Strawberry Shortcake on the blue plates
It was a beautiful sunny morning as we pulled away from the coast towards Mt. Shasta at about midday. Six hours later we arrived, having stopped a few time along the way. My regret is that I was not able to stop and perhaps meet a reader who lives in a town between the coast and Mt. Shasta. I already knew our journey was going to be unpredictable; time of leaving, stops and last moment business to deal with which might hold us up.

And therein is my thought for this day. Which is: the difference between dealing with and responding to a situation. In a commentary to the Precepts there is the teaching to do nothing whatsoever in a hurry. That is such great advice. Because when in a hurry, one is in the mind of dealing with a situation - quickly. When not in a hurry one is more likely to respond in a thoughtful and rounded way. I'll remember that next time I am rushing along, as I was this morning, when just going along would be better.

One thing you can't rush is tea. Taking tea needs to be a thoughtful and full rounded occasion. And Jim and Nancy and I have certainly enjoyed our teas and time together. Thank you, thank you both so much.

This post is less about cats, although Simon's Cat is super cute and worth watching, and more about...linking.

We all know some of the amazing coincidences that happen on the Internet. A random click here a comment there and before you know it you are discovering new and interesting things, finding or re-finding Internet friends and before long a blog post is forming out of the murk. Simon's Cat, who Julie introduced to me months ago, came by accident this morning. This video made my smile and made a fellow monastic laugh out loud. Good for both of us on this fogged in East Bay morning.

But there is a downside of course. It's all too easy to get sucked into the www and spend over long there. An opportunity to exercise the STOP reflex, no? Stop really does mean stop. All the same, wise use can be rewarding, instructive and at times uplifting. So, sticking with the linking theme. Yesterday was it, I linked to Reading Priory News about Renewal, Kevin in the Shetland Isles linked to my link and was stimulated to pondered on his blog, and it's evolution. And then Robbie a Shetlander, now living over in Norway left a comment which reminded me of a photo Kevin pointed out to me, months ago, of a hut - in Norway - first posted on Robbie's site. Here it is:

Yes OK, I love huts and this one takes my particular fancy. Location great, trees a charming extra!
Really no big deal about this linking up business. And what happens on this far flung edge of the internet is small fry in comparison with when something goes viral, as the saying goes. That's when some piece of news, or whatever, takes off and gets linked to and talked about all over the world. This is the world of the village chat, gone mad.

This is for Julie...who reminds me that villages can be, and in my experience, most often are, caring places.

The resident monk, Rev. Alicia, at Reading Buddhist Priory, Berkshire, UK is writing a regular news/blog. I await her weekly posts with happy anticipation. Perhaps some of my enthusiasm is because I was the resident monk there in the early 1990's. Knowing for example Rev. Alicia has arranged for a plumber to install new taps (faucet's) and that the new floor covering is down on the stairs brings me vicarious pleasure, even after all this time away. But there is more, much more, to these writings. There is teaching that comes through both overtly and through her talking about her day. This post on Renewal is a grand example of the teaching coming though. Here is an excerpt from this post as a taster.

Renewal is a different concept to rest. Renewal is a change of pace, time out from the usual routine of work, an opportunity to relax, yes, but in skillful ways that keep the training going and allow it to be expressed in other ways. It is a chance to ask 'what would it be good to do that would renew/refresh me in mind and body?'

I have subscribed to the RSS Feed on this site. The link to the feed can be found at the bottom of the list in the left side-bar.

And if you look at my schedule you'll see I'll be staying a few nights in Reading after I land back in England October 29th. Hum...wonder if there will be some gardening I can do while I'm there. Clip the Hawthorne hedge perhaps?

Travelin' with Napa Cabbage
One last look over my shoulder at the past weeks. In particular a second look at the driving i.e. the hours of life in the car, alone. I don't think I would have even attempted to make the journeys I have without the GPS navigation device (in Europe we call them SatNav's for short). So a grand round of applause to that little friend I have had with me telling me such details as which lane to be in to how many miles until the next turn. I may have mentioned the corker announcement. Drive three....hundred...and....six....miles! That came early on during the trip from Sandpoint ID to Seattle WA. The voice from the machine becomes so familiar, and she became so much my friend and traveling companion, that I did at times come up with responses. In my head. The 306 miles announcement had me responding, Well! I'll certainly be taking a break!

The voice carries an assuring authority which for the most part I obeyed. The one time I didn't, on the way to Pine Mountain Temple, I had a happy hour or so cruising through the rural byways of the Central Valley of California. Was that cotton I saw growing? And olives, or some kind of nut?

Now. Out there in the middle of nowhere on a hot and dusty junction. Not a being in sight, no shade from a tree and definitely no bushes, there will come a STOP sign. In America, stop really does mean STOP. No rolling stops as they are called. You have to come to a recognizable dead halt no matter how obvious there is no traffic. And there will be no traffic for hours probably! Somebody once said to me, in fun, you never know if there is a cop hiding behind a bush waiting to book you if you do a rolling stop. So I always stop even when there's no possibility of that sneaky policeman hovering behind a telephone pole waiting to pounce. We Buddhist keep the rules of the road. Period.

And so it is in daily life. Nothing we do is hidden. There are obviously no Precepts police to keep us in order but we cannot hide anything from ourselves. That's no matter how much we might justify, or want to justify, our small and not so small transgressions. And as time goes on even as the hand reaches for the cookie jar, so to speak, one knows and stops because taking what is not given is taking stuff. And really that amounts to taking from oneself. There are however judgment calls we have to make be they while on the road or when going about ones day. However, wow betide the one who allows delusion to come to the aid of desire. The way it happens is that over time the small self-justified steps lead to bigger and bigger self-justified (delusional) ones and eventually STOP looses it's meaning. Stop really does mean stop . Those Stop road signs in America have a real and deep meaning don't they.

Wondering about the Napa Cabbage? On my last trip I happened to have this bundle of leaves with me and I can heartily recommend them as an easy and refreshing snack while driving. An excellent traveling companion...to eat!

Modern medicine is good at staving off death with aggressive interventions—and bad at knowing when to focus, instead, on improving the days that terminal patients have left.

From an article in The New Yorker.

The subject matter discussed in this article is dear to my heart. I have not had a chance to read the whole thing but what I have seen looks interesting.

Thanks once again to Julius in London who regularly turns up valuable web content.

Yesterday I unpicked a long row of sewing machine stitches in the hem of a monastic robe. Then I tidied up. Removing all the cut threads. Rolled them into a tiny ball. Put them in the compost bucked. As I unpicked, cutting those threads, taking care not to cut into the fabric, my mind started to remember. That's how it is with memory isn't it? Ones mind is jogged into remembering by something, or some circumstance, that's come to the fore. I'd made the robe in Edmonton, Canada, Now which year was that? I'd had a streaming cold. But needed to push on because there was a deadline to meet. I remember my nose dripping onto the fabric as I worked! Now. Where did I buy that fabric? At the market stall in Nottingham...or....? And so it is. Remembering. Remembering and then linking memory upon memory.

This afternoon I whizzed along sewing up the hem again. Neatening. Putting a few more years wear into it. The frayed hem, now zigzagged where it had become frayed. Robe hems drag on stairs, both when climbing and when descending. They brush the ground all day long as the occupant goes about daily business. Already I was plotting my next move for when this robe would come to me for mending in the future. There's a limit to how much zigzagging one can do before it becomes clear that either new fabric needs to be imported, or a new robe needs to be made. A monk I've sewn for in the past reminds me when I meet him. The robe is still going strong! That was 1986. Bullet proof fabric, Bought in the Forest of Dean. Gloucestershire. Amazing how it has lasted. But it's been worn mostly for best. Even so, cracking good fabric. And so it is. Remembering. Remembering and then linking memory upon memory.

One of my hosts here in Montana sat beside me before lunch silently read the machines instruction manual. While I attempted to worked out where all the controls were, and how to use them. (As a last resort, read the manual!) Then, out aloud. What does neaten mean? I've not come across that word before? I thought, REALLY!?. Have I not spent my entire life neatening? Clearing up. Straightening. Making good. Mending. Weeding. Sorting. Trimming. Mowing. Cutting into shape. Neatening and sorting are my pleasure. In home and in garden. At work and at play. Isn't that the way of things? One word, or a phrase. Give it a tug, like a thread sticking out of a ball of yarn, and memories unreel at lightening speed. And so it is. Remembering. Remembering and then linking memory upon memory.

There is part of the brain that is designated for memory. (See story of HM.) Remove that part and...no memory! (Listen to HM's story). Or perhaps no capacity to recall memory anyway. We would be completely lost without the capacity to remember. And equally lost if that is all we know. I once said to one of the senior monks, off the cuff, and I was young in training, We are limited only by what we (consciously) know! (Whoops! I thought. Where did that pearl come from?) And he said, pausing thoughtfully, Well you know something important. Hum, that would have been around 1986/7. In the old sewing room. At Shasta Abbey.

There is more to say about memory. About the past coming into the present. There has been a huge amount of that as I've been visiting monks I trained with in the 1980's. And also trainees, many of whom have been at it years longer than me. We have a shared life. It is alive and vibrant. No neatening required!

Yes, I have moved over the land these weeks. This great, vast and beautiful land. But how to tell of the life we bask, swim and have our being within. Together. Seamlessly. Going well deeper than linking memories.

And still the robe hem becomes worn. And asks of us the utmost care. Loving action.

Sorry folks. Posts have been few and far between. I've been - mowing, sorting, trimming and hiking as well. This has been so much fun too. And in a couple of days - on the road again.