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.

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.

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.

On the monastic schedule the time between the end of meditation and morning service and breakfast is Temple Clean-up. As a young monk, under the direction of the Head Novice, one moved briskly from the meditation hall to ones clean-up assignment, there to scrub and polish. There were no gaps between activities, for tea or a chat for example, and no choice of assignment either. Early in the morning cold and hungry I'd sometimes weep, tears splashing into the sink or toilet I was cleaning. More often than not I'd long for the sound of the breakfast bell to bring the comfort of food and the warmth of the dining hall.

As a Senior the external pressure is off. There's no Head Novice assigning tasks just my fellow seniors slipping the cleaning card behind the name tag on my door. (I just wish I could remember who it is I pass it on to!) Within the confines of the daily schedule one is responsible for planning ones own time. Even writing that makes me smile. Planning! Own time? Even finishing cleaning the bathroom has eluded me today.

9.15 am Cleaning toilet. 9.20 am Toilet half cleaned, remember to make a phone call and send emergency e-mail. 9.40 am Finish cleaning the toilet, hurry to Brunch. 4.15 pm Clean the bathroom sink, floor and ledges. Empty the rubbish bins. Need to do something else, can't remember what now. The shower will have to wait until I next have one...

If there are tears nowadays they are either an allergic reaction to the cleanser or ones of gratitude. To bend and squat, to rub, scrub and polish are gifts. However the greatest gifts are the gaps, or more accurately the lack of them. Early training, lay or monastic, is learning to move from one activity to another seamlessly, constantly choosing to say Yes when the bell rings. Switching from one thing to another to another to another becomes reflexive action over time. The one who does fades in and out of awareness, as needed. Personal wishes and desires are there but not with such a loud voice, they too have a place.

For me and for those of you who read this the bell rings constantly not just for meals, meditation and work periods. Phone calls-emails-meetings-driving duties-town trip-classes-tea appointments-chats in the lane-walks on the bottom road-chats over the hedge-evening meditation-evening tea-seeking lost belongings-having a nap.

Could this be living Zen?

Former Muslim radical Shiraz Maher spent his student days campaigning for an Islamic caliphate in which execution for renouncing Islam would be written into the constitution. Now Shiraz is calling for moderation and greater Muslim integration into British life, a stance which has meant he himself is now labelled an apostate by some Muslim radicals, for which the penalty is death. He asks whether such an extreme punishment is really justified by the Qu'ran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad. 'Could I Stop Being a Muslim?', BBC Radio 4 FM
Listen on-line or to the repeat Sunday 27th at 5.00 pm GMT

This programme explores the issue of apostasy the formal renunciation of ones religion thus becoming an apostate.

Contrary to Abrahamic dogmas, there is no concept of an apostate in Hinduism or Buddhism, as everyone is accepted as one and the same. Converts to other religions from Hinduism or Buddhism are accepted in these communities, as there is no Hindu or Buddhist procedure that defines apostasy.
- Wikipedia.

Thank you to my monastic walking companion for bringing the concept of apostasy to my attention. This is a new word for me but not a new concept, thankfully not one we have in Buddhism. I'll listen to the recording of the above programme when I return to the monastery tomorrow.

This evening a chap reminisced about something he'd heard me say, off the cuff, in the Throssel kitchen while washing a plate. He was eighteen then, now his daughter is eighteen and he's thirty six. I remember him well, he had long black shining hair, he was shining inside too. Still is. I'm remembered as being somewhat stern, he says the novices were obviously on their best behaviour when I was around. That's not my memory of me and how things were, but never mind.

I passed on a plate I'd washed to the novice doing the drying. Err, Rev. Mugo the dish isn't quite clean. Oh never mind it will get clean next time around! That is of course an outrageous thing to say in terms of health and hygiene. What kind of example is that? The chap wasn't able to come again for ten years however the remark was remembered and he'd derived something positive from it. Beats me what.

This story proves once again that it is not the truth or falsity of the teacher's words but the sincerity of the student that moves somebody along, or brings them back.

I'm left wondering what I might have said off the cuff and caused somebody not to come back, ever. If there is anybody reading this and are in that position...please come back. As with my good friend above it is the student's sincerity that makes the difference. How could it be any other way?

If the right conditions are present, then flowers will bloom.
Soto-Shu Calendar

A nun from another tradition told me of a woman who had written from prison in East Asia. Every day they take me out and beat me and abuse me. Every day I do my walking and sitting meditation, and I am free!

It is sometimes the case that the conditions that seem wrong can be the very ones in which the lotus blooms. This comes about through the faith that blooming is not dependent on external conditions, and then acting on that.

May the flowers of the mind bloom in the springtime of Enlightenment.

For my good sister in the Dharma, may you flower where ever you are.