The coffee chronicles continued in Edinburgh with a fleeting visit to Wellington cafe, on George st.  Another Kiwi inception, this beauty serves distinctive chocolate smooth macchiato’s, unlike the rocket fuel at Artisan cafe, they are gentle yet rich.  The barrista apparently won barrista of the year award in Scotland, which I was not surprised to hear about after downing my second macchiato on the trot.

A few weeks ago I went to Edinburgh, Scotland for a conference.  There were long days in air conditioned stuffiness so I purposely got out early and explored the city and its cafes.  Andy, my chief tour coffee tipper for Edinburgh told me to check out two in particular.  I met him at Artisan cafe one morning and we sampled their rocket fuel; two on the trott in fact.  Edinburgh’s independent coffee outlets have a distinctive New Zealand touch, as Artisan cafe is owned by a Kiwi and the next one (coming soon) is also owned by Kiwi’s.  Artisan’s charm included coffee bean bags stuck to the walls, and of course macchiato’s served in a shot glass which I always like.  There is nothing like seeing the black goodness and layer of creme to excite the taste buds.

Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Centre

“We must give up our unrealistic expectations.  We are not machines and do not perform best under stress.”

- Clive Holmes

Clive should have received a hefty commission from the bookshop on day two of the Emotional Intelligence course.  He mentioned Tara Bennett-Goleman’s book Emotional Alchemy several times.  In the lunch break most of the class brought the book from the small store behind the Tea Rooms.  This store had an amazing collection of Psychology and Buddhism books, making my credit card quiver in my bag.

“Who am I if I am not my usual pattern of assumptions and self-definitions?”

- Tara Bennett-Goleman

This is such a powerful question.  When we peel back the layers, what is left?  And are we brave enough to see and try?  Listening to a podcast by Jack Kornfield the other day he cited a great quote by James Baldwin:

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to the hate and ignorance so stubbornly is because they sense when that is gone they will be forced to deal with their own pain.”

“Your suffering is not you

it’s ok to not be ok

nothing is perfect, and that’s ok”

- Clive Holmes

Compassion is a big topic.  Where to start?  Perhaps with what grabbed me most?  “If you have a talent to receive compassion, you have no limits on giving.” Clive said and the whole room perked up as if confused with what he had said.  In the western world we are taught to give, continuously.  To do things for ourselves is selfish.  So when Clive said to receive means you have no limits on giving the class breathed a sign of relief, and many emotions came out.  It is a difficult thing, to receive.  Even just a thank you – to really take it can be difficult sometimes.  It took me a long time to learn how to receive a compliment.  In New Zealand to be above or set out from others is negative.  You don’t want to acknowledge success in yourself or others.

Pity is without compassion.  It has ego, but compassion has respect.  There is a fine line between compassion and being walked on, and we talked a lot about this.  Clive said that to be compassionate yet have that street wise knowing of when to have boundaries is key, and that out of compassion for others you can’t be a soft touch.  Otherwise you are feeding their habits and attachments, and not respecting yourself.  Knowing when to be open and when to have tough love is a skill, and to have compassion, respect for yourself is essential to truly give it to anyone else.  “If it’s good for the other person but not for you, then it’s not compassion” Clive dropped another anti-cultural teaching at us, creating confused looks, and breath holding.

]]> http://snippetsofeverything.com/2009/12/25/compassion/feed/ 0 ames stuppas http://snippetsofeverything.com/2009/12/23/this-was-our-classroom/ http://snippetsofeverything.com/2009/12/23/this-was-our-classroom/#comments Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:52:34 +0000 ames http://snippetsofeverything.com/?p=1418 ]]>

As the EQ and Buddhism retreat dug deeper we learnt different meditations to help turn our reactions into appropriate responses, by cultivating time, and space, and self awareness.  To have self awareness of those button pushers, with time we can master them, if we are motivated to do so.  Clive talked about habits a lot: one of my favourite topics.   As physiological systems, being able to cultivate habits is both our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness.  They help us learn things quickly, but also help us take on unskillful things we later struggle to get rid of.

“Anything that takes us out of our habits is good,” Clive said nodding his head.  You could see every cell in his body emanating agreement.  Ultimately habits are reactive as they use pre-paved pathways which are normally filters, conditioned responses, deep seated beliefs, which aren’t necessarily real.  But if we are out of our habits, we can respond instead of react.

Suffering can become a habit and just like giving up smoking we can give up suffering.  This reminds me of one of my favourite quotes “some people are content to suffer.” But first we need to realize we are, realize we can change and then be motivated to do so.

“When we are lost in thought, in our habitual mode, we have left ourselves.  We are not there.” – Zencast

]]> http://snippetsofeverything.com/2009/12/23/this-was-our-classroom/feed/ 0 ames temple http://snippetsofeverything.com/2009/12/18/scotland/ http://snippetsofeverything.com/2009/12/18/scotland/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:37:08 +0000 ames http://snippetsofeverything.com/?p=1409 ]]>

Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Centre

We were sitting in the communal tea room have the morning dose before the next talk and KC asked one of the monks “how long have you been here?”

“I came here to visit a friend for the weekend.  That was 26-years ago”  he replied.  That appeared a common thread at Samye Ling, with answers varying from 4 to 10, to 26-years.  It is definitely a special place, in the middle of nowhere.  Clive Holmes was our teacher.  He has been involved with Buddhism for 30-years, including a year long retreat in India.  He had a wonderful presence of wisdom, and character.  Clive talked about the five fingers of emotional intelligence (slightly different to those by Goleman), that all join together by the palm to form this beautiful skill: to know what pushes your buttons and have the self-mastery to over ride it.

1. Self awareness: knowing thyself and keeping integrity and being true to yourself is a lot less stress!  Knowing yourself helps to be fluid and adaptable.  Being able to help yourself skillfully.

2. Self mastery: knowing when not to be rigid.

3. Compassion: pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.  How to be free of the reactivity of pain.

4. Motivating: self, and others.

5. Social intelligence: listening below the surface of what is really happening and developing intuition.

The main teaching was how to change a reactive response to an appropriate response.  To see things as they actually are, instead of through our filters, our conditioning, or our beliefs.  When we see things through these masks we react.  When we see things logically we are guided to respond appropriately.  It is as simple as that, yet so not simple!  Our bodies are built for conflict, and as Clive said, “it is not our fault we were born with these bodies that have emotions.”

]]> http://snippetsofeverything.com/2009/12/18/scotland/feed/ 2 ames scotland kagyu samye ling http://snippetsofeverything.com/2009/12/16/it-was-amazing/ http://snippetsofeverything.com/2009/12/16/it-was-amazing/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:23:33 +0000 ames http://snippetsofeverything.com/?p=1363 ]]>

Coffee you could say, is my hobby, my addiction, my past time.  Oddly enough I take photos of coffees I enjoy.  I started this when I got my first digital camera and now can’t seem to stop.  The coffee addiction has spread to a taking photos of good coffees addiction.

This was in the Tibetan Tea rooms at the Kaygu Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist centre in the middle of nowhere.  My double espresso had a delicious creme, and a kiwi name.  I don’t just like cafe dwelling for the caffeine.  That’s definitely a bonus, but the real bonus is the whole experience.  Cafe’s are my contemporary museums and there is always a story to be told before, after or during a visit to a cafe.  On this particular occasion KC and I had spent some time traveling north from Manchester up the M6.  We got off at Lockerbie and thought we might stop there for some lunch but it was dead and nothing looked appealing.  We continued following our map to Samye Ling thinking the towns on the map might have a pub for a nice hot lunch.

Forty-five minutes later we arrived at Samye Ling after rolling through town after town – that is, three houses next to each other actually constitutes a town, and a location on a published map in Scotland.  Hungry we hoped there might be something at the Buddhist Centre but weren’t sure if there would be anything, and my expectations at 2.30pm were not high.  To our surprise the Tibetan Tea Rooms awaited with it’s home-made danishes, soup, and gorgeous coffee.  All veges were organically grown from the garden just a few metres from the cafe.  It was well worth the wait and beyond any pub hot dinner.