Category Archives: Curiosities

Curiosities, Falls Between the Cracks, Information

All Is Embraced

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All can be embraced.
Nothing left out.
Nobody left out.
No matter what.

Nova_mascot_dead_rat.jpg
Nova High School graduation corsage with attached plastic dead rat

Nova High School in Seattle, from which the young woman in the photograph has just graduated, has a rather strange mascot. A dead rat! From all I heard from the two youngsters who attended the school it would appear to be an exceptional one. Dead rat or no.

Nova is a small alternative high school in the Seattle Public School District, created in 1970 by students and teachers. Nova is an alternative school whose mission is to be a democratically governed learning community of broadly educated, diverse, creative and independent thinkers who work collaboratively and demonstrate a high degree of individual and social responsibility.

Published for the one who graced the house (in Seattle where I stayed last week-end) in a pink dancing costume and calm presence. May all be well with you.

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Curiosities, Information, Out and About

www.monks.org

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This evening we watched a DVD about The Abbey of Gethsemani the Trappist monastery in Kentucky where Thomas Merton lived during the latter part of his life. The Abbey has a classic URL: http://www.monks.org/. A contemplative order they may be, out of touch with the world they are not.

We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men (and women) are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have – for their usefulness.
Thomas Merton

A modern day Zen monk is remembered for say that Zazen is ‘good for nothing’!

Here’s more on Thomas Merton for your interest and information.

The abbot (of Gethsemani also) urged the young monk (Thomas Merton) to write his autobiography, which was published under the title The Seven Storey Mountain (1948) and became a best-seller and a classic. During the next 20 years, Merton wrote prolifically on a vast range of topics, including the contemplative life, prayer, and religious biographies. His writings would later take up controversial issues (e.g., social problems and Christian responsibility: race relations, violence, nuclear war, and economic injustice) and a developing ecumenical concern. He was one of the first Catholics to commend the great religions of the East to Roman Catholic Christians in the West.

For some years Gethsemani has hosted conferences under the banner Inter-religious Dialogue when Buddhist and Christian Monastics join to debate. This years meeting which ended a couple of days ago was titled Monasticism and the Environment.

Links to the works of Thomas Merton on-line.

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Curiosities, Falls Between the Cracks, Out and About

Here and Now

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Here are my hosts of the last two days moving towards Chichester Cathedral.

We walked around the old walls of Chichester this morning. There’s Greyfriers where William Blake was tried for….? Following the thread of interest (and curiosity) Wikipedia gave us the answer.

He (William Blake) rejected all forms of imposed authority; indeed, he was charged with assault and uttering seditious and treasonable expressions against the King in 1803, though he later was cleared in the Chichester assizes of the charges. The charges were brought by a soldier called John Schofield after Blake had bodily removed him from his garden, allegedly exclaiming, “Damn the king. The soldiers are all slaves.”[17] According to a report in the Sussex county paper, “The invented character of [the evidence] was … so obvious that an acquittal resulted.”[18] Schofield was later depicted wearing “mind forged manacles” in an illustration to Jerusalem.[19]
Wikipedia entry for William Blake.

Blake lived in Sussex as do my hosts. At the renewal of their marriage vows they had the following piece of Blake read out. After some research we found the quote is from J.B.Priestly’s *Time and the Conways and not Auguries of Innocence.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born;
Every morn and every night;
Some are born to sweet delight;
Some are born to sweet delight;
Some are born to endless night.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine;
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
It is right it should be so:
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Safely through the world we go.

The play (Time and the Conways)emerged out of Priestley’s reading of J. W. Dunne’s book An Experiment with Time in which Dunne posits that all Time is happening simultaneously ie that past, present, future are one and that linear Time is only the way in which human consciousness is able to perceive this.

Nothing like following a thread of thought and interest leading back to here and now. I think this post is about creativity.

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Curiosities, Out and About

Balance Matters

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Photographer unknown, great picture.

Whoops! It is time for me to leave Reading Buddhist Priory and be on my way further south. There is not much more south to England and after that there is an island just off the south coast. That’s where I’ll be, the Isle of Wight, for most of March with the intention of resting before flying to North America in late April or early May.

My thought today is about balance, balance in all matters. Balance matters.

Thanks to the blog reader who just walked into the priory with a card and a dana offering. I’ve been talking about your blog this week-end during the retreat! he said.

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Curiosities, Teachings

Delight

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In this moment there is nothing
which comes to be.
In this moment there is nothing
which ceases to be.
Thus, in this moment there is no birth
and death to be brought to an end.
Thus, there is absolute peace in this
present moment,
Although it is just this moment,
there is not limit to this moment.
And herein is eternal delight.
Hui Neng

Sitting and working in the priors office at Reading Buddhist Priory near London. It is getting late, I’m attempting to catch up on a weeks worth of unanswered emails. This quote popped out at me from her notice board earlier in the day. Now it can be on yours.

The photograph? Taken in the Chilterns north of Reading on Friday.

What is it? Not at all sure.

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