by Kaspa ‘These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them. The Kalama Sutta There are so many different kinds of suffering, and so many available teachers and teachings claiming to speak […]
by Kaspa The Pure Land of Amitabha is described as a land without hell realms, without suffering. It is described as a place where enlightenment comes easily, where Amitabha sits radiantly in the centre. It is a land of jewelled trees, limpid bathing pools, giant lotus flowers and musical instruments that play themselves. It is
By Dayamay Listening to one of Kaspa’s talks recently started me thinking about the epic commitments and sacrifices that we make when embarking upon the Spiritiual path. Certainly for me there was a sense of letting go of many different crutches and allowing myself to be slowly immersed in all of the stuff that I’d
by Kaspa Recently I’ve started practising outdoors now and again. I long to go out to a truly wild place and sit in meditation there, but under current lockdown guidelines we are only supposed to go outside for exercise including a short rest of up to a minute… As I wondered down to the bottom
Today was my hundredth day of sitting an hour’s vigil for the Earth. Yesterday’s vigil was awful. I woke late and grumpy, and dragged myself round to the temple car park. It was bitterly cold. My thick mittens couldn’t keep my thumbs from numbing, and my body was getting ready to shiver. Towards the end
By Kaspa Over the last few weeks I have found myself looking deeply into the Buddhist teachings and trying to discover what ‘real’ or ‘true’ Buddhism is. Lots of teachers through the ages claim that what they are teaching is real Buddhism, or that what they are teaching is exactly the same as what the
by Satya I attended an event last night where we were asked to get into pairs and say how we felt about the Climate & Ecological Emergency. I listed fear, frustration, and numbness, but as my partner spoke I realised I hadn’t mentioned the emotion tops my list. Guilt. Guilt at buying the pizza wrapped
The face that looks back at me from the mirror this morning is not the same as the face that looked back yesterday, and is definitely more lined than the face that looked back at me from the mirror a year ago. If you hang around in Buddhist or Taoist circles long enough you will
By Dayamay Just when you thought that you’d found your place in the world and you feel that you’re in the best place possible, some cataclysmic force comes along and turns it all upside down! This is the nature of Samsara and Impermanence and it is a fundamental characteristic of the spiritual path. I suppose
by Kaspa This morning I was reading Robert Macfarlane’s Underland. He writes about walking through Epping Forest and talking to Merlin Sheldrake about fungi. Sheldrake describes how whole networks of fungi live in symbiosis with the trees: transmitting information and nutrients from one tree to the next, even across different species of trees. He calls
