Kala bears, wicked mutations of Australia's koala bears (marsupials), are on the rise.
Humans were destroying the koala's whole world, their trees. They were powerless to resist until, under pressure, a mutation occurred. Their eyes went from brown...
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Comrades, as you know I was recently captured by GUteater and badly treated.
I want to thank Commander Winnie and my comrades who risked their lives to save me from the slow and thorough death GUteater was putting me through.
Fortunately, I have the self-healing body of a Sirius shape shifter. Normally the Sirius body will heal itself overnight but GUteater broke and re-broke these bones so many times, healing has not been easy.
I should probably be dead. I'd have preferred that as I could have then returned in a new form, far from GUteater's stinking torture chamber. But he was clever, careful.
There are obvious kill wounds for a Sirius fox, like the loss of a tail, but there are also more subtle points on the body that disrupt the vital energy flow. With all his hacking and breaking GUteater knew what not to do, to keep me alive for my delivery to hell. Once in hell, I couldn't die.
There's something I want to make clear, about my time with the demon lord: I was no innocent victim. I earned every blow, every hack I received.
In the Great Kala Bear Battle last year, Commander Winnie gave me specific instruction; we could teach a lesson but 'no kala bears are to be killed'.
Yet still, I killed seven.
Once I bit the first one, tasted kala blood, I no longer cared. I am a killer. I revelled in their screams, just as GUteater revelled in mine.
It's not the first time either. Make no mistake, I earned my time in hell.
Sometimes in these chronicles, due to some romantic vision of Sirius, I am portrayed as a hero, a bodhisattva. True, I have undertaken the vows and training that lead that way. But as I am very far from that, I ask that I not be romanticised here into something I am not.
I am a fox, a junky, a killer.
If I do have any of the bodhisattva's qualities it is this; my vow to truth. That vow, I keep. Propaganda creates a distorted view of a heroic 'us', over a despicable 'them'. It happens in all wars and I'll have no part of it.
Whatever, Winnie says it's time to put my ill-treatment behind me. He says:
"you limpin roun al sory for yousef. that no help for me no help for you. time now for you go for retreat. time you hav good look at yousef. no mor this por fox me."
Neil is going down to Kangaroo Island for some isolated meditation and Winnie says I should do the same, with Lady Gaia.
He says I need to practice Tong Len (Note 7), taking on the suffering of others and giving them happiness in return.
He says this will stop me feeling sorry for myself. ____________________
(Note 7.) Tong Len (Tib. Sending and Receiving) is a meditation technique to "develop the psychological attitude of exchanging oneself for others". - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Whatever sufferings sentient beings have May they ripen on me. Whatever happiness I have May it ripen on sentient beings. - Nagarjuna.
Tong Len loosens the ego's grasping at its own suffering, while developing compassion for others. The actual practice is to visualise taking the suffering of others upon ourselves with the in breath and returning to others, with the out breath, our own precious happiness and well-being. Although this may seem imaginary it has a very real effect in lessening the egos bloated sense of self-importance.
"Of all the practices I know, the practice of tonglen is one of the most useful and powerful. No other practice I know is as effective in destroying the self-grasping, self-cherishing, self-absorption of the ego, which is the root of all our suffering and all hard-heartedness." - Sogyal Rinpoche.
