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GLOBAL HEALING THE HEART SANGHA NEWSLETTER 137
Wednesday 14th December 2022
All times in this Newsletter are Rome time zone r
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Thursday 14:30-15:45 December 22nd NAIKAN PRACTICE Kimiko Nita: In this course, we actually experience “Naikan”, a Japanese method of looking into oneself. We will actually experience “Naikan” practice together. In each meeting, you first decide when and to whom you want to reflect yourself. For example, reflect yourself in relation with your mother during the age 10 to 12, and so on. Then reflect, blocking out external stimuli for about 15 minutes. After self-reflection, we get together and announce to each other what we had just reflected and noticed. The repetition of this practice will lead you to a new awareness. Date and Time: Every other Thursday 15:10~16:25 (Rome)
Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3r1gVFj -:- ID: 889 9207 0497 -:- Passcode : 999175 Sundays 10:30 GLOBAL TOPICAL FORUM - Liz Allmark We meet every Sunday morning to discuss current affairs and topical subjects in society, culture, psychology, and personal experience with reference to a Buddhist perspective. This past Sunday we missed as it was the Healing the Heart Gathering. In recent weeks we have discussed - the problems of street people and of those incarcerated in old institutions, - the different ways that spiritual traditions become organised, - the importance of dance around the world and in Buddhist culture, - the issue of justification for violent acts in relation to the Buddhist teachings - the significance of small acts and events in precipitating moments of awakening and numerous other matters. Topics are proposed by members attending.The presence of members all informed by Buddhism, yet from different countries and cultures makes for interesting sharing and discussion. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88974912642?pwd=N2VyQnc0MUM4WUU0YTFTdCt0QWVmQT09Meeting ID: 889 7491 2642 -:- Passcode: 537296 HEALING THE HEART GATHERING NOTES This sangha gathering took place over the four days 8-11 December. Twenty-six people from twelve countries joined in in the course of the four days and most individual sessions attracted around a dozen people. Each day there was a puja with meditation and presentations followed by discussion. Many topics were covered and several of the presentations were in dialogue form. If you would like to watch the presentations that you missed or see again the ones that caught your interest, follow the links below. David Brazier: Introductory Welcome & Talk on the theme of the Gathering https://www.dropbox.com/s/dxw7bgejlnl3ni2/GMT20221208-094837_Recording_640x360.mp4?dl=0Liz Allmark showed a film about community co-operation in the village of St. Just in Cornwall during the pandemic. During her presentation, Liz's area suffered a power failure, so she was cut off from Zoom, but this resulted in Priti giving us an account of similar difficulties and responses in India during the same period. This standing in for one another, i thought, provided a good example of mutual support and co-operation within the sangha. Liz's talk: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivzdbp1ncl14a1k/GMT20221208-141220_Recording_1686x728.mp4?dl=0Iris Dotan Katz & Yaya De Andrade led us in a lively discussion about sangha, it's light and it's shadow. https://www.dropbox.com/s/nvwl5gavlb8tzdk/GMT20221208-170525_Recording_1686x768.mp4?dl=0Iris also gave a very moving presentation on "Living the Contradiction" based upon her experience of living in the Middle East. https://www.dropbox.com/s/0verl5p78502ddy/GMT20221209-090606_Recording_640x360.mp4?dl=0Angela Romani taught us some Qi Gong with "Healing the Heart with Qi Gong: the Abode of the Shen" Recording may be available on request.Richard Laubly gave a presentation called "Letters from Emptiness" based on a teaching of Suzuki Roshi in which he shared experiences of his own of receiving healing messages. https://www.dropbox.com/s/884s3sqdi2wwqgx/GMT20221209-143731_Recording_640x360.mp4?dl=0Geeta & David had a dialogue on contemporary social issues https://www.dropbox.com/s/7hy2lqd6ciwyyg2/GMT20221209-161847_Recording_1920x1080.mp4?dl=0Carol English gave a workshop on poetry. We heard inspiring poems and wrote some of our own. Shoji Tsuchi, assisted by Kimiko Nita, gave a short presentation upon the Japanese concept of "amae" which led us into two hours of intense discussion. Part One: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivzdbp1ncl14a1k/GMT20221208-141220_Recording_1686x728.mp4?dl=0Part Two: https://www.dropbox.com/s/53gkde60pdne8mr/GMT20221210-091751_Recording_1920x1080.mp4?dl=0Priti Vaishnav gave a fine presentation called "Healing My heart" which led to much sharing of factors that had stimulated and sustained people's faith. Kimiko & Angela taught us "Neigong & Naikan" https://www.dropbox.com/s/lrtpd4ygvfe06aw/GMT20221211-105456_Recording_1920x1080.mp4?dl=0Ganendra Oscar Martinez introduced us to some "Sufi nembutsu" chanting accompanied by devotional movement https://www.dropbox.com/s/l3lrbe5vud8kil0/GMT20221210-160904_Recording_1760x832.mp4?dl=0Iris & David in dialogue on "Healing the Heart of the World" https://www.dropbox.com/s/psq2xhcvmme3e0a/GMT20221211-090516_Recording_640x360.mp4?dl=0
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"Zen Still Life" - Painting by Deborah Geday DAILY NEMBUTSU Geeta Chari: I offer Nembutsu every morning at 6:30 am Rome time. We begin to chant straightaway, without social talk, for 20 minutes, in chain-style. There is a bell rung at the end. People who wish to stay and talk afterwards are welcome to do so. Namo Amida Bu Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84702079106?pwd=bGxZbGF4c2hTU2xUbTdNWjZoRFNMUT09
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IT IS AS IT ISA beautiful book to treasure: stunning artwork and stylish poems covering major themes from personal love to world crisis. Sometimes provocative, always compassionate. You will be charmed, carried along, challenged, seduced, inspired. You will find surprises. War and pain, nature and imagination, loss and love, destruction and restoration. Poems from the heart, the spirit and the gut. Poems of heaven, poems of earth, poems of pilgrimage and mirth. Images of woman in all her guises. This book is for everybody who thinks, loves, and reflects; for those who puzzle over the spiritual, emotional and fundamental meanings of things. What is happening to our world and to us personally? What is the meaning of poetry and how is one to find inspiration in the world as it is. It is as it is and we each come alive in the encounter only if we can meet it as humble pilgrims, artistically and poetically. These words and images will take your life to a new level and make you yourself more poetic, more artistic, more alive. Read it, study it, give it as a gift, let it inspire you to creativity and love.
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POETRY UNA VERDAD
La vida nos enseña muchas cosas acerca del dolor. Es un conocimiento imprescindible, que requiere templanza, amor y tiempo. Mil veces renegué de los designios del sufrimiento y de los recónditos motivos de su ser y de su estar en la esencia del hombre. No entendía por qué me atenazaba en ocasiones, y muchas veces me desesperé intentando zafarme de sus manos terribles. Y así anduve sin rumbo, hasta intuir un día que en la noche convulsa del sollozo, contrapuesta a la plácida mañana de oro puro, busca y encuentra el mundo su equilibri precario. Hay luz y oscuridad, sombra en el centro mismo de una brasa, fulgor en la tiniebla. Agaché la cabeza. Y, cuando vino, acaté la zozobra que me correspondió; hasta el fondo del pecho asumí su amenaza. Y pude entonces constatar del todo que al final del dolor no existe ya dolor, que allí nos abre siempre la compasión sus brazos y la verdad más honda es la alegría. - Rosillo ==== CONTRITIONNot only have we killed, robbed, stolen and defamed, but we have induced others to do so and rejoiced to see it. The heart's shadow is long. This is the dark place that is the source of infinite light, unquenchable living water and ambrosia more exquisite than the divine. With this shadow I will enfold you, bandage the wounded, swaddle the newborn, blanket the weary. The doorway of contrition is an open arch in the wall of Eden, invisible to all who are blinded by their own light. Only when we bow our head, hide our little lamp, does the angel put down his flaming sword, doff wrathful aspect and appear as our meek and humble guide before an eastern gate that's always open.
- Brazier (above & opposite)
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GENTILI PAROLE DI SAGGEZZA 108 INSEGNAMENTI BUDDHISTIAngela Romani: Sono lieta di annunciare l’uscita del libro di David Brazier “Gentili Parole di Saggezza - 108 Insegnamenti Buddisti” - Edizioni Mille - Torino Il libro contiene 108 perle, come un rosario buddista, insegnamenti che, a partire dalla pandemia, un evento doloroso che tutto il mondo ha conosciuto, ha mostrato l’importanza, se non la necessità, di rivolgere la nostra mente e il nostro cuore alla spiritualità, al vero rifugio. Ogni buddista prende rifugio nel Buddha , nel Dharma e nel Sangha, tre gioielli incastonati nel cuore, che ci permettono di attraversare le avversità con saggezza e compassione. ============ OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MEDITATIONThis is the most comprehensive volume to date on the science and history of meditation. Written in an accessible language by world-leading experts, it describes the various meditation practices employed to modify the self, such as concentration, recitation, breathing, and visualisation, and its effects on the mind and body. It includes debates and controversies on its varied results and aims – including liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, union with the divine, salvation of the soul, wellbeing, and the achievement of supernatural powers. The volume starts out by summarising the current understanding of meditation and half a century of scientific findings (Part I). It then describes the development of meditation practices across Eastern and Western religious traditions, and the varieties of techniques, experiences, and aims (Parts II-III). Part IV of the volume consists of state-of-the-art accounts from various disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and anthropology. The therapeutic and social implications of meditation are then reviewed (Part V), and the concluding section (Part VI) discusses meditation’s potential for challenging and adverse effects. This book is the ideal guide for all interested in meditation, including teachers, clinicians, therapists, and researchers.
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Una Verdad : A Truth (translation) Life teaches us many things about pain. It is an essential knowledge that requires love, time and temperance. A thousand times I rejected the designs of suffering and the recondite motives of it's being, and being there, in the essence of man. I did not understand why they took hold of me on occasion, and often I despaired trying to break loose from their terrible hands. And thus aimlessly I went on, until one day intuiting that in nights convulsed with sobbing balanced against calm mornings of pure gold the world seeks and finds its precarious balance. There is light and dark, shadow in the midst of glowing coals, brilliance in darkness. I bowed my head. And, when it came, I accepted the anxiety that was mine; I took its menace into the depths of my breast. And I was then able finally to prove that there is no pain at the end of pain, that there, to us, always, compasssion opens its arms and the deepest truth is joy.
==== DARKNESSI am a friend of the dark. No,
the dark befriended me,
the dark, so dark, dark as to glow
on the inside of mystery.
The dark is a child’s dream,
nightmare or blissful peace,
soft as satin or cream,
free as wild geese.
Dark, oh dark, I love you,
your yielding tenderness,
to you I can be true,
to you I can confess.
To you I shall return
when all the madness ends
like the touch of mountain fern,
acceptance of true friends.
Dark, you hold my secret,
never betray nor cheat,
with you I never fret:
I sit on the lotus seat.
The lotus grows within you
out of the deep dark mud
ever fertile, ever new,
purer than the blood.
Yes the dark and I are wed
and darker still we breed.
Beyond the living and the dead
we tend the final seed.
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CHOMEI AT TOYAMAYears ago I lived in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of England and I worked as a social worker at Hexham General Hospital. This was the home territory of an English poet named Basil Bunting (1900-1985). In fact, Bunting died in Hexham hospital a few years after my time there. A Dharma friend of mine, Richard Laubly, known to some of you, recently drew my attention back to Bunting and his poetry. He is regarded as one of the best "modernist" British poets. My own poetry is not modernist - more neo-classical - but I do admire Bunting's work, especially the long poem "Chomei at Toyama" based on the life of Kamo-no-Chomei, who was born at Kamo in 1154, and died at Toyama on Mount Hino, 24th June 1216. This poem captures much of the spirit of Buddhism of the Heart. Bunting wrote about Kamo-no-Chomei that he "belonged to the minor nobility of Japan and held various offices in the civil service. He applied for a fat job in a Shinto temple, was turned down, and next day announced his conversion to Buddhism […] He retired from public life to a kind of mixture of hermitage and country cottage at Toyama on Mount Hino and there, when he was getting old, he wrote the Ho-Jo-Ki in prose, of which my poem is in the main a condensation". Bunting had encountered the Japanese work via an Italian translation by Marcello Muccioli (1898-1976), a pioneer of Japanese studies in Italy.
Do read the poem when you have time. there is an abridged version, which conveys the flavour, at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/20166/chomei-at-toyama You can hear Bunting himself read it on an imperfect redording at https://duende.bandcamp.com/track/bunting-reads-chomei-at-toyama============================================================ DHARMA TO HEAL THE HEART
Sometimes the sky is blue, sometimes there is cloud. Yet, behind the cloud, the sun still shines and behind the sun there is the vast openness of heaven. Sometimes the mind is clear, sometimes there is confusion, but the essence of mind remains pure and vast. Sometimes one is quiet within, sometimes there are many voices clamouring, but the original silence remains the Dharmadhatu - the genuine foundation. Returning to inner silence, trusting the inner silence, listening to it, is a great balm for all our ills, and those who do so naturally convey this gift to others, bringing the peace and reconciliation so much needed in our world. We may say that the silence is bright or that it is dark. Darkness, stillness, peace and acceptance are yin qualities. The heart needs such calm. The dark is fertile. From it arises all that lives, loves and is creative. The yang arises from and returns to the yin. THE MOON OVER THE RUINED CASTLE Rodrigo Rodriguez: "Kojo no Tsuki" - Shakuhjachi flute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNL8WmSIHrAOUTSTANDING QUESTIONS ON AMAE The discussion in the Healing the heart Gathering upon the concept of "amae" led to many questions: - what is the relationship between empathy and discipline in child rearing? - are occasional failures of empathy growth promoting? - if amae is an expectation of acceptance, when is this an imposition upon others? - is "character" a greater amae that enables one to cope with or transform dukkha? - a seemingly superficial behaviour may signal a deep desire. When that deep desire is perceived, there is amae. But how is that perception or acceptance to be communicated? In the best instance, one oblique communication is met by another that is perfectly adjusted to the needs of the situation, but this is a fine art. - amae is substantially about communication without words - hinting - which has, in recent decades been largely driven out of Western, especially Anglo-Saxon, culture. Has something vital been lost, thereby? - amae is also closely related to respect for nature. Nature has no words and does not negotiate. Does the fact that our culture becomes more and more verbal and contractual contribute to our desecration of nature? - is Japanese society less interested in promoting self-sufficiency in the individual? - if amae is so widespread in Japan, why do Japanese children not become whingers? - what is the relationship between amae and naikan? - how does amae explain dukkha? And many more. These are things we shall go on reflecting upon. ELEUSIS NEWS David: I am now in Turin (Torino) staying with sangha member Angela Romani who has recently arranged the publication of Gentili Parole di Saggezza, the book of my first 108 podcasts. I shall be giving a presentation about the book at a bookshop here tomorrow. Angela has done a great job on the book. It is very nice to be back in Italy. The city is in festive mood, though slightly dampened by the restrictions upon electricity usage. We have many interesting discussions over breakfast, and forays into town for shopping and Angela's medical appointments, and, of course, fine Italian food - this morning we indulged in panettoni for breakfast ! The weather is pretty chilly with temperatures hovering around 2 degrees in the day time, lower at night. Nembutsu and snowflakes, sweet meetings and good conversation.
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DIARY All times are Rome time zone Every day 06:30-06:50 Nembutsu Chanting- Geeta Chari https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84702079106?pwd=bGxZbGF4c2hTU2xUbTdNWjZoRFNMUT09Thursday 14:30-15:45, Dec 22 Naikan PracticeKimiko Nita
Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3r1gVFj -:- ID: 889 9207 0497 -:- Passcode : 999175 Thursday 14:30, 1st December & every two weeks IBAP Group / BP Diploma Tutors Meeting *Thursday 19:00-20:30, 15th December & every two weeks ITZI Supervision Group **- Iris Dotan KatzFor presentation, review and discussion of counselling/psychotherapy casework from a Buddhist psychology perspective. Thursdays 16:30 will resume in January. Readings from the Commentary on Summary of Faith & Practicehttps://bit.ly/3T9tX0x Meeting ID: 871 8967 0352 -:- Passcode: 732590 Saturdays 14:00 Refuge Group PujaPuja, Dharma Talk, Sharing, Discussion, https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83365263186?pwd=cURmOW5FNGJvdTd2SG1qVWtPSDJrZz09Meeting ID: 833 6526 3186 -:- Passcode: 353386 Saturday 7th January 14:00-20:00 Upavastha: Full Moon Practice RenewalProgramme of puja, readings, meditation, & chanting until evening Guest speaker: Richard Laubly https://bit.ly/3OhYJ3r -:- Meeting ID: 833 6526 3186 -:- Passcode: 353386 Sabado 16:30 Encuentro de la Sangha en español y servicio. Guiado por Ganendra. Por zoom. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81138990223?pwd=dmNZU3VmRTRhUjBobVdnMjhuV3NYUT09Para asistir, escribir por whatsapp a +34 620265962. Sundays 10:30 Global Topical Forum- Liz Allmark https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88974912642?pwd=N2VyQnc0MUM4WUU0YTFTdCt0QWVmQT09Meeting ID: 889 7491 2642 -:- Passcode: 537296 Sundays 20:00 GS Friendship GroupAn informal meeting for all https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87394084532?pwd=eEY3eUhHcjN0b0xLanZXcTNqVmVzdz09Meeting ID: 873 9408 4532 -:- Passcode: 519784 * Codes separately notified ** Details from Jisshas < jisshas@googlegroups.com>
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