Saturday Service (Tai Chi, Meditation and Discussion)
31st January 2009
Together with the regular participants, eleven new people joined the morning Tai Chi, meditation and group discussion service. 18 people altogether.
After Tai Chi and Walking meditation Venerable Maioyu introduced the theme of the Motive Meditation session in the Main Shrine.
Our guiding Venerable invited us to focus on the volunteers and Reverends who were diligently working to elaborately decorate the Shrine for the ceremony that night. She asked to note the scene as it was unfolding before us and made suggestions to focus on while we witnessed people decorating the Shrine.
Note: The Ceremony is an auspicious Temple event where special offerings are made to the universal Buddha’s, Bodhisattvas and Heavenly Gods. It is a midnight ceremony that starts at 11pm and goes until 2am in the early morning.
In the group discussion participants were asked to share the thoughts they had during their motive meditation. People talked about:
• The cooperative way in which the Reverends and volunteers worked together;
• The youth of the volunteers;
• The perseverance and patience of the volunteers and Reverends when things needed re-arranging;
• The colourful and beautiful spectacle;
• The happiness of the scene and how everyone was playing their part to create a bigger picture;
• The gentle effort, positiveness, selflessness and focus of the people working in the Temple;
• The thought and planning that had gone into the setting up the special arrangements in the Shrine;
• The novelty of the scene for newcomers to the Temple;
• Watching other people work and how they were bringing it together into one harmonious beautiful picture;
• The impermanent nature of the scene - how the Shrine was being elaborately decorated for one special Ceremony only, then how it will be dismantled when the ceremony was over to bring – to enable it be used for its usual day to day use;
• How the scene can happen anywhere and repeatedly if we applied our right mind.
As the participants shared their thoughts our Guiding Venerable took the opportunity to weave in the relevance to Dharma – Buddha’s teachings. For example she talked about:
• Control – how we can not control others but we can control ourselves. That we are each responsible for our own minds, thoughts, action and speech;
• Learning - that we need to have empty spaces within ourselves so we can take on new knowledge – so we have room to take it on board;
• Mastering ourselves - how we should work to master ourselves. We don’t have to achieve this overnight. It is more important to progress towards a goal;
• Giving other people time to get over their bad habits and perceptions. Be tolerant, patient and open;
• Forgiving yourself – When we let ourselves down – she asked us not to dwell on it. She advises us to move on. To forgive yourself;
• Non-Duality – Many perceive the universe as having two sides / opposites. For example Male / Female, tall/short, right/wrong etc. Buddhism teaches non-duality. For example while a 1.6 metre person can be short in comparison to 1.8 metre person when compared to a 1.2 metre person they are tall;
• Positive Natures – Our Venerable asked us to think about the positive energy being generated and talked about the Law of Attraction;
• Beauty - She reminded us that while the Temple and the Shrine is beautiful it is more important for us to have a beautiful mind. We will then generate and attract positive energy;
• Cherishing the present moment; Learning from the past, but leaving it behind; and to look toward the future.