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Assistant Needed (preferably female)
Fri 01 - Sat 16 August
Teacher: Sayalay Vajiranyani
Personal Retreat
Our house in Bishops Castle "Sativasa" will open for personal retreat in June. See below for further information.
Full Moon Observance
Sunday 08 June, Buddha Day
Teaching Skills of the Buddha
(Joined by the Sangha of Pian Dei Ciliegi, Italy)
Meeting in London
Maz, a fellow Satipanya meditator, is looking to see if others are interested in setting up a London based group once a month to meet in person and practice together in central London, or a location most convenient for those who are interested.
If interested email Maz and let him know which areas in London are most convenient for you to meet:
[email protected]
See below for Retreats
Mercifully, it has begun to rain occasionally and all the flowers have sprung! The forest of trees look like still explosions.
We are in the midst of our summer retreats. Assistants are not so plentiful. So we are especially grateful to Abhir Abhyankar for filling in the missing spaces. Coming as an assistant is especially good for people who don't want to or who can't for one reason or another, join a full Mahasi. They have the freedom to join the course as and when it suits them. It is important for our finacial viabitity. It is a case of an economy of scale. Since we limit retreatants at 8 per retreat, the cost per person would rise dramatically if we employed someone. So if you haven't come as an assistant, please do consider it.
We are opening up the house in Bishops Castle "Sativasa" for single personal retreats. It will be self catering so the first day might need to be spent shopping etc.
Announcements
The house in Bishops Castle "Sativasa" will open for personal retreat in June. Suitable only for established meditators. Come for a week or longer. For more info or to apply email
Bhante
or
Noirin
.
has been published as an
ebook
,
kindle
, paperback (now being proof-read, thanks to Mai Ryan) and can be dowloaded as a
PDF
. Based on Noirin's Daily Life courses over previous years and supplemented by students' reflections, the book offers a study-practice guide to the Buddha's teaching on Mindfulness of Body, Feeling and Mind. Many thanks to Therese Caherty for editing. Further info
here
.
Meeting in London
Maz, a fellow Satipanya meditator, is looking to see if others are interested in setting up a London based group once a month to meet in person and practice together in central London, or a location most convenient for those who are interested.
If interested email Maz and let him know which areas in London are most convenient for you to meet:
[email protected]
Join us for your daily meditation -
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
jhāna
s, 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 2025 Calander is available for courses into September.
You can apply any time, but please only when you are certain.
AI 'Art'
Bhante Bodhidhamma
Art, in all its forms is a creative act. So are many areas of creativity such as science, technology, artifacts and so on. But Art is what TS Eliot called ‘objective correlative’. When the artist wants to share an experience, they find a common metaphor or way to relate to the viewer or listener. It is about communicating experience or understanding in a way that the other not only understands but feels.
I was teaching at Gaia House in May. It was bursting with spring. I stood beneath the oak in the front lawn with friends and we marvelled at its size, its strength and vitality. Its huge presence dwarfs us.
Suppose the oak tree were made of plastic by an artist expressing his feelings about how people don’t connect with nature? Or the same manufactured by a 3D printing machine at the command of an AI ‘artist’. Machines don’t do meaning.
A few days later, I came across a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, called ‘The Olive Trees’. If you
google it
, you will see it has little to do with olive trees as such. There is a swirling, undulating movement throughout the painting and the sombre blue mountains and churning clouds gives me the feeling of apprehension. It brought up the feelings of foreboding I have about the Polycrisis. Van Gogh has shared with me the mental state he was in when he painted the picture. And I am grateful he has evoked these feelings in me. They motivate me to do the little I can to limit the Crisis.
Suppose someone asked AI to produce a picture in the style of van Gogh of a football crowd. I have no doubt that it would be interesting, but it will lack experiential meaning. The ‘artist’ has done nothing and intends nothing but inane play. It may indeed evoke similar feelings, but I will be communicating with a machine. I will have lost that essential reason for art – communication –
communis
– as if one, in common. I won’t be able to make a heart connection with another human being. It will just be lonely, little me, hugging my feelings. Of course, I might share the experience of a poem, a song, a picture with a friend, but there would still be that feeling that it is a machine, without care or ethics, that has induced these sentiments in me.
All art forms with their various concerns such as erotic, social, political, personal and healing and religious, are communications between human beings. Imagine if all you had around you were robots who behaved exactly as human beings, but you knew they were devoid of inner purpose of life. How would you feel if in distress you were hugged by a cyborg? You may feel comforted, by what? It must be by way of a projection of a human onto a ‘humanoid’. Surely, at some point, there must arise a feeling of separation from humans, an alienation, a deep loneliness.
But why is this possible in the first place? Because we identify with the body and mind – the root cause of our dukkha, the frustrating inability to find lasting happiness in the sensual world. So we seek distraction. This has, of course, always been so, but now made more acute by relying on technology that further separates us from each other and from our true inner being. The real danger is that we become like robots – drowning out any feelings of meaninglessness, of sickness, ageing, sorrow and death with entertaining ‘art’ empty of human experience.
Having said all this, no doubt artists will arise who can use AI to produce real art.
Please send me your thoughts.
This article inspired the Tip and is worth reading for the social and political consequence:
The Trouble with AI art isn’t just lack of originality. It’s something far bigger
Eric Reinhart
‘
Deep Bach
is an algorithmic program that uses machine-learning to analyse Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions and then produces its own variations. The results are convincing enough that many people can’t distinguish between DeepBach and the real thing.’
Futures Centre
The Threat of Computed Creativity
Creativity here refers to Art. Letter by Nick Cage read by Stephen Fry
Calendar at a Glance
Calendar
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, please forward this email if you know someone who may be
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