Good Friends

The November Pastoral Letter has been superceded by the December one which incorporates and extends the same teaching. The comments attracted by this letter are still posted here and much appreciated.

Comments

[susthama]

Thank you for this. This foolish being actually wrote a piece on Buddhist Training on her laptop that is now defunct. I am hoping that all is not lost and that when I get back to England it will start working again.

The general essence of it is my experience of the shift that you have written about. The mind of individual to mind of the collective.

It would be great and not to mention sooo easy if all that were required to experience this shift were to truly accept the fact that Amida accepts each and every one of us just the way we are.

Unfortunately, for me that was just the first of many steps. After many many hard months of feeling uncomfortable because my vision or purpose seemed so different from the collective, and through dialoguing with many people about what is important for the whole society have I experienced this shift. But even then I don't think I could have ever had this shift without living at TBH with such good people.

Namo Amida Bu,
Susthama

[ian Davies]

A very powerful and challenging thought.

I think that much of our society has set us up to fail and be unfulfilled. It urges us to be happy and strong,to be successful and assert our rights and sometimes even the rights of others. All this dulls me to the other. It does not help me to encounter you or you me as real people. All the time I am deciding what I can get by this or that course of action.All of this is done in relative isolation from others as we are defended from encountering others by a myriad of defences and desires that seem so plausable. One of the problems is that I cannot be Happy or fulfilled without be able to connect and share your needs.How can I receive such support and develop such loving kindness when there is so much distance of one sort or another between us. It is moving from a selfish view to a together view and in and out of the others view. I have been brought up to be at a distance from others, not to trust and certainly not to connect. Within this how do I learn that I have anything to give and that I can receive or share. Learning that we arent the centre of the universe is disorientating and being able to see the other can be blinding for awhile but ultimately it will be a very lonely and sad life without such a view and without such a willingness to go beyond our wants. A scary leap but a soft landing.

Namo Amida Bu

Ian