Tuesday 26 June 2018

This week @ Beaches - last talk for a month


Hi all. 

This week at Beaches Sangha we have one of our old regular speakers, Gawaine Powell-Davies, coming to give us a talk called 'Perspectives on Making Choices'. Gawaine's talks are always interesting and thought provoking, and generate good discussion.

After this week we will have a 4 week break, partly due to the hall being closed for maintenance. Please do come along to welcome Gawaine, make it worth his trip to the northern beaches to be with us, and soak in enough sangha to last you for a month!

I'll be in touch the week before our next meeting.
LL


Tuesday 19 June 2018

This week @ Beaches - last sutta study until October!


Hi guys.

This week we have an early sutta study so that we don't miss out on too many over the break. We're up to sutta #5 called 'The All'. This is where Gotama (the Buddha) describes the totality of human existence. It's the shortest sutta in the book, but a really juicy one for discussion. 

This will be our last sutta study until we return after the winter break, so please do come along and take part.

Hope to see you there.
LL

Monday 11 June 2018

This week @ Beaches - a special guest


Hi all.

This week
This week @ Beaches Sangha we have a special guest coming to give a talk...Winton Higgins. Winton was an important part of bringing Beaches Sangha to life, having given regular talks and led sutta study with us for the first 6 or 7 years. This week he's making his only appearance at Beaches for 2018 and he'll be giving a talk called "Confidence without certitudes in dharma practice'.

Winton is also a walking wikipedia, and in all the time he taught regularly with us, we never managed to find a question he didn't know the answer to....so if you have any questions at all on anything dharma-related, please bring them along.

The program
I also want to let you know that there'll be two breaks in the sangha program this year. One for 3 weeks in July, most of which is due to hall maintenance by the council. The other is a winter break from mid August to the end of September, largely because I'll be off racing in Europe. 

With only 3 more Thursdays until the first break, I very much hope you can make it this week to welcome Winton and contribute to our always-vibrant questions and discussion.

A sangha resource for next year
It's apt that Winton is with us this week because he is involved in a project to produce a workbook for Stephen Batchelor's most recent work: After Buddhism. He and some others have a Kickstarter project going to fund the production of this resource. 

I've made a pledge of $125 from our sangha, which means we'll receive some of the workbooks when they're done. Assuming Beaches Sangha continues to 'dependently arise' next year, I'm thinking we can use these after we finish our sutta study. 

We don't actually have much in our bank account at present, but enough to make this contribution without jeopardising our existence (in the short term anyway). If you'd like to support our Sangha in this act of generosity, please feel free to contribute some extra to the sangha basket this week.

Hope to seeya there.
LL

Monday 4 June 2018

This week @ Beaches

Hi everyone.

As it's the first Thursday of the month, we have our monthly sutta study this week. This one is a very well known sutta, and a particularly important one for us secular types. It's called Discourse in Kesamutta and it's the one where Gotama gives advice on how to decide what to believe...the most reliable method being to know for ourselves.

As always, if you value our sutta study sessions, please indicate that by turning up and joining in, even though the nights are getting colder. Our sangha will only continue to exist if people participate.

Hope to see you there.
LL