This isn’t a running blog (or a cycling one), even if I tend to get likes from some quarters every time I talk about my running practice. Reading this article about Strava the other day really got me thinking, though: ‘Richard Askwith, a British writer and fell runner, is the author of Running Free, a […]
As I was giving my dharma talk on the solstice, I started by invoking it, and how the darkest time of the year has acted as a time of reflection and renewal across human cultures. I nearly mentioned one of my students, who had told me that week that he had been stressed right through […]
‘If we go somewhere on foot, we know the way perfectly, whereas if we go by motor car or airplane we are hardly there at all, it becomes merely a dream.’ – Chögyam Trungpa. Last year at this time, my intention to get plenty of exercise in my free time was thwarted, mainly by breaking […]
My last teaching stop for this trip was Hebden Bridge, which I always look forward to. For once it wasn’t raining in Manchester when I passed through, walking from station to station, but I was half-way to Rebecca’s house from the train when it set in. We had divided the weekend into three parts, as […]
The weather continued wet and rather stormy as I traveled onwards, and was only broken on Wednesday when a cold north wind blew everything out for a while, though it seems rain will accompany my last days in England as well. On Saturday I had a lovely visit with the Wimbledon group; the numbers were […]
A fearsome wind blew in last Friday, heralding a change from a week of unbroken sunshine to a low pressure system bearing rain. The forecast looked fairly depressing, although it has turned out that the rain is intermittent. It certainly fell hard as I left Cornwall on Sunday with my sister, who had come down […]
After the changeable weather of the first week I was here, the past week has, except for one day, been gloriously warm and sunny – and when the weather is like this, I could not be happier. It lulls me into wishing that I lived here again. As always, it is the familiarity of the […]
I had originally thought that my night in Newmarket would be the only time I would be spending by myself on this trip. But the friend I was going to stay with on the south coast messaged me to say that she had been invited to a film festival her friend was putting on, and […]
This past weekend at Wilbur was going to be a long one, even by my standards; I was determined not to be in a rush to get there, but it is always good to get out of the city early on a Friday. As I drove out past Walnut Creek, looking at Mount Diablo, I […]
As I like to point out, Dogen’s title is not claiming to be a sutra about mountains and waters, but telling us that the mountains and waters are themselves the sutra – if we pay attention to them rather than thinking we know what they are. I was originally going to title this post ‘things […]
