The sun, the clouds.

2006-10-31T08:54:00.000Z

An odyssey
I watched 2001 last night. I was rather trepidatious putting the DVD on to play because when it had arrived in the post that morning I realised that my mother had taken me to see the film as a child, and it had scared the shit out of me. I was so shocked by the film at the age of ten that the event has lain in my memory like a repressed trauma ever since.
When I saw it again last night I felt that fear and then accepted what it really was that had freaked me out. I knew exactly what the film is about. It is about something that the mind cannot fully grasp; hence terror, or repression. I feel much better today.

Christ Ken
I found this site a while ago; http://www.iamachrist.com/
I thought, I would like to meet Ken. This morning Ken turned up. Ken is my brother in law's gardener. I just realised how amazing he is, and how everyone you meet has something to show you that could be jolly useful. He is 75 years old, and he is fitter than me, certainly fitter than my poor exhausted father. He works as a gardener, which is clearly something he loves to do, and also regularly flies out to Greece with his girlfriend to go dancing. He stays with family. I told him that I hope I am as fit and well as him at his age. He is very proud of this and rightly so. He tells me, 'I am never without a woman'. His current girlfriend is 71; she does gardening work too. He told me that this last weekend they went out dancing. 'I like to jive, rock and roll' Ken tells me. She drank ten vodka redbulls. 'She went loopy!' he says. He left his glasses in the cab on the way home because she would not stop jumping about. He had to call the cab company in the morning to ask about his glasses. He is, as far as I can see, the most contented and relaxed man I know. I hope my father can be like this soon.

Richard
Flower and the the lovely woman who runs the yoga yurt place have both spontaneously called me Richard. Richard is my middle name, my Father's name, and the name of the Lionheart King. My father showed me devotion to a woman even when she is very unhappy and hurts you. Thank you very much, dad. Thank you.

2006-10-15T09:06:00.000Z

Sun Ra
I watched again the fabulous BBC tv documentary on Sun Ra this week. I realised with shock and delight that I understand what Ra is talking about.
Some highlights;
Sun Ra was being clerked in a hospital, when asked where he was born he answered 'Saturn'. The doctor, rather annoyed, asked a co worker to come and examine him and see if he was crazy. The co worker, a jazz fan, said, 'that is Sun Ra. Of course he is from Saturn'.
The drummer from Kool and The Gang goes to see Ra in concert for the first time. 'just at that moment, Ra hit a chord so big, he had to just walk straight back out again'.
'Man, they were so out there, they weren't out on a limb, they were hanging in space'.
The police come to the door of the house where Ra lives communally with his Solar Arkestra, to investigate a complaint of noise. Ra gets his bible and quotes to the police, 'make a joyful noise'. The police leave immediately and do not bother him again.

2006-08-23T20:10:00.000Z

Saint Michael of Corleone
I watched The Godfather last night. As I see it, the story is usually read as the descent into evil of an innocent. But I see the story of an innocent awakening to something that
he must conclude. When Michael Corleone is in hiding in Sicily, he
falls truly in love. He is very happy, when the life he is in hiding
from reaches out to destroy his beloved. He sees that he can bring it
to an end, and that he must do it. Even though he will have to assume a
role immersed in this terrible world, and appear to do terrible things.
He is a man who has seen his fate. In it's period context, this is an
allegory of Europe realising that Fascism must be stopped.

This is the tragedy of The Godfather part 3; it was a wasted
opportunity for a truly enlightening trilogy. I wish someone had
pointed this out to Coppola.

2006-08-23T20:07:00.000Z

Love and dancing
I am very into club trance right now. The stuff from right at the end of the last century.
It is a truly european art form. I hear the classic sequencer music pioneered in Germany and the light sensibility of uk synth pop. Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, loved up UK acid.
But it is like it is expressing something different. It is so joyful; my masculine hears freedom, my feminine hears love. It is like a truly modern human celebration of being.
There is the beat, which I used to hear like dots on a score, in a line. Now I hear it all in the same place, changing, unfolding, ever upwards. The ostinato spins around this relentless movement, like petals from the centre of the flower.

2005-07-22T16:42:00.000Z

Trinity
Today I was walking a path I often take, and as it is so familiar, I am able to simply follow the path without looking ahead. I find myself immersed in the experience of the path changing beneath my feet. The waves of corn wash past as I walk through the cornfield, the flowers and grasses dance past as I walk across the meadow.
My eyes relax, as if they are usually trying too hard to hold something. And this vision just moves past me, ever changing. And then I noticed something. If I look down, there is one feature that is consistent; this body, these bobbing feet.
And seen in this way, I find I am the centre of awareness that includes the body within itself, not the self which regards the body as it centre, itself. And I feel dizzy.
I have for a few years now been driven to scrutinise my experience by the sense that I am missing something. I once discribed this as like watching a television upside-down. Eventually you get used to it, that actors appear on one side when you are sure it is really the other side. And you no longer find it strange that everyone walks on the ceiling. It means you have to think a bit too much about what is going on, but eventually, that is just how it is. If you one day began to suspect that there was maybe a simpler way to see things, you might have difficulty seeing the very obvious, 180 degree mistake. And if you did figure it out, it might be a bit disturbing to imagine things the right way up.
This dizzy feeling is like seeing things turn over. My feet are at the top of my picture. I hang from the ground much like you imagine they do in Australia.
It felt like my soul noticing my body. My mind is usually there too, but it felt like closing the triangle, a holy, or whole trinity. A being comprised of three parts.
I recall a quote from my favourite zen master; All is constantly changing, except one thing. Can you find it? Of course, that one thing is always there. Even the body, I have noticed, changes, and it seems they eventually disappear. But in the truth of my experience, in what is given, it is there like the symbol of the eternal. It's image, I guess.

2005-04-27T11:27:00.000Z

The Law
'You see, there is something you have to understand', my Sri Lankan host leaned towards me as he spoke and took the joint I was passing back to him. 'Where you come from, there are many rules. There are laws which say you can do this, you can do that. They tell you how to do everything, they tell you what you cannot do. You believe these rules.' He exhaled, seeming to luxuriate in the pleasure of the ideas he was imparting as much as the aromatic smoke. 'Over here, we don't have that. We don't need it. Sri Lankan people, they know how to behave.'
This was in response to my question about the planning permission for his guesthouse, situated in the most astonishing vantage point over the most astonishing landscape I have yet seen. No planning permission? I asked; he chuckled at me. And that? The large joint of locally grown, natural grass? Do you get trouble from the police? 'The policeman, sometimes he joins me for a joint here.'
I am not surprised. You can see the coast from his place, fifty miles away, and 1000m down. Over to the right a waterfall graces the rock face between two tea plantation. There are eagles to be spotted taking all this in too, from the air.
There are fewer laws in Sri Lanka, and I never felt so safe. It has occured to me that a true human society would be no society, comprised of people who can be trusted to live in anarchy because they have gotten over the business of hurting each other. Their motive will be love, not money.
In Sri Lanka, it is possible to believe in this vision. I remember feeling rather disconcerted during my first few days in the country by the liberal use of car horns. Now to me, a car horn says only rude things, usually 'I am rather cross with you'. In Sri Lanka, it means simply, I am here. Curiously, this is what the Highway Code will tell you is the sole function of the car horn. For a few days it seemed to me that these people, so genuinely friendly, were enduring the most endemic road rage. Of course, they are only notifying pedestrians of their approach. In most parts of Sri Lanka, if you do not watch theground as you walk along the roadside, you will inevitably trip over before too long. Plus, you are probably too relaxed and happy, and usually deeply engaged in conversation with a companion. When you hear a car horn, you stop, and wait for the car too pass. The driver does not have to slow down. It has probably taken him ten minutes to accelerate his ancient japanese minibus to his current velocity and he will appreciate not having to wear his brakes too much. Incidentally, however elderly the minibus is, there is always one item of equipment in mint, unused showroom condition; the seatbelt.
Wherever I looked there is a culture of consideration in Sri Lanka, obvious to me because where I see it back here it is a usually a conscious effort. Over there it is just obviously the best way to get things done. On one occasion, my host was driving us to the beach. I found that I was quite alarmed at his speed, and his road positioning; occupying the centre of the road. When I voiced my concerns, he pointed out that this is simply the most effective way to drive. Firstly you need some speed on these worn roads, he explained. Secondly, the road has the best surface in the middle, so it is safer. Thirdly, although an oncoming vehicle, utilising the same strategy, appears to be on a collision course, both drivers know to move left at the appropriate moment.
Fourthly, my friend was clearly enjoying himself, and amused by the idea that I might drive on the left at all times because of a law. How absurd.

2004-07-13T09:07:00.000Z

Humiliation and forgiveness
I am becoming deeply troubled by Thomas The Tank Engine. I am often persuaded by number one nephew that it would be a good idea to watch television. I have often favoured the Thomas dvd because it is so much more watchable than Kipper the Dog, who is frankly rather childish. But there is a recurrent theme in the Thomas stories which concern me.
Most of the stories follow this pattern:
1. Arrogance. One of the engines will display some rather unpleasant selfish behaviour. Usuall it seems some kind of suppressed rebelliousness. Each engines' role in life is clearly dictated by the Fat Controller. He is basically a considerate man but his management skills are entirely arbitrary or reactive, never intuitive.
2. Calamity. This wilful behaviour will endanger other engines, their payload or often a carriage of children. Other engines will appear particularly magnanimous in their assistance by comparison when they save the day.
3. Humiliation. The engine in question will be the subject of hilarity and/or anger.
4. Contrition. Said engine will then have to humple himself thoroughly and apologise to all concerned.
5. Forgiveness. The other engines and more importantly the Fat Controller will forgive the engine and point out publicly how stupid it has been. It will then happily return to its alloted role free of it's rebellious spirit.

There is a clear message here; know your place. These stories seem fine for boys in pre war public schools being bullied in to appropriate roles for the British Empire. There seems no even faint justification for this message today, unless my nephew wishes to become a dictator.
Unfortunately the models in the tv show are absolutely fantastic. I do not believe you would have persuaded Jojou junior to play outside if it had been on when I was little. It was the model machines in Thunderbirds that fascinated me with that show. I watched some old thunderbirds a few years ago and was shocked to observe that the stories are rubbish. So am hoping that the bizzarre anachronistic fascist/feudal message of Thomas is wasted on today's small minds. If not I will have to insist on bloody Kipper, or worse still, the horrible Tweenies.

2004-07-13T08:58:00.000Z

map one
I had a lovely day with the Kitten on sunday. We walked by the canal in islington until it rained. She told me she had been considering quite how much I had changed my life. It is true, I have and I am delighted with the results, but had not considered that anyone else had noticed, because no one has ever really mentioned it so explicitly before.
A while ago I was contemplating how and why I made such a change, and saw that I had wanted to change things for a long time but was stuck in a trap. I identified from my own experience a rather tricky dead end in the labyrinth, which I feel applies to many other people living and working in a modern urban environment. There is a way out, the path that I took, and it goes as follows:

It seems to me that people seem to think they have to live in a way that they find intolerable. They cannot admit to what they really want to do because if they did they would have also to acknowledge that they dislike major aspects of their current experience. They cannot be fully present in their lives because they cannot afford to see too much truth.

So they stay locked in a world where they have to do things that they secretly wish they could just stop doing. There is so much quiet desperation within them; part of them that has either given up the struggle believing it has failed, or is silently stifling one long scream of anguish.

Yet all they have to do is consider the possibility that they may be wrong. They may have to accept that people who they trust and who love them have given them advice that led them to do what they are now so tired of. If they were to accept this one truth then they may slowly have to accept that they have been wrong about many other things too. They may have to confront the grief they feel at having forced themselves to endure such torment. They may weep to realise that the last time they remember doing just what they wanted was when they were a child. Yet all it takes is a moment's humility; these truths can be seen, and these old ideas can be put down.

And the business of being in truth can be practised in this way. The more we learn to recognise our truth when our experience reflects it, the better we become at spotting it. Slowly a much happier being emerges. Then we can start to enjoy ourselves.

2004-06-22T10:55:00.000Z

kindness
Why on earth do people not just do what they say? Why do they say one thing and do another? What is that all about? I feel as if I have been puzzling this out for my entire life. I remember how much it confused me as a child. It seems I have tried just behaving like everyone else but that means nothing makes sense. I am giving up this strategy. I am sure things are actually much simpler.
Like being kind to eachother. People give so many reasons why they cannot be kind to this person or this group. Why bother even with the moral argument when the first thing to recognise that UNKINDNESS SIMPLY DOES NOT SEEM TO MAKE THINGS BETTER. Just stop it! Then you can spend as long as you like discussing ethics, or politics, or whatever.

But everyone seems to still permit some unkindness, as individuals and as nations. As above, so below. Often the most unseen unkindness is people's unkindness to themselves. This business really foxes me. I know, I have done enough of it.

Occasionally, people still ask me about my reasons for becoming vegetarian. They often want to give me their reasons why they would like to do it. I have given many reasons, but I see now that I find that I simply see the business of breeding animals into captivity to then kill them, cut them up and eat them, as horrible. I think that is a horrible thing to do. I believe that is an observation, not a judgement, and I want as little to do with it as possible. I would not try to stop anyone else, as I think this horrible activity is a result of something within people, so any action or evangelising is only ever addressing the symptoms, not the cause. Eof us has to work that bit out on our own. As far as I am concerned, I have. That is why I do not eat meat.

2004-05-09T21:02:00.000Z

The clouds, the sun.
Stormy weather with strong sunshine; great weather for clouds. Clouds are such good value for money. A cloud is relatively free of imposed meaning. It is just a shape. And it is miles wide, floating in the sky. How splendid is that? When you can just see it, it is better than I could ever describe.

2004-04-06T15:32:00.000Z

So here I am back in London. This place is insane. Why do people choose to live like this? I used to find it quite fun, but now all I see is very tired, unwell, unhappy people. I see beings struggling with their physical existence, and mortifying their poor bodies. I see so much ignorance, mostly as anger. People arguing on mobile phones, people shouting at children, people in a hurry to be somewhere else. As if the present moment does not hold enough wonder for them.
It is always a shock to come back from retreat. I have dropped my armour and am at the mercy of these furious people. Well I am clear that I do not want to carry that armour any longer. I am leaving London.
Sometimes this vision of metropolitan madness inspires compassion, or love. Mostly it just says get the hell out of Hackney.

2004-03-23T00:54:00.000Z

Brilliant things today
The ice in the river by the creek, which appeared in places to be frozen midstream. Cascades seem to be solidifying, and creating bigger cascades. And where the ice has frozen over the surface of rocks, the water washes behind it making constantly changing patterns of light and dark.

2004-03-15T22:34:00.000Z

A distinct lack of mindfulness. No-one works here on sundays and mondays; I asked what they do when the leftovers run out before the working week begins. 'Fast' is the witty answer I received. So I raided the freezer and found some meat-free burgers. I made up a fine US style sandwich with seed bread, soyannaise, ketchup and lots of lettuce. I was happily half way through it when I realised I had forgotten to put in the burger. How I laughed! I really find myself very entertaining sometimes. Is that at all funny? Have I been on my own too long?
This says very little about my mindfulness. It says a lot about my expectations of the flavour of meat-free vegetarian products. I generally avoid them. They are invariably horrendously over-processed products, with cringe inducing names. Fakin' Bacon is one we have at home, which I know Fizzwhizz is keen on. The best name I have seen I spotted here earlier on in my stay. Soya frankfurters ingeniously titled Not Dogs. Inspired.

2004-03-13T01:12:00.000Z

It snowed. Quite heavily. Does everyone feel the thrill of opening the curtains in the morning to discover the world has changed so tangibly? It makes me feel like a child, like walking in puddles and making footprints, or seeing a fire engine. Or really big cranes, the ones with lots of huge wheels.
That was two days ago. Then we had glorious spring sunshine, which imperceptibly but rather quickly turned the colour back up on this landscape. I have become fascinated with watching the temporary mini streams which tinkle down the slopes here when the melt begins. Taxloss and I discussed the joy of constructing dams in such circumstances not long ago. I bet he is still rather good at it.
Then this morning; snow again. Splendid! So maybe I will build dams.

Jojou and the hollywood star
This is in an article in Newsweek about actress Ashley Judd which I read purely because it had a picture of her in a bra, and I find her very pretty. I am so glad I was distracted so. The thrust of the article is that due to her poor movie choices, her career has stalled. This quote is from 'the head of an indie company';
"She's stuck in a trap, and she's going to have to chew off part of her leg to get out of it."
Now I may be missing something, but this does not seem to be a metaphor for anything. Any clues? It offers me no insight into poor Ashley's plight but is is a fantastic image. The thing is, when something like this sounds so sharp and vivid but has absolutely no meaning in context, it really tickles me. This often happens and then someone points out what it means, which kind of spoils it for me. It's one of the reasons I felt such affinity with Zen, the scriptures are full of stuff like this.

So it's time to introduce the original Jojou, my namesake. This story is a koan; a paradox intended to suspend the thinking mind by grinding it to a halt. It is told here by Zen Master Seung Sahn, a truly wonderful being. I never fully got this one but I love it.

Nam Cheon Kills a Cat
Once the monks of the eastern and western halls of the monastery were disputing about a cat. Master Nam Cheon, holding up the cat and pulling out his precepts knife, said, "You! Give me one word and I will save this cat! If you cannot, I will kill it!" No one could answer. Finally, Nam Cheon killed the cat. In the evening, when Jo Ju returned to the temple, Nam Cheon told him of the incident. Jo Ju took off his shoe, put it on his head, and walked away. Nam Cheon said, "If you had been there, I could have saved the cat."
Nam Cheon said, "Give me one word!" At that time, what can you do?
Jo Ju put his shoe on his head. What does this mean?

What does this mean? Here is a clue. If you try to figure it out, you will never understand. When you stop, we will both see.

To finish, Newsweek also has a cigarette advert, with a picture of a man smoKing. It seemed curiously anachronistic, and again reminded me of being little, when we had ads like this at home.

2004-03-08T01:37:00.000Z

Its official
Silence does exist. After an entire day of staring at the floor, awareness broke free of the gravity of my thinking and floated free. Just the birds shouting outside, the drip of snow melting from the roof. And the floor. The knots in the pine boards cease to be what my mind tells me to be and become a glorious constellation, possibly huge bodies many miles away. One moment free of myself and it is all worthwhile. Silence; not an absence of sound, but a suspension of mediation, of knowing what is heard. To see as a child again.
In response to a rather desolate email I sent upon my arrival here I received a beautiful message of love and support from the Kitten, who is facing her own shadows in Sydney, and doing dolphin work too. I cannot remember such kind and loving words written solely for me before. It moved me deeply and helped me settle into my work here.
The hot tub is my other great comfort. Like a tiny, very warm swimming pool, or a large tiled bath with chlorine. It has a sign with all kinds of dos and don'ts. Item 2 says 'do not use alone'. Item 4 says 'no more than 2 people'. I have not managed to comply with all these criteria. Item 5 says that if you spend more than 15 minutes in the tub you may get dizzy, Not if I am not allowed to use it while under the influence of any of a long list of substances in item 1. Item 6 says that if you do get into difficulty, call the emergency services. It does not say how.

2004-03-05T00:21:00.000Z

Springwater, NY. Middle of nowheresville, USA. I hurt my back carrying a huge bag on the tube to the airport, then sat in a aeroplane for several hours in pain. No veggie meal booked. I find I am here with everything that hurts me; my body, my thoughts, my resistance. And no more Flower. It seems that to be fully present one must acknowledge everything in one's awareness, and that includes things long ignored. Well I seem to have contrived a situation where there is nowhere to hide from myself, nothing to do but practise. With great food and a hot tub!
The centre has little notes everywhere to tell you exactly how to do everything, (men please use urinals in bathroom 6, they use less water). Under a note on the fridge which reads 'please initial your food' someone has inscribed P.I.Y.F. I was also amused to see that the box marked 'common hats', ie hats for everyone to use, was customised by me last time I was here into 'uncommon hats'.
I am paying my way here as a volunteer. Which means that I am cleaning toilets and vacuuming. But I am doing it with total mindfulness....

2004-02-28T22:03:00.000Z

I have no head
I attended a workshop on the work of Douglas Harding today. Harding is a fabulously eccentric philosopher who spontaneously awoke to the true nature of his being about 60 years ago (see links). He has been trying to point others to this truth ever since and his methods are totally original and extremely direct. Harding is a bit like zen masters might be if Bodhidarma had gone to Kent instead of China. This extract is from his book 'On having No Head: Zen and the rediscovery of the obvious'
What actually happened was something absurdly simple and unspectacular: I stopped thinking. A peculiar quiet, an odd kind of alert limpness or numbness, came over me. Reason and imagination and all mental chatter died down. For once, words really failed me. Past and future dropped away. I forgot who and what I was, my name,manhood, animal -hood, all that could be called mine. It was as if I had been born that instant, brand new, mindless innocent of all memories. There existed only the Now, that present moment and what was clearly given in it. To look was enough. And what I found was khaki trouser-legs terminating downwards in a pair of brown shoes, khaki sleeves terminating sideways in a pair of pink hands, and a khaki shirtfront terminating upwards in – absolutely nothing whatever! Certainly not in a head.
It took me no time at all to notice that this nothing, this hole where a head should have been, was no ordinary vacancy, nor mere nothing. On the contrary, it was very much occupied. It was a vast emptiness vastly filled, a nothing that found room for everything –room for grass, trees, shadowy distant hills, and far above them snow-peaks like a row of angular clouds riding the blue sky. I had lost a head and gained a world.
It was all, quite literally, breathtaking. I seemed to stop breathing altogether, absorbed in the Given. Here it was, this superb scene, brightly shining in the clear air, alone and unsupported, mysteriously suspended in the void, and (and this was the real miracle, the wonder and delight) utterly free of “me” unstained by any observer. Its total presence was my total absence, body and soul. Lighter than air, clearer than glass, altogether released from myself, I was nowhere around.

So here I am again, without a head. When I talk to you, you believe there are two heads. But surely you only see one. Harding devised fabulously childish games to point your awareness back to it's source. And of course it's so obvious when you see it. But such a relief! Of course! I remember this! This is how it was when I was little! To track your seeing back to before judgement, before yourself. Thank goodness for that.
I met some other lovely headless people, one man I knew from the Buddhist centre, and a fabulously vibrant young couple from Lewes. They told me Tony Parsons was talking in Hampstead this afternoon, so I followed them over. Parsons is hardcore advaita. He spent three hours answering all questions with 'you don't exist', 'there is no-one here', 'It is not snowing' etc. I used to find advaita satsang rather trying, and I still stick on the business of no self determination, but the effect he has is to turn the awareness back on your own questioning mind. Not the questions themselves, which only generate more questions, but the desire to question at all. The whys and ifs and buts are only excuses to avoid being fully present. When do the questions end?

2004-02-28T20:43:00.000Z

I am hoping this will give me a feedback link;

2004-02-27T19:12:00.000Z

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons close to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from our prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all humanity and the whole of nature in its beauty."
Albert Einstein.

How clear is that?

2004-02-27T18:24:00.000Z

The gravy question
Several days ago, the Flower and I were cooking for a house guest who had of necessity outstayed her natural welcome; she did not have anywhere else to live and had no other offers of accomodation. She has now moved into her new flat but on this particular evening she was eating with us and had helped out by mixing up the gravy. As we started to eat, she asked us if we liked the gravy she had made. I responded, as truthfully as I could, that it was ok, but that I believed it often needed a lot more of the mixture to thicken up and taste nice. Guest immediately left the room. I discovered recently through a third party that Guest had said she thought I was extremely rude to say such a terrible thing, and also said that she had only asked so that people could tell her how nice her gravy was.
Now I cannot be entirely sure whether I intended any malice, since I was at that time longing to have dinner alone with my beloved in our own home for the first time in quite a while. But I can verify the honesty of my response to the exact question asked. I do try to make clear that I endeavour to live as honestly as I can; by which I mean honesty in terms of personal truth, not as in living strictly within the law of the land. I have had such upsets before, but I find that if you keep going with truth, the people around you are people who respect that honesty, and eventually people who appreciate it. Those who do not eventually wander off. And further, I find that truth can be practised; the more one lives with an honest admission of one's feelings, the more one comes into tune with them. In short, it becomes difficult to kid one's self, and further delusions do not appear.
I suppose there is a degree of self justification in these words for me, but I too sting a bit when someone hears something they do not want to hear. I could feel Guest's discomfort at the time of the gravy incident, but it's all or nothing. But I answer the questions I am asked. What I find is that people do not mean what they say much of the time e.g.

How are you? meaning I feel the obligation to enquire about your health. Just say you are ok.

do you like my outfit? please say something nice about it.

I think you are mad to think of travelling to India I would hate to travel to India.

do you like my gravy? just say thankyou to me for making the gravy.

Bankei says 'the farther you enter into truth, the deeper it is', and I have found this to be true. If I practise the truth I become better at spotting it, better at seeing what is really there, without adding anything to it. If you do not want to be insulted, look at the part in you which says 'how dare you!' and ignore it. Or use more gravy mixture.

2004-02-26T19:22:00.000Z

Brilliant things today
The wall in the stairwell here is about ninety years old, in gorgeous orange bricks that have been sandblasted into a tiny grand canyon of endless vertical landscape; with tiny boulders and gulleys. The brilliant sun we enjoyed today was beaming in at exactly the same plane as the wall; shining almost exactly at sunset for that miniature world. With a regular grid of enormous mortar walls across it.
The laughing man in the drycleaners who had to explain his giggles to me. He had been thrown a surprise birthday party. He had been very surprised apparantly. Perfectly lovely.

rubbish things today
Found a horoscope in a fashion magazine which would tell you how your boyfriend would leave you or let you down according to his sign of the zodiac. A totally paranoid horoscope. What a perfectly stupid idea for an article.

2004-02-22T14:36:00.000Z

What a strange place to be is the human body. It is so full of difficult feelings. Pain, jealousy, irritation. No wonder so many people spend so much time and money trying not to feel their bodies. I can cope with mine after about one week of constant yoga. When I locate myself in this bizarre fleshy suit I feel like Neo after taking the locating pill in the matrix. It is always such a shock
I have brought my body back in Hackney, and am looking after the Flower who is in bed with a nasty cold. Why do we get ill? If the body is only the result of what we really are, what is my soul up to when I have a headache?
Just read a lovely reference to my journal here from Taxloss, whose praise on my words is genuine praise indeed. It is of course colossally unlikely that you are reading this without prior knowledge of Taxloss, but should this be the case, I can recommend his musings very highly. Rather a lot of politics, current affairs etc. but always sharper than lemon loo-roll and funnier than pigs in tights. To read his words, I wonder how I lasted so long out there in samsara. The world of humans is so absurdly complicated. So complicatedly absurd. I vow to avoid it for a bit longer.

2004-02-20T17:48:00.000Z

Came upon this poem in a book by Jacques Lusseyran, who lost his eyesight aged nine, but found that he could still see, by referring to his internal experience. He concluded that everything without is within, since he could still feel trees, walls and people, and that the division of inside/outside is an illusion. Of course. He ran a french resistance cell until his was betrayed and ended up in Buchenwald. Here he kept hopes alive with poetry. He recited this poem by surrealist Paul Eluard to an inmate who was tortured by his love for his missing wife.

L'amoureuse
(transl. by Samuel Beckett)
She is standing on my lids
And her hair is in my hair
She has the colour of my eye
She has the body of my hand
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky

She will never close her eyes
And she does not let me sleep
And her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
And me laugh cry and laugh
Speak when I have nothing to say.

'It no longer hurts. I see her everywhere now. You friend Eluard has cured me' said Lusseyran's fellow inmate. The poem literally moved something within me. Art must surely be one with true vision describing what he perceives as truth with the greatest eloquence. I am at once inspired and humbled. Is Eluard talking about a woman? Maybe, but he shows me that not just the object of beauty, of love, but beauty, like love itself, is always touching you; it is you. What is not? When such a work connects, the heart opens. No problem. No problem.

2004-02-20T13:40:00.000Z

Recently, I was driving the Flower back to the station for the train back to London. She had been visiting me at the farm. The ride to the station was stony due to a passing trust failure. She suggested we go to visit Wisbech. I could not think of any reason not to as I had never been there. Now I have been there I may never be so easygoing again.
Suffice it to say that the ambience of Wisbech reflected our stony hearts that day. We struck out on wholefood restaurants, the locals preferring to dine exclusively on fried meat. There was a health food shop there but it was the unhealthiest looking health food shop I have ever seen. Forlorn. Hopeless, etc.
However it was worth the trip for one thing. I parked in a bay bearing a sign which read 'disabled badger holders only'. Some local artist had added an r in permanent marker. This still makes me happy now. At the time I was so entertained, I did not realise I was illegally parked.

2004-02-20T13:00:00.000Z

A beautiful day here at the farm. Sometimes it really seems as if the weather reflects my internal climate. I miss the Flower. I do not know what she is doing of course; she is in the flat in London. The farm is my sister's place in rural Peterborough.
I spent a long time yesterday watching clouds. If you watch long enough, even stationary clouds can be perceived as moving. Does Flower exist when I cannot see her? My mind wants to see her, wants to know what she is doing. I know this just keeps me from being with those amazing clouds.
There are workmen from a neighbour's house bringing dirt to help landscape the new lawn here. They are bringing in dumperloads of soil. Why do human beings move soil from one place to another? They have manufactured this machine to do so, using great resources and energy, and men are being paid to move it from one place to another. This is their job. What has changed? There was a hole where my sister and brother in law did not want one; it is being filled in. So the difference is the human judgement. The shape of the ground was not so good, now it is better. Does the soil mind?