We've just finished another week here...and what a week it's been!
The classes this week have been fantastic, and I could hardly sleep on Sunday; I wa on such a high after our class at Ambedkar Colony. We started the day early (up at 6am), so we could be sure to make it to Madan Mohan's for 8, to attend the first service at the new temple. It was really good to see a service at the temple, with Dharma talks from lay people from the community, and from Sahishnu. After that we had to rush back to…
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Added by Pikey Dan on November 17, 2009 at 5:20pm —
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On Saturday, Antoinette, Gordon and Perry led Liz and myself through a ceremony to bless and celebrate the fact that they successfully completed the Buddhist Psychology Advanced Certificate programme.
The ceremony was held in the middle of a large stone circle in Avebury which happened to be in the back garden that belonged to their friend Gordon who is also a Wicken Priest. We dawned our caps and gowns :) for this celebration with and in the elements and were first cleansed with sage and yarro…
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Added by Susthama on November 16, 2009 at 5:00pm —
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We are now coming toward the end of our visit to New Zealand. Have been all over North Island, Had a nice visit with Doug Osto and his family. Seen my daughter and her husband, gone sailing on the ocean in their yacht and seen her first art exhibition. This is just a quick note penned in the local library along our travel route. Shall be back in the northern hemisphere on Thursady. Love to you all. Namo Amida Bu. Dharmavidya
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Added by Dharmavidya on November 16, 2009 at 12:40am —
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We are now coming toward the end of our visit to New Zealand. Have been all over North Island, Had a nice visit with Doug Osto and his family. Seen my daughter and her husband, gone sailing on the ocean in their yacht and seen her first art exhibition. This is just a quick note penned in the local library along our travel route. Shall be back in the northern hemisphere on Thursady. Love to you all. Namo Amida Bu. Dharmavidya
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Added by Dharmavidya on November 16, 2009 at 12:40am —
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this week have waited all week looking foreward to sundays servive,then half way through the service I had an asthma attack and fool that I am hadnt got my inhalers,luckily Tara let me use hers. But i still had to get home because I needed to use my brown preventer.So brandon and I had to miss the company of every one at the evening meal. think amida has given me a wake up call.Time to stop smoking, av been smoking over thirty years, so thats gonna be easy............not.But I am gonna give it m…
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Added by dean haywood on November 15, 2009 at 8:00pm —
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Innocence seems to be something we reach for, from a long time back in a past age, a natural loving, a spiritual freedom and a social, tribal quality, not existing alone. But also a relative quality, not a purity, just a taste of the beauty of our cosmos. A few nights back I watched the 1950’s movie, The Student Prince, with the famous tenor, Mario Lanza. This so seemed to show a western longing for such an innocence, an innocence so lost in the fascist wars of the previous decades.
And of cours…
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Added by Robert McCarthy on November 13, 2009 at 5:09am —
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On Saturday 31st October 2009 Amitayus Wellbeing and members of the Amida Trust, held a sponsored 12-hr chant in aid of Acorns Children's Hospice at the Amitayus Wellbeing Centre. I am delighted to say that the final total for the Sponsorship money is £492.00.
Thank you to everyone who contr…
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Added by Dawn Hart on November 10, 2009 at 11:40pm —
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this week has been a very upsetting one, one of my friends in a fellowship iam in for people with addictions made a very grave mistake and has caused a lot of ill feeling within the fellowship.there has been a lot of gossip and anger towards him, and also people have been talking that he should be thrown out or made to stand in front of a meeting to explain his actions. I must admit i was angry with him too. and my first thought was that he needed a punch on the nose. but them i thought of my ow…
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Added by dean haywood on November 10, 2009 at 5:03pm —
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Organising more Buddhist Chaplain's drop-ins at
Castle Leazes Hall of Residence, NCL Uni, starting this Wednesday. emailing my contact lists about a
drop-in today at Henderson Hall, Newcastle University,…
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Added by Sujatin on November 9, 2009 at 11:11am —
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Yesterday we went to Ambedkar Colony, where we taught a class of about 20 kids, at Mudan Mohan's, with a few adults floating around in the background. We had a very active class, with lots of songs and jumping about, backed up with worksheets. The whole experience was made much easier thanks to Shiv Lal (our rikshaw driver) and, when we started the Buddhist studies, he rushed in to join us, and even the grandpa joined in and had a go on the singing bowl.
After class had ended, Mudan reappeared,…
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Added by Pikey Dan on November 9, 2009 at 6:37am —
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what a wonderful life this is teaching in Delhi. Yesterday we started teaching at Amberkar Colony. Mudan Mohan the community leader in whose house we were teaching was unable to be with us as he had to attend a wedding in.When we had finished teaching he reappeared and took us of to the reception to be royally fed. Everyone kept smiling secret smiles and nodding at me. When we had eaten a deputation said they wanted to show me the new temple they had built, round the corner we went and I admired…
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Added by Sahishnu Joy Marston on November 9, 2009 at 6:08am —
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Hello again. as Dan said we had our first teaching session today at Laxmi gardens.Preparing was difficult. I needed to scan and copy, print material for the class and of course the thing would not work. Prakashes friend Yogesh a former student of ours came and fixed it for free. The problem was that while we were away a mouse had found it to be a fine home and its droppings had siezed the carriage. All fixed now.The monk Vinasiel has a new novice at his temple who was quite bemused by us. We had…
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Added by Sahishnu Joy Marston on November 6, 2009 at 6:09pm —
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Today we had our first day teaching, at Lakshmi Gardens. It was absolutely brilliant! I loved every minute of it, and was so impressed that the kids were so interested and responsive...it really goes to show that kids are eager to learn and that Sahishnu's teaching techniques are incredible (she later told me that they'd only started learning any English last year...and they've had 6 months off since then!). Poor Sahishnu had to walk a long way today, but we've got our transport sorted out with…
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Added by Pikey Dan on November 6, 2009 at 5:32pm —
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I have just watched a bbc programme- blood, sweat and takeaways. A group of fit, young English people are left to live as labourers in Thailand- paid Thai rates of pay and left to fend for themselves. This is very powerful stuff, to experience living in hardship through eyes that know the privilege that we take for granted. The work in rice fields and factories was more than they could deal with, the money barely paid for the most basic accommodation, lucky to have enough left over for a bowl of…
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Added by Robert McCarthy on November 6, 2009 at 1:32am —
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What do I feel about Amida and his Vow? Is it something real or is it metaphor?
I think it is both.
Metaphor in as much as it is (to me) doubtful whether an actual Pureland (apart from this place) exists. Yet is is real in as much as it symbolises all that is most life affirming in the human heart. The Pureland in fact is here, as is the Kingdom of Heaven.
In as much as I lose touch with what is sublime in myself, I lose touch with Amida's Vow - which embraces all of us - even me, with all my a…
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Added by richard meyers on November 5, 2009 at 5:30pm —
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We've arrived safe and sound in India and are finally getting things sorted out. Everything seems to be coming together nicely and thanks to the help and advice I've been given, both here and in the UK, I think I'm coping with everything pretty well. I may have been here less than a week, but I'm already starting to appreciate how much I've always taken for granted, vis-a-vis electricity, hot and cold running water, and other services we would never consider a luxury in the West.
India has amaze…
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Added by Pikey Dan on November 3, 2009 at 2:22pm —
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Well hear I am again ensconced in our flat in Delhi, busy working my way through, things to do, while being duly visited by old friends and Sanga members.As you can see the internet is now reconnected and I now have a new Indian sim for my phone. Everything seems to stop working while I'm in England and this year water was the main problem. We in the west take for granted a continuous supplyand the only tap that was working was supplied by the tank on the roof and the water only fit for washing…
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Added by Sahishnu Joy Marston on November 3, 2009 at 1:49pm —
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You and I woke up this morning. Congratulations to both of us! A lot had to happen to get us through the night. Our mitochondria were on duty, our cell walls held up, our hearts kept the beat all night long and countless other precise and complex processes occurred while “we” slept. We were also protected from the elements and from both human and animal intruders. How many people helped to create this shelter that we slept in?
For many of us this is the Thanksgiving season and, if you’re readin…
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Added by Gregg Krech on November 2, 2009 at 8:34pm —
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I sit in nembutsu. The image comes of men as a prisma, just natural receiving the sunlight from one side and reflecting this light in all different colours and forms all around in the neighbourhood. The place and the form of the prisma influences the diversity in forms and colours, as the uniqueness of men gives all different colours and forms. Without sunlight the prisma is just a piece of glass; no colours, less shining. A prisma has not the illusion that it creates all this colours by own pow…
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Added by Katrien Sercu on October 23, 2009 at 12:13pm —
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Press Release
Psychotherapy Organisations Poised to Challenge
Health Professions Council in the Courts
19 October 2009
Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy, Association of Independent Psychotherapists, Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, The College of Psychoanalysts-UK, The Guild of Psychotherapists, The Philadelphia Association
The Government's plans to regulate counselling and psychotherapy under the Health Professions Council faces a further setback this week w…
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Added by caroline brazier on October 21, 2009 at 1:42pm —
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another week down
Calling the elements to celebrate with Perry and Antoinette
See You Soon
Wake up call
Innocence Revisited
Amitayus Wellbeing & Amida Trust Raise £492.00 for Acorns Childrens Hospice
This week - getting the word out - Buddhism at Amida Newcastle, Newcastle and Northumbria Universities
Temple in Ambedkar Colony
How to understand Amida and his Vow?
Self-reflection, Gratitude and Power Steering
If we could live just as a prisma?
Psychotherapy: statutory regulation - latest twist
