A brilliant altar set up in memory of Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett. Rev. Jigen, my Dharma sister, was celebrant for the ceremony during a day retreat in north Norfolk.

Yep! There is a senior monk of our Order living in north Norfolk. We go way back to the early 1980's at Shasta. As a new monk I'd volunteer to help her set up for ceremonies and clear away afterwards. Generations of monks have apprenticed with her since then. We all know the very first thing you do when setting up for a ceremony is take the altar apart and clean everything thoroughly. Cleaning everything thoroughly is a good start for most things when I think about it.

Please join with me in urging the Reverend to SET UP HER OWN WEBSITE! And if you are in Norfolk and want to learn to meditate I can put you in touch with her.

It was November 6Th, 1996. Around 2.00 pm. I leaned over the railing outside my Masters house watching the golden leaves fall from the Lindon Tree in the garden at Shasta Abbey. I was commenting to the monk beside me that I felt no sadness. There was a sort of joy, almost elation in the air. How could this be? My Master had just died. Breathed her last. He commented something to the effect that it was like another leaf falling from a tree. Then I went indoors and got on....

And that's what I've been doing ever since. There is that which endures, joyfully.

It's the twenty first of January and the anniversary of my late Master's monastic ordination. That was back in 1962. What better time to get back at it and start posting regularly again. This was an expression she often used to informally signal a gear shift. Community tea to work. Informal get-together to...work. Getting back at it was basically the same as get on with the next thing. What is the next thing?

When I think about it get back at it is fundamental to how we function within this tradition. Do the work that comes to you is the guiding principal. And one can drive a bus load of confusion through that phrase, however taken simply and directly, this means...get back at it. All day every day switching gears happens almost imperceptibly and in there is a sort of call and corresponding response.

Thank you to those who have been asking after my health. Even though I'm still limping along on borrowed computers I can say, with reasonable confidence, that I'm now back on my feet. And dare I say it again, back at it!

And a special thank you to the two monks who brought springtime to my room, pictured here. They too have monastic anniversaries today. Congratulations.

Shunyata Karuna Garbham
Emptiness is in essence Compassion.

Nagarjuna, Fourteenth Ancestor after Shakyamuni Buddha in our Transmission Line

Sit still and then get up and be Compassion.

Note: Garbham translates as Womb or Embryo. The use of 'in essence' above helps to make the point that Shunyata is not an vacuity or 'negative emptiness'. As my Master would say It is the fullest emptiness you will ever know.

Many thanks to the Reverend who pointed me to this teaching.

When I am gone.
And the house seems empty.
Do not thou.
O plum tree by the eaves.
The spring forget.

The above verse appears on the side of the stupa at Shasta built in memory of Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett.

Gathered in the gloaming last evening the community at Shasta circumambulated the stupa three times, all the while singing exquisitely. A new chant I was not familiar with. Simply walking and listening surrounded by the gathering night, in the presence of this magnificent white marble stupa, was yet another treat I wish to mark here. The circling of the stupa three times, a Buddhist way of showing respect and honour, was part of a ceremony performed on the fifth day of each month. On the sixth day there is a ceremony in remembrance of Rev. Kennett's death; sixth November 1996.

This evening I found out the route of this poem, which is essentially a death poem. I felt sure that Helen Waddell was part of the picture and I was right. At the very end of her biography there is an excerpt from a letter written 9th April 1918. It reads thus:

H.W. to Dr. George Taylor
A scrap of Japanese verse from an old book of my father's that I turned up the other day.
When I am gone,
And the house desolate,
Yet do not thou, O plum tree by the eaves,
The spring forget.

(My camera has died. So until it is resurrected, or I get another one, photos will be absent. Sorry about that.)

Getting out is a welcomed break from work on Jade Mountains. At the moment I'm adding categories to all of my postings, as well as poking around the OBC web sites for teaching material link to. I found hidden treasure!

Found on the Lions Gate Buddhist Priory website an extract from a letter Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett sent in 1979 in answer to one from a lay trainee.

I cannot explain how to keep the mind bright except to say that it is an internal looking up, a raising of one’s aspirations in the midst of it all. Faith is essential here.

And here's another treasure in the form of a Journal article published on the OBC web site.
The River is the Ocean; The how is as important as the why.

It is when we are spiritually on hands and knees that we learn the deepest meaning of bowing, of true gratitude and of asking for help. When the call of the Eternal is heard clearly, we must not stifle the uprising within in our heart, and "quickly, quietly and obediently say ‘yes’."