Day of Reflection, Sat 7th November

We held a Day of Reflection on Saturday at Howard's, on the theme "Seeing Others with the Eyes of Love".

We began the day with a checking-in council circle, then we listened to a 40 minute guided meditation on cd of the Metta Bhavana, the same one we listened to last month. After that we did an exercise based on a painting of Green Tara that Sheila Hixon gave us from her house. We looked at the painting, and had 3 sessions where we wrote down:

1) What Buddha qualities the image and the symbols/colours etc. suggested to us.

2) What good qualities of Ourself we could see reflected in the painting and symbols.

3) We chose someone we know well, and reflected what qualities of them were reflected in the painting.

We had 4 periods of silent meditation, one between each reflection, and at the start and finish.

After a shared lunch (big feast again!), we did some singing together from the Arabic from a beautiful cd of chants I found last month- half of us chanted "Ya Hayy" (O Life!) slowly, while the others sang the words:

"I walk with beauty all around me, I walk with beauty all around me,
As I walk the beauty way, As I walk the beauty way...."

Once they got it, we stood up, linked arms, and circled around the room together Sufi-style while singing it- it was a good way to start after lunch!

We held another council circle to reflect on the Tara exercise, and then our guest singer arrived...

Cathie (www.purelove.co.uk) is a local singer-songwriter who Howard met at a Buddhist fundraising event, she has the most beautiful voice, somewhere between Joni Mitchell and Eva Cassidy. Her songs are all about love, some of them by Hafiz of Shiraz! She sang to us, holding us all enchanted, for 45 minutes.

We ended with a final council circle. Afterwards, some of us explored elements of Islamic prostration practice together, and then listened to classical music in the evening.

Blessings,

Zang

Day of Reflection Sun 13th Sept

We had a small, friendly Zen Peacemakers Day of Reflection on Sunday in Howard's House in Manchester. The theme for the day was "Listening as a Spiritual Practice", and we had various activities to explore this.

We began the day with a reading from the Sufi poet Rumi, then recited together the 'Zen Peacemaker Observances'- the 15 Bodhisattva Precepts plus the "5 Commitments" for creating a compassionate culture. After this we listenened to a guided CD meditation of the Mindfulness of Breathing, recorded by Vidymala Birch from the FWBO.

Having become relaxed and open, Howard then led an hour's exploration of classical music from his own life- beginning with several tracks from the 50s by the opera singer Kathleen Ferrier. Then a couple of tracks from Handel's Messiah. And ending with several pieces by a male voice choir from Kiev singing Orthodox Christian chants. Very powerful ending!

We began the afternoon with another poem by Rumi, and then watched a BBC nature video called "Earth Pilgrim"- a year's journey through the changing landscape of Dartmoor narrated and inspired by Satish Kumar, the ex-Jain monk who once made a peace walk from India to the USA.

We ended by listening to another CD by Vidyamala Birch- 'Kindly Awareness', a guided meditation based on the traditional Buddhist "Metta Bhavana" practice.

Throught the day we also had Council Circles, and experimented with our own chanting too- we used a beautiful tune for the Green Tara mantra used by a Nepalese nun Ani Choying; an Arabic chant "Ya Jamil" (O Divine Beauty!); and a chant from 60s Scottish folk-rock group 'The Incredible String Band':

"May the long time sun shine upon you, all love surround you. And the pure light within you guide your way home..."

'Postal Peacemaker Circle' starting this month

To help people interested in training in the Zen Peacemakers but who live far apart, we're starting a one-year experiment this month: a Postal Peacemaker Circle!

The idea is to revive the intimacy of hand-writing letters in this age of electronic communication, and to see if we can have the honestly and closeness of our group "Council Circles" at a distance.

6 of us, in Northern, Central and Southern England, Canada and Croatia are taking on a sacred practice of writing one letter with care and openness each month to one other person in the Circle. This will include themselves! So in a year we'll all have written to each other twice, and written to ourselves twice also...

A moment of happiness,
you and I,
sitting on the verandah,
apparently two,
but one in soul,
you and I.

We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I,
with the garden's beauty
and the birds singing.

The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.

You and I, unselfed,
will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation,
you and I.

The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together,
you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

(Rumi)

Precepts Weekend in Leicester, Jan 2010

Peacemaking in an Interconnected World

‘Buddhist Ethics for Healing Self and Society’

A Two-Day Workshop with Swiss Peace Activist and Zen Buddhist Preceptor, Barbara Salaam Wegmueller

'Eco House', Leicester - Sat 9th and Sun 10th January 2010, 11am-4pm

Buddhist philosophy teaches that everyone and everything is interconnected, that each action we make has infinite consequences that ripple out across the great network of life, brining happiness and suffering to ourselves and others. From the earliest days of the Buddha in India, up to today’s great teachers, Buddhism has taught ethical guidelines useful for everyone who wants to lead a life of less harm, who want to heal themselves and their environment. This weekend workshop will explore one version of Buddhist ethics- the ‘Sixteen Zen Precepts’ used by the Zen Peacemakers Tradition for socially engaged work around the world.

Barbara Wegmueller is a Preceptor (ethical teacher) in the Zen Peacemakers lineage of Roshi Bernie Glassman. For many years she has helped coordinate an annual multi-faith healing retreat in the grounds of the former prison camp in Auschwitz, she’s taken part in peace initiatives in the Middle East and Europe, and is currently helping to set up a residential house in Switzerland that will serve deprived communities using Zen principles. She’s also a mother of five, a grandmother, and a wife, and is a great example for how Buddhist ethics can be applied in regular family life.

New Website!

We now have a new website for UK Great Heart Community and Zen Peacemakers events:

www.greatheartsociety.org

Upcoming events will be posted there as well as here from now on, though this blog will still be the place where we record accounts of events that have happened...

We're going to start using the name "Great Heart Society" now for the overall actvities in the UK- then the Manchester events will be called 'Great Heart Zendo' and the weekly meetings 'Great Heart Circle' and so on.

Take care,

Zang
28/8/09

Listening as a Spiritual Practice- Manchester Training Day 13th Sept 2009

Dear Friends,

The Manchester Great Heart Zendo would like to invite you to a Zen Peacemakers Day of Reflection on Sunday 13th September 2009 at Howard Bamforth's house in Withington, South Manchester.

This will be an open training day, suitable for beginners and more experienced people alike, and anyone is welcome to attend.

Guests are welcome to start arriving from 9am onwards for coffee and a chat, and we aim to start the formal programme at 10am. The day will be held in friendly silence to help deepen our presence and non-verbal communication, except where talking is really necessary. There will be a shared lunch, and we aim to finish about 5pm.

The theme of the day will be Listening as a Spiritual Practice. We will learn and practice silent Zen meditation together; Howard will give a presentation on his own practice of listening to classical music and let us listen to some; Zang will give a presentation on listening to the Heart, drawing on both Buddhist and Sufi teaching; and we will explore listening to each other using the Council Circle process, similar to the Native Americans.

As usual the day will be offered for free, but donations are very welcome and much appreciated. We would suggest a donation of £10 for the day, but this is entirely up to you, and if you can't afford this then your company itself will be a donation to everyone.

If you'd like to come, let me know. You're welcome to invite other people too, as long as they all arrive ready to start at 10am and are able to stay the whole day.

Many blessings to everyone,

Chris Zang Starbuck
UK Zen Peacemakers
and Great Heart Zendo
www.ukzenpeacemakers.blogspot.com
www.zenpeacemakers.org

Leicester ZP Social Action Project to Begin!

The UK Zen Peacemakers are going to begin a socially enagaged project in Leicester.

We intend to invite people interersted in Zen training and in social action to come together as a circle and create together a project active with a socially-deprived commuunity in Leicester. The circle will plan the project together, first debating which community to work with- perhaps the elderly, children in poverty, asylum seekers etc, and then will put the plan into action, using the skills and efforts of all those willing and able. At the same time, the circle will train in Zen Peacemaker practices- Zazen, the 5 Buddha Energies, supportive liturgy, so that our work together will be grounded in a vision and embodiment of the Unity and Interconnectedness of all Life.

If you're interested in getting involved, making suggestions or simply knowing more about it, then contact Chris Zang Starbuck at willowtreeblues@gmail.com