liberated ladies

© Chonyi Taylor

The liberated ladies sit and nod
as each autumnal leaf
falls past the sun...
passions
half remembered caricatures
of round full fruit.

They will not hold the sun,
but fold their shoulders warm
with friendly ghosts.

Softly, gently,
each soothing monotone
will sink into the earth...

more like a fruit
than like a stone. 

blessing what we eat.

Any food we eat has come through the generosity of people and animlas and insects that plough or fertilize or transport this food. Always something has died, whether the animal that supplied the meat we eat our the countless creatures killed during planting, harvesting and transporting out food. This is a way to bless the food......

We are eating this food
to make us grow strong,
so that we can help people
all the day long.

Thanks to all creatures
who brought us this food,
and especially the cook(s)
who made it taste good.

We offer this food
to all teachers so kind
who help us to have
a strong happy mind.

With a strong happy mind,
then we are able
to help other people
strating here at this table.

(Molly Wiseman created the first verse, I created the others. thnaks, Molly for the idea)

updated bio 2011

Venerable Tenzin Chönyi

Ven Tenzin Chonyi  (Chonyi Taylor) is a registered Foundational Buddhism FPMT teacher (the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition), teaching at various FPMT centers around the world and is an elder for the Discovering Buddhism at Home Course. She is the author of Enough!  A Buddhist Approach to Working With Addictive Patterns (Snow Lion, 2010)  and has been published in Mandala, Buddhadharma, Dharma Vision, Sangha Magazine. She is a founding member and member of the training committee of the Australian Association of Buddhist Counsellors and Psychotherapists and an Honorary Lecturer in the Discipline of Psychiatry at Sydney University.

As Dr Diana Taylor, Ven Tenzin Chönyi was a psychologist at Monash University Counseling Service and later in private practice. She graduated with a B.Sc. from University of Melbourne, and received an M. Ed and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Monash University. While working on her doctorate, she was also studying Buddhism and bringing up her three children. She ran workshops with Community Communication and Kagyu Evam Buddhist Institute on self-expression and self-awareness, and taught meditation at Tara institute, Melbourne.

After ordination by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, she became the resident nun at Atisha Centre and was active in the palliative care group and Karuna Hospice, Bendigo. She spent four years studying Buddhist philosophy and psychology at Chenrezig Nuns Community with Geshe Tashi Tsering, and was later appointed a “disciplinarian” at the Chenrezig Nuns Community.

In her three years as Western teacher at Vajrayana Institute, Sydney, she has taught Buddhism at various levels. She developed workshops for the general public, taught at inter-faith conferences and ran workshops for psychologists and health professionals for the Buddhist Library in Camperdown.

When she is not teaching, Ven Chonyi lives at Sandy Point, Victoria, Australia where she writes and uses the internet as a dharma tool

Enough!

Finally. my work, but also the work of an infinite web: teachers, students, editors, printers, my parents who cherished me, my children who ground me, the shoulders I've cried on, or hugged, or held
	Website : www.snowlionpub.com

.

Why do we forget about the hidden effects on our environment of the things we enjoy? A simple ballon can become a lethal weapon. It will last a long time, except that this one was picked up by me and put in the nearest rubbsh bin from where it will become non-biodegradeable land fill. Perhaps not a better solution  anyway.

A deep blue 

for a child's joy

that once flew high

with its teeth

more permanent

than a bird or fish

entrapped by it.

feb 14. 2010

dedicated to all women     


WOMAN’S SONG
Chonyi Taylor
Revised 2009

This place is seeping slowly in my nostrils.
vibrations stirring, creeping in my ears,
infusing every pore. This is the dreaming
of inner space becoming known and near.

Its changing lights are swirling from my eyes,
each breeze the movement of my living breath.
I turn the earth with every pulse, secrete the moon.
I am the mother of each birth and every death.

Every death is my death.
With every birth, I’m born.
The moon secretes my fluids.
The sun creates my form.
My vibrancy is dancing
and singing through each pore.
My flesh has lost its surface.
My mind has lost its core.

ICU Alfred Hospital, 1996

This was written after being intubated for epiglotitis. I was sick, but not as sick as most other patients in ICU. I would watch the strained faces walking past. Who were they visiting? What did they fear? Death was so close here.

And then I couldn't speak. My breath was given and taken by the equipment. I was too exhausted anyway.

A sullen grey has taken hold.

Time is suspended in drips

and silence. Nurses

quietly maneuver, whisper

necessities. They know.

Teetering near the brink

I am held by ropes of love

and gently, gently turned

but cannot speak of this.

Do they see that I know,

my children by the bed?

Do they see that I know