Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,

Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,

Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -

Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams,

A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust;

It will drink deeply of a century's streams,

These lilies shall make summer on my dust.

Here in their safe and simple house of death,

Sealed in their shells a million roses leap,

Here I can blow a garden with my breath,

And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

(Muriel Stuart)

……….

In this podcast:

• Zen & poetry: How it appears in the training.
• The Buddha uses an agricultural analogy with farmers to explain how things arise.
• Creating causes and conditions (Make the things you want easy, the things you don't want difficult).
• Right Intention, the making of a vow
• Creating conditions for practice: a timetable & ritual practice, a meditation space, regular exposure to the Dharma, good friends in the Dharma etc.
• How to perfurme consciousness - How we read the writings of the Zen canon.