Tourist in a home-town
At the end of this morning I took my laptop and went to the library in the centre of Den Bosch. I have known Den Bosch for many years but I have never been in this library before. The monastery where I stay is at five minutes d
Read more…Another wet, rather dull morning. The house is slow to stir. Adam and Joe are sleeping in the animal houses and Dharmavidya is in the écurie, so I am the only one in the main house. Today I am not disturbed by any noises in the kitchen resulting from
Read more…This morning David woke me up with a loud and happy Namo Amida Bu. He asked me if I want to join the morning service. Yes of course! We started the day with the four of us, including Josephine in the meditation hall. We had a lovely morning service,
Read more…The big news is that we now have some bees in our hive. They arrived care of our neighbour Robert yesterday evening. He had collected a swarm and brought them in a plastic box. We coaxed them into the hive and hopefully they will be happy there. Howe
Read more…We have had a couple of wet days. A good time for writing and we have all three been doing it, some of which has appeared on the site. I particularly enjoyed delving into the story of the Pureland sage, Ippen, once again - so many important spiritual
Read more…The current weather is keeping me inside the house. With the pain in my hip there is not much fun in taking walks. Working outside is only possible for me when I am sitting on my knees on the ground. With the current cold and showers this is not very
Read more…We have already left the temple in Malvern. We are slowly traveling towards Eleusis, but first we will spend some time in Belgium and Holland. I am looking back to a very special week on the Bodhi retreat. It is not easy to catch in a few words what |
Here at Eleusis we are enjoying lovely sunshine. Over breakfast we watched the robin and identified other birds as we ate our cereals under the walnut tree. At the moment, Elja is working in the front garden and Josephine and Adam are laying paving s
Read more…Silver
There is a north of England saying, "cast not a clout til the may is out." It means, don't cast off your winter coat until the may tree is in flower, and at the moment our may trees show not the slightest sign of life, which is no wonder. The
New Persona for Lai
Annette called to take me to the garage in the village to collect the car. The car has the registration LAI092 - very old - so we call her “Lai”. The garage has repaired her. However, the new parts are a different colour from the
Unfortunately I have lost my camera or I would have posted pictures of the new flowers that have been planted. Creating beauty is important. Making a place that attracts and inspires is just as important as filling the mind with beautiful ideas. In o
Read more…In the Buddha Hall
Suddenly we have clear sky which means frost at night. last night the moon and stars were brilliant. It was chilly in morning service, but then the sun got up and it was delightful feeling a beam of it fall on my shoulder and extend
Today Josephine arrived to stay with us a couple of days so temporarily we are a community of four. it is said that you need four to be a sangha, so that's good.
This morning we had a thick mist so we ate breakfast indoors. The sun did not get out un
Today Damian, Susthama, Selena and Dorian left after breakfast to make the journey back to their home in Watford in England. They are in the process of buying a new apartment and need to be in UK in order to handle the legal and financial tasks. Eleu
Read more…Aphrodite's Domain
I spent some time today working in the Aphrodite domain. This is one of my favourite occupations these days. The beauty of the space and its seclusion, the sense of sacredness around the special may tree, the great old oaks on the p
Travelled to The Hague to stay in the co-housing community where La Ville au Roi (Eleusis) members Maitrisimha and Annetta live.
Following my usual routine, I spent the morning writing and the afternoon outdoors. Today I went to cut blackthorn in the Aphrodite field. This remote part of the land is one of the most lovely spots in the whole of the magical world of Eleusis and i
Read more…After two days of much sleeping I feel a lot better today. Thanks to a cold, I had an good excuse to spend some extra time in bed.
Eleusis woodland
Today was a full day. After breakfast we all took a nice walk in the woods together. We followed the m
Read more…Cold Morning with Dogen
Brrrr cold days at Eleusis. Frosty nights and during the day the temperature is not higher than four degrees. I am not really up for a outside job today. Adam is the tough one at the moment and the only one working outside. He
Read more…People-watching in Paris
Yesterday i travelled by train from France to Holland. I enjoyed my journey. Especially the part i have to travel from Paris Austerlitz to Gare Du Nord. You can taste a bit of the spirit of this capital city when you travel
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