Mostly my weekly newsletters for prisoners

June began for me with a very busy weekend.

On Saturday, June 1st we had the second of this year’s quarterly Angulimala workshops for Buddhist prison chaplains. This particular one was rather special because our guest for the afternoon was Nick Hardwick CBE, HMI Chief Inspector of Prisons. We have been fortunate in the past to have had the three previous Chief Inspectors, Judge Stephen Tumim, Sir David (now Lord) Ramsbotham and Dame Anne Owers come here to speak at our workshops and I was pleased that we were able to continue the tradition with the latest holder of the post. I must say that Nick Hardwick was very generous with his time and gave us a very enjoyable, useful and inspiring afternoon.

These workshops are long days for me because not only is there the preparation but then the meetings run from 10 o’clock in the morning right through until 7 or 8 in the evening. So you can imagine I might prefer to take it easy the day after but that’s not always possible and on June 2nd I had to leave early for my first Sunday of the month Dana and Dhamma Desana at Khun Peter’s restaurant near Baker Street in London. And when that was over I had to make a pretty swift return in time to be at Coventry Cathedral for a service to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation. So, you can see it was a busy weekend.

A few days later on June 4th we had a visit by Luang Por Kumpong, a senior monk of Wat Pah Pong, who came for the meal with a group of monks from Amaravati. I have known LP Kumpong since 1973 when newly arrived he was still in white and sent over by Luang Por Chah from Wat Pah Pong to Wat Keun to spend his probationary period with us there. It was a pleasure to see him and to welcome him to The Forest Hermitage, Wat Pah Santidham.

I’m mainly only setting down here the principal events of these few weeks, you can take for granted that every week on usually three days I am out and about with my prison visits and odd moments here are also occupied with Buddhist prison matters. It was after one of these visits on June 19th, which just happened to be the first anniversary of the death of my old friend Victor Spinetti, that I called on his brother who lives not far from here and we spent a lovely couple of hours remembering Victor. Then the next day I was off down to the Isle of Wight to visit the Buddhists in the two remaining prisons there.

Then we had Ajahn Cittagutto come for a week. He was the first monk to ordain here and now lives in Northern Thailand. Every year he visits his family in Germany and comes over here to see me. The day he left, Ajahn Manapo embarked on another tudong walk. We packed him off on a train down to Weymouth where he was met and driven to his starting point somewhere nearby. At Bradford-0n-Avon he ran into the owner of a Thai restaurant who with others is in the process of creating a small temple in an old building near the river. He stopped there for two nights and while he was there I went down to see him and the place and meet the good people setting this up. The result of this chance encounter is that from September Ajahn Manapo will be going down there every Monday for five weeks to teach meditation and then we’ll see what happens after that. His walk ended a few days later back here in time to be here before Tahn Nyanavisuddhi returned to Amaravati. We very much enjoyed having Ven. Nyanavisuddhi here and I hope he’ll be back.

By this time we were well into July and the following week was a birthday week. Khun Ting’s was on the 16th but she invited us to her restaurant in Nottingham on the 15th. That was also the day that work began on the new gate. Then it was my birthday on the 17th and as usual people were very generous. There was one huge cake presented when we were at Khun Ting’s and another on the day with cards and presents. Really, it’s amazing! I have to pinch myself to remind myself that at 69 I am now in my seventieth year!

That evening and the next day it was back to prisons. In the evening of the 17th I was at Rye Hill and on the 18th I went all the way up to the Lake District to see the Buddhist group in Haverigg Prison. Afterwards we had a little drive around Lake Windermere which was nice.

Of course my special reason for making that extra effort to go to Haverigg and at other prisons as well as here was because we were celebrating Asalha Puja or as it’s sometimes known now, Dhamma Day. This is the anniversary of the Buddha’s First Sermon. The actual day was Monday, July 22nd with the Entry to the Vassa the following day but our celebration at The Forest Hermitage was on Sunday, July 21st and a very lovely day it was too.

June began for me with a very busy weekend.

On Saturday, June 1st we had the second of this year’s quarterly Angulimala workshops for Buddhist prison chaplains. This particular one was rather special because our guest for the afternoon was Nick Hardwick CBE, HMI Chief Inspector of Prisons. We have been fortunate in the past to have had the three previous Chief Inspectors, Judge Stephen Tumim, Sir David (now Lord) Ramsbotham and Dame Anne Owers come here to speak at our workshops and I was pleased that we were able to continue the tradition with the latest holder of the post. I must say that Nick Hardwick was very generous with his time and gave us a very enjoyable, useful and inspiring afternoon.

These workshops are long days for me because not only is there the preparation but then the meetings run from 10 o’clock in the morning right through until 7 or 8 in the evening. So you can imagine I might prefer to take it easy the day after but that’s not always possible and on June 2nd I had to leave early for my first Sunday of the month Dana and Dhamma Desana at Khun Peter’s restaurant near Baker Street in London. And when that was over I had to make a pretty swift return in time to be at Coventry Cathedral for a service to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation. So, you can see it was a busy weekend.

A few days later on June 4th we had a visit by Luang Por Kumpong, a senior monk of Wat Pah Pong, who came for the meal with a group of monks from Amaravati. I have known LP Kumpong since 1973 when newly arrived he was still in white and sent over by Luang Por Chah from Wat Pah Pong to Wat Keun to spend his probationary period with us there. It was a pleasure to see him and to welcome him to The Forest Hermitage, Wat Pah Santidham.

I’m mainly only setting down here the principal events of these few weeks, you can take for granted that every week on usually three days I am out and about with my prison visits and odd moments here are also occupied with Buddhist prison matters. It was after one of these visits on June 19th, which just happened to be the first anniversary of the death of my old friend Victor Spinetti, that I called on his brother who lives not far from here and we spent a lovely couple of hours remembering Victor. Then the next day I was off down to the Isle of Wight to visit the Buddhists in the two remaining prisons there.

Then we had Ajahn Cittagutto come for a week. He was the first monk to ordain here and now lives in Northern Thailand. Every year he visits his family in Germany and comes over here to see me. The day he left, Ajahn Manapo embarked on another tudong walk. We packed him off on a train down to Weymouth where he was met and driven to his starting point somewhere nearby. At Bradford-0n-Avon he ran into the owner of a Thai restaurant who with others is in the process of creating a small temple in an old building near the river. He stopped there for two nights and while he was there I went down to see him and the place and meet the good people setting this up. The result of this chance encounter is that from September Ajahn Manapo will be going down there every Monday for five weeks to teach meditation and then we’ll see what happens after that. His walk ended a few days later back here in time to be here before Tahn Nyanavisuddhi returned to Amaravati. We very much enjoyed having Ven. Nyanavisuddhi here and I hope he’ll be back.

By this time we were well into July and the following week was a birthday week. Khun Ting’s was on the 16th but she invited us to her restaurant in Nottingham on the 15th. That was also the day that work began on the new gate. Then it was my birthday on the 17th and as usual people were very generous. There was one huge cake presented when we were at Khun Ting’s and another on the day with cards and presents. Really, it’s amazing! I have to pinch myself to remind myself that at 69 I am now in my seventieth year!

That evening and the next day it was back to prisons. In the evening of the 17th I was at Rye Hill and on the 18th I went all the way up to the Lake District to see the Buddhist group in Haverigg Prison. Afterwards we had a little drive around Lake Windermere which was nice.

Of course my special reason for making that extra effort to go to Haverigg and at other prisons as well as here was because we were celebrating Asalha Puja or as it’s sometimes known now, Dhamma Day. This is the anniversary of the Buddha’s First Sermon. The actual day was Monday, July 22nd with the Entry to the Vassa the following day but our celebration at The Forest Hermitage was on Sunday, July 21st and a very lovely day it was too.

And now for the very, merry month of May and to carry on from where I left off last month, I was out of action for a week or two, nothing serious, just some bug or other but it meant that despite at the last minute saying I would go to receive that honorary doctorate from Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, at the very last minute I cancelled – a bit disappointing but never mind – and now I’ll have to wait until I go in January to receive it.

But not going to Thailand did enable me to fulfil another important and long standing engagement. Off and on, for years it seems, and encouraged by a former pupil, there has been the occasional contact between me and Wellington College with a view to my talking to their students and perhaps providing some Buddhist chaplaincy support. At last I had a date to speak there in chapel, it was agreed long before I knew about receiving the honorary doctorate and it was the same weekend. Had I gone to Thailand Ajahn Manapo would have stood in for me – and might well have done better than me – but not going meant I could do it. So I was there to give a ten minute address in chapel on Sunday evening, the 12th May and the following Thursday I was back, again in their magnificent chapel, to give a longer talk followed by questions, which was very stimulating and enjoyable. In case you don’t know, Wellington College is a large, well-endowed public school in Berkshire that used to be I believe for the sons of military officers but is now a modern co-ed establishment with a branch in China. It’s not far from Broadmoor, where I’m the Buddhist chaplain, and was founded by Queen Victoria at around the same time as Broadmoor in the mid nineteenth century and named after the great Duke of Wellington.

The Sangha presence here has been boosted for a while with the welcome arrival of Tahn Nyanavisuddhi who has come over from Amaravati to stay for a couple of months. When I was there at the end of last year for the memorial for John Coleman and at that time on my own here, he very kindly offered to come and help me out and even though Ajahn Manapo unexpectedly came back in February he still came but it is only until just before Vassa which he has to spend at Amaravati.

Usually in May falls the full moon of the ancient lunar month of Vesakha when we remember the Birth, Enlightenment and Final Passing of the Buddha. The Pali scriptures record that each of these events occurred on a Vesakha Full Moon with the Enlightenment, according to traditional dating having taken place 2,551 years ago when he was thirty-five. This year the Vesakha Full Moon was on May 24th and on several days before and after I was involved with Vesak celebrations in the prisons, at Chithurst and at The Forest Hermitage. I hadn’t been to Chithurst since June 1999 but this year I was invited to go for their Vesakha Puja day and give the Dhamma Desana, which I did. That was on May 19th and the week after it was our turn and a very good day we had too with an impressive turnout of students from Warwick Uni, friends old and new and particularly, as every Vesak, our old friends who for years have run the Liverpool Buddhist Society. More pictures are here.

Otherwise, everything carries on as normal.

And now for the very, merry month of May and to carry on from where I left off last month, I was out of action for a week or two, nothing serious, just some bug or other but it meant that despite at the last minute saying I would go to receive that honorary doctorate from Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, at the very last minute I cancelled – a bit disappointing but never mind – and now I’ll have to wait until I go in January to receive it.

But not going to Thailand did enable me to fulfil another important and long standing engagement. Off and on, for years it seems, and encouraged by a former pupil, there has been the occasional contact between me and Wellington College with a view to my talking to their students and perhaps providing some Buddhist chaplaincy support. At last I had a date to speak there in chapel, it was agreed long before I knew about receiving the honorary doctorate and it was the same weekend. Had I gone to Thailand Ajahn Manapo would have stood in for me – and might well have done better than me – but not going meant I could do it. So I was there to give a ten minute address in chapel on Sunday evening, the 12th May and the following Thursday I was back, again in their magnificent chapel, to give a longer talk followed by questions, which was very stimulating and enjoyable. In case you don’t know, Wellington College is a large, well-endowed public school in Berkshire that used to be I believe for the sons of military officers but is now a modern co-ed establishment with a branch in China. It’s not far from Broadmoor, where I’m the Buddhist chaplain, and was founded by Queen Victoria at around the same time as Broadmoor in the mid nineteenth century and named after the great Duke of Wellington.

The Sangha presence here has been boosted for a while with the welcome arrival of Tahn Nyanavisuddhi who has come over from Amaravati to stay for a couple of months. When I was there at the end of last year for the memorial for John Coleman and at that time on my own here, he very kindly offered to come and help me out and even though Ajahn Manapo unexpectedly came back in February he still came but it is only until just before Vassa which he has to spend at Amaravati.

Usually in May falls the full moon of the ancient lunar month of Vesakha when we remember the Birth, Enlightenment and Final Passing of the Buddha. The Pali scriptures record that each of these events occurred on a Vesakha Full Moon with the Enlightenment, according to traditional dating having taken place 2,551 years ago when he was thirty-five. This year the Vesakha Full Moon was on May 24th and on several days before and after I was involved with Vesak celebrations in the prisons, at Chithurst and at The Forest Hermitage. I hadn’t been to Chithurst since June 1999 but this year I was invited to go for their Vesakha Puja day and give the Dhamma Desana, which I did. That was on May 19th and the week after it was our turn and a very good day we had too with an impressive turnout of students from Warwick Uni, friends old and new and particularly, as every Vesak, our old friends who for years have run the Liverpool Buddhist Society. More pictures are here.

Otherwise, everything carries on as normal.

Even seven hundred years ago such was the fame of April for its showers that Chaucer opened his Canterbury Tales with the memorable line, one of the few that I remember from my school days, ‘Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote.’ But this year there have been few sweet showers and the unseasonably cold weather has persisted so that at The Forest Hermitage, at the very end of the month, there’s hardly any blossom, the hedges are still not green and there’s been no sound of the cuckoo yet.

One of my main concerns at the end of last month and the beginning of this was with one of my tortoises. One day I discovered Speedy, the smaller and younger of the two, with something terribly wrong with his eye. It looked like something had given him real bash, it was swollen and bloody, so off he went to the vet. After a week or so of daily drops there was no improvement so then he had to have a minor operation for which he had to be anaesthetised. Still for a while there was no improvement but then all of a sudden his eye opened and he got better. I’m so pleased. He’s been with me nearly nineteen years and I love him dearly. Charlie, the other one who’s much bigger and older has been with me just twelve years and of course I love him too. Tortoises fascinate me and I do enjoy watching them. A recent improvement here has been to what I call the Tortoise Park where these two live. We’ve enlarged and improved the surround and reseeded it with grass and suitable weeds for them to graze and I’m ever so pleased with it.

April of course is when Songkran, the Thai and also the Burmese, Sri Lankan, Cambodian and Lao New Year falls. So we celebrated. First was at Khun Peter’s restaurant near Baker Street, when Ajahn Manapo accompanied me for my regular first Sunday of the month appearance there, this time to celebrate Songkran and to remember Khun Peter’s mother who had recently passed away. Next, the following Saturday, April 13th, we were at Khun Yod’s restaurant, YodSiam, in Nottingham. We do this every year but this year without Khun Yod who’s gone back to live in Thailand. We managed however and had a good time. As soon as we got back that afternoon it was all hands to setting up here for the following day. It was still cold but on the Sunday we did have some sun and a shower or two. The weather wasn’t good enough for the fairly liberal bathing of each other that usually characterises Songkran but we had an impressive turn out and another very good day. I was especially pleased that M.R. Adisorndej Sukhasvasti, the Minister from The Royal Thai Embassy was able to be with us.

The next thing I had to do that was a bit out of the ordinary was make an unexpected visit to Maidstone Prison to take a Memorial Service for a Buddhist prisoner who had recently died. On the way back I must say there were moments when I wondered whether the memorial for me might not be too far off. I knew the night before that I didn’t feel right and before we set off for Maidstone I reckoned I had some sort of flu–like thing hanging about me but I was all right on the way down and while I was there. The journey back was something else and I was jolly glad to get in and curl up in my kuti. And I’ve been poorly ever since, which is making it unlikely that I’ll be going to Thailand in May to receive an Honorary Doctorate from Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University. But we’ll see.

This March is going to be remembered for being very cold. We’ve had snow and night after night of freezing weather. It’s Easter and the snowdrops are still out and there are no daffodils. Summer time begins tonight but there’s been practically no sign of Spring yet.

Despite the cold we’ve carried on as normal with prison visits and some school visits and everything else we do here. The new sewage treatment plant is finally in and working and the ground around it has been roughly sculpted. It just needs a dressing of top soil now and some grass seed to ready it for the warmer weather that we still hope for.

On March 13th I went to Wat Santiwongsaram in Birmingham witn Ajahn Manapo to attend the latest meeting of the Theravada Buddhist Sangha in the UK (TBSUK). There was a good attendance from the Thais and from English that as well as Manapo and I also included Ajahn Amaro from Amaravati and Venerable Bodhidhamma of Satipanya Retreat. But there were no Burmese monks and only Ven. Seelawimala for the Sri Lankans. As usual our agenda included a discussion about the problems with Immigration and I reported that Lord Avebury had got a meeting for him and I with the Immigration Minister, Mark Harper, that so far had had to be postponed twice but would now take place a week the following Tuesday. Then we moved on to discuss the imprisonment of the Head Monk of Thames Vihara who has been convicted of sexually abusing a child and been sentenced to seven years in gaol. I argued vigorously for us not only to do something about this but be seen to be doing something. Of course we have no power to disrobe him or anything much except to declare him persona non grata and make abundantly clear that what he has done is despicable, utterly unacceptable and as well as illegal, a very serious offence in Vinaya. Thinking about what to do has led me to consider upgrading the status of TBSUK to something like that of a professional body that all Theravada temples and all Theravada monks should be registered with. In the meeting there was a certain amount of opposition to making a strong statement public because of a suggestion that he might appeal and win his appeal. While that could in theory happen, the rude and inescapable fact is that he has been tried in a British court of law and found guilty. Well, we did eventually agree to begin the process of upgrading TBSUK and we did agree that the short statement that I included in my blog last year could be used in temple newsletters and the like. Unfortunately we don’t yet have a national Buddhist newspaper or even blog so how far this will go I don’t know. The statement I wrote last year, by the way, was this: While we don’t want to jeopardize his appeal, nevertheless the Head Monk of the Thames Vihara has been found guilty of molesting a child and is in prison and we cannot ignore it. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular case we felt it important that we reassure our lay followers and supporters that behaviour of the kind of which he has been accused and convicted is totally unacceptable to us and as well as being against the law is a very serious breach of monastic discipline (Vinaya) from which neither age, seniority nor alleged attainment can absolve any bhikkhu.

On Tuesday, March 26th, with Luke driving, I went to London accompanied by our Thai nun here, Sister Khema, for the meeting with Mark Harper, the Immigration Minister. We were met at the Peer’s Entrance of the House of Lords by Lord Avebury and had time for a chat with him before proceeding through a maze of corridors to emerge eventually in Westminster Hall. Then down on the left, just past where the new stained glass window that was presented to the Queen last year is displayed, Lord Avebury led us through another door into a corridor of meeting rooms where Mark Harper was waiting for us flanked by three civil servants. It turned out to be a surprisingly useful meeting and when it was over and we went for a cup of tea we felt pretty pleased with our afternoon’s work. We didn’t get all we wanted but we got some and I’ll be reporting on this later after an exchange of correspondence. Afterwards Sister and I called at the Thai Embassy to brief the Minister, M.R. Adisorndej Sukhasvasti, and let him know how our meeting had gone.

Two days later I was in London again. This time it was prison stuff and I was attending a little conference about the National Prison Radio, a radio station run by prisoners for prisoners. It was a good afternoon with some interesting and entertaining presentations, notably an interview with Jonathon Aitken. He was very amusing and admitted that his imprisonment had been a great learning experience, so much so that when he got out and had to fill in his Whose Who form, for Education he put Eton, Oxford and HMP Belmarsh! The conference was held in the most amazing place, the home of The Magic Circle. That’s an association of professional and amateur magicians founded in 1908 and now with about 1500 members that includes many famous names including the Prince of Wales. Its HQ is down a grubby side street just off the Euston Road. It looks like an old warehouse, until you step through the door when you suddenly find yourself transported into a world of magic and illusion. There’s a pretty little theatre and a fascinating museum. I don’t know which I enjoyed more, the conference or the place.

The big event in February was Magha Puja which we celebrated on Sunday, the 24th. It was an impressive turnout that included a lot of Thai students from Warwick Uni and we were especially honoured by the presence of the Thai Ambassador with his wife and son. It was also a special occasion because just a few days before Ajahn Manapo had returned from sixteen months in Thailand and so it was a day too to warmly welcome him back.

The photo includes the Ambassador and his wife with Ajahn Manapo in the background.

In January I had almost three weeks away, when I went first to Cambodia with Ajahn Manapo, Joob, Palm and Ant for a quick tour of Angkor Wat.

Then we crossed back into the NE of Thailand in time for the Ajahn Chah Memorial day at Wat Nong Pah Pong and a few days at Wat Pah Nanachat.

Then it was down to Bangkok to give a talk at Sevanakarn building in Wat Patumkongka where I also met my old friend Sathienpong Wannapok as well as Matthew Richards and his wife Pen.

And that was followed by a few days looking at the sea,

before returning to Bangkok to give another talk and pay my respects to Somdet at Wat Sraket and then dashing to Ajahn Jundee’s impressive wat for Patimokkha just hours before getting the plane back to chilly London.

At Amaravati’s Royal Kathina.

A Kathina is the ceremony that may take place where suitable conditions are in place during the month that follows the Vassa and involves the presentation of robe cloth or a robe to the Sangha that then offers the robe sewn from the cloth or the robe to one deserving monk. A Royal Kathina is when the robe is offered by a monarch. This year in England a Royal Kathina was offered by His Majesty the King of Thailand in Devon on Sunday, November 18th and another a week later at Amaravati. During each ceremony a blessing is recited for the King and that is supposed to be done by a monk with the rank and title of a Chao Khun, which is why I was invited to both occasions. I had never before been to Hartridge Monastery, often referred to as the Devon Vihara, and so after the ceremony which was held in a local village hall I was pleased to spend an enjoyable hour there as well. Both occasions were well attended and raised impressive amounts of money, at Hartridge for the extension they are planning to build there, and at Amaravati to help meet the huge expense of running such a large and popular temple. I was well received at both and thoroughly enjoyed both occasions, and I was pleased to be of some service.

At the Devon Royal Kathina.

In an earlier blog, World Faiths & A Day in Wales for Victor Spinetti, I wrote  about taking Victor’s funeral in Wales, a private, family affair back in July. A memorial that they called A Life Crowded with Incident, a Salute to Victor Spinetti was then arranged for a wider gathering of his friends and fans in the Actors’ Church in Covent Garden for October 2nd. And for that, determined to be there if it was the last thing I did, I raised myself from my sick bed and went. And I’m so glad I did. It was a cracking afternoon. I was made so welcome by Victor’s family and sat with them in their reserved pews. Looking through the programme while we waited for it to begin – a delay we were told later that was caused by Ronnie Corbett getting locked in the lavatory – I saw that tributes were to be read by Ron Pickup who I’d worked with in my years at the National. At first, looking round, I couldn’t locate him but then I suddenly realised that that old man over there was him! I forget that I’m getting on a bit myself and some friends of my youth are even older. After that I was peering carefully at the elderly around me trying to see if behind their old masks there was someone I’d once known. Just across the aisle from me was an empty seat into which soon after it all began was ushered Sir Paul McCartney. Later on he had a nice story about Victor and his talent for making clouds disappear. I remember Victor telling me about the book, ‘How to Make Clouds Disappear’, he’d once found in a second-hand bookshop. Basically you just choose your cloud and stare at it. Sir Paul said that as he’d come out that morning he’d thought of Victor making clouds disappear and tried it, he’d selected his cloud and he looked at it, and looked at it, and looked at it – and it had got bigger, and bigger, and bigger! Another contributor was Barbara Windsor who told how she’d leapt to Victor’s defence when Joan Littlewood was having a go at him when they were in America with ‘Oh What a Lovely War!’ Hers was the first f word of the afternoon and at the end the clergyman hosting the show commented he’d never before heard so many f words in one afternoon in his church. Actors! When it was all over I had a word with Paul McCartney and asked him if he remembered me. Well, of course he didn’t but he was very nice and a bit later on before he left he came over and had another chat with me. I also had a word with Barbara Windsor who said to me, ‘Victor’s told us all about you.’ She, of course, had been to see Victor just a few days before he died when it had already been decided to ask me to take his funeral. Luckily the word had been put round for the ladies not to touch me – actors are very affectionate – so I didn’t have to avoid any hugs and kisses. Being back amongst a crowd of actors like that for the first time in over forty years I was struck by the camaraderie, the warmth and friendliness of everyone. The other thing that impressed me was that no one was recording it. I’m so used these days to seeing people videoing and photographing everything, anxious to store it all up for later and not living it as it’s happening! I don’t know whether it’s a generational thing, or the effect of a life in live theatre or what but at a tribute to a man who lived for the moment it was fitting – and a relief. Victor was proud of never having owned a watch and one chap who spoke said he could never understand how Victor knew what time it was. When he asked him, Victor’s reply, if I heard it correctly, was, ‘ the time is NOW – and I am in it!

Last Wednesday I had to attend a meeting of the Prison Service’s Chaplaincy Council and Regional Chaplains at a very nice Christian conference and retreat centre called St Katherine’s near the famous dock of the same name in the East End of London. Being not far from the Isle of Dogs, afterwards it took only a few minutes to nip through the tunnel and arrive at the big electronically operated gates that bar the entrance to a huge block of well appointed flats on the north bank of the river just along from Canary Wharf and close to where Brunel’s SS Great Western was built. Never having worked out how to operate these gates I did as I always do and slipped through behind someone who did and then made my way up to the seventh floor where my old friend and mentor from far-off student days was waiting to greet me.

Christopher Fettes was one of an extraordinary group of teachers who I found myself being taught and inspired by when at the tender age of seventeen I entered the Central School of Speech and Drama at Swiss Cottage to train as an actor. The head of my course was John Blatchley and when he had been forming his team and sought to recruit the maverick Stanislavsky teacher Harold Lang, Harold had made his acceptance conditional on Yat Malmgren being included, and with Yat came Christopher Fettes. Central at that time ran various courses and the whole place was presided over by a tall, elderly, ram-rod straight woman called Gwyneth Thurburn, who eventually, jealous of our devotion to Yat, dismissed him. John, Harold and Christopher then all resigned. By that time I was just ending my second year. When we heard the news we were devastated and resolved to try and persuade John, Yat, Harold and Christopher to somehow give us our final year. They agreed and less than three months later Drama Centre, London opened its doors in the halls of an old Methodist church at Chalk Farm.

Yat was unquestionably a great artist and a wonderful teacher and it was he and his work on the psychology of movement that made that place special. He died in 2002 at the age of 86 and there is very little on record, especially on the web, about him and his work. Fortunately Christopher has recently completed a book on Yat’s work and has agreed to my putting something on the web, so I hope this brief account and these photographs of Yat that Christopher gave me on Wednesday will be the beginning of a more complete and suitable tribute to a very remarkable man to whom I shall forever be indebted. These photos are of Yat towards the end of his life and as a young man.

I had better add that Yat’s work and example profoundly influenced me in the direction that I follow today. I remember in the flat at 1, Belsize Avenue forty-five years ago finding and looking at a book on Buddhism. Then in a letter that he wrote to me shortly after Yat’s death, Christopher said, “As I’m sure you recollect, Buddhism had affected him (Yat) profoundly at various stages in his career; never more so than towards the close of his life, when he had lost the school and with it an active career as a teacher. … Our school was about craftsmanship and its relation to art on the one hand, to life on the other; about the possible meaning and purpose of art itself. All that, it may well be said, has little or nothing to do with the world of ‘show business’. But practically everyone in the crematorium that afternoon was to some degree exercised by such ultimate questions. That they owe to Yat, who was one of those rare beings who clearly exemplify what they teach. You could put out your hand and touch goodness and integrity.”

On Sunday, September 13th, we held our annual celebration at the Buddha Grove in Spring Hill Prison. This was the first and by far the finest and most ambitious of the various Buddha groves and gardens that have been created in a number of English prisons. Some unfortunately have not lasted very long and have been dismantled or damaged but this at Spring Hill was built to last and has been in place since 1992, when on a bitterly cold night at the end of October, a large gathering that included the then Director General of the Prison Service assembled for its opening and dedication. Having sampled the soup that the prisoners made to warm everyone up, the Thai people that evening asked if in future they might be allowed to do the food and so ever since our celebration has included a marvellous Thai vegetarian meal for all the prisoners and guests as well as the Buddhist prisoners in the adjacent Grendon Prison. This year our Thai friends and supporters cooked for four hundred.

On Sunday, just as he was seventeen years ago when we opened the Buddha Grove, our Patron of Angulimala, Lord Avebury, was there to grace the occasion with his inspiring example of selfless service and dedication to the relief of those who are oppressed and in trouble and as usual offered us some wise words to reflect upon.

We were fortunate too to have the support and presence of monks from the Thai Buddhapadipa Temple in Wimbledon, the Oxford Vihara, the Kings Bromley Temple, Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey and of course the Forest Hermitage. And we were delighted that Professor Richard Gombrich was also able to be with us.

In in my speech I once again told how the Buddha Grove came to be built. Then as I try never to miss an opportunity to tell the story of Angulimala, after whom our Buddhist Prison Chaplaincy is named, I related how this awful mass murderer was tamed and converted by the Buddha, not by violence but by persuasion and especially by example. This amazing story reminds us that whatever terrible things someone might do or have done, it is not only that that they do and that that they’re capable of. People can and do and will change and everyone bears within them the seeds of an Enlightened being.

It was a marvellous occasion and I am so grateful to Peter Bennett, the Governor, to the prison staff, to the inmates, to everyone who worked so hard and who went to so much trouble and especially to Khun Yod and all the Thais who gave of their time and expertise and who worked so generously all afternoon in that kitchen. Anumodana!

We’ve just had a busy Angulimala weekend with the latest quarterly workshop for members of Angulimala’s team of Buddhist prison chaplains on Saturday and the annual celebration at the Buddha grove in Spring Hill Prison on Sunday.

At the workshop we had a short and successful AGM in the morning and then in the afternoon Martin Stephens from NOMS Interventions and Substance Misuse Group spoke to us about the courses that many prisoners have to complete. A very lively and useful exchange followed and our chaplains were able to express their concerns and criticisms of some of these programmes that do not sit well with Buddhist principles and practice.

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!

Just over a week ago at the Angulimala Workshop I told the story of an afternoon several years ago when I was sitting in the chaplaincy office at one of our major prisons looking up the list of Buddhists. While I was doing that, at the same time most of the Christian chaplains of various denominations were also in that rather large office and for a few minutes I was distracted by a conversation that had sprung up amongst them. It concerned the Ten Commandments. Now, as a schoolboy trying to be a devout Christian I could have recited all ten of those commandments and so I couldn’t help being pretty surprised that afternoon to hear that collection of diverse Christian chaplains that might have numbered as many as ten unable between them to remember all ten of the Ten Commandments. I remember thinking how unlike Buddhists who then I would have expected to have had similarly important lists of Buddhist precepts and teachings at the tips of their fingers, so to speak.

But times have been changing and with the New Age influence and perhaps a change in the way people are educated I notice now that many who attend Buddhist classes are not so inclined to commit things to memory and probably regard the lists of teachings that they might hear or come across in Buddhist texts as dry, unattractive and somehow apart from the feelings of love and peace that they’ve somehow come to associate with Buddhism. But Buddhism is not about feelings, or at least feelings however nice are not what we are trying to promote and certainly not what I want to draw attention to at this moment.

No one needs to learn everything that can be found in the manuals of Buddhism but to get anywhere you need to have some idea of how to get there and the better you know the way the quicker you will arrive, that’s obvious. So let me encourage you to learn and memorise at least some of the essential teachings and not to be afraid of the lists, they are invaluable mnemonic devices and useful too to contemplate and flesh out with your understanding and imagination.

URGENT NEED for a Live-In Helper

Rob, who will have been with us for just over a year cooking and driving, is to leave at the end of July to visit and care for his father in Zimbabwe.

By then we are anxious to have someone to take over cooking and general housekeeping. If that someone can drive that would be an advantage but Tom is set to return for the driving.

We offer accommodation and food, a beautiful place to stay and a great opportunity for some worthwhile practice.

If you think this might suit you, please get in touch as soon as possible.