Tag: sacredness

A Blessing, Not a Promise

A funeral for a satin bowerbird at the end of a retreat.

The clothes we wear to bed at night to sleep is just pyjamas
This flesh we roam this earth in is a blessing, not a promise
I bow with those who bow to the creator and pay homage

— Jay Electronica, A.P.I.D.T.A

I hear a crash. Looking up from my tea, I walk over to the source of the sound. On the path outside the meditation hall is a female satin bowerbird. Having flown into one of the windows, she now lies twitching on the ground. I check if she is still alive. My heart races and my mind scatters. I think about what I need to do in each given scenario: if she is injured; dying; dead. When I see that she is badly injured I find my two close friends who are holding the retreat with me. We are all shaken up together. My thoughts go to the suffering that she might be in and what we can do to help alleviate that pain. One friend offers the wisdom that we let the wildness of nature unfold in its own way and only interfere when necessary. We hold this space of uncertainty as witnesses to the transition from life to death.

A female satin bowerbird (photo).

A memory arises of another speckled satin bowerbird peeking out at me from the broad leaves of a longan tree while I ate breakfast at a long silent retreat. At the time I felt like I had lost my way and the cheeky, monkey-like sounds of these birds felt like an invitation into the cosmic joke.

We go to move her away from the main building and realise she has died. She is so frail in my gloved hands. A delicate arrangement of green speckled feathers, a short beak, two dark eyes, two limp legs. It seems ridiculous that this creature was only minutes before creating a racket as she flew in and out of the plum tree, finding food and evading the retreatants who sought out her beauty. I feel a wave of sadness. As we close the retreat, I lead a guided mettā meditation where I invite everyone to sense into a love for the wildness of nature, for nature’s freedom. On listening back to the recording, I hear my voice crackling with my unfolding emotions, strained through my own sickness and weariness.

After the retreatants leave, the three of us hold a short funeral. We find a patch of land away from the main house where we can bury her and allow her to return to the earth. A rosella watches from a nearby tree, a witness to this sacred transition. I dig a hole and place her in the ground. She has become stiff and dense, seemingly already hardening into earth. The ants quickly move in to begin their work.

I’m nervous as I haven’t led a funeral before. I say a few words that a teacher passed on to me:

Let this bird’s life and death remind us of the preciousness of life.
Aniccā vata saṅkhārā.
All formations are impermanent.

I notice a peacefulness, an otherworldly quiet stillness. I recall seeing my partner’s grandmother moments before she died and moments after, and how I had noticed this same sacred stillness.

I’d always wondered when I heard that people go to a better place after they die. In this moment, I feel open to something more than an acceptance of death as fact, more than the promise of another life.

The birds have Buddha Nature.

A bower (photo).

The death of the individual body doesn’t mean the end of us when we are “actualized by myriad things”, as Dōgen says.[^1] Yet we forget our connection to the divine, this great gift of life bestowed on us. We forget that we move and speak and dance as part of this great body, the total interdependence of all phenomena.

Each moment of life, each a step in the transition to death, is another opening to walk this path of great wisdom.

She is in the ground now. Somewhere nearby a male is still arranging his blue things — bottle caps, beetle wings, flowers — setting his stage, waiting.

Vejjasala, our retreat home, shrouded in fog.

This song continues playing in my head and in my playlists, each time unravelling a little more.

I go to my Lord quietly, teardrops on our faces
Teardrops on my face, it’s like teardrops become waterfalls by the time they reach my laces
My eyelids is like levees but my tear ducts is like glaciers
As I contemplate creation, the salt that heals my wounds pour out my eyes just like libations

— Jay Electronica, A.P.I.D.T.A (​listen​)

[^1]: Dōgen, Genjōkōan: “To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away.” Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi’s translation is here.

Meditation Workshop: Exploring Imaginal Practice

~ A full-day Dharma Deep Dive ~

Event details

9:00 – 5:00 pm AEDT (Sydney time)
Sunday 3 May 2026
Online via Zoom

Description

Why does practice come alive for some people and not for others? Often this has to do with the sense of the path itself. When practice is alive and full of fire, there is a rich sense of the possibility and vision of the teachings, and a sense of the capability of the practitioner. This is the guiding image of practice that can be sensed into, played with, and reignited through imaginal practice.

This workshop will open up possibilities of Imaginal Meditation Practice. More than just imagination or visualisation, this is the exploration of how images (seen, felt, heard, and known in the mind) arise in meditation. When we move towards images rather than passing them off as distractions, spontaneous experiences of meaning and depth arise. Opening to the imaginal also opens to resource and creativity, even becoming a source for novel ideas and drawing connections that can be taken into art, work, and relationships.

We begin our exploration by tuning into the felt sense of the body and then bringing in different images of the body that can shift perception. Sitting as a mountain brings grounding and stabilising, seeing the body as filled with light is often energising, or seeing all experiences as waves in an ocean of awareness opens up spaciousness. Practising with images reveals that experience is more fluid and constructed than we tend to assume. This also makes Imaginal Practice a way to open up insight and to understand emptiness.

The power of images comes from embodied experience — a kind of poetic perception. They reveal more than just the physical world or the mind, opening to unexpected resonance. These practices draw from the work of Rob Burbea, who taught extensively on extending insight meditation into other dimensions of experience to open more freedom and meaningfulness.

About this format

This workshop curriculum will be taught through a method of embodied experience delivered through guided meditations that point out key insights, supported by talks, Q&A, and group discussion. The day will include grounding, breathwork, and anchoring practices to support your exploration.

You are asked to participate by engaging in the practice during the session so that you get first-hand experience. You are also asked to bring your questions and practice experiences to the whole group and to your practice pod, as well as to listen generously as part of the community.

The event is structured as a full day to provide the opportunity for deep focus, while you temporarily put aside other concerns.

Please attend for the whole day. It can be highly beneficial to be in silence for the day, and especially to minimise technology usage. However, you are not required to be in full silence. We encourage you to do what you can to create a supportive environment for your practice.

This is an online event. You will need a device with Zoom installed. Please ensure you have a consistent internet connection.

A background meditation practice is recommended. You do not need prior experience with imaginal practices or a strong capacity for detailed visual imagination. This workshop is geared primarily towards practitioners with an established practice, but open to those who sense possibility here. This work can open unexpected territory — please consider your own situation in terms of feeling grounded and stable. After registration you will receive further information and resources.