My reorganisation of my quarters is progressing and it ia great joy to me personally to have the great majority of my books arranged where I can find and get at them. The downstairs room is now much more functional. There remains quite a bit to do upstairs. Some of my finds have included articles written by my teacher Kennett Roshi, an early article by Chogyam Trungpa that had a formative influence upon me many decades ago, a number of Buddhist scriptures that I have been looking for for some time, various of my own old writings and, of course, many wonderful books. Every so often i stop and spend time browsing a precious volume.
This morning over brunch we had a discussion of the differences between Theravada and Mahayana, the chief of these being (1) the differences of ideal between arahant and bodhisattva (2) the limitation of Theravada to Pali texts, where Mahayana encompasses a much wider range, and (3) the fact that, historically, Mahayana has been more ready to modify rules and customs in order to accommodate changing climes, both geographical and cultural.
We had this discussion sitting outside in sunshine, which, for January, is unusual. It is the first day for some time that we did not have rain all day. A break in the clouds and the appearance of Sol in the south, albeit rather low in the sky, was very welcome and a reminder of warmer times of the year.
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