#10 GEORGIA ON MY MIND

 Chamblee, Georgia!  Outside of metro Atlanta lies the nonsectarian Red Clay Sangha.   We began with a short invocation and about 90 minutes of unguided meditation interspersed with two short walking periods.  We had 12 attendees.  After that I was particularly taken by a lovingkindness prayer for COVID victims, first responders, and victims of systemic oppression including the name of Rayshard Brooks; who was shot in the back outside an Atlanta Wendy's.   

I was warmly welcomed but did not say much during the discussion as I've found that it's more respectful to be a quiet outsider, especially if I am not planning on staying around too long.  Anyhow, the discussion was thought provoking.  It consisted of a few passages from the book Buddhism For Today, which were read aloud.  The book is about the Lotus Sutra, which is fascinating in and of itself, being compiled quite some time after the death of the Buddha and inspiring several schools of East Asian Buddhism. 

The crux of the reading exhorted us to work with both relative and absolute lenses, meaning that although there is not a separate self, there remains a perceptual viewpoint of our own (and that of others).   And working with things as they are means paying attention to these lenses; not settling for a 50/50 view somewhere between relative and absolute.  We should no more tell a hungry person that all things are immaterial anymore than we should tell ourselves we are not connected to this fumbling body and mind.  From the Lotus sutra: 

There is no birth or death, no ebbing or arising. Neither is there present existence and subsequent extinction, substantial reality or fictitious imagination, same or different. These characteristics of realities are not what one perceives them to be while living in the Threefold World.

Also, the mission of the Red Clay Sangha resonates with me: Red Clay Sangha has no guiding teacher and its founding principles include establishing the sangha itself as the primary teacher - supplemented by the individual teachers each of us finds and brings to the sangha, and by the visiting teachers who lead retreats. As one of our founding members said, "I want to sit with my friends".