BRC - SANGHA SUPPORT - Letters from lockdown - 28 April 2020

The Buddhist Retreat Centre

Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste

The above is true for the many people in this country who have risen to the occasion of helping others during these bewildering times. For instance, the millions raised by the humanitarian EMedia Covid 19 Relief Fund for vulnerable communities - where such moving stories have emerged: children breaking into their piggy banks and donating what they have saved, a young man donating the petrol money he had not used during the April lockdown, church-goers tithing their usual Sunday contributions, pensioners foregoing one meal a day to make a contribution. Woza Moya’s distribution of food parcels to the Ufafa community; Ixopo farmers rallying together with food parcels for the poor and hungry in the area. Essential and health workers at the frontline. The R22,000 Dana given to Woza Moya that came in from retreatants in 2019/20 to help them with their welfare work and YOU and our monthly and PUY donors who have helped the BRC weather the challenges with your generosity.

In Buddhism this spontaneous giving is part of the practice of Loving-Kindness.
‘Kindness’ is the quality of being generous and caring; ‘Loving’ is showing love to other people. Blend these words together and you capture the essence of Loving-Kindness (Metta) - the essence of a meditation practice rooted in compassion. As many of you know we always end our retreats with a Metta meditation to strengthen our kindness and connection towards others: a radical act of love.

Try to incorporate this meditation in your daily practice to help ease your and others’ daily way:

“May I be well
May you and your loved ones be well
May all beings be well”

“If compassion is indeed infectious, the potential benefits of meditation are obvious. If just a few weeks of 10 minute meditations can lead to an increase in friendly, helpful behaviour, it is not difficult to imagine what mindfulness on a massive scale could mean for relationships and communities.” - Headspace

As the BRC is considered as a religious organisation, the new level 4 lockdown restrictions prevent us from hosting any of our May retreats as we had hoped. Essential travel regulations are also in place for the moment, so we cannot even open the Centre for self- retreats. But we are hoping to do so in the future.....

Take care of yourselves,
And be at ease.

Love
Louis

Lockdown … The Life Of A Feline At The BRC

Jemima, Lily and Shadow -  it really is the life of the rich and famous for us here at the BRC … well that’s what we think. Yes, life goes on we say and it’s not that we have arranged meetings to discuss our whereabouts and thoughts to each other, it is our human parents and caregivers that believe we live this sort of life here in the rolling hills of Ixopo.

We have cozy beds most of the nights when we are not participating in our nocturnal activities. We have our meals taken care of so really who would want to be anywhere else but right here? We actually watch everyone moving about taking care of the grounds cleaning up the colourful leaves that keep falling from the trees and then, can you actually believe it … they cut the grass where we just love to play and catch mice. We need to remind the humans that we too can offer gifts during lockdown. At the end of the day we are just saying thank you. Aren’t we all in this together, well that’s what we are being told?

They are always telling us that they appreciate the love and gifts that we bring them but can they please be a little more considerate and do it some other time and just not today or tonight. Where is the respect we ask … this is all about them and THEIR lockdown but it’s okay for us to give them love when they need it saying how fed-up they are because they are missing their family and friends of the BRC and how challenging these times are for everyone. Then in the next breath after some meditation, we are told ‘thank goodness for us’ because at least we listen without a word of back chatter and then we are friends again. Humans - do they not realise that our love is unconditional?

In actual fact we have loved the past … um month (we think) or so because we are spending some quality time with our parents and caregivers. We love and adore our real and adopted parents, but we really do miss those other humans not coming around anymore. They are just the most awesome folk. Always a gentle yet cautious stroke on the head and a word of endearment and oh our souls … the winner is when we roll over onto our backs - that’s when the real love just pours out and we are then the best kitties in the whole wide world. Why in animal heaven’s name would any earthly creature want to leave the BRC … certainly not us!

As always true love is just a purr away. We will keep purring until our other family and friends return after lockdown and in the meantime, we will make sure that we keep the BRC team in shape until things return to normal.

Stephen Coan has been retreating and teaching at the BRC for over 30 years. He has co-led the full-moon Wesak retreat with Louis for many years. Here is his “Sangha Support” message:

Let Things Simply Take Their Way

Where did my life come from?
Where will it go?
Meditating by the window of my tumbledown hut
I search my heart, absorbed in silence
But I search and search and still don’t know
where it all began
How will I ever find where it ends?
Even the present moment
can’t be pinned down
Everything changes, everything is empty
And in the emptiness, this “I” exists
only for a little while
How can one say anything is or is not?
Best just to hold to these little thoughts
Let things simply take their way
and so be natural and at your ease.

- Ryokan (1758-1831)

When leading a retreat at the Buddhist Retreat Centre I usually begin the first evening with this poem by the Japanese Zen Buddhist hermit-monk Ryokan as we all sit around the fireside in the studio. The last two lines of the poem are pretty good instructions for a retreat. Put everything down, get that pesky “I” out of the way and let the weekend, or however long the retreat might be, simply unfold and take its course.

Okay, you might think, that might be fine for a retreat in the beautiful surroundings of the Centre but now in a time of national lockdown when we are facing all sorts of fears and challenges?

We might be in lockdown but meditation, sitting, zazen, mindfulness - whatever you label you give your practice - is not about shutting down in your own bubble. The opening chapter of the Diamond Sutra, a key scripture in the Zen Buddhist tradition tells of how ‘One day before noon, the Buddha put on his patched robe and picked up his bowl and entered the capital of Shravasti for offerings. After begging for food in the city and eating his meal of rice, he returned from his daily round in the afternoon, put his robe and his bowl away, washed his feet, and sat down on the appointed seat. After crossing his legs and adjusting his body, he turned his awareness to what was before him.’ The Buddha sat down and ‘turned his awareness to what was before him.’ An act of connection.

Zen master Robert Aitken said the ‘practice of Zen (meditation) is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something’. Lama Anagarika Govinda who visited the Buddhist Retreat Centre many years ago said much the same thing: ‘Meditation is the way to re-connect the individual with the whole, to make us aware of our continuing connection and communion, which has never really been broken off.’

Today, on coming back to Ryokan’s poem it is likely those first lines: ‘Where did my life come from?/Where will it go?’ that will command attention. As Ryokan contemplates these questions he concludes such great matters cannot be ‘pinned down’. There are no definitive answers, so while they might be interesting to chew over they don’t get you anywhere and it's best to ‘Let things simply take their way/and so be natural and at your ease.’

Even in our current circumstances these words still apply. They lie at the very heart of our practice: simply being with our situation moment by moment, being gentle with ourselves and with others. Acknowledging our fears and anxieties and then putting them down, using Ryokan’s wise advice to inform, inspire and strengthen our practice, to strengthen our resolve to sit with and for all beings.

With Metta
Stephen