Online Retreat: To Boldly Go
Online Retreat: To Boldly Go
Sunday 13 June
Recordings
Sunday 8am
Talk by Bodhilila on working with anxiety, fear and dread (drawing on the Bhayaberava Sutta and the origin story for the Karaniya Metta Sutta).
Reading: Karaniya Metta Sutta
Thoughts on the Metta Bhavana meditation practice
Unled Metta Bhavana meditation (with bells for 5 stages).
Maitri mantra
Karaniya Metta Sutta
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
trans Amaravati sangha
Sunday 10.30am
Talk by Bodhilila on working with anxiety, fear and dread (drawing on the Bhayaberava Sutta and the origin story for the Karaniya Metta Sutta).
Reading: Karaniya Metta Sutta
Thoughts on the Metta Bhavana meditation practice
Unled Metta Bhavana meditation (with bells for 5 stages).
Maitri mantra
Karaniya Metta Sutta
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
trans Amaravati sangha
Sunday 4pm
Maitri mantra
Ending ritual:
Amoghasiddhi invocation and mantra, Shakbar reading, Transference of Merits
Dana appeal and what next
Ending the retreat and goodbyes
Final poem by Mary Oliver – When I am Among the Trees
‘Without a center, without an edge,
The luminous expanse of awareness
That encompasses all –
This vivid, bright vastness:
Natural, primordial presence.
Without an inside, without an outside,
Awareness arisen of itself, as wide as the sky,
Beyond size, beyond direction, beyond limits –
This utter, complete openness:
Space, inseparable from awareness.
Within that birthless, wide open expanse of space,
Phenomena appear – like rainbows, wholly transparent.
Pure and impure realms,
Buddhas and sentient beings are seen,
brilliant and distinct.
As far as the sky pervades, so does awareness.
As far as awareness extends, so does absolute space.
Sky, awareness, absolute space,
Indistinguishably intermixed: immense, infinitely vast –
The ground of samsara, the ground of nirvana.
To remain day and night in this state –
To enter this state easily – this is joy.
EMAHO!
(Shakbar, from ‘Journey to Enlightenment: the life and world of Khyentse Rimpoche’)
When I Am Among the Trees
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
Mary Oliver
