Buddhist Meditation in a Nutshell

Firstly, thanks to those of you who joined me last Tuesday for our Zazen meditation tutorial, it was great to see you and to explore the subject in a more experiential way.

As we know, Buddhism is not just what we might believe but also what we do, whether that be chanting, ritual & ethical behaviour as well as meditation in all its forms.

I'm very happy to hear your ideas for future one-off tutorials if you are interested in some aspect of practice or study let me know.

Along these lines, I will shortly be sending out a link to survey what you would like the the topic of the next long course to be. I think we will be looking to have this ready to present in Autumn. I will need summer to research and produce the presentations.

Before we leave the subject of Zazen meditation I would like to recommend the YouTube channel Religion for Breakfast. This series of short videos are written and presented by historian of religion Dr Andrew M. Henry. He covers all religions, past and present, East and West, North and South, esoteric and exoteric. It's a complete smorgasbord for your inner spiritual geek. It certainly makes more interesting viewing than the news!

Here is his video, released earlier this year, on Buddhist meditation - it ticks all the boxes. He explores the origin of terms in Sanskrit and Pali for meditation and clearly explains how secular meditation differs from more traditional Buddhist meditation practices and aims. He also includes the fact that most Buddhists don't meditate, rather they engage in ritual activity, all that stuff we talk about here. And he does this without passing any judgement about one way being 'better' than any other.

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Forthcoming Events for w/c 17th July 2022

Our weekly live-streamed Zazen meditation will be this Thursday 21st July at 1900hrs BST. The link will be found in the Meditation room, to be found in the top navigation.

Have a great week and good practice!