Dear friends,
The Heart Sangha of Santa Cruz organized a Day of Mindfulness for the NorCal community at Udumbara Retreat Center in the Santa Cruz mountains, which took place on October 18. We were welcomed by the Venerable Thay Tu Luc and monastics from the Duc Vien tradition, whose main monastery is in Hayward. Forty people attended, including friends from sanghas around Northern California and one person from Arizona!
Our theme was All Together Now: The Insight of Interbeing. We were inspired by a gatha from teacher Jim Scott-Behrends:
All together
Entering the stream
Floating with the current
Smiling at the vast sky.
Our morning included sitting and walking meditation, singing and dharma talk which spoke to the unique gift (presence) we each have to offer to the body of the river (sangha), and the need the world has for us to offer it in this moment — all together now.
Following a mindful lunch we listened to a teaching from Thay on interbeing:
We have to train ourselves to see ourselves as a river,
not as an isolated drop of water.
As a drop of water we might evaporate.
But together we can go to the ocean.
We created a River Practice to allow everyone to share something they do (or see done) to cultivate well-being and joy in themselves or in the world, reflecting a sense of interbeing. We formed dharma sharing circles for discussion and wrote our action on a piece of ‘river paper’. We came back together and, one-by-one, read what we had written and placed our ‘isolated drop’ on the floor. The drops created a river which flowed from one end of the zendo to the other, reaching the ocean of hope and love, the altar! We were guided in a beautiful metta meditation, then stood in a circle around the river and energetically brought into the center anyone who might be vulnerable or need support. We sang Dear Friends and closed by sharing the merit of our practice.
For information on upcoming community events like this, see the NorCal Sangha events calendar.
