Roots in the Sky – Friday
Online Retreat: Roots in the Sky
Friday 28 January
Recordings
8am
Salute to the 3 Jewels
Refuge verses from the Avatamsaka Sutra
Teachings from Padmasambhava
Unled meditation with bells to mark 5 stages
‘Disposing yourself to be physically calm, as in an empty house the raindrops slowly gather, relax – do not force your mind or body.’
from Padmasambhava’s Advice to the Three Fortunate Women
‘Take measure of your wondering thoughts, and steady as Mount Meru, enter into meditation.’
from Padmasambhava’s Advice and Admonition to the Revealers of Treasures
‘During the period of meditation, there is not anything: it is simply open.’
from Padmasambhava’s Advice to the Three Fortunate Women
‘As anything can happen, peace will arise from within.’
from Padmasambhava’s Advice to the Three Fortunate Women
10.30 am
Talk by Paramananda
Led meditation
Lying down with drumming
Meditation
‘Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack (a crack) in everything
That’s how the light gets in’
from Anthem by Leonard Cohen
4pm
Sevenfold Puja in call and response – Bodhilila and Paramananda
THE HEART SUTRA
The Bodhisattva of Compassion,
When he meditated deeply,
Saw the emptiness of all five skandhas
And sundered the bonds that caused him suffering.
Here then,
Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form.
Form is only emptiness,
Emptiness only form.
Feeling, thought, and choice,
Consciousness itself,
Are the same as this.
All things are by nature void
They are not born or destroyed
Nor are they stained or pure
Nor do they wax or wane
So, in emptiness, no form,
No feeling, thought, or choice,
Nor is there consciousness.
No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;
No colour, sound, smell, taste, touch,
Or what the mind takes hold of,
Nor even act of sensing.
No ignorance or end of it,
Nor all that comes of ignorance;
No withering, no death,
No end of them.
Nor is there pain, or cause of pain,
Or cease in pain, or noble path
To lead from pain;
Not even wisdom to attain!
Attainment too is emptiness.
So know that the Bodhisattva
Holding to nothing whatever,
But dwelling in Prajna wisdom,
Is freed of delusive hindrance,
Rid of the fear bred by it,
And reaches clearest Nirvana.
All Buddhas of past and present,
Buddhas of future time,
Using this Prajna wisdom,
Come to full and perfect vision.
Hear then the great dharani,
The radiant peerless mantra,
The Prajnaparamita
Whose words allay all pain;
Hear and believe its truth!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha
