we are infinitely fragile

Autumn reminds me of this. 


High in the air a multitude of paperthin leaves are flying, spreading wings in death, trembling high in the shocking blue sky. They are beautiful, the spider veins of the Autumn leaves, like wishes that reach for prayer. They are perfect, they are moving, they are a dance of pain, they tell us that things are coming, that things have passed. 


They tell me, they write in a bitter hand, that my mother is still gone, and I am still here, searching upwards, looking for her fingerprints on my destiny. 


I am that legacy. I am that open question that remains. I am the solace for the tears of my father, for the woes of my brother. I am open arms. My feet are planted in soils of unimaginable ancient narratives. I am grief embodied. I am walking wounded. 


Can I stand still here, in these Autumn fires? What courage can I muster, what agonies withstand? My mother, my home is gone. I am here. I am here. I am here. 


Right now, it's like this. 


Right. Now. Like. This. 


I am here. 

book notes: Phra Farang - an English monk in Thailand

I was recently in Thailand for a couple of weeks. I had so many unanswered questions about the culture and the ancient traditions of Buddhism. In an airport bookshop in Bangkok I picked up this slender volume and was interested immediately. Here was someone else with Western eyes considering this place.

This book is a humble, simple offering. Peter Robinson was a 45 year old businessman in London when his world was split open by the realisations that Buddhism brings. He took the path least travelled and found himself ordained in Bangkok, and then a practicing monk. This little book offers some insights into the next ten years of his life. It was published in 1997, and he has written a couple of others since.

The word "Phra" means monk, and the word "farang" means foreigner. Phra Peter grapples with integrating cultures and languages, sometimes with hilarious consequences. He also struggles with the poverty of the children around him. He takes incredible actions which are still having effects today.

I loved this little book. I read it on the sleeper train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, watching the tiny villages unfurling on hillsides, with racing dogs and falling down rooves everywhere. Spreading banana plantations, and motorbikes bearing whole families wove through the landscapes.

To me, this book offered some wonderful insights into Thailand - that balance between crazy, constant movement and noise.... and the moments of complete peace and surrender in between. Well worth a read.

my life is my temple

I just spent fourteen days travelling in Thailand with my partner and our two teenage kids. We travelled from Khao Lak, through Bangkok and then up to the glorious Chiang Mai. 


I learnt many things. In lots of the photos you can see me just standing about, with my mouth open, astonished. What struck me is that Buddhism in Thailand is everywhere - but the focus is on the kazillion temples that are casually flung about the place. I went into many of them and they were certainly holy places - with soaring ceilings and vast intricate murals. And many times I sat and closed my eyes and tried to let my mind go... and feel what others were feeling. 


But something was missing for me. I was agitated. It was interesting. Why couldn't I connect?

Wat Prasingh, Chiang Mai

Then today, back home I read this sentence over at Treeleaf Zendo - "life is our temple" - and it clicked for me. My practice is in my feet, in my hands. It is everyday for me. It's in the way I try and refrain from doing harm, the way I consider my meals, the way I work with my anger. 


Those big temples were beautiful and magical places - and I have deep respect for any practitioner in those lands. But it gave me pause to see these richly adorned halls, filled with endless treasures, and outside its gates people begging. One woman, her hair matted, her clothes filthy, her eyes full of suffering, had three tiny children asleep on her lap. She opened her hands to me as we went past and I gave her all the money I had in my wallet. When I walked back the other way, I saw her leave a shop, and bend down to the little ones to give them the clean water and food she had just bought. 


Where then is my temple? My temple is my life.  

Goodbye (Yellow Brick Road)

The time has come (the walrus said) to talk of many things.... including the closing of this humble blog.

A new chapter is emerging in my world - I am studying full time, working in a job I love, and in the middle trying to stay me. This is the way of things. And sadly, my little bloggette has suffered.

Thankyou to all who commented, read and argued with me. Thankyou to those who questioned, who sympathised, who led me in new beautiful directions. It has been a miraculous community. It has been an oasis of new thought.

I will keep my blog alive for a little while before I send it into oblivion, like a peaceful sand mandala swept clear.

What else can I say. It's been real.

Goodbye friends,

K.