https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal The meditation teaching, writing and retreat archive of Kamalashila (1949–2024), a teacher in the Triratna Buddhist tradition. en-gb https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/whatever-next https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/whatever-next Sun, 18 Aug 2024 11:03:24 GMT Sorry these posts are so sporadic. I’m back in hospital this week, Guy’s Hospital this time. I am awaiting a course of chemotherapy starting tomorrow. (What?) My original diagnosis of four months ago was wrong, we discovered only this week. What news! Instead of an untreatable colon cancer they predicted would see me dead by… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/breathing https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/breathing Sat, 03 Aug 2024 11:54:32 GMT My breathing should be much worse than it is. I was hospitalised with pneumonia at age three, in 1952 and the early days of the NHS, where medicine was far simpler and they didn’t know a lot that they know now. Due to the risk of infection they had to incinerate Sparkly my teddy and,… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/wood-and-trees https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/wood-and-trees Fri, 12 Jul 2024 04:55:13 GMT https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/waking-sleeping-dreaming-dying-restarting https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/waking-sleeping-dreaming-dying-restarting Thu, 11 Jul 2024 12:04:38 GMT This period has for me been one of feeling off the hook, since Yashobodhi has been writing a new blog journal that is not only excellent in literary quality but which often refers to me, and I assume you are all reading her here. For me, there honestly hasn’t been much to say. Which is… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/ex-bubbles https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/ex-bubbles Mon, 17 Jun 2024 21:45:48 GMT so… what happens when an assumption is seen to be empty is that a new, simpler perception takes its place, which itself is likely to contain presumptions I’ve not noticed. What has get clearer, talking yesterday to Beth on the local team about end-of-life scenarios, there is no pendant axe that will fall and suddenly… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/the-bubble https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/the-bubble Mon, 17 Jun 2024 13:42:08 GMT Today, a feeling of being enclosed within some kind of envelope left me. I have spoken once or twice about being in a period of ‘respite’ – a blessed time before the axe falls and I’m taken to my destiny. Whatever was I talking about? It is true that I initially felt liberated by my… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/where-is-this-going https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/where-is-this-going Wed, 12 Jun 2024 21:36:03 GMT I’ve been a mess this week, my face puffed up from steroids and a new, lopsided tooth gap. The mess was even more in my mind. I’ve been greedy, agitated, driven and ungrounded. It’s been unpleasant to be me, and I’ve been unpleasant to be around. Yet the steroids have saved me from the cycle… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/4047-2 https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/4047-2 Wed, 05 Jun 2024 12:09:43 GMT It is evening, London has been cold and sunny. Remission continues and it’s a happy time. I was listening to Neil Young ‘Like a Hurricane’ as I started this, now replaced on the ‘phones by the spooky minor key of JS Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. I’m on Replay – all my 2022 tunes. At lunchtime… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/some-respite https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/some-respite Fri, 31 May 2024 09:45:32 GMT Sorry I’ve not been here much. I have too many writing priorities. The main thing is that I now have a ‘Kamalashila Legacy Group’ who will curate my teaching materials after my death, and as part of the process of growing that I have been digging up stuff (sorry) that could be published with some… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/solitude https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/solitude Sun, 12 May 2024 03:33:02 GMT People have been coming to visit, sometimes spontaneously but usually arranged in my calendar. I have been in a mood to talk, and conversation has often been inspiring because of the circumstances. A couple of people – Candradasa of FreeBuddhistAudio, and Padmamati of ‘The Bureau of Lost Culture’, who will be MC at my funeral,… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/an-ancient-tooth https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/an-ancient-tooth Wed, 08 May 2024 08:03:11 GMT Today I sat with Yashobodhi in the lovely ornamental garden outside St. Thomas’ Hospital. NHS staff with name tags ate lunch on the benches and walls around the fountain. I looked up at the tenth floor ward I which I had recently experienced major sensory challenge with the constant sounds and sights of new patients,… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/4004-2 https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/4004-2 Wed, 01 May 2024 11:45:50 GMT Well guys… this may come as a shock so maybe sit down with a glass of wine or cup of cocoa. I’ve been in Guys and St. Thomas hospital SDEC all day (Same day emergency centre.) The doctors got on the phone advocating for me to actually meet the oncology and palliative care teams. It… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/voyage-to-the-unknown https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/voyage-to-the-unknown Tue, 30 Apr 2024 06:20:30 GMT I’m not written here for a year or so. I’ve had a great year, and it has been a delight to move back to London. But recently I experienced a noticeable drop in my energy. I suffer from MS, so I thought it was just more of that. But I was also nauseous and really… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/an-average-day-in-the-galaxy https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/an-average-day-in-the-galaxy Tue, 14 Sep 2021 05:47:32 GMT where wisdom and compassion come from Things come and go. Thoughts and feelings come and go without ownership, purely arising out of inner and external conditions. It’s an average day in the galaxy. Take a galactic perspective on your practice. Enabled by Brahmavihara meditation, perhaps, say, Bodhicitta: “All the lonely people where do they all… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/the-dharma-of-death-and-dying-retreat https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/the-dharma-of-death-and-dying-retreat Tue, 27 Jul 2021 05:01:56 GMT From December 9th I am planning another three month retreat. Before that will be a run-up of several weeklong retreats. For those I only have one title so far: “the dharma of dying and death” starting on 27th August. For the rest, I’m still looking for dharma themes. I want to find the things we… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/anapanasati-a-handy-lead-through-for-your-phone https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/anapanasati-a-handy-lead-through-for-your-phone Sun, 07 Mar 2021 10:37:53 GMT prefer links to audio files? 1 Body 2 Feeling 3 Mind 4 Insight Stages Anapanasati 1 of 4 I suggest you have your eyes closed and just allow as much as you can your attention to settle in all the quietening, stilling processes of the body most of these happen just on their own but it’s good to establish awareness… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/comments-on-anapanasati-from-the-virtual-vihara-retreat https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/comments-on-anapanasati-from-the-virtual-vihara-retreat Sun, 07 Mar 2021 00:22:47 GMT There are many approaches that evolved in Buddhist tradition that enable the aims of the entire ‘system of practice’ — to address and integrate all elements in the mind, to cultivate love and compassion, to meet spiritual death or seeing through of the ego, the deeper transformational training in insight that comes out of that,… https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/meditations-on-the-recent-three-month-retreat https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/meditations-on-the-recent-three-month-retreat Fri, 05 Mar 2021 20:40:59 GMT How the meditations we did on the recent long retreat evolved as they did, into the detailed practice of Anapanasati and Sadhana meditation. https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/here-is-a-post https://kamalashila.co.uk/journal/here-is-a-post Wed, 11 Nov 2020 08:56:02 GMT A commentary on the pointing out instruction in the Mahakarunika Sadhana.