Our Acting Head Teacher, Bea Harley, has been leading guided meditation sessions with Lotus class (Years 5 & 6) which has inspired the children to create their own meditation journeys:

“Are you comfortable? Well, if you are, good. Now we can begin. Imagine you are lying on a rug. A very fluffy, very warm rug. But your stay on your very fluffy, very warm rug is not long because now you can feel the floor sink beneath you, and you just keep slowly falling down and down.

But you stop and when the darkness clears you realise you’re on a cloud, floating in the air, and just in the background, just ever so faintly is the noise of a busy city below you but you choose not to hear it. And it’s just you and your cloud up in the sky and it’s peaceful and quiet. you sit there for a while, just peaceful and quiet.”

…………………………..

“Relax. make sure you are in your most comfortable position. Imagine you are flying, gliding around the clouds. You look around and see one cloud that looks like a horse, one that looks like a wheelbarrow and another that looks like a rabbit. You then dip down below cloud level over a city turns into countryside, which turns into beaches, which turns into ocean. A pair of bottle-nosed dolphins leap below as you soar through the sky. As you turn to go home you see a mother whale with its young swimming below you. They stay with you until you near the beach and then they leave, tails flapping goodbye to you. As soon as you touch down gently, the smell of home overwhelms you. You go inside with a smile on your face.”

Today Mountain class (Years 1 and 2) are having an ‘Indian School Day’ to round off their topic work on India. Children and teachers have come to school in Indian clothing and have been decorating their hands with mendi patterns. The children have also been doing some yoga and practising a Bollywood dance routine (which they will perform in at a special puja on 6^th June). The class prepared rice and dhal as a hot lunch for the rest of the school and had mango lassis with Indian snacks at snack time!

This week staff, pupils and parents at the Dharma Primary School have been celebrating Wesak, the most important of the Buddhist festivals. Wesak is celebrated during the week of the first full moon in May and celebrates the Buddha’s birthday, his enlightenment and death.

This morning the school held a special puja (school assembly) and children read aloud the story of the Buddha’s birth and sang songs of celebration. Throughout the day pupils created a mandala in the playground. Once it was completed, we all took part in a walking meditation, then held hands around the mandala and asked for blessings on our school. (A mandala is a spiritual symbol in Buddhism which represents the universe; it can be used to create a sacred space and to aid meditation).

We have also begun decorating a special ‘Wishing Tree’ in the grounds, with our hopes, prayers and wishes for a more peaceful and compassionate world. We have attached Buddhist prayer flags to the tree and also pieces of paper with written wishes on. (Traditionally Buddhist prayer flags are hung up to bless the surrounding space and to carry good will and compassion on the wind to world beyond).