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Film: Shodo Harada Roshi, a Rinzai priest and head abbot of Sogen-ji (a three-hundred-year-old temple in Okayama, Japan), is known as a ‘teacher of teachers’. Buddhist masters of various lineages sit sesshin with him in Japan

Then King Prasenajit stood up and said to the Buddha, “Before I was instructed by the Buddha, I met Kātyāyana and Vairāṭiputra [Kātyāyana and Vairāṭiputra were contemporaries of the Buddha who taught forms of skepticism.]. The Buddha said, “Your Majesty, your body’s appearance cannot have deteriorated suddenly. The Buddha said, “Your Majesty, you said that when you were in your twenties, you had already aged compared to when you were ten. The Buddha said, “Your Majesty, your face is wrinkled, but the es- sential nature of your visual awareness itself has not wrinkled.

We don’t think: ‘I’ve got to try to be mindful.’ we simply are mindful. ‘I’ve got to be more mindful; I must develop mindfulness in order to get out of the deathbound state and become an enlightened person.’ That is when we are aware of the forces, the intentions and habits that are affecting us at this moment. So I went on almsround being very mindful of each step, got back to the monastery, and then realised I’d forgotten my umbrella! It does not mean just to have an idea that one has to be mindful of each step while walking on an almsround, as a kind of fixed view of mindfulness.

It begins – or should begin – with our families, our kin, those who are closest, or most like us. Like little children, as we grow older, we stray from our families and relations and enter into new relationships