Contemplation & Crises

The Dharma of Impermanence — Anicca

A Zoom Event

Sunday 26th April 2020 

3:30 PM to 5:00 PM Bangkok

9:30 AM to 11:00 AM London (BST)

For other times click HERE

Times of crisis are times of change — periods when our reality shifts into a different form. How we react and respond during these times is shaped by our ability to understand and relate to them.

Contemplation & Crises (formerly known as Meditation for Challenging Times), is a regular online space for us to meet, meditate and jointly explore the impacts of the events currently re-shaping our personal and global worlds. Using the Buddhadharma and other wisdom traditions as a guide, our focus will be to engage more deeply with what is being evoked in us and to sense into what we are being called to realise, individually and collectively.  The focus for April will be Impermanence or Anicca.

Suzuki Roshi reduced the whole of the Buddhist teachings into two words – “Everything Changes”.  Despite knowing this intellectually, we can find change, particularly when accompanied by the loss of what we value, deeply painful and disturbing. This session will be an opportunity for us to become more familiar with our relationship to the inherently shifting nature of existence. Something that many of us will be experiencing intensely at the moment as we, and those we love, face the possibility of losing health, lives and livelihoods within a world that is losing its many beings and wild places on a daily basis and whose established systems are struggling.

Our intention will not be to solve, fix or pass judgement on the apparent reasons, but to support each other to sense into the deeper causes of the turbulence we are experiencing, and to open the space for our inherent wisdom and compassion to arise.

The session will be in English and is offered free of charge. To register and get a password, click here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYqdemvrjsjH9yqAb9gdNf%20WLs1-U5Oj9vkH  Please login five minutes before the meeting and wait to be admitted.

If you also subscribe to our Facebook page, please click Going on it. We look forward to seeing you

 

Preparation

If you are a first time Zoomer, you will need to download the Zoom app and familiarize yourself with its features before the meeting. HERE is Zoom’s own site.

We invite you to take some time to reflect or research on impermanence and share any resources or thoughts in the posts below. Meanwhile, we offer the following for anyone wishing to go on a deeper dive in to the dharma of impermanence. An article by Norman Fischer: Impermanence is Buddha Nature and an hour-long talk by DaRa Williams: The Arising & Falling of the Ten Thousand Joys and The Ten Thousand Sorrows, We are also suggesting this article, Corona Virus offers “a blank page for a new beginning” by Li Edelkoort to get us reflecting on how impermanence in the form of Covid 19, may be impacting our world right now.

 

Schedule – Bangkok Time

  • 3:25PM          Join Zoom Meeting
  • 3:30 PM         Welcome and Introduction (10 mins)
  • 3:40PM          Meditation (20/25 mins)
  • 4:00 PM         Questions and feedback (5/10 mins)
  • 4:10 PM         Introduction to Impermanence (10/15 mins)
  • 4:25 PM         Sharing and Discussion (30/35 mins)
  • 4:55 PM         Closing remarks ( 5 mins)
  • 5:00PM          Ends

 

Facilitation

Mary Pipes: is a writer, one of the Little Bangkok Sangha lay facilitators, and a former Buddhist-based psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer who practiced in Asia and the UK for twenty years. She is engaged in a 2.5 year Dharmapala training with her teachers, Kittisaro and Thanissara which draws on both Theravadan and Mahayana traditions.

Aarti Kapoor: is the managing director for Embode an agency dedicated to human rights, corporate responsibility and organisational analysis. Aarti is an experienced group facilitator and a Buddhist practitioner influenced both by the Tibetan Mahayana philosophical path and Theravada practice.

Madeleine Recknagel: is a public speaker, behavioural change designer and founder of the Sustainable Self (www.madeleinerecknagel.com) – a Dharma inspired initiative to encourage living in co-operation with the Earth. She worked in higher education and as a zero waste consultant in Bangkok, and continues to work on single-use waste reduction solutions in the kingdom from her new home in Barcelona.