We had a small number of cucumbers from our plants in the greenhouse in early summer, and then for weeks and weeks nothing. My brother came over to visit and said that with no wind in the greenhouse the flowers probably weren’t pollinating. Next year, he suggested, we buy ‘female only flower’ seeds that grow fruit without needing pollination.

A couple of weeks after his visit, and still no more fruit on the vine, I pulled the plants up. No point watering them, and having them take nutrients from the soil.

As I lifted the long vines from the earth, to carry to the compost bin, what should bang against my legs but a couple of cucumbers!

I looked at the broken roots where I had pulled the plant up. I didn’t think I could put them back into the soil.

So I composted the plants, and put the cucumbers in the fridge, and remembered that everything in life is a gamble.

When we were in the process of buying our house last year, ‘everything in life is a gamble’ is a phrase that was never far from my lips.

How often should I call the estate agent? Too much and they might start to resent me, too little and they might start to forget me (or perhaps it would have no impact at all). Should we stick with our very slow buyer or cut our losses and try someone new? Will we enjoy living in this house we have chosen? Everything in life is a gamble.

I don’t make choices in a vacuum. I gather data, and then I make a choice. But the data only takes me so far, especially when I am dealing with things that I’m not an expert in (and that’s many things!). I can read a million reviews, and talk to a million people, and at some point I need to make a choice and it will either work out, or not.

If it doesn’t work out, it might be because I missed a crucial piece of evidence in my data gathering, or it might be for something that would have been impossible to predict.

Remembering that every choice in life is a gamble (or a best guess) helps me hold expectations of outcomes lightly and it undermines the part of me that says, “I should have known better.”

It helps with everything from small choices (new soap, why does it smell so much??) to big ones like buying a house, or medium ones like what cucumber seeds to grow.

Everything in life is a gamble.

Another good practice is to question what ‘a good outcome’ actually is. How can we really know? But that’s a post for another time.

“… if you actually accepted everything, you would be a recognized Buddha.”

Paula Arai, Bringing Zen Home

When I started working with therapy clients, years ago, I quickly discovered that acceptance could be taken as “I can’t do anything about this”.

I think this is a quirk of the English language, as much as anything else. But acceptance is not always about inaction.

If we said “I can’t do anything about this” to everything would, we be recognised as a Buddha? No! We’d be recognised as a doormat. As having victim mentality. As not caring.

Acceptance means allowing what is real to be real. It means not excluding things from your awareness. ‘Acceptance’ is shorthand for ‘accepting what is true is true’. If we accept that whatever is true, is true, then we can be recognised as a Buddha.

Acceptance means not pushing away difficult circumstances, or the feelings that arise when we meet difficult circumstances. Difficult circumstances are different for each of us, of course, some of us are challenged by the same thing that bring others joy.

This is good advice for meditation, and it is good advice for the whole of life.

When I’m teaching meditation I invite people to notice what appears without pushing it away, and without getting entangled in it. “Here’s a feeling of sadness. Here’s a feeling of joy. Here’s worry about my meeting tomorrow. Here’s a moment of peace.”

In meditation we practice accepting, in life we practice accepting and then notice what it is within our power to do. Many things are outside of our control, but there is always some move we can make. Sometimes the move is to become still, to stay still and pay attention and see what happens when we embody stillness. Sometimes the move is to take action. There is always something we can do.

Paula Arai’s book Bringing Zen Home is an account of her conversations with lay women in Japan in the late 1990s, about the way they integrate Zen into their lives. Arai writes, “These women see that they are responsible for their own lives.”

Acceptance is not the opposite of being responsible, or taking action, but the necessary first step in that process. How can we take effective action if we are in denial?

This week, as the UK enters its fifth heatwave (sixth? the summer has felt like one long heatwave to me) and much of the country is officially in drought, and wildfires continue to burn, the new prime minister finally called a Cobra1 meeting to talk about it.

Following the meeting he spoke to the press and failed to mention the words ‘climate crisis'. When asked about whether he would grant license for more oil extraction in the North Sea he replied, “The bigger questions obviously will come at the right moment in time.”

I don’t know if the prime minister is in denial about the climate crisis, or if it’s a skilful political strategy I will be impressed by at some future date. I do know that there is plenty of denial in the political system as a whole, although sometimes I’m not sure if it’s denial of the seriousness of the climate crisis, or acceptance of that seriousness but a denial that we should respond in a way which cares for all living beings.

In the face of that truth, what is my response? It must be an approach of two halves, I think. The first, to continue to work with my own denial. To let go of whatever fears prevent me from being with what is true. To move into deeper and deeper acceptance.

The second is to look for what actions I take. I can’t change the mind of the prime minister. I don’t have much influence there, although I am sure the actions we took with Extinction Rebellion Buddhists changed the national conversation, and there may be actions like that I can join again. Sometimes they will be actions aimed at mitigation, and sometimes they will be actions aimed at being with the world as it is, at bringing some grace while systems collapse around us.

The climate crisis is a big thing to face. It is a big thing to accept. But acceptance is the first step. It is the first step of whatever we want to face in life, big or small. It is the first step on the road to enlightenment.

If you haven’t listened to Episode One of my new podcast, check it out now: Human Nature/Buddha Nature.

Various new projects have sprung up as a result of those conversations. Tomorrow Satya is offering an online intro to our Buddhist practice, and in a few weeks time she’s running a course called How to Live a Meaningful Life. Ananda will be launching an online Dharma Cafe soon, and Bhanu will be running meditation classes in the autumn. Dayamay has just finished running a book group, there will be monthly kirtans again after the summer and so on and so forth.

All good stuff.

Just as importantly - I’m adjusting my view. As much as I love people joining us for our regular weekly practice sessions - that shouldn’t be the only measure of success. We have a thriving residential community. We have other offerings that people attend. And the practice sessions, with the bells and bowing and chanting may not be the easiest entry for everyone. And regardless of numbers, the people that do join us are in a process of transformation that is wonderful to see.

In one of our sangha meetings a while back, Mark suggested a podcast. I have done one before and liked the idea but I wasn’t ready to begin.

In the last couple of weeks, that changed and I have been busy experimenting!

This first episode is pretty Buddhist focused, and that will always be one of the main ingredients, but it won’t be the only ingredient. I’ll follow my curiosity, and see where it leads…. into the human mind, into the world into culture… let’s see…

I hope you’ll join me:

• Listen on Substack

• Listen on Spotify

• Listen on Apple Podcasts

• Listen on YouTube

On the one hand, I could be patient, kind and well behaved. On the other hand, I could be resentful and frustrated and sink into depression.

The kindness was a form of self-protection: I will keep everyone else happy so I don’t need to be overwhelmed by the feelings I have whenever anyone hints they don’t like me or something I’ve done.

When the kindness came from that place - from a place of pushing myself to stay safe - of course the resentment came out later. My system was working too hard and that was unsustainable.

If you are someone who has the tendency to people-please in this way, hearing teachings about being kind to each other, or about putting others needs above your own, can make you think that you are a good person and that you are really embodying the spiritual path you have chosen, when in fact you are still acting from a place of self-protection.

We can do good for others from this place, but it will be a bit wonky. Perhaps we act too quickly for others and they miss out on learning experiences, or we act too quickly and don’t actually see what is really good for the other person or the situation. Or perhaps we get it right, what the other person wants, but offer too much of ourselves and then have to withdraw later or end up becoming dysregulated ourselves - feeling distressed and causing distress to others.

This is a form of spiritual bypassing. I tell myself I am following the teachings, but actually I am using them to avoid noticing something about myself. Or to avoid feeling uncomfortable feelings.

The true spiritual journey is about turning inwards, as much as it about compassion to others.

It is about including ourselves in that compassion - seeing ourselves and others clearly and taking action that is good for the whole situation.

That might be acting quickly, or it might be doing nothing.

The embodied feeling of genuine compassion, compassion that comes from a wide open heart and includes everyone, is very different from the embodied feeling of kindness as a form of self-protection.

Kindness as a form of self-protection can feel frenetic and anxious, or it can feel dead and empty. Genuine compassion comes from a place that is both relaxed and lively.

It took me a long time to learn the difference between these two places. Of course, I still fall into self-protection, but less often these days, and with more kindness to myself and more understanding of what’s happening.

One of the most important steps on the way was unlearning that I had to suppress my own needs in order to be a good person.

In fact, it’s crucially important to know what my own needs are. From that place of clear seeing I can (attempt) to make a wise choice, is this a need that needs meeting? Is it something I can actually let go of? (Can I notice the difference between real letting go and pretending to let go?)

Real spiritual practice includes kindness to all beings. And I’m a being as well.

Manifesting the Pure Land

This Saturday at 5pm BST

I’m giving an online talk. The Pure Land Sutra says there are no hell realms in the Pure Land, I believe it’s possible to create Pure Lands here in this life time, but there are clearly hell realms in this world. Is it possible to reconcile this?

Join me as I explore this question. Tickets available on Eventbrite.

I sat watching them and noticed how relaxed I felt. I should do this more often I thought, and then instantly imagined the times I would sit there in the future and lost my relaxed sense of the present moment.

Zen Master Dogen had said something about fish, I remembered. What was it? That we shouldn’t keep big fish.

I guess he meant koi carp, which can be hideously expensive and would have been a sign of status in Dogen’s Japan. Don’t keep a Ferrari, we might say today.

Later I tried to find Dogen’s exact words, but instead I found this:

A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims, there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the sky. However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements since the beginning. When their activity is large, their field is large. When their need is small, their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally expresses its realm.

As soon as I read this. I stopped looking for the big fish quote. I loved these words so much I made them into a zine!

You can download the pdf here, print it and make your own. (Folding instructions)

The zine is a digital collage, made from images from the Public Domain Image Archive.

What is Dogen talking about?

In a 1993 Dharma talk, Sojun Mel Weitsman suggests that each one of us is flying and swimming in our own element. That we are flying and swimming through Buddha-nature. That we are Buddha-nature. We don’t always know it, but it’s true.

Weitsman also says that, “When [Dogen] says, “Thus, each of them totally covers its full range,” another way to translate it is that, wherever you stand, you don’t fail to cover the ground.” What we are doing in zazen is just covering the entire ground”

That reminds me of something Barry Magid said in his post What Changes When We Leave Ourselves Alone:

“The mind of Shakyamuni was really different in some way when he stopped trying to become Buddha and just was Buddha.”

It also reminded me of the story Budai, who Magid wrote about few days ago. Budai, whose name means, ‘hemp sack’, exemplifies this being yourself completely.

When Budai was in a crowed place he would empty the sack he carried and invite people to “look at them, one by one.”

What was in the sack? “alms bowl, a basin, clogs, fish, rice, vegetables, meat, roof tiles, and bricks.”

After the looking? He would put everything back in the sack.

Look at them one by one. This reminds me of the work I do as a therapist. We bring all sorts of things into the light. We look at them with curiosity and compassion and then we put them back inside the sack.

Sometimes they are lighter when we put them back in the sack. Sometimes we just have a new appreciation for what’s there.

One of the things that happens in good therapy is that we stop trying to be someone else. We learn to accept this is the person that I am in this moment. This is what’s in my sack. The same thing happens with good spiritual practices, like the zazen Dogen is writing about.

When we sit in meditation we aim to cover one spot completely. Not leaning forward. Not leaning backward. Not leaning to one side or the other. Just this one spot. We aim for that balance in our minds as well. Just accepting what arises without pushing it away or making something more of it. Not reaching to be someone else. Just being myself in this present moment.

When we do that, when we stop trying to be someone else, something profound happens. When we are just ourselves, we are closer to enlightenment. Just like Shakyamuni when he stopped trying to become the Buddha.

In the hottest part of the day my thoughts become sluggish and I become aware of my heart working hard in my chest.

I avoid turning the fan on.

We bought the fan one day after the hottest day ever recorded in May. I was thinking of the comfort of my clients who also have to come up in to this hot room and sit and do the work of therapy.

I am grateful my room doesn’t face south. I am grateful that I know to close all the windows and curtains in the daytime, and open them at night.

I avoid turning the fan on. Even though half of the UK’s electricity is now generated from green sources, and even though we are with a green energy supplier, I am suddenly, in the heat, acutely aware of the cost of the climate crisis, and I can’t bear the idea of using more any more power.

On the hottest day ever recorded in May I felt uncomfortable. Last year over 1,000 people died in heatwave related deaths in the UK. Other countries are much worse off and heat wave illness and deaths are just one consequence.

When I used to lead Buddhist Action Month here in the UK, I found myself quoting Case 14 of the Blue Cliff Record over and over again.

What are we called to do in the face of the climate crisis? Make an appropriate response.

‘An appropriate response’ is not a cop out. It is not prescriptive, which some parts of us may be hoping for, but it is not a cop out. ‘An appropriate response’ knows that conditions are constantly changing and that even the precepts cannot guide us on the wise course of action in every circumstance. ‘An appropriate response’ invites us to bring wisdom and compassion together.

David R. Loy, the author of Eco Dharma, once told me that to help people find their appropriate responses he invites them to reflect on three questions.

1. What does the world need

2. What can I offer

3. What tugs at my heart

There is no one appropriate response. What I can offer is different to what you can offer. We each see different worlds, or different pieces of the world, at least. My heart’s feeling will be different to yours.

Last week I installed a couple of water butts here, to collect rainwater from the roof of the house to water the veg. patch. I have three more to install. That’s one appropriate response, I think.

On Saturday I will sit with the Extinction Rebellion Earth Vigil in the centre of town. That’s another appropriate response.

There are others I will make. ‘An appropriate response’ is ‘going, always going beyond’ to quote the heart sutra. It does not stand still. It does not rest in the idea that everything is known. It is not one gate that we walk through, but many gates leading to many different fields.

This year, for Buddhist Action Month, XR Buddhists are inviting people to meditate in ‘unloved places’. This is another appropriate response.

My heart opens to the suffering of the whole world. It is a grace, this opening. The gift that comes from years of practice and who knows what else. This opening and loving the whole world is another appropriate response.

The world is suffering. I am suffering.

I would like to be a perfectly resilient being. I would like to be a perfectly wise being. I would like to know what one lever to pull to heal the world.

I do not always know the next right action to take.

I do know that my heart opening is always an appropriate response.

I turn on the fan.

There is a part of me that longs for people to turn up to the events that I offer. That longs to feel seen and respected and appreciated by others. That longs to be seen as a success.

When I am craving an audience, the possibility of intimacy disappears.

This year, after recovering from moving house (more or less) Satya and I have both started offering more Buddhist teachings again. We have been giving talks in person at the temple, and have a new series of online events running monthly on Saturdays as well.

My audience craving part kicked in. How many people have booked? How many people are going to turn up? What will this say about me?

How can I find the right form of words to talk about the event? Is this title strong enough? What am I doing that can be changed? Where is the lever I can pull to magic up an audience?

But that part will never be satisfied.

Not when its focus is on the number of people that show up and how they respond to the event. There is no upper limit to the number of people that will show. There will always be a more famous Buddhist teacher than me that I can compare myself to. Wanting more people leads to wanting more people. Craving leads to craving, not satisfaction.

At the beginning of the week I walked around the garden and clipped some tree blossoms to go on my office shrine. I clipped white clusters of flowers from the Swedish Whitebeam, and bright pink clusters from the purple Elderflower.

I put them into a vase and brought it up to my office. I knelt in front of the shrine and placed the vase next to the Buddha. I said, “I offer these flowers to the Buddha, for the sake of all sentient beings.”

Here was real satisfaction. Here was the intimacy I longed for. And it not only satisfied the parts that long for intimacy, it also satisfied the craving for an audience. As I sat in front of the shrine the craving dropped away.

It doesn’t matter if anyone turns up on Saturday (although I’m sure some will). What matters is that I will be sitting with the Buddha.

If you’d like to sit with me and the Buddha, join me for our next Dharma Hour.

The topic is the Three Minds of Awakening. We’ll explore if we need to cultivate good states of mind when we chant and meditate, or if we just chant and meditate without worrying about that.

Dharma Hour: The Three Minds of Awakening. Saturday 16th May 5pm - 6pm UK time. Tickets available on Eventbrite.

Dharma Talk: Bodhisattva Vows

This Saturday, 2nd May, at 10:45am UK time I’m speaking about the Bodhisattva vows both in person at Bright Earth Buddhist Temple and online via Zoom.

We recite the Bodhisattva vows in every practice session:

Innumerable are sentient beings: we vow to save them all.
Inexhaustible are deluded passions: we vow to transform them all.
Immeasurable are the Dharma teachings: we vow to master them all.
Infinite is the Buddha’s way: we vow to fulfil it completely.

Where do they come from? What do they mean? And how does reciting these impossible vows help our practice?

Joining details here.

Dharma Hour: The Three Minds of Awakening

16 May 2026, 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm UK time.

Online only

The Deep Mind, The Sincere Mind and the Mind that Transfers Merit.

What are these three qualities of awakening all about? How can knowing about them help us in our own spiritual practice?

Kaspa will talk for 20 mins, then there will be a chance to discuss in small groups, before Q&A.

Book your place via Eventbrite

We are heading towards the end of cherry blossom season here in the UK. Last week a thunderous hail storm whipped off many of the petals from the trees in the cemetery. They were scattered across the path like confetti after a wedding.

Change and impermanence is everywhere.

On Friday Satya and I went to see Orwell 2+2=5 at our local cinema. The film weaves together words from Orwell’s diary, letters and 1984 with clips of fascism from throughout history. Rallies, the destruction of cities, accounts of massacres and so on.

Towards the end there’s a little discussion about how we might resist this, but mostly the film is about the awful things that power over others and centralised power can lead to. I went into a slight dissociative state while watching it, and then found myself feeling quote angry on Saturday morning for what initially seemed like no reason but soon became clear was part of my response to the film.

With all the sickness around in my own community, it already felt strange to be enjoying the sunshine and working in the garden. Planting out not just the courgette seedlings but wild geraniums and other flowers.

Coming away from the film, “ordinary life” felt even stranger. It stirred the desire for some kind of acute response to all of this suffering. And it’s true that when I was arrested for climate activism it felt good to be doing something. It felt important.

It was important. And I know that there are also other important responses to the poly-crisis. Using my vote wisely in May, writing to my MP and perhaps most important building community in all sorts of different ways.

More and more I feel it’s important not to respond in a frenetic way. There is a value in being fired up, it can jolt us into some new awareness and spark off something creative, and, at least for me in this time of my life, I want my actions to come from a place of steadiness. I can’t help thinking that freneticism is one of the conditions that creates the crisis. I want to live from a different place.

So one of my responses to the crisis is be in the garden, and connect with the Earth, and to be slow and to enjoy what I can enjoy. Not the only response, but for me it’s an important one.

Should I keep making videos?

Over the last few months I’ve been recording short form videos, on therapy and Buddhism adjacent topics. The first couple of videos got some decent views and response and then I lost the algorithms favour (Metta wanted me to pay to boost views). Today I read Ryan Broderick in Garbage Day writing that the short-form video is over! And that he doesn’t know what comes next. Over on BlueSky authors are asking how to spread the word about their books now that social media platforms don’t work and they are still expected to market their own books.

I wonder how to keep spreading awareness of the things I want to succeed? (My therapy practice and the temple).

You can see my videos on Instagram, YouTube or TikTok.

Heading towards certification

Speaking of videos, I passed my IFS video review. This is where you have to record a therapy session and then have it assessed to see if you know what you are doing. And I do know what I am doing! Just have to wait for the IFS Institute to check all my paperwork and then I can say I’m a Certified IFS Therapist. That’s a nice feeling.

If you want to find out more about working with me as a therapist, check out my website, or drop me a line.

Hope you’re all well.

Kaspa

Someone recently said that sometimes the way I write about Buddhism (particularly in the temple newsletter, I think) feels theistic, and that they found that confusing.

It is sort of theistic.

I had strong Christian faith as a child, at times a deeply personal relationship with Jesus who I felt the presence of in my life. As a teenager, with a growing interest in science and a growing sense of what was just I rejected the Christianity of my youth, which was creationist and anti-queer etc.

In my late teens and early twenties I read a lot of the new atheists. People like Richard Dawkins. This was back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before the clear swing to the right of some of those people. Or at least, before their conservatism was clear to me.

I loved skewering my old faith and gently sparring with the Christian who sat next to me at work and very generously responded to my many questions.

But that didn’t make me happy, and it didn’t feel like the whole story. Something was missing.

Then I discovered meditation and Buddhism. I’m so grateful to books like Stephen Batchelor’s Buddhism Without Beliefs that allowed me to explore this new thing without triggering any of my anti-religious parts.

When I meditated and when I read Buddhist teachings, I felt caught by something. Caught on a thread, perhaps. I kept following the thread.

Eventually what I discovered was something that was nothing like the Christianity of my youth, and also somehow something a bit like it at the same time.

Buddhists throughout the ages have attempted to put words to their spiritual experiences, to their experiences of enlightenment, to their experiences of seeing reality as it is. These are things that are hard to speak of in words. Impossible, with any accuracy, perhaps. The map is not the territory.

Some Buddhists speak of a realm (or an experience of reality) that is completely impossible to describe. Sometimes this is called Nirvana, sometimes One Mind, sometimes The Pure Land, sometimes just ‘things as it is’.

As impossible to describe as they are, those realms are characterised by love and wisdom.

From that realm of oneness, separate forms arise. These are the symbolic/mythical Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. This is the energy of enlightenment that wants to reach us and awaken us. From one point of view, everything is a Buddha (this keyboard I’m typing on, a rock, a tree, my mother etc.)

(Confusingly, in some understandings, the Pure Land is one of these separate forms, rather than the place of oneness itself.)

I am the foolish human being stumbling around that feels separate from everything and grasping at things that make me feel okay, without realising that I am also included in this oneness. The oneness calls out to me, with the voice of Amida Buddha, and invites me to awaken. My heart calls back longing for awakening.

There is no creator God in Buddhism. Perhaps the separate forms did not arise from oneness. They are just both here, forms and oneness.

There is no judging God. There is cause and effect, and there is a loving force that longs for each of us to awaken.

When I first came to Buddhism, I understood these mythical Buddhas only as symbolic forms. As teaching aids, and mementos.

Now, I appreciate that they can have a life of their own. When I call to Amida or to Guanyin something responds.

Perhaps that is just something stirring deep in my own heart. But it doesn’t feel like me who answers. Perhaps it is oneness itself finding a form that my small consciousness can comprehend. The map is not the territory.

What it feels like is a loving being receiving me and guiding me.

Not the same as my childhood faith, and not a million miles away, either.

If you want to know how the Pure Land inspired Bright Earth Buddhism talks about all of this stuff, check out the temple website, our newsletter, or the upcoming Eight Week Course.

When I was a Buddhist monk, the importance of being able to do that kind of work was impressed onto me.

I repaired the broken Yale lock of the centre’s front door. I wired in a telephone extension line. I fitted a carpet in the dining room. The first two of those jobs were later re-done by people who knew what they were doing. The carpet in the dining room was a good enough fit, if you didn’t have high standards.

I can enjoy this kind of work, for all that I often don’t know what I’m doing. I’m happy putting up a shelf, or a curtain pole, or following flat-pack furniture instructions with my electric screwdriver (despite the instructions’ clear warnings not to use an electric screwdriver).

Within a couple of weeks of moving into our new place the door handle came off the fitted dishwasher. The handle didn’t fit the bolt, and had been glued on by the previous owners. It didn’t match any of the other cupboard knobs in the kitchen. I glued it back on. It lasted a week.

I measured the bolt and ordered a new 3D printed door knob. It didn’t fit.

I knew in theory it was possible to separate the cupboard door (is that what it’s called? The door that matches the fitted kitchen) from the dishwasher part of the door. There are lots of videos on YouTube that make it look very easy.

I had a feeling it wouldn’t be so easy. I have started many projects that were supposed to be easy, and turned out not to be.

We learnt to open the dishwasher without the knob.

Last week the dishwasher broke completely. It was very old.

When the new one arrived, the fitter asked if we had any spare knobs. We had a whole drawer full. I didn’t expect them to fit, they had very long bolts on the back and surely if they did fit the previous owners would have used one of these rather than an odd one?

I said if the fitter was happy to show me how to take the door apart I could fit it myself later. He said it would only take him a few minutes.

He said that I probably could do it, but it would take a lot longer, because he knew all the tricks.

He used to be a self-employed plumber and gas engineer. He knew all the tricks there as well, he said, from having made mistakes over the years and learnt from them. He used to have a customer who liked to try and fix things themselves. It’s okay with water he said, the worst that can happen is you flood the kitchen. With gas you might blow up the whole house, and the neighbours’ house as well.

He fitted the new knob in a few seconds. It fitted perfectly. We now have a new dishwasher with a door that’s easy to open, with a knob that matches the rest of the kitchen.

I’m an expert in healing trauma, in changing habit patterns and letting go of beliefs. I’m an expert in the practice of Pure Land Buddhism and supporting people in their spiritual lives.

I enjoyed chatting to the fitter, but I wouldn’t expect him to help me with my mental health issues. If I don’t expect he should do my job, why should I expect myself to be able to do his?

Occasionally that voice does still crop up, the one that says I should be able to fix everything myself. I try to remind it that we know that’s not true, and that it’s okay to ask for help. It’s a work in progress.

Does any of this sound familiar? Do you struggle on when you should ask for help? Do you think you should know things that probably are fine not to know? Let me know in the comments.

Leave a comment

I have space for a new client right now. Want to work with me? Check out my website or drop me a line.

I wondered how to talk about it. I love reading case studies of other people’s work, but it can take a whole chapter of a book (or more) to tell a good story. To get to know the client and the therapist and see the arc of their lives. I’m not sure I’m a good enough writer to do that in a single newsletter.

I searched for poems that might describe the kind of moments I’m thinking of.

I flicked through the pages of poetry books. I found lots of good poems. My favourite poems are about specific people and specific moments in time. I rejected them because they were talking about their specific moments, and I couldn’t help thinking of my own.

I don’t think that’s a good reason to reject them - after all some of them have the same flavour as the kind of magical work I am thinking of. Here’s the beginning of Mark Nepo’s How Spirit Works On Earth:

I hiked the low mountains with a friend and
we stumbled on a snake, as frightened as I.
Somehow that led my friend to speak of her
father, ninety and going blind. After a day
of stumbles, of getting lost and falling
down, he said, his flint all chipped,
“I’ve learned how to love what is.”

Sometimes the work my clients and I do feels like walking through the low mountains of a life, sometimes it feels like stumbling over things and learning to see them clearly, and it’s always about learning to love what is.

There is a tenderness in the beautiful work that I am thinking of. A tenderness that comes from a deep understanding of the ways we are harmed, and the ways we harm others.

There is a letting go in the beautiful work that I am thinking of. Of old beliefs, of habits and stories that have been handed down in our families for generations, or that we unconsciously picked up from the cultures we inhabit.

There’s a spaciousness in the beautiful work that I am thinking of. When we are able to be with the most painful or most vulnerable parts of our lives and still feel our feet beneath us, and the sky above us, and our loving heart opening to the whole of our lives.

Most importantly there is a meeting in the beautiful work I am thinking of. The client and I are both present. The tenderness does not only appear in them, but in me as well. The spaciousness is both of ours. Our hearts open together.

That’s what’s truly special.

What makes this possible? My own curiosity, and the client’s curiosity combined. Not just an intellectual curiosity but a being with what is in each moment, always willing to receive more unfolding, more revealing. Feelings, thoughts, memories - it’s all welcome.

What else makes it possible? My confidence and the client’s hope that an increase in wellbeing is possible. We let go of all expectations of what that might look like, trusting that ‘loving what is’ will move us in the direction we need to go.

That’s a little manifesto for therapy, but I guess you can apply it to making art as well, and to the whole of life: Stay curious, let go of expectations, love what is.

Kaspa is an IFS therapist and supervisor based in the UK. They are also one of the founders of Bright Earth Buddhist Temple. They have space for a new client right now. Want to work with them? Check out their website or drop them a line.

These are not necessarily the best books, but they are books that offered steadiness when I needed steadiness, motivation when I needed motivation, or opened my eyes to new possibilities.

Here’s part two of the list.

Honen the Buddhist Saint edited by Joseph A. Fitzgerald

Honen the great Pure Land sage who was so convinced that he could not manage to become enlightened he read every text in the library on Mt Hiei five times looking for answers. Honen who found a few lines by Shan Tao that changed his life and led him to the practice of exclusive nembutsu. Trusting that all one needs to do is recite the name of Amida Buddha, with faith in one’s heart, and one will be reborn in Amida’s Pure Land.

Honen who said tens of thousands of nembutsu each day, and had visions of Amida and the Pure Land. Honen who championed ordinary people and started a revolutionary Buddhist movement.

This book is a great introduction to Honen, his teachings, and the spirit in which he lived his life.

Bodhisattva of Compassion by John Blofeld

“Are the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas real or do they only exist in my imagination?” I first read The Bodhisattva of Compassion when I was grappling with this question.

It’s a beautiful book, full of stories of Blofeld’s time in China, his meetings with wise teachers there and the mystical truth of Kwan Yin. It speaks to my question without answering it (because the answer is not one or the other).

The feeling I have when I read this book is of being drawn closer to the Buddhas.

Everyday Suchness and The Center Within by Gyomay Kubose

A few years ago, when we were establishing Bright Earth as an independent Buddhist community, Satya and I took a two year lay ministry training with The Bright Dawn Institute of Oneness, set up by Koyo Kubose Sensei, based on the teachings of his father Rev Gyomay Kubose, a Japanese American ordained in both Pure Land and Zen traditions.

This was such a supportive programme, and I’ll be forever grateful to the tutors and especially to the other students in my small study group.

These two books are collections of Gyomay Kubose’s teachings, and I love them for their simplicity, the kindness that seeps through and the emphasis on practice in the midst of everyday life.

One of the favourite stories I heard about Gyomay Kubose was how ordinary he appeared, milling around with the congregation of the temple, looking unassuming and then suddenly at the front, leading the service and speaking from a place of deep wisdom.

Shamanic Bones of Zen by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

I have read this book many times. I think it’s profoundly important book for western Buddhists.

It brings to the surface what is usually unseen. Not only that Buddhist practice rests upon the backs of our ancestors, but that our ancestors are available to guide us right now. That meditation and chanting are forms of ritual that open us to a bigger reality, and that guidance can come from that reality straight to us.

How to Grow a Lotus Blossom by Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennet and How to Grow A Lotus Blossom: Reflections by Rev. Koshin Schomberg

It is particularly Reflections that I wanted to name here, but that book doesn’t make much sense on it’s own.

How to Grow A Lotus Blossom is the diary of Rev Master Jiyu Kennet during a time when she was very ill and experienced many visions the directly related to Zen training and the path to enlightenment.

How to Grow A Lotus Blossom: Reflections is Rev Koshin Schomberg’s commentary on those visions. What I love about this book is that it brings together the importance of ethical training, and the importance of relying on what Schomberg calls ‘the eternal’, what I would call Amida Buddha. That it is our duty to train in the precepts, and that training in the precepts alone will not get us where we need to be. That is a source of guidance that we must learn to rely on, and that when we do rely upon it fully we will be guided to exactly where we need to be.

And even more books…

Every time I come to think of this list, I find that I am adding more and more to it. Both remembering books that have been important to me in the past, and wanting to share what I’m reading right now. Even if it’s an endless list, I’m not sure I want to write endless posts like this, so I’ll name the two books that I’m reading right now and wanted to recommend:

Blanche Hartman’s Seeds for a Boundless Life: Zen Teachings from the Heart is a beautiful collections of short teachings that are just lovely and bring me a great sense of ease, and Rob Burbea’s Seeing That Frees is a great guide to emptiness practices that directly reduce suffering, it is both profound, easy to read and of practical help and I love it for that.

It’s inspiring to hear a Buddhist teacher speak explicitly to the present moment. Not just the present moment, of course, but to many moments throughout history, and to many moments in the lives of human beings across the world.

I wondered how I’d been doing in saying, “No to tyranny.”

Over the last few months I have walked with the ‘Red Rebels’ a few times. The Red Rebels were formed at the same time as Extinction Rebellion and their actions are a mix of protest and street theatre. I walked with them on World Rivers day, with a group of local activists campaigning about sewage being released into the River Severn, outside a military drone factory, and on a memorial walk for children killed in Gaza.

I have led Buddhist practice sessions, and ordained a new minister, and I have worked with therapy clients and I have worked with my own internal system.

The world. My work. My own inner life. I can move closer or further away from tyranny in all of these areas.

For example, I have some authority in my spiritual community. Will I use that to help others wake up to their own power, and to their own compassionate hearts? Or will I use it to control them and feed my own ego? On balance, it’s mostly the former, but I am not perfect. I try to notice when I’m falling into the latter, and course correct, and sometimes I don’t notice until someone else points it out. Then I make sure to listen.

The same is true in my own mind. Will I let some parts of myself perform violence to other parts of me? Or will I work with my whole system and help move myself in the direction of dignity and decency? I’m confident that I am moving in the direction of awakening, but there is always more inner work to do.

It would be easy to simply pay attention to one area. To one level of zoom if you like. I think it’s true that what we do at one level affects the others (if I am oppressing others, I will be oppressing parts of myself) and I think it’s true that we should occasionally make some time to pay attention to all the levels, asking this question: In the world, in my work, in my family life, in my own mind…. how can I say no to tyranny, and yes to awakening?

Kaspa Thompson is a psychotherapist specialising in IFS therapy and a Buddhist Minister. To find out more about their therapy practice visit their website. To find out more about their ministry, visit the website of Bright Earth Buddhist Temple.

I’d heard that short-form video was the way to capture engagement, and as I have a couple of client slots available at the moment, I decided to give it a go.

I love performance1, I love speaking from the heart. Maybe this would be a way of speaking to the world that would really work for me.

I recorded a few takes, got something I was happy with, added subtitles and uploaded it.

Only at that moment to realise that I’d recorded in a horizontal format. I adjusted the format to vertical and, of course, suddenly my massive face filled the screen.

At this point a professional would probably have started again, but it had taken me ages to get this far and I really liked this particular take. I pressed upload.

Lots of people saw the video (an algorithm boost for posting for the first time?) and I had some lovely comments on Facebook.

I decided to record a second one.

I moved lights from other rooms into my office. I used my phone to record, both to get the vertical format and because it turns out the camera on my phone is lots better than the one on my desktop.

I was more nervous this time - I wanted to get it just right - and so it took many more takes before I was happy with the video.

The lighting looked good, it sounded good, the camera wasn’t exactly at the right angle but this was definitely an improvement on the production values of the first one.

I pressed upload.

Only at that moment to realise the time limit for an Instagram Reel and YouTube Short was three minutes long and that this video was three and a half minutes long. They would accept the videos, but not as a Reel or as a Short. The ordinary videos on Instagram and YouTube are in a horizontal format. They would accept the video but it would be cropped. My massive face would take up all of the screen again.

At this point a professional would probably have started again, but it had taken me ages to get this far and I really liked this particular take. I pressed upload.

I’m hoping that like Goldilocks tasting porridge the third video I make will be just right.

You can see them below as they were recorded, with my massive face at the appropriate size. And you can follow me on Instagram, YouTube or TikTok to see if the next one works out.

Video One: The Compassionate Heart at the Centre of All Beings

Video Two: Transforming Your Inner Critic

And when I am able to name a favourite thing? My answers change over time, even day to day, depending on what’s happening in my life, and on what my mood is.

So instead of favourites I found myself thinking back over all my time as a Buddhist and picking out what the most important dharma books had been.

These are books that moved me along the path somehow, that inspired me to begin practicing, or keep practicing, and bought hope when I needed hope. This is a kind of biography of my Buddhist life, through books, and I have lots of favourites that didn’t make the list.

Here’s part one of the list:

You Have to Say Something and Returning to Silence by Dainin Katagiri Roshi

I brought these from Ystwyth Books in Aberystwyth while I was at university there. Looking back, I’m surprised they had them in stock, but it felt perfectly normal at the time.

When I brought these books, I’d been meditating on and off for a few years, and I had read other Buddhist books before, but these were the first that spoke to something about the universe that was mysterious and hard to put into words.

I didn’t understand everything that I was reading, but there was something that felt very deeply true about these teachings.

The title “You have to say something” was Katagiri’s response to his student Steve Hagen, after Hagen had a kensho experience that he described as impossible to put into words. Both of these books are Katagiri’s putting into words of what is impossible to speak of, as well as advice for Buddhist practice and how to live well.

They cemented my attachment to Buddhism, and gave me faith in both the practices I was doing and the spiritual awakenings I was being gifted around that time.

Years after first reading them I would read Natalie Goldberg’s The Great Failure about her relationship with Katagiri Roshi, her Buddhist teacher, and how she worked through discovering his extramartial affairs. The Great Failure is also one of my significant Dharma Books.

I still return to these books of Katagiri Roshi (as well as Each Moment Is the Universe), and they definitely count as favourites as well as significant.

The Wild White Goose: Diary of a Female Zen Priest by Roshi Jiyu Kennett

I went through a phase of reading Zen memoirs, and this was the one that spoke to me the most deeply.

I admired and was in awe of Roshi Kennett’s moving to Japan to train as a priest, of how she faced the difficulties she encountered there, and of the wisdom she discovered. I felt such a strong heart connection to her through this book, and through her teachings, and I was devastated when I discovered she had died nearly ten years earlier.

Buddhist Psychology by Caroline Brazier

I picked this up in Waterstones in Birmingham, sometime in the year after I finished university. Although my degree was in drama, I’d become interested in psychology and psychotherapy at university as well. I’d read all the Carl Rogers’ books On Becoming a Person and A Way of Being over and over again while I was at Aberystwyth. So when I saw this on the shelves, I couldn’t help but pick it up.

I recognised the habit patterns of my own mind over and over again in the descriptions of karma, becoming and non-becoming, the teaching of the skandhas. Every few pages there was an aha moment.

At the back of the book was the contact details for the training course in Buddhist Psychology that Caroline was running with her then-husband David Brazier.

I signed up for the training, and then a few weeks later I moved into the Buddhist community that they ran together, and a year later, in 2007, I ordained as a monk.

The Feeling Buddha by David Brazier

I’m estranged from David Brazier now, but for many years he was my Buddhist teacher. It was probably his book The New Buddhism that helped tip me over into wanting to move into community. The New Buddhism spoke of the importance of staying engaged in the world. It spoke of an activist Buddhism, of a Buddhism that helped in a worldly sense — that was and is still important to me, although I think there are better books on this topic.

Although David went on to set up his own Buddhist community, and to teach Pure Land Buddhism, he trained with Jiyu Kennett in Zen as a monk at Throssel Hole Abbey, and his connection to her also drew me to his teaching.

The Feeling Buddha was the book that I returned to, and recommended to others. It describes a human Shakyamuni Buddha, who had a deep spiritual life, and it teaches a version of the Four Noble Truths that spoke to my lived experience: that we encounter suffering, react to it, and have the opportunity to contain and transform this reaction. This is the same interpretation that Gyomay Kubose (whose community I later trained with) also teaches.

I can’t read this book now, with the grief of the estrangement, but I still think it’s a very good text.

When You Greet Me I Bow by Norman Fischer

Perhaps the first Buddhist book I read after I left David Brazier. Some part of me worried I might not connect with or appreciate any other Buddhist teaching after the split, so it was a great relief to read this and find a deep wisdom that spoke to me.

I took this away with me on retreat and found myself sinking back into the dharma after having my faith shaken. It reminded me of all the jewels of the Buddhist tradition, and it reminded me that those jewels can be found in many places.

While it’s personally significant for that reason, it’s also generally a great collection of teachings and one that I happily reread.

Look out for part two!

Let me know any of your own most significant or favourite books (dharma books or otherwise) in the comments.

And I suppose I should mention the dharma book I co-wrote with Satya: Just As You Are: Buddhism for Foolish Beings

From Love by Czeslaw Milosz

It was many years ago when I first read Love by Milosz. As I read it my heart said, “Yes!”

I no longer think it’s the only useful way of loving yourself, but I still believe it’s one of the most important ways.

A couple of weeks ago I was away on a residential training course Integrating IFS into Supervision and Consultation. Each day was themed with one of the 5 P’s of the Self Led Therapist: Presence, Persistence, Perspective, Playfulness, Patience.

Self led means to be lead by wise-love. To be led by Buddha Nature, I might say, with my other hat on.

Each day of the course began with a meditation invoking these qualities. I have already forgotten the content of the meditations, but after the mediation on perspective we were invited to draw our response to the meditation.

I drew this scene of the beach, and sea and sky. I was thinking of the Norfolk coastline where you can see a wind farm in the distance. I was thinking of Milosz’s Love.

What does it mean to see oneself the way I looked at those wind turbines? It means to see them in their context. For the turbines it means knowing the sea, and the sea bed they are anchored in, and the windy sky and the boats that pass by.

For looking at myself it means seeing the web of relationships with other humans, with the places I inhabit, with the work that I do. It means stepping back even further than that and seeing that I am embedded in cultures whose beliefs move through me and are lodged in me. It means to see that I am a human animal. It means to see that I am stardust.

When I look at myself in that way the immediate concerns of my life seem smaller. When my own concerns are smaller it is easier to see the concerns of others and of the whole world, and it is easier to see the connections between those concerns.

If love means looking at myself in this way, love means de-emphasising my own concerns and making space in my heart for others, and it means seeing that those concerns have their beginnings outside of me, and seeing how I can amplify and pass those concerns on, or not.

Looking with such a large perspective also shows me impermanence on a grand scale, the coming and going of seasons, of years, of lives, of planets forming from dust and breaking apart. Of the big bang, and of the end of the universe.

There is something calming about seeing things on that scale.

This is not the only loving way to look at oneself or others. Sometimes we need to step forwards with microscopes and pay close attention to the detail.

Perhaps any new view is helpful. Anything that jolts us out of our usual way of seeing the world and allows in new real information.

At the end of the five day residential course, for our check-out circle, we were invited to choose one photograph from a couple of hundred that had been spread out on the floor. I chose this one:

It shows one edge of a suspension bridge, the sea behind it, islands and a coast line in the distance. And two people walking up the top of the bridge, high above everything.

This image also spoke to me of perspective - and it spoke to me of connection as well. When I first read Milosz’s poem twenty or so years ago, looking at myself the way one looked at distant things appealed partly because it suggested a break from closeness and intimacy, and those were things I struggled with.

Now I value those things as well as valuing perspective. If I imagine myself as one of the climbers on that bridge? I can imagine enjoying the company of the other person as well. Some of the time, anyway :)

Years ago, I had a therapy supervisor that believed the universe sent you the right number of clients. In a phase where you have lots of capacity? Here have lots of clients! In a phase where you have less capacity? Have a few less!

I don’t know if there’s anything in this. I certainly took solace in it at the time. And maybe those were simpler times, in terms of running a therapy practice. There were only one or two therapy directories. You paid for a listing there, put up your own website and conventional wisdom said that clients would appear.

Now there are lots of different directories, AI chat-bots, therapy speak is everywhere and we are still feeling the pinch of the cost of living crisis.

Back then I was convinced that there was a direct correlation between my energy levels and the number of client I saw. When my energy levels were good I got new enquiries. When I needed a quieter time the inquires slowed, or clients would go off sick or on holiday.

Sometimes I would trust that completely and sometimes I would fall into a panic about not having enough work. And sometimes I would feel both of them.

One on the one hand I felt like I was being taken care of, and on the other if I was worried about making enough money, there was no quick lever I could pull to make something happen. Increasing one’s capacity is slow work.

I have done the work to increase capacity to be with clients, and my capacity for life in general. I have been a therapy client, I have been on retreats, I have a spiritual practice. I have become more aware of where I am pushing in life and tried to ease off in those areas, I try to stay tuned into my energy levels and rest when I need to.

I wish I could still believe in that principle completely. It would take the pressure off learning how to market my practice better.

There are more IFS therapists than there used to be. I’m good at what I do but how will people know that’s true?

I am convinced one of the things that will make a difference to the number of referrals I get right now is getting my IFSI accreditation. I have the training, I have the number of hours of seeing clients, I have the hours with an accredited supervisor. All I need is the video showing I can do everything they ask for.

I can do everything they ask for. I’m good at IFS therapy. But everything they ask for doesn’t show up in a single client session that often. I am recording some of my work and some day soon I’ll have a session that ticks all the boxes (they say crossing their fingers.) I don’t manipulate the sessions to include each technique they want to see, the session is for the client, not the accreditor, so it takes time…

Maybe I do need to up my marketing game? Maybe I could increase my capacity for that work? I don’t think I’m unusual in not enjoying it.

And yet. It’s hard to completely let go of the idea that the universe is taking care of me. When I look back across the years at my therapy practice I have always had enough work. Mostly. There were a few times when I couldn’t cover my bills. Satya filled the financial gap. Or I inherited some money.

Being okay when you don’t have enough work is a privilege. How can I say the universe is looking after me when so many other people struggle?

Is there something seriously wonky about that belief?

Can I imagine not believing it at all? What happens then?

If the universe isn’t taking care of me, the success of failure of my therapy practice rests upon how well I talk about myself, how good I am at the job, and the conditions of the market.

There’s some work I can do to make a difference, and so much is down to luck. That’s a little frightening. But maybe it’s better to be honest about such things.

That feels like a healthier position than simply trusting the universe.

But my gut tells me it isn’t the whole story. I do feel like someone out there is keeping an eye on me. I do feel like something out there has my back. Maybe not the whole universe. That sounds a little narcissist. But I feel like there is more going on than I can rationally take account of.

So I land in the middle for now. There are all those market conditions, and there is something more mysterious at work.

I have mentioned before the importance of hope in recovery. In therapy, and recovery from illness, clients and patients with hope do better than those without. Maybe the same is true of my business as well. And if that sense of something mysterious looking out for me gives me hope, maybe it’s not so bad.

As long as I also get on with that accreditation process and actually do some marketing.

Kaspa Thompson is a level three trained IFS therapist and supervisor. They have worked in private practice since 2011. They are also a Buddhist minister and one of the founders of Bright Earth Buddhist Temple.

“Be free, my love. Be free, be free! Stay on your path and stay sober! You can do this! You’re not as fucked up as you think! You can do it! Now is your time to stand on your own two feet. So keep taking care of yourself. Let everyone around you take care of their own lives while you take care of yours. That’s the assignment …” 1

I don’t often get specific advice from my ancestors. I don’t know if I’m supposed to work stuff out on my own, or if they trust my instincts. When I think of the issues have I have faced in my life I think I have often known what to do, but sometimes lacked the courage to do that thing.

In those moments I am reassured by the presence of my ancestors. Sometimes that comes with a sense of, you know what to do, just take the step, and sometimes it comes with a sense of regardless of what happens next you’re loved.

Throughout the stressful attempt at moving house last year, I was sometimes able to tune into a strong sense of it will all be okay^.

At times like this it’s often not specific ancestors coming to reassure me but a sense of whole lineages stretching back through time that are sending supportive vibes.

When specific ancestors do show up to help, it’s often in the context of my own inner work.

When they show up in my inner work, more often than not it’s when I’m working with some belief or habit pattern that has been handed down to me.

I usually start with noticing show that belief shows up in my body, before exploring where it comes from and how I can release it.

For example, recently I was working with the a belief something like, “don’t cause a fuss.”

“Don’t cause a fuss” shows up in two ways. The first is in an upright posture, with tension through my back and shoulders. My head tilts slightly to one side, like I’m listening carefully, and there’s a benign expression on my face.

This is “Don’t cause a fuss” as “be good” and “be quiet” and “pay attention to what the other person needs.”

The second way “Don’t cause a fuss” shows up in my body is as collapse. Like someone has cut the strings that are holding me upright. My head is heavy and hung over, my chest sinks forward. I am smaller.

This is “Don’t cause a fuss” as “disappear” and it’s also “exhausted from being good all the time.”

Next I work with any judgements and reactions that come up as I notice this stuff, helping them relax until I’m in a place where I feel compassion for the parts of me that carry these beliefs.

Then I ask them questions like how long have you been carrying this belief and I pay attention to the answers.

Sometimes the part shows me a memory of the time when I developed that belief. Sometimes it shows me all the different ways having that belief has affected me (the cost of not causing a fuss, for example) and sometimes it tells me that the we believe it because that’s what we were taught to believe.

When I was working with “don’t cause a fuss” I could see how it was carried and passed on by different lineages of my ancestors. From my parents and their families. Even in Buddhist lineages that I have chosen.

So I can see how it affects me, where I carry it and where it came from. But how to let it go?

I invite in the energy of a ‘healthy’ ancestor. Healthy meaning someone who finds it easy to bring courage, wisdom and compassion to this process, and healthy meaning someone who doesn’t carry this belief.

Usually the person that appears is someone from in the lineage from before we started carrying this belief. Sometimes it’s someone who released that belief after they died, having seen that it no longer serves them.

I invite them to help me and something happens. In my minds eye I see them with open hands and energy streams out of my body into their hands and they carry the belief away. I feel the changes in my body, tension relaxes. Collapse changes into easy uprightness. Something happens like that.

Working with “don’t cause a fuss” a small group of ancestors appeared. People from each of the different lineages that had passed it on to me. I felt their loving energy coming towards me and offered the belief to them. I saw a dark red energy leaving my chest and shoulders. I felt my the tension in my body relax.

The proof of the work is not in those moments though, as profound as they feel. It is in what happens next. Do I go forward in my life less affected by that belief?

So is it easier for me to cause a fuss since doing that work? Is it easier for me to speak up for my own needs and desires?

Time and time again I see the lasting results of this work.

It’s not always easy for me to speak up for what I need, but it is significantly easier that it used to be.

If I find myself caught in “don't cause a fuss” it’s easier for me to notice it now. I know where it lives in my body and how it shows up in my life, and I can call on the support of my ancestors in those moments to help me back towards freedom.

I’m not sure this work of letting go ever ends (it definitely changes, over time) but whatever I’m working with I trust that I can call on many different healthy ancestors for their support.

This is the second in my series on newsletters on ancestors. Today I begin to explore my personal connection with ancestors. Next time, I’ll share more about how I work with them in my inner work at the moment.

I have space for a new client. Drop me a line if you are interested in working together.

I have one memory of my maternal grandfather. I am very little. He is on all fours in the corner of his living room. We are playing together. The memory is a blurred and fragile thing, like an old photograph that has seen too much sunlight.

I was very young when he died. Four or five years old, I guess.

After he died, I would sometimes have a strong sense that he was watching over me.

I remember sitting on the floor of my childhood bedroom, picking at the blue/grey striped carpet and worrying about something that had happened at school. Suddenly I had a sense of his presence. It was a wordless visit. But I had such a clear sense of being loved and the worry in me began to relax a little. Whatever was happening in my life this important connection would keep me steady.

I never spoke about this to anyone at the time, it seemed a little weird, and it felt a little personal and I worried that if I named it, it would go away.

When I moved into my teenage years I pushed away experiences like this. There were embarrassing things I didn’t want anyone watching over.

And then I became a young adult, and an atheist, and if I thought of those experiences at all I put them down to wishful thinking.

But human nature is straightforward and the longing for that supportive presence never went away. I was envious when I read about indigenous communities where people felt a strong connecting with spirits and their ancestors. I read books like Mary Roach’s Six Feet Over to try and figure out what happened after death.

A few years later, despite my attempts to hold on tightly to my atheism, a devotional Buddhist practice had snuck up on me. Here was something that began to meet the longing for that supportive presence.

For a while both of these things ran alongside each other. My devotional practice, my longing for a connection to something other-worldly and my determination to make sense of everything logically, rationally and to only believe things that I measure. My brain was a complicated place.

Despite that determination, I would occasionally catch scent of the spirits of my ancestors.

I was ordained as a Buddhist priest in December 2007. There were two of us being ordained that day, Alena and me. At the beginning of the ceremony we were directed to the ancestor shrine. This was a small table next to the main shrine. There were photos of community members who had passed away, and photos of friends and relatives who had passed away. There was a large wooden statue of Guanyin. There was a vase filled with beautiful flowers.

“Tell your ancestors what you are doing!” the preceptor said. The community chanted and Alena and I knelt at the shrine and offered more flowers and bundles of incense.

“Could I tell my ancestors what I was doing?” I thought. Rationality and other-worldliness clashed. I felt that I should at should stay kneeling for long enough for the congregation to think I had been making the appropriate prayers.

And then there was faint sense of something loving appearing. Just on the edge of my awareness. It grew stronger and I recognised that old feeling. My grandfather watching over me. I was moved to tears.

A few years later, at a family party, I was chatting to John Powel, the farmer my grandfather had worked for. We were talking about my life as a Buddhist priest and then Mr Powel mentioned my grandfather. “He was a very spiritual man” he said, “and he would have been proud of you.”

Eventually experience trumped scepticism. I had enough experience of this kind of encounter in own life, and witnessed enough of it in other people’s lives to accept that there was something real going on. Whatever explanation you prefer - these experiences gave me access to something meaningful that I couldn’t make up with my conscious mind.

I began to trust the supportive presence of my own ancestors and check in with them during troubled and stressful times. They have been a great steadying force.

I saw powerful examples of ancestor work in model therapy sessions, and I began to incorporate it into my own work both as a client and as a therapist.

There is something deeply valuable here.

Work with me

I have space for a new client. If you’re feeling stuck, trapped in un-helpful habits, or want to release unhelpful beliefs drop me a line. I especially love working with people who are willing to go deep into their inner-worlds. Find out more here: therapy with Kaspa.

Subscriptions

Paid subscriptions were paused for a while, as my newsletters were so irregular. Now I’m back into regular writing again they have been turned back on. That means if you were paying a monthly subscription before your payments will kick in again.

If you have ever paid for a subscription, thank you! It means a lot. And thank you to free readers as well, and especially to everyone that leaves comments.

If you want to go back to being a free reader check out how to manage your subscriptions here: A Readers Guide to Substack.

If you’re a free subscriber and want to upgrade, or if you’re not a subscriber at all and want to subscribe, you can do that here:

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You don’t get anything extra for a paid sub, just my gratitude and the feeling that comes with knowing you are supporting this work.