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…When I had completed the first draft of my new book about Dogen, I sent it to three friends asking them to read it and give me feedback. Now the feedback has started to arrive, much of it really helpful. Some is the correction of small mistakes, but
Read more…Elements of the Retreat
Meditation: When we think of a Buddhist retreat we immediately think of meditation. In this retreat there will be meditations and meditative exercises that help us to reflect more deeply upon our life both in itself and in rel
Well, none of us could get onto the site yesterday. Was that because they were doing maintenance or was it the jinx of Friday 13? Who knows.
Nevertheless, we had a very nice day here. In the morning we went to Oasis where we had a service and I spoke
Read more…Retreat
It is interesting how things turn out. Elja is in Netherlands living in a community of women and I am here in France living in a community of men. We are all getting rather energised by the interest that is being shown in the Winter Retreat.
Read more…Perception
When you look at something, there is central vision and there is peripheral vision. Central vision is clear, bright and colourful. It is the focus of attention. Peripheral vision is vague, evanescent and has no particular edge. When someth
Education
My first thought about the Winter Retreat starting this October is that this is not just 'training'. Many sanghas have adopted the term ‘Dharma training’, but i think that this is a misnomer. There may be elements of training: one might be
Life in our little hermitage continues. Our guest left this morning. He later e-mailed to say that he had thoroughly enjoyed his stay. Something about the atmosphere, the welcome, the surroundings. Here we are ever on retreat. In the stressful world
Read more…A Chinese Slogan
Fo Tao Li are three Chinese words, none of which have exact equivalents in standard English, except that we have now imported the word Tao itself, and, from sanskrit, ’Buddha’ for Fo.
Li is a key term in Confucianism, meaning correct
Read more…Over the weekend we have been a community of three men and although our visitor is leaving tomorrow, Jnanamati arrives the day after so this format will continue until somebody else joins us.
I spent much of today clearing ground where we are going t
Read more…This is the result of my day's work...
This poor lilac was completely smothering by nettle, sticky weed, thistles and a variety of other plants. It took a good while to clear out all the unwanted growth. Then I shredded a large pile of sticks and twi
Liberate Your Mind
To meditate, in standard English, means to think about or reflect upon. The usual usage nowadays is spiritual, so we can say to think about spiritual things or to reflect upon them. It is to muse. The thinking implied in the word m
A day of perfect weather.
Dharma at Oasis
In the morning we went to Oasis and held a serice there. Lovely to connect with our Buddhist friends. I gave a Dharma talk about Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. hinayana is the simple approach to spiritual
Discovering the Unconscious
I suspect that a good deal of the contemporary misunderstanding of Buddhadharma can be laid at the door of the mistranslation or misunderstanding of the words vijnana and ayatana. Ayatana is generally taken as referring t
Planting a rose we bought at the flower market in Charenton
This white flower is abundant this year. Do you know what it is called?
A tall oak amid a sea of flowers in Eirene's Wood
This is the area in the Aphrodite Field where I cleared thorn bu
Read more…DEAD OR ALIVE
The Buddha strongly recommended four foundations of mindfulness. This means that we establish mindfulness as a fourfold foundation of our existence. Mindfulness means to have your heart or mind full of Dharma - which is to say, love, co
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