Category: Sit-and-Share Topic

“Unfavourable circumstances are the best opportunity you will have to put the teachings into practice.”

~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Eileen.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.

“Just as a bird cannot fly in the sky until it’s wings are fully developed, you also cannot serve the interests of sentient beings as long as you lack the power of higher knowledge.
Without the attainment of calm abiding, higher knowledge is not going to arise. Therefore keep striving , over and over again for the accomplishment of calm abiding.”

~ ‘Lamp for the path to Awakening’ (Bodha patha pradipa) by 10th C teacher Atisa [from Common Buddhist Text]

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Paul.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.

“Empty things, such as reflections, depend on a collection of causes.
It is not as though this were not well known.
From those empty reflections and so forth
Arise consciousnesses that bear their image.
Similarly, even though all things are empty,
From those empty things effects are definitely produced.”

~ Tsongkhapa cites Chandrakirti [from Introduction To Emptiness by Guy Newland]

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Eileen.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.

Don’t recall ~ Let go of what has passed.
Don’t imagine ~ Let go of what may come.
Don’t think ~ Let go of what is happening now.
Don’t examine ~ Don’t try to figure anything out.
Don’t control ~ Don’t try to make anything happen.
Rest ~ Relax, right now, and rest.

~ Tilopa (988–1069) [translated by Ken McLeod]

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Vella.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.

“By renouncing unworthy ways and by not living carelessly; by not holding false views, we no longer perpetuate delusion”

~ Dhammapada for Contemplation: Chapter XIII, verse 167

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Eileen.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.

“It is likely that some troubles will befall us; but it is not a present fact. How often has the unexpected happened! How often has the expected never come to pass! And even though it is ordained to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering? You will suffer soon enough, when it arrives.”

~ Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC – AD 65), fully Lucius Annaeus Seneca and also known simply as Seneca (/ˈsɛnɪkə/), was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and—in one work—satirist of the Silver Age of Latin literature.

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Jude.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.

EMPTINESS
“If you say that you should not think about anything, you abandon the wisdom which has the nature of correct analytical discrimination.
The root of sublime wisdom is correct analytical discrimination.”

~ Kamalashila : A Svatantrika Madhyamaka Scholar from India who, according to Tibet tradition, established Indian Buddhism as the model for Tibet.

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Vince.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.

“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinion for or against.
The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.”

~ from the epic poem “Inscription on Relying on the Mind” by Jianzhi Sengcan (the Third Chinese Patriarch of Chán after Bodhidharma and thirtieth Patriarch after Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha)

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Vince.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.

“After much seeking for truth and knowledge,
the profoundness of reality came to me
with a clarity never known before”.

~ Buddha

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Eileen.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.

“As we change our own dysfunctional habits, we are simultaneously changing society. 
Our own awakening is intertwined with the awakening of enlightened society.
If we can lose our personal appetite for aggression and addiction, the whole planet will rejoice.”

~ Pema Chödrön [Taking the Leap : Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears]

This is this week’s topic for contemplation, reflection and sharing at the online virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ meditation meeting via Skype from 7:45 pm ready for a prompt start at 8 pm (UK time).

All welcome.

This week’s ‘Sit-and-Share’ host is Vince.

Virtual Sit and Share Meetings via Skype

Please read ‘How to attend a Virtual Sit-and-Share meeting’ –

How to Attend a Virtual ‘Sit-and-Share’ Meeting

Closing dedication of Merit:

We dedicate the merits of this practice to all suffering beings.
May everyone be free of suffering, and the causes of suffering.
May everyone enjoy happiness, and the causes of happiness.
Keep sitting; and keep smiling.