Beth Shalom

I was driving in the Queen Charlotte Sounds and came across a sign:

I thought it would be an interesting place to have a look at, and perhaps talk to the owners to learn more. It seemed to fit with the monastery and with Parihaka as part of a possible project on peaceful places around New Zealand.

So I walked closer, down the hill, to see what was there.

A deck chair seemed to say that someone had been there, and was planning to be back.

But other things indicated to me that it would be a while before this truly was a house of peace. The place was nothing but a deck, separated from the hill I was on by a large reinforced wall.

The posts were freshly in place, with labels still intact and unweathered. There were no people, no tools, no sign that the workers would return, except the chair.

In the end, this is all there was: a sign, a path, a construction site, and a view unequaled even in paradise.

Family and friends

Around Bodhinyanarama

Bodhinyanarama, The Garden of Enlightened Knowing, is a Buddhist monastery in the Theravadin tradition in the Stokes Valley above Wellington, New Zealand.

Here's a look around:


And here's a photo essay I did on the concept of life springing from death on the monastery grounds:


The audio here is of the monks chanting in the morning and evening sessions of chanting and meditation. The normal order of events is:

5:15 morning chanting (puja) begins

The following are samples of morning chanting. The opening and closing are always done but the others vary daily, not usually in any particular pattern.

Chanting is in Pali, which is the language the Buddha spoke, and English. First phrases of Pali are chanted and then the English translations.

This is what was chanted the morning of Tuesday, April 27, 1999:

Morning opening

Preliminary homage to the Buddha. This is often chanted before other chanting.

In praise of the Dhamma. The Dhamma (Sanskrit: Dharma) is the set of teachings by the Buddha which lead to Enlightenment.

In praise of the Sangha. The Sangha (the word means "community") is the monks and nuns, including those at this and all other monasteries.

5:30 morning meditation begins (silent)

6:45-7 morning meditation ends, followed by some more chanting and the closing chant

7-7:15 end of morning puja

then in the evening:

7 evening chanting begins

The following are all part of a single chant, a list of the ten teachings which "should be reflected upon again and again by one who has gone forth" and become a monk or a nun. These, as with the other chants, are in Pali and English, alternating.

The days and nights pass by

At the end of my life

The kamma (Sanskrit: karma)

Solitude

Impermanence

7:15 evening meditation begins (silent)

8:15 evening meditation ends, followed by more chanting and the closing chant

8:30 end of evening puja

White Island (Whakaari)

White Island is a volcanic island 50km north of Whakatane, in the open ocean outside the Bay of Plenty. It used to be a site from which sulfur was mined, but the acidity of the environment (and its marine salinity) made the prospect even more of a losing one than it would have otherwise been. Now the island is a site for travelers, tourists, and scientists to explore in search of the guts of the earth.


Okay, so it's a tilted horizon, but it works, doesn't it? This is a big crater pouring out ash. The ash comes from somewhere underground, and in January the area which is now under the green lake (left) collapsed and filled with water. Before then, it was just a big flat area like the area just below it in this picture.



It's like a moonscape, or a small world which is way out of scale with the huge humans in it. The distance from where this picture was made to the rocks in the rear center is about 700 meters!



The colors were really wild, and these mudpots were cooking up steam and solid precipitate which forms areas of color, like below.



This is a close-up, but it feels like an aerial shot, doesn't it?



This is an area about the size of an average paperback book. The red color is relatively rarely seen on White Island, but there is plenty of sulfur to make things yellow. The island used to be mined for sulfur before it became uneconomical to do so in such a harsh environment.



This is a look inside the guts of the earth. The mud here is very hot and is boiling up from far below...

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