I grabbed this shot of Jane (who is one of my fellow Interbeing aspirants) at the end of our Wester Caputh retreat last week. This is with the FX27mm ‘pancake’ lens.
My Fujinon FX 56mm f1.2 R is Waiting!
I turn 50 years at the end of February (if I haven’t mentioned it enough times). As a gift to my self I’m buying some Fujifilm X gear I couldn’t justify under other circumstances. Fujifilm have a cash back scheme that ends on the 11th January so I have bought…
Feather Frost
I can’t remember whether I have seen it before or not but I was walking in the woods by the river Tay when I came across Feather Frost A.K.A Frost Flowers. It looked like people had left little lumps of tissue all over the woodland floor. Wonderful to see. Fascinating…
The Fourteenth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: True Love
This is the Fourteenth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Lay members may not be celibate whereas monastics members are and so there are two versions of this training. For lay members: Aware that sexual desire is not love and that sexual relations motivated by craving cannot…
The Thirteenth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Generosity
This is the Thirteenth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, we are committed to cultivating generosity in our way of thinking, speaking, and acting. We will practice loving kindness by working for the happiness of…
The Twelfth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Reverence for Life
This is the Twelfth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware that much suffering is caused by war and conflict, we are determined to cultivate nonviolence, compassion, and the insight of interbeing in our daily lives and promote peace education, mindful mediation, and reconciliation within families,…
The Tenth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Protecting and Nourishing the Sangha
This is the Tenth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware that the essence and aim of a Sangha is the realization of understanding and compassion, we are determined not to use the Buddhist community for personal power or profit, or transform our community into a political…
The Ninth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Truthful and Loving Speech
This is the Ninth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware that words can create happiness or suffering, we are committed to learning to speak truthfully, lovingly and constructively. We will use only words that inspire joy, confidence and hope as well as promote reconciliation and peace…
The Eighth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: True Community and Communication
This is the Eighth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware that lack of communication always brings separation and suffering, we are committed to training ourselves in the practice of compassionate listening and loving speech. Knowing that true community is rooted in inclusiveness and in the concrete…
The Seventh of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Dwelling Happily in the Present Moment
This is the Seventh of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware that life is available only in the present moment, we are committed to training ourselves to live deeply each moment of daily life. We will try not to lose ourselves in dispersion or be carried away…
The Sixth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Taking Care of Anger
This is the Sixth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware that anger blocks communication and creates suffering, we are committed to taking care of the energy of anger when it arises, and to recognizing and transforming the seeds of anger that lie deep in our consciousness….
The Fifth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Compassionate, Healthy Living
This is the Fifth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware that true happiness is rooted in peace, solidity, freedom, and compassion, we are determined not to accumulate wealth while millions are hungry and dying nor to take as the aim of our life fame, power, wealth,…
The Fourth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Awareness of Suffering
This is the Fourth of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware that looking deeply at the nature of suffering can help us develop understanding and compassion, we are determined to come home to ourselves, to recognize, accept, embrace and listen to suffering with the energy of mindfulness….
The Third of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Freedom of Thought
This is the Third of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware of the suffering brought about when we impose our views on others, we are determined not to force others, even our children, by any means whatsoever – such as authority, threat, money, propaganda, or indoctrination –…
Brother Steve
My brother Steve came up to visit in October and we had a nice time together for which I’m really grateful. He’d lost weight and was generally feeling and acting a lot more bouncy than over the last few years. We are both looking scarily like our father though.
View from the bathroom window
Something to be grateful for first thing in the morning.
Gratitude Blog?
It is a navel gazing time of year but this year I feel more reflective than usual. I’ll be 50 in less that two months so perhaps it is my perpetual mid life crisis. This is a selfie with my Fujifilm X-M1 and nifty XF27mm f2.8 pancake lens @ f2.8…
Winter weather is here at last
I’ve not enjoyed rustling through the frosty leaves for a shot so much in ages. It is so much easier being digital than using Fuji Velvia at 50 ISO and 35mm.
Morton Hall Golf Club Boxing Day 2014
With the cloud rolling in across the cold ground the Pentlands were obscured and the golf course became and island.
Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism
The Order of Interbeing ( Tiếp Hiện (接现) Order) was founded in the mid 1960’s, in Vietnam, by Thich Nhat Hanh (a.k.a. Thay). The basis of the Order are the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings which lay out the core principles for lay and monastic life. In 1987 Thay published a thin volume…
The Second of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: Non-Attachement to Views
This is the Second of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware of the suffering created by attachment to views and wrong perceptions, we are determined to avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. We are committed to learning and practicing non-attachment to views and being…
Eleventh Mindfulness Training: Right Livelihood
This is the eleventh of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing: Aware that great violence and injustice have been done to our environment and society, we are committed not to live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. We will do our best to…
Vietnam: The Lotus in the Sea of Fire
I just read “Vietnam: The Lotus in the Sea of Fire”. This small book was written at the height of the Vietnam war by my Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. My first sensation on receiving the book was one of gratitude. I had been wanting to read it for some time…
Back to Flickr?
I just discovered that I can embed Flickr images by just cutting and pasting the URL like this: Unfortunately it looks like it only does a small photo! I wonder if that can be changed? Edit: 2014-11-9 – My Flickr images aren’t working! Maybe the image above appears for you…
Why I am voting Yes in the Scottish Independence Referendum
This is by way of a note to self. I’ll look back on it as a told-you-so in some form. Maybe with regrets maybe not. This is why I am voting Yes. 1) Trident Nuclear Missiles: I am ideologically opposed to renewing our nuclear weapons system. I don’t think it…
Mindfulness: The Ultimage Not-Quite-Getting-It Example?
I just came across an ad for a Introduction for Mindfulness on Eventbrite and I wanted to capture it here. I guess that it will disappear off Eventbrite once the event has gone by and I want to be able to quote it in the future. Here is the text:
Implicit vs Explicit Ethics in Mindfulness Teaching
A few weeks back I wrote the blog post Is Secular Mindfulness Shoehorning in the “Other” Seven? in which I bemoaned the fact that secular mindfulness courses included most of the parts of the Buddhist Eight Fold path but only claimed to include one of them. Last week BBC Radio…
Saying so long to Flickr clutter
I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the way Flickr displays my photographs. This is linked with my inability to get on well with social media in general, perhaps with the exception of Twitter. Here is a screen shot of what my Flickr page looked like just before I took the…
My Organic Rant
I put a comment (née rant) on Google+ in response to Tim Osmar posting this image in the context of Monsanto. My comment is actually on a private repost of the original post so you can’t see it unless you …. um … that it too complicated to work out…