Dharma in Daily Life is a multilayered arising; I can’t quite pin down exactly what unfolds. I do know it has offered many practitioners, both new and experienced, an opportunity for sangha each weekday morning, as well as an environment in which committing to a daily practice has been possible. One thing that makes me so happy is hearing that it helps many of you to sit daily, after years or even decades of seeing its value but not being able to sustain it.
In the six-plus years that we have been meeting, I have received feedback from time to time that influences me, and I would like to share my thinking about it. Thank you for your notes and suggestions.
One example is hearing from one of you that turning off my microphone when we are sitting together in silence would be helpful. That made sense to me. To be subject to the sounds inside or outside my home, or sounds such as clearing my throat, can be easily silenced with a simple click. So, I tried that for a while. I turned my microphone off when I wasn’t speaking.
Then I received another note asking me to please keep my sound on for the whole fifteen minutes, whether I’m talking or not. The writer wrote that they feel a greater sense of connectedness to the sangha when my sound is on, and less alone. So, for now I’ve decided to keep the sound on. Stay tuned, this may change. But it makes sense to me that the ambient sound is part of us being together just as is seeing one another. And, of course, our practice includes learning to relate to sound as “just sound” rather than clinging to sounds we find pleasant and being averse to sounds we find unpleasant. Seclusion can be wonderful on retreat. But in dharma in daily life, we are practicing in our usual lives, and it makes sense to me to extend our practice to listening meditation as well as to embrace the intimacy of being together as one dharma family.
Another suggestion was for me to talk less during the sessions, leaving more silence. My assumption, though the writer of the note didn’t say this, was that the writer wished for more space to listen to themselves. This of course made great sense to me. I do have to be mindful of how much I speak; when I’m tired, I tend to talk too much. When I had a tooth removed a few months ago and couldn’t talk for a week, I’m sure some of you were happy! Not because I was suffering over a tooth, of course, but because it was mostly a silent sitting. After all, we are meditators and we do love silence.
However, I also received another suggestion not long after the first to please talk more. This reminded me of two notes I received in my early days of teaching. The first note said: please talk less during the sittings. The second said: please talk more during the sittings. As a new teacher, it freed me up immensely from aspirations of perfection. After all, I really couldn’t talk both more and less at the same time, so I would simply have to be myself and hope for the best.
When people ask opposite things of us, we can practice by pausing and contemplating. Letting go of unnecessary thinking makes space for greater thoughtfulness. We can experiment and discover for ourselves what might work best in a given circumstance. Everything is always changing and nothing is set in stone. Having preferences is not a problem. Everyone has their preferences, based on how we want things to be. We only suffer when we are attached to our preferences, when things must be a certain way. Suffering is alleviated in seeing attachment and letting it go.
I shall leave it here for now and continue this theme in a future newsletter. Meanwhile, all are most welcome to join us for fifteen minutes of practice each Monday through Friday at 8:45 a.m. In these times, we all need a dedicated daily practice and the sustenance and refuge of community. DDL offers both. See you soon.
Love, Narayan