-
(Untitled)
Tonight was the first night of the new Men's Mitra Group at my Buddhist centre. It was nice - as I said when we went round the circle and did the why-are-we-here thing, a big part of Buddhism is the sangha, the religious community, and by its nature, you don't get too much of that during two hours of silent meditation.So it was nice, I guess, to ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
Following my earlier post, today was the first day ever where I had no biscuits at work! Hurrah, addiction-kicking! It's all down to a combination of willpower, no particularly delicious biscuits being there today, and satisfying my compulsive eating habit with seeded oatcakes, bananas and chewing gum. -
(Untitled)
I bought John Rae's The Old Boys' Network: A Headmaster's Diaries 1970-1986 (about his time as headmaster of Westminster School), to commemorate my visit to Oxford. One anecdote in particular was too good not to share:
"After dinner, I speak to Tom Howarth who was high master of St Paul's and is now tutor for admission at Magdalene, Cambridge. I ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
BEST THING EVER.
I've been reading the blog of a fellow Old Mertonian, and apart from recipes and nostalgia-inducing posts about her tour of Merton's kitchens, there are posts about the Michelin-starred restaurants she's been to. I was made rather giddy by the notion that ordinary people could go to such places - the only Michelin-starred restaurant ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
I found a shop that sells okra today, so as my foodie nature demands, I've been looking up gumbo recipes for it. In one or two of them, though, I've seen this, which is the weirdest ingredient ever:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_smoke -
Conversations about Buddhism
Interlocutor: So you're a Buddhist now?
Self: Yup.
Interlocutor: But I thought you didn't believe in gods?
Self: Well, Buddhism doesn't have any.
Interlocutor: No, they think the Buddha is a living god!
Self: I'm pretty sure they think he's neither living nor a god.
Interlocutor: Haven't you read his book?
Self: What?
Interlocutor: His book! It has a photo ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
I'm currently forming a plan of attack for one of the great battles of working life, viz. kicking my biscuit addiction. My workplace's tea rooms are stocked with five different types of biscuit each day, ranging from chocolate digestives to ginger crunch to chocolate fudge crunch to Party Rings to shortbread, and I'm not very good at not eating ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
I'm being courted, at the moment, to join a foundation year course as the first step to becoming a mitra (Sanskrit for 'friend') at my Buddhist centre. It's pretty cool - especially since the course is being led by my favourite Order member there - and they seem to quite want me, because when I feebly protested that I might have to stay late at ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
Fun facts about nuns: in both the Reformation and the French Revolution, nuns were a lot more resistant to having their convents closed down than monks were about their monasteries.
In other news, I joined a gym today. It's extortionately expensive, but only five minutes' walk from work, and there's a sauna, so it's pretty exciting. -
(Untitled)
I'm still grubbing around for material for posts on LJ until it becomes a habit*, so I've settled on writing a slightly self-referential post about “why writing LJ posts about happiness is a good idea”.
One of the interesting things in the book Happiness (a product of our Waterstone's Piccadilly raid the other day) is Daniel Nettle's discussion of ( Read more... )