Zen Peacemaker Circle meeting, Sunday 11th May 2008

Today's circle was held in Kaite's house for the first time, and she proved an excellent hostess, preparing a buffet lunch and cooked dinner, with wonderful home-made food and cake!

We started at 11am with a checking-in circle, then practiced 20 mins of silent meditation- this time in the manner of Tibetan Mahamudra style shi-ne, rather than formal Zazen, which fitted the beautiful blue sky and sunny morning well!

Kaite then took us on a tour of nearly places where gangs hang out and leave a lot of litter in the neighbourhood. We picked up the rubbish and cleaned the gardens up, it looked so much better at the end. She's been doing a lot of community gardening in Newton Heath, and we hope to help her with this regularly in future...

Trevor gave a talk about Dyslexia and ADD, and showed us a dvd of a technique for helping dyslexic children using bouncing balls like juggling, improving eye coordination, balance, hearing rhythms and self-confidence.

After lunch, we did a little Zazen, and then John gave a presentation on the Japanese Pure Land tradition, including leading us in some ritual and chanting the Nembutsu for Amitabha Buddha. He explained how in some schools you chant not to gain entry to Sukhavati, but in gratitude that for being accepted by Amitabha and guaranteed birth in his Pure Land. In that approach, you can do any other Buddhist practices too, because they are all simply gratitude- no amount of self-power can get you enlightened according to that tradition.

Laura and Tashi then joined us, and we began making papier-mache Zen bowls. Kaite told us about projects like this she's done before. We did about half the layers, the left them to dry. We need to arrange another day to finish them off.

Finally, we watched the film The Little Buddha together, eating Kaite's cake!