This week Nicholas (one of our regulars) sent me the following. It’s only a short clip so have a look if you can:
Marina and Ulay ended a decade-long intense love story by starting from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and, after 90 days walking, met in the middle for one last big hug then said goodbye. The plan was to never see each other again.
Twenty-two years later, Marina was performing ‘The Artist Is Present’ as part of a show, where she shared a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her.
Ulay arrived without her knowing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZrttwse6ls#t=74
It spoke to me of meditation practice and one of the benefits I experience as a result of it. What I believe we see Marina go through is an intense emotional experience where she just sits with the impact of what is going on. She neither pulls away from it nor falls fully into it – she is just, as her show’s name suggests, present.
Meditation increases our capacity to simply be present with whatever is going on and to sit with it with equanimity. Our Buddhist teacher Sangharakshita calls this ‘dwelling in the gap’ - just sitting with the fullness of experience and letting a response emerge from our depths rather than immediately reacting from habit.
As a result we have increasing capacity to meet everything that life brings with poise and creativity.
I hope you’ll join us for meditation this week.
Thursday 7.30 – 9 pm NB: starting half an our later than normal just for this week due to a booking at the Croquet Club prior to ours
Sunday 8 – 8.50 am
Much metta
Marina and Ulay ended a decade-long intense love story by starting from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and, after 90 days walking, met in the middle for one last big hug then said goodbye. The plan was to never see each other again.
Twenty-two years later, Marina was performing ‘The Artist Is Present’ as part of a show, where she shared a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her.
Ulay arrived without her knowing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZrttwse6ls#t=74
It spoke to me of meditation practice and one of the benefits I experience as a result of it. What I believe we see Marina go through is an intense emotional experience where she just sits with the impact of what is going on. She neither pulls away from it nor falls fully into it – she is just, as her show’s name suggests, present.
Meditation increases our capacity to simply be present with whatever is going on and to sit with it with equanimity. Our Buddhist teacher Sangharakshita calls this ‘dwelling in the gap’ - just sitting with the fullness of experience and letting a response emerge from our depths rather than immediately reacting from habit.
As a result we have increasing capacity to meet everything that life brings with poise and creativity.
I hope you’ll join us for meditation this week.
Thursday 7.30 – 9 pm NB: starting half an our later than normal just for this week due to a booking at the Croquet Club prior to ours
Sunday 8 – 8.50 am
Much metta
