Parliament of Worlds Religion 2009 Melbourne Australia

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

Page 303

PROGRAM DES
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Sing Praise for the Earth
Rev Deirdre Pulgram Arthen Room 101
Religious or Spiritual Observance
Singing sacred music together is a powerful way to deepen our connection with spirit and to transform our relationships with each other and with the earth. Join members of the EarthSpirit Community's ritual performance group, Mother Tongue, to sing, open your heart and connect with the sacred earth. EarthSpirit Community is a religious and educational organization dedicated to the preservation of earth-centred spirituality, particularly the indigenous European traditions. The group celebrates and expresses a deep spiritual connection with the earth through music, storytelling, poetry, visual arts and dance. Mother Tongue has been performing and recording together since 1987 and has performed twice at past Parliaments, in 1993 and 2004. During this spirited Pagan observance, we will honour our ancestors and all beings of creation with melody, chant, rhythm and gentle movement and experience ourselves as an integral part of the web of life.
Rev Deirdre Pulgram Arthen is the Director of the EarthSpirit Community, a religious and educational organisation dedicated to the preservation of earth-centred spirituality, particularly the indigenous European traditions. She has been a leader in the Pagan community in the United States for thirty years and is known as a ritualist, musician, teacher and spiritual counsellor. She has offered presentations at the 1993, 1999 and 2004 Parliaments.
Worship and Justice
Danielle Strickland
Room 102
Religious or Spiritual Observance
The biblical view of God in the Christian tradition focuses on his Love and Justice. Worship is Love and Justice expressed from God to us and through us to the world. In the Christian tradition, worship is central to the experience of divine and human Justice. Worship is a collective experience that can break barriers, open us up to authentic spiritual truth, and create meaningful and compassionate relationships with God and others. Hearing God's voice through worship is one way that we are empowered to bring change to the Earth. This observance combines music, reading from the Christian Scriptures, listening prayer and spoken prayer. It welcomes anyone who wishes to share in the divine Love and Justice reflected in the experience of spiritual worship.
Danielle Strickland is social justice director for The Salvation Army in Australia. Originally from Canada, Danielle's initiatives include missionfocused church planting (birthing dozens of communities around the world) and various social justice campaigns. Danielle has written two books, Chaotic Order' and 'Just Imagine: The World For God".
8:00-9:00am MORNING OBSERVANCES
Meditation Training and Practice
Bhikshuni Heng Chih Room 103 Interactive Workshop
Bhikshuni Heng Chih will present a brief explanation of meditation, specifically focusing on Yogachara. She will first demonstrate and discuss physical positions used in sitting meditation and will explain their functions and principles. She will then introduce techniques for practising meditation with focus on a meditation topic and the functions of the ear in the process of turning hearing inwards. For the last part of the explanation, Heng Chih will encourage continuing meditation practice by exploring how to face disturbances created by habits, attachments and the resulting karma and by examining the five skandhas (aggregates) to become aware of their influence in the meditation process. An uninterrupted silent sitting will follow. This observance will close with a question and answer session.
Heng Chih has been an ordained Buddhist nun in the Mahayana tradition for 40 years. She has served as a team member of the Buddhist Text Translation Society as a translator (Chinese to English), bilingual reviewer, editor and certifier of canonical Buddhist texts and their modern language commentaries. She is credited in many publications. She earned a Master's degree (1980) and a PhD (1984) in Translation of Buddhist Texts from Dharma Realm Buddhist University, California, USA.
Catholic Mass, Roman Rite - Tuesday
Fr Frank Gerry, SVD
Room 104
Religious or Spiritual Observance
This observance will include a Eucharist celebrated by a leading Australian Catholic authority in interreligious affairs. The ceremony will be explained for the benefit of those who are not familiar with it.
Fr Frank Gerry, SVD, is Director of the Janssen Spirituality Centre for Interreligious and Cross-Cultural Relations.
Hearing the Concerns and Voices of Indigenous Youth
Triloki Pandey, Moderator
Leo Killsback, USA: Northern Cheyenne Arturas Sinkevicius, Lithuania: Romuva Mary Issaka Serwah, Ghana: Akan
Room 105
Youth Panel
The youth will inherit the earth. What legacy have we offered them? What has our generation left for the future generations? The youth will carry on with their dreams and hopes. What teachings and treasures can we offer them, which they will listen to and honour? How can we best equip them for the future? This program will address these and other questions.
Mr Triloki Pandey is professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research centres on tribal cultures in India,
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