THE CREATIVE BUDDHIST NEWSLETTER

Dear Subscriber First Name,

Airbnb is always a roll of the dice. We’ve usually been lucky. This trip involved 3 Airbnbs in the south of Sweden. The first was full of lovely things, art books and beautiful objects. It was my perfect combination of ‘old cottage’ meets ‘vintage industrial’. We were there with the boys for a family holiday. When they left us, we headed to Airbnb number two, a little hut in the woods.

Having lived in Eddie the Van for a while, we are both okay with basic accommodation and how basic can it be with your own hot-tub and sauna? Plus, all the reviews were 5 star:

Longing for a relaxing weekend or week close to nature? Here you can enjoy a simple living next to the forest but with the luxury of both sauna and outdoor spa bath with a view from both the bed and the bath over the babbling brook.

We arrive in a place that is the definition of where I don’t want to live in Sweden. Dark forest, with no one around and multiple wrecked cars outside each house. I’m exaggerating, but it did have that Nordic Noir crime series feel. Okay, so it’s not our ideal location, but we have a car and can travel further south in the days and enjoy the sauna in the evenings.

Looking for the entrance, we pull into a gas station to turn around. It’s a special diesel place for trucks. And there it is, our hot tub. Not exactly in the gas station but a few metres away, almost close enough to have a chat with someone filling their truck. We find the hut and walk in to welcoming music and it’s not possible to switch it off. This is the soundtrack to our utter disappointment. It’s already late so we’ll have to make the most of it. It’s raining, so we sit inside, wine glasses balanced on a rickety table, looking at each other as if to say, ‘Is this as bad as I think it is?’ The answer is yes. It’s horrible. But what about all those 5 star reviews? Could it be us? Are we just really fussy?

I’m sure you’ve had that experience too, where you just don’t know how objective you are being. Is it just my mindset? Could I see the place in a different light? I mean, if we were at war and I’d had to leave everything behind, then I’d be very grateful for a hut like this to sleep in. But, Vajradarshini, you are not at war; you are on your holidays. A trip to the compost loo next door presents us with a fairly full bucket. Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of compost loos, but would empty the bucket between guests. It’s too late to leave, so we settle down for the night, the smell of the loo occasionally wafting through the wooden wall that separates it from us. A clear no is present in my body each time I awake. I can’t do it, I can’t stay here.

After a restless night, we make coffee and start looking for another Airbnb. I don’t think I’ve ever packed my bags so quickly. We are out the door before most people’s day has begun, literally speeding away, wanting distance between us and the hut as quickly as possible. Later we stop in a little village for breakfast and are soon back in our favourite landscapes. We’ve booked ourselves a new Airbnb, so new it was yet to have any reviews. Would we be bitten once again? No, the new place was gorgeous and a bottle of Cava was waiting for us. Phew.

If it’s true that life is full of opportunities to practice, then holidays are the equivalent of an intensive retreat!

The Dharma Bundle

Openness, clarity and sensitivity in everyday life

We are just coming to the end of the latest Dharma Bundle. In the last session we’ll explore some of the meanings carried my the mantra OM AH HUM.
Body, Speech and Mind.
Nirmanakaya, Samboghakaya and Dharmakaya.
Openness, Clarity and Sensitivity.
A whole world of practice in one mantra.

You can join the Dharma Bundle anytime and will find all the previous themes there.

The Dharma Bundle is a ‘bundle’ of dharma resources, thoughtfully made and beautifully packaged. Short, illustrated Dharma videos and audio talks. Audio meditations and reflections. Creative assignments.

On my radar this week

Website: The Shopkeepers - While I was on holiday a friend sent me a link to this website, The Shopkeepers. Funnily enough, we’d been looking for properties and floating the idea of creating a little cafe/shop. Being a shopkeeper is a long-term fantasy of mine. The website shares the stories behind a worldwide collection of the best independent shops.

Books:
Resurrecting Jesus - I’m so enjoying Adyashanti’s ‘Resurrecting Jesus’. He’s a Buddhist teacher, from the Zen tradition, but with a lifelong connection to the story of Jesus. It's subtitled 'embodying the spirit of a revolutionary mystic' and it's basically mapping the story of Jesus onto Adyashanti's understanding of the process of awakening.

The Garden Against Time, In search of a common paradise - Olivia Laing’s ‘Funny Weather’ was a treat, a collection of essays about the importance of art. So I was intrigued that her latest book is about the importance of gardens. The Garden Against Time is the story of her restoring a garden in Suffolk and follows the timeline of the pandemic. Each chapter is a little digression: the enclosures in England in the 18th and 19th centuries; Derek Jarman’s garden as a response to his illness; famous gardens built on slavery and so on. Recommended holiday reading.

Miksang photography: John Einarsen - Just came across this video in my saved list. It’s called ‘A photographer’s journey through moments of awareness and healing’ by the Miksang teacher John Einarsen. He gets a terminal diagnosis and ends up in hospital alone during the pandemic. It’s just him and the curtains around his bed. He finds so much beauty in those curtains. I’ve just booked on this Miksang course which starts next week, looking forward to seeing my curtains in a new light.

Creative tips:

This picture was hanging in the bathroom of the first Airbnb we stayed in. I loved it. It is of course the back of a picture frame, with a simple paper image tacked on. It reminded me of Cornelia Parker’s hanging of the backs of Turner’s paintings.

A quote I’m thinking about:

You can certainly do it. That’s what people said.

You must work up your courage. That’s what people said.

So I did. I worked up my courage.

I worked up my courage and I said: I can’t do it.

-Lee Kyu-gyeong