Friends,
For this Tuesday, March. 3, Eastside Insight gathering, we'll be exploring one of the most famous Buddhist texts, the brief and piercing Heart Sutra.
This wonderful pointing out of the lack of inherent existence of all phenomena, does so in an uncompromising but joyful way. This lack of inherent existence, otherwise known as emptiness, is right at the heart of Buddhist understanding and Buddhist liberation.
Seattle Insight founder Rodney Smith focused on this sutta on Jan. 31, the first day of his recent online weekend retreat.
Here’s a very clear translation by Vietnamese master Thich Naht Hahn.
https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation
We’ll be gathering at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 3.
Please email Steve for the ZOOM url, or please come in person to the chapel at Northlake Unitarian Universalist Church, 315 3rd Ave S., Kirkland, WA 98033.
Please consider offering dana to Northlake Unitarian Universalist Church, which makes this space available on a dana-only basis, in a very kind and generous way. If you do, please mention you’re from Eastside Insight Meditation.
https://tinyurl.com/NorthlakeUU-Paypal2022
Also you're invited to offer dana to the teacher, with links and addresses below. Many thanks for your generous dana, which helps pay for retreat and teachings, and helps others on the way.
paypal.me/SteveWilhelm48
Steve Wilhelm
17623 184th Ave. NE
Woodinville, WA 98072
Big bows to the kind sangha members who help set up for these evenings, now Tuesdays. It’s hugely helpful when you can help, and when can say you’ll be helping. Thank you!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18OKEUO7ubunOG_q9r8MaBFWXqmWScOm4LIsv8MdnBU8/edit
And here’s an interesting March 1 east-of-the-lake interfaith activity, which may interest you. This is an IFTAR, the traditional end of the Muslim fast. I know Necmi, president of the Pacifica Foundation well, and he’s a very fine person with a generous heart.
I’ll be there. He invited me to invite Buddhist friends.
Yes these are hard times, and it’s sometimes just in times like these that the equanimity of this path is most helpful. Always remember that while pain may come, we don’t have to suffer. The path the Buddha taught is just about this. May your hearts be at ease.
With bows and love,
Steve