Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Awareness

What is awareness? One of the questions we asked ourselves here at Schochwitz castle the other day. With so many people here (we recently welcomed another volunteer from Argentina) there are a lot of opportunities to learn new things and explore different points of view. One of the areas where we have been able to explore many different points of view, for example, is on the meaning of 'good housekeeping'; and one of the lessons we have learnt is that the more people we are, the less efficiently anything gets done. Why is this? For one thing, no one is too sure what anyone else is up to: has someone taken care of the washing, am I supposed to be cleaning that room, and who has moved the vacuum cleaner? Needless to say the confusion has caused a lot of fun. And this is where awareness comes in.
Awareness is a word that gets used in a variety of situations - 'show awareness of peoples feelings', 'they displayed political and environmental awareness', 'you have no awareness of your surroundings' - but  for me it means being conscious of your environment, and how you can impact on it. If we had been more aware, we would have seen the work the others were doing, and we would have known how to do it when they didn't; We would have seen that some people were doing more housework than others, and we would have taken our turn - or we would have seen that someone always misses a certain area and reminded them to do it; we would have gained a wider view of how life in the castle is run, and also have a better idea of how we can help out and fit in.
Obviously we all now have complete awareness of what is going on around us, and no longer have any problems what so ever. But because this lesson benefited us so much, we thought we might share it with you too. Let's all try to be a little more aware.

     

Saturday, May 3, 2014

A lesson a day...

It's sunny again at Schochwitz, and a good start to the weekend: we have the most guests we've had with this year's volunteers. It's also been a day full of new lessons. One of the lessons we learnt today - in the form of one of Lord Jimmy's little stories - was the following. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

A monk who wished to see a vision of Buddha hid himself away in a cave to meditate. 20 years later, he returned unsuccessful. Thinking that he had not tried hard enough, he went back to the cave and meditated 20 years more. The second time he emerged, he was still unsuccessful: he had failed once again to see Buddha, and enlightenment eluded him. Believing he had not sacrificed enough, he returned a third time to the cave. This time, after only 5 years, he emerged once again. He had spent most of his life meditating in a cave, and was no closer to reaching enlightenment. It seemed he would never fulfill his wish.
Walking down from the cave, he came across an injured dog, lying on the ground with his cuts full of dirt and maggots. Overcome by compassion he knelt down in the dirt next to the dog and began clearing it's wounds. When the job was done, and he had picked the last maggot from the cut, he looked up to see a vision of the Buddha standing before him, and finally he achieved enlightenment: you can try all your life and fail to achieve what you want, but if you dedicate yourself to doing something from the heart, then you will get what you need.

We hope you have a good weekend!

Friday, May 2, 2014

Schloss Schochwitz

Another rainy day at castle Schochwitz and our new plants are loving it! We welcomed our 6th volunteer yesterday - an Argentinian. We now have people representing 6 different nationalities living and working in the castle. That means 6 different languages, 6 different cultures, 6 different ways of doing things and seeing things. Needless to say, sometimes all of these differences can cause a lot of confusion - like the other day when half of us thought we were supposed to open the Cafe and the rest had gone to the kitchen to prepare the coffee. The kitchen is also a place of much eventfulness and fun. With so many different culinary traditions and levels of ability mixed into a single place, every meal turns into a game of pot luck. Sometimes someone will whip something up in mere minutes and astound us all with their edible masterpieces, other times people will disappear for days on end into the dark confines of the kitchen and emerge with something - well, it can be interesting to say the least. We have had everything from absolutely delicious to the kind of dish where the politest response is to refrain from asking whether it's edible. But every day is a new discovery and life goes on in Schloss Schochwitz.