Welcome Home.

Adapted from a talk by Thich Nhath Hanh.

Christmas and the New Year is always a good time to meditate on our true home. The Buddha did not have a home when he was young; he was unhappy even with all the material conditions. And Jesus Christ was born a refugee and was also trying to find a home. But both the Buddha and the Christ practiced and they found a True Home. Have you got a true home, a place of comfort and ease?

When you come here you are offered a practice to help you find a home. Because home is not located in space and time. Our first fruit of the practice is often the thought: “I have arrived. I am home.” Our true home is in the here and now, in every breath and every step.

The practice of mindful breathing brings our mind in touch with our body.  Our body may be our first home. Are you in conflict with your body? We are all flowers in the garden of humanity. Do we know how to take care of our flowers? Meditation, right diet, good work, getting in touch with how to really care for our bodies, that’s a big step.

The year is ending and it is a good time to ask what we want to do with our life. If you are a couple, you may wish to sit down and discuss your dream and see how to support each other. Can we look at our relationships and see how they might be improved? That can be with a friend, a family member and ultimately ones own self. Jesus had a dream. Buddha had a dream. Krishna, Moses, Meera, Guru Nanak, Mahavira, Martin Luther King, all great spiritual leaders have had a dream.

Wherever we go, our satsang or sangha is with us. Together or alone, satsang, sangha is our home. We can practice in such a way that our family is our satsang, our sangha. We should devote our time and energy to building our true home so that we can realize our dream.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

150 Stories of Peace.

reproduced from: ‘150 stories of peace.’ the book is available through amazon or by emailing evelyn_voigt@yahoo.ca.

The Khumbha Mela, by Nathan Vanek.

Fifteen and a half million people, mostly Hindu pilgrims, collected on the banks of the Ganges River at Ahallabad. The year was 1977, and it was the Maha Kumbh Mela, a festival that happens only every twelve years.

Once I made my way to the plateau overlooking the mela grounds, I could hardly believe my eyes. Eventually, I walked down and into the crowds, walked for miles taking it all in. The Naga Babas, naked with matted hair, crouched beside the holy river to make sure they’d be the first to take the ceremonial bath each day. I saw a fellow who’d been buried up to his neck for nine days. He said hello in English as I passed. I saw a Baba with a withered arm since he’d held it aloft for many years. There were elephants, horses, cows and of course dogs running all around. There was a spirit or a pervasive vibration, so to speak, of spirituality, of oneness. I watched the people, the animals, the life, and it occurred to me that I’d never see a spectacle to match the Kumbh Mela again in this life.

It had rained hard the night before. So there was no dry place to sit and ventually, exhausted, I sort of plopped myself down right in the middle of a muddy path, leaned against a tent pole to rest, to meditate. If I fell asleep it was not any form of slumber I’d ever had before. But, when I awoke I found myself in the centre of a circle of yogis chanting mantras near a fire that lit up the night.

The peace in the camp of those yogis was palpable and so incredibly welcome. It was truly remarkable. They meditated, chanted, played their dotars, softly drummed and by the dawn a mist created a surreal and otherworldly effect. One of the yogis placed a bowl of curd and sweets in front of me that tasted as rich and wonderful as if it had come from a five-star hotel.

I’ve carried the memory of that night, the deep sense of peace, wellness, oneness, through all these years. Having been embraced so fully by complete strangers was profound. It was as if they were saying: "There’s no such thing as strangers, not really.”

the motionless foundations of eternity.

i’m at a place in my life where i feel a tremendous need to be really honest with myself. of course ‘tremendous’ may be too strong a word. i’m still quite willing to be self-deluded in some areas. for example, i can’t shake the feeling that women find me fabulously attractive. i’m just sayin. but i do nevertheless feel it’s important to face facts as much as possible. so i must admit that i honestly don’t understand the whole ‘i am that eternal self’ rigamaroll.

through my many years of meditation or maybe simply as a rational semi-intelligent human person i’ve perceived there to be some sort of shared underlying something-or-other. snd it may be eternal. i won’t argue. but i wonder how to take that leap to ‘i am that’? i’m not much of a leaper. i could definitely sign on to: ‘i am that happy relaxed self except when in any medical, including dental, situation.’

in the bhagavadgita, book two, verse twenty-three, (yeah i googled it,) it is written: “The Self cannot be pierced by weapons or burned by fire; water cannot wet it, nor can the wind dry it. The Self cannot be pierced or burned, made wet or dry. It is everlasting and infinite, standing on the motionless foundations of eternity. The Self is unmanifested, beyond all thought, beyond all change. Knowing this, you should not grieve.”

again, i’m not really clear how i know that or why i shouldn’t grieve. my dog was hit by a car, apparently quite capable of being pierced, clearly not eternal and i felt pretty shitty ’bout it. nevertheless i appreciate the verse, it’s terribly inspiring even though i’m not prepared to worship that self as a god. we’ve got enough of those floating around causing trouble. but i’m prepared to love you as if we’re that same self in reality, standing on the motionless foundations of eternity. because maybe we are.

“old people shouldn’t eat health-foods. they need all the preservatives they can get.” robert orben.

how many nra members does it take to change a light-bulb.

as i listen to radio shows, i’ve heard three main reactions to the latest mass shootings in the united states: firstly, i’ve heard that pastors should all carry guns. i heard one pastor say he didn’t wanna comment on gun control, that if more people would simply turn to jesus there wouldn’t be a problem. thirdly, i heard trump say it was not a gun issue but a mental health issue.

trump actually added that there’s a mental health problem ‘at the very highest levels’. that comment totally stopped me in my tracks. did he just admit to having a mental health issue? am i the only one who noticed that? his ability to separate the gun issue from the mental health issue would certainly seem to confirm it.

one democrat interviewed after the shooting in texas, in favour of some sort of gun control, talked about a need to limit assault rifles and those gizmos that turn ‘normal’ rifles into rapid-fire machine-guns. he kept using the word ‘normal’ as he referred to what i guess he considers acceptable. and he’s one of the more reasonable ones.  

if at all you’re interested in my opinions on the issue of gun-control go to youtube, type in ‘take aim at the nra’ and i’ll let jim jeffries talk on my behalf. peace.