Never Take Anything For Granted.

Never Take Anything For Granted.

Along The Trodden Path.

I was out walking yesterday along a well trodden path. Of all my walks this one is the closest

to home .

 Because it is so close it is so very easy to take it for granted and just walk. As I walked yesterday I was a person who was walking in front of me. It seemed obvious that this young person had been sent to walk the two dogs, and would rather have been elsewhere.  During the part of the walk where the person was in front of me I could see that she was more interested in her cell phone than she was about either the dog or the beauty around her.

The way of youth. I remember the many times my father , while we were out walk, would say to me,"Ralph can you not just be quiet for a moment and look and listen. You have two eyes and two ears and one mouth. Learn to use those in proportion. So twice as much listening and seeing than talking. " An excellent lesson.

Here is a little parable the Buddha once told to his followers. 

A man was travelling across a field when he encountered a tiger coming after him. It was very much a hungry looking tiger and the man was sure he had him as a meal in mind. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of a root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above.

Trembling the man looked down to where far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one black and one white, little by little started to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other.

How sweet that strawberry tasted, like no other he had ever tasted before.

Todays painting is of a little lochan surrounded by birch trees in the splendour of autumn. Missed by many walkers because it involves stepping up a little bank to see it, so many just pass by.