Refuge

With a soft heart, open mind and enlivened body, we step forward to do what is ours to do.

In 1978, the Cambodian monk Maha Ghosananda led a ceremony for over ten thousand refugees from Pol Pot’s holocaust near the Thai-Cambodian border. He began by chanting the Buddhist refuge vows: finding safety, shelter and belonging in intrinsic awakeness (Buddha), in the teachings and practices which illuminate this awakeness (Dharma), and in the relationships with support our remembrance and return to this awakeness (Sangha).

The word which best describes the direct felt experience of awakeness, is love.

Maha Ghosananda sat in silence as these wholehearted aspirations to live in love permeated through everyone present, softening their hearts and opening their minds to a place familiar to them even in the midst their enormous pain and shattering trauma.

And then into that soft open space, he made his unique offering of service. In front of thousands of survivors of a genocide which had killed their children, spouses and parents, Maha Ghosananda began to repeat a verse from the Dhammapada, a sacred Buddhist scripture:

Na hi verena verani
sammantidha kudacanam
averena ca sammanti
esa dhammo sanantano.

Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed; this is an ancient and eternal law. Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed; this is an ancient and eternal law. Over and over again.

Through their tears, thousands of people who had been wounded, oppressed and lost all they loved, joined in the chant, over and over. Crying through chanting and chanting through crying, joining together in solidarity and sorrow. Joining together in love.

An ancient and eternal law isn’t created by someone (however enlightened) at a certain time (however long ago). It’s a law of nature, a law of the cosmos. The Buddha placed the cosmic law of love on the same level of irrefutable truth as the laws of impermanence and interconnection. Just as it is unshakeably true that everything changes and everything is influencing and being influenced by something else, it is unshakeably true that love is the only thing to heal hatred.

Love is what heals by responding in a myriad of creative, engaged and sometimes forceful ways. But love cannot be expressed until it is felt. And we cannot feel love for others without meeting the pain we feel with love, first. Without establishing a sense of refuge.

Being of service asks us to enter the darkness of nuance and contradiction, to climb the tangled branches of truth before emerging into greater clarity.

Refuge is not optional on a path of transformation, whether personal or global. Being of service asks us to enter the darkness of nuance and contradiction, to climb the tangled branches of truth before emerging into greater clarity. It asks us to rest in the discomfort of complexity without knowing the answer and without turning away - until we digest the widest perspective we are able to digest, and feel what needs to be felt.

Supporting ourselves and others with refuge doesn’t imply non-action. In fact it allows us to act more effectively. It invites us to prevent further harm and support those in need, whilst offering our own unique gifts back to this moment. We do what’s ours to do.

Maha Ghosananda’s chanting wasn’t the end to healing, of course. It was just the beginning of something which is still unfolding. He offered his drop into the ocean of transformation by realigning the hearts and minds of others towards love, so that they might be more able to do what was theirs to do in turn. Healing is as complex and layered as the distortions which created the trauma. Pol Pot wouldn’t have had traction in his country without the US bombing of Cambodia, which was intended as a display of strength to North Vietnam, which in turn was a power-play between superpowers.

To live in love, we must be willing to prevent further harm and care for those in need without believing the stories which attempt to simplify reality and solidify the enemy. And perhaps hardest of all, we must recognise that all of us are accountable. Because where does blame begin? These power games are at play all around the world, and the country I live in and the privileges I take for granted come from the blood of those games. Where are we complicit, even whilst pointing a finger at an enemy elsewhere to be destroyed so that we can continue to live with comfort and ease?

When we sit in the fire of complexity, it can be challenging not to become overwhelmed, of course. Not to fight, run away and freeze in the enormity of it all. This is why we need to re-establish a sense of refuge, again and again. If we are to continue to breathe and be willing to listen, speak, learn and grow, whilst doing what is ours to do, however large or small, we must have a safe place for this tender human heart to feel it all as well.

The noise of the mind longs to find some quiet, so that a wider and softer perspective can emerge. The disconnected, dull, defended, tense and collapsed body longs to return to its grounded, awake, open, relaxed and spacious state. The contracted heart longs to feel held in an embrace of sacredness, resting in mutual raw presence and exchange with each other, nature and spirit.

With a soft heart, open mind and enlivened body, we can then step forward to do what is ours to do. Our offerings are never enough, but together they grow into something so much bigger than each of us on our own. As the Buddha said:

Think not lightly of good, saying, "It will not come to me." Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.

Drop by drop we fill ourselves with good, and drop by drop we share that goodness everywhere all around. Drop by drop, we do what is ours to do. Refilling our hearts with refuge and emptying ourselves out in service, in readiness to receive and refill once again.

My service is the offering of refuge. I offer meditation, yoga and authentic connection (with nature, each other and spirit), so that we might relax the defensive, reactive survival strategies which attempt to keep us closed and hard in the face of life’s bruises. It is a drop in the ocean of transformation. But I know with every fibre of my being that the fabric of that ocean is love, and that each of us - really each of us - are waves rising out of its vast expanse.

Join me…

July 8th: Meditation online from 7-8.30pm with Oxford Insight Meditation. There will be a short check-in, teachings on the theme of Meditation is a Refuge, 30 minutes of guided meditation and time for questions and discussion at the end. The event is offered on a dana basis and everyone is welcome.

September 30th - October 6th: Six Day Retreat at the Moulin de Chaves in France. The days are infused with yoga, meditation, swimming in the river, eating delicious food, being held by the blessings of silence and community, reconnecting to what really matters and releasing what no longer serves us. We stabilise and lengthen the body, soften the heart and open the mind in order to taste, touch, breathe and feel the infinite space within and all around us. This retreat has been full, but there has just been a cancellation, so one space is currently available.

December 8th: Day Retreat at Wasing. This includes a long morning of yoga and meditation, followed by silent walking meditation through ancient woodland to a secluded swimming lake, lakeside sauna, firepit and woodland lunch spread, and ends with late afternoon restorative yoga and meditation.

April 2nd - 6th 2025: Four Day Retreat at Sharpham House in Devon. I am happy to be returning to the wonderful Sharpham House next April. This is an intimate retreat in a stunning period house surrounded by incredibly vibrant land with ancient trees and spacious views, held by the embrace of the river Dart.

Sending you all love, and love, and love, amidst the heartbreak and possibility of these times of transformation.