Transcription
Catherine: Good evening, everybody. Good evening, welcome. Lots of really familiar faces and a good number of people that I don't know, we don't know, as well. Welcome. So Rob is hopefully coming to join us tonight. I think you all know from either knowing him very, very well, which many of you do, or maybe knowing him less well but from our letter that we sent out, that his health is variable. He'll say more about that. But he's in the loo right now, and that will be some of what happens during this retreat. It's quite challenging for him, as some of you know very well. But he'll come and join us.
Ahh. Welcome. Welcome, my siblings in birth, ageing, sickness and death. Hello. I want to welcome us here in this, our universal greeting. We set the table here. And maybe have a look round. This isn't going to be one of those "eyes down," "all on your own" retreats. Do have a look round at your fellow siblings, sisters, brothers. These are the ones this week we will be create/discovering with, learning how to make soul, how to expand, restore, open senses of sacredness, learning how to engage perception in ways that bring more beauty. Here we are. This is us.
And welcome to all of you in all the ways that you know yourself to be -- all the particularities, all your peculiarities, all your strengths, vulnerabilities, sensibilities, blind spots, gifts. As you know, as probably, I think, all of you are long-term Dharma practitioners, the Buddhadharma has not always had an easy relationship with particularities. It's very, very good at understanding how we are the same. [To Rob] Ah, welcome! Yes. People might want to say hello before I carry on! [laughter] Welcome to Rob in all his particularities and peculiarities. Yeah. So I want to welcome us in this, too, and in a moment I will hand over to Rob. But welcome in all the things that make you you.
And I particularly want to welcome aspects or ways you know yourself that are not always guaranteed a welcome wherever you go, whatever they are. Really, really welcome. Whether they're overlooked or undervalued or actually oppressed, here or in the wider culture, welcome to all members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer community. Welcome. Welcome to all people of colour. Welcome. Welcome to people of all genders. Welcome. Welcome to all people, whether visible or not visible, who are in states of non-optimal health. Welcome. Welcome. This looks like a pretty middle class place here, and is; welcome if you identify as working class. Welcome. Welcome to those of us in this group who are at the very young end, or at the very older end of our ages. Welcome. All heritages, all first mother languages that are closest to your heart, that we may never know a word of. Welcome. All religious and ethnic groups, welcome. And whoever I've missed -- I'm sorry. Tell me after. Maybe you can call it out now, actually. Welcome.
And to all of us, in everything you bring here, all the things that make you you, your heritages, your gifts, your sensibilities, your aspiration, your courage, your nobility, your love of Soulmaking Dharma, your desire -- because you wouldn't have got there without that; you wouldn't have got here without that -- welcome, and bring it all to the table here. We need, for the Soulmaking Dharma, all our particularities, all of them. Let's learn to welcome each of them, even the ones in us that may not always look welcome, so that we can learn to make soul, for whoever, and to serve whoever and whatever you serve in your life, to see all of this in ways that bring more beauty, more richness, more meaningfulness, more sacredness. Let's do this together, for whoever and whatever you serve. Thank you. [To Rob] Welcome, my friend and colleague. Do we know if everybody's here? How would we know that? Who's not here? [laughter] I don't know if we would know who else wasn't here. Would we know, Nic? Lindsay is here? Yes, she's here. Hi, Lindsay.
Rob: Thank you for that beautiful welcome, Catherine. Hi, everyone. I'm really happy to be here! [laughs] It's really lovely, and very touching. So I also want to welcome you in the fullness of your being, in all your beauty, your beauties, all the ribbons of your glory, even if they seem a bit tattered sometimes or like they've fallen off. All the colours of your soul, including the muddy colours, the shit, the difficult. All welcome, and all can be made into soul. So I'm really happy to be here with you, really, really happy. It feels like a real privilege.
I don't know when Catherine and I started talking about this retreat and thinking about what we might do. But it was certainly some months before I got this new diagnosis (which I'll come back to in a minute, by the way). But we were starting to feel and we wanted this retreat to be an opportunity and a space and a kind of crucible where, in a way, you could make it yours more, you could make it tailored to you and your needs, your soul-needs, and the trajectory of your practice -- not just through this week, but with a long-term view in mind. Some of you (not everyone here, but some of you here) will be involved in these practices, these kinds of teachings and related teachings, for maybe decades, really, and what is it to think about that long-term trajectory, and what's needed, and what do I need, and where perhaps are my blind spots, or what are the areas that need development or more understanding?
It's actually, in my experience as a teacher, it's quite a rare faculty, it's a rare ability for a person, for a practitioner, to actually be able to discern what it is that needs growing, what it is that needs working on. Sometimes we have so many ideas kicking around: "I really need to work on my focus. My mind just drifts," da-da-da. And we buy into that, and we just believe such an idea. It might be true. But it's actually quite a maturity, it's quite an ask, to even have the -- it doesn't have to be solely introspective; it can be in dialogue with teachers and friends -- but actually have that kind of discernment. What's needed here? What's needed in this path? So I don't know about the word 'advanced'; I think we've used it occasionally. But certainly these soulmaking teachings ask a lot. They're demanding. They're subtle, deep, sophisticated, difficult, challenging, stretching, etc. Definitely. And a lot is required, a lot of aspects need developing.
So the encouragement for this week -- and I'll explain a bit more -- is for you to really start thinking about that. And we put that out in the application forms, to start thinking about your process in this trajectory. And hopefully, in a way, you guys will lead the retreat. Yeah? So it comes from you. We'll be offering stuff, but we'll be responding, and there will be interchange based on your sense of navigation, discernment, need, etc. So that's already asking for a step up, and it was there in the application form for the retreat. So it is demanding. There's an enormous amount to it. It's complicated. "What the hell are they talking about, all these words and ...?" Don't get overwhelmed. Really, don't get overwhelmed. Think of it as a journey. Think of it as something that can and will happen gradually. It will. All this, every concept we use, name whatever it is -- eros, logos, humility -- all of them are a journey. Very easily, "Oh, I don't get that," like it's an on/off switch.
We'll talk more about this. But it's a journey. Somehow there's an art in having that openness. However much I know, there's more, about a particular thing. Do I think I know everything about eros? Forget about it. Even the teacher doesn't know. Get a better teacher, because I don't know. I know some. And what happens with soulmaking is it opens more. The very thing that comes alive, that comes alive with soul, that is made into soul, whatever it is -- eros, body, energy, emotion, relationality -- all of that starts to unfold and become unfathomable and become more, and it becomes a journey. So please, the inner critic just wants to give you a red cross, a "failed." Sometimes we need that humility: "I don't quite understand that yet." So on one side, not to just lump things into, "Oh, I know what that is, because I took a course in shamanism a few years ago, and it's just like that," or it's just like whatever, this or that. That would be one extreme. The other extreme is to just say, "Oh, I failed. I don't understand this or that." Every aspect of these teachings is a journey. And if we can see it that way, there's a kind of Middle Way there that's a lot more soft, a lot more open, a lot more of an adventure, and kind of unending.
So to think, certainly, about what comes up this week, of course. We deal with that. But also, if we can start thinking about the long-term. In a way then, we're giving you a responsibility here. We're going to share a responsibility -- maybe that's a better way of saying it. We're all steering this retreat together. It's your retreat. You're leading it, as much as we are. We'll talk more about this, but I'll just say it now: part of the way we'll do that is we might have theme days. So, for example, a day on energy body, or a day on eros. And we're going to invite -- for instance, you can leave questions, written questions, on the board, and we'll try and weave them into the teachings and also offer other things that day. So there are certain theme days. It won't be so cut and dried and black and white, because these themes and aspects of the teachings are not black and white. Actually, nothing is black and white. But generally, we'll see how that goes.
Okay. So that was our idea, months and months ago. And now I'm on what feels to me some pretty heavy-duty combination of medications that are, I have to say, really, really knocking me sometimes. Really knocking me. Not just my body, but also my mind at times. So there are times when I really feel like I've lost all clarity, and I couldn't articulate anything, etc. So that's a little more reason for giving you the responsibility, asking you to drive it, rather than me preparing a whole bunch of material, which I might have done otherwise, and put new material in the field. But that's another issue. The treatments that I'm on -- next week is, thankfully, a week off chemotherapy, again, fortuitously. Every time we have a retreat, it seems to kind of [?] like that. So that's good.
But I'm still on some pretty difficult stuff. So what that means is I might not be here sometimes, or I might leave halfway through, even halfway through a teaching that I'm giving. So I just ask, obviously, for your patience with that. We're going to do the best we can, yeah? And the whole scheduling will be fairly improvised around that. I don't know how many interviews, etc., I'll be able to offer, if any at all. It's really unknown. There's a lot of up and down spikes every day that are quite unpredictable. So before, I felt like, or my memory is, that there was a kind of rhythm and I could kind of anticipate. It seems so far that I just can't tell. So we'll just have to roll with that, if that's okay. But don't get alarmed. If you see me just suddenly getting up, it just means I'm going to the toilet. It's not a big deal. I also hope that it's not necessary, but because sometimes my mind is affected, and I don't feel so clear, I can tell I'm a little apprehensive that maybe the ways that I might express things or respond to questions may be on occasion a little more clumsy than usual -- I really hope not -- or less attuned or something, or less clear. I hope it's not an issue, but I'm just saying it might be, and again, I just ask for your patience and forgiveness with that. It's not, obviously, what I wish.
So I should probably say a little bit about my health, just because some of you might not know. Some of you will know the scope, the scoop. But I also realize, I put an update on some months ago; I haven't updated it, because it's all very uncertain. Hopefully I'll write something soon. But someone said to Catherine the other day they didn't know what certain words meant in the update, which I just assumed it was obvious in the implication. So just briefly: I was doing pretty well, I thought, on sort of low-dose chemo, I think, for three years or something, and had gone into remission. And then the cancer came back, all over, many tumours all over the place. That's what 'metastases' mean, if people don't know. It means the cancer's back and it's spreading all over.
Generally, I mean, almost universally speaking, when that happens with this kind of cancer, the end is coming. It's a sign. Don't know about time, but most doctors would say I'm dying. So I'm in that process now. But it might be a while, and I don't know. Of course, there's always the uncertainty. So it might be that I die in many years of something else; I don't know. I don't know what else to say about that. That's it. Just in case; it would be a bit weird if people didn't know that that was the case. But yeah, maybe let's pause there. It's a lot to put into the field.
Catherine: Let's pause with hearing this in this context. Even though this is probably not news, in this arena it's news, to be in physical community together. So take a moment to breathe with your body. You don't have to close your eyes. Do what you need. See what needs to be tended to and cared for in your heart and soul right now. And you may still wish to be seeing Rob or not with your eyes open or closed, as you need. As you need. Check you have your breath. And see if there's anything in your heart and soul that needs your tending, your tender care right now. Maybe somebody might have just frozen a little bit. And if there's a freeze in your body and soul, tend to this. Wait for your body to breathe. Because we're here in this setting, and it's where we're practising. And it was quite hefty to apply for this retreat. It was a lot of work. We love this work. We love this Soulmaking Dharma, this gift that Rob has brought forth for us. So tending to whatever the responses are in this context is part of tending, not just to yourself -- it's part of tending to the field of this retreat. So now or at times during the retreat, perhaps, if this calls you -- Rob, Rob's health, your relationship with this, his possible dying, his probable dying, his maybe not dying. Whatever it elicits, your heartbreak or your grief, your love, your commitment to practice, your steely determination, your inquiry into death. Whatever is brought forth this week, that's part of tending to the field of this retreat. It's part of tending to each other, actually.
Have you got your breath? And if we can care for this, if it comes up -- for some of us it will be more intimate than for others; there's no right or wrong about that. We're all in different places in the constellation with this. But if we can care and tend, then we may be, with these beautiful teachings, with the lenses that we're learning to see with and sense with, that maybe this news and this truth can become part of the soul of this retreat. Learning to see whatever arises in ways that bring more sacredness, more meaningfulnesses, more dimensionality, more beauty. Because death and someone's death are absolutely the terrain of soulmaking. So breathe with whatever's here. Do you want to say anything else? I was going to make a space where we could just be quiet. Do you want to add anything? Okay. So let's just pause.
We thought that we would offer a couple of things at this point, that we can just be together in community with this, with Rob. Wish you well. And I'll offer a compassion chant. If you know it -- some of you will know it -- please join in if you wish. It's not one that we've done before in this group. But join in if you wish, and you wish to bring your voice to it, and let whatever is here for you just be here. We'll meet together on this channel. Thank you for opening with this, Rob.
[29:09, Catherine begins chanting]
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ.
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ.
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ.
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ.
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ.
[silence]
So we'd like to give you the chance, if you wish, for a few minutes, to meet in a group of three -- if you wish. And the thought was that you'll have two, three minutes with your two colleagues witnessing, where you can just say how you're doing tonight in arriving here, express anything that needs to be expressed, that may or may not have to do with our beloved friend and teacher. It may. But it doesn't have to. Anything that wants to be expressed in your soul, to help you to arrive. Absolutely anything that wants to be expressed in arriving here. "Yeah, I really want to get into this work." Or, "Gosh, I'm really ..." Whatever is here. "I'm really excited to be here." "I'm excited and I'm ...", etc. Yeah?
[34:50, guided practice begins]
So if you would like to do this, find yourself in a group of three, and then just be silent, and I'll guide us into this exercise. If you don't want to do it, that's fine; just opt out. If you do, turn around and find some others. So threes -- sit in a triangle. And sit a little bit formally, so you have access to your body and your energy body.
So there's no right way you have to be here. You might be super excited and full of joy and enthusiasm. Please remember we're here in our particularity; we're not trying to see, "How is it I'm supposed to be?" [laughs] Really important. And the two witnesses, you will have your eyes open. The person who is going first, you can have your eyes open, too, but you don't have to lock in contact. But you are in relationship. So open your eyes. Just see your two companions. Say hi in that strange way that it's tricky with three, because one of you looks one way while the other one's looking at the other. And if you can do it easily, without a major meeting, one of you willing to go first, just raise your hand to the others if you're willing to speak first. And why don't you nominate who's going to go second; then it's already sorted. And then that leaves the third. Okay.
Be there with your eyes open for these two people. These people have filled in a hefty application form to come on this retreat! [laughter] Like you, they know this work enough that they know what their weaknesses are and places they want to move into more, you know? These are people who love this work. Okay. So I'll time it. I'll ring the bell. And it's not a conversation -- just bear witness to your colleague, and then I'll ring the bell after three minutes. Please begin.
[41:06, bell rings]
[41:44] So, thank you, thanking your partners. Don't worry if you didn't say the definitive thing. It's okay. [To Rob] You want to go?
Rob: Okay. So we'd like to do a little exercise also as part of arriving and setting up the retreat and being here in as full a way as possible. And it's going to involve us moving around freely in the hall, so we're going to need to move all the mats and the cushions to the side. We'll probably be doing this several times. Well, we may be doing this several times on the retreat, so maybe there's a clever way of doing that. [laughter]
Catherine: Ah, there is a clever way of doing this. [laughter] I'm sure you know what that is. So, yeah, let's do the clever way. [laughter]
Rob: Yeah, so let's really fill the room so we use the space. Okay. Let's just start by feeling the connection with the earth, with the floor and the feet. And keeping that root of connection, opening the awareness to the whole body. What is this body? We tend to think of the body in ways we've been taught to think of the body. What is this body standing here? Whole-body awareness. Open to the possibility of the sense of the body, of the energy body. Opening also to the space. Many of you know this place. Many of you know this hall. Many of you love this place. Many of you love this hall. It is already soul for you. It's already imbued with soul. What is it to stand here in the mystery of your body, the open-ended mystery of your body, the possibility, the poetic possibility of your body in this room, with the magic of the room and everything that has transpired over the years in this hall? And the walls, and the floor, and the carpet, and the space itself is blessing your body.
There's some influx, mysterious influx, multidimensional, unfathomable. The hall, the floor, is blessing you, and blessing your body, blessing your arrival here, blessing your being, blessing your practice. What does that mean? Your mind doesn't have to figure it out. Wishing you well. Wanting you to know something about yourself. Wanting you to open the doors to create and discover more about yourself. And let yourself, with the body awareness, with the connection with the earth, with the connection with the space and the room and the history, also be aware of the others -- your colleagues, your fellows on this week. Who are they? Let yourself move around the room in whatever way you would like. And you can make eye contact as much or as little as you like, but be aware of each other.
What would it mean, and is it possible, to bless each other? We see, we think of human beings, complex, certainly, but we limit what they are. What is it to know each other as angels? The mysterious roots of your being are in divinity. Don't worry about getting it right. Let yourself move however you want to move. You may want to be still. You may want to walk. You may want to dance. Let yourself bless each other. Let yourself feel blessed, even if you're not even sure what 'blessing' means. Let your body receive blessing. The mystery of your body receives the mystery of angelic blessing. And let it pour out of you, pour out of your pores, pour out of your body, pour out of your gestures.
[Pachelbel's Canon begins playing] And if that comes out in dance, let it be so. And if it comes out in stillness, let it be so. And the land, the luscious, rich, fecund Devon countryside, blessing you too. There is an influx from the land, from the night sky. [music's volume gradually increasing] All of this pours into us in ways that we can only sometimes even vaguely get a sense of. Don't try to figure it out with your mind. Blessing each other and receiving blessings from each other. No such thing as doing it wrong. If it weren't for these angels who are right now in the room, we wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be here. This wouldn't be happening. Your practice, your retreat is supported at so many levels by each other, by the hidden dimensions of each other's being. Don't believe a thought that doubts whether you can bless: "Who am I to bless?" It's your birthright to bless and to be blessed. It's who you are. Have your roots in divinity. [music ends]
Each of us a theophany, a face of the divine. [music starts back up] Oh, we're going round again, I guess. [laughter] You up for another one, or ...? Yeah? Okay. You could be more solitary, but just aware of each other. Let it be yours. See what wants to come out. Your whole life, your whole narrative, your birth, your story, your death. It's all here. It's all angel. It's all face of angel. Yes, impermanent. But eternal in some mysterious way. If none of this makes sense, just let it be poetic. Let it be poetic suggestion, imagination. You know, playing with these perceptions of angel, of being angel, of blessing, of having one's roots in divinity, it shapes and informs how we see ourselves as practitioners, the sense of possibility, the sense of magic, of wizardry and witchcraft. Not just me trying to watch some sensations at the tip of my nose. You dare to see yourself poetically in that way, imbued with magic, with the divine, with the Buddha-nature. Blessing each other's practice. [music ends again] Beautiful. Thank you.
So just coming into stillness for a few moments. Again, the feet and the whole body. And we'll talk more about this: what do we mean by 'body'? And aware of each other, everyone in the room. The space. The land. The night. All of it alive as theophany, as face of the divine, as expression of the Buddha-nature. And just silently welcoming, welcoming everyone here on the retreat, and blessing their practice, blessing the possibilities of their practice. Blessing the possibility of knowing oneself and knowing other as angel, as image, as divine. So in this moment, you are seen that way, you are sensed that way by others. You are blessed and blessing.
[1:01:45, guided practice ends]
