Daughter Alex with Simon at Visakha Puja

On Tuesday afternoon as I was on my way into London I had a call to say that Simon Bromwich, a long time Forest Hermitage supporter and committee member who had just the previous Friday flown to Vietnam with Gill and their daughter for a holiday, had had a massive heart attack in Hanoi and died.

This has come as a tremendous shock to us all, not least of course to Gill and Alex to whom our hearts go out to. They are both home now. They got back on Saturday morning and Simon’s body arrived on another flight soon after, and in the evening they came to see us.

Simon had no history of heart trouble and seemed a pretty fit forty-niner. Only the other day he completed a twenty something mile walk with Tahn Manapo as a recce for a fund raising walk they were thinking of organising. And then he was at Bhavana Dhamma for a weekend retreat. This was totally unexpected and just goes to show how you can never be sure of anything.

Sad as it is, I hope – and I’m sure Simon would have hoped too – that this might be a wake-up call to not take our time for granted and not to waste it.

Simon’s funeral will be at 3 pm on Tuesday, July 29th at Oakley Wood Crematorium, the South Chapel.

A week ago Saturday three friends from Thailand stopped by for the meal here on their way up north. Ven. Ajahn Jundee is a senior disciple of Ajahn Chah and the Abbot of a very beautiful monastery where I sometimes stay, to the east of Bangkok in Chonburi. Ven. Ajahn Nyanadhammo is from Australia but has lived for many years in Thailand and was for five or six years the Abbot of Wat Pah Nanachaht. He’s moved from there now to a new monastery that he’s built on the edge of Kow Yai National Park. These two senior monks were accompanied by Tahn Moshe and with them from Amaravati came Ajahn Vimalo who back in Hampstead days was known to us as Paul Windmill. They were driven by Alan Yearling who was once Ven. Aranyapo. After the meal we walked over to Bhavana Dhamma and had a cup of tea there before strolling back to see them back into their car and on their way. It was a lovely occasion and I was so pleased that they found the time to visit.

Years ago when I started going occasionally to the old Thai Temple at East Sheen, not far from Richmond, the monks used occasionally to take their guests to Kew Gardens. I’d never been until two days ago. We have someone staying from Thailand, Kew was mentioned and so on Monday, straight after the meal off we went. What a marvellous place and what a wonderful afternoon.

The picture is of me under a Ginko Biloba that Queen Mary planted in, I think, 1927. It looks like they’re pretty slow growing so the little one that I can see from my window back here at the Forest Hermitage has a long way yet to go.

What a great place is Kew for a forest monk to wander in.

At last week’s Angulimala Workshop there was almost universal dismay when I announced that because the importers had gone out of business we had no Buddha Rupas for chaplains to take away and offer their Buddhist prisoners. The next day I decided something had to be done. So I sat down to some determined Googling and eventually turned up a site that displayed a picture of a Buddha Rupa that looked identical with the type that Security at the Prison Service gave their blessing to and which we have been giving out for a number of years now. I rang the lady and learnt that they were expecting a container delivery of these and other things from Thailand on Wednesday. On Friday we went to have a look and discovered a wonderful Aladdin’s Cave of fabulous Buddha Rupas of all shapes and sizes as well as other treasures mostly from Northern Thailand. And only an hour and a half from here! As you can see from the pictures Roots Emporium is only a little shop, but next to it there is a lean-to building and both were crammed, floor to ceiling with hardly space to move around and look at the fabulous things they contain. What was remarkable too was that it hardly felt as if you were in a commercial establishment. That meant a lot to me because I really don’t like seeing people making money out of Buddha Rupas and Dhamma books. Not only that but we were offered a very generous discount. And so we came away laden with small Buddha Rupas of the kind we were looking for and some much larger ones for Buddhist shrines and multifaith rooms in some of the prisons.

As I said in my last post, last week was big for Buddhists throughout the world and a pretty busy few days for me too. As you might have read in the previous post, on Saturday, May 17th, we joined the London Fo Guang Temple for their annual celebration in Leicester Square and then raced back to make sure everything was ready for our big event the following day. Thankfully, Samanain and a few trusty helpers had done a great job and apart from a few last minute adjustments the next morning all we had to do was hope that the weather would buck up, dry up and the sun would come out.

So, last Sunday we held our celebration of the Birth, Enlightenment and Parinibbana of the Buddha. We had a good crowd, plenty of good food, and after the almsround and we’d all eaten we circumambulated one of the Buddha Rupas in the garden. In the picture we’re just setting off after I’ve finished trying to persuade everyone to be meditative, mindful and to please not get lost.

In the afternoon when it was all over we had a meeting of the committee of the Buddha-Dhamma Fellowship, that’s the outfit that formally looks after the place.

Then in the early evening Tahn Manapo and I jumped in the mean green machine that is the monastery car and set off for Oxford with Larry, who’d come to stay and drive for me for a few days, behind the wheel. We were going to a fund raising event for Save the Children in Burma that Aung San Suu Kyi’s son and a handful of Burmese and friends had organised at a school on the outskirts of Oxford. They’d asked me to say a few words which I did. I’ve heard since that they raised about £6000.

Monday was of course the actual Visakha Puja Day. I had accepted an invitation to join a celebration at Haverigg Prison in the evening, so I left Tahn Manapo to take the Monday sitting and shortly after 2 pm Larry and I set off for the southern edge of the Lake District. As you might imagine the M6 wasn’t much fun but the last part of the three and a half hour drive was quite beautiful. I got there just in time for the six o’clock start and I was made very welcome by the Governor, the chaplaincy and the men who packed the place out to enjoy the occasion and to hear me tell the story of the Buddha and afterwards the story of Angulimala and his meeting with the Buddha. It was a great evening but over all too soon and by eight o’clock we were back on the road for another three and a half hours.

On Tuesday, it was off to two more prisons, Gartree in the afternoon and Stocken in the evening.

Wednesday I didn’t do very much and Larry went back to Wales.

Thursday was again a quiet day pottering about in my garden and office. Then in the evening Nui took Tahn Manapo and I to a meeting of Warwick University Buddhist Society. It’s exams time and so attendance was practically rock bottom and it might have been the last meeting for this term and the academic year. A pity.

On Friday a very nice chap called Tom came to see me about helping with some driving and we agreed that he would start by taking me to Grendon and Springhill Prisons on Tuesday. So on that front, what with him and Larry, things are looking up at last. Then in the evening Maggie Dou, a very nice Chinese girl who used to be at Warwick Uni, came up from London to stay for a couple of nights at Bhavana Dhamma. She’s now qualified as a solicitor and later this year having joined a London law firm that has branches in China she will be going back to Shanghai. Our loss but Shanghai’s gain.

Not much happened on Saturday. Just the usual, a few phone calls and stuff to do with prisons and the Buddhist Chaplaincy for the Armed Forces Endorsing Authority.

And today Hema Hirani and her sisters came to see me. That was nice. Hema is also ex Warwick and formerly part of a fairly notorious group who used to run the WU Buddhist Society. They stayed chatting for a bit, then went over to Bhavana Dhamma for tea with Maureen. Later on they came back, said goodbye and then Hema successfully manoeuvred Mark’s little red car out of the carpark and down the drive and off they went back to London.

And that was the week that was!

After an early meal we raced down to London this morning to attend the Annual Buddha’s Birthday Celebration in London’s Leicester Square. Like last year we were delayed by the crowds converging on Wembley for the Cup Final and so we arrived too late for the procession through China Town. Actually we didn’t mind that as it was raining and we got wet enough nipping through the pedestrianised bit from where we had jumped out of the car in St Martin’s Lane. I had been asked to give a short address and I focussed mostly on the hope that the Buddha’s message brings us for a better and happier life. This, of course, is a big weekend for Buddhists throughout the world. Theravadans like us celebrate the Birth, Enlightenment and Passing of the Buddha, while for some other schools it’s the Enlightenment only and for our Chinese friends of the London Fo Guang Temple it’s the Birth that they celebrate at this time. And their way of doing it is to ceremonially bathe the images of the child who later grew up to leave his princely estate and eventually win full Enlightenment to become the Buddha. We were each of us invited to go forward and bathe an image. The images of the child prince show him pointing to the earth and to the heavens as he declared that this would be his last birth.

Nui, who works at the Butterfly Farm in Stratford, brought us a present of a chrysalis. There it is on the right, that silver pod. And next to it you can see what came out of it. We haven’t given it a name and we don’t know if it’s a he or a she, nor do I know the species but I’ll find out. If we want to give it a name we’ll have to hurry as it won’t long be with us, it can only live for a few days. How about this for a rebirth, it has no mouth!

I’m in a bit of a mess!

I should have been setting off for Grendon Prison about now but Nick, who usually once a week takes time after work to drive me, sent me a text to say he couldn’t leave the office this evening.

I’m lucky that I’ve got Ian and Nick, who between them usually manage a day and an evening each week, and lately Tomasz has been able to help with an evening, but I’m afraid it’s not enough and my prison work is really suffering.

I desperately need a man to drive for me three days a week. They could be three consecutive days with whoever’s driving staying overnight here for two or three nights, or if it were someone more local whatever days suited, or it could be more than one person between them making up the three days.

If there’s anyone out there who thinks they could help or knows someone, please get in touch.

I’m sure that many friends of The Forest Hermitage will be sorry to hear of the death on Thursday of Rosemary Alcock.

Before a long stay in hospital where she caught one of their infamous bugs, Rosemary had been a bright, cheerful, lively lady who brought so much fun into our lives. Her generosity was boundless and we often joked that if ever she heard or believed we needed or would like something at the factories producing it all leave would be cancelled and the staff would be put on overtime to meet her demands. After her health deteriorated she could only manage to get out here once a week but her sense of humour and plain speaking never left her and even in hospital she had some wicked things to say about the larger members of staff.

Her input here in years gone by was huge. She was a real diamond. And it’s been sad to see her fade but there it is that’s what we have to face and accept as we age and our bodies begin to fail.

Her last couple of months were spent in a home near Cambridge where she could be cared for and be close to her sister. There, at first, she brightened up and seemed much happier but the damage was done and by the time I saw her last Sunday she was very frail. She would have been eighty in December.

It’s been wonderful to have known her. Rosemary has brightened all our lives and I hope that through all the care she has lavished on others and all the good things she has done she will enjoy a favourable rebirth and in time come to know the secure peace of Nibbana.

Songkran is known to most visitors to Thailand as the Water Festival. In fact it’s the Thai, Burmese and Sri Lankan New Year. Its origins go way back to ancient India where it may have been a sort of Spring festival. As such its timing resonates well with us and the fresh, new growth we’re beginning see around us, the greening of the hedgerows and the blossoming of the rich variety of fruit trees in our gardens. To mark this renewal the Thais traditionally pay their respects by bathing their elders, beginning with the Buddha and it’s from that that the well-known water throwing progresses.

It’s become a tradition for us to celebrate Songkran both here at The Forest Hermitage and in Nottingham at Yod and Nid’s YodSiam Thai Restaurant. This year the Songkran Day fell on a Sunday so Yod decided to ask us to go to him the day before and then the next day we did it all again here. Both were wonderful days, even if the slightly chilly weather did reduce the water spillage somewhat!

There are pictures here of the day at YodSiam on the 12th and here of our celebration at The Forest Hermitage on 13th of April.