Peacemaker Circles UK

We held a day in Manchester to honour Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi for the fourth year running, in Howard Bamforth's house in Withington. The day began with welcome and introductions, and then a period of singing Arabic chant, accompanied by Persian drumming by Howard's friend Arian from Tehran. We had half an hour of silence, with people reading aloud from books of Rumi laid around the central table, and then more singing, this time a song taught to us by Rabbi Ohad from Israel on the Zen Peacemakers Auschwitz retreat. We then studied a chapter from a new book by the Dalai Lama,' Towards the True Kinship of Faiths', considering his own journey in inter-religious encounters, and why he thinks they are vital for the survival of humanity. After a shared lunch, we spent the afternoon reading and reflecting on three passages from Shams of Tabriz, Rumi's own teacher, using the recent translation by Camille Helminski and Refik Algan called "Rumi's Sun". We ended...

I went to see Tron: Legacy on Saturday night in Leeds. I love sci-fi movies anyway, but I went particularly because the founder of the Zen Peacemakers, Bernie Glassman, was involved as a consultant for 'mythic' material in the planning stage. He's a friend and informal Zen teacher for some time to Jeff Bridges, which provided the link. Going to the cinema this month has now a double Bernie Glassman element: the film involved him, and the Ben and Jerry's icecream in the foyer includes chocolate fudge brownies from the Greyston Bakery outside New York, founded by Bernie to employ homeless and other local excluded people... I won't give a summary of the movie, plenty of other online reviews do that already. I found the film a good watch, great special effects (and I only saw the 2D version, so 3D must be amazing), and the leading actress was so beautiful I couldn't help falling for her (which was the aim, I think!) The script is a little less satisfying, with...

"When our holding on loses its grip and we stop pretending to know and we rest in the innocence of Now and allow life to flow. When we realise we are part of a love so divine What need is there of I, me, or mine?" (poem by Kim Birch, North of England Circle) Our annual celebration of Rumi, mystic poet of love, took place in Leeds this weekend. It began with a short ceremony late on Friday night, the evening which is traditionally celebrated in Turkey as his "wedding night with the Beloved", or in other words the night he passed away in 1273 by the western calendar. Then on Saturday we held a Day of Reflection in Rumi's honour, in Steve Suleyman Hart's house. It began with a period of silence intermingled with reading different translations of Rumi's poetry. Then we read and discussed a chapter from the new book "Towards a True Kinship of Faiths" by the Dalai Lama, on the importance of understandi...

We held our monthly Great Heart meditation circle this evening, training in mindfulness, love and Silent Sitting zazen. For our discussion theme we read a chapter on deep ecology from the book "Thinking Like A Mountain: towards a council of all beings" by John Seed, Joanna Macy and friends. The essay looked at human beings as part of nature, rather than as the pinnacle of creation at the top of nature. Instead, "I am that part of the rainforest recently emerged into thinking" and "We are the rocks dancing"... The Unitarian Chapel where we hold our circle was this evening covered in snow, and we took the opportunity to do some quiet walking meditation outside under the big trees in the old graveyard garden. It's such a wonderful place of peace in the midst of Leicester city centre.