ANIMALS AND FLY TIPPING

First off, the schedule for the Day of Zazen that I'm hosting up in Essex on this coming Saturday is at the bottom of this blog. I put up a tentative schedule a little while ago. This has now been revised.

Today is my last day in London. Last night I appeared on a programme (note spelling) called Conscious.TV taped in Battersea right near the cover of the Pink Floyd album Animals. I'm not kidding. I was walking to the studio and there it was! The cover to that Pink Floyd album! Right next to me. Gosh. Take a look at the photo I took (top) compared with the photo the folks at Hipgnosis took in the Seventies. There was no inflatable pig when I went by, unfortunately.

It turned out to be a night of rock and roll. The host of conscious.tv is a guy named Iain McNay. I had no idea, but Mr. McNay is the owner of Cherry Red Records, one of the UK's most important punk rock record labels. I've often bought stuff issued by that label. I would never have suspected that the guy who founded the label would now be hosting a TV programme devoted to non-duality. You just never know how these things happen.

It was a great interview. One of the best I've done. I accept a lot of interview requests. In fact, I rarely turn any of them down. I have no idea what any of them are going to be like. Sometimes the interviewers are absolutely clueless about what I do. Those are weird. I have no idea why they've even asked me on their shows. Sometimes the interviewer has some apparent agenda that they are hoping I'll support. Those can also be a bit uncomfortable. Sometimes the interviewers are extremely knowledgeable and have a lot of interesting questions. Those are the ones I like. And, in fact, most the interviews I do are pretty good. Iain McNay was one of the really good ones. The interview will be posted in a couple weeks and I'll put a link up when it is.

While in London I've stayed at my friend Andrew's flat in the picturesquely named London subsection of Shoreditch in Hackney. His place is on the Northern Line. There's fifty two stations on the Northern Line.

Andrew is a student of Mike Luetchford who is another dharma heir of Gudo Nishijima. Mike has been running a Zen group called Dogen Sangha UK out of Bristol for a number of years now. He was one of the first of Nishijima's students to go out on his own as a teacher. You can find info about the groups he set up in Bristol and London at their webpage. I highly recommend these guys if you're looking for a solid sitting group in the UK.

I'm feeling a whole lot better so I may just get through this tour after all! I walked all over London last night. Found a place that sells vegetarian fish and chips so I'm gonna go back there for lunch today.

Finally, I need someone to explain this sign I took a photo of. It's not far from the Battersea power station. I understand that fly tipping is an offence (note spelling). But what is fly tipping?

Is it like cow tipping, a favourite sport in rural parts of America where teenagers go out at night and tip over sleeping cows? Do you sneak up on snoozing flies and gingerly push them over with your fingers? Or do flies in England work on a straight salary basis so it is illegal to tip them for their work? Or perhaps they don't want the flies to know where the juiciest garbage is, so it is therefore illegal to top them as to the location?

I must know the answer!!

****

DAY OF ZAZEN WITH BRAD WARNER
AT BRENTWOOD MEDITATION GROUP


9.30 Welcome with refreshments.

10.00 Group introduction, Brad’s introduction
10.30 Zazen
11.00 Kinhin
11.15 Zazen
11.45 Brad’s Dharma talk
12.45 Open forum

1.00 Shared lunch

2.00 Zazen
2.30 Kinhin
2.45 Zazen
3.15 Chanting

3.30 Tea

4.00 Zazen
4.30 Open forum, reflections of the day