Manchester Zen Peacemaker Circle, 17th April 2010


On Saturday from 11am-6.30pm we held the Manchester Zen Peacemaker Circle meeting in Howard's house. Tom, Kim, Howard, Suleyman and Zang were present. We began as usual with a little silence and a checking-in circle, and then we had a 90 min workshop on Chi Gong and Pranayama led by Kim. Because it was such a beautiful sunny day we held this in a nearby park, and we were joined by Simon Gupta who often came to our meetings last year. Kim led us through a series of relaxing and invigorating movements, and then taught simple breathing exercises.

We came back to Howard's for a shared lunch, and then began the afternoon studying Chapter 2 of 'A Deeper Beauty' by Paramananda. The chapter was about the value of our bodies, how we don't appreciate them enough or their value in spiritual practice, talking especially about our hands as an example. Tom led us in the guided meditation from the end of the chapter, reflecting on how much we do with our hands each day. We also read together the chapter "Mysteries of the Body" from the book 'Living Presence' by Mevlevi Sufi teacher Kabir Helminski.

After that we ended up in a frank and at times heated discussion on the underlying purpose of meeting together as a circle- to what degree we see it as a form of training in the Zen Peacemakers, what role (if any) formal meditation practice should have, what roles of responsibility there are etc- in particular Zang and Kim found themselves deep in disagreement over this.

After going around in circle lots of times, we took a break, and then afterwards held a council circle, bringing the day to a more peaceful close.

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