families were not helped as they used to be; Health Visiting is still universal but….

There was a lot going on with my family and friends. Much illness and suffering. I felt that I was not able to help and support them as much as I should.

I was living through the long tortuous end to a relationship which, although short lived in time, was very precious to me.

But there were flashes of light! I had been going to the Sangha Evening for a couple of months and was making friends there. I was beginning to see myself as a Buddhist and knew that this was where I wanted to be. I was yet to take the step into becoming a Mitra but I knew this would happen some day.

Since then! I have become a Mitra and am now training for Ordination. I have sold my house and now live in a caravan which I love. My eldest daughter did fabulously in her GCSEs and is now at college. My other daughter is homeschooled which is much better for her. I left my job and am fortunate enough to be able to not work for a while.

Sad things happened … incredibly sad. My Dad becoming ill and passing away; my Mum having to move into a home. My childhood house is being sold. My Mum is so strong though and is making the most of her life.

So yes – a lot has happened since I posted that picture. It’s strange to think that, at that time – I hadn’t even had the thought of selling my house and leaving my job !

Nothing is permanent; everything changes

Why hasn’t the bird stepped out of her cage and flown to freedom (Part 1)

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I haven’t written a blog post for a little while – mainly because I have been thinking and pondering about my life – how I have got to where I am and where I am going next.  It’s a big subject!  But it needs exploring because, otherwise, I am in danger of continuing to go round on the same wheel again and again and again.  I have started to write pieces for this blog but – as I write – I realise something new every time….  And I have had to start again!

I have started reading a book by a Buddhist Order Member called Manjusvara – “Writing Your Way”.  Manjusvara means “Gentle Music” – what a lovely name to be given at ordination!  He runs writing courses called “The Wolf at the Door” which I would love to attend one day.    His basic premise is that writing is much more than the finished article ready for publication; through writing the person discovers hidden dimensions of themselves.  In the forward, his friend says that Manjusvara is:

“a man who fully lives his philosophy, whose daily life is an enactment of his core beliefs.  That is why this book will be of great interest to all those who are trying to live emotionally richer and more harmonious lives in a world dogged by materialism and pressure to conform!”

So I have been using writing to explore the decisions that I have made.  I am not exploring them in order to feel guilty or to feel regrets or to imagine what would have happened if I had made different choices – there is little point in that.  No – I am looking at the motivations behind my decisions.  I am looking to see if there is a trend, a common thread.  If there is a link, then maybe I can step off the roundabout and make different choices in the future.

So I look to the decisions that I have made.  And, actually, some of those decisions were damned brave!  Took courage…  took a lot of sparkle!  Looking back – those were my best ones.  Other decisions were not as great – and, I think that I have some themes to explore:

  • convention. Being tied up with the ropes of convention, what I should be doing, what “normal” people do
  • fear!  The fear of making a mistake; the fear of judgement; the fear of the unknown
  • A lack of imagination.  Being only able to imagine my life being led in a certain way.

And those three things lead to a live less lived!  As the Meatloaf song says,”You’ve been living your life like a girl in a cage And you whisper when I want you to shout”.  

To come back to Manjusvara’s book – one of the exercises he sets is to think what would make a good title for your autobiography.  At the moment my thoughts are around being a bird in a cage unable to fly free- but that cage isn’t really a cage!  It is a cage built of those three things – fear, convention and my lack of imagination.  Every so often I have taken a step through the door only to turn and go back inside shutting the door behind me.

Of course, there is a lot to learn from my good decisions – or what I now see as being good decisions.  The categorisation of a decision as “good” or “bad” fluctuates over time depending on what has happened since and other factors.  And what makes a good decision or a bad decision may be affected by circumstances outside of my control….  For example, my decision to leave teaching to do a PhD did not turn out well but that was nothing to do with the original decision but things that happened later.

I am in danger of going round in circles now!  Getting myself into a muddle…   So I will leave it there!

Rambling over for today!