Five faces. Saying everything - and nothing.

The top picture. Two hostages holding a sign under duress.

Middle picture. A man holding an unknown number of hostages in a cafe in the centre of Sydney, with a hostage.

Bottom picture. Australia's prime minister, standing before a Christmas tree, responding; platitude central!

The majority of Australia's media has yet to agree it's a terrorist situation. It's apparently not agreed that it's sponsored by Islamic fundamentalists. Sigh. Perhaps it's Methodists - or Buddhists? But we all know with certainty that it wouldn't be - even though our politicians, bureaucrats, and media won't say it.

Today I'm meditating on whether there are sufficient people left any longer to speak up for billions of people that are simply trying to go about their daily lives without fear of intrusion by others promoting alternative cultures and beliefs.

And I'm praying the hostages are safe.

What stands in the way becomes the way.

If you saw the movie Gladiator you'll probably remember the character on the left; and on the right you'll see a more ancient rendering.

Meet Marcus Aurelius; Emperor of the Roman Empire.

We don't know a great deal about about his life - details considered accurate are sketchy.

But we do know a great deal about what he thought and believed because his great legacy was his writings entitled The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius; these are still being read, and his thinking embraced, nearly 2,000 years after his death. I have no fears that my own scribblings will be exposed to the same lengthy scrutiny.

I am an avid reader and I have read his meditations and I came across a recently written book that focuses, using the Aurelius texts, with laser-like precision on dealing with issues in life - and with failure.

So today I meditate on the words of Marcus Aurelius, written two millennia ago, about dealing with issues.

We can be confident that these words have some validity because, as author Ryan Holiday explains: In his own reign of some nineteen years, he would experience nearly constant war, a horrific plague, possible infidelity, an attempt at the throne by one of his closest allies , repeated and arduous travel across the empire - from Asia Minor to Syria, Egypt, Greece and Austria - a rapidly depleting treasury, an incompetent and greedy stepbrother as co-emperor and on and on and on.

So in our imagination we can see Marcus Aurelius sitting, perhaps in a tent on a snow covered battlefield somewhere in northern Europe, or in a palace overlooking the River Tiber amid the splendors of Rome, or in a plain room with whitewashed walls and scant furnishings musing and meditating on, and composing the empowering words and sentences that we still read today.

Marcus Aurelius wrote about taking action to overcome issues:

Our actions may be impeded … but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.

The impediment to action advances action.

What stands in the way becomes the way.

Toolkit.

http://www.amazon.com/Obstacle-Way-Timeless-Turning-Triumph-ebook/dp/B00G3L1B8K/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1418527017&sr=1-1&keywords=the+obstacle

Giving.

This piece of art hangs in my Thai home; I'm not sure of the cultural significance of this lineup of six monks of descending size; it is a common motif in Asia.

There is an inconsequential story about it which I treasure; I took very good friends to a store where they saw this and we all loved it; they decided they would buy it which saddened me because I would have loved the piece for myself. But in the process of paying and wrapping they came to the conclusion, without any Machiavellian urging from me, that getting it home to Australia would be a taxing task; in terms of energy consumed, and probably financial as well!

This morning I began my day my offering monks food and a flower; these monks are not begging, in fact, it is somewhat the reverse because by accepting my offering they provide the valuable service of enabling me to make 'boon' - or merit - as we would say in English. In a sense it's like a loyalty program for participating Buddhists.

The merit earned can be used to ease the journey of loved ones that have passed on, or for oneself when a time of need arises.

Traditionally monks walk the highways and byways of Thailand at sunrise; historically they begin when there is light enough for them to see the lines on the palm of a hand; although I imagine that now many rely on an alarm of some kind. The Thai faithful stand outside their homes and wait, they go go to the local market where there will always be one or more monks, or they can simply go in search of one of these orange- or brown-robed men pacing their footwear-less way through cities, towns and villages. The food, and sometimes money, collected helps support the local temple community including the monks and, more often than not, feed others; if you are ever penniless in Thailand go to any temple, any morning, and you'll be fed, no questions asked.

I don't do this to make merit. I do it for three reasons.

First because it is the easiest way I know to help feed those less fortunate than myself. Second because it furthers the work of Buddhism which is a power for good in Thailand, and around the world; all Buddhists, including some monks, are not perfect but the Buddha's message is for all seasons, and for anyone with spiritual or practical needs. And third because one of the Buddhist beliefs is that to give brings as many rewards to the giver as to the receiver.

I meditate today that I am fortunate to have the opportunity to give to others.

Pleasingly fresh from the ocean. Sadly Picasso-like in death.

These fish, destined for the breakfast table, are fresh and their scales are beautifully, and now wastefully, colourful; lime green, electric blue, sunshine yellow, shiny charcoal grey, and the silver of burnished pewter. They nestle in a water-filled hollow in the sand.

For me it's novel, but not rare in Thailand, to see fishermen in action on the beach in the mornings; and their catch goes from the ocean to  plate, a few yards from the ocean's edge, with very little delay.

My lifestyle has, for a very long time, made home cooked or even fresh, as opposed to packaged, food, a rare event. Almost an event for which I was barely prepared in my Australian home; the number of utensils required to open and consume a microwavable dinner are very few! And in Thailand, where to eat out is always cheaper than eating in, my dining table is to be found in numerous places.

So you can imagine, I'm not a fisherman, hunter, or even a vegetable gardner; nor am I much of a cook - gourmet or otherwise.

Fishing techniques in Thailand have changed very little over years - centuries - and typically they involve a net, circular or long and shallow; these nets are cast or placed and then gathered-in trapping mostly fairly small fish.

I suppose this Thailand beach scene could be typical of any time in the last several hundred years.

 

 

The man casts the net and the woman has a basket in which the catch is kept - she draws it through the water periodically to, I imagine, keep the fish fresh. 

Today I'm meditating on the satisfaction that must come from taking just enough from the ocean for your breakfast. Economical. Sustainable. Perhaps even spiritual. And then conversely I meditate on how hard it must be to search for your next meal, rain or shine. 

 

In our western world large numbers of people now demand sustainable lifestyles, often of others rather than themselves, and while I applaud their zeal I wonder, who is going to give up what they have come to expect as a lifestyle right? Who is going to be prepared to go hungry when the fish are not biting. And who among us will give up the 4WD, or the family saloon? And who among us will use electricity only when the sun is shining?

I'm meditating on the human state-of-mind that must accompany a commitment to sustainability; it's not just about giving up, it's about every one of us doing things differently.

 

Our state-of-mind must be that fishing is an art. And that fish should be art.

 

It's going to be quite a change for most of us.

There's living life. And then there's living life. Interestingly no matter how you do it, there's one constant truth.

I've had a pretty good life. I've been healthy. I've had several great partners and I have more near-lifetime friends than I can count on the fingers of one hand.  I've always had enough money to get by. I failed at school but succeeded at life by understanding that school has little to do with gaining essential education. And I've been blessed with having discovered a number of capabilities and talents that have been rewarding in every sense of the word. I've had, and I'm having, a great time.

But living life is relative; take for example the four members of the eighties country supergroup, The Highwaymen: Nelson, Jennings, Kristofferson, and Cash.

These guys have LIVED life. And two still are, almost in spite of their lifestyles. Good ol' boys. And bad boys.

So, still at it after all these years, Willie Nelson at 81 is living a life that seems - larger than life; just recently I watched The Judge and there, over the credits, is Willie doing a brilliant cover of the Coldplay song The Scientist. Check it out.

The other remaining star of The Highwaymen is Kris Kristofferson who says of Willie: "He's a carved-in-granite, samurai poet warrior Gypsy guitar-pickin' wild man with a heart as big as Texas and the greatest sense of humour in the west".

So when I am looking for a way to put my life in perspective I sometimes take Willie's advice by reading a few pages from his book: The Tao of Willie. Who would know more about squeezing something extra from life, right?

Willie offers some great advice:

And more great advice when he sings: "I live one day at a time, I dream one dream at a time, Yesterday's dead and tomorrow's blind, and I live one day at a time".

Some of the best advice I've ever had.

But even so I keep in mind another Willie gem: "Trying to be someone else is the hardest road there is."

Live in the moment. One day at a time. One dream at a time.

But let's each do it our way.

Toolkit:

The Highwaymen in action: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyO1eRtDRcs&list=FLIWvycylcRwgUiQPqGZ5-xw&index=2

Read the Tao of Willie:

http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Willie-Guide-Happiness-Heart-ebook/dp/B000PC0SDM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1418275349&sr=1-1&keywords=the+tao+of+willie

She.

For some days now I've been reading the works of Rider Haggard; his stories are the prototype for the more recent Indiana Jones movie epics.

Rip-roaring adventure is the name of the game; and English gentlemen, natives, big game animals, mysterious and generally evil shamans, and ancient undiscovered ruins all have their well defined place in the yarns. If only life were now, still, so clearly defined!

When these stories were written each had one common factor; each story depended on one key certainty which is that no reader could be absolutely certain that the story couldn't be, at least in part, possible.

I'm currently reading She, a story about a tribe and a country ruled by an Amazonian woman described by her citizens as 'she who must be obeyed'. At the time of telling few if any knew whether the swamps, rivers, rock formations, and the ancient ruined cities described in the story were real; when these stories were written it was still possible that some of Haggard's fictions could prove to be true.

There were still nearly a hundred years of exploration before we could be certain his fictions were just that. Wikipedia didn't exist and even though Encyclopaedia Britannica was in it's ninth edition, and there were plenty of detailed maps, vast tracts of land were still to be described and mapped. And the idea of Google Maps would have been considered as mystical as the pronouncements of the shamans in Haggard's stories.

Despite all this, perhaps because of it, by 1965 more than 85 million copies of She had been sold.

All this leads me to wonder about our world today where there is little room for mystery - especially in encyclopaedia texts, and on maps. We know there is nowhere on the planet ruled by an Amazonian woman. We know when most archeological sites were built, populated, and when they fell into ruin. We can be certain that Shamanism is just that. We know. We have the facts. There is no room for the doubt that gives rise to magical uncertainty, and the possibility there may be adventure in the unknown.

And has this knowing improved our literature? Our movies? Has this certainty added one whit of unpredictable adventurous possibility to our lives?

I meditate today on what adventure I could embark on that is not already entirely predictable. And I meditate on whether this lack of uncertainty isn't just a little stifling.

Toolkit:

http://www.amazon.com/She-H-Rider-Haggard-ebook/dp/B007JLCVSC/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1418181014&sr=1-4&keywords=She

Patterns. A metaphor for our lives.

 

When you look around your bathroom you'll probably find plenty of tiles. Rigidly aligned. Precision cut. Regularly distributed. It may also be true of your kitchen. And many floors in your house. That's certainly true of the house in which I live.

Patterns that conform. Tiles of equal size and identical shape; regularly shaped and recurring patterns have many advantages.

Patterns can help us organise, and plan, and predict, and explain, and design; pattens are fundamental to life. And our lives.

But these kinds of patterns we typically see around our homes don't mirror our lives which are full of unequal-sized pieces. Pieces that overlap. Pieces that need to get squeezed and molded. Pieces that are partially erased. Pieces that need to resize and reshape in order to survive. These are patterns we most find in nature.

It's the patterns of nature that I try most to use when I am thinking about my life.

This morning walking the beach I meditated on what I could learn from the patterns in the sand; maybe it's worth checking the natural patterns around your home to see if they can be useful in planning, organising, and living your life.