Do you swim in Llyn Idwal?
I have swum in all the cold lakes, Ogwen, Idwal, Llanberis.
Thats where I am nearest to complete being with the universe
for swimming is like a starry sky………………………
from a letter to Brenda Chamberlain from Alun Lewis.
.
On saturday I had lunch with with friends. Erylys knew Brenda Chamberlain when she lived near my home in the ’40s and helped run the Caseg Press with John Petts, Alun Lewis was a South Wales poet who died in India in 1944. John gave me an obituary of Roger Deakin , he wrote a inspirational book,Waterlog , which chronicled his experiences swimming across Britain. He grew up in my part of North London and worked at the local pool. He died in august from a brain tumour like my dharma brother, the old monk Rabsal.
Swimming for Roger Deakin was a “subversive activity that gave him access to that world which, like darkness, mist, woods or high mountains still retain most mystery. He swam in the mountains of Wales “because the place is stiff with magic”.
From their kitchen window I could see up the valley known as Nant Ffrancon. The sky had cleared, the sun was hot but dark clouds hung in Cwm Idwal. At the back of the cwm is Twll Du (the black pit) known in English as the Devils Kitchen. The old sailors believed that the storms off Ynys Mon(Anglesey) were brewed in this sometimes forbidding place! I decide to take a chance, drive home to get my swimming stuff and head up the valley.
The difference between pilgrim and tourist is that the pilgrim always returns from the inner/outer journey changed in some way. As I follow the mountain path up into the cwm and trust myself to the cold water of Llyn Idwal I am also changed.
The calm lake reflects the gullies and crags of Y Glyderau which will soon hold the first snows of winter. I long to be able to wander again in these places ‘stiff with magic’ which were once a source of ‘pilgrimage’ for me but my worn out knees now make this impossible. The water is very, very cold and as I glide out into the lake I nearly turn back having nothing to prove.
Reaching the far shore I rest for a while in a shaft of sunlight that shimmers on the rippled surface. My legs are cramping up and my upper body and arms are stiff with cold so I move on, closer to the shore this time in case the cramp gets worse. I make no claim to profound experience but when I swim in open water there is a sense of a dissolving of self (pun not intended!), a merge, a sense of grace…………..’my body sings as it glides through the blue’.
I wade the last few feet to the shore through the rocks and deep mud. I feel faint with the cold but exhilarated also. No dragonflies now, just yellow tormentil and a solitary raven. I stumble back down the path, my knees stiff and very painful, my body like a block of ice but there is a smile on my face and a glint in my eye….something has changed.
When crossing water, make the wish: may we cross the ocean of samsara.
Buddha Shakyamuni
Courage to the fearful, freedom to the enslaved,
strength to the weak, mutual affection to all sentient beings….
Shantideva
happy strokes……..terry
Filed under: Blogroll, Pilgrimage, swimming, tibetan buddhism, Uncategorized, wales
Do not take lightly small good deeds.
Believing this can hardly help,
for drops of water, one by one,
in time can fill a pot.
Patrul Rinpoche.
The birds are back on the feeders in my garden with a vengance, they have been away for a while. I thought the cause might be rats, they live under the houses below. My neighbour called the pest control officer in to poison them, he said they lived under my garden Buddha…..! I live-trap the rats and release them, with a wish for their long life and happiness, safely in the quarry!
When I feed the birds I say a prayer….”may all beings be free from hunger”. One sunny Christmas morning I made them a nut roast, hung it in the trees but they were not impressed, I suspect the rats had a good day!
My teacher tells me to “let go of all attachments”…..easy to let go of that which causes suffering but what about that which brings happiness? Then I remember my sadness as I left the lake for the last time this year. Yesterday on the library computor in Bangor I watched a DVD of the 2005 Kagyu Monlam in Bodhgaya, thousands of nuns, monks and lay people offering prayers for world peace and an end to suffering . My pilgrimage this winter will start at the 2006 Monlam. On my left a elderly woman is searching the lonely hearts web sites and on my right a teenage boy is looking at pistols and sniper rifles!!
Hurricane Gordon is tracking up the atlantic bringing warm southerlies and the possibility of a groundswell….I go to ‘Sumpters’ on Ynys Mon and catch some surf for old times sake…it has been three years. New faces in the line up now but a couple of familiar ones also. Victor from South America paddles over, hand outstretched and then a head surfaces in front of my board! A large bull seal, perhaps the one from Porth Aels, stares and then dives along the wall of the wave……he pops up behind the nervous surfers a few times and then disappears. It is good to be back.
When I drive home from Bangor I can see my house in the distance on the slopes of Moel Faban. Today a huge rainbow arches out of the Menai Straits and seems to vanish down my chimney…..I wonder if my house is filled with rainbow light…………..?
It is world peace day today…………………
“Peace is the essence of happiness
and that happiness is the essence of all beings………”
terry
This is just to test the system…I have set it up to record my pilgrimage from the Diamond Seat in Bodhgaya, India to Nepal where I can look towards the Land of Snows and Milarepa. I will be at the Kagyu Monlam (Prayers for peace) led by the 17th Karmapa then travelling with my teacher, Ringu Tulku and some of his students in the footsteps of the Buddha………………….
Four Pilgrimage Places of the Buddha
Virtuous ones, after my passing, devoted sons and daughters of noble character should visit and remember these four places for as long as they live.
Which four? Here the Buddha was born. Here the Buddha awakened to true and complete enlightenment. Here the Buddha turned the twelvefold wheels of the Dharma. Here the Buddha passed completely beyond suffering.
Virtuous ones, after my passing, there will be people who circumambulate the stupas and there will be people who bow down before them. It is for such people that these words are spoken.
Buddha Shakyamuni
The Dali Lama says the the most important pilgrimage is the one we make within………..
So………….this weekend I celebrated the end of summer. Up early on friday, clean the house do some Dharma practice and head for Bangor (I live in Eryri, North Wales) for a good 2k training swim in a peaceful pool. Shop and home for breakfast, some DIY and then up Nant Ffrancon to Cwm Idwal for what might be my last lake swim this year….very cold but blissful as I glide through shafts of sunlight, surrounded by mountains and accompanied by an eel!. Climbed out and nearly fainted with the cold…..some women said they were” seriously impressed”! Llyn idwal is at 1223 feet (36 feet deep)…was I the highest swimmer in Wales?
Home for dinner then grab my sleeping bag and walk up on to the ridge on Moel Faban above my house in Rachub (place of refuge in English) to my favourite spot where I can lie and look into the deep night sky and full moon above the Carneddau mountains. There are lots of ancient burial sites here, it is peaceful, I have no fear of spirits……. I offer some prayers……………
Down for breakfast, more DIY, daily Dharma practice then drive to a reef and cove, Porth Aels, near Aberffraw, Ynys Mon (Anglesey) where I have been swimming with grey seals this summer. It is pupping time now so only a couple are there, close in when I call them….he-ya,he-ya,he-ya….. their big brown eyes beckoning……… “come with us, come with us”! We play hide and seek through the rocks and forests of seaweed until they return to Carreg y Trai, an offshore reef where they haul up as the tide drops. The sea is rough and visibility poor so I dive for a while on a wreck then walk back to Porth Cwyfan stopping to inspect the sad, bloated body of a dolphin wedged in a gully, I offer a some prayers…..
Porth Cwyfan is a special place despite the intrusion of a new motor racing track on the fields above. The church on a island in the bay is one of the oldest in Wales and connected to St Kevin of Glendalough in Ireland ….both places of pilgrimage and close to my heart. I come here a lot to dive and seek solace when the race track is quiet, my son and I spent much time here surfing on one of the least known and best waves in Wales.
The next day the wind has dropped so I decide to go to Ynys Mon after my practice and walk to Malltraeth bay then swim two or three miles back around Ynys Llanddwyn to Newborough car park. . It is a very high tide, the sea is almost up to the forest edge, so the rocks and reefs are covered but it is calm with a gentle groundswell. Problems with my goggles overcome, essential to see in the poor visibility, I stroke out along the cliffs and thread my way through the submerged rocks….it is absolute bliss and I am swimming well. Fishermen on the rocks by the lighthouse, I have to avoid their lines and a strong current as I round the headland, passing Ynys Adar and its colony of cormorants and shags I pull into Pilots Cove. There are jelly fish (ouch!) and big rafts of seaweed, worst of all some waterskiers and jetskis. I am forced to swim below the cliff to the left ofYnys y Cranc and Ynys Clochydd and then along the shore line, I don’t want to get run over. I normally head out across the open water of the bay.
Pull out of the water and walk through the folk crowded together by the car park.l Have lunch, sunbathe for a while and walk to Abermenai, one last swim, a strong current here.Stop for celebration pizza in Bangor and walk on the pier as the sun goes down and the moon rises over the Carneddau, a great day. I find out later that there was a racist stabbing in nearby village and the police helicopters were out looking for the suspects!
The next day I go to the pool again then out to see the seals one last time. It is monday and quiet in Porth Cwyfan except for the huge earth movers extending the track, vast clouds of dust drift over the church and settle on the sea, I head for the cove but no sign of the seals. Swimming out from the beach I call for ages with no success then pull onto a partly submerged rock so I can see above the swell. Just as I stand up her head breaks the surface, eye contact and she has gone. Walk back to Porth Cwyfan, my legs and hands are very painfull now after the cold water….the price I pay…..! That night a plane crashed on the ridge behind my house, one dead!!
I thought that was it for this year but yesterday the sun came out on the way back from the pool so I drove to Ogwen and walked up to Llyn Idwal. It was windy and I struggle against the waves. Resting in the water by the outflow I watch some walkers descending from the hill….is this how the seals feel when they watch the folk above the cove? The ridges are brooding under dark swirls of cloud framing patches of ice blue sky….I glide over the shallow weed forest for the last time this year, pick my way through the rocks and on to the grassy shore. There are still wild flowers….a dragonfy…….head for home………….
It has been a mixed summer…periods of deep deep sadness struggling with ‘obstacles’ in my life….long swims in the mountain lakes…stumbled climbing out of Llyn Padarn and cut an artery in my hand….I now have numb finger …several stitches and a permanant reminder of a amazing day swimming Llyn Dinas, Llyn Gwynant (someone drowned there that day!) and then Llyn Padarn…..hot beach days at Malltraeth……..exploring the forest and swimming across the estuary to wander the coves on Bodorgan….elemental….swam the twin lakes, Llynnau Mymbyr on the hottest day of the year……spring teachings in Glasgow with Ringu Tulku…how do I deserve this….? The news is full of 9/11 but no mention that Gandhi started out on his journey of non-violence in South Africa on that day, 1906 …………Dharma practice and constant inspiration from the Lord of Yogis, Milarepa……..and so it goes on…the end of summer….heavy rain today…..
This Fleeting Life
Like the mountain river flowing into the ocean,
Like the sun or moon approaching the western mountain,
Like day and night, hours and minutes pass quickly by,
As does the life of every person.
from the Vinaya Sutra.
may all beings be free from suffering….make your mind an ocean….love peace and light…..terry
