West London Buddhist Centre

Online Retreat:

With Bliss Bestowing Hands

Saturday 02 October

’To see (or feel) things as they really are, we first have to see and experience ourselves as we really are.’

Bodhilila

Recordings

Saturday 8am

Salute to the 3 Jewels

Refuges from the Avatamsaka Sutra

Poem 

Unled 45 min meditation with bells to mark 5 stages

Beyond living and dreaming

There is something more important;

Waking up.

Antonio Machado trans Robert Bly

Saturday 10.30am

Musings by Bodhilila

Just Sitting (5 mins)

Standing body scan led by Bodhilila

Walking meditation

Lying down with sounds of the singing bowl

Poem

Just Sitting (10 mins)

Poem

Forget about enlightenment.

      Sit down wherever you are
And listen to the wind singing in your veins.
Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.
Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be,
Not the saint you are striving to become,
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.
All of you is holy.
You are already more and less
Than whatever you can know.
Breathe out,
Touch in,
Let go.

                     John Welwood

     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.

Kali Rinpoche

Saturday 4pm

Appreciations and thank yous

Poem 

Threefold Puja

Shakyamuni mantra

Transference of Merits and Self-Surrender verses

Dana Appeal

What next?

Coming off retreat

Everything is Waiting For You

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

David Whyte

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