The weather and the temple - actualities rather than preconceptions (Swarthmoor 7)

En route to Swarthmoor by train, I was looking forward to crossing the top end of Morecambe Bay for the first time - great views across the sands, that's what I expected.

The above is what I got. So I was disappointed at first, grumping up with thoughts like"what do you expect, it's November in the North-West of England." So not only was the weather letting me down, it was my fault for not expecting it. Harrrrumph!

Well, in a way, it was my fault. I realised this when I stopped being grumpy and simply looked at what was there. The mindfulness thing seeped back in: being with it, bringing my thoughts back from what it could have been like, or what it might be like on the way home (pretty much the same, as it turned out..) 

The place and the weather were unique - not because I hadn't been there before, but because every moment in every place is unique.

I began to enjoy it for what it was.

(I'd hardly expect some poor soul with a flooded home in Carlisle or Cockermouth this week to feel the same, but then they've got more to do than sit looking at the weather!) 

Similarly with a Buddhist temple we visited briefly from the retreat. Conishead Priory. I suppose I thought of something like a cool, peaceful little meditation hall, minimal furniture, plain, even a little pleasantly austere. Instead:

Huge, gaudy - like a comparison between a Catholic cathedral in  Spain, and a simple whitewashed CofE parish church in England. Their Buddhism is derived from Tibetan Mahayana sources. It looked to me much more like a religion than the Zen approach. Lots of

this sort of thing. But we sat and meditated with a pleasant monk with a rather charmingly diffident way of talking; it was very quiet, very calm in there. Comparisons and expectations fell away. It was good to be in the moment, and it was a helpful experience. Maybe I'm an eumenical mindfulness practitioner? I'll have to think about that. Or maybe I won't bother with conceptualising and comparing, maybe I'll just - meditate...