27 December 2022

I walked around the pagoda at 4am having woken early.  There is a cool breeze, a dark sky and there is the sound of an owl in the near distance.  The light wind also brings the intermittent sound of traffic from some distant road and I find a peaceful appreciation of this calm oasis I find myself in.

Yesterday I found myself wondering what this was all about.  If I were climbing a hill I would know that my efforts would be rewarded with great views from the summit.  Furthermore, as I moved towards the summit, those views would slowly open up before me giving a taste of what was to come.  But what about meditation?  I am unclear what value the effort I am making will bring, what that ‘view from the summit’ actually is in terms of meditation. If I get a calm mind in the meditation hall what benefit will this bring outside it; I am aware that I can achieve a calmer mind now while meditating than I could three days ago but what is the real value of that or is it an end itself?  Something clearly brings back those that sit in meditation, motionless for the whole hour but I am unclear as to what.

The morning repeated itself as those previously: mediation, discourse, food, rest.  You feel like you are half way through a day when it is only 9am and you are readying yourself for the morning discourse, archaic in style and words and drawn out. The ‘instruction’ hour is a period during which meditation is a little more relaxed as people move back and forth in small groups to sit in front of the teacher, say how they are getting on and ask any questions. One or two people clearly want to dig deeper into the ideas behind Buddhist philosophy, one or two seem to want to find controversy in what we have been told. Mostly not a lot is said, possibly because the sooner we finish the sooner we get to lunch. 

After another superb vegetarian lunch (egg curry plus numerous salads) I wandered around the gardens, drab and largely lifeless in their winter guise apart from what seemed a large number of blackbirds that seemed to ignore me as I wandered past. I took a few surreptitious photos on my phone that I had left in my car at the start of the course yet I had no urge to turn it on and check for news or messages, quite the reverse in fact.  I looked out across fields at the back of the centre, low clouds scudding by and the beginnings of rain in the air.  Buddhists may believe that there is more than one plane of existence, and this may not be the highest, but as I stood there with wind and sporadic rain drops in my face watching a murmuration of starlings in the opposite field it felt just perfect to me.

I noticed in the afternoon that there seemed to be fewer people in some of the afternoon sessions especially those where we are left to our own devices.  Some may have dropped out, although because we do not talk there is no way of knowing, others I think are taking the opportunity to rest when the teacher is absent.