Fifth Precept Sangha

“It is easy to forget how unstable and unpredictable our life is.
We often live carelessly, as if we were going to live forever.
We waste precious moments as if they were as cheap and plentiful as grains of sand.”

~ Ajahn Jayasaro

This is Monday’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.

“When we say that the mind goes here or there, it’s not really the mind that goes.  Only concepts go.  Concepts are like shadows of the mind.  If the body is still, how will its shadow move?  The awareness that forms the present: that’s the true mind.  The awareness that goes chasing after concepts is just a shadow.  Real awareness – ‘knowing’ – stays in place.  It doesn’t stand, walk, come, or go”.

~ Ajahn Lee

This is Monday’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.

“If you look for the truth outside yourself,
It gets farther and farther away.
Today walking alone,
I meet him everywhere I step.
He is the same as me.
Yet I am not him.
Only if you understand this way
Will you merge with the way things are.”

~ Tung-Shan (807-869) quoted in the book ‘FALLING AWAKE: How to practise Mindfulness in Everyday Life.’ by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

This is Monday’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.

“Even if others whom I have cared for like children of my own,
Should turn upon me and treat me as an enemy,
To regard them only with special fondness and affection,
As a mother would her ailing child—this is the practice of all the bodhisattvas.”

~ by Gyalse Tokme Zangpo [The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas – Verse #16]

This is Monday’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.

“How many obscurations and how many afflictions have been subdued or cleared away?
This is the true test of meditation, not what wonderful or special experiences we might have.”

~ 17th Karmapa from the book “Traveling the Path of Compassion:
A Commentary on The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva”

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.

The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to recognize delusion
Whenever one is confronted by adversity or misfortune.
For these sufferings are just like the death of a child in a dream,
And it’s so exhausting to cling to delusory perceptions as real.

~ by Gyalse Tokme Zangpo [The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas]

All suffering is like the death of your child in a dream.
To take such delusive appearances as true, how exhausting!
Therefore, whenever you encounter unpleasant circumstances,
To see them as deceptions is the practice of the Bodhisattva.

~ Alternative translation (Gyalse Tokme Zangpo – The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas)

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.

“If you don’t know your own psychology, you might ignore what’s going on in your mind until it breaks down and you go completely crazy. People go mad through lack of inner wisdom, through their inability to examine their own minds. They are ignorant of their internal world, and their minds are totally unified with ignorance instead of being awake and engaged in self-analysis. Examine your own mental attitudes. Become your own therapist.”

~ Lama Yeshe

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 Jessica.

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.

“Friends and relatives acquired for long will separate.
Possessions gained with exertion will be left behind.
Consciousness, the guest, will leave the guesthouse of the body.
To let go of this life is the practice of a Bodhisattva.”

~ by Gyalse Tokme Zangpo [The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas]

“The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to renounce this life’s concerns,
For friends and relatives, long acquainted, must all go their separate ways;
Wealth and prized possessions, painstakingly acquired, must all be left behind;
And consciousness, the guest who lodges in the body, must in time depart. “

~ Alternative translation

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.

Remember: “That which we frequently dwell upon, to this does our mind incline.”
Mindfulness reveals to us where our minds most frequently dwell and the ways our attention inclines.
Discernment reveals whether our habits of dwelling lead to distress or toward greater freedom and capacity.
When we understand this, we cultivate the qualities of befriending, compassion, joy, and equanimity that are the foundations of easeful relationship, both inwardly and outwardly.

~ Christina Feldman and Willem Kuyken [MINDFULNESS- Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Psychology]

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.

“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.