Monday, August 12, we will meet in person.
Address for OHMC meditation space:
3812 Northampton St. NW, Washington DC 20015
Please arrive a few minutes early so we can invite the bell on time. You may also arrive 15 minutes early to practice working meditation by helping us set up cushions.
Dear friends,
This week, we will meet Monday evening, Aug. 12, from 7-8:30PM EDT in person at our meditation space (3812 Northampton Street NW); Wednesday morning, Aug. 14, from 7-8AM EDT online; and Friday, Aug. 16, from 12-1PM EDT in person.
On Monday, we will continue our summer book club reading of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Fragrant Palm Leaves. We will read this book through August 19.
Please note there is no need to own or read the book in order to enjoy practicing together. Nor is there need to attend each gathering because each Monday’s sangha is a stand-alone and complete practice.
This Monday, Bea will facilitate and we will be discussing pages 153-178. You can find the pages for each week’s reading at the bottom of the full write up.
Bea’s selected reading extracts follow:
“The best medicine to chase away the heart’s dark isolation is to make direct contact with life’s sufferings, to touch and share the anxieties and uncertainties of others. Loneliness comes from locking yourself in a false shell. You think of yourself as a separate, self-contained entity not in relation to others. Buddhists call this “attachment to self.” In reality, we are empty of a separate self. But we needn’t take the Buddhists’ word for it. Looking deeply, we can see that a person is not a separate self” (156).
“Zen is like that. In the depths of our consciousness dwell the seeds of our potentials, including poisonous snakes, phantoms, and other unsavoury creatures. Though hidden, they control our impulses and our actions. If we want freedom, we must invite those phantoms up to our conscious mind, not to fight with them, like the old man fishing for snakes, but to befriend them. If we don’t, they will trouble us every day. If we wait for the right moment to invite them up, we’ll be ready to meet them, and eventually, they will become benign” (163).
We look forward to seeing you in person on Monday, and after our meditation, we will have time to reflect on all of this and more.
Upcoming reading of Fragrant Palm Leaves:
8/12 pages 153-178
8/19 pages 179-end