Meditation for peace

BAM Indra’s net meditation for peace, 7 June 2017

Leeds Buddhist Centre invites you to take part in a meditation for peace on Wednesday 7 June 2017 at 7pm, from wherever you are. Inspired by Joy Heart’s Facebook event ‘Meditation for peaceful politics’, we would like to encourage anyone interested to pledge a session of metta bhavana or similar, with an inflection of receiving suffering and sending out peace to our communities.

As our small pearls of practice join across the city from our different locations and grow outwards – we can create an Indra’s net of peaceful positivity for our world.

If you use Facebook, please like this post on the Triratna Leeds Buddhist Centre, comment on your general location (e.g. Bramley, Meanwood), and how much practice you would like to pledge to the net (e.g. 5 conscious breaths or 30 mins metta bhavana; 40 mins yoga – or whatever you feel appropriate.) If you are not on Facebook and would still like to pledge a session of practice for the event, please email the  details to enquiries@leedsbuddhistcentre.co.uk.

You might like to take some time before the event to reflect on what peace means to you, and how it might manifest in our community, country and world.

If you would like to practice the metta bhavana on the day, these are some reflections for the different stages:

1.       Sense your own pain and suffering, breathe in around it and feel the edges. Connect with a simple thing that might give you some peace – like a hug from a friend. Breathe this out to yourself, and to all those nearby who might be feeling like you

2.       Connect with your friend. Breathe in recalling any of their pain and suffering you’ve witnessed. Connect with your wish to help them. Breathe this out to them, and to all those nearby who might feel like you and your friend

3.       Connect with a neutral person. Breathe in their energy with peace. Breathe out a sense of friendliness. Reflect how many neutral people are close-by to you right now.

4.       Connect with a person whom you find difficult. Breathe in connecting with how this person makes you feel. Explore this emotion. Breathe out with empathy for your own suffering, giving it spaciousness. Connect with all those people nearby and beyond who are experiencing those same difficult emotions with the in and out breaths.

5.       Bring to mind the people in the first four stages, wishing them peace. Extend this out into our city, surroundings and then to the world. Visualise breathing in hot, dark, heaviness and breathing out cool, bright, light.

Metta