At the end of February 2009 -I am really behind with my posts!!-
I attended a meditation session at the Hub in Islington with Vajradaka, a non-sectarian Buddhist meditation teacher.Vajradaka started meditating in Kyoto, Japan in the late sixties. After practicing in various Buddhist traditions, he joined Friends of the Western Buddhist Order and until recently lived for 21 years in a meditation retreat centre in the hills of Wales where he led retreats and mentored people in meditation.
Whilst the content of the session was not highly remarkable by the standards I am used to, the style of presentation was unusual and possibly something our teachers at Enlightennext could learn from.
Key features included;
Silence was a component but not the main activity of the session
Meditation was presented within a philosophical construct and partly as a contemplative exercise
Illustrates how work with total beginners can be achieved
Highly accessible almost secular presentation
Free of all Buddhist cultural trappings and obvious Buddhist dharma
Use of Leonardo Da Vinci as an example made it very easy to for people to relate to the content
This style would be easy to adapt to business and educational sessions
The philosophical impulses utilised can easily be related to the authentic self
The session
The session started with introductions and sharing experience of meditation
Then there was a short 10mins session of silence
Vajradaka encouraged people to stay in the space and opened up to some contemplation by asking to write down whatever came into our minds through free association in answer to the question 'what is true'.
He then spoke about becoming aware of habits, becoming aware of habits created choice, choice was extremely important as choice and evaluation plus awareness offers the possibility of a different choice.
Becoming aware of the relentless nature of habits allows for disengagement from them
He drew some comparisons with Leonardo da Vinci who despite his wonderful technical abilities and achievements it was his constant drive to understand creativity. It was Da Vinci's striving to understand and his drive to learn about the source of this is what has made him unsurpassed in his achievements. He emphasised it was Da Vinci's curiosity and continuous practicising of creativity that made him excel
Vajradaka then got people to reflect on something they wanted to change and had people share this in small groups of four people.
Everyone that came back into a big group and then Vajradaka started a discussion concerning the inherent paradox of meditation practice of being relaxed and alert at same time. He got people to give their own examples of this in their own experience. The first example was of a person who considered themselves shy yet could still be quite extroverted in varying situations. The instructor talked about bringing science and art together. Also the paradox of 'No I and No will vs I will and how will I?' which gets you onto the cushion in the first place.
Vajradaka has just started his business Creative Engagement and is delivering meditation sessions to the British Library. he has a blog sit https://owa.wie.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=d7e7a6f50667441d8f05c1f638f951fd&URL=http%3a%2f%2fcommunicatingmeditation.wordpress.com
