I’ve got guests coming, persons unknown. What does one do? Make a cake. OK, corny but true. I start to get out pastry and cake making things. I’m SO glad that the extremely cold weather has ended as I was really anxious how I was going to keep them t
Read more…Donald Trump has had a busy first week. The culmination of it is now his executive order on migrants which is "not a muslim ban". Of course, extreme vetting is not a new idea. The Spanish had it in place as a means of creating a purely Catholic state
Read more…It rather appears that the new American president does not believe in the EU, is, perhaps, even frightened of it, and wants to do everything possible to see it fail. The person who is most likely to be the American rep to the EU seems to be of those
Read more…QUESTION: We had an interesting discussion about the sacred syllabe OM used in so many religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism...) Someone said that in a mantra, OM could be replaced by any other sound since we are the ones who give a sacred power to
Read more…QUESTION: In your book you make the statement "Life and death are the same". Could you explain this in more detail?
SHORT ANSWER: Just one thing after another.
LONGER ANSWER: One way of understanding the key point in the Buddhist message is as the ab
Read more…Tara the cat drinks water. However, if I put her water bowl next to her food, she ignores it. However, if I put it on the kitchen table among other things, she jumps up and drinks it. She's not stupid. How about humans?
En español
Tara, mi gata, bebe
Read more…In world politics it is evident that some countries are more powerful than others and that, in various ways, the powerful dominate the weak. However, this is not as simplistically true as it at first seems. In my lifetime I have seen Vietnam, one of
Read more…Cold Days
It is another frosty morning. Frost on the east window is thicker and climbs almost to the top of the top pane. Nonetheless, it does not feel quite so cold. Paradoxically, this may be because objectively it is colder. Yesterday it did not g
Read more…The word 'Nembutsu' is Japanese and is made up of Nen and Butsu. Nen means ‘mindfulness’. Butsu means ‘Buddha’. So nembutsu is mindfulness of Buddha. However, it has come to mean not merely a mental act but also a verbal one. Thus all formulae of ref
Read more…There is an interesting article on the BBC site about providing a basic income unconditionally. It raises the fascinating question: if this were to catch on could history come to see Richard Nixon as the most prescient social reformer of the twentiet
Read more…Tara the cat knocks on my door. It’s morning! She is full of energy after a night confined to the house. I let her out onto the frozen earth, white and crunchy under foot. I watch. She scampers high into the walnut tree and I cast cries of encouragem
Read more…The world is changing rather rapidly at the moment. The world's leading capitalist country is apparently contemplating protectionism while the number one communist country is promoting globalisation and free trade! Under Cameron the UK did seem to be
Read more…The term ego does not occur in Buddhist texts but it is a useful shorthand for many Buddhist ideas. What does occur is the notion of the skandhas. These are rupa (riveting or iconic appearance), vedana (response thereto), samjna (the resulting trance
Read more…QUESTION: Can you tell something more on the verse “Bring help and happiness to all other beings, and secretly take upon myself, all their harm and suffering” (The eight verses off Geshe Langri Thangpa in the Nien Fo book off Amida order): People say
Read more…It has been a post-travel day. I have been occupied with recharging the car battery (the car is an electric-petrol hybrid), bringing in the rest of the things from the car (not so easy with a gammy leg), unpacking, organising the things I brought ba
Read more…I'm back.
My visit to UK has been full and joyous, but it is lovely to be back at Eleusis. Today I travelled from the snow in the north back to gentle rain here. My injured leg is still giving me trouble so unloading the car was a challenge. I had bo
Read more…In 2014 there were 33,599 gun deaths in the USA and in Japan, just six.
I was not able to find data for the question "How many people around the world were killed by US and/or Japanese munitions in the same period," but your guess is probably as good
Read more…This afternoon the Amida Sangha had arranged a celebration event to mark my 70th birthday. It was a lovely occasion. Many people came including some I had not seen for a long time. My English children and grandchildren were also present. There was a
Read more…An interesting quote:
Read more…There is no mystery to happiness.
Unhappy men are all alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn - or worse, indifference - cleaves to them, or th
QUESTION: I wanted to know how I could deal with the bad karma and delusions which cause me great pain in this life, whether or not there are practices or ways of chanting to receive benefits within this life.
SHORT ANSWER: Nembutsu brings measureles
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