One of our senior committee member passed away suddenly during an angioplasty operation that went wrong. We are holding a memoriam for him during our weekly one hour sitting in Goenkaji's tradition.
Would like to ask fellow Vipassana meditators if there is any appropriate Goenkaji chanting or guided meditation apart from metta bhavana that would be suitable for the one hour memorial sitting?
Memorial sitting
Memorial sitting
All beings like yourself are responsible for their own actions. Suffering or happiness is created through one's relationship to experience, not by experience itself. Although I wish only the best for you, I know that your happiness or unhappiness depends on your actions, not on my wishes for you.
May you not be caught in reactivity.
May you not be caught in reactivity.
Re: Memorial sitting
Hi wizi
I am sorry to learn of the passing of your trust member.
To my knowledge there is no particular chanting or group-sit recording that is more appropriate in this situation. However, I may be wrong.
I think it wise to contact VRI.
Wishing you the very best,
Ben.
I am sorry to learn of the passing of your trust member.
To my knowledge there is no particular chanting or group-sit recording that is more appropriate in this situation. However, I may be wrong.
I think it wise to contact VRI.
Wishing you the very best,
Ben.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
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retrofuturist
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Re: Memorial sitting
Greetings Wizi,
I don't know of any such chants, but a recital of the following sutta may be beneficial in terms of highlighting:
- Inevitability and uncertain timing of death
- The benefits of equanimity in response to feelings associated with the death
- The way the event can be used as impetus to strive on
Snp 3.8: Salla Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .irel.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It's quite short, so shouldn't eat into the session too much... but as Ben says, contacting VRI is a good idea - this won't be the first time such a thing has happened, and there may well be a standard process in place.
Metta,
Retro.
I don't know of any such chants, but a recital of the following sutta may be beneficial in terms of highlighting:
- Inevitability and uncertain timing of death
- The benefits of equanimity in response to feelings associated with the death
- The way the event can be used as impetus to strive on
Snp 3.8: Salla Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .irel.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It's quite short, so shouldn't eat into the session too much... but as Ben says, contacting VRI is a good idea - this won't be the first time such a thing has happened, and there may well be a standard process in place.
Metta,
Retro.
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
Re: Memorial sitting
I wrote to our Regional teachers and they have advised in this tradition the most wholesome way to share merits with and pay respect to someone who has died is to meditate and then practice metta. Goenkaji advises against playing any extra chanting in the sitting, or anything else taking place apart from meditation and people practising metta by themselves at the conclusion of the sitting.
Goenkaji cautions against other activities as, over time, such activities will become the focus and initiate Vipassana religious rituals.
That's very sound advice, I must say. Particularly when I think of how monks and their chantings in East Asia have become part of pagan funeral rites and rituals. Thank you all for your advice.
Goenkaji cautions against other activities as, over time, such activities will become the focus and initiate Vipassana religious rituals.
That's very sound advice, I must say. Particularly when I think of how monks and their chantings in East Asia have become part of pagan funeral rites and rituals. Thank you all for your advice.
All beings like yourself are responsible for their own actions. Suffering or happiness is created through one's relationship to experience, not by experience itself. Although I wish only the best for you, I know that your happiness or unhappiness depends on your actions, not on my wishes for you.
May you not be caught in reactivity.
May you not be caught in reactivity.