Just wanted to say a couple of things, as I'm in a meeting all day tomorrow, and then leading the final day retreat of the urban retreat in Cardiff Saturday, so I might not get much time to log-in from now on… (though there will be two more teaching posts from me, for Friday and Saturday).

Firstly, I wanted to thank the team who've been working really hard behind the scenes to make this on-line retreat available. Candradasa is the visionary behind the whole website (and also FreeBuddhistAudio). Lokabandhu has been working long hours to get Voicethreads to work, to upload videos, and design metta-maps. Samudradaka has been doing the coding and technical stuff that makes it all appear on computer screens all over the world. There may be others in the team I'm not aware of.

It is the first time we've done this. It has been a huge learning curve, and all done against a tight deadline. Big thanks to the team involved, the two "guest bloggers" (Kavyasiddhi and Vishvapani) and those who gave talks (or whose talks will appear in the next couple of days).  I'm sure we've also learnt a lot about how to make it work even better in the future.

Secondly, I have to confess I started to week a bit of a web-sceptic. It has been really intriguing for me, seeing this urban retreat unfold on a website. Would it work? Would people be interested? Can the internet really be a medium for communicating the Buddha's teaching? So far, the week has nudged me in the non-sceptic direction. I've been inspired to read comments from people all over the world – which brings home how universal the Buddha's teachings are. I've been moved to read of people sometimes struggling with gale-force worldly winds – which put my own little grumbles in perspective! I've enjoyed the haikus and poems. So, I have a sense that the internet medium can, to some extent, connect us – and that connection is really precious. Thanks to you all for being involved, and for sharing your practice.

Thirdly, what have I learnt about the worldly winds this week? I think what this teaching has brought home to me most, is that life is now, practice is now. I can tend to sit at my desk, bashing at my computer keyboard, so I can get those e-mails out the way, so I can get on with my "real life", get onto something I find more interesting. But if you bash away, then you are frazzled by the end, too tired and speedy to engage with anything else. In one her blogs Kavyasiddhi mentioned the eternalist idea that there's a perfect world out there, if only I could get to it. I realise I sometimes, subtly, have this view. There are the less pleasant things of life, let's get them out the way, to make way for what life is really about. But it isn't like that. It is all part of life; it is all part of Buddhist practice. To quote: Life does not belong to us; we belong to life. Life is King.