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How do things happen? The Specific Law of Conditionality.
I was down in Brighton week before last visiting Ajahn Aren, a Welsh monk, living at the newly established Thai Watt Brighton. It is a centre that lends itself well for afternoon or evening meetings. I met up with the Mahasi Devotees there and it was a joy to see them all. Hopefully they will restart their meetings, cruelly interupted by Covid.
Here we are planning to have the meadows cut and always that dilemma as to whether to let the farmer take it to feed cattle and we all know where they end up or try to get rid of it in our verges which doesn't work so well. So it will be trade off between the meadow and all the wild life it supports and the life of cows. The world pitches us into moral dilemmas.
One of the Perceptions the Buddha would have us contemplate is the inevitable fading of beauty. Summer is at its height and you can feel the slow loss of morning and evening light and the gentle turn towards autumn. So long as we don't define beauty, everything is beautiful.
Announcements
Northwest area Satipanya Sangha:
Anyone living in the northwest, particularly in Chester, Manchester, Liverpool and surrounding areas who would like to explore options for practicing together please contact
Martin Ratcliffe
who hopes to form a local group.
Join us for your daily meditation - 06.00, 09.00, 14.00, 16.00 and 20.00 sits.
Info.
An informal meditation group meets on a monthly basis via Zoom for a full day of meditation. Email Magda for details at
[email protected]
This collaborative study group is currently studying
the
jhānas, as taught by Rob Burbea
, in order to better understand this mainstay of the suttas, and how they contribute to the practice of
vipassanā
. We
warmly extend an invitation to any practitioner
who would like to join us. Currently meeting on the second and fourth Sundays of each month at 10:20am - around midday. Please contact Carl at
[email protected]
for further information.
Join 20.00 to 21.00 on the Sunday closest to the Full Moon. Bhante gives a short dhamma talk, followed by a 30-min sitting, refuges and precepts and we end by reading and chanting the metta sutta.
For date of next Celebration.
Opening to the Impact of the Climate Emergency:
Following on from the Zoom with Gwen Sanderson and Bhante Bodhidhamma in September last year, there are two options for ongoing engagement:
-
Gwen Sanderson is facilitating monthly
Climate and Dhamma Conversations
which are held using
Zoom
. Email
Gwen
for further information or to register.
-
Noirin Sheahan has set up a Satipanya
Forum
focussing on the
Six Maxims
(ethical training to prepare for the social and environmental consequences of climate change - see tip below). Contact
Noirin
for further info or to register.
Every morning at puja we call the names of those who are sick or dying, or are having a hard time.
Every evening at puja we call the names of those who have something to rejoice.
Satipanya Courses
Coronavirus:
Requirements for visiting Satipanya.
We are asking everyone to take an antigen test before setting out in their journey to Satipanya and not to come if the test is positive.
Vipassana as taught by the Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma
The Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma, one of the most influential vipassana insight meditation teachers of the last century, developed techniques to help us maintain moment to moment mindfulness from the instant we awake to the instant we fall asleep.
This leads not only to spiritual insights into our true, unborn-undying essence, but also, equally important, to the purification of the heart. So that we not only become wiser but more caring, generous, joyous and compassionate.
Applying the techniques on this retreat we follow a robust schedule, but meditators can modulate their practice to fit their level of experience, even absolute beginners. The accent is on relaxation and curiosity, rather than striving and concentration. And regular teacher contact, daily Q&A and personal interviews ensures students are supported throughout.
The retreat ends with advice on how to bring the practice into ordinary daily life to enhance our relationships and give spiritual meaning to our work and everyday tasks.
Assistants Needed
N.B.
All the courses are serviced by assistants.
As assistant you have the opportunity to serve others. It can be a way of
expressing gratitude for the gift of Dhamma. Although the morning is mainly
taken up with breakfast preparation and cooking, the rest of day is for
practice.
You can
see
the menus here
(PDF).
As an assistant, we do not expect payment of the deposit or make a donation
because you have kindly offered your time.
However, your commitment is essential, for the course would be very difficult to
run without an assistant and may indeed have to be cancelled.
If you are interested, follow this link:
Course
Assistant
For info. about retreats and teachers see website:
www.satipanya.org.uk
See drop down menus: especially About Us, Teachings and Retreats
Would you like to come and assist on a course?
See
calendar on website
for up-to-date assistant need.
The 2024 Calander is available for courses into September.
You can apply any time, but please only when you are certain.
Self-love and Self-Acceptance
Bhante Bodhidhamma
Self-love sounds like being selfish! This would be a big mistake. In the practice of Metta, traditionally it begins with directing love towards oneself on the understanding that you can’t love others until you love yourself. If you consider someone who is full of self-hatred, self-criticism, self-recrimination, self-blame, it’s hard to see how they have the heart space to love another person. We might try to practice Metta in the belief it will get rid of the self-hatred, but in fact it is an overlay for it is developing another mental state, loving kindness, on top of the self-hatred. It’s like covering a mouldy cake with icing.
So a good place to confront all our negativity is right there on the sitting cushion. We turn inwards towards any negative presenting feelings and opinions about ourselves. The first act of self-love is self-healing. And this can be very hard to do since we have identified with these inner demons. So that’s the first step to identify clearly the mental states and emotional turbulences that come up.
Once identified we have to develop a right relationship with that negativity. When we find ourselves in a state of self-loathing, not good enough, useless and so on, we have to hold it in a caring embrace. It helps to talk to it. ‘I can feel your hatred and anger’. Describe the qualities, ‘so hot, so turbulent’. In this way we can distance from these states and in so doing find ourselves with them but not in them. So now we are not identifying with them. That little distance means all the world for we realise that there is not that second level of suffering that the Buddha refers to as the second arrow. Isn’t the first arrow, the presenting state, enough! Do we have to add to it by hugging it as me. And when we do that, we employ the mind with its conversation and imaging to create a story around it and so add fuel to the fire!
That’s the insight. The self-aversion is not me, not mine and not my self! But we are so committed to old habits that we have to keep repeating the insight until it is strong enough to undermine the habit of indulging all self-denigration.
The bright side is to develop the positive and there is no end of virtues the Buddha lists for us. But rather than try to develop all the virtues all at once, it is a good start to develop the opposite of the unwholesome habit we are undermining.
If we suffer, for instance, from feeling not good enough, the first port of call is to ask, to whom am I comparing myself? And is this a wholesome way to go about life? What is the point of such comparison? If I were to compare myself favourably with someone whom I judge to be inferior to me, I would call that conceit. So, adversely comparing myself as ‘inferior’ is an inverted conceit. I am worse than them. Or it might be a hurtful parental voice. Then there may also be that I have some idea of perfection in my mind which, by definition, cannot be achieved. So, I am always going to disappoint myself. Far better to stay in touch with the situation as it is and agree that this is the best I can do. What more can I ask of myself? And what more should another ask of me? So now I have a strategy to undermine all that ‘not good enough'. I conscientiously complete whatever I am doing to the best of my ability. I acknowledge it and feel satisfaction. Then we develop self-esteem by reminding ourselves of our accomplishments, whether great, small or insignificant.
In this way we can take any form of self-criticism, self-blame, self-recrimination, self-doubt and slowly work against it and develop the opposite. We just need to do it … diligently.
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MAILING LIST form
at the bottom of the front page of the website.
Many thanks.
Finally
, please forward this email if you know someone who may be
interested. Thanks.
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