My favourite Zen story is when a question is asked of a Zen monk A house is on fire. What is the most important thing that you would save? He replies I would save the fire. This story has stayed with me for 40 years teaching me to look deeper into what we consider […]
A superstition is any belief or practice that is irrational, arising from ignorance, a misunderstanding of science or causality, a way of behaving that is based on fear of the unknown and faith in magic or luck. It is not based on reason, knowledge, and the superstitious person has no care for the impact of […]
Last week I received a frantic email from a teacher in Puducherry. The school principal had decided to remove all the beehives on the trees and cut down all the lower branches so that they would not get any more. The real culprits were two children who had thrown stones at the beehive and had […]
Ive just finished reading Ten Million Aliens by Simon Barnes, a collection of articles that looks at animals in a new way. According to Barnes 80% of the living animals on earth are nematode worms. There are 28,000 species, of which 16,000 are parasites. They range from 2.5 mm to meters long. The longest known […]
Plants and animals are so interdependent that many plants change themselves, and even where they grow, in order to accommodate insects. For instance, the Bee Orchid of the Mediterranean has adapted its colour, shape and texture to make itself look like a female bee. It also releases scents (pheromones) to attract male bees. In their […]
A human eats, defecates, reproduces, dies. And in between tries to give meaning to his life by being as destructive as he can of everything around him. An animal also eats, defecates, reproduces and dies and leaves the planet intact. Whom would God choose, I wonder, to enter his heaven? Human beings have no respect […]
Altruism is the conscious and deliberate giving of something you may need yourself but are prepared to donate for anothers wellbeing. Very few humans are altruistic. I see people who give their old clothes to their own servants, or less fortunate relatives, and they think they are being very generous. People who celebrate their birthdays by calling […]
Last week I received a frantic email from a teacher in Puducherry. The school principal had decided to remove all the beehives on the trees and cut down all the lower branches so that they would not get any more. The real culprits were two children who had thrown stones at the beehive and had […]
Every summer I make a thick mango juice, put it into plastic kulfi holders and freeze it. We have it as a formal dessert for the next few months. You can do it with most fruit juices – watermelon, phalsa, jamun. I learnt this from my mother who would always have orange popsicles waiting for us when […]
One of the reasons I dont eat sweets is because, over the years, I have discovered that most of them have gelatine in them. A friend of mine owned a chain of small shops in which you could go, as in the Western sweet shops, and scoop out various candies you wanted from open, shelf-like […]
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