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The third and final part in the series by Anna Ayse.

Having listed in part one the various referents of “I” and defined reality as that which is and which cannot cease to be, having established in part two that, based on experience, awareness does not depend on the body-mind and is not subject to birth and death, in this final part we continue the investigation into the reality of the self and the disappearance of birth and death.

Taking our stance as the space of awareness and simply observing mind activity as we do in meditation, is a good step in disentangling “I awareness” from identification with its body-mind activity. However, taking our stance as the space of awareness is not enough to fully uproot the identification with the body-mind and to debunk the ingrained belief: “I was born and I am going to die”. And while this belief still persists, the innate peace of the self is only experienced intermittently through the prism of the finite self as the devotee longing for her/his spiritual home. The innate peace of the self is not experience undisturbed as a result of realizing one’s true nature. Most of us are familiar with the position of the one longing for her/his true home. It is however the realization that “I” is not subject to birth and death, that is, the end of the belief in a finite, separate self, the teaching is pointing to as the subject matter of the spiritual path.

To believe that ”I am finite, I am subject to birth and death” and then, from that position, try to accept death is an oxymoron. The only way birth and death can disappear is when the inherited belief in the finite self is challenged, investigated, uprooted and debunked. That’ll effectively finish the psychological fear of death. Overcoming the fear of death and reflecting back to loved ones the unchanging reality of their true self is the greatest gift we can give them. It is not necessary to arrive at full realization of the self. Doubting the belief in the finite self enough to arrive at the open position of “I don’t know” is already a heavy blow to a groundless belief and a solid basis for further investigation.

Beside awareness remaining steady over time and being without a beginning or an end, a further question may be asked: Is it localized, limited in space to this body-mind? In other words, do all 7 billion of us have each our own pocket of awareness separately generated by 7 billion body-minds? Or is there only one, indivisible awareness or Buddha Nature which is the same – not similar – but exactly the same reality of all body-minds, like water is the reality of all waves? Observation of direct experience reveals that awareness cannot be divided up like that, that all body-minds share the same, indivisible awareness, it is the shared being we experience. This means that the self, “I awareness” is not personal, it is universal.

After sufficient investigation, if we are willing to take on board that the self, our true nature, is not “I the body-mind” but is “I awareness”, and if we are willing to take on board the idea that, based on experience, the body-mind is in fact within the space of awareness, that awareness is the reality of the body-mind and not the other way round, that opens up the possibility to end duality in sensory experience of a self on the inside and a world of discrete objects on the outside. The investigative steps for uprooting and debunking the self-world duality in sensory experience is beyond the scope of this writing.

After the belief in the finite self has been debunked by tracing back “I” to its source and realizing that the self is not subject to birth and death, reactive patterns in the body-mind formed by a lifetime belief in the separate self, may still continue to arise. For example, primary fear as a result of trauma at infancy can take long to dissolve. An example of primary fear is terror first thing at waking up, prior to any thought, or terror without clear and present danger. Since these conditionings have been laid down very early, prior to conceptual thinking, they are hard wired into the system and take longer to dissolve completely then thought generated fear. However even deep conditionings will have ceased to obscure the reality of “I” for long, once the underlying belief in the finite self has been investigated and uprooted.

Part two of Anna Aysea’s exploration of the nature of reality. Her final post will appear on Friday evening.

Having listed in part one the various referents of “I” and defined reality as that which is and which cannot cease to be, we can continue the investigation into the reality of the self. Based on experience, what is the unchanging aspect and what is changeable manifestation? According to the mainstream view, awareness, being, is generated by the body and depends on it. In other words, body-mind is the reality that remains constant and awareness is what intermittently appears and disappears, the assumption is that awareness was born and will die with the demise of the body.

But is there any evidence supporting this belief in experience? For instance, the body-mind changes over time, the infant, the 10-year-old, the 20-year-old, and the 60-year-old self, all had different bodies, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and experiences. The space of awareness within which the subsequent body-minds were known though, has that changed over time? Also, was “I awareness” born together with the body or was it prior to it? Can you imagine for instance a time in the past when the space of awareness, the unchanging background to mind activity, was not, or a time in the future when it will cease to be? We cannot fathom it.

Screwed minds may say its beginning or end being unfathomable is not a hundred per cent proof that awareness has indeed no beginning or end, which is true. But if you have searched both in experience and in imagination and you cannot find any evidence supporting the belief that “I awareness” was born and will die, isn’t it more logical to conclude, at least as a working hypothesis, that awareness, is not subject to birth and death, than to continue a completely unsupported belief that it is?

Every night, in deep sleep, the body-mind – that is the activity of thinking, feeling, sensing, perceiving – falls away altogether. And yet, there is continuity of being, we do not experience that falling away as the death of self. When we say for instance: “I slept well” we are not guessing, we know. Meaning “I”, was present during sleep. Since the body-mind is absent in deep sleep, “I” in this statement can only refer to the faculty which knows experience, which is unchanging and ever-present, that is, awareness.

In terms of the metaphor in part one, the body-mind is the ring or the current, i.e. phenomenal experience, as we know for sure that the body-mind is changeable The space of awareness, Being, is the gold or the water, as it is the unchanging background of phenomenal experience. The space of awareness was not born, it is prior to the birth of the body, and will continue after the disappearance of the body, and because it is unlimited it does not know lack or desire. In other words, based on direct experience, awareness, our true nature, does not share the limitation of the body-mind, it is not subject to impermanence.

The mind is habitually overlooking awareness, because the space of awareness is not an object, – a thought, a feeling, a bodily sensation, a sense perception – so it cannot be known conceptually through the mind or perceptually through the senses. The gap between two thoughts or two perceptions is not a mind object, that gap is not in the same category as mind-objects. Someone living in a country where it perpetually rains and the sky is always overcast may mistake a patch of blue sky that appears one day, for a blue cloud. But the patch of blue sky is not in the same category as the clouds. The blue sky is the limitless unchanging space within which clouds intermittently arise and disappear. Similarly, the space of awareness is not in the same category as thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and sense perceptions, it does not depend in any way on these phenomenal activities. Awareness is and knows itself by itself, this is our experience every night in deep sleep.

The investigation will be continued in the final part, part three.

The artworks in this article are by Gabriel Dawe, an artist fascinated by clouds and the sky. His sewing thread installations explore the way how light blends in the sky.

Our next offering, in the Ebb Tide series, is a feature in three parts by Anna Aysea. In these articles, Anna asks these questions: What is the reality of life and death in direct experience? What is the self? And how can they be made to disappear? She illustrates this very personal interpretation of the teachings of the Heart Sutra, through the use of artworks made from gold. Look out for Part 2 on Wednesday and Part 3 on Friday.

After dinner, as we were sitting at the table having tea, R. seemed to be in a philosophical mood. He looked up at the ceiling, a furrowed brow, head slightly tilted to one side.
“So… when you are.. 130 years old… how old will I then be?”
“Er.. lemme see… you are now 13, that would be 13 plus… 73, then you would be… a grown man. But I am not sure I am going to be able to make it till 130, sweetheart.”
For R. the concept of time doesn’t mean much, as of yet, so an age of 130 years did not strike him as extraordinary.

“Okay, when you are… 90… how old will I then be…”
“Then you would be… also a grown man.”
“Hm.. it would be nice if you could see me grow up…”
“Well, you never know how life is going to turn out but I am very much planning on seeing you grow up sweetie. And since I am in excellent health there is no reason to believe that that cannot happen.”
“Hm” R. nodded.

Fear of death does not depend on age. The movement of the tides, birth and death, according to the Buddhist teaching, disappear when we study them, the scripture states that when we study the self, we forget the self.

So, what is the reality of life and death in direct experience? What is the self? And how can they be made to disappear? For most of us, we grew up with the belief that “I was born and I am going to die”. And for most of us, this inherited belief was taken at face value. The Buddhist teaching invites us to challenge this long-held belief. What is the supporting evidence for the belief that the self, “I” was born and that it is going to die? To answer this question, first, we need to examine what we mean by the self.
The common term used to refer to the self is the first person, the pronoun “I”. We say “I” all day, every day. What exactly is it we refer to when we say “I”? There are several referents in fact. Consider the following.

• “I need new tyres ” Here, “I” refers to my car. An accepted use where there is no confusion involved: I know I am not my car.
• “I have an infected leg.” Here “I” refers to the body.
• “I am 36 years old.” Here “I” refers to a thought, a concept, that is, “I” refers to the mind.
• “I understand. I see. I hear. I feel”. Here “I” refers to that which perceives, which knows experience, that is, “I” refers to awareness, to Being, the true self as the knowing faculty of experience.

While the first instance is fairly clear, most of us do know we are not our car, what may not be so apparent are the two following referents of “I”: the body and the mind. The dominant belief is: I am this body-mind, this collection of thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions. In fact, many people will not recognize the last reference, awareness – the space within which mind objects of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and sense perceptions arise and are known – as something that is independent of the body-mind and so believe that body-mind and awareness are one and the same. Not only that, the common materialistic belief is that awareness, Buddha Nature in Buddhist terms, depends on the body, is generated by the body, resides in the body, and therefore shares the limitations of the body. Most, unfortunately, it is supposed that ”I awareness” will cease to be at the demise of the body. Hence the belief: I am finite and limited; I am subject to impermanence.

To investigate the reality of the body mind and awareness in direct experience, we need to establish what we mean by reality. A straightforward definition of reality can be as follows. The reality of something is that which it is made of, it is the unchanging aspect of something which cannot be removed from it, in other words, it’s the true nature of something. For instance, the reality of a golden ring is the gold it is made from. The ring can be melted, so the form can be removed, but its essence, the gold, cannot. When the temporary form “ring” disappears, its reality, the gold, can take the shape of another form, like a necklace, a bracelet, etc.
Similarly, the reality of a wave or a current in the ocean is the water. The current can cease to be, its reality, the water, remains and can exist without any activity. The same water that formed the current, can, after the dissipation of the current, take the form of ice, snow, steam, or one of the many other manifestations of water.

In short, reality is that which is, in and by itself, not dependent on anything, it is that which cannot cease to be. You could say that reality is that which is unchanging and ever-present, and manifestation is the temporary name and form reality intermittently takes.

The Heart Sutra, also known as  The Scripture of Great Wisdom  describes reality as “increasing not decreasing not”, meaning it is unchanging. The Buddha describes reality as unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, and unformed, meaning it has no cause, it is not subject to birth and death, it simply is by and of itself and is the true source of all phenomena that arise and disappear within it.

The investigation of the reality of the self will be continued in part two.

The third piece in our Ebb Tide series is written by Mo Henderson. It is a pertinent and welcomed reflection on how “not giving up in times of low ebb” in training, helps us to understand ourselves better.

As part of the Ebb TIde feature that we are currently running, Karen Richards writes about an event that changed her perception of the ideal of training.

I came to Buddhism in my mid-twenties. Initially cautious, perhaps even a little sceptical, once I had learned the basic principles and heeded the advice given by monks on how to establish a practice, I applied myself with a certain vigour. Along with my husband, we soon developed a daily routine which involved sitting soon after rising in the morning, and a period of reflection at the end of the day, after our three small children had gone to bed.

We went on regular retreats, taking turns to visit Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey, whilst the other stayed behind to look after the children. We helped the monks with out of monastery events and eventually became part of a small group of lay people who founded a priory in Telford, in the centre of England. We encountered the usual difficulties of course – fatigue, juggling the responsibilities of daily life and all of the other little tensions that arise in training but, all in all, practice had a sort of buoyancy that moved us forward and kept us afloat.

Then came a series of events that seemed to scupper everything. My husband, David, became seriously ill and nearly died. After many months in hospital, he returned home, but he remained an invalid. Only months before the illness struck, I had been promoted at work and now found myself trying to juggle being a carer in the evenings and weekends (my eldest daughter covered the weekday shifts) and working a responsible job, full-time. Inevitably, after several months of trying to manage, I was a physical wreck. I began to make mistakes at work and eventually got managed out of my job.

I remember that time as being one of exhaustion. I wasn’t unhappy, but I became almost robotic in my actions. Sometimes, I would just stop, feel my skin, watch my breath, and remind myself that I was still alive. The Buddhist practice, that we had established over a period of some thirty years, seemed to ebb away and we simply existed, side by side. We still meditated, in our own way. There were long periods of simply sitting in our armchairs, occasionally chatting, but mostly just sitting, interspersed with me helping David to simply stay alive.

But tides turn, and slowly but surely, a sort of equilibrium returned and, with renewed motivation, we found ways of adapting our practice to accommodate our physical limitations. In some ways, it seemed like nothing occurred during that period of slack water but, looking back and reflecting, it was a time when ambitions and ideals about what Buddhist practice looked like ebbed away and we found a deeper sense of  ‘being’. We never doubted the practice itself, merely our ability to do it. Doing it, it turns out, isn’t always what we think it is. What we learned,  is that the little rituals of daily life, which can be very helpful to us, are not ‘it’. “It”, is something that runs deeper than that. It is taking refuge in the Buddha, even when we are looking into the abyss.

And when the sea seems to have receded, so far out we can barely see it, there is life still playing out on the shoreline. I think this poem, written by E Nesbitt, author of The Railway Children and Five Children and It, is a lovely illustration of that.

Ebb Tide by E Nesbitt

NOW the vexed clouds, wind-driven, spread wings of white,
Long leaning wings across the sea and land.
The waves creep back bequeathing to our sight
The treasure-house of their deserted sand,
And where the nearer waves curl white and low,
Knee-deep in swirling brine the slow-foot shrimpers go.

Pale breadth of sand, where clamorous gulls confer,
Marked with broad arrows by their planted feet;
White rippled pools, where late deep waters were
And ever the white waves marshalled in retreat
And the grey wind in sole supremacy
O’er opal and amber cold of darkening sky and sea.

In the coming weeks, we are featuring artwork, photographs and articles on the theme of Ebb Tide. The first in the series is a poignant reflection on the corporeal aspects of death, by Chris Yeomans.

I don’t seem to be very good at death. Over the years I have read articles about meditating in graveyards (or is it more accurately, in charnel houses?) to come to an acceptance of mortality and impermanence. And I read of monks keeping vigil over dead bodies. I learn about American funeral rites; and in American funeral homes, I witness the visiting of the dead in their open coffins. And I quail. Whilst all the time thinking that I am not being a good Buddhist here, and need to be more accepting.

But in truth, dead bodies freak me out. Even animals and birds and amphibians. I remember being shocked by pictures of the Head of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, dead in her coffin, in the OBC Journal and spooked by a dead cat on the altar at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey.

Perhaps there was too much death in my family in my formative years. I seem to be over-sensitised to grieving and loss. I don’t want to look upon the lifeless forms of those I love.

Living in the country, I’ve got better about the animal world. I can’t bear to leave little bodies to be pulverised on the lanes and can now move them into peace and shade in the undergrowth and verges so that they have a little bit of dignity as they decay. But experience of human cadavers hasn’t helped me to be less freaked out by them.

And so now, as I grow older, and contemplate the death of my elderly and ailing partner, I find the whole business to be a constant part of my thoughts and indeed of quite a lot of discussion and debate. Dignity in dying. Euthanasia. Assisted suicide. The rational part of me can deal with this. The emotional part recoils. ‘Yes, but…’ I hear myself saying.

The ebb tide gently leaves the shore, but death may not come as easily as that. And those of us who remain may be left on the beach at slack water, longing for a different outcome.

I am male, female, tall, fat, skinny, white, black, smart, stupid. I am a mother, a sister, a daughter, a father, a son. I am old, young, beautiful, ugly. I am a teacher, unemployed. I am British, Dutch, an Arab, a Jew. I am a citizen, a freedom fighter, a terrorist.

Every qualification following “I am” is a label on the naked being of the Self.
Our being, the Self, is beyond any form, label, role or function. In the process of socialization, the self-image, the persona is formed. We internalize how others mirror us and become identified with the roles and functions we fulfil in society. This is a limitation because the Self is always more than the sum total of labels, roles and functions. Conversely, we learned to label others and contribute to their imaging. The mental self-image that is thus created is a reflected image. It is the mirroring of the Self in the external gaze. The self-image, the persona is the “mantle” the Self wears to function in the world.

The Greek mythology of Narcissus represents the theme of Self and self-image. Upon seeing his reflection in the water of a lake, the youth Narcissus becomes enamoured with the image in the water. This symbolizes the identification with the self-image. Narcissus becomes so captivated by his reflection that he forgets himself, and pining away for himself, he withers and eventually dies.

In the current era of the selfie, we have much more sophisticated mirroring devices than the water of a lake that reflect us back. We see our reflection manifold in the virtual world where the mental image of identity is everything. The problem is not so much the reflection, after all, the sky reflected in the water of the lake has great beauty. It is when we believe that the self-image is our identity; like Narcissus, we become so fascinated with the reflection, the mental image, that we overlook the Self and become alienated from our own being. The search for who you are, your true identity beyond labels, roles functions, stems from that alienation. After all, only one who has forgotten the own being embarks on a search for the Self

Materials & technics
 Satin weave fabric, plexiglass, origami folding, textile pleating

To represent the Self beyond form, I have chosen the negative of the human figure. Axis Mundi is the idea that man is the connection between heaven and earth. The vertical aspect of the human figure represents the being and spirit, and the horizontal aspect represents form, and matter. I have increased the vertical aspect and elongated the human figure to emphasize the being that is overlooked.
The mantle, traditionally a symbol of role or function, represents the self-image, the persona. Cloth does not have a form of its own and has the potential to take any form. Origami folding turns the two-dimensional surface into sculpture. Fire (heat of the pleating) transforms cloth into a multi-faceted surface. The rippling of the origami folds evokes an association with water and refers to the mythology of Narcissus.

Video journal of the making process: www.annaatika.com

Video logbook | Video journal
www.annaatika.com

We all need nourishment, as does every living being and the world itself. Good nourishment sustains a healthy life. As I was creating headings for what I intended to write about, I discovered how being self-fulfilled in terms of nourishment, was linked to just about everything and everybody in my daily life. Before long I had a list as long as my arm! Indra’s net came to mind. How was I to prioritise when each area reflects a meaningful interdependent link?

“Imagine a multidimensional spider’s web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image.”
Alan Watts

I remember as a young woman, there came a point in my life where I felt ‘undernourished’, on reflection, it was more like a calling, something was missing and I needed to find out what that was. I decided to go on a retreat, which I now understand was a ‘searching of the heart’.

On that first retreat, I was introduced to sitting meditation and the formal mealtime ceremony. The food was served in bowls which were passed down the table. It was suggested by a monk to take as much as you need, but not more than you need. You accepted the food offered with a Gassho (palms together) and then offered it to the next person with a Gassho to them, in gratitude for the food and the sharing of it with each other.
I remember feeling really strange doing this and also concerned in case I wasn’t doing it properly. On reflection there is so much teaching in that mealtime ceremony, the simple mindful repetition of the mealtime scripture’s words can slowly reveal much teaching. I believe the experience of doing so, together with the other daily scriptures sang or recited over the years while on retreat, for me, plays an important part in bringing awareness of needs and wants and how I leave enough in the ‘main bowl for others’. In other words how my own decisions and lifestyle reflect both within and without towards others.

When younger, I had previously taken much for granted, in terms of food, grabbing a sandwich at work, eating too speedily in order to get on with the next thing, without stopping to digest the experience and feel gratitude. For whatever reasons, I unintentionally (probably mostly unconsciously) reflected this attitude of mind in most other areas of my daily life. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, it was that my mind was veiled with other ‘stuff’ which affected my decisions. Getting on to the next thing was a priority in those days, I wasn’t giving space to truly see what was coming through my own senses, the eyes, ears, nose, taste and touch, my mind was continually projected to what I needed to do next. I thought this was the only way to cope with a busy job, family life and all the other identities I had at that time. I guess it is similar for many who have busy lives, always doing something, while thinking about the next thing to do. This kind of habitual process can rob us of many precious moments, rather than just being where we actually are. The sitting meditation became a part of my everyday life and I began to notice much more through being still and more in touch with my own senses.

Our relationship with food and self-nourishment can be a metaphor for all activities in life. I had been self-absorbed in being in control of the next thing and that simple action of being mindful when eating during the mealtime ceremony, was an opening for me to base my practice on experiencing my own existential reality and its interdependence with so much more.

Being human and prone to mistakes, I need reminders towards diligence and care, there seems so much distraction in today’s world to be seen from a small-minded point of view. Therefore, for me, daily meditation practice and time out to rest and renew is part of a way of offering to myself and others.

The Five Thoughts:
We must think deeply of the ways and means by which this food has come:
We must consider our merit when accepting it.
We must protect ourselves from error by excluding greed from our minds.
We will eat lest we become lean and die.
We accept this food so that we become enlightened. 2.

Mo Henderson

References:
1 Indra’s net of jewels; each jewel is reflected in all of the other jewels, an infinite reflecting process. Every jewel is intimately connected with all other jewels in the universe, and a change in one jewel means a change, however slight, in every other jewel.
Avatamsaka Sutra

2 From Mealtime Scripture-Dogen Zenji:
As recited at Throssel Hole Abbey in Northumberland following the Soto Zen Tradition.

When I first came to live in Damson Drive, I inherited a square patch of garden that consisted of three ornamental trees, two borders supporting some hardy shrubs, an expanse of lawn, a small shed and a colony of snails. The garden was modest in size and would not have won any prizes but from the first time I saw it, I loved it. The snails not so much!

I wanted to grow things: romantic plants like larkspur, hollyhocks, poppies and peonies; and vegetables like cabbages, lettuce and peas. But the soil was poor and needed nourishment and so, it turned out, did the snails. All attempts to cultivate the borders ended in disappointment. Even when, through the use of composts and frequent watering, I managed to grow something, the snails would slope out in the night and eat it.

I tried growing in tubs and pots, which I raised up and bound with copper wire or tape – I had been told by gardening friends that snails would not cross a copper barrier – but the snails in my garden were made of sterner stuff and tender shoots made a flavoursome breakfast.

It was a dilemma. I felt very unkindly towards those little creatures; so frustrated that they had the audacity to ruin my gardening ambitions. I was told, by several more pragmatic gardeners, to lay down slug and snail pellets and put an end to them but this was never an option. I remembered the story of the Buddha and the snails. How when the Buddha was meditating, in the heat of the day, the snails came and covered his head, sacrificing their own lives, so that He could reach enlightenment and that is why the Buddha is depicted most often with little swirls around His head: not curls but snails. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this story, of course, but there is wisdom in a tale that makes someone stop before taking a life, any life, and look for a different solution.

Over the years I have done just that. One particularly warm and wet summer evening when I stepped outside my backdoor to find an army of them sliding across the patio. I took a gallon bucket, filled it with the snails to the halfway mark and relocated them on the edge of a woody thicket, over the road from the house. It was ineffective. They found their way home.

It was around this time that I started seeing them differently. Not as pests but as interesting beings in their own right. I started to see the garden differently too – not as ‘my’ garden but as a habitat for all the creatures that lived there. I was merely one of many. So, I stopped trying to grow plants unsuited to the soil. Over time, the lawn became smaller and eventually disappeared, altogether.  There is a pond there now, which birds and insects drink from and which, I am delighted to say, Lillies thrive in, during the summer months.

The soil is still not the best but better for letting the things that thrive in it, grow. Foxgloves seed themselves in parts of the borders on one side but not on the other. Roses seem to love it wherever I plant them. The more hardy soft fruits, such as loganberries and tayberries climb up a pergola alongside a rambling rose, jasmine lollops over some old paving by the shed, meadow grass full of clover and other wildflowers, loved by the bees, has replaced part of the lawn and what vegetables I manage to grow are placed in raised beds.

The snails are as prolific as ever, as are the slugs, but we get along fine. They still eat the lettuce and tender young beans but I have come up with a few ways to discourage them, which we can all live with. One method is to overplant so that even if they eat some, there are still some for the kitchen. The other is to take my vegetable waste, from the evening meal, and place it around the growing plants so that the first thing the snails come across when they are out for a feed, are bean pods, carrot tops and cabbage stumps. It works, for the most part, or at least it gives the tender shoots a fighting chance to get established. It is not an exact science – currently, the leaves on the sweet potato look rather like a doily – but it’s the best method that I have found to date. More to the point, I have come to feel a certain joy in going out in the early light of summer mornings and watching the snails feed. Sometimes, I even find them something special, like a slice of ripe pear, and tell them how beautiful they are and how welcome they are to stay.

See also: Mo Henderson’s book review https://dewonthegrass.net/a-favourite-book-kinship-with-all-life-by-j-allen-boone/

In the spring of 2019 I met, for the first time, with a small group of fellow Buddhists who were administrators of a website called Bright Moon, which was a platform for practitioners of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives to come together and to share their practice through discussion forums, articles of interest and book reviews. It was an ambitious enterprise, which was welcomed by many, disapproved of by some and, at that time, had a dwindling number of regular users. So, the administrators put out a request for ideas on how to make it more relevant. I had some thoughts, which I shared, and was asked to attend one of their regular meetings to discuss them.

I found that I had an immediate connection with the three remaining members of the group: Mo, Chris and Ayse. We had trained together on retreats at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey in the past and I felt that their goodhearted intentions, in trying to provide a way for the lay sangha to communicate with one another, was definitely something that I could get on board with. I attended several meetings and helped with some of their ‘last ditch’ attempts to save Bright Moon. Finally, however, despite their best efforts, the decision was made to close down the website.

I remember well the morning that the decision was made, sitting in my conservatory on the Skype call – we hadn’t even heard of Zoom, then – a polite, slightly forlorn silence descended on the meeting. Having only been with the group for a short period of time, I perhaps didn’t feel the loss of Bright Moon as deeply as the others, but I certainly felt their disappointment.

Then, I remembered something? Would it help? I wasn’t sure but decided to speak, anyway.

Some years previously, I had been out walking my dogs on some communal land, at the back of Telford Buddhist Priory. It was one of those lovely autumn mornings, full of mist and mystery, and low-lying light. As the sun broke through the cloud, it lit up the dew on the grass, so that the droplets hung like jewels. I took a photograph.

Dogen’s words, from Rules for Meditation, came into my head: “This body is as transient as dew on the grass”. “Dew on the Grass, what a great title for a blog”. It was a random thought but one that was worth nurturing. I went home, searched the internet for an available domain name that contained the title (originally dewonthegrass.co.uk ) and bought the rights to it. But that’s all I did. Year by year, the domain would come up for renewal. I would renew it and think no more about it. At the time, I didn’t have the wherewithal to begin the venture on my own.

But then, on that morning in my conservatory, I put it before the others as a way of going on and doing something new and different. They accepted!

Anna Ayse set about putting her artistic flair and technical wizardry to work and designed the website. We loved it! Chris was first out of the traps and produced our very first post, Toad Watch. Then Mo and I ‘put our toe into the water’. We were delighted to receive some fine ‘guest posts’ too. And so, Dew on the Grass was born.

We have always felt that the blog is an offering. Through it, we first help ourselves. We all agree that each time we contribute a post, it is both a searching and an opening of the heart, which we then share with others if they wish to read or view it. We don’t purport to be teachers of the Dharma but to share our experiences of training in Buddhism. We don’t necessarily have any answers, not even to our own questions. We simply hold them up and let them be seen.

This year, we have begun to write, photograph and provide artwork to a theme or topic. There is a discipline to this and it has helped us to move on from posting only occasionally, when the mood takes us, to become more committed and, as a consequence, developing our relationship with each other and growing our readership.

Speaking for myself, within the parameters of attempting to write in ‘Good English’, I write as if no one is ever going to read it. I yield to that which wants to be written.

The second part of the process is publishing the finished piece. It can be quite scary “putting yourself out there”, but each time I do, I know that something shifts in me, I become more honest with myself – more authentic. I think Mo, Chris and Anna feel similarly.

We welcome others to post, too! In fact, we encourage it! We have a few guidelines (which we are currently revising). This is so that the spirit and integrity of the website are upheld. Beyond that, we are open to a wide range of contributions. If you would like to know more, please feel free to leave a comment or message us privately, by email or through our Facebook page. We hope you enjoy your visit.