The Perfect Apple

Driving down Highway 101 in Northern California, last Friday. The evening was drawing in, it had been a long day preceded by about a week of long days.

It was about 8.00 pm. Another hour to go before arriving at the Berkeley Priory. News on the radio, “Throw away your spinach”. (Several cases of food poisoning had cropped up in the US, traceable to contaminated spinach). Then I remembered the apple I’d been given hours before. Picked ripe from the tree in the garden of good sangha friends, especially for me. What a treat, it was the perfect apple remembered and appreciated at just the right time. Thanks, it was the perfect apple.

This is the 400 posting on this blog. And where better to write it, in true travel style, than sitting in the British Airways departure lounge in Terminal 1, London Heathrow. By my calculations I’ve be ‘on the road’ and in their air for over 24 hours.

In half an hour I’ll be winging my way to Throssel Hole Buddhist Monastery. I’ll not be traveling much for awhile.

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Whiskers and Wet Cold Noses


The smiling dog that helps people smile, in Edmonton.


Trog the soulful from Hampshire, who never fails to help me smile.

Many thanks for these dog ‘mug shots’. Gives us all a bit of a change of pace.

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News from Both Sides

Here below are extracts from two separate emails sent from Edmonton congregation members. The first person lives on the north side of town. And the second person lives south of the river, right on Whyte Avenue in the hustle and bustle, with his recently adopted dog. Both extracts are here with permission.

North side news:-
“Summer in Edmonton has been wonderful this year. Of course, to really appreciate this beautiful weather you have to ignore all nagging thoughts that global warning is alive and well on the Canadian prairies. We have had numerous and continuous days of blissful warmth with a few very hot days thrown in for flavour. We have even had a bit of rain but even so I think our yard is actually getting quite dry. The temperature has dipped down a bit, a few times nothing serious, certainly no danger of frost but just enough to signal the trees that fall may be coming. As a result, you can see the odd leaf or even tree taking on its autumn hue.

We have a lake near to our house that is a major gathering place for the Canada Goose as it migrates. Every year, in the spring and fall, they congregate on the lake and take a pause in their journey. In the peak of the migration schedule there are hundreds and hundreds of Canada Geese on the lake. They seem to arrive in droves in the morning and leave in droves in the evening just as the sun is going down. They often fly directly over our house, masses of them, honking in unison. It is a particularly wonderful experience to go down to the lake and sit with them in the evening. One goose will start up and then another will join in and before long there are great numbers of them calling to each other. The energy builds and builds and builds until it seems that, like some huge engine that has been stoked, finally enough energy and momentum has been built and then they take off, like a squadron of airplanes on the runway, one after another, maybe fifty, maybe a hundred at once. It is a particularly remarkable experience if you are lucky enough to be right underneath them as they fly off. The whirr of all of those marvelous wings is a sight and sound to truly behold. I have not yet gone down to the lake this year, but go down I must. It is a gift that must be accepted and appreciated.”

Mean while on the south side:-
“Little miss Jazzy according to her previous parent (owner) has a severe aversion to clothes and has never taken to them. I tried even putting a bandana on her and she was having none of it, it can fun just getting the harness on, although she is getting better with that since she did use a harness when she was young. It is just really getting it over the foot that causes her some issues now.

She is creating many smiles in the building that I am in especially some of the chronically ill or handicapped tenants. Since I am by the hospital here I walk her by their and she visits with people who are out for fresh air and brings out a lot of smiles.

We are starting a dog play hour in the common room so that the tenants dogs can get together offleash and socialize which will be nice when winter comes (if it comes this year!).”

So that’s it. Geese honking on mass and “Jazzy the Snorter”, as she is dubbed, bringing a little pleasure into the lives of less able people. I particularly like the idea of off-leash time in the common rooom. One can only imagine how that might go! Well, one would hope well.

*******

To-day I met a young woman from Edmonton who had made a stop on her way to San Francisco to visit Shasta Abbey and attend the festival ceremony for Great Master Dogen. A ceremony to offer gratitude for Zen Master Dogen’s great legacy that has been handed down to us.

As in Edmonton so also here. The feel of summer moving into fall and winter approaching.

Be well. Be content within that which is Unchanging.

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In Flight


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I don’t know which way the Canada Geese are flying at the moment, south I presume. I’ll be flying north on the 16th September, north to Edmonton. Already I’m looking forward to that with happy anticipation; of seeing some of the congregation on Sunday morning, of lunch and meeting ‘Jazzy the Snorter’. I’ve already heard much about her, seen photographs too, she is a black pug who was recently rescued by a congregation member.

Yes, soon I’ll be migrating north from California, 16th September, and then eastwards across the vast continent of Canada. I’ll be touching down in Toronto briefly then onwards to London, Heathrow, landing September 20th at 6.50 a.m.

This blog was inspired by an email from a congregation member from Edmonton who wrote about the lake near her home where Canada Geese land and take off from. I’ll ask her permission to publish what she wrote. In the mean time do read about these wonderful, if unconventional, birds.

It has been really good to spend time with my North American monastic family at Shasta Abbey. And to spend time with many of the lay congregation who live around here or who are visiting. And daily there are those of you who plug in and fire up your computers and hike over to these pages to see what’s a goin’ on.

Constant as your presence is I remind myself and you, that all relationships end. Sometimes sooner, sometimes latter. Just a thought as I prepare to pack my suitcases, once again, and ready myself to take my leave.

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All Goose and Gator

Shasta Abbey is close to Yreka, which in turn is close to the California/Oregon border. I had occasion to go through there a few days ago on my way to the Scott Valley to pay a visit. Driving up the Scott Valley you really get the sense of an area full of history. It was here that gold was found and a rush to mine it happened, making Yreka a boom town. The land I visited had been hydraulically mined. I think that means water is diverted and the gold washed out with water under force. You could see some of how that worked by the small canyons cut by the water. You could also see that the local bears had been eating lots of berries too!

Stagecoach in front of Franco-American Hotel on West Miner Street- year unknown.

“Yreka was born when gold was discovered on the flats near a ravine called Black Gulch in March of 1851 by Abraham Thompson, a member of a mule train party enroute to Scott Valley from southern Oregon. Six weeks after the discovery 2,000 miners had arrived in “Thompson’s Dry Diggings” to test their luck. By May, the gold rush “boomtown” was composed of tents, shanties and a few rough cabins. Several name changes occurred until the little city was called Yreka, apparently a Shasta Indian word meaning “north mountain.” Incorporation proceedings were completed on April 21, 1857. “

Just as I stepped out of the car in Yreka there was a sound to send many heart a-flutter. A train horn blasting out very close by. The Blue Goose was getting ready to pull out with a cargo of tourists aboard. The site is worth a visit even if you are not keen on trains (shame on you!) as the animated train chugging across the screen is pleasing in itself.

And look at this:
Steam Engine Cab Rides:
2 seats per trip available: $50 each. No children under 14, and children 14 – 17 must be accompanied by a ticket holding adult. Reservations are recommended. Please note: Locomotive riders must have ear protection, (ear plugs can be obtained at the ticket counter).
Well I didn’t get to drive a train or ride in a cab. I did however get to ride in the back of a John Deere ‘Gator’. Perched in the business end of the vehicle I could observe the receding countryside through a veil of yellow dust as my guide shouted from the drivers seat. “That’s where they kept rabits”. “This is our land, it ends over there”.
* * *
Ask Me
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life.
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Practice Within The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives