...a video of an Elephant painting a self portrait. This is for those who have a fast Internet connection or, like me, patience.

However sometimes all the patience in the world doesn't result in getting what one wants! Patience is bigger than that.

Thanks to Duncan for the link, and for his patience too.

Pain. So many thoughts on pain. So many stories about personal pain. Killing pain, pain that kills. Numbing pain, pain that numbs. Tolerating pain, accepting pain. Having the confidence to be in pain. Pain as a gift and a teacher. Pain that never goes away. So very many stories about pain while I've been in Edmonton. Not because Edmonton is any more pain filled than anywhere else, it just happens to be where I am right now. There's always going to be pain where people are, where there is sentience.

Last evening there was a phone call from a congregation member. We'd said good by two years ago not expecting to meet again. I'm on a four hour leave from the emergency department. I need to get my bank business sorted and call relatives to let them know where I am. I'm due back at 8.00, he said. Err, is this really REALLY serious? Nah should be sorted in a couple of days, or so. Hopefully. We met again briefly, perhaps for the last time. One never knows. Here's a man who does pain with great dignity. Others carry their pain with a smile. With tears. With silence.

Today I saw a cause of pain, a cause from my early life. Minds remember and bodies remember. Body and mind are not separate, thus it's body/mind remembering. Places carry memories and photographers record those places so they, and the pain they carry, are remembered. That's what I intended to do as an aspiring young photographer, in the early 1960. Thankfully there are photographers in this world who do that, are doing that. Right now. In Cambodia.

There is a difference though. Between being in pain and being in suffering.

Thanks to Michael for the link.

As seen and drawn by an eight year old friend.
Admiring the drawing I remarked that my young friend had drawn me with no hair. Her mother replied, Of course, she draws things as she sees them.

On the 'plane I watched The Bucket List in which Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play the lead roles.

A billionaire and a mechanic who meet in a hospital ward for terminally ill patients decide to make an escape and set out on one last trip to fulfill all of their dying wishes.

While the two men wait for news of their flight to Everest, climbing Everest was on their Bucket List, they are shown visiting a Buddhist monastery. It was all gloom, flickering lights and incense smoke. The Jack Nicholson character, ever the skeptic, ponders on the concept of karma and rebirth. I just don’t get it, he says. I mean, what does a slug have to do to get a good rebirth, leave a perfect slime trail? This is fairly typical of the popular view of karma and rebirth. (And of Buddhist monasteries too!) Which runs fairly much along the lines of, be good and you will be reborn into better circumstances. Lead a bad life and you’ll end up a short lived, squashed, fly. Truth is bigger, and more compassionate, than this.

I liked this film. It brought the subject of action (and that’s what karma translates as) into the realm of action, and out of the world of speculation and popular interpretations. There was reflection on past actions and the seeing into the unwisdom's of those actions. There were scenes depicting the struggle to see those actions for what they were and then scenes which looked at what that means, right now. In short the two men were brought to look at the consequences of their actions and come to an understanding and acceptance of their lives. Find joy in your life, were the dying mans words to the Jack Nicholson character. He could have said, Live life, forget the ideal of perfection, of leaving a perfect trail of slime behind you!

Written for Kevin. This, in part, is my answer to your question. I hope you get the gist of what I'm pointing out. Other teachers in our Order might well see this film and interpret it differently. So be it, there's no argument.

A number of nuns from the Forest Tradition came to visit yesterday afternoon.

After a morning roped to my computer I'd climbed up the hill to sit in the sun and drink in the valley readying myself for tomorrows adventures in the sky. Seeing a monk waving me down, a small figure in the landscape at that distance, I extracted myself from my perch and made my way to meet the nuns. They were already tucking into tea, chocolate and conversation in the common room.

This is a picture of our side of the valley where I was sitting. The monastery is in the center of the picture, more or less.

....I would just like to wish you 'rruga e mbare' for your journey; loosely this is Albanian for bon voyage but better translated as 'may your way go properly' (rruga = way, mbare = properly), an expression I like and that is my wish for your travels.

From Tim. Thanks for keeping in touch. Keep on writing your blog.

Our phone conversation was coming to a close. She asked, 'Is there anything you can suggest I do to help myself during the day'? I asked, 'Well, is there anything that you can think of? There was a long pause and then the answer came. 'This might sound strange, given all that I've spoken about, however everything is well'.

Light House, South Shields Northumberland.

"Those who, either now or after I am dead, shall be lamps unto themselves, relying upon themselves only and not relying upon any external help, but holding fast to the truth as their lamp, and seeking their salvation in the truth alone, and shall not look for assistance to any one besides themselves,..."
The Buddha's Farewell.

Seeking help is not a problem, overly 'relying' on or depending upon external help is.

Be a lamp unto yourself...because you are that lamp.

The beach at Wells, North Norfolk coast. Land of ace huts.
I'll be stepping out into the great blue yonder on Wednesday bound for Vancouver Canada and then onwards to Edmonton. My itinerary is taking shape under the Schedule tab.
 

Tomorrow we celebrate the Birth and Enlightenment of the Buddha termed Wesak and the monastery is suitably dressed for celebration. Each year during Wesak week-end parents, together with their off spring, are welcomed into the monastery to mingle and to play. The atmosphere is informal, creative and very active. There was football on the lawn at 4.00 pm, a music workshop all afternoon in the library and a picnic to round off the day. Earlier a crowd did some dry stone walling while others did map making.

Meet Miles, veteran reader and comment sender. He and his partner and 8 month old son were here today. It was a great joy to meet them all together.
 

Two Jade readers, both called Anne, have articles in the Spring edition of our Order's Journal. The first Anne speaks of the benefits of staying at Throssel outside of retreat times.

And now, after more times spent there when no retreats are running, the (admittedly, self imposed) lines between Throssel and my home have started to blur as the amount of more 'ordinary' experiences at the Abbey interweave with my life in my town, and Throssel seems not only my spiritual home--as it always was--but just like where I live day to day--my home.

The other Anne writes about her journey from the onset of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME) through to her life in Mt. Shasta and her association with Shasta Abbey.

Sometimes I just go over to the Abbey grounds, walk down to the stupa and sit. Or I do some little inconsequential errand that takes me over there, so can feel the difference between the silence of living alone in town and the deep quiet of a spiritual community training together. Underneath my surface unrest, a part of me is deeply content with what is, when self is willing to acknowledge it. "Separate," one of the monks once said, "but not alone."

Spare a thought for Anne in America who is having a nasty flare up of symptoms at the moment. A thought for her dog Lily too is appreciated.

...In this place of being, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. This is the place in which mountains flow and rivers are as diamond, the place where the life of the river is the mountain, and the expression of the mountain is the river, the place the scriptures describe when they say that the wooden figure sings and the stone maiden dances.
By Rev. Master Daizui McPhillamy, Former Head of The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives.

From an article titled When Mountains are Mountains

More links to O.B.C. Resources. The list of links grows daily.