Buddha House is open for meditation Saturday mornings. Please arrive with time to get seated by 10:00. Newcomers to meditation are very welcome to join us.
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Upcoming Teachings
We will have a visiting monk from California that has agreed to teach us Dharma on Saturday June 6, 2015, followed by a pot luck lunch.
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Upcoming Events
Please join us for a 90 minute Mindfulness Yoga practice that embodies the principles of physical and mindfulness yoga into a learning experience at all levels. Principles of Yoga (Asana) and mindfulness meditation.
Please bring your own mat.
Date : Wednesdays at 6:30 pm, beginning April 29th (there will be no class May 20th)
Cost : DANA (by donation according to one's means)
Location: Buddha House - 587 Seventh St. Nanaimo, BC
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Every year during the month of May, Buddhists around the world get together to celebrate Vesak (commemoration of the Buddha’s Birth, Enlightenment and Passing). This year for the first time in B.C., the United Saṅgha (community of Buddhist monks and nuns from the different traditions) will celebrate the Vesak together. It is our hope that the United Saṅgha will bring peace and harmony to the Buddhist Community and the Canadian society at large by introducing Canadians to the richness of Buddhist philosophy and practices. May 16th. 1:00-7:00pm at the Italian cultural center Vancouver.
http://www.unitedsangha.org/vesak2015/vesak/
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Last Week's Reading
From 'Plum Village Chanting and Recitation Book' compiled by Tich Nhat Hanh
Discourse on the Middle Way
I heard these words of the Buddha one time when the Lord was staying at the guest house in a forest of the district of Nala. At that time, the venerable Kaccayana came to visit him and asked, "The Tathagata has spoken of Right View, How would the Tathagata describe Right View?"
The Buddha told the venerable monk, "People in the world tend to believe in one of two views: the view of being or the view of nonbeing. That is because they are bound to wrong perception. IT is wrong perception that leads to the concepts of being and nonbeing. Kaccayana, most people are bound to the internal formations of discrimination and preference, grasping and attachment. Those who are not bound to the internal knots of grasping and attachment no longer imagine an clint to the idea of a self. They understand, for example, that suffering comes to be when conditions are favourable, and that it fades away when conditions =are no longer favourable, They no longer have any doubts. Their understanding has not come to them through others; it is their own insight, This insight is called Right View, and this is the way the Tathagata would describe Right View.
"How is this so? When a person who has correct insight observes the coming to be of the world, the idea of nonbeing does not arise in her, and when she observed the fading away of the viewing the world as being in extreme; viewing it as nonbeing is another extreme, The Tathagata avoids these two extreme me sand teachers the Dharma dwelling in the Middle Way.
"The Middle Way says that this is because that is; this is not, because that is not, Because there is ignorance, there are impulse; because there are impulse, there is consciousness; because there is consciousness, there is the psyche-soma; because there is the psyche-soma there are the six senses, there is contact; because there is contact, there is feeling; because there is feeling, there is craving; because there is craving, there is grasping; because there is grasping, there is becoming; because there is becoming, there is birth; because there is birth, there is old age, death, grief, and sorrow. That is how this entire ass of suffering arises. But with the fading away of ignorance, impulse ceases; with the fading away of impulse, consciousness ceases; ...and finally birth, old age, death, grief and sorrow will fade away. That is how the entire mass of suffering ceases."
After listening to the /buddha, the Venerable Kaccayana was enlightened and liberated from sorrow he was able to untie all of his internal knots and attain Arhatship.
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Thanks for everyone's support in keeping the Buddha house open for meditation practice
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