“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ― W.B. Yeats I just got word this morning that negotiations are on for a new property – five bedroom house on fifteen acres of forest only thirty minutes from Winnipeg. The move-in date is…
Sorry for not posting anything here in a while (10 days!), it’s just been a bit busy in real life. First, the property thing isn’t as simple as thought; the property we decided on turns out to be too big for a residential mortgage, so either the group puts $80,000…
So goes the universe. Expansions and contractions here, Mae Chii Jai is coming back, as is Sumana, the ex-novice from Thailand, to ordain again. Our new well is progressing nicely, we’ve been using it for a couple of weeks already, the water was tested and is fit for human consumption.…
Everybody left, and then three new meditators came. So, now we have me, Pauli from Finland, Harish from USA, and Peter from Canada. Pauli will finish his first course tomorrow, Peter and Harish are just slogging through the beginning stages; everyone has expressed the shock at how different it is…
Can’t remember when the last update was, the title is kind of a joke… Back in Sri Lanka. All is well. The worst news is some ferocious termites ate through the plastic floor of my mosquito tent and started trimming the fat off of some of the books I’d securely…
Today is the new year, or tomorrow is, depending who we listen to… Friday the 13th too. The-yogi-formerly-known-as-Jens arrived this week, and has taken up the role of groundskeeper; he and Manju have begun work on one of the more slippery forest paths and took measurements for the new kuti…
The more things change, the more they stay the same, so the saying goes. Worth keeping in mind; in the world of sankhara, the new is ever as the old. On the other hand, this is what Buddhism attempts to address, in a sense; we strive for the unattained, a…
So, things are coming together in keeping the organization running; there is some coordination going on between the non-profit and the monastery, which should see the monastery regain its ability to finance the meditation centre. A budget is now up at the Org.Sirimangalo site, for anyone who is interested, though…
Recently I heard that abominable phrase, “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”, turned into an equally abominable internet acronym. Yep, TANSTAAFL. It’s not so simple, really, to answer the question whether there is such thing as a free lunch in an ultimate sense. Even when we give…
Over the past year, something quite wonderful has grown out of the craziness of this life on Earth. The website I originally set up on behalf of my teacher while still living in Chiang Mai, Thailand has in this short time become something quite remarkable. Sure, it has evolved many…