Some Humane Ideas Regarding Unwanted Mice in Your Home

Keep your home clean. Wipe off your countertop. Don't leave crumbs and other food bits out for the mice. The main reason they're in your home is for the food.

Put breakfast cereal, pastas, dog and cat foods in plastic air-tight containers.

Find the entry points and stuff them with steal wool. Mice can’t chew steel wool.

Pour a few drops of peppermint oil on cotton balls and place these in areas where you think mice may frequent. Mice have very sensitive noses and the peppermint oil in a bit overwhelming for them.

Thinning Carrots

You had to have a garden. You had no alternative. I can remember crawling on my hands and kness down the line to thin out the carrots. That was a hard chore, but I had a good time doing it. You sure would be happy when you got through.

~Jean Dinsmore, born 1918

Do Not Waste - Anything

We do not inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from our children. Words to help with this practice come from Ruth Rowen, a woman who was a child during the Great Depression. Ruth says, "We prided ourselves on our economy. You never threw anything away."

The Mother

All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.

~Chief Seattle

A Realistic Outlook Is Necessary For Our Survival And Well-Being

A person can have a completely unrealistic outlook and still live a very happy life. For example, I have a high school friend who believes that one day Jesus will return and send evildoers to hell and take him and his family back to heaven to live with Him in paradise everlasting. This belief brings him comfort and helps him manage the sadder aspects of life. Jesus won't return, but my friend will die happily believing that one day He will.

On an individual level, this can work, to some extent. As I said, this belief makes him happy. But on a collective level, beliefs like that can be tremendously harmful. They lead people like my friend to being negligent about the environment, for example, and to push for political action that damages the world. So. long after my friend is gone, his children and grandchildren, as well as your children and grandchildren, may suffer because of my friend's mistaken belief that Jesus will return before that can happen. A realistic outlook is necessary for our overall survival and well-being.

~Brad Warner, in It Came From Beyond Zen!

Value

It is only after you have carried your own water that you learn the value of every drop. 

Lord Cernunnos Celebrating the Vernal Equinox

The Vernal Equinox

The Tree

In 1973, E. F. Schumacher wrote, “Every follower of the Buddha ought to plant a tree every few years and look after it until it is safely established.”
I'll take the liberty and rephrase his suggestion, “Everyone who cares about Earth and the life upon it ought to plant a tree every few years and look after it until it is safely established.”

A Noble Environment

The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans and animals, trees, and the Earth. When we realize that the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise -- then we can build a noble environment. If our lives are not based on this truth, then we shall perish. 

---Buddhadasa Bhikkhu---

Like a Butterfly As It Moves From Flower To Flower

A Buddhist Practitioner acquires what is necessary for survival, yet with a sensitivity that leaves no trail of destruction in its wake.

Love, Compassion, and Wisdom

Life

There is enough in the world for everyone's need; there is not enough for everyone's greed.

---Gandhi---

Abundance

                                        Then the well spoke to me.

                                         It said: Abundance is scooped from abundance
                                         yet abundance remains.

                                                                                               ---Anne Sexton---

Tree Planting

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; 

the second best time is now.

Planting Trees

John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed)

The quintessential act of caring for future generations of people, and, indeed, all living things. is the planting of trees.

On your birthday plant a tree.

As an act of celebration plant a tree.

As an act of contrition plant a tree.

As a memorial plant a tree.

As a religious practice plant a tree.

As a spiritual practice plant a tree.

As a gift to Life plant a tree.

As It Should Be

There was a time, after the Buddha's death, when Ananda, the Teacher's faithful attendant, was instructing the courtesans of King Udena of Vansa.

The courtesans were so happy with the instructions from the good Ananda that they made him a gift of five hundred outer garments.

When he next saw Ananda, King Udena asked whether he had received the garments from his courtesans.

After Ananda answered he had received the outer garments, the king asked what he intended to do with them.

Ananda answered, "O King, I intend to give them to five hundred monks whose outer garments are tattered."

"What then," the king asked, "will you do with the five hundred tattered outer garments?"

"We will make bedspreads of them."

"And what will you do with the five hundred old bedspreads?"

"We will make pillowcases of them."

"And what will you do with the five hundred old pillow cases?"

"We will make floor mats of them."

And what will you do with the five hundred old floor mats?"

"We will make foot towels of them."

"And what will you do with the five hundred old foot towels?"

"We will make cleaning rags of them?"

"And what will you do with the five hundred old cleaning rags?"

"We will shred them, combine them with mud, and use them for flooring."

From this we are taught to waste nothing and to use all things carefully and to the fullest extent.

This is not always helpful to a growth oriented consumer economy.

It is helpful to Earth, to Life, to Awareness.

The Universal Vision

The universal vision cannot be apprehended by one who sees the self as fundamentally at war with others, "looking out for number one" at the expense of others who must be bested. Only when we see that we are all in it together, and invigorate our intention to live constructively in that light, can we see each one as truly integral to the whole.

---Taigen Dan Keighton, in Faces of Compassion---