In the dream of leisure, time and the timeless forever meet at the horizon. At the horizon which has always been. Yet we need only see that there is no end to the journey to the horizon for our hearts to turn us back. Even so for the search of the spirit, the search for truth and love. As soon as we set off in search of the truth then it will flee from us, just as the horizon will recede at every step. 

Instead we must plant ourselves in the ground and wait. We must be like the tree at the crossroads not like the wanderer walking by.

Even remaining here if we travel with our ideas they will only blind us. Our books must wait at our destination. They must wait hidden under our bed.

Then. 

When we travel not into the world or into the world of our minds. When the world comes instead to us. We will arrive at knowing through inner silence and the Buddha sitting as still as a mountain will be our highest symbol. All this we gain from our willingness to stay at home and to continuously listen to life. Then there is only knowing, all knowing is the same and there is a peace and satisfaction in that knowing which has no equal.

There too we will find the body. Not the body used by purpose, the tool that we feel and that we want to feel the world, not the grasping, wrestling body but the body opening to the world and into the world. The world will pass us by as if looking out from the windows of the great bus of the body and the windows of our eyes will not be forgotten. We will know sights as sights and our sense of self will vanish as we see the receptive mind as knowing and not as being.

If we can remain only here our journey will come to us with every step.

We will see too that all our travels are travels also in sensuality. We will come to see sensuality as a journey already and another journey to be abandoned. For this too will be the journey which never ends. The timeless love and the things of  time will never really touch on the horizon. For the timeless is nothing in this world, truly nothing. It is not merely the space of the sky but the nothing beyond everything and yet the nothing that is not elsewhere but penetrating all things and found through the release of the mind in truth.

So we must abandon all our journeys and our searching and wait. Wait at home for the world to unfold before us. Necessity will drive us far enough. And to be driven so by necessity is to be driven by reality, not by the dreams of space and of leisure. It is in the workplace where we will find the truth but this must be the work of listening too of hearing and meeting the call of necessity. Then our knowing consent will be our freedom. The knowing of our place. The embracing of our toil and our suffering which is also the end of that suffering.

This will be our joining of the greater order and pattern we one time sought in the philosophy of the armchair but joining only with our body and mind while the soul remains at rest. This is staying at home. 

And through the window will be the world. Generations will pass in this remote place. And still the view will be the same through the kitchen window. The sun will always rise and bless the bedroom with its first dawn light in this house of awakening. This awakened house. 

Then, only then, will we open the sermons and the scriptures of the Holy Ones. They will place their words on our ready lips and we will have found faith too in a place, a temple, long awakened. A lineage will reach down beneath us and root us to this place. This here, this now. Not this sometime when thought or feeling reaches out from theory to fleeting confirmation but the bed-rock of the pure and open attention of stillness. An intelligent stillness that sees the order of the world through not interfering with that order with its own fabrication. Seeing time in the present not through the passing or the journey. Seeing the cracked window and the flaky paint. Seeing the bones and the rusty metal. Seeing the wrinkles in the twinkle of an eye. 

The seer a stillness, an observer and a recorder, a witness looking not for stillness or permanence in itself either but in the truth and from this truth a stillness ever more stable, cool and sublime. A memory more perfect by the absence of the watcher. A knowing true and truly sublime. 

And the order of the world will appear to us in all its glory and our joy will be in that order, in the symmetry and grace of order and in being part of that order. And in joining that order we will be nothing. A nothing that can never die.

So paint not the picture of a spiritual truth of leisure but one of work. Recount not the journey but the staying at home. The suffering will only be wrong if we think it is wrong. And thinking it is wrong we will grasp at it just as we did the happiness. Nothing is wrong. The truth is calling us home. 

When there is no dream the truth will not contradict that dream. Only the romance that never began will never end. And the truth will be our greatest love, our true love. The truth of suffering and the truth that the mind that sees the suffering will not have the suffering but the joy of release everlasting.

Beauty is the trap that holds the mind into this suffering. A beauty that we cannot simply deny. To instead see beauty as order and to find a greater order in a greater truth is to find a greater beauty. Then we will see a beauty in all things or a beauty in nothing, just as we please to find our ease. For beauty will lie beyond things. The world does not charm us with beauty, only then to sting us with truth as if drawn onto the sword by a song. The world only demands of us that we see the order and the whole. To see the order we must see the whole. As the butterfly bounces on the wind its disordered flight can look like so much suffering. But that flight is seen anew if the breeze is also seen. The disordered flight is then seen as necessary and the flight is skill and the suffering of the earth is hence reconciled in the stars.

But there is a greater reconciliation yet in truth as near as our nose.

When we see the butterfly as the lasting truth it contains and expresses rather than as its fragile wings then we do not mourn the loss of the insect to the beak of the bird; we see the sacrifice of the insect, the lesser consciousness to the greater. We see the evolution of the mind in nature's hierarchy. We see the importance of such mind, such truth over the forms by which it is carried.

This is seeing Dhamma and seeing ourselves as Dhamma.

Everything will have its answer.

And this life of Dhamma will be a life real and raw and peeling. Not the abstract life of an idea or of the dream-light darkened. But a life blazing with the light of love and truth. Or love in the answer to truth. For it is not that truth is an end, a conclusion. It has its answer too and its climax in love. A perfect love that responds completely to the perfect sight of suffering. 

The world will come to us as the obligations and duties of love and yet the love will always be the greater...

The body tingles at me gently from its edges. There is rest here in its weight won by a day's labour. The warmth of the room and the food in the belly are well earned. And this day is the same as every other. Just as every day the salary we earn is spent on the fare that takes us to our work. Such is our life of necessity and obligation. We are servants only and as servants we learn. This is the real prize of our labour. 

Until, fallen amongst the fallen trees, the body, having been properly composed will die and decompose. Then the music of our lives will wait, as we have learned already to wait in nowhere, for the rhythms and notes of the world to come around again and call us back to life. For the truth will call us again to its service.

The late summer brings the dragonfly hovering triumphantly over the waters of its birth and flashing as blue as the heavens.  There is glory and celebration in its freedom to fly in the warmth of the sun, here in the climax of summer. Then as its darts to and fro the scene seems to change. The dragonfly can seem unsettled as if, so full of life, there was simply nowhere to go.  

Such is the story in the language and eyes of becoming, of the journey. 

But in the world of meaning, where everything has already been said, we see another chorus of a truth which never arrived because it was never absent. A chorus echoing back to the beginning of time and to the beginning of meaning. For meaning is there with time, meaning as the carrier of the present into the future. 

Take this soil beneath our feet. The death of so many carried into the future. Waiting for the seed. How can we deny the value of death and yet we do so. How can we deny the significance of our very foundation yet we do so. Imagine the gratitude of a heart that realises how many have died so he may live. Of one who sees the meaning of substance to the future and how this substance can be reclaimed to play again the melodies of life.

This substance our memory between the fleeting sparks of consciousness. Important not in and of itself but serving a higher purpose. 

If we but detach our minds from its earthly form and see and feel only memory, within and without then we know all there is that has ever been truly known in this present truth. There is no loss or change to the meaning, only to the substance. If we attach to the substance we will die with the substance but if we know the truth of that substance it may serve to call us to play its tunes, to sing its song for the sake of truth and love, and for that only.

And it will be our task only to await for that joy and honour.


Coming from nature

Coming from nature will be as if coming out from behind the long grass, its wild wide blades streaming  behind him like a head-dress. Turning back to nature will be as if a child were peaking humbly through the grass playing hide-and-seek. And there will be a moment only between the coming and the return. The return first a composure, then a caution, then playing in a safe place firmly on the ground.

And there on the ground there will be the turn around, the beginning of our own creation within the character of our surroundings.

Our curiosity asks us to dwell in detail, to notice the subtle change of the winter light or the breeze, while it is the whole that holds the truth. This truth is in every part for sure but seen in the perspective of a whole which remains and remains whole we see not ending but transformation. We see the deeper process. And the whole is right there in the truth as the mind and space of realisation expands indefinitely. And the key to this opening is to see the suffering and let go. Not to let go and go elsewhere but to let go and stay. Then to see suffering will be full of freedom and joy.

​

Following a lot of tests and monitoring I found out more yesterday more about the heart condition that I have been suffering from the last few years and realised that it carries a high risk of stroke. This was quite a big thing for me to discover. In my professional life before I ordained as a monk I was a psychologist and physiotherapist specialising most of all in the rehabilitation of stroke patients.  Although, as a practitioner of the Dhamma, I was continually reflecting that I could end up in the same situation as my patients, it was not until yesterday that I felt I had crossed the subtle divide between us. I find myself looking back at my patients with renewed compassion and respect for the way they coped with their situation and I feel so very human today. 

I had the same feeling twenty years ago after a severe back injury when I realised how much pain my many back patients must have experienced. This time, however, the bond feels deeper still. We are truly brothers and sisters in the face of death.

Deeper still, to so ground the mind in the body is ground too for the process of liberation. The way out is in. To enter the body fully with a heart wrapped in the loving space of the breath and to see its reality is the way to a true and complete freedom from suffering. The stress of the world, or of the sickness, may remain then on the surface but it does not fully penetrate the heart. We remain safe inside.

Many people who become interested in meditation, wanting deep, profound spiritual experiences, find they do not have the opportunity to practice for the many hours a day required to achieve these kinds of results. Some resign themselves to a lesser goal, or try to redefine enlightenment as something a little easier to achieve.  Others look for a spiritual hack or short cut. In a previous article I pointed out how dangerous this can be. But you could say that there is an ancient and well-trodden, well defined spiritual short cut, we might call it the wisdom path. This can take you into the deepest states without you having to do long hours of concentration meditation. Just a little bit of calm will do. The wisdom path is one in which we learn to see the world in a different way, one that leads to letting go rather than the clinging to things which is the reality of the reactive and untrained mind. Wisdom is a way of seeing rather than a way of thinking so not a lot of intellectual study is required. The traditional way to learn it is to train with a teacher who has wisdom and naturally and gradually pick up their attitude and way of seeing over time. This is the most natural way to learn.

But if this way is so much quicker then why isn't everyone trying it? 
  
The central contemplation is of the impermanence of everything we experience. So this is not complicated but it can take a while for it to really sink in. Nevertheless, the reality is that through such contemplation one is going against the stream of the modern materialist view completely. The student in the modern world can be taken gradually into a whole new relationship with the world around him or her, seeing the ultimate pointlessness of it all. Over time the shift can be very radical and the students will need to be willing to shift their life-style to fit the new view in order to progress. We have to act on the wisdom we develop for it to become established in us and not cause a conflict in the mind. So this path is not without sacrifice, but in the longer term this is the sacrifice of a lesser happiness for a greater one. In Asia, Buddhist Monasteries are there as a place to go, a refuge for those who begin to feel disenchanted with the fleeting nature of the pleasures of life – those who, perhaps like Mick Jagger, ‘can't get no satisfaction’.  

One who sees impermanence will be inclined to change the priorities in life and abandon the worldly material gains which they at that point can see as not lasting; but this can also be a gradual path of simplifying life, one step at a time. This practice also combines very naturally with a practice of calming meditation. So as the student lets go, they find more time and space for meditation and this enhances their ability to see in a wise way, with a calm mind. Meditation becomes the way of smoothing out this path, calming down into a new life-style. And the results of this practice are not like the fleeting peace gained on a pleasant retreat but last for the rest of your life. In fact, if you believe in the Buddhist view of rebirth, what is gained of wisdom will follow you into your next life also – such an indelible imprint is made on the mind. 

What this path requires most of all is the courage to take a very honest look at life. What lies in the way is really only our helpless addictions to the pleasures of the senses and our wish to hang onto a dream that sooner or later is going to let us down.  

​
I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk


​

​– what they might be and how to relate to them


I have a view about what a ghost might be. Or perhaps it would be better to say that I have developed a way of looking at ghosts, spirits and such things that seems to work both in my own mind and in relating to people to come to me to ask advise or help with their ghost experiences – these are a common thing for a forest monk to be asked about, especially by Asian Buddhists. This view of mine is not so easy to grasp so I do not always explicitly share this view, rather I relate to people’s stories based upon the view.

My view is based on the Buddhist view of dependent origination, of a particular view of causality which sees a relationship that goes both ways between consciousness and the world. In this context I would put the view like this: just as people remember a place, a place can remember a person, in the form of a ghost. This ghost will arise whenever the conditions in that place are similar to when the person was there. It is as though someone or something is partially arising again – not in material form but as an image. Other aspects of an event from the past may re-arise also. So to me ghosts represent evidence of some kind of memory there in the more subtle fabric of the world. This view seems to be substantiated by the fact that ghosts appear in the same places at the same times and often repeating the same acts over and over. There is also the possibility of a more refined species of spirit arising within the mind rather than in a material place. These, I would believe, are a manifestation of the minds of people not attached to the material world, of the mind of samādhi.

Let us try to refine this view further: Memory here is also not seen here as consisting of some kind of stored material or information representing a continuity of existence. Because it can be that our understanding of what a memory is means that we try to conceive of some kind of store consciousness or spiritual realm. Then, if this realm cannot be found, we dismiss the possibility of some different kind of memory and of ghosts at the same time. However, if we can understand memory instead as the re-arising of a phenomenon (either fully or partially) when the conditions come together to cause that phenomena. It can also be just a perception or partial perception that is recurring, a glimpse of something. 

This different understanding of memory underpins my ‘memory view’ on ghosts. We see how they arise and cease based on conditions rather than having a continuous existence. The difficulty comes in distinguishing a ghost of this kind from simply our imagination. Because such a ghost is so close in its nature to an imagined ghost, this discrimination can go so far as to need two people to see the same ghost at the same time (which is not so uncommon). A good meditator with a very calm mind can also see the difference because they know that while their mind is calm it is not creating or imagining anything and can judge this to some degree in others. Hence one role of meditating monastics is in advising people on their experiences in this domain.

Such a ghost theory as this is not an alternative to the idea of life after death but rather a way of talking about what life after death might be that does not presuppose the survival of a being or self. We may also see rebirth not as the survival of an entity but as something re-arising in another being’s mind in some other way. This may be as a perception, memory or thought as we may commonly understand it – simply remembering someone who has died. Or perhaps this can occur in another way through some other kind of memory or realization in the case of the ghost. 

So here we have a way of seeing and understanding ghosts that does not create a self in what we see. This will also be the way of seeing that is natural to someone who has through meditation abandoned the illusion of self. Philosophically this view is not supernatural nor materialist but between the two. As a practical approach this view seems to succeed in acknowledging and relating to our experiences of ghosts or the experiences of others without making too much out of them. In particular such a view does not induce a sense of being continuously haunted or physically vulnerable to a ghost which is perceived as having a material or energetic existence. It can be the case that, with an incorrect view, we can invest ghosts with more power over us than they really have, just in the same way we might empower our dreams or imagination, or even our negative emotions, through the unconscious action of our own minds.

Remembering all the stories I have been told over the years, I feel sure that Asian people will tend to believe too much in ghosts, often interpreting experiences in their own minds as ghosts, making them real (and getting very scared). Western people tend to be the opposite, reluctant to believe in ghosts they will interpret their experience as psychological. The perspective I have explained here can offer a middle way to these two extremes, not making the ghosts too real, not dismissing them either. 

Perhaps most interestingly – when we begin to see ghosts as a kind of memory we can begin to see our memories, in particular our traumas, as a kind of ghost. We can see memories as having a bit of a life of their own and the potential of relating to them afresh in the present moment. When memories and ghosts come together in this way in the same sphere of our experience, we need not initially try to discriminate between them (a reaction we can have that can end up paralyzing our ability to respond) but instead look for a skillful response. 
​

I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

​

Looking around, I can think that a lot of people practising yoga are first of all out to stay healthy. I don't see anything wrong with this, as far as it goes. This I see as simply benevolence and I can have a lot of muditā (sympathetic joy) for the health and well-being of Yoga practitioners. It can be a shame, although, to not take the practice a bit deeper and add the meditation to it – where you can be as benevolent to your minds as you are already being to your bodies. It is also the case that problems can arise if we attach to being healthy – we are simply very unhappy when we get sick. The wisdom of the Buddha's teaching, brought alive through meditation, can help us to prevent this attachment without limiting our enjoyment in the moment.

So let us consider how Yoga fits with Buddhist practice philosophy. Yoga was already a highly developed science in the Vedantic tradition at the time of the Buddha. As I understand, the   Buddha incorporated the meditation practices of the yogis into his own practice and teaching. Within Buddhism we can see the physical practices of Yoga as a preparation for the meditation and as representing an overall discipline of benevolence in relation to the body,   the body being the first,mfundamental, foundation of mindfulness.

So the Buddha is encouraging us to meditate and explore our bodies with a calm, benevolent and accepting mind. In doing so, we discover that there are many ways in which the body and mind are woven together, so we find this also yields methods to gain emotional and psychological benefits. In particular there is the awareness of the breathing cycle. Here, on the simplest level, there is the possibility of a physical means for breaking cycles of stress. Stress tends to push the respiratory process into chronic overdrive. We can learn to arrest these patterns and reset our body's alarm systems. Combined with stretching we can also release the chronic muscle tension associated with stress. Furthermore we can greatly enhance our awarenessof our bodies, particularly in relation to posture. We can avoid the physical problems associated with poor posture and introduce a positive poise  and grace to our lives that can take our hearts and minds in a similarly upright direction. Mindfulness of the body, if it thus becomes continuous, provides the ideal basis for the skill of mindfulness as a way of life – there is a lot of evidence for the value of this in preventing mental problems such as anxiety and depression.

We can discover that our attitude towards our own body is formative of so much or our mental and emotional life, of our view of ourselves and others. Not only is a healthy body in many ways a healthy mind, but a healthy view of the body is also in many ways a healthy mind. In this respect the Buddha also teaches us to recognise and then both accept and see beyond the limitations of the body in a way that these limitations need not dampen a positive attitude to life. It can be important to realise that the sickness of the body is not necessarily a source of suffering in life if we have the right attitude, one formed by the correct view of the body and our relationship to it.

On the deeper and more subtle level, through meditation we can learn to deeply energise the body and mind. This is associated with the deeper benefits of long-term meditation practice – the possibility of the peaceful and blissful mind states of samādhi, which come with heightened awareness of the body and breath together. These can transform our lives –we will never be the same again. If you have not experienced such things yourself it is well worth meeting people who have experienced them, to learn to know these people: they are likely to be the happiest people you have ever met. Yet these states of mind are only experienced by those whose Yoga represents a broad and dedicated spiritual path, including the keeping of moral precepts – only then can our mindfulness be clear enough to go this deep. Being part of a spiritual community is of enormous help in establishing and maintaining this kind of dedication. If we have discussed so far principally the place of Yoga in Buddhist practice, this is perhaps the most important place for Buddhism within the practise of Yoga.




I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

In order to yield insight the mind has to get beyond thought. This can be purely through the meditation process or we can also use other skilful means to train our minds towards this goal. Two ways of taking the mind toward silence are through contemplative poetry or art. To appreciate certain poetry one has to read or listen quietly, in a way that does not analyse the words but allows the mind to form a picture. Art of a more abstract nature is similar – we look with an attention that is not too tight nor too loose. A mind that is relaxed and open, yet attentive, allowing an impression to form.

This ability to allow a picture to form in the mind based upon sense impressions is part of the insight process. There is also a degree of sense or sensual restraint, a composure of the senses, that does not get into detail, grasping or fondling or criticising. It is a way we can begin to open the mind. This is a refined aesthetics rather than a coarse level of appreciation. In my opinion, however, such refined aesthetics can get us stuck. It is looking for the best of both worlds – the sublime form and the space – not realising the greater pleasure and purity in the completely open and free mind and heart, which is at one with space.

Our next step in this direction is to recognise through mindfulness that beauty is not just in the object, it is literally in the heart and eye of the beholder (mindfulness is therefore also a natural creator of art or poetry). In fact the appreciation of the mind itself can give a stronger impression than the object. In this way we find a source of enjoyment at least semi-independent of the sense world. There is a kind of refined sensuality to do with light and space where the line begins to blur between the light of the world and the brightness of the mind, for example. This becomes like heaven. If we can see heaven on earth in this way, it is like the gradual path where the Buddha teaches us to see the advantages of the refined heavenly realms as a way to let go of coarser, worldly sense pleasures.

This lightness of touch prepares us for the experience of entering samādhi through contemplating the suffering of the world. Here the experience of the emergence of the mind itself overwhelms us as we further let go of our attachment. This is a very different kind of pleasure, the bliss of the mind opening rather than sensually grasping or fondling.

​It was February, 2012. It had been a cold winter that year to be on retreat. I had been meditating a lot and exercising as well to keep myself going. Then one day I heard that there was a funeral approaching in the monastery and the body had arrived and was laid to rest in the temple. As was my usual practice I went to see and to practice mettā meditation for the deceased. When I arrived I realized that I had met the man a few times. He was well known as an exercise fanatic, there were pictures of him in local newspapers on display were he was doing various extreme things for charity and so on.

There had been, I had heard, some strange events since his death. Apparently the Buddha figure in his home where his body had previously been had mysteriously fallen from the shrine and broken. The same had then happened in the temple. I also knew that he had had a slow and difficult passing with some awful neurological condition. My mind came to wonder whether this man had lost faith through all that and then found some way to show it after he had died.

I returned to my hut in the forest to continue practising and for a moment felt despondent. I thought of all the exercise I was doing and of the dead man and found myself thinking, with a big sigh, “Oh, what’s the use.” After all the meditation and contemplation of the body and death I had been engaged in over the last months, something in me immediately found that thought funny, but as soon as I smiled at myself a massive wave of bliss took over my mind completely. My body was filled with light and an unbelievable rapture. This ecstatic feeling lasted a few minutes, I think, I am not sure and then I had a very clear vision of my teacher, Ajahn Anan, smiling very broadly. Then I surprised myself with another thought, “I wonder if that means he feels like that all the time.”

Two years later I was in Thailand and finally had the chance to ask Ajahn Anan about this experience. I wanted to know if he really did feel like that all the time. He said yes. I was and am still completely amazed by that. He then leant forward and with an extremely penetrating look in his eyes he said,

“Kalyano, that’s the highest.” From that time to this I have kept returning my mind to that. This is a difficult practice, I need all the encouragement I can get. 

​​Aj. Kalyāno
March 20, 2014

Of course the monastery isn’t always like this but this is perhaps the kind of thing that we wish, in our dreams, could happen:

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we can begin...

Once upon a time...when he finally decided to go to the monastery it was the beginning of winter and the frost over the fields was sparkling in the low sun. A few people in the village he knew had met the monks, some of the kids had been to the monastery with school, and they all said they seemed like nice people so he wasn’t so nervous any more. He was excited and tingled a little bit all over, in fact, as the cold north wind swept across his face. 

As he walked over the rise and saw the monastery house below he was immediately struck by the peace of the place. He hadn’t expected to feel anything special, his excitement steadied and opened a little. The first person he met was a man carrying a plank of wood from the barn towards the house. He offered a helping hand and found the ground first of all and himself in the door of the monastery second, all before he quite realised where he was. One of the monks was there and took his end of the plank as he walked in. 

The monk said ‘thanks,’ and smiled. He felt a kind of stillness and stood looking around, not knowing what to say or even, momentarily, what to think.

The room was like an ordinary sitting room only there were no chairs, just mats on the floor, and a small shrine at the far end. The monk and the man were in the middle of constructing a wooden frame by the fireplace, he guessed for the firewood. He passed a hammer to the monk, who smiled again, more broadly this time. The monk and the man were both English and joked around with each other. Other times they were quiet but the quiet wasn’t awkward. This seemed important to him and somehow beautiful in a way he did not quite understand, a bit like looking at abstract art. The silence seemed strong and cool, like dark blue against yellow.

He found himself joining in with the work but not saying much. When work was done for the morning the monk invited him to stay for lunch and to his surprise he quickly accepted. Three Thai ladies were arriving with some food for the monks and he went to say hello. They were very smiling and chatty and took over in the kitchen. They did not seem to expect him to do anything, even to listen to what they were saying and he drifted back into the main room and sat at the back. This all felt different, he thought, yet at the same time seemed very normal, natural. It was just as though he was travelling abroad to an exotic place in a big bus-shaped house. Or was it a big house-shaped bus? There was something about this place that seemed to make something special out of the ordinary and something ordinary out of the special.

The other monks arrived and there was some ceremony around the meal but the man, who turned out to be staying at the monastery, told him he did not need to join so he just watched the people as they bowed and chanted blessings and so on. Looking on, it was all very gracious as if there were a little bit of silence and space in and around everything. He was a bit surprised to find out that the monk he had met already was the Abbot. 

Everyone shared in the food. As he relaxed, life started feeling strangely more meaningful, in a more playful kind of way. He tried bowing for the first time and knocked his head gently on the floor by accident. One of the Thais giggled. She was pretty but he didn’t feel embarrassed, he was trying his best. ‘Trying my best not trying too bloody hard like usual,’ he thought to himself. It was fun to follow along and at the same time respectful. Something relaxed in his right shoulder which had been holding on a long time.  He found himself freer to move his head and started looking again around the room. There were all kinds of possible new meanings lurking there in the subtle soft and elegant taste of the East...he was set to dreaming a little…

After the meal the monk came to talk to the visitors and he joined the group, relaxing in his armchair. Everyone sat on the floor. He didn’t quite know what to do with his legs, which suddenly felt rather long and stiff. He shuffled about and tried to follow the conversation. The monk seemed to know the visitors well, enquiring how they were and their families and they talked a little about meditation. There was a very friendly, family atmosphere. He felt a bit like the big kid of the class. 

When the visitors returned to the kitchen he found himself alone with the monk. They exchanged a few simple words, nice day wasn’t it…but he was dying to ask something. He told the monk about the guardian of the forest that he had believed in since he was a child.

‘You are a man now. Now you are the guardian of the forest,’ said the monk, much to his surprise. He had not expected to be challenged like this but the monk was smiling very broadly.

‘Don’t you believe in such things? Does the guardian not exist? he asked.’

‘Keep looking and one day maybe you will see for yourself,’’ said the monk.

Again he was surprised, this time inside. He realised that the guardian of the forest was still just a childish figure in his mind in some way, a bit like Santa Claus and he thought of his grandfather who had told him about the guardian when he was a little boy. He had never really questioned what his grandfather had said and to carry on doing what he had been shown, to bow his head as he entered the forest, had just added a bit of magic to his love of the forest which he didn’t think about so much. He had never wanted to think so much about it, that seemed to spoil the magic. But the way the monk was speaking was not just about thinking or imagining but really looking for himself. 

He didn’t quite know what to say. One of the Thai ladies appeared and offered to take his plate to the washing-up and he instead followed her into the kitchen to lend a hand. The ladies had to leave quite quickly and he found himself alone in the house. He was relieved to have a chance to really arrive and reflect on the morning. 

Something seemed to be opening up inside which had been contracted a long time. He realised he didn’t have to believe or not believe in anything, not in spirits or parties or chocolate or anything. Snow started falling slowly and gently outside in big flakes. The white of the snow seemed so fresh  pure and bright. Right there in the moment he felt he could make a fresh start and look again at the world with the wonder of a child that he had somehow lost in all his doubts and worries. He had entered into a very precious state of mind, called in Buddhism, ‘Beginner’s Mind.’ a state of mind with some faith but no knowledge, just open and enquiring.

He decide to go for a walk in the forest...

to the guardian of the forest he spoke with respect
asking for permission to enter 
just as his grandfather had told him when he was a small child

to the spirit of the forest he listened
through the wind in the trees, the creaking branches 

and the spirit and the guardian seemed to speak to him through his feelings
coming from without or within he could not tell and it didn’t seem to matter

now as he was older and wiser than in his youth
the guardian and the spirit seemed to be coming ever closer
‘are they not actually in the same voice?’
he asked himself

‘surely they are the same’ he thought
the creaking of the branches seemed to speak to him of caution

but there was something deeper
he sat to meditate for the first time 
beneath the great pine in the centre of the forest

very deep down in his spirit
far deeper than he could imagine
the voice of the spirit was beginning to express
in the brightness of his heart
the deeper meaning and truth of the forest

and the meaning was the protector, the guardian
for the meaning was itself protected

this truth was the deepest truth of nature itself
and was the eternal life of the forest
truth everlasting

this was how through humble respect 
he had begun to find nature’s greatest reward
for himself and for the forest

the promise of an eternal life through truth
and through complete surrender  
​

It was Christmas time in the village. There was something about all the rituals of Christmas that seemed a little empty to him this year. 
‘What can I give Aunty so and so, I haven’t seen her since last year.’

It was also to be his first Christmas without his grandfather, smoking his pipe and telling stories of ships in far away places with a glint in his eye. He would miss him so much.

Wrapping up all the socks for the people he hardly knew at all he regretted all the times he had rushed along with his head down and not even saying hello.

‘And I wasn’t really so busy,’ he thought. I just didn’t know what to say. ‘Oh dear, oh dear..’ he muttered to himself.

Actually there were so many things he hadn’t said, about his sadness over his grandfather. There were so many other things he did not know where to start. Sometimes he thought something was going to burst inside.

And then what was he going to say at the parties he didn’t really want to go to...oh dear, oh dear...he remembered the last one where the only relief he found from all the noise was in the toilet..he had stood there taking a pee and wondering why he was there at all…

Most sadly of all, perhaps, he didn’t realise that other people felt the same as him and that even the confident extroverts of the group liked his quiet presence.

As he cast his mind around the little village he yearned emotionally for the sense of a wider family but he couldn’t seem to find it. He straightened himself up to somehow show that he didn’t need anyone. The truth was that his pride was such that he couldn’t really feel that he needed anyone  though he surely did. But then he didn’t really know the shopkeepers or anyone, he was always in a bit of a rush, wasn’t he? 

He put his coat on and headed for the shop not quite knowing why he was going. The thought of chocolate popped up from nowhere and thankfully, it seemed, took him onto automatic. But as he walked along even this could not overcome his sense of despair. He sat on the bench at the bus stop. He needed to stop and reflect, he was feeling emotionally a little overwhelmed. Much to his dismay people started to gather to wait for the bus. He hardly knew the people and didn’t know what to say but he felt embarrassed to walk away. 

‘It is not very usual for someone to be sitting there, never mind someone in such an emotional state,’ he thought. He was worried that he would make others feel awkward and tried to think how he could look in order not to bother anybody. He realised he had his phone in his pocket. He took it out and disappeared behind the little screen. He pretended to be busy with something, he was good at that. The bus arrived. A young girl looked at him questioningly as she got on the bus and left him sat there. There was only one bus that came through the village. He knew he had been exposed as a mere pedestrian. And she was pretty, he found himself suddenly wanting to look good and that made it all even worse. He was hoping she could not see that he was unhappy and managed an awkward smile. But it was too late, she had already boarded the bus. He felt lonely and forlorn. Life suddenly felt rather meaningless. 

‘Surely there must be more to life than all this,’ he thought, holding his head in his hands.

He decided to take a walk and headed away from the village and the people straight for the forest. Approaching the forest he loved so much he bowed his head to the guardians of the forest before he entered as was his custom. Usually this felt a natural thing to do, today it felt very awkward, he just felt awkward all over. But the forest had been so much part of his life from when he was very young, he soon found himself leaving the village behind in his mind and relaxing, losing himself and feeling at one with the scene around him as he found his way along the path. When he reached his favourite spot, carpeted in moss, where the pines towered over him, so straight and true he found himself bowing his head again, almost as if in prayer. Showing respect, lessening himself in this way, made the forest all the grander and this grandeur served as his welcome in return.

Suddenly, walking through the trees they seemed to him like the wider family he wished for, silent as they were there was nothing awkward. His silence felt accepted and he somehow returned home inside to a place he knew so well. If only he could find this same feeling from the people around him, he thought.


All this was the reason he was to seek refuge at the local Buddhist monastery, many years later, wishing so much that he had had the courage to go there many years before. For there he was to find the same silence and the sense of a wider, accepting family he had always been looking for. He was to meet a monk who was still often not quite sure what to say to people but had learned to love them anyway. And gradually he was to find a whole new identity and way of being in the world that  had something new to say and to offer to his dear village.

And they would all live happily ever after...

​

​It was summer and he was staying at his cabin for a well-deserved rest from work. It was a beautiful morning to sit on the verandah. To the south was an open view of the forested hills. To the north the verandah was enclosed by windows offering a view of the forest behind through the glass. Drinking his morning coffee and looking through the windows at the beautiful forest he felt peaceful and happy. He played around smiling at his reflection in the window. If he focussed just right his reflection looked like his spirit floating out there in the forest.  

For a moment he lost himself in the scene: 
‘The peaceful mind is just like this window,’ he thought, ‘it is both an opening to the world and a mirror in which we see ourselves.’ Suddenly he felt as light as air. He had completely disappeared into the scene around him. 

Continuing to gaze at his reflection, his mind silent and open, his feelings were somehow projected onto his image as it returned his gaze. The space of his mind became very peaceful and still as his feelings naturally sought refuge in the forest’s leafy hiding places, gathering together like a flock of birds in the fading summer ready to depart. 

‘Are my feelings not happy in the forest?’ he wondered. ‘

‘Why are they still restless?’ 

He sat at the window the whole afternoon, enchanted. Gradually as the light changed, his reflection disappeared. The sky behind him was reflected in the window and a view of the forest appeared above him where the roof over the verandah shaded the windows. 

Now the forest looked like heaven and he found that he didn’t miss himself at-all.
 
‘The forest is ever more beautiful when the ghosts of our minds take flight,’ he thought. 

‘And our empty mind is free to roam the sky of our hearts, open and bright.’ 

‘Such is true love,’ he thought.




​