MICELLANEOUS MUSINGS

It is simply ages since I last wrote in this blog and there has been a lot happening in my life and in the world.

ZAZENKAI

On february 2nd. I led a Zen practice day at the Ammerdown Centre near Bath and there were 30 participants. It was a good day with plenty of sitting Zazen and Kinhin [walking meditation]. I gave a Dharma talk and spent the afternoon in Daisan [one on one teaching] while the others continued with their sitting Zazen. There was a really good response and a very positive evaluation from those who attended. If you are interested in knowing more or wishing to attend anything in the future then please see my website [www.northwall.plus.com] or see the website for the Ammerdown Centre. The next event will be a weekend sesshin with my Zen teacher from the USA Fr. Robert Kennedy Roshi on May 30 - June 1.

MEETING PLACE

At the end of last year our little Zen sitting group here named the Wild Goose Sangha had to move from our meeting place in Fairford so we are now meeting at the Ashcroft Centre in Cirencester. There are just 7 of us at the moment and we meet on a Thursday evening from 7.30 -9.00pm. We welcome newcomers interested in Zen practice so why not come anmd join us?

ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILLIAMS

The press and the media have really laid into Rowan's suggestion that certain aspects of Islamic law could/should be included in our national law. They seem to have seriously got hold of the wrong end of the stick. He wasn't suggesting a parallel legal system but rather like already exists for people of faith already. eg. Seiks do not have to wear crash helmets on motr cycles, there are special courts available for jewish people who wish to use them on marrige and civil cases and Roman Catholic drs. and nurses can opt out of any dealings with abortion. So what is the problem? Did the furore bring out into the open a residual prejudice against muslims? Here in Swindon we had a case of a petrol bomb being thrown into the home of a muslim family of a housing estate! I think that Rowan has challenge us as a nation to look at the ways in whcih we can make our laws considerate and tolerant towrds people of faith. The Cardianla Archbishop of Westmnister seems to agree that this is really needed in our legal system if we are to be seen as a tloerant and inclusive society.

LENT

Here are just a few rambling thoughts on our lenten pratice this year. The gospel reading for the First Sunday of lent in the Common Lectionary speaks of Jesus being driven into the desert by the Spirit. That word'desert' brought to mind the recent 'Extreme Dreams' programme with ben Fogle taking a small group on an expedition in the Sahara desert in Libyia. The horrendously challenging environment was desolate, and totally merciless to those who enetred it. The desert also in the time of writing the gospels was in mediterranean culture see as the place of the evil spirits and Jesus was snt by the good spirit into that formidable territory to be tested [that is what the Greek word means]. So Jesus is to be tested three times challenging his attachment to possessions, power and prestige. These are the thre archetypical attachments of the ego or false, superficial materialistic self that overlays our own true nature. Jesus like a good Bodhisattva in the Buddhist tradition is driven by the spirit to engage in a spiritual encounter that he might discover his [original face before his parents were born as the Buddhists say] or in our terms his true nature that was spoken by the Spirit at his Baptism just before entering the Desert. That which he heard from 'outside' he had to discover and embrace out of his own 'inner' self - his own true nature. St Anthony's entry into the desert as described by Athanasius is to engage in the same test and again he wages the battle secribed ina most graphic way but it really is a profound spiritual and psychological struggle to touch and own his 'own true nature.' One further image that came to me was that od seeing in India the pilgrimages of penitents who came naked and totally covered in ash to the Hindu temple. [No small mark of ash like our Ash Wednesday - this was the full treatment!!]. The threefold pillars of the Judeo-Christian prayer life of prayer, fasting, giving then seems to be a spiritual stripping naked - like the Indians - to let go of the accretions that we 'think' is our indentity to discover our own true nature. The ash reminds us of our true physical nature as nothing but 'star-dust.' This lent then is an engagement in an intense desert-like spiritual practice that will uncover our true nature so let us not trivialise it in any way at all but really enter into it with confidence, courage and joy [that was something I also learnt from the Indian penitents - their faces were all lit up with the loveliest of smiles!].