A Garden Meditation in the Heart of Vancouver

In the midst of a busy city, there are places designed not for speed, but for stillness. One of those places is the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver. Tucked quietly within the city, the garden was created according to the principles of classical Chinese landscape design, where architecture, water, stone, and plants come together to create harmony and balance.

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden (Rebecca Budd Photo Archives November 5, 2015)

These gardens are not meant to be rushed through. They are meant to be experienced slowly. Each curved pathway, each reflection on the surface of the water, and each carefully placed stone invites the visitor to pause and observe. In classical Chinese philosophy, the garden becomes a small world in itself, a place where mountains, rivers, sky, and human imagination exist together in quiet conversation.

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden (Rebecca Budd Photo Archives November 5, 2015)

A few years ago, I filmed a short meditation in the garden. The intention was simple. That is, to capture a moment of calm and share it with others who might need a few minutes of quiet during their day. There is something remarkable about stepping into such a space. The sounds of the city soften. Attention returns to simple things. The movement of water, the texture of wood and stone, the rhythm of breathing.

As you watch or listen, there is nothing you need to do. Simply allow the garden to set the pace. Let the images and music carry you for a few minutes into a quieter rhythm.

Lao Tzu once wrote: “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

Rebecca

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4eJHWxtQUCXLYL02ocq32t?si=U9hOilTcTrqHZbfQHLwAfg&t=0&pi=2R3FPzsZRiSHY

https://youtu.be/ReGNv0kw6X8?si=-RSXUdgq0LMRONPt

#DrSunYatSenClassicalChineseGarden #EveningReflection #GardenMeditation #Meditation #RebeccaSReadingRoom #Reflection

When Winter Hears Spring’s Call

When Winter Hears Spring’s Call

There comes a moment, usually in March, when we realize we’ve been holding ourselves very still for a long time. Not consciously. Not deliberately. Just carefully.

Winter asks this of us. It invites us inward, and if we listen well, it can be a generous season. We gather ourselves with books and tea, with blankets pulled close, with the comfort of the inside. We read. We rest. We stay warm. We allow the world to shrink to a manageable size. There is nothing wasted in this. Being cocooned is not the same as being stalled. It is how strength is restored. It is how attention deepens. It is how breath becomes quieter and more steady.

But by March, something begins to shift. The cocoon loosens. The stillness that once felt nourishing begins to feel a little tight. We notice it in the body first. A longer exhale. A shoulder dropping without being told. A restlessness that is not anxiety, but readiness.

When Winter Hears Spring’s Call

In the natural world, this release is everywhere. Sap begins to move again. Soil softens enough to receive it. Light lingers, not boldly, but faithfully. Nothing rushes. Nothing announces itself. Life simply resumes its quiet circulation. We do this too.

After months of shelter, we begin to trust movement again. We step outside without quite so much preparation. We leave the blanket folded. We carry what warmed us through winter, but we do not stay wrapped in it. This is when something new can finally emerge. Not because we forced it. But because we allowed winter to do its work. March teaches us that emergence follows care. That movement is not a rejection of rest, but its continuation in another form.

If you feel a small sense of readiness these days, let it be enough. You do not need to rush it or explain it. You only need to respond. And it is already asking us to move.

Rebecca

#March #MorningReflections #RebeccaSReadingRoom #Spring #Winter

The Practice of Steadiness

Wind, Rain, Weather, and the Practice of Steadiness

March is a month of wind. Not the dramatic wind of storms that announce themselves, but the persistent kind that unsettles hats, rattles windows, and changes direction without warning. One moment the air is soft. The next, sharp. We step outside prepared for one thing and encounter another. This, too, is part of March’s teaching.

I live in Vancouver, in a temperate rain forest, where March rarely arrives quietly dry. Rain is a steady companion here. It doesn’t rush in and leave. It settles. It lingers. It reshapes the days without asking permission.

After the courage to begin comes the practice of staying steady when conditions refuse to cooperate. March does not reward rigidity. It asks for balance instead. In nature, nothing braces against the weather. Trees bend. Early shoots stay low. Moss thickens patiently. Steadiness is not achieved by resisting movement, but by moving with it. We are learning this again now.

Wind, Rain, Weather, and the Practice of Steadiness

Plans made in January wobble. Expectations set too firmly begin to feel brittle. March reminds us that flexibility is not weakness. It is intelligence. There is a difference between being rooted and being rigid. To be rooted is to know what matters and to stay connected to it, even as circumstances shift. To be rigid is to insist that conditions remain unchanged so we can feel safe. March does not offer that kind of safety. Instead, it offers practice.

Here, the rain teaches it daily. We dress in layers. We carry umbrellas without resentment. We learn that discomfort does not mean danger, and that steadiness does not require dryness. This is steadiness in motion. It is the kind that allows us to remain ourselves even as the world rearranges around us. The kind that trusts we do not need perfect conditions to proceed, only enough awareness to respond.

Perhaps this is what March is asking of us now. Not certainty. Not control. Just presence. A willingness to stand, bend, and continue.

Rebecca

#March #MorningReflection #RebeccaSReadingRoom #Spring #Winter

St. Philip Neri and the Courage of Joy

A reflection on humility, humour, and the wisdom that is lived

If the Venerable Bede taught us how to handle truth with care, and Meister Eckhart taught us how to loosen the grip of ego and performance, then St. Philip Neri completes the arc by reminding us of something essential: Wisdom must be carried with joy or it risks becoming a burden rather than a gift.

Philip Neri lived in 16th-century Rome, at a time when religious life had grown formal, hierarchical, and deeply concerned with appearances. He was a priest of great devotion and spiritual depth, yet he resisted solemnity whenever it threatened to eclipse humanity. His response was not rebellion, but joy. Philip became known for his playful acts of humility. On one occasion, he appeared at an important gathering with half his beard shaved off. At other times, he deliberately behaved in ways that disrupted admiration, choosing embarrassment over pride. These were not stunts. They were spiritual discipline.

Philip understood something many forget: ego thrives on seriousness. By laughing at himself, he loosened its grip. Unlike Bede or Eckhart, Philip Neri did not leave behind a major body of writing. What we know of him comes largely through the lives written by those who knew him including The Life of Saint Philip Neri, Apostle of Rome and Founder of the Congregation of the Oratory. These accounts preserve not arguments or doctrines, but gestures, habits, laughter, and daily choices. Philip’s legacy survives because it was lived in full view of others, and because that life made an impression worth remembering. This, too, is a form of authorship.

St. Philip Neri by Sebastiano Conca (1680–1764. (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Philip trusted presence more than proclamation. He gathered people through warmth rather than authority, through friendship rather than fear. He listened, laughed, walked alongside others, and made room for affection in spiritual life. His joy was not exclusionary or performative. It was hospitable. The Roman Catholic Church would later name him the patron saint of humour and joy. It is a title that sounds almost whimsical, until one considers how radical it truly is. Joy, for Philip Neri, was not a distraction from holiness. It was protection against arrogance.

Where Bede insisted on truthfulness, and Eckhart insisted on inner freedom, Philip insisted on lightness of being.

He knew that devotion without joy becomes brittle. That sincerity without humour hardens into performance. That authority without humility forgets the human heart. In our own time, seriousness often masquerades as depth. We perform importance. We curate gravity. We forget that wisdom does not need to scowl in order to be taken seriously. Philip Neri offers a gentle corrective. Joy, he reminds us, is not frivolous. It is evidence that ego has loosened its hold. It is a sign that truth is being carried with care. Taken together, these three figures form a quiet lineage:

Bede teaches us to honour truth and name our sources.
Eckhart teaches us to release the self that seeks recognition.
Philip Neri teaches us to laugh — especially at ourselves.

Truth. Freedom. Joy. Perhaps these are not separate virtues, but companions. And perhaps this is the invitation that remains with us now: To write without false authority. To create without performance. To carry wisdom lightly, so others are not crushed beneath it. If our words are truthful, our intentions free, and our spirit joyful, then what we leave behind may not only endure. It may also invite others to live more fully. Not all wisdom arrives as text. Some of it arrives as presence. And sometimes, the truest teaching is the one that makes room for laughter.

Rebecca

#Authenticity #Joy #RebeccaSReadingRoom #SacredWritings #StPhilipNeri #Truth

The Courage to Begin Without Certainty

March: The Courage to Begin Without Certainty

March has never been a settled month. It arrives with movement rather than reassurance. One day bright, the next unsettled. The ground softening here, still frozen there. We feel the pull to begin, even as we know conditions are not yet ideal. This is not a flaw of the season. It is its nature.

Long ago, March was the first month of the year. It was named for Mars, not as a god of chaos or destruction, but as a guardian of movement and readiness, a force invoked to secure peace and protect what was beginning to grow. The year did not begin when everything was safe. It began when action became possible.

The Courage to Begin Without Certainty

We still live this instinctively.

By March, something in us wants to move. Not dramatically. Just enough to feel forward motion again. We tidy a corner. Reach out to someone. Take a small risk. We begin before we are fully sure. This can feel uncomfortable. We like clarity. We prefer plans. But March does not wait for certainty. It asks for willingness instead.

Nature shows us this every day now. Buds swell before the air is warm. Birds return without knowing what storms may come. Nothing insists that conditions be perfect. Life moves because remaining still would cost more. There is a quiet courage in this kind of beginning. It is not loud or triumphant. It does not announce itself. It simply says yes to the next step, even when the path is only partly visible.

Perhaps this is what March offers us. Not confidence, but permission. Permission to begin gently. To move without mastery. To trust that readiness often follows action, not the other way around.

We are standing at the beginning. And that is enough for today.

Rebecca

#Courage #March #MorningReflection #RebeccaSReadingRoom #Spring

Dear March -Come in by Emily Dickinson

Welcome to Rebecca’s Reading Room. This is a quiet place where poems are read slowly, not for answers, but for companionship. Here, we return to familiar voices not to explain them away, but to listen again, to notice what they say differently as we ourselves change. In this room, poems are not relics or assignments. They are guests. They arrive when they are ready, carrying something meant for us now.

Today, I invite you to sit with a poem by Emily Dickinson, a poem that opens a door rather than making a declaration, and welcomes a season as one might welcome a friend.

Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—

Emily Dickinson opens this poem not with observation, but with welcome. March is not a date on a calendar or a meteorological shift. It is a visitor at the door. Slightly breathless. Hat still on. Carrying news.

“Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—”

Spring, in Dickinson’s hands, does not arrive polished or triumphant. It arrives on foot. This is the season before certainty, before colour fully commits itself, before the world decides what it will become. March is effort, movement, intention, not yet ease. She asks after March as one would ask after a friend returning from a long journey:

Dear March, Come In

“Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—”

There is tenderness here, and curiosity. Even Nature, Dickinson suggests, was not fully prepared.

“The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare—how Red their Faces grew—”

The image is quietly delightful: trees blushing, caught unaware. Colour arrives before announcement. Before readiness.

“There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—”

March has borrowed the colours we expect later. Spring, at this moment, is promise rather than fulfilment. Hints rather than declarations. Then, inevitably, another knock at the door.

“Who knocks? That April—
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—”

How refreshing this refusal feels. April, so often celebrated, must wait. Dickinson is occupied with March, with conversation, with the delicate work of transition. This poem honours the in-between, the threshold season that asks nothing of us except attention. The closing lines deepen the poem’s quiet wisdom:

“That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—”

March brings balance. It strips judgement of its urgency. Once this guest has arrived, trifles fall away. What matters is presence, not verdict.

“Dear March—Come in—” reminds us that some moments should not be rushed or improved upon. Some seasons are meant to be welcomed, sat with, listened to. March is not yet bloom, not yet abundance, but it is essential. Without it, nothing else follows. March has come in. The door is closed to haste. And upstairs, there is still so much to tell.

Until the next page turns,

Rebecca

https://open.spotify.com/episode/445YeZZFMBZb4NDWD6usQO?si=mQUUU1fASku7GmrVG-aIeg&t=0&pi=z3Nn8Xy3SwKR2

https://youtu.be/KUsRgMuXJPk?si=AeVmOg3hv2iQGIrD

Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—

I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare – how Red their Faces grew—
But March, forgive me—
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue—
There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—

Who knocks? That April—
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied—
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—

Dear March – Come In by Emily Dickinson – Rebecca's Reading Room

#EmilyDickinson #March #PoetryRecitation #PoetrySalon #RebeccaSReadingRoom #Sprng

Meister Eckhart and the Freedom to Begin Again

A reflection on ego, creativity, and what it means to be true

After spending time with the Venerable Bede, with his care for sources, his honesty about limits, his refusal to claim authority he did not possess, I found myself drawn further along the same path. Not outward this time, toward memory and preservation, but inward, toward motive and meaning. That path leads naturally to Meister Eckhart.

Meister Eckhart was born around 1260 in what is now Germany and became a Dominican friar, theologian, and preacher at a time when religious thought was closely guarded by institutions and authority. He was highly educated, holding prestigious teaching positions in Paris and serving in senior roles within his order. Yet it was not his credentials that made him memorable. It was his language. Eckhart preached in the vernacular rather than Latin, speaking directly to ordinary people about inner freedom, detachment from ego, and the birth of truth within the soul. His ideas were considered radical for their time, and late in his life some of his teachings were investigated for heresy. What unsettled authorities was not rebellion, but his insistence that true transformation did not depend on external status or performance, but on an inner letting go. This was a freedom that could not be controlled. It is from this tension, between authority and authenticity, that Eckhart’s words still speak.

Much of what we know of Meister Eckhart today comes to us through later scholars who recognized the enduring power of these voices. One such guide is William Ralph Inge, whose collection Light, Life, and Love: Selections from the German Mystics of the Middle Ages brings Eckhart into conversation with other thinkers who shared his concern for inner freedom, humility, and truth beyond performance. Inge did not treat these mystics as relics, but as living companions and voices capable of unsettling complacency and opening space for renewal.

Eckhart lived in a world of sermons, scholarship, and public religious life, yet much of his teaching points in the opposite direction, away from performance, away from self-display, and toward inner freedom. Again and again, he warned against confusing activity with authenticity. “One must not always think so much about what one should do,” he wrote, “but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works.”

A contemporary artistic rendering of Meister Eckhart, created in the spirit of reflection rather than historical record. Image generated as a contemporary artistic interpretation.

What Eckhart understood and what feels especially relevant now, is that ego often disguises itself as purpose. We speak to be heard. We write to be seen. We create in order to secure our place, our identity, our relevance. Eckhart offers a quieter, braver alternative. In a culture that rewards certainty, Eckhart invites beginner’s mind. “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning,” he urges.

There is great freedom in this. To be a beginner is to release the burden of expertise as identity. It is to allow curiosity to return. To admit we are still learning. To trust that beginnings are not a weakness, but a renewal. “And suddenly you know,” Eckhart writes, “it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” Perhaps this is why one of Eckhart’s most beloved lines is also one of his simplest: “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” Gratitude leaves no room for performance. It quiets comparison. It grounds us in presence. It reminds us that creation is not something we manufacture to prove ourselves, but something we participate in with humility and care.

Bede taught us to handle truth responsibly.
Eckhart teaches us to receive it freely.

Together, they form a quiet ethic for our time — one that resists both noise and self-erasure. An ethic that asks not for perfection, but for honesty; not for visibility, but for sincerity. So perhaps the invitation here is simple. What might you begin again, not to be noticed, but to be true? What might you write, read, or remember if you no longer needed it to perform?

Past wisdom does not bind us. When tended with care, it becomes freedom. We don’t need to master this. We don’t need credentials. We don’t even need certainty. Just the willingness to begin.

Rebecca

#Authenticity #Creativity #Ego #MeisterEckhart #RebeccaSReadingRoom #SacredWritings

Spring Begins Gently

Spring Begins Gently

By February, many of us feel the pull of what comes next. We begin to think ahead. To imagine longer days. To make quiet lists, sometimes without realizing we are doing it. There is a longing for movement, for colour, for something new to begin. But spring does not arrive with force. It does not burst through frozen ground by effort or insistence. It comes because conditions have been honoured. Because time has been allowed to do its work. Because what needed rest was given it.

Winter teaches us this, if we pay attention. Before anything appears above ground, there is a long season of preparation we never witness. Seeds soften. Roots loosen the soil. Life gathers itself slowly, patiently, without announcement. So much of our planning forgets this. We rush toward outcomes. We measure readiness by productivity. We tell ourselves that intention must look like action.

Spring Begins Gently

But spring begins elsewhere. It begins in curiosity rather than certainty. In noticing what draws our attention without demanding our obedience. In listening for what feels quietly alive beneath the frost of habit and expectation. This is not the season for resolutions. It is the season for attunement.

What are you drawn to lately, not because it is useful, but because it feels warm? What questions keep returning, even when you are not searching for answers? These are often the earliest signs of spring.

The earth does not plan spring. It prepares for it. It does not rush the thaw. It waits until the ground can receive what is ready to grow. Perhaps we are being asked to do the same. To make space without forcing shape. To allow longing without demanding outcome. To trust that when the moment comes, we will recognize it.Spring will arrive. It always does.But it begins gently, long before we see it.

Until next Sunday, may your mornings unfold in wonder and light.

Rebecca

#MorningReflection #RebeccaSReadingRoom #Spring #Sunday

The Venerable Bede and the Ethics of Remembering

A reflection on writing, truth, and what we carry forward

Before words were fast, they were careful. Long before writing became something we shared instantly, it was an act of patience and devotion. Marks were scratched into clay, traced on stone, copied by hand in cold rooms by people who understood how easily words could disappear. Writing began not as performance or publication, but as remembrance. A way of saying this mattered enough to be carried forward.

It is easy, in our own time, to forget how fragile memory once was.

In the early eighth century, there lived a monk named Bede, known to history as the Venerable Bede. The title was not granted because he travelled widely, held power, or participated in great public decisions. It was earned through the quality of his attention.

The Venerable Bede writing the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, from a 12th-century codex at Engelberg Abbey, Switzerland (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Bede spent almost his entire life within the walls of a monastery in Northumbria. His world was bounded, his movement limited. He was not “at the table” where authority gathered. And yet, from that enclosed life, he shaped how history itself would be remembered.

Bede listened. He read. He gathered letters, oral accounts, earlier manuscripts, and local traditions, carefully weaving them together so they would not be lost. His great work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, preserved names, dates, and stories that might otherwise have vanished. He even helped organize time itself, popularizing the Anno Domini dating system so the past could be shared and understood across generations.

What makes Bede enduring is not the scope of his life, but the integrity of his work. Limited in movement, he was expansive in care. Rooted in one place, he reached far beyond it. What strikes me most about Bede is not simply what he preserved, but how he went about it. He loved truth, not as an abstract ideal, but as a daily practice. He investigated carefully. He named his sources. He admitted uncertainty. He distinguished between what he had witnessed, what had been reported, and what could not be confirmed.

As one later reader observed in the introduction to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England, Bede’s love of truth showed itself in his scrupulous care in investigating evidence and in acknowledging the sources from which he drew. He took pains to assure himself of authenticity, preferring first-hand testimony whenever possible, and carefully noting when such evidence was lacking. — from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England: A Revised Translation, with Introduction, Life, and Notes, translated by A. M. Sellar

There is something quietly radical in this. Bede did not confuse faith with carelessness, nor reverence with certainty. He understood that memory deserves honesty, and that future readers should know the difference between what is witnessed, what is told, and what is believed.

We live in an age that values visibility. We travel widely. We attend conferences. We celebrate participation, proximity, and being “at the table.” None of this is wrong. But Bede reminds us that presence alone does not confer meaning. What matters is not where we are seen, but how faithfully we work with what we know.

Authentic creativity is not loud. It is careful. Compassionate creativity is not performative. It is attentive. Truthful creativity is willing to say, “This is what I know — and this is where my knowledge ends.”

From within monastery walls, Bede preserved a world. From within our own lives, however bounded or busy they may be, we, too, are shaping what will be remembered. Perhaps the question is not whether we are sitting at the table, but whether our words can be trusted when they leave our hands.

If this reflection reconnects us to anything, perhaps it is this: the desire to write with care, to read with attention, and to remember honestly.What we carry forward matters. And how we carry it matters just as much.

Rebecca

#Authenticity #Creativity #Hstory #Memory #RebeccaSReadingRoom #SacredWritings #VenerableBede

The Story of the Three Warriors and the Bird

The Story of the Three Warriors and the Bird

There is a story from Japan about three warriors and a bird who will not sing. The story is traditionally associated with three towering figures in Japanese history: Oda Nobunaga, the fierce unifier. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the clever strategist. And Tokugawa Ieyasu, the patient builder of lasting peace. A bird, often described as a nightingale, refuses to sing. Each man responds according to his nature.

Oda Nobunaga says,
“If the bird will not sing, silence it.”

Toyotomi Hideyoshi says,
“If the bird will not sing, persuade it.”

Tokugawa Ieyasu says,
“If the bird will not sing, wait.”

That is the whole story. And yet it has endured for centuries. Because we recognize ourselves in it.

The Story of the Three Warriors and the Bird

There are moments in life when something refuses to perform. When creativity grows quiet. When answers do not arrive on schedule. When a season will not move simply because we wish it to. Some of us respond with force. We push harder. Demand clarity. Try to overpower what resists us. Some of us respond with strategy. We reason, negotiate, and rearrange our thinking, hoping that cleverness will unlock what feels stuck. And some of us wait. Not out of indifference, but out of trust.

Tokugawa Ieyasu understood something the others did not. That timing is not obedience. That life sings when it is ready. That patience is not passivity, but alignment. Winter understands this too. It does not bloom because we ask it to. It does not hurry because we are tired of waiting. It simply continues its quiet work, preparing what comes next.

Perhaps this season is asking us to notice which response we are choosing. Force. Persuasion. Or patience. And perhaps the bird will sing. In its own time.

Rebecca

A Brief Historical Note

Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) began the unification of Japan through decisive military force and a willingness to break with tradition.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598), rising from humble origins, completed much of that unification through strategy, negotiation, and persuasion.

Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) waited patiently through years of uncertainty before establishing the Tokugawa shogunate, ushering in more than two centuries of relative peace.

#Japan #MorningReflection #RebeccaSReadingRoom #ThreeWarriorsAndTheBird #Winter