10 May 2009

Wash out your mouth each time you say ‘Buddha’. Saunter along. Stop worrying. Don’t reject the world of the senses, for, when you don’t reject it, it turns out to be the same as complete Awakening. If you work on your mind with your mind, how can you avoid immense confusion? A few days ago Robert was here and he wanted to drive to Aldringham Walks to see a woodlark again. I had almost forgotten the chapel and small cemetery there, of the Providence Baptists. Here it was, surrounded by wood and scrub. The older graves had the browner stones and the distinctive names. Ephraim. 1870s. Jabez Bird and his wife Hannah. On the back of their stone a Tetragnatha pinicola. Bluebells were about, and gorse in heavy flower, hawthorn in blossom and a nightingale close by, hidden but singing out from time to time. There was a smart male blackcap amongst the new leaves. The iron railings were rusty but their gates still worked. There were three stones to the same family deep underneath one small tree. The chapel itself had been renovated in 1904 and was now a private residence. So many words used to be current hereabouts, doubtless. Doctrine. There were still resounding inscriptions, one of which spoke of ‘trouble not springing out of the ground’. What did this mean? That the dead are quiet? Not, I assumed, that the world of the senses accepted is the same as complete Awakening. ...