Drop-In Meditation Practice  

Our Monday teatime and Wednesday lunchtime drop-in classes are proving very popular but there is still room for you

Whether you are a beginner, someone who always means to meditate (but never quite manages it), or someone with a regular practice, these sessions are a handy way of fitting in meditation during the working week.

The Voyage Home by Ben Niblock

As the first exhibition of his work goes on display in the Leeds Central Library, Ben Niblock reflects on what his artwork means to him.

Since I began coming along to Leeds Buddhist Centre, I've always been interested in images. I was told that the rich, fascinating Images of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas were pointing towards a vision of enlightenment and I sensed they offered a way into seeing and expressing the rich qualities which are present through connecting fully with our experience and allowing in the heights and depths of our minds and the world.

When I began practising about 11 years ago, I drew lots of the Buddhas and found the process very rewarding and inspiring as a practice. Perhaps due to various lifestyle choices in between then and now, I did very little art work.

Recently, over the course of several years I've become very interested in colour, lines, art, stories, theatre etc. etc. This has been an emerging intuitive sort of interest related to being more consistently present in my body. My tastes and interests range from the vulgar to ethereal, but it feels important and enriching to connect with the whole world in creative ways (as much as I'm able at a given time). I've also been doing a lot of art work to explore, express and share my experience with the world. I don't know if I'll be doing art work for the rest of my life, but it has felt very important over the last year or so.

 

When I'm drawing or painting, I take a "meditative" approach. When I sit down, I do my best to be open to what's emerging. I connect with what my body feels like and any sense of contortion or pleasurable feelings. Perhaps it feels like my neck is twisted, so I wonder "what is the shape of that line?" perhaps I feel angry so I ask "What colour is that feeling" I might feel a sense of ugliness and, on days when I feel able, ask myself questions like "What flavour does that ugliness have?""Are there other flavours around it?" All these questions are ways of filling out my experience. 

 

When I'm with people I imagine "what do I believe that I look like at the moment?" "What sort of characters are interacting here?" "How might they look in a play or a painting?"  It requires a lot of courage at times and is often not easy. At other times it can be deeply inspiring and result in pieces of art work or offer a means of communicating in highly creative ways with others. 

 

Sometimes I draw specific symbols, such as images of the Buddha deliberately because it seems to have a harmonising effect on the mind. Sometimes I feel able to open and let the mind wander to pleasant or unpleasant areas of my experience and similarly explore those spaces. Whatever I decide to draw, it often seems helpful for a number of reasons:

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• It helps me be present and connect with atmospheres and feelings
• It helps enrich and bring a sense of wonder to my life
• It can effect the way I see the world, bringing certain drawings into everyday life or revealing magic in my experience which is already there
• It is a way of communicating with the unconscious mind
• It helps me to not take my surface feelings, attitudes or beliefs about things so literally. It helps me see that these things are connected with symbollic truths and can change, develop or flower when given kindly attention and expressed. An image can mean different things and look different when seen from different angles or "in a different light". Words in contrast often feel quite "literal" to me.
• It helps me to reveal beauty in all the corners of my experience
• It helps my imagination develop
• It can have a concentrating and stabilising effect on the mind
• It facilitates integration
• In drawing I'm seeing something emerge as much as making something happen
• I enjoy it

All the art work I've done over the last year or so seems to have gathered itself around certain themes. At the time it's often felt all over the place, and I've had to respond to the accompanying doubts but, as I've put my first exhibition together, it's become increasingly clear to me that the work is coherent and reflects events and explores themes in my life.

 

My exhibition is on at the Leeds Central Library throughout February on the first floor. It is called "The Voyage Home" and explores a mythic journey back home (actually from, through and back to Leeds). The Odyssey is a main source of inspiration around which a lot of my art work has centred and there are loads of symbols and images around Leeds that are associated with this myth and have been popping out to me over the last year or so. Another main theme is transformation as embodied in Alchemy, as well as the mandala as a place where all things are interconnected and have symbolic beauty. If you are interested in talking to me about these themes, I'd be very happy. Below are some links with basic information. If you're interested, please go and see the exhibition.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_odyssey

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala

 

 

Join the Leeds Sangha at the International Retreat

We hear that quite a few members of the Leeds Sangha are going to be at the big International Retreat at Taraloka which will run from the evening of Friday 1st June to just after lunch on Tuesday 5th June 2012. Care to join us?

The International Retreat is a very special event, held every two years. This year's theme is Imagining the Buddha so the retreat will be focusing on making the Buddha more alive, real, and vivid in our imaginations - reflecting on the impressive qualities of the Buddha, contemplating the mystery of Enlightenment. Some of our most dedicated and inspired practitioners will be there to share their ideas and experience, and to help us connect with the Buddha. You'll be able to choose from a number of different ways of imagining the Buddha - through study and reflection on the traditional texts, or through chanting and singing, or through meditation and recollection of the Buddha, or through writing and storytelling.

Each morning there will be meditation, followed by an inspiring talk. In the afternoon an opportunity to study and reflection on the traditional texts, or chant and sing, write or tell stories, or meditate and recollect the Buddha in your imagination.

There will be short work periods each day too (for many people these are an extremely satisfying way of connecting with others and with the retreat as a whole). Then, in the evening, everyone re-gathers in the big marquee for storytelling and puja. There will also be time for sitting round the campfire and hanging out with the sangha.

The event is family-friendly event, and there will be a new children's area, with improved facilities and activities for children and teenagers. Over 400 people will be there - from Triratna groups and Centres across Europe. Everyone is welcome, whether this is your first retreat, or you're an old hand.

Bring your own tent and bedding - and if you want a lift or can offer one, please add your name to the list on the centre noticeboard.

"My overwhelming experience was one of metta. There was so much friendliness and that made it easy to just plunge into the whole event." Padmavajra

For more information and booking details follow this link

We have a beautiful Buddhist Centre but it's subject to the same law of impermanence as everything else - so if we leave it alone for too long the dust gathers and spic-and-span becomes dirty and messy.

We need regular help to keep it looking beautiful, tidy and clean.

This is your chance to put something back into the centre. 

The Dana Work Party meets at 4.30 pm on the first Thursday of every month (That's this coming Thursday 2nd February) to dust, hoover, tidy up, clean the shrine, polish the windows and generally make the Centre look spic and span.

Your True Home: The Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh

Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh is a prolific writer, with over seventy books to his name. 'Your True Home' is his latest: a compilation of 365 short teachings, one on each page.

The format means we can take the book's subtitle 'everyday wisdom' literally, and visit the book daily for a nugget of this much-loved Buddhist teacher's lore.

And nuggets they are, never taking up more than half a page in a book which has a short, chubby format to begin with (though too heavy to be pocket size - unless you have very big pockets).

The teachings fall into two broad categories: instructions and insights.

Weekly Programme at Leeds Buddhist Centre

Diary of Events

Please note that the views expressed in this newsletter are the opinions of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Leeds Buddhist Centre, theTriratna Buddhist Community (Leeds) or The Triratna Buddhist Order