Meditation practice awakens our trust that the wisdom and compassion that we need are already within us. The Buddhist Association of the Goulburn Valley invite you to a free Buddhist Meditation at the Senior Citizens Centre, Shepparton, on Saturday, 1 December 2018.
Meditation practice awakens our trust that the wisdom and compassion that we need are already within us. It helps us to know ourselves: our rough parts and our smooth parts, our passion, aggression, ignorance and wisdom. The reason that people harm other people, the reason that the planet is polluted and people and animals are not doing so well – these days – is that individuals don’t know or trust or love themselves enough. Meditation helps us to know and love the full gamut of our bodily – and mindful – existence.
This meditation session is conducted by Venerable Phra Ronrawee Thero from the Dhammakaya Temple of Melbourne; all are invited to join and participate and experience the benefits of meditation.
Why Meditation?
The mind is very wild. The human experience is full of unpredictability and paradox, joys and sorrows, successes and failures. We can’t escape any of these experiences in the vast terrain of our existence. It is part of what makes life grand—and it is also why our minds take us on such a crazy ride. If we can train ourselves through meditation to be more open and more accepting toward the wild arc of our experience, if we can lean into the difficulties of life and the ride of our minds, we can become more settled and relaxed amid whatever life brings us.
Meditation teaches us how to relate to life directly, so we can truly experience the present moment, free from conceptual overlay.
There are numerous ways to work with the mind. One of the most effective is through the tool of sitting meditation. Sitting meditation opens us to each and every moment of our life. Each moment is totally unique and unknown. Our mental world is seemingly predictable and graspable. We believe that thinking through all the events and to-dos of our life will provide us with ground and security. But it’s all a fantasy, and this very moment, free of conceptual overlay, is completely unique. It is absolutely unknown. We’ve never experienced this very moment before, and the next moment will not be the same as the one we are in now. Meditation teaches us how to relate to life directly, so we can truly experience the present moment, free from conceptual overlay.
We do not meditate in order to be comfortable. In other words, we don’t meditate in order to always, all the time, feel good. I imagine shockwaves are passing through you as you read this, because so many people come to meditation to simply “feel better.” However, the purpose of meditation is not to feel bad, you’ll be glad to know. Rather, meditation gives us the opportunity to have an open, compassionate attentiveness to whatever is going on. The meditative space is like the big sky — spacious, vast enough to accommodate anything that arises.
In meditation, our thoughts and emotions can become like clouds that dwell and pass away. Good and comfortable, pleasing and difficult and painful—all of this comes and goes. So the essence of meditation is training in something that is quite radical and definitely not the habitual pattern of the species: and that is to stay with ourselves no matter what is happening, without putting labels of good and bad, right and wrong, pure and impure, on top of our experience.
Event Details
Program: Buddhist Meditation
Date: Saturday, 1st December
Time: 10:00 – 11:00pm
Location: Senior Citizens Centre, 123 Welsford St, Shepparton
More Information: Sam Atukorala, 5831 2395
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