Kulaprabha

I’m now back at Taraloka. Thinking about how things went over in Cambridge last week and musing on how I could happily live there, at least that is as it seems to me at present. Who would have thought it!

But mostly thinking about the Urban Retreat..

I’m very impressed by it as a means of helping people bring together their day-to-day lives, their aspirations, and their practice of the Dharma. I obviously helped by facilitating the week’s practice and by feeding in information from other places where it’s been tried. But what we actually did was very simple - we shared our lives and aspirations with each other, we worked out some intentions for our week’s Dharma practice, and we met up as often as we could in the week. The very first evening set us off in that spirit as people told each other what their week aheard looked like. When you hear another 15 people’s week ahead and know that they are thinking through how to apply the Dharma best to that week - well, it makes it easier to imagine doing that yourself! Which is what sangha is all about - and there it was happening in the room, tangibly!

What did we do?

• had the introductory and set-up day together, in which we
  • meditated
  • shared our week ahead
  • filled in daily diary sheets which what practice we intended for each day, depending on what was happening that day
  • reflected on what helps us stick with resolutions
  • reflected on whether we could think of things to remind us of our intentions
  • reflected on sowing some ’seeds’ - things we could do our of faith in the Dharma
  • reflected on any ‘risks’ we could take in our practice
  • ended with a short puja and chanting the Tara mantra. I suggested the Tara mantra because her figure epitomises the ability to reach out into the world with compassionate action whilst at one and the same time being completely and deeply centred in herself meditatively. Chanting the mantra was a way to align our own intentions for the week with Tara - and however falteringly and imperfectly we managed that, Tara was there as an encouragement.

• those of us who could meditated and had breakfast with each other each morning at the CBC
• anyone who wanted could meet up with me to talk about their meditation practice
• people ‘buddied’ up in pairs and either met together, or emailed, or rang whenever they could to check in about how it was going
• we set up an email group that anyone could contribute to. This was good for people who lived outside of Cambridge itself and who couldn’t manage in so easily.
• we met up for an evening mid-week to meditate and check-in
• and on the final evening we had supper together at the CBC and did a celebratory puja with time for anyone to mention anything in particular they had appreciated.

This sort of urban retreat has been pioneered at the Sheffield Buddhist Centre and I am indebted to Vajratara for generously sharing her experience of doing them there - and also her notes! I have plans for this way of practising together. One of benefits of being part of the WBO and FWBO is our emphasis on sangha- building. And this sort of joint endeavour certainly does help bring people together in a very mutually beneficial way. But it could be done in other situations… in a work-place, even if there were just one or two people doing it together; or here in our community as another way of bringing awareness to what we are doing; or on-line and that is perhaps where it could be very effective. There a lot of people who buy books about Buddhism and are impressed with what they find. But they themselves don’t always find a group of like-minded people to practise with. This could be the way.

And to finish a few more shots from my trip….  bicycle city; starling city, college benefactor, chapel guardian…

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On to the final Urbanite page here.