Resources shared in previous practices

Resources From Previous Monday Night Practices

Juneteenth and Centering our LGBTQ+ Relations in our Practice, June 2023

Videos: 

Readings from:

Sangha Resources:

Heart Sutra Practices – offered by Bk in April & May 2022

The Heart Sutra is one of the most read and chanted discourses in many sects of Buddhism today. This translation was one of the last discourses that Thich Nhat Hanh translated. It is a powerful offering both in words and music that Thay continues to transmit through the chant itself. 

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote:  “When people hear the word “emptiness,” they often panic because they tend to equate emptiness with nothingness, nonbeing, and nonexistence. Western philosophy is preoccupied with questions of being and nonbeing, but Buddhism goes beyond the dualistic notions of being and nonbeing. I often say, “To be or not to be, that is no longer the question. The question is one of interbeing.””
As we learn and chant together, we do so in the spirit of interbeing. This is an aspiration and a path of practice.
Here is a link to the sutra on Plum Village website including where you can hear the chant. Additionally, a few other resources to learn the chant, and attached photos corresponding to the Heart Sutra that Bk will share about in the offerings they are scheduled to facilitate on Monday Nights. You do not have to be a good singer in order to attend. It is recommended but not required to read the book on the Heart Sutra in order to participate.

There will be no certain order to read the materials. Bk often focuses on the mantra at the end of the Sutra first, and the introduction to the Sutra, then goes through the middle, then back to the beginning through to the end. If reading The Other Shore, it might be helpful to start with the Preface and Introduction, and the last two chapters including Chapters 18. Mantra and 19. Tangerine Party.

https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation/
https://plumvillage.org/books/the-other-shore/
https://plumvillage.org/library/sutras/the-heart-sutra/
Sheet music: http://wavesandwater.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Heart-Sutra-Music.pdf

Teaching Tutorial:
http://sanghasongs.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-heart-sutra-insight-that-brings-us.html

Memorial of Thay Practice Resources

Day of Mindfulness on January 23, 2022 in memory of Thay, led by Brian Kimmel, Bk.

Monday January 24 — Morning practice at Deer Park Monastery included the reading of Thây’s letter, Coming, Going in Freedom.  You can find the YouTube video here & the text of the written letter here.

Monday January 24 – Letter written by Bk to Thay

Wednesday January 26 – Second letter from Thay, read this morning at Deer Park Monastery. The text of the letter is here and the YouTube video is here.

Photo album from Dharma Gate

Other communities honoring Thay: Memorial service at Upaya Zen Center with four students of Thay’s – Roshi Joan Halifax, Valerie Brown, Natalie Goldberg and Wendy Johnson.

Beginning Anew Practices — offerings in January 2022 by Geneviève

35 min Dharma talk by sister Dang Nghiem from Deer Park

https://plumvillage.org/articles/begin-anew/
https://plumvillage.org/live-events/beginning-anew-ceremony/

Resources offered from Beginning Anew Practices from January 
Ellie shares: An outline for Beginning Anew in partnerships that Michael Ciborski and Fern Dorresteyn offered at the MCPS annual retreat in 2017. See the document here.