If you’re looking for sangha in the Lansing area, please consider visiting:
Quanam Temple (Tu Vien Quan Am)
1840 North College Rd.
Mason, MI 48854
meets Thursdays 7:00 – 8:30 pm, sitting and walking meditation
(517) 699-3696 or (517) 974-6319
Sangha in Mason
December 30th, 2009New sangha in Battle Creek
December 22nd, 2009We’re pleased to announce another new sangha in Michigan:
Battle Creek Karma Kagyu Study Group
for information or directions:
Matt (269) 275-0090
info@battlecreekkagyu.org
http://battlecreekkagyu.org/
Wednesdays 7:00pm to 9:00pm – Sitting Meditation and Book Study
Sundays 8:00am to 10:00am – Chenrezig Sadhana and Book Study
Every Third Sunday 8:00am to 9:30am – Green Tara Sadhana
Carpool to Blue Cliff Monastery?
December 21st, 2009Sam Ewalt from The Bluewater Community of Mindful Living writes:
Mary Velikan of Manistee, Michigan is making plans to attend the year’s end “Holiday Retreat” at Blue Cliff Monastery in New York December 29 through Jan 2. It is possible that there is still room at the retreat for new registrations.
Please contact Mary Velikan directly at skimdv@chartermi.net or by telephone to (231) 633-6366 if you might be interested in carpooling to this retreat.
Enjoy five days of mindfulness practice in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh with the monastic community of sisters and brothers at Blue Cliff.
Please contact Blue Cliff at office@bluecliffmonastery.org or by telephone to (845) 733-4959 for more information about this retreat and to make reservations.
Meditation Retreat with Sokuzan Brown
December 21st, 2009Steve Sampson from The Mindfulness Meditation Community of Grand Rapids writes:
The Mindfulness Meditation Community of Grand Rapids will hold a two day retreat the second week-end of February. Saturday, February 13, 1:30 to 9:00 pm and Sunday, the 14th, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm.
The retreat will be guided by Sokuzan Bob Brown of Battle Creek. Bob is a priest in the Soto Zen lineage.
We will practice sitting and walking meditation both Saturday and Sunday. Individual interviews with Bob Brown are available.
The retreat will be held at Expressions of Grace Yoga Studio. The studio is located at 5270 Northland Dr. NE, Grand Rapids, MI., 49525. (616) 361-8580
Dinner on Saturday will be a supplied by the Grand Rapids Sangha. Sunday, people will brown-bag their lunch.
Come for one day or both.
Out of town guests can spend the night in the homes of members of the Grand Rapids Sangha. If you need overnight accommodations contact Steve at steve.sampson@comcast.net
The event is free, but donations to support the work are very much appreciated.
To register please contact Steve at steve.sampson@comcast.net
Monastics at Bat Nha need your help
December 21st, 2009Sam Ewalt from The Blue Water Community of Mindful Living writes:
Dear Friends,
Our monastic brothers and sisters in Vietnam are in great difficulty.
The 379 monks and nuns who were forced from Bat Nha monastery in September now face immediate violent eviction from their current sanctuary.
Details about this grave situation may be found at the respected web site Human Rights Watch.
More information may be found at the website Help Bat Nha.
A sister at Deer Park Monastery in California has forwarded to us a letter from Sister Chan Kong and I would like to share part of it with you.
Chan Kong writes:
“Please forgive me for disturbing you during this holy season of family and homecoming. But our Bat Nha monks and nuns are now in a position not unlike Mary and her baby Jesus–they do not know where to take shelter, to practice and be together in safety…”
“…the situation has gone from bad to worse, our 379 very young monks and nuns have undergone a kind of baptism by fire, and have achieved a great sucess in training to understand, accept, and have genuine compassion for those who abuse them. Over the past several months they have been verbally assaulted over loudspeakers 24 hours a day and threatened with being bludgeoned to death. Policemen came demanding the monastics’ identification every night from 7 pm to 11:30 pm and cut off their electricity and water for three months.”
“Then, hired mobs arrived on the stormy night of September 27, 2009 to forribly and violently eject 147 monks, smash doors and windows and torment the 232 nuns. They all escaped and sought shelter at Phuoc Hue Temple. At Phuoc Hue the monks and nuns continue to be harrased, and the most compassionate and elderly abbot of that temple, after much resistance, also has been violently forced to sign a letter evicting our monastics. As of December 31, 2009 these brothers and sisters will have absolutely no place to go, and in fact may be drafted by the government into the armed forces. Even if they return to their familial homes the harassment is not likely to cease unless and until they disrobe and abandon their monastic life completely.”
“Now is the most crucial moment for our monks and nuns. Please quickly go to Religious Freedom in Vietnam and sign the petition…
Please sign and write to five friends asking them to sign to achieve the greatest number we could before December 31, 2009. You have come through for me, for us, many times before. I know I can count on you in this, our hour of greatest need.”
“With all our most heartfelt blessings and wishes of peace to you–
—Sister Chan Kong”
New sitting group in Ann Arbor
November 24th, 2009Looking for sangha? A new sitting group is forming in Ann Arbor. Becky Freligh is looking for interested friends to join:
Vipassana/Metta Sitting Group
Ann Arbor, MI
Every other week on an evening TBD by group
Becky Freligh
(734) 761-4892
rfreligh@umich.edu
Buddhists play games too.
November 10th, 2009via badgods.com:
New Dharma materials at FreeBuddhistAudio
October 27th, 2009via Friends of the Western Buddhist Order:
New Dharma materials at FreeBuddhistAudio
Candradasa writes from FreeBuddhistAudio with news of new on-line Dharma resources:
Dear Friends,
We’re delighted to let you know that – after a wee summer hiatus – we have a rush of new modules just posted for the FWBO’s Dharma Training Course for Mitras. The permanent web address to bookmark for the new course is:
http://www.fwbomitracourse.com/
Read the rest of this entry »
John Daido Loori NYT obituary
October 27th, 2009via the New York Times:
John D. Loori, 78, Zen Abbot and Photographer, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
John Daido Loori, a photographer who found that snapping a picture mirrored the instant of spiritual enlightenment, inspiring him to start an influential Zen monastery in the Catskills, died on Friday in Mount Tremper, N.Y. He was 78.
John Loori founded an influential monastery in the Catskills.
The cause was complications of lung cancer, Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, his assistant, said.
In addition to being abbot of the monastery he started, Abbot Loori founded a worldwide Zen order, was a respected photographer and teacher and wrote 20 books on Buddhism and art.
He is to be buried in the cemetery of his Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, where each year a “Hungry Ghost” ceremony honors the dead. In 49 days, according to Buddhist belief, he will be reincarnated. The funeral will be held then, Ms. Goddard said.
Although there are many Zen centers, some larger, Abbot Loori created one of the few Zen orders based in the United States that has members from Brooklyn to New Zealand. He published a 120-page quarterly journal and offered Zen instruction on the Internet, and on an online radio station (WZEN.org). Read the rest of this entry »
Dalai Lama prays at MLK assassination balcony
September 23rd, 2009via the Associated Press:
MEMPHIS (AP) — The Dalai Lama says his visit to the site where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated was sad but also inspirational.
The Tibetan spiritual leader was in Memphis, on Wednesday to receive the International Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum, which incorporates the site of the Lorraine Motel.
The Dalai Lama draped a white shawl over a wreath that hangs over the balcony that marks the spot where King was standing when he was shot in 1968. Read the rest of this entry »
