This was our twenty third session at Broad Oak Village Hall.
We met Roger, Natalia and Jasmine and played pass the parcel;
Then we all practised the Sitting Meditation and the Walking Meditation.
and then we all had tea …
Ignorance
Michelle picked ‘Ignorance’ from the bag this week. Of all the nine barriers this is the one which is said to be the root of all the other eight.
We spoke about ignorance and what it means in this context. It is often a synonym for stupid or naive. However the meaning here is that with our awareness we can see the true nature of things but we choose to ignore what we see. We said that this could be a conscious choice but also we recognised that our unconscious can create blind spots in our perception.
It takes courage to bring our awareness to these areas we would rather not examine. We all have courage and I am sure you can think of a time when you needed courage to over come a big challenge in your life.
Can you bring the same courage to bear on this ignorance and use that to over come this barrier?
This book is a fantastic resource for people just delving into meditation as it very much explains the whys, the benefits, the pitfalls in such an eloquent way. I would highly recommend.
Michelle
Gelong Thubten
... is a Buddhist monk who teaches meditation and specialises in providing non-religious mindfulness workshops and training programmes for businesses and organisations.