December - RKOK Dharma Center Newsletter

December 2011

RKOK Dharma Center News

Monthly Calendar and Special Events

Sunday

Chant Service...................................................................10 to 11 AM

Dharma Circle/ Teaching Circle................................11 to 12 noon

*Dharma Circle (Hoza)..................................................Dec.4, 18

*Teaching Circle.................................................................Dec. 11

Joint Board / Leader's Meeting ........................................Dec. 11

**Bodhi Day - Pot Luck ...............................................Dec. 4

Bring a dish to share & Celebrate Buddha's Enlightenment Day

Reunite with friends over lunch at the Dharma Center

NOON this Sunday DEC. 4th

**DC Stuff Sale**................................................................Dec. 11

Monday Night

Dharma Circle (Hoza)............................................................7:00 PM

Open Christmas week...........................................................Dec. 26

Wednesday Night

Basic Buddhism Class ................................................................7 PM

The Practice of Buddhism ....................................................Dec. 7

Holiday break.......................................................................Dec. 14

Holiday break.......................................................................Dec. 21

Holiday break.......................................................................Dec. 28

Basic Buddhism Class starts again from the beginning in January. The schedule will be posted in the January Newsletter and on the website.

Thursday Nights: Meditation............................................................7 PM

Lotus Sutra Study - Friday - 7 PM........................................Dec. 2, &16

Dharma Center Schedule

Instruments of Compassion
Kris 001

Rev. Kris Ladusau

Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Keola and Moana Beamer from the island of Maui. Through these two great cultural and spiritual messengers from Hawaii, I experienced beautiful music infused with deep respect and compassion.

As I listened to the amazing music and watched the graceful movements of the dance, my attention was drawn to the guitar that Keola was playing. It reminded me of a thought that I had a few years ago. There is something special about trees. I don’t think it was mere coincidence that Christ was a carpenter who worked with wood, and that Buddha achieved Enlightenment meditating under a Bodhi tree… also, trees continue to live when we transform them into guitars, drums and other musical instruments. When they take this new form, and musicians move spirit through them, they remain alive and vibrating with a deep resonance and beauty.

When I was younger, I was a violinist. I will always have a great respect and appreciation for the profound experience of creating music and the sensations as it moved through both the instrument and myself.

Through this interconnectedness, there is opportunity for a multitude of expressions. Music can also provide comfort, compassion and healing. These vibrations radiate from the instrument and player, out into the universe affecting all beings. A wooden flute fulfills it potential when combined with breath and spirit.

And so it is the same with us. We can also be conduits for spirit to move through. We can willingly and joyfully open ourselves, reverberating with the highest levels of joy and compassion – radiating out into the world. Perhaps now would be a good time for us to fulfill our highest potential!

The sound of what cannot be seen,

sings within everything that can.

Dharma Center

**Bodhi Day**

"...Siddhartha studied with a number of learned teachers, but none could satisfy him completely. He then practiced solitary austerities, but still the ultimate enlightenment eluded him. Finally, he seated himself beneath a bodhi tree and entered a deep meditative trance, during which he attained the supreme enlightenment that made him the Buddha, or "Enlightened One." He is said to have been thirty-five at the time."

December 8 has come to be the day Japanese Buddhists observe the enlightenment of the historical Buddha.

"The Dharma is the invisible entity that sustains us, guides us, and improves us, in a word, the source at the root of our being. But since it is invisible and intangible, we ordinary people cannot perceive it clearly. Therefore, the Dharma should be expressed in some concrete form or image.

Shakyamuni Buddha was the first human being who was awakened to the Dharma. Although we ordinary people can hardly grasp it, when we think of it in the form of the Buddha who communicates to us and regards all of us with compassion, we can form an image clearly in our minds. Through the image of the Buddha, we can be aware of the loving power of the Dharma, which is the life-force sustaining all of us."

Excerpt from:

Buddha

The Focus of Devotion

RK World

Tel: (405) 943-5030
2745 NW 40th St, Oklahoma City, OK
Email: dharmacenterokc@gmail.com