October 31, 2014
Dear Sangha
The Refuge ceremony will be held at the spring long meditation retreat in April.Precepts study can be one of the most intimate and important steps in deepening one’s practice. As our founding teacher, Joan Sutherland shares in her essay Taking Refuge in the Storm, “deciding to participate in a ceremony of taking refuge in the bodhisattva way is a deeply personal matter: It’s not required, so it’s a request that rises from the heart, usually to acknowledge the sense of coming home one has found in the practice, and the desire to live a life that is more beneficial to oneself and others, a life of greater kindness.” And further, “taking on the precepts is a beautifully reckless act, in which we make impossible promises and express our willingness to have life act upon us in ways we won’t be able to control.”
The sessions will be held at the Center for Inner Peace on Saturday mornings, from 10:00 – 12:00 noon. The November sessions will be on Saturdays, November 1 and 15. It is possible to participate in the group whether you have the intention of taking refuge or not, and it is also possible to attend only some of the sessions. A suggested offering is $10 per session; but please know you are welcome whether or not you can make one.
Don’t hesitate to contact David davidcockrell@comcast.net , Sarah sembender@gmail.com or Andrew alpsensei@gmail.net if you have questions or would like more information.
A note from Sarah Bender:
Dear Wet Mountain Sangha and Springs Mountain Sangha,
In Buddhist communities all over the world, both lay and monastic, people study and practice ethical precepts. Some communities take them up together occasionally, leaving ongoing study and practice to the individual or to formal teachings. Others recite precepts together in community twice a month, making a confession (either silently or aloud) of ways they have not stayed true to their vows, and renewing those vows freshly. For as long as there have been Buddhist communities, people have been doing this. I am pretty sure it is because it helps. It helps our hearts to speak aloud our deepest gratitude for the amazing gift that is a life, and our deepest longing to honor that gift by joining the wholeness of life. It helps to acknowledge that we need each other to learn the ways of freedom, to walk with kindness in this life. It helps to talk with each other about what works, and what doesn’t seem to work; what we’ve tried, and how it went. It helps to be together in the dark with our questions, not knowing.These precepts are both expressions of what is most fundamentally true, most deeply real—-so that our responding to circumstances can be in harmony with that, more and more naturally—and expressions of what works and doesn’t: if you steal, that brings harm and diminishes life; if you are generous, that brings well-being.
So, when we take the precepts in, when we hang out with them in some of the same ways we hang out with koans, or dreams, there is a kind of joining that happens: our deepest understandings and questions about the way life is—the way it changes, the way we can’t find some fixed and separate “I” anywhere, the way we are all “interwoven and yet not interwoven” and shining with the light of being—-those understandings, those questions and longings, rub shoulders with the day-to-day delights and heartbreaks of a life where we fight with the ones we love, want what we don’t have and don’t want what we have….and sometimes just be.
And here, we find refuge.
So, here we go: We’ll have 10 meetings, starting this coming Saturday. For this week, let’s take up The Three Refuge Vows (stated 3 different ways):
I take refuge in awakening
I take refuge in the way
I take refuge in my companions
I find my home in awakening
I find my home in the way
I find my home in my companions
Be one with the Buddha
Be one with the Dharma
Be one with the Sangha
These find expression then in
The Three Root Vows
I vow to do no harm
I vow to do good
I vow to do good to others
And our Ten Bodhisattva Vows unfurl from these as particular expressions and investigations of them. So, during this week, let’s start even before any three-ing.
What is refuge (and how is that a vow)?
What is your root vow? Can you feel it?
It may be easier to feel that in your heart, than to try to figure it out by thinking of it. If you just let the question hang around and listen to your heart, who knows what sort of odd and lovely things you might find out about yourself?
Regarding readings: If you write to Sarah at sembender@gmail.com, she can send a link to the Refuge booklet written by Joan Sutherland.
More readings will follow.
Please keep a journal of some sort. Write in it your questions, your dreams, your experiences with the deep inquiry of the heart that this process is.
If there is a book, or if there are articles that already have caught your eye, keep reading! And feel free to share what you’ve found with others.
And if you are more interested in nonverbal expressions,….try those:
draw or paint it dance it: how does refuge move? What shape is a vow? sing or play it: What’s the sound of your heart’s deepest request?
Finally, if you think that you would like to take refuge in the Bodhisattva Way formally at our Spring retreat, please get in touch with me or Andrew about that. And if you don’t know, but are wondering about it, please get in touch with us if you would like to discuss it.
All are welcome, all are welcome.
Sarah