Beaches Sangha Meeting

Beaches Sangha is a welcoming Secular Buddhist group, inspired by the traditional concept of ‘sangha’ as a spiritual community. We focus on practical insights from the Buddha’s teachings to help navigate life’s challenges. Our meetings explore Buddhist teachings in a modern, accessible way, led by our experienced teacher Lenorë Lambert, an Organisational Psychologist with over 20 years of practice and author of ‘The Buddha for Modern Minds’.

This week we’ll be discussing Ezra Klein’s podcast interview with Stephen Batchelor, asking the question “What is this?”

The Most Powerful Question I’ve Heard | The Ezra Klein Show

I like to start the year with a few episodes on things I’m personally working on. Not resolutions, exactly. More like intentions. Or, even better, practices. One of those practices, strange as it sounds, is repeatedly asking the question: “What is this?” It’s a question I got from a book of the same name, by Stephen and Martine Batchelor. In that book, they are describing an approach to Buddhist meditation built on the cultivation of doubt and wonder. You can see that as a spiritual practice, but it’s also an intellectual and ethical one. It is, for me, a practice that has a lot of bearing on politics and journalism. Stephen Batchelor’s latest book, “Buddha, Socrates, and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times,” explores those dimensions of doubt more fully. And so I wanted to have him on the show to discuss the virtues of both certainty and uncertainty, the difficulty of living both ethically and openly. You can see this as a conversation about our inner lives or our outer lives, but of course they are one. And Batchelor, as you’ll hear, is just lovely to listen to.

New members are always welcome, whether you’re new to meditation or Buddhist teachings — contact Brett Ullman via he***@************ha.org (0438 653 472) for more information or to discuss your first visit.

• Cost: Minimal annual contribution to cover venue and group expenses
• First-time Attendees: Welcome to attend the first meeting free of charge
• What to Bring: Meditation cushion or mat (wooden floor), chairs provided
• Parking: Available in vacant lot opposite Peace Park or along Dreadnought Rd