Letter from Nanna and Grandad

 

Mugs (ceramic!) mentioned in the text

A letter from:-

Nanna & Grandad

Essex        28/01/2021

Dear Scallywags,

Here is a little letter from Kingfisher Lodge. We hope you are both keeping safe and well and helping mum and dad with all the chores. Maybe we should not have used the word “scallywags” above as it means “a person who behaves badly but you still like them and find it difficult to be angry with them.” Hopefully the “badly” bit does not apply!

We will begin with a poem by Spike Milligan (he was the one who wrote the poem about English Teeth which you might remember) Anyway, here is another of his poems:-

Today I saw a little worm

Wriggling on his belly

Perhaps he'd like to come inside

And see what's on the telly.

Invite him in

We thought of poems because we had just received the poem by Harper, inspired by “The Owl and the Pussycat.”

The fairy and the unicorn went to space in a spaceship that can float.

They took some sweets and plenty of meats wrapped up in a pink fluffy coat.

Looking for the spaceship?

We also liked the picture that went with the poem. We remember Dougie writing some poetry and also that he got a Blue Peter Badge, which made us proud.

We have one of Dougie's poems here, a limerick:-

In minecraft you craft and mine

To look for emeralds that may shine

To trade with villages

Who get raided by pillages

But it's all part of a game so it's fine!

Arrrrgh! The pillaging! All part of a game so.........

Grandad also liked the “Inspirational Person” that Dougie wrote about..........the “Great Explorer”!!

We always love the photo's that your mum keeps sending us. It's nice to see how Denis and Cookie have grown as well as you (Cookie seems harder to find than Denis! Cookie seems to prefer the quiet life in some little corner of the house) We really miss you both and hope that soon we can be together again for hugs and kisses.

The type of quiet time that Cookie enjoys?

There are still plenty of ducks and moorhen's on the pond near where we live. The water has overflowed recently but never gets near our own door. We also have a friendly robin who likes to feed from the bird feeder we bought at Polehill – if he can get there before the squirrels! In fact the squirrels here are causing trouble! Grandad has planted a lot of daffodil bulbs in a plant tub and every so often we catch a squirrel digging them out and having a nibble. We need you here to keep watch!

A squirrel on the lookout.......

Are you both keen to get back to school? Hopefully it won't be long before you get to see all your friends again – and the teachers!

We have just remembered the two mugs you both created for us at Christmas. Two nice pictures on them, a christmas tree and a sleigh with decorations. We both wondered just who the reindeer was beside the christmas tree. We knew it wasn't Rudolf as he had a white nose – but then, he might just have dipped his nose in the snow! But it could have been Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner or Blitzen! Anyway, we both had a few cups of tea (or coffee) from the mugs over Christmas. A lovely gift. Thank you.

Nanna and Grandad's mugs

Time to go now. Say hello to Cookie and Denis from us. We love you both.

Love from......

Nanna and Grandad xxxx

One more memo

 Well, here I am again. It is raining so unable to take up my seat on the bench beside the river. Maybe for the best......yesterday a little wagtail appeared looking for crumbs and I had nothing to give. His/her chirps were in vain.

I live in a small retirement complex, about 45 apartments. All self-contained, it is not a care home. We have a two bedroom groundfloor apartment looking out over a park.

Feet first

It is the sort of place where, as I observed once, you can only exit feet first. From a Buddhist perspective, the whole ambience assists with daily contemplation of one's own mortality. Possibly this can be deemed morbid but in fact I find it life giving. Insight grows into the reality of thankfulness for the present moment, whatever that moment holds. Insight grows slowly, very slowly at times, but grow it does - which nourishes faith in the grace of Reality-as-is.

Thankfulness

Every so often another resident exits feet first, or takes a tumble, or has time in hospital. You remember them when they are gone. For me, often, I recognise that the time you saw them stumble by, or welcome their grandchildren, or join in the christmas sing-song, that you were seeing their "golden age". That recognition helps me bless the moment now.

While I can acknowledge that some might see all this as cheap platitudes, for me they do not come cheap. The cost can be seen as infinite, a price only Reality can "pay" or even understand.

We all have to speak from our very own Pure Land.

Another Memo

 More from the Pure Land.

Empty spaces

Coffee in hand, pissing down, seeking to draw comfort from "what does not destroy us makes us stronger", I read a few bits and pieces from Stephen Batchelor. A man who advocates no position.

He speaks of some obscure Tibetan "view" on "emptiness".....

".....the emptiness of inherent existence is a simple negation as opposed to an affirming negation. This means that the absence opened up by emptiness does not disclose and thereby affirm a transcendent reality (like God or Pure Consciousness) that was previously obscured by one’s egoistic confusion. It simply removes a fiction that was never there."

The Buddha spoke of "dwelling in emptiness". As Mr Batchelor says, "emptiness is first and foremost a condition in which we dwell, abide, and live."

Stephen Batchelor goes on:-

Rather than being the negation of “self,” emptiness discloses the dignity of a person who has realized what it means to be fully human. Such emptiness is far from being an ultimate truth that needs to be understood through logical inference and then directly realized in a state of nonconceptual meditation. It is a sensibility in which one dwells, not a privileged epistemological object that, through knowing, one gains a cognitive enlightenment.

As a Pure Lander I identify with the above and would call it Faith. Always open to the simple hearted. Very egalitarian.

Faith has no content. "Though He slay me yet will I love Him" as theists might say - thus pointless in many ways. It offers nothing. Mocked by many. Yet I find it more and more life-giving.

"What are the teachings of an entire lifetime?" Answer, "An appropriate statement."

Yes.

Yet another memo

 

Not much to report this morning from the Pure Land (AKA the park bench or wherever) I have been ploughing my way through the Dhammapada over the past few days. The translation is fairly dry to say the least but gems appear from out of the mist. A little phrase....... "Day and night, the mind delights in gentleness." The words struck me and stuck. They have already saved me from a few mental diatribes aimed at Boris Johnson - the mental processes mercifully cut off at the second or third "bastard". After which, the delight in gentleness! For a few moments at least.

Almost through the Dhammapada now and moving on to the Flower Ornament Scripture. I have often dipped into that in the past. D T Suzuki says of this work.....(he gives it its posh name)

“As to the Avatamsaka-Sutra, it is really the consummation of Buddhist thought, Buddhist sentiment, and Buddhist experience. To my mind, no religious literature in the world can ever approach the grandeur of conception, the depth of feeling, and the gigantic scale of composition, as attained by the sutra. Here not only deeply speculative minds find satisfaction, but humble spirits and heavily oppressed hearts, too, will have their burdens lightened. Abstract truths are so concretely, so symbolically represented here that one will finally come to a realization of the truth that even in a particle of dust the whole universe is seen reflected—not this visible universe only, but a vast system of universes, conceivable by the highest minds only.”

Humble spirits? Now there's a thing! As Thomas Merton once said, "we can never be humble enough."

Nevertheless it is a fine scripture. Still, if a scientific treatise is preferred or the morning paper, that's the way it goes.

The rain has held off. The forecast is that snow is on the way.