We started our weekly Metta Circle on Thursday evening, in Bishop Lloyd's Palace in Chester. If our Scottish friend Jinavamsa has his Red Table , we now have our Red Carpet! - a lovely Persian rug covering the floor in the room we're hiring. The Metta Circle feels like something between an informal Japanese Tea Ceremony and a Sufi Circle, so the Persian rug fits in perfectly! We start by sitting close in a circle, tea pot in the centre, and have tea and talk informally. Then we light a candl...e and have 20 mins guided metta (love) meditation. After that we have a thoughtful discussion, linking to the heart, on some theme of love or interconnectedness in daily life. We end with 10 minutes silent meditation and a little gentle chanting "sabbe satta sukhi hontu" - "may all beings be happy". It's a simple format, not too long, and it seems to work well. I like to finish with a simplified version of the Rose Breath prayer from the Mevlevi tradition:

May this moment be blessed
May goodness be opened and may darkness be dispelled
May our hearts be strengthened with love...

Weekly Metta Circle Starting Thurs 30th January

Dear Friends,

Just to let you all know that we'll be starting a weekly Metta Circle next Thursday, meeting 7pm till 8.30ish in Bishop Lloyd's Palace on Watergate Street.  It'll be a weekly training in cultivating a mind of love through metta meditation, and clarifying the natural intellgence of our heart through guided discussion.  It's rooted in the Buddhist teaching of metta, both in the Theravada and Mahayana approaches, and the way I'm structuring the circle draws on my experience in Sufi Circles too.  The existing Metta Circle in Leicester, now coordinated by Mark Baverstock with the help of Rowan, already combines Buddhist Metta practice with some Sufi dancing each time.

The weekly Circle will be one part of gradually developing a Chester Metta Society as a beacon of love and compassion, attempting to create a small social entity where a culture of love and openmindedness prevails.  To that aim, I've also begun a process of Facilitator Training for anyone who wants to help coordinate activities, to reflect deeply in our life on the place of love, and develop confidence in our own and other peoples' voices as carriers of love.  Three of us are beginning this training on 25th January (Burns Night!), studying texts together which explore the human capacity for love from a Spiritual, Philosophical, Biological and Psychological Perspective.

I hope to launch too a biannual ejournal of metta practice, inviting people who train with us, and guest writers, to contribute essays, stories and poems on the theme of metta... more on this as it develops!

The Chester Metta Society will be the main social focus for my own work here, giving something people can get involved with, join, and help organise. I hope that gradually other people will run it completely, and I can hand over the reigns to them, like in Leicester already.  There will also be other activities linking to the Zen Peacemaker Circles too - a monthly Street Circle will continue, bridging the cultural space between the Metta Circle and Zen Peacemakers practice, and there'll be other workshops and I hope social projects in the mill as time goes on...

With love,

Ashk olsun!

Chris

Monthly ZP Upaya Workshop Begins

 

This evening we held the first of our new monthly Zen Peacemakers Upaya Workshops, in the beautiful old Bishop Lloyd's Palace building in Chester City Centre.  "Upaya" is a word meaning something like "effective method" or "tool" in the Buddhist tradition.  These evenings will be a way to explore together the variety of practices and tools that are coming to us through the existing Zen Peacemakers tradition, and also to develop new upayas in response to challenges and opportunities arising for us now.

Tonight we opened with a discussion about "what we each think is NOT Zen" - looking at our preconceptions, right or wrong, so we can begin training with and open mind and an awareness of our ideas.  Next we explored shikantaza instructions together, and a little mindfulness practice.  We had another discussion, on the Three Tenets of the Zen Peacemakers - Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Loving Action.  We finished with Council Circle training, using a quote from the late Shunryu Suzuki Roshi as a theme for Council:

"Each one of you is perfect the way you are and you can use a little improvement."

The next Upaya Workshop will be Tues 10th December from 7pm-10pm in the same venue.

Street Circle for Jennie

 

We held a wee Street Zen circle yesterday to welcome back Jennie from her new home in Belfast (she's back for her graduation from Chester Uni this week.)  Here she is sitting in one of the alcoves of the ruined Norman Cathedral, about 6 feet up in the air!  It's good that we have this street practice now as a way of linking in to each other and welcoming someone back.  There's almost a kind of shamanic feel about it, sitting outdoors in all weathers with the energy of the city going on all around us...

Rumi Reflection Group back for the Autumn...

 

Andy (left) from our Zen Peacemaker Circle has offered to start hosting a regular "Rumi Reflection Group" like we offered earlier in the year. He began yesterday evening, meeting in Starbuck's in Chester, and I think it'll be nearly every week. Like before, he'll bring along a poem by the Persian Sufi poet Rumi, and we'll read it together and use it as a starting point for reflecting on our own lives and their value, challenges and inspirations...

He began with a poem "Love is the Master":

Love is the One who masters all things;
I am mastered totally by Love.
By my passion of love for Love
I have ground sweet as sugar.
O furious Wind, I am only a straw before you;
How could I know where I will be blown next?
Whoever claims to have made a pact with Destiny
Reveals himself a liar and a fool;
What is any of us but a straw in a storm?
How could anyone make a pact with a hurricane?
God is working everywhere his massive Resurrection;
How can we pretend to act on our own?
In the hand of Love I am like a cat in a sack;
Sometimes Love hoists me into the air,
Sometimes Love flings me into the air,
Love swings me round and round His head;
I have no peace, in this world or any other.
The lovers of God have fallen in a furious river;
They have surrendered themselves to Love's commands.
Like mill wheels they turn, day and night, day and night,
Constantly turning and turning, and crying out.

Circle Dharmaholder Ceremony on the Streets of Chester!

 

Barbara and Roland Wegmueller came over from Switzerland to lead a Zen Peacemakers Circle Dharmaholder Ceremony on the afternoon of Oct 26th.  Barbara and Roland are Zen teachers in the lineage of Bernie Glassman, and the main coordinators for the Zen Peacemaker Circles in Europe.

The role of Circle Dharmaholder is to hold the vision of Zen practice and share it wiith circles of peers training together. Steve Hart and Chris Zang Starbuck were presented with lovely handmade Dharmaholder scarves at the end of a short ceremony of making vows.

The afternoon began with lunch in the Roman Amphitheatre, where we sometimes meet to begin our circles.  Then we went to the ruins of the old Norman cathedral, where Roland led some zazen beneath the open sky.  After the ceremony we walked down by the River Dee and made a pilgrimage to the Roman shrine of Minerva, Goddess of wisdom still carved into a rock.  Barbara led us in the Buddhist Prajnaparamita wisdom chant Gate Gate Paragate Parasmgate Bodhi Svaha.

Ari Pliskin sharing his experience in Chester on 26th Oct

 

Ari Pliskin visited us on Saturday from the USA.  He runs a project called the Stone Soup Cafe in Greenfield, Massachussets, which he calls a "pay what you can cafe".  It grew out of the ideas of Zen Master Bernie Glassman, with encouragement from the actor Jeff Bridges, as an alternative to soup kitchens.  Ari explained that Zen Peacemakers Street Retreats taught them that soup kitchens may be staffed by very loving people, but there is still a huge division between "us" and "them", the "helper" and the "helped".  Ari's project includes everyone in all aspects - a homeless person might be serving a wealthy professional, or vice versa, and it makes no difference.

Ari explained for us some of the spiritual roots of how he set up the cafe - the link to the Zen Peacemakers' "Three Tenets": Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Loving Action, and how he uses the model of the Five Buddha Families in coordinating the business side of it.

Ari is a lovely, gentle man, and it was a plaesure to have him here to speak to us.

Mime Workshop with Damian Dudkiowicz!

 

This afternoon in our Circle we had Damian Dudkiowicz leading a mime workshop! Damian is a professional performer, and a regular facilitator in the Auschwitz Bearing Witness retreats. His miming was fantastic, so difficult and so fascinating at the same time.  We held the training upstairs in Sally's Secret Garden.

Angel Healing with Lorna

Lorna held her first Angel Healing workshop as part of the Zen Peacemaker Circle today!  It was upstairs in Sally's Secret Garden in Chester.  She explained the principles, including the idea of asking for what you really need and letting go of expectations of what how the results might come, and led a wonderful visualisation meditation....

Persian Drum Workshop with Arian Sadr!

This afternoon we had a fantastic workshop for Persian drumming with Arian Sadr.  It was really nice to receive Arian's expertise and lovely to meet devoted practioners from different spiritual traditions - we had several visiting Mevlevi dervishes from the Threshold Society!  Arian taught the basic rhythms of the daf drum, how to hold it and hit it, and demonstrated his own wonderful playing.  We held the event outdoors on the grass by Chester's medieval walls in the warm summer afternoon.

Street Zen Training, 21st July

In our Zen Training circle on Sunday we studied a tool for including all aspects of our life in practice, called the Five Buddha Families. They're sometimes used in the Zen Peacemakers as a way of reflecting on our engagement with life - Spirituality, Study, Livelihood, Social Action, and Integration/Celebration. Originally they developed in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, where they are used as a very rich model of how our psyche operates moment by moment.

As usual, a fantastic meal was shared together outdoors at the end!

Street Zen Training, 7th July

 

Here's a photo Eric sent me of the meal laid out in the last Street Zen Training.  By the way, it was a plaesure to be absent and know the circle was going on without me - this was the first time in five years of offering these circles that I've not been present!  I've invited other people to facilitate before, or lead different bits of an event.  But this was my first ever absence while I've been Circle Steward!  So thankyou very much to Eric...

Chris

Lots going on...

 

We've had several activities in the past few of weeks.  Eric hosted the Street Zen Training last Sunday, and he also led another couple of guided Mindfulness and Metta sessions on the Sundays in between.  He held these outdoors too, in the unexpected but very welcome sunshine we're having right now!  On Tuesday this week we held another Rumi Reflection Group meeting in Sally's Secret Garden, taking a poem by Rumi and using it as a starting point for reflecting on our own lives.  This week was our last one with the translation Love's Ripening by Helminski and Rizwani.  We'll be moving on to Rumi: Bridge to the Soul by Coleman Barks next time.  The plan is to wander through many different Rumi translations, hearing him in different voices, to encourage a variety in the way we reflect on our own life too.

From somewhere beyond myself

grace radiates into my heart.

Somewhere a Candle illumines this whole world.

Who am I? Just the candlestick holder.

Rumi

Rumi Reflection Group, 25th June

 

Here we are in this hidden corner, drunk.

O friend!  These companions merged

into a single soul, drunk,

detached from the self and the world,

with mouths closed like pistachios,

breathing lightly

with the secret You gave them.

Rumi

Street Zen Training, 23rd June

We met together on a windy sunday afternoon, and watched the Midsummer Watch parade go by with huge puppets of elephants and dragons and pirate ships and demons!  Then we sat by the big cross in Abbey Square outside the Cathedral and discussed the Norwegian ecological philosopher Arne Naess.  Jennie, who comes from Norway, spoke about how well known he is there, and how creatively crazy.  We explored the idea that humans are not any more important or valuable than other forms of life, only we have more responsibility because of our intelligence and self-awareness.  We spoke about interconnectedness and human action, and also a little about the idea of the Zen Peacemaker Circles themselves in an ecological light - that they are intended to embody the traditional role of a "Zen Teacher" in a more varied way, within the Circle itself rather than authority and wisdom being seen as resting in a single person.

Eric's First Mindfulness Session!

 

Eric today started fortnightly mindfulness and metta sessions, to be held the weeks in between the street training in Chester.  The venue is the Harvest Moon cafe, opposite the library.  Sunday was the first meeting, and lots of people turned up to be led gently by Eric in the traditional Buddhist meditation practice known as the MIndfulness of Breathing...

Rumi Reflection Group, 12th June

 

The work of love is to create

a window in the heart,

for the breast is illumined

by the beauty of the beloved

Rumi

Street Training Circle, 9th June

 

We met at the roman amphitheatre, a wonderfully warm and sunny day.  After meditating for a while we read a story from B Glassman's book .  The story was about the amount of/lack of religious scripture during a meditation retreat.  Opinions were many, varied and shared. I interpreted the story was trying to convey the importance of rejoicing in our differences, rather than searching for our similarities.  For it is our differences that make us unique, and it is our differences that make us common.  The fact that we are different is something we all share.

After discussing what the story meant, we left the amphitheatre and each of us found our place to sit.  Here we witnessed people, nature, and general life in the city.  We all met at the amphitheatre, to discuss what we had we had observed, many of us seemed to have had similar experiences of witnessing people and their relationships.  We were then led in meditation by wonderful young Tasha, followed by a shared meal, kind company and good discussion.

by Jennie

Rumi Reflection Group, 29th May

 

She is not that kind of beloved most imagine;

she is a ray of God.

She is not just created,

she is creative.

Rumi

This afternoon we met in the garden at Sally's again and read from Love's Ripening.  We're up to the chapter on 'Feminine and Divine', and we couldn't decide which poem to read... so we read all four of them!  We had a great discussion on the union of opposites, on Hegel's dialectics, on hope and despair.  We also talked about possibilities for future activities - art and study and clowning!

The painting above is by Clara Stella from the Circle, who's leaving this week to go back to Italy...

Street Training, Sun 26th May

 

We met in the ampitheatre again then walked to the ruins of the Norman cathedral, where we did a little relaxation, checked-in wth each other, and read the chapter on Oneness from Bernie Glassman's book "Bearing Witness".  We had a good discussion about our own barriers that we erect between ourselves and other people, and how they sometimes come down.  Then we headed out for some bearing witness practice on the streets, this week wandering aimlessly (andare a Zonzo as it's called in Italian) and just mingling with the place and the people.

We came back together to discuss the practice, sat in silence for a little while, and then shared a meal together. The squirrel you can maybe just make out in middle of the photo is eating a breadstick from the meal!

Let our heart, our hand, and our table be open to everyone...

Chris