West London Buddhist Centre

Online Retreat: The Heart of Practice

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 Day 7

African Acacia Thorn Trees Reclassified | Tourism Tattler

 

 

Resources for Day 7:

 

‘What’s going on?’

Paramananda

 

Saturday 8am

Welcome to Day 7
Salute to the Three Jewels
Reading
45 min unled meditation with bells marking 5 stages.

 

 

 

Nothing is permanent.
The sun and the moon rise and then set,
The bright clear day is followed by the deep, dark, night.
From hour to hour, everything changes.
Kalu Rimpoche

 

Saturday 10.30am

Talk by Bodhilila
Amitabha Mantra
Just Sitting
led meditation
Just Sitting
Dana appeal
Green Tara mantra

 

 

 

Live Everything

I want to beg you
As much as I can
to be patient
toward all that is unresolved
in your heart
and try to love
The questions themselves
like locked rooms
and like books
that are written
In a very foreign tongue.

Do not seek the answers
which cannot be given you
because you would not be able
to live them.

And the point is
to live everything.
Live the questions now
perhaps you will then
gradually
without noticing it
live along
some distant day
into the answer.

Maria Rainer Rilke

 

 

Saturday 4pm

Meditation led by Paramananda
Thanks
Closing ritual led by Bodhilila
1.Verses That Protect the Truth in English (in call and response)
2. Verses That Protect the Truth in Pali sung by Bodhilila
3. Transference of Merit (in call and response)
4.Shakyamuni mantra led by Prajnanita

 

 

Ditty of First Desire
In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.

And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.

(Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the colour of love.)

In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.

And at the evening’s end
I wanted to be my voice.
A nightingale.

Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the colour of love.

Federico García Lorca

8. And then below add the text

Dhammapalam Gatha
Verses that Protect the Truth

verses in Pali

Sabbapapassa akaranam
Kusalassa upasampada
Sacittapariyodapanam
Etam Buddhanam sasanam.

Dhammam care sucaritam
Na nam duccaritam care.
Dhammacari sukham seti
Asmim loke paramhi ca.

Na tavata dhammadharo
Yavata bahu bhasati.
Yo ca appam pi sutvana
Dhammam kayena passati,
Sa ve dhammadharo hoti
Yo Dhammam nappamajati.

N’atthi me saranam annam
Buddho me saranam varam
Etena saccavajjena
Hotu me jayamangalam

N’atthi me saranam annam
Dhammo me saranam varam
Etena saccavajjena
Hotu me jayamangalam.

N’atthi me saranam annam
Sangho me saranam varam
Etena saccavajjena
Hotu me jayamangalam.

Namo Buddhaya
Namo Dhammaya
Namo Sanghaya

Sadhu sadhu sadhu

English translation

Not to do evil
To cultivate the good
To purify the mind
This is the Teaching of the Buddhas.

Lead a righteous life
Not one that is corrupt.
The righteous live happily
Both in this world and the next.

He is not versed in Dhamma who
Merely speaks much. He who
hears but a little (of the teaching) but
sees the Truth and observes it well
indeed he is truly called
‘one versed in Dhamma’.

No other refuge than the Wake
Refuge supreme is there for me.
Oh by the virtue of this truth
May grace abound and victory!

No other refuge than the Truth
Refuge supreme is there for me.
Oh by the virtue of this truth
May grace abound and victory!

No refuge but the Fellowship
Refuge supreme is there for me.
Oh by the virtue of this truth
May grace abound and victory!

Homage to the Buddha!
Homage to the Dhamma!
Homage to the Sangha!

 

TRANSFERENCE OF MERIT AND SELF-SURRENDER
May the merit gained
In my acting thus
Go to the alleviation of the suffering of all beings.

My personality throughout my existences,

My possessions,
And my merit in all three ways,
I give up without regard to myself

For the benefit of all beings.

Just as the earth and other elements

Are serviceable in many ways
To the infinite number of beings,

Inhabiting limitless space,

So may I become
That which maintains all beings

Situated throughout space,
So long as all have not attained

To peace.

 

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

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Meet new friends and greet old ones on this Sunday’s Sangha Day, 8th December, 10.30am-4.30pm. See our new chair Amalavajra welcomed too! See programme here.

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