2016 Holiday Schedule

Greetings all! Please note that we will not be meeting on the following Sundays:

• 18th December 2016
• 25th December 2016

We will be back to our normal schedule starting again on Sunday 1st January 2017.

Hope you all have a great holiday, looking forward to seeing you in the New Year!

Chris.

The Most Important Thing You Can Do This Week...

Show Love

In the next day or so this long, protracted and acrimonious US Election will draw to a close. None of us know exactly what the outcome will be - or how the country will react once a result is know. I am, however, ready to make a prediction. The prediction is simply that even once it is over, we won't see a lot of love being shared out there.

So while I hope you will vote if you are eligible, I also hope that you will strive to show love to those around you, and to those who you disagree with. Whether you have 'a side' or deep convictions, or even if you are jaded and tired of all of the pols, find a way to allow your passion - or disenchantment - be suffused with love.

In my 'day job' I work in the research Industry, and so I have a lot of exposure to the state of our culture, and one thing that all of the research shows is that we are becoming more divided, more distrustful and more antagonistic towards each other. Of course you don't need researchers like me to tell you that, you just have to turn on your TV or radio.

So it is more important than ever that we choose not to simply follow along and let ourselves get swept up by the acrimony. Yes, this is an important election, and people on both sides are highly passionate about their beliefs and positions. I am not saying that we shouldn't work hard for justice and peace - we definitely should - but that as we do so we don't let go of a true core of metta - loving-kindness.

The ancient practice of metta bhavana (cultivation of loving-kindness) is the ideal way to prepare ourselves for weeks such as these, where our grounding in love can be shaking. You can find a fully guided 30 minute metta bhavana meditation, together with a short introduction to the practice, below.

I would like to invite all of you to in your own way share a little love this week - whether it is to your peers or those you disagree totally with. Beware the dialog of hatred, and instead try to apply the lessons of loving-kindness.

It's not easy. But nothing this radical is. This is how the world is changed. Let's all try and change it just a little.

      Wishing you a loving and peaceful week, Chris

The following fully guided meditation allows us to cultivate metta - even in times of strife and conflict



If the embedded audio player above doesn't work for you, please click here.

In Tragedy, Choose a Soft Belly Over Hatred

How Do We Choose Love Over Hatred?

It's hard to work through your feelings in the aftermath of a tragedy like the one that happened in Orlando over the weekend. It's normal to run through the range of sadness, hopelessness, anger, confusion and heartbreak. Yet if you turn on the TV or read a newspaper or blog it won't be long before you find hatred. And it is easy to kid ourselves sometimes that the hatred is justified, that when events are so overwhelming turning to hate is the reasonable thing to do. And so the narrative we witness in the media quickly turns from short-lived compassion to anger, hatred and ignorance.

We can choose to follow down the same path or we can choose to turn to love. The four "Brahma Viharas" are Love, Joy, Compassion and Equanimity. We are taught that these are the "heavenly abodes" - the places where we should learn to dwell. When we experience tragedy we can choose to move to a place of love and compassion. It's not easy, and if you are like me the path won't be a straight one. Confusion and helplessness may dominate at first, and it is these that can turn to anger and hatred.

I find that when feeling confused and helpless "Soft Belly" meditation can help calm our emotions, center us and return us to a place where we can choose love and compassion over anger. In this form of meditation we simply sit quietly and visualize breathing deep into our belly, allowing it to soften and helping us to reach a place of quiet and groundedness.

So instead of allowing ourselves to get transfixed on the narrative of hatred and anger so prevalent in the media we can instead soften our bellies and find a place to nurture love and compassion.

Having love and compassion does not mean that we become passive and heartless. Having found your ground in love you may go on to work on the root causes of the tragedy, to help heal those in pain and sorrow. But you will do so from love and compassion, not hatred. As the Buddha says:

Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.

                Chris.

The following fully guided meditation allows us to practice calming and centering ourselves through visualizing breathing from a soft belly.



If the embedded audio player above doesn't work for you, please click here.

photo credit: Vigil. via photopin (license)
Dhammapada quote translated from the Pali by Acharya Buddharakkhita. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition).

No Meeting Memorial Day Weekend

Hi all, just a note to say that we will not be meeting on Sunday 29th May (Memorial Day weekend). I will be attending a conference, and I know many of you will have other plans for the long weekend.

All other Sundays we are meeting as normal.

   Metta, Chris.

How to Love Politicians

Last week, as I was putting together the last ‘Metta Letter’, I searched out a few different translations of the Dhammapada. One version that I particularly liked was by Ajahn Thanissaro. It starts:

Phenomena are   preceded by the heart,
ruled by the heart,
made of the heart.
If you speak or act
with a corrupted heart,
then suffering follows you —
as the wheel of the cart,
the track of the ox
that pulls it. 

Phenomena are  preceded by the heart,
ruled by the heart,
made of the heart.
If you speak or act
with a calm, bright heart,
then happiness follows you,
like a shadow
that never leaves.

I felt that this was exceptionally beautiful, and I liked the way the Ajahn chose to use ‘heart’ instead of the more common ‘mind’. In many ancient cultures the heart and mind are interchangeable, as the lump of flesh we call the heart was thought to be the seat of our consciousness.

Reading further, we have the following:

'He insulted me,
hit me,
beat me,
robbed me'
 — for those who brood on this,
hostility isn't stilled. 

'He insulted me,
hit me,
beat me,
robbed me' —
for those who don't brood on this,
hostility is stilled. 

Hostilities aren't stilled
through hostility,
regardless.
Hostilities are stilled
through non-hostility:
this, an unending truth. 

Unlike those who don't realize
that we're here on the verge
of perishing,
those who do:
their quarrels are stilled.

Reading this my mind (or heart) went to thinking about the current political dialog. There is so much ‘he said, she said’ going on at the moment. Yes, there are significantly differing views on very important issues, and some of these are being aired. However, much of what we hear and read is exactly the hostility this passage talks about.

Note that the Buddha doesn’t say “You’re wrong - he didn’t insult, hit or beat you.” Instead we are encouraged to not dwell (or brood) on our perceived hurt. It isn’t denying the reality of what happened, it is just saying that our choice is whether to brood on that, thus generating hostility.

In the same way, we may have real issues with some of what is being said by the politicians at the moment. We can - and should - continue to work for justice and the protection of the weak and disenfranchised in our society. But we can choose whether or not to turn that into hostility against those we dislike or disagree with.

When we practice Metta (Loving-kindness) meditations we practice loving all beings - people, creatures and politicians. It is up to us whether we choose to get drawn in to the ad-hominem hostility that is the normal dialog of our time.

Maybe if we chose instead to dwell on love that we would truly change our society.

Metta, Chris.



The following fully guided meditation allows us to practice cultivating love for all beings - including politicians.



If the embedded audio player above doesn't work for you, please click here.

You can read the whole of Ajahn Thanissaro’s wonderful translation here.

"Yamakavagga: Pairs" (Dhp I), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.01.than.html