Settling into standing

A retreat was held in London last weekend with Ajahn Sucitto, a British Theravadin Buddhist monk and abbot of Chithurst monastery in Hampshire. I haven't visited any of the Buddhist monasteries in this country. They evoke, I suppose, less than positive feelings from my childhood experience of religion, so I tend to seek out Buddhist teachings in an environment without institutional or structuredly devotional trappings. But, anyway, having heard good things, I went along and was bowled over, really, by this gently forceful and uncompromising teacher.

He has a slowly growing series of Reflections posted on a blog site. Powerful stuff, some of it, especially a thought-provoking - not to say wince-inducing - account of what it's like to go out for alms in a small town in southern England (from which I couldn't cull an adequate extract - to get the full impact you need to read all of it).