Start the Week

Ants leaving my compost bin. Yuk!

Nature is a wonderful thing, but it's not all lovely. Take, for instance, the Ritual of the Flying Ants, which took place on Saturday. I know it's amazing that they all take off at the same time, but it gives me the creeps.
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Yesterday afternoon I sat in the audience while the choir I belong to performed its summer concert. I wasn't in my usual seat in the alto ranks, because I've taken a term off. My only contribution was to arrange a bit of publicity and book a couple of folk singers to complement the programme. Vince Gorman and Dave Clemo did a splendid job. Check them out on YouTube.
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Khenchen Lama Rinpoche

The week has had an unusual start. I'm not a Buddhist, but have been to the occasional meditation session and special event at the local centre (which meets at the Quaker Meeting House, making it a truly interfaith event). They have a special guest all day today: a Tibetan Meditation Master Khenchen Lama Rinpoche. I went to the first teaching and really wished I could have stayed for the whole event, not least because there was to be something on Dream Yoga and I have no idea what that is. I shall have to ask for feedback from friends who were there. We did some lovely work with mudra (hand positions) and mantra (repetition of words) with a view to helping us overcome the Five Poisons. Khenchen Lama Rinpoche had a very strong Tibetan accent (it took me a while to work out that what I thought was 'zumba', which seemed a little odd, given the context, was actually 'example'), so I can't tell you what the five are, but he definitely mentioned ego (ahem), anger and envy. In Indian yoga we talk of the five obstacles (klesha) of ignorance, egoism, attachment, hatred and clinging to bodily life, and of course there's the Seven Deadly Sins. Many paths all leading the same way?