I’m looking forward to visiting the temple this week. I have been so focused on painting during a residential course, it will be good to connect with the Buddha in the peace, beauty and energy of the temple.

Have I had a dharma glimpse? Not really, I have been doing very basic stuff like remembering to be my own friend and to love myself and then allowing myself to simply be without having to make any ‘announcements’  while I was with the group of strangers on the painting course.

No one noticed.

I simply allowed myself to drop a barrier of criticism towards them and towards me, I quietly sat without judgement, allowing me to be me and them to be them and for a while there a heavy weight lifted and I knew I was safe, I knew I was loved by the divine, by Buddha and by me. Was that a dharma glimpse? It felt like it to me, a slight shift, a door opened, a moment of grace perhaps.

That happened on day 3 of the course, day one was caution, day two was having a lot to say and many questions to ask and day 3 was the experiment in letting the guards drop, accepting we are all foolish beings and letting the gentler way be my guide.

LIke I said this is basic stuff, so often spoken about and acknowledged, but to feel it while in an entirely secular environment with a group of people I had known for one or two days was a new experience for me.

Namo Amida Bu.

Dharma Glimpse by Maria Chumak

If you asked me to choose one word I’m trying to focus on in my meditations these days, I would probably say “gratitude”. It’s something that’s very difficult to grasp in everyday routine as we get stressed and frustrated with so many things in the outside world, and quite frequently also with ourselves. It’s only human to give in to judgement and jealousy, never being happy with what we have in life. Yet gratitude is all I feel when I go on my walking meditations on Malvern Hills and on the Ceredigion Coastal Path in Aberystwyth.

I am grateful to see the beauty and the vast green spaces around. I grew up in a very different place, heavily polluted, heavily congested and heavily overpopulated. I feel blessed to be here and breathe the fresh air, no matter the weather.

I am grateful to be able to practice Dharma and have the blessings and support of the Teachers. 

I am grateful for the music in my life and the inspiration it gives me. I am blessed to be able to share this positive energy with other people sometimes as I’m learning to play harp and write music.

I am grateful for all the people who support me and are simply kind to me, accepting me as I am. I am blessed to love and be loved.

by Dayamay

The word salvation is related to the word commonly used for sodium chloride – salt. In alchemy it refers to the ‘fixed-salt’, which is central to the intimacies of the tri-unity principle and mediator between the other two substances of great symbolic significance, sulphur and mercury.

There is an immense amount of quite cryptic rhetoric to be found on all of them. But, most importantly, together they form the sacred and mystical Trinity on which the great alchemical work can be founded. In this context, the Sal part of the word salvation refers to the cohesive and harmonising action of the fixed- salt on the otherwise polar-opposed properties of mercury and sulphur. Without the salt the two would remain in perpetual conflict and complete fulfilment would be impossible. Mercury is the spirit, sulphur is the soul and salt is the body; and just as the body of Christ is said to be the saviour in the Christian Trinity, so the salt is what solves(salv) the chaotic disharmony between mercury and sulphur… hence sal-vation.

So, salt is the most fascinating of the three, for me. The mysterious qualities of fixed-salt are numerous, of a profoundly abstract nature and present in the core mechanics of the universe. Salt is said to be one of the active principles in the evolutionary process. Some of the more obscure texts on salt refer to it as being the only aspect of the physical form that survives the death and decomposition process, which all organic matter undergoes, from which it is re-integrated into the earth and informs the ongoing transformation of the great unified organism, sometimes known as Gaia.

From a religious perspective, as an avid practitioner, I take these holy philosophies to heart and consider them to be an indispensable component of the vehicle by which my faith manifests. In Buddhism we have a similar concept. One that in some ways corresponds to the highly intriguing alchemy enigma.

In Pureland Buddhism we learn about the Trikaya nature. The threefold body of Buddha. The cosmic Buddha body is composed of three fundamental aspects, Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya. These three spiritual fields interpenetrate one another, producing an effect that at once manifests as physical form, whilst also providing the source of life and creativity throughout the universe. Dharmakaya is ultimate reality, the unconditioned, Sambhogakaya is the dream and vision realm and Nirmanakaya is the manifest form that results in the merging of the three.

It’s easy to see how all of these traditions (interestingly 3), Alchemy, Christianity and Buddhism, express this same principle in quite similar ways. And the objectives in all three methods are pretty much the same – seeking spiritual purity based on material experience. The alchemist’s gold gets imbued with the adept’s experience and the effect is reciprocated, there is a divine union between the man and his holy work. In Christianity the form is perfected in the crucible of suffering and the Buddhist transcends the hell realms through countless cycles of painful existence in the mire of Samsara.

There is a common theme here, showing us the paradoxes inherent in the nature of life, the universe and our journeys from the coarse(ignorance and pain) to the fine(awakening and transcendence).

One of the first things that we learn on the spiritual path is that the journey begins with us. If we want to change the world or have a positive impact on it, we first have to alchemize ourselves. The world holds up the mirror that reflects our imperfections, which provide the raw materials through which the great work can be approached.

Namo Amida Bu( ,

Dayamay

Bodhi Day

The Buddha’s awakening was supported by the Earth: a great naga serpent cheered the Buddha on towards enlightenment, he was awakened under a Bodhi tree and when challenged called upon the Earth goddess to witness and verify his awakening. What can we learn from the Buddha’s relationship with the natural world and how can it support our own practice?

Join us on the 11th Dec for our Bodhi Day events as we consider this theme and these questions. We’ll have events you can drop in to throughout the day.  Our shrine room practice and the talk will be live on Zoom as well as in person. Full details on our calendar.

0900 Garden Practice
0930 Practice in the shrine room
1030 Talk: Green Awakening
1200 XR Vigil for the Earth at Belle Vue Island in Malvern
1315 Bring a packed lunch and join us to eat
1400 Mindful Walk – meet outside the temple

Musical Dharma Glimpse

Sangha member Maria has created a musical dharma glimpse. To listen to this beautiful piece of harp music see the video on YouTube.

Sacred Activism: A Year of Sitting With the Earth

Satya recently spoke about her year long outside meditation vigil at a conference on sacred activism. Watch the talk here.

By Kaspa

This Saturday as part of our morning practice in the shrine room we’ll have a refuge ceremony. Refuge is what we call it when we place our trust in the three jewels: The Buddha, The Dharma and the Sangha. Refuge is when we stop being taken in by our defensive, calculating mind and trust something wise and kind. Refuge is at the heart of every Buddhist tradition, and every Buddhist practice can be seen as supporting refuge, or even as refuge.

The ceremony of taking refuge is a public setting of intention to keep taking refuge as our practice, and is sometimes seen as the moment one formally becomes Buddhist.

This is the first letter to the templemates I’ve written in sometime. I used to write more or less monthly on some Buddhist theme, or using Buddhism to bring some light to something happening in the world. After November last year when many of us left our old teacher, the energy to write dried up. I think I wrote once or twice.

Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say the energy was spent elsewhere.  Tending to the often painful unfolding of leaving and creating something new took time and energy. Time spent looking inward and treating each thought and feeling with compassion. Time spent holding wise and kind spaces for conversations and listening (and sometimes managing this and sometimes not). Time spent resting and recovering.

Sometimes that’s what refuge looks like. Continually trusting the Buddha (both the Buddha as teacher and our own Buddha-nature) leads us into unexpected places. Ultimately taking refuge in this way leads to a flowering of love, to more energy and to more compassionate action, but along the way it can look like all sorts of different things.

I’m reminded of William Stafford’s poem The Way It Is:

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

So this is refuge. Trusting the thread that is loving kindness to all beings and following it wherever it takes you. Sometimes it will take you into tangles, and sometimes into open spaces. This is the path of love. It is not always easy to follow, but every step we take is a liberation.

With love

Kaspa

From Wednesday the 21st of July, in line with government advice, we will be opening up our shrine room to the public for the first time.

We will be leaving coronavirus safety up to the individuals who attend.

There will be sanitising hand gel on entry, which we’d encourage you to use. We won’t make mask-wearing compulsory – of course you are very welcome to wear a mask during practice and/or afterwards when we have a cup of tea in the dining room. We will leave the door to the shrine room balcony open to allow air to circulate, and keep chairs and cushions further away from each other than usual whenever possible to allow social distancing.

If for any reason you feel unsafe when you arrive or during practice, do feel free to leave the room.

If you would prefer to practice with us from a distance or in the garden for now we offer practice in the temple garden every Saturday at 9am, and practice on Zoom for every practice sessions – see our calendar for more details.

If you have any questions or concerns do email Satya and Kaspa at hello@brightearth.org.

Remembering Suvidya.

I was very sad to hear the news that our dear friend, colleague and dharma brother Rev. Suvidya, from the India Sangha, has passed away. I knew he was very I’ll but somehow had assumed that he would be one of the lucky ones who pulled through.

I have very fond memories of being with Suvidya, who was my host and guide when I visited the Indian Sangha in 2018.

He was a very special person, overflowing with love and grace, always ready to sacrifice his own needs or comforts for the good of others and to fulfil his duties as a Pureland Buddhist Priest.

He was, unsurprisingly, very popular with his congregation and followers, who all seemed to look up to him with adulation, as if he represented some kind of father figure or role model. I was very moved by the effect that he had on the people he came into contact with.

On hearing the news, after the initial shock, my next thoughts were that, if anybody is destined for the Pure Land and qualifies for the salvifific power of Amìda Buddha, Suvidya would be at the front of the queue. His devotion was absolute.

As always, when somebody close to my heart leaves this world, I am left with the question of how to balance these losses and hold them as part of my faith without attachment or aversion. Faith in Amitabha does not protect us from death, that was never the promise. In fact, we are encouraged to embrace death as an important part of life and to accept it as an integral component of our journeys in this impermanent world.

My thoughts and prayers are with all who knew and loved Suvidya, I hope that we can all find comfort in the joys of his life and the fact that, as a Pureland devotee, he will now be residing with Amida in the Land of Peace and Bliss.

Namo Amida Bu.

Dayamay

We have a couple of rooms available for new temple residents from mid-May in our Pure Land Buddhist temple in Great Malvern.

We’re looking for someone who’s already connected to our Buddhist practice, or someone who’s willing to come along to practice sessions and see if what we offer here is a fit. Find out how to attend via Zoom or come to our garden practice if you’re local.

We’re in the centre of Great Malvern and it’s a beautiful place to live for the right person. People have their own jobs and lives, and we come together to practice and to eat together once a week on a Friday night (along with occasional film nights etc). We have members of the public in for Buddhist practice twice a week and to events like Dharma talks and volunteer days when we open up to the public again in June. We currently have 7 lovely residents, plus Satya and Kaspa who run the temple and have their own flat at the bottom of the building, 3 dogs, a cat and three bunnies. There’s no alcohol, meat or fish allowed in the building. It is a mixed vegetarian and vegan household (vegan preferred) and our Friday meal is always vegan. Satya, Kaspa and a couple of others in the community are engaged in environmental activism.

The rooms are single with an attached shower/bath and toilets – one has a view across the valley. There are lots of shared spaces and a big garden. The rooms are from £360 pcm including most bills.

If you might be interested or know someone who might be, do write something about yourself to Kaspa & Satya at hello@brightearth.org and we can set up a conversation. Find out more about our practice and philosophy here at our website.

Namo Amitabha.