Diary of a London Buddhist

Holly Murray jump cuts between her everyday life in a Buddhist community and a solitary retreat on the coast of Cornwall

I dream of falling off a cliff edge and down onto the rocks below. I don’t have time to relax into the fall or into the experience of death. I die in a panic.

6am: I wake before my alarm and although I feel like staying in bed I get up and do some yoga. I get pulled away from my practice by the urgent thought that I need to order a blind for my bedroom window. Sometimes the pull of distractions is so strong!

I lie in bed watching the morning light ripple through the curtains and the dance of light and shadow on the wall. I can spot a chink of sea out through my window, a poor man’s sea view. Sun on my blankets, haze on the windows, bright white, gold, silver, and then dark on the wardrobe.

7am: There are twelve women in my community and five of us who meditate together in our shrine room. We stand together and salute the shrine and then we chant the refuges and precepts. Today, I don’t feel like chanting, but it’s nice to hear the different voices of the women I live with.

I’m scared to go for a walk along the coast path after my dream, but I make myself go. On the path down to the sea, I see a roofer high up on top of a nearby cottage. I wonder if he worries about falling too. Perhaps he is just used to the heights. The waves crash into the shore vibrantly alive and indifferent to my musings. I want to feel as alive as the crashing sea, but I feel a familiar numbness.

9am: I have breakfast with the community and then head to the LBC for our weekly yoga team meeting. We spend the time telling each other what has been going on in our personal lives. We end the meeting by rejoicing in one another’s good qualities. It’s lovely to hear what the others have to say about me and each other and delightful to tell them what I appreciate about them. Tomorrow we will meet to discuss business, but today has just been about catching up with each other.

I reach a shoreline of grey flat rock covered in rock pools. I delight in walking over the rock and crouching down to peer into the tiny pools of reflections and purple. They’re like little islands, but in reverse. Soon the sea will move in and drown them all, they’ll be part of the sea bed for a while, until the tide changes and they re-form.

12pm: It’s time to teach a yoga class. It’s almost full with eighteen people and I enjoy it. Our lunchtime classes are always busy and you never know who will turn up. I always delight in seeing familiar faces — it’s so lovely to have regular students who come again and again.

I walk to my favourite spot. It’s a high, smooth rock, which overlooks a deserted cove. I sit and watch the waves urgently move in, filling the caves along the shoreline. Some sound like thunder as they crash in. All of my concerns seem so small sitting up here. The waves, the sea and the deep grooves in the rocks have a timelessness about them which I find soothing. A feeling of relief washes over me and I sit and soak it up.

2.30pm: It’s time for weekly study with the women who work at the LBC. It’s a delight — we are all there, seven of us, we chant the refuges and precepts again (I still don’t feel like it!) and then we read from ‘The Yogi’s Joy’, stories of Milarepa. The paragraph is about conflict and harmony. We discuss how one can disagree with others whilst still having a loving attitude.

The hallway of the cottage is bathed in an afternoon glow. I sit on the window ledge half way down the stairs, drinking tea and watching the sky, basking in the warmth. I think about my parent’s fox terrier who follows the sun around their house, lying in sunlit patches on the floor under windows in odd places. As I sit I feel all different parts of myself thawing out, my mind relaxes and my body is warm inside and out.

6pm: I head to the cashpoint to get out some money for a yoga class I will go to tomorrow. As I am about to take the cash a young women grabs the money just as I do from the machine. I try to keep hold of the money as I turn to her saying, ‘What are you doing?’ She isn’t aggressive, she just desperately tugs the money repeatedly, and eventually I let go and she runs off. As I walk away from the cashpoint, I pass a café and see a policeman there buying a coffee. I head in and tell him about it. I don’t want to press charges but just think that people should know. He’s very kind and takes some details.

In the evening I sit and watch the fire embers glow. They pulsate with fluorescence like a heart-beat, the heat circulating round them sounding tiny, beautiful crackles. Red, black, grey and shimmering. I recall all the impressions of the day; the crashing waves, rock pools, my resistance, my tiny world of self-concern. Each ember a little world, each rock pool a little universe, the expanse of the sea, the caves, the waves crashing, my small worries.

I head home for community night. It is always such a delight to be cooked for. Tonight a guest is coming. She brings chocolate for us. I tell the community about my day and they give me £20 from the communal kitty. In my morning meditation I practise developing loving-kindness and the woman from the cashpoint comes to my mind. I wonder what her life must be like. ■