It is a grey morning here in London. And more grey to come. Today is the day of the filling of the urns with Kamalashila’s ashes. The urns, made by a talented potter friend, arrived here yesterday and are ready for action. Also, I have had two deliveries this morning and awaiting a third. This is for the careful packaging of the urns as they will travel into the world after they have been taken from the shrine on Sunday. We only thought about that yesterday: how are people going to take these urns home? There are four bigger ones for each of the directions and five smaller ones for mostly students. And then I have to think about stand-ins, as two out of the nine recipients won’t be able to make it to the ceremony. Tomorrow morning I will be buying flowers from the stall opposite of the Brixton station. But now I am waiting for another friend who is very kindly going to take on the task of distributing the ashes over the urns. Then tomorrow afternoon, on Saturday, the urns with ashes, flowers, some hangings and rupas, and other bits of pieces, will go to the North London Buddhist Centre for the set-up of the room and the shrine.
We had a meeting with the wonderful The Buddhist Centre Online tech team a few days ago. And before that I had another meeting with my co-organiser. We will have full house in the afternoon of the memorial. The shrine room holds about 85 people. The morning will have half of that amount of people. Should I do something about that? Send out an open invite? The practice part was the most important part of the memorial for KS and luckily we do have lots of people joining online. I am so weary. I cannot think. It usually helps to talk about these things I cannot decide on. So then I call on friends. Send messages to my external brain on WhatsApp.
In the midst of it all I miss Kamalashila. He is the one I want to spend time with after the memorial. My favourite person to be with. But instead I will have my share of his ashes. And the framed photo that will sit on the shrine on Sunday. And thousands of digital imprints. Series of photos of for instance one autumn leaf, a gap in a bamboo forest, an acorn on a tree. Taken from all kinds of angles and distances. Numerous voice memos. Notes. Tiny moments of attention, admiration and awareness. I cannot cling to these glimpses of the world seen through his eyes. It has been challenging to choose something from all that abundance to share on Sunday’s memorial. But choices have been made. All is ready. Almost. I need another bath. But first there is the event of the filling of the urns. I am going to be in another room whilst our friend is spooning ashes into urns. I am back on my yellow couch. It is all a bit much. I hear the whine from the central heating. And then a number of admonishing taps and clicks. As the water is streaming through the pipes, the ashes fall into place in the room that is no longer a vihara.
