Coming up in June
As the weather gets colder and the nights get shorter, there’s no better time to learn to meditate or develop your practice in a friendly and supportive environment.
One Mindful breath is a sangha (community) that explores the role of mindfulness in embracing the difficulties of life, letting go of the dictates of reactivity, experiencing the calm and clarity of spaciousness, and cultivating creative engagement as a way of being in the world.
All our events are at the Wellington Friends Centre, 7 Moncreiff Street, Mt Victoria, Wellington. Doors open at 7.15pm and the sessions start at 7.30pm. All our sessions end with tea and biscuits.
The session will also be streamed on Zoom. You may get more out of the session if you attend in person, so join us at the Friends Centre if you can. In Zoom select 'Join a meeting' then enter the meeting room number 919-527-2569. Note that the Zoom meeting will begin at 7.30pm.
For more details see our Meetup page.
Reminder: It’s helpful to show that you’re attending our events on Meetup or Facebook, as more participants means the event gets promoted to others.
Wednesday 8 June - Meditating, and letting go of 'yes' and 'no'
In this session we'll be exploring the ideas of Buddhist philosophy around letting go the idea of things being fixed or static, and instead looking at the world and life as a process, or a continuous event. We'll be listening to select parts of a talk by Stephen Batchelor on 'Complete Vision' (the first of the Buddha's eightfold tasks) and then discussing how this view of the world connects to our meditation practice and might infuse our lives with a sense of wonder.
Wednesday 15 June - Open house - your topics
In this session participants are welcome to bring along articles, topics, excerpts from podcasts or books, and use them as a starting point for a collective discussion. If you’ve found something interesting that you think others would also benefit from connected to mindfulness, meditation or Dharma practice, absolutely bring it along.
Wednesday 23 June - The sounds of a silent mind
Our often automatic reactions and responses to sounds typically go completely unnoticed throughout our day, and sometimes distract from a meditation practice. Yet incorporating external noises into our meditation practice presents both a challenge and an opportunity for a deeper meditation and a less reactive and more centered life. In this session we’ll be meditating together and building sounds into our practice.
Wednesday 29 June - Meditation, Buddhism, and the challenge of climate change
Buddhism's guiding ethic is to relieve the suffering of all sentient beings. Climate change is, and will continue to, inflict suffering so doing our utmost to reduce the emissions that cause climate change should be a consideration in our daily lives and behaviours. The enormity of the problem can also be a source of anxiety that clouds our decision-making. In this session we'll discuss without judgement the challenges we have in changing our behaviour. We'll also explore these challenges through a guided meditation, work with the feelings that may arise, and hopefully leave with at least one action you want to take.
What have we been up to?
May was a great opportunity to try some new session types. We had a talk on our cultural fixation on “relentless positivity“ and examined it from the perspective of modern psychology and Buddhist philosophy, which prompted some great discussion. We successfully trailed running an ‘Open House’ session where attendees were free to bring along articles, topics, excerpts from podcasts or books, and use them as a starting point for a collective discussion.
Chitty led a session focused on meditating with ease, exploring through discussion and a guided meditation how we can be more open and receptive to experience that is available to us right now and meditate with ease.
It was a great month! Attendance was consistently between 11 and 15 people, and more people means more insights, more contributions, and better discussions, which is always wonderful.
Dana
One Mindful Breath operates entirely for free, though we rely on regular dana (donations) to enable us to keep operating. You can always make an electronic payment (or regular automatic payment) to our bank account: 38-9019-0064662-03.
If you’re a New Zealand tax resident we’ll be able to send you a donation tax receipt at the end of each tax year so you can claim back 1/3rd of any amount donated.
It’s helpful when you make a donation to include your email address in the reference field, so that we can more easily send you your donation receipt at the end of each tax year.
Check out the Secular Buddhist Network
If you’re looking for more in-depth information to help your practice, brilliant articles on a range of subjects, and ways to connect with practitioners overseas, check out the Secular Buddhist Network at
https://secularbuddhistnetwork.org/
One Mindful Breath is proud to have been one of the original financial backers of the network and we continue to contribute to this fantastic shared resource.