COMBINED ORDER & MITRA DAY

Turning Difficulty into Wisdom and Love

The theme of the day will be be taken from this quote by the American Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield:

"The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love."

Buddhism encourages us to turn towards our experience in order to learn and connect with life. Yet so much of our thought and action is in fact focused on actively turning away from our experience - through distraction, denial and even ideology.

The Buddha took a different approach, based on the realisation that the way to liberation is in fact there (if somewhat buried) in our actual human lives here and now. Instead of moving away from problems, if we turn towards them they can reveal deeper truths about ourselves and the nature of reality. 

This ‘moving towards’ opens our hearts to our own suffering and the suffering of others, as we come to accept and learn from our experience. This leads to more empathy and compassion and further liberation.

The wisdom that this develops is born out of direct lived experience rather than a solely intellectual learning. A wisdom that can bring deeper levels of peace as our hearts and minds become more in accord with the way things are.

The programme for the day will be divided into short personal talks and discussions around this theme, as well as a chance to be together and share as a Sangha.