The Now Again 2012
15 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
The Now – Again
What a science! If I’m at the sink doing dishes, and if I remember the slightest thing that hasn’t to do with the dishes, my being-ness has lost that moment and gone into the past or future. On the other hand, if I’m aware of devoting the dishwashing to, say, God,the action can indeed take place on two levels: the devotional and the active. But one doesn’t say “devote, devote, devote..,”. One takes that microsecond of devotional aim and goes back to the feel of the hand, the sight of the dish, whatever sense is dominating. It’s subtle. Senses and intellect hold the now – or should. Desire and wish belong to the non-now; take away from the now. (I’m thinking this through as I write – spontaneity. But I also have the tv on. Non-now. Non-spontaneity.) Subtle.
February 15, 2012
A’s Food Diary 2007
20 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
in blogs, everything from A to Z
07.7.28 A’s Food Diary
The world may be going to hell in a wheelbarrow, but for most of us, at least those of us who are reading this (you do own a computer after all – a sign of some privilege) food choices are more abundant than ever, nutritional information more accessible.
It’s mostly a matter of training or re-training the mind to choose correctly at every food moment, and since eating goes on all of your life, you’ve loads of moments in which to practice [choosing] – from what to how to when you will eat.
Food is nice. I can’t think of a more pleasurable way to develop the character.
It’s always a balance between nutrition, cost, time, imagination and what’s at hand. This little tract is written for those who know their way around a kitchen – who have a feel for amounts and bulk and the tastes of things.
It is possible to look at a recipe and sense the taste just by reading the ingredients. It comes with time – and experience in the kitchen.
Cooking is, in fact a form of yoga. It even has a proper name: Anna Yoga. Since yoga presupposes and teaches focus and concentration, cooking as a form of yoga leads to spontaneity, creativity, correct judgements and a good meal. Cooking a means and goal.
If you like to eat, Anna yoga is for you. If you’d like a means to change your life, cooking might be just the answer. Food!
Bondage of Attachments 2007
19 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
in 2007, blogs, everything from A to Z
07.7.2 The bondage of attachments: I read that in the Dhammpada this morning. After my morning coffee, always extra sharp and receptive, I thought, “I’m working on it, boy, (that’s my teenage self expressing it in the strongest known language) – boy, is it ever hard!)
This consumption thing, this morphine of pleasure, this burden of holding on in boredom, in anality, this heroin/amphetamine of wanting more to maintain the, the what? The time, I think. Time wants to be filled and it prefers easily accessible pleasure. The mindless kind.
I know a woman who goes to flea markets, otherwise known as flee markets, every weekend. The stairway up to the bedrooms is lined, crowded, a safety risk. The living room downstairs is tidily stuffed with ornaments, all in glass cabinets specially bought, on shelves specially built, on table tops meant for space. What comes in never goes out.
Her husband, dear man, is resigned, stoic. Accepting her ever provided layer cakes, he devotes himself to his choral group and keeps his eyes on the piano scores. “My wife likes to collect things. There’s more upstairs.”
She’s hooked. He’s drowning. He’s bone thin. She’s well rounded.
See poems:Our Times, Our Culture;Things; You Have To Be Focussed To Live In America;Things Get Dirty
