The I Ching is one of the oldest books in the world. It is a book of divination that has been used throughout Chinese history. It is important to Taoists and Confucians especially. The book embodies a traditional wisdom and has an uncanny ability to
Read more…Lao Tzu
Lao Tzu is regarded as the founder of Taoism. According to tradition, he was an older contemporary of Confucius, and, perhaps, also of Buddha. Lao Tzu and Confucius are considered the two greatest sages of China and tit is recorded that they m
I've been doing a bit of research on the usage of the La Ville au Roi (Eleusis) site. I find that there are equal numbers of men and women but, excluding the three of us who are resident at La Ville au Roi, there is a surprisingly large preponderance
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
It's that extra day today, 29th February. I thought it fun that the Eleusis site happened to have 108 members today and Leap year has 366 days and 3x6x6=108, so there is a bit of numerology for you!
It's Monday which, at the moment, is the day that t
Read more…Little by Little
My motto at the moment is "Little by little." It is a life of pottering. A bit of this and a bit of that. I can do many things but only for short periods. Walking is good. It keeps the circulation going, especially in the legs. I wal
When Siddhartha Gotama became enlightened and so became Shakyamuni Buddha what he realised was dependent origination, pratitya samutpada. Consequently, the precise meaning of dependent origination has been a subject of debate throughout Buddhist hist
Read more…QUESTION: I am confused about the location of the Pure Land in time. In some things I read, it seems to be located in the future, after death, when one "goes to" the Pure Land to become fully enlightened (and then returns to serve all sentient being
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…This is a group for sharing information, stories and lore about plants, including their medicinal, magical, sacred, and mythical properties, histories, poetry and charm.
Read more…QUESTION: I watched a TV programme recently that featured a rape. it really affected me and one thing that struck me was how would it be for someone who has faith in Pureland to contemplate that the perpetrator of violence against them could also ent
Read more…Today has felt like the first spring day. We have had periods of warm sunshine and it has been he first day of the year in which we have had our coffee break outdoors and have not lit a fire in our bedroom. The warmer weather has brought new activity
Read more…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…In today’s teaching I would like to look critically at some of the principles, often taken as self-evident, that underpin much of our thinking about ethics.
There is, for instance, the so called golden rule, treat others as you would yourself be trea
Read more…Today we woke up to snow, just a sprinkling. It looked very pretty. The day continued mostly rather cold. Later we had rain and then again in the evening more snow.
Between these various showers I managed to get out and get a bit of exercise for thre
QUESTION: A sangha member recently asked, 'if Honen's teachings are so simple, why are our services so complicated?' As the sangha member noticed, our services have lots of words, bells in the right places, and ritual. How does this fit with the simp
Read more…A question that is of perennial concern is that of whether world peace is possible and whether real peace is sustainable. Many utopians have advanced ideas about better ways of organising society or at least establishing limited alternative communiti
Read more…Days here are full of life. This morning the nurse arrived to take a sample of my blood while we were all sitting round having breakfast. I'm looking forward to getting back the lab result because this will tell something about what difference it has
Read more…DAVID:
Full House
Eleusis is full. Susthama, Damian and their two chilren, Selena and Dorian have joined us so the place is a-buzz with activity and little voices. Together we have done a certain amount of reorganisation of rooms and spaces. We are g
