Om Gobble Gobble Ah Hung

Before I left for Australia, I signed up for an email list called Birding-AUS. As you might guess, it’s a forum in which members (sometimes endlessly) discuss the minutiae of Australian birds and bird-related topics. Even a card-carrying fanatic like me will most often delete the messages wholesale. But then yesterday, the subject line of one stayed my delete finger. It read, “Monks V Megapodes.” That one I opened, and it did not disappoint. The text was this:

Dear All,

This Tuesday (29/01/08) at 08:00PM, there is a program on ABC TV with an interesting sounding title, "Chant of the Scrub Turkey". The program notes sum it up as follows "A Buddhist community must deal with the growing numbers and aggressiveness of the local wild turkey population" It might be an interesting view.

Might be?! There’s a bit of classic Aussie understatement. I’m flying down to Canberra this afternoon and I don’t care who I’m staying with or what the circumstances are, at 8pm we’re clicking on ABC and enforcing total silence as we experience “Chant of the Scrub Turkey.” In fact, if I ever start another blog, I’m using that as its title. I’m claiming it now. Don’t even think about filching it.

It sums up what’s been so marvelous about this Australian visit so far. I’ve been able to completely immerse myself in my two passions: the Dharma and birdlife (“Hmmph,” a couple of our nuns just sniffed, “at least he managed to list ‘Dharma’ first.”).

Yes, in fact, there has been some Dharma activity. I’ve been meeting with each of the students individually to help them with whatever practice they’re into, and this past weekend we had a wonderful short retreat, focusing on Guru Yoga and shamatha meditation. The latter is the method for cultivating stable, single-pointed concentration. To prepare, I re-read my teacher’s book Stabilizing the Mind: A Meditational Technique to Develop Spaciousness in the Mind. It’s a small book, but when I looked at it again, I thought, “Huh. This really is quite profound.” Of course I’m partial, but if you’re interested in the subject of meditation, especially as discussed in Western terms, I can unreservedly recommend it. I supplemented with details from the exquisite volume A Spacious Path to Freedom.

Concentration meditation, done properly and with diligence, is an indispensable facet of Buddhist practice, and Jetsunma points out three major benefits of the mental spaciousness one cultivates. The first is that it prepares one well for the inevitable moment of one’s death. Buddhists believe that the mindstream continues beyond physical death and that stability and tranquility at that time are crucial to an auspicious transition.

The second benefit is the ability to disengage from the mental habits – anger, grasping, dullness, envy, pride – that hinder other aspects of our Buddhist practice.

The third benefit is to interject some space into the ordinary, knee-jerk reactivity with which we relate to our world. The better we become at this, the further benefit is to more and more clearly discriminate between our actual luminous nature, within which suffering is simply impossible, and the concepts we create and adore that obscure that nature and form the basis of all our suffering.

I was really impressed with the students. We didn’t have terribly long days – 9am to 5pm – but their willingness and focus were really encouraging.

As soon as the sessions were over and all the questions answered, however, there was still daylight, so Deb – one of the students who has the good karma to also be a birder – and I quickly donned our birding gear, hopped into her Hi Lux Toyota and zipped off to a wetland south of town to get a peep at the resident Black-shouldered Kites and whatever else was about. One of the kites put on a marvelous show, hovering in place over the meadow like a kestrel. And before the sun set, we turned up three other new birds I hadn’t seen: Nankeen (Rufous) Night Heron, Tree Martin, and Marsh Sandpiper.

We celebrated these good finds with a yummy Turkish dinner, but then parted ways to rest up for a more serious birding excursion yesterday to Tamborine National Park in the highlands an hour south of Queensland.

I would regale you with details but my ride’s coming soon so I have to shower and pack. But, briefly, this was mostly rainforest habitat again. It’s so awe-inspiring and I took a couple more photos to share. Here’s one of the enormous fig trees with Deb to give some scale to the size of their buttressed root systems:

And here are a couple shots of the amazing, medusa-head roots of the piccabeen palms:

In one section, we came across a very special grove of stumpy cycad palms. These bad boys have been growing on the planet for well over 200 million years and offer a glimpse into what the flora looked like when they were widely distributed before the continents even began to break apart or dinosaurs evolved:

Needless to say, these forests and their surrounds were rich in birdlife. Absolute highlight was a good, if brief, look at the shy, rare Albert’s Lyrebird. And then seven other lifers throughout the day found their way into binocular view: Western Corella, Crimson Rosella, Satin Bowerbird (with bright lavender eyes!), Pale-yellow Robin, Little Friarbird, Superb Fairy-wren (lives up to its name), and Striped Honeyeater.

OK, really gotta run now. More soon, including new dates added to the tour.

Comments

[KT]

Okay, you can have the title. You saw it first! Are we to call you "Scrub Turkey" when we see you again? (Or "Scrub," Turkey? Just kidding. Punctuation does make a difference, though, doesn't it? What? Not enough, you say?) KT

[Samaya]

you re the best bird, my friend. how can i send you a special bird picture?

pray for me...i start my yucky meds this week....

[Sangye]

The fig tree roots--wow. Glad to have the perspective of a person next to it. Is the piccabeen named so because one can "Pick a bean?" Now don't say something like, "Jeez, Sangye, isn't that obvious? Really, maybe you need more vitamins."

[sharon dunne]

I watched the doco, thought it was hilarious to watch those nutters try everything but the most sensible thing of fencing like the expert said. they were all lunatics, except the turkey.
just had my first sip of Campos coffee, ahhh ... must offer to the buddhas, this could become a habit.
there is the original one in sydney, maybe you can track it down while you're there.

[Leamur]

What beautiful birds! :)

[sharon dunne]

i just realised how mean my comment sounded re the doco on the scrub turkey. I forget how cut and dried text alone can be.

The people in the community seemed to be driving themselves insane by not being practical in the face of unceasing attack by the turkeys. And there seemed to be no real co-operation in attempting to solve the problem.

The turkeys are like terminators, completely single-pointed in their need to do as they do.

The expert had good advice, which they just refused to try, accept for one woman's one try, and we didn't see the outcome of her efforts.

I just felt so frustrated for them, they were driving themselves nuts by not being practical.