Web content for Saturday

from email after my comment about finding content on website

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Saturday 8th: On-line Urban Retreat – Sailing the Worldly Winds

Welcome to Triratna’s 2011 International Urban Retreat ‘Sailing the Worldly Winds’! You’re joining lots of other around the world participating on-line, as well as hundreds of people at over 50 Triratna Buddhist Centres.

These screens will guide you through suggestions for today; check back tomorrow for tomorrow’s material.

We are going to be exploring the Buddha's teaching of the "worldly winds". Life is full of ups and downs, circumstances – large or small – that can trigger craving or aversion, hope or despair, longing or fear, or that can elicit from us a more creative and noble response: generosity, kindness or understanding. The Buddha often talked about these situations in terms of the eight "worldly winds": gain and loss, fame and infamy, praise and blame, pleasure and pain.

Here is a twenty-minute talk - http://vimeo.com/29929319 from Vajragupta on the worldly winds. He explains why the worldly winds can be such a relevant and helpful teaching, and gives examples of how they can blow about our lives, day to day. Watch the talk now, and then do the following reflection…

Reflection: blown by the wind?
There are lots of ways to reflect – maybe you already have your own method for reflection. But if not, here is one suggestion.
Firstly, you need time to sit quietly, so that busy thoughts can settle, and more considered thoughts can arise. Have a pencil and paper and jot down ideas, observations and memories as they occur to you.

Do you recognise the worldly winds blowing in your life? Try to recall small or large instances of the winds that have blown you around in the last few days.
Now think about patterns or themes that tend to loom large or recur often in your life. You can write a list, or you can do one of those spidery diagrams.
Are there particular worldly winds that blow around you more frequently than others?
Are there some that tend to affect you more strongly?
Are there certain kinds of situation in which you are more susceptible to being blown around?

Try to pay attention to both directions – in other words, how you may be affected by pleasure as well as pain, gain as well as loss. Often it is easier to notice when the worldly winds are blowing in the ‘negative’ direction, and we just don't notice our response when they blow the other way.

Are there other varying circumstances of life that don't quite seem to fit into the traditional formulation? What are they? (For example, a friend of mine realised he was influenced by desire for success and fear of failure. They were "worldly winds" for him.

Suggested Daily Practice:
In the next few days, we're going to look at the worldly winds in more detail, and then look at how to respond to them more skilfully. But for the next day, as you go about your day, just bear the teaching in mind. Try to notice those situations – large or small – where the worldly winds may be blowing. You may find that – as you look more closely – you begin to see more instances of them blowing, moment by moment.

Suggested Meditation:
At 4pm local time Saturday, people at Triratna Centres will be doing the metta bhavana – sending their intentions and wishes of loving kindness around the world. The idea is that – as we all do this local time – it will create a "metta wave" going round the world. Join in if you can – and send metta especially to those to the West of wherever you live. Help keep the wave going! (If you can't join in at 4pm then feel free to do the practice another time.)
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