Recently in Meditation Category

Sarge and I have just returned from a Buddhist Retreat weekend in Port Hueneme.

Bill and Jean Anker are the folks who host the nondenominational Gathering of Friends once a month at their home in Granada Hills. They recently built a second home in Port Hueneme, near the beach, and offered their new home as a place to have Buddhist retreats.

The retreat started on Friday night, but because Sarge didn't get off work until late, we decided to leave at 4:00 am Saturday morning. It's about a 2-hour drive from Palmdale to Port Hueneme, through Santa Clarita, Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula, and Oxnard.

We arrived a little bit before 6 am and since we didn't need to be to the Anker's for breakfast until 8 am, we went running (Sarge ran; I rode my folding bike) along a bike path that went through a park called Bubbling Springs Green Belt. It was calm, peaceful, lovely, and very, very green. Lots of ducks, geese, and seagulls gathering along the stream.

After an hour of that, we headed over to the house, and talked with Jean and Bill, trying not to wake those who were still sleeping. There was lots of good, healthy stuff to eat for breakfast. One-by-one, the other attendees got up and came to breakfast.

I took a little field trip last night to Sacred Sands Sangha, a Mindfulness Meditation group a friend of mine started. Mindfulness Meditation is based on the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. The group meets at the local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

Sarge dropped me off a little late, so they were already in the middle of meditation. I joined right in. After silent meditation accompanied by a bell, we all got up for walking meditation, perambulating through the hallway into another room, and back into the meeting room about 4 or 5 times. On each step with our left feet, we inhaled, and on each step with our right feet, we exhaled. Slowly. All in unison.

Then, my friend led us in Lovingkindness meditation, very similar to the Lovingkindness meditation Rev. McCormick taught us at the Ankers' Gathering of Friends, but with different wording. Instead of going through the meditation for ourselves, someone we like, someone neutral, someone we don't get along with, then all together, then for all living beings, we went through a whole series of meditations for ourselves and then for others.