Manchester Buddhist Centre

The third day of Going Inward and an oppor­tun­ity to come in from the final rush of Christmas and find some stillness

Keeping Ouiet by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any lan­guage;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sud­den strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gath­er­ing salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who pre­pare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
vic­tor­ies with no sur­viv­ors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their broth­ers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be con­fused
with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about…

If we were not so single-minded
about keep­ing our lives mov­ing,
and for once could do noth­ing,
per­haps a huge silence
might inter­rupt this sad­ness
of never under­stand­ing ourselves
and of threat­en­ing ourselves with
death.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Tomorrow’s full day ses­sion starts at 10.30 am

— all sangha mem­bers welcome

New to Buddhism and meditation?

Tools for liv­ing your life runs every day through to new year, along­side but sep­ar­ate from Going Inward, and start­ing at 11 am — every­one welcome!