A reminder that our Thursday evening Sangha practice resumes again this week after our break for Christmas and New Year.

It will be good to return home again and to enjoy our time of sharing our Mindfulness together.

Wishing you all peace and good health in the year ahead.

Jon

A few of us are going to see the film ‘The Life of Pye‘ at the Filmhouse on Friday 4th January 2013 at 2.20pm followed by afternoon tea at the Sheraton Hotel.

Fridays are bargain matinees at £2.60 for tickets.  Come and join us if you can – sounds like a good film for the festive season.

Dear Friends

We gather as usual this coming Thursday (20th December) and then take a break of two weeks over the holiday period coming together again on Thursday 10th January.

I believe it may be possible to be with Thay and Plum Village on ‘livestream’ for Thay’s Dharma talks on both Christmas and New Year’s Eves which take place at 3.00pm.  I hope it works  –  http://vimeo.com/plumvillage

A peaceful and joyful holiday to all Geese.

After a few weeks of beta testing the Mindfulness Trainings Study Service has gone live! This is a simple, automated service that will email you one of the Five Mindfulness Trainings each week in rotation. This will help you keep them in the front of your mind and bring them into your daily life.

The service is free, easy to join and easy to cancel if you don’t like it. You can find out more and sign up on the Mindfulness Trainings Study Service web site.

There is an open day at the Mews this Sunday so, unfortunately, it will not be possible to have a DVD showing. Ani looks forward to welcoming you on Sunday 16th December though.

The minutes from the Open Sangha Gathering was held on 17th November 2012 have been circulated on the mailing list. Key points are:

• Website – We have had a make over though most of the content remains the same it should be more efficient to add news and events now. It would be good if we could have more contributors of content. For details contact Roger, Caroline or one of the facilitators.
• Thursday Evenings – The arrangements of the rooms are still settling down and it is likely we will continue to change the way we set up and take down the evening. We may move to a more ‘self-service’ approach. It would be helpful if Sangha regulars could help out at the door whenever possible. We hope to broaden the people who act as buddies to the facilitator for the evening.
• Communications – Caroline volunteered to act as a “secretary” to promote communication and we agreed to have two open gatherings a year in addition to the facilitator’s meetings. We also agreed to let people know when these meetings were happening.
• Financial Statement – We are solvent and have some working capital to continue organising retreats but with the cost of the hall for a Thursday evenings more than doubling this year we are particularly dependent on people continuing to give regularly on those evenings.
• Retreats – We continue to try and organise retreats through the year and plan to do at least one with monastics in 2013 and possibly up to four!
• Ani – We talked about supporting Ani but Ani said she was more worried about her friend in Syria and others in need.

Bryan has just confirmed that we will be organising a spring retreat at Wiston Lodge from Thursday 4th to Sunday 7th April 2013 with two or three brothers from Plum Village.

More details, including booking information, will be posted in Future Events as soon as we have them. In the mean time mark these dates in  your diary!

We have added a new regular meeting to our schedule. Some of us will be gathering at the Mews on Wednesday evenings from 5pm to discuss the Five Mindfulness Trainings and share some soup and spiritual friendship. Further details from other Sangha members or at one of our other meetings.

Perfect for a winter evening!

I just came across this posting on Youtube of Thay’s full interview with Oprah and the Dharma Brothers film (though I think this may have been cut a little). Well worth a watch

My favourite quote (about 11 minutes in):

If you are fully present in the here and the now you need only to make a step or take a breath in order to enter the kingdom of God.

Enjoy!