Reflections on the Great Guru

Padmasambhava, the Great Precious Guru, has been very present in the Glasgow Buddhist Centre over this last month. At the beginning of the month, on Mandala Night, I gave an introductory talk, hopefully bringing Padmasambhava to life and introducing him thoroughly to anyone in our Sangha who hadn’t yet made his acquaintance. The link to the talk is here: https://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/audio/details?num=LOC6788

The following week, Gunasiddhi and Candrika ran an experiential evening focussing on naming personal demons and letting them go. I was sad to miss that evening as I was down in Brighton. It sounded great and was well enjoyed by folk I spoke to. The week from the 22nd to the 26th September we celebrated an Urban Retreat dedicated to Padmasambhava. I was delighted with how that went. There were three sessions each day - at 7.30am, 12.30pm and 7.00pm. The morning sessions were 4 of us most days with 6 on the final day. The lunch time sessions varied from 12 to over 20 and the evening sessions had a minimum of around 20 to over 40. I think the thing I enjoyed most was seeing people catch up with friends who they don’t often see or with whom they don’t often coincide at the centre. When we talked about doing this earlier in the year this was what we hoped for.  In the Dharma and Meditation teaching kula we reflected that, although there are many different groupings in the sangha there are not so many opportunities to all come together.  There are, of course, festival days and I’ve loved seeing them grow but it seemed a great idea to offer something more sustained and so we thought we would offer the urban retreat. It seemed quite ambitious to offer 3 sessions a day over 5 days with the Padmasambhava festival coming a couple of days later but I think it really did what it set out to do.

I’m really grateful to everyone who participated. That is what we really wanted - lots of participation. I’m grateful to the groups who hosted a session with such generosity and passion. Every session was interesting, well planned and thoroughly enjoyed. I’m also very grateful to everyone who turned up whether for one session or for all of them. I definitely think this will be a yearly occurrence. In the past the GBC has hosted a rainy season retreat - this was a wee bit different from what I understand. This was open to everyone including the folk doing the level one meditation and Buddhism course on Wednesday evening and also to anyone coming to the drop in meditation class and the mandala night. I appreciated the range of people who attended, some there for the first time!

Then on Sunday 28th we celebrated Padmasambhava day Festival round at Woodside. Such an enjoyable day! Order members ‘heated’ the room up by practicing the visualisation of Padmasambhava together before being joined by everyone else. Viryadevi told us of her pilgrimage with Kuladharini where they circumambulated Glasgow, walking all round the football grounds and the River Clyde. All in they walked around 23 miles in one day - pretty impressive I reckon. It was fascinating and inspiring to hear of their journey, their visiting the spirits, gods and demons of Glasgow in the four cardinal directions, interestingly where the 4 football grounds can be found. This ties in so beautifully with Padmasambhava taming and befriending the spirits of Tibet. It was a great way to start the day and was followed by a meditation. 

After a tea break (a crucial part of any Triratna event) we heard 3 short talks from three of the mitras who had attended the big retreat at Adhisthana which I wrote about some weeks back. Maria, Nev and Stephen gave lovely personal talks. Very different but all from the heart and very moving. In the afternoon we were treated to a Dharma Drama complete with demons. It was great, the demons excelled as did Padmasambhava, the narrator and whoever the other character was. I wasn’t too sure to be honest but that didn’t stop it being highly enjoyable. The day ended with 4 Mitra ceremonies and a threefold puja. The new mitras were surrounded by love, appreciation and presents! Their bios are on last week’s newsletter.

So, Padmasambhava has been very present and I hope that he will stay with us and help us to befriend the spirits of Glasgow as we move into another phase. We need all the help we can get in this suffering world where samsara is, as the Buddha told us, endless and vicious. 

I’m writing this sitting in Heathrow waiting for my (delayed) flight to Mexico where I’ll be for the next three weeks. Next blog will be from there.

Meanwhile

For now, as always, may all beings be well, may all beings find true happiness and its causes and may all beings be free from suffering.