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In the gap between teachings, I took a trip up into the Himalayan foothills to the little settlement of Namo Buddha. This was the spot that the Buddha’s earlier reincarnation offered up his body to feed a starving tigress and her five cubs. There’s now a big monastery founded by the late Thrangul Rinpoche, one of the Karmapa’s teachers. I’m not also a natural at pilgrimage sites, but this one really moved me. The thought of that bodhicitta activity and the fact that historical Buddha, Siddharta Gotama, often came back to this hill to teach. The forests surrounding the Tiger’sDen are thick with prayer flags and pictures of departed loved ones. It’s a very moving place.

I was saying this morning that the Satipatthan Sutta is like a fractal pattern. The more you focus in, the more details emerge. The classic illustration of this is the Mandelbrot Set below: Or in zooming detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b005iHf8Z3g

I thought I'd start updating folk about the stuff happening in the coming week with a little video after the Monday morning session:

We had a good discussion in our last Thursday morning session before my trip to Nepal, which also brought to a close the cycle of teaching on vipassana-shamata: https://share.descript.com/view/vgJFxv1eSdV

Hello everyone, I know this is a sensitive time. Regardless of your feelings about the monarchy, periods of national mourning can connect us with pools of grief that can overwhelm us suddenly, so I'm sending lots of loving spacious energy to you all. Here at the Cliff Edge, the seasons are changing and I'm sitting in my new garden office listening to the rain (which as some of you will remember is a sign that the Buddhas are present and attending...) The new office comes with new wifi and solar panels to supply energy. And this means that I'm thinking of re-commencing regular weekly sits online. Some of you will have been with us through the lockdown, and some of you may be new. But hopefully, come the middle of October, when I'm back from Holy Island, we will start with three times a week Zoom sessions once again. I'll be announcing it more widely later this month, but I wanted to ask you for your advice and input in shaping the timetable and content. Perhaps you might take a moment to fill out this questionnaire so I can gauge what people are looking for. Also we're having a Mindsprings coffee morning (well, a Sunday sit and chat) on October 2nd at 10am UK time. We can discuss some of the stuff in the questionnaire then! Book in for the Zoom details at our new booking page: https://www.mind-springs.org/online-live Sending you lots of love. Alistair

Hi all, I hope you all had at least some good times this summer. I certainly had both beautiful days as well as challinging ones. I would like to share one picture snd story of a really nice day and would love to see some pictures of you too! This is a picture of my last day of our holiday in Sweden, in the region Bohuslän. This region has a stunning archipelago. Lots of rocks, beautiful flowers, spendid villages.... This day we had a short hike over rocks to a secluded bay. The sun was shining, dark coulds where drifting in. My(http://in.My) second son and I quickly undressed to enjoy a dive in the sea. Noone around. Just wildlife, sea and my family. I felt so blessed. When I got my cancer diagnosis last year and dreamt about surviving, I pictured myself swimming in the outdoors. I am still lacking in energy to get back to a normal life and some days I feel sad and frustrated because of that. But as I swam and reminded myself of this wish of being able to swim like this....well,....all was well for that moment. And now I have this golden memory to carry in my heart.

We normally attend the meditation sessions together. He is poorly in hospital. Please dear Mindsprings friends pray for my husband’s healing and recovery. We have a dog and two cats who very much want to see and cuddle their Daddy.

Heard Joseph Goldstein quote a section of this wonderful text from the 19th C 'vagabond saint' Patrul Rinpoche He doesn't pull any punches in his advice to himself! https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/patrul-rinpoche/advice-from-me-to-myself

It's hot and sunny outside and because of antibiotics I have to shield myself from the sun. I am a lot more indoors than I like to but I still am nourishing myself with nature. These are flowers I have grown from seed. I picked them today as a birthdaygift for a friend. I have similar flowers on our dining table. And I treasure them. When I seeded them indoors in early spring I was quite emotional: so grateful that I had survived cancer and yet also a bit anxious would I not seed the flowers for my own coffin? The plants have grown through a harsh spring and are now in my garden. 2 weeks ago I cut some beautiful flowers for my mother-in-law. She was dying at 88 yrs. She was a closed woman, who had quit isolated herself in her last years. But there was one thing we both loved: nature. She lived alone among farmland and would always tell us about the hare, birds or deer she had seen. And she loved flowers, especially those from the garden. She died peacefully in hospital. She is buried in an old forest next to my father in law. We gave her body back to nature. I now have a beautiful vase from her house filled with flowers from our garden. There is no better way to remember her. And each time I look at the flowers, my heart lifts for all the beautiful shapes and colours. And I feel grateful that I live to enjoy them.