Category: Diary of a Bodhisattva

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Dear Diary; Life is to be Lived

Richmond Park in autumn, brown green red leaves, green grass, green parakeets – and people… Cycling, walking, wandering people – dogs bounding about in the watery yellow November sun…

We had woken late on Sunday and made our way to a coffee shop for breakfast… Carrying our cups of steaming coffee and paper bag with pastries in, we had found a spot on the pavement where the sun shone bright – we basked there like lizards – enjoying the warmth of the almost winter rays on our faces … The day before has seen us breakfasting instead on a bench in the rain – we had huddled on one under the covering of a building!

We then found our way to Wimbledon common and ran about for awhile on the expansive verdant grass, following a route along beside the golf course, and then through the woods, we crossed the road to Richmond Park…

I ran there first forty years ago, no path carved as there is today; back then we found our way around the outside, climbing over fallen trees and running on paths made by the deer and other runners… I was twenty one and a half years young – hardly begun.

Now the route is clear and ordered but still the wildness remains, the raw beauty, nature abundant with crackly autumn all about.

A dog splashed into the water beside us

We laughed 

And on we ran… I am sixty one and a half years young now – hardly begun.

Every new day dawning as if it were the first one ever

To be lived… It is the first one ever, there is no other like this one… I like to run with no purpose now; like the child I was when I first begun – to run – for fun – for the joy of each step…

Of course in truth, even when I picked up ‘purpose’ – there never was – but I thought there was…

Miles to be logged

Times recorded

Journeying to a race, and then another and another…

With purpose… And I discovered so much in this purpose – about my self – and about how to let go… So that now once more there is none…I have journeyed in a circle, and now it looks very much the same, this life of mine.

I go running – but instead of logging the miles and recording the times

I don’t… 

The running step revealed to me so much, the purposes I followed showed me the way back to my self – to run to become.

And so it is…

Whatever path we are treading is our own to tread

There is no one way to truth, no authority can lead us there…

Every person must find their own way

The purpose of life is to live it

With a purpose or without

To live

Life is for the living

Life is to be lived

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Dear Diary; Bodhisattva Conversations With….

I love making my podcast – ‘Bodhisattva Conversations with…’ The magic of the dialogue in the space between, weaving and twisting the threads, the words into a picture story… Whole lifetimes explored in thirty or forty short minutes…

Connecting with the lives of the others who listen in…

I grew up with ‘The Parkinson Show’ a feature of my life… Always fascinated by people, I watched his shows from the age of twelve or so, sitting with my family on a Saturday night…

I thought it would be fun to be a guest.

For years and years every time there was a staircase that even only remotely resembled the steps to the hot seat – I would practise ‘my walk’ down them, the walk which would take me to Michael…

It was fun!

I would announce to anyone who cared to listen that I was practising for when I was invited onto ‘Parkinson’… I wasn’t sure for what reason I would be invited onto his show – but that wasn’t important…

In my thirties I saw every episode of ‘Mavis on 4’… I loved her too; and watching her interview people changed my inner direction – now ‘being the interviewer’ became the thing I dreamed of doing rather than ‘being interviewed’…

In many ways my life has been a series of ‘Conversations with…’ as my work has meant that I am always in an ongoing dialogue – where both me and the person in front of me are finding out about themselves…

I first started a podcast series about twelve years or so ago – it ran weekly for some time…

And now this year I have begun again – to interview people…

I love it

I don’t know why

But I do!

I have always done what I loved to do… It has been impossible for my spirit to stay anywhere it didn’t want to be or do anything it didn’t truly want to do… This created some hazardous moments in my early life, when I was taking the road less travelled And challenging the status quo…!

But it seems to be working out so far…

Sixty one years into my time here on Planet earth, following this energy wherever it has wanted to go, seems to be working out so far…!

And it loves to ‘Have conversations with…’ Those in the dialogue are courageously sharing, authentically sharing  what is important to them – where their energy has lead them… 

And who they truly are. 

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Dear Diary; The Totality of Now

One of Anadi’s and my Sunday morning saw us emerging from Hyde Park and running into the busy Sunday traffic and buzz of Sunday shoppers… 

We stopped on a corner and watched the boy pull his bike up like a rearing horse, while the Oxford Circus traffic stood still for a few minutes – the boy right slap back in the middle

In the moment

Performing his tricks

Focused 

Free…

There is a freedom in the moment – no past, no future

No regret, no worry.

In the totality of the moment there is freedom.

Inner freedom is always there for us whatever is apparently going on, on the outer realms. In this moment we are supported – by the ground beneath us –

Are you here, now?

In the silence of the mind is there anything to concern you?

When it is still, we can practise witnessing the activity of the mind from afar…

Now is the time to make quieting the inner noise, clearing the inner tension the most important thing to ‘do’. Now is always the time…

Now, ‘there is no time like the present’…!

In the totality of the moment there is transformation…. It takes practise, like anything….The mind didn’t start to ‘over think’ all on its own, any habits that we have didn’t happen in one moment.

It took practise to acquire the skills that sustain us and it took practise to acquire the habits that destroy us.

It takes practise to still the mind

It took practise to think all the time.

When the practise of thinking has become out of control, then the mind has become the master and we the slave…

The road to freedom is to become the master of the mind and of the body

We are they, but they are not we…

And as we stood on the corner of Oxford Circus, Anadi and I, we watched the boy and his bike….

Freedom our shared orientation

Our quest

Inwards.

‘Where the spirit of love is, there is Freedom’

Freedom is love and love of ourselves naturally extends to everyone we meet.

The planet our home, everyone a friend…

In the totality of now.

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Dear Diary; As I walked out…

Sometimes I wake up and think I’ll go for a walk…

And that I might keep going again – day after day like Laurie Lee ( and me in 2018!)… 

He inspired me when I was twenty years old, ‘As I walked out one midsummer morning’ echoed in my soul… Although by now my steps had become running ones, I had ‘walked out’ all my life, out into the fields behind our house, further to the woods and onto the common land…

Across to the next village and back again; walks taking three hours and more at a tender age… In Cornwall on holiday – early each morning alone I walked, by now inspired by William Wordsworth walking in the mornings around the lake – five miles or more…

One Easter Monday we walked seventeen miles to Guildford Cathedral – a group of us from the church – hours and hours it took until we looked up the hill to the cathedral standing tall and straight and red, the late afternoon spring sun shining on its windows – the organ playing inside…

And then I started to run instead of walk…

For years and years I was too tired to walk – when I wasn’t running I sat and reflected – or drove my car or took a train…

But in March 2020 when we were all locked in, walking walking and walking has all come back again…

Walking the streets and the parks with Anadi – hours and hours, each night we walked and through the weekend too.

And we haven’t stopped.

Time standing still in the step and the next…

The miles going by – the journey mirroring life – leaving it all behind as we go nowhere

The past melting into each mile and the next

No future on the walk

No purpose

No where to get to

But to be in the step and the next

And the experience of being alone together…

When I was twenty a wise person said to me about running that Van Aaken ( a renowned coach at the time) recommended walking breaks on the run. I listened to this truth, but didn’t hear it for many years…

I had somewhere to get to – the land of faster times – and I couldn’t afford to stop and walk…

But the land of faster times proved to be a chimera

I chose the best myth to chase 

My faster and faster times reached a point where they started to get slower and slower…

This irony wasn’t lost on me.

My spiritual quest of inner peace, silence, stillness always prevalent in the race to win.

And so after many many years I won my own race

I found out how to let go…

And walk out each morning – sometimes running, but with walking breaks as well; when I want, and so my soul follows the dream of the step…

Whether it is on the same well trodden routes around the parks and up the Kings road 

Or across a vast expanse of land

Spain…

Two years ago I finished my own walk out on the run – in my naked feet in the same town that Laurie Lee had ended too…I had forgotten this; not having read the book for almost forty years.

A Journalist alerted me… ‘So you chose to finish where Laurie Lee finished because he was your inspiration?’ she asked…

‘He finished in Almuñécar’? I asked with incredulity

Yes, he finished in Almuñécar too’…

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Dear Diary; Full of Aliveness

Wednesday October 21st… Today it is my little sister’s birthday.

It is rather strange to have a little sister aged fifty nine years…

She will always be my little sister and we were to meet today – but London’s rules meant that she had to cancel her birthday lunch here in London Town…

And so I am now in a coffee shop alone – we spoke just now and I sang her the birthday song – she is celebrating by the sea and I am here – writing…

Both of us are where we didn’t plan to be… But still having a lovely day; together in birthday spirit but apart…

Me in a favourite place and she too – our childhood holiday destination, Hope Cove in Devon…

It feels like another life now, those days so long ago, that happened but never did! 

When we walked together along the coastal path, on the beach and body surfed in the waves – ate chocolate cake in Auntie Dorothy’s tea shop and made friends with the group of Scottish boys who taught us a mad song and how to sing it with a Scottish accent…

‘Ooh the brown troot’s gotten out and eaten all the corrrn’!

All part of the flickering screen of this life, an illusion on the screen – but real. While we are here.

The realness of our body, our separation from each other; the planet, the universe and all that there is…

This stage, the play of our life ever continuing, the curtain falling and rising again on all the different scenes…

New characters arriving and playing their part and then leaving ‘stage left’ – perhaps never to return again.

Some leading roles along with us, who of course is the star of our own show – some bit parts – or part of the chorus, the extras that wander along the streets and sit behind us in the restaurants and coffee shops lending a look of a real life occasion in our real life play…

This dream from which we can wake up at any time.

And know who we truly are

Beyond the dreaming state of illusion and emotional and psychological dramas that we continuously create…

The still small voice of calm speaks as we awaken

It speaks always

This silence, the mind quiet, all quiet and still

From within

And all round

The centre and circumference of all being

Silence

And so we continue when we awaken from the dream…

Alive, free…

Full of aliveness

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Dear Diary; Possibility rather than Probability

We stood on the Kings road waiting for a bus to take us to the South Bank… Our Saturday outing plan – to journey there for brunch and walk home along the river five miles or so…

The bus didn’t come, and still didn’t come…

‘I’m going off this bus idea’ I laughed…’I vote that whatever comes first – taxi or bus – we jump aboard’!

‘Okay, you’re on’ Anadi replied…

A taxi appeared with his orange light shining, responding to our raised hands he pulled in… Anadi asked for Trafalgar square just as I said ‘the South bank please’… ‘Well get in and you can decide where you’re going’ our driver laughed…

He told us there was a road block – buses weren’t getting through due to a football game, that we would have had a long wait…

We talked as we journeyed together along the Thames through Saturday traffic; London looking busy again, but our taxi driver told us a different tale…

‘We’re having a very tough time – no tourists – September and October usually such a busy lucrative time – but this year no…’

He told us that he works mainly at weekends, but now the weekends are full of other drivers working too, trying to make up for their quiet weeks…

‘We need to “ride about to help out”, as well as “eating out to help out”I said…

He continued chatting about his life – struggle prevalent in his stories…

He told us of his work stresses and the ones at home too – and even more with his properties – his tenants finding it hard to pay their rent – ‘I understand – but I’m not a charity’ he mused…‘But once we have solved one stress, we make up another, don’t we?’ he continued… ‘Always something – we always find something to worry about, that’s what we all do…’

It is – what so many do – create worry and more worry with every thought…

But – there is no time like now, to “press pause”, and come back to the present moment… And to create a different thought at the very least and so begin a new process of possibility rather than probability… 

To dream a brighter future into being, breath by breath, thought by thought, word by word, deed by deed…

He dropped us off at Waterloo and we walked past the world of taxis – a long line of cars – their drivers sitting in solitude inside… No fares to be seen…

In trying to find the South Bank we walked through a huge arch full of graffiti artists – it was  like entering another world again… The metallic smell of paint – strong and intoxicating – huge works of art covering the walls – painters at work, an edgy atmosphere of artistic expression…

Messages of power, statements from deep within the person onto the wall in front of them – engrossed in their work with the onlookers looking on and wandering by – life in motion – another world… Us the observers, walking through the matrix in all is complexity and colour and confusing contours…

Out into the daylight…

We climbed the steps and walked through the doors for our brunch into yet another world…

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Dear Diary;Wake up and Have Fun

Anadi and I set off on another Sunday adventure…

When we arrived in Kensington gardens, I suggested a new game for our run – more fun on the run…

‘Why don’t we take it in turns at every cross roads or junction or path going this way or that -,to take it in turns to say which way we to run – and whether to walk, run or stretch out and run as fast as we can…!

It was fun, this run… Twisting and turning, jogging and racing our way around the gardens and Hyde Park… Each turn a new possibility, a new vista opening up…

Like life

Shall we turn this way or that, every moment holding multiple directions down which to travel, to create, to experience, to uncover, to discover …. 

The road less travelled

The road never ever travelled before….

The day was sunny bright warm, a beautiful October day; rich with the smell that I know as this autumn month… Heralding a shedding of the old before a time of sleep and then the re birth into spring…

It felt full of possibilities and joy… We ran to the statue of Albert and I sat at his feet… ‘It feels like a holiday again today’ I said 

Yes – Anadi replied ‘every day a holiday..’

A holy day 

When we are present , when we stay with our breath, when our mind is still then every day truly is a holy day

A holy holi day…

We sat awhile longer and a little squirrel came and scampered all about our feet, really close – he came so close we could practically touch his multi coloured textured tail, waving behind him, soft like a dandelion; then he stood on his back legs, little paws in front…

‘I’m so sorry’, I said ‘We haven’t got any food..’ Later we looked up the squirrel spirit energy – ‘Make sure you’re having fun…’ it reminded ‘Play is essential too’

Our run had felt like ‘playtime’, racing across the grass, jogging round the lake – racing once again, and then taking a walking break…

It felt like being out with my friend all day, when i was very young – playing, running about, flopping down for awhile – and then off again…

We finished at our usual watering hole… The duke of York square and as we ate our Danish pastries and drank our coffee, with the buzz of life, of love or people enjoying being together, eating together, drinking together; a wasp flew up to me – (I thought they had all gone by now!) and landed on my arm, she then buzzed around me and I could feel the flutter of her wings near my skin making a light breeze…

My next totem for the day…

In she flew…

Wasp, beautiful and perfect – with her stripy yellow and black coat – in every way…

 I looked up her meaning too…

She said ‘Wake up’… I am not sure what I must wake up to…

But I am keeping my eyes and all my senses open and aware…

Perhaps it is simply encouragement to keep on waking up… While having fun!

A wake up call for all…

Wake up to who we truly are.

In each moment 

Celebrate being here, an opportunity to heal and grow, and so create in each moment a way of being true.

Spiritual beings

Being human

All that spirit is, we can be too…

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Dear Diary; Virtually Together

Last Sunday…

Anadi and I awoke to a wonderful wet fresh Sunday morn… We jogged to Pret a manger

This is a new habit of ours – run one kilometre and stop for breakfast! ‘Aren’t you cold’ the barrister asked me looking at my bare arms and be vested being… ‘I’m hot’, I laughed – I proffered her my rain jacket… ‘We ran here for some breakfast’…

‘What a lovely way to start Sunday’ she said, while bagging our croissant (me) and pain au raisin (Anadi)…

We sat watching the rain drops splash down, enjoying the background hum of voices and music and whooshing coffee machines… Chatting, being, enjoying our Sunday run…

We set off after while – up the Fulham road – where we met a man with a virtual London marathon number on his back… ‘Well done’ we clapped him – ‘How far have you gone?’ ‘Ten miles, sixteen to go he replied’…

We wished him well and on he ran…

We continued on to Holland Park and as we came out the other side through Notting Hill we spied our second virtual runner… On the road to Kensington Palace there was another, and another – and in the gardens two more…

Approaching Hyde Park the numbers gathered and we became official road side cheerers and supporters – jumping and whooping as a runners with a number pinned to their being went by, some solo, some with supporters running too – or on bikes beside them…

My heart felt like it would burst with love for my fellow human beings being human – out in the rain running along, running a long long way. 

I felt tears rising in my chest as I witnessed their spirit in action – the joy and pain of the step, the road less travelled, the challenge – uncovering and discovering that they are more than they thought – can do more than they knew; growing as they journey within to their vulnerability – their strength shining through.

The running step is so simple and yet as complex as each human being; each step expressing their whole essence – the past and future encapsulated in the moment

No past, no future

Only now…

When we stay in the step, when we live it with all our being – when we experience it – the next takes care of itself…

Always

This is the way

The way to know ourselves is the stay present to each rainy , sunshiny, joyous painful step 

Of our life 

And discover

Uncover the route…

Forty three thousand people ran the London marathon that day all over the country, a virtual gathering

Everywhere, but nowhere

And every day eight billion of us all over the globe, a virtual gathering

Everywhere but nowhere take part in our own marathons.

We are all one

Journeying together on our own… 

As we left the park we had spotted twenty five runners… ‘It would make great symmetry to find a twenty sixth’ I said to Anadi – ‘great for the blog’!

And on the Kings road we did just that

Five hundred metres from home, there she was our twenty sixth virtual London marathoner approaching her final twenty sixth mile…

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Dear Diary; A Perfect Start to Another Perfect Day

All night long the rain poured down… I heard it splashing and sloshing on the corrugated plastic roof over the little area where my washing machine lives…

A steady relentless sound, the backdrop to my night, rhythmic soothing too, water gushing from the sky…

At 6am it still came down… Anadi and I had planned to meet at 7am to train in the park together – our circuit session – but nowadays, the prospect of doing burpees and press-ups, dips and jumps, planks and pistol squats in the pouring rain doesn’t feel as much fun as in the sun…!

Suddenly I had a brain wave

The bandstand

I messaged Anadi 

He liked my plan

We met at the end of the road and made our way to the bandstand right in the middle of the park; covered over head – a smooth slate grey floor to perform our exercises upon.

We were on a stage… Dog walkers and runners went by, wrapped up warm -.hoods over their heads – while we leapt and bent and twisted and lunged in the dry…

I could perhaps be described as fair weather athlete now – well as much as is possible! Back in the day my coach insisted on singlet and shorts in all weathers, and on being out in all weathers – I still have a vivid memory of a hill session one biting cold January morn -racing up and down with the hail stones hitting my bare limbs!

But now, all has changed!

I bought a super duper ultra protective rain suit when I returned to the UK in the middle of last year..

I joined a gym – and after missing five winters- I steeled myself for the novelty of UK weather, thinking that maybe the following year, I could be sunning in Espana por favor once more! 

But for now I am staying here – this I have decided – I will winter once more in this beautiful land.

Already I am loving the shifting changing landscape

The seasons moving along – as they do – with their different characters, their beauty colour expansive swathes of grey black/ blue white clouds – and atmospheric airs and smells – the feel of the damp air, sunny glint through trees changing colour, rain and more rain washing the land and filling the river Thames – it is already looking higher than before…

And so I am ever inventive…

How to be an outdoor person for an hour or so each day, when I am not really an outdoor type! 

I’m an indoors or in a coffee shop with a coffee and cake type person, who just happens to love to run – and become – and so the land in all its ever changing beauty calls me forth to know her better….To appreciate her and love her in all her glory.

I remember the many summer autumn winter and springs I have run through…

And I am glad to be here once more to appreciate and be in this bounteous ever changing land…

We so enjoyed our new outdoor gym under the bandstand in the middle of the park

Dry while the rain teemed down.

Our indoor/outdoor gym to jump and squat and dance about in the early morning light.

A perfect start to another perfect day…

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Dear Diary; Just for The Fun of it

Julia Chi Taylor - Bodhisattva Conversations

I like chanting at the Pagoda on a Monday

The trees blowing in the park beside us and the sound of the clipper whooshing up the Thames.

The sun September special glinting and rusty on the golden Buddha and the water below.

Every day magical.

The only day ever

New, fresh.

Everywhere was much quieter this Monday morn, the great sweep down which we regularly run was devoid of the crowds that usually tread the same path as us, coming and going… Brightly coloured running kit, bikes whizzing by…

Today the trees lined an almost empty road…

Who knows why? Changing seasons – or just this particular Monday morning…

We chant after handstand practise…

We need longer for our handstands really and truly – we only practise for a few minutes long… I can remember as a twelve year old spending every single break time at school on my hands… Endless practise…

Perhaps we need some dedicated handstand practise – minutes turning into hours – to just muck about as we did as children.

No real goals – just fun – and without realising it the repetition, the practise practise practise, creates miracles…

Everything can be achieved with practise

But if we always make the practise fun then we keep wanting to do it

We keep turning up, day after day, year after year if it’s fun.

To play…

We must always remember how to play, how to giggle and fall about in helpless laughter, how to lark about …

We must remember how to have fun

We must remember to live as we truly want to..

The biggest deathbed regret is

‘I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me

The expectations from others can be so deeply embedded that we don’t even know they are there, which is why it is worth investigating our map, our stories, our pattens and programme and seeing if they truly do suit and support us…

Are we living life ‘our way’, or are we adhering to the rules and ideals of another

Are we living by default…?

There is always time to shed those expectations, to strip them away and to fly free on your own path. There is always time to start to play again…

To practise handstands over and over until they are perfect…

Like those days after school when my sister Rosy and I would play in the garden, racing around without any shoes on, practising high jump and hurdles and handstands as the sun got lower in the sky

Just for the fun of it…!