Annette and I are planning to meet and do a sesshin ("heart gathering") retreat at Houn Ji 19 to 24th June. This will be an intensive, mostly silent retreat with much practice of both silent illumination and nembutsu. It is, in some ways, an experim
I spent many years in Zen training and subsequently many more years practising Pureland Buddhism. Broadly, Zen is a more monastic and Pureland a more lay tradition. Now that I have the calling to create a temple I am working to bring the two traditio
The building consists of what were formerly two small terraced houses. The larger of the two is in quite good repair while the smaller one is mostly derelict. Renovation has started. Across the top of the two houses there is a single open roof space
I currently have a big digging job on. The ground level on the east side of the building is higher than the inside floor level. I would like to instal at least one door on that side of the building. This necessitates digging away quite a few cubic me
During the summer we introduced a number of water saving systems. These included small items like catching water from the washroom sink to installing a 1000 litre tank to catch run-off from the big barn roof. When we have a hot day and need to water
I have just returned to Eleusis in France after two weeks away. The firsr week was in Hamberg, Germany and the second in Den Haag in Netherlands. While I was in Germany I led a workshop on the theme of the book The Feeling Buddha which is essentiall
At home again. I've just arrived and I already miss our little community: "Dharmavidya, please read a Shakespeare's sonnet for us".......So, he disappears and ,after a while, he reappears with an old book in his hands. He perfectly knew where it was
These days, here at Eleusis, we are passing some time enjoying the garden and writing poetry, eating meals outside and chanting sutras into the evening. Yesterday, in the afternoon, we visited the Parc Floral at Vernais, a fine garden open to the p
This morning I worked in the forest. I felled a dead tree and gathered wood. Some of this will go for firewood and some will be buried in my next wood-heap garden bed (a small scale version of hugelkultur that I started doing last year and found to b
The may flowering is now almost over so that everywhere one looks the woods are a tide of young green. This is the season of maximum new growth. One can almost see the grass rising and, first thing in the morning, in the patches of longer stems, the
Mid-March and we might still have frosts to come. Apart from the proud daffodils this is the season of tiny flowers. Can somebody identify these little wonders for me? We have millions of them...
Look at those lovely darker blue lines in the petals g
We laid paving and erected an 18 sq metre wooden storage shed.
We created lawn all around the main buildings where previously there had been bramble and stinging nettles. The lawn has gone yellow in the current very hot weather but it will come ba
This is a record of some of the spaces that we intend to convert. It will be interesting at a later date to compare the finished results as they arrive. It will probably take a good length of time, but if we proceed steadily all can be done. The Acro
