Date/Time
Date(s) - 14/12/2022
6:45 pm - 8:30 pm
Categories
Please join us online by Zoom, Wednesday evenings, 6:45-8:30pm. We value Sangha (spiritual community) and the opportunity to be together. We will use this time for lightly guided meditation, a short check in to see how we can support one another, and exploration of a Buddhist topic. The facilitator will offer brief remarks and guide discussion as a way to focus our practice on that week’s theme. Themes may run several weeks, but each week can serve as a stand-alone session. We look forward to seeing you and sharing our love and kindness for the wellness of all beings.
All are welcome!
As we continue to explore Buddhist ethics, identifying our core values and attempting to practice the five precepts, we may notice that living up to our values can be challenging.
The emotion of remorse, the actions of confession, making amends, apologizing for our negative mental states, and the process of forgiveness, are all important tools to have available on the path to awakening.
Example; If we are aware that harsh speech is painful for all within hearing range, and we find ourselves yelling, being snarky, snapping reactively at someone, if we feel remorse about our role in that exchange, this, according to the Dharma is a positive mental state. It shows us, by direct experience, that we have let our best down, have created harm and once again proven the first two Noble Truths; the Truth of suffering and it’s causes. Each time, owning our actions, promptly making amends and engaging with the process of forgiveness for self and other, we ‘lighten the load’ releasing bound up energy constricted within us tied to negative mental states and views that we hold of people, places and things.
This emotion, remorse, identified by ‘hri’, in Pali, is not to be confused with guilt, a sense that you will loose the love of an external source if you do not ‘behave’ correctly.
By taking on this new, radical way of being, becoming more sensitive and skillful as to how we engage the world, we begin to let go, ‘die’ to our old self. Seeing into and through our old ways and working to undermine the conditions that support these negative habits, we then are setting up conditions for a more peaceful, contented happy life for us and those around us.
Wednesday Night Zoom Link
For more info, contact Narottama at bnarottama@gmail.com
Nagaloka’s Friends Night overview Nagaloka handout friends night July 2020
Check out this great resource: https://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/
Please contact us if you have any questions. Email info@nagalokabuddistcenter.org
Please feel free to join us.
