West London Buddhist Centre

With Bliss Bestowing Hands – Saturday

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Online Retreat:

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 areAnd 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 lessThan 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 dramaas if you were alone. As if lifewere a progressive and cunning crimewith no witness to the tiny hiddentransgressions. To feel abandoned is to denythe intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,even you, at times, have felt the grand array;the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowdingout your solo voice. You must notethe 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 thingsto come, the doors have always been thereto frighten you and invite you,and the tiny speaker in the phoneis your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into theconversation. The kettle is singingeven as it pours you a drink, the cooking potshave left their arrogant aloofness andseen the good in you at last. All the birdsand creatures of the world are unutterablythemselves. Everything is waiting for you.

David Whyte

 

Exceptional! Thangka of Shakyamuni Buddha (Silk brocade 70x110cm, Paint.  50cmx38cm) MONASTERY QUALITY - Art of Tibet

 

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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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