Sthanashraddha is Bhante’s secretary. He writes from Adhisthana, UK:

"Coming to the end of June and having passed the summer solstice, summer has indeed been evident here at Adhisthana. Our rich clay soil is drying out and cracks are opening up in the flower beds here and there. The roses are at their peak and the occasional plant hasn’t made it through the hot dry days.

In the early half of June the Adhisthana resident communities had their summer at home days, time for us to all return from all over the map and to spend time together without any retreats or meetings talking place here. Towards the end of the days Bhante joined the Sangha here for afternoon tea and cake. There have been a few such tea parties recently where Bhante can come along and spend informal time with a group of people not engaging with more than a small table of people directly but nonetheless able to get a sense of the larger gathering. One of these occasions was on the German speaking retreat that was held here, organised by Sanghadarsini for German speakers from Germany and elsewhere (UK).

Of course Bhante has been meeting with people as usual and here is the list of them from 1 June to 30 June:

Viryadevi, Kath Lloyd, Alice Malpass, Alison Mendoza, Michael Banther, Mike Smith, Di Fan, Jnanaruci, Abigail Lee, Robert Ellis, Gus Miller, Candradasa, Shraddhadarani, Jinamati, Nityabandhu, Vimalanandi, Piotr Janikowski, Muditadevi, Dharmanatha, Kalyanaprabha, Tina Nevans, Dharmamodini, Satyamegha, Dharmasetu, Dayamala, Jnanaka, Suryaprabha, Saddhaloka, Reg Johanson and Suryadarshini.

At the meeting with Gus Miller, who specially travelled over from London, he interviewed Bhante about the London Buddhist Centre and some of his early memories of it.

Bhante has also continued his exploration of science through reading. Having listened to Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time for a second time, he listened to Carlo Rovelli’s Reality Is Not What It Seems, is presently going through it for a second time, and is waiting to start a gift of an audiobook of another of Rovelli’s titles, The Order of Time.

Running parallel to this, and maybe by way of balance, in the evenings Bhante has sat after dinner with one of his household and they have selected one of Bhante’s poems at random, read it to him and then they have discussed it. Sometimes just a little and at other times with more to be said.

With metta, Sthanashraddha."