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The Orchard Sangha Newsletter

Sonia passed away peacefully on the 11th June at 12.10 midday.

"When we leave the fear behind we come to see that death and impermanence point us to life and to living each moment with clear awareness and tenderness." Sonia

Commemorative Newsletter August 2013

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Honouring Sonia 10.11.53 – 11.06.13

“Walk on my love, walk on, free from fear. Dance Sonia, dance, you are free.” Ad

Sonia was many things to many people: partner, teacher, guide, friend and confidante. Letters, cards and poems poured in after the announcement of her passing and gave testament to the depth of feeling people had at the news of her passing. This edition of the newsletter is dedicated to Sonia and contains some of the many poems, testaments and reminiscences that were sent in (regrettably it is not possible to include them all), interspersed with photographs from the day of Sonia’s cremation. impractical All reflect the love and respect Sonia inspired in those she met, and how deeply she will be missed.


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Memorial Day 10th November 2013 at Maitreya House 11.00am – 4.00 pm

This day, which would have been Sonia’s 60th birthday, is a day to celebrate Sonia’s life, to come together to remember and reminisce. Further information will follow nearer the time.

On 1991 I stay in Sonia and Ad house. In my room I had a photo or a painting of a white flower, so simple, but speak to my heart. Ad Brugman showed me many photos when Sonia did shiatsu with white clothes. This moment always alive in me. White flower, so clean, elegant, perfect, point, soft. At the same time so powerful as white crystal spreading the rainbow. Hi Sonia, thanks a lot for your being. Wish you are in the divine shining emptiness space. OM AH HUM Hallo Ad Brugman, Rahayu, Rahayu, Ohm Prapto.


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Amarana’s soft exhalation as her tiny frame slips into rest, cocooned against the cold air, almost invisible beneath a shelter of sleeping bags and blankets. She has been here all night. It is 4.15am and I am sitting in the zendo. Dawn is approaching and the birds begin to awaken. Their song constant and varied. Other students are here too, some just arrived, some about to leave. We are in the presence of our teacher who, even in death, continues to teach us. Here I am. This is what it is all about. Remember the teachings? Then practice them. Now. What are you waiting for? The swish of the water feature as it swirls down into the pools evokes a memory of rowing boats. An image arises of the ferryman who rows the souls of the departed to new lands. I pull my shawl around me, feeling quietly at ease. The simple beauty of Sonia’s willow casket, her favourite blue hanging in cotton pleats from the side. The edges of the casket decorated with rose petals and flowers of white and blue. There are flowers everywhere. Sonia would have loved it. I hope she knows. The smell of the incense, the light from the candles. Every sense is engaged. It is beautiful and I feel privileged to be here. Sandra

For Sonia Your life was a poem

Dear Ad, We had today a wonderful ceremony for Sonia.

Of simplicity, elegance, grace. I seek to follow;

Iris and Andrea prepared everything and so Sonia was close to us with all her present love.

To let go of distraction.

We also meditated with her.

With each foot damp and cool

The Meditation about Loving Kindness ending with the prayer Peace to all Beings was so deep and helpful.

In touch with the dew on grass.

My best regards, Karin

To walk in quietness,

In these ways, forever I connect with your teaching, with you. Steve Felgate


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A passage from Old Path , White Clouds by Thich Nhat Hanh .... - modified to honour Sonia and to express my love for her:

'I look up and see the white clouds floating across the blue sky. The sun has risen high and the green grass sparkles in the morning light. Sonia has walked on this very grass many times. Her footprints are everywhere and with each mindful step, I know I am walking in the footsteps of Sonia, in the footsteps of the Buddha. Who was this Buddha that she has been able to effect such profound change? She has changed form but is still present. Anyone who looks deeply can see her within the sangha. As long as the Dharma and the Sangha remains strong, Sonia will remain present. The way to continue her work is to look at all things with awareness, to take peaceful steps and to smile with compassion as she has done.' Marion Pahlen

For Sonia Something flown away and yet still fluttering something broken and yet unbroken something lost and yet still here You have left Sonia You have moved on The strength of your teachings Rest in natural great peace This exhausted mind Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves In the infinite ocean of samsara. Rest in natural great peace.

holds like a beautiful song In the rhythm of stillness we embrace your memory In metta Peace to all beings

Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche Gabriella Agular Sent in by Corrie van Rijn


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Supporting and being supported Here I am after many years of absence, in the grounds of the Orchard at Lower Maescoed. This is where I spent so much of my time in the 1980s and the early 1990s; so many weekends training with Sonia to become a healing-shiatsu practitioner. This is the place, back then, I called my true home. The memories come floating back, and I feel privileged to have been part of her first group of students. “Supporting and being supported” was one of the mantras of our training – describing the perfect relationship between client and practitioner, and between student and teacher. These words have followed me ever since, like an echo through time. They come up whenever I am part of a group or sangha of like-minded people. Now, Sonia lies at rest in an open wicker-cot in the zendo. She is with us in spirit but free of her earthly body. She feels so present, I almost expect her to rise. A 24 hour vigil watches over her, and I am here with others to be with her. These are precious moments of stillness I will long remember. Some time later, Ad enters the zendo to lead puja – beautiful and poignant recitations and meditation. Afterwards, glancing around the room acknowledging everyone present to share the experience, he knows he has the love and support of the sangha. During the coming days, dozens of followers will arrive to continue the vigil and puja, but for now I am called away. Monday dawns and I am waiting in the reception of Hereford Crematorium. I am watching over the wicker coffin in the back of the funeral car. I have been chosen by Ad to be one of six coffin bearers. It is a great honour. She has been entrusted to our care for the very last time – just as I entrusted myself so completely to her all those years ago. Emotions of deep love and maternal care rise up in me. Never before have her words supporting and being supported rung so true! I follow my breathing, to calm the emotions rising. I encourage myself, and I encourage Sonia to be so strong. Taking one of the wicker handles, I feel her weight. Bless you dear Sonia. I hold you close to me. I support you as you have supported me. Soon, I will release you to be so free. It is time to enter the chapel where so many of her students are breathing too, to support us in our slow walk to the front. I release the weight of her being, and my heart says “Goodbye my teacher, my friend. Go well. May light rise around you, may you be ever free. Peace, love comfort and ease.” Finally, I step back and bow deeply, and walk slowly to my seat. Jeannine Williams August 2013 Commemorative Newsletter August 2013

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Dear Rinpoche, One of my teachers has died yesterday, Rinpoche. I forward you the mail I have received below. I wanted to tell you, that's all. She was the woman I sometimes went to stay in one of her garden kutis to write up your teachings. She was always very supportive of this work and welcomed me anytime, even though I never really fitted in her sangha. She supported me when I first met you and did not know what was happening. She was herself a student of Namgyal Rinpoche, the Canadian priest (originally) who was recognised by HH Karmapa as a tulku. After his death, later on, she started to suffer with a degenerative neurological disease. But she kept teaching throughout, and the greatest teaching was how she managed to be at peace and radiate the Dharma despite her illness. I am so sad I had not recently seen her. Her loss is a true loss. She had a fall recently, in her weak condition, and broke her leg and did not recover after the operation. But it sounds her mind was very clear. She always had such a sharpness of mind. I imagine this is the main thing she would have wished for at her death and understand it was the case. I always wanted to arrange a meeting with you, thinking the link with the living Kagyu lineage might somehow help her recovery. The opportunity never came close enough. But I don't really know if it was a right idea anyhow. I know nothing in the end. Except she has moved on, and I still at this hour want to tell you. Thank you, Love Mary


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Dear Ad I cannot express adequately my sorrow of Sonia's passing from being with us here. Basho wrote a haiku for his friend Priest Tandu: On my knees, Hugging roots, I grieve For Priest Tandu Substitute Sonia Moriceau and it expresses my feeling reasonably well but I truly am quite devastated. I am also deeply sad I could not be with you all at the service for her - I understand it was profoundly moving and I love the dedication you wrote and wished for her. I am glad you will be continuing The Orchard as a meditation centre and I would love to come and do a retreat or workshop with you when I return from Zanzibar some time With love to you Ad and wishing the next steps for you and The Orchard all good wishes and I am sure you have the blessings from those who matter! If I can do anything at all please let me know Much love , Judy

When I realised that I needed to learn Shiatsu I chose Sonia Moriceau as my teacher because I had heard that she ran her courses like meditation workshops and that suited me. I soon realised what a skilled teacher she was. We would arrive at Taliaris with all our worldly disparate energies and I saw how she gathered the threads of those energies in her hands and, understanding our individual needs, would pull a little on this and let go a little on that until we came together as a whole, ready to learn. On the third day we would be high, up for a party and she would enter the zendo dressed in red and black and reprimand us. Without naming names she would present us with our various misdemeanours , ask us if that was the sort of behaviour we would want to see in someone giving us a Shiatsu session, and send us chastened to our beds. On the following two days we would do our best work, securely grounded in our bellies and ready to face the world again, novice healers. ‘Good work’, she would say. Good work indeed Sonia. Walk on now and take your ease. Jo Lee Class of ‘91 Commemorative Newsletter August 2013

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Dear Ad, I just wanted to let you know that Marianne and I are sitting here with Sonia in our hearts and minds. And with you. Lots of memories come and I can say that Sonia was a very important person in my life. In fact, she changed my life. At one of my first retreats, after a longer period of silence, she gave me a rose and said “for our warrior of hearts” and she touched something in me I will never forget and which is not reversible. I love her deeply and I am sad that we couldn’t see each other in the last years. Now, there are many things I would love to tell her. And I will, in meditation. Marianne tells me how glad she was to meet Sonia and I remember how both of them trained together the “Aham avero homi, abyapajjho homi, anigho homi, sukhi attanam pariharami” for Peer’s birth. That was so much fun. And then we both sang it to Peer in his first minutes of his life, immediately after his birth. We are glad that Peer and Sonia met when he was still a baby, and now he is 5 years old. I attach 2 photos from when Sonia visited us in 2008. Life is a strange thing. I do not know what to say more. I send you all our love, and we are all in tears and in love. If we can do anything, please let us know. Elmar and Marianne and Peer Sonia You have slipped away Breathed your last breath in your body Where are you now? You still abide in me, in my heart You still abide in the hundreds that you loved In us that loved you, and were touched by you and your teachings. Your clear spirit Your commitment to the path of awakening To serving your students A life well lived Thank you I'm sad not to see you in body again Saying goodbye to you now Om bekanze bekanze maha bekanze randza samugate swaha May you go well and abide in peace and love You have gone before us We will all follow in our own time Blessed be Jeannie Hodder Commemorative Newsletter August 2013

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I count myself very lucky to have met Sonia, to have been able to follow her teachings in Healing Shiatsu and Meditation and shared her way for many years. Her teachings have - and still will - shaped my life, opened my heart and mind. Wherever I can, I will share this experience with other people. What impressed me from the beginning I first met her, was her clarity, her authentic way of teaching and being, her sensitivity and her fine humour - even then, when it became more difficult for her, due to her health. As most of her teachings in Switzerland were held at the Felsentor and I had the impression that it was also a special place for her, I went yesterday up to the Felsentor and joined at 11 the puja with all the text you gave us. This was my personal way to say Farewell to Sonia on a clear, beautiful sunny and warm day. Today at 11.15 I will sit for some time in silence, join you all in my mind and in my heart. With all my love and deep bow. In metta, Anni

Posted: 11 Jun 2013 03:09 PM PDT Dear Friends Last night, at midnight NZ time June 11 or noon UK time, a friend, colleague and teacher, Sonia Moriceau, let go into the wider life of the planet. I will remember her smile and the mindful way she moved. I will remember that day at Wangapeka during the School of Living Dharma, the way her hand rested on my abdomen as we breathed together, entering a sensitivity I think of as embodied blessing. A few days ago I visited her web site and saw that in June this year she was scheduled to lead a retreat called “How to Prepare for Death: Leaving Fear Behind.” Sonia, you always did teach by example – and now this – how Zen! For those who knew her and loved her, please join me in this prayer that many of us learned from Sonia, who herself learned it from her long time teacher, John Garrie Roshi. As you contemplate it, bring to mind all the wonderful aspects of Sonia’s life, the beauty, and grace and love of truth that she so steadily modeled and so readily shared. Contemplating the inconceivable number of wholesome moments birthed into the world through the life of Sonia Moriceau May they continue to flower and increase, inspiring, supporting and beautifying the lives of uncountable beings to come. May her family and friends and all their families and friends, find rest and clear seeing, in the heart of Dharma. May the blessings of immeasurable love and immeasurable light be realized by everyone everywhere.


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Dear Ad I just wanted to say how Sonia’s passing has touched a deep cord in me and I am reflecting a lot how she has profoundly affected my life and my work … and therefore the ripples move outward to affect many others. I was so grateful to see you both with my family this summer. That was a special afternoon for myself and Una … and I think the kids too. There was a beautiful soft quality in the meeting and it felt as if it was yesterday that we had last met. In fact I felt even closer, as if we had been maturing our connection in the mean time. Despite not seeing Sonia or you much in the last few years, I have often thought of you both, remembered the Orchard and the things we did and of course I have felt the presence of the practice and the things Sonia taught me. The effect she had on my life is massive. I think she knew that, I tried to share the enormity of it. Also our days studying Shiatsu in my early 20s were some of the happiest and most inspiring in my life. I have yet to be on a training that engages me as much as Sonia’s teaching in those days. With her passing there are many emotions: sadness for losing a corner stone in my life that I assumed would be permanent, a more personal sadness for losing someone who I loved dearly, gratitude for all she did and gave, happiness that I met her that time in an old 16 Century house in Wiltshire in 1983, love for a dear hearted person who touched my life, cared and was so human, admiration for Sonia the one with such purpose (the table tennis champion and founder of so much!), a sense of accompanying- as if she is around me more, shock that she is gone, and surprise, confusion that she is gone, and a wanting to dedicate service to others as I have received. And lastly a wondering about where she is bound and trust that it is somewhere where she will be wholehearted in her purpose. These days I am doing Feldenkrais training and can’t help but smile at how Sonia would love this … it is as if she is somehow enjoying it in some way. I am trying to collect some photos to bring with me of Sonia and you. Is this something that you would like? My Love to you Ad, I was always touched by how much you too loved each other. It always was so inspiring to see you two together. Sean Commemorative Newsletter August 2013

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At about 11 a.m on the 11th June I was giving shiatsu to a client, and as I felt I was not being very effective, I recalled Sonia's teaching: follow the breath, go deep with your intention, as if she was in the room. At that point all the fire alarms rang (for a drill as it turned out) and we had to exit the building. Later, at home, I opened a new cupboard in the bedroom, and the cardboard tube containing the ‘peace to all beings' scroll (that Sonia gave me after a course years ago) fell out and hit me on the head. I have been carrying that scroll around from place to place, along with a lot of clutter, for years. Could be time for me to frame, and live it more fully. Metta Phil Darcy


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The centre of the moon is dark red which extends out .. to a many petalled flower. I allow my eyes to soften and I receive the moon which grows, white and gold ringed with brilliant green blue.

Dearest Sonia Out of the mystery of infinite space, again, I resonate with the lightness of your being, a wry humour and sparkle of brilliance. You are within me, mysterious and playful and yet serious with care for the world ………. kindness, compassion ….. the life warmth of a true mother. You are in my heart and much in my thoughts. Gratitude and love merges with the earth of my being, a potent force and deepest wish that you may be truly well and truly happy. Your old student Jules x

Marion Pahlen also forwarded the following well-known and beautiful verse A poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there; I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow, I am the sun on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning’s hush I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft starlight at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die.

Dear Sonia Your teaching and guidance has enabled profound experiences. Your tools, given as gifts, have such precision, strength and directness that they leave me with no doubt about my ability to follow this path …. However long the journey BUT Even more powerful than this is the memory of the light in your eyes, in your heart, in your soul and the transmission that went beyond words. It will live on as a jewel in my heart … and say to me “This can be done. Come play with me”. In gratitude Patricia xx

Tenshin Reb Anderson expresses "Deep condolences to dear Ad on the passing of the great being Sonia Moriceau. I was deeply touched by her life and now by her death." Yesterday evening we had a memorial service for Sonia in the zendo here at Green Dragon Temple. Reb officiated and said some Dharma words extolling Sonia's virtue. He wants you to know that we joyfully held the ceremony to mark Sonia's life of practice and chanted the Daihi Shin Dharani for her.


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As I sit in deepest meditation, you come fully into view. As I bow at your feet, I hear your voice “This is beautiful Sarah, This is very good, very good” As my heart opens to your sweet refrain, all my tears wash away. Thank you Sonia for your teaching, for your dedication to the Dharma that you passed on with such wonderful spirit, for the moment our eyes first met, for loving us all no matter what, for the touch of your hand in moments of despair, for your beautiful smile, for winking at just the right moment, for sending me outside to skip in the sunshine in moments of release, for hearing my voice and encouraging me to sing, for all that you were and all that you gave. The deepest of bows to you. Sarah

“Let me ring the bell one more time. Such a beautiful bell.” Sonia


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