Category Archives: Teachings

Talking And Walking – Together

Ah! A pleasant talk while taking a pleasant walk. That’s this afternoon along the railway line turned garden at Langley Garden Station. Good refreshments too. Vegetarians and Vegans catered for.

The Sangha Refuge.
Ah, good.
Spending time together.
Ah, good.

The Sangha Refuge.
Ah, good.
Gathering together.
Ah, good.

Walking
Talking
Debating
Deciding
Implementing
Together.

Ah, good.

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First Death

The ceremonial around death which we have in our tradition was written down following the death of my ordination *sister in 1985. This was the first time I witnessed somebody breathing their last. It was not at all like I’d thought it would be. Not an instant shutting down, a light going out as depicted in films. It was more a gradual closing down of the systems that kept her alive, a fading out. We tolled the big bell to announce her passing, it was early morning. We may also have struck the drum too, like a heart beat. Soon after the death Cora the cat who lived in our house shot out of the door and ran about wildly for awhile. I remember that very clearly.

My teacher Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett presided over every detail following the death. She said Goso leads the way. Meaning she was the first of the monks to die in the monastery. Rev. Master personally took the community step by step through what we needed to do next. It was an amazing time, tender and compassionate while at the same time, practical. Non of us had done this before and Rev. Master had learned all about doing funerals when training in Japan. Firstly we moved the body to the ceremony hall and placed it in the middle of the hall where the bowing mat is usually. Tall candles were placed around her and we all just sat and meditated. We sat vigil. It seemed like we were there for hours. Rev. Master was with us.

In the morning Goso was loaded up into monasteries large estate car, called Wilfreda, and driven down to Redding crematorium. We processed up the cloister after her (I can’t imagine there was a coffin at that point but perhaps we had one in anticipation of death). When the car was on the road outside of the main gate we all followed the car with Goso in it for twelve steps. These represented the twelve steps of dependent origination. We were all very tired at this point.

It has taken me some time to get started on talking about the ceremonial and practicalities around death. In the end I just have to write about what I remember of my personal experiences. I don’t want to encourage ghoulishness though. That would be the last thing I’d want.

*I was ordained with three others on the same day, we referred to each other as ordination brother or sister.

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Good Question

eubank_scar1.jpg
Ewbank Scar, a pleasant ramble.

We had already said the five thoughts and were tucking into lunch. Edera spoke, Rev. Mugo are you enligh…. I thought, Oh crikey! Pausing a moment she said, No, that’s not quite the way to put it. A wide ranging conversation ensued; enlightenment (sudden and gradual), staying alive, original enlightenment, why Dogen went to China, 12th century Japan, the difference in meaning between accepting and receiving. Ah, what a good conversation.

Later. Much later. Edera and I go over her today’s post on Little House. I tend to go by how written words sound when spoken. The music of speech, on the page. And the rhythm. That’s the rhythm of a sentence which is beaten out by commas sprinkled here and there. And I want to know about the proper use of colons and semi colons. she said. Oh they are about being able to list lots of thoughts one after the other, divided by commas, so you don’t need to make lots of sentences. I could almost hear Iain, wordsmith as he was, groaning or growling. But actually that’s not a bad explanation for a semi colon.

Much, much later we talk about the vital importance of commas, when to put them in and when not to. See here a joke about poor punctuation:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

‘Why?’ asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

‘Well, I’m a panda,’ he says, at the door. ‘Look it up.’

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.’

Less is best as far as commas are concerned. But I do like the way they add a da, DAH emphasis at the end of sentences. Let’s have more lunchtime conversations, please.

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Of Moscow – With Love

In recent years, a lot of surprisingly rich archival photo series has been published on Moscow and on Russia in general. This is only partly explained by the easier access to the archives and collections of the former Soviet Union. A rather more important reason is that the interest in the city and its history has been livened up in a previously unimaginable way both at home and abroad, which created a wide public for this kind of photos.

From Poemas del río Wang blog. Moscow 1900-1960

This post is for Iain late of Little House In The Paddy blog – and so much more… Do take a look at the photos at the end of the blog sited above.

Viewing these black and white photographs this evening brings up a mix of emotion and sentiment. Excitement and mystery and rigor, honor and pathos. And an odd sense of the tragic too. All these thoughts could be attached to the way I have been thinking about goodly Iain as his sudden passing becomes less raw.

There are people who touch our lives
and there are people touched by ours.

Just sometimes these two people meet
and most often they don’t realize….

Until later.

Goodness! And there are these The Lithuanian School, photographs. They rival the big names in black and white documentary photography….

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Dedication Of Spiritual Merit

Two monks from Shasta Abbey went to the Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women in Bangkok, Thailand in June. What stories they had to tell on their return. Their particular contribution to the conference was around the singing/chanting of scriptures in English. They did a brilliant job. Here you can see them singing the Scripture of Great Wisdom at the begging of the Conference. You see them about three minutes into the video.

And even better! Here are the two monks singing the Dedication of Merit at the close of the conference.


This is one of my favorite invocations. Sing along why not. Found on the Shasta Abbey website. Well done Rev. H – you have missed nothing out!

Another full day which included a two hour nap starting around 11.00 am! The mind and body can only take so much of this intense planning and organizing. This morning we mailed a parcel of clothes to the Funeral Home for Iain to be dressed in. Details, details, so many details to be taken care of.

I know very many of Iain’s friends and and on-line acquaintances are offering their best wishes and thoughts to his wife and family, and me. I mentioned to Iain when we last spoke on the telephone that spiritual merit was being sent and he said he knew that. Yes, he did know that. Deeply.

What on earth am I going to do without him watching over my posts and sending me emails when I made spelling blunders. Or worse, my language use slipped beyond his tolerance level. He loved language, among other things.

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