Journal
Posts written between 2020 and August 2024, including the journal Kamalashila kept through his diagnosis and treatment.
- Whatever next? 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…
- Breathing 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…
- wood and trees
- waking, sleeping, dreaming, dying, then what? 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…
- ex-bubbles 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…
- The Bubble 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…
- Where is this going? 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…
- Living Daylights 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…
- Some respite 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…
- Solitude 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…
- An ancient tooth 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…
- talk with the oncologist today 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…
- My Voyage into the Unknown 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,…
- An average day in the galaxy 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 Dharma of Death and Dying Retreat 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…
- Anapānasati: a handy lead-through for your phone 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…
- Comments on Anapānasati from the Virtual Vihara retreat 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…
- Meditations on the recent three month retreat How the meditations we did on the recent long retreat evolved as they did, into the detailed practice of Anapanasati and Sadhana meditation.
- Looking at experience – with that magic touch of emptiness A commentary on the pointing out instruction in the Mahakarunika Sadhana.