[ULUBUDA] Wednesday meditation/ Friday dinner

[Alastair Gornall]

Dear all,
 
I hope you are all well!
 
This week marks the Zen festival of Rohatsu. Rohatsu commemorates the period the Buddha spent meditating under the Bodhi tree vowing he would not arise until he had attained Nirvana. At the end of the week the Buddha had overcome greed, hatred and delusion and attained Nirvana. It is traditional in Japanese Zen monasteries to observe an intensive period of meditation (sesshin) that will last the week of Rohatsu. Some monks and nuns may even meditate up to 22 hours per day, with the aspiration to gain enlightenment during this auspicious time. At the end of Rohatsu (8th December), the monks and nuns end their period of intensive meditation and in some monasteries have a bit of a party!
 
ULUBUDA would like you all to join us on Wednesday, where we will be holding an Intensive meditation session in room 2B. We will prepare a meditation room for anybody who wishes to come and join in a longer period of sitting. We will have no speaker, or meditation teacher, it is simply a space for you to practice. The room will be open from 6:30-9:30pm, so please come along and join the Sangha in as long a meditation as you wish. 
 
Then on the Friday, we shall be all going to a Chinese restaurant (see previous e-mail) for an end of Rohatsu party and also an early Christmas gathering! 
 
Therefore this week's events are:
 
Meditation- Wednesday 6/12/06
Venue: Room 2B, ULU, Malet Street, WC1E 7HY
Time: 6:30
Bring a cushion if you want to be more comfortable!
There will be no teacher or talk, just straight meditation.
 
Dinner- Friday 8/12/06
Restaurant : Joi CaféCuisine : Chinese Vegetarian cuisineLocation : 14 Percy Street, W1T 1DR Tel : 02073230981Cost: £5 p/pWe will meet up at Goodge street tube station at 6:30pm. Any problems please contact me on my number at the end of the email.
 
 
There will be no meditation today, hope to see you on Wednesday or Friday!


In keeping with the Zen theme, here is a small exert from the book Zen mind, Beginner’s mind on ‘Nirvana’…
 
Shunryu Suzuki on Nirvana
‘After we are separated by birth from this oneness, as the water falling from the waterfall is separated by the wind and rocks, then we have feeling. You have difficulty because you have feeling. You attach to the feeling you have without knowing just how this kind of feeling is created. When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life.
 
When the water returns to its original oneness with the river, it no longer has any individual feeling to it; it resumes its own nature, and finds composure. How very glad the water must be to come back to the original river! If this is so, what feeling will we have when we die? ...We will have composure then, perfect composure. It may be too perfect for us, just now, because we are so much attached to our own feeling, to our individual existence. For us, just now, we have some fear of death, but after we resume our true original nature, there is Nirvana. That is why we say, “To attain Nirvana is to pass away”. “To pass away” is not a very adequate expression. Perhaps “to pass on”, or “to go on”, or “to join” would be better. Will you try to find some better expression for death? When you find it, you will have quite a new interpretation of your life.
 
…We say, “Everything comes out of emptiness”. One whole river or one whole mind is emptiness. When we reach this understanding we find the true meaning of our life. When we reach this understanding we can see the beauty of human life. Before we realize this fact, everything we see is just delusion. Sometimes we overestimate or ignore the beauty because our small mind is not in accord with reality.
 
To talk about it this way is quite easy, but to have the actual feeling is not so easy. But by your practice of zazen you can cultivate this feeling. When you can sit with your whole body and mind, and with the oneness of your mind and body under the control of the universal mind, you can easily attain this kind of right understanding. Your everyday life will be renewed without being attached to an old erroneous interpretation of life. When you realize this fact, you will discover how meaningless your old interpretation was, and how much useless effort you have been making. You will find the true meaning of life, and even though you have difficulty falling upright from the top of the waterfall to the bottom of the mountain, you will enjoy your life.’
Shunryu Suzuki- Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, p94-95
  
Nirvana is here, before your eyes
Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768)
 
 
Best wishes, Have a great week,
Alastair
07716140496
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