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Good afternoon dear friends –

There are snow drops everywhere! Bringing the joy of spring and warmth and caring for all beings – the animals, plants and minerals…. Every Thursday evening we have more light. Over the next weeks, regular Sangha practitioners can watch time change by noticing the degree of light left when we begin and how long it lasts. In the end, it will be light from beginning to end – and then it won’t!

THIS WEEK AND BEYOND

Our Thursday evenings in March almost always include an hour of sitting and walking meditation, followed by tea. An opportunity for sustained concentration and mindfulness as we change postures.

Last week, March 2, we recited the 5 Mindfulness Trainings – both our current version and the version Thay put forward from the time of the Buddha and includes in Old Path White Clouds

This week, March 9: Alan will engage us with the Dharma through Practice Songs

This Saturday, March 11: DAY OF MINDFULNESS Please join us from 10:00 to 3:00 for sitting, walking, Sutra Service, walking, sitting. Please bring a bag lunch for a formal meal (tea provided). After lunch we will practice Deep Relaxation. Please bring your favourite book in the Plum Village tradition and we will share paragraphs and Dharma discussion. After sitting and walking, we will leave refreshed, renewed.

Next week, March 16: Bethan will introduce the first of the Eight Realizations – impermanence – and we will practice with the phrase: “political regimes are subject to fall”

March 23: Catherine will talk about how her environmental engaged practice is supported by the Dharma. There will be a short reading and Dharma discussion.

The FIFTH Thursday, March 30: Waves and Water Sangha practices with a Tea Ceremony where we share songs, dance, poems, stories – Please bring your instruments! We’ll bring the cookies!

EARTH HOLDER SANGHA

Our Earth Holder Sangha has a new website: earthholder.org. There are Calls-to-Action, videos, teachings and news. As time passes, there will be many more additions.

ARISE SANGHA

Our ARISE Sangha: Awakening Through Race, Intersectionality and Social Equity has a website at https://pvracialequity.wordpress.com/ Please consider looking deeply at their work.

Dear Friends,

Due to heavy rainfall and flood warnings in the metro Vancouver area, Waves and Water Sangha will not be meeting tonight. Environment Canada’s advice is to “consider postponing non-essential travel until conditions improve”.

May all beings be safe. We look forward to practising together again next Thursday.

Dear Friends,

I am forwarding an invitation to Global Day of Prayer, sent by Dharma Teacher Joanne Friday (Chan Lac Thi) .  This is an invitation to friends of all faith traditions so, please share widely.  
May all have peace.
SuSu (Chan An Dinh)

GLOBAL DAY OF PRAYER

Sunday, February 12 – 10 AM EST

Aware of the suffering and serious division that is being created in the US and around the world, by opposing views and lack of understanding, we will be observing a Global Day of Prayer on Sunday, February 12. It is our hope that you will join with us at 10 AM EST, which would be 11 PM in Beijing, when for an hour or two we can practice prayer and meditation. We will send our energy of love and peace to all who have lost awareness of our interconnection as a human family, part of the larger family of all life. Let us help to create conditions for peace on earth to manifest. We hope you will be willing to be a part of this effort.

If the timing is inconvenient for you in your time zone, we also invite people to join at 10 AM in your own time zone. Then we will have the energy of prayer circling the globe all day long, which would be wonderful.

Dear Friends

On Thursday, Feb 2, we will begin the new Lunar Year with the Full Ceremony and Recitation of the Five Mindfulness Trainings. This will be followed by an evening of practicing with music on Feb 9 when we will be learning some Plum Village songs. In the weeks to follow, we will be introduced to the Forty Tenets of Plum Village and sharing readings and engaging in dharma discussion.

Save the Date

The Mindfulness Community of Puget Sound will be holding a spring retreat at beautiful Camp Indianola on the Kitsap Peninsula from Monday afternoon April 10 to Sunday afternoon, April 16th, 2016.

This year’s retreat will be guided by Dharma Teachers Michael Ciborski, and Fern Dorresteyn. Gifted teachers, musicians and parents, practicing within family, intimate relationships and parenting as well as work and community are very much alive in their teaching. There will be additional support to the weekend family program this year.

MCPS has generously offered a member rate to all Canadian practitioners to offset the unfavourable exchange rate.

Please visit the MCSP website for details.

Dear friends –

Even though it is cold outside, inside the meditation hall we have been warm and loving in our practice! Please join us tomorrow for a Day of Mindfulness – the schedule is below. It is possible to arrive and leave according to your own circumstances.

9:45 Arrival and settling in the meditation hall
10:00 Sitting and walking meditation (two periods
11:00 Sutra Service: Measuring and Reflecting
11:30 Sitting and walking meditation (one period)
12:00 Lunch (bring brown bag lunch and tea is provided)
1:00 Deep relaxation
1:30 The Five Touchings of the Earth
2:00 Dharma Sharing
2:45 Dedication of Practice
2:50 Closing – Restoring the Meditation Hall

Dear Friends

We concluded our 2016 practice year with candle light and practice songs as we celebrated Solstice. One of the songs touching our hearts was adapted from a poem by Rumi :

Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,
And come, come, whoever you are
This isn’t a caravan of despair.
‘Cause it doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vows
a thousand times before and yet again
Come again come and yet again, come.
(Lyrics and mp3 here)

We will carry this song into the  New Year by practicing Beginning Anew with the Five Mindfulness Trainings. Tomorrow, the first Thursday of 2017, we will recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings. A panel of Sangha members will then share their experiences of practicing with the Five Mindfulness Trainings not only as individuals but also as a collective: A Caravan of practitioners, helping each other sustain and deepen our commitment. Please bring your stories to share – the panel will open into a Dharma Sharing.

January 12 our Sutra Service will centre on the Discourse on the Dharma Seal – the basic teachings of all Buddhas. January 19 our Dharma Discussion will focus on what we do, individually and collectively, as “practice.” January 26 our Reading from Touching the Earth will explore #13 Recognizing Feelings and Emotions.

DAY OF MINDFULNESS: On January 14 we will hold a Day of Mindfulness practicing and exploring The Five Touchings of the Earth. (More information on Days of Mindfulness here.)

PEOPLE OF COLOUR RETREAT IN OREGON:
April 20-23, 2017, Dharma Teacher Larry Ward will offer a People of Color Retreat in the Plum Village Tradition. This retreat is presented by and for people of color—Black, Asian, Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander—to share and practice in a supportive environment. It will take place at Great Vow Monaster, Clatsaknie, OR.
Register: https://www.zendust.org/event/colors-compassion
Questions: (503) 728-0654 or info@zendust.org

Good morning dear Friends –

As we enter into Solstice week, we can enjoy every moment of darkness – especially dusk and dawn. With impermanence, the longest night now moves slowly and with confidence toward the longest day. And then back again to the longest night.

This evening in Sangha we will sit after dark with a multitude of candles, breathing in and breathing out – offering ourselves, each other and all beings the great gift of silence, stillness and spiritual friendship. We will call the Bodhisattvas to support our intentions as we move with the darkness and the light.

Last week, we practiced with five Plum Village practice songs – all them offering support for our socially engaged Buddhist practice. It was most wonderful – voices rising! The links to lyrics and mp3 files have been posted on the Waves and Water website in the pull-down menu from RESOURCES > 2016 December songs . Please enjoy! We will be revisiting them in the New Year.   http://wavesandwater.org/site/resources/2016-december-songs/

A reminder that there will be no Sangha gathering at the meditation hall on December 29. We look forward to seeing some of you as we sit to welcome the New Year from 7:00 to 12:00 December 31st….

With loving kindness –

Good afternoon dear friends –

Given impermanence of weather forecasts (perhaps snowyish, perhaps flurryish), the hills required to get to and from the Meditation Hall, the uncertainty of transit,  and our intention to practice throughout this season with as few  obstacles as possible….

We are cancelling our regular Thursday practice tomorrow (December 8).

NEXT WEEK (December 15th) we will explore PLUM VILLAGE PRACTICE SONGS that support our engaged Buddhist practice.

TWO WEEKS FROM NOW (December 22th) we will have a SOLSTICE SITTING with many many candles, much silence and Invoking the Bodhissatva’s names to support our Engaged Buddhist Practice.

NEW YEAR’S EVE (December 31st) we join Mountain Rain Zen and others at any time, for any period from 7:00 p.m. to midnight to CHANT FOR WORLD PEACE. There are periods of 40 minutes sitting, 10 minutes walking, 10 minutes chanting throughout the evening. We may come and go as we wish. We sound 108 bells at the end to dispel our many delusions. No registration necessary. By donation.

Breathing together….

Good Evening Dear Friends

SOLIDARITY:
Today, Sunday, December 4, 2016, has been an interfaith day of solidarity with the water protectors in North Dakota. From the Plum Village Sangha in North America, this recitation has been offered:

VERSES OF CONSECRATION
The water’s shape is round or square according to the container that holds it.
In the spring warmth, it is liquid; in the winter cold, it is solid.
When its path is open it flows. When its path is obstructed, it stands still.
How vast it is, yet its source is so small it is difficult to find.
How wonderful it is in its streams, which flow endlessly.
In the jade rivulets, the footprints of dragons remain.
In the deep pond, water holds the bright halo of the autumn moon.
On the tip of the king’s pen, water becomes the compassion of clemency.
On the willow branch, it becomes the clear fresh balm of compassion.
Only one drop of the water of compassion is needed and the Ten Directions are all purified.

It is beautiful to practice this verse and to feel held not only by the interfaith community but also by the news that there may now be an obstacle to the pipeline’s completion using the current route.

We are also reminded of the First Nations communities in Canada that continue to have no safe water source despite years of activism – may we support their efforts.

90 DAY LAY WINTER RETREAT

Each year, monastic communities in our tradition hold the  winter/rains retreat wherever they are located. Lay practitioners are invited to attend whenever they can – for a weekend, for a week, for the entire period. Many of us cannot travel to these centres, however.

Dharmacarya Kenley Neufeld from California is once again providing the framework for a lay practitioner’s retreat that we can participate in where we are. It began last Sunday and will continue through the 90 days. Those who formally commit to the retreat – for whatever time is possible for them – commit to THE SCHEDULE BELOW. We may also make additional commitments.

If you are interested and would like to meet from time to time with others from WAVES AND WATER SANGHA please let us know ( wwsangha@gmail.com).

SCHEDULE COMMITMENTS
6 days a week 45 minutes silent sitting
6 times a week silent meal 10 minutes
3 days a week read out loud and/ or practicing touching the earth with a chapter from “Touching the Earth, Intimate conversations with the Buddha” or “Love Letters to the Earth”
3 times a month practice with a local Sangha
1 day each week with no work (Lazy Day)
1 recitation per month of either the 5 Mindfulness Training or the 14 Mindfulness trainings
3 times a month participate in a Day of Mindfulness at a practice centre that you can access
1 Dharma Talk per week by Thay audio recorded in 2001.

A Buddhist Statement of Support for the
Standing Rock action and Water is Life Protectors

This collaborative statement and references – inspired by statements of support from various faith traditions – was written and compiled by representatives Rev. Jayna Gieber of the Earth Holder Sangha in the Plum Village Tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh Kristin Barker, director of One Earth Sangha with input from consultants, Buddhist teacher Thanissara, Katie Loncke, and Dawn Haney, co-directors of Buddhist Peace Fellowship, indigenous leader Steve Llanes and Dharma teacher and director of the University of Washington’s Center for Indigenous Health Research, Bonnie Duran.

The statement can be found at: https://oneearthsangha.org/statements/stand-with-standing-rock

The Buddhist day of solidarity is today, November 15, 2016. And our solidarity will continue…. day-of-solidarity

We are inspired by the model of healing, collaboration and solidarity with which the native tribes are joining together at this time in defense of indigenous rights and the well-being of Mother Earth. It is with this spirit that a Buddhist community can join with people of all faiths and no faith in protecting the rights and dignity of indigenous peoples, in reverence for basic goodness, in honoring the sacred and in defending all life, near and far, seen and unseen, born and yet to be born. These principles lay at the center of true wisdom. Svaha!

May unskillful actions harming Earth and all life cease now.

May transformation occur in the hearts and minds of corporate and government leaders in order to prevent further suffering, alienation, and destruction of life.

May all those who honor the sacred Earth come together to support the Sacred Rock Sioux Reservation and all those who stand for her protection.

May the violence and theft that harms all indigenous people forever cease.