danger of education   we think we know something understand something danger of no education   we think we know something understand something rain falling   wrench tightening   bread baking   water boiling   police sirens children shouting   sleeping   seagull   moorhen   traffic   movingsittingstill #poetry #zen #MonoNoAware Mastodon City Cave Zen Sangha Profile at Scottish Book Trust RSS This site does not track you ..read more

When I returned to Glasgow after 22 years away, with no visits during that time, I found three cities: one I remembered, one I had imagined, and one I did not yet know. There is one thing common to all three cities, something that mystified me as a child and still mystifies me 50 years later: the male habit of regularly spitting while walking. I have no idea of its origin. Wherever you go, you will see old men, middle-aged men, young men, boys, turning their heads slightly to one side and spitting on the ground as they walk. They do it when walking with others, and they do it when walking by t ..read more

Virtue and Terror by Maximilien Robespierre (reread, in observance of the Queen of England’s Platinum Jubilee) On a Dark Night I Left My Silent House by Peter Handke Bad Behaviour by Mary Gaitskill (reread) A Sea Story by Gael Turnbull Creating a Personal Mythology by Diane Wakoski Inside Looking In by Tom Leonard #MonthlyReads #books Mastodon City Cave Zen Sangha Profile at Scottish Book Trust RSS This site does not track you ..read more

evening sunshine cat and dog trot side-by-side along city street Also published on Buddhistdoor Teahouse #haiku #poetry #friendship #NonHumanPeople Mastodon City Cave Zen Sangha Profile at Scottish Book Trust RSS This site does not track you ..read more

man on bicycle pedalling through summer rain smoking cigarette #haiku #poetry #MonoNoAware Mastodon City Cave Zen Sangha Profile at Scottish Book Trust RSS This site does not track you ..read more

Last week, one in 40 people in Scotland had Covid. This week, one in 30 have it. When the Scottish government decided to surrender to the virus by lifting mask requirements (though, bizarrely, still asking people to continue to wear them), we were assured that for fully-vaccinated people there was little to fear. But the following excerpt from an email is typical of what I hear from those infected: “Having spent the 2+ years of the pandemic NOT catching Covid, I finally tested positive at the beginning of this week. Wouldn't you just know! They say that the effects are now quite mild if you'v ..read more

Photo: daishin I have been an SNP member since I returned to Scotland in early 2017. I resigned my membership today, after Nicola Sturgeon’s fawning speech to the Scottish Parliament in praise of the Queen of the country that colonises Scotland. The Scottish Green Party showed itself to be the only modern party in Holyrood by walking out, while all the other parties tugged their forelocks and celebrated the Platinum Jubilee of the Queen of England. Ms Sturgeon delivered the kind of hagiography we might have expected from Boris Johnson, saying the Queen of England had played “an integral part i ..read more

Property Will Cost Us the Earth by various Dracula by Bram Stoker (reread) Lenin 2017 by Slavoj Zizek (reread) What Would Lynne Tillman Do? by Lynne Tillman (reread) From Glasgow to Saturn by Edwin Morgan (reread) And a lot of doomscrolling. #MonthlyReads #books Mastodon City Cave Zen Sangha Profile at Scottish Book Trust RSS This site does not track you ..read more

Photo: daishin Part of the subfloor of the flat we just moved into has old pages of the Daily Record ingrained, which brought back childhood memories I had forgotten for nearly 50 years — how working class people in Scotland would cover the floor with newspapers, for insulation, before putting down carpet. If I had remembered without seeing this, I would have guessed it was no longer done, but the date on the pages we found is 2009, so there are obviously some practices that will exist for as long as poverty does. With the current, and worsening, crisis of record heating bills, I wonder if wil ..read more

When we moved in five years ago, the bottom of this tower block was painted red, so daishin named it the Baboon. We have been happy living here, and we are happy to leave. Our Zen sangha has been having online meetings for two years, so I have given approximately 100 Dharma talks from this tiny flat on the 10th floor. After so much talking, no wonder I prefer the dynamic silence of our other meetings… We decided to name our new hermitage Comraich airson Lusan Leònte — Wounded Plant Sanctuary — because daishin rescues unwatered, damaged plants that the supermarket has been unable to sell, and ..read more