Online Retreat: There is a Field
Day 3
Resources for Day 3:
‘What is needed is a simple change of heart; an opening of the heart toward ourselves, one another and the world’
Paramananda
‘Vedana becomes crucial. In that bardo we can start to go beyond the “ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing’
Bodhilila
Tuesday 8am
Welcome to Day 3, led intro to meditation
Rumi Poem
45 min unled meditation with bells marking 5 stages.
Out beyond ideas
of wrong doing and right doing
there is a field
I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down
in that grass
the world is too full
to speak of.
Ideas, language even the notion
one another
makes no sense.
Rumi
Tuesday 10.30am
Approx timings
Welcome and overview of the session
Talk by Bodhilila
led lying down, body-based meditation (32 mins 30)
Just sitting (1 hr 3 mins)
Intro to the morning ritual and some thoughts on mantra chanting (1 hr 13 mins)
Ritual dedicated to Green Tara with verses by Vessantara in call and response (Bodhilila and Paramananda)
Green Tara mantra led by Bodhilila (1 hr 25 mins)
Going for Refuge
Confession of Faults
Mantra led by Prajnanita (1hr 17 mins)
GOING FOR REFUGE
Mysterious Queen,
In the deep midnight of despair,
When there is no safety,
No clarity,
No certainty,
You appear.
With your gift-bestowing hand
You hold the double vajra
In which all opposites unite.
May I accept the wisdom that you offer,
See beyond the prison of duality,
And emulate your still activity.
Where samsara and nirvana
Fuse and disappear
There I go for refuge.
Where birth and death
Fuse and disappear
There I go for refuge.
Where wisdom and compassion
Fuse and appear everywhere
There I go for refuge.
CONFESSION OF FAULTS
Fearless lady, powerful queen,
You who save beings
From the Eight Great Terrors,
Please rescue me
From the thousand and eight
Fears and anxieties
That possess my mind.
Before you I confess
To all the commonplace worries and anxieties
That fill my day,
So that I rarely take
An easy breath:
The fear that stops me trying,
The fear that creates a façade,
The fear of being with others,
The fear of being alone,
The fear that makes me harsh, tight, and unkind,
The fear of not getting what I want
That makes me grabbing and self-concerned.
Before you I confess
The deep fears:
Fear of madness,
Fear of death,
Fear of life,
Fear of anything
Beyond the tortoise shell
Of my own ego.
Before you I confess
Most of all
The fears that hold me back
From giving myself to the Dharma:
Fear of commitment to the Path,
Fear of change,
Fear of renunciation,
Fear of generosity,
Fear of courage,
Fear of going deeper,
Fear of freedom,
Fear of wisdom,
Fear of devoting myself to all beings.
These fears did not arise by themselves,
They stem from a million choices and acts
In many lives –
Choosing unawareness,
Choosing lack of courage,
Choosing to bury my head in samsara.
Please forgive me,
And help me
To lay these fears at your feet.
May you pacify them all.
O loving Tara,
Please take my shaking hand in yours,
And gently form it
Into the mudra of fearlessness.
from Midnight Star: A Puja to Green Tara by Vessantara
Tuesday 4pm (pt.1)
Meditation led by Paramananda.
Tuesday 4pm (pt.2)
Q & A session with Paramananda and Bodhilila.
‘Come my friend, be not afraid,
in love we are born
and in love we pass away’
Leonard Cohen
