Saturday Service (Tai Chi, Meditation and Discussion)

06 June 2009
It was nice to see so many participants at the service.

We began our regular Saturday morning service with Tai Chi, ably lead by one of our members, Lesley Ruki-Willison.

Note: Our guiding Reverend who usually leads the Saturday service, Venerable Maioyu, is currently visiting the Nan Tien Temple in Sydney.

Tai Chi was followed by Peter Batten (another long term member) leading the meditation sessions – walking meditation, focussed meditation and sitting meditation. For the focussed meditation Peter asked us to focus on particular items within the Temple gardens and to think about them in terms of ‘this’ or that’ as in: ‘this tree’ or ‘that tree’ and how this slight change affected the way we thought and felt about the particular item being focussed upon.

After the meditation sessions Peter lead a discussion with the participants on their thoughts during the focussed mediation and the prompts he provided during the sitting meditation session such as ‘this problem’ / ‘that problem’ and ‘this solution’ / ‘that solution’.

It was interesting to hear the perspectives of the participants and how a simple change in word can change your feelings and perspectives on the thing/item that you are focussing upon. Some participants also noted how paying attention to a particular item enables you to appreciate the detail and beauty of the object being focussed upon.

This discussion was then followed by members, Linda Daniells, Lesley Ruki-Willison and Hope Dixon, giving their personal reflections on their experience of the 1.5 day retreat that they recently attended at the Temple. More information on the Retreat will soon be available on the www.fgs.org.nz website, News section.