Whilst watching a wildlife programme, I was touched by the effort salmon were making to return to the part of the river where they had been born. Swimming up waterfalls and over shallow rapids, whilst bears tried to catch …Continue reading →
This is an edited transcript of a Dharma talk given at Shasta Abbey in June 2022 to commemorate Memorial Day. Last Sunday, we concluded our Jukai Retreat. It’s always inspiring for me to see new people coming and taking …Continue reading →
Originally published on the Pine Mountain Buddhist Temple website. Since the old Zen Writings were done in times when people were much closer to nature than we in our urbanized society are, it makes sense that some of the …Continue reading →
What does it mean to make right effort in our practice? You probably know some of the Buddha’s own advice on this. He tells us: it is like the strings on an instrument. If they are too slack, they …Continue reading →
Today I’m going to talk a little about monastic life, and why a person might want to become a monk. We don’t often do this, for a number of reasons. One is that we don’t want to give the …Continue reading →
This article first appeared in the September – December 2023 Portobello Buddhist Priory Newsletter. This version has been edited. These are a few personal thoughts about ‘darkness’. I am not exploring how concepts of dark and light are …Continue reading →
I am alive! and I love my old age. When I was younger I felt so much confusion and hesitation, many doubts and fears, and I felt vulnerable. There was so much I didn’t understand. I was a foreigner …Continue reading →
A transcript of a Dharma talk given during meditation at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey in 2019. I invite us please to listen to this talk by allowing ourselves to drop into Stillness as a stone drops to the bottom of …Continue reading →
Based on a conversation between the author and Rev Master Olwen Crookall-Greening in November 2023. I spent three months as a lay resident at Throssel Hole in the Autumn of 2023, and decided to write about the experience, in the …Continue reading →
The brief answer is: it depends on what you mean by ‘religious’. If we see ‘being religious’ as believing in a set of religious doctrines that define belonging to a particular religion, then I would say the answer is …Continue reading →