Category: Articles

  • DAYS 1 AND 2: END TO END

    Day 1 – 1st August – 55.65 miles It was still raining when I pedaled away from the Sandy Bank Hotel at just after 8 am. The wind was still blowing too, not so strongly as the night before but luckily still from the same direction, this time blowing me along the A30 towards Penzance. Although I…

  • JOURNEY INTO BUDDHISM

    Journey into Buddhism In the years following Buddha Shakyamuni’s demise Buddhism was propagated in all sorts of ways; mendicant monks travelling around the country spreading the word to name but one.  Following the famous conversion by Emperor Ashoka, Buddhism became enmeshed into the political system of his ever expanding Empire and was soon adopted, perhaps…

  • CONTENTMENT

    In the old days, when my students asked me how to tackle a one-word abstract essay title like ‘Contentment’, I used to tell them to use a tin-opener, by which I meant questions which began with interrogatives like Who? When? What? Why? How? That was in the days before the internet was universally available and…

  • JOURNEY DOWN

        Journey Down 31 July 2009 The three­leg train journey down to Penzance wasn’t quite as bad as I’d expected; despite my disappointment when booking at not being able to repeat the trip my son and I made years ago.  At that time, we travelled Leeds to Penzance direct so had eight hours to sit back and enjoy the journey.   Manchester to Birmingham New Street  on ‘Cross Country’ trains turned out to be the most problematic.  I arrived at Piccadilly Station in plenty of time for the 7.26 departure.  

  • MY JOURNEY

    Just before Christmas 2011 my Mother asked if I wanted to go to a place called Samye Ling, a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Dumfries she had heard of, to do a weekend course as a Christmas present. I immediately said no, I had no interest in Religion at this time and couldn’t have told you a…

  • ERNIE’S END TO END – LAND’S END TO JOHN O’GROATS

      It’s time to hit the road again. Since returning from the ‘big ride’ ­ over two years ago now ­ I’ve been clocking up quite large mileages. What with 4­ – 5 sessions a week of cycle training with schools during term time, occasional rides up to Scotland to visit a Buddhist Centre and trips to…

  • LEARNING A LANGUAGE

                                                                                                          Me with a rather distracted-looking…

  • GUESS WHO

    GUESS WHO!         J      Where were you born? ?     I was born high up in the mountains. J      What brought you to Scotland? ?     My husband is from Scotland.  I married a Scotsman. J      Where did you meet him? ?     I met him in my own country. J      Do you have a…

  • LAMA NGAKPA: DIVINATION BY DICE

       Lama Ngakpa in his room Keeping an open mind, I decide I would like to have my prospects foretold by a Lama.  The idea of rolling the dice, reading the tarot, seeing angels in tea leaves, stirring the entrails of a dead goat, laying silver on the palm of a chiromancer or allying the state…

  • NOSY MANGABE

      Who would have thought that in the seventeenth century, on a tiny island in the Bay of Antongil in the north east of Madagascar Dutch sailors would be carving the rocks and leaving long detailed messages for one another.    The’ post office’ at Nosy Mangabe is on the tourist trail, but it is also…

  • Daily life at the Monastery

    This is the third article in the series by Ani Rinchen Khandro published in the New Statesmanin which she relates her experience at the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastry in Scotland. If, after having encountered a realized spiritual master of authentic and unbroken lineage, one wishes to become a Buddhist the next step is to ‘take refuge’. In the…

  • MEETING THE TEACHER

        Having made my first visit to Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Buddhist Centre with the express purpose of attending a talk by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, my second visit, a few months later, was to find out more about the Centre itself. Driving through the soft, green rolling hills of Southern…

  • APPROACHING BUDDHISM

    DETAIL ON THE BASE OF STUPA AT SAMYE LING   Ani Rinchen Khandro recounts years living in South-East Asia and her life as a Buddhist nun at Kagyu Samye Ling monastery. When one encounters anyone born in the west who is a Buddhist, the likelihood is that they were not born into the faith, but…

  • THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR FOREIGN TRAVEL IN INDIA by UPASANA POKHRIYAL

      I want to use this opportunity to write to you about some safety guides for women travelling in India. India is called Incredible !ndia for so many reasons. Its incredible because of its varied culture and religions that are followed by so many Indians: and still they live in peace and harmony. It’s incredible because this land…

  • GHANTAKARNA by Dr Sangeeta Rajbhandary

    घन्तकर्न Ghantakarna (Gathemanga in Newari)   Buddhist/Hindu Newar Festival to mark the death of the Demon       Gathemanga is celebrated in Kathmandu Valley in July which signals the end of the rice planting season and marks the beginning of the autumn festival season. The festival represents a ritual detoxification of the city or…

  • AKONG RINPOCHE

      I am shocked and shattered to know that Choje Akong Tulku Rinpoche has passed away at the hands of murderers in Chengdu on 8th of October along with his nephew and driver. I feel so helpless and lonely without his strong and courageous presence. I knew Akong Rinpoche since I was 9 years old.

  • A TRIBUTE TO AKONG RINPOCHE

          ‘Only the impossible is worth doing’[1].  Choje Akong Rinpoche was indeed, as described by Colum Kenny in the Irish Independent newspaper this week, a remarkable man:  tulku, father, husband, lama, teacher, labourer, refugee, politician, healer, soothsayer, pure visionary, founder of Samye Ling and the Rokpa and Tara Trusts.  A trusted guide to…