‘When my teacher, Soyen Shaku, was twenty-nine years old, he went to Ceylon, and stayed there for three years. On his way home, he took a steamer from Singapore to Siam. He was very poor, and barely had enough money to be a deck passenger. He was hungry, and suffered from thirst. Nobody knew the […]
‘If you say that you can only take care of what’s inside of your skin, and what’s outside of your skin is someone else’s problem, that doesn’t work. Your external body, limitlessly opened, is the larger part of your body, actually. The inside of your skin is a very small part. It’s a landmark, where […]
I don’t mind the quirks of the calendar that have me going up to Wilbur only a couple of weekends after my previous visit – except for having to lean on my friends and benefactors more regularly for use of a car… Looking at the forecast for the weekend, I packed for the rain rather […]
‘How can we determine if we are in the present moment? There is no fixed criterion to measure this because it is never hidden or revealed. At any moment, the present moment is the present moment without fail. Therefore, in our lives, the present moment is the present moment anytime and anywhere. However, if we […]
‘If you’re just looking to confirm what you’re already thinking about people and the world, the Buddha’s teachings might not be the right place for you. It’s the job of the Buddha’s teachings to challenge assumptions and show you that you have a limited perspective if you think you’re the only one in the right. […]
‘I don’t think taking sides suggests that we negate the humanity of everyone else’s position. We take sides and we understand that we must take care of the whole. We take sides in a way that doesn’t take sides. We take sides in a way that doesn’t separate. It distinguishes and it discerns, but it […]
I can be a bit of a sucker for self-help articles on the internet; sometimes it helps me to realise that just about anyone can pontificate about just about anything online and someone will enjoy it; sometimes I get to feel a little smug about having lived long enough to have acquired a little bit […]
