A bell ringing in the empty sky ……
It's early morning and I've been writing more on the monastery's computer. They've kept their solar panels free of snow so when occasionally the sun breaks through the heavy blanket of clouds, they can continue to charge the large bank of batteries to run the computer, flat screen with other technology and devices of which, unsurprisingly this being Japan, the monastery has a few that are still working. The rest of their power comes from a collection of small wind generators on the side of the mountain that stretches up from behind the monastery.
The gong has sounded to wake the nuns & monks for their pre dawn 2 hour sitting practice, whereas I have been up most of the night. Unable to sleep after the long walk through the snow to the vegetable & tofu store half way up the mountain. But soon I'll join them once I've read through my writing, we'll eat breakfast together then spend the rest of the day carrying out essential tasks inside and outside the monastery and in its grounds.
Yesterday morning the abbot and I accompanied by the 3 monks and 2 nuns who are all that's left of a once busy and vibrant Zen monastery walked for at least 2 hours through snowdrifts and a fairly strong head wind, but no snowfall, into a beautiful forest of pine, birch and alder as we gradually ascended the mountain on whose lower slopes the monastery is built. Walking in silence in single file carrying large empty rucksacks on our backs with only the occasional call of a bird circling high above the forest breaking the stillness.
The forest, the Abbot had told me when I arrived, stretched for at least fifty miles south to Hokkaido. A conversation which now seems like it could have happened months ago as I've quickly settled into the daily routine of living in this place where the Abbot has also told me I'm welcome to stay as long as I wish, which may be some time.
The 2 nuns are identical twins. Probably in their 20s with closely cropped black hair, piercing blue eyes and constant smiles on their faces. They're tall for Japanese people, both over 6 foot and impossible to tell one from the other. Their buddhist names are Tara & Ananda. Since I arrived at the monastery they have not a said a word to me, not surprising of course as, like the 3 monks, they have taken an indefinite vow of silence. Whenever we meet they press their palms together over their hearts, their smiles widen and they bow their heads to me. I have to say that I am growing to like them very much, something so centred and calm about them amongst all the uncertainty of these times.
The 3 monks are brothers. Their given names are Maitreya, Siddartha & Amitabha. All slightly shorter in height than myself and the Abbot, they too have cropped hair, the oldest with his crew cut turning grey and all three with slight smiles on their faces. Siddartha, the youngest, is probably in his late teens whereas Amitabha ,the eldest, could be anything between 40 and 50. Maitreya, the middle brother, is to me at least, the most interesting. Whereas his siblings mostly move with their eyes a few metres in front of them as if in a constant walking meditation practice, he is always slowly gazing around wherever he may be. I get a sense that he is really looking at what is there.
The monks also greet me with palms pressed together, a widening smile and a bowing of the head. A greeting that I have learnt to return.
We had arrived at their vegetable and fruit store after what had felt like a relatively easy walk rather than a trudge through deep snow possibly because of the regular single file walking pattern we adopted, stepping into each others footprints with Amitabha in front followed by the Abbot, Siddartha, Tara, Ananda, myself with Maitreya bringing up the rear.
The store was a beautiful long single storied building built of grey stone blocks with terracotta tiles covered in snow. It overlooked the broad sweep of terraced gardens on the south side of the mountain where the monks & nuns grow their food in spring, summer and autumn in walled gardens, now buried in deep snow drifts. They stored their produce in temperature controlled conditions in winter, all powered by solar and wind energy with a section filled with a carefully labelled seed bank for planting next year and saved for the future.
When I had asked the Abbot why the store was built there and not next to the monastery he explained that as it was on the south side of the mountain near the gardens, it was easy to transfer harvested produce from the growing areas into the store and it was also a better place to control the temperature for storage, for making miso, pickles and tofu than in the monastery which in winter was in the shadow of the mountain for most of the day. They had to be careful with their use of solar power in the monastery though the wind turbines generated enough for the daily running of the building.
He said, laughing as he often did.
"It means we get a good 4 to 6 hour walk every couple of weeks depending on the weather. After all that sitting practice we could do with some exercise!"
Next door to it was another building built in a similar style where they made a wide variety of miso, pickles and tofu. Some of the tofu was stored in wooden boxes in the snow to create snow dried tofu. One of the main incomes for the monastery had come from shipping and selling their miso, pickles and tofu all over the world to aficionados of organic Japanese soya products but of course that was no longer possible.
As they abbot remarked.
"Now we must eat all this delicious food ourselves. What a punishment!"
We filled our rucksacks with jars of miso & pickles, slabs of tofu wrapped carefully in cotton sheeting, some of it snow dried and a variety of vegetables including carrots, onions, parsnips, cabbage, pumpkins, a range of winter green salad leaves, apples and some hessian bags containing hazelnuts, chestnuts & walnuts, a sack of rice and one of flour that each fitted neatly into one of our rucksacks. The store had a small kitchen at one end with a wood burning stove which Maitreya had lit and had cooked us a delicious meal of fried tofu, a pumpkin and carrot stew in a miso sauce, steamed rice and a salad of winter greens. Followed by some small, rather shrivelled but tasty apples and cups of green tea.
When we had finished eating we cleared and washed the wooden plates and spoons at a sink which had hot running water and replaced them on the long shelf above the wood burning stove. Ananda had gone to a large cupboard at the other end of the store and brought out blankets and zafons*. She had given one of each to everyone and we had gone outside onto the wide wooden balcony swept clear of snow that faced South down the mountain into the now slowly falling sun. There was a large bell hanging by the door which the abbot rang. We had each found a space, sat on our zafon wrapped in the warm brown woollen blankets as the sun sank in front of us.
Sometime later just before the sun set the abbot rang the bell again. Ananda collected our zafons, folded the blankets and replaced them with all in the cupboard while the rest of us put on our coats and our full rucksacks on our backs. Siddartha had locked the doors with a bunch of keys he carried, Tara had checked the solar panels and wind generators resulting in a nod from her to the abbot and we set off down the mountainside towards the monastery into the setting sun.
The changing colours of reds, yellows, pinks and oranges reflected off the snow and the branches of the scattered ash, willow, alder & birch trees growing out of the boulders on the side of the mountain until suddenly we were in the twilight of the forest.
As the sun continued its journey and day turned into night I saw that the full moon had already risen and the sunset light show which had illuminated our journey so far across the side of the mountain and into the wood had faded. We were lit by a pure blue white light that shone through the trees showing us our footprints made earlier as we climbed towards the store, now leading us back home. I realised that for the first time in many years for any place I had been that was how I now thought of the monastery.
Home.
No snow was falling and the wind had dropped completely, so in spite of the weight of our fully laden rucksacks and our rather cautious but sure steps downhill the return journey was easier than our walk up the mountain that morning.
The wood stove in the monastery's kitchen was still smouldering so Maitreya, who was on kitchen and cooking duties, had got it blazing again. After prayers and a short sitting practice in the meditation hall, we had eaten an evening meal of rice porridge with dried fish and large dollops of a miso and daikon pickle. After washing up and tidying the kitchen the 2 nuns and the 3 monks bowed to the abbot and I and went to bed.
We had moved through to the office where we sat together lit only by the changing images on the screen saver on the large flat monitor attached to the monastery's computer with keyboard (in English) and trackpad. A state of the art Apple iMac, well it had been until even Apple had like all industries been forced due to lack of power to stop producing more iPhones, iPads, laptops and desktop computers.
We’d had a couple of earlier conversations about the monastery's survival in these end days. In one of them the abbot had given me a glimpse into his past, admitting that yes for a man in his early 80s he was comparatively well but didn't expect to live forever! His laughter was infectious and whenever I spoke with him he lifted my spirit.
In our first conversation, the day after I had arrived at the monastery and slept for over 24 hours, he had told me that though the monks and nuns had taken their vow of silence, he carried on talking. Partly to give them the occasional teaching but also in case travellers, such as myself, turned up at the monastery looking for as he described it
"Retreat or sanctuary from all that disaster going on in the world"
He spoke perfect English with a slight Northumbrian accent though he had been brought up and lived most of his early life in Tokyo. The eldest son of a middle class Japanese family who it would seem had loved him almost unconditionally. As an adult he had trained in computing & electronics and with the help of finance from his family had become a very successful businessman running his own manufacturing company providing parts to the likes of Sony, Hitachi, Yamaha and eventually Apple & Samsung.
He had become as he put it
"Obscenely wealthy"
Then one day, out walking on his own in the countryside north of Tokyo he'd come across a Zen monastery. He had walked through the garden with its rocks, raked gravel patterns with bonsai bushes and trees scattered across it in beautiful but simple pots and entered the meditation hall.
He said it was a simple hall with a wooden floor, unrendered stone walls with windows down both sides. Full of light with a simple altar at one end and a number of meditation cushions scattered on the floor.
He'd never been in a Buddhist temple before as both his parents followed the Shinto religion. But something about the space as he described it to me
"Made me feel both overwhelmed and completely at home. The altar at the far end from where I had entered the hall was a simple low wooden table on it was a statue of, what I later learnt, was the Buddha Maitreya (the buddha of the future) with hand raised with the hand upright and the palm towards me in the mudra of perfect peace and the other hand was pointing towards the top of the altar in the mudra known as calling the earth to witness.
Though I knew none of this at the time in fact I didn't even know the richness and complexity of hand gestures or mudras, something I learnt about once I took my vows a short time after this encounter. It also had on it a large round stone, a bowl of white flowers and a bowl containing sand in which burnt a candle and some joss sticks.
As I was walking down towards the altar to look at the statue in more detail I noticed that sitting to one side of the altar on a cushion watching me as I walked down the hall was an elderly monk. His head shaved, a neatly trimmed beard covering most of his face, bright blue eyes and a smile on his lips. He looked at me with kindness and compassion
He spoke to me in a quiet gentle voice.
"Welcome Akira. It's very good you are here. We've been expecting you. "
For a moment my rational mind tried to understand what he had said.
How could he have been expecting me? Who were "we"? How did he know my name?
Then I felt overwhelmed by a sense of great joy mixed with huge grief and I began to weep"
The rest of the story about his journey from that moment to his appointment as the Abbot of this monastery on the North Island took him from almost immediately leaving his business to his daughter and taking his vows as a buddhist novice at the monastery. After many years he was sent to the North of England to set up and run a Zen monastery in the Cheviots called Throssle Hole, he had travelled abroad often in his life as company director but never to Britain and it was while he was there he learnt to speak English
"The perfectionist in me pushed me to speak and write it perfectly. Better than any English person in fact" he had smiled as he said this.
He had spent two decades there making links with other buddhist centres and practices in particular across the border in Scotland with the Tibetan Buddhist monastery of Sam Ye Ling in the borders.
"In many ways these practices and centres represented different interpretations and approaches to the teachings of Siddartha, all had at their core the 4 noble truths. Does she ask what they are or just say them"
He had reached the point where he wondered if he would ever see Japan again though his daughter, now a successful business woman, had come to Throssle Hole on retreat for a month every couple of years. Then one day his mobile phone had rung. It was the elderly abbot of the monastery where he had spent his early years and had his as he described
"My Buddhist equivalent of Saul on the road to Damascus. But hopefully not quite so painful!"
Though they had only rarely spoken during his time in Northumberland they were good friends and he looked to the older man as his mentor. He had told Akira that the abbot of one of their monasteries north of Hokkaido had been ambushed, robbed and murdered by 2 men and a woman on a train while on his way to Hokkaido to take many of the monasteries ancient buddhist texts & landscape paintings as part of a large exhibition of the history of Zen writing, poetry and art.
Nobody knew who they were or why they had killed him at the same time as murdering nearly every one else on the train. They'd gone through all the carriages spraying the passengers with automatic rifles, forced their way into the engine where they had shot the 2 drivers, stopped the train outside a tunnel next to a road where a car was waiting for them.
The only survivors were a woman and her small child who had hidden under a seat and a dog that had somehow miraculously escaped the bullets.
They had loaded all the art works out of the baggage compartments into the car and driven away.
The gangsters, for that must have been who they were, and the artworks vanished without trace in spite of a long running and intensive international hunt for them.
So, after 30 years of running the monastery in England he had returned to Japan and been installed as the abbot of the monastery where it seems that I am now living.
Our second conversation had taken place a couple of days ago. Really brief and to the point.
I was welcome to stay there as long as I needed though I would not be expected to take any vows.He would only ask that I took part in the day to day tasks required to keep the monastery on as he put it
“An even keel continuing to serve our purpose of honouring and practicing the teachings of Ghotama”
He would also be delighted if I would join them in their daily sitting or zazen practices and would be happy to give me any guidance on this that I needed.
I had replied with a simple “Yes” and told him that though I had practiced mindfulness for many years I would be grateful for any help or support he would give me and would ask him when I needed it.
This then was our 3rd conversation and in many ways, for myself at least, the most revealing.
He had made us green tea in a beautiful teapot. A simple brown raku fired ceramic object with flashes of blue on it. The tea gently poured into small matching beakers.
We had sat in front of the screen for some time as we watched the changing pictures of the natural world. The only remaining website I had found so far was this online screen saver with tens of thousands of images of the natural world.
Trees, leaves, rocks, flowers, fungi, rivers, mountains, seascapes and landscapes, sunrises and sunsets, birds, fish, insects, spiders, reptiles, mammals, life forms including bacteria, viruses and the infinite variety of micro life, with the intricacy of sub atomic particles interspersed occasionally with human bodies and faces.....a reminder of what might have been lost forever.
Then he spoke.
"It’s good that you’ve decided to stay. For as long as it seems useful to you. I realise that you are not like most people in fact..."
He paused and I replied
"I’m .......I'm not human.....though my species is very similar"
"Ah yes....... that is what I thought…..but thank you for confirming it"
We sat in silence together for some minutes and then he spoke again. As always slowly, clearly & in perfect English.
" It is unfortunate and sad that, from what I have discerned and observed over the last few years, so called human civilisation and culture seems to be coming to a rapid end on this planet. Possibly even the end of our particular species. Due largely to our own careless relationships and interactions with nature and the planet we share with all these other extraordinary species"
Here he indicated the changing images on the screen in front of us.
"The planet and many of its other inhabitants will survive these difficult and dangerous changes. We are so self centred and we seldom consider that all those other species have their histories too, and their evolutionary story...separate to us and our little lives....and many of those stories will now be lost forever"
For the first time since I had met hime I had a sense of sadness coming from him. No laughter as he continued
"Though no-one of course can tell how long this may last for......it would seem that after initial suppositions of global warming then something that was called climate change most of the climatologists and other scientists had got it wrong. As we now know it would seem we are entering a long period of global cooling and an Ice Age the like of which has not visited our planet for many thousands of years.
"That would seem to be the current opinion amongst those remaining scientists able to access or post on the internet in the last few years. Caused by an unforeseen combination of climate change, a wobble in our planet's axis and some extreme sunspot activity. Though the universe contains a multitude of such serendipity even without our influence. Now the internet is completely silent and all we really know is what we see happening around us"
He paused and poured more tea to refill our beakers.
"Arrogant but fairly smart creatures that we are, we believed we would survive these changes. Even as the possibilities of growing enough food to feed us all in a rapidly cooling climate became more and more challenging. But GMOs, more chemical fertilisers and sprays or hydroponics weren't really going to solve the problem were they?" he asked.
"No I don't think that was ever a possibility. Of course you left it far too late....I don't mean you personally....I mean humans in general.Those in power in particular wasted so much time, energy and resources on getting the Martian and Lunar colonies established when they should have been paying attention to what needed doing here. Even so it might still have been too late" I replied
"Yes. Though as Grace Jones sang 'Regret shit that's so wet'. We are where we are and the rich with their disciples and servants have left us behind for new lives on the moon or Mars. I wonder how that will pan out!"
He laughed quietly
"Maybe it's not really that funny, just rather ridiculous. You know as I do, as two of the few survivors, how those of us left here responded. Food riots, civil and international war, famine, disease, complete mayhem & destruction. What the Bible in the book of Revelations calls The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. A powerful and terrifying image though I do wonder how they would have managed on horseback in all this snow"
He paused for a moment and looked directly at me
" Yes. So I've heard...... but I missed most of that as I was.....somewhere else" I said
"Interesting. Somewhere on another planet?" he enquired
" No. On this planet. Perhaps more exactly I was somewhen else!"
" I see. Your species can travel through time?"
" Sort of..... I have this"
I reached into my jacket and showed him the piece of Illyrium on it's temporary leather thong that I'd found in one of the monastery's workshops having lost its chain when I left the school in Canada.
I took it over my head and passed it to him. It no longer glowed as it had last done when I was caught in the ice blizzard but it was still beautiful. Shining in its new shape, which it had taken after my journey from Canada. A simple pale blue metallic circle a couple of inches in diameter with a burst of bright red tinged with yellow and orange at its centre.
He held it carefully in his hand. Turned it over to see the other side which shone as if made of silver with a faint spider's web pattern covering it.
"Ah.....so.....Illyrium. It's been some time since I've held a piece of this. You travel through space and time with it?"
"Yes. That's right. Have you seen other pieces?"
"Only two. I held them both in my hand like this one. One in the shape of a small Aum sign in the Tibetan monastery at Sam ye Ling in Scotland. Brought by the monks when they fled from their monastery in Tibet as soldiers of the Red Army came to destroy it. The other piece was in the form of a small sculpture of a kingfisher only a couple of inches high but perfect in colour and every detail belonging to a shamaness on the island of Ni'ihau in Hawaii."
"It's how I travelled here. I was in Canada. You've not asked me how I got here or where I came from"
He laughed.
"But you're here! So how you got here or where you were before is not that important. You're so lucky to have this piece of Illyrium, such a rare element. Maybe one day you can tell me how you came to be in possession of such a wondrous object."
He passed it back to me. I put the thong over my neck and tucked the Illyrium back inside my jacket.
"Yes. I'd be happy to tell you that story "
We sat again in silence for some time with the seemingly endless variety of images flickering on the screen lighting our faces. Then he spoke again.
" From a buddhist perspective none of what we have been discussing about humanity, its present predicament and its future really matters. Hard though it is to hear those words and even harder though it is for me to say them. As buddhists we feel compassion and sorrow for what is happening and what may happen in the future. But we go on with our practices. We have all in this place taken the vows of a bhodisattva, not to achieve enlightenment and freedom or turn away from the sufferings of ignorance and attachment until all beings are awake and free. Even an object as powerful and truly ancient as the piece of Illyrium you have is in its essence to buddhist thinking mere illusion"
He took a drink from his tea and I joined him enjoying the sweet and slightly bitter flavour of it, kept remarkably hot within it's small handleless terracotta beaker.
" Consciousness will happen wherever there is life. Wherever there is awakened awareness there will be questions about the nature of existence. There will be rational enquiry but also, more importantly, there will be meditation practices that go beyond the limitations of the rational mind. Always underpinned by our true nature, indeed the true nature of all living things. Buddha nature. But I'm becoming far too philosophical & even metaphysical which is very bad news for a zen Buddhist so maybe it's time I went to bed. To sleep perchance to dream. I know you will be up for some hours yet as I have observed since you arrived you seem to do most of your writing late at night"
"Yes. I find these late night hours most conducive to my creative writing. But I don't want to assume that I can continue to use your computer, though my laptop seems to have decided not to recharge it's batteries. They may have been damaged in the extreme cold in Canada and..."
He held up his hand to stop me
"No problem. You are most welcome to continue using our computer and internet terminal for whatever research and writing you're engaged in but please don't worry about the power. We've looked after our solar and wind generating facilities well and our back up batteries are fully charged. We Japanese love our technology and, in spite of the serious downsides to that knowledge we are now experiencing, it still has its uses. Again perhaps on another occasion you can tell me what it is that you're writing?" he asked
"I would be honoured if you would read some of what I have written. A kind of journal.......a diary of my experience of these days" I replied
"I see. I'm sure I would find that interesting and useful"
He yawned, stood up, stretched his arms above his head to touch and briefly stroked one off the wooden beams that ran across the ceiling of this room. Which was cross between an office in one half with its 2 comfortable office, single computer, keyboard, mouse, internet terminal and huge screen with an electronics workshop in the other half of 2 long tables covered in a vast array of electronic and electrical components from tiny chips to circuit boards. More details
"Goodnight. I will see you at morning practice. Oh....and I've left you a copy of the Heart Sutra. In the original Sanskrit and an english translation. The Prajna Paramita. A beautiful summary of Buddhist philosophy. It's there next to the screen. Perhaps you could chant it either openly or silently as part of your daily practice. I've found it most helpful in the past.....well actually even now!"
He laughed, his sheer pleasure at being alive made me smile.
He pointed to a couple of sheets of paper on the right of the screen. One in the flowing text of classical Sanskrit and the other carefully hand written in English.
"I wrote it out myself in English. Though of course there are different versions of it in many languages but I rather like this one in the original Sanskrit or maybe it was Pali. Not that important really. It's the teaching that matters.....what points beyond the words"
He pressed his palms together at his heart, bowed his head to me. I did the same in reply. Then he turned, opened the door, left the room and closed it behind him.
I sat for a moment, stood up and stretched throughout my body using a series of short dynamic movements that I'd learnt from an Italian yoga teacher which always woke me up and prepared me for reflecting and writing. I drank the rest of my tea, sat in front of the screen and moved the mouse.
The screen saver which was on an image of a large white owl perched on a branch looking out as if directing all its attention towards me changed immediately to the space of the Safari web browser. In the past it would have had information & images on it from whichever web site I had last visited with the text bar, the search space and various other icons at the top, down the side and along the bottom.
Now it was completely empty. Just a pale blue background with a small apple logo at the top on the right hand side and the search bar in the middle.
No text, no images, no icons. Just the Safari template and the search bar which I had used hundreds of times since arriving at the monastery with a wide variety of suggestions, enquiries and possible websites, always with no success in finding a single website. The browser always stayed as it had been when I'd first opened it. An empty blue screen as were the screens on all the different browsers I'd tried.
As far as I could tell the world wide web was dead or at least in a very deep sleep.
I was intending to update my journal about our visit to the storehouse and my conversation with Akira when I noticed that the Illyrium was getting warm.
I wondered if it was drawing energy from the computer so I took it out from under my jacket to see that the core centre of the circle, the yellow and orange starburst that became a red glow spreading out into the blue of the circle, was pulsing sending ripples out across the illyrium.
As I looked at the changing pattern on it two words came clearly into my mind.
The Game.
I looked at the screen and typed into the search bar in lowercase
the game
For a few moments the screen stayed dead.....well the blue it's been every time I've switched it on and typed into the search bar.
Then very slowly out of the blue emerged four words in capital letters in what appeared to be Times New Roman script gradually filling the whole screen. It's a big screen, like a large 50 inch flatscreen TV.
The words, in uppercase and rainbow colours said
As I looked at these words I saw that within each letter there were multiple moving small video images which created the rainbow colour effect. These images were constantly changing, rotating within the frame of the type. Initially I couldn't make out quite what they were as there were so many of them and they were so small but I also realised that for the first time there was sound coming out of the two speakers which are suspended fixed to the wall above and on either side of the screen
These were not just any old computer speakers but a top of the range Sony Hifi sound system and coming out of them is what initially sounded like a multi level hum which I understood almost immediately was a combination of many sounds. I also saw that on the right hand side of the screen there was a small amplifier with a large volume control knob and two smaller knobs for treble & bass controls, so I turned the volume control up slowly and the sound rose to fill the room
The volume had been turned right down as there had been no reason to have it on at all, because no sound had been coming out of the Internet as there were, until now, no active websites.
I moved the mouse pointer over the screen. As it moved over each of the letters, that letter grew to completely fill the screen as the other letters disappeared . I could she see that the images within each letter making up each one were a multitude of images of human activity.
I click on the W from the word welcome. A brief moment and then the screen was filled with an infinite variety of changing images that moved, tumbled, spun and travelled around the screen. In seemingly random but also in beautiful repeating and chaos patterns
The sound changing to short bursts of a few seconds of music, text, soundscapes.
As I looked closer closer at these images I realised that they were indeed all images of events in human history, civilisation and culture. Catching the tumbling images with the mouse pointer took a bit of practice but each time I managed to click on an image it filled the screen then looped for a few seconds
I had clicked on one that I thought I knew what it was, sure enough it was that grainy video of Jackie Kennedy cradling John F moments after he'd been shot in the motorcade in Dallas.
I carried on clicking and watching, and each new looping image was accompanied by its own soundtrack.
Events from 21st, 20th & 19th century human history in film, video, photographs, drawings, comics and cartoons. All the centuries of further back in human history represented in drawings, paintings, some text. Not just those artefacts, personalities and events that are 'famous' or well known but the vast range and variety of human experience on this planet encapsulating the whole of human development and evolution.
One puzzling aspect as I continued my exploration of this extraordinary website were some clear high resolution digital images of what I guessed to be early hominids. Perhaps reconstructions using computer graphics or possibly filmed by visitors to the planet. Along with other images, likewise clear and high resolution of what I assumed were stages in evolution before the development of hominids.
After this initial exploration I sat for a moment with the original WELCOME TO THE GAME screen, poured myself more tea which was still warm but slightly stronger, drank it and discovered that if I double clicked on an image from one of the letters the screen turned to a dark blue with a multiple choice menu with a series of questions
" In this event where would you like to go now"
"What would you like to know?"
"Is there a character or role you would like to take on?"
"Do you have an avatar you use?"
"Please type onto the screen your thoughts and wishes or speak them"
"The only limits to your interactions with any of these events and the possibilities of exploring and travelling further into them are those of your imagination"
I understood that this was a vast computer game. The thought of engaging further and playing this game excited me but also slightly scared me. I had a sense that this was very powerful and that now was maybe not the time to engage with it.
I clicked on one more image. This time it was Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. More vibrant and intense than even the original which I had see many years ago in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence on my way to Rome. Not only was it intensely coloured in every detail but it moved. All the figures, including Venus, moving her hands away from her breast and her pudenda, turning to look straight at me.
Accompanied by moments of a beautiful late 15th century Italian madrigal.
The Illyrium glowed even more intensively and I felt for a moment that I could step into the picture. Become Venus even...
But.....I knew that was enough.... It was time to go back to my writing
On the bottom right hand corner of the screen I saw in bold red letters
I clicked on it and, as the screen began to fade. All the images coalesced then disappeared into a single point with only a simple line of black text in what looked like elaborate hand writing that ran across it spoken at the same time by a melodious female voice
The screen went back to it's simple pale blue and all sound from the speakers ceased.
I drank the last of my tea wondering whether the Abbot knew of this website and decided to talk to him about it in the morning.
I clicked on the single icon at the bottom left of the screen that opened my word processing programme, a rather pared down mobile version of Word. The last piece of writing I had completed opened. All my recent activity was constantly backed up to a usb stick that for the moment at least lived in one of the monastery’s iMacs many ports. So, if I had to leave in a hurry for any reason or lost the paper transcripts it would all still be there on that little bit of technology as all backups to the internet had disappeared.
I was about to start typing when I glanced down to my right and saw the writing that the Abbot had left for me.
The Prajna Paramita in Sanskrit and the English version in his beautiful handwriting . I decided that before I did anything else I would read it. My Sanskrit is passable and lovely though it would sound in its original tongue I chose to read it out loud in English.
I'm so glad that I read it as something in me shifted giving me a certainty about what I was to do next.
It goes like this.
Prajna Paramita - The Heart Sutra.
Hear this then
Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form.
Form is only emptiness,
Emptiness only form.
Feeling, thought, and choice,
Consciousness itself,
Are the same as this.
All things are by nature void & empty.
They are not born or destroyed
Nor are they stained or pure
Nor do they wax or wane
So, in emptiness, no form,
No feeling, thought, or choice,
Nor is there consciousness.
No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;
No colour, sound, smell, taste, touch,
Or what the mind takes hold of,
Nor even the act of sensing.
No ignorance or end of it,
Nor all that comes of ignorance
No withering, no death,
No end of them.
Nor is there pain, or cause of pain,
Or cease in pain
No noble path
To lead from pain
Not even wisdom to attain!
Attainment too is emptiness.
So know that the Bodhisattva
Holding to nothing whatever,
But dwelling in Prajna wisdom,
Is freed of delusion,
Rid of the fear bred by it,
And reaches clearest Nirvana & Freedom.
All Buddhas of past and present,
Buddhas of future time,
Using this Prajna wisdom,
Come to full and perfect vision.
Hear then the great teaching,
The radiant peerless mantra,
The Prajnaparamita
Whose words allay all pain
Hear and know its truth!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha
Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha
Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha +
Cut to the Writer’s face reflected on the flat screen
Her lips move as she speaks the words.
As she speaks them in English the Sanskrit text is overlayed across her reflected face in multi-coloured writing.
As she repeats the last 3 lines “Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha” the Sanskrit text for these words fills the screen and then the full camera frame.
When her narration ends the text dissolves to an azure blue as a deep bell fades slowly up.
It rings every five seconds.
When the frame is empty of Sanskrit text the bell continues to ring, only fading out as the blue fades to black.
*Zafons are round cushions for sitting meditation.
+ Gone, gone, all gone, all gone beyond. Bodhi svaha.
(Coming soon)