I was saying this morning that the Satipatthan Sutta is like a fractal pattern. The more you focus in, the more details emerge. The classic illustration of this is the Mandelbrot Set below: Or in zooming detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b005iHf8Z3g

I thought I'd start updating folk about the stuff happening in the coming week with a little video after the Monday morning session:

https://share.descript.com/view/Co5G24va7J5

I suspect I’m not alone in mourning the great David Lynch, who died this week. A masterful filmmaker, he was also a major proponent of transcendental meditation. In his honour his kids have requested a worldwide ten minute meditation sit at 20.00 GMT on Monday 20th January. I think it’s a great idea. https://variety.com/2025/film/news/david-lynch-children-worldwide-group-meditation-1236278181/

https://share.descript.com/view/j1yhLm0x714

We're starting a new cycle of teaching on Thursday mornings looking at the six perfection or 'paramitas' in Mahayana Buddhism. These are generosity, discipline, patience, effort, meditation and wisdom. And we'll be spending two weeks on each - plus the introductory teaching which was today. We started by looking at the crucial issue of 'shunyata' and how essential it is to make turn these paramitas into something transcendental. Thich Naht Hanh translates the experience of emptiness as "the insight which takes us to the other shore" - the other shore being enlightenment. You can catch up with the opening practice Experiencing Emptiness (https://www.mind-springs.org/premium-videos?wix-vod-video-id=729d9dfbb36b4ddd9df639cd3a309b81&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-l9svp7fb)- but here is a snippet of the discussion after that practice: https://share.descript.com/view/k1ak8b7Wol9

For the first eight weeks of 2025, we're using Thursdays to explore one of the ground meditation texts of Buddhism, the Satipatthana Sutta. This is the core text from the first collections of the Buddha's teachings (the Pali Canon) which, in its own words, describes how meditation can be the direct path for the 'overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, the end of physical and emotional pain', in other words, the path to Nirvana. It's a long text, and Pali literature is full of extensive repetition. So I'm attaching a variety of translations here. And Bikku Bodhi's translation is the one we will be using most: https://suttacentral.net/mn10/en/nyanamoli-thera?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false You can download it here: @rachelrawlins also pointed me to this beautiful translation (abbreviated) by Thich Nhat Hanh: https://plumvillage.org/library/sutras/discourse-on-the-four-establishments-of-mindfulness This is Ajahn Thannissaro's translation (from Access to Insight): https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.than.html And this is the Jotikka / Dammaninda translation: And here is the link to Ajahn Amaro's discussion of the text: Chapter 1 – General Aspects of the Direct Path (part 1),https://open.spotify.com/episode/5yiD3sHyvUdl955aJ875is?si=94088fe96d3141e3

https://share.descript.com/view/ra6FVRTKIvu