I spotted these little pigs rootling around in their enclosure this afternoon while out on a chilly walk. Thought they were worth a share.

Shasta Abbey in Northern California was founded 50 years ago by Rev. Master Jiyu Kennett. Rev. Master Haryo the Head of the religious Order I am a member of, the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, gave a talk on Sunday. It is full of remembrances of his time training at Shasta Abbey and so rich with his personal insight and teaching.

With bows of gratitude for Rev. Master Jiyu and her steadfast ‘going on, always going on’ teaching she would frequently repeat. Deceptively simple yet at the very heart of our practice. The exercising of faith I’d say.

Lemons are selling at half price at the moment. Time for an experiment. Delicious!

Here is a talk given by Rev. Roland on the subject of Confidence. It would seem we both ‘end up’ in the same place, more or less, in terms of our thinking on confidence. Here’s what I had to say in a recent post titled Self Confidence.

The quote coming from William James seen below is from an article in Brainpickings It is well worth a read all the way through if you are interested in all things to do with habits.

I’ve been thinking rather too much about habit today, mental habit to be exact. Sitting down for formal meditation this evening I made a deliberate decision. In my mind, I thought, ‘I could think about what to cook for Saturday lunch, but I’m not going to’. It is amazing what making a deliberate choice can bring about…..

Just as, if we let our emotions evaporate, they get into a way of evaporating; so there is reason to suppose that if we often flinch from making an effort, before we know it the effort-making capacity will be gone; and that, if we suffer the wandering of our attention, presently it will wander all the time. Attention and effort are … but two names for the same psychic fact.
[…]
Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin.

William James on the Psychology of Habit found on the wonderful Brainpickings website.