Please find the following information for the Autumn Sangha Retreat 2024
- Please plan to stay for the whole retreat, which will end at around 315pm on Sunday afternoon. This will support other people to stay fully on the retreat.
- We would like to invite you to bring a written poem or reading which inspires your Dharma practice. There is no obligation for you to read it out, but we’d like to display these on the retreat. It’s OK too if you don’t bring one.
- We are sending you with this email a one-page document about the theme of the retreat. You are welcome to read this before the retreat. It’s OK if you don’t read it.”
- The second attachment is a a directions map, (See Below). There are no known road closures as we type, the postcode is BD23 6JA and their what3words location is ///spins.crabmeat.remaining
- A gentle reminder that the deposits that you have all kindly paid will cover our food and accommodation costs only. On Sunday morning, therefore, there will be a request for a further donation for those who are able & wish to help sustain the Leeds Buddhist centre & enable people on every level of income to access the Dharma.
- There is a telephone number to give to friends/family to contact you in emergency, if necessary, please ask a member of the team on arrival & we will give you details.
- If you have asked for or are offering a lift, I will be in touch very soon to make arrangements. If you have any other questions that this email does not answer please feel free to contact me on 07954 304097 & I will answer as soon as I can.
Attachment one: Optional reading.
Opening To Freedom – The Three Great Myths
Buddhism dances two dances; perhaps we start with a rational, analytical understanding of the Buddha’s teachings – we could call this an objective understanding – but at some point we realise that it cannot all be expressed in words, at least not with any accuracy – so where do we go?
The answer is into the poetic – the imaginative, the mythic, we could even call it the subjective. Here we can transcend the limits of language and approach the Truth that the Buddha alludes to in His teaching.
But we can’t simply evolve from one dance to the other – we need to dance both, since our poetic sense will always need to be resolved back into our objective understanding, otherwise we run the risk of creating new worlds of fake gods and monsters. Similarly, if we stay solely with the objective teachings, we will miss the transcendent element of the Buddha’s communications – we will always be one step away from the Truth.
So – we need our “objective” views about Buddhism, but we also need to avoid literalising those views into a transcendent truths. What this seems to boil down to is a relational question; how can I become a Buddha?
If Buddhahood seems distant we may be discouraged, if it seems close we may become attached to our own brilliance – neither of these outcomes is desirable! But we do seem to have two options in this relationship to Buddhahood; I become the Buddha or; The Buddha becomes me.
Becoming the Buddha is the work of self development, working on one’s ethics and meditation to gradually become more Buddha-like. We make efforts to close the gap between us.
“Allowing”the Buddha to become you might be firstly seen as either being in relation to the Buddha outside you – what we might call self surrender; giving up your personality to a force which can express itself through you This the realm of faith. Secondly we might see this as being in relation to the Buddha who is already present in us – what we might call self discovery of our own already existing Buddha nature.
Each of these approaches, these myths, are an approach to Truth, not the Truth itself, so we need to continually correct our practice as it tends to literalise whichever myth we are working with – and that correction will then itself need to be corrected in the future. This is an important point – we will always, at least to some extent, literalise, our practice.
Self development can easily lead to arrogance if there is any degree of success, or despair if there is any degree of failure. We need to surrender to what is beyond us and realise that the Truth is already in our immediate experience.
Self surrender can lead to a rejection of virtue – we can surrender to unhelpful things, so we need to take responsibility for our experience, both in terms of making and effort and recognising that the Truth is already in us – it’s not “somewhere else”.
Self discovery can lead to spiritual laziness – it’s already here so no need to do any work. But we do need to make an effort if we want to change, and we are not the centre of the universe!
So, this is the dance we dance, learning and practicing and then leaving behind the limits of our knowing to taste something of the Buddha’s experience ourselves through the medium of myth, always staying true to the underlying value of the Buddha’s words.
Directions to the Beamsley Project.
https://www.beamsleyproject.org/contactus/
Follow this link to find your way