October 2020

Greetings from cool, green Wat Buddha Dhamma, 10 Mile Hollow, Wisemans Ferry, NSW 2775, Australia; www.wbd.org.au

Time has passed very quickly here in the quiet bushland of New South Wales. These days it seems to go much faster with Covid restrictions on travel and visiting. Fortunately, Australia has not been as severely affected as other places, so restrictions have been easing for some time.

Just before the lock-down was initiated at the end of March, Ajahn Suddhammo returned from a stay at the new Nigrodharam Monastery, north of Melbourne, and a NZ, former-monk, with building skills, arrived to help us with our re-construction plans. Although the restrictions prevented our eager crew of Thai helpers from lending support, with the two skilled builders, work on the new Mahathera cottage was able to continue.

For the re-build, the size of the building was reduced and extra effort was made to make it more fire-resistant. The walls inside and out, as well as the decking on the veranda, are all made of fibre cement board, and the wooden foundation has been enclosed with fibre cement board to keep fire, and any flammable material, from encroaching on the wooden timbers. While not entirely fire-proof, the new structure is approximately 80% fire-resistant.

               Even the decking is made of cement fibre board for fire resistance.

Finally, after five months of steady effort, I was able to move in to the new Mahathera cottage, although there were still occasional work days to complete some of the details, such as painting, installing curtains and tiling around the two sinks. Electricity installation is still in progress, but the wood stove works exceptionally well!

The beginning of the 'Rains Retreat' brought a winding-down of further work projects as a dedicated core group of ten people and the Sangha settled into a regular routine of eight-hours a day group practice, a weekly Sutta class, private interviews and the usual Saturday night Dhamma talk. This year Ajahn Khemavaro and I switched roles – he gave the Saturday night talks and I gave the weekly Sutta Class, discussing the Satipatthana Discourse on the development of mindfulness.

The 'Rains Retreat' for me was not as settled as in previous years when it was a time I could focus more intently upon working on my on-going book in reflective detail. The unsettledness was primarily due to some increasing health issues involving my hands. Since late last year I had been experiencing increasing numbness and then shooting pains in the fingers and wrist. Having found no lasting relief in acupuncture and massage, I enquired of a visiting doctor if it might be Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. She referred me to a specialist who quickly confirmed the diagnosis and suggested several treatments, ending with me having double wrist surgery on August 21. The operation was straightforward and only required five hours of hospital stay. The recovery, however, has been an entirely different story. Initial swelling and pain in other joints continued to increase until a further consultation revealed a flair-up of 'inflammatory arthritis'. Once this was diagnosed new medicine was immediately effective in reducing further inflammation.

Just before the ending of the Rains Retreat I received notice that my new four-year work visa had been granted. It thus appears that I will be spending more time at Wat Buddha Dhamma. In fact, later this month, a builder friend of the monastery will come to start work on a new hut for me, a bit closer to the kitchen/office complex, but higher up the hill for an expansive view over the Ten Mile Hollow valley.

The forest has sprung back to life, however, the skeletal upper branches are a constant reminder of the previous bushfire.

Although unsettled health issues and a lack of energy from struggling with pain have prevented me from giving much attention to my book on the cessation of I-making, the theme has still provided valuable food for contemplation. Two of the main sources of the continuity of I-making are ignorance and craving. I think for most people these experiences are so nebulous and vague that it is hard to get a clear sense of them. Thus, I have been reflecting on the experiential nature of ignorance and craving, and how they manifest and impinge upon our life throughout our daily existence.

Ignorance is not knowing, and can be so pervasive that we don't know that we don't know! A more insidious aspect of ignorance is incomplete knowing, especially if we are not humble enough to acknowledge the limitations of our knowing – we use our assumption of knowing to hide our true ignorance.

The word for craving, tanha, literally means 'thirst', emphasizing that it is close to a primary drive of life, which craving for existence essentially is. We may more easily recognize our erupting greed or desires while failing to observe the fundamental thirst nurturing these seemingly fleeting emotions.

Both of these factors are so all-pervasive in our life that most of us are totally unaware of how the dominate every waking moment. Fortunately, now that the Buddha has pointed them out to us, we can try to increase awareness of these insidious overlays to our life. And even though it may seem counter-intuitive to try to be aware of not-knowing, we can at least notice it's effects at times when we jump to hasty conclusions, misjudge situations or assume we know what is happening when we obviously do not – all expressions of ignorance. As we increase our awareness of craving we may notice how often we are being pushed around by liking and disliking, rather than reflectively making a conscious choice.

Seeing these effects of ignorance and craving active in our life is the dawning of wisdom and the beginning of the freedom to no longer be led along by our old habits fueled by ignorance and craving. What a change in perspective – freed of our enslavement to old compulsions!

Wishing everyone the freedom of Dhamma, good health and well-being.

                                                 Tea tree in blossom.

April 2020

Greetings from cool, green Wat Buddha Dhamma, 10 Mile Hollow, Wisemans Ferry, NSW 2775, Australia; www.wbd.org.au

Yes, Wat Buddha Dhamma is green again!

It is quite a surprise for those not familiar with the Australian flora to see the bush so quickly sprout back to life. Most of the trees have sent out bunches of fresh leaves through the blackened trunks, while others, more severely burned, have sent up new shoots from the roots. However, the scene is quite surreal as all the shiny, new growth appears too perfect to be real – no withered leaves or even signs of insect damage. And all this brilliant greenery is framed against blackened tree trunks and barren, skeletal tree tops!

On general observation it looks like at least 90% of the native trees have come back to life out of the blackened desolation. In fact, on our first visit following the fire, with trees still smouldering, I noticed that the native grasses were already sending up new shoots, not to mentioned the more fire-resistant gammia lilies and grass trees. As long as one does not look up to the tree tops it is hard to recognize that a devastating fire has swept through here only a few months ago.

The main long-term effect of the fire was the destruction of about 10 of the largest trees in the valley. Most of these were Engopheras, which appear to have a suicide gene. During the hot weather, the prime fire season, they drop flammable bark around their trunk and many of them are rotten inside, leaving openings for the fire to enter and burn them from the inside out. However, the curvaceous smooth exterior is quite fire-resistant and quickly sprouts leaf blooms, even when the interior is still burning!

Much of the regrowth is due to the return of regular rainfall. Three days of heavy rain in early February sent the creek into flood mode, and it has been flowing ever since. Now we have started to hope for sunny days to replenish the solar power.

Towards the end of January the Sangha was invited to Tasmania by one of our devoted supporters who had opened a restaurant at Kingston, near Hobart. The small number of local supporters were exceptionally generous during our short stay with bountiful meal offerings at Yom O's restaurant and for picnics on our travels, as well as very comfortable accommodation and energetic transport. We thus packed many things into our five-day visit with a restaurant opening ceremony, Dhamma talks and meditation sessions, together with a number of excursions to some of the scenic wonders of the island.

The Tasmania meditation group.

Tasmania reminded me a lot like New Zealand with sparse population and abundant natural vegetation. Also, surprisingly, Hobart is quite similar to Wellington, being surrounded by hills and situated on a superb harbour. In fact, the hill overlooking the city is called Mount Wellington.

Hobart city and harbour from Mt. Wellington.

And similar to New Zealand, the west coast of Tasmania is wet and mountainous while the east coast is drier and hilly. For our first two excursions we thus headed west, first into the alpine regions of the Harz Mountains and the second day to Mount Field National Park to the alpine regions on top (but not too the ski resort), and then we descended through a glade of some of the largest trees in Tasmania to the 32 meter Russell Waterfall. On our third day the rain caught us up so we journeyed to the drier east coast to the Tasman Peninsula, the site of the old penal colony of Port Arthur. No one was interested in visiting the ruined site as we have had enough convict history through living on the convict-built Old Great North Road. We rather opted to visit a number of the many natural sites. Our first stop was the Tessellated Pavement, where fault lines have fractured a sandstone plateau in such a way as to create natural paving stone patterns on the sea shore. Next we drove and trekked to the Remarkable Cave where the wild waves of the Southern Ocean has carved a 40 meter cave through the rocky coastline to an open-air beach. Our last stop was through the sand dunes to remote Roaring Beach, one of those typical spectacular, pristine antipodean beaches.

Roaring Beach.

Our short but eventful stay in Tasmania soon drew to a close. With heartfelt invitations to return we made our way back to Wat Buddha Dhamma and the continuing tasks of post-fire clean-up and re-building, but much refreshed from the relaxing break.

Present Past and Future

The Buddha's teaching on the development of mindfulness encourages us to live more in the present moment. Most people, however, also need to relate to past and future. While writing this blog, for example, I must delve into the misty realms of memory. Fortunately, the Buddha pointed out that memory or thoughts of the future are not problems in themselves. Rather, the main issue is with the delighting in or seeking pleasure in memories or future plans.

We all have memories and sometimes need to plan or imagine what the future may present. However, we usually imagine that the past is back there and the future is up ahead – then we go travelling! When we know that the past is already gone and the future is just a fantasy, then we no longer get lost in trying to seek pleasure in them. We just acknowledge memory or plans as particular forms of mental activity in the present moment, and do not try to create more pleasure (or pain) out of them then they already have.

As an exercise just try to observe how you relate to memories or thoughts of the future. Do you see memories as a record of past events or do you go into fantasy mode – 'if only I did that', 'maybe if I hadn't done …', etc.

Unfortunately, we usually think that we simply recall buried memories. However, modern research has discovered that what we actually do is recollect certain key elements and then build a plausible new story around it. The new version then overwrites the old version and becomes the new 'old memory'. Have you noticed how the details of old memories are quite hazy and often doubtful?

In a positive sense memories can be a source of wisdom. If we are willing, we can see where we have gone astray at certain times and what has helped us to realign. Rather than moan over mistakes we can try to be more vigilant in future to not keep falling into the same old habits. 

Thoughts of the future can open up possibilities, but they are only possibilities and not actualities. And, at what point do these possibilities lead you into unnecessary worry – about mere possibilities!

The past is a memory,

The future a mere thought.

Only in the here and now are we alive.

Wishing everyone good health and well-being.