I've Moved!

oh dear i feel a bit bad saying this but i have moved my blog, sorry blogger! you can now find me at something called Livejournal see the link on the left. I have also set up a new website in order to communicate some of the things i do now and others that will be up to in the near future. i set it up on googlepages, which is very easy and free! but nowhere near as good as leaning HTML and doing it yourself, but at the rate i'm going that is going to take some time. for the website see the link on the left too.
bye then X

catching up!

Here i am catching up with a number of things having had a busy couple of months, i have a pile (virtual) of emails to reply to so thought i would post some news on here to go with them -

buddhafield
In July was the Buddhafield festival, which got a little muddy at the end! The highlight was having Bhante come for his first visit and to give a talk. The sides of the BigTop were rolled up and a big audience assembled while all around the glorious madness of Buddhafield continued. I always find it so moving when Bhante arrives at a big gathering like that, there seems so much love and gratitude expressed towards him. I always wonder, “What will he say? Will it be something profound? Radical?” and Bhante being Bhante always says the same thing, good straightforward dharma, path of regular steps. As ever his subject was highly appropriate, freedom and the fetters, but it wasn’t anything new, no wow factor! Then afterwards it struck me that that is his profundity, his radicalness. He is below low key, he isn’t out to impress, and he doesn’t change with the fashions. It is sort of outrageous really, in a funny way. People seemed to really enjoy him and he was at his playful best. One bit that stays with me was him highlighting what a gift Buddhafield is to the children, it is such a safe environment that even little kids will just go off on their own all day, playing, joining in with lots of activities put on for them, it is so rare these days for kids to be let lose like that. I was also moved by Akasati and Mumukshu thanking Bhante at the end, Akasati saying “All of this…” looking out at Buddhafield in full flow “would not be possible without this man…” indicating this elderly gentleman in a grey suit, it really seemed quite amazing.
i found this picture on Christopher Titmuss's website -

It was great to see lots of lovely people and in an atmosphere of real friendliess and informality, lots of hanging out with people, getting to know new people. There was a distinct lack of prearranged dates! One highlight was Karunavacha’s band who played Hungarian folk songs, Tangos and Jewish wedding music (I’m sorry if I am completely misrepresenting you musically, not my strong point) anyway they were so good it made me want to get married so I could book them for the party. I gave a short talk in the dharma parlour, I spent ages writing it then decided I didn’t want to do it so did something more ‘off the cuff’ I enjoyed it, they are such a great audience.

a trip to norfolk
Later I took a trip to Norfolk where I spent a bit of time with my family, then picked up Padmadharini from the airport and we had the luxury of Satyagita’s house in Norwich all to ourselves for a few days before going off to North Norfolk with my family for the weekend, that is my mum, my brother Andrew and his wife Sophie, plus Harvey and Joshua plus one on the way, due to be born any minute now and apparently to be called Starry,Harvey’s idea!

These North Norfolk weekends have become a bit of a ritual, which includes me doing most of the cooking, with help, and it all being vegetarian! They seem to love it. It was a bit harder when my dad was alive, I used to let him have fish for his breakfast, as he couldn’t comprehend being by the sea and not enjoying the fish! We had samphire, which is the nearest vegetarian equivalent in that it grows on the marshes; it is the asparagus of the sea! It was the first time that Padmadharini had spent any real time with my family and she was a hit because amongst other things, she liked playing games in the evening when we’d put the children to bed.

summer retreats
At the beginning of August started the mad month! It consisted of a 9 day ‘Heart of Ordination’ retreat, on the last day of which, at the same time as the retreatants were leaving, we jumped in the car and headed for Norfolk and the convention. After 5 days, with 500 order members, we jumped back into the car, well two cars, and drove home for the next retreat, ‘The Four Mind Turnings’. In fact we met at a motorway service station for coffee and to plan the retreat!

Both retreats were very good in their own ways. In the first, which is a new retreat in our programme only having done it once before, I felt that we really did get across something of the mystery of the order and ordination. I think people went away with a deeper and more far reaching sense of what it would actually mean to join the order. The themes we covered were the levels and dimensions of going for refuge, breaking the three fetters and becoming a true individual, preceptors and precepting and the order as a practice of the middle way.

The retreat we came back to was the ‘Four Mind Turnings’: reflections on this life as a precious opportunity; the certainty that we will die; the law of karma, what we do has an effect; and the nature of samsara (that there are no happy endings!). I gave a talk on the first of these, the preciousness of a human birth, so I reflected on it quite a lot. The thing that really struck was that it is the body that gets enlightened, or that enlightenment will be experienced in the body, that it isn’t something ‘disembodied’ which is what leads Saraha to say

In my wanderings, I have visited shrines and other places of pilgrimage, but I have not seen another shrine as blissful as my body.”

This is a theme that Reginald Ray goes into in his three articles on the body, he says; We need to realize that our body is not a beginning point, not a jumping off point to something else.
He comments further that; the definition of samsara is a mind that parts company with the body. The definition of an awakened person is one for whom there is no separation of mind and body. To know the body is to know awareness. To know awareness in its pure state is to know the awakened state. When we look closely into our bodies, we find nothing but space, drenched in sunlight.

I had read these articles before but some kind of penny dropped, it became real, actually embodying all experience. Embodying the taste of orange, embodying the desire in meditation to get up and do something, embodying everything. It’s all very simple, yet… So that was the flavor of the retreat for me. This particular theme tends to be quite sobering; this time we did the ‘Going for Refuge and Prostration practice’ in the evenings, with walking and chanting afterwards. It worked well having spend the day reflecting on the situation we find ourselves in, these reflections being a traditional way to generate motivation and the urge to go for refuge, then to connect with a strong sense of the refuges.

back to norfolk for the convention
In the middle of these two retreats was the convention, five days, five hundred people... it was a little overwhelming. But I loved being there, there was such a warm atmosphere, the best bit is the people watching, so many people, so many that I know and love. Vajrasakhi said it is like a ‘this is your life’, where all the significant people from your life in the movement are there: the person that taught your first dharma course, people you’ve lived with, people you’ve worked with, ex lovers, you name it!

birthdays in spain

I just celebrated two big birthdays, both my own! Ten years in the order and forty years on the planet. I was in Spain with Padmadharini (see groovy pic), which was plan B. Plan A had been to spend my 40th birthday with Manigarbha, as we share the same day, same year and we’d been planning a birthday holiday to which we’d invite all our mutual friends…then she got invited on the ordination retreat! Hurray… but not so good for birthday plans so the party is postponed until 2008, our 41st, or the end of our 40th year, assuming we get there.


So this year I enjoyed a quiet birthday with Padmadharini in a little wabi sabi house in a village called La Fresneda. It is small and built on a very high hill. Behind us were two churches with bells and in front the town hall, which also had a bell. They all rang their bells on the hour, but they were not synchronised and one of them rang the hour twice. So in each hour over the course of ten minutes the bells would go off 4 times, which at midnight was a lot of ringing. Saturday was a festival day and at 8 in the morning a diva was broadcast out of the loud speakers and through all the streets, all the dogs in the village joined in with this woman, howling away, while she sang her heart out. It seems easy in the sun to do very little and to do it slowly and this was the perfect place!


This picture is the light coming under the door at the bottom of the house, the door opens on to a narrow street down which were blowing dried rose petals, under the door was just cobwebs, dust and a few of these petals but the light made it so beautiful. On the whole the wabi sabi aesthetic is much more in evidence in Spain, I guess at least in parts, it is a poorer country, which means that things are mended, reused, loved, and far less disposable. It is a hot country, which means that everything can be more permeable, buildings can be allowed to come apart a little at the seams, and nothing has to be so tight, so sealed up. Also with the sky so blue and the field full of fruit and vegetables, olives, grapes for making wine, life is already rich without all the things that money can buy. I guess this is rural Spain that I am talking about.

When we weren’t in La Fresneda we were mostly up at the Akasavana community. I enjoyed learning how to point the outside of the house, which involved chipping out all the loose mud and cement from between the stones then throwing handfuls of wet cement into the cracks, later cleaning it all up with a wire brush. I know nothing about building British style but it does seem that Spanish style everything is softer, rougher, more organic… and therefore I guess easier to do (though to do any of it well is still an art).



I did a little sunbathing up at the yurt, found this arrow on a plank of wood. I love shadows, often think that I would like to make a shrine entirely of shadows, shifting in the breeze ever so slightly. Reminds me of Cornelia Parker’s exploded shed. Recently I have had much more of an urge to make shrines again, something I used to do a lot of. Then this blue heart I found in Oscar and Zarzu’s house, unluckily my battery died and I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I would have liked, I always think there will be other times, but I should know better than to count on that.

dedicated to futility

I’ve just finished a book of Vajrasakhi’s called “The Brutality of Fact”, interviews with Francis Bacon about his art and life. The bit that I loved the most is where he talks of futility; But I do think that, if you can find a person totally without belief, but totally dedicated to futility, then you will find the more exciting person. It reminded me of Sangharakshita’s writing on ‘The Greater Mandala’ and of Aloka’s ‘Useless Manifesto’. There is something thrilling about the idea of being completely dedicated to nothing!

David Sylvester - At what age did you come to realise that death was going to come to you too?
Francis Bacon - I realised when I was 17. I remember it very, very clearly. I remember looking at a dog-shit on the pavement and I suddenly realised, there it is – this is what life is like. Strangely enough it tormented me for months, till I came to, as it were, accept that here you are, existing for a second, brushed off like flies on a wall.
I think of life as meaningless; but we give it meaning during our own existence. We create certain attitudes, which give it a meaning while we exist, though they in themselves are meaningless, really.
DS – a meaning in what sense?
FB - a way of existing day to day.
DS – a purpose?
FB – a purpose for nothing.
DS – so that in spite of the sense that life is ultimately futile, nevertheless one finds the energy to do something which one believes in.
FB – exactly. But believes in for nothing – but believes in. I know it is a contradiction in terms; it’s nevertheless how it is. Because we are born and we die, but in between we give this purposeless existence a meaning by our drives.
DS - you have, of course, a very positive distaste for all forms of religion – as much for what you call modern mysticism an for Christianity – so I don’t know how you feel about this, but for me the sort of shallow hedonism, the just wanting to have a good time, by which most people seem to live now, is a way to make life utterly boring.
FB - I absolutely agree with you. I think that most people who have religious beliefs, who have the fear of god, are much more interesting than people who just live a kind of hedonistic and drifting life. On the other hand, I can’t help admiring but despising them, living by a total falseness, which I think they are living by with their religious views. But, after all, the only thing that makes anybody interesting is their dedication, and when there was religion they could at least be dedicated to their religion, which was something. But I do think that, if you can find a person totally without belief, but totally dedicated to futility, then you will find the more exciting person.

from the hill top

I wrote this for Shabda -
I’m coming to the end of a three-week solitary at Vajraloka’s place in North Wales and I’ve not seen another soul, it is the most solitary solitary I have done. In the past some have been semi holiday solitaries, with one or two guests! This time I’ve been all alone. A while back I gave a talk on death, as one of the ‘Mind Turning’ reflections, and said I didn’t think I would be very good at being dead as I wasn’t very good at being on solitary retreat and I imagined it would be similar! I was talking soon after my dad had died and I’d been thinking about how it would be, having to go completely alone, having none of my familiar things around me, having nothing to do. Quite a scary thought.

Unlike if I were dead, I have my computer and a few books with me so I’ve been revisiting some themes, the main ones being the Yogacara via Subhuti’s ‘Rambles’ and Joanna Macy’s stuff on mutual causality. Our first retreat of the year was studying the first chapter of ‘The Survey’. I was aware that we would be doing the retreat again in May for Dharmacharinis so as we were going along I was making a mental note of things that I had questions around and wanted to follow up. So that is what I’ve been doing here.

It is a funny thing dharma study. The more I do the more it becomes both simpler and more confusing! Simpler because I realise over and over that it is all about one thing, pratitya samutpada, sunyata. More confusing because all the different schools and traditions say something different about that one thing! Do I need to decide on one view? Or is it maybe helpful to be ‘multi-lingual’, realising they are all just fingers pointing at the moon? In a funny way I’ve only just realised this, or at least I’ve only just realised that I have been looking for ‘the answer’. I can’t even decide to stick to Bhante’s viewpoint as he has too many! The effect being that I get so far and then am thrown back on my own experience. Either by having to reflect ‘well what effect does it have when I take this view’, trying out different viewpoints. Or when I give up all together and just watch the raindrops rolling down the windowpane.

Speaking of which I sometimes wonder if I have more faith in watching the raindrops rolling than I do in study and meditation. Those occasional moments of vividness that do arise, seem to do so out of nowhere; riding on a train past lilac trees and washing machines thrown over hedges; sitting on a chair in someone’s backyard with nothing to do; or in a dream.

The fact that significant experiences seem to just happen, unlooked for, does somewhat back up my ‘what’s the point’ theory, one of my own favourite views! I’ve been rereading Bhante’s memoirs and on this retreat read ‘Cave in the Snow’ where Tenzin Palmo is doing her three-year solitary in a cave. They are both uncompromising and wholehearted in a way that makes my own efforts seem laughable. Yet my response to both is “Oh, I just really don’t think I can be bothered”. (I had other responses too!)

On the night of my private ordination I dreamed that I had been called ‘Great Endeavour’. The next day talking with Mandarava, who’d been ordained with me, I explained how Dhammadinna had really emphasised the last part of the ceremony, the Buddha saying, ‘with mindfulness strive on’ to which Dhammadinna said how I had to keep making an effort. Mandarava told me how in her ordination Dhammadinna had really emphasised the positive precepts! Retrospectively I think the emphasis was ours!

I seem to have become much more disciplined since living at Tiratanaloka, more able to decide to do something and to follow it through. I guess that is the Great Endeavour side. But maybe the bit of me that ‘can’t be bothered’ is also the bit that is happy to sit in a chair doing nothing, or to stare out the train window, and maybe that is just as crucial. I realise I have a fear that I will end up lying on a sofa somewhere watching ‘Richard and Judy’ and doing word puzzles (no offence to R&J fans or puzzlers!).

All those reflections come out of a question raised by the first chapter of ‘The Survey’, is the unconditioned conditionally arisen? I think the answer is yes. And no. For me there is this rhythm to life. I like to clean the window then watch as a raindrop rolls down them. I like to study the Yogacara and then I like to make dumplings. I like to work hard, and then I like to lie in the bath reading Jaan Kaplinski’s poems –“maybe all the time I’ve sought and longed for a reality behind this reality; trying to get closer I’ve gone further away. For the first time I understood that transparency itself is nothing less than what you see through it: the evening sun shining through petals of wood sorrel”.

In a day or two Vidyalila will come to collect me, someone to talk to! Then on Sunday I’ll catch the train to London, buy the ‘Observer’, see bearded men and women in heels, be met by Padmadharini, see friends, watch movies, visit babies look into peoples eyes…sitting here with the howling wind, toast and marmite (having picked a bit of mould of the bread before toasting it). All that seems such a treat.