‘Sit Up and Beg’ at Touch Rugby
Red Thread Sangha 2011
Over the last while
the puddled ruts have filled
with reflections
We gathered in Jane’s farmhouse at the top of a potholed track on the West Coast of Wales for a weekend of haiku and meditation:
Ken Jones, walker
Melissa Meeks, shepherd
Noragh Jones, spellbinder
George Marsh, cook
Stuart Quine, nurse
Jim Norton, poet
Kim Richardson, bookmaker
Martin Pitt, keeper
Jonathan Buckley, note-taker
What was left of Friday was given over to a simple dinner washed down with a glass of wine, cider or Perry that Kim had brought from the wilds of Hereford. Afterwards there was planning for the weekend and then preparation of porridge, left to cook overnight on the Aga. And so to bed!
Saturday morning dawned in drizzle. After a cold night under the covers, how does one eat one’s porridge and what does the choice of condiment tell you? At breakfast, after a 30-minute sit, some went for honey, others for sugar, and a strong case was made for marmalade. The slow-cooked porridge was ambrosia and required nothing more. Porridge … and then toast!
Haiku Are
Noragh started the weekend’s study with a talk about haiku and its flowering in different national cultures. She quoted Eve Lockering’s belief that haiku arise out of a historical and cultural context; the haiku poet balances on the large boulder of Japanese cultural tradition while holding their own, smaller, cultural boulder above the head.
When did this all start? A first translation of haiku by Wayne Aston appeared in 1877 and another by Paddy O’Hearne in 1904. But it was the meeting of Blythe and Robert Aitken (Zen Roshi and author of Zen Wave) that provided a template for Western poets; a template ‘soaked in Japanese aesthetics’.
Out of a review of haiku in different countries came a discussion about translations and a greater awareness of cadence, rhythm and sometimes, rhyme. How important this is, and how often it is lost in translation, even ‘transcreation’. One haiku deemed an awkward abstraction in English, came alive when recited it in its native Breton.
George underpinned this impression with some academic hard core, noting that the Americans used Chinese poetry as the foundation of their own but diluted it by discarding the rhyme and rhythm structure.
There was general agreement that haiku is about expressing the ‘suchness’ of life in all its forms. Ken talked of ‘the uncluttered presentation of experience’. Wang Wei was cited for ’19 ways of looking at one way’, and there was also mention of ‘the repose of named things’ (Nagarjuna) and a Tibetan saying that, ‘to ride the horse of knowledge you need a good saddle’.
Mindfulness
After Noragh, Kim was interested in explaining the relationship between haiku and mindfulness. He illustrated the challenge with the story of the ant and centipede who sit down for a smoke while out walking. The ant asks the centipede how he can walk so easily with so many legs. The centipede replies: ‘Easy, you just … you just … oh dear!’
Stuart suggested that attention and awareness were different to mindfulness which was ‘more slow motion’ and referential’. Jim cited Abi Dharma and holding attention to the object, inside or out, and made the distinction between mindfulness and awareness with a bit of personal experience: ‘So coming home after a few drinks I am very mindful about taking out the keys and putting them into the lock … but I am not aware that I am trying to get into the neighbour’s house!’
Kim shared a Sufi tradition where mindfulness means remembering that which we knew and unlearning that which we thought we knew. And there was mention of the importance of transparency and the need to be clear of the ‘background speediness’; of creative vacancy and listening … but not too hard. Was it after all about the stillness of the birdwatcher (and poet, RS Thomas) and the ‘emptiness that is able to hold and contain all’?
Please forgive the half-remembered quotes which are due to a poor memory and the quality of the scrawl. I rationalise this with the hope that some people remember lots and digest little, while others remember little but digest lots. Then again, the sangha also talked about reconstruction being the act of remembering and memory being a terrible entrapment; or as someone described it ‘memories with new legs’.
Speaking of legs, we pulled on our boots and windcheaters and went out into the world for a bit of fresh air and communion with nature.
Excursion
The venerable ‘Captain Watkins’ co-ordinated a three car drop-off and pick-up plan that took the group from a small housing estate to a large private estate with an ex-mansion! Taken over during the war, the main building was burnt down by mistake and all that remains is a palatial, but abandoned, dovecote and the allés of trees and irrigation channels that confine the grazing sheep and cattle.
Our walk took us into a field with pedigree black cattle and an enormous bull, knee-deep in mud and snuffling green grass, right next to the path we were walking. Was this a Zen intimation of enlightenment? Two steps forward, a couple back, and then a debate. Where had all the morning’s testosterone gone? Eventually we passed and further on, Jim discovered a pink wild rose, flowering in the long grass.
Sturm, Drang and Karumi
On the table in our sitting room, a flat rock with a round one balanced on top: a haiku cultural reference? Not so. Ken was introducing a measured approach to our discussions and the round stone, the size of a cricket ball, was the conch that would bring order to our discussions. Weighing this carefully in our hands gave our pronouncements a softer more reflective character.
Ken shared two haibun that he had written; the one was a blood thirsty and didactic piece about man’s inhumanity to man, the other, seamed with a thread of black humour, dealt with the author’s experience of, and capacity to learn from, a terminal illness. The second had a sense of playfulness and concentrated on ‘show don’t tell’ that leaves space to experience without feeling pressurised by the writer. The haiku, drawn from another time and place but perfectly aligned to the main theme, provided a Greek chorus, or was it a Welsh choir. Karumi!
The haiku poet
takes his steaming cup
out into the mist
Was Shiki providing photographic snapshots of reality while Coleridge looked to fancy and imagination to reveal the divine source of things? How does language shape and create our world? Is there a difference between seeing and seeing as something? Jim posed the questions, riffed on the answers, and the whole sangha riffed with him.
Melissa talked of love versus desire in the context of imagination: ‘being faithful to the beloved object’. Stuart talked of ideas as a love affair with reality: ‘love does not make demands … not about getting it, but being got by it … no intention to write haiku … allow yourself to be caught and put your life on the line’.
Kim spoke of ‘opening little windows in this dream; let the dreams behind the dreams be awakened in our consciousness. And Ken cited Blake’s London and freedom from ‘the mind-forged manacles of the mind’. Do we sit in completeness … incompleteness?
They know effect and cause are one,
Not two, not three, the path runs straight,
With form that is no form,
Coming and going, never astray,
With thought that is no thought
Their song and dance are the voice of the law.
(Hakuin Zenji’s Song of Zazen)
The Cook and Chan Poetry
At some point in all of this Saturday came to an end with dinner around the table, cooked by George with love and finesse; qualities he also brought to reviewing haiku on the blu-tacked sheets to the dining room wall. Time and again, an overloaded haiku was rescued from capsize through the jettisoning of a superfluous word. And the meals were similarly light, simple and surprising.
Cucumber
In the midst of a hot stock
Crunching
On Sunday, George gave a talk about Chan poetry. In the original language, verbs have no tenses or conjugation; verbs, nouns and adjectives can be interchanged; and there is no plural, singular or gender. In translation, the result is a very vivid and pictorial form; some might say random! Stuart described the translations as ‘poetic spells’.
Sunday’s excursion was to the seafront where the book shop was closed and the sea and sky wide open. Far down the beach a kite surfer tore along the breakers, leaping and then floating on the wind as he turned to tack back up the beach. The seagulls hung suspended on the edge of the gale while three large jelly fishes, each the size of a brain, and with a crucifix in the middle of their translucent domes, were settled on the wet sand.
We walked, we pottered, and we leant into the wind and then back out again. And then we returned to the house, armed with the telephone number for the local Balti takeaway, and ready for a final session before the last supper, bed and then departure in the morning. Yes my notes have now come to an end and with them this unreliable memoir. Gassho and Diolch yn fawr iawn to all!
Kim and I were up early on Monday morning and after a cup of coffee we set off in the dark, back to London.
Scattering sheep
From the rutted track
The bouncing headlights
Road to Nowhere …
In the year 2007, my 51st in this world, I went to work for the Golden Gate Corporation, an American Internet company, which provides the roundabouts and traffic lights on the information superhighway. I was curious to experience life in a large organisation where the matrix had replaced traditional hierarchies of ‘command and control’; making it all possible was the Internet; transcending time-zones and old frontiers.
opening the window
the browser Googles
a flickering image
The European headquarters was a large, glass box in a grey frame that nestled on a grassy bank beside a lake with swans and other water fowl; to the common man it appeared like a shining palace removed from everyday life by a moat.
beneath the surface
steady in the current
three large pike
For the first few weeks I travelled in each day, taking the train to Clapham Junction where for a brief moment I joined the river of humanity on its way to work. I flowed down through the underground walkway and up to Platform 5 and the fast train out to Feltham. Waiting at the other end, a white courtesy bus whisked the black laptops off to work.
life slides by
the morning traffic reflects
on a Blackberry
Meeting me on my first day, the American manager pointed me towards the Virtual Private Network with the reassurance, “Don’t worry if it doesn’t make any sense. At first it’s like trying to drink from a fire hose!’ And for several weeks I did indeed wander lonely as a cloud through the virtual workshop, adrift from colleagues and the tools of my trade.
silent summer’s day
a scatter of tip taps
on the laptop
I worked with people who were somewhere else so I hardly got to know those that shared the ‘drop in’ area. In fact, I liked the anonymity and once I had set up ‘Odyssey’ on my laptop, I was free to work remotely, where and when I wanted. So while most people were rushing to work, I could finish off my email in the home office and then head off to the Lido for a swim.
empty in-box
the soft shiny surface
of an empty pool
My job was to provide ‘messaging’ for the project teams that fine-tuned the sales systems and processes … ‘giving time back to sales’ was the oft repeated mantra. And the process was tortured with every step micro-managed like an American football game. The result was an endless progression of meetings and catch up calls!
Hi … Hi …
can you talk? QQ!
a moment in time
These meetings were held online using a teleconference service which allowed participants to share PowerPoint presentations and send messages to other participants. The whole process was overseen by an automated announcer who counted us in and counted us out: ‘this meeting is scheduled to end in 10 minutes’, the disembodied voice announced.
electronic impulses
flashing across Windows
the squabbling swans
When all was done, participants would ‘drop off’ to make their next meeting: Minds moved but the bodies remained hunched over the laptops, ears pinking from the pressure of the headphones.
cyber whispers
the swans beyond the window
splash down silently
By way of compensation, the life of the technocracy can be a veritable cornucopia of good living. Arriving in the office I would help myself to a banana, a pear and perhaps a plum from the bowl of free fruit. And from 12.30 the large dining area, with glass doors on to a roof terrace overlooking the lake, served a range of hot and cold cuisines to suit the most discerning palate.
sumptuous summer’s day
beyond the apple crumble
cream yellow custard
Back at work, the corporate cappuccino machine whirred and foamed a limitless supply of sharp tasting caffeine and the fridges offered up free fruit juices, bottled water and cold cans of Root Beer, Coke, and Fanta. And if that wasn’t enough, there were always the boiled sweets in reception!
hot summer’s day
the hum of the electric fan
cooling the laptop
‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven’ goes the psalm and the song. And soon we could see the weather turning; storm clouds on the horizon. In our glass palace we knew that the age of abundance was coming to an end. It was the little things that turned virtual reality into physical proof. First off the boiled sweets disappeared from reception; then the cappuccino button on the coffee machine died and finally the ‘Five Alive’ fruit bowls emptied and were filled no more.
Inbox of messages
a swan chases a rival
around the lake
There were corporate proclamations and the imposition of travel bans and staff cutbacks. First to feel the knife were the contract staff, or ‘red badges’ as they were called; the goal was a 50% saving each month for the quarter. I was a ‘red badge’ and despite the best efforts of my colleagues, some weeks later I was back in the office to handing in my laptop. For two years I had lived inside it, mind everywhere, travelling nowhere! But now it was back to the real world.
dusk at the end
letting fresh air into the office
before closing the door
St Paul’s: Confession of Character
Back in the summer I was talking to ‘Nick the Greek’ about the Occupancy at St Paul’s and he said that ‘the powers that be’ were complaining that ‘they’ didn’t seem to know what they wanted. I had been up at St Paul’s the day before and I could understand this point of view and the frustration that went with it.
Seeing ramshackle democracy in action goes against the go-getting, goal-setting, business mind that is massively competent when it comes to articulating goals and pursuing and delivering outcomes. But then I came to understand that Occupancy was less about outcomes and more about process and a new way of thinking and interacting.
While up there, I experienced a ‘General Assembly’ where participants can have their say in the decision-making . A fair number of eccentric and challenging personalities got up to imperfectly express their frustration. There were also some heart-warming and powerful contributions. In fact a good cross-section of society.
It really did seem that the disenfranchised – ‘we are the 99%’ – had a chance to speak out and have some effect on the world around them. And it also provided a focus for wider society to take stock. In fact the lack of specific demands meant that everyone had to look inward and question what might be at the heart of the issue.
This unexpressed demand drew forth reactions that told us a lot more about what is at the heart of society; the good, the bad and the ugly. For example, Occupancy at St Paul’s challenged the Church and the Church was ultimately found wanting. Jesus would surely have been with the 99%.
I think we are all very positively challenged by the Occupancy movement and the space that it leaves for self expression. What will Occupancy do in the year ahead, how will we react, and what will we learn. Ralph Waldo Emerson summed it up nicely when he wrote: ‘People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is a confession of character’.
Silhouette on red brick
Heavens long shadows on a frosty pitch
Turning after the Green Tiles of Baron’s Court
Last Friday to The Study Society, established by a disciple of Ouspensky, in Colet House on the Talgarth Road in West London. The reason, to see the Whirling Dervishes of West London perform the hour long ‘Turning’ – an hour Sufi dance meditation – preceded by the reading of some poetry by Rumi. To get there you travel on the (green) District Line and emerge at Baron’s Court to find a station covered in moss green tiles from floor to cieling; lovely … and so was the Turning.
Lunchtime at Marios
Klaus Weiland in Wizz’s Sitting Room
And he played the ‘Hole in the Banana’ song
Winter leaves on the Ark of a carrier bag
Thoreau’s journal entry for 29th December 1851: The sun is risen. The ground is almost entirely bare. The water is the puddles are not skimmed over – it is warm as an April morning. There is a sound as of blue birds in the air, and the cocks crow as in the spring. The steam curls up from the roofs and the ground. You walk with open cloak. It is exciting to behold the smooth glassy surface of water where the melted snow has formed large puddles and ponds … … How admirable it is that we can never foresee the weather – that that is always novel.
