How It Is To Become Old
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 →
Practical examples
On Retreat
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 Map To Where I Live
I found myself standing once again amidst an overflow of cardboard moving boxes and possessions, when the lay Sangha blog Dew On The Grass’s new monthly theme caught my attention: ‘The Map To Where I Live’1. I was nearly … Continue reading →
Renewal
The following was written in 1985 and reflects the language style used at that time as well as the thinking and understanding of a relatively young monk of four years standing living at Shasta Abbey, California. It is published now … Continue reading →
Turning towards Buddha
This article is based on an online Dharma talk to the German congregation at the end of 2020. At the end of the year, this is my wish for us: may we – in the midst of all that we … Continue reading →
What Is It that We Are Doing with Our Minds?
In putting together something for the journal, it occurred to me that it might be helpful to put these two short essays from Eugene Buddhist Priory’s blog, “Walking the Buddha Way,” side-by-side. Although written a year or so apart, they … Continue reading →
The Fine Art of Social Distancing
The weather is “perfect”. You know that day when the sky is sheer deep blue, and itʼs warm and windy and delicious and youʼd be a fool not to be out there in it? My COVID-19 lockdown walk takes me … Continue reading →
Distancing
In our current Coronavirus affected time, I find myself being careful in observing guidance on ‘social distancing’ and see it is necessary. But, at the same time, it raises spiritual questions for me about what ‘distancing’ means.1 Such questions clearly … Continue reading →
The koan appears naturally
A few weeks ago, I went on a cycling trip with a friend across Scotland, from west coast to east coast. There’s a pleasing simplicity and clarity about these trips: you start at A and finish at B. The tradition … Continue reading →
A Stand of Alders
“When all the living see, at kalpa’s end The conflagration when it is burning, Tranquil is this realm of mine, Ever filled with heavenly beings, Parks, and many palaces With every kind of gem adorned, Precious trees full of blossoms … Continue reading →
