North of England Zen Peacemaker Circle, Sat 14th Aug
For the first time in over 3 years, the Manchester Zen Peacemaker Circle went roving, being held in the welcoming house of Steve Suleyman Hart in Leeds. This marks a new stage in the Circle, hopefully able to invite a wider range of people to events in both Leeds and Manchester. Perhaps it is now the "North of England Zen Peacemaker Circle"!
We met from 10am till 5pm, beginning as usual with a checking-in circle to see how we all were. Then Steve led a guided mindfulness meditation practice, leading us to recognise and accept all the physical and emotional sensations in our bodies, then generating love towards ourselves and others.
Next, Kim gave a talk on "not-knowing". He began by talking about some images which came to him the night before after a talk he gave on Pureland Buddhist practice, based on his experience of the Amida Trust community from Leicestershire. He spoke of our individual lives and efforts as being like rock pools, and the grace of the universe as the waves of a great tide. It's not easy for the rock pool by itself to become the ocean- but still it is water, and when the big wave comes it can let go into it and merge with the whole. Kim went on then to talk about his own reading of "Zen Mind Beginner's Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki.
We had a light lunch next, with Jewish klezmer music playing on CD in the background ("In the Fiddler's House" by Izhak Perlman). After lunch we read together a chapter from Lex Hixon's book "Coming Home: The Experience of Enlightenment in the Sacred Traditions". We read the chapter on Jewish Hassidic mystics, called "The Landscape That Laughs", which was a lecture Lex gave based on a book by Eli Wiesel, the Nobel proze winner and Holocaust Survivor. It talked about how the fire of the mystics' ecstasy was expressed in the details of ordinary life- no escape to some distant nirvana, but vibrant living here and now made possible through ecstatic faith in the immanence of some kind of divine reality... the possibility that at any moment the Messiah is expected, and the World will then at any moment be made anew!
Next Steve invited us to go for a walk, since the sun had come out. We walked down a disused nearby railway track, now a footpath, to a carved stone of the British pagan Green Man. Nobody knows who did the carving, whether it's recent or medieval, but it is a very detailed and skillful piece of craft. We meditated there in silence for a while, then returned to the house.
Steve gave a talk on not-knowing also, based on his personal practice over the past month. He talked about bringing curiosity into our experience of life and meditation, examining and not being bound by the myriad things we think we "know" all the time. He led a guided meditation simply looking all together at a house plant in his room- we sat silently facing the plant, then every so often one of us would speak aloud a question untangling our assumptions a bit... "Is it alive? How do we know?"... "Is it one thing, or many?" ... "Is it growing?" ... "What would it say if it could speak?" ... " what colour is it?" ... "What's my mind doing while I'm looking at it?"...
We ended then with a full Council Circle practice, to reflect together on all the themes and experiences of the day.
The next Circle will also be in Leeds, date to be arranged.
We met from 10am till 5pm, beginning as usual with a checking-in circle to see how we all were. Then Steve led a guided mindfulness meditation practice, leading us to recognise and accept all the physical and emotional sensations in our bodies, then generating love towards ourselves and others.
Next, Kim gave a talk on "not-knowing". He began by talking about some images which came to him the night before after a talk he gave on Pureland Buddhist practice, based on his experience of the Amida Trust community from Leicestershire. He spoke of our individual lives and efforts as being like rock pools, and the grace of the universe as the waves of a great tide. It's not easy for the rock pool by itself to become the ocean- but still it is water, and when the big wave comes it can let go into it and merge with the whole. Kim went on then to talk about his own reading of "Zen Mind Beginner's Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki.
We had a light lunch next, with Jewish klezmer music playing on CD in the background ("In the Fiddler's House" by Izhak Perlman). After lunch we read together a chapter from Lex Hixon's book "Coming Home: The Experience of Enlightenment in the Sacred Traditions". We read the chapter on Jewish Hassidic mystics, called "The Landscape That Laughs", which was a lecture Lex gave based on a book by Eli Wiesel, the Nobel proze winner and Holocaust Survivor. It talked about how the fire of the mystics' ecstasy was expressed in the details of ordinary life- no escape to some distant nirvana, but vibrant living here and now made possible through ecstatic faith in the immanence of some kind of divine reality... the possibility that at any moment the Messiah is expected, and the World will then at any moment be made anew!
Next Steve invited us to go for a walk, since the sun had come out. We walked down a disused nearby railway track, now a footpath, to a carved stone of the British pagan Green Man. Nobody knows who did the carving, whether it's recent or medieval, but it is a very detailed and skillful piece of craft. We meditated there in silence for a while, then returned to the house.
Steve gave a talk on not-knowing also, based on his personal practice over the past month. He talked about bringing curiosity into our experience of life and meditation, examining and not being bound by the myriad things we think we "know" all the time. He led a guided meditation simply looking all together at a house plant in his room- we sat silently facing the plant, then every so often one of us would speak aloud a question untangling our assumptions a bit... "Is it alive? How do we know?"... "Is it one thing, or many?" ... "Is it growing?" ... "What would it say if it could speak?" ... " what colour is it?" ... "What's my mind doing while I'm looking at it?"...
We ended then with a full Council Circle practice, to reflect together on all the themes and experiences of the day.
The next Circle will also be in Leeds, date to be arranged.
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