Majorca Flats -- 111

Male Nude with Buddhist Prayer by Amy Wicherski

“Yes … but …”

“I know. It's like that novel — or is it a short story? — by J D Salinger, where one of the characters says a Buddhist prayer over and over again, in the belief that if you keep on saying it, eventually one will become one with God.”

“And does he?”

“She. No. She faints!” Graeme smiled ironically at Jason. “But still — the same principle is supposed to apply. Keep on reminding yourself about your blessings and you'll feel happier. After all, we take them for granted, and get our knickers in a twist about what we don't have. Which — when you look at it objectively — is silly, isn't it?”

“I suppose so. Yet … somehow I just don't believe it'll help with what I feel about Brent.”

“No. When your grief is that profound, there is little which will make you feel better.” Graeme was silent for a moment or two, then said, hesitantly, “That's partly why I asked you around. I hoped it would help take your mind off your grief. I've been there, and I know what it feels like.”

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Baby Steps to Happiness

Nyssa Sylvatica

I used to wonder why old people would go into raptures about what seemed to me to be small things.  "Those roses are so beautiful," my mother would say, admiring a newly picked vase full of roses from the garden.  Or my grandmother, sitting in the chair she sat in all day until she went to bed, barely able to walk or see, would admire the colours of the pin-oak as its leaves changed in autumn.

But now I am myself d'un certain age, I know why they did it.  They did it because you can't rely on the big stuff.  Friends desert you.  People you love die.  There are earthquakes and bushfires.  The Christian-fascists go on relishing their hate.  Your health deteriorates.  You lose your job.  Your young hopes are unfulfilled.

So you learn to be happy in small things.

Nerine

Cyclamen Hederifolium

Claret Ash

Today is the second day of autumn here in Oz.  In our township's gardens, nerines are in blossom.  Strange lilies, their trumpet-shaped pink flowers appear long before their leaves.  The cyclamen hederifolium, which I first saw under venerable beech trees in the south of France in a carpet of pink and white the size of two rugby fields, also flowers before its leaves come.  Brave little flower heads of a flawless white are thick under the claret ash.  The maples are tinged with hectic red, and purple and orange; the pin-oak has a new scarlet or crimson or peach leaf every day; and the nyssa's leaves are one by one turning a perfect salmon.  We had our first mild frost this morning, but the sky is cloudless and clear, and it looks like being an utterly perfect day.

Like my mother and grandmother before me, my happiness is made up of these small things.  Just as well, really.

Compassion

 

 This is (more or less) the three-hundredth post to this blog.  Time to pause and reflect.

I found this at The Slab and I thought it summed up my own spiritual feelings pretty well.

.My call for a spiritual revolution is thus not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow other-worldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather, it is a call for a radical re-orientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self towards concern for the wider community of beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognizes others' interests alongside our own.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

You cannot yourself be truly happy unless you consider others. Selfishness makes you unhappy. Greed makes you unhappy. Unkindness makes you and the person you are unkind to miserable.

As the Dalai Lama says:

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

and,

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions

and

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

[Quotes from this website]

When we are at our most miserable, this seems like nonsense.  I know.  I've been there.  Yet I do what my lady does and count my blessings.  And there are so many, so many more than my problems.  And gradually, even though things are far from perfect, you find joy in small things; in a flower opening; in a cup of coffee; in a smile; in those who love me and those I love.  Yes, in a world dedicated to wall-to-wall false values, it's hard.  But never give up hope.


Christians seem to forget this all the time, though He kept on reiterating the messages:  love one another as I have loved you; the widow's mite; the story of the prostitute (let him who is without sin cast the first stone); judge not lest ye be judged; God is love.  Even St Paul, a bit of a bully, talks movingly about charity.  And he doesn't mean giving to the poor.


That so many Christians are so filled with hate is horribly sad.   That they hate us for what we are, which we can't change, and which in any case hurts no one, is dreadful.  Yet in our relations with each other we must not forget that we can if we try make a small difference, and that if everybody did it, it would make a huge difference.  It isn't easy to be brave or compassionate or to love without judgement.   I have to try again every day.  And I keep on failing.  I get enraged at the evils of the world and I have to scold myself into happiness.  Again and again.

We gay-shaded guys know what it's like to be on the receiving end of hatred, ignorance, disdain, prejudice, bigotry and violence.  Let's not do the same to others.


Onwards and upwards.