Dear Sangha,
Over the time since Reb's last retreat at Gaia House, Francis
Checkley in Totnes has been pursuing with Roshi the possibility
of having a priest in residence in the UK. Catherine Gammon has
now very graciously offered to be with us for the period July
to September this year. She has expressed her views and ideas
of what she would like to offer during her stay (read on for details).
Sangha members are requested to give her feedback on the proposals
and also to give her ideas of their own. Catherine is open to
travelling to other groups in the UK to offer teachings and support
and would also welcome your proposals around this possibility.
Michael Elsmere
Catherine Gammon:
Topics for Dharma Offerings with Dancing Mountains Sangha
The following are brief descriptions of offerings I could make
in various formats: a series of weekend or evening classes; as
a study theme for a workshop sort of retreat; the dharma offering
for a day of sitting; or just as the dharma theme of my time with
you. As you indicated a general interest in the sangha in teachings
on dependent co-arising, I could envision framing and illuminating
any of these topics with reflection on dependent co-arising. I
would especially enjoy doing the writing topic as a workshop/retreat
of one, two or three days, if you think there is a good way to
schedule something like that. I imagine any of these offerings
as engaging a small group of committed people, so that our work
together would be quite intimate and offer everyone opportunities
of participation and discussion. These topics could also be approached
more formally in a situation with a larger number of people.
Writing as a Wisdom Project
The title comes from a phrase of Susan Sontag, when commenting
on an approach to autobiography as an occasion for deep self-study.
I would like to broaden the application of the phrase to include
and to emphasize any imaginative work in language, including poetry
and fiction. From that position of understanding writing practice
as an opportunity to study and reveal this present dependently
arising body and mind, we will work together, using writing exercises
as well as free writing, and reading and responding to one another’s
words. In the retreat/workshop format there would also be periods
of reflection and silent meditation.
Bodhicitta and Emptiness
Working with materials gathered for my shuso talks, we would look
at teachings on bodhicitta both in terms of practices that cultivate
and sustain it (including reasoning about suffering and ignorance,
practices that cultivate compassion, and precepts, ritual and
zazen), and in terms of the emptiness teachings of the Diamond
Sutra and the importance of emptiness in our practice of the bodhisattva
vow. In the retreat/workshop format there would also be periods
of reflection and silent meditation.
Dogen: Three Mind-Only Teachings
I would like to work with some of Dogen’s mind-only teachings
as presented in Flowers In the Sky (Kuge), Painted Rice Cake (Gabyo),
and The Triple World is Mind Only (Sangai Yuishin). We would read
and discuss the three texts, and I would present additional clarifying
mind-only teachings from Vasubandhu/Hsuan-tsang and the Samdhinirmocana
Sutra. (The readings would not be the line-by-line study we sometimes
do, but would focus on particular parts in order to be able to
read more broadly.) We would attempt to look at our own reception
and the different impacts of Dogen’s often metaphoric and
linguistically playful way of expression as contrasted to the
more analytic expressions of sutra and treatise. Everyone will
be asked to express their own present understanding of these teachings
in whatever language or physical form they wish to offer. In a
retreat/workshop format there would also be periods of reflection
and silent meditation.