Zen and Pureland
Today was a beautiful last day of our weekend in the Metta Sangha, of Zen Centrum Den Bosch. It was very special for me to join a weekend with David in the zendo and sangha who are so familiar to me. In a certain way this weekend was
Read more…Today we went out to a pretty city, Bourges. In a couple of days it is David's birthday. One of the things i want to give him is new hat. I had already searched for one, but it seemed quite impossible to find one. Most of the men's hats are grey or b
Read more…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 up
Read more…This morning first thing was bright and clear and Elja got me to go out for a walk to collect some daffodils from the area of the Eirene shrine. Then we walked back and I was feeling OK so we went on to visit the Demeter and Artemis shrines as well,
Read more…I spent spent most of the day making this from an IKEA kit, assembling approx 450 items in a kind of three dimensional jigsaw. The picture instructions are pretty good explaining it all in about 50 steps and I only made one mistake along the way whic
Read more…The first day of our Bodhi Retreat here at Amida Mandala Buddhist Temple in the beautiful town of Malvern in Worcestershire in England. In Far Eastern Buddhism, December 8th is taken as the anniversary day of the enlightenment of Shakyamuni Buddha an
Read more…We had a quiet day. Did some shopping for garden tools and found a nice local shop. Bought a small statue of Aphrodite too. Nice encounters around the temple. Nothing special to report.
Read more…Today i was reading an article about Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist. Some of his most important work was done on the nature of black holes. Reading about his work led me to some interesting speculation.
Firstly, let us consider black holes. T
Elja is visiting friends in Netherlands and I am visiting friends in Belgium. Bit by bit we are making our way back toward Eleusis, seeing several good friends along the way. The weather continues to be astoundingly mild. We are in mid-December and I
Read more…I measure progress by what I can do. Today I do better than yesterday by walking round the house twice, instead of once, and find great satisfaction in doing a small task in the garden, cutting back a bramble that was encroaching on the mint bed -
Read more…Today we went into London. I had a meeting which we had arranged in central London and spent two hours there discussing Buddhist psychotherapy. It was a happy meeting covering a lot of ground. Then, being in town, we browsed some bookshops and purcha
Read more…On full moon day, visits to friends with discussions mostly about love and relationships. Does love have to involve jealousy and possessiveness? Are freedom and connection compatible? Do relationships go through predictable stages? How do we deepen l
Read more… Watford
We spent last night at the home of Susthama and Damian in Watford. We had many good conversations and reflections upon the retreat in Malvern of the past week. Their daughter, Selena, age 3, had asked if I would take her to nursery school thi
Christmas Shopping: Today we took the opportunity to do some Christmas shopping. I had several people to buy for and, of course, there were some I knew what I wanted to buy and some for whom I hadn't a clue. However, the gods were with us. The first
