Well, we began! Chittamani, Pranjamati, Debbie, Hannah and Satyalila spent Saturday exploring what it is to be on retreat and exploring what we’re each going to do this week in order to manifest “retreatness” in ourlives. We looked at “The Five Forces” (The Force of Motivation, The Force of Familiarisation, The Force of the White Seed, The Force of Destruction and the Force of Aspirational Prayer – email me if you’d like an info sheet!) and completed retreat diaries, ending with a dedication ceremony to dedicate the week, including winding golden thread around our wrists ritually, as a reminder that we’re on retreat this week..

Each morning Chittamani, Pranjamati and Satyalila will be meditating at the Buddhist Centre from 7 am and anyone is welcome to come and join. We’ll aim to finish by 8 am and have a spot of breakfast before heading our various ways at 8.30. We’re planning to be at the Centre on Monday evening for the dedication of the new shrine, too.

I really enjoyed the first day and came home tired but inspired and re-made my shrine with a lovely piece of sky-blue linen I found in an Oxfam shop for 30p, installed a golden candle and flowers to remind me about following the “golden thread” of the retreat. I hung some prayer flags outside my door and inside my flat and put some little reminders around on mirrors and windows about the retreat. I also painted myself a rainbow-coloured plan for each day (taken from my diary) to remind me about what I was intending to do.

So far (day two, Sunday) I’m really enjoying it. Chanted when I woke up, wrote some “morning pages” while I drank my tea and had a longish meditation. Later I went for a walk round the docks.

When we were talking on Saturday, we were exploring the dimension of “aspirational prayer” (something some people find quite challenging on account of its christian associations). One image we used was of “aspirational prayer” as a kind of grappling hook which we put out in the direction in which we want to travel… the golden thread can link to this and it can help us to move forward in the way that we want to.

While we were talking I remembered a poem of William Stafford’s which is in the collection of his poetry which Manjusvara published, called “Holding onto the Grass”. There’s an essay at the front of this by Robert Bly about William Stafford’s own “take” on the golden thread and he says, “[Stafford] believed that whenever you set a detail down in language, it became the end of a thread… and every detail – the sound of the lawn mower, the memory of your father’s hands, a crack you once heard in lake ice, the jogger hurtling herself past your window – will lead to amazing riches. William Blake said,

I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.

“I asked Stafford one day, “Do you believe that every golden sthread will lead us through Jerusalem’s wall, or do you love particular threads?” He replied, “No, every thread.”

I love this. It may sound like it’s all getting even more christian, and what’s that got to do with a Buddhist Urban Retreat… but I do think that Stafford’s take on the golden thread applies to

all

our spiritual practice. It’s most commonly and familiarly expressed in Zen, but engage fully with any detail of everyday life and it can lead you to freedom….

So I wanted to put up the poem I mentioned a bit earlier, which is kind of about this and the whole aspirational prayer/grace aspect.

Grace Abounding

William Stafford

Must hop as have to eat my tea (slowly and mindfully, of course!) before going to steward a jazz piano concert at St Georges with Uri Caine.

Do post comments and additions!