Parliament of Worlds Religion 2009 Melbourne Australia

Author(s): Parliament of the World’s Religions
Publisher: USA Parliament of the Worlds Religions

Page 141

PROGRAM DES
Friday, December 4, 2009
The Breath of Life
William Skudlarek
Rev Heng Sure Room 203
Religious or Spiritual Observance
Our first act as human beings-and our last-is to breathe. We all breathe the same air, thereby making human life and human community possible. Awareness of our breathing brings us to a deeper awareness of and appreciation for life as a gift. That grateful awareness deepens our commitment to the well-being of all living things. During this interreligious observance, two monks-one Buddhist, one Catholic-will lead participants in a service that honours both traditions' commitment to healing the Earth. Participants will engage in a guided Buddhist meditation on breath, as well as a Biblically-based ritual involving readings, chants and prayers that celebrate God as the life-giving breath (Spirit) and the universe as filled with the Spirit of God.
William Skudlarek is a Benedictine monk. After serving as President and Executive Director of the North American branch of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, he was appointed Secretary General in 2008. From 1994-2001 he lived in Japan and participated in zazenkai and sesshin offered by the San-un Zendo in Kamakura. In the summer of 2007 he walked with Jotipalo Bhikkhu on a seven-day, 100-mile Tudong in northern Minnesota.
Rev Heng Sure is the Director of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and a former Global Councilor of the United Religions Initiative. He has been a Buddhist monk for 33 years, and holds a PhD from the Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley, California (USA) and an MA from the University of California, Berkeley. An author and musician, Rev Sure recently released the CD 'Paramita: American Buddhist Folk Songs'.
The Rights of the Poor and the Orphan in the Qur'an: Overcoming Poverty in an Unequal World
Imam Khalid Fattah Griggs
Room 207
Religious or Spiritual Observance
In this session, Imam Khalid Fattah Griggs, an activist Imam of the Community Mosque of Winston-Salem in North Carolina, will discuss the Qur'anic approach to overcoming poverty in an unequal world, especially with regard to the rights of the poor and orphans. This session is one of six in a series of Muslim observances on the Qur'an scheduled across the six days of the Parliament. Each session will include inspirational recitations of the Qur'an, clear translation, and illuminating exegesis around a different Parliament subtheme each day. This series will show how the subthemes of the Melbourne Parliament are all issues of shared concern to Muslims, as they are at the heart of Islam's social conscience. Imam Khalid Fattah Griggs has been the imam of The Community Mosque of Winston-Salem in North Carolina since 1984. He is cochairman of the North Carolina-based Black Leadership Roundtable of Winston-Salem-Forsyth County, Griggs holds a degree in political science and English from Howard University in Washington, DC. He was part of the anti-Vietnam war movement in the late 1960s and was involved with the Islamic Party of North America in the 1970s after his conversion.
8:00-9:00am MORNING OBSERVANCES
Celebrating Diversity and Unity: An Inclusive Spiritual Service
Dr Kim Cunio Room 208
Religious or Spiritual Observance
In our troubled world, there is an urgent need to go beyond respectful dialogue between people of different faiths to an authentic experience of spiritual inclusivity. While religion is so often associated with ignorance, divisiveness and even violence, the healing power of such inclusive experiences cannot be underestimated. This service presents 'interfaith' as more than just a way for members of different faith communities to connect respectfully. Rather, it can simultaneously support and transform existing faith communities and reach out to those who have been wounded by, or are not comfortable with, mainstream religion, yet who might genuinely seek communion with the transcendent and with other seekers. Through carefully chosen prayers, readings, music, inspirational talk and the surrender that comes with silence, we have discovered how possible it is for people to have an intense and deeply healing experience of the sacred that is free of even the best-intentioned labels, 'differences' and dogma. This 75-minute service, emphasising content and personal and shared experience, offers a unique opportunity for people to take their understanding and experience of interfaith and interspirituality to a new level.
Dr Kim Cunio is Australia's leading composer and interpreter of sacred traditional music. He has received commissions to investigate the music of a multitude of sacred traditions. Some of those commissions include the Art in Islam exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales; The Sacred Fire: The Music of Hildegard of Bingen; the Temple Project [Music in the Time of Jesus); and The Thread of Life, a reuniting of Arabic and Jewish musicians (New York, 2007).
The Mandaeans in Australia:
Baptism, Living Water and the Link to John the Baptist
Ganzibra Dr Brikha H S Nasoraia
Sandi van Rompaey
Room 210
Living Water is the essential, life-giving ingredient in the baptism of the Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran. The Mandaeans, whose Gnostic religion predates Christianity, regard baptism as a crucial element in their quest for enlightenment, inner peace and sacred wisdom. Baptism is conducted in the living waters of a healthy river or spring which is called Yardana (Jordan). As such, baptism is fundamental to Mandaean religious practice and the foundation of its universal redemptive system. Due to the recent wars in Iraq and Iran, a majority of the Mandaeans have migrated to countries of the Diaspora, including Australia, where there are currently more than six thousand Mandaeans, including nine practising priests. Based in western Sydney, this major resettlement is dependent
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