True Meditation

Pure Land Meditation Centre and Japanese Garden in North Clifton, between Newark and Gainsborough, was chosen for an afternoon out. Just before we left the main road, we crossed an old railway line. I’m usually on the look-out for such things and I knew which this one was. It was the track bed of the old Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway, just after it had crossed the Trent and headed for Lincoln, which was actually as far as it ever got.

Hoping for some shade on yet another sunny day, the garden was really very relaxing. Having crossed a series of little hump-back bridges, admired the crystal garden and a wide range of flowers and shrubs, as well as disappointing the carp that clearly were expecting us to come up with some grub, my mind turned to meditation. We found a little rustic bus-shelter affair and settled in.

That was when the man standing next to the pond answered his mobile phone and embarked on a lengthy conversation. I wondered if that was allowed in a meditation centre.

Driving home, I said to Chris that I couldn’t remember anything that I had been thinking about when I was in the bus shelter and did that mean I had been experiencing pure meditation. “No,” she said. “It means that you were asleep.”

The location for this photo, taken on the East Coast Main Line in 1969, was only a few miles due west of North Clifton, but on the other side of the river. The bridge in the background carries the old LD&ECR from Tuxford towards the Trent crossing. I've used this image before, but no apologies for that. Graham managed a response from the Deltic driver with a blast on the horn.