WELCOME!

The WHUUF Buddhist discussion and meditation group gathers in community to share wisdom and insights on Buddhism, Meditation and Mindfulness.

 

We uphold the WHUUF Covenant of Right Relations (https://whuuf.net/about-us/covenant-right-relations/) and practice the Noble Eightfold Path shared by the Buddha to end suffering, develop skillfulness, and be in harmony with our community (https://www.lionsroar.com/buddhism/eightfold-path/). 

Join us in person or by Zoom on Sundays from 9 – 10 AM.

  • IN PERSON:  We meet in the Fireside room located down the hall from the WHUUF main office.  

  • BY ZOOM:  https://uuma.zoom.us/j/97751343013 (Meeting ID: 977 5134 3013)

For more information on the Noble Eightfold Path, refer to https://www.lionsroar.com/buddhism/eightfold-path/ and the graphic descriptions below:

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(Image source with article: https://bakkeac.weebly.com/ch-16—buddhism.html; Creator credit: jeff.bakke)

Noble Eight fold Path.png
(Image source with article:  https://www.mindfulteachers.org/blog/the-eightfold-path-in-everyday-life; Creator credit: Catharine Hannay)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

DISCUSSION FOR SUNDAY, 5/31/26

We are reading Buddhism Is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs by Steve Hagen (2003; available for free online at: https://archive.org/details/buddhismisnotwhatyouthinkfindingfreedombeyondbeliefsstevehagen_752_h).

Thanks to Anne Dryad for her notes on Chapter 22, “Life Without Measure,”:

Zen is about doing your best.  The problem is that we usually don’t realize what doing our best is…In Zen, doing your best is about cultivating a mind that doesn’t get caught up in egotistic practices.  It’s watching for speech and behavior that set us apart, cut us off, or put us in opposition to others…

Doing our best is coming into THIS MOMENT and SEEING what is actually going on.  It’s realizing that your life is not your own–that in fact you live inseparably from the Whole.

Most of us live believing we’re separate beings.  This only breeds loneliness, selfishness, pain, and difficulty.  Still, because we see ourselves in this way–and because we try to assuage the ache we feel from living this way–we expend enormous energy and resources to alter ourselves, each other, and our environment, all in an effort to suit our immediate concerns.

Meanwhile, we have little or no awareness of how our actions affect others–and little recognition that what affects others affects us as well…

In Zen practices we simply attend to RIGHT NOW, to THIS MOMENT–without concern for making the mind better or more focused or more concentrated or enlightened…

Our natural state of mind–the natural, pure quality of mind–is already present.  We don’t have to “get it”.  Enlightenment is already present.  It’s not something we have to acquire.

In Zen–our practice is to come into THIS MOMENT, to be fully alive in each moment, to be reborn in each moment, again and again–fresh, new, vibrant, alive, clean and healthy.  It’s to live naturally and without blame.

VISUAL AWAKENINGS PHOTOGRAPHY

If you are not familiar with the photography of sangha member Lynn Clauer, check out her images at 

https://www.visualawakenings.com/.

FREE ACCESS TO PBS DOCUMENTARY ON BUDDHA

Thanks to Jenny Schmidt for recommending the 2015 PBS documentary on Buddha, narrated by Richard Gere.  Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc7_VyVXDLs.

WEDNESDAY MORNING MEDITATIONS

Online group meditation offered by WHUUF is on Wednesday mornings at 7:30 AM for 30 minutes.  There is no book discussion.  Check in at https://uuma.zoom.us/my/revtracy.