Whatever You Say, Say Nothing

Well, Charlie, Debz and I all ran the Swansea Admiral 10k on 28th September - loud cheers all round!  It was a lovely day, warm and bright, unlike me who, having recovered from a rather painful hip bursitis the previous week, felt distinctly slow and unfit!  The other two were stars though, running in their first race (I sound like an old lag - my fourth!) and providing endless encouragement and cheer as well as a variety of strange foodstuffs to sustain me.  We decided we’d try to organise an annual fundraising run for the bursary fund here and encourage anyone who’s ever thought of taking part in a race to join us - watch this space for next year’s event!

Yesterday I found in a notebook something I wrote some time ago when I was reading "Enlightenment Unfolds. The Essential Teachings of Zen Master Dogen".  Dogen’s great koan was something like "If we already possess Buddha-nature then why is practice necessary?"  His answer to this was "Practice is Enlightenment".  The notes I’d made were "… maybe this is like thinking that climbing to the top of a big hill would be a good way of getting fit.  The top of the hill can be seen as the goal, but it’s only setting our foot on the path that allows enlightenment to unfold.  If we keep longing for the pinnacle, we don’t notice that our body is getting stronger and fitter all the time, with every step.  We don’t actually want the top of the hill - what we want is how we will be when we finally get there".  Time to get the shoes back on.

Ten things someone somewhere will be doing at the time I die:

deciding what to have for supper

digging in their garden

reading a newspaper

wondering what their lover’s doing

feeling annoyed about the weather

worrying about a piece of work they haven’t finished

sunbathing

driving very fast in a car

getting married

writing a poem

Ok, here is the previously alluded-to bit about dealing with flies when you’re out running.  Yes, those winged things that hang around in big groups (ha ha accidentally typed ‘bug’ groups just then!) at this time of year.  We know they’re necessary for the breakdown of matter etc etc but, let’s be honest, nobody really likes them much (ok then, so let me know if you’ve got a pet one). So here’s the scenario: I’m out running on the road parallel to Talybont Reservoir - a beautiful spot with trees overhanging the road on one or both sides for several miles.  I’m enjoying the view.  I’m even enjoying running and have got to the point where I’ve worked up a respectable sweat. I’m not hyperventilating and my ankles, knees and hips all seem of a mind to support me.  It’s a lovely spring/summer evening and life feels very rich. Then a fly appears, in the vicinity of my face.  It likes me.  In fact it likes me a lot - much more than I like it, that’s for sure (ok, some artistic licence here in the form of projecting human feelings onto to insects in a somewhat emotive way).  It won’t go away - in fact it dances unerringly around my line of vision, attempting at intervals to land on my skin.  I’m swiping at the fly and this is interrupting the rhythm of my running to an alarming extent. I might even end up in the ditch (if you think this is an exaggeration, try waving your arms around in front of you while running. unstable, huh?) I’m starting to talk to it in a less than friendly manner, breaking more than one speech precept.  My rational mind knows that the fly is simply behaving in accordance with its nature.  It also has a lot more to fear from me than I do from it.  In a short time it will be gone.  Yet this small creature, behaving in this way, has the power to make me feel - I must be honest here - enraged.  It’s doing it on purpose.  Doesn’t it realise this is the one bit of the day I have to myself, my creative thinking time, my being-alone-with-my-reflections-on-the-day time ?? (yes. it’s dawning on me too - I’m reading too many "motivational" running books).  That fly is out to ruin my day and it’s going to pay.  Oh my god - its friends are joining in now!!  This is dangerous.  I’m speeding up now. In fact I’m heading for a PB on the Talybont Reservoir run.  thanks flies!

Mm, feeling a little sheepish, probably not unusual in Wales.  In this case because of my failure to keep up running to any great degree.  No 10k race in Bristol for me this weekend.  I did manage about 3 miles today in relative comfort, mind you I might have changed my mind by tomorrow! Anyone for the Swansea 10k in September??  I’ve just signed up so that will be a spur to keep going.  Here’s the link if you want to know more.

…places beginning with "I".

In my case, India, Ireland, Ipswich and Italy - quite a broad range, culturally speaking!  In February I travelled to Bodhgaya to attend the WBO International convention - what an experience.  I’ve been to India before, but not to any Buddhist pilgrimage sites.  It was quite something to process in silence (mostly!) in the early mornings to the Mahabodhi temple, along with 400 or so other members of the WBO/TBMSG and to spend time with Indian members of the Order, hearing about their lives and work.  They are very inspired by the idea of the Dhammakranti or "Dharma Revolution" envisioned by Dr B K Ambedkar. Something that I brought back with me is a strong enthusiasm for seeing the potential for our practice of the Dharma - of Buddhism - to create a sort of revolution in the West, in terms of enabling people to get in touch with what is of real value in their lives and to live in accordance with that.  I also brought back giardia but fortunately that didn’t last too long.  At the end of March I was back in Dublin for a weekend and then up in Derry - a very enjoyable visit.  At the start of April I was on a short but intense ordination retreat in Ipswich, very much enjoying the lovely countryside there and what a great public ordination at the Ipswich centre!  And then in April back to Tuscany - not such good weather as 2 years ago, but still breathtakingly beautiful scenery, lots of quiet and plenty of interesting spots to visit.  I particularly enjoyed the Etruscan museum in Volterra which contains a huge number of funerary urns, each carved with pictures or symbols of the journey to the afterlife and topped with a carving of the deceased reclining as if at a feast. Now I’m back in Wales and enjoying studying and hanging out with the community here.  We’re fortunate to have Tejananda coming to stay for a few days to do some meditation teaching with us later in the week.

Hooray - did it!  Sunday was, surprisingly, a beautiful day up in Newcastle and I completed the run in a grand time of 2 hours and 20 minutes!!  My legs don’t feel TOO bad now and I’m pretty happy to have survived. I can’t imagine how those people in fancy dress do it - big respect to all you pink panthers and scooby doos.  Thanks a million to all you generous people who sponsored me - it’ll be a real boost to our bursary fund at Tiratanaloka.  What next…? Mmm that remains to be seen…  I still have to find out what to wear when running outdoors in cold weather!

… 4 days to go and I’m not feeling hugely confident I have to say.  I’ve been wheezing like some leaky bellows for the last week or so, thanks to an allergy that’s triggered a bit of asthma.  I trundled round about 4 miles today (well, you’re not supposed to overdo it in the last week, are you?) at a rather leisurely pace, alarming innocent tourists with a noise like one of those film scenes where someone is inside a diving suit - remember that bit from The Graduate?  Luckily I couldn’t hear it myself as I was firmly plugged into my iPod listening to The Who (it was on shuffle - I had no control).  Hopefully all will be well on the day.  I’ve been talking to veterans (survivors?) of these sorts of races about what to wear if it’s wet and windy.  Apparently the done thing is to wear something to stop you getting soaked/frozen while you wait at the start which you then jettison at the side of the road as you go.  Imagine what this scene would look like to someone from another planet; hordes of people running along roads (slowly) for no apparent reason and flinging their clothes off as they go……  Anyway, I’m confident the wheeze will abate soon and I’ll be back to my old jogging pace.  Fingers crossed.  Hey, I’ve just found out I can have my finishing time texted to 3 mobile numbers automatically as the race ends!!  Leave a comment here if you’d like to be one!!

…or perhaps still and moving might be a better description of the last few weeks. My longest distance so far in terms of running is 9 miles - will it be enough to get me on schedule for 13 miles on 5th October??  My limiting factor now seems to be more in the knee department than the lung department which I feel is overall probably a good thing.  Someone said to me I might need to look out for my knees when running in the longer term.  I said "What longer term??" My target is 5th October which is not that far away (unless you are a moth, or some other small thing,  in which case it is many lifetimes away).  I guess though it would be good to keep up the gains I’ve made so far (getting into pairs of jeans that had been consigned to the back of the drawer, for instance).  Oh and yes - I did the Great Wales Run on 27th July - probably the hottest day of the year so far.  It was exciting, confusing and somewhat daunting to be running with so many people and I had to work hard with a tendency to think that everyone knew what they were doing except me. Is it seriously uncool to wear your iPod when running in a ‘proper’ race?  And what’s the etiquette re. disposing of plastic bottles?  I’m really grateful to Sharon, who drove me into Cardiff and dropped me off at the start point so i didn’t have to worry about parking the car as well.  The course was fab - running at one point over the barrage in Cardiff Bay with views of blue, blue sky and blue, blue sea.  And how did I do?  63 minutes - slow, but i didn’t stop!

Over in Ireland I enjoyed running round the scenic route (or the switchback road, as we used to call it) near Marble Hill in Donegal (5 miles, much up and down as the name suggests!).  In the last few days it’s been lovely running late in the afternoon along the Taff Trail above Talybont Reservoir, seeing the sun (a novelty in itself!) reflecting on the water and highlighting all the various shades of green on the hills.  Ok, so maybe it’s not all about getting into those old jeans.

So what have I been doing for the last week?  Resting on my laurels?  No!  Last week I managed 8 miles - very slowly - in the bucketing rain at Tiratanaloka.  It was hard going though and I felt as if my legs belonged to someone else (much older) at the end.  This is how wet it was - I was able to wring water from my shirt as I was running, and the rain running into my ears kept washing my iPod earbuds out!!

At the moment I’m in Colchester and am about to do a 5 mile run on a mixture of pavement (not nice, lots of noisy traffic) and roads (through an army firing range which always lends a frisson of excitement to the proceedings). 

I’ve entered the Great Wales Run, a 10K race in Cardiff, on 27th July so I can see what it’s like running with lots of other people on an unfamiliar route.  Lots of advice and encouragement from the lovely Dee yesterday which was really helpful.  And thanks a million if you’ve sponsored me!

Well, an interesting morning!  6 of us from the community decided to go to the gym this morning - a larger number than usual, so we had to go in 2 cars.  On the way there we were joking about needing to do a head count before we came home.  This turned out to be slightly less amusing when, 2 hours later in the middle of breakfast, we discovered we’d left someone behind….

As I was on the way back to collect her, a car travelling rather too fast in the opposite direction on our narrow country road removed my wing mirror and then carried on without even slowing down.  Grrr!!!   Well, all that got the adrenalin going in a way the gym could hardly match.  I do notice that my muscles complain strenuously if I exercise before about 9am - aches, cramp etc.  I think they have a point.

Back to pounding the roads tomorrow.  I was disconcerted to find that the distance along the back road from Brecon to Talybont is only 4 miles - 13 miles is starting to sound like a long, long way!!  Any encouraging tips or comments gratefully received from anyone out there.

Well, run of course.  In the wind and the rain.  So here’s the latest progress report: 2 days ago I managed to run to Nick’s house and back - a total of 6.4 miles - hooray!  The bad news…? The length of time it took me to do so - over an hour (about 67 minutes if we’re being totally precise).  Still, I did do it without stopping.  Today I ran (I use the term loosely) 5 miles at a slightly faster pace.  This was ok I think as I was feeling pretty tired.  In the good old days I would have stopped after about 5 minutes and decided to do something a bit less strenuous instead, like reading the paper.  Listening to music while I’m out really helps too as I used to find the sound of my own rather laboured breathing really off-putting.  Talybont reservoir looks very beautiful even in wild and wet weather so that’s an added bonus.

Coming soon: dealing with unskilful mental states that arise when flies buzz round your head when you’re running.

…. attempt to raise money by asking you to sponsor me to do the Great North Run in October.  OK, pause for a moment while those of you who know me pick yourselves up off the floor.  It’s true I have never been a runner and I’m getting on a bit for starting this sort of malarkey.

But the money will go to a good cause - the bursary fund at Tiratanaloka, which we use to help women to come on retreat here, who would not otherwise be able to afford the cost.  This year we had someone come all the way from South Africa (she paid her own travel expenses and some retreat costs as well) just to be on one of our retreats. 

Some very generous retreatants who have just finished a 2-week retreat here today donated £46 so I’m off to a good start.  It also means I have to do it now!!

If you wish, you can donate through the JustGiving website by clicking here.  They will also gather gift aid if you are a UK taxpayer.

I’ve currently managed to work my way up from 1 mile (embarrassing) to 5 miles (slightly less embarrassing) but there is still quite a way to go before October.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress!! 

I’m a little embarrassed my blog has been gathering such a thick layer of dust.  The reasons are several: 1) Blogsome doesn’t work very well with Safari so I’ve been thinking of moving to something else (rather pathetic excuse) 2) I felt a bit bad about neglecting the Tiratanaloka blog while continuing to write my own and, finally, 3) I rather lost my way in terms of why I was doing it and who I was doing it for.  This last is probably the main reason I haven’t written anything for so long.  If you’d like to see my (somewhat unspectacular!) photographs of my trip to Australia in March, then you can see them by looking here

If you have any thoughts about the point of non-anonymous, non-business-related blogging then I’d like to hear them and have another think about it all.  Thanks. 

I thought I would say something about the blog title.. a very northern Irish saying.  I found an article in Sociological Research Online with this same title which asserts: 

"When strangers in Northern Ireland meet, they draw upon a variety of cues in an attempt to ascertain each other’s religio-political identity and, depending on the outcome, enter into what Burton (1978) terms ’systematically distorted’ or ‘pseudo-communication’. "

This brought a smile to my face, although I haven’t lived in N Ireland for a long time (23 years to be exact)…..  all the little cues you looked for in what someone said that would be a dead giveaway as to whether they were Prod or Catholic (ok - what their religio-political identity was).  And the questions you politely asked if you couldn’t work it out in the first minute or two of conversation.  And then the pseudo-communication - oh yes indeed!!  I guess (and I’m very happy to be corrected) that the phrase ‘Whatever you say, say nothing’ is advice to heavily edit what you say unless you know who you are saying it to lest you inadvertantly let slip something that might get you into deep you-know-what.

This made me think about writing a blog and how it’s easy to imagine at first who might be reading it (no-one? your friends? your family?? your preceptor???) and therefore to suddenly find yourself editing the content when you realise that actually all of them could be (although probably none is….).  I suddenly started to realise why so many blogs are anonymous!!  It would be really great to just pour out all those inner thoughts without a care in the world who was going to read them, but it’s just too scary for me, I am a embarrassed to admit.  Work in progress.  There’s a lot more that could be said here in terms of this sort of self-censorship - is it valid or even interesting to write this sort of thing if some of what is going on is edited out?  Is it meaningful communication at all?  What does it mean to me to be typing this at this very moment?  Answers on a postcard please.  Perhaps I will check out Sociological Research again…

This is just a quick post because I fear my blog is gathering dust…..

Over the new year we ran a retreat on the Four Mind Turning Reflections (or the 4 reminders, as they are sometimes known).  These are:
the preciousness of our human birth
death and impermanence
karma and
contemplating the defects of samsara.
They sound like sobering stuff, and indeed they are in one sense, but in another way if we can really take them to heart they somehow set us free from trying to make our lives ‘work’ in a way that we often know won’t quite come off in the long run. Giving a talk on death and impermanence really pushed me up against the fact that life IS short - an unknown span in fact - and that whatever I want to do with my life I need to get on with it NOW.  Why waste time rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, as a Dzogchen teacher said.  After the retreat I spent a few very enjoyable days in London (yes, doing a certain amount of deckchair rearranging!) - seeing Charlie and my sister Lesley and her family and reacquainting myself with the family gene for deadly competitive charades.  I also saw a great play at the National - The Seafarer by Connor McPherson.  A funny, sad, haunting theme of the human need for connectedness.  Now I’m just about to start another retreat here - this time the 2-week Transcendental Principle, studying the core Buddhist teaching of conditionality.

That missing comma in my blog title has been bothering me too.

Well it wasn’t rainy then but it is now!  Here are some pictures of the holiday I went on with Charlie to Gran Canaria in November.  I found the place through a website called i-escape that Vajradarshini told me about.  It was extremely quiet and peaceful… nothing much to do but lounge by the pool and generally chill out.  The weather was warm and sunny… yes, enough to get out the bikini (for those of you who enquired!)

I started writing this post a week after returning from a meditation retreat at Vajraloka retreat centre in N. Wales.  However, that was about 6 weeks ago and of course my experience and thoughts now are slightly different … so I’m starting over.  Well, in the spirit of the retreat, I guess I’d have to say my experience will have changed again by the time I have finished typing this, which raises another question entirely about the nature of this sort of online diary type stuff…. but not one I’m going to go into now [collective relief!].

The retreat was Tejananda’s ‘Entering Pure Awareness’ and it was the first time I had been on a retreat where formless meditation of this type was taught.  Although the retreat was billed as ‘open/mixed’ there were a lot of dharmacharinis on it - probably more than 10!  Well, I suppose we were mixed…..  I certainly was.  It was the first time I had ever been to Vajraloka and I had to reassess my view of where the back of beyond is, because I think Vajraloka is much closer to it than Tiratanaloka.  It is in a fabulous location, with the community house sort of clinging to the side of a hill and ever-changing light and weather moving into the valley beyond.  The team couldn’t have been more welcoming and my sense of the retreat was one of formal practice carried out in an informal and relaxed atmosphere (mostly in silence, apart from meditation teaching, interviews and ritual).  I enjoyed Tejananda’s teaching style very much - clear and somehow light.  Well, that’s been the easy bit to write about…. the more I try and put into words the actual effect of the retreat, the more difficult it becomes. Maybe I will just say that it was somehow simple and strong at the same time - whatever it was, it has given me a renewed enthusiasm to get on the cushions and a different perspective of things off them as well. I’d really like to do the retreat again, but unfortunately the timings don’t coincide with our programme at Tiratanaloka in 2007….

Here is a quote from an email sent to me by my brother in law:-

"An old saying that goes back at least to the Geeks says:
  ‘Bloggers who Blogg should keep Blogging’"

He’s right.  Rather a lot has happened since my last posting on here.  In summary, I’ve been on a great meditation retreat at Vajraloka, I’ve been on holiday to the Canary Islands, I’ve been on retreat here at Tiratanaloka and I’ve just been to visit my family in Ireland (www.bondsreunited.co.uk) (just joking with the last one, don’t click on it).  I’ll write more about all of this soon.  Blog on. I will, Bernard.

I really wanted to call this post "The orange assassin" but had a vaguely uncomfortable feeling that that particular title could hold sectarian overtones….!!  It’s the subject of a dream I had a few nights ago that I’ve been reflecting on a bit.  In this dream, I was in a building with many rooms - like a hotel - and was being pursued by a hit man, an assassin.  He was standing very close to me and was somehow blurred and misty and the only characteristic I could really make out was a sort of glowing orange hue.  I wanted him to just kill me and get it over with (he had a gun) but he gently refused and, putting his arms around me, told me that I had to enjoy the rest of the evening before it all ended.  I felt frightened but also strangely excited.  I knew I had to enjoy every moment, that I couldn’t just hurry the end along.  The assassin was very gentle but there was absolutely no question of escape.  The dream was in contrast to another dream I had months ago of being pursued by an assassin - in that case I was desperately trying to secure all the doors and windows to the house to keep him out, at the same time knowing it was futile.  That assassin was all in black and angular and very threatening and had a syringe as his means of dispatch. Mmmm…. publishing dreams feels strange when I don’t even know what they mean myself!  I think though the meaning is coming into focus more through reflecting on the first of the three laksanas (marks of conditioned existence) on this wabi sabi retreat.  This says that all things in samsara are impermanent (the other marks are unsatisfactoriness and insubstantiality).  Through really seeing and experiencing these marks, or characteristics, we can come to doorways to liberation.  So there could be 2 responses to the ultimate experience of impermanence which I guess is death - fear alone, or a realisation that everything is in the continuum of becoming and ending, and so the present moment is entirely meaningful in itself.  Perhaps these were the responses I was experiencing in dream 1 and dream 2…..

Well, resistance may indeed be futile, but I’m responding to autumn by looking for a holiday somewhere warm and bidding for a bikini on eBay. Impermanence may be unavoidable but you can’t help trying.

Mmm.. I’ve just realised it’s a week since I last posted something on here…  Part of the reason is that I have been over in Ireland visiting my family. It’s a strange thing going back to where you are from, as I guess many people would agree.  I’ve lived over half my life away from Ireland now and yet I’ve never felt I totally understand the way things work in England (and now Wales) .. but Ireland feels unfamiliar in many ways now too.  So why or what is that feeling?  I guess it must be a cultural familiarity/strangeness - something to do with the way things are done and, probably even more so, with the way people communicate with one another.  There are so many nuances to communication - the words and tones we use to convey humour, irony, mild disapproval, faint warning, complete delight - and these certainly vary from region to region.  I was reflecting that it’s probably very good practice to have to communicate more straightforwardly, yet it’s so much more of a challenge.  There’s also a definite pleasure in communicating in a more minimal way, because there’s a shared understanding of language.  Back to that old debate - does language shape thought, or thought shape language?  They say that Eskimos have many words for snow because the subtle changes are significant. Mmm… I notice my Derry phrasebook has a very significant number of words for the concept ‘drunk’……  so do you know the difference between ’stocious’ and ‘blootered’??

Something else that keeps running through my mind is a line from the David Lynch film ‘The Straight Story’ which I watched again last weekend.  When someone says to the main character ‘What’s the worst thing about being old?’ he replies ‘Remembering when you were young’. 

Here are a couple of photos (not very good, I took them with my phone) of the most beautiful angel I have seen so far in a cemetery.  She is in Colchester cemetery, quite close to where I used to live.   Lots of angels in cemeteries are either weeping or gazing up to heaven imploringly, but what I love about this one is that she looks so entirely calm and businesslike.  "Moving on to the next world..? No problem. Next". If you’ve seen a more beautiful one, let me know.

Well, the bug that started as a cold has really knocked me out and I’ve been in the twilight zone for the last few days.  Someone did point out that it’s not feeling unwell, but all the stuff, such as anxiety and frustration, that gets put on top that is the really uncomfortable experience.  It’s true, but not that easy to change!  Today on the way to see the doctor, I found in my jacket pocket the Guardian obituary of the Irish writer John McGahern, which I had torn out of the paper in March and then lost (tip: lost things often turn up in pockets).  If you haven’t read any of his books, then Amongst Women and That They May Face the Rising Sun are wonderful.  I found this quote "The best of life is life lived quietly, where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything".  This came on top of reading Pema Chodron’s Start Where You Are (a commentary on the Seven Points of Mind Training) in which she says "Whatever bright solutions or big plans you come up with, just let them go, let them go, let them go. Whether you seem to have just uncovered the root of a whole life of misery or you’re thinking of a rootbeer float - whatever you’re thinking - let it go….. just pause and notice, and let go".  It seems that McGahern also is touching on this theme of letting go of both hope and fear and living life moment by moment. Sooo…. to move away from the theoretical. …I could let go of feeling anxious about not being on the work retreat (will people think I’m useless?), worrying that I won’t be well enough to visit my mum next weekend (will she think I’m hopeless?) and letting my lover see me looking pale and spotty (too terrible to contemplate).  And just appreciate my moment by moment existence which is actually not unpleasant at all in the main.  Difficult choice…….  I’ll let you know…

Well I’ve had a cold for a couple of days now.. find it interesting to see how such a little virus can affect my states of mind.  Last night we watched a film I’ve had for ages but had never got round to watching before - Ian McKellen as Richard III, a spectacularly unethical individual (well, as portrayed by Shakespeare anyway).  Very strong visually, fantastically menacing from the shocking opening scene to the very end.  I was reflecting that a lot of my views of this period of history are probably shaped by repeated readings as a child of the Ladybird Book of Kings and Queens (Vol 1).  This contained uncompromising character summaries such as "Richard was a weak and vain man" (actually I think this might have been Richard II) (or possibly some other unfortunate monarch altogether..), accompanied by slightly lurid pictures of some historical event or facet of life at that time.  For some reason it was totally fascinating.  It would be interesting to have our more recent monarchs written about in the same cursory style…..or what about ourselves ?? Now there’s a scary thought… my life summed up in one page of the Ladybird Book of Brecon Buddhists…

Today we held a day at Tiratanaloka offering meditation teaching to people who live in the local area.  It was the first time we’ve done this at the retreat centre, although we did run a similar day in the village hall in July.  It was fantastic to have 14 people turn up and to be able to introduce - or re-introduce - them to samatha practices.  Although I had a cold and felt a bit under the weather, I enjoyed the day and really appreciated the positive atmosphere created by those who came along.  Once again I found it really helpful looking through Jinananda’s little book on meditation (simply entitled Meditating) which I find contains a lovely mix of the very poetic and the really practical in introducing these practices.  Here’s some information on the book: Windhorse Publications: Books on Buddhism, Dharma, meditation from an FWBO Right Livelihood business.  It also felt good to let others enjoy the space of the retreat centre.  On a personal level, one thing I’ve been aware of feeling since I moved here is a slight sense of loss at not being connected with the wider local community, and today also felt like a step towards making that connection.

Here are some pictures of where I went walking last weekend.  The building is Llanthony Priory (looking a bit romantic in the mist!) which is about 6 miles off the main road between Abergavenny and Hereford. We walked on the most easterly ridge of the Black Mountains which marks the border between England and Wales.  It was a really warm day, though there was low cloud on the top of the ridge which meant the views weren’t clear for most of the time.  Still, it was very atmospheric!

. .. at Tiratanaloka, a Buddhist retreat centre in Wales where I have lived for the last 10 months. This is a photo of me taken recently for our new programme of retreats…It’s taken me a bit of time to get the hang of this blog stuff so I’ll just say that I will try to keep it updated, at least weekly - maybe more often if things get exciting here in the countryside.