(US national day of demonstration, 14 June 2025. The photo depicts just the Capitol steps, where the speakers appeared, and maybe half the crowd below. There were about twice that many more on the front lawn and approaches, and maybe that many again on the sidewalks of the city, waving at passing drivers and receiving their honks of support.)
In this short meditation, Rusty Ring favourite Peter Mayer sums up the lesson we all should have learned long ago, but that many – perhaps the majority – of us are still sulking over.
Candid elaboration on the Zen notion of dependent co-arising, as applied to the human condition (a subordinate form I prefer to call co-dependent arising), the whole track consists of little more than Peter's own voice and guitar, enhanced here and there with a ghostly violin at the edges. It all adds up to power that commands attention, and a sedate simplicity our sort esteem.
Another cut from Peter's excellent album Heaven Below.
I've got this on frequent rotation these days, as I absorb demands to take arms against successive waves of faceless, vaguely defined offenders. Give it a click; see if it doesn't help to keep you on-task as well.
NOBODY ASKS
by Peter Mayer
Nobody asks to be born
They just show up one day at life’s door
Saying here I am world
I’m a boy, I’m a girl
I'm rich, I am sick, I am poor
Nobody asks to be born
No one is given a say
They’re just thrown straight into the fray
The bell rings at ringside
And someone yells fight
Some just end up on the floor
Nobody asks to be born
And no one’s assured
Of a grade on the curve
Or a friend they can trust
Or a house where they’re loved
And no life includes
A book of how-to
Because nobody has lived it before
So to all the living be kind
Bless the saint and the sinner alike
And when babies arrive
With their unholy cries
Don’t be surprised by their scorn
"I always think friction and having annoying things around is absolutely essential for good meditation. Otherwise, you become incredibly selfish, controlling, and easily upset."
Ajahn Sumedho
[I find this note encouraging, as friction and having annoying things around is basically the definition of my life and practice.]
(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
(Kids love treehouses, but the treehouse years are few and fleeting, and as the demographics of a neighbourhood age and change, those much-loved adult-proof hideaways quickly return to the source.
This one is relatively unusual, in that it was built by adults to an actual plan, and features a host of architectural novelties. (It's also not even technically a treehouse, since no part of it is a tree, but I'm sure the child who owned it considered it one.)
And though its construction was obviously both time-consuming and expensive so far as such structures go, within just a few years – that probably seemed like months to the child's parents – its owner grew up and out, and with no other potential residents in the vicinity, even this carriage-trade example became uninhabitable.
Which is why you see many more abandoned treehouses than occupied ones.
So next time you see an occupied treehouse, take note. Because chances are you're seeing impermanence in action.)
.jpg)
