Toowoomba Buddhist Centre
   NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2008

                                                                        4-6 Cress Street                                                                                                                                   tbc@fwbo.org.au
                                                                        www.fwbo.org.au/toowoomba
                                                                                           

Dear Friends,

Well impermanence and change seem exemplified to me by how quickly the end of this year is rushing up. As you can see from the calendar we’ll be finishing at the TBC with a final puja on Thursday night 18th December and an opportunity to make some New Year resolutions; we’ll be starting up again in late January. On behalf of the TBC I’d like to wish you happiness and safety for the festive season. From a Buddhist perspective, as it is a season of good will and often involving the coming together of the extended family, there is an opportunity here to continue our spiritual practice through Christmas perhaps particularly in relation to the Metta Bhavana practice.
And remember failure is not important; it’s making effort that is. As I wrote in a recent Mail article - Thomas Edison is often quoted in this context. He had a dream of making an electric light bulb, yet time after time his experiments failed. After about the hundredth time an associate said to him, “Can’t you see that this isn’t destined to work, that you’re not going to succeed? You’ve failed one hundred times already!” Edison replied, “I have not failed at all, I have successfully determined one hundred ways that it will not work; therefore, I’m one hundred ways closer to the one way it will work.” To his associate he had failed a hundred times; to the inventor he’d succeeded a hundred times in learning what not to do. We can learn from our mistakes. How refreshing it would be to be able to say to ourselves next time we slip up, “Gee that was an interesting and spectacular failure, what can I learn from that about my habits and ways to prevent these slips?” [Roger]

• Facilitate the flow of communication necessary to exchange information and resolve differences peacefully, co-operatively, and compassionately.
• Say what we are feeling and needing in a way that does not trigger resistance in others.
• Hear what others are feeling and needing without reacting in ways which will create resistance and separation.
• Break habitual patterns of reacting that result in anger, depression, and violence.
• Take personal responsibility for our choices and use compassion as our motivation for actions, rather than fear, guilt, blame, or shame."

The group will meet once a week and is planned to begin in February 2009. (A minimum of fourteen weeks is required to cover the material).  Persons who are not involved with the TBC are welcome to participate.   If you would like to participate in a study group to learn and develop this process please contact me (Greg Dickson) by phone (4636 2899), or email (meku@westnet.com.au), or talk to me at the Centre.

BECOMING A MITRA ON SANGHA DAY
    This year I experienced the priceless ness and the abundance of the Jewel of the Sangha.  It started when I found myself saying that perhaps I was ready to publicly declare my intentions and become a mitra, thinking that the event would be something like birth or death- a solitary experience.  I approached Hrdayaja as is the way of the FWBO. Right from that moment I felt the joy of others rejoicing in my good fortune.  Now I had time to really consider the implications of what I was about to do, and really question how serious I was.  After all, I had gone through the Catholic “Faith Journey” and been a proud Catholic for all of a blink of an eye, was this going to be the same?  Was it just a stage of my journey, or was it the path.
    So many people came together to make my mitra ceremony so beautiful, and exciting and meaningful that it is still overwhelming to me. Janet’s ability to co-ordinate events with thoroughness, Hrdayaja’s willingness to come up from Brisbane mid-week, and all the members of the sangha who shared it with me, as well as the Mitra Circle with whom I have studied each week for the last 2 years. I was showered with so many beautiful and thoughtful gifts that I was literally overwhelmed and humbled. Sadhu to all who shared the night and who continue to be my teachers.  [Karen]

THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH:

“What is the nature of self?” – the Buddha responded that there is neither self nor no-self. The question, itself, was flawed, the Buddha implied, for it was being asked from a place that already assumed that the self was an entity.”
                                               
                                                [Epstein, M., 1995, Thoughts Without A Thinker. Psychotherapy From A Buddhist                                                                                                              Perspective, New York; Basic Books, p.65.]