I’m a Buddhist practitioner, member of the Triratna Buddhist Order, and scholar, presently based at Adhisthana retreat centre in Herefordshire, UK. Previously I was teaching philosophy and Indian religions at the University of Chester. This blog is a way for me to share short essays on things that are on my mind. I chose the name A Blue Chasm to evoke the spirit of William Wordsworth. In 1791, approaching the summit of Snowdon in pre-dawn darkness, he witnessed a sea of mist, and:
… from the shore
At distance not the third part of a mile
Was a blue chasm, a fracture in the vapour,
A deep and gloomy breathing-place, through which
Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams
Innumerable, roaring with one voice.
… in that breach
Through which the homeless voice of waters rose,
That deep dark thoroughfare, had Nature lodged
The soul, the imagination of the whole.
(The Prelude, (1805), XIII 54–9, 62–5)
A blue chasm – a gap in the clouds – a breathing-place of the infinite – I seek a kind of scholarly writing that speaks from such a place.
A Blue Chasm 