Vajrasana - Buddhist Retreat, Suffolk
It was explained on the first evening that the walls of the shrine building were designed to honour how light permeated through the trees, their branches and leaves, as it had done in the glades where the Buddha met others in his time and for his teachings. For the weekend, I was constantly drawn to the interaction between the light and sky and how it met us; on the walls, through the gaps in the walls, on the stupa, on the statue, on the water, through the glass.
We were blessed with a range of skies over the three days: fresh open blues and bright sunlight, dark grey clouds and spitting cold rain pellets, orange and purple sunsets, crisp black nights with bright stars and clear formations. In the mornings during the first meditation sessions, the light would change quite quickly and clearly through the small windows in the walls into the shrine room. The Buddha statue would have strips of light illuminating him more and more as the morning grew.
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