This Boringly Extraordinary Life

Posted byBenPosted inLife

Being Happiness Video Note 2!

The poem mentioned…

During a lull in the autumn rains,
I walk with the children along the mountain path.
The bottom of my robe becomes soaked with dew.
RYOKAN

(From One Robe, One Bowl. The Zen Poetry of Ryokan. Translated by John Stevens)

 

8 thoughts on “This Boringly Extraordinary Life”

  1. I sometimes think of us humans like a fruit that has a beautiful peel; colorful, exciting. As we go through the years, we shed the peel, become boring outside may be. But all the experience we’ve gained over the years gives us an outlook that we usually don’t have when we’re younger. We begin to see the beauty in little, ordinary miracles of life. I love this a lot more than “doing” stage of life.
    What a great subject you’ve chosen to talk about!
    Thank you.

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  2. Hi Ben. Your posts on boredom are great! Boring walks or waits have led me to: conversations with robins (one-sided, but they are attentive), a Jersey Tiger Moth that landed on a hedge, sketching crows on a chimney pot, birdsong and trying to identify what is singing, the way the plumage lays on a roosting wood pigeon…….. The natural world is so full of wonders in any weather and we don’t have to have selfie sticks or fly 10,000 miles. Happy wanderings in Casa de Campo, Ben!

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  3. Hi Ben
    Happy 29th December! I wanted to share this. In the midst the mundane tasks of laundry and tidying up, the sun is setting towards the top of a tree (it’s sibling in a neighbouring garden was cut down a couple of weeks ago, sadly) and as I looked out, I saw three thrush-like birds. I got out my ancestral opera glasses (really!) and took a look. Three Redwings – I can’t recall having seen these since I was a child – and the sun is lighting up the red just under their wings to a breathtaking glow. I didn’t even have to leave the house to see them. Also frost patterns on the bathroom window last night created a tree-like picture. I was sure William Blake had had a hand in it!

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  4. When I come upon the realization that I am bored, I see it as a good thing. It is a prompt, a reminder that I am missing something. And so I try to direct my attention to what surrounds me. It is then that I can see and appreciate the wonders and miracles of what would appear at first to be the ordinary, such as the bottoms my trousers “becoming soaked with dew.”

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