"Ananda, one of the Buddha's disciples, said to the Buddha one day, "I've realised that half of the path to the holy life is made of good friendships." "No, Ananda," the Buddha said. "Friends are not half of the holy life. They are all of the holy life."


Third day of the "walking retreat"

3rd May 2008

Saturday morning, the Frigate Café, Ullapool. This is a great cafe. Catero (my wife), Kieran (my son) and I were here last autumn when we came up for a long weekend. Kierie, who's in his 20's, and I climbed two Munros, Conival and Ben More Assynt in quite high winds. …

Second day of the "walking retreat"

2nd May 2008

Friday morning - I wake at about 5.00am and lie for 15 minutes or so listening to the weather and doing a savouring exercise for the past, the present, and the future. The past: remembering yesterday, the two deer, the white-splashed ptarmigan flying so fast along the contour of the …

First full day of the "walking retreat"

1st May 2008

I wrote a post at the beginning of the week entitled "Looking ahead to the walking retreat". Now it's happening - Thursday morning 6.30am. It takes some effort of will to emerge from the only-just-warm-enough sleeping bag, put on more layers of clothes and bring this little computer back to …