ELEUSIS Ancient Ways & Sacred Spaces

Morning Practice at Amida France

 

In the mornings we greet the world outside the house. Standing beneath the old walnut tree in front of the house we pause for a few minutes, feeling the strength of our connection to the earth through our feet and breathing the fresh morning air into the recesses of our lungs, looking out across the green expanse of grass which lies between us and the orchard, and listening to the calls of birds in every direction. Often a cuckoo and a dove vie for our attention, their cooing and cuckooing mirroring one another, the cuckoo to the right in the woods and the dove to our left in the buildings. Other birds fill in the lighter tones between, a twittering of martins, or a chatter of redstarts.

Then bowing toward the orchard, we turn and start to walk. The grass is wet under-foot, glistening with dew, its waving fronds longer by the day, tumbling in on our feet, drenching our shoes and trouser bottoms. We walk towards the clothes line and beyond it into the bonfire field.

Every day we set out in this way. The path has become clear, a furrow of short grass between the tussocks of the field. From time to time I come out with secateurs to trim out the blackthorn and brambles that grow up along the way, but during our morning walk, I simply notice they impertinent persistence, returning day after day, and watch my mind’s inclination to adjust nature.

Sometimes when people do walking meditation they become very self-absorbed, consciously placing each footfall, lost in concentration on the act of meditating. They seem so absorbed indeed that they are almost in a bubble of concentration, insulated from the world by a fortress of focused mental activity. They guard the sense doors ferociously. Here however, we do not meditate, we walk. Nature meditates all around us and our minds are held naturally by the detail. Richard Meyers once wrote of walking in nature as being like lectio divina, the practice of reading a holy book and allowing passages to speak to one. So too, as we walk, the colour of a leaf, the cry of a bird, the insistent drumming of the woodpecker, always in the same wood and never visible, or the daily growth of the orchids which spring up like miracles beside our path, draw us into contemplation of the divine.

The bonfire field is bright with the low morning sunlight, which is just creeping over the oaks ahead and which catches the heavy water drops on every tree and bush, transforming the field into a magical space of silvered foliage and glittering grass stems. Spiders’ webs are outlined in dew drops, their intricate doilies adorning the bushes or draped among the grass stems on the ground in front of us.

Passing the bonfire circle, now greened over with lush spring grasses, we head on along the grassy path to the far side of the field. I notice my anticipation of the vista up through the cutting of the electricity line, a long view to the far side of Amida land. Occasionally we have met deer here, and the mind, always greedy for stimulation, seeks out their lithe brown forms as I gaze.

In the cutting the ground is uneven and large leaved plants are growing in. In notice my dilemma - to walk on them and preserve the path or to avoid treading on the perfect ellipses of the new leaves.

The medieval road brings us into the shade of larger trees and soon we turn off it into the woods themselves. I pause beneath the trees to breathe in the bird song.  Light throws shafts of brightness in between the trunks of the young trees, and dancing insects bathe in the pools of morning sunshine between the shadows. Jnanamati behind me has stopped too. I hear the silence of the absence of feet crunching on fallen leaves and enjoy the seclusion of the dark spaces here beneath the tree canopy.

Descending the dance field we are once more out in the open amongst the grasses and once again the water drips are accumulating. My rubber clogs are filling with water which runs into them from the bent over grasses of the overgrown margins of the path. Yesterday’s rain has left the world very wet this morning, but now the sky is deep, deep blue. Hawk weed stems have grown up tall above the rest of the greenery and some flower heads are already showing. We cross the dance circle, now deeply carpeted with fresh growth of grass. It will need cutting soon. The big old oaks are now in full leaf, shading the space, but above us the amphitheatre of the hillside is brightly lit by the morning sun.

The path winds back up the hill through the champ d’avoine, a meandering course between young trees and small patches of bramble or wild clematis. Mostly field maple, the trees are softly clad in delicate young green leaves. Here wild flowers grow in profusion. As we walk these paths daily, we notice the minutiae of changes, and over the two weeks since we arrived we have seen the cowslips petals fade and shrink to seed heads. Buttercups have grown from tiny green rosettes to tall plants, crowned with their golden cups. Here too the orchids have grown from small green indeterminate shoots to long stems, crowned by pink pyramids of flowers. Brambles too have started to assert themselves along the path and I have spent hours crawling on my haunches, clipping them back to keep the walk way clear. Here among the saplings, once again, we pause, listening to the birdsong and the rustling of creatures in the undergrowth, breathing consciously the fresh air, scented with hawthorn.

Through the wooded margins of the field where bluebells carpeted our path ten days ago, we now tread on the remains of their leaves, flattened by previous walking. Here star of Bethlehem is pushing up its flower stems now under the trees on the woodland floor.

We circle the field behind the house along the old meditation walk. A channel cut through the blackthorn which has invaded from the old hedgerow, till we reach the bamboo grove, a place where we sometimes have sat in meditation. We pause a last time beneath the fluttering leaf tops. But then we continue back across the vegetable garden to the yard and from there enter the meditation hall.

Our circuit completed, our minds naturally settle in the silence of sitting. We take our places and enjoy the continuing silence of the sacred space, punctuated only by the constant flow of birdsong. Nature is singing its nembutsu and our hearts open to embrace it in the tranquillity of the ancient building. Birds fly in and out unhindered. Insects explore the spaces between human artefacts. 

We conclude our practice with a short service. Chanting the refuges and precepts and calling of the Buddha’s name, finishing with nembutsu and prostrations as we do back in England. But here as we bow, we touch the earth. We feel and breathe the texture of the ground as our bodies descend onto the old carpet, lying directly on the earth floor. Just as the cows which once inhabited these old stone walls, so too we let the clay become our bed and our support. We take refuge in the earth.

So practice here in France is a process of connection to the natural world which holds us here. We open to the elements of which our environment is made and in opening to them allow them to speak through us. Simply walking, the world teaches us its secrets and our bodies listen even when our minds are cluttered or dull. We take pleasure in the foot falling on the path, the breeze drifting across the skin and the movement of small creatures in every moment. Nothing is still, yet within the momentum of growth and animation, our anxieties fade into stillness and the heart discovers the joy of the ordinary.

Today's Wildlife

When we arrived here in France we noticed that, as in some previous years, a bird was nesting in one of the niches of the shrine room. The old barn has a lot of such niches in the wall, which were once the repositories for the ends of beams. They make perfect nest sites, usually for the black redstarts which are common around our buildings. This is probably the bird we have this year, but so far all we have seen is the feathered crown of a head and a beady eye.

The first time I took my camera into the shrine room, the bird was away from the nest, so I stood on a chair and used the zoom to capture the inside of the nest - five white eggs. I returned to the hall twenty minutes or so later and managed to photograph the bird on her nest. Coming out of the medtation hall, I then encountered a bright green lizard on the wooden bench outside. His amazing emerald colour was quite remarkable. Walking down the garden I then found  Jnanamati weeding the black currents: a bumper crop this year I hope as we have some new bushes, grown from cuttings made out of last year's prunings.

Arrival: April 2011

We arrive late at night. The drive has gone quickly as Jnanamati shares with me some of his experiences in India and we unpick possibilities and deconstruct dilemmas. As we turn off the main road at Bessais the village is quiet, shutters closed against the night air and respectable inhabitants in their beds – it is after all half past ten at night. I have felt buoyant all the journey, but suddenly as we take the little road to the house a strange residue of emotion surfaces in me and I feel overwhelmingly sad and low. It is such an interesting example of conditioned mind. All I can imagine is that some remnant of half acknowledged feelings from January are still lurking ready to be activated, or more precisely I have carried their seeds through a period of increasing optimism. Not that I was low in January. There were low patches, but I also felt great pleasure in the slow, steady recovery after my accident and the limited horizons  brought me times of peace too. But there were lows too, wondering what problems the accident would leave me with and how well I would recover.

The mood hovered in the background as we drove up to the house, but on stepping out of the car  excitement broke through as I gazed up at the sky studded with so many brilliant stars and felt the warmth in the air which spoke of balmy spring days.

The mattresses were piled in the kitchen, so easily retrieved, but sheets were harder to find as the light bulb seemed to have gone in the upstairs of the écurie where they were stored. After some groping around, however, I found two sets of single sheet, duvet cover and pillow case.

Morning started with confusion. Looking at my watch, my immediate thought was that I had an hour in hand because I had set it to French time yesterday so it was an hour fast. Then I remembered I was in France. It is funny how stupid one’s thoughts can be when half asleep. The bright sun streamed in through the crack in the heavy old velvet curtains. I could hear the cooing of pigeons outside. Peeping out, I saw an expanse of lush green growth.

A tour of the land reveals that spring has somewhat been and gone. The daffodils and cowslips are largely over and the woods are fill of early summer flowers; bluebells are profuse at the top of the champ d’avoine and stitchwort and a purple-blue flower whose name I have forgotten are everywhere. The garden has a good carpet of weeds, though the mulching we did last autumn has held the grass somewhat in check, and the pond is very low, punctured by stones which broke off and tumbled in during the harsh winter I suspect. A big job in prospect. I wonder if the fish is still in there - the water looks very murky. Stinging nettles have taken over vast tracts of land around the house - the garden in front, the area behind the barn and the grass between the house and the orchard. Nettle soup for an army! Everywhere one feels a love hate response to nature – delight in her profusion and anxiety at the amount of bramble, blackthorn and clematis already encroaching  on the paths. In fact it takes a heart of steel not to be daunted at this time of year.

Jnanamati and I walk the site, identifying priorities – weeding soft fruit and the orchard, making a start on the garden and finishing the blackthorn clearance in the secret field. The house also needs some work  to spruce things up before the summer and it would be good to insulate the out houses which now have electrical sockets. We could do with at least twenty volunteers. Anyone interested? As we walk the paths, we are surrounded by birdsong, and two deer run ahead of us across the path in the bonfire field. I cut some of the early growth of brambles and blackthorn. knowing these are just the first outriders of a steady onslaught which will grow over the comimng month or two. As we come back towards the bamboo I am startled to see a snake in front of my on the ground, basking on an area of open ground beside the drainage ditch. He is as shocked as I am by my cry and disappears very quicky into the undergrowth. I am uncertain what sort he was but make a note not to be complacent.

One thing which is very noticeable is how dry everything is. The bright green growth which covers everything contrasts strangely with the dusty dry soil. I hope that we will get rain, though of course the sunshine is wonderful, for the last year when it was dry like this led to the drought of 2004 when we lost so many trees.

So we settle into work, unloading the car and scything the grass so that we can put the picnic tables out beneath the walnut trees. Another summer has begun.

Lessons in Gratitude

Boxing Day morning the sun is bright and sharp, scattering its pink and gold light across the crisp white snow. The sky is deep blue, silhouetting the trees behind Derek’s house with their thin fingers of branches and clumps of mistletoe . I have been visiting for Christmas day. Derek, an old Amida friend, lives part of the time at Sukhavati and part here in France, deep in the Tronçais  forest. Last night as temperatures dropped to the lowest so far this year, I was anxious about driving back after dark, so was persuaded to stay over in Derek’s spare room, but today, with the bright sunshine I set out.

Our house is two kilometres up a small road so I have some anxiety about ice on the road. I feel quite prepared to park in the village or at some intermediate point if necessary for I do not want to risk bumping the new car and leaving my only source of transport wrapped round a tree or in a ditch. In fact, though, the road is surprisingly clear and it is only when I reach the last little hill that I find it still clearly coated in snow and ice. This little rise, at the start of our land, stretches ahead of me and disappears round a turn in the road over the little bridge.

It looks such a short distance and so close to home I decide to give it a try, but the slope here is quite steep and the car soon loses momentum on it and starts to slither back. A second attempt is no better so I put the car in reverse guiding it back as best I can till it hits the rougher ground of the verge. At this point I can see another car up ahead coming towards me. I am badly placed, on the wrong side of the road and sticking out at an angle but it is hard to manoeuvre on ice so feeling a bit silly I decide to get out, partly to assess the best way forward and maybe use some of the coarse salt I have in the back of the car, and partly to signal to the other driver that I am stuck. I am grinning at him, amused at my stupidity.

Then in an instant I am on my back on the road. My first step from the car hits a frozen tyre track, a sheer mirror of glassy ice, and my feet whip from under me before I can even draw breath. It is a heavy fall: straight onto my back, and, as the hill slopes away behind me, further than if I had simply fallen to the horizontal. I lie, shocked by the pain, crying out.

The man in the car stops alongside me. He has come down the steep part without difficulty ‘You should have driven on the grass’ he tells me in French. He stands looking at me as I lie on the tarmac. As I don’t get up he enquires if I am alright. I am gradually realising that I am not. I am in considerable pain which I am expressing both in French and in the universal language of curses and groans. For want of any other way to improve matters I roll over onto my front and lie face down on the road, still voicing my discomfort and wondering if I will ever get up again. The young man stands looking helpless, should he call the ambulance? He asks.

I cannot really believe anything serious has happened. After all slipping on ice is not so unusual. Convinced that the pain will pass and not wanting to add hypothermia to my troubles, I crawl from the road and into the drivers seat of my car. By now a second car has appeared and a second young French man is standing beside the first also concerned about what to do with me.

After a few minutes of questions and suggestions, the two men decide to go and fetch my neighbour, Simone. Her house is only just up the rise. The second man turns his car and goes up to fetch her. In no time the three of them are beside me, as again I recount to Simone what happened and how long I have been lying injured (for she is concerned I may have been there all night, not having heard the full story),

So it is that a decision is made to take me up to the house. Simone will make sure I am alright. So the second man helps me across into his car alongside Simone, whilst the first takes my car keys to move my car off the road.

Back at the house Simone suggests we phone the ambulance. We sit in the kitchen, cold and unwelcoming after a night away. She dials. The person at the other end asks a few questions and suggests I take paracetamol. It feels a bit of a forlorn hope that paracetamol will have any effect on the now considerable pain, but I obediently tell Simone where she can find some. Then I feel I just have to lie down.

Going through to the bedroom, I get into bed and Simone finds a hot water bottle which she fills. She gets electric heaters, including one from her own house, and offers to light the stove.  Then she brings me tea before leaving me to rest.

An hour or so later she comes back to check on me. The car is now in the yard she tells me, but how am I? As long as I stay still I am fine but as soon as I move the pain is crippling. She shakes her head. ‘You shouldn’t be in pain like that!’ she says. I have to agree. Perhaps an x-ray would be sensible.  I think of our English neighbour – I am sure he would be happy to drive me to the local hospital. But Simone will not hear of it. That’s what ambulances are for.

So it is that twenty minutes later two para-medics, a man and a woman, are at my bedside, taking my account of what has happened and whilst putting a blood pressure cuff on my arm . Soon I am lying on a trolley in the back of an ambulance, watching the familiar hedgerows and roof tops along the route to St Amand as they speed past the windows.

Urgences are on limited staff for the Christmas holiday I think, for I have to wait an hour or more for x-ray, which is longer than I have experienced in the past. They have asked me to change in a hospital gown, no easy feat, and I begin to get quite cold, maybe due to shock or perhaps the exceptionally cold weather. I ask a nurse for a blanket which she brings. It is soft and woolly unlike the hard cotton hospital blankets in England. I am glad to snuggle down.

Eventually I am wheeled up the corridor to x-ray, stood against various photographic plates whilst the machine whirs and click, and then eventually disgorged back to a corridor outside the now occupied treatment room.  Lying on my trolley, I looked across at an elderly lady, also stretched out on a trolley. She only has a sheet over her and I wonder if she is cold.

At this point the doctor returns with my x-ray. He is a small, dark man, possibly Indian. I anticipate that he will give me the all clear and I will feel a little silly for wasting an ambulance’s time. After all, I can walk, so surely nothing is broken. He shakes his head. ‘You have broken a vertebra,’  he says in French. I am astonished. ‘Come,’ he says, wheeling me into a side room.

The image is clear enough when he points it out. Four solid rectangular blocks, the lumbar vertebrae, and the fifth crumpled into a rather squashed mis-shape. It surprises me not only for the break, but also the location, for all the pain is in my hips but the break is at waist level. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t like that before?’ I ask, trying to make sense of the visual information. After all I have never seen an x-ray of my spine before. ‘It’s broken,’ he says.

There follows what I afterwards realise is a woefully inadequate conversation in which I establish, almost accidentally that I cannot drive back to England next week. The treatment is painkillers. I should not go home alone tonight. I decide that Derek will probably take me in, since he had been concerned at my leaving this morning and had already offered me a bed for another night. The doctor offers me a bed in the hospital, but I am keen to be away and ask if I can get a taxi. He tells me they will order one and leaves.

So I am left in the little hospital room, a white cell like hospital rooms everywhere, sending texts to everyone I can think of.  I do not know what I need yet, but I feel I need to tell someone. Gradually replies from England start to come in. The phone rings. I speak to Kaspa and then to Sumaya at the Buddhist House. They will sort things out. I ring Simone and tell her what has happened, asking her if she could let Derek (whose phone I cannot reach) know, for she has already been in touch with him earlier.

The taxi arrives. The driver is kind, and helps me to get the drugs from the duty pharmacy, open even at 7.00pm on boxing day. Then we head off back to the Tronçais forest, to Dereks. As we drive through the trees a great stag with full antlers walks across the road in front of the car. It feels like a good omen.

Derek and his newly arrived friend Arnaldo welcome me in. Arnaldo has arrived since I left but is happy to sleep on the sofa so I can have the bed. So soon I am installed where I will spend the coming week, in Derek’s spare room. I lie, at last in bed, the painkillers starting to take effect. I feel a deep sense of peace.

As has happened several times earlier during the whole event I am suddenly overwhelmed with a strange euphoria. Maybe it is the medication, but I think it is more than that. I feel deeply, deeply touched by the love and care I have received today. Sometimes recently I have felt very much alone in the world, travelling and working alone, but here, today, when the chips were down I have been and am still being handed gently from one caring hand to the next. When I could not cope alone, a world of caring people arrived. My neighbours could not have been more thoughtful. The ambulance and hospital staff cared for me in practical ways. The Amida community and my family were all immediately there with messages of love and support including taking on all that was needed practically. Derek and Analdo  welcomed me in and looked after me. As I lie this first evening, waves of gratitude flow over me and tears fill my eyes. These feelings sustain me through the coming days, in which more loving care arrives.

French neighbours call – my ability to chatter to Marie Pierre for hours improves my French no end. She brings me little gifts – a snugly hot water bottle in a red knitted cover, chocolate brownies beautifully wrapped by the patissiere, a film to watch. Jean-Francois tells me about hay insulation they are doing. Robert and Leslie come over from Bessais, and then Sumaya miraculously appears after three days. Modgala texts regularly to say she is sorting out things back home and I receive more messages of support than I can list here, but all of which I deeply appreciate. And meantime I continue to occupy Derek’s house, enjoying his jocular company and a morning chat over a mug of tea. So much love. Thank you, deeply thank you all.

Successful Summer Completed

This summer at Amida France we had four weeks of events. We begun on 14th July with a Sesshin silent retreat with extensive pureland practice, dharma teachings and journaling. This was the first time we run the retreat of this kind. People liked it very much and we intend to run another one next year. Then we had a week of Dharma Teachings with Dharmavidya and Prasada giving lectures on alternate days. In the following week Kaspalita led us in a programme of drama work. In just five days we created a play of the Parable of the Prodigal Son from The Lotus Sutra. Finally we held the Buddhist Psychology Summer School: a mixture of lectures, discussion, and experiential work.

We had very good feedback from all four events and a larger number of participants than in recent years, so we have decided to extend the programme and offer seven weeks next summer. We hope also to have some other activities in the spring.

Closed for the winter

The centre will be closed this winter as Susthama is no longer able to spend time in France as was planned. I've updated the 2009 Amida France Guide 

Get your own - Open publication

We would love to see you there at one of our events! Many apologies to anyone who was thinking of spending time at the Amida Buddhist Centre this winter.

Losing one's leaves

There are so many ways to experience the onset of winter.

Just imagine how this little horse chestnut tree must feel. Bare, exposed, chilly but also a lot lighter. Amida's light is both bright and weightless.

Remembrance and Thanksgiving Day

To share the joys, sorrows, good food, good conversations with others is what makes this life rich and full.

Yogi-ling and Oasis

Yesterday I met some old friends and made some new ones at a Tibetan Centre called Yogi-ling. The centre is run by Lama Sherab and partner Marie-Noel and they are based just outside of a small village called Ygrande. 

Today Prasada and I visited a place called L'Oasis. This is a new project that has one building and pool and another house being built for two residents. L'Oasis is a place where those following the Buddhist path who are interested in living the Buddhist life full-time but not necessarily as monastics can stay and practice. It seems that part of the emphasis is a focus on how to prepare for death so that one dies a good death but not for those who are necessarily terminally ill or expecting to die soon.

Here's a photo of Lama Tcheunpel, me, and Lama Wang-mo

Lama Tchungpel has been taking Buddhist practitioner on spiritual sangha tours to exotic places like the Tunisian desert, Mongolia etc and will leave tomorrow for a 10 day adventure in Tunisia with his sangha.

Shorter Days

The days are getting shorter - the clocks have gone back which means the sun rises around 7.30 and sets around 5.30 leaving us with just under 10 hours of daylight.

I don't mean to be darken the subject even more but because of where we are and how we live out here it's hard not to think about what we have in store for us. We are looking at shorter days but not nearly as bad as if we were living further north - but still the sun will gradually start coming up later and later and dusk will be upon us by late afternoon.

Alas, it could be worse - I remember days when I had to go to work before sunrise and came home after sunset - and did I ever get out at midday to see the sun - nope! Winter light meant artificial light.