One thing ....

One thing I've learnt is that humility leaves room for other possibilities ... And I think this holds true in our formal practice of meditation and in the wider context of life. 

The humility to say 'I'm not sure what I'm doing or if I'm doing what I'm doing the right way' means there's openness to other possibilities. It means we can try things and explore and experiment and if we hold this mind-state supported by kindness then we lay the conditions for new growth.

There's a saying in the meditative tradition 'In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the experts there are none.'

Hope you can meditate with us this week:

Tuesday   6 - 7.30 pm

Sunday     8 - 9 am

On Tuesday Kim has organised someone to come and do some filming to share what we do with a wider number of people - the focus will be pretty much on me leading and meditators in the sit will be mostly in softer, background focus - I'll announce that to the group to make sure everyone's okay with that but please come along and support this. 

Much metta to all

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

The Vedana of Vedana
 
In ‘Buddha-speak’ vedana is the term for any feeling state we can experience. Vedana can be pleasant, painful or neutral. Pleasant and painful vedana generally sets up craving and aversion, which is the basis of all suffering we experience. So to free oneself of this craving and aversion is to end our suffering and establish contentment, even bliss and finally freedom.
 
There it is …. Buddhism in a nutshell …. Easy eh!
 
Ummmm …… well actually wrong! Not easy at all ….. I am deeply, inextricably and unconsciously woven into and addicted to my vedana and it leads me around like a pig’s nose-ring.
 
So I practice meditation and ethics and gradually, VERY gradually the mist clears and I find there is choice in every situation I find myself in.
 
Lately there’s been a new development in my practice of the Buddha’s teachings … I’ve become interested in ‘the vedana of vedana’. When I find myself craving something, being pulled (or pushed) around by powerful vedana and caught in the compulsive energy it creates I ask myself  ‘What is the vedana of this vedana?’ and I ask it with curiosity and compassion.  Where in my body am I experiencing it? Is it visceral or intellectual and or emotional? Is it connected to a young part of me that didn’t get what it needed in some early stage of my life? How strong is it? Is it a ten out of ten vedana on the Richter scale or is it a three out of ten? What do I find when I stop and investigate my craving and aversion rather than acting on it?
 
So it’s catching the vedana in flight. The good old ‘gap’ as we call it in meditation circles: the creative opportunity afforded to us when we see reactions arise but have the poise to notice what’s happening and respond rather than react and thereby liberate ourselves from being victims of circumstance.
 
And what I’m doing I guess is hanging out in the gap and taking a good look around. Fascinated to see just what this vedana is made up of, where it might come from, how strong it is and how I might best work with it – and as I write this I see that I’m actually bringing metta to it ….. I’m becoming a loving parent if you like, of my mind.
 
Lovely! How fortunate are we to have the Buddha’s teachings!
 
May we all find ways to move increasingly toward freedom
 
Dharmalata

Meditation this week:

Tuesday   6 - 7.30 pm

Sunday    8 - 9 am

Hope you're doing well

This Saturday night I am going to show a one hour film at the Croquet Club.

Tibet: The Trail of Light

Itinerant Tibetan nun Ani Rigsang leaves Lhasa with a thirst for freedom from monastic tradition and Chinese surveillance, embarking on a journey across the rural landscape of eastern Tibet in search of initiation into secret tantric practices. At a hidden nunnery she finds an esoteric tradition kept alive through centuries of isolation.

You can view the trailer here:

https://tricycle.org/filmclub/tibet-the-trail-of-light/

7.30 pm Croquet Club
Saturday July 27th

Free admission

Meditation this week:

Tuesday   6 - 7.30  pm

Sunday    8 - 9 am

Much metta 

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

Window Cleaning

I had a cataract operation this week. Amazing! Under a local anaesthetic they do a micro incision to your eye, break up your old foggy lens, suck it out and replace it. Eye patch on and out you walk.

The following day the surgeon takes off the eye patch and hey presto - bright, clear vision through a new windscreen and the colours and clarity almost surreal ........

Gratitude to modern medicine and a dharma teaching to boot.

The dharma uses the metaphor of a dirty window or mirror to illustrate the need to purify the way we view the world. Through the practice of meditation and ethics we start to see reality more and more clearly. When the lens in my eye through which I take in the world is clear I see detail and colours that I could not previously see. In the same way when we clear our mind of delusions, ill will and craving we are put in touch with the extraordinary in the ordinary ..... life becomes richer, more vivid and the subtle nuances of existence are appreciated and savoured. 

The world has not changed but how we experience it is profoundly changed ....... for the better of .....

Come meditate with us ....... clear the lens of your mind

Come window cleaning with us .....

Tuesday 6 - 7.30 pm

Sunday  8 - 9 am

Metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

As I settled down to sit this morning aware that I would be doing metta practice, I reflected that I was commencing another round of training. 

To do metta is to train our mind to be kind.

The longer I do the practice the more I come to an understanding that whatever one does in the practice that wakes one up to the value of kindness is valid. It may be gently turning over the traditional phrases 'May I / they be well, happy, free from suffering and at peace' or it may be just being present with myself or the person in a generous, empathic and supportive way. It may even be using my imagination to enter my own or another's life with a kindly curiosity.

In a sense  you can't get metta practice wrong ... you can only drift away from the integrity of unconditional kindness or perhaps try to hard ....

So if the practice gets a little dry or repetitive I suggest playing a bit in the practice. Try things .... take the person you're practising with for a walk, imagine what they're doing right now, just be with them, imagine what things they are hoping will come to pass for them ..... imagine that this act of generosity can actually be experienced by them ....... they just, wherever they are, are infused with a gentle warmth that somehow has coloured their life.

Don't be too precious with it ..... what really matters is our heart opening and being in touch with kindness and the beauty that is irrevocably entwined with it.

Much metta to you right now dear reader

Feelin' it??

Dharmalata

Meditation as usual this week

Tuesday 6 - 7.30 pm

Sunday  8 - 9 am

YOU ARE INVITED TO A VERY SPECIAL VISITOR TO OUR COOGEE MEDITATION EVENING TO MEDITATE WITH AND HEAR AN INSPIRING TALK ABOUT OUR ORDER IN INDIA

Tarahridaya , a very experienced Indian Order member - will share a deeply a personal take on the transformative nature of the work of the Dharma and Triratna Buddhist Order in India and the work of the Sangha in India generally improving disadvantaged communities via a revolutionary path to Buddhism.

Dhammacharini Tarahridaya has been the co-ordinator of the Women’s Ordination Process Team in India. and her work is always encouraging her to do more and more as she sees women growing, facing their difficulties and benefiting from the support of the sangha in the Triratna Buddhist community in India.

Please come and participate in  his unique and unusual evening  - an opportunity to hear directly from  one of our Indian Dharmacharini whose own story is one of uplift and incredible Dharma practice. 

On Tuesday night (July 2nd) the program will be:

6 pm          Tea and chat with Tarahridaya

6.30 pm      Meditation

7 pm           Talk and questions with Tarahridaya

7.30            Finish 


Meditation as usual Sunday morning 8 - 8 am

Tarahridaya will also be presenting at the Sydney Buddhist Centre on Wednesday evening 

Feel free to email for more details about that

With Metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

Adjusting Oneself 
 
This is a subtle one so I hope I do it justice.
 
Sometimes when I’m sitting in the meditation room at Jayakula, our Buddhist community house in Coogee and someone enters or leaves the space I adjust my posture. And I adjust it because I want to be seen having a good meditation posture. I want to be taken seriously as a practitioner.
 
I’m aware that they may look at me and make an assessment.  So what this reveals to me is that old friend and foe, my ego, wants to be involved. I care about what others think about me for not always the right reasons…..  And of course I do this in multiple situations in life multiple times a day. Adjusting the way I speak, respond and present myself.
 
I have this sense that if I am really living with authenticity then there should be no need to adjust myself so that I’m seen in a particular light …. I could experience the freedom of just BEING. I’m pretty sure that’s what the Buddha would have experienced.
 
So it’s quite a deep calling to just be oneself in an unguarded, unconstructed way wherever one goes and whatever one’s doing. It’s not that I want to be insensitive to the effect I have on others, I actually want to be ever more aware of who they are and how I am affecting them but in an entirely unselfconscious way if that makes sense ….
 
Meditation helps me do this. It allows me to notice myself even in the quietness and muted light of the meditation room adjusting myself in order to make a good impression

Hope you can meditate with us this week:

Sunday   8 - 9 am

Tuesday 6 -7.30 pm

Metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini …

Full-time or Part-time?
 
There’s been a bit of an evolution in the way I think about metta practice. It started when I was at a drinks evening in an inner-city pub with Gina and a few of her theatre friends.
 
I was critiquing my behaviour after the evening and wondering if I’d been friendly and generous enough in the way I’d engaged with the group and it led me to think ‘Well next time I might just think of it as practising metta. I’ll just make whoever I’m talking to the focus and be as kind and as generous as I can in the way I interact with them.’
 
And then recently I thought ‘Well why not just make life one big metta practice? Why could one not just take this beautiful, liberating practice into everything?’ So it’d be like moving from part-time practice to full-time practice.
 
Well of course despite best intentions I’m going to fall back into part-time practice because my habit of self-promoting is deep and strong but it’s not a bad aspiration eh?
 
And the theory surrounding metta says that it’s a paradox; the more we become other orientated the happier and freer we become. I’d have to say from lived experience that this is true …… wish me well in my new full-time career.

Hope you can meditate with us this week:

Sunday 8 - 9 am

Tuesday 6 - 7.30 pm

Metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

And so another year has rolled around ...... If you're like me you will have a resolution or two batting around in your psyche: some behaviours we'd like to minimise or strengthen as we move into 2019.

The wonderful and gently powerful thing about meditation is that it supports our intentions in this regard. It helps us see more clearly and kindly what we are doing and gradually allows us to bring about the changes the deeper and best part of us longs for. For this reason the phrase 'life support system' came to me whilst I was running recently: meditations is a life support system ......

Meditation integrates us. It facilitates the resolution of our personal contradictions and channels our energies and intentions into a beautiful, free flowing stream.

I hope you'll join us for meditation this year: 

Tuesdays  6 - 7.30 pm 

Sunday     8 - 9 am

Starts today!

Much metta 

Dharmalata and on behalf of Padmadakini

This Saturday November 17th at 7 pm at the Croquet Club we are going to show a film made in 2016 about The Dalai Lama.

All Welcome - bring snacks to share

Here's the blurb and trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v_Rpg_36ig

In Mickey Lemle’s new award-winning documentary, The Last Dalai Lama?, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, takes a look at his legacy as he enters the ninth decade of his life. Rather than presenting a linear story, the film offers an endearing, candid portrait of the Tibetan leader’s life by weaving together historical photos, rare interviews with an all-star cast—including Thupten Jinpa, Matthieu Ricard, and Daniel Goleman—and archival footage from Lemle’s 1992 biopic, Compassion in Exile.

Whether the Dalai Lama is paying a visit to classrooms in British Columbia where students are engaging in “heart-mind” learning, reflecting on his dramatic escape from Tibet to India in 1959, or discussing his daily meditation practice and personal aspirations, the film does not shy away from asking questions that are top-of-mind for many. One question in particular lingers throughout: Will there be a 15th Dalai Lama? The answer may not be clear-cut, but Lemle’s film provides viewers with plenty of food for thought.

Much metta

Dharmalata

Last Tuesday night I returned home from our meditation at the croquet club to find an email saying my teacher Urgyen Sangharakshita had been re-diagnosed by the specialist as having sepsis and that antibiotics (for pneumonia) would be discontinued as the sepsis (infection of the blood) would be fatal. 
I set up a simple shrine in my front room with a photo of him and candles and did metta for him. 

When I checked my emails again before going to bed I received the news he had died. 

It feels ordinary and profoundly significant, a little sad but overwhelmingly I experience gratitude. At 93 years of age he has achieved and given so much and on a personal level helped me more than anyone else. He has been a very true emissary of the Buddha's message and practices and for that I will be forever grateful.

Tonight I invite you to join us at the croquet club for a special evening - we'll do a metta practice and a three fold puja directing our appreciation to Sangharakshita but also anyone (including ourselves) who has helped and supported us in putting into practice the Buddha's teachings of wisdom and kindness. 

The three fold puja is a very simple ritual done in call and response and will include an opportunity to light a candle and share your gratitude collectively by placing the candle into a sand-filled container along with those of others.

I'm going to bake and bring one of my cacao and raspberry cakes in honour of my precious teacher

Regular time     6 - 7.30 pm tonight


Sunday regular meditation   8 - 9 am

Much metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

I don't know how you experience Christmas present sourcing but it throws up a challenge and dilemma for me. I want to be generous and engage with the communal spirit of Christmas but I resent spending money on junk. I've had years where I've actually felt a bit sickened by the hammering my credit card's taken in order to truck home bagfuls of ..... um .... well ..... crap.

So! Here's an opportunity for us all to buy really lovely, well made stuff that's about as ethically squeaky clean as you can find. Not just squeaky clean but downright skilful!! Emma is a radiant being who's been part of the Sydney Buddhist Centre sangha for years now. She's training for ordination and runs a wonderful livelihood that's described better by her than me below. 

We had one of these pop up shops put on in Coogee a few years back and it was a great success. I hope you'll come along and support it and solve your own Christmas dilemma. Please bring friends!

Date - Tuesday November 27th 

Venue - Coogee Croquet Club

WEFTshop is a not for profit social enterprise that collaborates with a variety of ethnics groups from Burma living in refugee camps or as migrants in Thailand.
 
Our collections combine vibrant and stylish designs with traditional textile skills to create beautiful, high-quality handmade textiles. WEFTshop has a unique collaboration working directly with women artisans from Burma, taking an ethical, Fair Trade approach that respects and celebrates the expertise and skills of the artisans, and promotes sustainable livelihoods. We are proud that our partnership with the artisans and their communities has at its heart a commitment to preserving culture. Our work together helps to develop the skills to maintain traditional techniques for the next generation. The richness of hand-loomed weaving, applique, beading and patchwork celebrates Chin, Lahu, Kachin, Karenni and Karen cultures. These textiles are truly works of art.
 
Every textile creation tells a story about the artisan and her culture, inviting you to become part of her journey.
Thanks and love
Emma 


And Meditation this week as usual:

Tonight (Tuesday)   6 - 7.30 pm

Sunday                    8 - 9 am

Much metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini
 

If I think back through my own life there have been a few people who have been very influential in shaping who I've become. I am also aware that some people have been a fairly unhelpful influence whilst others have been enormously helpful. 

The Buddha said that to be in the company of those who are wise and mature in virtue is critical for both our present and future welfare and to be in the company of the spiritually immature is painful. 

Well .......... we have the opportunity to come along to the Coogee Croquet club this Friday night and spend time with Purna (means complete or whole). Purna is a public preceptor within the Buddhist community Padmadakini and I belong to. He has been ordained for many years, worked as a tertiary academic for most of his professional life and, in my experience, radiates goodness and truth. 

He's accepted my invitation to come and talk to us and has chosen to draw lessons from the story of Padmasambhava establishing Buddhism in Tibet. It's a great tale and one that has immediate relevance to our own lives. Tibetans consider Padmasambhava to be 'The Second Buddha' such is the towering influence of his life in the land of snows .......

I hope you might join us this Friday night (Oct 19th - Croquet Clubrooms)

7.30 pm and bring some simple vego food (sweet or savoury) to share for a simple meal beforehand

Meditation as usual this week:

Tonight     6 - 7.30  pm

Sunday    8 - 9 am

Much metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

Befriending Our Demons

One of our senior order members named Purna has agreed to come over to Coogee to give a talk on the evening of Friday October 19th. 

BYO Vego dinner 7.30 pm and then talk to follow

He's going to base it on the story of Padmasambhava taming the demons of Tibet in order to build Samye Monastery - no doubt there'll be a parallel to the way we can befriend and transform the demons we encounter in and around our own being.

I highly recommend Purna as someone with a profound depth of experience in the dharma and someone who is both easy to listen to and eloquent.

That will be Friday week so I'll send a few more details in next week's email.

Meditation this week:

Tuesday                   6 - 7.30 pm

Sunday                     8 - 9 am


Metta 

Dharmalata and on behalf of Padmadakini

The Buddha encouraged us to think of the good things done for us by our parents, by our teachers, friends, whomever; and to do this intentionally, to cultivate it, rather than just letting it happen accidentally.

—Ajahn Sumedho, “The Gift of Gratitude”

Meditation this week:

Tuesday    6.30 - 7.30  pm

Sunday     8 - 9 am


Metta 

Dharmalata and Padmadakini
 

Meditating isn't exciting. It sometimes feels like hard work, especially as winter approaches and mornings can be cold and bed is so yummy! And yet I'm very committed to it and would hate to be without it. Why?

For me meditation gives me the best chance of finding positive, life giving responses to .... well .... everything. It helps me sort myself out in a very basic, fundamental way. And you'll probably agree that life regularly throws up situations that challenge us in so many different ways .... . So how do I find responses that are truly in accord with reality and that conduce to peace and happiness?

It's not a quick fix. It's just a very tried and true way to slow down, stop and contemplate clearly what our life is and how best to live it.

I hope you can join us for meditation this week:

Tuesday evening     6.30 - 7.30 pm

Sunday morning      8 - 9 am

Metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

PS: Heads up that I plan to show 'Minimalism' an awesome and very positively provocative film about living more simply on Saturday June 2nd 7 pm at the Croquet Club - I'd love you to join us so please put the date in your diary if interested

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Co1Iptd4p4

Starting from this week (TODAY!!) our weekly evening meditation is changing to Tuesday evenings

6.30 - 7.30 pm

There will be a delicious cup of tea and cake / biscuits from 6 pm and this will be a regular fixture from now on.

So if you haven't been along for awhile why not come along and say coo-ee and check in with yourself and others to experience some kindly spaciousness ............

The reason for this change is to avoid a clash with Women's Dharma Study the Sydney Buddhist Centre on Thursday nights and the slightly earlier start is to accommodate some of our regulars who need to be away by 7.30 pm

So I really hope that doesn't set up clashes for others

Sunday morning meditations will continue as usual from 8 - 9 am

There's also a family retreat on this weekend at our retreat centre just 45 minutes from Coogee Beach

Padmadakini and I will both be involved 

FAMILY RETREAT

Friday, 13 April 2018 - 7:00pm - Monday, 16 April 2018 - 3:00pm

A gentle exploration of Buddhism for families. Aimed mainly at school-aged children and their parents or carers. We will be spending time exploring our beautiful retreat centre, set in the bush, and visiting the shrines representing the Buddha's of the Mandala. We'll also be visiting our bush labyrinth. We will be telling stories illustrating kindness and consideration for others as well as engaging in making things and forming a small and brief but enjoyable community. 

Experience Level: 

All - For all levels of experience


Much metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

Dear Coogee Meditator

Most importantly:

NB: From April 10th Thursday nights will be changing to Tuesday nights for our regular weekly meditation

Let go of what has passed.
Let go of what may come.
Let go of what is happening now.
Don't try to figure anything out.
Don't try to make anything happen.
Rest, Relax, right now, and rest.

Meditation advice from 10th century Indian master Tilopa

Also to let you all know that The Sydney Buddhist Centre is running a family retreat!
 

FAMILY RETREAT

 
Friday, 13 April 2018 - 7:00pm - Monday, 16 April 2018 - 3:00pm

A gentle exploration of Buddhism for families. Aimed mainly at school-aged children and their parents or carers. We will be spending time exploring our beautiful retreat centre, set in the bush, and visiting the shrines representing the Buddha's of the Mandala. We'll also be visiting our bush labyrinth. We will be telling stories illustrating kindness and consideration for others as well as engaging in making things and forming a small and brief but enjoyable community. 

Experience Level: 

All - For all levels of experience

Please follow this link to book

https://sydneybuddhistcentre.org.au/retreats/family-retreat-1


Padmadakini and I will both be involved with the retreat and would love to see you and family there

Let us know if you'd like more details

Meditation This Week:

Thursday  7 - 8 pm

Sunday    8 - 9 am

Twice lately I've randomly met up with a fella from our Coogee meditation group in the aisles of Randwick Bunnings. It's not surprising as I practically live there ...... always getting odds and sods for the properties I take responsibility for. 

But it's somehow a bit weird because I'm meeting them in such a different context to the
quiet, friendly oasis where we meditate at the croquet club and it feels as though slightly different rules might apply. Is it okay to call him brother and give him a hug or is that inappropriate in the practical, day to day world of door stoppers, paint tins and power tools?

Does he even want to be recognised and approached outside of the meditative world and who am I to him when I don't have my kesa on and am not settling onto a meditation cushion?

But another part of me says 'I don't want to have any separation amongst the different components of my life. I want to live with freedom, integrity and fearlessness wherever I find myself.' This illusory construct I call me, can be alive, responsive and friendly in every single context I find myself in. And as I walk back out to my car I reflect on what a continuing practice it is to me to walk my talk, continue to polish the mirror and be, as the Buddha's metta sutta exhorts me to be, 'straight forward and upright, perfectly upright!'

Hope you can meditate with us

Thursday  7 - 8 pm

Sunday    8 - 9 am

Metta

Dharmalata and on behalf of Padmadakini

A spiritual practice can be an island, a place where opening to uncertainty and doubt can lead us to a refuge of truth.
—Joan Halifax, “The Lucky Dark"

Last night I rode to the Sydney Buddhist Centre on my motor-bike. My journey there was under clear, benign skies but as I exited the building at the end of Men's study there was light drizzle. 'This'll be okay' I thought, 'Nothing much to worry about'. But it quickly turned to rain and by mid journey to Coogee it was bucketing down. My goggles covered in spots, my clothes soaked and concern for the well-being of my laptop in my shoulder bag escalating. 

But what came to the forefront of my mind were the words of our senior order member Sona who had given the talk that evening on the continual movement in our experience between chaos and order. Chaos being everything in life that is unexpected and often unwelcome. But this chaos is also a profound trigger and motivation for growth and expansion. Without it life would actually become meaningless ......

And so I sat at the traffic lights, held up by road-works and lolly-pop girls with water streaming down my face and smiled. 'This is chaos' I thought .... 'This is life just doing its thing .... so how am I going to interact with it? Will I resist it and rail against it or will I just let go into the chaos?'    ...... ahhh freedom ........

Meditation helps us find a really wonderful way to work with life's inevitable chaos

Hope you can join us:

Thursday   7 - 8 pm

Sunday     8- 9 am

Metta

Dharmalata and Padmadakini

PS: If you'd like to come and see Gina's and my play this week click on this link for ticket purchase

https://shortandsweet.org/festivals/shortsweet-theatre-sydney-2018

NB: We are week 7