This is a reposting from 2015. The statue of the Healing Buddha is now a permanent resident in northern Cumbria housed by a sangha member who finds herself strongly connected to the Healing Buddha. The statue was originally bought for me while I was living in Edmonton, Canada and memorably carried from the shop to the priory in a blizard!

We held a special ceremony for Bhaisajyaguru at Throssel this last Sunday. Here is the dedication made by the celebrant, Rev. Master Olwen during the first incense offering. She spoke slowly drawing one into the depths the words point towards. It is a meditation

We stand
in silence
listening silence
this presence
standing here
now.

Does it listen
to anything?
Does it find other?
We cannot have ‘our silence’ or
‘our stillness’.
This silence is all of us.

With all our senses left alone
to just be,
we re-turn to the stillness –
the heart and
wellspring
of the Buddha’s living Vow.

Always totally
now
here.

When we re-turn to just BE this present-listening-silence, our thoughts and theories left alone, we look beyond our imaginings, identities, and in entrusting, dropping, there is nothing to stand apart. All Buddhas are never separate or apart from the minds churning waves. They sit with great compassion for beings. We too wish to vow to look beyond the suffering of boundary-making.

Homage to the Buddha,
Homage to the Dharma,
Homage to the Sangha.

Thanks to Rev. Master Olwen for allowing me to publish this dedication verse/teaching. The talk that followed the ceremony will, in time, be on the Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey website.

For those who know me personally, you may notice I’m looking and sounding weary and the truth of the matter is, I am! In order to upload this, I had to drop a bin full of vanity’.

And for anybody who, like me, was always being told you are shy when a child there is something here for you. I didn’t go into the matter at any length because of the need to keep the video down to under 3 mins. Recently I’ve come to see that shyness in childhood is most likely a sign of ‘sensitivity’. A sensitivity that goes unnoticed and unaddressed. Having a different perspective is helpful and there is reading do be done to understand oneself better in this area of life. Of course in terms of Buddhism, we attempt to drop labels, of being this way or that way, but labels stick. Meditation and daily life training dissolve the glue.