Tin and Ian have been visiting annually for around ten years now with teaching from the Pali tradition and guided loving kindness meditation giving a great deal of inspiration for the Buddhist path.
This year they played out the guru apprentice role with Ian starting first as in the Burmese dance tradition, the student shows their ability first with the teacher looking on. Ian was slightly amused to take the role showing his humility towards Tin whose generational background in the dharma was obvious. This year she talked of the Ten Perfections which gave the tools we can use in combating the three enemies of Greed, Anger and Mental Delusion.
Each of us were invited to share our own problem in one word. Mine was being picky. The way Tin evaluated each person’s shortcoming translated into some form of anger or greed. She encouraged us to be determined (the 8th perfection) to not let the anger get the better of us. She then traced the anger back to some form of gross or subtle mental defilement. The main one which she said in the Buddhas time was exceptionally radical, the ego or self.
This idea of self seems to be at the core of both Pali and Sanskrit teachings of the Buddha and certainly The Perfections are a common thread between the two.
While these were quite important and often serious topics, Tin and Ian were able to bring a lot of levity into the teaching. Tin’s final words were ‘now for the exciting bit’ as we broke for a sumptuous lunch she had prepared for us…… her word was gluttony.
