Dear Friends,
This Sunday, October 20th, we will experiment with an additional opportunity to join WMC either in-person or online for our evening of mindfulness practice.
We are still cautiously adjusting the changes we made to our weekly Sunday evening meetings due to the covid health crisis. As you know if you’ve been coming for a while, our weekly meetings before the pandemic all took place in person at the Vihara. During the pandemic, we shifted to meeting entirely online each Sunday. Now, we have been meeting in person at the Vihara on the first Sunday of every month, while also continuing to meet online, each and every Sunday. So on the first Sunday of the month, we have been holding two concurrent but separate meetings.
This coming Sunday, after many requests, we want to test the appetite for an additional in-person meeting at the Vihara, alongside the separate online sit. To make this work, we need a few people to come early to help set up the room, plus a few people to help tidy the room after the meeting. Let’s see together how the experiment goes!
Our in-person program will take place at the Washington Buddhist Vihara, located at 5017 16th St NW DC. Please arrive early if you can to help set up the room, and if you can’t manage that, please arrive a few minutes before 6:30pm to get settled. The monks have asked that we dress appropriately for their residence (no short pants or skirts, no tank tops or low cut tops please).
Here’s the evening’s format:
-25 min sit
-Walking meditation
-25 min sit
-Walking meditation
-Greeting and transition
-Recitation of Five Mindfulness Trainings
-Listening to a Dharma talk
-Dharma sharing
Our program will officially end at 8:30pm but you’ll have the option to come downstairs for social time together until 9pm if you wish..
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If you wish to join us via Zoom that evening instead, you can join for mindfulness meditation and practice beginning at 6:30pm.
After sitting meditation we’ll have our monthly recitation of the Refuge Chant, watch a portion of a video dharma talk, and have an opportunity to practice dharma sharing. The entire program will run about 60 minutes total.
This week, we’ll continue watching the dharma talk from Brother Pham Linh (Brother Spirit) that we have been following for the last few weeks:
https://youtu.be/8exs11Mrl94?si=5d1Ep99D6dVwpN8Q
If you’d like to join us online, please write to us at wmcsangha@gmail.com, and we’ll send you the Zoom log-in details.
Our Sangha is supported by dana - donations given from the heart. Your generosity is a gift that supports the Vihara, WMC expenses, the library, and your own practice. Part of your tax deductible donation also goes to help the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation (which helps support our monks and nuns in monasteries around the world and also helps continue to spread Thay’s teachings everywhere) and automatic monthly donations can be scheduled at our website:
https://www.mindfulnessdc.org/giving
We hope we’ll see you this Sunday, either online or in person!
With love,
Nigel & Steve