WHAT MAKES A MAN A MAN - Part 3 - Holding Out For A Hero

Four years have passed, its 1973 and more than my height has changed. The side parting forsaken for centre parted longer hair that never grew quite long enough. My fine hair when grown long became greasy and lanky rather than the full bodied wildly romantic wind blown curls version of my dreams. Deep Purple and Hawkwind were current musical heroes, so the hair, coloured flairs, necklace bling and a denim bomber jacket with badges (not in picture) were de rigueur for any self-identifying fans. Though the pink flip flips, perhaps not.







I'd had a 60's childhood where Cilla Black ruled, by the early seventies Marc Bolan pouting in a pink satin suit was the new queen. By 1973 with much more seemingly at stake masculinity wise, 'macho 'progressive' music ruled my turntable. Full of dramatic, flamboyant musical flourishes and wildly inventive over indulgences. My enthusiasm hovered between envious voyeurism and vicariously basking in the fame and glory of these revered giants. I so wanted to be that hairy.

Five men flaunting frizz, fur and their feminine side

Such musical heroes offered solace. I felt that my abilities and interests largely fell outside the traditionally held areas for boyhood pursuits and prowess. Pop culture presented to my teenage yearning, meaning and purpose, a place crowned with a transient specialness. A wailing air guitar in hand liberates you fron the circumstances of education, class, race, gender orientation and even talent. The classic seventies teenager, I imaginatively performed along with my favourite pop stars, alone in my bedroom, whilst broadcasting my choice of music through a wide open window. For the world will know me through this music and hear it loud and clear.

I was a sixteen year old holding out for a hero, looking for a distinct affinity, someone embodying a myth that I could emulate. The men I hero worshipped, appeared to model aspects of the dreamed of self.  Whilst 'what you are' is still barely mapped as a territory, you can safely imagine yourself as a rock star. Whether you'll have sufficient talent, confidence, ambition, pluck or luck to make that a reality, remains covered in a mist of juvenile hope.  Significant individuals who might help you fulfil your potential, are yet to be found. Encountering the trustworthy male hero is always the tricky bit.

Its hard to keep hold of male heroes, they easily slip off their somewhat wonky pedestals. One of my 1980's heroes, Morrissey, once seemed the charismatic opinionated challenging poetic outsider, has aged into a curmudgeon, spouting nationalistic garbage unbecoming of a supposedly intelligent person. Let alone someone who loves his country so much he lives abroad. Yet I can also see how that youthful waif could become the stodgy middle aged man, things fossilise as you get older.  I adore the music of The Smiths, but that affection has been put under retrospective strain now their former front man has 'gone rogue.' The past and the present now at loggerheads.

An obstacle to admiring the achievements of anyone, can be their less palatable ideas, morals, opinions and actions. In the aftermath of retrospective scandals and revisionism, both judicial, historical and feminist, what a good decent male role model could be is even harder to imagine, let alone maintain. We know far far too much.  Everything, though done to establish a much needed corrective, to create a more balanced view, can still be one sided. Our default position may just  be switching from loyal unquestioning defence to slavishly pandering to puritanical dismissal. In our search for 'the truth' fault finding becomes a compulsion, an addiction to believing that only their worst side embodies the truth about a person.

In traditional folk tales heroes are often initially portrayed as flawed individuals,. The classic 'puer aeternus' - the naive unformed boy/man. This idealistic hero is the impudent possesser of foolhardiness, recklessness and flawed with imperfect behaviour. Paradoxically these help identify with his journey, and reassure us that the human potential for good, though often in a titanic struggle, will re-emerge and assert itself. The difficulties a hero encounters whilst on this quest forge transformative changes in them, as the twilight of childhood moves into adulthood. Sketching the first outline of the mature adult male. This is one male heroic archetype.

Today celebrity can rise up really quickly. We then observe their subsequent sins and often ignominious tumble from grace. For Jung, there is always a darker shadowy side to any human psyche. The principled often sitting uncomfortably perched upon the knees of the unprincipled. As the shadow side of a hero passes by, it bristles the hairs of our own shadowy side.  What we consider heroic is an archetype being projected onto the face of fallible human beings. If they are to remain a hero they'd have no impure thoughts in word or deed, which is well nigh impossible for even the best of us.

Generally we find it hard holding uncomfortable moral contradictions, of the wholesome and the unwholesome when they are present in ourselves. so god help anyone else. The active presence of both pleasure and aversion towards someone, demands a resolution we cannot always find. Its easier to go into denial or dump our heroes as being altogether worthless. Is it feasible to fully face the complex messy mix of a person's qualities without writing them off completely because they failed the perfect hero test? Heroes, once fallen, are rarely forgiven or allowed redemption from past stains upon their character.  As we are currently finding out, many talented men, brilliant in one particular sphere can be serial abusive sex pests in another. Talent, power and hubris leading them to believe they live 'divinely gifted lives' outside the application of normal moral standards. Yet on a collective level there is also social catharsis going on, as we put the archetypal 'bad man' into the stocks to give them a well deserved public kicking.

To maintain any human being as a hero requires selectivity in what we focus on and value. To admire the best in someone, without endorsing any of the dodgy stuff. This is morally tricky ground to traverse. But generally, if we already admire someone, we will, at least for a while, turn a blind eye towards anything that stains or contradicts our favourable constructed viewpoint. It's been common practice for a man's talent or genius to be used as a get out of jail free card, skipping over violent abusive behaviour as insignificant or even excused as eminently reasonable, for a man.

The painter Caravagio was an aggressive, tempestuous person, known to have murdered at least one man. Yet his artistic reputation and career survived this, for his paintings remain striking and significant pieces of art despite his recklessness in a sword fight. So many artistic heroes of the Renaissance were talented but violent street thugs. Genius, talent and, one has to say, historical distance, diminish how their frankly shitty behaviour is now seen. Too quickly overlooked or excused. Perhaps it is easier when you've never known someone personally and only admired their artistic output, to gloss over what a pain in the ass they were towards friends and lovers. Male reputations have undoubtedly benefited most from this. Yet this selectivity in what we focus on when turning people into heroes, is a process that goes on regardless of our gender. The heroic image always requires careful curating in order that it stays 'on message'.

No one who is truly human gets their lives morally correct in every respect. Male or female, we are all erratic beings, exhibiting a wide range of moral contradictions. However, in the anti-hero, human fallibility, eccentricity, of not conforming or fitting in, become the very stuff of greatness. We cheer as they cry 'fuck off' to the world even if they exhibit tendencies of being an cruel gangster. The anti-hero is an impure archetype, the shadow side of the pure hero. Living outside conventions, unwilling to conform to other people's social codes of behaviour, by nature self-indulgent, aberrant individuals with lives teetering, often drunkenly, on the edge of the gutter. You gotta sat yes to another excess, turns their lives into a squalid magnificence, It can be just a pose these days with self appointed anti-heroes everywhere. For the real authentic thing just examine the life, times and writings of the poet and author Charles Buckowski. a deeply rough cut man with more than a few irredeemable features.

Charles Buckowski on the loo

Tribal communities would ritualise the bringing of men and women into adulthood. This entailed removing young men and women from their parents and putting them into the hands of female or male elders. And its probably true that for the guiding mentor role your Mum and Dad are often not the best people. Parents stand too close, hampered by their love and the flaws in their own sense of themselves, they tend to see what you need to do through their own needs of you. So it usually falls to someone one step removed such as a grandparent, uncle, teacher, or an older more experienced friend, who might share a similar enthusiasm, spirituality or talent as yourself. And if this starts to raise safe guarding issues in your mind, this reveals another element bedevilling a masculine mentoring role - the default mistrust of masculine motives. Not without its own history and justification. But it has a consequence that further muddies the waters of how to recognise 'a good man's' face.

So most men continue to hold on to the traditional narrowly defined version of what it is to be a man. Even though this appears more and more like a doomed captain going down with his sinking ship. Its possible this may be concealing a more troubled level of conflicted impulses over quite what is best to do. What from the old style of manhood can stay, what must really go, and how will this all hang together? Alternative guidance for what any new type of man might be like, lacks clarity. There are so few reliable mentors and no manuals. Insecurity then may be making men stay put, holding on grimly, even aggressively, to that which is familiar. Modern masculinity would then seem stuck in this bardo of indecision, a between place, that is neither here nor there.

Robert Bly once commented that young men lacking adult guidance and a defined route into adulthood, will try to create one for themselves. They'll form gangs, cults, allegiances to niche groups of one sort of another that come together to share a task, a lifestyle, a political ideology, an enthusiasm, or ownership of a space, and forge a collective sense of personal identity from it. Bly also said that this attempt at collectively growing up would inevitably fail, as it is the blind leading the blind

I certainly used my taste in music to define me. I constructed an image of myself as the sort of guy who liked weird arty music, the more outlandish and challenging the better. The downside was that there was no obvious gang for this, very few people to share my enthusiasms with. But a singular isolated individuality, alienated from the general mainstream, can also serve a dysfunctional function, creating a vision for oneself as this distinct individual with an 'extra special perception.' Obscurity creating a delusive aura of uniqueness. The hidden, unacknowledged man, self defining, the isolated loner, living in a fantasy world of their own creation, this is an all too common occurance.

To have not encountered beneficial role models, nor found a vocation, nor feel yourself purposeful is sad. Yet to over identify with the trash you own, the team you idolise, the computer games you play, the music you revere, the lifestyle you possess, as compensation for this shortfall in fulfilment can be even sadder. Underneath all of their frontal bluster, all men understand what a shallow unexamined life looks like, because its seen in the dim lifelessness of their eyes that faces them every morning in the mirror.

What makes any hero a hero appears to be a willingness to go beyond a narrowly defined sense of themselves, to push out into less familiar territory. To feel themselves moving forward towards something, as yet undefined, that could be better. This does not sit easily with the sense of stability and creature comforts that comes through staying put. Yet just keeping going requires stoical heroism. Humanity stagnates whenever it stands still for too long. Refusing to adventure or move on prevents the evolution of who we are. This is when masculinity turns toxic.

I've been writing here about heroes mostly in a knowingly mono gendered way. When I look at my own list of heroes there are a some fabulous women present there too. Women whom I admire, and exemplify qualities or talents I'd love to see more of in myself. Whilst I believe it is important for men and women to find heroes and role models within their own gender, because it helps us understand that gender, what it is and what we can become, it's also clear that this doesn't have to be exclusively the case. Heroes can transcend gender designation. Heroes in the broadest sense imaginable can help form ourselves into a more rounded human being.

What is heroic in a man can extend way beyond the narrowness of the macho male cliche. Yet what is it to be heroic now? Is there a heroism that goes beyond the stereotypes?  Heroism manifests across humankind, regardless of culture, time period, gender, race or class, rich or poor. What a shame it would be, should we fail to discover the life changing inspiration of another human beings life, because we were wearing racial or gendered blinkers at the time, or were expecting them to be perfect in every aspect of their lives.





'Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and I turn
And I dream of what I need

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life!
Larger than life'

***

Except from the lyrics to Holding Out For A Hero

written by Dean Stanford & Jim Steinman.  

PS.
Cliche ridden lyrics written by men, sung by a woman with a voice rubbed in coarse grade sandpaper. Yet they do highlight other pressures to conform outside of men's expectations of themselves and from other men, such as women's expectations of men. However, women appear to be lumbered with the role of having to keep pushing rather reluctant men to change their views, not just of women, but also of themselves and how they operate in the world. Yet in the desire to liberate themselves from their own gender's stereotyping, men in general are still barely half awake and lagging way way behind.

That doesn't appear very heroic to me.

.

SHERINGHAM DIARY 32 - The Rise of White Vehicle Supremacists

After a brief Post Christmas Sale burst we closed Cottonwood Home for three weeks. Taking a holiday in Malton, North Yorkshire, visiting, Whitby, York, Helmsley and Castle Howard. Stayed with our friend Saddhaketu in Vajrasena Retreat Centre in Suffolk for a couple of days, and generally began preparing for our shop projects of 2020. On our way up to Yorkshire we stopped off in Lincoln to visit The Fabric Quarter and on our way back The Stamford Fabric Company in Stamford. We returned laden with great fabric choices for ranges of frames, cushions and bags we are now in the process of making for Spring. We can feel a bit daunted when we look at how much there is to do.

Cottonwood Home is only open three days a week at the moment, as The Courtyard has entered a succession of February 'Tumbleweed Moments.' So we do have more space available to just make in, should we want to use it. But we've also needed to take a break from the constant shop focus we've been living in for the last ten months. That's meant not rushing back into full tilt straightaway.

Future plans include finding new lines. We've already discovered another candle supplier The White Candle Company based in Suffolk whilst we were visiting Diss, on  a trip down memory lane for me. The rest we are hoping to find at the The British Craft Trade Fair in Harrogate early in April. Last year we bought slightly blind when we went there, and not everything we chose has been a  success sales wise. We know from experience what sells here and where our range of goods are currently lacking or weak. There are also plans to revamp our outside stalls, our jewellery stands and give some craft fairs in North Norfolk a go. All this plus promoting the shop, photographing stock, updating and marketing our online website. Not much on for 2020 then.

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Its a truism of 21st century life that once you start noticing something, you do start to see it with more frequency. Quickly becoming this proven fact constantly reinforced by daily experience. Often refered to as confirmation bias, this is how all prejuduces begin. Observations create opinions that become the truth. So it has been with White Vehicle Supremacism. Whether its a white van, a full sized truck, a hulking SUV or a petite white Fiat 500, I started to notice that many white vehicle owners tended to noticably drive more frequently in anti-social ways, as if the road actually belongs to them, it is their road so they can choose what rules of the highway they break or obey and perform the most risky driving manouvres possible whether they're on the narrow endlessly winding A 149 coast road, or the relatively straightforward A140 to Norwich. White Vehicle Supremacists rule, sometimes flying the St George of England flag as windscreen bunting or stuck on the boot, as they pass you with a metaphorical up yours.

All of these things happen more commonly with White Vehicle Supremacists than you'll see with vehicles of any other colour. Evidence may be, as yet, anecdotal, we are still awaiting clinical tests, but perhaps there is indeed an identifiable quality within the colour white that communicates a sense or superiority and entitlement bordering on the aristocratic. As if owning a vehicle painted in the most impractical of colours automatically confers on you an elevated state of self-righteousness. I assure you now I have communicated this information, you too will start seeing White Vehicle Supremacism absolutely bloody everywhere.

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I had time to kill before the beginners class at the Norwich Zen Priory  so I went to The Forum library in the centre of the city. I was sat reading a book when a thin ruddy faced man sat down beside me. He chuntered to himself, as with some difficulty he shuck off his gloves and sat down to read a newspaper. He descended with an aching sigh of weariness. He was a middle aged homeless man, gently but consistently inebriated I'd say, who'd come in for warmth and some human company. Within seconds of having sat down he started to converse with the man to his left. The man rebuffed these attempts at conviviality, eventually standing up and walking off. The homeless man delivered a far flung 'cunt' into the air after him. Then he turned round towards me.

While this was going on I'd been debating how to handle this. Should I too walk off somewhere else, or try to ignore him and stare unwaveringly into my book? None of this was passing muster with me. So I put my book down, and just gave him my full attention. His speech, though garbled at times, was coherent. He didn't understand what was up with the other guy, why he'd up and left. He was asking me what my name was, when he exclaimed 'Oh, fuck, I'm in trouble now'. The guy who'd stood up and left had reported him to the library staff and was pointing out the homeless guy to them.

A female member of staff turned up, probably the unlucky one specifically asigned for 'liason with the homeless' that evening. He'd been reported for being abusive and swearing, so he'd have to leave. The homeless guy kept intoning ' can you tell me what I've done ', 'the guy's lying' ,'I was just sitting here reading'. As he became more irrate and the swearing did ripen, the woman changed tack ' Will you come outside the library for a moment and we can talk about it there?. The homeless guy wasn't having any of it, referencing me in the conversation 'I've been having a quiet conversation with this kind man here' 'can't you just leave me' 'I'm not that mentally stable, I just want to be left alone to read ma paper'.

She persisted in her request to go with her outside the library. The homeless guy got more and more agitated, indignant, his language more colourfully anglo-saxon. She calls in security, so now he's surrounded by three people looming over him.  I tried to encourage the guy to leave quietly 'it might be easier for you if you leave now' but he either didn't, or didn't want, to hear this. Things were just rapidly escalating, he protested with even more vehemence, his general tone more despairing. I felt uncomfortable just being there. I wasn't sure my presence was helpful anymore, so I quietly left the situation to the library staff. So I've no idea how it turned out, but it was never going to go well for the homeless guy.

I felt sad, and some empathy for him. Yes, he swore a lot, it was habitual, so much a part of his way of communicating I don't believe he could rein it in. To me he came over as quite an affable sort of bloke who no doubt ended up in the streets because of his drink and mental problems. Asking him to be reasonable just would not register. From the point of view of human dignity, imagine how humiliating it must be to constantly be thrown out of places because you are homeless. For this man he certainly viewed it as another ejection from ordinary society, and he wasn't ever ever going to go quietly. A spirit of defiance still burned within him, suitably correscating and inflamed with injustice.

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The Norwich Zen Priory that I attend had to move premises quite unexpetedly. So the Rev Leoma ,with Sangha help, had to pack up everything and park surplus stuff in garages in order to move quickly into smaller premises. Its also kick started the idea of buying their own premises, that was being only vaguely talked about before this happened. So the current premises are viewed as temporary until a more permanent place can be found. This all feels quite an exciting prospect for 2020.

Norwich Zen Priory

2019 was the beginning of reconnecting with my Buddhist practice, but this time in an explictly zen context. I'm not quite making a daily zazen practice yet, but its getting there. Ideally I'd like to try a retreat at Throssel Hole Priory this year, but with the shop taking up time and priority I think I'd better treat that as a hopeful aspiration. In the meantime I've taken to re-reading The Shobogenzo, Eihei Dogen's masterpiece of ninety nine chapters as an 'almost' daily practice. I was given a couple of commentaries on various chapters for Christmas, so I'm breaking to read through the relevant ones as I go.

Currently I'm reading Shoaku Makusa - Refraining from Evil, a typically dense piece of writing by Dogen, on the practice of ethics within a context of zazen, impermanence and conditioned co-production. The full Shobogenzo translation by Nishijima & Cross, has, to be honest, made a real hash of it. Making an already allusive text even more impenetrable. The translation with the commentary by Daitsu Tom Wright is by comparison relatively clear and more thoughtfully written. What I am noticing generally is that I feel I understand more of The Shobogenzo than I did when I first read it through between 2000-04. The following paragraph is a beautifully put description of the different approaches of faith and wisdom practitioners.

"There are those whose simple faith guides their capacity to move others and who base their practice on such faith, and there are those whose capacity to move others is based on their comprehension and understanding of good derived from the depths of their practice of the teaching of good. The functioning of each is very different. They almost appear to be teaching totally different Dharmas." 

Dogen- Shoaku Makusa ( trans Daitsu Tom Wright )

CARROT CAKE REVIEW 18 - Breaking The Golden Rules of Carrot Cake

York, Yorkshire.

You know how it is, your on holiday in Yorkshire, its mid January, you're prowling the streets looking for extra special cafes and cakes, but you aren't sure quite where to find them. So on an overcast afternoon on a day trip to York, we are on a mission to discover that unique cafe in possession of an excellent cake range, appetising in quality and confection. Not having much luck, we are beginning to become tired and dispirited. Then we stumbled across this cafe, gaze into the window at cakes with a certain rustic roughness, a finish frequently affected by cafes in cosmopolitan cities. What's more they do have a substantial looking carrot cake. Yes, this seemed very appealing, its an Italian family run cafe, what could possibly be wrong? Italy is the birth place of cafe culture, after all.

The decor looks fine, quite modern with dark blue lampshades, gold lined inside, panted wood tables rubbed back, a thoroughly classic style of cafe environment. Yet the first thing that hits you as you entered was the noise. Initially we sat at a table by the door, but positioned by a micro speaker that blared right in my ear I couldn't hear what Hubby was asking me barely a few feet away. We moved a couple of tables further down. However, it wasn't just the music, all the staff working there talked loudly and animatedly. They were almost the cliche Italian stereotype. I wanted to say ' if you turned the music down a notch or two you might not have to bellow at each other'  The liveliness of the atmosphere might have even been fun to be around otherwise.  I tried, I really did, to not to be too English about this, but it did feel discomforting, like being trapped in a very small room with raucous children you want to slap and tell to behave.

From the street the carrot cake had appeared hewn out of something solid, loaded with weighty ingredients. However, I should have paid more attention to my Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 2 - the larger its size the larger the disappointment will be. Had I not allowed myself to be seduced by its size I might have noticed a tiny but highly significant detail, small marzipan carrots placed around its circumference like hours on a clock face. Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 3 - marzipan carrots are spawned from the devils a-hole. Fake signifiers to inform you what a cake is is infantile, one mouthful should be enough. In some cases, more than enough. Marzipan carrots should ward off even Dracula from taking a bite.

First impressions were that it looked rather too pale to be a true carrot cake. As you can see from the photograph, it also came rather dishabille, in a partly dismantled state. Cakes falling apart before you even hover a cake fork over them are, in my experience, usually gluten free. Its more and more common for carrot cakes to be made gluten free, but without being advertised as such. Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 4 - a cake that doesn't tell me exactly what it is, definitely has something to hide. So, it was crumbly, so whatever its ingredients were they couldn't hold it together. One withering look and the stratification of its entire cliff face collapsed.

So what was it hiding? Well, that this was basically a Spice Cake, breaking numero uno bet noir, the Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No1 - a spice cake is not a carrot cake! (Angry capitals removed at the behest of the deaf ). There was no powdery aftertaste so what gluten free flour was being used was unclear. It did, however, have sizable boulders of walnut suspended precariously within it. In fact, together with the pecans and marzipan carrots on top, the flavour was decidedly of a nutty spice cake. The frosting and filling were both butter cream, made with butter not margarine, which explains its solidity and why it fell away from the crumbling cake like slabs of concrete. Plus, it was over sweetened. Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 7 - drowning it in sugar does not disguise or transform a carrot cake. If its bland, its bland. 


CARROT CAKE SCORE - 3/8

LISTENING TO - Some Favourite Tracks from 2019

Billie Eilish - Bad Guy
Late to the party yet again, I saw her on TV at Glastonbury this year and thought she was something awesome. You hear this everywhere these days, and she will spawn her imitators and no doubt her own creative demise at some point. But for now Bad Guy is street savvy, catchy and an insolent delight from start to finish.


Nick Cave - Ghosteen
I thought Skeleton Tree was something of a career high until this. Over an hour in length it communicates the ordinariness of personal grief, through references to a search for peace that will not come. Cave bears his soul here like only he can, with storytelling and the use of telling oft repeated phrases. I continue to find it so moving I can never listen to it in the background I have to give it the full attention it deserves.


Dave - Psycho
Deservedly winning this years Mercury Price, this track Psycho offers up an honest presentation of one man's world, his mental struggles with himself and with the racism directed towards him. Not a comfortable listen but important none the less.



 
FKA Twigs - Mary Magdalene
Hard to sum up what this woman does but she has the ability to be utterly mesmerising. Her music has echoes of so many disparate influences. The music seems to exist in a time and tempo all its own elegantly slow and steady world, similar to the balladry of James Blake.




James Blake - Don't Miss It
Another sublime bit of songwriting from James Blake. Who always surprises you musically with his arrangements whilst at the same time remaining recognisably the same. Don't Miss It is quite soul bearing at times and reveals aspects of his difficulties with his internal world.



Rain Tree Crow - Rain Tree Crow
A re-release from 1991 of an album by reformed Japan members which manages to sound like one of the best David Sylvian albums. It was quite addictively on my turntable for quite a few weeks.



Rosalia - Malamente
Everyone wants a taste of this woman these days, and you can understand why. Effortlessly blending flamenco and street stylings into something all her own.


Anna Calvi - Hunter
Oh boy, her third album kicks some ass. My favourite track is Wish which I just love and can never have enough of.

SHERINGHAM DIARY 31 - Echoes Of The Unlived Life

As I sit in the shop looking out at the people in the mall outside, It can feel like I'm in a goldfish bowl going round and round goggle eyed with my mouth open. You start believing you can read the retail runes. The tangible difference in people when they are willing to spend money and when they are not.  Ideally they smell and examine the soaps on our outside stalls and then bring them in with a particular bounce in their step and an air of enjoying that process of choice then purchase. When they do not, you experience what I've come to refer to as 'The Day Of The Soap Sniffers', a series of people disinterestedly shoving soaps up to their noses, inhaling the soap's perfume as a sensory distraction, whilst emotionally inured to taking it further, to actually purchasing. It can feel like some sort of tease, when after a few minutes they wander off with an air of having had their free fix.

Sometimes its possible to expend so much mental imaginative energy on what you wish or want to happen in life, that you can forget to fully engage with the life that is actually before you. Its quite feasible to inhabit an entirely unlived life. When times get a bit tougher its easy to sustain yourself by imagining more favourable outcomes, of a better life. This is another way of existing within the unlived life. Somehow through wishin' and hopin' and prayin', plannin' and dreamin' with enough passionate fervour the imagined life will inevitable turn up and become reality - it will be here. Even now, when I'm in my early sixties my mind can hark back to older dreams and aspirations -'if this would happen, then I'd feel happier and more fulfilled'

On quiet days in the shop, I can find myself imaginatively interacting with the ideal unlived life, because I'm a bit bored with what the real one is serving up. There is a way to look at my desire for busy-ness, for being occupied with custom in the shop, as an existential distraction. Mostly from actually fully feeling the boredom. Tolstoy once called boredom 'the desire for desires' but what is it that we face when we have no tangible desires? There seems to be this perilous undertow of unbridled fear, perhaps of failure, the failure to succeed in life, to do something notable or worthy before I die. To fear our mortal nature will rob our lives of the chance of being significant. Unless we succeed at something, this life wont amount to a hill of beans. The unlived life is like this, its similar to the quest for the Holy Grail, the unlived life wont allow itself to be found. This leaves our actual life steeped in a wake of poisonous regret.

What if I could let go of addiction to the fake optimism of the unlived life and attempt to be with whatever is there? Yes there could be pain, but also the pleasurable relief from reflection, analysis and comparison. If there is only what there is in this moment then the imagined unlived life is just one aspect of what Dogen describes as 'the dream within a dream'?  Can we, as Rev Leoma said recently, trust that whatever happens is what needs to happen as a function of conditioned co-production, and do that without becoming fatalistic or not actively engaging with contributing to those conditions? We have to keep putting something out there, its just the consequences of this wont necessarily turn up instantly or turn out as what we imagined we wanted. Each presenting moment will be whatever it needs to be, whatever the conditions make it.

A life in retail is what it is. Quiet days are quiet days, busy days are busy days, with little point in trying to psychoanalyse collective behaviour, to understand why something has or hasn't happened. Some days start off quiet and you mentally write them off within the first couple of hours, then for a brief hour or so it turns into a hive of activity. What was looking dire suddenly turns into a decent days takings. Nothing you did changed that, but nevertheless your mood is transformed from pessimistic to optimistic. Its hard to cultivate and maintain equanimity with your life when your desire is for something else.

Life hurries on towards the end of the year and I feel very mixed emotions about what has come to pass. It has undoubtedly been a tense and momentous year, not without its joy and a sprinkling of hurrah moments, but taking place in front of a nation in a state of unease with itself. The election provides a resolution of sorts, but unrealistic promises have been made, so there will be days of reckoning. Yet maybe this is all as it needs to be, the result meets the current zeitgeist. Perhaps we have to trust that the consequences of handing power to a lying toe rag will show us something we need to learn as a country

As you may have guessed from the general tone of this blogpost I'm not feeling brim full of optimism. Though its intensity has subsided, I still have residual anger and frustration eating away in the pit of my stomach. I voted tactically as I've reluctantly had to do on far too many occasions in my adult life. Most of the time it is without success. But how else do I make my vote effective? Its this, or voting for a party I feel an affinity with, that either hasn't a hope of getting parliamentary representation or will be inadequately represented due to the first past the post voting system. I'm sure I'm not alone in being tired of my vote having no influence. To resort to apathy and not vote at all, though understandable, is a cop out. As our democracy silently slips from being a two party system into a seemingly never ending Tory hegemony, my sense of despair gets angrier and more militant in tone. Giving up for me would only exacerbate the problem.

Sheringham seafront during a recent storm

The political combined with the actual weather, has brought week after week of storms wearing down public confidence in the run up to Christmas. Its been tough trading conditions since mid October, which calling a general election was a significant factor in accentuating. Its our first year of trading in Sheringham so its hard to know if this is what its usually like. Fellow Courtyard shopkeepers tell us 2019 trade is well down on last year. So as we complete our seventh month since opening we bolster up our confidence with how well we've done so far, and bear with all the other external factors that are so much beyond our control. Understanding retail patterns in a small seaside town outside its Summer season has proven frankly utterly baffling.

BOOK REVIEW ~ Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata

Sayaka Murata knows intimately the ins and outs of a convenience store workers lifestyle, before taking up writing full time, she worked as one. Its there in all the small incidental details of daily stock promotions and the formulaic prescription of its customer service inserted into the narrative or the observations of customer's behaviour that her character Keiko makes. Here is a seemingly soulless job that somehow Keiko has found great meaning and purpose in. For her this job is not a dead end

Keiko is the quirky outsider, yet also quite a lovably human character. As a child Keiko was prone to behaving really oddly, in a socially unacceptable manner. Its never really clear what mental status she has, is it some type of autism, or does she simply not fit into some standard behavioural profile? Her family have signed off, resigned to her being constantly an embarrassment, they quietly despair she'll make anything of her life that they understand as being normal.

Fast forward to Keiko as an adult, now in her mid thirties, she's found it useful to adopt a number of coping strategies simply to get by without any revealing or disruptive incident. She's chosen to work in a convenience store, a regimented tightly structured work style, one she can easily understand and comply with, to do whatever is expected of her. After eighteen years working in a convenience store she's become the ideal worker. It also gives her opportunities to see other staff members manner of talking, behaving and dressing and adopts aspects of these into her own. In this way she can disguise herself, it eases her relations with others, ensuring her behaviour is socially correct, because left to her own devices she knows her own judgement is unreliable, and she'll be exposed for who she really is, maybe even cast out.

Keiko is the classic misfit character, but one we all can find a way of relating to. Murata's first person narrative cleverly utilises an emotionally neutered deadpan humour, Keiko's world view can seem quite rational. But is she the classic unreliable narrator? We only ever see the world through Keiko's perceptions, so we hear only how she thinks other people are seeing her. But its clear from what she reports that she is quite clearly seen as odd, its just no one says it to her face. She isn't hiding in plain sight. There is a universality to her as a character, we all pretend to some extent simply in order to get by, to get on with others. We conform to stave off criticism, to negate the pressure of having to make your own decisions. These pressures to fulfil societies and her families expectations for her, are recognisable.

Convenience Store Woman is very dryly witty as it subtly pokes fun at the conventions of conformity that become unquestionable. Keiko thinks she has her life flawlessly under her control until she takes one step out of her comfort zone and suddenly she's barraged with other people's views and misinterpretations of why she's doing what she's doing. She discovers she is actually happier and more fulfilled by being a convenience store worker, despite everyone else's view that she cannot possibly be. It creates a space for her to be her own woman, to have a sense of independence and agency within society. Convenience Store Woman is an often moving, funny and a really enjoyable read. Whilst exhibiting many things which we've come to know as inimitably Japanese in tone and character, this is not a conventional novel, its as delightfully odd in its narrative as is its lead character. 

A SPIRITUAL BASTING - Put Your Awakened Mind To Work.

A series of blog posts reflecting on spiritual practise in everyday life. Inspired by phrases from Dogen's Instructions For The Tenzo.

Put Your Awakened Mind To Work

The Chanyuan Qinggui also says, 'Put your awakened mind to work'

A spirit of deep seated nihilism like an incurable infection is raging through the Western psyche. It sits silently, like an Aids virus within the body politic, of our society, economics, politics and culture, ready at any moment to drain them of resistance, to have the life purged from them. Contemporary art is not exempt from this. In its heart lies a profound cynicism that gorges upon its own pretences and delusions. Paradoxically, what stands for the avante-garde these days, acts according to very predictable, even safe conventions; it must be provocative, be socially, morally or politically challenging, it must flout or break taboos, be hostile, aggressive, anarchic, gratuitous and cruel towards its subject matter, to decry what is beautiful as fake. Art has always had a crucial role in defining and representing the nature of humanity and civilisation to itself, but its rarely been quite as lifeless, ephemeral or slight, as visually and intellectually opaque, as now. Art is showing us a Western civilisation that has entered a darkened room from which no light is allowed to escape.

There is little kindness to this art, it points towards human suffering, but sees in it only a talismanic form of aesthetic truth, neutered and stripped of tangible feeling or empathy. Whilst it might bring an artist fame, it wont necessarily bring that artist, nor the people who view their art, towards a wiser and more compassionate outlook. Its objects and objectives are slaves to nihilistic derision. If modern art is holding up a mirror, its showing us the twisted mind, the corrupted soul of our modern self obsessed world. Its difficult to see in any of this the work of an awakened mind, it appears to 'lack the spirit' of the Bodhisattva.

I am no Bodhisattva, and do not consciously know of any in my life. I have not by any stretch of the imagination had a 'vision of things as they really are'. I've been lucky enough to have discovered Buddhism, studied its teachings and can, at least, imaginatively conceive of its ultimate aim. My eyes have been a tiny bit opened up by all of this, but I do not fully comprehend. I continue instinctively to re-invigorate the desire to clean myself up and look through a mud smeared windscreen for clarity of vision.

Achieving Insight rarely happens instantaneously in the moment as portrayed in Zen history. Insight is dependent and predicated upon a daily seeing through aspects of ones thoughts, behaviour and life events. Noticing the minutia of ordinary life and interpreting what is seen through a closely focused Buddhist lens. It is all right before our very eyes, though we mostly miss it because we suffer from a form of spiritual glaucoma. Part of our perception is obscured by delusive ideas about ourselves and the world we live and work within. Though our insightfulness is out of focus we are always in the process of sharpening it, of 'awakening to awakening'. Whatever the state of awakening my mind has currently reached, I put that 'awakening mind' to work in my day to day existence, within whatever I do, including my artistic creative process..

Whether creating art or creating a meal both involve a similar process for the individuals involved.  All the general human neuroses, paranoia's, mental habits, emotional mood swings and fluctuations of feeling are present whilst making a meal or a piece of art. Whatever we do in life is a creative act, humanity is forever conjuring something out of nothing. I was once a Kitchen Porter, which in my experience could feel like one long physically demanding drudge if you let it. Constantly cleaning crockery, cutlery, pots and pans of the residue, of the half finished remains of someones delectable coq au van. Its a restorative act of creativity, returning crockery and cutlery to a sterilised pristine finish. Serving the cook, the meal and the next customer who eats off that plate. Its similar to priming a canvas, preparing a surface to serve something beautiful upon.

There will most likely be feelings of worthlessness or meaninglessness present there too. But these are present wherever we hope for purposeful fulfilment but our feelings tell us we are trapped in barren conditions. A fertile seed plonked in apparently infertile ground for growth. Yet I can feel a similar feeling of utter pointlessness even with the artistic process and its outcome. Moving from happy elation to thunderous frustration in the click of a moment. Still and concentrated one minute, slipping into tense nervousness. Inspired and on a creative roll then wallowing in despondency, feelings of stagnation or a generalised sense of dull stuckness. Confidence and self doubt swap places in an instant. Which all indicates that its not just about the nature of the job but what we want or do not get from it. The search for meaning in a seemingly meaningless and indifferent world is the essence of the human predicament.

Though we are all searching for fulfilment through whatever we are doing, we can sometimes find its is intermittent or absent altogether. Our sense for what fulfilment is and where it can be found is often misplaced. Its as though we are gazing up into a bright blue sky looking for a lost contact lens that's slipped somewhere underneath the sofa. But when we yearn for self- fulfilment what are we talking about? A clue lies in the hyphenation of self with fulfilment.

Its not that we can't find fulfilment through the things we do, we can, but its a fleeting impermanent one. One hundred percent job satisfaction is not really possible. Even a dream ideal job will have its moments of boredom where unsatisfactory feelings will raise their ugly head. Looking for long lasting fulfilment through worldly things is an endeavour with a predictable inconsistent outcome. The Buddha spoke of eight Worldly Winds that can easily sweep our happy contented fulfilment off course if we let them. These come formulated as four pairings of opposites - Praise & Blame - Fame & Infamy - Loss & Gain - Pleasure & Pain. Whenever one or two of these become present in whatever job we are doing, then 'I want' or 'I don't want' whats happening will start to foul the sweet air.

It is the self that 'does or does not want'. The self is the thing that seeks fulfilment, but what is the nature of that self and can it ever be truly satisfied?  Once you start examining the self, you wonder where exactly does it abide and find you're dealing with a very slippery customer indeed. One of the things that becomes quickly apparent is that our sense of self requires constant reaffirmation. Its like an animal constantly hungry for attention, to be fed, stroked and pampered. If our self desires fulfilment its because it has this sense of a lack, of a void inside that needs filling full, an existential emptiness. The self fears it doesn't possess a stable permanent existence and creates events and new exciting things to distract us from this rather discomforting fact. Our sense of self is more a verb than a noun. If self-fulfilment can't be found in this job, well lets change jobs. change partner, change house, change your location, change your entire life. Self-fulfilment is always over the next horizon.

Though the search for self-fulfilment is perfectly understandable given the existential imperative, it remains a bit of a dream we are unwilling to wake up from. Trying to dodge the effects of the Worldly Winds as we progress into the future is a never ending task, one bound to fail at some point. So the first things to put your 'awakening mind' to work on is - what is your self seeking fulfilment from and how realistic is that? How much are the Worldly Winds still directing your daily actions? You put your 'awakening mind' to work on the parts of your experience you are still not fully aware of. The things you are still sound asleep to,










  

BOOK REVIEW - Strange Weather In Tokyo - Hiromi Kawakami

Having spent a good part of last year reading the late and early greats of Japanese fiction, I thought I'd see what else there was to be discovered in Japanese contemporary fiction, hidden behind the towering colossus of Haruki Murakami. Like Hiromi Kawakami's previous work Strange Weather in Tokyo has been much garlanded in Japan. It also brought her to more international notice and acclaim. Short listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2013, the Asian version of our own Man Booker Prize, it also took the Independent's short lived Foreign Fiction Prize in 2014.

Hiromi Kwawkami

In Alison Markin Powell's sensitive translation Kawakawi's writing deceptively present itself as a continuation of that classic Japanese tradition for understated gentle elegance. Devoid of dramatic flourishes, and internal dialogue, it glides intriguingly along via a sad melancholic mood and the emotional undertow of a 'will they or wont they get together' storyline. Yet it does not slavishly follow a convention or literary cliche. Its subject matter, the relationship between a retired teacher and a middle aged former pupil, set in the backstreet bars and streets of Tokyo is decidedly modern, urban and off kilter.

There is no longer a background of sentimental yearning for a lost rural Japan. the crippling social conventions and formality of traditional marriage and relationship negotiations have vanished. Replaced by liberality, the alienating individuality of emotionally damaged people, socially clumsy, but with an inhibited desire for intimacy. In a city of nearly fourteen million people making meanigful connections has become more than hard.

Tsukiko is a woman in her late thirties, living a financially independent but mostly quite lonely life. Boyfriends of her own age she's found immature and uniformly disappointing. At thirty seven she's beginning to wonder if finding a meaningful relationship is nothing more than fantasy, Then she meets Sensei, a respectful term used by a pupil to address their revered teacher. She bumps into him by accident in a bar bistro. At first they continue to meet up simply because they enjoy each others company. There is over thirty years between them so what move could they share but friendship? Gradually it becomes much more emotionally complicated than outward appearances might betray.

Tsukiko finds her feelings are developing a desire for more than platonic companionship. Sensei is prickly and paternalistic, often in an uncommunicative grump. Once he starts to open up about his wife who walked out on him years ago, an unstated intimacy emerges, both of them feel something for the other but they never openly declare what that is.

The novel proceeds on like this with little overt drama. Sensei and Tsukiko, meet, then they don't meet for months, they fall out, and then they make amends. Each time they return to their regular meetings they are drawing closer. They miss each other. Until they go on a trip together where what they really feel for each other becomes all too apparent, and they spring apart again. Little by little the novel draws you into this unconventional bumpy form of falling in love with each other. Its tender and touching as the relationship's episodic lurching from one extreme to another move you towards some sort of resolution. The novels's conclusion I found quite unexpected, and all the more devastaingly moving for that.

Strange Weather In Tokyo, never declares what it is loudly and brazenly.  It possesses a quiet ordinary and unprepossessing humanity to it, that is beguiling and utterly wonderful.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY 30 ~ Don't Mention The Actual War Commemorative Issue

We survived the straffing of Sheringham's 1940's weekend. My prejudices suitably adjusted in the light of experience. Lots of people coming together dressed in period clothes, swanning about whilst 1940's music played over the street megaphones, generates the approximation of a community gathering. Not entirely a local community, as folk come from all over the UK. Its an idealised version of community, culturally homogeneous, not remotely diverse , but resolutely white. The fact that their were Caribbean, Indian and Black American servicemen in the UK, is something that Sheringham's 1940's weekend is apparently not yet prepared to pretend happened.

Though this communal vibe was something of a surprise, it is sad if the only way we can connect with a unified collective sense of ourselves, is to pretend we live in an entirely different era. An era where we were fighting a war, ironically given Brexit, to save Europe and ourselves. An event sentimentalised, mythologised and attended by people, who for the most part, were born well after it happened. Leave supporters have used the war years as a template for the guiding spirit of our future relations with the world. Bound up in the desire to believe and behave 'as if.' this sanitised version of our history was not the result of wartime propaganda nor post-war mythologising, but entirely true.

The wartime spirit has become a lazy touchstone for all that the modern day UK has difficulty finding or summoning up. Having become as a society increasingly individualistic, selfish and socially cut off from one another. The blame by some is laid at the feet of immigration, everyone whose not white and British, the liberal minded, atheists and gay marriage or any other prejudice you might want to throw into the mix relating to the state of the nation.

The wartime style envelope appears similarly accommodating and elastic around the edges. Quite a few fifties Dior new look dresses creeped in,  the 'Pythonesque' sending up the war look itself, and one person bizarrely dressed up as a 1980's Dr Who. Any gathering of like minded people bringing their individual enthusiasm to a collective context has a similar feeling to it. Whether this is a pop concert, a football match, a religious gathering or climate change rally, its something we come together to align ourselves with and share.

The Courtyard Cafe & Wine Bar, is near by where our shop is located. They hold a street party with tables running down the middle of the courtyard for the entire weekend. This made casually browsing the shops either side of it, somewhat restricted. It was a health and safety nightmare with mobility scooters and zimmer frames with shopping trolleys attached, daring to venture in. All accompanied by the ubiquitous 1940's music played very loud. After an entire weekend of six hours a day being constantly forced to listen to 1940's music, I'd liken the experience to aural water boarding as a method of torture. The jiggly jaunty thum thum thum of the double bass that underpins a lot of the music, i found emotionally draining.

Not to mention the ration books. The town produces a ration book, in it are named participatory shops in Sheringham and you go round getting your card stamped by these retailers. On paper this sounds like a great way to encourage people to discover shops they might not normally encounter. The reality is that its mostly tiny tots and surly teenagers, and there's a constant stream of them dashing around. None of them spending money with us. On the Saturday I lost count, there were countless dozens of them. If I'd charged £2 per stamp I'd have easily doubled my days take. One Courtyard shopkeeper is considering not putting themselves in the ration book next year. It felt, to them, counter productive to be stamping a succession of ration books, whilst paying customers were being kept waiting. They have a point. it is more than a bit tiresome.

Though there was little purchasing going on on the Saturday due to the excessive congestion, our daily take was about average in the end, composed of a handful of decent purchases. But Sunday being less congested and frenetic in The Courtyard turned into our best Sunday's business since we opened. So there was one silver lining.

Dressing up events, mostly due to Sheringham's 1940's Weekend being such a success since it started in 2003, are tempting more North Norfolk towns to join in. Cromer has its 1960's Weekend, Wells-next-the Sea its Pirate Weekend, and North Walsham has recently announced that from next year it'll host a Medieval Weekend. These at least have the virtue that they are either still within living memory, or are so far beyond it no one can pretend its anything other than a theme park type event, that however rollicking, its all a cliche bedecked fantasy.

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.

A SPIRTUAL BASTING ~ The Bodhisattva Spirit Aroused

A series of blog posts reflecting on spiritual practise in everyday life. Inspired by phrases from Dogen's Instructions For The Tenzo.

The Bodhisattva Spirit Aroused

' Carried out by teachers settled in the way and by others who have aroused the bodhisattva spirit within themselves'

If you thought being a cook was a menial job, then think again. Its hard work, where good planning and preparation are more than half the task. Not just anyone who fancies a bit of large scale cooking can actually do it. In a monastery kitchen there is an additional requirement for that cook to also be a teacher, of the practicalities of cooking certainly, but more importantly to guide the spiritual practice of their novice kitchen assistants. Cooking here is a personal practice until the depth and richness of it leaves the taste of Enlightenment on their palate.

To be a teacher, you have to know what it is you have to teach, the resources, knowledge and experience you can draw on and impart. These cook/teachers aren't just 'settling' but have to be 'settled in the way'  No need for further sorting out, its largely resolved. So whilst we may not be looking at fully fledged Enlightened Masters here, they come close. Dedicated to helping others learn what they have learnt, to see what they have seen, to have a vision of reality as it truly is, to try to save everyone from unnecessary suffering. This is the definition of what a Bodhisattva does.

At the very least the cook will have 'aroused the bodhisattva spirit within themselves'. Aroused  out of their slumber, their dreaming, their delusions, their ignorance. The daily work of a Bodhisattva is not a nice fuzzy ideal you light a candle for, its a serious commitment that always demands action. Its not just a head thing, or a heart thing, but a compassionate thing, a strong feeling in your guts that propels you into selfless action. The Bodhisattva is the rescuer, offering a hand to pull you out from whatever pit of despair you happen to have fallen into this week.

Though I've felt inspired at times by the ideal of becoming a Bodhisattva, it's rare for me to be highly motivated in the carrying out and exemplification part. Too inhibited, too scared, too self absorbed with 'what about poor me?'  Its all too easy to dress up what you are doing as the selfless actions of the Bodhisattva, because your self-esteem has taken a shine to being a one.  Maybe all you are really seeking is a bit of ego pampering. So the game would be lost there then. Ultimately the Bodhisattva cannot be self serving. Serving the needs of others is the spiritual essence for them. their sole and primary motivation. Dogen, goes on to warn ~

'Such a practice requires exerting all your energies. If someone entrusted with this work lacks such a spirit, then they will only endure unnecessary hardships and suffering that will have no value in their pursuit of the Way'.

All your mental, physical and spiritual resources should be at your finger tips. Any person who undertakes Bodhisattva work as a tenzo, or any other job, must be a quietly integrated person, emotionally robust, with a wise clear way of thinking.  A self deluded Bodhisattva easily buffeted off course by the storms and vicissitudes of life, just cannot be. You will not turn yourself into a Bodhisattva by a forceful act of will alone. Believing yourself to be a Bodhisattva when you aren't is then the worst form of delusion. Getting hold of the wrong end of this stick would be an act of self harm.

Yet even Bodhisattvas had to start somewhere and I bet they focused their efforts close to home. Here am I, an artist/craftsman, seemingly a whole world away from the monastic tenzo. My work can often be solitary, creatively self absorbed, indulgent you might say, and prone to acts of aesthetic self stimulation. But, nevertheless, it raises an interesting question - how could a different spirit could be aroused to inform this or any other form of work? Just park how you might feel about your job, and for a second try to be less subjective in your assessments of its worth or value to you. Start by asking what is your job for, what's its purpose, who is it benefits in a positive way from all your effort, ingenuity and energy? Enquire within too, what is it you want and what you get from your work, and are any of those things reasonable or attainable?

All work, you could say, has an 'aesthetic aura' surrounding it, this may be a pleasant, unpleasant or even an indifferent aura. A combination of the people, the place, the management might make your work an enjoyable or a dispiriting thing to be a part of. These knid of factors affect how we feel, not just about our work, but about ourselves when executing it. Its understandable that one might settle in to a smouldering resentment. But I'd want to encourage seeing whatever happens in your daily life through a more understanding empathic open minded lens.

People never behave badly without an underlying cause. This doesn't make their behaviour excusable or reasonable, but its good not to rush to judgement to condemn or revile them, in a knee jerk kind of way. We are all quite self preoccupied, other people gives as much thought to you and how they might annoy you, as you might of them ie. not a lot. Ask what is it you are bringing to this situation? Try to imagine the suffering involved, not just to you, but for others and for them. How must they be feeling deep down in order to behave like that, the deep dissatisfaction and resentments festering underneath finding its release through dreadful behaviour? Empathy touches on our own suffering to help us feel for someone else's predicament. If you can imaginatively reach out and feel the suffering in someone else's existential situation, there is a huge shift from self absorbed to other absorbed. Then our relations with others may begin to be transformed.

Art and craft work appears unlikely to save anyone from the sort of existential suffering I'm talking about here. I can often find myself struggling with my works purpose and why create at all. But underneath that despair and often a sense of meaninglessness, I do know. I have always wanted to make the world better somehow through creating beautiful things, to bring a heightened sense of aesthetics into the world. The grim ugliness I often find surrounding me fouls up my joie de vivre. Creativity swells up from an underground stream fed from the slow moving waters of human suffering and the existential ugliness of pain. A touch of beauty, at best, can colour, sooth and transform these unpromising sources.

Whether you're cooking a meal, creating an artwork or cleaning shit from a toilet, your individual talents, energy and life force are being put to the service of others. In our predominantly urban environments its hard not to become alienated, cut off from everything and everyone that surrounds us. Our boundaries feel constantly under attack, so we defend our sense of our self by creating distance, by building physical and psychological walls. Things start to change if such self constructed barriers can be dismantled. Openeing up to reconnect with people on a basic human empathic level. Contrary to appearances, we are all crying out for affection and help, for someone to support us, to hold our hand for a while. Some of us are just better at hiding it than others. Tune into this, because this is what will eventually arouse the bodhisattva spirit from its slumber.