Fourteen Precepts in Fifteen Days Eighth: Do not utter words that can create discord and cause the community to break. Make every effort to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small. Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh A few weeks ago, my brother went down to Gardiner, which is one of the northern entrances to Yellowstone National Park, with our friend Bill to check out a demonstration. The protesters were there to register their disagreement with the current policy of slaughtering buffalo who cross the park boundary into Montana every winter, usually in search of forage. Because Montana is certified…
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Fourteen Precepts in Fifteen Days Seventh: Do not lose yourself in dispersion and in your surroundings. Learn to practice breathing in order to regain compuosure of body and mind, to practice mindfulness, and to develop concentration and understanding. Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh My friend Wendy, sent me an email yesterday asking if the next precept was about not intoxicating oneself and others, and lo and behold, yes, I think you could read this one that way. Friday night was great fun, and there’s something to be said for the Dionysian impulse, particularly when one small, winterbound town seems…
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Fourteen Precepts in Fifteen Days LivingSmall lived a little large last night — between drinking with the “emerald dealer” from Columbia (by way of Fargo), and the guy who dragged me out of the party at midnight and pulled his mother’s old shotgun out of the back of his pickup truck in order to show me how nice and small and light it was (we’d been discussing bird dogs), well, LivingSmall has a bit of a head on her, and will resume pure, zen-like thoughts tomorrow, once she’s cleansed the toxins from her body.
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Fourteen Precepts in Fourteen Days: Day Five Do-Over Fifth: Do not accumulate weath while millions are hungry. Do not take as the aim of your life fame, profit, wealth, or sensual pleasure. Live simply and share time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh Some days a girl just wakes up groggy and out of sorts, particularly after a night dreaming that she’s being chased through Baghdad by threatening Baath Party officials, dreams that she couldn’t shake even after the world’s best puppy climbed in bed for a snuggle at three…
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Fourteen Precepts in Fourteen Days: Day Six Sixth: Do not maintain anger or hatred. As soon as anger and hatred arise, practice the meditation on compassion in order to deeply understand the persons who have caused anger and hatred. Learn to look at other beings with the eyes of compassion. Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh A little note about this precept project. I worry that I’m coming off like someone who knows something about all of this, which is really not the case at all. The purpose of this project was to keep me from the brink of despair.…
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Fourteen Precepts in Fourteen Days: Day Five Fifth: Do not accumulate weath while millions are hungry. Do not take as the aim of your life fame, profit, wealth, or sensual pleasure. Live simply and share time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh Again, where to start? It seems that as a culture, our instatiable desire for wealth, fame and sensual pleasure is what’s gotten us into this mess in the first place. And there seem to be two camps, those who think that perhaps we could dial it back a…
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Snow! There’s nearly a foot of heavy spring snow out there this morning. The kind that outlines every tree branch, link on my chain link fence, and completely buries all the new beds I dug out in a blanket of heavy wet lovely spring snow. A beautiful sight.
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Garden Update I have sprouts! Two of the five tomatoes have sprouted, and the thyme seems to be coming up as well. The grow lights are on and as always, I’m weirdly surprised that seeds actually sprout. While avoiding war coverage last night, I stumbled across a rerun of my new favorite show, Ground Force, on BBC America.The conceit of Ground Force is that loved ones write in requesting a surprise garden makeover for someone, the show gets the recipient out of town for a weekend, and makes over their garden. So imagine my surprise when flipping channels to discover…
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Faith, Peace, Pacificsm on other blogs I’m in the shallow end of pacifism here, folks, and my little blog entries are just the beginning of exploring these ideas. Here are some links to other people out there who have though about this stuff longer and harder than I have, and who have some interesting and related things to say. Le Pretre Noir has an interesting account of his trepidation at having to preach about war last Sunday, and some particularly interesting things to say about the divisive nature of evil. Eve and Jeanne have been asking good questions about whether…
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Fourteen Precepts in Fourteen Days: Day Four Fourth: Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering by all means, including personal contact and visits, images, sound. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world. Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh That there is a global struggle for peace being waged simultaneously with this war seems to me a new phenomena, as though the world has…