research

A key ingredient of a business plan is market research ... thanks to the internet, hours of browsing fun are possible simply from typing "Retreats" into google (other search engines are available) ... yoga is popular and luxury pops up quite a lot too ... one senses a particular segment of the market caters for wealthy folks and the prices confirm it ... and why not? Indeed the Stanhope house has a luxurious feel to it, though simplicity will temper that sense of excess and shared bedrooms seem likely especially as there are only five to start with.

An interesting place diverts attention and ends with a booking for June at Sharpham ... browsing is one thing, experience another .. this place feels right ...

More diversion occurs with some reflection on suffering, which featured a few posts back, and exploring the various words used to translate "dukkha" it seems "dissatisfaction" is richer ... and with wider resonance for folks not consciously suffering but vaguely aware that all is not well ...

A tangential link leads to Gaunts House in Dorset and a story from two decades ago, when seeking not spiritual growth but a farm on which to start a visitor attraction, Sir Richard Glyn was suggested as someone nearby with a farm looking for a purpose. Honeybrook Farm was the place and it did indeed become a visitor attraction, though some time after your blogger departed ... still, it was a fascinating experience, a chance to prepare a business plan and to work with an Old Etonian, albeit with alternative views ... the combination of supreme self-confidence and emotional neediness quite compelling ... it's how the Empire was sustained all those years ... maybe .... anyway, the business plan looked sound enough on paper, which is where it stayed ...

Another Buddhist theme arises ... Sangha ... and one that needs attention ... after all, the solitude is only a step on the path ... interbeing is the thing it seems and very persuasive at Plum Village, though the Buddhist forms are not quite my thing ... bringing this post to another observation, the use of  "I", "Me" and "My" and "Mine" .... avoided for a while now as part of the losing of self and an interesting if tiresome discipline ... a favourite teacher of non-duality, Jeff Foster, spoke out about the practice recently ... let's see about that ... anyway language is worth playing with sometimes ... to disrupt its forms and challenge the reader ... as for Sangha, which is the group practising together around shared values ... not so easy to identify with rather ill-defined values to share ... yet defining too tightly also to be resisted ... sensing the tribe was easy enough on the pilgrimages ... though maybe because the relationships were fleeting ...

Crafting the Retreat House and its activities will help draw the Sangha together no doubt and it has already been seen as a place of gentle energy ... we'll know it when we see it ...

cause and effect ...

Cause and effect are interesting to explore ... the link generally accepted ... in Buddhism elevated to a Law, Karma ... plenty of reading on this elsewhere, for now a cautionary note for commentators invoking karma as revenge, which is a common error and surely leading to adverse consequences if practised ... though today's story is headed along another route ... the Velvet Path to be precise ... along which this morning's musing wandered to causality and the challenges of tracing causal links in the non-local field ... then along the path a bloke and his dog and since the sun was shining philosophy ensued for a while, including the information that he was seeking a suitable Care Home for his aged mother .... later, back in the village, a friend and sometime provider of social care in the Dale appears ... her story has a mother and a mother-in-law ... the latter in advanced stage of dementia and in a Residential Home "waiting to die"; the former in her own home and determined to stay there, the friend committed to support her in that, despite the geographical distance ... stimulating discussion of how to redesign social care radically ... the current system creaking ...

So, the causal chain between this morning's chance encounters and yesterday's intention is unclear ... which does not mean there isn't one ... the mysteries gladly embraced on Wear and Dao ...

Now, where's that business plan?

focus

Yesterday's trip to County Hall was interesting ... senior officers explaining the social care landscape and their role generally as well as Newtown House in particular ... potential providers await, leaving the community enterprise looking premature ... though other models of social care, as proposed by Stanhope resident and blog reader the other day are essential ... an area to be explored outside of the current paradigm ... of which more later ...

The Retreat House picked up energy with lunch at Ciao Ciao and encouragement from Andreas, who speaks of it as already done ... possibly informed by revelations in deep meditation many years ago ... anyway, the social responsibility of Newtown House lifts for a while to enable more focus, though the blog still diverts (the Directory idea less so ...) ... Age UK's Life magazine Spring edition appears with a story about Wear and Dao and a contact from a new reader, who is also a writer ...

More books arrive via the Oxfam Bookshop and Hive .... requiring reading focus, with so much choice ... fortunately television and radio are not available to further distract ... though an occasional film evening intervenes, with startling results to report ... the years of abstinence have changed the brain structure to make what was once normal Hollywood style dramas, with noise, violence, foul language and plots designed to evoke strong emotions, intolerable ...

It will be interesting to monitor the mind as this peaceful blogger re-enters more active versions of his self ... integrating new lessons perhaps ... anyway, retreating is always available and the idea that creating a Retreat Centre is likely to be a cause of stress itself an amusing idea ...

This afternoon's useful activity means taking the bus up the Dale and walking back delivering programmes for next month ... a warm sunny day and good to test the legs on a longer trek ...

Focus for the weekend? A business plan for the Retreat House ... and "Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind" a likely distraction ...

Business Plans ...

Some years ago, in times of plenty, a government scheme to promote entrepreneurial activity in the rather unentrepreneurial region of England which is the post-industrial North- East, sub-contracted to a huge bureaucratic entity composed of the great and the good, and with an inspired strapline acknowledging the key to enterprise ... Passionate About ... passion being the spark sadly missing from the process, which was typically reductionist .... the trap of mistaking the word for the thing described perhaps ... anyway ... a small social enterprise deludly attempting to redesign public services as if the customer was important (many of them having evolved to meet the needs of the folks working in them, not least the rather over endowed tiers of management ... promoted politically as a way to maintain a high wage economy ... a supported employment scheme in effect) ... found itself helping would-be entrepreneurs by encouraging them and knocking out business plans at £1k a time ... of course other businesses soon spotted the scheme and it became discredited ... but in the meantime we learned about business plans and met some interesting folks, some of whom are running their businesses to this day, though thanks not to the plan or our encouragement, but to their own confidence and good luck ...

All of which colourful context leads to the revelation that most business plans bear no resemblance to what happens and that banks and sensible advisors often reject the plans of  businesses which turn out to be very successful ... and vice versa ...

So, the two parallel projects in Stanhope will require business plans from someone who has experience in producing plausible versions, whilst filing them under F for fiction ... which is not to say that business acumen is unnecessary ... on the contrary ... and this is where modesty and teamwork come in handy ...

Meanwhile a daughter arrives through Spring snow with faithful collie ... fostering children and describing the dilemmas facing the social workers, beset by budget pressures, family attachment, children's safety ... who would do that job? Fewer and fewer folks is the answer ...

Later, a discussion with neighbour on the need for new models of social care ...  let's see how things pan out with the council tomorrow ...

bluster

Exhilarating early wander thanks to a mix of sunshine and showers ... which yesterday produced a rainbow ... a drop in temperature meant snow, drier and prettier than rain ... beautiful settling on the hills ... check Weardale Noticeboard on FB for pics ... and reflections on yesterday's conversation with fellow philosopher and inner space explorer ... and a gift for the library - the dvd "What the Bleep" which makes a good attempt to explain what's going on ... or at least clearly shows that all is not as it first appears ... that the quantum world is one of possibilities, maybe infinite ... that "reality" is contingent on the observer ... everything connects to everything else ...and lots of other weird stuff which has to be experienced to be comprehended ... none more so than the source of it all, which is not to be named or described .... from which we are not separate ...

The good news is that we humans are capable of so much more than we normally believe .... but only as long as we believe bigger ... and that the gift of the dvd itself adds energy to the Retreat House and its library ... big ideas generally not lacking here, more the patience as they unfold ...

As for the philosophy, these things have been said before, since the dawn of consciousness, or language, which may not be the same thing ... religions arise from the revelations, forget first that "the Tao which can be described is not the immortal Tao", then, having begun the naming and describing, that all is part of the whole and the whole is present in all [if all is divine and the divine is in all, why are we humans thinking so small?] ... and having separated, the original sin, the deluded human minds create suffering ... along with all the other wonderful and not so wonderful things which are part of human doing ...

Speculation on the evolution of homo sapiens continues with another book for the library, soon to arrive via Hive, the ethical alternative to that which need not be named ... after all, what's the point of free choice if we keep buying from the very corporate entities we criticise?

Speculation on whether or not we have free choice continues also ... since experimental evidence shows a time lapse between an action and its ideation, the action coming prior to the thought ... though thoughts themselves have never actually been identified, only areas of the brain associated with the action to be tested ... perhaps the impulse or intuition precedes the action and the brain activity creates, post hoc, the rationale? Leading to the next leap ... is the mind in the brain anyway?

Looking forward to some feedback from a qualified cognitive psychologist ... what's the chances of one of those reading this blog?

... or synchronicity

 Yesterday's post allowing the possibility of memories being random and given shape by an organising mind in search of meaning is quickly slapped down by Brainpickings which arrives early next morning ... this bit is not accidental, since it arrives every week on a Sunday via email and is always worth a browse ... however the very compelling tale of synchronicity with erudite references to the founders of the word (though not the phenomenon, presumably), physicist Pauli and psychologist Jung, suggests otherwise .... or maybe not ... anyway synchronicity is a welcome version of coincidence here ....a cynical friend observes that we don't remark on all those times when there was not a coincidence to be noted as a synchronicity ,,, also true, though less amusing ....

Today's other reading - Bede Griffith's very detailed attempt to unify the insights of the major religions with quantum physics, is heavy going for a simple mind, which wanders off to ask whether all that helps get to the truth, or Truth ... since the key insight is that we find ourselves in a participatory universe and going over all the old ground with its layers of superstition and mythology ... and whilst study may be a valid way to participate in creation, creating seems valider ... which appears to be a new word, always a joy for a pretentious writer ...

Which brings us to the creative process itself ... what is to be done in the world in which we find ourself? Apart from shifting to another part of the world, of course .... and a combination of Spring weather, John Brierley's book and an internet forum for the Caminos to Santiago are tempting ... maybe later this year or early next ...the two major projects continue to take shape, though both lack the injection of energy of co-creators on full power ... let's see what turns up at the meeting with the powers that be on Thursday over the Residential Home for Elders in the Dale ... the Retreat Centre awaits funds, arriving later this year, to spark activity, though who knows what else may happen to help along a resource with such potential to relieve suffering in our small corner of England ... maybe time to draft a business plan!

From the archives ...

An early walk over the hills stimulates memories from the dawning of the Age of Aquarius ... there was a song about that, which is how it's recalled ... astrology not being in the skill set ... folks for whom it is reckon that Aquarius is full on now, the early dawning having dimmed through the dark age of the 80s,  90s,  maybe noughties too ...

The arrival of a friend, recently retired from a career in clinical psychology, prompts recall of R.D. Laing, champion of anti-psychiatry .... the inspiration for Ken Loach's film, Family Life, which examines the devastating consequences of a perfectly "normal" upbringing ... the trap of accepting the world we experience, with its injustice, greed, violence and wage-slavery as normal and anyone resisting it diagnosed as abnormal ... the conflict at a personal level leading to cognitive dissonance, existential angst, mental suffering to be treated with medication to relieve the pain, dull the senses and comply with the culture in which we live ...

Following the thread from Laing to another heretic from psychology of that time, Wilhelm Reich, whose work was so disturbing for the authorities in his adopted home, the land of the free, that the FBI burnt his books ...whether it was his analysis of the Nazis in "The Mass Psychology of Fascism", or his promotion of sexual freedom in "The Function of the Orgasm" ... Reich died in a US prison ... though if you thought it couldn't happen here, your blogger was involved in rescuing some boxes of a banned book from the publisher in London ... this was the very dangerous "Little Red Schoolbook", translated from the Danish and promoting revolution in schools .... or rather, open discussion of sex, drugs and society ... the Schools Action Union was busy promoting its ideas and found a platform at the rather staid College of Education where some of the deconditioning of the writer occurred ... heady days! Needless to say a long and respectable career in teaching did not ensue ....

The glimmer of freedom in the 60s and 70s offered liberation and, once free, it is difficult to accept slavery again .... hence the fly by wire life of following the heart, with periods of stability ... 

All of which nostalgic reflection passes the time in retirement and may eventually fit into a cohesive narrative ... or perhaps that's just the organising mind wanting to create meaning from a random set of barely related events ...