Go west

Since I last wrote, I met Leanne at Bar 366 where her and her netball teammates were having a drink. It was a nice venue, with some good music playing and her friends seemed nice and I had a quick chat to a couple, though bars with loud music and never the best places for a generic chat.

In the morning I realised that all the places I'd planned to go were west of the inner city so after picking up an Irn Bru 32 (energy drink) I took the overland train out to Wimbledon and then caught the Tube up to Notting Hill Gate where there are a couple of.... you guessed it... Music and Video Exchanges! Again, another big pile of stuff at very cheap prices, but because of sheer volume of CDs the price adds up too. I think the outlay was about £50 but it was enough to make my arm tired from all the carrying I'd be doing.

After the M&VEs it was time for another quick cheap Subway lunch for setting off in the direction of Portobello Road. It's an interesting road with toffs checking out antique shops, hippies checking out clothes shops, and a few scruffy looking characters like myself. When I was there, there were actually rehearsals for a TV show or movie or something or other going on. A whole lot of people were dressed up in 'ye olde' stylings while they waited around drinking coffee while the production crew busied themselves with lights and other technical matters. I of course was more interested in checking out the small Rough Trade store, where I picked up the latest 9-track Erasure EP for £6... far cheaper than anywhere else I'd seen it on sale for to date. The final music shop for the day was Intoxica but it was vinyl-only and thus of no interest. There concludes, according to the itinerary at least, the music shopping aspect of the trip!

Next I needed to find a Tube station so I could get to Lords. When you're in the city or inner city you can just amble randomly and be quite confident of stumbling across a Tube station, so after following this method for about five minutes I stumbled across Ladbroke Grove station and made my way to St. John's Wood station in search of Lords. By the time I arrived at 3, I was informed that the last tour for the day was actually at 2. This was a disappointment, but I realised I could easily do that the following day, so that's what I'll do. Even still, I had a big gap in the afternoon to fill so I went across the road to Regents Park which was a very interesting park, that had a children's section, lots of gravestones and a whole menagerie of cheeky squirrels such as this little one here. He's even holding an acorn, how cute! Looking at my trusty drizzle proof London map I couldn't find anything within the city itself that I really felt like doing so I thought I'd take the plunge and head out early to my final destination for the day - the London Buddhist Vihara at Turnham Green.

I arrived at the London Buddhist Vihara and just had a nice quiet sit until Richard, the guy who seems to run the place on behalf of the monks, made me a cup of tea, and gave me a little tour of the place. In the two or so hours until the actual scheduled meditation started, I had a quick solo meditation, and check out their extensive library where I read a really interesting transcript of an encounter between a monk and an academic from Melbourne University about the subjects of kamma, dependent origination and rebirth. It was really insightful, but I didn't quite get a chance to read it all because the actual session was about to start.

It started with chanting of Refuge and the Five Precepts in the Buddha's native language, Pali. Then there was a recitation of the Metta Sutta (or Loving-kindness Sutta) prior to sitting meditation, standing meditation, metta meditation and a reading which I instantly recognised as being from the late Thai Forest monk, Ajahn Chah. A little discussion about what Ajahn Chah had said and then it was time to finish for the evening. A session like this was just what I needed as I've not been actively meditating while I've been here and it was nice to return to my roots for a bit after all the travelling and sightseeing I've been doing over the last two weeks. The other good thing was it was the first time I've ever been to a specifically Theravadin (or "Way of the Elders") Buddhist centre and this is relevant, because that's actually the form of Buddhism that I practice - any other ones I'd been to in the past (because of proximity) had been Mahayana or multi-denominational such as the FWBO. It was lovely to see some real Theravadin monks and to be in the company of some very calm, friendly and centred people. I gave a donation, picked up a few much needed Theravadin Dhamma books, and then headed back to Leanne's place. Surprisingly she was not yet home, but when she arrived we had a bit of a chat and she showed me a corporate video that she'd helped to organise for Accenture. It was very good for a corporate piece, and I really like how happy and enthusiastic Leanne is about her job here. I also managed to do some creative packing of the CD in full size cases by condensing the contents of 2 CDs into a single CD case, so as to halve the volume of them in my suitcase, and also jettison a bit of weight whilst still giving them some protection. Thanks to my workmate Linda, I have a lot of empty CD covers at home so I can reassemble them back in Melbourne. It's almost like the equivalent of dehydrating a meal, and then just adding water!

It's now the morning and I've got some things to do, so I'll leave you to it - have a nice day!