Special Events

Women's Day Retreat:

'Infinity Dancing'

****TOMORROW******

Parinirvana Puja

Sunday 16th February, 6.30pm

Open to all, including those who've never done a puja before and want to find out what it's all about!

Doors open at 6.30pm, the puja will begin at 7 and last until approx 8.30pm.

Sangha News

Extra Special News!!!!! 

Congratulations to Rosemary - she's getting ordained!

Rosemary has been officially invited to join the Triratna Buddhist Order and will go on a 4-month ordination retreat in Spain this Spring. There will be various ceremonies and celebrations in Leeds to mark this splendid occasion in the coming months.  Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!

Jumble Sale with STYLE!

15th March, Chapel Allerton

One of the Buddhist Centre's big fundraising events is the annual Jumble Sale in Chapel Allerton. Last year we raised £1200 - good money, a record and well worth the effort!

This year's Jumble Sale is fast approaching and WE NEED YOU to lend a helping hand. Please contact David Turner (david@wonderworld.co.uk) or sign up on the sheet at the Buddhist Centre if you can volunteer as a...

Sorter- Do you have an eye for style? Can you spot a gem amongst the usual bric-a-brac that might fetch a good price? If so, please volunteer to help sort and price up the jumble between now and 15th of March. 

Leafleteer - Do you like to stretch your legs in the name of a good cause? Can you spare some time to deliver leaflets in the Chapel Allerton prior to the big day?

Seller - Do you delight in quality customer service and the odd bit of bartering? As many volunteers as possible are needed to sell stuff on the day itself.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, we need JUMBLE, loads of it! Please bring it to the centre as soon as possible, or contact David who will organise a collection.

Sangharakshita on Perfect Effort

The sanskrit equivalent of the English word 'effort' is 'vyayama', which is still used in the modern languages of Northern India and means, more precisely, 'exercise' - ordinary physical exercise, especially in the sense of gymnastics. In the following extract from his 1968 talk on Perfect Effort, Sangharakshita suggests that we abandon 'armchair Buddhism' and train ourselves on the treadmill of the spiritual life... 

Sangharakshita on Perfect Effort

"Now the stage [of the eightfold path known as] samyak vyayama or Perfect Effort, draws our attention to a very important aspect of the spiritual life, and that is that the spiritual life is an active life. The spiritual life is not an armchair life, it's active, if you like it's dynamic. 

Now this activity, this action, is not necessarily physical. Spiritual life being active doesn't mean that you must always be rushing around doing things in a crude, external physical sense. But it certainly means that one should be mentally, spiritually, even aesthetically active. In fact we may say that this step or this stage of the Eightfold Path stands for the element of what we may call spiritual athleticism, which is a very characteristic and very prominent feature of Buddhism. We may say, generalising, that Buddhism is for the active.

We may say Buddhism is not for the mentally crippled or the spiritually bedridden. It's not for people of this description, it's for people who are prepared to make an effort, for people who are prepared to try. You may fail, of course, you'll fail ten times, you'll fail twenty times, you'll fail a hundred times, but that doesn't matter so much, the thing is that you should make the effort, that you should try. So Buddhism is for those who are prepared to make that effort, not for those who are prepared only to sit back in their armchairs comfortably and read all about the efforts of other people.

Well, you know the sort of thing, you take the life of Milarepa and you ensconce yourselves by the side of the fire, with perhaps a cup of tea and a plate of muffins or a box of chocolates and you munch your muffins and nibble your chocolates, and you're all warm and cosy and you read about the austerities of Milarepa and you think how fine and how wonderful!

So not like that, not just reading about other people's efforts, but being prepared to make at least a minimum effort of our own ... We may say that Buddhism, which is a very demanding and very exacting sort of path is really for the young and for the vigorous - either for those who are physically and mentally young or at least who are mentally and spiritually young, whatever the age, or whatever the state of their bodies may be.

New Year's Resolutions

Sangha Snapshot: New Year's Resolutions

by Mandy Sutter 

Making New Year Resolutions may be an undertaking doomed to fail (apparently only 8% of us manage to carry out our intentions!) but as a secular tradition, it's popular in the West. It's also a feature of several religions, Eastern as well as Western. So, what do Buddhists think about New Year Resolutions? I decided to ask a few.

Penny (Rowen) spoke for many with her distrust of making them. 'Whatever will happen will be so different from anything I may plan, that now I try not to plan, apart from the stuff that needs to be done. I can then be surprised, as always, at what turns up,' she said. 

Jenny (Roberts) feelings about New Year Resolutions chimed in some respects with Penny's. 'I used to make New Year Resolutions, determined - every year - to make my life 'perfect'. It never worked so the next year I'd try again. And every January 1st I would realise just how much I had failed over the previous twelve months. I'm being kinder to myself these days. Since I became a Buddhist I've gradually started accepting that life will never be perfect and instead of trying to force the pace on things that need to change, I've begun to try and notice where improvements might be made and to understand how these fit in with the Dharma, and in particular with the Precepts. Strangely enough, this seems to work much better.

Phillippa (Plock) has an interesting and slightly different take on it, 'I don't make New Year's resolutions as a rule - though I did give up smoking one year - but I do like making resolutions in relation to the seasons, so for example, this past Autumn, I made an aspiration to let go like the trees let go of the leaves, and to accept the dark and feel my fear as I walked out and about in the encroaching night.

That said, I have just moved house, and am now constantly reflecting on the relationship between the new and habits, for after all it seems that New Year's resolutions are our culture's attempts to help us make the leap and break those behaviours that have become dangerously engrained in our bodies. I am thoroughly enjoying the liberation of new kitchen cupboards and drawers - the opportunity to put teaspoons next to coffee and mugs for the first time -and to resign the cumbersome bits of equipment that we only need once a month to the tops of cupboards. The cutting breeze of a grey January day applied to the habits of storage.'

Khemasara, while not having overtly made any resolutions, has 'clocked a desire to clear out a load of 'stuff' to tip, charity shop and put things by for the (timely!) Centre jumble sale in March. This is a pattern I recognise. It's interesting that I usually avoid getting rid of books relating to art, poetry and Buddhism but this time it's all up for grabs! It seems fairly clear this is around attachment and identity and the practice of letting go. It feels I've held onto an identity with art, poetry, and being a Buddhist longer than most but this is now weakening. That's not to say I can't enjoy art, poetry or 'being Buddhist' but I see they are part of the play I have constructed around a self which no longer holds so time to let go...'

There are, however, a few sangha members who have made overt resolutions. One is Uddyotani, who says, 'My New Year's Resolution is to not get tired. This basically means doing my chores and then stopping and resting; letting that be enough. It also means being realistic about tasks and noticing when I'm resisting doing them. It means not letting it be a problem if I genuinely don't have time.'

Margaret (Bedi) womanfully joined in the national push for a dry January. 'My New Year Resolution,' she says, ' is to abstain completely from alcohol in January.  This seemed sensible on health grounds, after slight overindulgence during the festive season! I certainly realised my Practice would benefit because mindfulness becomes impossible if I am intoxicated. I tend to lose some of my inhibitions, and my speech can become very unskilful. Alcohol can take the edge off difficult states of mind - I have been shocked to realise how often, when things aren't going my way, I think, 'It would be nice to have a drink.' After January, I would like to be able to have a drink occasionally with friends. Then it would be one of life's pleasures:  fine if not taken in excess, and not craved for.'

As for me, I've resolved to remember where I am in the year's calendar every day. Being a gardener, that comes naturally from April-September as I keep an eye on what to sow when. But I go into a mental fog when it's cold and have an unskilful attitude of wanting to 'get through winter.' So I'm making it a mindfulness practice to expand my awareness of each day and appreciate it in relation to the year in general. For example, although I generally do notice birdsong and the length of the daylight hours, I rarely look at the position of the sun in the sky or pay attention to the trees.

A friend is terminally ill and has been for some months. In a recent email he said, 'I feel very ropey these days. But I'm still here and taking each day as it comes.' How important these last days must be for him and his wife and two young sons, even if they are filled with pain and confusion and grey skies. So I'm checking in a few times each day, to think about him and his family and to make January go by as slowly as it possibly can. Perhaps Bon Iver's song, 'Woods', sums it up:

'I'm up in the woods

I'm down on my mind

I'm building a still

To slow down the time.'

Veganuary

This month is 'Veganuary' - a time when people are being encouraged to try being vegan for a few weeks. We know that there are lots of people in the wider Triratna sangha having a go and there are even a few people in Leeds as well. So we thought it would be a good idea to find out some of the reasons that make someone move on from vegetarianism to being vegan.

Confessions of a (Former) Eggaholic!

The Interconnectedness of all beings

By Ann Croft

I have to be honest - I have eaten meat, poultry, fish, dairy and many, many eggs over the years. But three years ago my partner (Jenny R) and I became vegan. We originally became vegetarian as we thought that, with the huge range of dairy products and my absolute favourite, eggs, to keep us going, we'd be 'doing the right thing' as far as animals were concerned. However, as we progressed, I began to look further into the dairy and egg industry and it became more and more clear that if we wanted to avoid causing animal suffering then we needed to go the whole way and become vegan. This is why:

Milk, Cheese and Eggs to die for

The Easter extravaganza which parades those little bundles of yellow fluff at us every year, fails to bring to our notice the up to 40 million one day old chicks (all male: they can't lay and they are too skinny for the meat industry) which are destroyed. Either being gassed or thrown in the mincer. Organic, free-range and factory farms ALL get their chicks from the same hatcheries (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326168/Secret-footage-shows-millions-British-chicks-killed-year.html)

Thousands of male calves are shot at only a day or two old. They're excess to requirements as humans want to drink the milk that would, otherwise, be theirs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2152402/Viewers-outrage-harrowing-scenes-day-old-calves-shot.html

Goats' milk is promoted as the angelic answer to those who want a healthier, more animal-friendly alternative to cows' milk. A Viva! undercover investigation uncovers the death, mutilation and disease that goes into producing goats' cheese tartlet (http://milkmyths.org.uk/goats)

The total number of animals killed in British slaughterhouses in 2003 was approximately 900 million - and that figure doesn't include fish.  

People Matter Too!

And it isn't just the animals that suffer. Just imagine what it must be like to be one of those thousands of people whose job involves throwing those tiny chicks into a mincer, shooting one-day-old calves or slitting the throats of the animals in the slaughter houses. Whether they realise it or not, how can a human-being avoid being brutalised by that kind of work? Could you remain human,caring and respectful of life if you had to spend your own life doing that kind of job?

Being vegan is easy - and feels good

Being vegan isn't any kind of punishment, in fact it was a weight off our shoulders. We eat varied, very tasty, and nutritious foods. Anyone who has been on a Buddhist Retreat will, almost certainly, have sampled some delicious vegan foods. Plus, there's loads more to choose from - many of them in the supermarket freezer. There are even convincing alternatives to egg yolk and scrambled eggs. And vegan cheese and milk (after a little while) tastes just as good, perhaps even better than dairy. Our diet is also full of protein and minerals too - and lower in all the bad fats, hormones and anti-biotics that are found in milk and cheese.

Your diet can change the world (yes, really!)

Finally, one last word. If you care about our planet and the way we are mistreating it, then you should know that being vegan is a massive help to our beleaguered environment:

• On irrigated land, 1lb of vegetables uses 25 gallons of water - 1lb of beef uses 5,214 gallons. (University of California)
• Animal faeces (partly from all those cows!) is a major cause of acid rain - and in Holland and Belgium, it is the main cause. (Wageningen University)
• Farmed animals (especially cows?) rank second in causing global warming.  Reason - methane from prolific farting and belching. (S.A.F.E.)
• If Britain went vegan, less than a quarter of all farmland would be needed!  Reading University
• A vegan diet uses substantially less energy than a diet based on animal products and therefore contributes much less to air pollution, acidification, oil spills, habitat destruction and global warming.

If you'd like to learn more please see:

http://www.viva.org.uk/going-vegetarian-vegan

http://www.vegansociety.com/become-a-vegan/

Tasty Vegan recipes:

http://thegentlechef.com/     

http://www.theveganhousehold.com/ 

http://mouthwateringvegan.com/

http://vegetarianrecipeclub.org.uk

New FREE on-line Vegan magazine:

http://www.veganfoodmagazine.com/issue-1/?utm_source=newsletter1&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=issue1

Vegan Shopping in Leeds

Out of this World (opp. corn exchange)

Holland and Barratt

Millie's Organic Food Store (Vicar Lane)

Poet's Corner

I Am Not I

I am not I.

                   I am this one

walking beside me whom I do not see,

whom at times I manage to visit,

and whom at other times I forget;

who remains calm and silent while I talk,

and forgives, gently, when I hate,

who walks where I am not,

who will remain standing when I die.

by Juan Ramón Jiménez

from Jorca and Jiménez: Selected Poems

(translated by Robert Bly)

Calling All Poets

Leeds Buddhist Centre was recently contacted by Dharmavadana, an Order Member who edits Urthona Buddhism and Arts Magazine. Dharmavadana is looking for poems written by people attending triratna centres throughout the country. Poems do not have to have overtly Buddhist or spiritual themes, although poems of that type are also sought. 

So if you fancy sharing your work with others, why not email a poem to Dharmavadana at dharmavadana@btinternet.com

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