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Emeli Sande – a classically powerful voice with personal and social concerns..

Books, Photos and Music / /

 

I received for Christmas a great music CD. I know tastes in music vary a lot. Nshorna, my daughter, gave me for Christmas the year’s best selling album by Scotland’s Emeli Sande – Our Version of Events. 19 tracks. Five stars. Better still. Six stars.

Emeli Sande offers a personal, social, political comment in her music. She is a woman with a wonderful , wonderful voice. …

Emeli Sande – a classically powerful voice with personal and social concerns..Read More »

Emeli Sande – a classically powerful voice with personal and social concerns.. Read More »

Is attachment to maximising income in the West corrupting the Buddhist/Yoga/Advaita/Mindfulness tradition?

Communications / /

Small incidents often go unnoticed. I recall staying in the Wat Suanmoke (the Monastery of the Garden of Liberation) in Chai Ya, southern Thailand, where I received my first Dharma teachings from Ven. Ajahn Buddhadassa, the most radical Thai teacher of the 20th century.

At the end of my 17 day stay there in February, 1970, I asked Ajahn Poh, the deputy Abbot, about making a dana (donation). He said: “Oh, buy a few kilos of bananas.”

We can’t live just on bananas.  …

Is attachment to maximising income in the West corrupting the Buddhist/Yoga/Advaita/Mindfulness tradition?Read More »

Is attachment to maximising income in the West corrupting the Buddhist/Yoga/Advaita/Mindfulness tradition? Read More »

Our compassion will not stop the massacre of US schoolchildren.

Political / /

Yes, it is heartbreaking to read of the massacre of the 20 children and six teachers at the Sandy Hook School at Newtown, Connecticut, where  Adam Lanza, 20, pumped bullet after bullet into the vulnerable bodies of the children and teachers.  Political leaders and religious leaders,  Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslem alike  and civic leaders have rightly expressed their grief and offered their counsel.  Yes massacres take place elsewhere as well –  Norway, Scotland, Australia, Switzerland etc –  but 80 per cent of all massacres of children occur in the USA. Why? What are the major steps protect children and adults from the bullet? …

Our compassion will not stop the massacre of US schoolchildren.Read More »

Our compassion will not stop the massacre of US schoolchildren. Read More »

An Experimental Life for Birds on a Wire in Hydra, Crete and Vientiane in the 1960’s

Books, Photos and Music / /

The period of Leonard Cohen’s time in the summer of 1960 in Hydra, the Greek island, has gained the status of Greek mythology in his creative career.

After taking the five-hour boat journey from Pireus,  the Athens port, Leonard hung out in Hydra with a handful of other young artists and spiritual seekers, including Dr. Sheldon Cholst, a New York psychiatrist and poet, who experimented with marijuana, hash and LSD. It had cost Cholst his freedom in the UK where he spent 21 months in jail for being in possession.  I stayed with Sheldon in Vientiane, Laos in 1968. Back in the USA, his friend, Timothy Leary, got a 30-year sentence for possession. …

An Experimental Life for Birds on a Wire in Hydra, Crete and Vientiane in the 1960’sRead More »

An Experimental Life for Birds on a Wire in Hydra, Crete and Vientiane in the 1960’s Read More »

You never know who you might meet if you go for a walk in Israel….

Communications / /

I received ths lovely email from Asaf in Israel last week. Asaf is a consultant for our www.mindfulnesstrainingcourse.org  and my advisor on Pali terms. Asaf gave me the OK to share it with readers of my blog and Facebook.The email read:

“I had a couple of hours with Naama (my wife) today and we decided to let go of coffee in favour of an on foot exploration of the forest next to our new Haifa home. …

You never know who you might meet if you go for a walk in Israel….Read More »

You never know who you might meet if you go for a walk in Israel…. Read More »

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