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Mindless meditators and mindful chickens

The sun rises in the north of Thailand to a corus of circarder chirps and roster calls. The morning meditation over, I slowly stretch my stiff legs and hobble over to get a broom. Morning chores have begun. Trying to be present with every motion I walk over to the meditation park to start sweeping.
Yesterdays perfect piles of leaves are scattered everywhere. I mutter, then I sweep. Attempting to be aware of every action and sensation; I sweep. Finally, before me nature has been tamed and my job is done.

Before the hour is out; they come. The chickens. Having these lovely piles of leaves makes for great scratching and that they do. Methodically they go around spreading the piles around. Fully present as they do so.

Mindful chickens appreciating freshly swept leaf piles...

It was during the next meditation, while plotting ingenious anti-chicken devices that the realization came:
Sweeping was not about getting a job done. In fact it proberly would never be fully complete. It was about being present for the task at hand. In the west we have such a focus on the outcome that often we forget that the process of getting there can be so much more important.

Which is why I guess they love sweeping so much at buddist temples (wats). And guess what job I had at the next Wat: sweeping bat droppings from a cave :-)

May you and all beings be free from suffering and find peace.

I am grateful that cars are easy to break into..

Ok, before you go reporting me to the police, let me paint a picture with words about what happened:

Summer festival season had come! The car was packed, 6 people piled in and a road trip was undertaken. Like all good road trips, the novelty wore off with the lack of blood flow to the legs and the 3rd toilet stop in 2 hrs...

 

Then we arrived. Set up tents. The car was parked and three days of music

and crazy times

 were had. Finally monday morning came, along with the realisation of reality to be returned to and the aches of a body that has been pushed in the pursuit of pleasure. The tent was packed. Slowly. The festival ground had nearly emptied, when we piled in the car, put the key in the ignition and.... tried to put the key in the iginition.. tried again, hard this time... ok it's half in... wiggled it and pushed again.... no. Tried pulling it out... no.
Of course the festival was also in the middle of the country, so no mobile reception. A locksmith and a mechanic had been there last night, but now had long gone.

Options available:

Stay and brave the wild animals that inhabited the area...

 Hitch?

A very expensive mobile mechanic visit and possible tow to civilisation...

$,$$$   =   :-(

Or pull out the small tool box and inspired by years of:

 

and playing GTA, attempt to hot-wire a car. With absolutly no mechanical ability or idea of what I'm doing besides I have to touch the red wire to the blue wire.. I start to pull the car apart... 

I undo this screw.. and that one.. and that wire.. poke that...

And, viola!!

I am now a fully qualified car thief and should a career in health & wellness fail, I now have something solid to fall back on :-)

Doing vs. Being

I got a letter in the mail the other day; meant to inspire me to donate to the university I'd just graduated from on the front cover it had the words, "DO SOMETHING" and then surrounded my all these uplifting adjectives like: brilliant, inspiring, great etc..

I'm sure it represented the peak of some marketing firms output and had made some individuals very proud of their work. Yet it irked me. To me it represented one of the common failings of our society and the pressure that we all feel to Do something amazing. That our success or failure as an individual is measured not by who we are, but by the deeds we accomplish. So the individual who gets to the top, who becomes famous, who wins a nobel prize, is the winner. They have Done something to be proud of, irrespective of whether they did it out of love, lying, cheating or hard work. Furthermore, accomplishments like these are often beyond our direct control and arrise through a combination of hard work, timing and luck (or workings of the universe). While the majority of people, as winners are usually the minority, keep striving for some external goal that can never be obtained. It this, our measurement of success by what we Do that I don't like.

Then what is the alternative? There is a parable in Indian yogic tradition of a master who got his student to build a house out of rocks (do something). Once he'd completed the house and was quite proud of it, the teacher told him to tear it down and start again. Eventually the student realised that it was not what he did that was important, but who he was and how he went about the process of doing.
So instead of measuring yourself by what you acheive, be it brilliant or inspiring, aim to measure yourself by who you are. For someone who is quietly brilliant or deeply inspiring does not have to keep reaching for these external markers of the state. They instead live in a way that is brilliant or inspiring and this aspect touches all of their life. Whether it's their profession, their relationships or the "mundane" aspects that make up the majority of our lives.

Rather than Do Something, Be Something.

For me, someone who is and strives to live in a way that is (insert adjective from above), is much more inspiring than someone who measures their (adjective) by what they do. So there is a difference in two artists who paint the same picture, but one because he loves to paint and the other because he just wants to be famous. It is also a way of being that everyone can achieve if they set their mind & heart to it. A way of being where everyone can achieve and are not divided into winners/losers. Finally, its a way of being that we're not taught at university and that letter ended up in the bin after I took a photo of it...

Today I'm grateful for abundance

Summer is here! And with it the abundance of nature, including two boxes of fresh Queensland mangos... Which made for a delicious mango, coconut, chilli and (fake) chicken stir-fry. For all this I am grateful for.