Landfill Fodder

Alston, where the second hand bookshop was having a turn out. There in front of the shop was a skip full of books! I felt like doing a funeral or something, instead I picked over them. Opening, having a sniff at that only-old-books-can-smell-like-that smell, then closing again. And this is somebody who doesn't really like books that much!


Rural Rides, by William Cobbett is an English classic and Gargantua and Pantagruel, by François Rabelais is funny and violent and quite free from any prudishness according to the Wikipedia entry. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, another skip casualty, can be downloaded free from the Internet.

Farewell books, it's to the landfill for you lot. I did the best I could by spending a few moments cherishing and respecting them. Still, it was hard to let them go.

The photographs were taken on a mobile phone. Not great quality, yet they have a quality all of their own. Just like the skip full of books.

Snow!

Looking up the valley towards Coalcleugh once a thriving community in some of the most inhospitable conditions in England. Lead mining was the industry here.


One of our guardian lions with the monks meditation hall and private rooms in the background.


Hotei with cloak and splendid hat. Jolly as ever.


The Medicine Buddha sitting sedately amidst our new fall of snow. The hillside in the background, with fledgling trees guarded from the invasion of rabbits.

Walking through the yard this lunch time I bumped into the monks who takes an interest in the grounds. As the snow fell she was opening out a bundle of wire netting to wrap around rabbit vulnerable shrubs. I'd thought to let her know about the wonderful web site, mentioned in a recent comment, which lists rabbit resistant plants. As well as hints on plant protection, but thought better of it. Now was not the time, obviously!

You can view the moors via web cam if you want, looks rather bleak to me. If you follow this link you will see a map of this area. At the top right hand segment of the map is Carr Shield and the monastery is near there. I'll be driving over Hartside, bottom left segment of the map, on Saturday. That's weather permitting.

Map Reading

Quite by accident, the way so many good things come, I discovered Transport Direct, Connecting People to Places. Might just give this site a try since I will be on the road to Telford Priory on Saturday. Around about Stafford, if I remember correctly, there are some tempting short cuts across country. And again if I remember correctly roads around that part of the country have police speed cameras aplenty. Having grown to enjoy motoring at about 50 mph or so I'm not a candidate for being pulled over. However, a small slip in attention and the speedometer can rise alarmingly fast.

And I have been waiting my moment to mention another mapperly matter. This time the Ordinance Survey Select series. For those outside the country who have not walked hill and dale with compass and a soggy OS one-inch-to-the-mile map I can only say, you have not yet lived! With the Select series one can special order a map specifying the area you want it to cover. For example have your home in the middle of the map and all that wonderful walking country around you on just one piece of, very sturdy possibly water repellent, paper. Anyway, seems like a good system and I'm about to order one for a couple of my fellow monks living in Norfolk.

Sorry to say, postings over the week-end may be erratic.

Coming Soon - Laser Buddhas in Afghanistan

Over in Afghanistan there is an incredible project under way: Over 140 laser systems installed 500m,1km and 5km in distance from the Bamiyan hills will project multiple layers of original Yamagata Buddha images drawn in striking colors. The laser images will be projected for 2 hours after sunset, once or twice a week.

The schedule for developing this project concludes mid June, 2009 with the BAMIYAN AFGHANISTAN LASER PROJECT 2009 Grand Opening.

Thanks to the Reverend who drew my attention to this.

Blooming

Was it the moon light was it the sun? What ever it was these bulbs opened and blossomed as night turned to day.

There were visitors here for a festival ceremony, the Festival of Maitreya Bodhisattva, the Buddha yet to come. Or as it was pointed out in the lecture that followed the ceremony, the as yet unrecognized Buddha within.

Looking Up, Looking Out

Tonight to the west was a bright star, such a very big bright star. I'd not seen anything like it before. I wanted to run into the dining room and drag everybody out to see it. It was the most star like star I'd ever seen. It was just like pictures of the morning star. That's the one the Buddha saw at the time of his enlightenment. But I just stood and stargazed for awhile. And then later while walking back to my room after doing the washing-up, the star had gone. But where?

I'm not the only one looking to the sky. The moon has featured in a couple of blogs recently. In northern England where the moon is milky luminescent. In Alberta Canadawhere the word luculent was used. Wonderful word which can be used to describe language, as being 'transparently clear'. Something to aspire to while speaking out and speaking up.

There are probably more mentions of the full moon on the Internet, it certainly had a number of mentions here on the cloister. It was like a spot light, couldn't have missed it. Yes, and there it is still, with a white ring of cloud around it this evening.

The wish to share sights and sounds and smells must surely be part of the practice of generosity. Let me share a gift I received in an email this evening: "I went for a walk through the Chilterns today and saw hares boxing, herds of deer, red kites a plenty and buzzards, quite apart from the wild birds you'd expect to see or hear. It always pays to look up and out".

Yes indeed!

Leroy Was Here

We meet walking up the lane, there's a dry stone wall beside us.
Hi Larry!
He inclines towards me and, not for the first time, patiently reminds me.
It's Leroy Rev. Mugo.
Sorry!
Err. You're dead aren't you?
I know the test. I poke his arm.
Crikey! he does have a body.
We continue chatting up the lane avoiding the subject.
He's changed, a little older, content I'd say.

Later we are sitting in a row.
Larry...no sorry Leroy is sitting one down from me.
I stare.
It's definitely him and he's alive.

Then morning came and I got up and went about my day.

Dreams like this, of departed friends coming alive, are not uncommon.

Speak Up, Speak Out!

"Time flies...gasp...as an arrow flies from a...gaaaaasp...bow,
I wish to sit beside...wheeze.....you...gulp...and learn from you".

Phew! I remember so well that ceremony when, just a few months after my ordination, I had to recite that verse. Alone, aloud and in public. Everybody present was probably silently willing me to get the words out soon, to save themselves from further embarrassment.

I was so lost. Caught up in the struggle to find wind enough to propel something, anything from my already dazed and dizzy self. I got through, I didn't faint and hours latter I was answering questions at the Chief Juniors Dharma Ceremony. I didn't loose it although I thought I might.

These ceremonies marked a huge step towards my challenging a life long struggle with 'shyness'. That's doing anything in public that marked me out as separate. Reading aloud in class? Well I was never asked as far as I remember. The school Christmas play at the village hall? What a nightmare, all those wretched fairies with wings and wands and sticky-out white dresses. Primroses, primroses and violets sweet as the.......sweet as the.... Nope I still don't remember what they were as sweet as.

Ten years into my monastic life I found myself in Liverpool, at the Friends Meeting House in the center of town. I was about to give my first public talk on Buddhism. Calming myself, pausing briefly, I launched in with a clear head, and sweaty palms. I survived! I more than survived, I had a ball! Talking in public to total strangers, lots of them, had been my number one 'can't do/won't do'. According to research I stumbled across, people would rather die than talk in public. Such is the level of fear involved.

Life has a way of throwing up opportunities to challenge ones fears. To prove to oneself, perhaps just once, that there IS something deeper than fear which can be relied upon. To find this is to change ones life, for ever. Never mind river rafting, climbing the Matterhorn or biking around the world. Just stand up and speak before strangers, it does it every time.

After the Liverpool talk I remember my mother saying, I can hardly believe you are the same person my dear. I wasn't.

See also here for a shyness journey. Impressive.