Having emerged from the simple delights of the decluttered life experiment, with a small cottage almost bought, the need to consider what stuff to assemble in the space arises ... the editor teases about trips to IKEA and suchlike ... so a trip to Durham on the bus(es) takes in the Library for a new membership card and a wander round the Retail Park with cursory glances at cars, for which there is no enthusiasm, though such a thing would extend the range for social activities, Stanhope being well served with buses Monday to Saturday day times, evenings and Sundays not so much ... next stop is the fridge, freezer, cooker and washing machine shop and sensory overload from so much choice ... a quick trip to view beds, especially sofa beds for flexibility, then a whistlestop tour of B&Q for no particular reason ... so much stuff, so little desire for it ...
Enthusiasm revives in the Oxfam Bookshop as the library expands with some novels and a copy of Anam Cara, featured at the very beginning of this blog as the light but profound choice as the only book in the rucksack ... given away en route as weight reduction become more and more obsessive ... the ascent of the Pyrenees concentrating the mind wonderfully ...
Meanwhile HHDL addresses the question of no-self, discovered last summer in the Casa ... subtly explaining that while commonsense suggests the existence of a separate self, deeper investigation reveals that an object arises dependent on causes and conditions, on its parts and on thought ... and has no inherent existence ... however the trap of nihilism is avoided by seeing things in their context, including the individual self with all its cooperating cells and mind created roles ... and opens the possibilities of each life immeasurably ... personal insight storied it differently, with the great paradox presented thus: You are the centre of the Universe; at the same time almost nothing on the cosmic scale ... playing with the paradox the opportunity for all of us .... and everything connected to everything else somehow!
World events are observed, political and meteorological ... hurricanes in Florida somehow more newsworthy than those decimating Caribbean islands ... the anniversary of the alleged attack on the World Trade Centre passes with fewer and fewer folks buying into the frankly ludicrous official version ... and declining to buy in wholesale to all the conspiracy theories ... Joanna Macy offers a more subtle story of changing times from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition ... suggesting the fault lines lie not so much cosmically, theologically, politically or economically but through the hearts of each one of the six billion humans, harbouring hate to some degree or other and projecting it onto the world ... relating back to previous explorations of the holographic nature of reality ... interesting times! Especially as the potential for each of us is to project love instead ... bringing us to HHDL and his simple religion of kindness ... worth a try ...
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