Visit to 2 Buddhism centre

Today as a family we went to a Buddhist centre in chorlton. The food at the cafe was amaZing,but that is not what is provoking me to write this blog.

I went up to the centres meditation room and had such an intense sense to stay there forever n a sense of deep peace, like falling asleep whilst awake. The intensity shocked me. I asked pagpa about it and he told me it could be a blessing from previous good practice in concentration, and that it was a good thing, so that's good... Still freaked me out though!

We then went to the Buddhist centre in Manchester city centre as my wrist mala (prayer beads) broke and I tried to get one from the first centre but having found they had none we rememebred the centre in the city had some and went there. They had so many gorgeous ones, semi precious stones, glass, bone and wood ones. I was spoilt for choice! The lady on the stall made them all herself too, so talented! So here is the one I went for: cracked glass 27 beaded one (a division of 108, as in Buddhism when you do mantras, which earn you good karma points, you are meant to say each mantra 108 times as this number is a sacred number in Buddhism but I can't remember why atm!):

Surrender: teething baby vs meditation n study

So I have my first Buddhist study group on Tuesday and as I'm joining the class half way through I've got 6 chapters to read by next Tuesday.

Its Thursday night now, and I'm half way through chapter 2.

And I have a teething baby with a cold.

This is not going well.

Recently I am really learning what the word surrender really means and the benefits of accepting it. Every morning I try to do the morning meditaitons and prayers it is recommended that I do. I start with good intent but by page 2 I can hear the hubby getting a tad annoyed trying to deal with baby and his own tiredness so I stop to help. I try again later but again hear that help is needed and led by the sense of responsibility every mum has I go off my cushion and help again. And so it goes on. When baby naps I feel chores are more important n urgent than study so I do them with a mind to get to study, but then baby wakes up. In the evenings I try to study when hubby is working late but when baby is teething he takes priority.

When this all started I was geting annoyed at first- annoyed at baby and hubby because they demanded my attention and were getting in the way of what I wanted- to study. But lately I have come to realise that if i drop the plans and the notion of what I want, then there is no disappointments or rushing. I just let go and accept that this is happening now and 'be present with it. Tonight baby refused to settle and I had planned to study and do some of my @home phone work. Again the agitation came up, but I soon realised that the more agitated I got the longer settling baby would take, so I worked on accepting and just focusing completely on him, trying to forget everything else but him. It took a while but he is asleep now. Now I'm blogging and then I'll study and then do my phone work I hope.

I think having plans and personal intentions set in stone is impossible with a baby and leads to so much self grasping and disappointment when we don't get what we want. We are effectively servents to our babys, but what better way to learn to cherish another more than yourself and realise that what you want is not the 'be all n end all. :-) 

Death and candles

Imagine a room as vast and huge as the world, filled with millions of candles aflame, one for each person of the world. In this room walks death only. As he brushes by a flame, it flickers and the person linked to the flame has a heart attack or stroke. Then death simply blows out a flame, and that person just dies as quickly as the flame goes from burning to nothing, so suddenly n without any warning.

Best make today a good day, earn good karma and work to get rid of the bad karma, as who knows when death will blow u out!