Hello Wangapeka Community,
A beloved Teacher of the Wangapeka, Lama Catherine Rathbun has passed away.
Tarchin and Mary’s email below has an invitation to join in on the practice to commemorate Catherine’s life, where-ever you are in the world. Further below is the announcement from Catherine’s website. We have also added teachings that Catherine has made available, there are many more on the Wangapeka Website and on youtube.
The Wangapeka website will have updated information once more news comes to pass.
Homage to a friend of the heart, a Dharma teacher who dedicated her life to helping many.
Dear Friends
We have just received the news that Catherine Rathbun, one of the founding teachers of the Wangapeka Study and Retreat Centre, has died in Canada, surrounded by friends and family.
To commemorate her life and work, on this coming Sunday, March 1st at 3pm, at 9 Windridge Lane, Katikati, Tarchin will lead a meditation on the sadhana of Buddha Amitabha, the joyous flowering of immeasurable love and understanding.
Whether you knew Catherine or not, you are warmly invited to join us on this occasion.
with warm good wishes
Tarchin and Mary
Passing of Jetsun-ma
It is with love that we share the news that our beloved founder of Friends of the Heart, Lama Catherine Jetsun-Yeshe, took her last breath around 5pm on Sunday February 22, 2015. She was peaceful and surrounded by love from her family and other meditators. We did our best to help her transition which we believe is underway as she hoped.
Her meditation practice was strong throughout this lifetime which will take her through to carry out her vow to help all beings. Please continue to meditate on compassion and help other beings on her behalf. May her Dharma activity flourish.
Should you wish, kindly make donations to any of the following:
1) The FOH fund that will support the publishing of Catherine’s planned books.
A cheque can be made out to Friends of the Heart. Please put Book Fund in the memo section.
FOH is at Suite 324, 2510 Yonge Street, Toronto, ON, M4P 2H7.
Include your name and full address if you wish to receive a charitable receipt.
And/or the following charities:
2) www.gadenrelief.org
3) www.doctorswithoutborders.org
The address to send flowers to, should you prefer:
c/o Trinity College Reception (Catherine Rathbun’s Memorial in the Chapel)
6 Hoskin Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1HB
Metta,
Friends of the Heart
http://friendsoftheheart.com/blog/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa1IyECx8AA
Youtube video: In a culture in which we have days, weeks, or months dedicated to raising awareness and funds for a variety of diseases and conditions—March, in Canada, for example, is National Kidney Month, National Epilepsy Month, and Help Fight Liver Disease Month—we are conditioned to think of healing in terms of physical or physiological terms. Even with months or weeks devoted to matters of mental health or psychiatric disorders, we are often exposed to perceptions of health and healing that are bound up in medical terms and perspectives which focus on the somatic aspects of our lives and well-being. In such terms, the concepts of suffering and healing are evaluated along a physical continuum based on issues such as etiology, pain or malady, and medical treatments and remedies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO4htddobRw
Catherine Rathbun on A Woman’s Journey to Enlightenment
Youtube video: Most organized religions have at some time or another come under fire for what many critics have argued to be the continued sanctioning of religious and social structures that are oppressive to women. Whether they target issues ranging from the broader problematic conceptions of women’s social roles, sexuality, and political or legal status to more narrow examinations of women’s rights in matters of ordinance, dress, or participation in activities traditionally accessible only by men, advocates for women have frequently condemned the subordination of women in a sphere which should at heart consist of the personal relationship between an individual and the divine.
‘F’ IS FOR FAMILY
HOW MEDITATION VIEW AND MAHAYANA/VAJRAYANA CAN HELP US
After seven years of travelling through mouldy temples, hordes of desperate beggars with children on my back to ‘get’ the teaching, after seven years of wiping bottoms and noses, camping in Africa with wild animals just outside the mosquito screen, was I free? Was I free, finally, to do my prostrations without a small boy laughing and throwing himself down on the mat in front of me, daring me to do a prostration on top of him? Was I free to meditate in quiet without a small figure slipping into my lap to waggle his fingers upwards towards my nose to see if he could disturb my concentration?…