Thursday Evening Practice

This is a hybrid event: in person at our Hospital Drive location, and also on Zoom at our regular Zoom link (click here). We begin at 7:30 and sit together for 40 minutes. After this Gareth will offer a talk about a segment of source material (e.g. a sutta/ sutra, or extract, or a practice text), then open up for questions, reflections and discussion.

This is open to all and no prior knowledge of the source texts - or even of Buddhism! - is required.

Schedule

• Core Buddhist Topics: Gareth will pick a core Buddhist teaching or concept (eg kamma, emptiness, non-self, the three marks, nibbana/ nirvana) for each of the monthly sessions as the topic for his talk and the subsequent group conversation. 
• Poems from the Dhammapada, a foundational early Buddhist text, learned by heart by trainee monastics in many Theravadin traditions. Over the centuries it has been used by Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Dogen, and many others, and it continues to offer us profound wisdom and compassion. 
• Poems from the Attakavagga ("Book of Eights"). This is another early collection of Buddhist teachings. Drawn from the Sutta Nipata, it's name comes from the eight verses in many of the poems. A recurring theme of the poems is not holding to views.
• Koans from the Mumonkan, which is one of the classic Zen koan collections. Gareth will be using Shibayama's "Zen Comments on the Mumonkan" as the primary text and translation source
  

Future Topics