Wendy

Being Right Here…wherever you are : )

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I sent the email below to the little group I facilitate, then thought to widen the connection

Hi,
Maybe you’re not coming on the retreat this year
but there is a connection we share…wherever we are…on retreat, at work, at home
and the words below
from the book ‘Being Right Here’ …which the retreat organiser just sent round
are words you could give…
well, how much time would you feel is right to give… to contemplate their profundity?
Especially given how much time we spend contemplating the non-sense aspect of the world!
Your own mini-retreat with contemplation and meditation, at some point during this period, could be a possibility…?

Compassion without wisdom is limited partial biased, 
but if arising from wisdom it is inclusive and effort-free
We all have this as our potential to manifest
and these words below point to how that might be realised

Hope you enjoy them, the easing they invite
and the summer-time
xx wendy

Verse 34. from Being Right Here the book by James Low.
A Dzogchen treasure text of Nuden Dorje. 
The mirror of clear meaning.

” Maintain emptiness and compassion without distraction. Always free of effort and struggle, contemplate the flow of awareness”
The key thing is to be kind to yourself. The barriers we have to entering into presence are already hard enough. If we try to become great heroes and push our way through we will make the resistance even greater. Tenderness and love are always important. Being tender towards ourselves, being very finely attuned to what is going on. We are simply being present to whatever occurs, here and now.If somebody comes to us and tells us they have done terrible things and they are really upset by it, we are touched by that and we want to help them. All the stupid or bad things that we feel that we have done, the things that we feel ashamed about, we have only ever done them out of confusion or pain, out of ignorance.
The path to integration is not through punishment but through tenderly accepting ourselves as we are, so we can come close to ourselves. And if we come close to ourselves then the most subtle breach of subject and object as two entities is gradually collapsed. And through the moment of loving ourselves very deeply and profoundly, which is at the heart of true meditation, we make this primary integration into our true nature.If we take up this tender attention it will take us into the depths of meditative evenness, which means the state in which the mind is not disturbed by anything that arises. And that will naturally integrate into our daily lives, where we find ourselves in the world with other people. If we can be relaxed, open and at ease in these two states, that is said to be awake.
The natural condition is not against you, other people are not against you in your nature, primarily we against ourselves. When we get on the same side as ourselves, the world turns around and we start to feel this flow of energy flowing through us. And we start to awaken to the fact that we are nothing but this non dual integrated manifestation of presence.”

H.H.CHIMED RIGDZIN RINPOCHE …

Revealing The Great Completion:

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On the back cover of this book – ‘THIS IS IT’ – you’ll find James has written some explanations.

In the first paragraph he explains how the six distinct parts of the book offer key insights into the Buddhist understanding of how to free ourselves… whilst within the very situations which trap us.

Sounds good?

Then he explains the depth of the resource –
‘It offers diverse resources for study and practice.
Covering detailed analysis of phenomena, tragedies of blind arrogance transformed through tantra, and awakening in the presence of Dzogchen.’

and follows this with two paragraphs of truth to contemplate and realise…each infinitely more valuable than a king’s ransom:

‘The past is gone, the future never comes, and our present is obscured by echoes of our vanished past…
and dreams of our imagined future.
Living in the miasma of our own mental activity we are the pulsations of our thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions. We invent what we take to be occurring and then believe that life is what we imagine it to be.

The Buddha dharma offers us many ways to awaken from this delusion and bring us ever closer to the actual.
When we are present in and as our unchanging awareness the mistake of duality vanishes.
Resting in our non-dual presence, every moment is complete in itself and our anxious need to do something, anything, falls away.
No more make-believe, no more illusion, just ease and contentment in the simplicity that: THIS IS IT’

I have been engaging with this book for just a little while but would say, from my own experience, that opening to the variety of teachings therein…
and responding to the images – beautiful, symbolic, striking,
facilitates transformational connections outside of time and space with multiple manifestations of the truth of the buddha-dharma…not essentially different from those around us just now.

My own gratitude is deep, not just for the author’s wisdom but for all those who collaborated in bringing the book to life, applying their unique skills and loving energy…  for our delight and ease-ing.’

* Paragraphs reproduced with James approval.

Refreshed…and refreshing the audio page…

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Standing Buddha Image
Galvihara, Polonnaruva Sri Lanka 12th Century

I’ve refreshed the recent post about the audios ….also the page with the audios of the first part of Finding Freedom…

– to be clearer and to include a bit more information –

so please, if you’d like to, take another look…

Refreshing the audio player …

This player seems a little unstable at present… so until that’s fixed
here are some things to try if the chapter you are wanting to listen to shows an error message:

~ Click on the mp3 link underneath…it seems that often you can play it there despite the error message.

~ Refresh the page…that seems to work well

~ Quit your browser and try again

Happy listening…come rain or shine : )

Finding Freedom: Audio recordings of Part 1. The Dhammapada – translation and commentary by James Low

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James has written an introduction inviting you to these recordings:

‘The Dhammapada is a book of excellent advice on how to manage the many trials and tribulations of life. Taught by the Buddha this is an ethical guide to disciplined and compassionate existence. The consequences of blind self-indulgence are revealed in wars, pandemics and the impending catastrophe of climate change. The word discipline is not very popular in current culture and seems to imply an unwelcome imposition. However for most of us, when we stop and review our life we find that our ego-self is frequently wild and untamed. When this is replicated in the billions of inhabitants of the earth it is not surprising that chaos is pervasive. However here we have a chance to listen to the deep and soothing words of the Buddha offering support and guidance for those who wish to live in harmony with others and with the world we all inhabit. May it bring happiness to all!’

These recordings which cover the first section of the book ‘Finding Freedom’ are now available for you to listen to or download here under ‘audios and videos’.

James translation and elucidation in the commentary invites a deeper engagement with this text…unpacking it so that it’s value may more easily shine and resonate with and for us..

I hope you find this format useful…it was a pleasure to make and to enjoy the beauty of its harmony, spoken through thousands of years by so many thousands wishing to follow a way to truth.


Front cover of the book including revised translation and commentary to the Dhammapada (2019)*

*Link to information on the 2019 publication of Finding Freedom with revised Dhammapada translation and commentary

Front cover of the book with original translations of the Dhammapada into Pali, Sanskrit,
Hindi, Tibetan and English (1982)*

*Link to read or download the 1982 Dhammapada publication

Rare and precious…a Jewel of a book – THIS IS IT

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I have reviewed this most recently published book by James Low on Amazon, below.

Happily, currently it is also available at Waterstones… and via independent bookshops.

Words don’t really ‘cut the mustard’ for this book but anyway I wrote:

The flawless facets of this jewel are luminous with wisdom, radiating the truth…and the setting is gorgeous!

Each facet displays a different aspect of the dharma teachings without any clouding by extraneous inclusions.

With consummate skill born of a lifetime’s study and practice, firmly rooted in tradition, the related texts are expounded by James in a way which can clarify satisfy and delight… bringing ease in this time of turbulence.

The exquisite illustrations perfectly illuminate and reflect the text, as does the feel and lay-out of the book.

‘This is it’ is a rare and precious jewel of wisdom set perfectly in this engagement ring of the dharma’s compassionate communication. The fruit of the heart-work of many through time – it is both a joy and liberating privilege to engage with ‘this’…

I hope you may also enjoy the great pleasure of ‘this’

The Seven Line Prayer of Guru Rinpoche

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On the Simplybeing website there is,  under News,  coming from India, a request for prayers –   link to this
with James’ recommendation for the recitation of the Seven Line Prayer ‘dedicating the merit for the wellbeing of all, especially those suffering in India now , in India’s hot season’ …and with that there is a link to the text.

This is a powerful prayer ‘manifesting spontaneously as the natural resonance of indestructible reality’*.

This prayer is not familiar to everyone and the question of how to pronounce it has arisen… so I have put together a couple recordings.

This 1. is of James Low singing the prayer

This 2. is a combination of me reciting and singing it followed by 1.

James’ pronunciation is spot on of course, and mine derived from that less so…but i don’t have a version with James reciting to offer.

You will hear how James takes good time in his recording… mine’s a bit faster…may they be useful and the benefit of the recitations vastly multiplied!

* White Lotus, translated by the diligent and very reliable Padmakara Translation Group, contains an explanation of this prayer, given by Jamgon Mipham, and is recommended if you have an interest in this. The different depths of the prayer are revealed, being less or more accessible depending on our openness and engagement through time.

The translators introduction is very good, and includes an invitation to open the eyes to see how and why our initial engagement with this aspect of the dharma, often approaching from a reductionist or modernist level, may be softened…and so the profundity is more and more revealed.

This is it…

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‘This is it’ is the title of the latest book by James Low

Always fresh…what more could we want than ‘this’?

I’m just drawing your attention to the recent publication of this book as there is a lot on offer on the main web-site and I would not like you to miss this opportunity to connect with the wisdom of this exposé of development of practice.

Each element is introduced and expressed with the profundity and clarity which James embodies, nourishing and deepening our own.

Blossoms blossoming……

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Thursdays 5.45 to 6.45 Topic talk/discussion and a little meditation…an easy exploration of dharma, illuminated by the teachings including the Macclesfield Talks and other works.
Tuesday 6.30-7.00 dzogchen and supportive meditations one week
Tuesday 6.30-7.30 Padmasambava meditation and recitation the next.


If you are interested you can get in touch via the ‘contact me tab’ on the home page.

Thanks to Meg for the beautiful image.

Links to Lama Chetsangpa videos

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I have had a few emails about finding the videos relating to these talks so have updated the previous post about them (below) to include the link which worked for me…but if you’re in a hurry to get straight there.. here’s the  link to the third video ( most recent, March 13/14) in the series of four Lama Chetsangpa talks.

If you scroll down below that you will find the previous two.

Lama Chetsangpa’s text…reading, engaging, questioning and absorbing

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Happy cows chewing the dharma cud!

Cows digest grass. It’s not so easy to break down the cellulose to get the nutrients they need. In order to facilitate this they have four stomach compartments, and they chew the cud…(see below)

We humans just chew our food a bit then swallow it…down to the stomach where most digestion occurs.

However , we are not so used to digesting the very healthy kind of food found in this text and need to keep at it, with it, over time…chewing more diligently than a cow chewing grass!

James, i think, said he had made eighteen different translations of this…That’s going to provide a qualitatively different  level of nourishment from the casual  ‘Oh yes I’ve read that’ (My ego-driven quick response on mire than one occasion!)

Following on from the advice he gave, mentioned in the previous post, on how to listen to the talks…in the latest, third, weekend’s teachings, James suggested how we might engage with the texts to maximise our receptivity to the depth of wisdom from which they originate.

He invited us to write the text out by hand. This will deepen our relationship with it… and at the same time we can make a note of anything which is not clear to us. Then checking this with the commentary which opens out the text making it more accessible.
If queries remain then answers are available…!

Repeated engagement will surely effect incremental or perhaps, through time, sudden changes.

Simply Being (1998 edition) was the first Dharma Book I read and, despite the teachers encouragement to take it really slowly, line by line, I could not do that.
From a young age I was addicted to reading – the next page, the next page the next chapter – devouring without any reflection.
This habitual way of reading has taken many years to change… to slow down and really engage whole-heartedly… has not come quickly or easily.

At the beginning I would read through the texts and the notes that went with them a few times but found them hard to digest. Lacking ease and familiarity with the concepts and vocabulary i could not unlock them, and mostly happily engaged with part 2 The Talks instead!
Even there I skated over the second paragraph where it suggests that the ideas presented are to be engaged with and struggled with for the maximum benefit to be obtained. I was just struggling to engage…

The more recent edition was a revelation and, for me, much easier to engage with, so if you haven’t updated you might well find that worthwhile…
But even then the texts were challenging…but opening up a bit, and becoming more ‘relatable to’.
For me this was largely thanks to the Macclesfield teachings where there was time for James to expound the different aspects of the dharma tree in a way which engaged directly with our conditioning… and also through reading and engaging with other dharma writings by James and many others.

Surely some of the headaches from trying to engage with this text, as given in the book, will be much eased by the commentary that he has been giving over these four sessions…

Gradually the words and their meaning and our alignment with them come together… the blurred and cloudy vision clears…
Then the import and impact are such that giving time to receive becomes the only way that’s fitting.

Read a bit, reflect, meditate… repeat…this can become a fully satisfying engagement rather than an onerous task to be completed

Here’s the  link to the third video ( most recent, March 13/14) in the series of four Lama Chetsangpa talks.

If you scroll down below that you will find the previous two.

Question: Why do cows have three stomachs?

Answer: Cows are true ruminants, which means they have four stomachs, the first of which is the rumen. When a cow takes a bite of grass, it chews it briefly, mixing it with a large amount of saliva. The grass then passes to the rumen, which is a large pouch. The rumen does not produce digestive juices. Instead, it is a fermentation chamber that contains millions of bacteria. These microbes produce digestive enzymes that break down the cellulose in the plants. When a cow “chews its cud,” it returns a small lump, or bolus, of food from the rumen to the mouth, where it is thoroughly chewed. When the cow swallows the bolus for the second time, it is finer and settles at the bottom of the rumen. The rumen contracts, forcing some of this well-chewed food into the second stomach, or reticulum. From there it passes to the omasum (third stomach), where water is extracted. It then enters the true, or fourth, stomach, the abomasum, where gastric juices (containing hydrochloric acid) are added to the food. This kills and disintegrates the microbes from the rumen, making the nutrients in the microbes available for later digestion and absorption.

Source of info on cows stomachs!

photo:Jim Champion / Cattle ruminating at Latchmore Bottom, New Forest

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cattle_ruminating_at_Latchmore_Bottom,New_Forest–geograph.org.uk-_157259.jpg

Do you like to eat the food you’ve pissed on? Fresh food from the Lama.

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‘Like hospital food… do yer?’

I remember hearing this phrase from my youth!

It is really saying ‘If you don’t do what I would like you to do then I will hurt you so badly you will end up in hospital… and suffer the limitations and constraints –  relating to nutritional understanding, financial, logistical, and so on – which operate in trying to feed the variety of people who turn up and are cared for in our hospitals.

This seems bad but hopefully, if the worst came to the worst,  you’d recover and continue to enjoy the kind of food you eat prior to the hospital visit!

There are some resonances with what James said in his teaching this Sunday –

‘Do you like to eat food you’ve pissed on?’ 

No…’cos it taste of piss 

‘Well, of course it will, if you keep pissing on it!’

James has been explaining how to ‘not to make it stale’ in a series of teachings on a text he translated many years ago written by a great Yogi – Lama Chetsangpa Sri Buddha.

While his tone was light, he was pointing to the more critical consequences of ignoring, or not attending to and realising the teachings of/on the truth – and continuing to opacifying the simple givenness of ‘what is’ with our non-sense. 

This is, in a way, much more grave and serious than an injury necessitating a temporary stay in hospital – it is a chronic condition whereby we live in a deadened life of deprivation and limitation.

Falling out of the ease of abiding as the innate and inalienable integrity of our openness, and with that loosing the facility to manifest freshly in each moment as appropriate to the moment, rather in relation to an idea about it – we misconstrue and solidify… depriving others and ourselves of vitality and spacious connectivity.

This dis-ease, arising from ignoring the actual, although a chronic and pervasive process is completely curable… by attending and ‘wising-up.’

Now that we know that the symptoms need not just be endured or masked… we are happy to conduct an in-depth examination of the situation. 

If we meditate we can closely examine and see the way in which we engage our life energy with arisings in the mind.

These arisings are patternings of energy that the thought patterns with which we mistakenly identify – take to be true, valid, fascinating and fully worthy of in-vestment (geddit?– clothing, wrapping, Emperor’s new clothes ; ) – and spiral into…

In giving a spuriously heightened reality to impermanent phenomena we become a-mazed – confused and enmeshed in our own creativity.
And until this issue is resolved through practice we will continue to obscure, distort and falsify the truth…and suffer as a consequence.

James Low has been explaining so clearly how we get lost and how to return in the simplest way for so many years now… and has recently been teaching on this text by Chetsagpa Ratna Sri Buddha you’ll find in the book Simply Being. The texts are also available here.

The first and second recordings are now available to watch … with further teachings on March 13 and 14… concluding on 17 18 April.

I once heard a Sikh teacher trying to teach children who were fizzing with energy. He was quite fierce and he just shouted at them ‘Listen up…’ and they did!

James was lightly saying the same thing towards the end of the teaching and suggesting how we should do this: 

1.First time: just listen… allowing the teachings, mood and flavour to flow through you.

2.Then listen again a second time. This time make your own notes of  what seem to be a critical point or a point for further clarification.

[We can discussion in the group or 1 to 1, though maybe check with the text first, it may help…]

3.Then go to the text and see if your understanding matches what’s written…is it clear ?

If still not clear …just ask. Then…see next post…

When I first started teaching James suggested that I gave homework… but not so many bothered with completing it!

There were a few things going on with that – the quicksand pull-back of samsara, the apparent primacy of friends family and worldly duties and involvements…seeing the dharma as an ‘add-on’, like bridge or golf with a particular ring fenced time and place… plus an unwillingness of the egoic structure to rock the relatively comfortable though temporary, apple-cart – or, as an adult, to follow instructions ; ). 

I’m not judging, I have felt subject to, and worked with the same restrictions…but the struggle for freedom, including from my own non-sense, is unquestionably worthwhile in my experience.

In my little group we have been exploring the introduction to the Dhammapada – the text found in Finding Freedom with James’ commentary… as well as anything arising from the Q and A and other sessions.

However a good number have been listening or are hoping to listen to James’ teaching. So I think it is worth putting aside the Dhammapada for a bit and engaging as much as possible with this profound text and explanation … We have time to do this… catching up now with the first if you missed it. 

Approaching it, and the second, in the way James suggests… there is hopefully more alignment and attunement as we come into connection with the third and fourth sessions.

As has been said ‘the key to your enlightenment or realisation is already in the palm of our hand’… but we do have to put it in the lock and turn it!

For many the door is like a secret door…although it’s always open if you don’t know how to look (or that it even exists) how you would find it?

So for these teachings, explanations and much else… deep gratitude to those who have realised and passed this on through time. Let’s make the most of this precious opportunity. 

I was writing this for my group initially but thought others may find it helpful!

*** See next post on further advice for how to engage with this text from James’ teaching weekend 13 14 March.

Photo of Devon Violets: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Devon_Violets._Viola_odorata_(33624079715).jpg

A dualistic dish – the fish replies:

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My question is… dear fish…
whether you identify as British?
Spanish or perhaps Flemish…?

The fish replies:
You who address me as ‘a fish’…?
your question suggests ownership

I see your interest is upon which country’s dish
my heated form should lie
if humans cause my life to die…

…perhaps
in decompressing rapidly
when i am hauled up from the sea.

So many of us,
weight… in net,
compressed…
then split and gutted, each like all the rest.

My corpse sold on… for what money they are able
until i lie upon a dinner table…
and am
eaten before too late…
before my own expiry date…?!

That’s a ‘fishy’ joke! : )
But humour won’t save me…
this hapless denizen of the sea!

As a fish, to you I am
worth more dead… than alive!!!

However –

I don’t want you to pity me
but to take this opportunity

To tell you how it is for us,
deeply affected
by you land-bound populace.

I know, habitually through time,
you ‘humans’ feed on flesh…
like many of us living in the brine.

I am not angry, do not judge…
but wish for you
to realise how bad it is for us…

and it is getting worse!

And you should care – for us, for you…
affected by the chemicals
we eat, our bodies change.
This knowledge is not new…

as you eat us… i grieve to think…
you concentrate
whatever chemicals were in our food and drink.

Water which is thirty per cent more acidic that it used to be
has changed our world
… information kindly shared by Mark Carney*

And we,
just as you humans
would, suffer experientially…
living continuously in/drinking in
water of such high acidity

Water pH affects reproduction rates
… heavy metals concentrate…
so stress increase with falling biodiversity
and worse…

We don’t have ‘plants’ to treat the water in the sea
but we need you to do something… because,
chemically,
it’s become disgusting –
dangerously.

Environmentally our friends the whales… can help,
with carbon capture, eco-balancing – oxygen assist
if doubtful you can check on this…

However they who have been eaten sustainably
on the Faroe Islands for many years
… are no longer considered fit to eat.
The levels of mercury and other heavy metals in their bodies are high enough to be implicated as causal factors
in increasing rates of Parkinson’s disease in humans.

The impact of this on the whales is unknown…
but to imagine they are they completely impervious
…and creatures lower down the ‘food chain’ unaffected
defies your ‘reliance on science’.


Like our bird-friends we become entangled in your fishing nets
and other aspects of your detritus…
Like them, our bellies fill with plastic floating in the sea
… and micro-plastic’s found internally.

Some humans have to manage their food intake, artificially
reducing the size of their stomach to stay alive.
We do not have this difficulty…

…if we swallow plastic and it doesn’t pass through
we may well not survive…
it’s certain that we will not thrive
with the capacity of our stomachs so reduced.

So when you catch us,
cooks note this
your dish will be a mix of food …
non-food chemicals and some plastics!

Speaking for the whales…there has been criticism lately of the behaviour of some of them.
Recently a pod of orcas in the Mediterranean have been head-butting boats sometimes damaging the boats and frightening the noise-making occupants.
The orcas are not built to head-butt solid objects, they may have big headaches after this, but as yet no human has been killed or hurt.

But humans have attacked these orcas… their pod is close to extinction due to human interference.

I’d like to remind you that when you humans first met the whales they were delighted to greet you and were very playful.
In time they realised that meeting you, oftentimes, meant death…

You killed them and used them for food,
as fuel for your lights,
as shapers in corsetry to make the female form more appealing to the male;
… for lubrication, for cosmetics, soaps, vanishes, paints, laquer, perfumes, vitamins, carvings…

Killing followed killing, the whales became wary
… they learned…

Your boats’ propellers have chewed into their bodies, and they sink.

One way or another they have died in great numbers, almost to extinction.

Some fisherman regard them as their enemy… competing for their fish (their fish!)… and kill and mutilate them.

Across the wide oceans the whales who used to sing…
voices travelling half-way around the world,
have to shout loudly to be heard above the shipping noise
(subtle communicative nuances are lost in shouting)

Navigation becomes a nightmare
as extraneous sounds impede interpretation…
poisonous chemicals impact on neural functioning…
untimely deaths of young and old inhibit transmission of knowledge…
and the starlight patterning is occluded by satellites and space junk.

Yet despite all this, such massive provocation
there are as i said, as yet, no human deaths from Orca attacks.

In Australia there have been more shark attacks than usual, and overall seventeen attacks and eight deaths…
One response, typical of humans, is
‘we need to kill them’.

Whilst we are not humans and anthropomorphizing us is unwise,
we are sentient and intelligent, we communicate and feel pain
… please, I beg you, do not react to our behaviour in this way.

It will not help the situation.
Many of us are, with good reason at this time, very disturbed…
we live in these oceans
but you ‘guests’ treat our home as your toilets, larders…
swimming pools…

Building for leisure, trade, or base for future fights
along our shores and in our world,
means noise continues day and night

Hungry to find, and to take out more
disturbing the depths, the crust,
your machinery explores

Pollution follows every entry
that you make into the water
and below the sea

I plead with you,
knowing your desolation in the face of your current crisis of viral infection, and human tendencies to fight over resources,
not to use your energy to fight over who will get the greater share of our bodies…

But to turn your energy instead towards health and survival,
towards of health of the waters that we live in,
the waters that nourish us, that nourish you…

That we may share this earth and it’s waters
Treating our environment and each other
respectfully,

with love,

from what ‘you humans’, ha ha, call

A fish


picture: wikipedia licence creative commons
*(2020 Governor of the bank of England… in his final Reith lecture)

note…some fish are less susceptible to the hazards of marine life.
If you eat us perhaps you’ll seek what’s best…
for, as with plants, when we are penned, kept close in nets,
chemicals are often used to keep us ‘healthiest’
…or maybe not…









Flowing freely – our potential: Lama Chetsasngpa on the guru and guruyoga

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At a time when, as a baby, I had learned how to sit…my mother left me sitting on a chair for three quarters of an hour. I was minded by a family friend who told me years later.
During that time I was not upset but just sat upright on the chair on which I had been placed, calm, unmoving and completely impervious to her attempts to engage me in the way that a baby would normally be engaged. 
She found this very disturbing!
I had a red mark, a nevus, which I never saw (no mirrors), right in the centre of my forehead… which was removed as a child. 
I found that a rupa of the Guru had been in my house since before birth.
I always wished, on the one wish that we were allowed on eating birthday cake, that all of the family could be happy… (this was a rare occurrence) .
My reason for going to medical school was to help reduce the pain in the world.

So far so good? Well maybe, but we haven’t got very far…

But then the winds of karma blew… and my aspirations shrank…
I married and had a child and life revolved around the happiness of a very few.
I wanted my family and friends to be happy… and the world which had been opening out in my late teens gradually shrank… and shrank… and shrank to the point where, if the dharma hadn’t turned up in such a big way a few years beforehand…I probably wouldn’t be here now. 
There was a lack of clarity…and a non-availability to others in any way which could truly be called helpful, beyond the relative, for decades of my life.

Why am I saying this to you? 

I am saying all this because, even if perhaps we come into a re-birth where our bodhisattva or other vows are not blown away in the death process, the karmic consequences of dualistic engagement, in the past and present, mean that until we are fully established in the truth of ourselves we can so easily get lost before we know it… and this lostness will be normalised quick as flash – everyone around us confirms a dualistic view –
then every move we make can strengthen the karmic bind.

So how long will it take us to find our way home when we do get lost… some months? some years? some lifetimes? some aeons?
One thing we can be sure of is that tension arising from having a sense of an individuated self brings suffering along with it…
Without recognising its cause we keep trying to scratch this subliminal yet perpetual itch…and we look for completion, for satisfaction, for ease, for relief, in that which cannot offer resolution…

If the dharma truth, the unchanging uncompounded ground of our being, is not sought or encountered… in our daily lives, moment by moment, how will we see ‘things’ more clearly… so how will we not suffer?

We have such a short time before death, that it is very sad not to make the most of this opportunity, this precious human re-birth (transiently!) complete in our faculties, and engage in the dharma without reservation.

Anyone reading this is likely to already know that we are truly lucky to have encountered such a clear and unadulterated river of dharma, presented for us, for our time, for our culture… for the particular tendencies and confusions particularly common to, but not limited to, those in the west.  
The most recent teachings James gave are linked here to texts with vimeo link below the texts… or direct to vimeo here…
They are the first of a series of three… and have just become available on the simplybeing website…and seem to me to be extraordinarily valuable!

I was going to post some ‘small beer’ stuff about dependent origination in duality, maybe something about that difficult point in meditation where we could go deeper or return to the familiar… but life is limited and listening to these teachings if they speak to your condition will surely bring you much more benefit. 


If you have listened already, listening again will surely help this to go deeper, note-takers can re-relate to what was said… 
I know from experience that we miss so much on first hearing and that although the refreshing shower of truth feels great and warming…it is engagement and ‘inward digestion’ – reflection and questioning – and application…which gives optimal potential for effective maceration!!!

Painting by artist Stewart Edmondson

Brief stress releasing meditations

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I have been speaking with a couple of people recently who are going to make use of the recordings of some short guided meditation sessions which James made last year. They were made, on request, for people working in the caring professions – under great pressure with very little time to practice.

They are to be found here on the simplybeing.co.uk website. I am ‘re-tweeting’ them now to bring them back to the foreground as the need escalates in case you missed them when first published and would like to use them, or would like to share them with someone who might benefit.

Welcoming each ‘daisy-fresh’ moment of the New year…

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In some other cultures and countries it’s not yet New Year.
For those following the Chinese lunar calendar it falls on the 12th of Feb, for ‘Persians’ the New Year, Nowruz, begins around March 20 – for Parsis it’s August 16/ 17th…lots of different ideas about the timing of new beginnings!

Maybe you remember a talk James gave – as I remember it quite well it was probably a Macclesfield talk – when he was laughing at the idea of getting rid of four o’clock or some other time that was deemed unpleasant. ‘You don’t have to say “Stop the clock! I just can’t bear four o’clock” … four o’clock is going by itself.’

Recently we have heard, very much, ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of 2020’ ‘Thank God 2020 has gone!’
With that there seemed to be assumptions that all the difficulties would end as the clock strikes, and the New Year will be inevitably better than the previous year.

But relative reality, the world of entities, as it is usually construed, does not work like that. With that view, what happens now is inextricably linked with what has happened in the past and is always shifting and changing. There is an interconnecting web of causal factors through time leading to an inter-dependent, inter-linked network of effects arising in the present,
and what may seem a better year for some will, no doubt, seem far worse for others.

Yet 2020 was a year of our limited life-span, one that we won’t have a chance to experience again; and every moment of those manifold unique experiences has vanished, gone forever, all by themselves…
To say it was a ‘rubbish year’ denies the rich complexity and variety, and
truly, any memories of 2020 or before are thoughts arising now – currently in 2021…and are also vanishing

Some neighbours recently said to me ‘I’m just waiting ’til it’s over and life can begin again and we can get back to normal’.
Marking time, or passing time or wishing life away… when you realise how swiftly it flies… seems a terrible waste…
Given the option, would we really rather have been anaesthetised for the previous 365 days than choose to live them, to fully experience whatever movements, joys and sorrows and all, arising and passing? There is such a big difference between enduring life and living.

Many years ago I picked up a piece of photocopy paper from the floor of our derelict new home. The chimney had just imploded and a couple of centuries of soot lay over everything… I turned it over and it said:

Out of the gloom a Voice spoken unto me and said
‘Smile and be happy, things could be worse’
So I smiled and was happy and behold… things did get worse.
That was my experience!

However, true happiness arises not from accentuating the positive or an optimism that ‘things can only get better!’ or ‘counting your blessings’ all of which can change our mood (and gratitude for everything is a good place to start)…. but with a dharma understanding, from wisdom.

And a few days ago I found, jotted down on an envelope in a kitchen drawer, a quote from James which is a distillation of a buddha’s teaching:
‘The root of dissatisfaction is attachment to experience based on a misunderstanding of the nature of experience.’

Yesterday at the shops I met a man and a woman, one carrying a paint can the other bags of material for stuffing…’I see you’ve got stuff for your projects in hand’…’Well, what else is there to do…?’ she said.
It was a bit too cold and windy for suggesting exploring the statement above!

2020 has come and gone and we did whatever we did, but what’s more worthwhile for 2021 than to deeply realise what a correct understanding of the nature of experience would be?
That realisation and the ensuing freedom from dukkha that the dharma offers would be the best ever birthday present to yourself and the world…as you would become ever fresh – new beginnings with every moment of the Year.

Some new dates to hear about all this:
James’ on-line teaching program recommences on Wednesday 20th Jan…rolling through to March
Check under Events on the simplybeing.co.uk website