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