We are spoilt for choice! So many images to choose from and all available to be used.
There are over 6,000 photographs of Buddhist archeological sites, pilgrimage centres, and temples in SE Asia, as well as Videos, Maps, Posters, etc. on this website, please feel free to use the photographs to make more works with them, in accordance with the Creative Commons license on the page where you find them.
Photo Dharma
Here is a photograph from the site.
To speak or not to speak? How to frame what to say? Is it good to speak anyway. Is now a good time? That’s a really important question. It necessarily builds in a life saving pause between thought/feeling and action. A cooling moment when the heat is rising and the compulsion to speak, or write, is almost overwhelming. Thankfully there isn’t anything really important or pressing I need to communicate right at this moment.
While going through my bookmarked pages, something I do when looking for blogging inspiration, I came across Marshall Rosenberg talking about the basics of Non Violent Communication. I’ve not always connected so well with NVC as it is commonly passed along. This site makes the whole thing more easily understandable and less, how do we say, verbally stultifying. I’ll return and take a longer look.
In the mean time there is nothing that can replace the simple act of sitting still. A moment to cool, whatever the weather!
Rev. Master Daizui at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey
The Great Silence
enfolds the world.Who could have guessed
Its tenderness?”
Daizui MacPhillamy
********************
He died in his own bed
Ten years to the day.Shortly before
a snowflake
fell on his face.He smiled,
he was home.
I miss him still, his council in particular. Today alone, driving south I spoke out loud. Telling him about this and that, asking into the thin clear air.
There is that which is not born, and does not die.
Start by taking care of your boots, she said. I can’t remember the question but it was something to do with being more compassionate towards oneself. This exchange took place at a Spiritual Direction Ceremony at Shasta in the 1980′s. A ceremony where the novice monks ask the senior monk leading the ceremony a spiritual question. That’s asking a largely unrehearsed question, out loud in the presence of all the other monks. Beautiful in its’ simplicity and a time of circulating generosity. I remember that answer well. Perhaps because I already believed in taking care of my boots. At that time mine would have been around 7 years old, mended at great expense and were never the same again unfortunately.
The answer might have been to take care of ones sandals or anything used regularly. In a certain way taking care, keeping clean, keeping preserved and in good repair is a way of expressing gratitude for the service items of personal use give us. Thinking about it now that answer was really a very good one. Having compassion for oneself starts with taking care of, and thus being grateful for, all that one comes into contact with. Perhaps it is that the distance between me and my stuff gets smaller. Acceptance becomes all embracing. Just thoughts at the end of a long day.
I found out yesterday walking boots are best sent to specialists for new soles and for general repairs too. That’s what I plan to do with mine. Those boots will be 7 years old later this year.
Kwan Yin Loves Pie.
One of the temples of the order I am part of has published a cookbook. No ordinary cookbook this one – Kwan Yin Loves Pie. I’m showcasing Grants Politically Incorrect No-Nonsense Pancakes. As an aid to memory, since the recipe calls for one of everything, Grant suggests singing/humming One-is-the-loneliest-number…. and other similar songs. And here is Rev. Master Koten on Chocolate Chip Scones
These scones are delicious as they are,
but the chocolate chips
bring them up to a
whole new level. Koten
Obviously this is much more than just a cookbook. More a window on the lives of those who gather around this temple. There is teaching on the important ingredient, love. I’d say the background smile coming through this book is as important.
One of the congregation members reports:The cookbook is a fundraiser towards getting some building done at Dragon Flower Mountain (Lions Gate Buddhist Priory’s rural temple in British Columbia Canada), which I know all are hoping can maybe start this summer (2013.)
The book can be ordered by email and paid for on-line. In addition the temple has generously posted a pdf version of the cookbook. Be sure to make a donation if you download the pdf. Every dollar counts.
I was just talking to one of the monks at the temple in deepest rural British Columbia letting them know I am posting this. Apart from saying a friendly hi I wanted to make sure somebody drove up the mountain to the ‘upper cabin’ to check email regularly to catch your cookbook orders.
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