Welsh poet, playwright and novelist Aled Jones-Williams and Tibetan Buddhist teacher Lama Shenpen Hookham will be discussing the meeting point of Welsh and Buddhist stories at the Morlan Centre, Aberystwyth, on Wednesday 27 October at 7.30pm.
The event, ‘Discovering another world: the Mabinogion, Buddhist stories and the spiritual path‘, is organized jointly by the Aberystwyth Meditation Group and the Morlan Centre.
Aled Jones-Williams, who won the Crown at the St David’s Eisteddfod in 2002, was ordained as a priest with the Church in Wales in 1980 and was until recently vicar of Porthmadog. He will be reading extracts from the Mabinogion and discussing his response to them with Lama Shenpen.
He said: “These stories express psychological truths and bring transcendence into our lives. They are inseparable from the Welsh language in which they were written, and yet they are universal too. Their imagery opens us to another world and shows us deep truths about ourselves.”
Lama Shenpen, a British woman who spent many years in India in the 1970s receiving teachings from Tibetan Buddhist lamas before returning to complete a doctoral thesis at Oxford University, is now Spiritual Director of the Awakened Heart Sangha. She lives at the Hermitage near Criccieth in north Wales.
She said: “Some places act as a strong focus to connect us to deeper levels of spiritual reality. Since I moved to the Llyn peninsula in 1997, on the direction of His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, I have found that northwest Wales is such a place. I find strong parallels with the Tibetan tradition in some of the stories told about local places, and now Aled is showing me how the Mabinogion expresses the same spiritual truths in its own particular way.”
Both Aled and Lama Shenpen will be explaining how these ancient stories can inspire and guide us in our everyday lives, by revealing aspects of our experience which we often miss or devalue in the rapid pace of modern life.
Aled said: “We lack myths to live by nowadays, and we are the poorer for it. Lama Shenpen is in my view one of the foremost spiritual teachers in Britain today, and she is expert in interpreting ancient traditions in ways that are accessible to us and highly practical.”
Lama Shenpen said: “Meditation is one of the fundamental practices of Buddhism. But if we sit down to meditate with a narrow view of reality, as so many of us in the West do, then we will quickly lose inspiration. The stories of the Mabinogion, like those of Tibetan Buddhism, can lead us into other worlds and yet allow us to stay grounded and effective in this one.”
The Awakened Heart Sangha offers a distance learning course in Buddhism which enables students to connect to the heart of Buddhist teachings without the confusion often caused by Eastern cultural trappings, and will be offering a meditation course in Aberystwyth later this year.
The Aberystwyth Meditation Group is a non-denominational group representing many traditions, which meets every Wednesday at 7.30pm at Merched y Wawr, Vulcan St. For more details please contact Ian Finlay, 01970 625762.
The Morlan Centre is a faith and culture community centre in Queens Road, Aberystwyth. As well as hiring out its facilities to various local and national groups and organisations, it also hosts its own programme of activities throughout the year, many of which deal with issues relating to faith, peace, justice and human rights, and involve all sectors of the local community.
Tickets for the evening are available from Morlan (during office hours) or on the door.
