Manchester Buddhist Centre

Our Going Inward star­ted today — an oppor­tun­ity for still­ness and reflec­tion at this busy time of year

Arthaketu reports …

We began with a Puja and a read­ing from the Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava:

Relax do not force your mind or body … In the thoughts that arise, under­stand­ing will come without doing any­thing.
Again and yet again work on whatever estranges you from med­it­a­tion!
Lay bare what­so­ever arises, good and bad thoughts alike

Periods of mind­ful­ness of breath­ing and metta bhavana fol­lowed, with just sit­ting between each stage.

So we had an act­ive stage of bring­ing our mind back to the breath, then more of an open stage where we just tried to stay present — to the open qual­ity of aware­ness, allow­ing thoughts to be a mani­fest­a­tion of that open­ness: arising in open­ness, dis­solv­ing in openness