A fortnight ago we had an early meal and then Tahn Manapo and I were driven down to London, to Richmond to be precise, where in an hotel on Richmond Hill we conducted the naming ceremony for little Thea-Marie, the late John Garrie’s great granddaughter. Then following the naming, Tamsen, John’s granddaughter, was invited to be the little girl’s parent-guide.

In the picture, standing to the right of Tahn Manapo, is Graham, John’s grandson and the father of the child; then, sitting on the floor, is Graham’s mother and John’s daughter, Gail; then next but one is Tamsen, Gail’s daughter and John’s granddaughter; finally, seated with her back to the camera is Calleigh-Marie, Thea’s mother.

John Garrie had been amongst the first Buddhists I ever met when sometime towards the end of 1966 I stumbled into the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara on Haverstock Hill. As I was then, he was also an actor but older than me and already well established in his Buddhist practice. At that time I didn’t get to know him terribly well but when in 1977 after almost six years in Thailand I returned to London and to the Hampstead Vihara with Ajahn Chah, who should appear on the doorstep but John. By then he had begun to establish himself as a Dhamma and meditation teacher in his own right and with a growing body of students had established the Sati Society. He rapidly hit it off well with Ajahn Chah and soon we were seeing quite a lot of him. Later on, after Ajahn Chah had returned to Thailand, he invited me for a few days to his Summer Session at a decaying private school that he had hired for the purpose in Sussex and even later on when I had moved to the Isle of Wight he came and stayed a few days with me there. John had been an admirer of Ananda Bodhi and so when the Burmese monk who had ordained Ananda Bodhi in Rangoon came here to build the pagoda in our garden John and his students came over to lend a hand. Particularly now, at this time I think of him because tomorrow is our annual celebration at the Springhill Buddha Grove and it was after such an occasion in 1998 that I saw him last, in hospital and just two days before he died. I liked John immensely and got on well with him and so I was so delighted to be asked to conduct this ceremony and to meet his great granddaughter, her mother and John’s grandson, his granddaughter and to see again his daughter, Gail.

Yesterday, Saturday, we had the honour of a visit from the Buddhist Television Network from South Korea. They have been visiting various Buddhist places, first on the Continent and now in England, filming for a documentary on the development of Buddhism in Europe.

The Buddhist Television Newtwork (BTN) was established in Seoul in 1994 and began nationwide broadcasting in South Korea in 1995. In 2005 they began broadcasting in the US as well as extending their broadcasting hours to a full day in Korea. In 2006 they expanded their US broadcasting to a full day and this year began Internet broadcasting.

They were with us for about four and a half hours and in that time, after some lunch, they filmed an interview with me, then filmed various parts of the Forest Hermitage, before going across to Bhavana Dhamma to film a day retreat that was in progress over there. It was quite a small team of three, the producer, a cameraman, and a very competent young woman called Emi, who was the Director of the Production Team and also the interpreter for the other two.

I can’t now remember all the questions that they put to me in the interview but I do remember that it began with them asking how I had become interested in Buddhism and how and why I became a monk. Then they had observed that Buddhism in Europe, unlike in the East, was largely lay led and they asked me what I thought about that, which led me to express my concerns and reasons for founding TBSUK. They asked me a bit about what I teach and I told them that as well as meditation I encourage the observance of the Five Precepts.  And I told them how sorry I am that amongst some Buddhists I’ve become almost notorious for advocating abstinence from alcohol and drugs as a proper interpretation of the fifth, especially when we have a world-wide drugs and alcohol problem causing untold harm and misery to millions and costing an unimaginable fortune that could be solved at a stroke by proper observance of the fifth precept. All right, not everyone is going to do it but at least the Buddhists could.

The sun shone and when we went over to Bhavana Dhamma the garden there was so beautiful with earnest meditators silently padding up and down their meditation paths.

It was a lovely afternoon and I was so pleased to be able to welcome the Korean Buddhist Television Network to The Forest Hermitage.

The Theravada Buddhist Sangha in the UK (TBSUK) is committed to two meetings a year, one in March and the second in August and both this year have been in Birmingham. The March meeting was at the Burmese Birmingham Buddhist Vihara and this week, on Wednesday, August 12th, our second meeting of the year was at the Sri Lankan Maha Vihara.

Representing eleven temples there were present Thai, Sri Lankan, Burmese and British monks, sixteen in all with one Nepalese.

We were given a very warm welcome by the head of the Maha Vihara, Venerable Kassapa and once the formalities were over we had a good discussion that ranged over a number of matters. One of course that comes up at every meeting is the new Points Based Immigration System (PBS). Some temples reported long delays in the processing of their applications to be Registered Sponsors and inevitably that has meant complications for some monks needing to renew their visas. There was also still confusion about some of the details of the system and concern that the Government still intends to have an English language requirement for Tier 5.

The next meeting will be at the Burmese Temple in Wembley at 3 pm on March 10th, 2010.

On Wednesday Maureen started her car without realising it was still in reverse, in a flash it sprang backwards and connected rather violently with a substantial railing. Luckily no one was injured but the car is a write-off. Never mind, another lesson in impermanence and suffering.

Below is the damaged railing and another car in the lay-by where Maureen’s was just before it sprang backwards and rearranged both the railing and the back of the car.

All those years ago at Drama Centre I remember the basic rule was Respect for the Work. And that included respect for and care of the workplace. I can’t be sure now but I think it was Stanislavsky, the great Russian director, who talked about the discipline of sweeping the stage before you began rehearsal.

That dictum, to sweep the stage, came back to me the other day in a prison as I waited in a dirty room for my group to arrive. There’d been no time for the chapel orderly to clean up for us so remembering ‘to sweep the stage’ I looked around for the hoover. In the event the men came in before I’d done anything and so they got the job and with it a little practical instruction in respecting their workplace.

Then last week, on Wednesday, in the middle of the seven-day retreat he was teaching, Tahn Manapo had his weekly group as usual and asked me to fill in for him and sit with his retreatants at Bhavana Dhamma. So I dutifully plodded over there in the rain and did as I was asked. Needing to get myself ready for the wet return journey I asked the retreatants to leave the Shrine Room building before me and then it was that I observed some of them just getting up and leaving their cushions and stools where they’d sat. Well I’ve seen meditation and shrine rooms before resembling abandoned campsites where meditators have gone for their breaks and stood up and left, letting the blankets they’d draped themselves with fall from their shoulders and leaving their stools, their cushions and everything else just where they were and I don’t approve. That is not how you respect your meditation work and the place where you do it. So I had those cushions and stools collected up and put away.

Here too it’s ‘Respect for the Work’, and the workplace.

A few weeks ago we had too much rubbish for our wheely bins and had to put out some in an old fashioned dustbin. When the bloke who collects the rubbish arrived to empty them Maureen just happened to be there and hear the polite refusal to even touch our dustbin. Apparently it was more than the chap’s job was worth because if an agent in an unmarked car snapped him laying a finger on our old dustbin he would be sacked. So when he’d emptied the wheely bins this strapping fellow stood there and watched while seventy-nine year old Maureen emptied the dustbin into a wheely bin which he could then empty into his dustcart or whatever you call it now!

All conditioned things are impermanent, including pretty little Jack Russells. Last Wednesday in the middle of a busy week – I was in and out of six prisons in five days and attended a Burmese memorial in London on Saturday – my little Tommy Trouble died. It was just six and a half weeks since he had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and eleven years and four months since he had come into my life on March 17th, 1998. He was a frightened little chap then and not at all used to people. The slightest thing would alarm him. I couldn’t even raise my voice to call him, if I did he would run away. I’d got him because Oscar, my big Doberman was so upset at the loss of Toby, the first dog I had here, and I couldn’t bear to see Oscar so depressed. But Tommy was clearly in Oscar’s eyes no replacement for the friend he’d worshipped. Poor Tommy, he was such a pretty little fellow but clearly had had not the best of beginnings. He soon got the measure of me and later had no fear of me whatsoever and whether it suited me or not would do as he pleased. He so much wanted to be accepted and loved and yet he could be so difficult. He had various nicknames, Tommy Trouble was one and another was Ajahn Tommy because he could be such a teacher of patience. As Oscar aged and shortly before he died I acquired Ben and then Ben and Tommy would play together. It often seemed that Tommy would egg Ben on to pull something down that was well out of his reach and then the pair of them could rip it up. I would come back to find all kinds of mayhem but the worst was when Ben had taken the discarded and full hoover bag out of the flip-top bin and they had had a whale of a time trashing it! He gave me some frights too. Once, late at night, I was walking him and Oscar in the long grass by the river and Tommy was having to keep up by sort of bunny-hopping through the grass. The trouble was he couldn’t see where he was going and all of a sudden with a loud plop he landed in the river at the bottom of a steep bank. Fortunately I was just able to reach him with my stick and hook him up the bank to where I could grab him. I’ve often wondered how I would have felt if he’d been swept away and I’d had to come back without him. He was a very independent little chap and life without him is already quite different. In the lead up to his passing he obviously wasn’t well but for the most part he didn’t seem too uncomfortable and I’m glad to say he didn’t appear to suffer overmuch.

So thanks Tommy and have a good rebirth.

This was the last picture I took of him, lying in the sun the morning of the day he died.

Made it! Sixty-five today.

The other day I said to some schoolgirls who asked me if we celebrated birthdays that there was a time when I didn’t bother much with my own and used to feel rather self-conscious about it. I only changed as my birthdays began to be something of an achievement. But after this one I think I’ll go back to trying to ignore them. The contemplation of aging is healthy and useful up to a point but if you think too much about getting old, you get old and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

Forty years ago when I was in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead at the National Theatre, I remember Guildenstern used to ask the Player King, “Whatever happens to old actors?” “Nothing,” shot back the reply, “they just go on acting.” Now when people ask me what happens to old monks I borrow and adapt that quotation a little. “Nothing,” I say, ” they just go on monking.”

I must say, I’ve had a very nice birthday. I had a few cards and many birthday wishes, especially on Facebook, and a couple of nice presents. So thank you all very much.

Asalha Puja, the anniversary of the Buddha’s first sermon when he set rolling the Wheel of the Dhamma, fell this year on July 7th. And on the following day we entered the Vassa for this year. The Buddha’s first sermon is important not just because it was the first time he attempted to offer others the fruits of his Enlightenment and guide them towards a similar experience but also because it contains the Buddha’s essential messsage, the Middle Way, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.  The Vassa or Punsah is the three month long Rains Retreat that the Buddha ordered all bhikkhus to observe every year. It was originally his response to complaints that the growing number of bhikkhus were damaging the crops as they wandered from place to place but as the years have passed it’s grown into a time of stability for Buddhist monasteries when more formal instruction and practice can be observed. As usual our publice celebration had to take place on a Sunday and we chose the Sunday after, July 12th. Perhaps because the weather seemed not to be able to make up its mind, the turnout was not the largest we’ve known but the sun did finally agree to shine and we had a very lovely time of it.

As well as the customary supplies, £375 was collected towards the day to day expenses of the monastery and there as a useful discussion about what it costs to keep the place going. Anumodana!

Last Saturday about forty supporters of The Forest Hermitage led by Ven. Manapo toiled up Snowdon in atrocious weather on a sponsored walk to raise funds and help see off what is still owed over the purchase of Bhavana Dhamma (Wood Cottage). Not wishing to show any of these young people up by beating them to the top and in any case, not having been invited, I stayed behind to mind the monastery.  Here, apart from the threat of a shower or two, the weather was lovely, warm and sunny, but on Snowdon, apparently, it was another story.  They all got very wet and the cafe at the top was so packed that when he got to it poor Tahn Manapo couldn’t get inside, so he had to do the return trip back down the mountain without the benefit of the hot drink that others had enjoyed.  Fortunately no one came to any harm and most I think had a pretty good time facing the elements and watching their minds I hope.  Certainly it was a great achievement and a tremendous help to us to keep the Buddha’s precious Dhamma available here.  I am aware of course that a number of those walkers had also been on retreats at Bhavana Dhamma and know what a precious place it is.  We don’t know yet how much was raised as money and cheques are still coming in but I’ll keep updating the total in the page under the Latest News tab.

Well done everybody and Anumodana!