All the fun of the fair

Samsara is a funfair where success rewards you with an inflatable hammer that you cannot use.  Samsara is a funfair where any appearance of progress is swings and roundabouts back and forth and round and round. Samsara is play perceived as reality and taken seriously.

The children at the fair know that it’s a game and then go home for tea. Adults who take the game for real never get to go home. We stay on the roundabout because it feels like progress. We get sick from too many hot-dogs and too much candy-floss.

However when we’ve been round enough times we may start to get suspicious.  The scenery isn’t really changing.  We’ve been here before.

Ngakma Nor’dzin and I spent Bank Holiday Monday at a fair, where we talked to people about the Aro Ling Cardiff Buddhist Centre and raised money for the Drala Jong retreat centre appeal.

We watched the children playing on the ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ roundabout and going back and forth on the swing boats.  They won balloons and teddy bears on the funfair games and then went home for tea.

Meditation is our way off the roundabout of Samsara.  A way of seeing the funfair for what it is.  Through the practice of silent sitting we become transparent to ourselves and no longer take the funfair rides for reality.

The Aro gTér Lineage offers the opportunity of practising silent sitting meditation via our centres, courses and local groups.  We would also like to be able to offer opportunities for longer residential retreats which is why we began the Drala Jong appeal to create a centre.

Our target is £500,000 and this may seem like a great deal of money, but it mostly depends upon many small donations and fundraising events.  Our day at the funfair raised £90 and we were happy for every pound or penny that brought us closer to bringing Drala Jong into being. Every little helps and any donation - however small - is welcome.

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For more information about the project and how you could help, please see the Drala Jong Appeal page.