SHERINGHAM DIARY 29 - Wake Up & Smell The Slurry

The August heatwaves brought forward harvesting by a few weeks. Farmers were already out re-fertilising their fields spraying them with slurry. Slurry is derived from a late medieval English word for thin mud, these days its pure stinking liquid shit. Most slurry is diluted cow shit. You'll be driving along a lovely country road when Wham! your nasal cavities are assaulted by a penetrating noxious smell. But hey! let's not get into a negative gripe here, we live in the country, slurry stench comes with the territory

Walking around Cromer the other week, there was a strong high wind blowing from inland bringing with it this all pervasive gut churning stench. This didn't just get up your nose it was a full fronted attempt to seize hold of your breathing.  Imagine you are walking in the wake of a half decayed tramp's corpse wrapped in horse dung. The intense effect of the stink is hard to describe, but nauseous gag reflex is the closest I can get. On line the authorities declared it was a turkey shit based slurry. Not a word about whether its legal to spray it, or any environmental or public health concerns this might raise. A quick scan of gardening sites informs me turkey shit replaces nitrogen in depleted soils, and has benefits as an organic pesticide. You have to use it diluted because its so caustic it can literally burn and lay waste to your plants. I am not comforted.

Talking of pervasive stinks. well, the Sheringham Sinkhole has finally been resolved and filled in. They even held a party on the 1st of September to celebrate. Accompanied by painfully loud music broadcast along the entire centre of town. It was a ghastly following of air pollution with its aural equivalent. The sinkhole had quickly established itself as the distinctive feature of our old fashioned and slightly shabby town. The fetid pong of stagnant sewer water on the lower High Street ended up lingering for the entire Summer season. Lots of loss adjusting claims have been going in, as businesses count up what the real cost to them has been. Anglian Water is still not accepting liability so the money shops will receive will not reflect the true financial cost to them. So there seems little to be celebrated really. Most have survived it -so far.  But we have the looming Rubicon of Brexit to cross and all the unknown unknowns that contains. Democratically it already stinks to high heaven, but the astringent economic slurry will be getting up everyone's noses soon. Oh Shit!

Its over a year since my resignation from Triratna. I'm still alive and content with having left. Twenty six years of involvement can't really be left behind. You can remove a person from a context but you can't remove what was learnt in that context from the person. The re-imagined comforting familiarity of Sangha friends does occasionally pop up. Simultaneously I've had to acknowledge that early on I chose to put on one side that I was not emotionally bought into some of Triratna's practices. It was only as the list grew longer and more fundamental that I began seeking a way out.

Dogen

I've been going to the Zen Priory in Norwich since January. Initially just once a month, but recently I've begun attending a weekly beginners night on Tuesdays. I'm seeing this as a deeper exploration of Dogen as the originator of this Soto Zen perspective. My initial impressions are favourable. I've started listening to a recorded series of talks that Rev Leoma gave at the Priory on the Genjo Koan, which are proving to be an exciting opening out of my understanding of this pivotal Dogen text. Its a very long time since I felt so re-energised by a Dharma talk.

What I'm appreciating is the strength, consistency and coherence of Soto Zen practices, where everything relates from and back to Zazen. Triratna's pick and mix from various Buddhist traditions can, by comparison, seem like cross dressing from a vintage jumble sale. The centrality of 'going for refuge' being the glue attempting to hold this disparate source material together. The focus on Zazen, on Dogen's teachings and the disavowal of anything leading to a goal orientated mindset, are in themselves radical reductions of Buddhist source materials.. Yet this pared back simplicity feels intuitively right, avoiding getting caught up in centuries of over intellectualisation, erudition and theory. This appeals to my current spiritual zeitgeist, like breathing in the smell of a fresh perfume.

Trying to hold Sangharakshita's and Dogen's teachings simultaneously was discomforting. Sangharakshita was inherently critical of Zen, this led to a wary and distrustful atmosphere towards Zen throughout his movement. Few Order members know anything in any detail about Dogen, and I strongly suspect Sangharakshita didn't either judging by a few things he said. However, I was brought up within Triratna's approach so I check things out, ask questions and analyse. There are areas where I suspect basic bits of Buddhism have been pruned, rephrased or ignored in order to support Dogen's particular reinterpretation and reductive focus. The question for me now is, if this still feels right, does that really matter? Yet at the same time I don't want to ignore things I'm not convinced by - again.  Its an interesting thread I'm following. So I'm being very Soto Zen about it and trying to curtail imagining I'm heading anywhere with it.

August was a good month for trade in Cottonwood Home. Despite the two heatwaves, when custom took a dramatic nosedive. I've been observing peoples behaviour in our Courtyard during a heatwave, folk hardly engage with any shop, they just look and wander around in a blithely disinterested way, picking things up half heartedly. These are your archetypal Soap and Sandcastle days, when every body is heading for the beach and all they're willing to buy from you is soap.

Its easier to spot who our potential customers are, they lean heavily towards the middle class and the well dressed. If they have a beer belly, or seriously overweight, wear a T shirt with some sort of skulls or gothic lettering on, or are pushing a buggy with several bags, dogs and children hanging off it, they'll most likely be for the hippy shop opposite or the off license next door. This is part of an ongoing study of the day to day workings of Prattitya Samudpada, what particular set of people and conditions produce a good, bad or an indifferent days takings. Lets not go into the 'going beyond' labelling them, that's a higher teaching.  But some days you've absolutely no idea at all whats going on. Then you have to surrender yourself to the presenting moment and whatever is happening there. Hold to your confidence, but travel without fixed expectations.

This year, as new Sheringham shopkeepers, we will have to show willing and partake in the 1940's Weekend. Normally we've chosen to evacuate the area, and either bunker down at home or take a holiday and be as far away as possible. We don't imagine trade will be good in the fevered nostalgia filled atmosphere. There is some sort of street party planned for The Courtyard, so it will be inescapable, with all sorts of fake alcohol fuelled jollity going on. You'll probably hear all about it here, I wont be able to help myself. Wake up and smell the sentimental myth, whilst in reality the UK's democracy is being sacrificially burned.