Metta Bhavana

Sunday Musings on Saturday Buddhist Class

3:

Metta Bhavana

It was Saturday, I had my bottle of water in hand, and it was back to the bus stop. The Colchester Buddhist Centre was momentarily locked. Mind you I was early, again, but brrr I could really feel autumn, but it felt like winter to this misplaced person.

Ah where was the warm of beloved Buddha land? Still, time to reflect.

On the way I said good morning to two contemplating felines, pretty in their cat-like ways. They smiled too, perhaps thinking I was Alice.

I looked to the sky and remembered George Harrison's "it isn't always going to be this grey", and he lived in England too. As time and the day had progressed Jimmie was singing “still rain, still raining” because it was.

So I sit and muse, Earl Grey made and Peruvian chocolate awaiting, some five hours later thinking Jimmie (not George) was right.

Today’s interesting interaction revealed my current obsession with George Harrison. Never mind that he and I shared a birthday, but recently I have been drawn back to those few esoteric numbers by The Beatles (‘Within You and Without You’, ‘Inner Light’ , ‘Love You To’, Tomorrow Never Knows’ etc) and mostly featuring George, and those spiritually moving songs George made after the 1970 split, such as ‘All Things Must Pass’, 'My Sweet Lord' et al.

In class we were being briefly introduced to the Buddhist precepts. Looking towards the Eightfold Path via the attributes our ‘heroes’ or ‘heroines’ might personify, which brought me back to the spirituality, good humoredness and generosity of George Harrison (think ‘Concert from Bangladesh’ and his involvement with London’s Hare Krishna movement). It turns out that, as reasonable mature people, perhaps we should be considering the implications of these anyway, such as generosity, kindliness, truthfulness and all those good things that we know in our heart of hearts we should be considering as modalities of living with other people (and beings too).

Today’s meditation changed from the ‘Mindfulness’ that we had been concentrating on, to ‘Loving Kindness’ or the ‘Metta Bhavana’ (which could also be seen as “Metta” meaning compassion, and “Bhavana” meaning cultivating).

The ‘course’ is already half done and I am already considering signing on for more……Watch this space.