The Arriving Birds

This morning, sitting in the Buddha Room at Winterhead, I glanced out of the window. There in the holly tree flitted a small brown bird, a Phyloscopus warbler arrived from Africa riding on the spring weather coming up from the south. Species of this genus are difficult to identify, all small brownies. There are three of them visiting Britain, the Chiffchaff, the Willow Warbler and the Wood Warbler. Unless one has very good binoculars and precise knowledge, one can tell them apart only by their songs. Since Wood Warblers only frequent the canopy of woodland, this one could only be either a Chiff Chaff or a Willow Warbler. It was not singing!

This is the first migrant I have seen this spring. It reminded me of the wonders of migration; the way thousands of little birds travel annually to and from from Africa crossing deserts and seas to breed in food-rich Europe and then returning for the winter to warmer climes. It is extraordinary how animals adapt to their circumstances and evolve these extraordinary abilities. Yet we, who are so clever, often fail to do so.

The wonders of nature are not always friendly. Some of us live in dangerous places. The Japanese are well adjusted to the frequency of earthquakes but the horror of the recent enormous quake and its resultant, terrifying tsunami took even them by surprise. One wonders however at the seeming stupidity of placing nuclear reactors on the coast in a most vulnerable region. No doubt there were sound economic reasons for doing this some forty years ago. Yet we are beginning to appreciate that we need to take nature and the dangers it often poses far more seriously.

It is not only the positioning of reactors but also the use of atomic radiation itself that needs questioning and indeed our entire relation to nature and our physical environment. The arrogance of our cock-a hoop understanding of economics in relation to nature has led to this against the cautionary advice of science. We need to engage our often very ignorant politicians vigorously in this matter in this time of ever increasing urgency. What to do? Write to MPs? Join protest movements? Any sound approach will do. Spread the word – urgently.

We love nature; walks in the countryside, sailing the coast or across the Channel, climbing mountains, observing birds, mammals, insects, the excitement of spotting a fox slipping across a meadow – or these days even down a street. Yet, many of us, including some of our would-be leaders, do not always understand the need to respect it. Nature wields awesome powers before which we need to show some of the respect age-old Shamans used to do before their gods of  mountain snows, avalanches, springs and sunshine.

In our practice of Zen, we have two approaches that encourage this re-orientation. The first is the Law of Dependent Co-origination that tells us that all things are parts of a whole ever changing natural process. This insight of the Buddha was amazingly exact as modern science confirms. Then we have our meditative skills allowing us to sit silently in woods or moors appreciating the wonders that glow before us. This above all should show us how we need to respect nature if we are to remain human within a civilisation we can respect. Let us all be ever mindful of these things and consider the appropriate actions we should take.

Chuan-deng Jing-di

Wednesday, March 16, 2011